A STUDY OF OBSESSION AND MADNESS... FOXCATCHER...

Oh boy, I have been wanting to catch up with this bad boy for a while. This got chins wagging back in the Oscar season, remember… First it was Steve Carells unbelievable performance as the archetypal (real life ) crazy millionaire John Du Pont. Carell, by and large known for his comic performances shot right to the top of the Oscar nominations list with his performance, and incidentally with his make-up. Or rather his make-up shot to the top of nominations without him, it is after all a different category. Then there was the whole scandal about Channing Tatum getting snubbed in the best supporting actor category. You know shit just got awkward when even Mark Ruffalo who got nominated instead of him openly says Tatum has been snubbed. And then, then there was the whole matter with the real life Mark Schultz who withdrew his support from the film shortly after its release. Having seen the film he was warned that the film could potentially portray him as gay and strongly opposed to any such thing being the case. Though to be honest everyone also noticed that Schultz was rather opportunely pointing towards his own interviews and books he had contributed to as an alternative source… Mmm… Anyway, you will recall it definitely made its own fair share of ripples, not least because it actually is – that old favorite of mine – a true story.  A story of madness and murder – a favorite of the general public too now you mention it! Oh and yeah, there is the odd bit of wrestling thrown in…

David and Mark Schultz are a brother team of great renown in the wrestling world. Both are Olympic gold medal winners but David (Mark Ruffalo) is generally seen as the superior talent and definitely a much better coach and trainer than Mark (Channing Tatum) who is more hot-headed and definitely full of resentment at not being able to escape his brothers shadow. It is for this reason that when, seemingly quite out of the blue, he is approached by eccentric millionaire John du pont (Steve Carell) he sees in his proposition an opportunity to finally strike out on his own and succeed. The stakes are high- du pont wants to be the coach of the American wrestling team that is sent to the 1988 Olympic games. He wants David to be a part of it and to help coach the team. He will spare absolutely no expense in doing so. For David, living alone in a tiny flat and living off the American equivalent of pot noodles, it’s a whole new world… But it is also the beginning of a relationship tinged with drug abuse, obsession and ambition that will prove extremely destructive in more ways than one…

First of all, let us get the most obvious bit out of the way. The wrestling. I cannot stress enough that this is not a sports film. The wrestling is, in fact, almost incidental – although goodness knows du pont himself would be very displeased with that. This is a very insightful and fascinating look at obsession and how it pushes people to react. Carell must have jumped for joy as an actor when he got the part of Du pont – what a character! Basically a real life Norman Bates (only with added millions of dollars and gigantic estate), Du pont – well into middle age – is ruled by his mother Jean (played rather superbly by Vanessa Redgrave) and deep down wants nothing more than to rebel against her. In his quest, he has come up with a sport she would definitely disapprove of, and that would set him apart from her (she breeds prize racehorses) and becomes completely obsessed with becoming the best in the world at it – so he is not only rebelling but in fact overshadowing her as he does it… And he has the resources that enable him to not stop at anything to achieve this goal…

Then of course there is the whole dynamic between Mark and David, the eternal story of sibling rivalry. Both actors do a superb job of their parts. And I really don’t care how much stick you give Tatum about the Magic Mike franchise – the man can act. And boy can he move. I am not just talking about how good looking he is (and let’s face it ladies and gents he is DAMN good looking) he just has a talent of moving fluidly and looking damn good while he does it. The one piece of criticism I will put across however is that the character of David is a little too perfect. He seems to be the archetypal benign older brother, perfect coach and father. I mean, I never knew the guy, maybe he actually was like that. But I have a nasty suspicion that there is some level of whitewashing – so to speak – going on in the light of, not to give out too many spoilers, what happens next…

Foxcatcher sustains a very robust level of tension throughout. It had me on the edge of my seat throughout and the successful way it sustained the psychological tension between this extraordinary and larger than life characters was a large part of it. It is a wonderful study of the human  mind set against one of the most competitive strands of an already competitive industry (professional sport). I personally found it both hair-raising and thought provoking. And I promise you, you will, at the very least, get what all the fuss is about…  

ESSIE ON THE BIG DEBATE - PART 1 "BOYHOOD"

OK,  I know. I never commented on one of the biggest debates this Oscar season. Boyhood Vs Birdman. Mainly because I hadn’t watched either at the time * hangs head in shame* . However! However, this is about to change. I have watched Boyhood. I have an inkling I “get” what happened. Of course I have an opinion on it. It really isn’t the kind of debate you have the luxury of not having an opinion on if you write about film…

And hand on heart, Boyhood is not the kind of film you have the luxury of not having an opinion on, once you have watched it. At the very least, at a whopping 3 hours long (close enough) you will think it’s the biggest wastes of your time since film began. I personally have it down as one of the best viewing experiences I have had since I first ever saw pulp fiction. The fact that I quote pulp fiction on a daily basis should give you some idea as to what that means to me. By that, I don’t necessarily mean it was better than Birdman. I haven’t seen Birdman (yet). I wouldn’t know to compare. That said, I think we have a matter of comparing chalk and cheese here. But hang on, I am getting ahead of myself.

