Author: Bouquets & Brickbats

Selma

08/02/15

Selma chronicles the turbulent three month period in 1965, when Dr Martin Luther King led the protest to try and obtain equal voting rights for black people in the Southern states of America. Even though that right had already been officially granted, the powers that be had conspired to ensure that it was one that would never be claimed, so King set out to lead a series of ‘peaceful’ marches from the town of Selma, Alabama to the capital city, Montgomery. What happened next is a matter of history. The racist police and redneck citizenry enacted violent and bloody opposition to the event, beating and in some cases murdering the marchers with apparent impunity.

Make no mistake, this is an important film. It examines one of the most shameful periods in civil rights history and largely gets its message across. But it’s also a curiously muted affair, a consequence perhaps of its 12A certificate, something which demands that the more distressing scenes are somewhat airbrushed. Curiously too, the film makers were denied the use of any of King’s legendary speeches, mainly because the intellectual property rights are tightly controlled by his children and they wouldn’t allow the use of them here (oddly though, they had no problem licensing the “I have a dream’ speech to a French telephone company for an ‘undisclosed sum.’ Go figure.) This meant that screenwriter Paul Webb had the unenviable task of writing some original speeches for one of the greatest orators in history.

Much wrath has been incurred over recent weeks by David Oyelowo’s supposed snub by the Oscar and BAFTA panels. Many have suggested that his performance was overlooked simply because of his race. The truth is that he does offer a solid, understated portrayal of MLK, one that is full of dignity and one that captures the man’s distinctive voice patterns with remarkable alacrity, but at the same time, it doesn’t really have the stature (or the histrionics) expected of an Oscar contender. There are other solid performances on offer here too. Tom Wilkinson shines as Lyndon B. Johnson and Tim Roth perfectly nails the unpleasant, racist demeanour of Governor George Wallace. And yet the events are related at a funereal pace and there are too many scenes of King sitting in darkened rooms, brooding over his next move.

A good film then, though perhaps not a great one – but at the same time, a film that absolutely demands to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. I was warned to expect to shed tears for this and though a notorious ‘weeper’ that didn’t actually happen. But a palpable sense of shame did remain with me, the shame that in my own lifetime, events like this were ever allowed to happen. It also helped me to appreciate the immense courage of all those people who put their lives on the line in the name of civil rights.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

X Men: Days of Future Past

07/02/15

Of the many superhero franchises out there, (and there does seem to be an awful lot of them) the X Men films are the ones that interest me the least, so perhaps it’s not really surprising that I’ve waited this long to catch up with the latest instalment. It seems to me as po-faced and inert as the rest of them and somehow the bewildering array of mutants with the power to do ‘incredible’ things – bend metal, set objects on fire, affect the weather, make balloon animals… (OK, I made the last one up, but you catch my drift?) somehow never manages to ignite my interest, let alone suspend my belief.

DFP opens in a gloomy dystopian future (aren’t all futures like that in the cinema?) where colossal killing machines are on the verge of wiping out Mutantkind and where Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart sit around looking constipated, while other, younger mutants run frantically around being killed (or are they?It’s that kind of movie.) In a last-ditch effort to save the world, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent back in time to the year 1973, to try and prevent the introduction of the very events that have ignited this grim future. Once there, he has to reconnect with Charles Xavier (James MacAvoy) and persuade him to lend a hand. There then follows a convoluted storyline that’s based around the assassination of JFK and there’s even a cameo by President Richard Nixon (Peter Camancho), who it seems might be just the man to initiate a future disaster. Meanwhile, Doctor Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) has created mutant-seeking robots and is itching to turn them loose…

Amidst all the ponderous twists and turns, DFP offers one truly brilliant sequence, the scene where Quicksilver (Evan Peters) runs around in super-fast mode, altering the potentially fatal consequences of a police shootout. It’s extraordinary and all too brief and there remains the conviction that this was the set piece that director Bryan Singer was planning all along and that the rest of the film was just an excuse to set it up. Sadly, Quicksilver doesn’t have much else to do in the movie, which is a shame, because if there’d be more of his antics, this review might have been a tad more enthusiastic. But for me, this was overly complicated nonsense, expertly mounted, glossily filmed and featuring a host of talented actors, all of whom needed every ounce of their skills in order not to look bored.

