Review: Philomena (2013)

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Sam S-P

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Some stories don’t need much embellishment when adapting them for drama. Martin Sixsmith’s human interest article which forms the basis for PHILOMENA is one such story, remarkable and moving, and Steve Coogan who writes and stars does a fine job of bringing Philomena Lee’s tale to life.

In the early 2000s, Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) was not a popular man. Estranged professionally and publicly by his controversial actions as a journalist and political advisor, he plans to give himself something to do, in addition to some comfort therapy by writing a long, boring book on Russian history. His plans change when he is persuaded to write an article on Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), who was sent to a convent as a young woman when she became pregnant, and had her baby son forcibly removed from her care. Fascinated by the emotional turmoil and moral implications of the story, Sixsmith accompanies Philomena back to her native Ireland and beyond in the hopes of tracking down and reuniting her with Anthony.

Judi Dench giving a great performance is nothing out of the ordinary, it’s what she does in everything after all (CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK? Never heard of it!). That’s not to take anything away from what she does in portraying Philomena, making her a shining light of strength, determination and unswerving goodness, who gets excited by hotels. But it is Steve Coogan’s transformation that is in many ways far more remarkable. There’s a recurring gag in the British mocumentary THE TRIP where Coogan (playing an exaggerated version of himself) complains to his travel companion Rob Brydon that he’ll never be taken seriously as an actor, and will be forever known as the guy who does Alan Partridge. This film could very well change all that. It turns out Coogan can do low-key, and do it incredibly well. There’s no physical, verbal or behavioural tics, nothing showy, he just acts and you forget it’s Steve Coogan on screen. He doesn’t make Sixsmith particularly empathetic, but perhaps embodies the most enviable and idealistic traits of a determined journalist – asking the difficult questions in the search for the (or a) truth.

Philomena is of course heartbreaking. You can’t watch these atrocities unfold and not be moved, not have your heart go out to the young mother (Sophie Kennedy Clark), what she goes through, and what she has to live with (and without) for decades, nor prevent yourself from being outraged at the collective actions of the Catholic Church. The film can be really funny too, the balance between light and shade pitched just right. I challenge you not to giggle at how adorably giddy Philomena gets when she sees the range of breakfast options available at her hotel, and can’t comprehend Martin’s insistence that he doesn’t tend to eat first thing in the morning.

It could (and I’m sure this version of Sixsmith, and maybe the real one too would have wanted it to) be a story about revenge. Philomena would be completely justified in being furious at what the Catholic Church did to her, her son, and their stopping them from meeting for over four decades. But Philomena was, and is, a good person, a great person, and that’s what the film is really about, being good. She forgives, but never forgets.

The film’s main antagonist, if there really is one (excluding the Church in general), is the decrepit Sister Hildegarde (Barbara Jefford). It would be very tempting to force some sort of moral resolution, a change of heart, an apology with this character, but bravely, the script doesn’t require Hildegarde to make any such progress. When she is finally asked the difficult question, “Why?”, so dedicated to her doctrine and way of life is she that decades later she still sees nothing wrong with what her and her Sisters did to Philomena and countless girls like her, and Philomena still forgives her for everything.

She embodies that very Christian of virtues, forgiveness, whereas Sixsmith, like many Atheists (though he’s really more of an agnostic), just wants answers, justifications, where there aren’t really any. If you don’t follow what it says in Scripture, then how can you possibly comprehend atrocities committed in the name of it? It is their clash of wills, in many ways, their differing perspectives in how to handle Philomena’s situation when the whole truth has finally come out, that is the high point of the film. It sums up why this story matters, why it had to be told. A short exchange of words between Philomena and Martin encapsulate the whole affair wonderfully:

“I don’t want to hate people. I don’t want to be like you. Look at you.”

“I’m angry”.

“Must be exhausting”.

Philomena does justice to an already remarkable true story, events and characters tweaked just enough, but still handled sensitively by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope’s screenplay and Stephen Frears’ unobtrusive direction to produce the most emotionally satisfying film possible. Dench is great, Coogan is even better, and he seems to have a bright future as a serious writer-performer. I don’t agree for a moment the claim made by some that it’s an anti-Catholic film. It doesn’t hide the fact that the Catholic Church did some monstrous things, and it aims to raise awareness of them, but the main message is always the one that Philomena herself preaches: forgiveness. We should never forget, but we shouldn’t dwell too much on the past either, as it won’t help to make the pain go away when there is nothing to understand.  SSP

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Review: Frank (2014)

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Sam S-P

FRANK

FRANK is not even remotely about Mancunian comic character Frank Sidebottom, it just appropriates his iconography to come up with an original story of its own. This might annoy diehard fans of Chris Sievey and his creation, but I’m sure he’ll get a biopic of his own at some point. Frank is, for the most part, a batty delight. You can never make a real connection with any of its characters, but for a film about alienation and identity crises, this is kind of fitting.

Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) has a dream: to write and perform hit music to a crowd of adoring fans. He holds down a dull office job by day and spends the rest of his time waiting for artistic inspiration to hit, and for his life to pick up. That day comes when avant-garde band the Soronprfbs come to town and quickly to lose their keyboard player to a sudden attempted suicide. Jon is recruited as replacement by Don (Scoot McNairy) mostly for being in the right place at the right time, and the band, led by maverick artist Frank (Michael Fassbender) who is permanently obscured by a massive fake head, retreat to the wilderness of Ireland to record what must surely be a musical masterpiece.