Of course the central “gimmick” of the film is well known. Linklater brought together an ensemble cast and filmed the pivotal moments in the life of a family over the course of 12 years. Our hero is, as the name suggests the son of the family Mason Jr (Ellar Coltrane), but his parents are also (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) are also around as is his sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, director Richard Linklater’s daughter) and all the other characters who come and go – but sometimes stay – and all change the lives of the family for ever…

Now, I have heard quite a lot of the moaning connected to this film. Chief among them was the fact that the film seemed to “go nowhere”. Truth be told, I can see where they are coming from, the film is a series of vignettes, some quite short “moments” some longer periods, all at different (though, mercifully, chronologically ordered) times in the life of the family. There is no clear announcement as to whether the timeframe has changed or not, other than context, and you have to do a quick mental recap, figure out what you have missed, what bit of the story you are at now as you get into the next “bit” of the story. The mental effort needed is not great, but it is there all the same. The ending is open too. It ends at a “kind of” natural end, but it’s only an end because the film makes it that way, the way the story was going we could have happily meandered after Mason for another 10 years (though I’m not entirely clear what this would have done for Ellar Coltrane’s sanity)… But what is the point! I hear you cry. The point, dear viewer, is that there is no point.

It is theory of art 101 that the main function and in fact duty (according to some) of art is to examine the human condition, to hold a mirror up to society, to humanity and show us who and what we really are. That is precisely and exactly what Linklater has done, with painstaking accuracy. Try thinking back on your own life. You don’t remember every single day. They all run into each other, with only random days, conversations, moments emerging from the blur. If you were to take them out of your head and edit them together, something pretty much like Boyhood is exactly what you would get. Linklater hasn’t just stood on the sidelines and given us a nice, prettified “story” of a character with a beginning, middle and end. He has taken us right into his memories. He has written us an essay on what kind of moments it takes to form the character of a person and put it on screen. The result… Is eerily like life itself…

In this context, one of my favorite moments in the film is a split second when we see a picture of Mason and his father from quite a few years ago, quite later on in the film. Even the viewers with the greatest tendency to skip details will not fail to remember the timeframe the picture was taken in, as Mason reminisces so do we, and we can almost see right into his head – because that day is not a Hollywood style “montage” or dramatic scene, it’s (almost) a memory, in amongst our own memories…

Except of course, it is never that simple. The whole way we have to puzzle part of the story out for ourselves will “throw” some viewers. As will the choice of life changing moments, to give but one example, although there are several weddings in the story, we actually see none of them – even though they would almost certainly have been chosen for any mainstream film.

Apart from its rather extraordinary story, I have to praise Boyhood for its cinematography. There were things about Mason and Samantha’s childhoods that brought back massive pangs of nostalgia, the Tetris video games, Samantha doing Brittney Spears impressions and so many more little details that all of us of a certain age can easily recognize. And once you get over the fact that this is not a “show” so to speak, this is what adds another layer of personal connection to your interaction with the film, not only are you witnessing emotions of real life, there is a whole blanket of nostalgia that will envelop you with a whole host of your own memories flooding back to you. I mean if the cinematography won’t do it, the soundtrack almost certainly will. Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Bob Dylan and Lady Gaga all come together on a wonderful road trip through the musical soundscape of a decade…

What Boyhood doesn’t have of course is the highly technical direction Innaritu seems to have applied to Birdman (from the little I have seen of it). It does not show off, if doesn’t have extraordinary long takes, fast paced editing and the kind of soundtrack the world and its dog seems to love to hate. Nor is it that Hollywood darling, a film about filmmaking. I kinda see what happened there… That said, would I go full-hog and jump onto the #Boyhoodwasrobbed bandwagon… I’ll have to watch Birdman to be the judge of that… Keep watching this space… 

ONE OF THE SCARIEST THRILLERS THIS SEASON - "NIGHTCRAWLER"

As we all know, Hollywood loves films about itself. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be Hollywood per se, if it involves filmmaking on any level and you have some idea of what you are doing, well, you’re pretty much guaranteed a warm welcome to the table. The length of your stay there will of course largely depend on what you have to offer.

In this context, we have to admit Nightcrawler has A LOT to offer. Not only is it a piercing look at our hunger for information – more specifically the gory details – it is, through the analysis of this obsession a very, very powerful thriller… And when you add talent like Jake Gylenhaal to the mix… Well… Let’s say you’re in for one heck of a ride.

Lou Bloom (Jake Gylenhaal) is unemployed. He is a high school graduate and largely self-taught but he doesn’t let that stop him – he is on the lookout, actively seeking out his next chance and ready to grip it with both hands when it comes along… And come along in does, quite literally in a blaze of smoke and fire : Lou witnesses a traffic accident purely by chance and as he is idly watching the goings on – as one does – he notices the two men with cameras jumping out of another car. They film the event and dash off again. And lo and behold, next day their footage is in the news. Lou likes this idea. He likes it a lot. And he quickly sets about setting up his own business… At first, no one takes him very seriously. True, the news director of KWLA, a local tv channel (Rene Rousso) tells him that he has a good eye but apart from that, as far as anyone is concerned, Lou is small fry… But there is something about Lou… Something people dismiss as just being “a little odd”. They have no idea what truly lies below Lou’s witticisms memorised from the internet… It is blind ambition and determination, at a level that goes way, way beyond the average entrepreneur…

