2014
Review: What We Do In The Shadows
The Pitch: The Lost Middle-Aged Men.
The Review: In film and literature, the supernatural is often accompanied by a sense of the theatrical, almost the over-dramatic. From the classic vampire tales to modern day films such as Interview With The Vampire, the idea of creatures who are forcibly stuck in perpetual darkness and who tend to dress predominantly in capes, ruffs and frills make their lifestyle seem larger than life, and the operatic tendencies of earlier film makers – especially in the way that vampires are often seen claiming their victims – help to reinforce their sense of otherworldliness. Which is all well and good, but surely vampires have to go shopping at some point? Even they must have a routine? And what would it be like being cooped up with the same three flatmates for hundreds of years? What We Do In The Shadows is a horror comedy that has a vague stab at answering some of these questions in the style of a faux documentary; rather than a vampiric Blair Witch, this sits more comfortably in the same genre as The Office, but with much more neck biting and general debauchery.
That rambling, shambling decadence of pointed toothiness comes in three main varieties. Taika Waititi is Viago, the dandy who still manages to amuse himself with sight gags involving his lack of a reflection; Jermaine Clement is the elder statesmen of the group Vladislav who just also happens to be a massive pervert; and Jonathan Brugh is Deacon, the relative youngster of the trio at around 180 years old, who deludes himself into thinking his vampire shabbiness is the epitome of cool. There is technically a fourth member of the house, the 8,000 year old Petyr who lives in a tomb in the basement and who’s gone full Nosferatu while he eats chickens noisily. A documentary crew follows them around during their night time cruising of Wellington, New Zealand, and their interactions with a local pack of werewolves headed up by Rhys Derby. The documentary crew follows their misadventures in the run-up to local costume ball The Unholy Masquerade, including newly turning vampire Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), Deacon’s difficulties with his human familiar Jackie (Jackie Van Beek) and Viago’s pining for his now elderly human former love.
There might be a good reason why vampires should remain in the shadows, for hundreds of years of undeath still haven’t given them the opportunity to sufficiently hone their social skills, and they bicker with each other and fall out with almost everyone they meet. It’s hard not to warm to them, though, thanks to Waititi’s goofy charm, Clement’s egotistical swagger and even the narcissism that Brugh brings to Deacon doesn’t unbalance the group. It’s a chance for everyone to do silly Transylvanian accents while talking about vacuuming and doing the dishes, and to puncture some of the pomposity that’s inherent in the genre in the process. These vampires might be domesticated but after several centuries they’re still barely housebroken, and that leads to a steady stream of chuckles as they try desperately to keep each other out of trouble.
Sadly, what it lacks above the chuckles is any real belly laughs to elevate it to greatness. It has fun with the conventions of the genre, it’s often inventive with its effects and it’s not afraid of more than a little blood gushing everywhere (no wonder that the first name on the “Thanks” roll in the credits is that of famous Wellington horror director Peter Jackson), showing once more what you can do with a small budget if you’re creative. It also knows its source material and the rich heritage of vampire films well, but it doesn’t always do much more with the conventions than other, more serious vampire films have done; take Interview With The Vampire, and Brad Pitt’s watching sunrises in cinemas. The same idea is at play here in places, but writers and directors Waititi and Clement, both creative veterans (along with Darby and others) of Flight Of The Conchords, end up setting for gentle fun rather than any significant skewerings of the vampire myth. It’s at its best either in the small observational moments, or in the grandstanding finale when it truly lets rip. What We Do In The Shadows is fun while it lasts, and you might still have Plan 9’s jaunty mid-European score in your head for a while later, but won’t have the same kind of long term endurance as its characters.
Why see it in the cinema: I can’t help but feel I may have been slightly harsh, but often your own enjoyment of a comedy is a reflection of the audience you see it with. This film is getting UK screening requests through OurScreen, and hopefully if you attend one of those your fellow audience will be more up for it than mine was. More on this in a moment.
What about the rating? Rated 15 for strong language and bloody violence. Yes, even the claim from the trailer that they’re “werewolves, not swearwolves” can’t stop this from getting a mid-teenage rating.
My cinema experience: As this wasn’t showing in my normal areas of Cambridge or Bury St. Edmunds, and I was in the area (i.e. I was half an hour away), I made the trip to Cineworld Stevenage to see this. I’m not sure it necessarily played to the right audience; only about half full anyway, about ten minutes in, someone two rows back from me turned to the person next to him and said, without any trace of irony, “Is he a vampire?” (You might be able to gauge how ridiculous that is if you can still watch the first six minutes here.) I did get some extraordinarily cheap petrol at the petrol station on the way home, so there were upsides to the trip, they just weren’t all in the cinema.
The Score: 7/10
Review: Life Itself
The Pitch: The greatest movie evangelist of them all.
The Review: I will have been writing this film blog for five years in April. Five years that have already seen me take in over 800 films, visit cinemas all over the country and generally try in my own way to encourage people to brave the loud popcorn eaters and the texting teenagers and to see films the way they were intended to be seen, in cinemas. I started this blog as a simple attempt to make productive use of the time I was spending in cinemas, which up to then had been entirely for my own benefit, but it’s expanded over that time in ways that I couldn’t have even dreamed of. But I am a lone voice sitting in the ether, allowing my opinions to gently settle and to be scooped up by anyone who finds then useful. We live in a world of mass communication and social media, where any two bit hack with a computer can offer their opinion, and where most of them do as often as possible. At its best, film criticism transcends critical judgement and becomes an art form in itself; it’s sometimes one that thrives on venom and bile, where mean-spiritedness becomes a form of entertainment for the masses and we are quicker to tear films down than to try to build them up, but it can also be a productive outlet for reflection and analysis. Anyone looking for a benchmark for what can be achieved in the realms of film study and critique should look no further than Roger Ebert.
While watching the documentary by Steve James about Ebert’s life and work, I found very much a kindred spirit, and someone who coincidentally seemed to end up in the world of film by accident. It almost feels wrong to describe Ebert’s film reviews as criticism in the traditional sense, for he found the positives in so much of cinema, and James interweaves an analysis of Ebert’s style of film reviewing throughout the film. Clear demonstrations of his style are littered throughout the film, but the one which immediately struck home with me was an excerpt from his review of Terrance Malick’s The Tree Of Life. I’m not a fan of Malick in any sense, yet hearing just the first couple of paragraphs of Roger Ebert’s review made me immediately want to revisit the film to see what I’d missed. That insight, the simple but powerfully effective use of language and the enthusiasm for what he saw as a master of his craft at work also saw Ebert expanding on his love of film at conferences, in books and, for what may have made him the most familiar face in American film criticism, his collaborations with Gene Siskel.
A large part of Steve James’ documentary focuses on the two newspaper critics who gradually conquered the world of television criticism and became synonymous with their “Two Thumbs Up” rating system. Having followed Ebert’s rise at the Chicago Sun-Times to heading up the film desk – a rarity in those days that one person would be writing all of the film reviews – Life Itself tracks his expansion into television that put him into regular conflict with Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel on their At The Movies show. Using archive footage, including outtakes and behind the scenes squabbling, James shows the competitiveness between the two, but also the grudging respect and eventual affection that the two men shared. Both had strong opinions and neither would ever back down, but James’ use of footage expertly captures just why these two slightly crusty, unpolished newsmen became the definitive view for a generation of American film lovers. We also see testimony from that generation, which extends deeply into the very film-making community that Ebert studied, and luminaries from Werner Herzog to Martin Scorcese line up to pay tribute to a man who helped to inspire and nurture the next generation of filmmakers through his work. The variety of talking heads from Ebert’s friends and contemporaries are plainly honest about his life, and much like his relationship with Siskel there’s a rough honesty that carries admiration without sugar-coating it. The documentary isn’t afraid to explore his early drinking, or to shy away from the base reasons why he may have been compelled to write Roger Corman’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, and the effect is to completely humanise Ebert in a balanced manner.
But what Life Itself captures most is the sense of warmth and humanity and the spirit of Roger Ebert, and it’s in the framing device of the documentary that this is strongest. We start with footage of Ebert being cared for in a Chicago hospital, recovering from yet more surgery, the surgery to treat various neck cancers leaving him with no lower jaw and much of the lower half his face detached. What might initially appear to be a grotesque image is actually far from it, for the upper half of his face shows that the glimmer in his eye from his youth has become a beaming smile, that of a man loving life and the opportunities it afforded him and taking those together with its challenges. Ebert was, by the time the documentary started, no longer able to talk, and his communication with James is via text and e-mail, laid out in the film in an onscreen manner we’ve become very much accustomed to. That spirit which fired Roger Ebert shines through, and James shows his determination to keep working via the internet and to keep watching films for as long as his failing body would allow; a spirit reflected in the warmth of his love for his wife Chaz and her family that seems to sustain him past what many others would have failed to endure. A famous football manager once claimed that his sport was more important than life or death; what Steve James’ documentary captures so brilliantly is that film is the essence of both Life Itself and life itself, and Roger Ebert through his work may just have been the finest encapsulation of that essence that we have been privileged to know.
Why see it at the cinema: I can’t speak for him, but I think it’s what he would have wanted. In this case, rather than the opportunity for expansive sound or visuals, a chance to immerse yourself in the life and process of a man who loved the movies, and wanted you to love them too.
What about the rating: Rated 15 for infrequent strong sex, sexualised nudity, violence. There are a variety of movie clips in the film, and they embrace the full range of every pleasure about the movies, even the guilty ones.
My cinema experience: Seen at the Curzon Soho, a cinema in the news in 2014 for its staff taking industrial action over their wages. We tend to forget that a lot of people with a love of film end up working in these establishments and aren’t always well paid for their efforts. Since I last visited this cinema, there’s certainly been some money spent as the bar area has had a significant revamp; I only hope some of that money has made its way into the staff’s pockets as well.
Even though this was a Saturday in a London cinema, the early bird price saw me get in for £9, less than I’d pay for a full price ticket on a Saturday evening in a local cinema. It was a half-full cinema, but one which was reacting well to what what on screen. My only real grumble with the Curzon, which has very good projection and sound and doesn’t go over the top on trailers and ads, is that the screen I was in has seats with very low backs. I’m 6 foot 3 and I like to be able to rest my head back while I’m watching a film, which sometimes sees me adopt some very strange positions. I just about managed to make myself comfortable for the two hour duration.
UPDATE: Good news, everyone! And good news for the staff at the Curzon Soho. I’ve been contacted by a member of staff at Curzon who informs me that the reported decision to pay staff the London Living Wage is being honoured, so that money has made its way into the staff’s hands as well. It’s good news for me as well as them, as there are apparently also plans to address the chairs! I look forward to my next visit with a clear conscience and less of a stiff neck.
The Score: 9/10
Review: Interstellar IMAX
The Pitch: 2014: In Space Inaudibly.
The Graphical Review: This review contains very mild spoilers for the first 40 minutes or so, and nothing plot critical. If you wish to remain completely unspoiled, come back when you’ve seen it.
Why see it at the cinema: Nolan remains his strong sense of the theatrical and has once again, for better or worse, pushed the scale of his film making in another step. It’s also one of those films that everyone will have an opinion on in the pub afterwards.
Why see it in IMAX: Not only was so much of the visual side of the film shot in the IMAX format, including sticking an IMAX camera in the nose of a Lear jet, but IMAX makes unparalleled use of the sound field, and when the rocket took off I think the vibrations in my seat cracked a rib.
What about the rating? Rated 12A for infrequent strong language, moderate threat, violence. A fairly MOTR 12A that doesn’t push any boundaries.
My cinema experience: I decided to head further afield than usual, to be able to see The Skeleton Twins and then Interstellar in IMAX at the Cineworld in Stevenage. However, this meant that the film didn’t start until 23:40 and didn’t finish until around 2:45 in the morning. The staff blearily wished us a good morning as we left; I just hope they got overtime. Worth it for the IMAX, although I no longer feel the need to grab one of the handful of 35 or 70mm film screenings having seen it once.
The Score: 7/10
Review: Mr. Turner
The Pitch: How to make a good impression(ist).
The Review: I’ve not got a great relationship with art. While music and I have been comfortable bedfellows over the years, and I even have a passing fondness for photojournalism and other photographic art, true painted art and I largely parted ways after a disastrous art exam at the age of 14 saw me score a pitiful 15%. An exercise to paint two silver taps ended in me creating two amorphous, faintly luminous silver blobs on a piece of paper, which would have happily received the title “Nightmare In Silver” many years before Neil Gaiman’s Doctor Who episode of the same title. I can actually think of a hundred different ways I’d approach that brief now – none of which would involve silver paint – but I’ve not always grasped the connection between the brain of the artist, his eye and what you see on the canvas. What Mike Leigh’s latest film attempts to do, rather successfully, is to bridge that bond between the brain of the artist and the eye of the beholder through examining the life and works of one of Britain’s finest artists, Joseph Mallord William Turner.
Leigh follows his established pattern when working with his actors of rehearsed improvisation around a narrative framework, and the film calls on quite a number of actors from Leigh’s formidable ensemble. At the centre is Timothy Spall, Leigh’s chosen Turner who spent many hours with a paintbrush in hand in meticulous preparation for the role. Often Spall is the comic relief or part of the Greek chorus on the sidelines, but here he’s in nearly every scene and his Turner is shamelessly fascinating (which he needs to be for the film’s hefty two and a half hour running time). Here as he’s portrayed, Turner is no more and no less than an ordinary man with exceptional talents, but is all the more remarkable for it. Spall’s creation spits, grunts and groans his way through the upper echelons of society that his talent have granted him privilege to, but the performance wisely steers well clear of caricature and readily embraces both Turner’s flaws and foibles and captures brilliantly his outpourings of natural genius.
Mike Leigh’s films often rely heavily on structure, deftly weaving together numerous plot strands, but despite the long duration of Mr Turner the film is more episodic, filling out the detail in the life of its title character with his creative process, his high society life and his regular anonymous trips to Margate to seek creative inspiration. Leigh’s thesis seems to be that Turner the artist is defined by his relationship with his surroundings and Turner the man by his relationships with his women, or in some cases the lack thereof. It seems that a guttural snarl, much like a painting, can convey a thousand words, and Spall’s primal growling and swift room departure whenever confronted with his first mistress (Ruth Sheen) and their mutual children tell you all you need to know. He can be perfectly mannered, as with the Margate landlady (Marion Bailey) who he grows ever closer to on his frequent visits, but equally his frustrated encounter in a house of ill repute speaks volumes with the merest of dialogue. The most normal, articulate relationship with any other human is of that with his father (Paul Jesson), but it also inevitably leaves a mark on Turner in very visible ways. As well as its concerns with the past, Mr Turner also looks to the future, the passing of era’s and Turner’s own recognition that his medium could soon be usurped by upstarts such as the coming of photography.
Mr Turner wears its heart on its sleeve and lets out its soul through Turner’s animalistic grunting. but it’s through its vision that it truly soars. Leigh composes images and scenes which evoke some of Turner’s famous paintings and in turn become some of the most striking images of Leigh’s long career, so often previously tethered to the metaphorical kitchen sink. Turner’s style, which might have influenced the impressionists, is best seen in Leigh’s approach to characterisation but he lets the views of Turner’s masterpieces speak for themselves with simple, subtle camerawork. In contrasting Turner’s personal life with backdrops that inspired Turner’s most famous paintings such as The Fighting Temeraire the film truly captures the sense of the artist as seen and felt within the paintings themselves. Leigh’s regular cinematographer Dick Pope does great work in grasping the sense of these images without the need to slavishly imitate Turner’s style in his crisp cinematography, but it’s through Turner’s life and Spall’s magnificent performance that we truly come to understand the inner workings of a great artist’s mind. Art and I might have wisely parted company two and a half decades ago, but Mr Turner’s insights into the mind and process of an artistic genius may inspire many others to pick up their easels and paintboxes again with renewed appreciation for life’s diverse pleasures.
Why see it at the cinema: The artistic highlights of Turner’s career, writ large on the cinema screen in flesh and blood, coupled with Turner’s performance make this a cinematic delight.
What about the rating? Rated 12A for moderate sex and sex references. I’ve long held a grudge against the BBFC for their decision to allow breasts (or in the case of Titanic, breast) to be shown at 12A, long after the time when my 12 year old self would have been able to benefit from / be suitably embarrassed by their appearance. I thought for a brief moment that my twelve year old self would have loved Mr Turner, and he probably would, but not for that reason.
My cinema experience: The last film of a quadruple bill at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, and a sold out cinema which seems to have become the norm during first couple of weeks of Mr Turner’s run – always the best way to see any film so willing to engage the emotions of its audience.
The Score: 9/10
Review: Nightcrawler
The Pitch: Smile. You’re on candid camera.
The Review: The mention of Los Angeles conjures up images of Hollywood Boulevard, the Hollywood sign, glamour and glitz, prosperity and affluence. That can mask the greed and grasping that much of Hollywood and Los Angeles are built on, but the films of the Los Angeles night, from LA Confidential and Chinatown to Collateral and Drive, have oozed with menace, the Mr Hyde to the daytime face of Dr Jekyll. It should be now surprise that low-lifes and seedy characters can thrive in an environment such as this, but in Nightcrawler we are presented with a character who’s trying to drag himself out of the gutter by feeding on the tragedy and depravity of that very environment. Jake Gyllenhaal is Leo Bloom, a waster who’s edging ever closer to middle age without ever finding his reason for life, but for whom a chance encounter with an accident late one night might be just the opportunity he’s looking for.
That opportunity is in the world of news media, and for Leo the chance to benefit from the misfortune of others not only says much that you need to know about him as a character, but also about the world in which someone like him can thrive. When Leo sees a private news crew taking footage of a freshly crashed car, he’s intrigued by the potential for how that can get recognition via one of the plethora of local news stations. The news director Nina (Rene Russo) believes that Leo has a natural eye, but he’s still needs to learn the tricks of the trade, and competition with existing crash chaser Joe (Bill Paxton) proves to be a quick learning curve. To help drive a competitive advantage, he takes on an interm (Riz Ahmed) to be able to exploit, before they both find out just what it will take to get to the top of the news business.
Nightcrawler is absolutely Gyllenhaal’s film: he inhabits every single frame, with a face chiselled from pure smug and a vocabulary regurgitated from a hundred bad management self-help manuals. He’s the David Brent version of Travis Bickle, trying to worm his way into whatever cracks into society he can with no thought for anyone but himself and Gyllenhaal’s performance means you can’t take your eyes off him for a second. I’ve seen other reviews that describe this as a career best performance – how quickly people forget Brokeback Mountain, Zodiac, Prisoners or even Source Code – but there’s nothing in his back catalogue quite like it, and everyone else is just fodder for Bloom to sleaze over and manipulate. The only one who puts up even the slightest resistance is Russo, but she’s working to her own agenda and serving as Bloom’s enabler is never likely to end well.
Nightcrawler also functions on the level of a thriller and a satire, and it’s fair to say that it’s better at the former than it is at the latter. Not least because it’s fascinated with, and keen to thoroughly explore, the minutest details of character and personality flaws but merely content to lay on the satire with a trowel. The view of the news world, of personal depravity feeding societal paranoia in a never-ending negative cycle, is in itself an enabler, so maybe the lack of subtlety can be excused. It’s the strength of the character study and the thriller elements that carry Dan Gilroy’s film, which exploits the darker edge of LA nightlife for all it’s worth, and perfectly mirroring the psyche of its protagonist. It’s also a clear demonstration that he should stick to directing his own scripts after an undistinguished screenwriting career ranging from Freejack to The Bourne Legacy. Nightcrawler might not be the subtlest tool in the box, but Gyllenhaal is mesmerising and worth the price of admission alone, helping to make Nightcrawler a guilty, trashy, thoroughly enjoyable cruise through the darker side of the City Of Angels.
Why see it at the cinema: Robert Elswit’s pristine cinematography makes the night scenes come alive, so don’t be afraid to watch them in the largest darkened room you can find.
What about the rating? Rated 15 for strong bloody crime scene detail, strong language. The most disturbing aspect might be that you can actually imagine these 15-rated images appearing on US news channels.
My cinema experience: Seen as the first film in a four film quadruple bill at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. Having parked out of town, my trek into the cinema was a lengthy walk, so I was glad of every minute of the twenty of adverts and trailers that Picturehouses are currently giving customers in front of their films. On the hottest first of November I can remember, it seemed a shame to be in the cinema, but for a Saturday lunchtime showing, an audience over half full proved I was far from the only person preferring the delights of the cinema over unseasonal sun.
The Score: 9/10
The Half Dozen: 6 Most Interesting Trailers For November 2014
It seems everyone wants to grab your attention these days. From double evictions on The X Factor to Lord Sugar firing people before they’ve even got out of bed in this year’s The Apprentice, reality shows are increasingly loading up their casts, then casting them aside like so much dead wood, purely in the hunt for ratings. So how to keep up with the pack in this increasingly cut-throat world? This month I present to you seven trailers, all eager for you to chew heavily processed snack foods loudly while watching them in your nearest cinemaplex. By the end of this post, one of you will be fired.
Leviathan
Once you’ve won an award, your ability to open doors into cinemas increases noticeably. Leviathan follows in the footsteps of We Need To Talk About Kevin, Rust And Bone, A Prophet, Ida and, er, Tulpan as the best film at the London Film Festival, and also has a best screenplay award from Cannes in its trophy cabinet. The danger is that you come to the film judging it purely on reputation, or in this case that you confuse it with an unusual documentary about fishermen and trawlers from a year or two ago.
Sacro Gra
A documentary about an Italian ring road seems simple enough, but this is a film I’ve already tried to watch twice this year. On both occasions the subtitles malfunctioned, so I now need to decide whether to chance a third trip to the well. I might just take the Italian-English dictionary to be on the safe side.
The Imitation Game
Keira Knightley wins the award for the poshest English accent ever, no contest. Also, next Saturday Bletchley Park will be showing a day’s worth of sci-fi films at their Station X event, including previews, classics and even the Doctor Who finale. What better time to watch a film about the work that took place there at the height of its powers?
Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey
So I was more than a bit sniffy about the sequel, Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger, on Twitter, at which point director Debbie Isitt slapped my wrists via the social media website. I put my money where my mouth was, and can confirm that the David Tennant / Joanna Page sequel lacked the awkward charm of the Martin Freeman / Ashley Jensen original. Hopefully for everyone’s sake this Martin Clunes / Catherine Tate version will restore some of that, and that Marc Wootton will be allowed to hang up the teacher’s assistant parka after this one. Rest assured that I’ll take another one for the team if I feel the need to be sniffy again.
What We Do In The Shadows
Vampire comedy. Two-thirds of Flight Of The Conchords. SOLD!
2001: A Space Odyssey
I have a fairly strained relationship with this Kubrick classic, having tried half a dozen times to watch it on VHS at university and barely even getting to the space bits. This re-release is the ideal opportunity to give this a retry where it should be watched, and this trailer spin on the Avengers sequel’s promo just sweetened the deal.
Stations Of The Cross
My favourite new film shown at the Cambridge Film Festival this year. I’m not sure the title of Best Film According To Local Blogger at the UK’s third oldest film festival carries quite the same cachet as the gongs Leviathan’s picked up, but I’m happy to buy a tiny trophy if it would make a difference.
Sacro Gra, you’ve let me down before, but The Imitation Game you seem to be giving away most of the plot. But Nativity 3, you look like nothing more than an excuse for a jolly to New York, so it is with regret that you, and this tortuous excuse for a framing device, are fired.
Review: Fury
The Pitch: Tank Boy.
The Review: War movies are an interesting reflection on how we perceive war itself. While there have always been war movies not afraid to explore the horrors of armed conflict. The romanticism and Boys’ Own heroics of the majority of the most famous war movies of the Fifties and Sixties has gradually seen the needle swing the other way; now your average war movie is a more cynical, affected view of the affect of conflict on the individuals that are asked to fight. Saving Private Ryan and its contemporaries have also taken advantage of modern techniques to put you, the viewer, right in the midst of the action and to almost ask the question why anyone would ever want to sign up for this kind of exercise. Fury takes a slightly rarer place in that it’s set in April 1945, towards the end of the largest global war in history, and at its heart is a bittersweet view that, even if you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you’ve still got to get out of the tunnel.
It’s a surprise that there haven’t been that many successful tank-based war movies in the past, when you consider both how well tanks perform in action sequences – from the likes of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade to Goldeneye – and also given the fact that they’re the land equivalent of a submarine: a group of surly men locked in a tin case in the heat of battle, with conflict raging on both the outside and the inside. The group locked up in the titular tank here include Brad Pitt’s unwavering sergeant, Shia LeBoeuf’s unconvincing Bible-quoting gunner, Michael Pena’s token ethnic driver and Jon Bernthal’s monosyllabic loader. Into this rather generic, stereotypical mix is thrown Logan Lerman as the painfully young typist who’s assigned to the tank because everyone else has already been killed, and Fury represents two hours of increasingly disastrous on-the-job training.
Where Fury does excel is in making full use of its tank in the war setting. Director David Ayer stages a number of set pieces throughout the hefty 135 minute running time, and they remain varied, well choreographed and increasingly tense. There’s a constant feeling of threat, and Ayer is quick to underline how little protection a thick metal shell on wheels can offer in a variety of circumstances. As well as crafting a succession of thunderous action beats, Ayer also explores the beauty (an aerial dogfight, seen from the ground) and the tragedy (dead bodies being almost bulldozed into graves) and despite the predominantly brown palette, Ayer makes effective use of his countryside. He’s also taken great pains, from the practicalities of maintaining a tank in a live environment to the studiously researched tracer fire that lights up the later battles, to make the film as grounded as possible and to emphasise the constant sense of threat, even so close to the end of the war. What these repeated sequences drive home- with the effectiveness of an armoured Panzer division but also about the subtlety – is that war is hell, even when it’s nearly won, but it can be gripping to watch as a bystander.
When Fury does fall down is just about any time it opens its mouth. Ayer struggles to find the pathos among the madness, and he fails where so many war movies have succeeded in that the nominal heroes are not just borderline dislikeable, but apart from Pitt and Lerman they are, to a man, crushing bores. It’s also a confused film, indicated nowhere more clearly than by an extended sequence that sees the crew take dinner and comforts from the house of two German women. The whole sequence feels like it’s meant to illustrate the futility of war and the search for simple humanity in the midst of battle; what it actually does is get you rooting for the SS. Pitt’s performance is suitably stoic but none of the cast are ever permitted to put any shading into their performances, and you can constantly feel Ayer’s script straining for a profundity that never comes. There’s also a gnawing sense of déjà vu to the in-fighting between the crew, not helped by Stephen Price’s score that sounds as if he’s been watching old submarine movies on repeat, right down to the male voice choir booming over half his score. Fury is more of a blind, swinging rage than a focused argument, and while the battle sequences will live long in the memory, you’ll want to forget much of the rest as quickly as possible.
Why see it at the cinema: For the tank battles, which will assault your eyes and ears in guiltily satisfying ways.
What about the rating? Rated 15 for strong bloody violence, gore, strong language. The gore wouldn’t be out of place in your average David Cronenberg film, but Fury gets a fifteen rating because shots of people’s gruesome injuries and dismemberments are only shown briefly. Don’t have nightmares, people.
My cinema experience: Seen at the Cineworld in Bury St. Edmunds on the opening Friday night, hence a sizeable audience. Hence I ensured I arrived in plenty of time for the film, as people don’t always respect the booked seats. Hence my disappointment when the adverts and trailers (or the Corridor Of Uncertainty as I like to call it) ran to 31 minutes, on a film with a two hour and fourteen minute running time. Hence my fury (well, mild disgruntlement) at not getting home until after midnight after a stop for petrol.
The Score: 6/10
Review: Northern Soul
The Pitch: Seriously, what are you not getting from that title? #Ronseal
The Review: In a way, I’m glad that I was born in 1974. To say I’ve got two left feet would be an insult to left feet, and most of the dancing I’ve gotten away with – barely – in nightclubs over the years has been of the variety where you plant your feet as close together as possible and wave your hands about a bit while trying not to move your shoulders too much. I had a ceilidh at my wedding, cunningly ensuring that someone would be shouting instructions during my first dance and the thought of having to actually, properly dance – to anything – fills me with fear and dread. Thankfully I missed the age of proper dancing, waltzes and foxtrots, but I’d have also been the embarrassing one had I ended up in one of the great Northern soul venues of the Seventies: Catacombs, the Golden Torch or Wigan Casino, to name but a few.
But the stars of Elaine Constantine’s new film show no fear when it comes to the dance floor. Elliot James Langridge is John, a troubled teen whose only connection is with his grandfather and who hates everything else, spraying graffiti on the walls of his town to show his contempt for it. He’s looking to rebel, and he finds an outlet in the Northern soul music he hears at a local disco. Hooking up with Matt (Joshua Whitehouse), the pair drop out and become entranced by the counter-culture thrills of the new music and dancing. While aspiring to top the likes of soul DJ Ray Henderson (James Lance), the pair also get caught up in the seedier underbelly of the soul nights, and bad language on the mikes becomes the least of their worries.
There’s two things you have to get right if you’re going to make a Northern soul movie, and that’s the music and the dancing. Langridge and Whitehouse, along with the rest of the young cast, throw themselves in with gusto and the film’s soundtrack is a fantastic testament to the kind of rare, up tempo American soul records that DJs were hunting down and playing to large crowds for over a decade (and still, in many cases to this day). Northern Soul the film practically throbs with energy, and first time director Constantine keeps the pace constantly moving, even if she doesn’t have massive amounts of plot at her disposal (working from her own script). What it doesn’t do is skimp on the detail, both of what made the scene so compelling and also what might have made it slightly less than attractive; it’s a warts and all picture that’s a vote for gritty realism but rather less of a poster campaign for all night dancing.
If you’ve seen the trailer and are thinking of watching the film for the celebrity names, then I think it’s fair to warn you now that the likes of Steve Coogan, John Thomson and Ricky Tomlinson are simply on board for various lengths of cameo, but no matter. Langridge and Whitehouse carry the story along effectively enough, but it’s really just a vehicle for Constantine to relive some of the more satisfying thrills of her youth. The bigger dance nights are well staged, and for good measure there’s a reasonable car chase in the last act as well. If you can forgive the overfamiliarity of John’s initial rebellion then Northern Soul does a decent job of encapsulating the appeal of listening to unfamiliar American soul music while performing powerful, almost aggressive dance moves. I might have been too young to appreciate Northern soul the first time round, but maybe I could still be tempted into throwing a few spins and karate kicks at a Northern dance night. (As long as you’re not watching.)
Why see it in the cinema: If you’re a fan of Northern soul or think you could be (for example, did you like The Commitments but think it was a bit safe), then the best place to hear the soundtrack will be via the speakers of your local flea pit. (I would suggest finding a decent cinema rather than an actual flee pit, although I have been to a few over the years that seem to have been in a time capsule since the Seventies.)
What about the rating? Rated 15 for strong language, drug use and sex. Or a Saturday night as they call it up north.
The Score: 7/10 (you can add one if you’re a Northern soul fan already)
Thanks to Jess at Sundae Communications for supplying the screener which enabled me to review this.
The Half Dozen: 6 Most Interesting Trailers For October 2014
It’s been a long summer, full of mutants, monkeys, giant fighty robots, some additional giant fighty monsters and Jon Favreau cooking, but now the nights are drawing in and there’s no better time to be in the cinema. Admittedly I can’t think of a bad time to be in the cinema, but I was never the best role model. Having had a busy summer, followed by a month-long binge on two of the country’s foremost film festivals, this feature has had a rest for the past couple of months but now it’s back, better than ever largely the same as ever, bringing you the six most tantalising two minute compilations of films released in UK cinemas this calendar month.
If you’re a long time reader, you’ll remember that the first rule of The Half Dozen is that you don’t talk about… no wait, that’s Fight Club. The first – and indeed – only rule of The Half Dozen was that these were trailers for films I hadn’t seen. This was a fairly flexible rule, to the point where one month it was only films that I’d seen. I’ve also not stuck rigidly to six on occasions. So if we’re going to do this again, then there are no rules. Who needs rules anyway! Apart from these being films which will at some point in October be shown in a UK cinema, having not previously been shown in UK cinemas outside of festivals. So there’s a kind of rule. Whatever.
I can offer one improvement on this post over previous efforts – I’ve added release date details on each film! Don’t say I never get you anything. Anyway, on with this month’s not particularly anarchic selection of promos.
Gone Girl
Speaking of rules, there used to be a rule that all even-numbered Star Trek films were great and odd-numbered not quite so great. That rule has fallen apart over the years, what with ten and twelve being complete bobbins and three actually not that bad, then eleven was one of the best of the series. A rule you can put much more faith in is that David Fincher saves his best work for his even numbered films: while Alien³, The Game, Panic Room, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo have been various shades of interesting, the films sandwiched in between – Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network and now Gone Girl – are all likely to become established as classic films with a bit of distance. I hope to have a review of Gone Girl up this weekend to explain my reasoning behind that in more detail, but for now rejoice in this surprisingly non-spoilery trailer.
Gone Girl has been on nationwide release since 3rd October, and it’s been rated 18.
’71
I have to confess that most of what occurred in Northern Ireland while I was a child mystified me – TV news had a lot of assumed knowledge, and coming to it as a young child all I knew is that the IRA from time to time blew up either places where the families of people I knew worked or occasionally train stations that I was about to pass through. So it will be interesting to see how this film manages to keep the balance between the action movie it’s clearly trying to be, and the backdrop of the conflict in which it’s set. Casting Jack O’ Connell, so great in the likes of Eden Lake and Starred Up, is a good first step in whatever you’re trying to achieve.
’71 has been on release since 10th October, and is still playing at a reasonable selection of cinemas. It’s a certificate 15.
Northern Soul
Having been running this blog for nigh on five years, I get a whole load of e-mails offering me film related opportunities. In five years, barely any of them have actually been worth taking up, but when I was offered a screener for this film I jumped at the chance. The one thing the trailer skips on is the language – this is a proper, rough, Northern with a capital N film (and I’m half Northern by birth, so I can say that, even though my normal speaking voice is Queen’s English with a hint of estuary) but it’s also got one of the best soundtracks of the year.
Northern Soul is out today (17th October), and is on limited release, also rated 15. It is also available to book via OurScreen, an initiative to allow you, the viewer, to decide what ends up in cinemas. You just need to ensure a certain amount of tickets get sold for the cinema to actually show the film. Genius. You’ll see a whole host of Northern Soul screenings on the website if you head over there now. It’s also out on DVD and Blu-ray to buy on Monday.
The Babadook
I saw this at FrightFest, it’s the best film I saw at FrightFest and one of my favourites of the year (currently residing at 11th on my provisional top 40), people were actually screaming, people were even freaked out by the trailer, if you even vaguely like horror movies or just decent films then go see. Put some of that on the poster, but be a good editor. (“People were actually screaming”? “The 11th best film of the year”? Maybe just “Go see”.)
The Babadook is on wide release from next Friday, 24th October, and is also rated 15.
Mr. Turner
Over the years I’ve taken great pleasure in ticking off some of the names of our finest directors and seeing films of theirs in the cinema for the first time. Since my cinema going reached epic levels after moving to Cambridgeshire, I’ve seen both Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Year, and both were great, so my anticipation levels for Mr. Turner should be described as high. At some point I do need to go back and revisit the rest of Mike Leigh’s forty year career, but I consider that a mere technicality at present.
Mr. Turner is out on October 31st, painting up a storm in art house cinemas near you, and is rated 12A.
Nightcrawler
Just think, there was a time when none of us knew how to pronounce Gyllenhall. Actually, that’s probably still now, isn’t it?
Nightcrawler is also out on October 31st, and is also rated 15. Seriously, are there no kids’ films out this month?
Cambridge Film Festival 2014 Day 10: Palo Alto, Violet, Shadows, The Flesh Of My Flesh
Day 10 of the festival, and by now what would feel strange for most people has become normality for me. With no day off this year, I’ve seen at least three films every day, and reality for me has now just become a procession of images on which I sit in judgement in 90 minute chunks, interspersed with both private and public discussions about the films and occasionally discussions with people who’ve made the films themselves. I am clearly not looking for sympathy as this is all entirely self-inflicted, but it’s about this point when I normally question whether I ever want to do this to myself again. The answer, inevitably, is yes as in the five years I’ve been attending the festival, I’ve racked up 161 films in 55 days.
This is now achieved via meticulous planning: this was the third year that I’d pulled together a spreadsheet before the festival to map out my choices, when most other (normal) people also seeing films in volume at the festival tend to favour the paper and scribbling notes options for working out a schedule. (Hello to Hugh, Mike, Amanda, Bridget and anyone else I know who’s just recognised themselves in that last sentence – in some ways I envy you, but I can’t be without my tech.) But I also try to be malleable with my planning, always leaving myself open to the option of picking up another film to review for Take One or Bums On Seats or to catch a film that I’d not considered based on strong word of mouth from an earlier screening.
My plan for day 10 was probably the most fluid of the festival, and had been thrown into chaos the moment I’d gone into book my tickets and discovered that Maps To The Stars – a feature of the printed programme – had already been bumped to a week after the festival thanks to the demands of the Toronto Film Festival. So day 10 ended up being my most casual, unplanned day of the festival, but I still managed to slot in another four films to add to the tally.
Palo Alto
First up was the latest film from the Coppola film making dynasty, in this case Gia Coppola. (In case you’re wondering, this makes her granddaughter to Francis Ford Coppola, niece to Sofia Coppola and cousin to Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzmann, to name but a few.) There’s more than one Hollywood family represented here, with both Val Kilmer and son Jack making appearances, and the lead role being taken by Emma “daughter of Eric, niece of Julia” Roberts. The screenplay is based on a collection of short stories published by James “brother of Dave” Franco in 2010 regarding his college experiences, and features Franco as the teacher giving special attention to Roberts’ student. Roberts is torn between the attentions of Franco and an unrequited crush on dopehead student Jack Kilmer. The other main plot strands features Zoe Levin as a sexually promiscuous student looking for something deeper and Teddy’s relationship with his volatile and unpredictable best friend (Nat Wolff).
I’ve seen a few reviews of this which have raved about it, and they tend to be from people in the same age range as the majority of those in the film. There’s nothing wrong with that – films can appeal to different age ranges, and I’m clearly not in the target demographic for either The Best Exotic Marigold or Pokemon: The Movie either – but while all of the story elements work, it didn’t quite engage me as I imagine it could have done if I was still at school or university age. The performances are good without being showy, it’s well photographed and Coppola is no slouch in the directing department but as a drama it never really gets out of third gear. Thankfully what could be seen as rampant cronyism doesn’t impact, but neither do any of the contributors truly set the screen alight or truly engage the viewer; the lethargy and aimlessness of teenage years might be well captured, but it can be difficult to sympathise with. This is a portrayal of a way of life, and it’s unlikely to be long remembered in the annals of high school or college drama, but it’s a mildly diverting watch.
The Score: 7/10
After watching Palo Alto on yet another screener, I diverted via Mill Road in Cambridge for the second of the festival’s Bums On Seats specials, where we dissected that film and the one to follow in my report – my fellow Bums raved about it, and you’ll find out in about two paragraphs if I agreed. It was also nice to see former host and Take One stalwart Jim Ross down for the weekends of the festival, and head bum Toby had assembled a strong team for both weekends.
Violet
Having watched a lot of sport when I was a child, I always tended to those sports which had directly measurable scores (e.g. score more goals or points than your opponent). Some sports are more subjective, relying on the judgement of impartial observers, and many will rate their competitors on both technical and artistic elements, and Violet is a film begging to be judged on both its practical and its dramatic aspects. First the filming of the story: director Bas Devos has filmed his debut feature in the Academy ratio – think old school square TV – and recruited the cinematographer Nikolas Karakatsanis (Bullhead, upcoming Tom Hardy drama The Drop), and has meticulously constructed each frame. Mostly employing locked off camera positions, from the first sequence – the murder of a young boy captured via a bank of CCTV cameras – Violet’s images are meticulously designed, often using that construction to emphasise the emotional response that Devos is looking to capture from his own script.
What that script is concerned with is understand the reaction of the surviving teenager Jesse (Cesar De Sutter). Jesse is witness to his friend’s sudden death and Violet follows his attempts to deal with the grief of this event and the reactions of those around him. Little explanation is available either to Jesse or to the audience as to what’s happened and who’s responsible, and Jesse’s gradual mental disintegration and increased alienation feel honest but it avoids simple resolutions. Those looking for detailed plotting or theatrics will be sorely disappointed; those who are looking for a deep and measured exploration of grief and personal relationships will find it enhanced, rather than diminished, by the technical skill on display and Violet gets deeply to the heart of how people struggle to deal with loss without some sense of closure. It would be no surprise to see most of this cast and crew following Karakatsanis into bigger things.
The Score: 8/10
Shadows
The latter half of the festival saw a strand focusing on the work of Lionel Rogosin and his contemporaries. Rogosin was part of a movement of independent American cinema along with the likes of Morris Engel, Sydney Myers and John Cassavetes, and as part of the season the festival showed Cassavetes’ first film as a director, a black and white film in a pseudo-documentary style from 1959. I have fond memories of watching films with my mother as a child featuring Cassavetes the actor, such as The Dirty Dozen, but this was my first experience of Cassavetes the director. I’m aware of his other work, such as Gloria and The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie, and on the evidence of Shadows I look forward to catching up with it.
Shadows is a film that reflects the Beat Generation, using a fantastic jazz soundtrack and filling his cast with non-actors. It’s also a very personal film, based on his own experiences and desires at the time (with one slight physical exception: his lead, Ben Carruthers, is black). It wouldn’t be unkind to call it rough and ready: the editing and camerawork have an occasionally amateurish quality, but somehow that only adds to the wealth of charm that Cassavetes stirs up. For a film made in Fifties America, it’s not afraid to confront issues of race, but doesn’t get bogged down with them, and the predominant feeling is one of excitement. Claims on the end title card that the entire film was improvised may have been overstated, but it still carries a lot of power and it’s a shame that its position within the development of American cinema seems to have become a little forgotten. While I’m normally a proponent of watching films in the cinema, the whole film is on YouTube and is worth a watch if you’ve never seen it.
The Score: 8/10
Flesh Of My Flesh (La chair de ma chair)
My last film of the day was originally going to be Maps To The Stars, then got switched to Tommy Lee Jones’ latest The Homesman, and eventually I ended up seeing Flesh Of My Flesh. I can definitely say I preferred Maps To The Stars, which while not vintage Cronenberg has more of the demented glee of his early films in its second half of any of his films this century, while we’ll have to wait until November to get a chance at The Homesman. There are a couple of nice ideas in Denis Decourt’s film, where a woman appears to be luring men into a trap so she can dismember them and feed them to her young daughter, but what would be brilliant as a ten minute short is cripplingly over-extended at an hour and a quarter.
Anna Julianna Jaenner is the lead and bears a remarkably impassive face throughout, but by the end she’s spent so long staring impassively into the middle distance that it’s gone through parody and come out somewhere the other side. The camerawork and cinematography attempt to emphasise Jaenner’s state of mind, but since it’s implied there’s so little going on behind that glassy visage, it just reinforces the feeling of emptiness. An interesting experiment, but not really enough to sustain it as a full length feature.
(Additionally, this being shown in the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse on a Saturday evening after 11 p.m., it was subjected to the sound leaking through from downstairs at the Wetherspoon’s bar during the quiet moments. I spoke to someone from another screening afterwards who had their showing of The Homesman disrupted by the sound of Cambridge’s least appealing nightclub, nestled as it is directly beneath the cinema, so you can imagine how a sort-of horror film with swathes of silence on the soundtrack fared. It did suggest occasionally that Jaenner might have been going mad, but it’s not the first time it’s happened and I might have to reconsider late weekend showings at future festivals for as long as Wetherspoon’s is in operation. Shame.)
The Score: 5/10
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