Review: Cinderella (2015)

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Sam S-P
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May I have this dance?: Walt Disney Pictures

Did you really have to put the talking mice in it again, Disney? Rodents shouldn’t have facial expressions! I’ve never really had that much affection for Walt’s 1950 animated “classic” – I always found it a bit simpering and wet. Kenneth Branagh’s take on CINDERELLA for me was a vast improvement.

Once upon a time Ella (Eloise Webb) was a happy and carefree child. Her life is rocked with the tragic  deaths of both her parents (Hayley Atwell and Ben Chaplin) and unfortunately her father sought solace in another before he passed. Now the fully-grown Ella (Lily James) finds herself in the enforced servitude of her stepmother (Cate Blanchett) and her daughters (Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger). Ella has a good heart and a naturally positive nature, but she might also need the help of a little magic to improve her lot in life…

Of course, being a European fairytale adapted by Disney, Ella is extremely unfortunate to have two perfect parents who love her. Being nice in these kinds of stories doesn’t usually result in a long life expectancy. We never saw Cinderella’s parents in the animated film, but they’re given very sympathetic faces here in Atwell and Chaplin to make it all the more heart-wrenching when Ella loses them both in quick succession and falls under the thrall of her cruel step-relatives.

The other thing Disney do well apart from death is morals. “Have courage and be kind” is a doozy. Lily James coveys this ideal radiantly whenever she’s on screen, but even Ella’s patience and good nature can only be stretched so far (unlike the animated character, who practically lay down and submitted). Here she is actually given a reason to stay in her parents’ house and put up with her horrible treatment. She also meets her prince by chance long before the ball, resulting in a certain spark but not quite love at first sight (their feelings understandably take full hold on their second, grander meeting). Their scenes together are key of course, and Lily James and Richard Madden make them shamelessly romantic and a little bit sexy.

Blanchett has Lady Tremaine’s heartless, icy grin from the cartoon down to a tee, and revels in her Machiavellian scheming. I liked the take on the Ugly Step Sisters here too – ugly within, fair without, and without a drop of wit, talent, or self-awareness between them. Helena Bonham Carter makes for a pleasingly dotty Fairy Godmother who always seems to speak through the bottom row of her fake pearly teeth.

It’s handsome and well-appointed throughout, with stately cinematography and stunningly lavish production design. Cinderella and the Prince’s costumes (courtesy of the ever-reliable Sandy Powell) for the recreation of the iconic royal ball scene results in a little heart-flutter, as they should. Also lovely is Patrick Doyle’s score.

Unlike Disney’s previous fairytale reimagining MALEFICENT, adding richer details to this story has resulted in more satisfying whole. We didn’t really need to know why Ella becomes known as Cinderella, but the film does satisfyingly explore the importance of “marrying for advantage” over love, the only real option for royalty and aristocrats in 17th Century Europe. The royal family throw their ball to guarantee the future of the kingdom as their monarch (Derek Jacobi) ails, and Lady Tremaine sees it as an opportunity to secure her family a life of privilege through manipulation. She is not given unnecessary reasons for her horribleness, she just is.

It helps that it’s all played pretty straight (mice aside) and traditional. The story is expanded just enough to make as much sense as a fairytale can, but smartly nobody tries to dial down its inherent romanticism. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel on the pumpkin carriage, and these are characters you’ve seen countless times before, but it’s a reassuring, pretty and appropriately embellished fairy tale. If Disney has to keep remaking its animated back catalogue, (and apparently it does) then I hope for more like this. SSP

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Review: Spectre (2015)

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Sam S-P

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From the moment we see the gun barrel sequence back in its rightful place right after the studio logos, SPECTRE makes its intention clear – we are firmly back to formula.

Following revelations made at his childhood home, James Bond (Daniel Craig) takes the search for a shadowy worldwide terrorist organisation into his own hands as MI6 is forcibly merged with MI5 and the 00 Division axed. As Bond begins to dig through the pasts of both old friends and enemies, it becomes increasingly clear that one man has been behind every major challenge and trauma in his life…

Every critic has been waxing lyrical about the film’s opening sequence, and I won’t buck the trend. It’s a very handsome extended tracking shot through Mexico City’s Day of the Dead, and it’s great to observe how effortlessly Bond moves through crowds and keeps track of his target. This flows straight into a stomach-turning helicopter rumble where you must question Bond’s logic of attacking the pilot while airborne. It’s all very slick, exciting and very cool. This sequence, paired with the expressionistic meeting of SPECTRE members puts the film in contention with SKYFALL and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME to be the best-looking Bond ever.

