Film

La La Land
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08/01/17

Remember movie musicals? You know, the big sweeping MGM-style pictures, the kind they really don’t make any more? Well, clearly nobody told director Damien Chazelle, because, apart from a few subtle nods to the modern age, that’s pretty much what he gives us here. Apparently this is a long-cherished project for him, one that predates Whiplash, the picture that first propelled him into the public eye. Essentially, La La Land is a great big glittering love letter to LA and the creative industries that serve it.

The opening sequence pretty much sets out Chazelle’s stall. There’s a freeway full of gridlocked traffic. A girl in  a car begins to sing a song. She gets out of the car and dances a few steps and then the guy in the next car steps out and joins her. Pretty soon, hundreds of people are following their example, offering a brilliantly choreographed routine that is as audacious as it is delightful. It’s a wonderful start.

Soon we meet our protagonists and wouldn’t you know it, at first they hate each other on sight. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a musician, a jazz obsessive who dreams of opening his own club. Mia (Emma Stone) is a would-be actress, a barista by day, who slogs hopefully through an endless series of auditions for roles she appears to have no real chance of attaining. After their initial conflict, the two start to strike sparks off each other. And before too long, of course, they’re hoofing up a storm and singing most of their dialogue.

And if there’s a bit of this film that isn’t fully realised, it’s the songs. Don’t get me wrong, the jazz-inflected score is strong, yes, but the so-called big numbers aren’t exactly memorable. It says a lot when the tune you come out humming is the Flock of Seagulls song, that’s only there as an example of ‘bad pop’ by the cover band in which Sebastian is forced to play in order to pay his rent. And while you might be able to recall one of the film’s original melodies, chances are that the lyrics will escape you. But look, that seems an almost churlish observation in the midst of so much invention, so much undoubted chutzpah.The cinematography is ravishing and the film simply bristles with invention.

There are echoes here of some of the great movie musicals: A Star Is Born, An American in Paris… and then there are other scenes that are refreshingly original. Stone is particularly good, especially in an early scene where she auditions for a character receiving bad news over the phone and you feel like shouting at the casting directors who aren’t taking enough notice of her!

Of course, these kind of movies traditionally have a happy ending and I have to applaud Chazelle for resisting that temptation, even if the alternative he offers may be a cleverly devised way of him having his cake and eating it.

But what a cake! Delicious, delightful and ultimately satisfying. If you miss those old-time musicals, this one is undoubtedly for you.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Moana

05/01/16

Moana is the name of a young Polynesian girl, the daughter and heir of a chief. Her father wants her to take his place one day, and can’t bear the idea of her leaving Motonui, their beautiful island. But Moana is fixated on the ocean and what lies over the horizon, and it seems her destiny lies elsewhere. All becomes clear when her grandmother explains that Moana has been chosen by the ocean to find the demigod Maui and help him return the goddess Te Fiti’s heart, which he had stolen a millennium before. Moana sets sail, and so the adventure begins.

It’s a wonderfully animated film, with some absolutely gorgeous seascapes in particular. Te Fiti is also beautifully rendered, her transition from goddess to island a delight to see. And the story is engaging, especially once Moana tracks down Maui and their odd-couple interplay begins.

The music works well as a soundtrack, and never feels wrong, but neither is it especially memorable; none of the songs sound like they’d have a life outside the film. And some of the tropes feel a little too well-worn: comedy animal side-kick? Check. Contemporary Americanised dialogue? Check. Cheesy final message: just be yourself? Yawn. Check.

Still, overall this is a very watchable movie, and certainly one that will entertain the kids. Is it up there with the best Disney animations? Not really.

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield

Film Bouquets 2016

 

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It was an interesting year for film. Here, in order of release, rather than stature – and with the benefit of hindsight – are our favourite movies of 2016.

Room

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This superb adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel got 2016 off to a cracking start. There were powerful performances from Brie Larson and young Jacob Tremblay as the central characters in a tragic yet oddly inspirational story.

The Revenant

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Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu delivered another dazzling movie, this one as savage and untamed as the grizzly bear that mauled Leonardo Di Caprio half to death – but made up for it by helping him win his first Oscar.

Anomalisa

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Writer/director Charlie Kaufman gave us a quirky (and deeply disturbing) animation that was a Kafkaesque meditation on identity and the bleak nature of the human condition.

Dheepan

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Jacques Audiard’s fascinating study of the lives of refugees never fell into cliche. There was violence here, but it felt horribly real and totally devastating. There were affecting performances from a cast of newcomers.

Victoria

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Sebastian Schipper’s film really shouldn’t have worked. Delivered in one continuous take, the fact that it hooked us in so brilliantly was just the icing on the cake – a real ensemble piece but plaudits must go to Laia Costa as the eponymous heroine.

Sing Street

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John Carney may have only one plot but when it was delivered as beautifully as it was in Sing Street, we were happy to indulge him. This was a beautiful, heartwarming film with appeal to anybody who has ever dreamed about pop stardom.

The Neon Demon

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The fashion industry as seen by Nicolas Winding Refn is a hell hole and here, Elle Fanning as Jesse, was the latest recruit. A weird mash-up of sex, violence and extreme voyeurism, this was the director’s most assured effort yet.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

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New Zealand director Taika Waititi offered up this delightfully quirky story about a troubled teenager (Julian Dennison) and his friendship with crusty curmudgeon, Hec (Sam Neill). This film reeled us in and kept us hooked to the end credits.

The Girl with all the Gifts

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Just when we thought the zombie movie had stumbled as far as it could go, Colm McCarthy’s film gave the genre a hefty kick up the backside – and there was a star-making performance from young Senna Nanua in the lead role.

Under the Shadow

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Babek Abvari’s film had all the tropes of the contemporary horror movie and a powerful political message as well. Set in post war Tehran, young mother Shideh (Narges Rashidi) struggled to keep her daughter safe from the forces of darkness.

I, Daniel Blake

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Ken Loach’s return to the screen resulted in one of the most powerful and affecting films of the year – a searing look at ‘benefits Britain’ that would have the most stony-hearted viewer in floods of tears. Should be required viewing for Tory politicians.

Train to Busan

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Another day, another zombie movie – but what a zombie movie! Korean director Sang ho Yeon gave us a galloping ‘zombies on a train’ thriller that nearly left us breathless. There were some incredible set pieces here and a nerve-shredding conclusion.

Paterson

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Jim Jarmusch presented a charming and quirky tale about a would-be poet living in a town that had the same name as him. Not very much happened, but it didn’t happen in an entirely watchable way. A delightful celebration of the creative spirit.

Life, Animated

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This compelling documentary squeaked in right at the end of the year – the true life tale of Owen Suskind, an autistic boy, initially unable to speak a word, but rescued by his love of Disney movies. It was funny, uplifting and educational – and our final pick of 2016.

Silence

03/01/17

If I were ever asked to nominate somebody as ‘Greatest Living Film Director,’ Martin Scorcese would be a serious contender for the title. He has an exceptionally strong and eclectic body of work, which includes bona fide masterpieces like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Good Fellas –and even occasional misfires like The Last Temptation of Christ are never less than interesting. Silence is a film he’s been trying to make for something like thirty years. Based on a novel by Shusaku Endo and co-written by Scorcese with his old collaborator, Jay Cocks, it’s essentially a meditation on the power of belief – and the lengths to which people will go to in order to observe their chosen religion.

In seventeenth century Portugal, two young Jesuit priests, Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Adam Driver), set themselves a difficult mission – to travel to Japan in search of their old tutor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who disappeared whilst trying to convert the locals to Christianity. Rumour has come back that Ferreira has ‘apostatised’ – renounced his faith – and is now living the life of a Buddhist under the watchful gaze of his captors. The young priests refuse to believe that this can be the case and they set off on the perilous journey to Japan, knowing that from the minute they arrive they will be in grave danger. Christians are hated there and are cruelly tortured and executed in large numbers. But that’s not to say that the film is necessarily pro (or anti) Christian; indeed, questions are raised about the very nature of missionary work, and the religious zeal that prompts people to try to force others to accept their ‘truth’.

Silence is a powerful slow-burner of a film, that certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste. It takes a while to unfold an intriguing story and with a running time of two hours and forty-five minutes, it will undoubtedly test the patience of many; but there’s a great deal here to enjoy – the ravishing cinematography of Rodrigo Prieto, Dante Feretti’s costume design and a superb central performance by Andrew Garfield, clearly delivering on a role that’s a bit of a stretch from his earlier turn as Spiderman. Liam Neeson, now the go-to guy for any performance requiring gravitas, delivers his cameo role with aplomb and I particularly like Yosuke Kubozuka as the Jesuit’s guide, Kichijiro, a would-be Christian who continually betrays his chosen faith only to come scrabbling back seeking forgiveness through the act of confession.

There are also some scenes of terrible violence here; the unflinching depictions of the barbaric treatment meted out to those who refuse to renounce their faith are not for the faint-hearted. People are burned alive, crucified and drowned all in the name of religion.

As to the film’s central tenet – is there a God? – Scorcese (who himself trained as a priest before deciding to seek his absolution through celluloid) is wise enough to resist offering a definitive answer. In the end, it is left to the individual viewer to decide. But I would urge you to go and see this film. It may have taken a very long time to bring it to the screen, but in my opinion at least, it has been well worth the wait.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

A Monster Calls

01/01/17

A Monster Calls is an intensely emotional movie, telling the tale of twelve-year-old Conor O’Malley (Lewis MacDougall), and his struggle to deal with the realisation that his mother (Felicity Jones) is dying of cancer. It’s made all the more poignant by the knowledge that Siobhan Dowd, who conceived the novel the film is based on, died of the same disease before she could write her book. What we have here, then, is fellow author Patrick Ness’s interpretation of Dowd’s idea – and it’s good to see he’s done her proud.

Lewis MacDougall’s performance is extraordinary. (I should perhaps note here that he’s a student at The Drama Studio in Edinburgh, where I now work; sadly I can’t claim any credit for his achievements, as he’s not in my class, I’ve never met him, and he’d filmed this before I even joined the team.) He’s a gifted young actor, perfect for the screen, with a touching vulnerability here that’s reminiscent of David Bradley’s Billy Casper in the 1969 classic, Kes. His anger, fear and frustration are all writ large, and Philip and I find ourselves crying at regular intervals.

The story is essentially a simple one, making use of the idea of ‘the monstrous other’ and exploring the concept of duality. Conor is conflicted: he loves his mother, but he can’t live with the uncertainty of not knowing when she’s going to die. And so he stumbles between quiet acquiescence and towering rage, the latter symbolised by the unleashing of the yew-tree monster – like Jekyll’s Hyde, Frankenstein’s monster, Bertha Rochester, or even Blue’s Savage in David Almond’s graphic novel. Like its literary predecessors, this monster allows Conor to release his repressed emotions. It is both his undoing and his salvation.

There’s a stellar cast at work here, with Sigourney Weaver and Toby Kebbell occupying the roles of Gran and Dad respectively, neither of whom are what Conor needs to fill the void left by his mum, although they both try hard, in their own ways. Felicity Jones’s portrayal of the dying Elizabeth is utterly heartbreaking; she’s a real chameleon, and it’s hard to think of her as the same actor I saw in Rogue One last week. And the monster’s stories are beautifully realised, with some delightful sequences featuring dazzling, stylised animation.

There are some flaws: the bullies’ dialogue, for example, is wholly unconvincing and depressingly generic, and the first fifteen minutes or so seem aimed at a much younger audience. But these are minor niggles in the face of such an affecting, tragic piece of work. It’s a lovely film, and well worth going to see.

4.2 stars

Susan Singfield

Passengers

 

30/12/16

It has, for a very long time now, been my custom to go to the cinema on my birthday – and this year, Passengers was pretty much the only film on offer that we hadn’t already seen. We picked an afternoon showing at the small but perfectly formed Cameo 2 and we settled down to watch with open minds. I have to say that I enjoyed this film; it’s a slick futuristic creation that is centred around an interesting question. What are people prepared to do in order not to be alone?

Engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) wakes from suspended animation aboard the Starship Avalon, en route to the ‘Homestead Colony’, where he intends to forge a new life, but an unexplained malfunction in his sleep pod had led to him waking a little bit earlier than planned. Ninety years too early, in fact. And the problem is that none of his five thousand or so fellow-travellers have woken up with him. He is faced with the awful prospect of spending his entire life alone. To give him his due, he manages for about a year before finding himself on the verge of suicide – but then he notices another passenger asleep in a pod, writer Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence). He reads her files, which include some of the articles she has written and he starts to think about waking her up.

Right there lies the film’s moral conundrum – to wake her  would be, essentially, an act of murder – but he is going slowly insane with loneliness. Obviously, it’s hardly a plot spoiler to say that he does wake her and that, after a tricky start, the two of them hit if off – but as sure as eggs is eggs, it’s only a matter of time before Aurora discovers the truth about her awakening – and she is not going to be happy about it.

Morten Tyldum’s sleek imagining of the future is beautifully done and, given the absence of many actual characters in this story – the central duo are augmented only by android bartender, Arthur (Michael Sheen) and one of the ship’s crew, Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne) – it’s amazing that the film never drags. The Starship Avalon itself is a remarkable creation, a towering edifice of lights and movement and the special effects are generally well-handled, but this is essentially an intimate story about a relationship. Lawrence and Pratt make an appealing double act and Passengers is well worth checking out – but the galaxy may not move for you.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Dark Water

20/12/16

When it comes to celebrating the festive season, many people forget that Christmas is traditionally associated with the telling of ghost stories. Happily the team at the Cameo Cinema haven’t missed the opportunity, scheduling a short season of supernatural tales, under the title of A Warning To The Curious; and for me, the unmissable event this year was a showing of Hideo Nakata’s 2002 ghost story, Dark Water. Nakata is, of course, better known for his Ring films, but for my money, this is his masterpiece – a deceptively simple ghost story that exerts an incredibly powerful grip on the viewer.

Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) is a young woman going through a messy divorce from her overbearing husband whilst desperately trying to hold on to  custody of their six year old daughter, Ikuko (an adorable performance from Rio Kanno). Badly in need of a home for them to share, Yoshimi rashly accepts the lease on a dilapidated riverside apartment and enroles Ikuko at the local kindergarten. But from the moment mother and daughter arrive, things start to go awry – a huge stain appears on the bedroom ceiling and begins to leak water, Ikuko has an unsettling experience at the kindergarten and a mysterious red shoulder bag keeps turning up in the strangest places. Meanwhile, torrential rain falls on an almost daily basis, making even the simplest journey intolerable. Bit by bit, Yoshimi begins to pick up information about the mysterious disappearance of a little girl, one year earlier – a girl called Mitsuko who lived in the apartment on the floor above Yoshimi and her daughter.

More subtle than the Ring movies, here is Nakata proving what every would-be horror director would do well to remind themselves; what we only glimpse is far more affecting than what we see in perfect detail. Nakata racks up the suspense with great skill, scene-by-scene, creating an atmosphere of steadily mounting dread, until events finally hurtle headlong into a terrifying conclusion – and then, just when we think it’s all over, there’s a heartbreaking coda which takes place ten years after the main events of the movie, in which a teenage Ikuko finally learns the truth about what happened to her mother…

Of course, I cannot urge you to go and see this 2002 movie on the big screen, because showings are rare, but it’s widely  available on DVD and download, and is intimate enough to come across well as a home movie. (It received the almost obligatory American remake in 2005, but that was a misfire – make sure you seek out the original).

Meanwhile, the Warning To The Curious season continues at the Cameo tonight (December 21st) with a double bill of The Signalman and Whistle and I’ll Come To You. Be there, be scared. After all, isn’t this what Christmas is really about?

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Life, Animated

18/12/16

Owen Suskind is autistic. He’s also a huge fan of Disney animations – and this passion has saved him from an isolated life.

This documentary, based on a book by Owen’s newspaper journalist father, is beautifully directed by Roger Ross Williams, with a lightness of touch that allows Owen to shine. And shine he does.

This could have been a tragic tale. Owen’s parents, Cordelia and Ron, tell of their despair when they realised that Owen, aged three, was regressing; their fear that their son was lost somewhere inside himself, losing both his physical and cognitive skills, losing his ability to communicate. Like all parents would, they did their best to help him, taking him to a range of specialists and learning all they could about his condition. But nothing seemed to work. The only thing that kept him calm, kept him happy, was watching Disney animations. And so he watched a lot of them.

And then, one day, Ron realised that Owen could communicate if he used the language of the cartoons, that he’d been using the films to make sense of the world. And this was the breakthrough they needed to help Owen access society again.

Of course it’s not all plain sailing; Owen still faces huge obstacles, and the documentary does not gloss over these. But he’s out there, growing up, learning to live independently, and experiencing all the highs and lows of a human life. And yeah, he’s lucky: his family is wealthy, intelligent, stable and well-connected, so he has an awful lot of the right kind of support. And thank goodness for that. Because Owen Suskind has a lot to offer the world and it would have been a tragedy if he’d stayed locked inside himself.

Funny, heartbreaking, uplifting and educational. Really, this is a must-see film, and a late contender for one of our favourites of the year.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

17/12/16

There are prequels and there are sequels – and then there are ‘inbetweenquals’ like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, helmed by brit director Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, making a surprisingly confident transition to action hero territory. But the ultimate question that must inevitably hang over this production is this: as a standalone, does its justify its place in the already extensive Star Wars canon? And the answer is… just about.

After JJ Abrams crowd-pleasing revamp (a film that even those who didn’t much care for Star Wars could easily enjoy), Rogue One is clearly aimed much more at the obsessive fans of the series – and it must be said that the must successful parts of this film really are the ones that recall classic moments from the original movies.

The events of this film take place sometime after the end of the clone wars and before those outlined in Episode IV – A New Hope. Young Jyn Erso (Jones) is the daughter of Death Star designer, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), now estranged from him because of his apparent return to the Empire after the murder of his wife at the hands of Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). Captured by stormtroopers and on her way to prison, Jyn is rescued by members of the Rebel Alliance and made to accompany handsome young rebel Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) on a mission to find her father, in order to try to discover a way to defeat the terrifying weapon before it makes mincemeat of all who oppose it. We already know, of course, that the Death Star was destroyed at the end of Episode IV – this film, then,  seeks to explain how the information about a fatal flaw, planted in the Death Star’s workings gets into Princess Leia’s hands in the first place.

Edwards makes a reasonable attempt at this – there’s some convincing world-building going on and enough references to later films to keep all the fan boys and girls happy. However, there’s a seemingly endless series of battles and the film only really hits its stride in the final third. There’s also one gasp-out-loud moment when a character turns around to reveal the face of deceased actor Peter Cushing – or rather a walking, talking CGI recreation of him, testament to just how adept these special effects have become – but sadly there’s not an awful lot here in terms of character development and it says a lot when some of the strongest aspects of the script are the droll quips of the film’s main android character, K2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk), which lends some much-needed humour to what is a parade of rather po-faced antics.

Star Wars diehards will doubtless approve of this. It ticks enough boxes to earn its place in the pantheon, and there’s a cameo by classic character Darth Vader. Those like me, who enjoyed the first two films, hated the next four, but loved the relaunch, may simply find this a bit of a Star Bore. Choose wisely my young apprentices- and may the force be with you!

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Snowden

14/12/16

To some, Edward Snowden is a menace, a man who endangered the security of the USA. To others, he is an unsung hero, somebody who sacrificed his career in order to tell the truth about the ways in which the CIA was covertly spying on everyday citizens. (Trust me, this film will almost certainly have you sticking a plaster over the camera on your laptop). It’s perhaps no great surprise to learn that Oliver Stone, one of America’s most infamous liberals,  belongs firmly  in the latter category; and as portrayed by Joseph Gordon Levitt, Snowden is a decent man, a gifted computer nerd who loves his country, and becomes increasingly dismayed by the lengths that the organisation he works for is prepared to go to in order to ‘preserve the nation’s security.’

Stone has been off form for some years now. It’s a very long time since he dazzled us with the likes of Salvador and JFK – and the unmitigated disaster that was Alexander the Great is perhaps best brushed under the Persian carpet. Here, he’s on much more confident form, ably assisted by a measured central  performance by Gordon-Levitt and a nicely Machiavellian turn from Rhys Ifans as shady wheeler-dealer, Corbin O Brian. The likes of Nicholas Cage and Timothy Olyphant pop up in cameo roles, while Tom Wilkinson, Melissa Leo and Zachary Quinto portray the trio of journalists who help Snowden break the story that sends him into exile.

It’s a prescient story and an important one. Stone manages to pull off an inspired trick by having the real Edward Snowden portray himself in the film’s closing section. While this may not be up there with his finest efforts, this is definitely Stone’s best work in quite a while.

Here’s hoping that the powers that be will eventually be shamed into giving Edward Snowden the pardon he so evidently deserves.

 

4.2 stars
Philip Caveney