WHERE HEARTS AND MINDS COLLIDE IN A WOMRHOLE... "INTERSTELLAR"

Well this was a big one – in so many senses of the word! Not least because it was yours truely’s first ever IMAX experience! I did smirk slightly when the usher warned the audience to look away if they felt disoriented or sick – but I did actually feel quite sick during one portion of the film (although, ironically, telling you which bit would constitute a spoiler) and I felt as if my head was full of cotton wool for quite a while after the film… I still loved IMAX though… Especially with a highly visual film like Interstellar, it’s almost obligatory to have it either in 3D or in IMAX… I mean, there are some films (*cough* Gravity *cough*) whose entire USP is based on its visuals and being viewed with “advanced” technology. Interstellar’s aim is to be a bit more than a pretty face though. And Christopher Nolan being Christopher Nolan – the film has plenty to say for itself. Is it all coherent – I hear you ask – or does the film actually deserve the hashtag Interstellarplotholes Well…

In a dystopian world where “the system” has been destroyed and everyone have become farmers in a desperate attempt to  keep the world (and by that I mean the entire planet) from starving to death, Cooper, once an astronaut, is restless… His children have known nothing different but he remembers a world where mankind was adventurous and exploration of the final frontier was still on the cards… That is why he is delighted to happen upon a top secret space mission run by what remains of NASA and headed by Dr Brand Sr (Michael Caine) and his daughter (Ann Hathaway) Cooper gets the chance to return to his vocation, and possibly save the world while he is at it… However this is a mission like no other, Cooper is headed for truly uncharted waters and picking the new planet humanity is going to live on is a tricky business at best…

Now, this film has, you may have noticed, a huge number of fans. This is because the film is ambitious, incredibly ambitious, on so many fronts… First of all, visually… Well what can I tell you the film is a stunner… There are so many so called set pieces of space, the planets and (mild spoiler alert) the wonderful visuals of the galaxy beyond the wormhole and (major spoiler alert for like one sentence) the universe actually inside the worm hole (this is the point at which I started feeling nauseated by the way) are wonderful feats of technology and imagination. Best viewed with some form of HD, you will definitely be visually satisfied by Interstellar…

You will also be emotionally satisfied by it. Nolan produces quite a few very successful full-blown tugs at your heart strings. Even the toughest in my group welled up a couple of times during this one. I cannot state examples without giving spoilers as a lot of the most emotional moments come at crucial parts of the story – sort of jump cries as opposed to jump scares if you will…

But on the third hand (I appear to be an octopus for the purpose of this review) the film is also very, very cerebral. Nolan puts in a lot of science and a traditionally complicated storyline, successfully blending quantum physics, theory in a dystopian space context… Or I mean, does he really? This is where the hashtag Interstellarplotholes comes into play… Because Interstellar is a thing to be felt and enjoyed, sure… But if you start actually thinking about it seriously, holes begin to appear… I mean it starts from the smallest things – how, for example, in a world where purportedly nothing grows except corn, does mankind still have beer? How come Cooper never loses his tan for the duration of his “decades” in space? And – this is a big spoiler so look away now if you’re sensitive but I need to get this off my chest it’s a big pet peeve of mine  - why oh why oh why does this wormhole somehow magically end up behind a bookshelf? I mean I get the whole circular storyline thing, much like the Alchemist of Paulo Coelho we find the answer to the mystery we were searching for back where we began as it were but… I mean why of all things behind a book case?? I mean I get the importance of circularity. I really do. It’s the whole Humanist mindset of human beings “not needing any mysterious beings to take care of them”, that we and all the resources within ourselves are the only guides we’ll ever need if only we realize our own full potential. And I have to say, this is one of the more beautiful and intelligent ways I have seen of putting this message across. But I do wish Nolan had paid a bit more attention to the science as he went along. I mean I’m not even getting started on the fact that the only explanation we have of a wormhole is the same old folding a piece of paper thing every other sci-fi movie seems to do. Nolan either wants to mystify the viewer or, and I feel this may be the actual answer, this is not necessarily about “accurate science”. It’s a parable of love, humanity and life in a science fiction context and we should follow what our heart is picking up and not get “entangled” in the whole scientific context making sense to the “t”. Then again, it is the 21^st century and there are people out there who have made a bona fide hobby out of hunting for plot holes so I’m not entirely convinced this was the best way forward for this film if this was indeed what Nolan was after…

Whatever it was, true to form, we will very obviously be chatting about Interstellar for a good while yet… 

WHERE THERE IS A WILL THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY - WELCOME TO THE "DALLAS BUYERS CLUB"

Allrighty. On with the Oscar season. I know for a fact that some people who are slightly more soft-hearted are thinking of possibly steering clear of this one. Death, disease, a long struggle against nothing less than the pharmaceutical companies and a very prejudiced “system… Yeah I totally agree, this is not what one might call uplifting. But then again, and I have said this before, not everything in life is uplifting. And if art imitates life, I reckon it only makes sense it imitates the good things and the bad. Besides, Dallas Buyers Club is definitely not all doom and gloom. Oh no. Not by a long shot.

The year is 1985 and Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is a regular, all-American guy getting on with his life. He is an electrician by trade, although he has many, many side lines most of them not entirely legal. He likes drinking and doing various drugs with his buddies and “getting it on” with a lovely lady or two (or three) in his spare time – a proper man’s man if you see what I mean. In short, he has a bit of a good thing going in life until a work related accident lands him in hospital where it is discovered that he is HIV positive. His lifestyle means that it has escalated into full-blown AIDS and Ron is told he has a month left to him to get his affairs in order – if he’s lucky. This is a complete blow out of the blue for Ron, not least because he is a red blooded “man’s man” and cannot see how he could have contracted a “homo disease”. But he is not the kind of man to hide from anything for long so he rolls up his sleeves and gets to it. Because Ron has plans and they don’t include dying in a month. He has a long and rocky road before him not least because his  ignorance on the matter is only rivalled by his prejudices towards “homos” who now cross his path more and more often. But as Ron forges forward, he begins to discover some very unexpected friends and allies… And, potentially, a revolutionary way to prolong his own life and the lives of his new found friends… With new friends, however, come new enemies. In this specific case, a whole barrage of pharmaceutical companies… Ron truly has his work cut out in more ways than one…

Now, if you have read but a handful of the reviews for this film you will know one that a lot of what happened is based on real life, but here’s the thing: In real life Ron was not homophobic. In fact, he wasn’t even heterosexual. I have read multiple articles that state that he was openly bisexual and that a lot of people who associated with him in later life never thought of him as straight. Then again, Craig Borten, the scriptwriter for the film swears up and down that the Ron Woodruff he met was as racist and homophobic as they came. If you’re asking what the heck is going on, as Ron Woodruff himself has been dead for a while now the truth is we will never really know. Maybe he was “posturing” to the press – I mean come on, anyone of average intelligence – and Ron was definitely over the average – knows that the mainstream press is going to lap up the story of a typical “red neck” that grew and developed through disease, getting rid of his prejudices and becoming “one of us”. It may have purely been a matter of getting his name out there. And come on, put your hand on your heart and tell me the storyline didn’t get you too. This tactic is especially effective when you have an actor as brilliant as McCaughnahey who can express the change and development in the character in every single subtle movement on screen. And of course from a technical perspective this storytelling gold; ideally you have to see the character grow change and develop from the beginning of the film to the end , it doesn’t get clearer than this. Plus it gives an uplifting, anti-homophobic message that is much needed in a world where the reverberations of the Sochi Winter Olympics and everything that preceded it are still reverberating in our hearts. (Oh come on, don’t tell me the timing wasn’t suspect at all… Seriously).

