Category: Uncategorized

November 7, 2018

The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Claire Foy (Finalized)The antisocial hacker and ball-breaker Lisbeth Salander has finally made a return to the big screen in this adaptation of David Lagercrantz’s fourth book of the “Millenium” series. Departing from the brooding drama and gritty violence of Stieg Larsson’s first three stories, this tale instead heads down the more conventional Hollywood path.  Gone is the laser-focussed indictment of misogyny. Gone is the lucid paranoia or the slow-burning mystery. Here we have a middling spy-thriller that only loosely acknowledges its roots; I’m sure Larsson will be turning in his grave. Consistent though, are Lisbeth’s (played by the excellent Claire Foy) knack for kicking some serious ass and her penchant for a bit of heroic crusading and vengeance. Throw in a moral conscience, some family infighting, and a rogue piece of software on the loose (that allows a single user control of the world’s nukes … of course) and you have a bitchy blend of Bond, Bourne and Batman.

It’s all fairly conventional stuff; a very simple tale of fast cars (and bikes), preposterous motivations, a far-fetched use of tech, and disorienting action sequences all set to the backdrop of a forgettable soundtrack. Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breath) does bring about some visually striking set-pieces that make full use of his horror background, but unfortunately, the collective whole feels too episodic.

What is refreshing, though, are the traditional gender roles which have been turned on their head. The chief power parts (on both sides of the ledger) are strong active women, with men being relegated to the margins. At one point the film even acknowledges the passivity of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) as just a pretty face.

Unfortunately, this renders the excellent cast, many of whom have impressive credentials, as woefully underused. Try as she might, Claire Foy’s commendable take on Lisbeth’s reckoning, or even Sylvia Hoeks’s (Blade Runner) chilling rendition as her sister can’t halt the inexorable pull of the film towards Hollywood’s formulaic juggernaut.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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November 4, 2018

Suspiria

suspiria
Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino has scaled back Argento’s 1977 original cult horror, making a more introspective version that plays out like a muted fever-dream. It’s a far cry from the original’s bombastic excess and plays on chilly haunts rather than abrasive scares.

Like the original, this relatively simple tale is set in a cold-war Berlin during the seventies. An urban coven of witches operate out of a famed dance academy, which not only acts as a perfect cover but also conveniently provides them with the necessary dance routines which feed directly into their rites and rituals. Tilda Swinton cuts a striking figure as the head of the coven, Madame Blanc.  But while she is visually chilling there is no single antagonist to pin your fears on.  Rather, it is the coven as a whole that provides a brooding sense of dread.  Especially when the doe-eyed dancer, Susie (Dakota Johnson), pirouettes headlong into their clutches.

The eagle-eyed will notice the gender-bending Swinton also playing a prosthetic laden Dr. Klempe. His investigative voice of reason provides the film its moral centre and themes of motherhood along with the guilt and shame of a post-war Germany are slathered on thick. However, Suspiria‘s deep metaphorical register feels at times a difficult nut to crack. It is a complex wolf’s tale cloaked in sheepskin and unfortunately, I found the desire to dig deep and ascribe meaning curiously lacking.   

There’s no denying, however, the impressive craft on display and Guadagnino paints plenty of unconventional yet visually striking imagery.  There are some disturbing yet remarkable flash-points of body horror which build on Suspiria‘s sinister and suffocating tone. One particular scene involving the bone-dislocating fate of a rebellious dancer is a standout that I won’t forget in a hurry.

Suspiria is an ambitious homage to the original but its enterprising style, unfortunately, becomes less compelling as the film wears on and its final throw, an operatic bloodbath, is disappointingly overwrought. Despite this, if you have the stomach for it, Suspiria is still well worth seeing.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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November 1, 2018

Bohemian Rhapsody

bohrhapAs a tousle-haired bedroom-poster-hanging teen of the eighties and nineties, the news of Freddie Mercury’s death came to me as quite a shock. Love him or not, there is no denying Queen had an omnipresent quality that seared their sound on the musical psyche of the masses. So, a film that explores this phenomenon was always going to be a very personal journey for many.

Bohemian Rhapsody has suffered its fair share of setbacks with Directorial changes and the much-publicised departure of Sacha Baron Cohen as Mercury’s original casting, who left after creative differences. It is a troubled film that feels like it bears the weight of a troubled upbringing … but hey, that’s rock’n’roll for you.

