Call me by your name

I'm aware this has hit a lot of people's top ten lists. And it's not on mine. It's not by any means a hideous film. But for me, anyway, it's a case of something fundamental not working for me. In a romance, no matter what you have to buy that the characters are drawn to each other - that there's a passion dwelling underneath that neither can resist.

And I just don't buy it here. I'm told it, they go through the motions of moving towards each other and slowly exploring each other's touch, but ... it just isn't there for me. This is a very ... tasteful film (the script is by James Ivory, best known for being the director half of Merchant Ivory, and there are elements of some of his earlier films in the romantic escape to the Italian countryside for a set of otherwise somewhat uptight American Jews). The pacing is pretty languid, there's a lot of nice explorations of the Tuscan countryside (which, yes, is very pretty) and a little bit of antiquity referencing in among the story of a grad student whose visit to a professor sees him entangled with the 17 year old son of the household. Maybe it's that I'm not entirely convinced by Armie Hammer as anything but variations of the Winklevoss twins - he still feels a little bit too much the jock-ish guy who seems utterly in control of himself - maybe it's just that this feels all very... cultured, very restrained, with not enough of the red meat of passion that I'm really looking for.

Anyway. I'm sure this will do things for other people that it didn't do for me. But it didn't do much for me.

The Florida Project

In a Florida hotel just far enough away from the theme-park wonderland, a bunch of marginalised people just getting by live in a motel called The Magic Castle. During a summer, a six year old girl, Moonee, wanders around playing with friends, sometimes quite anti-socially (we're introduced to her as she and her friends are having a spitting contest onto a car in a neighbouring motel). But we soon discover that she can be as instantly accepting as she is destructive - striking up a friendship with a young girl who's living with her grandmother, the owner of that car she spat on. We explore this world through the viewpoint of an impulsive, playful six year old girl - as her emotionally disastrous mother slides into more desperate attempts to make money, as the motel manager balances his affection for his residents with his responsibilities as part of a business, as Moonee's friendships are endangered by some of the consequences of her reckless behaviour.

Willem Defoe as the hotel manager is one of the only name actors in this film (there are two other actors with a range of credits in minor roles) - it's a film that combines almost docu-drama reality with a stealthy sense of structure that explodes in the last ten-fifteen minutes as all the safety nets and all the other options drop away. This is another film that captures the kids-eye-view of what should be a horrendous topic (poverty in the US) in a way that stresses above all the character's humanity, in all the malformed and painful ways that emerges. Director Sean Baker's previous film, "Tangerine", was shot on an iphone and captured the messy lives of transgender prostitutes in LA in a way that refused to apologise for or condescend to its characters as purely victims or purely monsters. I talked to a friend afterwards and they described it as a film they'd find hard to rewatch (presumably becuase of the awful things that happen to the characters) - but I found it so very richly human that I'd love to get back in and spend time with this kid and these people again. It's one of my favourite films of the year.

The Greatest Showman

An attempt at a grand musical spectacular, "Greatest Showman" throws a lot at the screen - a splashy visual style out of "Moulin Rouge", a score of contemporary-sounding R&B numbers, a cast full of unusual figures, a lead character who rises through a whole lot of spin, and one of the few bankable leading men who has a genuine song-and-dance background. It's still a bit of a shemozzle, unfortunately - the songs have a tendency to be full of pseudo-inspirational lyrics that never really get anywhere beyond their opening declarations, and the script is much more comfortable depicting Barnum's rise than it is with finding anything interesting to do once he's got there. 

Hugh Jackman has a winning presence but he's largely trying very hard in aid of very little for an awful lot of the film. Michelle Williams has even less to do as his wife - she's probably never looked as radiant on screen as she has in this film, but her role just requires her to sit in the background and be the compliant wife right up until the point where she, very briefly, walks away (only to come right back with very little argument). Zac Efron as his eventual business partner has a bit more to do - and the Jackman/Efron duet is one of the highlights of the film as they both sing, dance and down multiple shots of whisky as Jackman tempts him into getting into the more disreputable sides of showbiz. Zendaya as a trapeze artist and love interest for Efron gets the other highlight number as they dance around each other while she swings across the arena, rising and falling in a gravity-defying pas de deux. Rebecca Ferguson has undoubtable presence but, again, her singer Jenny Lind feels required just to stand there and look pretty (and belt out another contempo-ballad). 

There's an over-reliance on dramatic acapella beginnings of songs in over-dramatic reprises, and a general sense of style over substance. It's by no means a cinematic atrocity, but it is an awful lot of sound and fury signifying not very much.

Downsizing

This is a disappointment. Alexander Payne's latest film attempts to do something on a wider scale than his earlier films like Election, Sideways and About Schmidt, looking at issues of consumerism and our responsibility for the environment through a sci-fi "what if" as an experiment in shrinking people to reduce consumption spreads across society.

The main problem is our protagonist. Matt Damon plays a reasonably average guy who decides to join in the trend. And the first hour or so of this film follows him as he drifts through life, drifting into the decision to shrink himself down, and the various people he encounters along the way. It's not until the second half when he encounters Ngoc Tran (played by Hong Chau), a Vietnamese activist who's been shrunk against her will and migrated to the US, and gets exposure to the new underclass of his society that anything really come of it. Damon's character is really remarkably aimless, and not in any kind of interesting way. He has a pleasant enough accepting demeanour, but that doesn't make for compelling or dramatic storytelling, and until Tran comes along there aren't any other characters who get to stick around for long enough to make an impact (and there's quite a reasonable bunch of supporting actors, from Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudekis to Margot Martindale, Neil Patrick Harris and Laura Dern, all of whom have roles that amount to very little).

There's no goddam reason for this to be focussed so strongly on the bland white-guy protagonist - Damon can be a fine actor when he's got something to pursue (whether it's to escape Mars, punch people in the face in pursuit of his identity, or pulling off a Vegas scam), but when he hasn't, there's not nearly enough surface charm to let us go along with this dull, dull character (and even when Tran comes along, she's still filtered through his boring, boring protagonist).

So give it a big miss.

Paddington 2

In this follow-up to the 2014 film, Paddington (voiced by a delightfully unasuming Ben Whitshaw) is a bear with a simple mission - to buy a pop-up book of London for his Aunt Lucy's hundredth birthday. But between the misadventures he encounters raising money to buy the book, and the even worse consequences when a sinister actor (Hugh Grant) steals the book as part of a diabolical plan to recover a mysterious fortune, events seldom run particularly smoothly.

This is a delightfully whimsical film, and very heftily British, with Grant's villain running the gamut of British monuments and the rest of the cast seemingly raided from a roladex of great British character actors. Director Paul King has a nicely stylized approach which means nothing ever becomes too cutesy for words - even while Paddington manages to get through his adventures either through being very polite to people, or, in the most extreme situations, offering a Marmalade sandwich, we consistently get to enjoy the simple pleasure of a children's story well told. Grant has a ball as the pompous ham of a villain, and all in all this is as delightful a children's film as you're likely to see.

The Last Jedi

"Star Wars" is, like it or not, our generation's mythology. It changed what blockbuster were supposed to be, for good and evil (noting that the film 20th Century Fox expected to be their box-office champ of 1977 was a Sydney Sheldon melodrama, perhaps it's for the better cinema didn't follow the Fox executives' predictions). And the extension of that mythology has had ... well, let's say, mixed results in the popular imagination. For some, the rot set in when the Ewoks showed up, for others it's the prequels, and for still another set, it's the new run of films that kicked off in 2015 with "The Force Awakens".

For me, it's still golden - I don't love the prequels but they have moments of awesome that make me happy (along with, yes, moments of bad dialogue or incompetent acting that make me glance elsewhere for a bit) - and the current crop keep the flame well and truly alive. "The Last Jedi" picks up the story pretty promptly after "The Force Awakens", with the Resistance well and truly on the run from the First Order, and Rey seeking enlightenment from Luke Skywalker. Neither go exactly as expected - the Resistance suffers blow after blow, while Luke is emphatically not at all interested in training a new generation. There's enough plot developments for what feels more like two sequels rather than one, and we end in a place where the possibilities seem endless as to what could happen next.

This is a beautiful action-adventure-sci-fi story that made my heart soar, pound, and even occasionally got my head to think. If the adventures of two characters occasionally look a little bit like busy-work to keep them occupied while other people are getting up to more important plot related things, they're never the less thematically important and serve to widen the world of the story. It's a film where the heroes choices get harder, where the dangers are more lethal, and where the difference between wrong and right isn't as clear as it has been. And it's beautifully shot too, with the action taking place in some gorgeous sets and environments.

I understand there's been some, ahem, mixed reactions out there to this. But I unashamedly loved it as a true expansion and a deeply thoughtful film rather than just another franchise retread. And I'm not ashamed to say so.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

"Three Billboards" shows off writer-director Martin McDonagh's razor sharp black comedy instincts, well shown in plays like "The Beauty Queen of Lenane", "The Lieutenant of Innishmoor" and "Hangmen" and his previous film "In Bruges", in the story of a mother who protests police inaction over the rape and murder of her daughter by erecting three billboards asking pointed questions of the police chief. It's a very contemporary story of vengeance and public shaming, with Frances McDormand giving her best lead performance since "Fargo" and some fantastic support from Woody Harrelson as the not-entirely-unsympathetic police chief, Sam Rockwell as a somewhat more foolish cop plus Peter Dinklage as a local lawyer and friend to McDormand. It balances carefully the fine points of McDormand's righteous rage and the way that it burns both the just and the unjust alike, with escalations as her actions provoke a series of reactions and tit-for-tat revenges that take things several places you won't expect.

What works most about this is McDormand - sure, her character is bitter and angry, and somewhat justifiably so, but it's a very three-dimensional anger, one that you can see exists at least as much to cover for genuine pain as it does due to genuine rage. And it's not a film that finds easy answers at its core, just feeling its way towards finding a way through a cruel and unjust world. And I'll repeat, it's also astoundingly funny. Definitely recommended.

The Disaster Artist

I must admit I've never seen "The Room", Tommy Wiseau's entry into the "worst movie ever" sweepstakes, although I have seen enough youtube clips and read enough thinkpieces to agree that it's certainly got wretched writing and performances enough to make for a shambolic production. James Franco film tells the backstage story of how it got made - and provides a portrait of Wiseau, a genuinely odd fellow whose secretive nature is matched only by his transparent need for the affection and acceptance that his very guardedness cuts him off from.

This is a fairly gentle, sentimental representation of Wiseau - in some ways, it's just another story of an entitled wealthy guy creating a community around him who don't say no because they don't want him to cut off the tap of money, and about the fringe element of hollywood, where everybody's afraid they're just a second away from being cut off and never working again. But it never pushes this to being truly confronting about where these needs might come from. In many ways it's a modern day Ed Wood, except that Wood never had the strain of misogyny that reeks from Wiseau, and while Franco gives him puppy-dog eyes, he's just not someone the audience can really warm to particularly.

That's not to say this doesn't have amusing diversions - whether it be in recreations of the original or in the gobsmacked faces of the rest of the cast and crew as they realise just how weird their writer/director/producer really is. But ultimately it adds up to not a lot new, with the film reluctant to go too deep into Wiseau's screwed up philosophies on life and love.It's a light laugh but with not a lot behind it thematcally or dramatically.

Better Watch Out

Christmas is a great time to set practically any kind of story - particularly the traditional, Euro/American Christmases with snow and decoration. Forcing people who don't want to be together, often stuck in the same couple of rooms, means that tensions are quickly raised and can explode freely and frequently. In the case of this horror/thriller story, though, Christmas is largely, excuse the pun, ornamental - the basic nature of the situation is pretty non-season specific. A 13 year old and his 18 year old babysitter are at his house - he's got a mild crush on her, which she seems determined to ignore, when suddenly their house becomes besieged by unknown figures outside. And as tensions rise it becomes difficult to tell who's going to be around when or if mum and dad get home....

There's a basic casting inadequacy that brings this film undone. Olivia DeJonge as the babysitter is not that inadequacy - she's got the modern thriller-horror heroine down pat, resourceful and smart enough to be more than just ready-for-the-slaughter victim, while still not so world conquering as to be invulnerable. No, the problem is Levi Miller, who I moaned about earlier in the year with "Red Dog: True Blue". He's a very ... contrived actor, whose performances have never managed to pull the illusion that he's not acting. And given he's 50% of the leads, that's going to bring the film undone. There are a couple of clever plot twists and surprises, together with some genuine creepiness, but it doesn't hold together as well as it might with a better co-lead.

The Teacher

This Czech film is a period piece, set in 1983 as a- communist-aligned teacher stars teaching in a primary school. Her interest in her students seems largely to go to what their parents can do for her, from small favours like cakes and housework to smuggling food across borders. As the pressures build up on parents who resist her, the consequences to their children prove ever harsher. There's some interesting elements here, in particular the framing device at a school meeting where parents are gathered together to discuss complaints against the teacher, with the majority, aligned with her, paying little heed to the complaints of the parents who have been less fortunate. As the story develops, we see the consequences and fears that restrain people from speaking up against repression.

The analogy to the wider communist regime is obvious. Performances are pretty solid, although it's not exactly subtle as allegories go. The storytelling is reasonably tight. The reason I hold back from loving this is, perhaps, this doesn't really tell us too much we don't know, and it tends towards "goodies and baddies" storytelling, with not a lot of subtlety. But it's an interesting look at the time and place from a somewhat different angle.

Justice League

The desire to build a megafranchise has been ongoing for a while, but one of the fundamental rules is that you can't actually have a franchise if people don't like the movies. Oh, you may get a large amount of interest early on, but getting them back for sequels and spinoffs is more of a challenge. And the DC movies have, generally, not really hit the mark. Yes, "Wonder Woman" managed to get a fair bit of geek acclaim, but set off against that is the trio of "Man of Steel", "Batman vs Superman" and "Suicide Squad". And while Wonder Woman is back for this teamup vehicle, she can't really carry all the baggage that remains attached, plus introducing three new superheroes into the mix.

Look, this is nowhere near as bad as the worst of DC's work. Yes, the villain is distinctly placeholder, the film's visually ugly, and there's still dull checkins on plot points from elsewhere in the series, but ... there's a little bit of wit and energy in a couple of the characters, a lower level of blatant stupidity (nothing nearly as stupid as the "Martha" moment), and when people brawl they do occasionally. And the running time is almost spot on two hours rather than the bohemoth lengths of some recent wannabe epics. This is strangely the most apologetic film ever to cost a couple of hundred million dollars - it's sorta the filmic equivalent of Warner Brothers Executives crying "please don't hate us" for two hours. Running on fumes and desperation, it signifies "meh" in cinematic form - a film where you can sorta see Ben Affleck mentally quitting from big-budget filmmaking minute by minute.

It's difficult to really praise this film - it feels like a corporate obligation rather than anything made with a lot of thought to what an audience may possibly enjoy, and certainly not like any kinda story telling vehicle or representation of anything in human experience. It's ... just sorta there.

Lucky

This is an odd film in that it's more about celebrating the life of its leading actor rather than really trying to tell any kinda particular story or advance any kind of thesis. Harry Dean Stanton as the titular "Lucky" is over 90 and aging in a quiet desert town somewhere obscure. We follow him around town, meeting friends, hanging out in a bar, and wandering back and forth. IT's the kind of film that works scene-to-scene rather than necessarily as a whole movie - there's minor subplots going on (in particular, a nice one with David Lynch and a pet turtle), but there's nothing really particularly overpowering holding this together.

It's sorta an extended death tease, where Stanton's mortality is front and centre without ever actually reaching the inevitable conclusion. And for me, I kinda need more than this. The inevitable point of comparison, a Harry-Dean-Stanton centred film set in the middle of the desert with minimal plot, "Paris Texas", is a film that has immesurably more going on, partially due to Sam Sheperd's minimalist but carefully structured script, partially due to Wim Wender's deliberate and intense direction. Neither are the case here - instead, this feels very loosely put together, and, thus, is more of a middling memorial rather than a piece of true art.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Yorgos Lathimos' previous film, "The Lobster", was a favourite film of mine two years ago. A deadpan investigation of how people choose to parter or not to partner, it was simultaneously hilarious and deeply melancholy, set in a universe of extremists where happy compromise was not possible. "Sacred Deer" is similar in shape while being completely different in subject matter. the deadpan performance turns out to be one of the best ways to utilise Colin Farrell - a lot of his performances in both hides just below the surface as he's clearly freaked the hell out by what's going on around him but trying very hard not to communicate that to the people around him. But here, the subject is far bigger, about revenge and brutal uncaring justice meted out across generations, and the resolution is both inevitable and grim as fate works its inevitable way through Farrell's family.

I don't want to get into the plot too much, as some of the intriguing factors of the film require you to go in with very little knowledge of what's coming (in particular, the nature of the relationship between two of the characters in the beginning of the film). But if you're interested in something tense and enduring and incredibly appealing, this is definitely worth seeing.

Blade of the Immortal

"Blade of the Immortal" is a striking manga adaptation - using the source to give the large cast strikingly iconic visual differenation in a samurai once-upon-a-time-in-feudal-Japan kinda way. The story is a bit of a variation of "True Grit" - a young girl has her family killed by a gang of bandits and hires a warrior to get her revenge - only, of course, with the location reset and the fights far more epic. Our warrior also happens to be pretty much unkillable due to an ancient curse (though not, it should be noted, impervious to hefty wounding), leading to fights of more than usual bloodyness.