I have said this before. I will say it again. Lou Bloom is categorically one of the most frightening heroes I have ever seen on film. We learn quite early on in the film that Lou is self-taught. He talks a little too much, his sentences are just a little bit too long and he parrots generic phrases that he has clearly read off just about every job-hunting website on the net. The front is both ill-fitting and a little too perfect. And try as Lou might to “be like everyone else”, the effort is obvious – which is why, we feel quite clearly, he fails to find work at first. But suddenly, it turns out, Lou has a “good eye” for news footage – the gory kind, just the kind KWLA needs to lead stories with – and the rest is history… Thing is no one – including us – wonders how come Lou is so at his ease around blood and gore. (SpOILER ALERT – skip to next paragraph) And the grim realisation comes two thirds through the film when Lou turns to his unfortunate associate Rick (who will be the very first to clock the fact that something is very wrong with Lou) and calmly asks “What if my problem wasn’t that I don’t understand people but that I don’t like them ?” Yes ladies and gents, Jake Gylenhaal actually portrays one of the most terrifying psychopaths I have seen portrayed on film. The entire first half of his performance is beautifully balanced; we go through it feeling very clearly that there is something “not quite right”- it is not until the big reveal that we realise how “not right” things are inside his head… Gylenhaal – and of course writer/director Dan Gilroy- have us exactly where they want us throughout; I honestly think the film – and more specifically Gylenhaal -  deserved every honour it got bestowed on it this awards season.

But apart from being a very impressive thriller, Nightcrawler also clearly contains criticism and allegory. We are officially living in the digital age, we are hungry for constant information, constant thrills, we are being bombarded by multiple channels vying for our attention, each with bigger, better, more shocking, more interesting wares… And if Lou is the villain in this story, he is only able to become so because the news director Nina (Rene Rousso’s character) enables him. Nina is worried about her ratings, her position and – of course – her job. And as their relationship evolves, Lou brings her better and better stuff and she becomes so dependent on his gory wares that ethics and the “how”s and the “is this ethically right”s fall to the wayside one by one until she becomes the very embodiment of the capitalist media monster that we accuse of doing things like killing princess Diana. There is a clear indictment of a greedy information and technology driven society, too preoccupied with its own thrills and not in the least worried about potential consequences for others…

Technically the film gives a nice balance of contrasting fast paced segments, car chases and gory accidents shown in the style of the news it criticises with moments of stillness that adds to the underlying eeriness the story has built up and brings no peace. I guarantee you, you will be on the edge of your seat from the beginning of the show to the end… Definitely one of my favourite films this season… 

THE MANY FACES OF "AMOUR"

Those of you who know me in real life know, I have quite a number of nonagenarians in my family. So it may be said of me that I think of old age and the things it will bring a tiny bit more than the average 30 year old. We tend to put it off, live as if we will be young forever and old age, if we think of it all, is a slightly more romantic vision of growing old with our significant other (if we have been lucky enough to have found them) happily sharing memories of youth and going through life a bit slowly perhaps, but gracefully, hand in hand. We very well may be lucky enough to have such a blessed autumn in our lives. Reality, however, as Amour not so very gently reminds us, is often much, much less sugar coated than this.

Meet Georges and Anne. They are retired music teachers in their eighties. They both enjoy a healthy interest in music and culture and their bond of love is as strong as the first day they have met. They have one adult daughter who has a family of her own in the UK who they keep in touch with. All in all they are preparing to end their years peacefully and together. Their peaceful world however is shattered when quite out of the blue Anne has a severe stroke. The condition claims first her body – rendering her an invalid – and then her mind leaving Georges quite alone. Georges is now left with the mere shadow of what his wife used to be and has to come to terms with becoming her carer. He also needs to cope with one of the severest tests their love has received.

Michael Haneke presents us with a typically unflinching and unforgiving stare at old age. Anyone who has at some point had to care for elderly relatives will testify to the realism of the depiction. Veteran actors like Emmanuelle Riva and Jean Louis Trintignant skillfully show us the horrifyingly sudden way Anne’s mind unravels and Georges’ trauma, confusion but above all undying love for his companion of so many years. It is no coincidence that the characters are music teachers – the contrast between Anne before the stroke – an able and knowledgeable housewife but also clearly a very capable music teacher who has raised musicians of world renown in her time – to Anne post the stroke towards the end of the film, inarticulate, screaming wordlessly like a baby, unable to tell Georges what is wrong and unable to understand what he or her daughter says to her. Quite apart from being incredibly difficult to watch, it is a stark reminder that it may be our very own future; Anne is peacefully having breakfast when the stroke strikes and has no previous symptoms whatsoever. Or indeed we might end up as Georges, left with only the shell of our loved one; trying to accept that for all intents and purposes the person we fell in love with has died. 

And of course the way Amour is filmed is as big a factor in its message as what the story actually tells us. The camera is often static and placed at a “respectable” distance that is often beneficial for us, the viewer to take in the house as it changes from Anne and Georges’ home to a house that needs to accommodate an invalid and all of her needs. The sedate and minimal movements of the camera match Georges very well as he presents a relatively calm and almost matter of fact exterior to his daughter, the carer and even us the viewer, while it is the tiniest cracks that show his real emotions boiling up all the way up to the breath-taking finale which I will not spoil for any of you.

Another interesting point is that the film takes place almost exclusively within the confines of Georges and Anne’s home. This is actually a very effective mirror of life in old age. In developing countries especially it is true that a lot of older people enjoy quite active lives, for one reason of another it is very easy for an octogenarian to become housebound. So we get a real taste of what old age may be like, but contrariwise we also bear witness to the ever-changing universe that can exist within four walls. This means of course that details of the film that take place outside the four walls get missed – we must use our heads to follow the story, although the effort will not be so great. We even miss some things that happen within the same house, but hey, that’s a pretty realistic depiction of real life as well…

Amour is, in short, a wonderfully sensitive and insightful look at the “happily ever after” of love. It shows us what happens after the sun we previously happily walked into with our other half has truly set. It is an incredibly sad film but not a hopeless one. Love, Amour tells us, doesn’t really die in events like this, It merely changes form…

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CONTAIN THE "BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD"

I took one look at the trailer for this one and said to myself “Hah. Terrance Malik fan.” This, to be fair, is what most reviewers of the film seem to have thought when watching Beasts of the Southern Wild. But don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. In fact it’s one of the things that pushed me to watching this film. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a wonderfully surreal and – dare I say it - slightly steampunk fairy tale taking place right in the middle of the modern world.

Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) is a six year old girl living in a southern bayou called Bathtub with her father Wink (Dwight Henry). Hers is a rather unconventional life, she goes to school and is taught by Miss Bathsheba who uses her tattoos to tell the children about aurochs and warns them about the melting ice caps. Six year old Hushpuppy has a “house” of her own close to her father’s where she lives with her own things and what remains of her mother’s stuff – her mother “swam away” when Hushpuppy was born – and goes over to her father’s house to eat. So there she lives, in an unconventional world bolstered by her very vivid imagination. But when disaster strikes in the shape of Wink’s failing health and the great flood (Hurricane Katrina), Hushpuppy’s disorganised but happy world comes crashing down. To survive (mentally and in fact physically) Hushpuppy has to grow up very, very quickly indeed.

This is wonderful lyrical story of a completely alternative way of interpreting the world. The perspective of a child, a child who has not been given the hard and fast rules the rest of society has adapted as “the right way” to do things. Do you remember those days? It was quite a long time ago for most of us, so most of us forget pretty quickly, but there was a time when you believed in things that you know think was “childish nonsense”. It could be the tooth fairy, it could be , like me, that when you got into an elevator the elevator was static and the building moved around it (I’ve said this before, I was rather a strange child). Director Benh Zeitlin does this by creating a completely alternative universe in the bayou. The people who live there do not have nearly as many possessions as the folks on the other side of the levee but they have one thing money cannot buy – community. Hushpuppy’s family is not limited to her father, it is the whole community, all her neighbours. The alternative lifestyle is reinforced by the slightly Steampunk looking surroundings; the ramshackle huts made out of disparate construction materials cobbled together, farm animals running practically wild… It’s as close to living in a magical land a person can get to in our modern times… It is fascinating to see, through the eyes of a child, how this perspective copes when the harsh realities of disease and destruction come crashing into this world. Be it Wink’s refusal to come to terms with his illness (we are never told exactly what but it is some kind of blood disorder) or the community coping with the devastating aftermath of the hurricane, it is not just a matter of physical survival; it is a matter of whether the happiness and philosophy of the community will survive. It is easy to put bitterness and hopelessness instead of courage and a sense of togetherness. Even more important is how little Hushpuppy is going to cope with this transition because in all probability it will colour her approach to life for the rest of her days.

For her performance in this film young actress Quvenzhane Wallis deserves nothing short of a standing ovation. This film is her first role as an actress and we have since seen her in films such as 12 years a Slave. Facially and vocally she ably conveys a very complex set of emotions and thoughts that some adult actors may well have struggled with. Dwight Henry is also a strong performer as her father Wink, who obstinately raises his daughter his own way, with an obstinacy and passion that borders on the violent.

The one thing I feel didn’t quite fit into the film are, sadly, the aurochs. They have been compared to the dinosaurs in Terrance Malik’s Tree of Life, and who knows, that may well be the source of their inspiration. They are, basically physical representations (I say physical but needless to say the only exist in Hushpuppy’s mind) of her fears, the difficulties the future will bring and the uncertainty. Although the end sequence with them is designed to bring a rise of emotion in us, to me it felt forced. The same emotion could equally be conveyed (and I personally thought it was) during (SPOILER ALERT) Wink’s funeral, right at the end of the film. I think they felt a little clumsy in what was otherwise a very emotional and delicate film.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a real experience to watch. The silences and surrealism is not for everyone but if you just look past the surface of these it’s a truly beautiful and complex film. Definitely one not to miss. 

BECAUSE WHEN IT`S REALLY DISFUNCTIONAL, THERE IS NOTHING MORE PAINFUL THAN A FAMILY : `AUGUST : OSAGE COUNTY`

This is another film that should technically come with a disclaimer. I definitely knew not to expect a light hearted family comedy when I started watching it (and even if you have done no research at all, this fact becomes blatantly obvious under ten minutes into the film) but blimey, I did NOT expect it to hit me like a sledgehammer. Not like this. Those who know how close I am to my mother and grandmother can easily put two and two together to figure out that this was not easy watching for me personally but I think the problem is pretty universal. This is a family portrait. A frighteningly realistic one of what goes on at the other end of the `family` spectrum, when all is not rose-tinted Hollywood bliss.