Spanning the formation of the band in the early seventies to their famously celebrated performance at Live Aid in the eighties, the film covers a lot of ground … and avoids a lot as well. When Mercury states his desire to not be the poster boy for AIDS but instead to be remembered for his art, the film makes clear its stance. His sexuality, which clearly played a big part in his life, is never entirely explored and while it is not ignored, you get the feeling that complexities are tip-toed around rather than confronted head-on.

But before you think Cohen’s warts’n’all rendition might’ve been the better angle, the film’s conventional yet crowd-pleasing antics catch you off guard with a medley of well choreographed scenes. Rami Malek’s performance as the flamboyant troubadour is excellent and he superbly cuts a desperately lonely figure of Mercury offstage as well as captures his majestic energy onstage.

Bohemian Rhapsody will most likely split its audience into two camps. If you’re after a stirring account of Queen’s musical life then this one is for you.  However, if you’re after an authentic retelling of Mercury’s off-stage life then you’ll be let down.  Yes, it’s entertaining, even euphoric in parts, but as a deep dive into the rock icon’s life this biopic is disappointingly safe.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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October 27, 2018

Brimstone & Glory

brimThose who remember the euphoric opening sequence to Beasts of the Southern Wild will immediately recognise similarities with Brimstone & Glory.  That is because both Beasts and Brimstone share the same brilliantly sense-inducing talents of producer/musician Ben Zeitlin, and although helmed by feature debutant, Viktor Jakovleski, Brimstone & Glory has certainly gleaned a lot from Zeitlin’s explosive input.

Coming in at a modest sixty-seven minutes long, this firecracker of a movie is appropriately punchy and zeroes in on the small(ish by Mexican standards) town of Tultepec, which once a year lights up to celebrate San Juan de Dios, the patron saint of fireworks.  But this is no “hang a lantern in the window dressing” kind of festival; instead, this is a brutally unforgiving two evenings of high octane pyrotechnics.  OSH has no place here.

The doco loosely follows the fortunes of Santi, a young boy whose family is entering a float into the “running of the bulls”.  The giant bull floats are paraded down the street on the second night and systematically ignited and blown up in all manner of ways. There is an element of machismo on show here as the pundits, who are mostly men, follow the pyro-fanatic faith like some sort of rite of passage.  But as much as the festival purports to be celebrating the 16th century Saint—who was credited with rushing into a burning hospital to rescue patients, escaping untouched by the flames (or so the story goes)—it really does seem more like an excuse to blow stuff up. Regardless, the heady mix of beauty and lunacy will have you giggling in amazement. 

The film keeps dialogue to a minimum (a bonus for subtitle averse film-goers), choosing instead to focus more on the fireworks.  The results offer some stunning visuals that capture the beauty of seemingly every individual spark (some of which were shot at an incredibly high 1500 fps), all perfectly wed to Zeitlin’s majestic score.  It’s utterly mesmerising, and although the narrative could’ve been stronger, Brimstone & Glory remains a triumph of sensory delights.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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October 23, 2018

American Animals

aaposterHave you ever daydreamed how to engineer the perfect heist? Just a harmless fantasy for most, but American Animals considers what happens when such reverie flirts with reality. 

Pushing beyond the simple heist genre-flick that the trailer suggests, American Animals is a true story that examines the seemingly senseless motivation behind the desire to cross that criminal line.  Four promising young American college students decide to steal some rare and extremely valuable books from their university library. But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry and this is no exception as the film traverses their comically flawed caper. It dives deep into the psyche behind the two main players, Warren (Evan Peters) and Spencer (Barry Keoghan), finding them restless and frustrated at the privileged life neatly laid out before them. But their efforts to disrupt their predetermined “entitlement” is met with far-reaching consequences.

As the title suggests, American Animals is less about the crime per-se and more a damming statement on the country’s disaffected youth. Riffing on the pseudo-documentary form, American Animals’ style owes a lot to recent films like I, Tonya and Compliance.  It is riddled with unreliable narrators who drive home the film’s thesis on relativism and personal truth. What is interesting here, are the interjections from the real-life people involved which are inter-spliced throughout.  The result is an intriguing and often moving insight into lives of regret and atonement. 

Writer/Director Bart Layton (The Imposter) has employed his documentarian background to great effect giving a heady blend of dynamic drama, humour and alluring fourth-wall breaking. The accuracy of how events actually played out are deliberately left open for conjecture—as the real Warren insists “you’ll just have to take my word for it”.  But one thing’s for sure; American Animals presents these lads’ “truth” as an intoxicating tale of dark humour and tragedy that proves to be an absorbing tale from start to finish.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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October 11, 2018

Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist

WestwoodPunkIconActivistThis year has now produced two notable documentaries about British fashion designers. But where the recently released McQueen was a straight stare at a life that burnt bright, Westwood dials things back and is a more measured examination of a designer still working.

From the outset, the film makes it clear that Vivienne does not want to tell us her life story. In the film’s only vagary, it’s difficult to discern if she is apologetically embarrassed about boring us with her stories, or unapologetically annoyed about boring herself with them. What is abundantly clear though, is that Westwood is a straight shooter offering some Gordon Ramsey styled moments of non-minced vocabulary.  

The documentary dispenses with her upbringing, beginning instead in the seventies when Westwood was busy confronting society with the self-proclaimed invention of punk. It was when punk became fashionable, rather than a middle finger to the establishment it was supposed to be, that Westwood branched off and seriously honed her skill as a clothes designer.  Unsurprisingly, her punk sensibility (which is still in evidence today) raised the ire of the British fashion fraternity. Her label independently forged on nonetheless and even to this day, it’s rapid expansion clashes with her desire to maintain control of it. 

Westwood is a wonderful sensory experience and its fractured visual approach makes for an engaging experience. Fledgeling Director Lorna Tucker has done a commendable job of harnessing the copious amount of archival footage, presenting it in an imaginative way. A tapestry of overlapping imagery and footage jumps around the screen, building on the film’s larger canvas. 

Although visually rewarding, the documentary lacks the narrative bite to match Westwood’s iconoclastic persona. There are interesting flash-points of drama throughout, but as a whole, the film doesn’t have the punch of contemporaries such as McQueen—obviously, a lot more difficult when the subject of your doco is still alive and kicking.

Even so, Westwood is a worthwhile documentary that demonstrates how an outspoken provocateur, who is pointed in the right direction, can be an effective agent for positive change. And if the film teaches us one thing it is that the world needs punks, icons, and activists.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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October 4, 2018

Beast

beast“You’re wounded. I can fix that.”—it is a seemingly innocuous opening line from Beast, but it speaks volumes about the film’s two central characters. Moll (played by Jessie Buckley), to whom the line is directed, has just met the mysterious Pascal (Johnny Flynn).  His multilayered comment clearly points to more than just the cut on her hand.

In his debut feature, Writer/Director Michael Pearce has created a complex and vividly lush thriller that sits you bolt-upright in your seat.  It is a brooding character study that investigates the hidden monsters within, borrowing from dark thrillers like Lady Macbeth and winking at classics such as Fatal Attraction.

A serial killer is on the loose in the small British island community of Jersey … a bad time for Moll to fall in love with a mysterious stranger.  Moll, a sheltered young woman, is still firmly under her oppressive mother’s thumb (clinically played by Geraldine James), but the allure of Pascal is too great to resist. As the murder-mystery plays out in the periphery, Beast chooses to focus on creating, then untangling, the complex love story of Moll and Pascal. They are two flawed individuals who both wrestle with their own demons and although the machinations of the murder-mystery are ever-present, the film’s real mystery is what motivates their relationship. 

Beast works best in the quieter moments of introspection and interaction between the two lovers.

The underrated Jessie Buckley (Taboo, War and Peace) is superb here. She drips with screen presence and her nuanced performance has Moll teetering on the cusp of sanity. Also of note is cinematographer Benjamin Kracun (Hyena), whose careful attention to every shot is a spellbinding feast of perfection, almost to the point of distraction. 

It is a shame, then, that the film’s finale falls a little flat and an opportunity to finish on a provocatively ambiguous note is disappointingly snuffed out by Pearce’s neat and tidy ending. Nonetheless, Beast remains, for the most part, an excellent film from a talented cast and crew that are worth keeping an eye on.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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September 27, 2018

The House with a Clock in Its Walls

8t50_d017_00131rThe House with a Clock in Its Walls is a holiday flick that neatly slides in between Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket on the bookshelf of magic and misfortune; a lengthy title, some brooding special effects, an orphan boy who learns magic, and questionable caregivers. It has become a slightly tired routine, something which I was hoping the effervescent Jack Black and brooding Cate Blanchett would breath new life into—unfortunately not.

Set in the fifties, Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) is sent to live with his uncle Jonathan (Black) after having tragically lost his parents.  Uncle Jonathan is an amiable man who is relentlessly tormented by a mysterious clock that continuously ticks within the recesses of his mansion walls. Lewis soon discovers that all is not as it seems with his uncle and his peculiar neighbour Florence (Blanchett), and that the clock Jonathan seeks holds the key to the future of the universe.