This hit all my buttons. There's visual spectacle, entertaining violence, iconic characters, a rollicking heroic story, very bad baddies, and a lot of the red stuff flying about. Takeshi Miike has made 100 films (and, inevitably, some are more phoned-in than others) but this is a master luxuriating in his skill for pure samurai pleasure. I can't really argue that this is going for particular depth - it's pulpy goodness at its core - but I don't care when the result is this much fun.

Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie's never been one of the most respected writers, but her work still has a strong audience appeal - the mixture of clever puzzle plots and eccentric detectives still survives any perceived flatness in the writing. And "Murder on The Orient Express" was successful enough 40-odd years ago with an all star cast that it's not utterly a mistake to bring it back with a new bunch of stars-and-rising-young-things.

This is, however, jigged up a bit to be a bit livelier - we get a prelude mystery for Poirot to solve in what would be a "pre-credits" scene except that there's only abbreviated credits at the beginning, and a tag that suggests a line for a possible sequel (which references the film that followed up the Lumet version). And some of the investigations do send Poirot outside the carriage (including a chase around a railway bridge and a stomp across the roof), giving it a bit more scenery. But all in all this is still the standard "it could be any one of us, Poirot interrogates the suspects and evaluates the evidence, before lining up everyone to deliver the solution. It's a little tonally odd - Branaugh both in performance and in direction plays much of it for jolly larks, but the solution involves a somewhat awkward gear shift into actual drama requiring us to take the paperthin characters and their personal lives somewhat seriously, which doesn't play particularly cleanly.

As for the rest of the stars, there is a slight blurring which means some slip into the background more than others - Judi Dench, Olivia Colman and Derek Jacobi, for instance, only get brief clue-drops, while Michelle Pfeiffer steals scenes wholesale in a delightfully splashy manner. This isn't a complete write-off, but it's not quite as good as it, perhaps, could have been.

Detroit

There's a strong centre to this film, about the incidents that happened in "Detroit" in the Hotel Algiers in 1967 while a race riot burned outside. A tense standoff between the (largely black) residents and the (largely white) police, national guard and security guards sees terrible abuses of power as the investigators go beyond all measure of reason.

Unfortunately, the further the action gets away from the Hotel Algiers (at the beginning and end of the film) the weaker it gets. Kathryn Bigelow's film flounders badly when the characters aren't contained, whether it be in the lead-up getting people to the Hotel (which is a bit too lacksidaisical in the setup - there isn't a great deal of urgency or sense of why this matters) or in the aftereffects as justice fails to be achieved (which takes a substantial time on what's really a detour to tell material that could really have been established with a couple of epilogue title cards- as it is, the film wraps up with title cards anyway). It's a pity that there's a strong film hiding in the middle of this that gets muddled by trying-and-failing to cover too much material, rather than just illuminating the central incident and leaving it at that.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

The backstory to the man behind "Wonder Woman", William Moulton Marston, is an intriguing story - how his experiences as a psychology professor, as a member of a romantic triad and, eventually, with BDSM played a part in the creation of the most enduring female superhero of all time. Writer-Director Angela Robinson puts this unconventional material into the somewhat more conventional structure of a standard period biopic (where the research occasionally feels a little imposed so that characters are reciting elements of their backstory on one another as a way of squeezing facts that aren't otherwise relevant to the story can get in there) - but there's still a power to this story of smart people giving way to their emotions and facing the oppression that results from their breaches of convention.

The performance of Rebecca Hall as Elizabeth Marston, wife of William, is the one that really sticks out - Hall has a great way of playing both the cynical veneer and the more complex emotions below the surface that really shines here. Luke Evans as William and Bella Heathcoate as Olive, the student who becomes a lover to both of them, are a little more low-key, but they do hit the key emotional points. I kinda wish this had been a little more sexy, a little more radical in telling its story, but still, this is a reasonably successful biopic that keeps itself entertaining.

Brad's Status

This is very much a "white people's problems" movie - kinda petty and a little navel gazing. Concerning a leftish leaning father whose trip with his son to Boston for college pre-interviews brings up his worries about how he's faring in comparison to his old school colleagues, there's a lot of voice over narration and close ups on Ben Stiller's perturbed face. And the self-evident thing (that he appears to be doing reasonably well and his complaints that he's not super-rich and famous are petty marginal distractions) takes until well after halfway through the film to even vaguely become apparent to him. As internal revelations go, it's not exactly mindblowing.

Which is a pity as writer-director Mike White has proved himself talented at unpacking the foibles of progressives (most noticeably recently with the TV series "Enlightened"). And the four friends that Stiller compares himself too (played by White, a surprisingly sexy Jermaine Clement, Luke Wilson and a particularly unctuous Michael Sheen) are not uninteresting characters and could probably use a bit more depth. But all in all this doesn't really give a lot for the 90-odd minutes of screentime.

Bad Genius

This Thai thriller was one I missed when I was at Fantastic Fest, but the buzz was good enough that, even with Manuka only putting on one screening a day at the not-exactly-user-friendly time of 6:20pm, I wasn't going to miss this. And indeed, this is an excellent example of the genre - a heist movie on the unlikely topic of exam cheating. The familiar heist elements are still there - the carefully worked out plans, and the desperate improvisations that have to take place as various complications arise - but in this case they're executed flawlessly, making what should be dull cinematic material (basically, people filling in circles in pencil), into something tense and compelling.

The largely teen cast are playing archetypes (the smart one, the friendly one, the rich one, the poor but honest one etc), but there's just enough rounding off to make sure that they're not mere plot ciphers - these are recognisable kids in a somewhat improbable situation. And as important, they largely keep our sympathies - yes, they're basically committing fraud, and the stakes are pretty high, but it's also kept clear that there are other forces in play pushing them into taking these extreme actions. And the unusual nature of both plot and location (how many Thai High School Thrillers have you seen before) gives it that extra something - virtuoso execution meaning we're never confused or lost by the constantly-moving plot.

Recommended for anybody who's been waiting for a good tense thriller.

Jigsaw

I have to shamefacedly admit I have seen the whole "Saw" series of movies - it's the only purely horror series that's run more than 4 entries that I've seen all of. And I can't necessarily explain why - maybe it's the somewhat soap-opera ludicrous plotting (particularly for the 5 entries thus far that have taken place after the main killer ended up dying - unusually for a series like this, he's managed to simultaneously stay dead and still make active contributions to the mythology through flashbacks and tapes and suchlike).  Certainly the series is somewhat morally dubious through its convoluted moral justifications for elaborate torture-and-death-traps (although Saw VI's revenge on the health-insurance industry is kinda delightful), and it does start to disappear up its on overly convoluted arse, but never the less there is some kinda sick pleasure in such heftily over-plotted fare (in a genre where a lot of films tend to stick to the basics of killer, victim and chasing around with a sharp implement).

Still, the series eventually took a break with the seventh entry, somewhat hopefully entitled "the Final Chapter". OF course, you can't keep a profitable series down and seven year's later it's back for more, this time directed by the Spherig Brothers (previously responsible for inventive sci-fi/thriller films like "Daywalkers" and "Predestination"). Alas, this is kinda sabotaged by a rather uninventive script - it seems content to do all the bog standard "Saw" things in pretty much the most bog-standard ways. There's a bunch of people involved in a bunch of death traps, there are police investigating, there are a couple of twists here and there, there is a clear sense that these theoretically meticulously planned deathtraps actually only play out the way they were originally planned due to pure luck, and there are a whole heap of flashbacks near the end to explain what was really happening the entire time. But there's not a whole heap of invention here - it's very much going through the motions most of the time, and Jigsaw himself comes across as a bit of a tiresome old bore ranting about the same old nonsense about people needing to improve themselves through survival of elaborate death traps, like a particularly grim Tony Robbins. THere's not a great deal of surprise or delight and the characters aren't striking enough to invest in any of their struggles. Ironically, it's all very mechanical. I can't recommend this as anything but a series obligation for the completist.

Suburbicon

This is an odd duck - a Coen Brothers screenplay that they decided not to make, "improved" by George Clooney and his writing partner Grant Herslov in the filming. The bones of the Coen script are reasonably apparent - it's one of their riffs on genere pics, in particular wandering close to James M. Cain. But Clooney's adaptation seems to serve to lessen the film, ironically by trying to make it do more than it's really designed to bear. 

For a start, as a director Clooney has far more of a mixed record than may be immediately apparent - his "Good Night and Good Luck" is a great film, certainly, but his adaptation of "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is lesser work and similarly, his attempts to play light with "Leatherheads" and "Monuments Men" mostly have sputtered. The necessary lightness required to do this kinda suburban satire seems missing, and, particularly in the setup, there's awkward gear shifting between the murderous family deceptions with Julianne Moore and Matt Damon which feel very Coen-ish and the accelerating intimidation of a recently-arrived black family (which feels utterly imposed on the script and weirdly under-served - the black family basically exist entirely to be persecuted). By the middle when it has become apparent what everybody's agenda is, the Damon/Moore plotline accelerates (also gaining particularly when Oscar Isaac as an insurance investigator shows up), but the segregation plotline resolutely fails to mean very much or get us very invested on either side of the divide. 

