Out Now – 28th November 2014

Frozen
It hasn’t even been a full year since Frozen was first released but it is back in cinemas, and on DVD of course, for you to enjoy once more. This means that for the second Christmas in a row everyone will be singing Let it Go endlessly without realising the irony of their persistent karaoke.

Horrible Bosses 2
Sexist, racist, homophobic, and unfunny. What more could you ask for? Maybe a better standard of comedy for a start. I did not like this one.

Paddington
The polite marmalade obsessed Peruvian immigrant gets a live action feature film of his very own. Will it be childish nonsense or a charming masterpiece? Reviews are wildly positive so it looks to be the latter.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Forget Frozen, this is the re-release worth given a second look this week. As part of the BFI’s sci-fi season Kubrick’s epic entry into the genre is back in cinemas. Try for a double bill with Interstellar and let me know how your brain reacts.

I Am Ali
This is Ali.

Kajaki: The True Story
British war drama set in Afghanistan centering on three soldiers crossing a river bed riddled with mines. Expect as many jokes as in Horrible Bosses 2.

Ungli
Bollywood comedy drama in which “a gang of friends decide to take justice into their own hands.”

Stations of the Cross
A 14-year-old girl is so devoted to Jesus she tries to become a saint by going through her own 14 stations. Interestingly the film is made up of only 14 shots. Intriguing…

Concerning Violence
Documentary concerning violence and “the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation from colonial rule.”

Hockney
I’ll let you guess… Go on… Correct!

Dr. Cabbie
An Indian doctor moves to Canada and fails to get a job as a doctor so becomes a taxi driver instead. Naturally he starts seeing patients in his taxi.

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno
Japanese drama about people fighting with swords. Fighting each other with swords. Not them fighting against swords. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.

Horrible Bosses 2 – Film Review

I quite enjoyed Horrible Bosses. I didn’t love it but there was a simple plot, actors I liked, and I didn’t spend the duration angry, bored, and offended. The same cannot be said for the sequel.

The plot of Horrible Bosses was straight forward. The three leads played by Charlie Day, Jason Bateman, and Jason Sudeikis all hated their bosses and so collectively decided to help one another murder their superiors. Hilarity, of a sort, ensued and everything was wrapped up neatly at the end. Horrible Bosses 2 stumbles into the room ignoring its own pointlessness and established the trio as having moved on from their happy endings to set up a business together. Having been tricked by a greedy entrepreneur, Christoph Waltz continuing to accept any role offered, they find themselves deep in debt and with their fledgling company under threat. Rather than work their way out of trouble they quickly decide to raise funds by kidnapping their nemesis’ bratty son in the shape of Chris Pine.

And so begins a kidnapping caper filled with twists, turns, and attempts at humour. Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston, and Kevin Spacey all pop up to reprise their roles from the first film as a miscellaneous criminal, sex-obsessed rapist, and murderous psychopath respectively. None are needed for the plot but all are essential to keep fans of the original from realising this isn’t the same film. Because that is the sense I got throughout the film; that it was doing its best to appease fans and then throwing enough random ideas at the screen to keep everyone distracted until it was all over.

The plot of Horrible Bosses 2 isn’t actually that of a comedy. The plot of kidnapping and double-crossing is not inherently funny, and certainly not funny in practise, so instead the hard work is left to Day, Bateman, and Sudeikis. The three actors are left to improvise and fill scenes with the jokes that the seven writers failed to put in themselves. The constant ad libbing means that every scene ends up feeling exactly the same as the leads talk over each other in a way that rapidly grates more and more each time. Any laughs that do come are thanks to the work of Charlie Day who plays the fool to the interchangeable straight man roles played by Bateman and Sudeikis. When your three main characters don’t have three distinct personalities you are in trouble.

When Horrible Bosses 2 isn’t hoping you will laugh at three straight white men it is using the casting of any actor outside of that demographic as a comedic device. All women were either sex objects or comedy foreign characters and I urge you to try finding a black man in the film that isn’t a criminal. Throw in some mildly homophobic dialogue and Horrible Bosses 2 can rest easy knowing it has managed to turn everyone into a stereotype worthy of denigration. Comedy like this simply shouldn’t exist any more and had me shifting in my seat in discomfort.