3.2 stars

Philip Caveney

American Sniper

1/2/15

The unprecedented success of this film at the American box office, displays the depth of feeling that the US audience (especially those who vote Republican) have for Clint Eastwood’s biopic of Chris Kyle, proclaimed on the poster as the ‘most lethal sniper in history.’ Interestingly, it’s not something that Kyle himself ever wanted to boast about and as the film makes clear, it’s a legacy that took a terrible toll on the man himself and, indirectly, even led to his own death. There are many liberal-minded people who have been quick off the blocks to denounce this as dumb, Republican rhetoric, a recruitment film for would-be psychopaths, racists and the NRA, but I honestly feel that those who denounce it are failing (perhaps deliberately) to see it for what it is – a grunts-eye view of the war in Iraq from the perspective of somebody who had the unenviable task of actually being there.

The film begins with a young Chris being taken hunting by his daddy and making his first ‘kill,’ a deer. (So far, so redneck.) We then gallop on some years to find an older Chris (a beefed-up Bradley Cooper) witnessing the attack on the World Trade Centre and promptly enlisting in the Navy Seals. The man is a unabashed patriot who doesn’t hesitate to do what he perceives as ‘his duty to his country.’ He undergoes a brutal training regime and his gift for target shooting some comes to the fore. And all to soon, he’s in Iraq, on the first of four punishing tours, working as a sniper, only to discover that his first target is a little boy carrying a lethal weapon…

Now, if there is a criticism to be made of the film, it’s this. We only ever see the ‘enemy’ from the point of view of the American soldiers and, to a man, woman or child, they are all duplicitous, evil villains, every one of them intent of killing the infidels at any cost. Common sense tells us that that simply can’t be the case and it would have been nice here to have witnessed some Iraqi characters portrayed in a more sympathetic way, but that clearly wasn’t Eastwood’s objective here and he ignores it.

But don’t go thinking either that this is a film that glorifies or whitewashes the war in Iraq. It’s a savage, visceral recreation that horrifies as much as it thrills and Eastwood makes it clear how such a career exacts a punishing price on those who live it, something that is clearly demonstrated by Kyle’s fraught relationship with his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), whenever he comes home on leave. Cooper plays Kyle as a big, genial giant, a quiet man who constantly hides his inner turmoil from the world and who only eventually finds release by working with veterans who have themselves been damaged by the war. Whatever your political take on this (and there’s no doubt that Eastwood pitches his tent squarely in the Republican camp) the film surely doesn’t deserve the approbation that’s been heaped upon it. It’s well directed, its battle scenes are unflinching in their graphic detail and at no point does anybody stand up and make a speech about how America has done the right thing.

War is always a tragedy and American Sniper never pretends that it’s anything else.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Inherent Vice

31/1/15

Paul Thomas Anderson has been responsible for some of the most exciting and challenging films of recent times – Magnolia, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, The Master... cinematic masterpieces one and all. What then are we to make of his latest offering, based upon a novel by Thomas Pynchon, a drug soaked, paranoia fuelled ramble through the minds of a bunch of disreputable, low life residents of California in the year of our Lord, 1970? The main question that kept occurring to me throughout was ‘why?’ The second was ‘What the…?’ Because though it grieves me to say it, this film is an incoherent mess that can only be deemed a shattering disappointment.

Doc Sportillo (Joaquin Phoenix) is a permanently stoned PI, operating out of the back of a dentist’s surgery and showing none of the requisite skills you might reasonably associate with that role. He’s approached by his ex, Shasta (Katherine Waterston), now stepping out with the mysterious property tycoon Mickey Wolfmann. She informs him that something strange is going down and asks Sportillo to do some snooping on her behalf. There’s also the little matter of a fugitive saxophone player (Owen Wilson) a mysterious yacht called The Golden Fang and a buttoned-down police officer (Josh Brolin) who seems to have no higher objective in life than to beat Sportillo up every now and then. I’d like to offer bit more information on the actual story, but the baffling jumble of odd happenings and misadventures that ensue are frankly mystifying. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that nearly every character talks in a mumbling monotone, that Sportillo seems incapable of doing anything until he’s had yet another joint and that random characters appear and disappear like the figments of an opium dream.

