Month: November 2016

Mascots

26/11/16

This latest film from Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel) takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the world of professional mascots, those stalwart individuals who don outlandish costumes and help to promote football teams/organisations/products around the world, usually by prancing about to a musical backing.  This is a Netflix original, but Guest’s methods seem to be largely unchanged from the likes of earlier films, Best In Show and A Mighty Wind. Like so many of his ‘mockumentaries’ this follows a bunch of random characters as they prepare themselves for the equivalent of their Oscars, the Fluffies, cutting effortlessly from scene to scene as the action unfolds.

The Mascots themselves include: young Englishman, Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett), carrying on a family tradition as football mascot, Sid the Hedgehog, under the baleful glare of his dad, who formerly played the role; Mike and Mindy Murray (Zach Woods and Sarah Baker), a middle-aged couple desperately trying to rock their double act despite the fact that their marriage is falling apart; and art-obsessed Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey), whose armadillo character seems aimed at an entirely different audience. And, of course, the judges and organisers prove to be a thorny bunch, most of them coming to the competition with their own hidden agendas. Guest himself performs a cameo as Corky St Clair, a pretentious dance trainer helping to put Cindi through her paces. British comic Kerry Godliman also makes an appearance as Owen’s delightful and supportive wife – making them pretty much the only non-dysfunctional couple in the entire movie.

This is wry, whimsical stuff, not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but nicely judged and constantly amusing. It’s evident just how many artists – from Ricky Gervais to Larry David – have taken inspiration from the Spinal Tap model, which –  back in 1984 – was one of the first feature films to venture down the spoof documentary trail.

Mascots is right there on Netflix, and, if you’re already a customer, you’d be crazy not to check it out.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

A United Kingdom

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25/11/16

Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom tells the true story of Prince Seretse Khama of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and the extraordinary international response to his marriage to Ruth Williams, a white, middle-class Londoner. Ruth’s father (Nicholas Lyndhurst) isn’t happy and vows to disown her; Seretse’s uncle, Tshekedi (Vusi Kenene), believes it renders his nephew unfit to rule. But their combined disapproval is nothing compared to the horror of colonial might, and the crushing forces of British and South African politics. It’s a disturbing account of late imperialism, laying bare some awful truths about our not so distant past.

David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike are perfectly cast as the central couple, committed as much to their ideals as to each other. They are at once proud and humble, resolved and open-minded. The film’s focus on Khama’s emotional reactions personalises colonialism in a way I have never seen before, illuminating the brazen greed, hypocrisy and gross sense of entitlement of those seizing rule of lands that are not their own. Jack Davenport, as the brutal, arrogant Alistair Canning, embodies this with ease.

The post-war era is beautifully evoked, with both London and Botswana rendered real and immediate; the cinematography is very good indeed. If there’s a problem, it is perhaps in the feelgood cosiness that somehow permeates this film, despite its immersion in some very ugly deeds. Nevertheless, this is a mightily important tale, and definitely one worth going to see.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Cottage Kitchen

25/11/16

Logies Lane, St Andrews

We’re in Dundee for an event which finishes around midday, so we decide to call in at St Andrews on the way back to Edinburgh. It’s a crisp, bright afternoon and we arrive feeling hungry, so we decide we’ll eat first and explore later. There are plenty of ‘chain’ restaurants and cafes around, but we soon spot the Cottage Kitchen, tucked away on Logies Lane. It’s busy but we notice a small unoccupied table and make a beeline for it.

The interior is intimate, rustic and there’s a friendly atmosphere. There’s a basic menu on the table and a selection of specials on a chalkboard above the counter. We don’t want to spend ages perusing the menu, so we choose quickly, deciding that we will share the two meals between us.

These comprise a homemade Puddledub pork sausage roll and a marinated bavette steak sandwich. The former is definitely the star of the show, a generous hunk of nicely seasoned meat wrapped in flaky pastry. The steak bavette is decent too, a chunk of medium rare meat, ladled with a horseradish sauce and served on crumbly focaccia. It comes with a choice of a side salad (there are four to choose from) and we opt for the roasted chorizo and mixed pepper which is delicious going down, but is clearly destined to repeat itself later on. As it’s a chilly day, we also order an accompanying mug of tomato and lentil soup apiece, which is hearty and warming,  but a lot bigger than we bargained for. It may seem surly to complain that there is a bit too too much of everything, but we’re left far too full to investigate the selection of delicious-looking cakes and pastries (all made on the premises, I’m told), so we decide we’ll investigate them another time.

All in all, a decent lunch venue, offering something a little bit different.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Lucy Porter: Consequences

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23/11/16

The Stand, Edinburgh

Lucy Porter’s Consequences is a slyly clever show. We’re beguiled in the first half by her friendly, chatty persona; it’s a conversational, observational three-quarters of an hour, consistently funny but never challenging, focusing on ageing, class status, and suburban family life. There are chocolates and there is port, given liberally to audience members who respond to her questions. There are some gentle comparisons between young and old (Philip is called upon to represent the old, but he’s not very good at it: he doesn’t  – it transpires – even know what an A road is). There’s wit and warmth, and it’s easy to enjoy. And then there is the second half. And that’s very different.

Because the second half interrogates all that we have heard before. The consequences, so to speak. The acknowledgement that sixteen-year-old Lucy would likely launch a blistering attack on her forty-three-year-old future self, for selling out and not living up to all of her ideals. And then an endearingly honest self-examination: what does current Lucy think she needs to change? Her attitude to trans rights, for example, is analysed and found wanting, so she educates herself, talks to people who know more: older Lucy still wants to get it right, is still prepared to learn. Oh yeah, and she’s still funny. And charming. And far more demanding than that first half led us to believe. It’s a neat conceit, and beautifully done.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Paterson
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20/11/16

Jim Jarmusch is one of America’s most respected indie directors. After the somewhat disappointing Only Lovers Left Alive, he’s back on more confident form with this quirky tale of a would-be poet and the daily grind which he must endure, whilst filling all of his available down-time with his cerebral scribblings.

Paterson (Adam Driver) lives in Paterson, New Jersey – in typical Jarmusch fashion, this is presented as mere coincidence. By day he’s a bus driver and the film follows a week in his life, starting each morning with him waking up beside his partner, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and then following him to work, sharing his bus route and after he has returned to one of Laura’s nightmarish attempts at cooking,  accompanying him on his evening walk with Marvin (the couple’s bulldog) which inevitably ends with Paterson having a beer at his local bar. If this sounds dull, rest assured, it’s not. Through Paterson’s eyes we meet a host of fascinating local characters and experience their disparate stories – and we also share Paterson’s attempts to write new poems, which announce themselves onscreen as lines of text. His poems aren’t exactly earth-shattering, (his writing hero is William Carlos Williams, and the influence is apparent) but they do show a real intellect at work, and the fragmentary quality of them is strangely beguiling. I’ve rarely seen a more convincing onscreen portrayal of the writing method.

Back at home, Laura seems completely obsessed with making it big as something – a cake maker, an interior designer, a fashionista, a country and western singer – she’s not fussy, she’ll try anything, despite the fact that she never really rises above the ‘fairly accomplished’ in each successive project she takes on; and in the end, this is essentially what Paterson is about; the way in which people nurture some particular talent they have (or think they have) as a way of dealing with the mundanity of everyday existence.

The film throws us a late googlie-ball in an incident that really is any writer’s worst nightmare.  I  wish Jarmusch had resisted signposting it quite as much as he does; although the gasps from the row behind us suggested that not everyone had seen it coming. This however, is a minor niggle. As a celebration of the creative spirit, Paterson is a little delight, and one that deserves your consideration.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

19/11/16

Question: how do you turn a rather slim World Book Day volume into not one, not three, but five big movies? Answer. Ring up JK Rowling. She has elaborated extensively on said slim volume to create a wizarding tale set, not in the familiar confines of Hogwarts, but in New York city in the year 1926. The more cynical amongst us will be tempted to dub this with an alternative title – Newt Scamander and the Cow of Cash – but to give the film its due, it is undoubtedly a serious attempt to step away from the path already trodden and for that, at least, it should be applauded; and the attention to detail that’s been applied to the creation of the wizard world is truly impressive. But the ranks of parents accompanied by bewildered looking youngsters as the credits rolled on the afternoon show we attended, spoke volumes. Despite that 12A certificate, this is not a film for the very young, simply because there’s no child protagonist here to fully engage their attention.

Instead we have English wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) arriving in New York city carrying a magical case of strange creatures with him and it’s no great surprise when some of those creatures escape and start running amok in the (beautifully recreated) city. These range from tiny, cute and obsessed with stealing shiny things, to large, rhinoceros-like and ready to mate with something (seriously – you need to prepare yourself for Scamander’s mating dance). Newt soon falls under the watchful gaze of ministry of magic jobs worth, Tina (Katherine Waterston) and things take a more complicated turn when ‘No-Maj’  (the American term for a Muggle) Kowalski (Dan Fogle) inadvertently ends up with the wrong suitcase. Much hilarity ensues, and many landmark buildings are spectacularly destroyed…

Which is all well and good, but it has to be said that something in this mix doesn’t quite work. The resulting film is neither fish nor fowl. Surely, the parade of beautifully rendered CGI creatures are aimed at children, while the human characters behave in a manner that’s more appropriate for their parents – but because neither aspect fully coheres with the other, both sides of the audience are somehow left wanting. Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty here to enjoy, not least the delightful Queenie (Alison Sudal, channeling her inner Marilyn Monroe) and Fogle’s winning turn as the poor schlep who finds himself suddenly immersed in a world of wizarding is good too. Redmayne rather overdoes it as Scamander – sure, he’s meant to be shy and introverted but he gurns his way through this first film and I can only hope that he’ll dial it down a bit for episodes 2,3,4 and 5. Whether I’ll be watching any of them is another matter.The major villain here is Graves (Colin Farrell), a powerful wizard with a hidden agenda, but he really doesn’t have all that much to do and seems a poor exchange for the villainous Voldemort.

A lot of money and huge amounts of technical skill has clearly been lavished on this project – and it’s by no means the worst thing you’ll see this year – but for me at least, it fails to live up to its famous progenitor. And I can’t help thinking – how are they going to string this out for another four movies?

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Sully: Miracle on the Hudson

16/11/16

For his previous cinematic outing (the indifferently reviewed Inferno) Tom Hanks broke out the Grecian 2000 and presented audiences with an airbrushed version of his real self, trying to pass for someone considerably younger. Here, he’s playing someone closer to his own age, veteran airline pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger,  who in 2009 managed to do the seemingly impossible, by crash-landing a stricken airliner in the Hudson River without incurring a single fatality. (Well, that’s 155 tickets sold, right there.)

Clint Eastwood’s retelling of the story is never less than compelling. Since we already know the outcome of the story, he can’t really hope to generate any real suspense; so he opts instead for a strange, circular narrative, opening with the moment that Sully and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) realise that they are deep in the doo-doo after a catastrophic bird strike. From here, the story loops around like a plane looking for somewhere suitable to land, touching briefly on Sully’s early days in aviation, before finally revealing the workings of the crash landing itself.

The main tension in the story is generated when a team of crash investigators (including Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn), assigned to examine the circumstances of the accident begin to look as though they might disagree with Sully’s account of the story, something which threatens to turn him from overnight hero to an absolute zero. A series of computer simulations have raised the distinct possibility that the plane might have been able to return safely to Laguardia airport, from where it had recently taken off. Hanks does his usual ‘Everyman’ persona with the understated dignity we’ve come to expect from him and he’s ably supported by Laura Linney as Sully’s unfortunate wife, stuck on the end of a telephone line, while her husband faces the hearing that could destroy his career.

It’s only in the film’s post credit sequences where Eastwood cannot quite resist tipping the project into cheesiness – we see the real Sully and the real survivors, making speeches at one of those celebrations the Americans love so much – and there’s an onscreen credit that pays tribute to the emergency services in New York who worked together to save so many lives. But ultimately you can’t help concluding that Sullenberger took a chance in a desperate situation and (luckily for him) it paid off.

Still, this is nonetheless an entertaining film, particularly when projected onto an IMAX screen, which makes the crash landing a startlingly immersive experience. Nervous fliers might want to give this one a miss.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

A Street Cat Named Bob

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12/11/16

Okay, so A Street Cat Named Bob isn’t anyone’s idea of game-changing cinema. It’s undemanding, sentimental, family-friendly fare – but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth seeing. It’s undeniably uplifting, and – in this dark winter of political ferment – there’s something to be said for that.

Based on the best-selling book of the same title, A Street Cat Named Bob tells the true-life tale of James Bowen, a recovering addict, and the cat that helped him find his way. When the film opens, Bowen (Luke Treadaway) is living on the streets, enrolled on a methadone programme, but struggling to stay away from the heroin he’s addicted to. He’s busking to make ends meet but, although he’s clearly a decent singer-songwriter, there’s just too much chaos in his life. His key worker, Val (Joanne Froggatt), pulls some strings to get him set up in a flat, and stray cat Bob – making good use of an open window – decides he wants to move in too. Bob gives James a focus, a purpose; he depends on James and so James has to shape up. But it’s not a one-way street: the public are charmed by the sight of Bob perched on James’s shoulders while he busks, and his earnings increase dramatically. He and his cat become well-known, a social media sensation, and James seizes the chance to turn his life around. And, of course, there’s a love interest too, in the shape of Betty (Ruta Gedmintas), a quirky neighbour with a kind, kind heart.It’s impossible not to feel just the tiniest bit moved, and to delight in the change in Bowen’s fortune. It’s a Cinderella tale for the modern age.

The whole thing is well acted: Treadaway, in particular, is a joy to watch, and Anthony Head’s turn as Bowen’s hapless father is also a standout. However, despite dealing with the really serious issues of homelessness and addiction, the whole thing is bathed in a  golden glow, and that’s the real problem here. We do see some of the desperation felt by those living on the street, and the pain felt by addicts just trying to get by. But stark reality is not allowed to interfere much with the feel good nature of this piece, and the solutions are all in the hands of the individual; there’s no suggestion of collective responsibility.

Entertaining, then, and uplifting as I said. But this is not a film that will change anything for anyone except its hero. He’s exceptional, not representative. The problems are all still there, behind this rose-tinted lens.

3.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Arrival

11/11/16

We’re all familiar with the scenario, right? Gigantic spaceships hover over the major cities of the world, and eventually disgorge battalions of vicious alien creatures, that are hell bent on world domination. Luckily, a group of plucky resistance fighters come together to kick alien butt and free the planet from tyranny…

Thankfully, Arrival really isn’t one of those films. Director Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Prisoners)  chooses instead to depict an alien visitation as a positive, perhaps even fruitful occurrence. This is a sedate, almost hallucinatory film, that dares to try something different with a much mistreated genre.

Linguist, Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) finds her everyday life rudely interrupted by the unannounced arrival of twelve huge black ellipses hovering inexplicably in the air above different locations around the world. The ellipses (surely inspired by the paintings of Magritte) are silent and make no apparent attempts tocommunicate with the human race. Louise soon finds herself enlisted by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) who is leading a team of North American scientists, whose job it is to try and make contact with the aliens and work out what (if anything) they are trying to tell us. Louise finds some common ground with scientist, Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and the two of them set about the complex task of communicating with the inhabitants of one of the giant elipses. They are quickly dubbed heptopods and are giant octopus-like creatures, which (perhaps wisely) are only glimpsed through the haze that constantly surrounds them. As she starts to make progress, Louise is increasingly affected by images of her young daughter who comes to a tragic end…

I thought Arrival was a remarkable film, quietly persuasive in its approach and totally absorbing. The googly ball that it throws at its audience in its final stretch, hit me for six – I really didn’t see it coming – and it was only as the shock of the impact spread through me, that I began to appreciate just how skilfully the storyline’s tangled web has been put together. If the film’s ultimate message could be accused of being a little bit cheesy, it’s nonetheless a welcome relief from the usual crass Hollywood approach to alien visitations.

Worth further investigation.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

A Tale of Two Cities

08/11/16

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

There’s something reassuringly old-fashioned about this stylish adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic story of friendship and sacrifice. There are no gimmicks, no updates, no references to current political circumstances. Instead, Mike Poulton’s skilful adaptation plays things absolutely straight. That’s not to say that it’s dull. The story is brilliantly and effectively staged, the narrative slipping effortlessly back and forth between London and Paris, without ever prompting us to ask, ‘where are we now?’

In the story’s opening scene, Charles Darney (Jacob Ifan) finds himself in court, accused of treason against the British Crown. Barrister Sidney Carton (Joseph Timms) brilliantly defends Darnay, using the fact that quite by chance, the two men resemble each other. Though Darnay doesn’t much like the dissolute Carton, he acknowledges that he owes the man a great debt and agrees to a kind of friendship, one that is complicated by the fact that Carton has fallen in love with Lucie Manette (Shanaya Rafaat), Darnay’s fiancé.

Meanwhile, over in Paris, the French Revolution is gathering momentum – and the fact that Darnay is a French émigré and the rightful heir to the estate of the hated Maquis St Evérmonde (a wonderfully spiteful Christopher Hunter) means that Darnay soon finds himself back in court  – and this time, he’s a potential candidate for an encounter with the guillotine.

This story has endured for a very good reason – it’s a powerful tale of mankind’s ability to do wonderful things in terrible circumstances – and this is a fine example of how a great novel can also make a great stage play. Director James Dacre handles it all with aplomb and special mention should be made to the Royal and Derngate workshops, who created the scenery, set, props, costumes, wigs and makeup for the show. At times it feels uncannily like we are looking at a series of classic paintings from the period.

Fans of Dickens – and there are many of them – should get themselves along to the King’s Theatre, where A Tale of Two Cities is showing until Saturday 12th November.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney