Moonrise Mud in the Badlands and the Scarlet Summer Kings Go Boating

Wreck it Ralph -  Rich Moore (Walt Disney) -  Tapping into a strain of arcade gaming nostalgia and Nintendo ‘Bosses,’ this film has some witty nuances and entertaining sequences. Overall, however, it is let down by the capitulation of originality as far as characters are concerned. John C. Reilly voices the fat-fisted hulk with a heart; an archetypal bear-like benevolence trapped in the role of ‘baddie’ who reveals his syrupy goodness by befriending a plucky and precocious girl, voiced by Sarah Silverman. Inevitably the ‘nobility’ of the friendship becomes as grating as Silverman’s ‘lil cute rebel’ voice…. but it is essentially a kid’s film…so, you gotta pick your arguments, and I am not really the intended demographic here. All in all, fun and occasionally brilliant, but from an adult perspective, not in the same league as other classic or great animation features. 6.5/10

Singing in the Rain – Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen – Having seen Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange at an impressionable age, I find it hard to detach the title song from Malcom McDowell’s perverse and eerie rendition of it, accompanied by a spot of ultra violence. That said, it is not an entirely traumatic echo as, despite being tonally miles apart, I still loved A Clockwork Orange and remember it as a formative, film- watching experience. To return to Singing in the Rain: the dancing is (of course) breath taking, hilarious and spectacular; the songs are all memorable and to (nearly) all familiar gems of musical history (although a lot are from other Broadway/filmic sources); Gene Kelly’s smile is almost frighteningly professional, as if each pearly peg of that immaculate grin was a flashing bulb of Hollywood fame, fortune and failure; Donald O’Conner’s dancing in ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’ is a form of comedy athletics/gymnastics that jumps, falls and throws itself back to the spectre of Buster Keaton et al. It also became clear in watching Singing in the Rain how much of a narrative debt The Artist owes to its story. An exuberant and humorous portrayal of cinematic history from silence to sound, wherein the expressive smile and magnetism of a lead actor turns to music and dance to survive. 8/10

The Scarlet Empress – Josef Von Sternberg – Marlene Dietrich plays Catherine the Great, from her childish naivety through to a domineering strut of sex wielding, womanhood. A ‘womanhood’ problematically transfigured, in her empowerment, as a cross dressing and titillating role-play of masculinity. She strides through the palatial corridors, dressed in a male uniform (tailored with promiscuous flair) to usurp her frail and mentally deranged husband. It is all fairly ridiculous and feels far less successful than Blonde Venus, the title role of which seemed to far better optimise Dietrich’s ambiguous appeal. The most impressive element of the film is its astoundingly artistic sets, composed of lavish rooms, macabre statues, monolithic doors and a consistent, extravagant eye for detail. There is also a brilliant montage at the beginning, in which scenes of torture and mythologised barbarism skip from topless women burnt at the stake to a man tied inside a bell as human clapper (recalling a detail from Fantomas). 6.5/10 

The Apartment – Billy Wilder – Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a well-meaning man that allows colleagues to stay in his apartment out of generosity. These favours gradually spiral out of control, until his tenancy is governed by the possibility of promotion and office politics. Amidst which there is the possibility of love and the subsequent decisions to be made between life and work. The high-rise ant nest of Baxter’s company is beautifully realised in a black and white panorama of desks and regimented lighting. We are introduced to a monochrome grid of tired faces, typing, endless calls and the tyranny of the office clock. It is from out of this anonymity that Baxter’s selflessly generous character becomes so immediately endearing. The film moves with the same witty ease and charm that Baxter initially exudes with such uncomplicated ease, however as the narrative progresses an unexpected undercurrent of tragedy and neurosis slips into play. The film grows into a sophisticated examination of the sublimated tensions festering between loneliness and success. All of the struggling concerns that a company policy of corruption invokes, the delusions its titles offer and the entrapment we feel, locked in lines and lines of others enrolled in the same daily grind; all of this is articulated through Wilder’s intelligent comedy. When Baxter can never be at home in his home, when his own tenancy is subject to the invasive exploitation of the workplace, and when connections in love are made to seem so fragile, everything seems perched between resounding vulnerability and the scattered lifelines of companionship – whether or not these lifelines are illusory, or fraught with deception is a matter of luck. All of which brings the unfinished game of cards between Baxter and Fran (Shirley Maclaine) into focus; when Baxter finally says he loves her, the response is not reciprocal affirmation but a private joke: ‘Shut up and deal!’ A line that at first seems like a wonderfully cheesy sign off, but that with reflection becomes more and more pertinent. 8/10

Mud – Jeff Nichols – A triumphant exponent of the ‘Matthew McConaissance’ (featuring such other diversions from his ‘comic’ past as Magic Mike, Killer Joe and The Paperboy), this atmospheric film deals adeptly in the American tradition of outward-bound boy adventures. After discovering Matthew McConaughey as a fugitive living off the land, his makeshift house a boat - inspiringly suspended in the trees, two boys decide to help him evade the law and reunite with his girlfriend (a ‘diamond in the trailer-park rough’ Reese Witherspoon). The young protagonist, Ellis (maturely played with nuance by Tyler Sheridan), is experiencing his parents moving towards divorce and the potential loss of their houseboat, consequently the encounter with ‘Mud’ presents a romantic alternative to life: still with a belief in love and living in harmony with the natural world that forms the, now threatened, backbone of his houseboat home. Ellis’ father, played by Ray McKinnon, red cap perpetually pulled down over lank, greasy hair, imbues his character with a vulnerable tragedy in which a grim acceptance of life’s lot – his failed marriage and the impending loss of a home – perfectly counters Mud’s childlike and heroic romanticism. Between these two flawed poles of masculinity Ellis attempts to negotiate morality and maturity, the spectre of adolescence looming over his (and the film’s) impulse for childhood escape.

The performances, especially from both child actors (Tyler Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) and a charismatic McConaughy, are consistently strong throughout. Nichols has a talent for conjuring the story’s environment; the river, forests, seedy parking lots and motels, are all visually realised with a near tangible atmosphere. Perhaps the film’s only fault lies in its decision to provide an extended climax that, with its more overtly filmic action, arguably weakens its otherwise controlled and textured portrayal of growing up, masculinity and the natural world. 7.5/10

Children of Men – Alfonso Cuaron – A vivid, dystopian evocation of England gripped, along with the rest of the world, in an anarchic state of entropy induced by a fertility crisis. Pregnancy is seemingly impossible and youth is an exotic rarity reported with celebrity fanaticism. Cuaron expertly re-imagines England as a bleak but believable (sometimes disturbingly familiar) wasteland in disarray. His muted, dark and greying pallet, recalling the portentous ambience he brought to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Clive Owen is perfectly cast as the convincingly rugged bastion of masculinity, unto whom the future of mankind (no less) is entrusted. Michael Cane has an entertaining turn as an old hippie, fond of weed and fart jokes but fortified with a wholesome moral compass - and all the other necessary liberal credentials needed to ornament this familiar, cut out character. The film balances between its viscerally grimy portrait of England and the palpable, mounting desperation of revolution with a memorable aesthetic that comes close to the shaky realism of war footage. 7.5/10

  

Badlands – Terrence Malick – I had no idea how much of True Romance (1993, dir. Tony Scott) was indebted to, and parodied, Malick’s quietly bizarre and beautiful tale of mismatched runaways. Kit Carruthers is a ‘garbage man’ turned nonchalant killer, played with the blank faced swagger of Martin sheen (strangely reminding me of the reinvented persona of Arctic Monkeys’ frontman: Alex Turner, who seems to have similarly adopted a 50s James Dean chic), Holly, played by a young Sissy Spacek, becomes his eerily unquestioning companion. The story was based on the Starkweather-Fugate killing spree of 1958, in which a fifteen-year-old girl and her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend killed her entire family and several others in the Dakota badlands. 

There is something so enticingly spacious about Malick’s debut (after his short Lanton Mills, 1969), not only the wide-open landscapes but also the conversational dynamics, the narrative’s development and the meandering ambiguity of morality…everything calls out to be re-visited, inhabited and explored. The film, like its stretching roads, fields and desserts, suggests a terrain of freedom, devoid of judgment – but also, hauntingly bereft of reason or certainty. The killing, their relationship and the nature of the American landscape are all wide open for the mapping of interpretation. What Malick provides, both in the film’s music and cinematography, is sparsely poetic, contemplative and enduringly resistant to the confines of resolution. What happens to Holly? What really was their relationship? Why was she not more moved by her parent’s death? What even was Kit’s character? Childish psychopath, enamored simpleton, detached delusional, romantic, hero, villain, neither, all? I enjoyed this a lot more than Days of Heaven (which I need to re-watch, as I feel I was somehow in the wrong mood or something) and felt it brilliantly strange, troubling, haunting, comical and mysterious. And…whilst depicting a relationship at its very heart, it remains almost coldly, distanced from decipherable emotion, meanwhile seeming paradoxically saturated with a natural, elemental feeling. A breathing character latent in the landscape which reflects, sometimes compensates and ineffably elaborates the troubled emptiness of Kit and Holly as they travel through its uncharted expanse. 8/10  

  

Where the Wild things are – Spike Jonze – I felt cynically opposed to what I assumed, with an internalised sneer, would be the sentimentalist tactics of this film: oh, I see, fantastical monsters eh? But with a moralising, growing-up poignancy eh? Sorta like a Never Never land for the furry…I see your game, Wild Things…and I ain’t buying…you can build strange dens, howl and playfully knock down trees, but no siree – no allegorical, tear jerkin’ Jim Hensen, Gruffalo grumbling puppetry is gonna hold my heartstrings hostage!

I cried. I mean, I was a bit hungover…but mainly that was irrelevant…it was beautiful. Begone foul cynicism and embrace this tender, imaginative and visually startling film. Complete with a terrific soundtrack (from Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), it unravelled any sense of superior distance I had puffed up in misguided preconceptions and provided a genuinely moving, well-written and exciting evocation of childhood imagination. It is an imagination that this adaptation of the children’s book respects is also twinned with a vivid and troubling anxiety. Hugely and unexpectedly enjoyable. 8/10

  

Blues Brothers – My viewing of this is inevitably soured by experiencing it through a legacy of formulaic, recycled ‘one big gig’ films, that hinge on the drama of a climactic concert to structure their otherwise non-descript story’s of bromance, romance or any other insipid relationship wheeled out for caricature. The iconic, suited capers of John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in this classic comedy were too unrelentingly goofy and drawn out for my liking. I can imagine at a different point in my life, maybe this would have been really enjoyable…as opposed to just fairly annoying. I can’t deny the brilliance of the cameos (James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin etc.) and the flashes of quotable fun, but overall I was quick to tire of its goofy exuberance. The car chase is too long. 5/10  

Julie and Celine go Boating – Jacques Rivette – At over three hours in length this bizarre odyssey of the meta-theatrics of cinema, character and who we watch, when we watch, what we watch…requires a certain mood of patience. Being in such a mood I embarked on this wonderfully strange adventure, experiencing a fluctuating waltz between boredom, whimsical humour, unsettling confusion and the compelling sense of a character’s own mental and fictional collapse. It is comparable, in its thematic fascination with female identity, film and boundaries between worlds and states of consciousness, with Bergman’s Persona and Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. However this is not as artfully cerebral as Persona or as dark Mulholland Drive, instead it is wonderful and rare example of a film that allows itself to travel through its own shifts of tone and meaning, at its own pace. Scenes can languorously slide from mild eroticism, playful banality, nonsense and comedy, to tragic melodrama, surrealist dialogue and the shadows of a more disturbing, psychological emphasis. 

The film centres around two female friends that use boiled sweets to return to a house in which a cinematic melodrama is unfolding, and in which they are forced to partake like roles in the cracked logic of an unfinished play. The rest of the film floats around this central premise (based on Henry James’ novel, ‘The Other House’), using a fragmented sequencing of recollection and interruption pieced together alternatively by the two girls and our own wandering interpretations. In its uncanny and looping passage through memory and attention the film encourages narrative and its characters to reflexively question themselves just as we, the audience, are engaged in a parallel process…identity is swapped and chronology is circled, like the orouboros bracelet of a snake biting its own tail, dreaming in a moibus strip of who and when Rivette conjures a dazed and inventive exploration of watching and knowing, and how neither are ever reliably one-way or settled. 8/10 

Margaret – Kenneth Lonergan – A precocious 17 year old, Lisa, witnesses a traumatic road accident in which a woman is knocked down and killed by a bus. The rest of the film’s narrative follows Lisa in her painful attempt to emotionally digest what her part in the accident may, or may not, have been. At the age of 17, the trauma of the event is shrouded, accelerated and exacerbated by an onslaught of severely unfortunate adolescent experiences, all of which are in turn warped in the wake of the accident. In the midst of such formative experiences, the accident embodies an intrusion of the ‘real’ (not in an overly theorised Lacanian sense…more of a, ‘in a life of self consciously, privileged New York existence, scenes of death are, as in most places, hard hitting’ kind of ‘real’) and visceral gravity of life, death, mortality and all the gore stained consequences therein. In short, it is a experience that exceeds the remits of her classroom confidence and high school, social buoyancy…to be fair, holding a dying stranger in your arms, as her blood matts your hair and her fading eyes wildly search your own – is probably going to put most people, regardless of maturity, out of kilter. Paired with a condensed sightseeing tour of wayward, coming of age, anguish (trying drugs, loosing friends, losing virginity, seducing a teacher, struggling against family, loosing any sense of self) the accident reveals a ‘reality’ incompatible with what, until now, was always a hypothetical morality. The performances are consistently strong, especially Anna Paquin and J. Smith Cameron – as Lisa and her mother, Joan. In fact it is the scenes between mother and daughter that are perhaps the most riveting in the film. Anna brings all the right notes (in all their uncontrollable discordance) to the vulnerability, violence and immaturity of Lisa’s emotions, while J. Cameron lends Joan’s character a believable and lonely fatigue, caught between stoic endurance and the brittle imminence of a break down. It is the characters, performance and dialogue that, each in part, are so compelling and strong. Unfortunately, the sum of those parts feels overly ambitious and misguided.

The film was cut down to 150 minutes, on the studio’s insistence and with help from Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (a regular editor with Scorsese). The version I watched was the extended three hour cut. Lonergan clearly had ambitions of portraying a panoramic portrait of New York, alongside and through the tale of Lisa. This aspiration, for a more transcendent evocation of New York and its multitude of stories, is demonstrated through labouring long pans of cityscape vistas and cut-aways to bustling streets and crowd shots. There is also the interesting, but not entirely successful, decision in the film’s sound to fade up background conversations so that we hear snippets of other stories. One of the continually reoccurring motifs, even if only auditory, in the film is interruption and overlapping. Whether through intrusive sound or conversation, there is always the sense that Lonergan wants us aware of the teeming life that animates the restless city, and that the film’s narrative is just one of thousands that busily coincide and walk past each other every day. The other, perhaps more pertinent, reason is to underline Lisa’s growing realisation that she is not the centre of the world. While the technique is interesting, it soon becomes too transparently exercised. The effect is not dissimilar to punctuating a piece of art with explanatory and patronising sticky notes, keen to outline ‘themes’ at every step; or, as the annoyingly predictable English teacher (Matthew Broderick) routinely asks, after reading an extract of Shakespeare, or some other piece held in hushed reverence: ‘What’s going on here?’

  

  

 Unfortunately what often seems to be ‘going on’ in the film works as an unintended parallel to Lisa’s teenage hyperbole and hysterical need to ‘operatically’ fictionalise life. The film introduces nuanced and well-written characters only to then uncomfortably consign them to the service of some ‘grander ‘cinematic theme. The debates in Lisa’s history class that hotly entangle post-911 tensions feel contrived and cumbersome, the cultural differences explored in Joan’s new boyfriend seem underdeveloped and at times reductive, while the continual need to assert this as inseparable from New York, in all its vast plateaus of flux and activity, becomes tiring and obvious. When Lisa throws her emotions around with painful and energetic abandon it is wince inducing, but for the right reasons: she is out of her depth. Whereas when Lonergan attempts to draw attention away from the immediacy of his characters to a more overarching, ‘bigger picture,’ it feels as though he is dangerously close to adopting the same ‘out of depth,’ dress up and confusion that Lisa’s immaturity struggles with. It is an ambitious and, in parts, very impressive film that feels let down by an anxious need to be whole, as though Lonergan was concerned that the relationship between mother and daughter was not substantial enough for the film. Or, perhaps nearer to the crux of its editing issues and eventual length, is an anxiety that our ability, as an audience, to engage and expand on that relationship needed a wider frame of reference to justify its significance. All of which leads to a heavy handed elaboration of the film’s ideas at the sad neglect of its own dramatic potency, dressing up the kernel of its achievement – in the portrayal of an intelligently rendered mother/daughter relationship – in the diluting pursuit of a ‘message’. Impulse. In conclusion: Magaret has genuinely fantastic acting and flashes of excellent character interaction but overall feels too concerned with what it, as a film, intends to be and do ‘overall’. 7/10

The Following – Christopher Nolan -  Now known as Mr. BACKWARDS MEMENTO, INTELLIGENT BLOCKBUSTERING, INCEPTION-DREAM WITHIN A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM WITHIN A BATMAN RENAISSANCE, Nolan…this film was back where it all started. His first feature is a low budget and inevitably amateur (in some ways) tale of many twisty turny twists, following the life of a writer who gets deceived into a life of crime. What is interesting is how clear, even from this formative and raw stage, Nolan’s characteristics are. Prefigured in this film is the predisposition for ambitious narrative ploys – see Memento, the violence and noir-like leanings – Dark Knight etc – and the twisty turny twisting of Inception and probably The Prestige (though I haven’t seen it – hence the ‘probably’). These field notes of directorial development aside, the film itself – taken out from the ‘Nolon context’- is fairly shaky. Scenes are overcrowded with theatre-like dialogue, actors struggle with acting, the black and white feels uninterestingly used except for providing immediate shorthand for ‘noir’ and, in the end, it is hard to invest much in the characters and story when they are subject to so many stumbles. 6/10

Moonrise Kingdom– Wes Anderson – I realise this is entirely my opinion and this film has been highly (and though it may seem contradictory to say so, given my own opinion, rightfully) praised…I fell that, in short: TOO FAR Wes, TOO FAR.  Of Anderson’s films I have seen – and enjoyed – Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenebaums, The Darjeeling Ltd and Fantastic Mr. Fox  (really need to see Rushmore)…for me Moonrise Kingdom would not be included in the aforementioned list of ‘enjoyed’ Anderson outings. The other films I have seen had adult relationships, which, despite being manicured into Anderson’s delightfully detailed wardrobe of eccentricities, felt connected, at some level, to emotion. Fantastic Mr. Fox was never going to be about moments of human pathos or emotion but, through the individual and innovative animation (and its origin with Roald Dahl, as a child’s story), had no need to tick such boxes to succeed. Unfortunately Moonrise Kingdom feels essentially grounded in a comparable world of child-like adventure (despite obviously attempting to explore nervous dabbling in ‘growing up’ and momentary insight into adult relationships) without having the charm of the animation. I am not ridiculously suggesting that a film that centres around children, albeit on the cusp of hinting adolescence, need be exclusively child-like – of course not – BUT, when emotional reach and sophistication is a short sighted as it is here – it begins to feel childishly limited. The quirk of Wes Anderson’s immediately recognisable aesthetic is in full, saturated and suffocating swing…with Anderson’s other films I would avoid ‘quirky’ or ‘quirk’ as they call to mind the pejorative connotations of superficial strangeness or ‘quirky’ ’s   less loved sibling: ‘kooky’. Well, this is neither ‘quirky’ nor ‘kooky’ but a full-blown chocolate box of pastel coloured mannerisms. So meticulously choreographed, colour coordinated and calculated, that the film feels closer to a lifeless museum of Wes Anderson dolls; every film of Anderson’s has indulged this neat cabinet of curiosities effect, but have never before been so nauseatingly cloying and unrelenting. I felt the majority of emotion or interest was eclipsed by the queasy sensation of being force fed very ornate, quaintly decorated tea-cakes, while sat in the manufactured nostalgia of a vintage clothing shop… and then, trying my best to choke down the remarkable icing and attention to detail, listening to the saccharine voices of a children’s choir on a plastic record player…on repeat. At the beginning of this review I said praise for this film was assigned ‘rightfully’…which seems, granted, contrary to my teacake spitting distaste…but the thing is, regardless of ‘taste’ – it cannot be denied that Anderson’s flourishes of formal detail and control, the insistence and attainment of his particular vision…are all, technically, very impressive. It still made me feel irritable and slightly sick. 5/10

Kings of Summer – Jordan Vogt Roberts -  Three teenagers build an improvised den in the woods, vowing to live off the land in an adolescent arcadia, escaping their various home lives and family situations in favour of  a simple, honest and at-one-with-nature joy. A summer of independence and self-sufficient living.  The camera observes the awe-inspiring American forest and landscape with a style between Attenborough-style nature documentaries and Malick-style ‘magic hour’ golden light and camera flare. Making it all very easy on the eyes, added to which the director has a fondness for occasionally overused slow motion montages. However, this is not simply a pleasing spectacle of sunlight and leaves – the tone is intelligently comic, with witty dialogue (a terrific array of sardonic infuriation and misery is spouted by the protagonist’s Dad, played by Nick Offerman) and a hilariously bizarre stroke of genius in the character of Biaggio (played by Moises Arias) – a very short, Indian boy who joins the two friends without much reason or explanation but provides continual oddities of conversational gold. At one point, striding through a river and wielding a stick or found sword, the lead boy, Joe (played by Nick Robinson) turns to Biaggio and utters something like: ‘However you ever felt so alive, so wild, so (* brandishes stick/sword *) so Manly??’ To which Biaggio calmly replies ‘I like to think of myself without gender…is that a problem?’ There is a short pause, following this unexpected assertion. Joe then replies ‘It’s not great.’ On another moment Biaggio confides in Joe, after a girl pays him attention: ‘Im gay.’ Joe replies, ‘really?’ Biaggio, matter of factly continues, ‘yes, my lungs fill up with fluid every time the season changes’ to which a bewildered Joe responds, ‘that’s cystic fibrosis…’ After which Biaggio changes the conversation and decides he might in fact like the girl, leaving Joe muttering about how ‘cystic fibrosis’ is not a casual thing, it’s serious shit. There is a blank faced absurdity to all of Biaggio’s random comments that makes him consistently and beautifully comic. In addition to looking great, escaping suburban banality in the natural grandeur of the forest, being surprisingly witty and entertaining, it also imaginatively portrays ‘coming of age’ euphoria. The film celebrates the bonding of friends and explores inevitable tensions of change, it conjures the lust, excitement and disappointments of infatuation, the timeless chapters of possibility that ‘summer’ can encapsulate at that age, and – in the figure of Joe’s father, the difficulties of re-building life after the end of a marriage. This is a brilliantly made, fun and imaginative jostling of characters all resisting, anticipating and coming to understand what exactly in life is changing – and maybe what has to change. 8/10

Princess Mononoko – Hiayao Mayazaki – I was pretty tired when I watched this, so feel like my review will short-change the detail of the film – which was, in expected Studio Ghibli fashion, exuberantly imaginative. At the film’s core – behind the battles, beasts, and oddly Tolkien-like vibes, is a meditation on nature and mankind…the wrestling and not uncomplicated relationship twixt the two. The ‘spirits of the forest’ are memorably iconic creations from the Ghibli universe: like small lunar dolls, ticking their bulbous eyed blank faces, somewhere between Moomins and haunted milk bottles. Elsewhere there is the eponymous ‘Mononoko’ who is an agile wolf riding warrior, packs of wild and giant boar and the amorphous and translucent spirit that stalks the forest, morphing between a deer and a ghostly enormity. The narrative begins with Ashitaka defending a village from a giant boar who has been possessed by a demon, the demon is vividly depicted as a writhing mass of carmine strands – like warring red maggots throbbing and burrowing, the film does not hold back on its blood erupting evil. Having saved the village and killed the possessed boar, Ashitaka is subsequently scarred with the mark of ‘hate and rage’ leaving purple prints blotched across his arm. As a result he embarks on a journey to see whether or not the life and soul destroying curse can be lifted. Spectacular images of strange creatures are definitely the best thing going in this film…the translated Americanisms in the stunted dialogue – complete with the anime disregard for lip-syncing gets a tad annoying at times. 7/10

The Horror, the horror... of Hilary Duff and Human Centipedes

 

Sherlock Jr. / Our Hospitality – Buster Keaton -  A ghost-like face of muted melancholy and the trusty flat boater was all this genius needed for his timeless and wildly entertaining physical wit. Dream like, anarchic, athletic, hilarious and, despite the high-octane slapstick acrobatics, occasionally wistful and even haunting.

    

 

 The Holy Mountain – Alexandro Jodorowski – A film that showcases Jodorowski’s extravagant vision of psycho-magical and astrological spiritualism through a journey of convoluted enlightenment. Jaw dropping set design, with artful compositions and opulent costumes, all closer in style to surrealist paintings than to the familiar tropes of cinema. His imagination bludgeons its excitable imprint between carnivals of adolescent fixation and a solemn fetish for spiritualism, pitching the tone somewhere between Monty Python, elaborate mysticism and the graphic novels of Max Ernst. All of which makes this a hugely entertaining, maddening, overblown and intensely individual film, replete with memorable sequences and laughable conviction. Perhaps the most memorable, for me, was the Mexican conquest – re-enacted by various reptiles (REAL reptiles), all wearing tailor-made mini suits of armour…or waddling, leaping and simply sitting in ornate garments of colourful Inca apparel. Perhaps the most laughable moment arrives at the end: a moment in which the ‘fourth wall’ is broken – revealing camera/crew and lighting, accompanied by the ‘revelatory’ knowledge that ‘Real life awaits us.’ One of many instances in which the film is nowhere near as profound as its theatrically assured and consciously symbolist boasting of the bizarre would suggest. However, the dazzling oddity, audacity and magnificent absurdity of this spectacle cannot be ignored…and should be witnessed by everyone and anyone who professes an interest in the visionary and strange. 8/10

Apocalypse Now - Not much insight, thought or commentary I can add to this monumental beast of modern cinema. I watched the Director’s ‘Redux’ cut, which took the, already long, film to an expansive grandeur of 202 minutes. I was absorbed, thrilled and effortlessly immersed in the mesmeric Heart of Darkness journey. An epic example of sustained and coiling suspense – ploughing through a hybridised jungle of genre flux: adventure, introspection, horror, war, politics, social commentary, more horror, character study, literary dimensions, action, parody, romance, grand tragedy and above all, as mentioned before ‘the horror, the horror…’ 10/10

 

Happiness – An excruciating pitch black comedy of all that threatens, undermines and betrays the sentiment of its title: happiness. The film follows a family of three sisters and charts their varying lives and relationships, introducing an extended cast of weird, debauched and tragic characters that weave in and out of parallel vignettes. The opening sequence is perhaps one of the most hilarious and perfectly timed and acted scenes of a couple’s break up that I have ever seen – culminating in the quivering assertion that ‘I’m champagne and your SHIT….and you’ll always be shit!’ At the film’s troubling centre is a father who, despite maintaining the edifice of a suburban, happy family, is struggling with the darkness of his hidden existence as a paedophile. We watch, with griping unease, as he lures his son’s friends, shares intimate conversations with his son about ejaculation and eventually arrives at a trembling confession. It is this dark thread that draws the rest of the film together, with genuinely powerful performances from both Dylan Baker (as the father) and Justin Elvin (as the son). Elsewhere Philip Seymour Hoffman channels the same sweaty, frustrated desperation that he brings to Boogie Nights, but with the lonely and repulsive factor escalated to hilarious heights (or rather to its darkest, most comical lows). Some strands work less well, one of the sisters (the one we see breaking up in the first scene) gets embroiled and exploited in a ridiculous relationship with a Russian immigrant, which feels comparatively implausible and slightly disappointing – considering the narrative possibilities for her character at the film’s start. Minor flaws aside, this is an impressively dark and uncomfortable comedy that still manages to forge many moments of comic brilliance. 8/10

A Field in England – Ben Wheatley – With Down Terrace, Kill List and Sightseers, Ben Wheately has competently emerged as one of the most interesting, new British directors. A Field in England definitely keeps Wheatley’s independent trajectory intact…a low budget, black and white, English Civil War story that focuses on hallucinogenic mushrooms, cryptic rituals and minimal narrative, is hardly going to allow him to melt into yawning avenues of the predictable. Unfolding in the limitations of one field, the film feels as sparse as its setting with an uneasy atmosphere that at times recalls the bare human struggles of Beckett. Working within budget constraints, Wheatley constructs some beautifully striking and strangely disturbing imagery, the best moments of which are simply exercising slow motion, a strange rope and the possessed grimace of Reece Shearsmith (who has acted so brilliantly in the macabre League of Gentleman and Psychoville). I felt the film was at its most inspired when inventively embracing its more experimental leanings: the arresting slow motion, the kaleidoscopic shroom trip and the singing tableaux vivants that acted as strange pagan interludes – all being notable examples. I felt when the film seemed to fall short was in its climax, descending into more recognizable fits of violence and action (recalling the head splattering in Wheatley’s other films, while powerful and integral to other contexts – here the violence felt like a lazy shortcut to achieving cinematic resolution – which the film didn’t need). 7/10

The Magnificent Seven – John Sturges – Whenever I watch Westerns (and it doesn’t happen often) I am lazily transported into a feeling of generic Sunday lethargy…I remember Westerns populating a lot of the TV channels during Sundays, supposedly mopping up the dead air time that no one had the end-of week energy to proactively fill. Thus, hours of Sunday sofa dwelling, Monday dread and a sense of deflated fatigue, would be accompanied by desolate vistas of deep American cowboysville. As a result my memory of this film has subsequently wafted into a bland, but still enjoyable, snooze of surrounded villages, stumbling horses, pistol spinning and the rites of saddled masculinity. 7/10

The World’s End – Edgar Wright – The finale to the ‘Cornetto trilogy’ is entertaining and occasionally very funny - but ultimately a fairly patchy conclusion. I feel that ever since watching Shaun of the Dead, which felt infinitely quotable, immediately relatable (in terms of 20s slackers, not the zombie apocalypse), perfectly paced, exciting and consistently hilarious, all of Edgar Wright’s films (all, being for me, Scott Pilgrim and Hot Fuzz) have felt doomed to disappoint. Nothing can recapture the impact that Pegg and Frost’s manboy romance had, the jittering quick-cut cool of Wright’s editing style, the cinematic articulation of a new sense of British humour which had been previously confined to TV, the witty soundtrack and cine-literate geekery – first time around all of that felt perfect, it felt immediate, urgent and ripe for cult claiming. Unfortunately, once repeated: manboy romance becomes anonymous bromance and the familiarity of Wright’s quirks, divorced from ‘newness’ become waring. However, that said – there is much to enjoy here, and it is only because Shaun of the Dead was first – and set the bar so high – that Hot Fuzz, and now The World’s End have suffered. Having Pegg’s character as the grating boy who never grew up, from the ‘cool kid’ to the tragic stagnation of eternal adolescence, does seem to provide the trilogy with its own inbuilt critique. The style of Edgar Wright’s quick cuts and the soundtrack playlist attention, combined with the natural chemistry of Pegg and Frost (even when in hateful opposition, or begrudging friendship) all become recognisably wed to a ‘male phase’ – the obsessions, indulgence and insecurity of not wanting to grow up. This is the film that, in its first half, elegantly captures that self-awareness – and is able to reflexively apply it to the trilogy’s style of filmmaking, in addition to the ‘manboy’ condition. Sadly, the second half has to oblige to self-made expectations of genre worship – and so spirals into sci-fi action. While all of this is fun – and worth the cinema trip – it does not satisfy the film’s earlier emotional promise. The team of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is always enjoyable, compelling and funny.  I just feel as though, in Hot Fuzz and At World’s End, their enormously talented writing potential, consistent wit and enjoyment of character, all seem underserved by the need to jump through the thrills of genre parody and incongruous action.  7/10

According to Greta (Surviving Summer)  - Nancy Bardawill – (Hilary Duff/teen movie) I saw this in a low moment of channel surfing apathy, I thought: Ok Hilary Duff, American phenomenon of loathsome, sexualised pop innocence – do your worst. And she did. Atrocity, toxic and ‘damaging to small children’ seem the most appropriate words for this poisonous document of indoctrination. Or more simply, to return to Apocalypse Now: ‘the horror…the horror…’  -1/10

I give it a Year – Dan Mazer – Written by the producer of Borat, this British inversion of the When Harry Met Sally romance has plenty of awkward, ‘gross out’ and sexual humour that all bubbles along with ineffectual and enjoyable momentum. Stephen Merchant is Stephen Merchant, doing his best to become the lanky, grinning embodiment of all that’s inappropriate and misguided. Meanwhile we follow a recently married couple, clearly mismatched, whose relationship disintegrates into the arms of alternative lovers. The script has wit and evidently relishes each adolescent opportunity to steer its ‘romance’ away from the syrupy conventions of Richard Curtis territory. However, this is unfortunately without any support from character portrayal, filmic quality or interesting direction. As a result the film is a disposable barrage of jokes, lacking in any substance sufficient to carry it beyond the next goofy synonym for vagina: fun, but limiting. 6/10

Beautiful Creatures – Richard LaGravanese – Eagerly sulking into the anguished teenage void left by the Twiglight saga, Beautiful Creatures spins another tale of supernatural, coming-of-age, ‘just trying to fit in,’ witchcraft and romance. It starts off, in the college setting – following our two protagonists: strong ‘n moody silent fella and a silent, bullied, supernatural lass…and from there it stumbles with ungainly haste into a turmoil of bad effects and strangely camp theatrics from Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons. A bizarre film that begins by flailing to establish some indie, literary credentials, name-dropping Bukowski a lot - which seems a particularly strange choice for a film that has no discernable resonance with his writing – and then proceeds to spin out of control and into the inevitable realm of dodgy fantasy effects. Not awful, but not convincing either. 4/10

  

Ringu 2 – Hideo Nakata – A film that, like its original predecessor Ringu, coaxes a latent horror from machines and memory; Nakata understands, with understated and eerie allure, the spectral unease between presence and absence - what haunts technology and the nature of recording and how we cant help but be distracted by these phantoms. Also, it becomes clear on seeing this that the American Ring is actually an inventive merging of Ringu and Ringu 2…with some other bits dropped into the mix. Despite the potential for American remakes to be offensive reductions that patronise and disappoint in their very existence…I have to say, I’m quite a fan of the American Ring. It does replace Nakata’s more meditative pace and originality with standardised horror dynamics…but Dammit, it’s a thrilling watch – and testament to the durable and fertile potential of the original story. 6/10

Lost in translation: Ringu became......

Human Centipede 1 – Tom Six – There are some things in life that you know, without equivocation, will be unpleasant. And yet, human curiosity nibbles away at the evidence of rationality and before you know it, like intrepid advocates of touching wet paint, we are plunging into the debased inevitability of Human Centipede. Alas.

I can remember, fairly vividly, the moment in which I first heard of the film’s twisted concept. I remember being huddled around a friend’s phone, watching the trailer over a post-lecture pint (twas back in the heyday of BA daytime drinking) and feeling nauseated and exhilarated. Pretty much the two key elements to the film, with one sad alteration – exhilaration is no longer on the ‘muffled-mouth-to-anus’ menu.

Never had a pitch for a film been as simple as Tom's infantile and disturbing doodle on the napkin.

Once you’ve seen the trailer you have more than seen the film. I say ‘more than’ as the trailer preserves the possibility that the film may in fact build upon its central grotesque premise, that maybe it will be allegorical, or frightening, or startling, or deeply blackly comic. It is the wet paint you knew would be wet …and yet touched anyway. Shame on you.

It is the undeveloped result of having an extravagantly disturbing notion, dreamt up with the same sophistication as a playground insult, and then lacking the artistry or craft to do anything remotely interesting with said notion. The underlying feeling from watching such a film is one of monotonous nausea and an accumulating annoyance at having expected anything other. If you have seen the trailer, heard of the ‘ingenious,’ scatological, DIY Siamese, crawling, surgical nightmare, then: you have no need to watch this. It is a badly made, badly thought out, juvenile mess of titillating provocation, devoid of any of the intelligence or style to make such an act worthwhile. I’m all for horror or the grotesque and always receptive to indulging provocation and titillation, yet this is simply dumb. Perhaps the only redeeming features are the faintly amusing references made to the crazy professor’s ‘trial-run’ pet Labradors, condemned to become ‘My Sweet-Three-Dog’. Apart from that, avoid experiencing what is essentially a depressing low for human endeavour. However, that encapsulation suggests this has some grandiose place in filmic history, as an emblematic and abortive aberration that will be remembered as something to forget…a summary far too monumental for this meagre turd. When I first heard about it, I thought Human Centipede would be in the vein of a budget monster movie, I envisaged a towering human/centipede hybrid, crushing buildings and doing battle with Godzilla. I would still like to see that movie; thousands of insect legs grafted onto a herculean mutation, swatting bi-planes and catching screaming blondes in its lusty mandibles. 1/10

Lunacy – Jan Svankmajer – The Czechoslovakian, surrealist animator probes into the popular surrealist fascination with insanity and depicts an asylum run by its patients. The main character is haunted by a recurring dream in which he succumbs to the same madness that consumed his mother, in the dream he is cornered by two bald doctors (looking like a maniacal version of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum) who chase him with a beckoning strait-jacket. The film takes its inspiration from two Edgar Allen Poe short stories, ‘The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether’ and ‘The Premature Burial,’ supplemented with the blasphemous and orgiastic menace of Marquis de Sade. Svankmajer is surrealist in the traditionally capitalized sense of the word – subscribing with polemic conviction to Bretonian ideas and the early surrealist texts. This carries with it the same problems inherent in Breton’s manifestoes and recalls the movement’s often naïve inability to recognise its own limits and contradictions. Alongside the objective mystification of Women, the romanticised obsession with mental illness was a defining case in point. This film is at its best in the interludes of animation, where Svankmajor’s magical and inventively morbid skills are made entertainingly apparent. While the rest of the film is interesting and often visually thrilling, its fidelity to traditional surrealism makes the central portrayal of madness, and its treatment, as questionable as some of Breton’s least laudable views. 6.5/10

Rage – Sally Potter – The first feature film to debut on mobile phones, making early and imaginative use of the possibilities of Multi-Platform releases. The film uses the device of brightly coloured backgrounds and talking head style interviews. Through these interviews the diverse and astounding cast are introduced - and a murder mystery scenario emerges. The film centres around the activities of a fashion show, interrupted at several points by unexpected catastrophe and tragedy. The actors are mesmeric; the potentially limiting style of ‘talking head’ monologues manages to sustain its impressive strength of dramatic tension throughout. The cast is beyond amazing, everyone masters an individual ability to transfix, entertain and startle: Jude Law turns in a jaw dropping performance/transformation as an American drag queen with a Russian Alter-ego; Judi Dench plays a sardonic and intellectually disillusioned fashion critic; Eddie Izzard becomes an emblem of sharply dressed greed and power; Steve Buscemi plays a world weary photographer, convinced of his own philosophies; Lily Cole plays a young and vulnerable model; Riz Ahmed is particularly memorable as a pizza delivery man whose aspirations of fame quickly sour; David Oyelowo struts his parody of  retro incarnations of ‘cool,’ posturing as a literary detective armed with ridiculous quips and quotes; I could continue, but these were the highlights. Using fashion as a vessel to explore fame, vanity, representation and communication, Sally Potter crafts an intelligent and compellingly entertaining masterpiece. 9/10

 

Jude Law as 'Minx'

Friends with Benefits – Will Gluck – Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis star in this abrasively perky romcom, bouncing through its lightweight world of artifice and beauty with effortless sitcom efficiency. There are many films that make New York seem iconic, alluring and dam near mythical (King Kong, The Apartment, Manhattan, Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, Saturday Night Fever, Mean Streets, The Godfather, Escape From New York, When Harry Met Sally…, As Good As It Gets, American Psycho, The Squid and the Whale…just a very eclectic and random few) but this film manages to make New York seem as vacuously anonymous as the resilient cheer, and inevitable relationship lows of the two character-less characters. Both Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake are assigned their yuppie characters with over familiar broad strokes: the uber-driven, afraid to commit, but mischievously charming man of work – whose suit hides his puppy dog heart and a family problem (here it is an offensively slapstick portrayal of Altzheimers); Milu Kunis as the stunningly good looking, inhumanly buoyant, successful avatar of business know how, while still fostering a ‘girl next door’ accessibility (so beloved of American romance…*cough* Jennifer Anniston *cough*) and a wayward, hippie-esque mother . To return to the character assassination of New York, which Mila Kunis introduces Mr. Timberlake to with excitable pride, perhaps the main reason for its grating nature is the recurring incorporation of dancing ‘flash mobs’ as a plot driving, romantic motif. I wanted to vomit – everywhere. For a film that tries to imagine and depict a relationship simply about sex (that hard to navigate ‘fuckbuddies’ terrain) it trips up on all the conventions it superficially shrugs off in the ‘bubbly’ script. 3/10

Ah...such japes!