On the plus side, the era is convincingly evoked, a whole team of talented actors do their best with what’s on offer and the cinematography echoes those pre digital days of the decade that fashion forgot – but at over two and a half hours long, the story soon runs out of steam and leaves us floundering in a sea of bafflement with very little information to help us float. If this film resembles any other it’s Polanksi’s Chinatown, with perhaps a spoonful of The Big Heat thrown in for good measure, but Inherent Vice is simply not in the same league as either of those classics. It’s (dare I say it) a bit of a bore.

File this one under M for ‘Missed Opportunity.’ What a shame.

2.1 stars

Philip Caveney

Kingsman: The Secret Service

31/1/15

Matthew Vaughan, creator of Kick Ass, has made no secret of the fact that he’s long held a desire to direct a Bond movie. With Kingsman: The Secret Service, he may just have gone one better, creating an irreverent spoof that’s surely strong enough to become a franchise of its very own. Actually, in tone, it’s probably closer to long running TV series, The Avengers, a surreal blend of action, espionage and dark humour, but whatever it’s inspiration this works brilliantly, setting off at a brisk canter and accelerating into a full gallop.

Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is a teenager on a sink estate who’s life seems to be heading rapidly down the toilet. He’s surrounded by thugs (one of whom has got his grips on Eggy’s Mum (Samantha Janus) and his future looks decidedly bleak. But little does he suspect that he has an ally in Harry Hart (Colin Firth) a member of a secret organisation known as Kingsman. A pre credits sequence has revealed that Hart owes his life to the action of Eggsy’s late father, a member of the same organisation. Hart has vowed to take care of his son. So Eggsy finds himself invited to undergo the society’s ruthless initiation course, coached by Merlin (Mark Strong) a kind of Q figure, with access to all kinds of state-of-the-art weaponry. Along the way, the world faces destruction at the hands of Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) a communications billionaire with a fiendish plan to stamp out global warming and…

You know what? The ins and the outs of the plot hardly matter. Suffice it to say that Kingsman ventures into areas that the Bond franchise wouldn’t dare to tread. Based on a graphic novel by Dave Gibbons and scripted by Vaughan and Jane Goldman, the film is an inspired mix of action, comedy and cartoon violence that never falters and never loses it’s grasp on an audience’s attention. Firth convinces as an action hero with more than a passing nod to John Steed, a secret agent who is as concerned about the cut of his suit as he is about nailing the villains. Newcomer Egerton (looking eerily like a young Leonardo Di Caprio) clearly has a bright future ahead of him and should Vaughan decide to go this route a second time, I for one will be first in the queue to watch it. Superlative stuff.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Whiplash

29/1/15

‘It’s all about this kid who plays drums in a jazz orchestra…’

Broken down to its basic plot elements, Whiplash sounds like something you’d actually pay money to avoid. But don’t be misled, because this is one of the year’s most gripping films, featuring a stellar central performance from JK Simmons that has made him hot favourite to lift this year’s Oscar for best supporting actor. As for the jazz element, well it probably helps if you like the music, but it’s by no means essential.

Andrew (Miles Teller) is an ambitious young drummer based at New York’s top music conservatory. Like all the other musicians there, he lives in the hope of being ‘spotted’ by their top tutor, Mr Fletcher (Simmons) and when he’s finally offered the chance to sit in with the big man’s own orchestra, Andrew senses an opportunity to make his mark on the world of music. His quest to be ‘the best’ is not so much an ambition as an all-encompassing obsession and he’s prepared to give it everything he’s got, even when it leaves him with bruised and bleeding hands and even when it means giving short shrift to his hapless girlfriend, Nicole (Melissa Benoist). But he soon discovers that Fletcher is not the most nurturing of tutors – on the contrary, he’s a self aggrandising, bigoted, foul-mouthed sadist who will observe no boundaries when it comes to pushing his proteges to achieve their best. Andrew’s likeable father, Jim (Paul Reiser) can only watch helplessly as his son is put through the wringer.