So this is a disappointment - there really was enough there with the noir-thriller aspects without trying to "improve" it by trying to bring in hamfisted social satire. 

Three Summers

Ben Elton is one of those performers who was big in the 80s and has spent much of the last couple of decades somewhat reviled. And it's true that he's had some high profile crashes ("Live on Planet Earth") and has, even worse, written jukebox musicals of dubious merit (the well known "We Will Rock You" and the lesser known "Tonight's The Night"). But if the ranting outrage has been replaced by something a tad gentler and more consumer friendly, a little bit of the political intention remains behind in "Three Summers", a gentle comedy taking place over three annual folk music festivals in a small Western Australian town.

There's a little bit of subplot overload, such that a couple of the cast on the poster end up with little to play (Deborah Mailman in particular is there to provide very brief support to two characters and never really gets any decent jokes), but the general intention, to use the music festival to reflect various elements of society, whether it be racist granddads, Aboriginal traditionalists, right-on protesters, self-righteous musical innovators, just-getting-by performers, immigrants, career mothers or officious security guards, gives us a range of stuff to tell. And if there's rarely a particularly quoteable one-liner, there's at least a gently pleasant feeling from the main plot thread as a theramin playing experimentalist meets a violin-playing traditionalist and they both soften towards one another. And while there is a thread to parody right-on-political-statements, there's also a little bit of a burst of them as well, presented somewhat more softly.

I can't bring myself to hate this, it's soft and gentle and kinda likeable. But I can't really say it demands to be seen either.

Brigsby Bear

25 year old James has been raised his whole life in a secluded location, his only form of entertainment the series "Brigsby Bear Adventures" which he watches on videotapes, enjoying its strange mix of space adventure and maths and moral lessons. But when he suddenly has to face the world and discovers nobody else has ever heard of Brigsby, he becomes increasingly obsessed with sharing it with everybody he knows.

This is, needless to say, a somewhat unusual story. Star and writer Kyle Mooney is a Saturday Night Live vetran, and like much of the SNL spinoffs, it's a film about an obsessed manchild, but in this case, the obsession is treated somewhat differently, not so much a case of pop-culture cool as something far more personal and fundamental. It's also got a surprising sweetness to it - the situation it describes is somewhat extreme but the film isn't particularly interested in mocking James or anyone else. There's some nice supporting turns too from Mark Hammil in a role somewhat unlike his usual work and Greg Kinnear in one of the better roles he's had lately as a police detective who's also a wanna-be thespian. There's a deeper examination about the role of pop culture in our lives than we usually get - about how it may shape us and how the relationship between fan and creation goes both ways, covering both the joy of engagement and the melancholy that pop culture obsession can be a diversion from. A genuinely sweet film.

Thor: Ragnarok

The "Thor" movies have sorta been Marvel's lesser cousin - they keep on making the movies as he's an Avenger and certainly Chis Hemsworth's hero has his charm and they have one of the rare decent Marvel villains with Loki, but the Norse mythology element always plays kinda odd and the second film, "The DArk World", had severe problems with a dull plot and villains (albiet salvaged slightly by a friendly supporting cast).

"Ragnarok" throws out both a large chunk of the supporting cast and deals with the dangling plot threads from the previous films pretty quickly while introducing director Taika Waititi's very personal sense of humour, along with a high camp villainous turn from Cate Blanchett (her second line has her calling our heroes "darling", and she continues to purr in a catsuit in languidly infectious pleasure throughout). There's also a big change in the visual stylings - while previously we had a rather sterile godly city and random earth locations, this time we've got various realms inspired 50% by heavy metal album covers and 50% by covers of classic science fiction novel reprints. There's also an electro-heavy score by Mark Mothersborough (leaning more on his work in Devo and less on his work for Wes Anderson).

While it's not completely a masterpiece of construction (there's a fast rush through the plot obligations at the beginning and the middle dawdles a tad), Waititi's native humour shines through, giving Hemsworth's easygoing comedic nature more time to play, and simple pleasure for the audience.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Franchises can look very easy, until you try to actually kick one off. The traps are everywhere. In the case of "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" there turns out to be a problem where the arc that the first one described for the lead character, Eggsy, has been pretty much completed, leaving him curiously superflous in the sequel (or at least, very much "generic hero") . There is an attempt to give the spy hero a grounded romantic arc (rather than flinging his way through multiple love interests, he sticks with the one he had at the end of the last movie) but, again, this kinda means that most of the arc has already been covered.

There are a couple of supplementary pleasures (some nice action, a couple of ridiculous larger than life guest stars, a somewhat pointedly political villainous plot) but none of them entirely compensate for the film feeling somewhat unnecessary (and of course all films are ultimately unnecessary, but this one feels more unnecessary than most).

Blade Runner 2049

I always have slight reservations with the original "Blade Runner". I've still never seen the original cut, just Ridley Scott's Directors Cut and Final Cut, but still, it feels a little chilly, a film that's more production design than plot and with a protagonist at the centre who was, to that point, Harrison Ford's least compelling performance (he has, of course, got significantly duller since). But I've increasingly grown attached to Rutger Hauer's flamboyant performance and have softened towards the film enough to recognise what other people see in it.

The follow up, some thirty-odd years later, is a bit of an odd duck - very reliant on the original for the aesthetic while, of course, using everything that 30 years of cinema developments has applied since - including references to companies which have gone bust in the last 30 years, simply because they were featured prominently in the original. Also while it's set up with a McGuffin from the original film, the main person carried over from the original (Harrison Ford) is deliberately offscreen for most of the film. The story goes a bit deeper into the questions of artificial life raised by the first - about what they may want, how they go about their existence, and about how that may shape society. Gosling is a more central presence than Ford was in the first one, and while the plot ends up being slightly a red-herring that doesn't relate to him as much as he thinks it might, he's far more clearly the set of eyes we're following the narrative through. His relationship with an artificial intelligence is particularly intense and heartbreaking (including an emotional and erotic love-scene that combines complex visuals with complex emotional subtexts). There are gorgeous setpieces, particularly a shoot-out in Las Vegas.

Still, this isn't quite a winner for me either - in trying to tell a story that is both personal and about the wider futuristic world, this trips over its feet a little too much. The wider stakes are never really particularly well conveyed, and their inclusion distracts. There is also a languid pace which is going to be unappealing to people who aren't willing to look at a lot of lovely visuals for two and a half hours.

So this is a "liked but did not love" film for me.

Fantastic Fest 2017

"Fantastic Fest" is an 8 day film festival made up of the wild and weird bits of filmography, taking place in Austin Texas each year at the Alamo Drafthouse chain (currently at the South Lamar location). The platonic perfection of having a film festival take place all in one venue cannot be over-stated - while, yes, it gets crowded and loud and busy, you're immediately concentrated into one location and can share conversations immediately about what you saw, what you missed, what you're catching later and how it all feels. There are 37 slots available to see films, with about 70-80 films on the menu from all round the world, in genres from crime to horror to fantasy to sci-fi (my total only goes to 36 as I skipped a midnight screening)

This year happened to be one of the more controversial ones, mostly due to factors within the organisation (though occasionally, as will be mentioned later, with issues emerging with some of the films themselves). Sexual harassment allegations that had not been handled well at an organisational level put a cloud over the organisers and led to the cancellation of the originally planned opening night screening (the much anticipated by me and other people "Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri"). Without forensic knowledge of the details I can't really comment on the rights or wrongs beyond noting that, yes, harassers should be punished and organisations should not cover up for them, but throughout the festival there felt like the spirit of equity was being mostly understood.

Anyway, what about the films? I'll do short writeups of each of them here (and will write a longer one for any films that actually get general cinema releases in Australia as they come along). But for general recommendations, I'd urge people seek out "3 ft ball and souls", "Killing of a Sacred Deer", "Top Knot Detective", "Blade of the Immortal", "Bodied", "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women", "Gilbert", "Pincushion", "The merciless", "Tigers are Not Afraid", "Salyut 7", "See You Up there", "World of Tomorrow Pts 1 and 2" and "The Endless".

1) "Thoroughbreds"- two troubled girls plan a murder. Stars Anna Taylor Joy as one of the girls and Anton Yelchin in his last role as a drug dealer brought into their plan. It has dry dark comedy and the performances lift it, but it does feel a tad thin. 3.

2) "3 Ft Ball and Souls" - Japanese film about a suicide club who find that time resets to the moments just before their group suicide from a ball of fireworks. It's funny and touching and kinda sweet - for a lot of the film the action is confined to a shed, so it's very performance-and-script dependent and fortunately this is good at both. The ending is a little after-school-special, but there is a witty tagline, and there's sincerity and sweetness that stops this getting overly painful.4

3) "Ichi The Killer" - A 4K Restoration of Takeshii Miike's Crime-Horror hybrid, which remains disgusting, ultraviolent, perverted and kept me awake at a midnight slot. Also undobutedly a masterwork of its kind. 4.