The film starts as something quite gentle, with Jon composing little ditties in his head as he takes in his sleepy coastal neighbourhood, and finding very little inspiration in any of it. The only breakthrough he gets excited about turns out to have be unconsciously plagiarising Madness. Then the Soronprfbs show up and things get weird. Really weird. Frank himself is an unknowable force of nature, a mine of undeniable creativity, though the kinds of ideas he comes up with won’t exactly guarantee the band success overnight. His cohorts, from the seemingly stable Don, every ready with pearls of questionable wisdom to Frank’s girlfriend Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who hates everyone who isn’t Frank (Jon especially) and the pair of mostly silent misery-guts Baraque and Nana (François Civil and Carla Azar), are all an odd bunch to say the least, and not exactly likeable.  

Michael Fassbender’s performance is an interesting one. Usually, an actor who spends most of the film with his face covered has to make up for it with extreme physicality (Peter Weller in ROBOCOP) or exaggerate their vocal performance to the extreme (Hugo Weaving in V FOR VENDETTA). Apart from a couple of instances to the contrary, Fassbender doesn’t really do either of these. He just uses a vaguely Americanised version of his own voice (its usual inconsistency of accent an advantage in playing such a bizarre character) and a few flappy hand gestures to get his point across. It’s a surprisingly subtle turn to begin with, which makes it all the more effective when Frank flies off the handle later on.

Fassbender has a great singing voice too, and all the actors (playing the music live and for real) demonstrate obvious musical talent in addition to selling their characters’ personal emotional dilemas in the film’s smaller scenes. The snippets of the band’s music we hear are reminiscent of everything from Sonic Youth (the layered mix of rock and electronic sounds) to The Doors (Fassbender often sounds just like Jim Morrison) to the musical interludes in THE MIGHTY BOOSH (the shear surreal nature of the songs themselves). The music is all good, but you don’t expect to remember much of it after the credits roll, then Fassbender breaks into an honest-to-goodness anthem in the film’s final scene, and I still haven’t managed to shift it from my head a week later.

It’s incredibly refreshing how mundane the final revelation about Frank’s state of being is. Jon posits that something must have happened to him, some tragic and traumatic event, but no, it didn’t. You rarely see this kind of real-world acknowledgement in fiction, that people are the way they are simply because they are.

There’s no getting past the fact that some of the jokes don’t quite gel, and as soon as we leave the band’s recording phase, it loses something. The characters work best as idealistic underdog artistes, and the very notion that they might seriously break it big is just too unbelievable, even in a story as out-there as this. Thankfully, from a skittish, fairly bitty third act, the conclusion to the film is pretty glorious and satisfying, packing an emotional wallop and giving all these weird and wonderful characters a decent sendoff.

Niggles aside, Frank makes for a rewarding and entertainingly zany watch, determinedly brushing aside convention and refusing to be pigeonholed. Like the titular character, Lenny Abrahamson’s film is mesmerising, compelling and elusive, saying as much about the contradictions of the music industry as it does about art, genius and madness. Highly recommended. SSP

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Review: American Reunion (2012)

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Sam S-P

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The AMERICAN PIE films never really made much of a connection with me, not because they’re especially bad, but because I was the wrong age (a bit young) when they first came out. I’ve watched the original trilogy since, and they’re all fine, they’re funny enough and even have a little heart. I’ve even seen the first ten minutes of spin-off THE NAKED MILE, which was easily one of the worst things I’ve ever, ever clapped my eyes on. A decade or so on, let’s see what the guys and gals are up to.

A school reunion for the class of ’99 prompts Jim (Jason Biggs), Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Oz (Chris Klein), Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Stifler (Sean William Scott) to return home to reconnect over a trip down memory lane. Some want to repeat the same highschool hijinks of their youth, while others have the pressures of relationships, children and bumping into old flames to contend with.

From a clever first gag which subverts our expectations about a rhythmically bouncing bed, we quickly return to the kind of elaborate embarrassing set pieces the series is most famous for. People get their bits out at inopportune times, shag when they shouldn’t, and pull revolting prank after revolting prank on one another. In other words, it’s business as usual in American Pie land.

The film’s presentation is admittedly slicker than it ever was – it’s decently filmed and edited, and a certain amount care in craft is in evidence (just look at the re-introduction to one of the all-time greatest movie jerks) but surely it should be more consistently funny, better performed, or at least just not boring to watch?

Of course, being a celebratory film of sorts, you’ve got to pay dues to what has come before. There’s references to the greatest hits of the series so far, and I think we’re supposed to feel some kind of nostalgic warmth at these points, though whether that happens or not entirely depends on your involvement with, your affection for, the Pie series so far. Not a lot about the characters has changed with the passage of time, even with the addition of family and career responsibilities, they’re basically the same people (though Finch is now cool). Maybe that’s the point, that you’re basically always the same person you were in young adulthood, but it would have been nice to see some development. The one who seems to have matured the most is Michelle, though Hannigan’s character is mostly sidelined to give more screentime to the boys, who are still horny teens, just bigger horny teens.

Eugene Levy as Jim’s Dad is still the best thing in it (still miraculously looking exactly the same after ten years), and is responsible for all elements of poignancy, and perhaps the only self-aware joke in the film – when Jim has come home and is rooting through his old porn mags, his dad explains that he didn’t throw them out because they have “too much sentimental value”. This kind of sums up the new instalment, almost ironically claiming to be able to remind us of a better time, a movie franchise we’re supposed to have affection for, but really it was only ever a sleazy (though undeniable) half-pleasure. Jim’s Dad is also responsible for prompting the only real belly laugh in the film when, for his online dating profile picture, he changes from a checked shirt to a plain shirt to appear “sexier”.

There’s a line about doing all the same things again, talking about how it’ll be just as enjoyable a time this time round. That’s a bit of a lie in terms of how the story pans out, and it’s a misleading description of the film as a whole. AMERICAN PIE 2 is still the best in the franchise, with the filthiest and funniest guffaws on offer, and even that wasn’t great. Here, we just get all the same jokes repeated, and token attempts to address the fact that everyone’s that bit older, and “kids today” seem wilder and more sexually liberated. Oh, and there’s a really out-of-the-blue reference to APOCALYPSE NOW in there as well, which is…interesting.

Apart from the central group, I’m struggling to recall whether or not half of the supporting characters were in the original series. Have I just forgotten them, are they the same people recast, or were the teen object of Kevin Spacey’s lust in AMERICAN BEAUTY and Callisto from X-MEN: THE LAST STAND really in the earlier American Pie films? (OK, now I’ve checked – Mena Suvari was, Dania Ramierez wasn’t). The main characters are all still pretty likable (apart from Stifler who’s still a massive [insert sexual expletive here]) and you sort of care what happens to them. It’s just a shame that not a whole lot of note does this time. You know that the apple cart will  be rocked, but you also know that the status quo will be neatly restored again before long.

I hope no-one is tempted to churn out another of these things for a while. Maybe in another 15 years, when Jim can fully inherit the dad role, there might be something fairly interesting to explore there, but at this stage it might seem a little unnecessary and certainly a desperate move. Oh, they’re already making a sequel due for release next year? That’s just sad. SSP

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Review: The Double (2013)

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Sam S-P

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Surely it goes without saying by now that Richard Ayoade is one talented gent. I loved his feature directing debut SUBMARINE, and THE DOUBLE takes everything that worked in that film and amps it up, refines it, and takes it to a much weirder and far more twisted place. I can’t pretend I understood everything that happens (or doesn’t) especially towards the end of the film, but I don’t really think Ayoade intended it all, or perhaps much of it at all, to be easily pinned down, so that’s probably the point.

In a nondescript time and place, Simon (Jesse Eisenberg), an unremarkable office drone, is used to being unappreciated or flat-out ignored by his colleagues and most painfully, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), the woman he secretly harbors feelings for. His life is monotonous, but he just accepts it as the way the world is, the way anyone like him would be treated, until his doppelganger James (also Eisenberg) arrives on the scene and quickly becomes the most popular guy in the office. Hannah falls for James and he is proclaimed the company’s brightest hope for the future by the boss, Mr Papadopoulos (Wallace Shawn), despite being exactly the same person as Simon, only with charisma. As James worms his way ever further into Simon’s life, events take a far more sinister turn…

Some films are so visually beautiful I get chills. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that The Double is by far the best-looking film of 2013, and no, I haven’t forgotten about GRAVITY. Every shot is painstakingly constructed and unavoidably eye-catching. The whole film has this sickly yellow-green filter over it and impenetrable, almost German Expressionist shadows, all of which reflect the story’s main themes of alienation and paranoia brilliantly. Then the camera ethereally floats along long corridors like it’s tentatively navigating some vivid nightmare, and the film itself certainly becomes that as Simon’s real-or-not torment escalates.

Jesse Eisenberg gives a career-best performance twice. The subtle differences he brings to the characters of Simon and James, the way they act, talk, move, hold themselves has clearly been given much thought. Also, to provoke such a different reaction from the viewer to two characters with the same face is a remarkable achievement. We always feel sorry for Simon, we want him to be loved and find just a little happiness, even if he is a bit pathetic and stalker-y, and we quickly grow to detest James for being a despicable human being, despite his bottomless pit of charm. Mia Wasikowska makes her mark too with an affectingly fragile turn. She is far from just a token love interest, and she hints at her underlying personality and mental health issues without ever boiling Hannah’s characterisation down to a simple diagnosis. Ever since she paid her Hollywood dues with Tim Burton’s staggeringly miscalculated ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Wasikowska has been allowed to prove herself to be an extremely versatile young performer with the wide range of brave roles she has taken on.

The film isn’t set in a particular time or place, and most of the traditional building blocks of storytelling are deliberately unclear (for instance, it’s used as a gag that we don’t ever find out what Simon’s company actually does). Whatever his job entails, his office environment is part BRAZIL, part THE IT CROWD (certainly a unique combination). Ayoade stole the show in pretty much every scene in The IT Crowd playing super-nerd Moss, but the parallels between his film and Graham Linehan’s TV show, whether intentional or not, are hugely noticeable, from the amusing exaggeration of incomprehensible and pointless office life to satirical company training/marketing ads even to a sudden hilarious cameo by Chris Morris. It’s also nice that Ayoade managed to find a part for pretty much all of the key cast of Submarine, from interesting supporting roles for Yasmin Paige and Noah Taylor as the boss’s deviant daughter and a moody colleague, to amusing cameos from Craig Roberts and Paddy Considine as a baby-faced cop and a campy TV sci-fi character, respectively.

Some filmmakers put their personalities straight up on screen, and Richard Ayoade doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed to bare his soul to the world, eccentricities and all, through his work. Like Submarine, it’s a filmmaking style that speaks to the alienated, to those who see the world in a different way, and in turn are seen as different by the world. The Double has a lot going for it, from great performances to thematic richness and multiple ways to read the increasingly deranged plot and even horror elements that hark back to Germanic folklore, but the very best thing it does is to evoke a feeling of intense uneasiness leading into an exploration of outright madness. Submarine went from pleasant Welsh whimsy to bittersweet life affirmation, but The Double just goes from dark to darker. It’s funny in an underplayed kind of way, but by God it’s black stuff. SSP

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Top 10 Killer Henchmen (RIP Richard Kiel)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Sam S-P

Jaws

It really has been a tough year to be a film lover. The latest big screen icon to shuffle off his mortal coil is Richard Kiel, who died on Wednesday in hospital aged 74. A man with undeniable presence, Kiel made the most of the incredible stature he was born with, and his acting career was long and fruitful. He will of course be best remembered as one of the most iconic adversaries of Roger Moore’s James Bond, the metallic grinning behemoth Jaws, and to celebrate his most famous role, I thought I’d count down my Top 10 Killer Henchmen on film. I wonder who could be at number 1…

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10. The Twins (Adrian & Neil Rayment) – THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003)

Not a whole lot in THE MATRIX RELOADED worked, but the Wachowskis did bring us a pair of pretty fun henchmen. Decked dreads to toes in white, unbelievably fast and with the terrifying ability to phase into wraith form, they are a royal pain in the asses of Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) as they try to get valuable ally The Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) to safety along a packed freeway…

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9. Kevin (Elijah Wood) – SIN CITY (2005)

What kind of opponent would be worthy of fighting the hulking Marv (Mickey Rourke)? Frodo, that’s who! Elijah Wood has now played his fair share of psychos since he left Middle Earth, but Kevin was his first and arguably his best. Deceptively nonthreatening with his slight physique and casual clothes, this killer is completely silent, with cat-like agility and has a shudder-inducing taste in midnight snacks.

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8. Cunningham (Tim Roth) – ROB ROY (1995)

I’ve always preferred ROB ROY to BRAVEHEART, and the villains are a huge part of that. John Hurt is the big bad, but Tim Roth takes the uber-bastard henchman role as Cunningham, a foul fop light on his feet and quick with a blade. The way he flounces around in his floppy shirts, tights and powdered wig, you’d be forgiven for underestimating him. Then, he kicks Liam Neeson’s ass in fine fashion!

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7. Savin (James Badge Dale) – IRON MAN 3 (2013)

I loved pretty much everything about Shane Black’s IRON MAN 3, but the chief henchman Savin, a strutting, mischievous heat projecting terminator, was one of my favourite elements. James Badge Dale just looks like he’s having so much fun and gives him such charisma as he morphs seamlessly from cocky hired intimidator having a pissing contest with Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan to superpowered Presidential assassin/decoy.

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6. Oddjob (Harold Sakata) – GOLDFINGER (1964)

He’s a  smiley Japanese man in an Edwardian suit who carries his master Goldfinger’s (Gert Fröbe) golf clubs and kills opponents with a razor-sharp bowler hat. He’s fun, he’s larger-than life, he’s ridiculous, what more could you want from a killer henchman?

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5. Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) – X-MEN (2000)/X-MEN 2 (2003)/X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006)

It’s easy to forget that before Jennifer Lawrence inherited the role for the prequels and turned Raven Darkholme into a misunderstood anti-hero, blue shapeshifter Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) was a cold-hearted killer bitch. She was great as Magneto’s (Ian McKellen) spy/seductress/muscle, and Romijn gave her great physicality and deadly intensity. She stole the show in X-MEN and X2, and then Brett Ratner got hold of her and found her surplus to requirements. Moron.

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4. Kroenen (Ladislav Beran) – HELLBOY (2004)

Nazis have been the go-to no explanation required bad guys at the movies for a long time, and the genius that is Guillermo del Toro gave us the best we’ve seen in ages. Kroenen is a silent, mutilated zombie with a penchant for fancy blades and fancier designer gas masks. He’s nigh-on unstoppable, lethal and an undeniably cool-looking dude.

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3. Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) – KILL BILL: VOL. 1 (2003)

Nobody is better at elevating low art to high art than Quentin Tarantino. In KILL BILL, The Bride (Uma Thurman) easily cuts her way through an army of disposable manpower in Kato masks,  but before she can claim revenge against O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) she must also face some walking fetish fuel carrying a meteor hammer. As the film’s narration quite clearly establishes, Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) may look innocent but she is also quite mad and very good at what she does, as the brutal duel that follows proves.

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2. Hammer Girl/Baseball Bat Man (Julie Estelle/Very Tri Yulisman) – THE RAID 2 (2014)

Gareth Evans produced two of the best deranged supporting villains outside of a Bond film, and certainly the most memorable of the past decade. A brother and sister team who love each other very much, and love being paid to put their unique weapons of choice to good use even more, Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle) and Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) provide the ultraviolent action highlights to the excellent THE RAID 2.

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1. Jaws (Richard Kiel) – THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)/MOONRAKER (1979)

Who else? Jaws is a masterful supporting character performance from Richard Kiel. He could easily have been just another blunt instrument, but Kiel brings out something much more than his innate imposing physique. He becomes a character who is relentless, determined and increasingly frustrated at his inability to squash a much smaller posh man. He’s one of the best things about one of the best of all Bond films, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, but even in the laughable MOONRAKER, Kiel gives Jaws added depth. You don’t tend to care about many henchmen on film, but you can’t say that about Jaws – he’s a strangely loveable killing machine. SSP

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A Few Thoughts More: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Sam S-P

Andrew Garfield

I hated THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 when I saw it earlier this year. I wasn’t planning on watching it again, but sometimes a movie you detest just turns up in your house and you’re strangely compelled to put them on. I’m also a bit of a sucker at giving superhero movies especially a second chance. I mean, I’ve already given GHOST RIDER and FANTASTIC 4: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER another shot this year, so will I never learn? ASM2 still terrible, but I’ve had a second go at processing the extent to which it doesn’t work, and come up with a few more ideas. By the way, a few spoilers ahead.

One of the driving forces behind this iteration of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), especially since the events of the last film, is his moral turmoil at maintaining a relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Peter breaks up with Gwen again here, then a few months later she suggests they stay just as friends to make things less complicated, to which Peter heartily agrees. The trouble with this is that he’s still going to be putting Gwen in danger. It doesn’t matter whether their relationship is romantic or not, he’s still Spider-Man and she’s still at risk as long as colourful bad guys are coming after him. I know she’s not a passive damsel in distress and can handle herself, but at the same time, she’s not superhumanly strong, agile and durable. Yet Marc Webb and his writers try (and fail) at fooling us into thinking everything will be OK as long as Peter and Gwen aren’t snogging.

When will Hollywood learn once and for all that you show, and don’t tell. Film is a visual medium – guys in suits spying on Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) from a van and explaining to the audience how it will be good business sense for Oscorp to kick out the guy with his name on the stationery isn’t interesting!

Speaking of Harry, shouldn’t there have been at least one throwaway line in the last film that mentioned his childhood friendship with Peter? Something like: “I sure miss Harry…”. There also seems to have been next to no thought put into the Green Goblin’s genesis this time round. In Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN, it was clear – Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) tested an experimental military-grade drug on himself and it drove him mad in addition to making him super-strong. Here, Harry apparently needs the same super-spider venom that transformed Peter into Spider-Man to cure his terminal hereditary disease despite seeing the plans on his company’s database for a suit of power armour that grants accelerated healing to its wearer. He only dons the armour once the venom starts wreaking havoc on his nervous system – why didn’t he just climb in the armour and not bother with pumping this unpredictable substance into his body?

Andrew Garfield might be a good actor, but aside from THE SOCIAL NETWORK, I’m seeing very little evidence to prove it. He looks like someone confident pretending to be the opposite, and just tries too hard to play the gawky teen, full of unconvincing physical tics and quirks, plus his Spidey-zingers which he just about got away with last time are starting to feel stale. He does have one really good scene with Aunt May (thank God for Sally Field) but it doesn’t quite justify the amount of time we have to spend with him.

I’ve already talked about how the makers of ASM2 should have been sued by Warner Bros for plagiarising WATCHMEN, but they even rip off Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN 2 in that they have exactly the same scene to prompt Spidey’s return to duty – Aunt May is throwing out Uncle Ben’s stuff and wonders where on Earth New York’s favourite superhero has gone when the city needs him the most.

I’ll admit, Gwen Stacy’s death scene works. It’s quietly beautiful and pretty poignant, but it’s ruined in the film’s concluding scenes. Peter mopes around the graveyard for a while as the seasons flash past (how many times have we seen that?) then when he re-dons the red and blue for the finale, he’s exactly the same person. He still struts around and still cracks wise, and doesn’t seem to have learned anything.

At least someone at Sony came to their senses and cut a scene they filmed where Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) returned from beyond the grave. At least they didn’t ruin the only scene in the film that really worked. Peter’s dad has to die and it only remains affecting for the audience and important to the character’s development and driving motivation if he stays that way. SSP

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Review: The Brothers Bloom (2008)

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Sam S-P

Brothers Bloom

This year, Rian Johnson was announced as the director of STAR WARS EPISODE VIII, which is a truly enticing prospect. He’s a writer-director I’ve only come into contact with over the past couple of years, first through the sharp time travel thriller LOOPER, then I saw his masterful highschool noir, BRICK. His second feature film THE BROTHERS BLOOM is just as unique, twisted and entertaining, if not quite as consistent, as Johnson’s two other work, and though it’s essentially a farcical con-man movie, it’s not really about what happens in the story, but the act of storytelling itself.

The film follows a lifelong partnership between siblings Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and his younger brother Bloom (Adrien Brody) who have been executing ambitious cons for profit since they were children. Stephen’s meticulous planning and Bloom’s ability to lie and create characters have served the duo well in their decades-long crime spree, but when Bloom falls for their latest mark, Penelope (Rachel Weisz), an eccentric heiress, what is supposed to be their final con proves to be far from simple.

The film’s setting is timeless, the mix of fashions, technology and language appearing to be belong to all an no particular period. This lends a certain level of fantasy to everything Stephen tells us, so we never really know what, if anything, we see actually happened. Stephen keeps insisting throughout that everything that occurs, whether good or bad, is all part of his plan (and at several points he produces his plan on paper to prove as such), but as Bloom and Penelope go ever more off-script, we are asked to wonder just how much has been planned, and how far ahead Stephen is really looking. Wisely, Johnson doesn’t ever provide us with a definitive answer, so we can read Stephen and his level of scheming to whatever extent we like. Is just lucky, or is he a bona fide genius?

Brody and Ruffalo convince as siblings whose relationship may go through frequent rough patches (usually when Bloom is duped into doing something particularly immoral by Stephen, and is haunted by his conscience), but their brotherly bond remains unbreakable – you don’t have to like your family, they say, but you have to love them. Brody makes Bloom appealingly earnest and morally conflicted, and Ruffalo brings a shed-load of charm to Stephen, and really sells it that he is always plotting, always at least two steps ahead. Bloom seems to be “done” with the life of crime every other scene, but Stephen always manages to tempt him back, usually with the help of his formidable, almost supernaturally resourceful silent bodyguard/fixer Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). While Brody and Ruffalo both turn in fine performances, the film belongs to the ladies, with the mesmirising Kikuchi communicating a staggering amount with a slight change in expression or physical tic (their plan going a little wrong does at one point force her, hilariously, to say something), and Weisz, who creates a captivatingly daffy manic depressive “hobby collector” in Penelope.

I wasn’t so enraptured with Robbie Coltraine playing “The Curator” who may, or may not be Belgian (judging by his accent, probably not), nor by Maximilian Schell’s “Diamond Dog”, the Blooms’ former boss who looks and sounds like a villain from a pulp comic series you’ve never heard of. Both of these characters come from the portion of the film that doesn’t really work, when Johnson tries to bring in a credible threat to proceedings, elements of a serious crime film, we just can’t take it seriously because everything else we see is so throwaway and weird.

It’s kind of the point of the film that you can barely keep up with what is going on – we see events through Bloom’s eyes, and generally remain bewildered by Stephen’s “bigger picture”. That might be seen as a weakness by some, viewers who like their stories to be clearly defined and unambiguous, but I like how open and nebulous Johnson has left the plot and the way it is communicated (or not) to us. As I said, it’s not a story as much as a demonstration of storytelling and the embellishments that can be applied to narration, so it almost doesn’t matter that it’s a little incoherent.

A few of the jokes don’t quite land, and even in a film where big story event signposts are few and far between, some scenes feel unnecessary and don’t really go anywhere. A drastic final act change in tone seems particularly out of place, taking the film into a different genre entirely, but Johnson and his cast thankfully get things back on track again for an affecting final few minutes.

I can’t claim that everyone will like The Brothers Bloom, in fact, if you’re against an open style of storytelling that offers very few answers at the end, you’ll probably outright hate it. But not me, I’m might not be quite as captivated with Johnson’s second feature as his first, third, or his BREAKING BAD episodes, but I’m certainly glad I’ve seen it, a unique and odd experience that has allowed me to think a different way about telling (or not telling) a tale on film, and about the power the narrator wields. SSP

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Series Retrospective: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Sam S-P

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Ten films, six years, and two distinct phases later and Marvel are sitting pretty as kings of the proverbial movie castle. Try and cast yourself back to before Tony Stark strapped on his first scrappy suit of armour to escape from terrorists. It’s not easy to remember the film landscape before Marvel started overseeing the production of their own movies from start to finish.

In terms of Superhero blockbusters, the situation didn’t look all that promising in 2008. X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN, the twin architects of modern comic book franchises had petered out and died after lacklustre third instalments. We were still two months away from finding out that Christopher Nolan hadn’t just gotten lucky with BATMAN BEGINS, and over a year away from seeing the long-delayed film adaptation of WATCHMEN.

Then along came Kevin Feige, a man with the ambition to change in-house blockbuster filmmaking forever, who decided to try and launch one of the most profitable and well-received franchises in history with a director of kids’ movies and a burnt-out character actor.

What follows is a breakdown of Marvel’s first decalogy, what worked and what didn’t, and how I rank them from worst to best. Some spoilers follow, but surely you can’t have avoided seeing at least some of these superhero extravaganzas?

10. THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)

None of the performances in THE INCREDIBLE HULK are bad, just a little underwhelming. Norton, Tyler, Hurt, Roth are all fine, but none of them give anything more than they have to. The movie presses the reset button on Bruce Banner’s story but recaps his origins in the opening titles (I’m not complaining about this) and unfolds as a chase movie with horror elements. On a technical level, it’s fine, but key character beats and relationships feel rushed (especially compared to Ang Lee’s melodramatic take on the story) and the finale is just a big, ugly, boring punch-up in the dark.

9. IRON MAN 2 (2010)

Perhaps it was inevitable that the quality tailed off somewhat in Marvel’s first sequel. Whereas Tony Stark’s debut was lean and focussed and fresh, IRON MAN 2 is mostly bloated, plodding and lacking in charm. Sam Rockwell is amusing as a wannabe Tony Stark, and Don Cheadle and Scarlett Johansson are solid additions to the Marvel canon, but Mickey Rourke makes little impression, and the exploration a conspiracy tied to Stark Sr. doesn’t really work. The action and visuals are decent, but the whole thing just feels like it’s biding time.

8. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)

CAPTAIN AMERICA is a decent movie, just not a particularly good superhero movie. It works really well as a sharp critique, even satire, of wartime jingoism and propaganda, but as a superhero story, it’s not very exciting, and I really don’t like the cartoonily evil Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and his incredibly dull Nazi Hydra henchmen. Chris Evans is an appropriately earnest action lead, and is ably supported by Hayley Atwell and Tommy Lee Jones, but I was still left underwhelmed in the end.

7. THOR: THE DARK WORLD (2013)

The God of Thunder’s first appearance was where the Marvel Cinematic Universe got weird. In THE DARK WORLD, the weirdness is expanded ambitiously outwards and the wider Marvel Universe, if not exactly fleshed out (that happens later), is certainly teased. Like the first THOR, the film’s biggest strength is the very human comic streak, but GAME OF THRONES director Alan Taylor also adds scale and tangibility. More Loki never hurts either, but the film does feel over-edited to accommodate him, and like Red Skull, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) is another villain who’s too thinly sketched and black-and-white. My full review of Thor 2 can be found here.

6. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014)

I wasn’t as sold on THE WINTER SOLDIER as everyone else. It’s certainly a step up from Cap’s previous outing, Evans, Johansson and Anthony Mackie bring their A-game, and the action is superb (as good, and even occasionally better than THE AVENGERS), but the big picture just didn’t hold for me. I admire Marvel for keeping the many secrets under wraps, and it’s certainly ambitious, but the revelation of a decade-spanning Nazi Hydra conspiracy that leads to the third act action I found quite laughable, and a little tired and derivative to boot. My full review of Cap 2 can be found here.

5. IRON MAN (2008)

What a kickoff. It’s now impossible to imagine anyone else as the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and Robert Downey Jr. could arguably hold up the entire film on charisma alone. Not that he has to – Jon Favreau sets just the right tone, a balance between grittiness and lightheartedness, a tone that is carried on by the vast majority of Marvel’s films – it takes itself seriously, but not too seriously. IRON MAN has among the best cinematic tellings of a superhero origin story, and just the right split of action/character stuff. Downey was born to play Tony Stark, and Jeff Bridges is always fun even if his character is a little one-dimensional.

4. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

Probably not quite as anarchic as you might expect a major blockbuster from James “SUPER” Gunn to be, but GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY still had an air of mischief about it, and could be considered the first outright comedy Marvel has produced. Marvel have pulled the “They’re dead…ah! Fooled you!” trick a few too many times now, but this oddball team were a joy to be around, and made you truly thankful they all made it through. with the addition of a pleasing, if familiar STAR WARS-y plot structure, vibrant makeup and effects, and the promise of much more to come, this was something pretty special. My full review of Guardians can be found here.

3. THOR (2011)

Only a director like Kenneth Branagh could make this work. It’s half-HAMLET, half-FLASH GORDON, and all entertaining, even if some of the SFX are a little off. It’s thematically grand, theatrically performed, and gets the split right between galaxy-spanning pathos and Earth-bound sitcom humour. The film gave us Marvel’s most beautiful score from Patrick Doyle, the series’ best love-to-hate character in Loki (Tom Hiddleston), a scene stealing comic supporting character in Darcy (Kat Dennings), and refreshingly, a male object of lust in Thor (Chris Hemsworth) for Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) to turn into a giggling schoolgirl over.

2. THE AVENGERS (2012)

This shouldn’t have worked. There were too many plates spinning, too much depended on it. Then Joss Whedon proceeded to demonstrate just why he’s one of the most talented men working in the film and television industry. The spectacle on offer is still the level to beat by all competing blockbusters since, but Whedon also brought wit aplenty, aesthetic confidence and a soul to proceedings. Great performances across the board don’t hurt either – Downey, Evans, Hemsworth and Hiddleston make the most of their ensemble screentime, but it’s Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson who steal the show playing vulnerable characters trying their utmost to hide their true selves.

1. IRON MAN 3 (2013)

I understand why people have issues with this one, but I adore it. It’s an unavoidably weird mix of the usual Marvel fireworks, middle finger genre iconoclasm and 1970s James Bond rompiness. Shane Black (and co-writer Drew Pearce) were the perfect men to prove that Marvel still has some tricks up their sleeves, and they make the conclusion to Tony Stark’s character journey funny, satirical and satisfying. Downey is electric once again, Guy Pearce gradually peels back layers of his devious slip-on shoes wearer to become MCU’s most interesting villain after Loki, and Ben Kingsley now has a triumvirate of very different tour-de-force performances – Gandhi, Don Logan and Trevor Slattery. What a dinner party they’d make. My full take on Iron Man 3 can be found here. SSP

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Review: Doctor Who: Deep Breath (2014)

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Sam S-P

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On Christmas Day 2013, Matt Smith regenerated into a very different actor. Arguably no more drastic a change personality-wise than it was from Christopher Eccleston to David Tennant two regenerations ago, but certainly a world apart from youngish David Tennant to the even younger Matt Smith. I doubt anyone really doubted Peter Capaldi’s acting abilities when he took on the role of the Twelfth Doctor, but there were questions about what his advanced (at least, compared to Smith and Tennant) age and perceived spikiness (thanks, mostly, to a certain Mr Tucker) would mean for DOCTOR WHO’S future. With the opening episode of Season 8 of the revived series, many of these questions have been answered, and though plot-wise it was a relatively stripped back affair, showrunner Steven Moffat being showrunner Steven Moffat couldn’t resist starting to lay his trail of narrative breadcrumbs for this season’s story arc.

It’s Victorian London, and a newly-regenerated, unstable and confused Doctor (Peter Capaldi) has a mystery to solve. There’s a dinosaur in the Thames, people are spontaneously combusting, and there’s a restaurant that’s not a restaurant to investigate. Far from in his best state of mind, the Doctor reunites with Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax (Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart and Dan Starkey), who, in addition to their love of sleuthing the supernatural, may have a thing or two to teach Clara (Jenna Coleman) about the man she knows better than anyone, but no longer recognises…

Capaldi was spellbinding from the off, taking forceful ownership of the character and the show as a schizophrenic Doctor staggering out of a crashed TARDIS, then as his mind more-or-less-settled, he became something equally compelling, sympathetic, scary and funny. The Twelfth Doctor been described in the press coverage leading up to broadcast as not caring much for humanity anymore. Not much evidence of that so far, though he does seem particularly indignant (much like Tennant’s Tenth) at cruelty towards non-humans. There’s some nice humour from Capaldi too, from the frequent references to his accent crossing the boarder (and everyone else’s accents therefore having “a defect”), and some light self-deprication about his angry eyebrows and his new appearance not exactly being box fresh, including the wonderful question he poses himself after looking in a mirror: “who frowned me this face?”. He also has a great, if fleeting moment of subtle performance, when the Doctor shows the episode’s antagonist his reflection to make a point, and in the process catches a glimpse of his own new face and seems to be holding back a shudder.

Capaldi appears to (whether consciously or not) be referencing previous incarnations of the Doctor – a bit of Tennant here, a bit of Eccleston and Baker (both) there – but he also manages to bring across aspects to the character that have never really been touched upon before. Usually, when the Doctor regenerates, his companions are confused at first, but quickly come to accept his new appearance. In Deep Breath, Clara takes the full episode to get used to the new Doctor, and even then she isn’t too sure. Her whole world has been transformed in a split second, her dashing young friend is gone forever. It’s not like Billie Piper’s Rose whose relationship with the Doctor remained more-or-less the same as he hopped back a few years and grew some hair gel. Coleman has a tough job bringing this across but seems to relish the challenge, and Clara doesn’t behave in the most admirable or understanding way, much to Madame Vastra’s chagrin. Capaldi meanwhile makes us realise something new about the Doctor – when he changes, he’s just as scared and confused as his friends are, and he needs their support to get through it. At the finale, the emotional crescendo of the episode peaks as the Doctor heartbreakingly wills Clara to see that he is still the same person. It’s a pretty clever episode about concepts of identity, with plenty of food for thought about a very human trait – being shallow.

It was also a really funny episode, among Moffat’s best, and not overly smug as his humour can tend to be. The return of the Paternoster Gang always helps, and spending more time with Vastra, Jenny and Strax always makes episodes fly by. Strax still gets most of the laughs as usual, and Vastra and Jenny remain an appealing couple. The group’s presence and the entertainment value they provide almost makes me wish for another Earth and time period-bound season like the we saw in the Pertwee era.

As for the new stylistic embellishments, Ben Wheatley, master of disturbing British independent cinema, brings sweeping, trippy flourishes to his cinematography, and a macabre and unhinged  tone to the first of two episodes he’s been invited to direct. Obviously, he can’t really bring much of his love of depravity into play when the whole family is watching, but there is a scene with the Doctor crawling around on the floor like a feral dog in an unlit bedroom, and the episode’s plot, which references one of Moffat’s earlier stories, covers just the kind of creepy material Wheatley’s films do.

We get a new title sequence and re-orchestrated theme tune that might hint at the direction the Twelfth’s tenure is heading. The titles now feature moody clockwork animation and a more industrial sounding dun-dur-dun that could perhaps suggest we’re going to be having a Gothic time of it for the next couple of months. I’m not at all against this, it’s an aesthetic and tone I like, and one that lends itself particularly well to television (I got a particular kick out of PENNY DREADFUL, after all). One can only hope that with this new era of Who, Steven Moffat starts to rein in the drawn-out, convoluted, and ultimately disappointing mysteries that span a season or more. We can but hope. SSP

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“I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.” (RIP Richard Attenborough)

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Sam S-P

It’s been a tough month for my childhood. Two weeks ago we lost Robin Williams, and now we must also bid a fond farewell to Lord Richard Attenborough, actor-director extraordinaire, RADA and BAFTA head, and tireless and passionate supporter of charity.

Attenborough was a key part of my childhood because of one role, that of misguided dreamer John Hammond, the mastermind behind JURASSIC PARK. It was my favourite film when I was growing up, and it still holds a very special place in my heart today. Attenborough brought warmth and a childlike energy at odds with his advanced years, as well as perhaps hinting at a darker nature below the surface, a seemingly harmless, but in the end quite destructive ambition. He really did make John Hammond one of the cuddliest mad scientists in movie history. Yes his Scottish accent was inconsistent at best, but even that added to his charm. As I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I even like Hammond’s flea circus monologue.

Though a successful actor in his youth in films such as BRIGHTON ROCK and THE GREAT ESCAPE, Attenborough was arguably better regarded for his work behind the camera directing thoughtful real-life tales and biopics. Ensemble war film A BRIDGE TOO FAR demonstrated his ambition, and has become a staple of Sunday afternoon telly in the UK, and GANDHI of course won Attenborough a well-deserved Best Director Oscar. He also directed SHADOWLANDS, which is one of my all-time favourite drama films. His chronicle of C.S. Lewis’ (Anthony Hopkins) relationship with Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) tragically cut short by her battle against cancer tugs on the heartstrings without ever becoming sappy, and Attenborough’s assured direction marries a sharp, humanist screenplay by William Nicholson with two faultless lead performances from Hopkins and Winger.

Richard Attenborough was an icon of the British film industry, and the likes of him, so talented in front and behind the camera, such a gifted actor and actor’s director, in addition to all of his philanthropic sidelines, will likely not be seen again for a long time. It’s deeply upsetting that he will now have to be known as the “late great Dickie Attenborough”, but it’s undeniable that he lived a full and fulfilling life. SSP

 

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