As you might have been able to tell by now I really did not enjoy Horrible Bosses 2. There were too many unscripted moments of uncontrolled ad libbing and not enough well crafted comedy. The questionable use of any character who wasn’t both white and male was indefensible. I laughed a few times thanks to Charlie Day but for the rest of the film I was cringing and even worse, a little bored.

Horrible Bosses 2 is in UK cinemas from 28th November 2014 and is to be avoided at all costs.

Spirited Away – Blu-ray Review

Today is a notable day for fans of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli as it brings forth the beloved Japanese animation Spirited Away on Blu-ray in the UK. I was lucky enough to give the disc a spin in advance and what follows are words written by me after watching said disc.

Film
You don’t need me to tell you that Spirited Away is a charming and beautiful masterpiece but if you do…

Spirited Away is a charming and beautiful masterpiece with a wild imagination capable of bringing delight to all ages and plenty of lessons for impressionable young minds to benefit from. The hero of the story is a 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, who stumbles into the spirit world while travelling to a new home with her parents. Alone in a reality populated by witches, monsters, and ghosts Chihiro must find the strength within herself to move forward and forge her own identity. The plot is littered with metaphors touching on environmental, political, and psychological issues but rest assured if you aren’t willing to look too deep everything looks pretty too.

The film is internationally recognised as Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest film, Studio Ghibli’s greatest film, the greatest film of its decade, and the greatest animated film of all time. In summary; it’s pretty great.

The transfer to Blu-ray looks great stunning with lovely legible subtitles, vibrant colours, and crisp lines. The disc comes with the option of Japanese or American dialogue and while everyone has their opinion on what is the better option I do not have the energy to argue the case either way. Thankfully both English subtitles and audio have been assembled with care so you can’t go wrong. And if you speak Japanese then you needn’t trouble yourself with all this petty squabbling.

In short; Spirited Away is the greatest and looks sexy in high-definition.

Extras
I hit Play All on the extras so as to be able to give you a comprehensive review then immediately skipped past the first feature on offer. The Blu-ray allows you to watch the entire film with the original storyboards overlayed in the top right hand corner for comparison. This is interesting to see, I am sure you will agree, but perhaps a feature to dip into rather than watch for the full running time. I smiled appreciatively and then skipped away.

What I watched next makes up the bulk of the extras on the disc and is a documentary made for Japanese television about the production of Spirited Away. The image quality is less than high-definition, stark contrast to the film itself, but what this extra lacks in pixels it makes up for in behind the scenes insight. The documentary introduces the story of the film and how Miyazaki was inspired to write it by a friend’s 10-year-old daughter who became the template for Chihiro. We get to see Miyazaki himself hard at work briefing and inspiring his animators; often seen poring over drawings with a cigarette in hand.

It is fascinating to see inside the animation studio as it resembles any regular office filled with cluttered desks and overworked employees. Pixar may be filled with individual animators’ offices decorated in wacky fun ways but Studio Ghibli is much more basic. What comes across between the animators is a sense of community and a desire to work hard to get the film, which was running behind schedule, finished on time. We are also shown what happens in the recording of the dialogue, background noises, and musical elements. The dialogue recording in particular makes working on a Ghibli film seem like lots of fun and surprisingly low-tech. At the end I got the feeling that Spirited Away was affectionately handmade; metaphorically and literally. Not often that features make you love a film all the more.

I will admit to skipping the next set of special features as they consisted of the original Japanese trailers for the film and there were eight of them. I cannot only indulge you guys so far I am afraid.

The remaining three features surround John Lasseter. A big wig over at Disney and Pixar Lasseter provides an introduction to the film and later introduces us to Miyazaki. Neither of these feel necessary or sincere. Of more interest is a mini-feature on the American re-dubbing of the film as we see actors having to deliver dialogue at the right pace to match the speaking pattern of a totally different language. What was most interesting about this feature was how polished and false the cast and crew came across when interviewed compared to the unguarded authentic feeling their Japanese counterparts had given earlier on.

There are plenty of extras here but I would advise that you only really need to give your time over to the full Making Of; the rest is mostly filler.

Spirited Away is on Blu-ray & DVD in the UK right now.

Out Now – 21st November 2014

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
Oh my days. Katniss is back. The first half of the final third of the Hunger Games trilogy (plus one) is here and everyone is thoroughly excited. As for plot? Katniss becomes a symbol for the rebellion against the Capitol and tries to save Peeta from the grip of President Snow. If this doesn’t immediately make sense you might need to do some homework.

Get on Up
A music biopic about the life and rhymes of James Brown. Expect a real rock and roll lifestyle; sex, drugs, alcohol, violence, and swearing. But all in a nice 12A fashion.

The Homesman
Tommy Lee Jones directs and stars in a feminist western about a woman travelling across America. Her journey will take five weeks as transports three insane women to Iowa. I don’t necessarily understand the plot but reviews are good and a female lead in a western is a rare thing.

My Old Lady
An English/French comedy/drama so mediocre and harmless that my review bores me a little. Maggie Smith is mean and then sweet to some people if you need that gap filling now Downton is on a break.

What We Do in the Shadows
Finally a comedy to get properly excited about. Co-written and co-directed by one half of Flight of the Conchords (YAY) and the guy who directed the American remake of The Inbetweeners (BOO) we have a mockumentary about three vampires who share a flat. It might not sound like much but the reviews are almost embarrassingly positive and stars are being thrown around in a generous fashion. Let’s go!

No Good Deed
Idris Elba plays an unstable escaped convict who terrorises a woman and her children. Not a lot of laughs to be had here and a step down for the man who recently played Mandela and won none of the awards for his trouble.

Happy Ending
Bollywood romantic comedy about a writer trying to write a Bollywood script in a Hollywood style in Hollywood. Can’t wait for the sequel set in Dollywood.

Winter Sleep
On the plus side this Turkish drama about a former actor running a hotel during a snowstorm won the Palme d’Or this year so is guaranteed to have all manner of artistic merit. On the minus side the film is over three hours long and not everyone has the spare time or patience for that.

Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy
Thai drama based on a Twitter feed. Sounds terrible but is apparently a timeless coming of age story. For your consideration as an alternative to the mainstream and the fêted.

My Old Lady – LFF Review

New Yorker Mathias (Kevin Kline) has inherited a large Parisian apartment from his estranged, and now deceased, father. Having driven his life into the ground this windfall comes at a time where a large lump sum are all that stands between Mathias and ruin. Sadly a bizarre French law means that the apartment’s former owner and current tenant Mathilde (Maggie Smith) has the right to live in Mathias’ new property until she dies. On top of this the bankrupt American must pay her a monthly maintenance or forfeit the entire abode. With nowhere else to go Mathias rents a room in his own apartment and lives with Mathilde and her daughter Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas) while he judges how long Mathilde has left to live and whether he can possibly sell the place while it remains tied up in the strange Parisian legal bind.

Hilarity ensues.

For the most part My Old Lady features just this cast of three and rarely strays too far from the all important apartment. The plot is driven by plenty of dialogue, the acting is delivered with a little too much vigour, and the machinations of the story get a little contrived towards the end. All of this should scream one thing to you; the theatre. Indeed with its modest headcount, singular setting, and final act revelations My Old Lady does very little to disguise the fact that it started life on the stage in a play by the film’s director Israel Horovitz. When a play is adapted well it can make for great cinematic fare equally as lauded as its original incarnation. When done badly a big screen adaptation can feel stale and unconvincing; the melodrama that was captivating on stage not translating so well on-screen.

For the most part Horovitz does not seem to have done much to make My Old Lady justify a conversion to film. There is nothing contained within the adaptation that could not have been performed on stage any less easily and the style of direction is one without flair or excitement. It is hard to see what filming his play has added to its story and why he felt the need to do so.

The film, and presumably the play, is perfectly pleasant. Not quite as many laughs as I had been led to expect but a funny and charming story is there to be enjoyed. Maggie Smith gives her trademark performance as a snippy but loveable aging matriarch and is as enjoyable to watch as always. Kristin Scott Thomas gives a tender edge to her role as the indignant daughter and Kevin Kline slightly over-eggs his performance as the boorish American disrupting the lives of incredibly English Parisians. The experience of watching My Old Lady is one of bemusement and mild unrest. Nothing too exciting happens, a few laughs are had, and then it ends without ever fully convincing.

Not a bad film but not spectacular either. My Old Lady is a film to be watched on a rainy weekend afternoon with a blanket keeping you warm.

My Old Lady has a UK release date of 21st November 2014.

Mike Nichols 1931 – 2014

6th November 1931 – 19th November 2014

“A movie is like a person. Either you trust it or you don’t.”

Out Now – 14th November 2014

Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?!
The horrendous Nativity series is now officially a trilogy. What next for this Coventry-based Christmas caper? I cannot bring myself to even imagine what the plot might be. Bonus points to the writers for referencing a popular film from over a decade ago in the title.

The Imitation Game
Benedict Cumberbatch is great as Alan Turing in a film that brings his story to the big screen but doesn’t quite do it justice. I kinda liked it.

The Drop
Another good but not great film in the form of a thriller starring Tom Hardy as a bartender embroiled in gang business. I saw it, enjoyed it, and have no reason to see it again.

Redirected
Action comedy starring Vinnie Jones about four criminals who end up in Eastern Europe having all manner of 18 certificate mishaps. I haven’t seen Vinnie Jones in a European romp since the golden days of Euro Trip.

Life Itself
Documentary exploring the life, career, and sad passing of the world’s most popular film critic Roger Ebert. Lots of good reviews from critics hoping that one day a film this good is made about them too.

Third Person
An impressive looking cast star in a series of intertwining stories about love set across the globe. Writer/director Paul Haggis has won many Oscars but this film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 24%. When you remember that one of his Oscars was for Crash suddenly the quality of Third Person isn’t such a surprise.

Diplomacy
“A historical drama that depicts the relationship between Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military governor of occupied Paris, and Swedish consul-general Raoul Nordling.” This week is a very strange week at the cinema.

We Are the Giant
“Since late 2010, more than a dozen nations have experienced popular uprisings that have collectively been called the Arab Spring. Protests, buoyed by predominantly young participants and social-media organizing, have exposed repression and led to regime changes. What does it mean to take part in a collective action that has the potential to unseat dictators and bring previously undreamed-of freedoms to a people?” If nothing else this week has plenty of films that defy me trying to simplify their narratives.

Grand Central – DVD Review

Gary (Tahar Rahim) is a young man looking for a job, somewhere to sleep, and people to connect with. With no qualifications to his name Gary starts working at a nuclear power plant and living with his fellow workers. By day he is risking being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation but by night he finally has a community to share his time with. His colleagues may be rough around the edges but they are good company and you need to be able to rely on one another when working in such a dangerous environment. Before starting his new job Gary is introduced to the symptoms of radiation poisoning by his co-worker Karole (Léa Seydoux) who jokingly gives him a passionate kiss while her boyfriend Toni (Denis Ménochet) watches and laughs.

It would seem that Gary has finally found everything he is looking for but that wouldn’t make a satisfying drama now would it? After one particularly sexually charged car ride Gary finds himself flung into a passionate affair with Karole. What started as a one-off develops into something a little more as Gary falls deeper and deeper in love with his friend’s girlfriend. As the intensity of his passion rises so does his recklessness as Gary ignores protocols at the power plant that ensure his safety but might separate him from the object of his desire. It is unclear what will be Gary’s ultimate downfall; his dangerous job or his dangerous love life.

Director Rebecca Zlotowski has created a film of simmering tension and an atmosphere in which the audience is constantly unsure of when the house of cards will come tumbling down. In the harsh industrial setting of the power plant Gary and his coworkers are covered from head to toe as any exposed skin increases the danger of radiation. When Gary and Karole are together they are completely exposed but in the fields where their affair takes place everything feels completely safe. Back at camp the two lovers are clothed but vulnerable; in danger should their indiscretion be discovered. Only when the pair are alone together can the audience relax as any other time death and discovery are a misstep away. Their love for one another is simple, primal, and somehow naive and innocent. In amongst tall grass and away from the dangers elsewhere Gary and Karole can be themselves and feel safe with one another. A relationship forged in passion turns tender and all the more intimate.

Seydoux and Rahim are a superb pair. Both give layered performances that allow them to behave foolishly without losing sympathy. Seydoux are Karole gives a particularly conflicted performance as a woman in love with one man but in lust with another while Rahim plays Gary as a man driven almost mad by desire. Grand Central as a result is a tense and sexy drama about how quickly one can become infected by love for another and how decisions made in the height of passion may not always serve you well. At times a little over the top and humourless Grand Central is nonetheless incredibly watchable and a great display of modern French filmmaking.

Grand Central is out on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on 10th November 2014.

Out Now – 7th November 2014

Interstellar
Christopher Nolan flies Matthew McConaughey through a wormhole to look for a viable new home for the human race. Time bends and audiences gasp in this visual marvel that I really enjoyed.

Say When
Keira Knightley stars as a young woman having a quarter-life crisis who forms an unlikely friendship (patent pending) with Chloë Grace Moretz and her sexy father Sam Rockwell. Interestingly Anne Hathaway was originally set to star but had to leave because Nolan needed her for Interstellar. Knightley had no such problem.

Set Fire to the Stars
Stars are already on fire you maniac. Elijah Wood stars as a young poetic trying to save Dylan Thomas in a stylish drama. By stylish I mean black and white.

Playtime
1960s French comedy about a man who explores a high-tech version of Paris with American tourists. Imagine what was considered high-tech in 1967. Electric light?

The Possibilities Are Endless
“Imagine your mind has been wiped: memories, knowledge, experiences, language – every word you ever spoke, has vanished. If eventually you found the words, what would you say? For Edwyn Collins, ‘The Possibilities Are Endless’.” You have to admire a synopsis that neatly works in the title of the film.

The Case Against 8
This is not a campaign against the number eight, because that is a perfectly fine number, but rather against Proposition 8; the piece of legislation that defined marriage in California as being “between a man and a woman”. So essentially this is a case against homophobia which is a good thing.

Leviathan
People will not shut up about this film. Despite that I have no idea what it is about. “In a Russian coastal town, Dmitri is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man’s arrival brings further misfortune for Dmitri and his family.” I see.

One Rogue Reporter
Former tabloid journalist Rich Peppiatt has made a documentary exposing the sweaty underbelly of tabloid journalism. According to Rich Peppiatt “Peppiatt hilariously exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of modern journalism.” Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

The Skeleton Twins
The great Kristen Wiig and the great Bill Hader play estranged twins reunited by coincidentally coinciding suicide attempts. Can they fix their relationship!!?? Will this film be as charming, funny, and heartwarming as I want it to be??!! I damn well hope so.

Sacro GRA
No idea.

The Remaining
Ooooh, it’s a horror! The apocalypse arrives during a wedding and everyone would just rather watch Melancholia.

Algorithms
Documentary about blind chess.

The November Man
Former Bond Pierce Brosnan has a gun. Former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko has a short skirt. Ah, feminism.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness
This documentary about Hayao Miyazaki’s life and Studio Ghibli might be out today. Who can say?

Interstellar – Film Review

Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to this review of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Before we begin I would like to flag up that I will be referring to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey at various points throughout. Such a comparison may seem obvious, lazy, or unhelpful but I hope you will trust me when I say that comparing this latest Sci-Fi epic to The Greatest* Science Fiction Film of All Time™ helps to put the film, and its critique, into context. Happy? Then I shall begin.

A few generations from now the world is not the technologically advanced utopia we have come to expect. Instead our planet is slowly dying. All crops fail apart from corn as dust storms roam across the harsh landscape of America. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a former pilot and engineer whose time is now best spent running a farm with his children, Murph (Mackenzie Foy & Jessica Chastain) and Tom (Timothée Chalamet & Casey Affleck), and their Grandfather (John Lithgow). While Tom is happy enough following in his father’s footsteps Murph is fascinated by science. Sadly this is a world in which the scientists have failed and government money is better spent feeding the population instead of inspiring a generation.

Life is dirty and bleak; Cooper seems resigned to the daily struggle to put food on the table and keep dust out of his children’s lungs. After a certain series of events too convoluted for me to explain here, Interstellar‘s own large black monolith, Cooper and Murph stumble across the secret base of what is left of NASA. Now headed up by Professor Brand (Michael Caine) and his daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) NASA are not looking for a way to save the world but for a whole new planet for our species to move to. With the help of a wormhole pioneering explorers have already travelled to distant parts of the universe to find a viable planet but now one final scouting mission is needed to travel through the wormhole and see how they got on.

Naturally Cooper is the best man for the job and after some contemplation, and vehement disagreement from Murph, he blasts off into the void with Amelia, Doyle (Wes Bentley), and Principal (David Oyelowo). As Cooper and company search for a new home for the human race they are forced to confront whether a human can truly put the interests of mankind ahead of personal safety and the lives of their loved ones. In an adventure involving relativity, the fifth dimension, and interstellar travel Christopher Nolan bends space, time, and your mind.

But is Interstellar any good?

Whatever my fellow audience members may have thought about Interstellar they have to admit that it is an ambitious and brave endeavour. Well… brave in the way a film can be; lives are not being put at risk here. The ambitious bravery comes in the form of including tricky science for the audience to absorb and risking people not understanding what is going on or simply getting sniffy because the science isn’t 100% accurate. It’s a difficult line to tread, teetering between incomprehension and derision, but for my money Interstellar succeeds. To fully understand the plot one has to take on a certain amount of understanding of relativity, the concept of time as a resource just like fuel, and experiencing the world in dimensions beyond time. In my opinion Nolan manages to get the basic scientific principles across well enough that nobody who is paying sufficient attention will find themselves adrift. Go to the toilet at the wrong moment though and you may want to borrow somebody else’s notes.

As for those who feel the need to take Interstellar to task for not being 100% scientifically robust, as happened with Gravity, I have very little patience. I am assuming that this a modern trend to make people feel superior by allowing them to apply derision to films that are otherwise enjoyable. No Interstellar should not be used in a science lesson but I wouldn’t use 2001: A Space Odyssey either. Did Kubrick get assessed badly for suggesting that evolution was sparked by the arrival of a large black obelisk or were critics able to accept this as a forgivable plot device essential to the story being told? Science Fiction is what it is because it is not factual. It is fiction. What is important is that the film in questions takes its own fictional science seriously and does not contradict itself. Interstellar has its own rules, explains them, and applies them. Turn your nose up and I will confiscate your light saber.

Rather than debate the laws of physics I suggest you instead just enjoy the unimaginable visuals and infectious sense of adventure that Interstellar has in abundance. Films with this scope and imagination are few and far between and should be appreciated as such. What Odyssey lacked in emotional weight (or baggage) Interstellar is bursting with. While Odyssey‘s Dave struggled in space without any sign of a family, his wife only appearing in a sequel (played by Mary Jo Deschanel), McConaughey’s Cooper is constantly aware of his family back home on Earth. The weight of the mission to rescue mankind is made apparent through the adversity experienced both in a distant galaxy as well on the planet we call home. Interstellar wants to tug at your heart as well as muddle your mind and is mostly successful. While I did feel the struggle felt by Cooper and family occasionally the Nolan brothers’ script pulled a little too hard. One particular speech by Hathaway’s Amelia is more likely to deliver sniggers than sniffles. Bend space and time all you like but don’t over deliver on the sentimentality. In a film with two prominent female scientists it is a shame that one finds herself compromised by emotions.

The overall effect of Interstellar is one of awe. Despite some flaws the film as a whole is a visual feast and dramatic juggernaut that explores the flaws of humanity as much as it does the far reaches of the universe. Below you will notice that I have given the film a full five stars and I do this not because it is a perfect feature or my greatest film of the year, let alone all time. I give it five stars for ambition and execution. For trying something a little different. You may not like it; it might be too convoluted, too simplistic, or just try too hard for your tastes but hopefully it will give you at least one moment when your eyes widen in surprise and wonder.

Interstellar is in UK cinemas from 7th November 2014.

*Arguably/allegedly