4) Before we vanish - Japanese alien  alien invasion film where the aliens are acquiring human sensations as preparation for a full scale invasion. A tad slow and within soppy ending that takes too long to arrive. 2.5

5) Mary and the witches flower - anime from the director of arietty and when Marnie was there - sweet but a tad standard sub-Ghibli - Enough nice bits to be worthwhile without really surprising. 3.5

6) Anna and the apocalypse - the Scottish zombie Christmas musical that combines songs in the style of Glee with violence in the style of Romero - fun if shallow but... who cares? Good giggles. 3.5

7) Killing of a sacred deer. New film by the director of "The Lobster" that applies the same style to a modern grand tragedy. It's good but I love the lobster and I only like this, though I recognize the quality. 4

8) Mon Mon monsters. Taiwanese high school bullies meet and capture a creature - who is the real monster (of course it's the high schoolers). The early bullying sequences are so heavy-handed it's difficult to enjoy when it gets bloody later. Not impossible but difficult. 3

9) Top Knot Detective. Docuparody of a cult Japanese tv show and its making and strange history. Absolutely will appeal to anyone who loves and misses the Des Mangan cult movie. Americans seem to like it too. 4.5

10) Batpussy. A 60s -70s porn that is simultaneously inept as superhero movie, porn and improvised domestic drama. This is the "so bad it's strangely compelling" selection (it's also the "I couldn't get into the film I wanted to see in this slot" selection). I enjoyed some of it but I also spent plentiful time studying the theatre decor. 1.5

11) Super Dark Times - generic American indie about high school boys who get their friendship strained after an accident. Competent, set in the 90s basically so the cast can't use mobile phones, but not particularly special. 2.5

12) VIP - South Korean police procedural - serial killer is also a valued intelligence asset, making arresting him a complex challenge. The procedural stuff was a little dense but it has a satisfying ending. 3.5

13) Les Attanes. A very French Canadian zombie movie. Still got exploding heads but with introspection and an accordion as well. 3.5

14) Blade of the Immortal - Takeshi Miike's 100th film, an immortal ronin helps a young girl get revenge for her murdered family. Beautiful and bloody, I loved the hell out of this. Instantly iconic costume design and beautifully shot plus a lotta blood spurting. 5

15) Take it out in trade - Ed Wood's previously lost final film he had creative control over - a private detective hunts down a missing girl while taking a lot of unnecessary overseas trips. It's certainly an Ed Wood film with bad jokes, stock footage and a few naked women applying lipstick to themselves. 2

16) Bodied - American indie about a white college student who wants to write a thesis on battle rap and ends up being more involved than he planned - hilarious and challenging look at speech and race and the controversies around them. I loved the hell out of this. 4.5

17) Professor Marathon and the Wonder Women - the unconventional relationship between the creator of wonder woman and his two loving partners. I loved this as a film though it opened up a lot of current issues I'm having with rage over the postal plebiscite as unconventional lives are judged again. 4

18) Vidar the vampire - a highly blasphemous vampire comedy, dragged down by interminable Norwegian folk music. 2.

Film 19 - King Cohen - doco on Schlock director Larry Cohen. Interesting but makes me appreciate Mark Hartley's docos as this does not have the tightness and focus those do. 2

Film 20 - Wheelman - getaway driver gets pulled into something more when a job goes bad. Simple genre stuff enhanced by a tight "everything takes place in the car" aesthetic and a strong central performance from Frank Grill, usually a journeyman supporting thug. 3.5

Film 21 - Gilbert - doco on Gilbert Gottfried and his surprising family (in that, yes, he does have a wife and kids and no, he does not always talk like that). Funny but also touching and sweet and thinky. 4.5

22) Secret screening- Death of Stalin - Armando Ianucci's follow up to In The Loop about the events surrounding the title event. It's bitter and twisted and brutal in a way that makes satire tricky. It's interesting but... I was in an audience that wasn't finding it funny. So I liked it but.... 3.5

23) Ron Goosen Low Budget stuntman - Dutch comedy about an alcoholic who becomes a stuntman after a viral video of a car accident becomes a sensation. One of those "this would possibly be funnier if I was Dutch" films. But it does have enjoyably cheesy music videos and a Black Pieter joke so... 3

24) The Originals, Egyptian, a fired bank manager joins a secret society monitoring other Egyptians. Has some striking visuals but the pacing drags and the conclusion is messy. 2.5

25) Pincushion - girl and her mother move to small time and both suffer intimidation. A combination of brutal painful story and beautiful aesthetic means this is angsty pain done well. 4

26) The Merciless - stop me if you've heard this before - young cop gets sent to prison undercover but loyalties get confused. But this Korean film is an excellent version of the genre with multiple betrayals, slapfighting and other violence. Like infernal affairs it's a great execution of a familiar premise. 4

27) Gerald's Game - Stephen King adaptation - Carla Gugino is chained to a bed by her husband in a bit of light sex play which goes wrong when he has a heart attack. It's a bit regular TV movie but with two gory elements that lift it to a 3

28) Cold Hell - German film about a taxi driver who gets stalked by a serial killer and punches people. It's good when she's punching people, less so when there"s a plot. 3.

29) Tigers are not afraid. Mexican film about homeless kids tied into the drug war when one steals a phone belonging to drug-and-human trafficker. Sad and brutal and gorgeous, told completely from the kids perspective with few adults and a bit magic realism. The kind of film that is the reason I come to a fest like this. 4.5

30) Salyut 7. Russian film on the 1985 mission to save a space station after it was damaged in a debris accident. A bit rah rah the glorious Soviet Union but it's on a level with similarly US product like Apollo 13 (except in this case you probably don't know the ending). 4

31) Applecart - yeah, this sucks. A dubious Evil Dead knockoff without any of the good bits of Evil Dead. 1

32) See you up there - two French soldiers after ww1 get involved in the war memorial industry and tangle with their former lieutenant. Beautiful and stylish film - this should end up in the French film festival next year. It also deserves a wider release but film distribution ain't just. 4.5

33) World of tomorrow episodes one and two. A little girl is visited by strange visions of the future. Don Hertzfeldt's work is a mixture of simplistic, almost stick figure animation and complex challenging thoughts about identity, memory and destiny. Plus it's funny and adorable and scary. 4.5

34) 78/52 - an in-depth documentary analysis of the shower scene from Psycho - this is compellingly deep cinematic analysis with a whole lot of detail drawn out of maybe 90 seconds of material. Yes, it's a familiar sequence but there are a whole lot of discoveries still to make. 3.5

35) The Endless - low budget horror/fantasy as two former cult members return and find something strange... Really liked this simple film of ideas and character with minimal on the effects or gore. Some surprising twists. 4

36) Downsizing - From Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways), a shrinking technique is used to combat over-consumption - a film that takes about an hour to work out what it's about, with Matt Damon as an extremely passive protagonist. The second half improves things but it's only a 3.

It

"It" is overweening proof that an adaptation can be simultaneously not-at-all literal to the book in detail and never the less completely faithful to the tone and spirit. Stephen King's book is one of his more epic efforts - over 1000 pages which, by King's admission, was his at-the-time summary of a whole heap of thoughts he had about childhood, fear and bits of American history. This film decisively snips the book in two (by deferring into a possible sequel the plotline about the characters in adulthood and committing to just tell the story of the character's childhood) and updates that childhood from a late-fifties-idyll to something more mid-eighties (partially to allow the 23-years-later followup to be set present day).

This does inevitably invoke comparisons to Netflix's recent "Stranger Things" series, which similarly drew on the iconography of the 80's (and indeed of a fair bit of Stephen King as part of that iconography) - and, indeed, one of the child actors is a "Stranger Things" alumni. And it does show some of the wisdom of "Stranger Things" that it winnowed the core kids down to four - with seven kids to follow, inevitably some of the "It" kids get little more than one or two core personality characteristics (and "jewish" and "black" pretty much count as personality characteristics here, a la Captain Planet). But at the core, there is a strong basic story that is held to about kids teaming up to fight an ancient menace that wants to scare then devour children. We get a strong sense of terror, the lurking menace is kept for the most part lurking rather than over-exposed, the kids are a non-obnoxious bunch, and, even though this is only half the book, we really don't feel short-changed for an ending - there is a satisfactory resolution followed by a thread laid down for possible follow up rather than something that leaves us unsatisfied. It's no wonder this has taken audiences by storm - it's a good relatable primal story told well.

mother!

This has proved to be a controversial one, so I'll say up front both that I really liked this and at the same time kinda get why other people may have differing opinions. Darren Aaronofsky's film does not in any way work in a logical plot driven manner - it's almost entirely driven at two metaphorical levels, and if you have no patience for that, you're going to be frustrated. On the other hand, if you've been hanging out for a good all-round apocalypse, this might be the jam you're looking for. 

The setup does look for a while as if we may have something that works vaguely at the level of realism. In an isolated house, a writer (Javier Bardem) lives with his wife (Jennifer Lawrence) in a peaceful setup. But the arrival of a fan (Ed Harris) followed by his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) starts an onslaught of visitors who will disrupt the peace. Metaphor one is a religious one, which emerges more and more strongly as the writer is worshiped and the audience becomes more and more intrusive as they interpret his works in more and more violent ways. Metaphor two is about being a creative artist and your responsibilities both to the people around you and to the wider audience you wish to serve, and how you may blissfully sacrifice the people in your life to serve the hungry mobs.

Does everything entirely make sense? Are their major contentions that you can have with Aaronofsky's conception of humanity and our relationships with both each other and our religious impulses?  Does this verge on the side of massively pretentious? Guilty, Guilty and probably Guilty as well. But never the less, this is one wildly ambitious film that engrossed me thoroughly and I fell completely under it's spell.

God's Own Country

This suffers mostly from a protagonist who is not only unlikeable and unsympathetic, he's also, far worse, wildly uninteresting. A moody young man who works on his father's farm in Yorkshire, he occasionally gets his jollies from dropping into the local town and having casual, no-strings-attached-or-connections-wanted with men. After a Romanian worker starts helping out on the farm, the two of them drift into a relationship that seems mostly made of convenience, but our protagonist's grunting non-articulate moodiness seems to be intended to make us think there's a little bit of grand passion going on.

It doesn't quite cut it. Frankly, the Romanian looks like he could do a hell of a lot better than this knobhead. And given the rest of the film offers not a lot other than shots of fog and sheep, this really did leave me, excuse the pun, cold.

Ali's Wedding

This is an example of the simple Aussie crowd pleaser - a goofy hero who experiences a culture clash on his way to finding true love and a happy ending. Except in this case, the goofy hero is a Muslim and much of the culture clash is the finer points of Melbourne's islamic community (and it's very specifically Melbourne, there's a whole lot of AFL references, including one of the best jokes in the film). Which means that it's simultaneously very familiar in form as a gentle and very unusual in content. Co-writer and star Osamah Sami has an innate likability that makes this a very easy-going story where, even when our hero is hiding the truth from friends and family ,we can't ever judge him too harshly. Director Jeffrey Walker has largely worked on TV (starting in Austraian staples like Neighbours and Home and AWay, moving on to more prestigious work like Rake and Chris Lilley's Angry Boys, before working in the US on shows like Modern Family and Bones) and, certainly, this is a film that feels very much like a big-screen sitcom, with a few nice visuals added and a script that holds strong for an hour and a half.

This isn't quite back to the glory days of popular Australian Film, it's not reaching quite that far, but it's a gently loveable film that's impossible to dislike.

Gifted

The basics of this, a story of a guy who looks after his niece after her mother's suicide, and how her emergence as a mathematical prodigy presents problems in trying to raise her, seems like it should be a bit of a soggy soppy mess. Certainly the dice are somewhat loaded (our hero is a Florida native who works as a boat repairman, while his mother is a wealthy and cold academic - so cold that she's played by a British actress), and the inclusion of a cute cat, but the film is not a simple illustration of "down home values good, intellectual pursuits bad". It does open up the challenge of trying to raise a child in the best way possible, in full knowledge that there are thousands of ways to go wrong and relatively few ways to go right, and what exploring someone's full capabilities really means. Performances are pretty strong - Chris Evans is a naturally sympathetic lead, Jenny Slate feels realistically like a primary school teacher while also being an independent adult, and Lindsay Duncan gets beyond the cliche of demon-mother as someone with her own vulnerabilities and issues.  Yes, there is a somewhat unlikely correlation of mathematical ability and genetics, but never the less this is a gentle film that feels right and real and true.

Killing Ground

It's the Christmas-New Year holidays, and a couple are camping out in the bush by a river. But there's anther tent that seems unoccupied and abandoned on the shore, and soon things are going to take a turn for the worse. There's a reason this film isn't called "Best Camping Trip Ever".

Australian cinema has a reasonable recent reputation for horror, and this is a pretty solid entry, turning very much into a horrific stalking-through-the-bush along the way. There are a few hints that it's trying for something more (in particular, a one line-drop about the venue being the site for a previous Aboriginal massacre) but I don't think there's enough there to take this beyond a "beware of the great outdoors" slasher. As what it is, it's effective, and well cast (although the best known cast member, Aaron Pederson, is slightly under-utilised), but it doesn't quite transcend the genre.

American Made

Stories of international drug running often seem to leave me a little cold - often following a somewhat predictable arc from first days of enjoying the fun and profitability of the business, then slinking into the mire of getting high on your own supply and drifting further into drug addiction before a decline and miserable end. "American Made" doesn't quite follow that arc, although the initial signs aren't entirely promising. Based on true stories, it first establishes the usual elements - hotshot, somewhat naive TWA pilot agrees to help the CIA take photos over South America, and South American drug cartels persuade him to start flying their product back north of the border. Things get interesting, however, when he dodges drug enforcement through CIA help, relocating to a small town in rural Arkansas, where his business undergoes a wild, government sponsored expansion, and the challenge becomes as much to launder the ridiculous amount of money he's getting as it is to navigate the gaps between different government agencies.

Tom Cruise is, to put it mildly, a divisive actor, but in this one, partially because he's playing a guy who's frequently a couple of steps behind the 8 ball and only succeeding due to bigger figures manipulating him, the off-putting over-confidence is played way down and he's something closer to a regular human being. Domnhall Gleeson has been frequently impressive and wildly different in films like "Frank", "Ex Machina" and "Brooklyn", and is something again wildly different as the CIA agent leading our hero further into temptation. Director Doug Liman lays on a reasonable number of tricks, including montages and a recurring motif of Cruise narrating events to videotape from the perspective of 1985, letting us know where we stand. And as a film that interrogates some of the CIA's more dubious behavior, it ends up packing quite a bit of a punch by the end. So surprisingly successful.

Logan Lucky

When Steven Sodebergh "retired" from film-making in 2013, it wasn't expected to last. IN the last couple of years, he's still managed to direct 20 episodes of a TV series ("The Knick"), a play ("The Library") and was cinematographer and editor on "Magic Mike XXL". He's now back as if he's never been away with a light piece, something intended to be crowdpleasing, along the lines of the "Oceans 11" films with a high profile cast pulling off a heist - in this case, the somewhat more downmarket cash palace of the Charlotte Motor Speedway during Nascar season.

In many ways this has some of the overtones of a Coen Brothers joint - the key performers get a chance to be wildly quirky yet human in a story that celebrates their personalities as much as it celebrates anything relating to the plot. The two Logan brothers at the centre are the thoroughly humanly engaging Channing Tatum, and the mordantly deadpan Adam Driver - there's a lovely chemistry between the two of them. The biggest guest-star is Daniel Craig as explosives expert Joe Bang, who lights up the screen with pure acting glee. Riley Keogh sticks out as the Logan sister who assists with the plan, a model of common-sense in the middle of various ridiculous schemes.

Sodebergh is a master of telling a complex plot with style and simplicity, and this is no different. Perhaps the last third gets a little lackadaisical with the resolution (which doesn't go at all how most audiences may be expecting it to go) and it is very much a case of a film getting by on thoroughgoing charm rather than deep themes, but in a film as pleasurable as this, who gives a damn.

Annabelle: Creation

The possessed doll picture has two possible problems. Either you have a horror icon that doesn't move for the entire film, or you have one that looks kinda ridiculous when it moves. Fortunately, this one  balances things out by having the possessed doll do a lot of psychic influencing all around a very creepy house in the middle of nowhere. The "creation" backstory is largely a matter of the first five minutes and a late-in-the-movie monologue - most of this story is set 12 years after the doll has been created, with a pack of young orphans and a nun moving into the house of a couple who have lost their daughter - with the wife strangely reclusive and the husband reticent, the kids soon find themselves going into a room they should not enter, and spooky mayhem ensues.

There's quite a reasonable setup of tension here. The two biggest names of the cast, Anthony La Paglia and Miranda Otto, are somewhat in the background, required only for exposition purposes as the house owners, and much of the energy is carried by a pair of youngsters - 11 year old Lulu Wilson and 14 year old Talitha Bateman. Both carry it surprisingly well - Wilson in particular is an astonishingly solid find, neither being particularly cutesey or simpering. This is very much in the style of the Conjuring films which it's a spinoff of - with a litlte spooky-house wandering and being, perhaps, a ltitle too keen on showing off the demons at the end - but it's an entertaining haunted house trip. No, theere's not a lot of depth here and you shouldn't go expecting it, but as a funhouse scare ride it's pretty solid.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Combine Luc Besson's eyepopping visuals with a comic-book classic from the 1960s and what you should get is something vibrant and fun. That would be the delightful theory. However the combo of some awkward over-fondness for some elements of the source material (in particular the bonkers "get us into as many different situations as we can draw" plot and the rather 60s French approach to sexuality), and some crucial miscasting (so our two veteran space agents are played by actors who appear barely out of their teens), we end up with an unfortunate mish-mash.