Although the film seemingly has all the accessible ingredients of broad appeal, it is hampered by two factors.  Firstly, the young’uns in the audience will most likely find it way too scary.  There are plenty of jump-scares and moments of genuine creepiness here. Perhaps Eli Roth, who’s helmed such horrors as Hostel and Cabin Fever might not have been the wisest pick to direct a family-friendly holiday flick.  Try as he might, Roth can’t keep his horror sensibilities under the bed, resulting in some fairly dark imagery; animated dolls, drops of sacrificial blood dripping onto spell books, animating the dead … you get the drift. 

Secondly, lest you think the film is pitched at an older audience, the plot seems way too rudimentary. The film gags for more complexity and humour. There are a few chuckles, but not nearly what we’ve become accustomed to from Black. As a platform for Black and Blanchett to strut their stuff, well, this renders them more Bland and Blandchett.

It’s not all bad; technically the film carries off some fairly impressive set pieces and the young talent, Owen Vaccaro, seems destined for greater things. Ultimately though, the timing of The House with a Clock in Its Walls’ is a little confused.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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September 25, 2018

RBG

rbgWith the anniversary of women’s suffrage fresh in our minds, a film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a giant in the fight for women’s rights, is a timely release.

You might have noticed the meme “Notorious RBG” bandied about recently; a humorous meld of Ginsburg—a diminutive shy Jewish lawyer—and American rap artist Notorious BIG who is anything but. However, as this doco explains, Ginsburg’s dogged drive and determination for shaking up the establishment shows that there is more truth to the meme’s apparent oxymoron than meets the eye. 

The doco begins by telling Ginsberg’s early life. She was a demure woman who had a penchant for the law-books, but her struggle with sexism within the male-dominated fraternity was something her quiet resolve could not ignore. So she set about illuminating many Judges who didn’t think sex-discrimination existed … rather successfully. Her work in the seventies was immensely influential for woman’s rights and the doco takes us through a handful of foundational cases that she brought before the U.S. Supreme Court during this time. As writer/activist Gloria Steinem puts it “Ruth’s work made me feel as if I was protected by the U.S. Constitution for the first time.”

Documentarians Julie Cohen and Betsy West have chosen to not use narration, meaning much of the information is delivered through interviews. But rather than rely solely on talking-heads to elucidate proceedings, RBG is wonderfully brought to life through a wealth of archival footage and an imaginative use of court recordings and imagery.

Touching on a personal note, the doco also examines the inspiring relationship she had with her husband, Martin. It is a tender love-story of a man who championed his wife’s career right up to and including her eventual nomination into the U.S. Supreme Court. 

While Ginsburg herself may not be the most emotively charismatic person to grace the silver screen, the documentary goes to great lengths to breathe life into her achievements.  And deservedly so, because this is an important film that should be seen.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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September 20, 2018

Ladies in Black

lIBWho knew that in 1959 Sydney also had a beady-eyed store-mounted Santa sporting a creepy “come hither little child” mechanical finger.  It’s just one of many cultural touch-stones on show in this adaptation of Madeleine St John’s bestselling novel.

Director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) has played it safe in his treatment of the source material.  There is little conflict or anguish to be found in here, as Beresford paints a summertime Sydney in full glow. The pallet is bright and breezy, much like the film’s characters all who buoyantly waft on and off the screen with the innocence and exuberance of the period.

Lisa (Angourie Rice), around whom much of the action revolves, is an earnest young summertime recruit of an upmarket Department store. Her doe-eyed innocence is met with curiosity as she is taken under the wing of two seasoned saleswomen, Fay and Patty. At the group’s core is the matriarchal Magda (Julia Ormond), a glamorous Slovenian immigrant who manages the high-fashion floor. Ormond positively shines in a scenery-chewing role as she effortlessly glides around the set, ushering the other three in and out of various social quandaries. The narrative is fairly low-key and occasionally meandering, but what it lacks in plot machinations, it makes up with satisfyingly rich and engaging characters.

Magda’s Eastern European roots allow the film to examine Australia’s elephant in the room; immigration.  Australia’s influx of refugees, or “reffoes” as they are referred to in the film, is as relevant a topic now as it was back in the fifties. However, beholden to the tone of St. John’s novel, Beresford has chosen to gently tiptoe through the sensitive topic, lest he set off alarm bells in Australia’s off-shore detention centres. But despite his very light hand, the film is a multi-faceted portrayal of identity and opportunity, and doesn’t ignore the immigrant influences that found their milieu within post-war Australia.

While the film feels slightly avoidant of the deeper issues at stake, what remains is a delightfully warm-hearted film that turns a topical minefield into an inviting meadow you’ll want to roll around in.  

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.

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