Now don’t go thinking I am “disillusioned” by the film or am trying to “disillusion” you or something. I’m actually praising the film. Because, even though from a viewer’s perspective the film seems to appear on the screen as if by magic, there is a lot of thought, planning, tactics and marketing that goes into it – and Dallas Buyers Club does a spectacularly good job.  The question we need to ask ourselves is, to what extent did Ron Woodruff himself “meddle” in this. He made no secret at all of his own activism so my bet is… There is a very good chance he put on an act for the scriptwriter on purpose…

That said, does it make our experience any less “real” ? Heck no. Quite apart from anything else, everything Ron did, both for the good of his own health and to fight against the big pharmaceutical companies for others are very real and make awesome stories in their own turn. And quite apart from that, even though it may be completely “real” one cannot help warming to the on-screen Woodruff and MM does a wonderful job of portraying him. And of course one must not, CAN not forget Rayon, as portrayed superbly by Jared Leto. And I do not just mean it in the sense of “Oh what a good job he did portraying a transsexual person”. No. Because what we tend to perhaps forget in the whole discussion about homophobia and AIDS is that Dallas Buyers Club is also about coming to terms with your own imminent death. Rayon is, above and beyond anything else, full of life and joie de vivre and she does NOT want to die. Leto does an absolutely sterling job at portraying Rayon’s heart breaking confrontation with this fact, especially in the second half of the film.

So, basically, you need to watch this film. There is a lot and I mean A LOT to think about. Well, I mean, this is the story of a hustler at the end of the day. Nothing is quite what it seems.

THE OPPORTUNITY THAT WAS MISSED BY "THE PAPERBOY"

Well, with Lee Daniels’ The Butler looming on the horizon, no time like the present for a Lee Daniels mini-retrospective! Oh, you know how I love long words. What I really mean is that I got a chance to see The Paperboy recently – and grabbed. I was quite excited to see it too, I loved Precious and this was a true story too. A true crime story to be precise and you all know by now that I have a huge “gory tooth” as far as true crime goes. I checked the imdb score – it wasn’t high – but I didn’t let that trouble me as I have found that my view of a film often doesn’t match up with its review. This time however… Heartbreak and disappointment I’m afraid. The film made its way onto the blog from the sheer amount of potential it holds. And because well, it’s my blog and I want to rant.

Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) is in a very deeply passionate relationship with Hilary Van Wetter (Jon Cusack). This may sound like a normal enough sentence but there is one problem. Mr Van Wetter is on death row for murder and he and Charlotte have barely met face to face. This is by no means Charlotte’s first prison pen-pal, but it is definitely the most passionate affair she has been in. She is determined that it is fate that brought her and Hilary together and that she will find a way to get him out of prison. To this end, she contacts Ward Jensen (Matthew McConaughey), a reporter whom she asks to prove, somehow, that Hilary is innocent. Hilary and his partner Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo) begin to look into the case and there are indeed some technicalities in the story that have been overlooked. Well and even if they lacked motivation, Charlotte is quite a character… So much so that Ward’s younger brother Jack (Zac Effron) is absolutely besotted with her, following her and the investigation around wherever it may lead. One thing is for sure: Charlotte is onto something. It’s just that it may not quite be what she thinks it is…

One thing I can take my hat off to Mr Daniels for is this: He sure knows how to pick a story. Think of his two other “true story” films, Precious and now the up-coming The Butler… And as we all know, the backbone to a good film is a good story. After all, we go to “watch” a film, it is a very visual experience and how the story unrolls is very important, but it is easy to be accused of being all flash and fire and no substance, like a lot of action based films. (Latest example to that being Neil Bomkamp’s Elysium). Now this film has substance. It has tension, it has huge conflict, so we’re all set for a good show, right?

Well… See, you might find it hard to believe with a film of this kind, where there is no CGI, no special effects, no monsters or robots, but what Lee Daniels does here is, sorry to say, exactly the same thing. The visual side of it is… Well  I don’t want to say all wrong but, it’s… It’s too much. It’s totally ok (hey, it might even be considered compulsory) for a director to try new visuals, new editing styles and to insert a little bit of dead time here and there purely for “effect”. When Mr Daniels was adding the dead time though, clearly the lid fell off the jar as it were. The first 10 minutes of the film, aside from the lengthy exposition (the combination of Macy Gray’s accent with rather iffy sound equipment made the narration nigh-on impossible to understand even for us native English speakers) there was a lot of emphasis on how Jack used to be a swimmer, and him “posing”. Clearly Mr Effron’s body made quite an impression as it is masqueraded throughout the film; it even gets its own little spotlight slap bang in the middle of a chase sequence (I mean, if there was any other point of cutting to memories of him swimming in the pool right when he was being chased by a murderer in a swamp do let me know, I am at a loss). But it’s not just that. The whole “superficiality” reduces a lot of emotion that we feel ought to be present in the film to mere surfaces. It is clear that Miss Bless puts more emphasis on her looks than her character for example. Fine, cinematic history is full of characters like that. But that reduces the chemistry that clearly exists between her and Jack to a kind of Barbie-Ken type relationship. This is a tad unfortunate because they are supposed to be the most important characters in the film. And once we fail to empathize with them, the film is pretty much lost.

And another thing. The editing is clearly inspired from 80’s – 90’s tv shows. There are effects in there I haven’t seen on a screen for over a decade. I realised as a I watched, there was a good reason for that. Now, it may be one of two things, either it is meant to further insert us into the period, or, the editing is just doing “all it can” to draw attention to itself.  This is a valid cinematic point, you know, the whole nouvelle vague message of not getting immersed in the film, the conscious viewer and all of that. However, taken in context I find this improbable. When we look at films like Precious or The Butler (for the last one I’m basing myself more on the trailer than anything else of course), while the filming styles are quite different, the aim is very much to tell the story. And Lee Daniels’ The Butler is already being earmarked for the Oscars ® in some circles which definitely says something about how “out there” and philosophical it is. No, if there was a consistent philosophical aim, I’m sure we would have seen it before…  So maybe it’s one of those days where you’re torn between a few different items of jewellery and end up wearing them all… And looking like a Christmas tree.

So I reckon The Paperboy is very much a missed opportunity. And to me, a clear lesson that a story can easily become the victim of the visual. There is a whole philosophical debate in there somewhere on which is the true “heart” of cinema, but I’ll leave that for another post. There are only so many tangents a blog post can take. 

COOL VS “COOL” : SURFER, DUDE.

This is “a clash of the cools”. The California surfing scene may never see another clash of the titans such as this one!
California is ablaze because the surfing phenomenon Steve Addington (Matthew McCounaghy) is back in town. He is the epitome of cool : ultra laid-back, mostly high and nearly always broke, the latter much to the distress of his manager Jacky (Woody Harrelsson). To be fair Jacky’s fears are easily quelled by a few puffs on a joint, and his “lawn mowing business” is doing well, but as far as being a “major asset” is concerned, Steve is not doing well… Then one day, things get rather “uncool” in the surfing world. Steve’s contract is handed over to one an ex-surfer and new entrepreneur. And his plan for Steve is to get him to live in a “Big Brother” type house for surfers where he will be filmed 24 / 7 and participate in tests to have is avatar created for his new surfing video game. Steve “has no problem going to shake a surfer’s hand” but wants none of the rest of it. His new boss responds by refusing to give him any money until he complies and starts circulating “uncool” rumors about him. This would not really have bothered Steve, unless California was going through the longest “waveless spell” in recorded history…
Unable to surf (and thus with his mind deteriorating) or do anything else ( for lack of funds) and with his manager in jail (another pressure tactic from ) Steve is faced with a tough decision: Sticking to old-school cool or complying with modern times….
Surfer dude is an understated yet hilarious comedy making fun of all the surfing / sports movie clichés while deep down under the hilarity, presenting us with the very real battle of old-school versus “high-tech new school” . It may at first glance look very much like yet another sporting spoof but really, I couldn’t wipe the smile of my face from the beginning to the end of this one… Just be cool and give it a shot…