There are occasional highlights (surprisingly, given her previous cinematic record is in the highly average "Battleship", Rhianna gets a showcase section that truly is outstanding), but this is mostly a bit of a mess, with characters who just don't inspire any interest, therefore making it difficult to care where they are or what they're doing. There's almost a feeling that we've been dropped into the second or third movie of a series - all the groundwork that should get us invested is missing, and instead we're just looking at pretty pictures. As it is, Dane DeHaan's script selection for mainstream movies has tot to be considered distinctly lacking - with this, Fantastic 4 and The Amazing Spiderman 2 on his resume, some time in indies repairing his reputation is definitely recommended.

Throw in a badly projected 3D conversion (due to the shading of 3D glasses, 3D needs to be projected brighter, and this wasn't), and this felt distinctly underwhelming.

Wind River

"Wind River" is a case of having serious intentions messed up by dodgy genre conventions. A snow-capped crime story set in and around a Native American reservation in Wyoming, a hunter hired by Fish and Game to keep the wolves away (Jeremy Renner) discovers the body of a frozen girl. As the FBI are called in, the investigation uncovers a few other things along the way.

Thematically, this could be pretty interesting - the clash of cultures between Native American and the American mainstream, the tough conditions toughening the people who live in them. But unfortunately the script gives Elizabeth Olsen as the FBI agent the uncanny ability to be repeatedly wrong, largely so we can see just how awesome Renner is, and most of the Native Americans are pushed into smaller supporting roles. And yes, Renner does softly spoken badass with a tragic backstory pretty well, but .. sheesh, the white-male-saviourness kinda drips off the screen in ways that make it very difficult to take some of the higher intentions of the film (which pop up with the closing card) particularly seriously. Warren Ellis and Nick Cave's score is particularly irritating in using whispered spoken word sections, confusing you when nobody who sounds like that appears to be on screen.

The wilderness does look very nice and the final confrontation is pretty good, but along the way this is kinda generic material shot kinda generically. Taylor Sheridan wrote one of my favourite films from last year, Hell or High Water, but this isn't really in that league.

Atomic Blonde

"Atomic Blonde" is a deliberate 80's throwback piece, set in the days just before the Berlin Wall crumbled, as a tough agent is sent into town to recover a list of agents before chaos engulfs the city and valuable secrets could be up for grabs. Charlize Theron is our tough agent, a cool customer who's a hard-knuckle fighter, with some solid support from John Goodman and Toby Jones as two of her bosses, James McAvoy as a shifty possible ally, and Sophia Boutella as a seductive French agent who may have an agenda all her own.

The action is the reason anybody's here, and ... to be honest, the first couple of action sequences don't really cut it. They're loud, certainly, and have blasting quality 80's tunes in accompaniment, but they all feel a bit by-the motions. The plot for what should be a simple genre piece is convoluted in ways that never quite manage to be particularly interesting - it's very much by the motions. THere is an outstanding centerpiece where the soundtrack largely drops out and we get, in what appears to be a continuous shot, about 7 or 8 minutes of Theron fighting her way through a series of goons to protect an informant - and certainly the film is quite happy to show at least some of the consequences of the violence, with Theron bruised and scarred (although at the intensity she fights, she should probably be having difficultly walking), but all in all this isn't quite as much superspy fun as it should be. There's neither enough depth nor enough glee in the lack of depth to make this quite work.

The Trip to Spain

:"The Trip" franchise combines food porn, scenery porn and middle-aged-men-being-passive-agressive-at-one-another porn into a reasonably successful middlebrow arthouse franchise. The dynamics of the three are pretty similar - Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon travel around from restaurant to restaurant, chatting about their professional positions, where they are in the world, and duelling impersonations of various cultural figures that have relevance to middle-aged-men (largely Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, David Bowie and Mick Jagger this time around). Coogan will be the one with the slightly higher rung of fame, seeking to either consolidate it or to better himself, while Brydon will be reasonably satisfied with where he already is, but still willing to take potshots at his friend's pretensions.

In this case, the Spanish scenery really does look very beautiful, as does much of the food, and if the remainder can feel a little slight, there's still a genuine dynamic between the two as a portrayal of a friendship that is no less real for all that it has rather jaggy edges to it. For the philosophically inclined, it's a vacation where your fellow travellers have slightly more entertaining neuroses than your own. It's not world re-inventing but it is reasonably amusing.

War for the Planet of the Apes

Let's start by noting the inaccuracies in the title. There isn't really a war in the film - there's a couple of battles, but that doesn't make for a full war. And it doesn't cover the planet - the film for the most sake takes place in Northern California. There are a whole lot of apes though. Indeed the perspective for most of the film is from the ape perspective as they attempt to survive in a world where much of the human population has been wiped out due to disease, and the remaining, well-armed humans are determined to fight back any way they can, increasingly more brutally.

There's a somewhat melencholic tone to this one. The CGI is, as has been the case throughout this series, exemplary - not only the mocap from Andy Serkis' Caesar, but all the various apes that appear feel very thoroughly intergrated into the real world and are fully realised performances. The main human in the film, played by Woody Harrelson, is a military figure not unlike Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" whose methods have become extreme (indeed there's a couple of elements of Brando in Harrelson's voice here). After a strong opening action beat, there is perhaps a little too much wandering about before the story gets into gear, but once it does, there's enough to keep us engaged.

This serves as, if not the end of the ape-reboot-films, at least the end of a chapter of these films. While there are a couple of references back to the orignal that feel a little on the nose and also somewhat unlkely to link in directly straight into the first film (there's still too much space for society to move before it could reasonably end up anywhere near where the first film starts) so these tend to play more as cute fanboy references than actual mythology building

If your'e a fan of the ape movies thus far, this continues the streak. If you're not ... well, this doesn't necessarily offer much more other than mild closure for some elements of the three films. But what it does offer is pretty solid.

The Big Sick

The Judd Apatow school of comedy has led to mixed results - in it's initial incarnation, with films like "40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up", it was a welcome mix of comedy and reality after a long run of comedies that had pushed too far into the silly and irrational, with no real humanity in them. Unfortunately much that followed has started to wander towards self-indulgent - the drama begins to look more like navel-gazing than anything with actual human stakes, and the improv-comedy often wanders around unable to settle on a punchline. 

Such is not the case with "The Big Sick". It may help that Kumail Nanjiani is a somewhat different voice (being a Pakistani immigrant to the US), and the story written by him and his parter, Emily V. Gordon, is based on events that they've actually lived through. So we're not looking at movie-star types attempting to pretend that they're just like us, we're looking at what feels more like relatable people in a situation with real stakes. There's a gentle romantic chemistry between Nanjiani and his on-screen partner, Zoe Kazan, that lets us travel happily with them and get engaged as the plot kicks in. There's also a strong supporting cast - Holly Hunter gets to demonstrate both how funny and how dramatic she can be in what feels like the first time in a while, while Ray Romano proves he's more than just the nebbishy type he's been in multiple Everybody Loves Raymond and Ice Age installments. 

In short, this is what good humanistic comedy-drama looks like. It hits both in laughs and in feels. 

A Monster Calls

It's very difficult to get me out to a movie that's about a kid coping with his mother's impending death. But apparently if you shove a giant tree monster in it, I'll go for it in a big way. It may not have escaped reader's attention that giant monster movies tend to get my attention a fair bit (if not, reread reviews of "Shin Godzilla", "Colossal" and "Kong: Skull Island"). But that's partially because giant monsters can be fantastic metaphors for all kindsa things - usually a random and chaotic power that strikes out at the world around it. In this case it's also a metaphor for anger and grief and fear of what's happening to you.

It's weird to say this about a film with, as mentioned, a giant tree monster in it, but this is a remarkably honest heartfelt film. Lewis McDougall's performance as Conor, the boy, ask for no sympathy and shows remarkable levels of naked pain, but he's never the less compelling. All of the film is seen through his viewpoint, and it's a tribute to the actor that he's as compelling as he is. Liam Neeson's voicework manages to make the monster terrifying while also wise and strangely unknowable - it takes you some time to work out if the monster is a friend or a foe. Felicity Jones as the mother starts out, perhaps, a little stragely distant - she clearly loves Conor but at the same time she doesn't seem to recognise what pain her son is in - but it becomes clearer as the film progresses that she is indeed quite aware and trying to balance her love for her son with ways to protect him from the truth. Sigourney Weaver's british accent is tentative and a little, perhaps, over-studied, but it helps with the emotional distance between her and Conor that has to be bridged.

As this film ended, I fell utter victim to its emotional spell. It's moving as hell and wildly compelling. Go see it.

Dunkirk

This is Christopher Nolan's first "straight" historical film (Prestige, of course, being somewhat historically inaccurate). It's also one of his best films - largely because it avoids a lot of the things Nolan can be iffy with (basically, dialogue and characterization) and doubles down on the sensation and immersion. The focus is pretty tight on three perspectives on the same historical event - one young man trying to escape from the beach by any means necessary, one little boat getting across the channel to try to save men from the beach, and one pilot trying to shoot down the luftwaffe that may impede the escape. All three are in asynchronous timelines - the escape from the beach covering a week, the boat covering a day, the dogfighing an hour. They're unified by Hans Zimmer's ever-present, ticking clock of a score, and by links that become increasingly less subtle as the film moves on.

Only the middle of these really resembles a conventional telling of this kinda story - the slow boat across the sea allows time for dialogue (it's also, incidentally, basically a version of the plot of the film-within-"Their Finest" from earlier in the year). It's here where there are a couple of too-on-the-nose conversations, with Mark Rylance being the one largely in charge of delivering them (and I do wish film-makers would find a way to use Rylance's flair for comedy - he seems continuously morose on film, and if I hadn't seen him on stage I'd never know he has comic verve and unstoppable energy). But much of the film is on the epic immersive track that reminds me most of "Gravity" from about 5 years ago - like "Gravity", it will probably lose most of its power once it moves to DVD and streaming TV, but in the cinema, it's a compelling experience. As pure sensation, this is astounding. As storytelling, something less.

It Comes At Night

Independent horror is undergoing a revival at the moment - with more attention paid to script and mood and less to flashy goriness. This can inevitably disappoint those who are looking for a little more flash in their movie, and, indeed, I've heard many of these kinds of films described as "not really horror"by those who were really looking for a bit more bite in their movie. Such people are probably going to be a bit frustrated by "It Comes At Night", and to be honest, I kinda was a little too.

My individual critical whatsit tends to ping that "It Comes at Night" leans far enough over to the "subtle" end of the spectrum that it comes perilously close to not having anything to offer at all. Which is not entirely fair - there is a reasonable amount of tension in this story of a small family, retreating from an infected outside world that appears dangerous and threatening, who encounter another trio when the father of the second family knocks on their door, and about the delicate state of trust that they try to survive with. But there's nothing spectacularly new here - certainly, the acting, led by Joel Edgerton and a cast of virtual unknowns, is fine - but there isn't quite enough substance here to make this more than a reasonable execution of a very familiar premise.

Baby Driver

I really like the idea of Edgar Wright. As a human being, he seems really interesting. And I've never utterly hated his film,even this one. But there is a risk with someone who's as much a film-fanboy as Wright obviously is, that their work can become more about other films rather than something that actually expresses anything about the real world. And unfortunately, "Baby Driver" has that problem.

It's not that it's incompetently done. There's a smoothness to the action sequences, the various characters are strongly expressed, and when it comes to editing to music, Wright is a master. But there's a certain feeling that this is an exercise, a "what a good carchase movie should be like" rather than something Wright is actually passionate about. It may come down to the protagonist and his girlfriend, the romantic relationship that is meant to justify and resolve a lot of the action, feels a little thin - it's obligatory while things like the action and the various criminal nemeses are gloried in. This is the first film that Wright has written solo and ... it does miss that little bit of heart and soul to the whole enterprise. It's professionally done, capable work... but it's not breakthrough fantastic stuff that really sticks to me afterwards and makes me eager to rewatch the whole thing. There are certainly sequences that will stick with me, but ... the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

The Beguiled

Sophia Coppola's first remake, and also her first film with an actual plot rather than a succession of moods, "The Beguiled" brings a lone soldier into a house full of isolated women and girls. Coppola can do moody shots for days (the southern mansion where most of the action takes place is quite gorgeous, and always shot through a summery mist) but I'll admit the buildup doesn't always keep my attention - Colin Farrell perhaps strikes me more as the only port in a storm rather than necessarily a figure who inspires instantaneous lust (even with his Irish accent intact). Still, once the rubber hits the road and a succession of events see hostilities emerge, there's an intriguing story going on here of masculine and feminine power. Nicole Kidman brings her usual chilly professionalism as the head of the school, Kirsten Dunst is in good form as the somewhat repressed assistant and Elle Fanning gives a good line in seductive naivete. Oona Lawrence as the young girl who finds the wounded solider also is appealingly direct, both when open hearted at the beginning and later when her intentions change.

This is probably not top-ten material for me (Coppola's love of beauty shots hang a little too heavily over actually-moving-the-plot-forward) but it's an engrossing enough film to keep me involved.

Spiderman: Homecoming

For the hardcore Marvel nerds, it can be annoying to have to explain the complicated nature of movie rights and comic universes to the uninitiated. No, those X-men movies have nothing to do with the Avengers movies. And neither, up until now, did the Spiderman movies. Yes, they all featured a Marvel logo (but not a Marvel-Studios logo), but up until now they weren't built to tie into a wider universe and production style.

Part of the power of the Marvel Studios model is the consistency - for critics of them, they can and do argue that it leads to blandness or predictability, but I've never particularly found that to be the case. Yes, there is the argument that chunks of each film ends up acting as trailers for future films rather than getting an internally consistent narrative, but by now the model is sixteen movies deep. If you like 'em, you'll keep coming. If you don't, you can most definitely not argue you have not been sufficiently prepared.

The major joy of doing the connected universe is that directors will look harder for where the points of differentiation for their movie is compared to the rest. And in the case of "Spiderman", they double down on the previously-quickly-glossed-over teenage elements of the character (the Tobey Maguire films graduated him from highschool midway through the first film, Andrew Garfield early in the second, and in neither case did the characters spend a lot of time near a wider peer group). Giving Peter Parker his own bit of the world to work in - a neighbourhood, a range of school friends and rivals, something away from the usual high-powered business and miltary elements that make up the background of most of the earth-bound Marvel films means that you get a looser, more personal kinda story that is still quite capable of escalating when the action takes place. And because the stakes are not "the entire planet will be destroyed" (or, as Marvel has progressed into space, the entire universe), they're forced to find more personal stakes with villians who actually have vaguely realistic goals and schemes.

A lot of the strengths are with the performers. Tom Holland has pure joyous youth in abundance, wide eyed, impressionable, maybe a little out of his depth but determined to do the right thing regardless. Michael Keaton may be the best of the Marvel bad guys, with a scheme that takes advantage of him being slightly under-the-radar of the bigger guns. And it's a testement to the power of the film that one of the best scenes in the film is a simple dialogue scene in a car between the two of them - no costumes, no effects, just performances and writing. Of course it also brings the spectacle in major action set-pieces set at the Washington Monument, Staten Island Ferry and on a plane, but the point of these is that we are invested in the people who are doing the big flashy thing. Too many blockbusters seem to throw actors bodily at large objects without ever giving them anything human to play.

The main cross-universe element is Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, who is in a weird point at the moment where the universe has sorta already thorougly established in two previous films that his weakness is a tendency to dabble in the world without thinking through the consequences, and yet again he's a bit of a dilettante in the life of Peter Parker, not very engaged and not very aware of the consequences of calling this kid in. It's clear that a price is going to have to be paid, but the delay in paying this price is a little bit of a case of "WHen are we going to get to the fireworks factory" (which Marvel already has a little bit of in the case of Thanos). Fortunately, hopefully both will pay off next year in Infinity Wars, one way or another.

This is a thoroughly delightful film otherwise, with solid characters, adventurous action and even a little bit of more-subtly-played-than usual heroics. Maybe because they're not trying to make another world-conquering superhero, they're able to make just an interestingly human one instead. And that's wonderfully fine with me.

Lady Macbeth

Based on the Russian novel "Lady Macbeth of the Matensk District" (not the Scottish Play), this moves the action back from the novel's Russia to 19th century rural England, where a young woman, married into a fairly hideous marriage in a rather un-grand property, finds herself left alone by her husband and starts to seize her own power as she falls into an affair with a stablehand. Of course when her husband and father-in-law return, she doesn't want to give up her new-found autonomy, and the results are, as the title suggests, rather lethal.

This is deliberately minimalist stuff (there's virtually no score until the final scene), and scenes are played starkly, somewhat like Thomas Hardy if the oppressed characters suddenly took brutal control of their own fate. The main attraction is Florence Pugh, who is extraordinary in the lead role - she's fierce and brutal and thoroughly determined to seize what she can out of the situation and not let go.

This is the kinda thing that is right up my alley, a short-sharp-shock to the usual frou-frou of period movies, with a mordantly dark heart.