It may open with Rose Byrne vomiting into Seth Rogen’s face during sex, but as comedy sequels go, BAD NEIGHBOURS 2 isn’t all that bad. I liked the first film well enough, but I actually think this sequel makes some significant improvements. In a flip on the last film it is Mac and Kelly who have to behave themselves for an arbitrary time limit in order to sell their house, and their new adversaries are a sorority led by Chlöe Grace Moretz whose actions in the plot and our sympathy for them as characters are based on a very real, and very stupid limitation written into American college rules (as Selina Gomez says, Google it). Zac Efron is still the unquestionable MVP – just look at the perfectly timed moment when Teddy has a disgusted epiphany about how sexist every one of the parties his frat house threw. There are plenty of darker and curveball gags in and amongst the expected gross-out humour as well, like when one of the sorority girls says of their first frat party “It was super rapey in there”. I laughed, I still care about these characters. Sometimes, that’s enough. SSP
Review in Brief: Bad Neighbours 2 (2016)
Review in Brief: The Witch (2015/16)
The first half of THE WITCH – slow, rich, slow, unforgiving, slow, naturalistic, and did I mention slow? – is far more successful than the second. There’s a gradual, creeping dread and very little of note that is actually happening. It’s this fear that something might be just around the corner, that we’re just on the verge of a real fright that keeps you on edge here. It’s paranoia over what might happen that gives this story its punch. When the horror finally comes, I’m sorry to say it’s not that successful or that scary. Horror films have scared us with not a lot before (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT) but if you feel you absolutely have to show something at the end, make it something worthy of the build. The matter of who is responsible for the strange happenings is kept pretty ambiguous until right at the end, then the reveal kills all of that and leaves nothing in doubt. I got a strange dark comic thrill from William’s (Ralph Ineson) very Medieval solution to all of his children accusing each other of being witches, and the film doesn’t flinch from the harshness of living in this time and place, but in the end it just didn’t scare me. SSP
Review: Manchester by the Sea (2016)
We’ve all had moments like this, maybe not on a boat: Amazon Studios/K Period Media
The Oscars are almost upon us and once again I’ve only managed to see about half of the movies in the running. LA LA LAND might be the bookies’ favourite, but MANCHESTER BY THE SEA is my pick to take the top honour. Sometimes honesty and groundedness is more lasting than heady escapism, and Kenneth Lonergan’s drama certainly made far more of an impact on me.
Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is forced to take a sabbatical and travel from Boston to Manchester to look after his nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) following the sudden death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler). Lee does not want to stay in a place filled with so many painful memories and is far from the most ideal, or willing guardian, and Patrick responds badly to the interruption of his full social life. Will they be able to find a compromise and just get along?
Affleck has always been good, but he’s never quite been this good. He turns Lee’s social awkwardness into an art form- at first, you think he just doesn’t care because he’s not a people person (see his passive-aggressive responses to his building tenants and his blunt refusal of any advance made by a woman). But as the story progresses, you come to realise how much daily agony he is in over his past and that he is simply protecting himself, his only way to get through life and stick to routines with as few personal ties and distractions as possible. I’m not convinced Lee was ever a particularly extrovert person even before his tragedy – we see him open and happy with ex-wife Randy (Michelle Williams) in flashback, but he always had a confident and determined older brother in Joe to take the majority of the limelight and to look out for him.
While Michelle Williams gets second billing, and Randy is an important contributing factor to where Lee finds himself, she is hardly in the film in terms of screentime and the emotional core comes from the very real reluctant relationship between Lee and Patrick and the unflinchingly honest way Affleck and Hedges play it. In their hands, faltering relationship advice from an emotionally repressed guardian and bickering about priorities becomes far more compelling than a marriage that can’t survive a tragic accident. The supporting players (especially Kyle Chandler and CJ Wilson) all put in strong work, but it all comes back sooner or later to the reluctant family forced together by circumstance.
The film wasn’t as unrelentingly miserable as I expected, either. Serene seascapes juxtapose the trauma and tragedy is punctuated with darkly funny moments, just as real life is. Patrick insists on seeing his father’s body and does a full 180 straight out the door with a grimace and a “nope” immediately upon seeing the cadaver (“How does he look?”/”He looks dead”). Bravely, even the story’s emotional crest, where we witness the very moment of Lee’s eternal torment, is broken by a problem with a stubborn ambulance gurney.
I did find the music a little incessant at times. When emotions are running so high and the situation is so grounded in the real, you really don’t need any more prompts to feel. I’m also not sure the loose plot structure with past and present blurring to represent Lee’s hazy view of things was entirely necessary. For me, the story might have had an even greater emotional crescendo if the story was told straight and chronologically, especially considering the lengthy runtime, but that could be down to your preference in filmmaking style.
Though faultless performances and characterisation across the board and a sure hand behind the camera, Manchester by the Sea grabs you by the soul and doesn’t let go. I know La La Land is lovely, but this is the real keeper, one that’ll keep eliciting a reaction as long as modern families are funny, sad and complicated units. SSP
Review in Brief: My Scientology Movie (2016)
I’m not the least bit surprised Louis Theroux chose this topic for his first documentary feature. Nobody combines disarming politeness, stillness and causing mild annoyance in his subjects as interview techniques quite like Theroux. The film spotlights what is widely known about Scientology, but also highlights lesser-known and more sinister aspects of the faith: deliberately fostering high-profile celebrity members, paying to advance up the ranks and the aggressive hostility shown towards anyone asking…well, anything. Theroux might undersell the subject matter through self-aware B-Roll and reconstruction (though the latter was unavoidable) but MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE remains funny and disturbing, but never more enrapturing or entertaining than when Theroux holds his ground and you find two parties unwilling to talk to each other but quite willing to film each other in order to s how the footage that those on their side. It’s eye-opening, entertaining and chilling stuff. SSP
Review: The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)
Did not consider capes when he built this: DC/LEGO/Warner Bros Animation
The opening gambit in THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE has Will Arnett’s gravelly Caped Crusader passing comment on the logos of all the production companies involved, and this made me wish he could do the same for some of the Oscar front-runners. The self-referential tone continues throughout the film, though you wonder if they’d have been more brutal in their dismantling of BATMAN V SUPERMAN and SUICIDE SQUAD if they weren’t all in production at the same time. And if Warner Bros let them. The fact remains that this nearly the best cinematically-released Batman movie since THE DARK KNIGHT.
After saving the day once again, Batman (Will Arnett) denies the Joker’s (Zach Galifianakis) place as his arch-nemesis, and thus drives the Clown Prince of Crime to seek the biggest, meanest supervillains around in order to make a statement. Batman must gather his allies Robin (Michael Cera), Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) and Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) to face the biggest threat in Gotham City’s history, and in the process perhaps he will learn to stop being such a miserable loner.
Lego Batman digs playfully at Batmen past and present, with Tim Burton/Michael Keaton coming under fire for “the parade with the Prince music”, Adam West being “That weird one in the 60s” and even Christopher Nolan’s much-lauded serious treatment of Batman is mocked with the deadpan”All the important movies start with a black screen”. While this film gets very big and very silly towards the end – to the extent that there’s sometimes far too much visual information on screen at once to get the desired toybox car crash effect – at least they acknowledge the ridiculousness of the enterprise. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting the bizarreness of comic book material, with emphasising that this isn’t real life and these worlds operate according to their own laws. Just have fun with it. If you’re going to have an invasion by outlandish threats from another dimension and an entire city teetering on the edge of a literal void, make it bold, colourful and over-the-top, don’t just do a shower of grey rubble.
They dip into Warner Bros’ vast back catalogue of IP in addition to DC Comics (having the characters from the two biggest fantasy franchises in history at the ready is certainly handy from a marketing perspective) and cast an impressive array of talent to cameo. It’s great that Billy Dee Williams finally gets to play Two-Face after 28 years, but why not give him more than two lines?
The film plays with Batman and the Joker’s complex relationship in the unexpected manner of a kind of twisted rom-com. It’s Arnett’s show, but he bounces beautifully off the ensemble, chiefly as a reluctant father to Cera’s upbeat Robin and a reluctant frenemy to Galifianakis’ needy Joker. Everyone knows how good he was as a parody of the gritty take on Batman from THE LEGO MOVIE (“Darkness! No parents!”), but Arnett actually manages something few previous performers of the role have managed: genuine character development. This is a film about Bruce Wayne moving on, finally letting his guard down and embracing a new family. It’s about not being afraid to be hurt again. It’s pretty deep for a toy-based kids movie.
For years now, Warner Bros have been killing it with their animated superhero movies. Once again, by having a little fun and lovingly referencing, rather than worshiping, the source material, they have produced something hugely entertaining and worth your time. The gags come thick and fast, the busily detailed animation gives you plenty of eye-candy and the vocal talent provides plenty of feelings to feel. I don’t know how much further this particular joke can be stretched, though it’ll probably do for just as long as the live-action DC adaptations suck. SSP
Review in Brief: The Girl with all the Gifts (2016)
It’s THE LAST OF US meets 28 DAYS LATER, and features the politest, most adorable zombie ever committed to film. Considering the scale of the production, its unavoidable Britishness, the joins occasionally show, but mostly THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS is effective, tense and eerie. The film’s strongest stretch is the opening, where you are given space to work out this strange and sinister world for yourself. It relies a little too much on formulae later on, and eventually Glenn Close starts to laboriously explain everything, but throughout the story is kept compelling by the chemistry between “hungry” (alt terms for the undead shared with another nice twist on the zombie movie, WARM BODIES) newcomer Sennia Nanua and her escort/teacher/surrogate mother played with warmth by Gemma Arterton. It might not end up quite as individual as it hoped to be, but because it gets the key relationship just right, The Girl with all the Gifts works really well as a story on its own terms. SSP
Review in Brief: Jane Got a Gun (2016)
JANE GOT A GUN is a boring movie. That’s not a comment on shootouts being few and far between – UNFORGIVEN and THE HOMESMAN took their time, but it got deep into what made their characters. Here we have Natalie Portman and Joel Edgerton with no chemistry and few defining characteristics. On the rare occasion when its allowed to be its own thing, Jane Got a Gun becomes unpleasant: “He said take care of her. Not sure what he meant by that so I took a guess”. While we are given plenty of flashbacks, very few are illuminating. Flashbacks as an editing technique are for the express purpose of character and plot development, and Jane Got a Gun somehow avoids doing either when it looks back. To give credit where it’s due, Jane Got a Gun is shot and lit very nicely (props to DP Mandy Walker) but that isn’t enough for it to stand out on its own terms. SSP
Netflix Original Triple Bill
You have to say this for Netflix: their original films are an eclectic mix of stories. Here’s my take on just three examples to be found on the ever more interesting and diverse streaming service.
Babysitter turned abductor: Netflix
TALLULAH (2016) Is TALLULAH anything more than an incessantly smug indie? Maybe a little bit more. A little bit.
Tallulah is mostly horrible and uninteresting people being horrible and uninteresting. Thank goodness Ellen Page is so charismatic because the character of Lu is unappealing from the off. Fine, do what you want to do with your life, be free, but who do you think you are chastising a loved one for missing their mother or wanting some stability in their life? She demonstrates basic human decency but is otherwise a selfish and irritating protagonist. Allison Janney is great of course, but that’s like saying water is wet. Speaking of water, character highlights for Margo include finding a release by letting her divorce papers drift away from her in the bath then hastily hair-drying them in the next scene.
A privileged mother who it’s “hard to make excuses for”. The emotions of the film are honest, and so are the performances, but I’m not really sure what it’s trying to say beyond “people suck”. The film’s style is mostly naturalistic accept when people float into space, grounded until an upping of the stakes and a required suspension of disbelief at the sluggishness of the manhunt that makes up the film’s finale. It’s an interesting enough watch but I can’t say it had a major emotional impact on me.
Getting handsy (sorry): Netflix
MASCOTS (2016) This is no THIS IS SPINAL TAP. You know what you’re going to get from a Christopher Guest project, but his fake rock doc really was lightning in a bottle and MASCOTS just isn’t.
There’s some nice low-key bittersweet commentary on anyone with passion for alternative lifestyles: “I got an honourable mention, which is like first place, but the weird first place”. Tom Bennett and Christopher Moynihan serve as the dual hearts of the piece and you care for their characters, even if there is little tension in the mascot competition itself where the former’s Hedgehog and the latter’s plumber put their all into routines for a tiny audience.
The channel interested in broadcasting the event, The Gluten Free Channel, “runs in over two cities nationwide” and never got over being branded “the channel that killed Santa Claus” after a stunt went awry. Darker jokes like this makes Mascots worth a watch, as do some pleasingly bizarre sights: a mascot funeral with an elephant in full costume lying in a coffin and a dance number with a plumber chasing a giant turd around a stage. Moments such as this are sadly few and far between, and while Guest doesn’t often do “laugh out loud”, in a comedy you do want more consistent laughs of any kind.
Bright screens big city: Netflix
iBOY (2017) The graphics on show here may be outdated, but this little movie’s heart is definitely in the right place. iBOY may in fact be just the right superhero for this generation: a tech-savvy teen vigilante cleaning up the streets and finding his place in the world. Like Spider-Man without the spandex and the latest Apple products lodged in his noggin.
The film boasts two excellent and endearing performances from Bill Milner (SON OF RAMBOW) and Maisie Williams (GAME OF THRONES) and a gloriously incongruous one from Miranda Richardson as a kick-ass grandma. Yes, Miranda Richardson is now old enough to be playing someone’s grandma.
The first half of the film is a well-intentioned and pretty gritty chronicle of inner-city life with an awkward teen with tech powers taking the fight to the dealers who own his neighbourhood. The later stretch with a final showdown between iBoy and Rory Kinnear as an East End Kingpin (snigger) never really convinces, and you kind yourself wishing this could have manifested as a TV series giving characters more room to breathe. It’s zippy enough and the central relationships are likeable, but for all the swearing and violence towards teenagers, this could have been darker and more complex. SSP
Review in Brief: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
MISS PEREGRINE is jam-packed with ideas, particularly on an aesthetic level (typical Tim Burton). It’s nice to see Burton acknowledge that other colours exist, and the world he has created with author Ransom Riggs is vivid and pleasingly warped. He really gets to go to down on the macabre, to the extent that some images might be too disturbing for the young (stuff involving eyes and corpses). The mythology is admittedly awkwardly introduced and the film as a whole is a bit too long, but it’s a lot of fun to watch Eva Green and Samuel L Jackson chewing scenery voraciously and the action is fun and varied throughout. My highlight: puppeteer of homunculi Enoch (Finlay MacMillan) raising a squad of skeletons a-la JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS to fight invisible monsters on Blackpool Pier. I never thought the grand finale of anything would be set in Blackpool, but I’m pleased Burton saw the strange potential in the place. SSP
Review: 13th (2016)
Nothing more needs to be said: Kandoo Films/Netflix
Anyone under the misapprehension that film can’t impact the real world, that it’s escapism and nothing more, should take note of the moment in Ava DuVernay’s documentary highlighting how DW Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION not only revitalised the Ku Klux Klan, but gifted them the powerful symbol of the burning cross. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and with 13TH DuVernay is using the medium of documentary filmmaking to send a powerful message about one of the great modern injustices in Western civilisation.
A chronicle of injustices committed as a result of the 13th Amendment to the American Constitution (1865), which abolished slavery but allowed for the large-scale abuse of the rights of prisoners, especially African-American males.
Decade by decade, administration by administration, we are guided through this ongoing travesty of discrimination. From Nixon’s plot to associate hippies and black people with the drug culture (since “we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black..”) to Reagan’s initiative to increase the penalty for dealing or using the derivations of drugs that inner-city black communities encountered. It’s not just Conservative Republican policies that are torn into either, with footage of a young Hilary Clinton using “super-predators” to describe young black men branded as criminals in the media and Democrat campaigns proclaiming a harsher stance on crime to effectively compete with the Republicans and thereby exacerbating existing societal problems and making a flawed justice system broken.
Aside from lobbying group ALEC’s big business connections promoting prisons as an enforced manufacturing industry, and a justice system that “treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent”, the media perhaps comes off worst of all here. The power “experts” and newscasters hold to warp and poison public perception of certain groups in society (even the way said groups saw themselves) by utilising power over a captive television audience cannot be underestimated. 13th chooses its arguments carefully, but there is more than enough of a pattern visible to judge informative TV as biased against black and ethnic minority communities. The types of stories reported relating to different groups is heavily skewed, and it’s telling that the only positive or socially aware media coverage in the documentary comes from late-night satirists.
“We don’t need to see pictures to understand what is going on” says one commentator. Images are powerful, they can be used as weapons of all sides, and just as they were, and are, used to make snap-judgements, they are being used to fight back, to expose atrocities to all. The collage wall of acts of police violence is perhaps the most powerful image in the documentary, DuVernay lingering and demanding justification.
The debate is presented through the prism of black voices and culture (the only way this story could or should be told) as provocative lyrics are emblazoned across the screen and the prison population ticks ominously upwards as time passes by. We learn that 30% black males in Alabama still can’t vote because they hold a criminal conviction, so they can’t move on or give back. Punishment still dominates where reform would be more useful to America. Most shockingly, 1 in 3 black men are likely to serve time vs 1 in 17 white men, and this is a cycle difficult to break without reform of both legislation and mindset.
Nobody who made this documentary expected Trump to win. The clips of his hate speeches – presented a given that he would suffer a humiliating defeat – that were ultimately ignored by enough of the US population adds a real vein of bitterness and an innate tragedy to this story. There is much work to be done to redress the balance in society and citizenship in America, but it will not be done by the current incumbent. Those who watch 13th and have their eyes opened or their convictions reaffirmed and their resolve strengthened can still make a difference to their country and drive to fix their broken and unjust system. SSP
SSP Thinks Film 