Best of the 2010s - 2014 - Frank

A particularly sideways view of the music industry, “Frank” looks at a band attempting to make it, who in many ways are not entirely sure they agree on what making it means anyway. Is it the art? Is it material success? Is the attempt to combine both inevitably disastrous? And is creating art a kind of madness that can never really be brought under control? We see it through the point of view of Jon, a struggling songwriter who gets involved with the Sornonprfbs, an experimental band led by Frank, who constantly wears a papier-mâché mask and is clearly the genius of the group.  As they struggle to record an album, Jon begins to document their work on youtube and twitter, but as they gain a fan following and are invited to the South by Southwest festival, can they hold everything together, and is the public embrace really what they want?

The one-two punch of this and “Room” made Lenny Abrahamson one of the most intriguing directors of the 2010s, and Domnhall Gleeson as Jon has been one of the most interestingly chameleonic performers of the era too (pretty much every role I’ve seen him I’ve been surprised that it’s him – there’s no standard-actor-tricks that make me predict what he’s going to show up as next). And Michael Fassbinder as Frank has a role that allows him to escape from some of the more dour roles he’s been in for the last decade – there’s a kind of melancholy whimsy in the role that sits between sorrow and childish glee. I know for fans of the real Frank Sidebottom this anti-factual treatment of his career might not be what they’re looking for, but it’s a fascinating film that I adore, and having seen plenty of supposedly factual biopics of musicians that entirely miss what their work was really about, I think I prefer something like this that captures the spirit and vibe.

Best of the 2010s – 2013 – Pitch Perfect

Okay, if I had any credibility going, this should by rights throw it out the window. And yes, “Pitch Perfect” was a 2012 release in the US – but it’s a 2013 release in Australia, which is where I am. And yes, 2013 was the year of “Gravity” and “12 Years a Slave” and, probably, another dozen films that should in qualitative terms precede this one.

But this is the one that I enjoy the most, and would most eagerly return to watch again. It’s fluffy as hell, it’s silly, occasionally crossing the line into the ridiculous, only blemished by a love plot that doesn’t really work at all (sorry, Skyler Astin, you’re just kinda creepy, and there’s a reason you’re barely in the sequels). It’s a friendly tale of female bonding and finding delight even where you think you’re not going to, as a girl enters into a college campus acapella society, wrestles with its strictures and rituals, before finding ways to find her own voice and stretch her abilities. It’s unashamed to be ridiculous, to be sexual, to be sometimes a little gross  - and it’s unashamed to reach for the pure joy that is pop songs. And a bit of pure joy is always welcome.

Best of the 2010s – 2012 – Cabin in the Woods

The setup is achingly familiar. A disparate group of five college students head up to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. There are dark portents that they ignore, and when they descend into the basement, they discover a plethora of strange objects, and a dark curse on one of them leads to horrific consequences.

Except, of course, this isn’t quite that simple. This is a self-aware age, and the mechanisms behind the ritual teenage carnage get explored in depth as events play out and get more and more out of control. “Cabin in the Woods” remains a pure ridiculous entertaining pleasure, even down to the pavlovian glee of seeing something else spectacular show up with every “ding” at the end of the film. (and yes, I’m trying to avoid spoilers despite the film being 7 years old because, dammit, this is still a film that is fun and surprising and I would never ruin anybody else’s joy in discovery unless I accidentally did). And it’s weird and witty and playful and just a little bit thoughtful. It’s for anybody who’s ever loved horror movies or who wants to know why other people might love them.

Terminator Dark Fate

When a series has rebooted as often as this has (after the canonical first two films, the four follow up films (including this one) and the follow up TV series all ignore each other and recast key roles), it’s clear there’s still some residual affection for the underlying property but no actual idea how to take it forward in a way that captures the public imagination. And, alas, this one seems to be doing the same, based on box office. Which is a pity – if nothing else, this has a couple of the right instincts – in particular, it’s the first time since Terminator 2 that Linda Hamilton is back as Sarah Connor, and she absolutely owns the screen. And the format’s back to something simple – two visitors from the future, one hunting someone key in the present day, the other assigned to protect them, and a whole lot of chases and destruction going on around them.

In some ways, this would be easier to take if it was a wholesale reboot – neither of the key returning actors (Hamilton or Schwarzenegger) are really that vital to the plot, and the trio of MacKenzie Davis (as future rescuer), Natalie Reyes (as the target) and Gabriel Luna (as the terminator) are pretty solid as performers. And this is largely a reboot –the threat is renamed, the plot-forwarding figures are new, and the only things that are hanging around pretty much are Hamilton and Schwarzenegger, and Sarah Connor’s past. And this does bear the hallmarks of something that several writers worked on – there’s a lot of ideas, but none of them are dwelt on enough to entirely have enough weight. Also the CGI suggests a slightly rushed production schedule – there’s moments of slightly rubbery action as digital stuntmen jump in to do what humans can’t. But still, this works out as making a good case to be my third favourite Terminator movie. Which puts it ahead of three other movies, but still … isn’t quite enough.

Pain and Glory

I think I have an issue with late Almodovar, which it’s taken me a while to recognise. He always had a melodramatic streak, but I used to enjoy the slightly extreme, far-fetched nature of the actions, whereas now, everything seems kinda reasonable and regulated and lacking in broader surprise. It’s not … bad, per se, it’s just very tasteful and not, for me, particularly engaging. In this case there’s at least 50% of an engaging story here, as we flash between a contemporary filmmaker looking back on his past, and his childhood – the childhood story has a nice arc to it and resolves in an interesting way, but the modern day story feels very bits-and-pieces. Some of the bits and pieces are pretty interesting (Antonio Banderas certainly knows how to hold a camera’s interest) but I never quite felt involved (it may be that “films about filmmakers who aren’t making films” isn’t a genre I ever particularly go for). There’s occasional playful moments but it never quite adds up to as much as I was hoping.

Balloon

During the cold war, large numbers of people attempted to flee East Germany to get to the west. Two families managed the feat in a balloon across the border, stitched together at home and flown at great peril the necessary few kilometres. This telling of the story plays largely as a procedural thriller, starting with a failed attempt that leaves clues behind for the secret police to follow – and we follow both the family and the secret police investigation, as the tracks get ever closer.

This is reasonable without being excellent – for some reason, I found the families at the centre a tad bland at the beginning of the film, though they develop as things go along, and tension builds pretty well, although the outcome is never really in particular doubt. Director Michael Bully Herbig has a background in sketch comedy and perhaps he overcorrected here as this plays very straight-down-the-line – this could probably use a little more humour, dark or otherwise. The climactic flight has a fair few thrills (albeit at the threat of stretching credulity – it’s difficult to buy that the escape was quite this narrow), and all round this is a reasonable film without ever quite driving me to full excitement.

Zombieland Double Tap

It’s been about a decade since we visited Zombieland, and the principal four are all back, coping with both the evolving threats of the undead (as new types of creatures, some harder-to-kill than others) and their own internal tensions. But when they’re suddenly separated, a road trip to find one of their own leads to a few new surprises, not all zombie related.

Yeah, this is pretty much second-verse, same as the first. The four leads are still mostly pretty charming (although Jesse Einsenberg’s shtick is feeling a little tired) and there’s a few decent additions along the way, but as plotting goes this uses the road-movie structure as an excuse to throw ideas at the screen that wouldn’t really have the staying power to motivate a whole film but which could entertain for about five minutes. It does wind up being slightly less than the sum of its parts, but as amiable time wasters go it’s reasonable – though very much dependent on the charm of its cast and how you feel about hanging out with them a bit more.

Ready or Not

Marrying into a wealthy family can be plagued with difficulty. For Grace (Samara Weaving), the ceremony seems to have gone fairly well. But that night, there’s a little family ritual that has to be gone through. It seems for the Le Domas family, every new family member has to play a game by drawing a card from a special box. And if that game turns out to be hide and seek, the results are particularly deadly, with every other family member looking to hunt down and kill her before dawn. But Grace turns out to be a much more cunning opponent than the family expects, and events start to escalate as the hunt takes out more than one unsuspecting victim…

This is a dark comedy with a macabre sense of glee, and a genially ruthless way of treating its cast. Its main interest is in playing out variations on the central situation, as Grace avoids perilous death by inches as she works her way around the maze-like mansion, and it becomes increasingly apparent what the penalty for the family might be if they don’t succeed. In a year that’s seen a lot of not-very-subtle metaphors for the shaky groundings of Capitalism, it’s another one, but as a gory frolic (as Weaving’s pristine lace wedding gown accumulates more and more debris), this works quite well. There’s a varied supporting cast, mixed between actors-whose-careers-have-been-quiet-a-while (Henry Czerny, Andie McDowell, Adam Brody) and interesting actors who are less well known (most noticeably the guy who plays Donny, the suburban clone’s husband, in Orphan Black). So recommended for anybody who wants a romp with a bit of gore.

Blinded by the light

Gurinder Chadha’s had a pretty good run of gentle examinations of immigrant life in Britain as two cultures intersect, the traditional one full of expectations and restrictions and the modern-facing world offering potential freedom but also a loss of connection with the past. Best known for “Bend it Like Beckham”, her latest film trades football for a Bruce Springsteen fixation, trades a contemporary setting for 1987’s Thatcherite Britain, and deals with a Pakistani boy rather than an Indian girl. It’s still a fairly feel-good story of finding your place in a world balanced between tradition and modernity, in this case showing a bit of bravura filmmaking as Javed gets more and more engrossed in the words and music of Springsteen and his themes of escape and transcendence.

Admittedly this isn’t wildly unfamiliar – but there’s an irresistible energy and enjoyment here that keeps things rolling, and while it’s a personal story it does know how to break out enough to find interesting places in the lives of its supporting cast, whether it be the socially-aware girlfriend, the traditionalist dad going through an employment crisis, the best friend left behind by this newfound passion, or even the sister who finds her own method of rebellion. This is a very solid film that’s only real drawback is that it’s nothing particularly new or different – but it does what it does pretty darn well.