There are two superb performances at the heart of this story. Teller plays the buttoned-up (and actually not allthat likeable) Andrew with great skill, and it’s to his credit that you care deeply about what happens to him; but make no mistake, Simmons owns this film from the moment he steps into shot. An actor formally known for playing a range of affable nice guys (think of his easy going Dad in Juno) he’s made a startling transformation. He is mesmerisingly repellent, a snarling, brutal martinet convinced of his own superiority. You’ll hate him, you’ll want to punch his image on the screen, but at the same time, you won’t be able to take your eyes off him.

In case you’re thinking this all sounds a bit gloomy, take heart: there’s a climactic set piece where Andrew gets to strut his stuff behind a drum kit that can only be described as thrilling. Whiplash is a little cracker of a movie and if Simmons does triumph at the Oscars, it will be thoroughly deserved.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Wolf Creek 2

28/1/15

Released in 2005, Wolf Creek was a slightly above average slice-and-dice adventure, set in the Australian outback. In the decade that has elapsed since then, the public’s appetite for this kind of vehicle has declined somewhat, all of which makes the imaginatively titled Wolf Creek 2 one of the least anticipated sequels of all time. Once again, John Jarratt stars as Mick Taylor (no, not that Mick Taylor!) a sort of cross between Barry McKenzie and Ed Gein, a chap who remains resolutely likeable even as he’s slicing off your fingers. In the pre credit sequence, he pretty much sets out his stall by brutally murdering two cops who have had the temerity to serve him with a speeding ticket. Now that’s terse.

From there, the film pretty much divides itself into three sections.

Section one – two good looking German backpackers, Katerina and Rutger meet up with Mick in the middle of nowhere and suffer the brutal (and rather predictable) consequences. Katerina however manages to escape and is ‘rescued’ by English traveller Paul (Ryan Corr.)

Section two – Mick goes after Paul and Katerina and a lengthy car chase ensues amidst some (admittedly stunning) Australian landscapes. Unfortunately, director Gary McLean isn’t George Miller and this isn’t a patch on Mad Max, which pretty much set the bar for this kind of thing. Paul goes through hell and back but is finally captured.

Section three – the part that nearly redeems the entire movie. Paul and Mick play a particularly gruesome version of Trivial Pursuit. I say, ‘nearly’ redeems it, but unfortunately the sequence goes on far too long and just becomes flat out silly in the final twenty minutes. As a halfhearted gesture to the changing times, Mick chooses predominantly male victims this time around and it’s clear throughout that he isn’t a very nice fellow but that doesn’t make this any less nasty and salacious. An end credit suggestion, claiming that the storyline is based on actual events, should I think, be taken with a whole truckload of salt. Only one thing’s for certain. This isn’t going to do the Australian tourist board any favours whatsoever.

2.1 stars

Philip Caveney

Hercules

25/1/15

This film came and went from the UK box office making barely a ripple. Worth catching up with on DVD? Absolutely. In fact, it’s a hoot, mainly because it doesn’t take itself too seriously and there’s some astute casting choices here. Dwayne Johnson plays the musclebound hero and we join him some time after he has undertaken his twelve epic tasks. We see them enacted in the opening scenes, employing decent CGI, but then, the camera pulls back and shows us something closer to the reality of the situation. Hercules is now a mercenary who works for the highest bidder and though possessed of exceptional strength, he doesn’t undertake his missions alone, but with a crack team of warriors. These include his best pal Autoclytus (Rufus Sewell) as adept with the sword as he is with a well-timed witty wisecrack and resident seer Amphiaraus (Ian McShane) who having foreseen his own imminent death, lends a certain gallows humour to the proceedings. We quickly learn that those Herculean ‘tasks’ have been somewhat exaggerated. The mythical beasts were just men in masks and this story concerns itself chiefly with the way myths are created, how fairly ordinary events are, over time, amped up into legend.

When the team is approached by Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), the daughter of Lord Cotys (John Hurt), who is looking to hire some mercenaries, Hercules agrees to undertake the task in exchange for his own weight in gold. But as he and his friends set about training Lord Cotys’s army for battle it soon becomes clear that Cotys has been somewhat economical with the truth and maybe it’s time for Hercules and his crew to pick their sides more carefully.

Director Brett Ratner, hasn’t always delivered the best product in the past (Rush Hour, anybody? Red Dragon?) but this is good, undemanding fun, with some well paced battle sequences and a better script than this kind of story generally enjoys. Johnson is appealing in the title role, showing a certain vulnerability beneath the physique (even if his friendship with Ergenia’s squawking brat of a son is hard to fathom) and there’s a nice turn by the ever dependable Peter Mullan as the scowling Sitacles. Think The Magnificent Seven with breastplates and togas and you’ll know what to expect.

3.9 stars

Philip Caveney

Into The Woods

12/1/15

As I have documented elsewhere on this site, musicals are not really my cup of char. But there are a few I love (Little Shop of Horrors, Matilda, Cabaret…) , and these make me retain the hope that occasionally, others may appeal. Unfortunately I will not be adding Into The Woods to the short list on the positive side of the slate. It’s not that this Stephen Sondheim mash-up of six of the world’s most popular fairytales was bad, exactly; bits of it were wonderful. But on the whole, it fails to ignite. And not just because of Johnny Depp’s godawful pedophile wolf.

But let’s start with the positive. Meryl Streep is fabulous. Of course she is; when is she not? She clearly relishes her role as The Witch and plays it with enough vim and gusto to make her scenes, at least, compelling. And James Corden’s good too. I know he’s not always popular with the critics, but I think he has real talent; in this, he manages to be both endearing and ridiculous, and his singing isn’t too bad either.

The overall look of the film is remarkable. The lush, forbidding beauty of the forest is a perfect representation of FairyTale land and Frances De La Tour’s vengeful giant is a visual delight. And yet… there’s too much here to lament, not least the sheer brutal length of the film, a punishing 125 minutes that felt at least forty minutes too long – there were audible sighs of dismay around us as the audience realised that the ‘happy ending’ was by no means the end of the film. Not by a long shot.

And it’s this, I think, that sums up my main problem with it. Sondheim’s aim is to subvert the traditional fairy tale, to show that ‘happily ever after’ doesn’t really exist, that charming princes cheat and stray, that people can be selfish and unkind. It aims to expose the the fairy tales’ dark heart – but in truth, it’s just not dark enough; this is a Disney adaptation, after all, so even in the midst of its subversion, the fridge magnet epithets abound`: you’re never truly alone, even good people make mistakes, blah blah blah. It doesn’t have the guts to really look at what the stories say; there’s not the faintest traces of Angela Carter here.

Oh yeah. And I didn’t like the songs.

2.6 stars

Susan Singfield

The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies

15/1/15

I very nearly didn’t bother with this – which is sad, because I’m a major Peter Jackson fan. I’ve followed him from the early splatter films like Brain Dead and Bad Taste, through the triumph that was Beautiful Creatures and the LOTR films, which were my birthday treat for three consecutive years. I’m also one of the few people who loved his version of King Kong. Like many though, I couldn’t understand why a slim volume like The Hobbit has been amped up into a trilogy and I didn’t much care for part one, though I had to concede that part two was considerably better. And finally, here we are at the end of the whole cycle and the completist in me just had to have his day and catch this on the big screen.

And you know what? This is a beautifully and lovingly crafted thing, every frame a potential work of art. We pick up right where we left off with Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) decimating Lake Town and the various factions with a claim to the gold of Lonely Mountain, preparing themselves for the mother of all battles and… and yet, you can’t quite escape the feeling that you’ve been here five times before and no matter how wonderfully it’s rendered, no matter what amount of intricate detail goes into every aspect of the story, it’s feeling tired and it’s time for Jackson to move in a new direction.

LOTR and the Hobbit films have been a major undertaking into which the new Zealander has poured so much of himself, founding special effects company Weta along the way and bringing motion capture to the forefront of contemporary cinema. It seemed churlish to complain that he’s stuck in a groove. What will he do next? I wish he’d give himself a small budget and go back to his roots, film a short and snappy horror flick, though I seriously doubt he will. When you’ve commanded major budgets and casts of thousands, it’s no doubt hard to go back to basics… and yet, there’s part of me that thinks it would reinvigorate him… think Sam Raimi and Drag Me To Hell. As for the Hobbit trilogy, well Jackson has tied everything up nicely and put it all to bed. He deserves a major pat on the back for his fortitude.

Just keep him well away from the Silmarillion!

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney