- This is only the second version of the story I’ve seen. The version I’ve seen is the most famous previous version, George Cukor’s 1954 stone cold classic singer/movie star version featuring Judy Garland’s absolute greatest screen performance. It’s a film I love. The second most famous previous version, and seemingly most maligned, is Frank Pierson’s 1976 rock version made as a vehicle for Barbara Streisand. This is where the new Bradley Cooper film takes the majority of its thematic inspiration.
- While both these previous versions took fresh approaches to the same basic outline, with their spins on the movie industry of the 1950s and the rock industry of the 1970s, the new film is less ambitious in its scope, content to just update the 1976 version to a contemporary music industry setting. It also has nothing new or revelatory to say on the matter.
- In the current #MeToo era, as a story about an (older) man being the saviour of a (younger) woman’s life and career, the film is perhaps a tough sell. No reference is made to the paradox, but the female lead is very much a ‘person’ role, well defined. But as a film directed by a man, and written by men, the male lead still gets the most focus. It is not an even split.
- It has all the hallmarks of a first film, being Bradley Cooper’s introductory foray behind the camera. It is very competently directed, which is a compliment, but is also full of some occasional directorial flourishes that distractingly draw attention to themselves.
- The theme of the camerawork throughout seems to be tight close-ups, everywhere. There are barely two or three establishing shots in the entire film. While perhaps on the self-conscious side, it does give the film an almost claustrophobic intimacy, which helps give the central romance heightened intensity, as well as adding to the addictive rush of its introductions to the music industry.
- As an actor too, Cooper is good, even quite good. But never entirely outstanding.
- He is routinely upstaged by the great character actor Sam Elliott, here playing the Cooper character’s much older brother. He shows the depth of a decades long brotherly connection in the barest of gestures and line readings. He is the type of actor to authentically enhance any film he is involved in. Which he richly does here.
- The songs are all fine, but there is nothing entirely fascinating in this department. They will invariably sound much better and more appropriate on film than as individual listens on the soundtrack album. The film is perhaps aware of this since very few songs play out in their entirety.
- All except for the already most well known song from the film, ‘Shallow’. As a song it is very distinguished, but as a sequence in the film, being the Lady Gaga character’s first time on a packed stage, it is revelatory. It has a rush and an energy that makes it easily the film’s unimpeachable highlight; worth buying a ticket for all on its own.
- And lastly the undisputed Star (forgive me) of the film, and reason enough for the entire project’s existence in the first place: Lady Gaga herself. We all knew she had a killer voice, one of the best and most ferociously expressive of any singer around today, but as an actor, she is remarkable. She sells the part completely. And this is very much a character, a real acted part; this is not Gaga playing Gaga. She carries the entire film, and every scene she is in is a highlight, every one she’s not is a low.
- Overall, well made, well acted, and passionately character driven. Story first, music second. As it should be.
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
A Star Is Born (2018)
Some random thoughts on the new, fourth incarnation of A Star Is Born.
Sunday, 1 April 2018
Isle Of Dogs (2018)
As the poster boy for a certain twee visual aesthetic, coupled with an idiosyncratic comedic sensibility, Wes Anderson has been at the forefront of the indie cinema movement ever since his two breakout films Rushmore (1998) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). His films have a rabid cultural following, with each new film seemingly more successful than the last, culminating in the massive box office success of the Oscar winning The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Which brings us to his second stab at stop motion animation, not counting the underwater creatures featured in The Life Aquatic (2004), after Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). That film, while a critical success, failed to reap box office returns, mainly due to the uneven fit between the adaptation of a beloved children's book, and the off-beat nature of Wes Anderson's own outlook. Fans and adults loved it, children and families not so much. So Isle Of Dogs, this time based on an original Anderson story, appears to be billed as simply another Wes Anderson film, as opposed to specifically a children's or family film. And there is no better fit for Anderson's specific diorama-influenced, symmetrical visual sense than stop motion animation.
Set 20 years in the future in a dystopian Japan, Isle Of Dogs concerns the banishing of all domestic and stray dogs to what was formerly the site of a rubbish dump, following an outbreak of dog flu. The mayor of Megasaki City signs the decree into law, and all dogs are sent, including the dog of the mayor's ward Atari (Koyu Rankin), Spots. Dismayed at losing his beloved pet dog, Atari ventures to Trash Island in search of his dog, where he meets a pack of dogs who pledge to help him find Spots.
Another expectedly lovely creation from Anderson, Isle Of Dogs is a warm, fuzzy little adventure. The best thing about it, even more than Fantastic Mr. Fox, is the animation. It is a wonder to behold, with the very particular nature and limitations of stop motion being firmly leaned upon and embraced. Every frame is full of activity and life. This is the Japan of Anderson's heart, a warm and loving tribute to a vibrant country. While there has been dissent at what appears to be cultural appropriation, with visual references to common Japanese iconography such as samurai, cherry blossom, sumo and sushi, this is in its way no different than common (American) portrayals of England featuring farmland, tea, and bad teeth. The dogs themselves are masterful, with acres of personality. There's a real tactile nature to them, with their tufts of fur and hair sprouting and shifting from shot to shot. This is a dog lovers film if ever there was one, not only in their unique look, but also in the loving companionship of man's best friend.
Anderson's trademark humour sets the tone of the story as expected. Every laugh is so low key as to almost be missed, and the jokes are always ever so slightly off-kilter. There are as many sight gags as there are verbal ones, with most of those coming from the animation style. No matter how many times a dog sneezes in Isle Of Dogs, and it is a lot, it's always funny. And any instance of a physical fight, which is portrayed as a large ball of dust with sprouting arms and legs as in classical animation, is an absolute visual treat.
As usual, a large cast of quality American character actors fill out the voices, many of them holdovers from previous Anderson projects. Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham and Tilda Swinton all return in smaller roles. Filling out the five dog pack aiding Atari are a wonderful set of uniquely talented actors: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray and Bob Balaban. All bring great line readings, all work well together, and each is so well sketched as a character with individual backgrounds filled in along the journey. All except Cranston too are returnees to Anderson's world, showing how much his stock company is growing. Bringing a sense of reality to proceedings is the fact that the dogs speak English, and the Japanese characters all speak in their native tongue. So many films seemingly set in a foreign country have their characters magically speak English for western audiences. This sense of cultural truth helps to more definitively divide the dogs from their Japanese masters in a way that aids the story of their banishment.
In story terms, Isle Of Dogs does not go to quite as many unexpected places as Anderson's previous works. Films like Rushmore, The Life Aquatic and Moonrise Kingdom (2012) seemed constantly on the verge of leading us somewhere you never would have guessed. This is a fairly linear quest story, leading to an expectedly tidy and satisfying ending. But it is the quirks of Anderson's sensibility and presentation that keeps things moving along. This is an adventure told in a fascinating style by one of America's great storytellers. The man and this medium could be one of the great cultural marriages of all time.
Set 20 years in the future in a dystopian Japan, Isle Of Dogs concerns the banishing of all domestic and stray dogs to what was formerly the site of a rubbish dump, following an outbreak of dog flu. The mayor of Megasaki City signs the decree into law, and all dogs are sent, including the dog of the mayor's ward Atari (Koyu Rankin), Spots. Dismayed at losing his beloved pet dog, Atari ventures to Trash Island in search of his dog, where he meets a pack of dogs who pledge to help him find Spots.
Another expectedly lovely creation from Anderson, Isle Of Dogs is a warm, fuzzy little adventure. The best thing about it, even more than Fantastic Mr. Fox, is the animation. It is a wonder to behold, with the very particular nature and limitations of stop motion being firmly leaned upon and embraced. Every frame is full of activity and life. This is the Japan of Anderson's heart, a warm and loving tribute to a vibrant country. While there has been dissent at what appears to be cultural appropriation, with visual references to common Japanese iconography such as samurai, cherry blossom, sumo and sushi, this is in its way no different than common (American) portrayals of England featuring farmland, tea, and bad teeth. The dogs themselves are masterful, with acres of personality. There's a real tactile nature to them, with their tufts of fur and hair sprouting and shifting from shot to shot. This is a dog lovers film if ever there was one, not only in their unique look, but also in the loving companionship of man's best friend.
Anderson's trademark humour sets the tone of the story as expected. Every laugh is so low key as to almost be missed, and the jokes are always ever so slightly off-kilter. There are as many sight gags as there are verbal ones, with most of those coming from the animation style. No matter how many times a dog sneezes in Isle Of Dogs, and it is a lot, it's always funny. And any instance of a physical fight, which is portrayed as a large ball of dust with sprouting arms and legs as in classical animation, is an absolute visual treat.
As usual, a large cast of quality American character actors fill out the voices, many of them holdovers from previous Anderson projects. Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham and Tilda Swinton all return in smaller roles. Filling out the five dog pack aiding Atari are a wonderful set of uniquely talented actors: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray and Bob Balaban. All bring great line readings, all work well together, and each is so well sketched as a character with individual backgrounds filled in along the journey. All except Cranston too are returnees to Anderson's world, showing how much his stock company is growing. Bringing a sense of reality to proceedings is the fact that the dogs speak English, and the Japanese characters all speak in their native tongue. So many films seemingly set in a foreign country have their characters magically speak English for western audiences. This sense of cultural truth helps to more definitively divide the dogs from their Japanese masters in a way that aids the story of their banishment.
In story terms, Isle Of Dogs does not go to quite as many unexpected places as Anderson's previous works. Films like Rushmore, The Life Aquatic and Moonrise Kingdom (2012) seemed constantly on the verge of leading us somewhere you never would have guessed. This is a fairly linear quest story, leading to an expectedly tidy and satisfying ending. But it is the quirks of Anderson's sensibility and presentation that keeps things moving along. This is an adventure told in a fascinating style by one of America's great storytellers. The man and this medium could be one of the great cultural marriages of all time.