Alps – Giorgos Lanthimos –After directing the critically acclaimed oddity Dogtooth and acting in Attenberg, Lanthimos’ second feature uncoils its dark premise with a haunting mystery of restraint.

‘Alps’ is the name given to a group of people who offer unorthodox services in the counselling of mourning. In a warped therapy of substitution they temporarily fill the place of whoever has died, acting out (with varying degrees of conviction) the character and actions of the recently deceased. The character around which this darkly humorous theatre unravels is played, Aggeliki Papouilia, the same actress who portrayed the rebellious sister in Dogtooth. Lanthimos uses her gaunt and awkward frame to similar ends, enacting displays of social discomfort, detached sex, deranged dancing and a desperately uneasy misunderstanding of any emotional interaction. She is a nurse, while also being a member of ‘Alps’. She comes to enact the role of a girl who has recently died in a car crash. However, in reanimating the dead daughter’s existence for the bereaved family – dressing up and adopting her phrases – her new identity becomes a dangerously comforting alternative to her own lonely existence.

Unlike Dogtooth, which felt contained and neatly crafted in its blackly comic world and conducive to allegorical speculation, Alps feels more lingeringly unresolved. Although utilizing similar themes (the meanings arbitrarily mapped in language, social dislocation, deception, escape and intrusion) Alps eschews the starkly satirical bite of Dogtooth for something less immediate. Sharing a similarly concise running time of 90 minutes, whereas Dogtooth felt like a beguiling puzzle, Alps feels snatched away too soon. Our interpretations of the film come to stand in for its ghostly sadness, and like the bizarre ‘Alps’ collective we are driven to enact, fill and explore the same troubling lack of resolution that is left behind. 8.5/10

Before it Happened

‘I know wine is an exception…but,’ he paused, squinting into a nothing space between us, ‘but there’s something sad about dust on bottles, something like planned happiness.’ As he leant back in the wooden chair, choosing his moment, I began to imagine what he looked like when he was young – or at least younger.

‘I suppose that says a lot about how I see happiness, how I saw happiness,’ he took a conspiratorial sip of tea, ‘and planning for that matter!’ It was less of a laugh and more the sort of wheezing growl that might come before some imminent fatalism. He could have cancer. We could all have cancer. I took a sip of tea, only distantly perturbed by the possibility of cancer.

            ‘I think it’s fair to say that you and I have - ’ stopping abruptly he stared at me, almost crazed; I noticed how oddly attractive his eyes were. ‘The seagulls, forgot to feed the seagulls,’ pushing his chair across the dirty tiled floor, he shuffled across the room. In the corner, beside an empty hat-stand was a pile of wooden crates. In the crate at the bottom (perhaps three or four feet in length) there was a huddled cluster of dozing seagulls. At his approach the one nearest the front of the crate picked its beak from off its breast, as if the head was heavy with sleep it lolled back forward upon realising it was just him again. Another two of the birds (how many were there?) began ruffling their feathers and stirring yellow beaks. ‘I need to feed ‘em twice daily, mainly worms, just a sec- ’ he opened a fridge, produced a small blue Tupperware and retrieved a fistful of limp, gently curling worms. ‘’Ere you go fellas, go on, there you go…’ 

            ‘What I meant to say,’ wiping his hands on his arse, ‘is that you and I have very similar beliefs, at the heart of it, I mean. You think it has to be all one way with your legality and chain of command, but under that, under it all, you are like me. I knew it soon as you walked in.’ I probably should wrap it up, that’s what I was thinking – or at least I like to flatter myself with the (unlikely) notion that professionalism may have made a fleeting appearance somewhere. At least in the peripheral suburbs of my stunted attention. Really, truth told, I was still back with the seagulls. There were at least four in that crate, they all seemed impossibly languid. My knowledge of seagulls was limited to overhead wheeling cries, bullying noises, the incessant strutting, and their curved bright inquisitive mustard scythes jabbing at bread, ice creams, bin liners, pebbles, small children, other seagulls…they were probably cannibals. I imagine seagulls could take fairly comfortably to cannibalism. Not the ones in the crate though, they were essentially dead, or at the very least  drifting collectively in and out of whatever constitutes an avian consciousness.

            ‘So, bearing that in mind, I wanna show you something. This, this here, this is the last painting I ever did before it happened.’ He held up a small square of paper, splashed with a muddy blue, barely bigger than a postcard. ‘I find that art has always helped as a post mortem, for all the little deaths that pile up. The ones you don’t notice, and then you-’ he pushed forward the grubby square for me to look at; it was, from all angles, definitively unremarkable. I nodded sagely. ‘You just let things happen, I’m not dumb, I’ve never bought into figurative representation.’ I closed my eyes and nodded as if to suggest: of course. ‘I find that it allows for an exorcism, a happening far more satisfying than all and any of life’s physical non-sequiturs. But then I’ve always seen things like that: seen, seeing – it is all so much more romantic, so much more possible before you realise, with crushing familiarity, that it’s happened and you were barely present. Whereas with this,’ gesturing again at his brown/blue travesty ‘this is a savouring, a space in which we can – I can – not only be present but simultaneously present that presence.’ At that point I knew I had to draw a line. I stood up and reached into my pocket – giving the usual speech. He knew what was happening. Slowly he returned the scrap of blue to his hidden pocket, patted the pocket gently and finished the last mouthful of tea.