After nine years of playing a stony-faced spy, Craig now seems much more comfortable with Bond’s quips, and these moments of levity, like asking a mouse at gunpoint “who do you work for?” or telling a downed security guard to “stay” help to prevent the grand, moody sweep of the rest of the film from feeling too monotonous. He still looks great in a suit and you really believe he could kill you, which helps. His take on the world’s most famous secret agent also pleasingly has an arc – Bond is still a bit of a blunt instrument after all this time, but he’s come a long way from chucking his dead friend in a skip.

Léa Seydoux as Madeline Swann is a Bond Girl refreshingly aware of her place in the grand scheme of things. She is fully capable and very human, but not to a fault. Christoph Waltz is of course perfect casting. Before his character’s reveal he’s a judgmental silhouette who can make his subordinates quake with a tilt of the head or a whisper, but when he moves front-and-centre he becomes every bit the maniacal supervillain you could hope for. Waltz makes him charismatic and equally chilling and funny, mocking Bond’s “interchangeable” love interests and making one of the best villainous declarations in recent memory (“I am the author of all your pain!”). Ben Whishaw threatens to steal the show once more as a frustrated, borderline tantrum-throwing younger Q, and Ralph Fiennes’ more actively involved, idealistic and irritable M this time locks horns with the slimy surveillance-obsessed C (Andrew Scott). Dave Bautista colours his performance as the hulking Mr Hinx with little quirks, and his FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE-riffing rumble with Bond on a train, instead of being nasty and confined, pretty much breaks the whole locomotive. The sidelining of Naomi Harris and Monica Bellucci is disappointing to say the least, but the Bond movies have never managed more than one interesting female character per film, and this has never been OK.

There is a definite attempt to tidy up the messiness of Craig’s previous Bond movies. We all suspected that Quantum was really SPECTRE renamed by EON’s lawyers, but this finally confirms it, and somewhat elevates what has come before by revealing it all as a sinister puppet show (noticeably skipping over the ugly and rushed QUANTUM OF SOLACE). It’s all very convenient, full of obvious twists and tumbles over itself to retroactively fix what didn’t work on a storytelling level before. There are cameos harking back to Craig’s tenure as 007 as well, though I did feel like we were missing another from a key someone.

Much like Skyfall, there is a definite dip in the second half of the film. If your best moments are front-loaded in your film, you have to do something bold to cap everything off. It doesn’t have to be bigger, but it has to be brave, or at the very least interesting. The end of Spectre feels tacked on, clumsily trying to please fans and file off the edges of the story to fit the pre-shaped hole and it’s mostly unnecessary. The Sam Smith theme song has been tortuous since its first radio airing, and the uninspiring tenticular title sequence doesn’t make it any less so.

From the outset, Sam Mendes and co. were committed to fully restoring the James Bond status quo. It’s nice to have things back in their rightful place and there are certainly some high points in Spectre, but also no real surprises. SSP

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Halloween Series Retrospective: Evil Dead

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Sam S-P
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Evil Dead II (1987): DeLaurentis Entertainment Group/Renaissance Pictures

This is the segment where I pick apart a well-worn film series and see how well it’s aged, and how well it hasn’t. In the leadup to Halloween I’ve revisited Sam Raimi’s beloved horror-comedy series EVIL DEAD. Groovy.

THE EVIL DEAD (1981) It may be really rough and ready, but even Sam Raimi’s first feature is full of style and proof of what can be achieved with no money and plenty of passion and perseverance. The behind-the-scenes stories are just as interesting as the final product, and anyone who attempted to film anything of any length surely couldn’t match the troubles Raimi and co ran into – Bruce Campbell’s brother fell off a cliff their first day of shooting! Despite its shonkiness it remains the scariest of the series, with otherworldly makeshift special effects, bucket-loads of syrupy blood and genuinely creepy sound design. Perhaps THE EVIL DEAD’s cult status was inevitable, with a one-location cabin in the woods story, amateurish acting, continuity issues that came from a longer-than-planned shoot and copious “Shemping” where crew stood in for actors who had abandoned the project due to fatigue or frustration, it all becomes part of the charm of the piece.

EVIL DEAD II (1987) The first fifteen minutes of EVIL DEAD II polishes and streamlines what was memorable from the first film, then things really go insane. Ash (Campbell) takes his girlfriend to an isolated country cabin again, but this time there’s an occult archaeologist, his daughter and a redneck couple fighting deadite possession too. It somehow feels both overstuffed and a little stretched, but there’s plenty to like here. One moment alone makes this sort-of sequel worth a look, a moment that perfectly sums up the funny-sinister tone of the series – the wonderful long take that follows the supernatural presence chasing Ash through the cabin, doors, walls and windows posing no barrier. Bruce Campbell was never going to be a serious leading man, but as a comic foil for himself there are few better, and his tooling up for battle montage is rightly iconic.

ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992) The final (so far) stage of Ash’s adventure is more of a hit-and-miss affair. Why bother with scar continuity if you’re not bothered elsewhere? Why am I asking that question? Nobody cares! There is next-to-no attempt to scare anymore, only to entertain as a kind of gory battle movie full of Three Stooges gags. Probably a few more jokes fall flat than last time, but you can’t help but chuckle at Ash conveniently finding a manual entitled “Steam Plant Operation” at just the right moment, nor at the glee with which Campbell plays Evil Ash. The Evil Dead films were never even close to polished-looking, but Raimi clearly really wanted to make a blockbuster, and stretched his dollar to the limit here so ARMY OF DARKNESS looks, charmingly, like something made in the mid-60s.

EVIL DEAD (2013) If a film’s worth sort-of remaking, it’s worth doing twice. Though not really part of Raimi’s continuity, this new take got his whole-hearted seal of approval. The campy black comic sensibility is pretty much gone, and the only time you might find yourself laughing is at the sheer extremity of the gore (there’s flaying, dismembering and a literal storm of blood at the finale). The idea of taking a friend to an isolated cabin to go cold turkey makes a lot more sense than hanging out in a creepy shed on your summer holidays, and Jane Levy completely owns the film as Mia, fighting both her addiction and possession by the malevolent forces that reside in the woods. We’ve yet to hear of any more of these new scarier and more serious Dead movies, but we have got Campbell’s return in ASH VS EVIL DEAD to look forward to this Halloween… SSP

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Review: Crimson Peak (2015)

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Sam S-P

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Poor old Guillermo, why does nobody want to see your movies on the big screen? The worrying thing about CRIMSON PEAK being the second del Toro film in a row to underwhelm at the box office (despite the considerable draw of Tom Hiddleston in period dress) is not so much that it’ll stall his creative drive (it won’t) but that it will make studios even less likely than they already are to gamble on riskier projects.

After tragedy befalls her early in life, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) turns her vivid imagination to writing fiction, unconcerned with how this career choice will impact her socially and romantically. When the handsome Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) arrives seeking her wealthy father’s patronage for his family’s potentially lucrative clay mining business, Edith returns as his wife to his ancestral home of Allerdale Hall in northern England, where secrets are buried in the blood-red clay and spectres and Thomas’ sister Lucile (Jessica Chastain) stalk the halls…

Much like the manuscript Edith completes at the beginning of the film, this is not a ghost story, but a story with ghosts in it – there is a difference. It’s a story of deception, of the darkest side of human nature, of memory and of madness. The ghosts represent all of these things. And like with all of del Toro’s work, flesh-and-blood people are shown to be far more frightening than the supernatural.

Crimson Peak proudly appoints itself like the early Hammer film such as CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, but with the addition of gruesome J-Horror-esque ghosts. I was pleased that when the film does fully embrace its place as a horror film it took the Japanese line rather than that of many American horrors of recent years – the scares are prolonged and disturbing, coming from unsettling and uncanny imagery matched with eerie sound design rather than jump scare after jump scare.

Being of the Gothic persuasion,  the film is a melodramatic affair, with performances, becoming more gleefully over-the-top as the mystery unfolds and revelations are made. Jessica Chastain steals the show as Lucile Sharpe, oozing  withheld menace until something flips and the very walls seem to shake with her manic wrath. A tortuously tense scene has a simple premise and a chilling flourish from Chastain – as Lucile feeds a wavering Edith porridge in bed, she shudder-inducingly scrapes the spoon against the side of the China with each movement. Wasikowska is good as always, her china doll appearance harmonious with the period setting and Edith’s character, but she is asked to comment aloud on what is going on around her all too often and unnecessarily (she opens a secluded storage box and exclaims breathily “wax recording cylinders!”). Hiddleston’s position as geek heartthrob, rather than limiting him, actually liberates his performance. Thomas is endlessly charming and you want to fall for him as madly as Edith does, but you’re never sure how far into darkness del Toro will be prepared to take him as a character. In the end it’s clear this director does not fear the Hiddlestoners.

The film is stuffed full of symbolism, like Edith as a delicate yellow butterfly being slowly smothered by Thomas and Lucile, two great black moths. It’s also del Toro’s bloodiest film to date by quite a margin. Del Toro is perhaps the most aesthetically meticulous, detail-obsessed Hollywood filmmaker working today (perhaps joint with with Peter Jackson). His usual visual hallmarks – insects, clockwork mechanisms, iconography of death and religion, imposingly beautiful architecture – are all present and correct, and he still seems to relish creating rich worlds you feel you could reach out and touch.

Del Toro also like a bit of self-reference, THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE sharing the most DNA, including an almost identical intro and outro thesis on the nature of ghosts. A nice visual del Toro continues to use is his undead manifestations adopting part of the environment that they died in. Santi in Devil’s Backbone was distorted and rippling because he died in water, whereas most if the ghosts of Crimson Peak are scarlet and caked in grime because they died on top of a clay deposit.

The plotting could generously be described as jerky. Del Toro and co-writer Matthew Robbins probably spend a little too long building up to Edith’s arrival at Allerdale Hall. There’s intrigue and foreshadowing, but a little too much Victorian faffing about in the first half  of the film as well.

Maybe 2015 audiences weren’t ready for the return of Gothic Romance. For all its gorgeous production design, atmosphere and thematic depth, the plot is a little disjointed and turns by key cast members being intentionally exaggerated won’t be for everyone. If this was Guillermo del Toro’s attempt to bridge his Spanish-language films with his Hollywood efforts, then it ends up feeling trapped between the two disciplines. I enjoyed it, but won’t deny it’s more of a flawed and fascinating talking point than something that works in its entirety. SSP

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Review: Suffragette (2015)

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Sam S-P

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By rights, there should have been more films made on the campaign for women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom by now. It’s a great story that is more relevant than ever today, and it’s completely dumbfounding that 2015 sees the release of SUFFRAGETTE, the first major film devoted to the subject.

We open in 1912 as the Women’s Social and Political Union’s campaign for the right of British women to vote gathered pace and resorted to increasingly violent methods to attract the attention of politicians. Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), an East London laundry forewoman, stumbles upon the Suffragettes’ latest protest and quickly transforms from a bystander to a prominent and active member of the movement, risking being ostracised by her family and wider society, as well as imprisonment in her fight for the vote.

Performance-wise, Suffragette a mixed bag. Carey Mulligan is the rock-solid heart of the film as the dignified, defiant working-class Maude, and Helena Bonham Carter plays well Edith’s pained weariness after years of being a useful member of society who has no say in it due to her sex. The film might have been more interesting from Edith’s perspective actually, from the point of view of a middle-class educated woman who has been invested in the fight for years rather than someone who falls into it. Ben Whishaw strikes about the right balance playing Maud’s husband Sonny, while representing patriarchy he is not presented as a cartoonish misogynist (that’s Geoff Bell’s job) but opposes his wife’s campaign more out of fear for the stability of their family unit than out of cruelty – he’s ignorant and closed-minded for sure, but his concerns come from a position of caring for their son George (Adam Michael Dodd).

At the other end of the scale, Brendan Gleeson does a good Brendan Gleeson impression as the policeman on the Suffragettes’ tail (and sets up a throwaway gag about the early 20th-Century idea of covert surveillance), Adrian Schiller does a rubbish welsh accent playing David Lloyd George, and Meryl Streep’s two-minute cameo as Emeline Pankhurst is completely and utterly pointless, seemingly just there to have something to put in the trailer. I’m not saying Pankhurst shouldn’t have been in the film, prominent figure to her movement as she was, but she works just as well as an offscreen presence, an idol for the woman on the street.

The strongest scenes are those set in the laundry where Maud works. The noise level alone is nerve-wracking, and the oppressive, super-heated atmosphere and the levels of abuse barely hidden from plain sight makes it unimaginable that so many had to work in these conditions right up until their untimely deaths.

Laundry scenes aside, I found myself wishing the film had been more harrowing. For a political film discussing historical atrocities and using them to comment on society today, it just didn’t seem angry enough. I had a similar problem with last year’s PRIDE. There are shocking moments, like the ominously jangling trolley being pushed along a prison corridor leading into the force-feeding scene, or seeing a crowd of female protesters being assaulted by the police in front of Parliament, but these are just fleeting glances filmed with a handheld camera. If we were made to watch even a single extended sequence depicting the extent to which these women campaigning for their independence and their freedom were violated by authority figures, the film might have lingered on the mind more. The only reason that I can think of that the film cuts around these key aspects of the plot is that writer Abi Morgan and director Sarah Gavron wanted to allow every girl in the country to see it. This is an admirable aim, but it might result in the film being more of a perennial text in schools than something that lasts or makes an impact outside the education system.

Suffragette does go out on the right note – simply showing a list of years that women were allowed to vote from in countries around the world. It hammers home how backward-thinking the UK was compared to countries like Australia and the USA, but also makes you gasp audibly at how late on Switzerland caught up with the Western World.

If this is the first film in a trend, then Suffragette represents something significant, a belated opportunity to explore in cinematic form a key period in history, the first step on the road to British women gaining control of their lives. But as the first of something, perhaps the film was bound to be a little too broad an undefined to make a real impact. There are great films to be made on women’s suffrage, but this is not it. SSP

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If The Force Awakens really is that good, what then?

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Sam S-P

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It’s an equally enticing and scary prospect for STAR WARS fans, the thought that if THE FORCE AWAKENS really does deliver on all it promises, then THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK will no longer be the quintessential trip to a Galaxy Far Far Away…

Following the derided prequels, we’re pretty well conditioned for disappointment as a fanbase, for carefully managing our expectations and fearing the worst. It’s looking like this time round though, all involved are offering far more than just shiny SFX, not to mention 100% less Jar Jar.

32 years later, we finally gets to explore the question of “what happened next?” and we won’t have to read anything beyond the opening crawl  to get our answers (sorry, Expanded Universe devotees). Finally we can embark on the next stage of the adventure that took place a long time ago, and hopefully it’ll be the right combination of nostalgic nods and bold new strides. Everything we’ve been shown thus-far (just enough to whet our appetite) indicates we could be in for a treat. From proper alien suits and animatronics bolstered by motion capture to real-world gyro droids, to the already iconic “broadsaber” and what seem to be Galactic Empire/Darth Vader imitators determined to oppress more successfully than the last lot of fascist scumbags, it all looks to be making the jump to lightspeed.

The original cast are back, the newcomers are eclectic and exciting talents, Lawrence Kasdan has written the script, John Williams is composing the music, Ben Burtt is still the sound design guru. JJ Abrams is actually a lifelong fan of this franchise, and if he managed to create a good STAR TREK film and a mediocre one when he didn’t really care, imagine what he could produce when his heart’s in it?

It’s a given that The Force Awakens is going to do massive business, and it could very well allow for Star Wars fans to love an instalment of the space opera made post-80s. If it’s fantastic, or even just very good, hell, if it’s on par with RETURN OF THE JEDI (the 3rd best Star Wars in my opinion) all will be well. If Episode VII even teeters on the same territory as the prequels, or if Abrams takes lazy short-cuts a-la STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, he will never be forgiven. He will be the other guy following George Lucas himself to have spoiled Star Wars.

Dare to hope, Star Wars fans. The title may be rubbish, but try to see the glass of blue-whatever-that-was as half-full. Already booked my tickets for December I have, have you? SSP

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Review: Sicario (2015)

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Sam S-P
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In his wheelhouse and out of her depth: Black Label Media/Lionsgate

 

In case you were wondering, SICARIO opens with a card establishing that the term is derived from a Roman slur for violent Hebrew zealots and translates as “hitman” from Spanish. These dual definitions hint at two of the many ideas influencing this far from straightforward story.

When FBI hostage specialist Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is called south of the American boarder under false pretenses by CIA man Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), she soon finds herself swept up in a daring but morally bankrupt mission to bring down the leaders of a prominent drug cartel. Will she, and can anyone, stay on the straight and narrow when facing such corruption and fighting an unwinnable war?

The film presents Mexico in imposing aerial panoramas as a vast, sleeping beast criss-crossed with throbbing veins of traffic. We are gifted with one of the most Roger Deakins-y shots of all time when Matt’s tactical team is crisply highlighted in silhouette against a sanguine sunset. Deakins’ photography becomes more low-key and naturalistic when on the ground, and is usually from Kate’s perspective, focussing on little details she notices about those around her and what they say about their characters – Matt’s wearing of flip-flops at a tactical meeting, Alejandro’s twitching hand as he takes a power nap. Director Denis Villeneuve shows a lot of skill at staging the film’s gritty set pieces, most prominently an operation taking place in the dead of night that is filmed for real with thermal imaging cameras. Though he could doubtless have handled something if larger scale, he keeps these beats brief and to the point, never egregious. The night op scene aside, the explosions and gunshots never come from where you expect, and this, along with Jóhann Jóhannsson’s eerie score makes you permanently on edge.

The cast really are at the top of their game. Emily Blunt finds the right balance between vulnerability and steely determination as Kate begins to realise she is, and always will be, the only person on this team who wants to do the “right” thing. Benicio Del Toro is gifted one of his meatiest roles in years, and he makes Alejandro a fascinating, chilling enigma of a character, someone with far more justification to do the terrible things he does than Matt, who’s just a jerk being jerky (something Brolin has a lot of fun conveying). It’s great to see young British talent breaking Hollywood, and Daniel Kaluuya equips himself admirably here. What’s not great is seeing Jon Bernthal playing exactly the same character he always plays.

We see horrors for sure, but what we don’t see is, as always far more disturbing – just what will Alejandro do to this man that will require an entire water cooler bottle to wash the evidence away? Other things we don’t witness, being kept out of the loop on some key story points keep us in the dark as much as Kate is. The state of bewilderment the tricksy plot often puts us in seems entirely intentional.

There are periods of nigh-on unbearable tension throughout, but of particular note is a long convoy ride through Cartel-controlled territory, with Kate catching glimpses of unspeakable things out of her window, and a stylish Western-style confrontation over a dinner table that forms the film’s climax.

The film ends with the innocents the war on drugs impacts upon. It’s a somewhat heavy-handed image, but powerful nonetheless. Though much of the film is from an American perspective, cutting back to a few key characters caught at the centre of the War on Drugs throughout brings the message home, makes it clear that this is not an American issue no matter how much the US Government might want to play world police. Some might find the loose ends left over unsatisfying, but I always feel stories set here and now and which comment on current events would be selling their audience short if they tried to tie things in a bow. Sicario is just really well crafted, thrilling, relevant, and not quite what you’d expect. SSP

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Review: Macbeth (2015)

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Sam S-P

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Everyone knows the Scottish Play. Featuring characters and dialogue iconic enough to ingrain itself in culture the world over, you need very little help to make this story memorable. But director Justin Kurzel doesn’t do anything by halves, and has brought everything he can to MACBETH, only his second feature following the fantastic but cripplingly depressing SNOWTOWN. The end result is rather spectacular.

Hail Macbeth! After winning a great victory for his king, Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) is told by a trio a witches that he is destined to rule Scotland. Spurred on by his Lady (Marion Cotillard), Macbeth murders King Duncan (David Thewlis) and claims what was foretold. This act may sate his ambition, but it does not quiet Macbeth’s mind, his paranoia causing him to hallucinate spectres and rule his new kingdom with an iron fist. 

Justin Kurzel is an aesthetically accomplished director who uses imposing frost and fog, apocalyptic fire and ash and dazzling shafts of light to vividly illustrate this well-worn story. Macbeth showcases the most desolate yet impressive scenery Scotland has to offer, occasionally enhancing the light or skyline to set the mood. The fog, incredibly, is real though – the crew apparently lost Marion Cotillard in it at one point.

Kurzel also uses time, sound and music (courtesy of Jed Kurzel) to great effect to hammer home Macbeth’s deteriorating mental state, with arty and effectively jarring jump-cuts becoming more frequent as the titular monarch’s mind unravels. The opening battle of the film is brutal but staged elegantly with slow motion and freeze-frames emphasising what war can do to a man.

For all its prettiness and layered themes, the film lives or dies on the performance of the actor playing Macbeth. Thankfully, Fassbender has rarely been better suited to a role, with his permanently haunted eyes and increasingly mentally and emotionally erratic behaviour as his madness takes hold. His gentle amusement with which he plays “Is this a dagger I see before me?” contrasted with the bouncing-off-the-walls mania as he tries to banish the spirit of a dead friend with a banquet hall of onlookers witnessing, terrified. These moments from the play are familiar, but refreshed, given new life. Cotillard is plays down what can be a bit of a pantomime villain role in Lady Macbeth. She’s as nuanced and subtle as Fassbender is flamboyant, and completely inhabits the inner conflict of the character setting her man on a path that, try as she might, she is unable to halt.

Paddy Considine and Sean Harris are as consistently excellent as ever as a pained Banquo and an unhinged Macduff respectively, and David Thewlis rounds out the cast and gives weight to the just King Duncan. The portrayal of the witches here is pretty interesting. There’s three of them as always (Seylan Baxter, Lynn Kennedy and Kayla Fallon) but they’ve been cast younger, and two of them are shown to have children. I like this acknowledgement that Medieval witches weren’t sinister spinsters but ordinary women with families and a specific and useful set of skills. Fear not, Shakespeare purists – though more realistic in their representation, the witches still fulfil their primary purpose in the play of spouting prophecy and foreshadowing characters’ deaths!

I would have found it less distracting if Marion Cotillard used her own Parisian accent rather than attempting Received Pronunciation. If you can’t do a Scottish accent, fair enough, don’t, but why bother with something else that doesn’t sound quite right? I’ll admit I’m not one who finds Shakespearean English easy to follow, but it certainly sounds clearer to me in Scottish accents as the rhythm fits so well.

It’s a lean, no-nonsense and almost pacey adaptation of the Bard’s tragedy. A lesser director might have been tempted to chuck in a second battle towards the end of the film when the heir apparent to the throne of Scotland, Malcolm (the uninspiring Jack Renor) turns up, but Kurzel smartly sidesteps this and just shows the armies forming their battle lines and leaves it to Macbeth deciding all in a much more personal fashion. If I’m really picky, I don’t think a (however brief) opening crawl was needed to contextualise the story. We know it’s set in Scotland, we’re about to see a battle and betrayal so we don’t need to be forewarned. This does result in a great dramatic wipe into our hellish establishing shot.

Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is aesthetically and aurally distinctive, faithful to the shape of Shakespeare’s text but not opposed to tweaking elements where needed. Even for those not versed in theatre or archaic sentence structure, the uncompromising brutality of the story, the thoughtful and complex performances and the delicious darkness of the characters and their journeys towards inevitable damnation will make this one a real crowd-pleaser. SSP

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Playing Catchup: The Paul Thomas Anderson Edition

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Sam S-P

there will be blood

It’s that time again – time to fill in a few holes in my film knowledge. Until a couple of months ago, my knowledge of Paul Thomas Anderson, considered my many critics to be the greatest auteur working today, was limited. This wasn’t a conscious, choice, I’d just not gotten round to watching much of Anderson’s oeuvre. I had seen THE MASTER, which I didn’t much care for, and INHERENT VICE, which I enjoyed but didn’t understand. Now I’ve watched two of his most highly regarded works (I’ve still got to find time for MAGNOLIA), and this is what I made of them.

BOOGIE NIGHTS 1997) A porn industry melodrama that’s not really about the porn industry. BOOGIE NIGHTS has one of the best ensemble casts of the last 20 years – Mark Wahlberg, Heather Graham, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Burt Reynolds, William H Macey, Alfred Molina, Don Cheadle – some filmmakers would do unspeakable things to recruit such a talented lineup. People forget that Wahlberg is often a really good actor, none more earnest and natural, and Eddie/Dirk Diggler’s journey from a nobody with a dream to a narcissistic ass, encountering on his way people who are all broken in one way or another, is a compelling one. The confidence in which Anderson styles his breakout film, the conviction with which he discusses the somewhat controversial subject matter not to mention how guides the story from a cheeky romp to a black exploration of the ego is to be marveled at.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) A few films further on and Anderson put together this bona fide masterpiece. His oil epic is grand and gritty and hard-hitting, but also unexpectedly funny and very human. There’s some nice juxtapositions between actual religion and money as a religion, and he opens up a very relevant debate about which holds the real power in the hearts of men. Jonny Greenwood’s score builds from rhythmic to oppressive and back again, adding to the story but stopping short of becoming unenjoyable as a piece of music (which I found with The Master). Probably a good starting point for those uninitiated to Anderson’s body for work – yes it’s long (they’re all long), but it’s got imagery that wouldn’t look out of place in a disaster blockbuster in the first half and weighty drama galore in the second, all held together by a magnetic and terrifying Daniel Day Lewis. Plus it ends on a gag as black as the oil that courses through Daniel Plainview’s veins.

Most pleased I’ve now seen: There Will Be Blood (because now I see why it’s considered one of the best films of the last decade, and it wasn’t anywhere near as depressing as I feared). SSP

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Series Retrospective: Pirates of the Caribbean

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Sam S-P

still-of-johnny-depp-and-orlando-bloom-in-pirates-of-the-caribbean -svarta-pärlans-förbannelse-(2003)-large-picture

I haven’t done one of these for a while, I don’t think since the first year of this blog. This is the segment where I pick apart a film series and see how well it’s aged, and how well it hasn’t. Since I’ve re-watched them all again pretty recently, I thought this time I’d take a look at the Disney juggernaut that is PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. There’s honestly not an instalment of the franchise so far that I actually dislike, but there’s certainly superior and inferior movies within it, certainly a couple stumble more than others. I can’t say anyone really needs another instalment either, but without further ado…

THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003) Back when it was merely an experiment in swashbuckling, testing the waters for if there was still an audience appetite for this sort of fare, Pirates of the Caribbean was an exciting prospect. Who honestly expected a movie (however loosely) based on a theme park ride to be so satisfying? Disney knew, and boy, have they milked this cow for all she’s worth. CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL had momentum, great action and an endearingly cheeky tone all steered by Johnny Depp’s Keith Richards impression and Geoffrey Rush’s boo-hiss villain. Even Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, blandly written or not were (just about) more sweet than annoying at this stage. It was an old-fashioned romp with a supernatural twist, and different to almost every other summer movie. Sadly it’s spawned many a poor imitation since.

DEAD MAN’S CHEST (2006) It’s undoubtedly my favourite of the series. Davy Jones and his coral-infested crew of the Flying Dutchman are wonderfully realised, and Nighy’s performance as Jones married with ILM’s effects work helps to make him the most memorable and arguably the most sympathetic character of the series, the physical embodiment of heartbreak with a squid beard. The Pirates mythology is expanded just enough to keep things fresh, with a paranoid Jack trying to escape his past and cheat death at the expense of his crew (and let’s be honest, much of the supporting cast’s screentime), all before the plot fell overboard in part three. It’s an ambitious, proper fantasy blockbuster with a good twist at the climax, plenty of wit and a great setup for the concluding chapter.

AT WORLD’S END (2007) Extraneous and over-stuffed it may be, but there is still a lot to like about AT WORLD’S END. Yes, you could probably halve (at least) the time Jack pisses about in limbo (this is where Depp started to become more irritating than charming). The double-negative dialogue also becomes parodic, Chow Yun-Fat might as well not have turned up, and none of the key plot points hold up of you think about them too much. But the most expensive action scene as of 2007 is still stunning (that glorious camera sweep around Jack and Davy Jones atop the mast alone…), plus Hans Zimmer delivers one of his richest and most bombastic scores and the series’ key villains are offed in fine, poetic fashion. While the villains may go out well, but it’s criminal that Tom Hollander’s Governor Beckett, the most nuanced and interesting Pirates character so far, was given so little to do here.

ON STRANGER TIDES (2011) All of a sudden, we’re in a Hammer movie! Ian McShane is genuinely fabulous as Blackbeard, over-acting and out-acting and everyone who dares to share the screen with him. Depp’s Cap’n Jack is wearing very thin at this point, and so is Rush as a newly bewigged privateer Barbosa. The mermaids are great, contributing the best – if too brief – action scene in the film (they’re scaly shark-vampires) even if the relationship between Philip the priest (pre-HUNGER GAMES Sam Clafin) and Serena the mermaid (the brilliantly named Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) is even more dead-eyed and wet than Will and Elizabeth’s became in the previous trilogy. Though it’s still not quite a chore to sit through the movies, but there is a lot more uncomfortable shifting of your weight and a lot of filler, even here in the shortest trip to the Caribbean so far.

Who knows to what extent the next movie will be artificially inflated, but hopefully there will be something worth seeing in it too, or at least something other than Johnny Depp mugging. SSP

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