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
The Shape Of Water (2017)
There's no easy sell in The Shape Of Water, the new (-ish now) movie from celebrated and iconoclastic director Guillermo Del Toro. It is a love story between a woman, and a half-amphibian/half-man hybrid creature. While on the surface this gives it a fantastic bent, close to horror in parts, it is really nothing more basic than the universal beauty and the beast love story, told countless times before in works of classic French literature such as La Belle et la Bete, The Phantom Of The Opera, and The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and various incarnations since. It was never palatable before to have the beautiful girl ride off into the sunset with the 'monster', except in Beauty And The Beast where he must be turned back into a handsome (human) prince in order to provide the happy ending. Del Toro has explicitly stated in interviews that part of the concept of making this new movie was to see a beauty/beast love story where the girl DOES end up with the 'monster'.
Working at a government science research facility in Baltimore in 1962, mute Eliza (Sally Hawkins) discovers the newest asset within the facility: a captured amphibian creature the size of a man to be investigated for possible weaponisable properties. As she spends more time with the creature at its holding tank, she begins to fall in love with him, just as the Colonel in charge of his study Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) makes a decision about the creature's fate.
Del Toro has never hidden the fact that he is a huge cinema geek, in love with cinema and specifically classic Hollywood cinema. Not only is The Shape Of Water a love story between two people, it's also a love story between Guillermo Del Toro and classic cinema. The 1962 that the movie takes place in is the early 1960s of the movies, almost a pastiche of how the era has been portrayed over the years, rather than how it actually was. And there are movies everywhere here, from the obvious fact that Eliza and her friend Giles (Richard Jenkins) live above a cinema, to television sets that seem to only play old movies, and finally to a late set piece involving a gorgeous recreation of a classic Fred Astaire style song and dance routine. In that sense, the film is reality masquerading as fantasy, the fantasy of movie-land, and of Hollywood.
Otherwise the narrative plays out in the classic way of the beauty and the beast narrative. Girl discovers monster, finds it gentle and kind, falls in love, factions and mob form who wish the monster gone, girl must save monster. There's a beautiful simplicity to how the bare bones of the story proceed through the classic narrative tropes. This is timeworn, watertight, sturdy as a suspension bridge story telling of the highest calibre.
The trappings used to tell the story too are just lovely, and a joy to watch. The cast is uniformly superb. Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, and Michael Stuhlbarg are all highly dependable actors and they all turn in reliably fantastic work here, with Richard Jenkins particularly lending his character real pathos and a suitably weathered, disillusioned exterior. The production is glorious, as has become expected with Del Toro's productions, the government facility itself seeming scientifically plausible, of its time, and yet entirely alien and unknown. Del Toro's camera too, constantly fluid and flowing like water, never stops roving over the sets, drifting among the actors in long, unbroken takes, adding flow and momentum.
Some of the predictable 1962-era elements are less pleasing. There are some rather on the nose efforts at social conscience, touching on the plight of African Americans and gay men that seems somewhat irrelevant when the story is already about the feeling of otherness felt by its central characters in Eliza's mute, and the amphibian man. But it does help to round out the portrait of the 1960s as an era when suspicions and prejudices were high among Americans, with 1962 coming just a few years after the McCarthy led paranoia of communism and the rooting out of communist sympathisers.
By the end, we're left with a very simple story of love between two people, two very different people, but two people nonetheless. This is a movie in love with movies and steeped in the language and progressions of cinema, using this as a way to tell this love story. There is darkness in the world, as Guillermo Del Toro has told us many times before, but there is also warmth and feeling, and love. And there'll always be movies.
Working at a government science research facility in Baltimore in 1962, mute Eliza (Sally Hawkins) discovers the newest asset within the facility: a captured amphibian creature the size of a man to be investigated for possible weaponisable properties. As she spends more time with the creature at its holding tank, she begins to fall in love with him, just as the Colonel in charge of his study Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) makes a decision about the creature's fate.
Del Toro has never hidden the fact that he is a huge cinema geek, in love with cinema and specifically classic Hollywood cinema. Not only is The Shape Of Water a love story between two people, it's also a love story between Guillermo Del Toro and classic cinema. The 1962 that the movie takes place in is the early 1960s of the movies, almost a pastiche of how the era has been portrayed over the years, rather than how it actually was. And there are movies everywhere here, from the obvious fact that Eliza and her friend Giles (Richard Jenkins) live above a cinema, to television sets that seem to only play old movies, and finally to a late set piece involving a gorgeous recreation of a classic Fred Astaire style song and dance routine. In that sense, the film is reality masquerading as fantasy, the fantasy of movie-land, and of Hollywood.
Otherwise the narrative plays out in the classic way of the beauty and the beast narrative. Girl discovers monster, finds it gentle and kind, falls in love, factions and mob form who wish the monster gone, girl must save monster. There's a beautiful simplicity to how the bare bones of the story proceed through the classic narrative tropes. This is timeworn, watertight, sturdy as a suspension bridge story telling of the highest calibre.
The trappings used to tell the story too are just lovely, and a joy to watch. The cast is uniformly superb. Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, and Michael Stuhlbarg are all highly dependable actors and they all turn in reliably fantastic work here, with Richard Jenkins particularly lending his character real pathos and a suitably weathered, disillusioned exterior. The production is glorious, as has become expected with Del Toro's productions, the government facility itself seeming scientifically plausible, of its time, and yet entirely alien and unknown. Del Toro's camera too, constantly fluid and flowing like water, never stops roving over the sets, drifting among the actors in long, unbroken takes, adding flow and momentum.
Some of the predictable 1962-era elements are less pleasing. There are some rather on the nose efforts at social conscience, touching on the plight of African Americans and gay men that seems somewhat irrelevant when the story is already about the feeling of otherness felt by its central characters in Eliza's mute, and the amphibian man. But it does help to round out the portrait of the 1960s as an era when suspicions and prejudices were high among Americans, with 1962 coming just a few years after the McCarthy led paranoia of communism and the rooting out of communist sympathisers.
By the end, we're left with a very simple story of love between two people, two very different people, but two people nonetheless. This is a movie in love with movies and steeped in the language and progressions of cinema, using this as a way to tell this love story. There is darkness in the world, as Guillermo Del Toro has told us many times before, but there is also warmth and feeling, and love. And there'll always be movies.
Wednesday, 7 February 2018
Phantom Thread (2017)
The new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread, is another wonderful masterpiece from a unique and seemingly unequaled talent. Anderson makes stories that are very much ABOUT things, conveying reams and reams underneath their actual plots. This began with his breakout hit Boogie Nights (1997), which while ostensibly about a young man entering the porn industry as a new star in the 1970s, it was also about nothing less than the death of artistry in the cultural industries of that decade, which made way for the crass commercialism of the Reagnite 1980s. And as recently as Anderson’s last film Inherent Vice (2014), the story took in the fading glory of the fabled hippie set of late 1960s California, being set at its very precipice in the year 1970.
All of this is to say that, Anderson has a reputation as an unsubtle, overambitious filmmaker, broadening his scope exponentially until each of his features contains multitudes of narrative layers and themes. So it comes as something of a surprise to feast on Phantom Thread, which is about little more than its own small, intimate narrative. There are no sweeping, overarching themes taking in generations and broad spectrums. This could be due to the fact that this is his first film shot and set outside his native California, being set in the England of the 1950s. But either way, this is no slight on the film, as it only sharpens the focus of the story, burnishing it into an even more intimate and singular portrait of a complex artist and an even more complex courtship.
Legendary dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is the creative force behind the Woodcock fashion house, managed by his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville), he designs dresses for the rich and famous of 1950’s London, as well as for foreign royalty. During a period of recuperation at his country retreat, he meets and becomes instantly fascinated with waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps), whom he invites to live with him. She becomes his muse, but the particulars of their relationship remain unspoken, as friction builds between Alma, Reynolds and Cyril.
Let’s address the elephant in the room in Phantom Thread: this is Daniel Day-Lewis’ final film performance, as he has stated on numerous occasions that he has now retired from acting. As tragic as this is, as easily the best and most naturally gifted actor working today, he has gone out on a high of magnificent proportions. This is an assured, confident and mesmerising performance that absolutely commands attention at all times. Day-Lewis has always had an uncanny ability to entirely subsume himself into his characters, and that is no different here. The merest subtle gestures of the body, and of the facial features communicate boundless depths.
This is not to say that Woodcock himself is an entirely likeable character. He, as well as the other two members of the central trio Alma, and Cyril, are all layered, complex characters, circling each other with veiled looks and subtle glances. Woodcock is an absolute slave to his work, with everything else subservient to it, including the two women in his life. Equally, he would be nowhere without what each offers him in their living and working relationships. Cyril is half manager, and half surrogate wife and mother, giving him praise when he needs it, but also strong enough to buck against his fits of passive aggression with quiet superiority. So Alma threatens that dynamic when she is brought in, causing friction and tension. At first Woodcock relishes this as an artist does a newly discovered muse, but her insistence on upending the staid status quo eventually moves him to nearly detest her. This is when Alma sees what she can uniquely offer him that he needs, and the power in their relationship begins to shift without him even knowing it.
With Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville performing an absolute storm in front of the camera, with the beautiful London townhouse acting in for the Woodcock house and studio doing the rest of the visual heavy lifting, Anderson can flex his muscles behind the camera. Thrillingly cinematic, his camera does not just observe the action, it’s practically a participant. Some of the shots here are almost embarrassingly intimate, with severe close ups of the actors emphasing their separation from each other. A particular highlight comes early in the film as Woodcock takes Alma to his country retreat, to the attic room that is his studio, featuring a lovely visual of an empty dress mannequin which Alma then takes the place of. He continues to measure her for a dress, with the camera roving over the tape measure, Woodcock’s concentrated expression, and Alma’s seeming bewildered fascination as she begins to realise what power there is in becoming the muse of a formidable artist. It’s a breathlessly exciting sequence, scored by Jonny Greenwood’s luxurious, opressive string score.
Things continue to build until we are left with what is a nearly unclassifiable movie that is simply endlessly fascinating to behold. It becomes a somewhat gothic romance that is peopled with unsympathetic characters in the most exciting sense. As a portrait of the depths and rigours of the artistic temperament it is equally fascinating, and as a portrait of two people barely hiding their contempt for eachother while simultaneously falling madly in love with one another through a mutual understanding of what they each need from the other and can get from no one else, it is utterly revelatory.
All of this is to say that, Anderson has a reputation as an unsubtle, overambitious filmmaker, broadening his scope exponentially until each of his features contains multitudes of narrative layers and themes. So it comes as something of a surprise to feast on Phantom Thread, which is about little more than its own small, intimate narrative. There are no sweeping, overarching themes taking in generations and broad spectrums. This could be due to the fact that this is his first film shot and set outside his native California, being set in the England of the 1950s. But either way, this is no slight on the film, as it only sharpens the focus of the story, burnishing it into an even more intimate and singular portrait of a complex artist and an even more complex courtship.
Legendary dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is the creative force behind the Woodcock fashion house, managed by his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville), he designs dresses for the rich and famous of 1950’s London, as well as for foreign royalty. During a period of recuperation at his country retreat, he meets and becomes instantly fascinated with waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps), whom he invites to live with him. She becomes his muse, but the particulars of their relationship remain unspoken, as friction builds between Alma, Reynolds and Cyril.
Let’s address the elephant in the room in Phantom Thread: this is Daniel Day-Lewis’ final film performance, as he has stated on numerous occasions that he has now retired from acting. As tragic as this is, as easily the best and most naturally gifted actor working today, he has gone out on a high of magnificent proportions. This is an assured, confident and mesmerising performance that absolutely commands attention at all times. Day-Lewis has always had an uncanny ability to entirely subsume himself into his characters, and that is no different here. The merest subtle gestures of the body, and of the facial features communicate boundless depths.
This is not to say that Woodcock himself is an entirely likeable character. He, as well as the other two members of the central trio Alma, and Cyril, are all layered, complex characters, circling each other with veiled looks and subtle glances. Woodcock is an absolute slave to his work, with everything else subservient to it, including the two women in his life. Equally, he would be nowhere without what each offers him in their living and working relationships. Cyril is half manager, and half surrogate wife and mother, giving him praise when he needs it, but also strong enough to buck against his fits of passive aggression with quiet superiority. So Alma threatens that dynamic when she is brought in, causing friction and tension. At first Woodcock relishes this as an artist does a newly discovered muse, but her insistence on upending the staid status quo eventually moves him to nearly detest her. This is when Alma sees what she can uniquely offer him that he needs, and the power in their relationship begins to shift without him even knowing it.
With Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville performing an absolute storm in front of the camera, with the beautiful London townhouse acting in for the Woodcock house and studio doing the rest of the visual heavy lifting, Anderson can flex his muscles behind the camera. Thrillingly cinematic, his camera does not just observe the action, it’s practically a participant. Some of the shots here are almost embarrassingly intimate, with severe close ups of the actors emphasing their separation from each other. A particular highlight comes early in the film as Woodcock takes Alma to his country retreat, to the attic room that is his studio, featuring a lovely visual of an empty dress mannequin which Alma then takes the place of. He continues to measure her for a dress, with the camera roving over the tape measure, Woodcock’s concentrated expression, and Alma’s seeming bewildered fascination as she begins to realise what power there is in becoming the muse of a formidable artist. It’s a breathlessly exciting sequence, scored by Jonny Greenwood’s luxurious, opressive string score.
Things continue to build until we are left with what is a nearly unclassifiable movie that is simply endlessly fascinating to behold. It becomes a somewhat gothic romance that is peopled with unsympathetic characters in the most exciting sense. As a portrait of the depths and rigours of the artistic temperament it is equally fascinating, and as a portrait of two people barely hiding their contempt for eachother while simultaneously falling madly in love with one another through a mutual understanding of what they each need from the other and can get from no one else, it is utterly revelatory.
Thursday, 1 February 2018
Coco (2017)
The release of a new Pixar movie is still guaranteed to send intense ripples of excitement through any moviegoer, let alone film critics. Their run of unmatched and inspired creativity has dried up in recent years, with only Inside Out (Pete Doctor, 2015) truly matching their past glories since at least 2010. But that initial run of movies from Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), all the way up to that 2010 release Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich), is still a stunning canon of animated films, unique in their superior quality, but different enough from each other to see each one as a huge creative leap forward from the last.
Which brings us to Coco, an original story after back-to-back sequels from the Pixar braintrust. Having said that, this is an original story in so far as the premise, and the characters, are brand new. But the bones of the narrative are truly tried and tested, a solid, dependable framework that goes nowhere unexpected. It would have been a joy to see what Brad Bird would have created from the premise of Coco, whose own Pixar movies, The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouiolle (2007), practically sparkle with narrative unpredictability.
Young Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) is the youngest in a family of shoemakers in small town Mexico. The whole family is employed in the family business, and have been ever since Miguel’s great, great grandfather walked out on his wife and daughter to pursue a music career. This event in the past has lead to a ban on music for all members of the family. Miguel harbours a secret passion and longing to be a musician, and he hopes that since finding out that his great, great grandfather was the famous singing sensation Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt), his dream will become a reality.
The largest portion of Coco’s narrative takes place in the Mexican Land of the Dead, an afterlife traditional to Mexican cultural heritage. And you’ll notice that the above plot synopsis makes no mention of this section of the movie. There is a LOT to unpack in Coco’s narrative before things get to the inevitable quest to make it home before sunrise. From establishing the family’s history, to the ban of music, to Miguel’s love of music, to his and Mexico’s adoration of Ernesto, to Miguel’s plan to win the town’s singing competition, to the complication that launches Miguel into the Land of the Dead. Many of these threads could warrant their own entire movie and not be at a loss for story.
By the time we get to the Land of the Dead, and there are more new characters to meet, and an entire fleshed out infrastructure to develop, things have become so stacked that it’s a relief to get to the basic fetch quest once its established what Miguel is going to do to try to get home again. Brevity is not a virtue of Coco, which in one sense is admirable, particularly for a family film, but in another there is a longing for a slightly more streamlined narrative, with one or two plot threads dropped entirely, that would more fully flesh out Miguel and his own needs and wants.
The other major disappointment is the Land of the Dead itself. After a stunning journey there across a floating bridge made of Mexican marigold petals, and the initial reveal of a towering city verse of houses upon houses stretching as far as the eye can see, to discover that the Land itself is nothing more than a town full of dead relatives as skeletons, with normal buildings, government, law enforcement, and standard earthly recreational activities seems a missed opportunity. There is little mystery or magic about the afterlife as presented here, which makes Miguel’s journey through it feel even more pedestrian.
Despite all this, there is much to enjoy and even love about Coco. It is certainly never boring, and the sentiment expressed by the story of a young man needing to reconnect to his family and his ancestors, while still being a unique individual, is expertly played out when the focus is on the family unit alone. By the film’s end, it would take a particularly hard heart not to shed a tear. There is also a clear reverence for the warmth and distinctiveness of Mexican culture, with many aspects coming into the film’s overall witty pastiche. Thankfully any sense of cultural appropriation is happily somewhat undermined by an excellent uniformly Mexican and Mexican-American voice cast. And there is undoubtedly applause to be given for a family film, particularly one from Disney, that so directly deals with death, mourning, and the afterlife.
This a warm, often lovely movie animated expertly by the now top of their league animators at Pixar. There is joy in virtually every frame, and it rarely stops for breath throughout its nearly two hour runtime. While it might not break the mould in a story sense, this is still a winning feature, and still head and shoulders above virtually all other animated fare.
Thursday, 25 January 2018
The Post (2017)
*This review discusses plot points which some may consider spoilers*
Making a timely drama that makes comment on or even judges current events is a complex business. It can come across as too pointed, or simply lazy. The current White House administration seems to have attracted more ire than has been seen in decades. What can make a political picture more subtle is to use past events to highlight issues of the contemporary world. But this can also be criticised for being too afraid of directly tackling an issue, and attempting simply to skirt it. At the end of the day, you can’t please everyone. But the itself attempt will no doubt be admired.
So when the most famous living filmmaker in the world, and seemingly still one of the hardest working, makes a pointed political statement with his latest big budget movie, it’s a big deal, and the world will listen. Steven Spielberg has said in interviews that he rushed into production on The Post after reading the script as he felt it was a story that needed to be told now. And when you are the most famous and most successful living director, you have the power to do that.
The story in question is of the 1971 publishing of the famous Pentagon Papers, the confidential and classified analysis and account of America’s involvement in Vietnam from the 1940s through to the 1960s. They encompassed the presidencies of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. The New York Times begins publishing details from the papers, but an injunction is put in place by President Richard Nixon. Having gotten hold of a copy of the document, the Washington Post’s owner Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor in chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) must decide whether to risk legal action and even imprisonment in order to publish more revelations from the papers.
That revelation from Spielberg that The Post was rushed through production is telling. The film feels incredibly fresh, and has an inherent urgency to it that is palpable. The film is full of swift sequences that seem to zip by purely because in the incendiary political times being portrayed, they have to. Characters race from location to location, information is thrust from one person to another, telephone calls are answered almost instantly. This is an energetically told, important story of journalistic integrity under attack from a ruthless Republican government. Timely is an understatement.
However, that rushed production schedule also betrays other less than stellar issues. The film does not feel ‘lived in’ in its period reproduction. The gold standard of against the clock journalism films is still Alan J. Pakula’s All The President’s Men from 1976, set just a year after The Post’s time setting during the Watergate scandal. Perhaps because it was filmed in such close proximity to the events it was portraying, the film still feels astonishingly authentic, with a documentary feel throughout. The Post often feels like playing dress up. This could be seen as a subversive step to make the film feel even more pertinent to current events, but I suspect it is more likely just rough edges on a rushed production.
Many of the supporting actors too, a who’s who of great character actors, also get short changed. This is very much a two hander between Streep and Hanks, who between them dominate the screen time. Both turn in expectedly solid, if generally unremarkable work. Bob Odenkirk comes out best of the supporting roles as assistant editor Ben Bagdikian. But Sarah Paulson, Matthew Rhys, Carrie Coon, and particularly the wonderful Michael Stuhlbarg, himself appearing for all of around two minutes of screen time, are all criminally under-utilised. This approach helps to sharpen the focus, but it makes the film feel less rounded, and far less richly textured.
The satiric and subversive intimations are indeed admirable, but the story of a newspaper deciding whether or not just to publish revelations from the Pentagon Papers seems a less attractive story than that of the stealing and copying of the document in the first place from the Rand Corporation by Daniel Ellsberg. This would seem to lend itself far more to being filmed, with perhaps more at stake for a single man than for a national newspaper just gone public. Even so, the Washington Post angle at least means the film can get in some additionally timely material from Katherine Graham’s sense of attempting to run a successful newspaper in a powerfully male dominated world.
In whatever manner the story is told, the Pentagon Papers release and publication was an important moment of rebellion against a government that had been misleading the world for decades. The Post is an admirable and captivatingly told version of those events, from a filmmaker who continues to be unpredictable, and endlessly exciting.
So when the most famous living filmmaker in the world, and seemingly still one of the hardest working, makes a pointed political statement with his latest big budget movie, it’s a big deal, and the world will listen. Steven Spielberg has said in interviews that he rushed into production on The Post after reading the script as he felt it was a story that needed to be told now. And when you are the most famous and most successful living director, you have the power to do that.
The story in question is of the 1971 publishing of the famous Pentagon Papers, the confidential and classified analysis and account of America’s involvement in Vietnam from the 1940s through to the 1960s. They encompassed the presidencies of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. The New York Times begins publishing details from the papers, but an injunction is put in place by President Richard Nixon. Having gotten hold of a copy of the document, the Washington Post’s owner Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) and editor in chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) must decide whether to risk legal action and even imprisonment in order to publish more revelations from the papers.
That revelation from Spielberg that The Post was rushed through production is telling. The film feels incredibly fresh, and has an inherent urgency to it that is palpable. The film is full of swift sequences that seem to zip by purely because in the incendiary political times being portrayed, they have to. Characters race from location to location, information is thrust from one person to another, telephone calls are answered almost instantly. This is an energetically told, important story of journalistic integrity under attack from a ruthless Republican government. Timely is an understatement.
However, that rushed production schedule also betrays other less than stellar issues. The film does not feel ‘lived in’ in its period reproduction. The gold standard of against the clock journalism films is still Alan J. Pakula’s All The President’s Men from 1976, set just a year after The Post’s time setting during the Watergate scandal. Perhaps because it was filmed in such close proximity to the events it was portraying, the film still feels astonishingly authentic, with a documentary feel throughout. The Post often feels like playing dress up. This could be seen as a subversive step to make the film feel even more pertinent to current events, but I suspect it is more likely just rough edges on a rushed production.
Many of the supporting actors too, a who’s who of great character actors, also get short changed. This is very much a two hander between Streep and Hanks, who between them dominate the screen time. Both turn in expectedly solid, if generally unremarkable work. Bob Odenkirk comes out best of the supporting roles as assistant editor Ben Bagdikian. But Sarah Paulson, Matthew Rhys, Carrie Coon, and particularly the wonderful Michael Stuhlbarg, himself appearing for all of around two minutes of screen time, are all criminally under-utilised. This approach helps to sharpen the focus, but it makes the film feel less rounded, and far less richly textured.
The satiric and subversive intimations are indeed admirable, but the story of a newspaper deciding whether or not just to publish revelations from the Pentagon Papers seems a less attractive story than that of the stealing and copying of the document in the first place from the Rand Corporation by Daniel Ellsberg. This would seem to lend itself far more to being filmed, with perhaps more at stake for a single man than for a national newspaper just gone public. Even so, the Washington Post angle at least means the film can get in some additionally timely material from Katherine Graham’s sense of attempting to run a successful newspaper in a powerfully male dominated world.
In whatever manner the story is told, the Pentagon Papers release and publication was an important moment of rebellion against a government that had been misleading the world for decades. The Post is an admirable and captivatingly told version of those events, from a filmmaker who continues to be unpredictable, and endlessly exciting.
Sunday, 21 January 2018
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
*This review discusses plot points which some may consider spoilers*
As a first time viewer of any work by Irish writer director Martin McDonagh, it took some time for me to settle into the particular rhythm of his authorial style. Ostensibly a comedy drama, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (to give it its full charmingly loquacious title) is McDonagh’s third feature film, and the one that seems to have broken new ground for him critically and financially since its release in the US towards the end of 2017. It has been nominated for, and won, countless awards and is still gaining new ones. This means that as part of the standard later UK release, it brings with it a certain amount of expectation. It invariably meets those high expectations, in the end settling as a barbed, unique picture with a spectacular central performance from the great and far too rarely utilised in a leading role Frances McDormand.
The film begins with Mildred Hayes (McDormand) happening past the three billboards of the title which sit on a disused road into the fictional town of Ebbing, disused since the highway was built diverting drivers from the road. This doesn’t stop an idea forming in Mildred’s mind to use the billboards to shame and coerce the Ebbing police force into progress in their investigation into the rape and murder of her daughter Angela, which took place seven months previously. After a visit to the advertising company that owns the billboards, the chosen messsages are erected, with particular venom aimed at the chief of police Bill Willoughy (Woody Harrelson). The town is divided over the billboards, and a battle of wills ensues between Mildred and the police.
What could have been a rote back and forth between a backwards police force and a put upon underdog becomes something more pleasingly complex in McDonagh’s hands. This is no black and white portrayal, with Harrelson’s police chief particularly being painted in complex strokes. While other characters have nothing but disdain for Mildred and her antagonism, Chief Willoughby clearly has deep wells of respect for this woman, and the scenes and conversations between the two characters sparkle throughout. Kudos therefore to both McDormand and Harrelson, seasoned performers both and each at the top of their respective games.
Frances McDormand can do nothing but be the absolute centre and star of the show. This is a role that absolutely plays to her particular strengths as a performer, harkening back to previous spiky characters in many Coen brothers movies, particularly The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) and Burn After Reading (2008), as well as Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson, 2000) and Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012). The character name likewise brings to mind one of the great hardworking single mothers of cinema in Joan Crawford’s Mildred Pierce from Michael Curtiz’ film of the same from 1945, an example of what was billed at the time as a women’s picture. Three Billboards’ Mildred is not shorn of the rough edges, she is allowed to make questionable choices throughout the story, such as is in a late story development that sees her firebomb the police station as the culmination of the standoff between herself and Ebbing’s finest. She is a rounded, complex character, perfectly embodied by McDormand, clearly relishing the stream of barbs and insults that litter the character’s dialogue.
The biggest character arc within the film is given to Sam Rockwell as Officer Jason Dixon. He goes through the most change and growth, beginning the film as a slow-witted, racist cop. His progression is prompted by the arrival of a black police chief (played by The Wire’s Clarke Peters) following the suicide of Harrelson’s cancer-struck Willoughby. While this development smacks of convenient and lazy plotting, it is muddied by the fact that the character’s road to redemption is tripped up when his solution to the investigation proves a dead end. This is one of the film’s biggest surprises, and clearly follows McDonagh’s particular way with a story. It all looks like its heading for a neat ending with the redeemed cop solving the mystery, when it turns out, its not. Life does not give you neat denouements, the killer isn’t always apprehended. The world can be a mess. The film is full of bold, interesting story routes, and is never less than throughly entertaining and interesting.
Those three billboards, studded like vertebra in the ground both imposing and vast, form the backbone of the story, morally as well as visually. Scenes are consistently framed around them, characters constantly talk about them, and they are even visible from Mildred’s own front yard. They form an intoxicating image, lending extraordinary visual credence to a very dialogue driven film.
The biggest character arc within the film is given to Sam Rockwell as Officer Jason Dixon. He goes through the most change and growth, beginning the film as a slow-witted, racist cop. His progression is prompted by the arrival of a black police chief (played by The Wire’s Clarke Peters) following the suicide of Harrelson’s cancer-struck Willoughby. While this development smacks of convenient and lazy plotting, it is muddied by the fact that the character’s road to redemption is tripped up when his solution to the investigation proves a dead end. This is one of the film’s biggest surprises, and clearly follows McDonagh’s particular way with a story. It all looks like its heading for a neat ending with the redeemed cop solving the mystery, when it turns out, its not. Life does not give you neat denouements, the killer isn’t always apprehended. The world can be a mess. The film is full of bold, interesting story routes, and is never less than throughly entertaining and interesting.
Those three billboards, studded like vertebra in the ground both imposing and vast, form the backbone of the story, morally as well as visually. Scenes are consistently framed around them, characters constantly talk about them, and they are even visible from Mildred’s own front yard. They form an intoxicating image, lending extraordinary visual credence to a very dialogue driven film.
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