Barbara (Julia Roberts), Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) and Karen Weston (Juliette Lewis) are three sisters. Ivy lives close to their parents in Osage County, the delegated family member who takes care of the parents while the other two sisters have, to all intents and purposes, made a dash for it, living their own lives far, far away. God knows there is stuff to run away from. The matriarch of the family Violet (Meryl Streep) is not the easiest person to get on with by any stretch of the imagination, so much so that she has pushed her husband Beverly (Sam Shepard) to his wits end. So when tragedy forces all these strong and disparate people with years of unspoken grudges to bear under the same roof, nobody can quite predict what the result is going to be or who, if any of them, is going to get out of this ruthless melee emotionally intact…

This film is based on a play by Tracy Letts and I have no shadow of a doubt that she had first-hand knowledge of the workings of a problem family. I mean at least one. I mean I say that, but hand on heart, how many families can really aspire to what the mainstream holds up as `perfect`. At one point in the film Ivy speaks of how she has lost faith in the whole concept of sisterly love. `Just random bunches of cells that are genetically connected` is how she describes herself and her sisters. I do see her point. I don`t see things quite as darkly as all that, but I do see her point. It is a tough lesson to learn – and not all of us end up learning it – but the fact is, in my experience of the world, that just because you have family ties with someone it doesn`t necessarily mean you get along. It doesn`t even mean you like each other. In fact, if for whatever reason you turn out to be not very compatible as people, your relationship may well turn into a special kind of seething black pit of resentment that you only see between relatives. This usually has its roots in the fact that despite, for whatever reason, you don`t like or don`t get along with the person you are forced together, time and again, sometimes for decades… I mean there can be upsides to this kind of non-compatibility, God knows I have my own share of difficult relations but this has, for the most part, taught me patience. It has given me the ability to look more effectively for the good in people. Because when you are `lumped together` with a group of people, it is actually quite rare that you are able to have a relationship with them spanning decades or lifetimes and be unable to see the good in them at all. Because let us remember, it is very rare indeed that a person has no good in them at all… It all depends on how willing we are to look for it. That`s what makes families so extraordinary for me. It can well be that you are like chalk and cheese, even with your closest relations, but somehow you make it work… Except when you can`t…

Tracey Letts finds so many little things to touch on surrounding this kind of difficult situation. She touches on how difficult it is to get used to the concept of caring for your parents… Violet`s mental decline is especially hard to watch, although it is hinted out that she has never been the easiest of people to live with. Then there is Ivy, the one who got left behind and couldn`t leave her parents to fend for themselves… The line between taking responsibility for your family members and sacrificing your own life is such a fine one sometimes and taking a step either way is more painful than words can express… It is this pain the August : Osage County captures so well…

So yes. August: Osage County is about families. The real deal. Warts and all. Good times and bad. It is definitely not a feel good movie, nor is it for the faint of heart. But I reckon, if we watch it with honesty, many of us, if not all of us, will find something from our own families in there somewhere.              

UNEXPECTED ADVENTURES COME IN MANY FORMS... THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF "CAPTAIN PHILLIPS"

This was another expected Oscar® that sort of never happened right? A lot of people were rooting for Tom Hanks and then he didn’t even get nominated. And by the way, as I write this I can’t help wondering why we didn’t have such a hoo-haa about the Best Actress awards. I think everyone sort of assumed Cate Blanchette was going to get it, then she did. The end. But then again, I think that’s possibly the topic for a different post all together. Let’s return to the tale of Captain Phillips and the story of the real live pirates.

For Captain Richard Phillips, it’s simply a job like any other. There is a ship that needs to be taken from A to B on the African coast. Ok, the route the ship needs to take goes through potentially dangerous waters – pirate territory to be precise – but it’s nothing the captain or the crew cannot handle as long as they keep their wits about them. Besides, not a single American captain has been hijacked in the last two hundred years, so the odds are definitely in their favour.  And so, they set off. Captain Phillips is made of slightly sterner stuff than what the crew are used to but there they are, in the middle of the ocean so they might as well find a way of getting on with each other. Until, that is, the unthinkable happens… A crew of Somalian pirates driven by desperation board the vessel and take Captain Phillips hostage. Thus starts a very dangerous game of cat and mouse with actual lives at stake.

First of all, did you notice the “human interest” angle in Barkhad Abdi, the actor playing the pirate captain being nominated for an Oscar® ?  And seriously, how awesome would it be if he had actually won? I know we are light-years away from the way things should be as far as gender diversification goes, but at least now the “underdog” also is given an equal seat as it were, which is good. Now all that needs to happen is to actually give said underdog the award – but I digress.

I found this film interesting in a way, because it brings the whole concept of pirates into perspective.  I mean hand on heart, when we think of pirates, we tend to think of a rather romanticised version of the concept loosely based on Captain Jack Sparrow. There may (may) have been some truth to that concept once but of course that was quite literally centuries ago. Pirates still very much exist today and their lives are a far cry from that of the Disney pirate captain. They are hungry, desperate and forever being pushed to do more and get more ships by the “big bosses” who would not hesitate to kill them if they so much as opened their mouth to murmur. So in fact, this not just the case of a “swashbuckling life” – it is a simple case of desperation and survival. Not quite a Disney movie then.

The film wonderfully balances psychology and tension – not least in the second half of the film when Captain Phillips is actually taken hostage on the pirate’s own small boat and driven off. When the action took place on the ship, at least there was room to manoeuver, you know? Gun fights, the crew trying to hide from the pirates, the possibility of an intervention, a lot more to “play” with – and play with it director Paul Greengrass does with gusto. You will remember Grenngrass’ work from the Bourne trilogy. He does tension and action very well albeit in a rather testosterone loaded way, but hey, it’s an action movie right? The second half of the film was particularly good because now the lion’s share of the action is contained in the small boat the pirates are using to try and escape from the approaching authorities. We see the way the pirates interact, with each other and with Philips, moving smoothly from the action to the psychological. It was great to see such a smooth transition between the two. Of course the main focus remains very clearly on Phillips’ abduction and his being either returned to safety or taken back as a hostage. But instead of brief and slightly stilted insights, in this film we get a proper, legitimate look at the psychologies of the pirates.  It gives that film that bit of an edge, making our characters that bit more real. Which is interesting really, because this film is not really about the ship – it is about the pirates. This is clear, because the crew, with the notable exception of Philips and the few people who work close to him get very little air time beyond what a crew on a ship would be expected to do. Stock roles, nothing more. The insight we get into personalities we get from Philips and the pirates. It is a subtle difference, but a difference none the less. A different focus would mean yet another film about white “Caucasian heroes” being attacked by “baddies”.  This film asks the question “well who are the baddies?” – because we pretty much know what the “crew” on the good side is like. We have seen enough action movies. The hero usually changes from film to film, so fair enough we get to know Philips. But then, we turn our attention to piracy. Not “attacks”. It’s pleasant to see a film in a genre rather set in stone (like any genre, the action film has its own conventions that fans are partial to) merge so smoothly with the psychological thriller and provide a refreshing change of perspective all at once.

Now don’t let all this talk of how the story is structured make you think I am mentally detracting from the fact that this was a true life ordeal. The story is wonderful – and a good story is the backbone of every good film out there. But the art of cinema truly lies in the way you structure the story and chose to portray it.  I find true enjoyment in mulling this aspect over as well as getting immersed in the film I am watching. I mean, the way the story went presented a brilliant opportunity of course – having actually been on the boat with the pirates, Phillips was able to actually observe them and provide the insight Greengrass so aptly uses to bring the film to life. And as I always say, real life is nearly always much stranger than fiction.

So if you want a film that will grip you, excite you and make the 2.5 hours fly by, you’re looking at the right one. So let the adventure on the high seas begin!

WELCOME TO THE TWIGHLIGHT HOURS IN "NEBRASKA"

You know how I said I really wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to win the Oscar ®? And you know how I said well, in fairness, Matthew McConaughey did a fine job of his part in Dallas Buyers Club? I mean ok, I still stand behind both statements. But having watched Nebraska I am left literally tearing out my hair going “WHY HASN’T BRUCE DERN GOT AN OSCAR?!” I watched Nebraska in the last third of an 18 hour flight (20 – something including stopovers). I was moved to tears regardless of the insomnia, the jetlag that had begun to set in and the sore eyes… It may be because stories of old folks have a special place for me (my maternal grandparents are still alive and I am especially close to my grandmother) but still… Some emotions are universal and the emotion here is just so strong, I would argue you can tap into it regardless…

Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) has a bee in his bonnet. Well, to be honest, he has many bees. He is getting old and a little “confused”, the years of heavy drinking have not helped. His family are finding it harder and harder to look after him and now, he has his heart set on going to Nebraska. Woody has received a letter from a magazine, ( and it bears all the classic hallmarks of a scam), claiming that he has won one million dollars. So Woody wants to go to Nebraska to the headquarters of the magazine to collect his winnings. An if this means making the trip from Montana to Nebraska on foot, well, he’ll do that too. In the end, his youngest son David (Will Forte) gives in. His father is clearly not letting go of this one, so he might as well ensure he doesn’t do himself any mischief. So he agrees to drive him down to Nebraska. But as will often happen when two people are stuck in a small space with minimal distractions and lots of time on their hands the past will slowly come bubbling to the surface and Woody and David’s past is very far from being a happy one…            

This film basically hinges on how good of a job Bruce Dern does of his part. Because the dysfunctional Woody, what we learn of him “in person” and what we pick up from the other characters talking about him constitute the “spine” of the film. And to give credit where it is due, it is not an easy part to pull off. He has minimal dialogue and basically portrays a cantankerous, obstinate old man who creates an aura around him without saying much of anything – in fact part of the aura stems from the fact he doesn’t say much of anything. But his performance coupled with the equally brilliant performances of Will Forte and June Squibb who plays Woody’s long-suffering wife mean that we are pulled into the centre of the action in no time.

What I really love about this film is that it is a touching and realistic portrayal of how our relationship with our parents changes as we grow older. It isn’t just about taking on the role of caring for them as opposed to them caring for us – although there is that too. Throughout the film, David is trying to actively learn more about his past, his family’s past. You know that point when you started actively asking “logical” and “adult” questions about your family and things that happened in the family’s past? Yeah, that moment. That, combined with the moment you realise your parents are human. We’ve all been there. Except for David, this is a bit more complicated because Woody was far from being a good father. In fact, from what we can gather, he was quite far from being an average father as well. David approaches his father with a clear air of “I’ve had enough of this” at the beginning of the film. Although, maybe because he is the younger sibling, he has more of a “sense of duty” than his older brother Ross ( Bob Odenkirk) who is adamant a care home is where his father belongs. By the end of their adventure the relationship between David and Woody has changed. Oh it is not a “fairy tale” ending. They are not “the best of friends”. But they are the best of friends they can be under the circumstances and that is all that matters…

Mainstream storytelling would have us believe in a constantly loving family unit. If there are “dysfunctional” characters they are “lovable rogues” who can, more often than not, be “reformed” in the space of the story. What I love about this film is that it bucks both these trends, making the entire family a lot more “real” and the ending a lot easier to believe. Because in real life, more often than not families aren’t “cute” awkward like mainstream movies – they are “what the hell is wrong with you” kind of awkward. And that kind of awkward doesn’t get all reformed and tidied away – if there is any reforming done, it gets done at a snail’s pace and probably in bits and pieces over decades. But of course that doesn’t actually make for a nice tidy storyline with lovable characters so films about it are fewer and further between. But the thing is, when done right, the films that DO portray family life warts and all do tend to get huge acclaim. Why? Audiences bond with characters that are accurate portrayals of themselves and events that reflect their own lives. And audiences are made up of real people. Real people with warts. 

DON'T LET LIFE "RUSH" PAST YOU...

So Konichiwa as the locals say over here. I have just arrived in Japan J It truly is turning out to be the holiday of a lifetime – but I’ll tell you one thing, getting out here is a bit taxing. I am almost completely de-jetlagged at the moment but the actual flight itself tired me infinitely more than the time difference. Well, what can I say, I am an incurable fidget and sitting still for almost 20 hours is just… Agony. Sleep wasn’t much of an option (I’m a bad sleeper at the best of times) so the airline entertainment system was my best friend for the duration of the flight. Especially since I found so many films that I desperately wanted to watch in their archive. It was for this reason that when my friend asked me how my flight went, my answer was “Not bad – the food was good and I watched 5 films!” I mean the upshot of that was that I ended up sleeping a total of 2 hours but hey… You know… Priorities… ;)

And one of the films that impressed me the most was this one. The mix of adrenaline and emotion was at a level that actually kept me awake and alert through the last lap of my journey, at my most tired (needless to say I totally crashed and burnt right afterwards). This is definitely one of the films I am rooting for at this year’s awards. Here’s why.

Rush is the true story of the intense rivalry between Formula 1 drivers John Hunt and Niki Lauda. (Played respectively by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl). It is a rivalry that will colour ‘70s Formula 1 racing for ever. The two men are vastly dissimilar in all ways imaginable. John is a tall and handsome ladies’ man who enjoys being the talented “big kid” on the race course, throwing all responsibility and caution to the wind and winning over everyone he annoys by his sheer drive and raw talent. Niki Lauda is the mirror opposite.  The Austrian driver borders on the antisocial, by his own admission looks like a rat and drives his entire team insane with his extreme focus on every single little detail and perfectionism. He is, however, as much of a genius on the race track as Hunt is… Or is he? That is the question the two drivers strive to answer as they battle it out on the track time after time… Their opposing personalities means that the clashes continue both on and off the track and makes the driving even more intense…  But the real question is who will win the coveted world championship? There can be only one…

Hand on heart, I have never seen the point of Formula 1 (or 2 or 3 ) driving. I guess it’s because I’m not the sporting type but cars driving round and around in a circle… Meh… If you’re on the same page as me as far as sports and sporting movies, go don’t knock this one just yet…  Because the actual fact is that it is really, really not just about the driving. In fact the driving is almost just a side line. What really comes, rather brilliantly to the forefront of this film is the analysis, on many different levels, of the intense rivalry between Hunt and Lauda. I found it very, very similar to the concept of the “worthy opponent” that one often finds in tales from the far East. I mean, this is not to say the concept is not present here in the West but it is not spoken about or analysed as much. Both drivers are men of very great talent and relish the fact that the other presents competition that they can truly get their teeth into. Each one is, for the other, “the one to beat”, on the racing track they are almost in their own little world, their own little race, just the two of them, while the other drivers fight it out amongst themselves who gets third place and lower. The clash of personalities just adds passion to the whole affair, intensifying the rivalry and giving each one that many more reasons to want to beat the other.  Yes, in so many ways (but not a sexual one, very obviously) it is almost like being in a relationship. I don’t want to give you too many spoilers, but further down the line we see clear signs that the relationship changes; what starts off as the two men very, very clearly annoying each other to death ends up becoming something akin to sibling rivalry. Towards each other, it is no holds barred. But if a third party tries to attack one of them in any way, rivalry is put aside to form a joint front.

But do not be fooled – or indeed alarmed- this is not some kind of Hollywood-ised “buddy movie” where the two men end up “growing” together and becoming close friends in the end. As this is real life, there is a substantial amount of pathos to the ending of their story which I will leave you to discover. But I think this adds to the beauty of the story really. Holywood fairy tales would have us believe in one “explosion” of an event that remains focal and life changing for ever. In real life, however, the great, the good the ugly and the beautiful come, have their moment on the stage and move on, leaving their place to something else. This is what makes life the beautiful, colourful tapestry it actually is, as opposed to the tidy linear story that is infinitely more practical for films. That tapestry is not always easy to describe or portray in films but this is a very, very good effort. Definitely worth your time. 

JUST DOIN' THE "AMERICAN HUSTLE" TO SURVIVE...

“I don’t know what all the fuss is about” complained Mom as I talked to her on the phone the other day. “It’s just another heist movie isn’t it? I got bored, quite frankly, I didn’t even finish it.” I tutted at that, I highly disapprove of not finishing films. I have done it only two or three times in my life, usually when I felt a migraine coming on. Having recently watched American Hustle, I feel the team putting the film together was well aware that there are a lot of heist films out there. It’s a tricky one really, because heist films have a legitimate fan base for their own sake. But if you want to step above and beyond that fan base you need to do something different.       Something different that, at the same time, is not going to change the basic structure so much that it doesn’t alienate the fan base. American Hustle has actually negotiated that fine line very successfully – hence the Oscar nomination. There are those who, like Mom, are completely sick of heist movies but well… You get those in every genre…

Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale)  has a nice life all in all. He has a beautiful wife (Jennifer Lawrence) with whom he “fights and f.cks” but ultimately cannot seem to separate from; he has a nice little business running laundrettes with some art dealing on the side… Oh and he’s got a second little side line as a con artist, taking from the rich and desperate and giving to himself. Ok himself and his gorgeous business partner and lover Sydney (Amy Addams). So there he is, rolling along, making a “decent” living when… SLAM. The FBI. He is “nailed” by one of the FBI’s brightest, Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). Now, every hustler knows that everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY has a weakness. The secret to survival lies in finding and abusing it. Richie is over-ambitious. What starts off with a simple trade off with Irving and Sydney – You get me a couple of big fish and I’ll make your charges go away – spirals slowly and steadily out of control as Richie forever sees opportunities to get bigger fish… Irving tries to warn him, not unsubtly, that he is heading into very murky waters but Richie remains stubbornly blinded by future glory… The question is, how far is he prepared to chase these dreams for and how far will he end up falling from?

Now, in one sense this is a common or garden heist film. I can, in that sense, see why Mom got so bored of it. But then, let us not dwell on the similarities. We have already covered that, the movie HAD to do it. The fans would get bored. Let’s concentrate on the stuff the movie did differently. Because, let’s be fair to the movie, it has done a substantial amount.

Now, first up, our hero.  You guys know how much of a Leo DiCaprio fan I am right? Right. I have to begrudgingly admit that although Leo is the main guy I support this year… Well… I won’t be that upset of Christian Bale gets it. I may even be rooting for him a tiny bit. Because as the heroes of heist movies go, Irving is quite a character. First of all, no Ocean’s 11 style smooth, handsome hero here. Irving is overweight and has a “killer” comb-over that gets a good few pages of dialogue all to itself. He has a beautiful blonde “dolly bird” wife sure. But what is different is, he has a COMPLICATED relationship with her. It’s a love-hate relationship, she’s depressed, is she an adequate mother? These are matters that ACTUALLY preoccupy us. We get to really know our characters in this film, as opposed to just reverting to stock characters and using all our previous knowledge to just assume what they’re like and move on. I mean then there’s Sydney. Her relationship with all the characters involved. You literally never know where she’s going to turn next, I mean you do, but the story is so cleverly designed that even a cynic like me had her misgivings.

And while we’re on the subject of characters, let’s have a word or two about Richie DiMaso. There are two types of possible cop in these movies. Ye can have the conscientious “good cop”, the hard-working, beetling antithesis to our “wise guy” heroes, like the police officers in The Wolf of Wall Street. These guys ultimately either win the day a la Wall Street or our heroes run rings round them, kinda like a Road Runner cartoon. Or, we are made to “hate” the cop so that we love the villain all the more – and ultimately the villain usually gets away. Richie… Is neither!  I mean ok, he is a sub-genre of the second variety. Ultimately he does get on our nerves. He is that over-ambitious type in the office who thinks, after taking two successful steps he is basically the best there is. Better than everyone. He has it coming to him a mile away and you know what, you kinda enjoy the smugness being wiped off his face. But at the same time… I’ll let you discover it for yourself but he has a bit of tough life. He is a bit of a “loser” in movie terms (and God knows I hate that term in real life but I’m trying to make a point here) but… Eh, he’s grey. He’s not black or white. Which makes this movie so great.

American Hustle is a fun, solid mix of something old and something new. It very successfully take a genre where it’s generally “goodies vs baddies” and made it… Well made it closer to real life. All the characters across the board have very real personalities and original personal tales. No one is a “stock” character. There is a lot of grey and not much in the way of black and white. I mean yes, this has meant giving up on originality in other areas sometimes but, like we said at the beginning, we can’t afford to lose the fans now, can we? J Soo yeah. I guess I’m ok with it getting a pat on the head. I’m not “outraged” about the nominations. I’ll have something to say if it actually gets all ten Oscars® it is nominated for but for that, dear ones, we have to wait for next week… 

"THE WOLF OF WALL STREET" PROWLS THE OSCARS

I remember when I first saw the trailer for The Wolf of Wall Street. I was working on something or other with multiple social media websites running in the background when Twitter gave a shiver and a jump. Within the space of ten minutes over half the people I follow (and trust me, I follow a fair few) had shared the trailer. If that isn’t an invitation to click on the link, I really don’t know what is. The moment I saw it, I knew. Oh goodness, big, bold and larger than life : The Wolf of Wall Street was going to take us all by storm and I could NOT wait…

Now, unless you have been living under a stone for the last few months, you will know full well by now that this is the real-life story of Jordan Belfort. Played by the once again brilliant Leonardo DiCaprio (and I REALLY want him to get the Oscar® for this one) we watch the unbelievable rags to riches story of Belfort and his cronies. Jordan is a young man with a gleam in his eye when arrives at Wall Street all those years ago. That gleam is ambition and greed. Now, we all know how Wall Street works. For those who are willing to be “flexible” and with a talent in sales there are many back ways up the career ladder – and Jordan uses and abuses every. Single. Step. Life is one big drug and booze fuelled party at first. Jordan himself has trouble adapting to it – but like most humans, he adapts quite quickly to the finer things in life and after that, honestly, there is really no turning back. Or so it seems. Because for every over-ambitious young man clawing in the cash by any means possible, no matter how outrageous those means are, there is an FBI agent watching very closely and patiently waiting for a slip-up…

There are several reasons this film is brilliant. Now, you may have read my entry on The Great Gatsby last week where I classed the film as an attempt to be larger than life on an emotional and visual scale that failed – at least on the emotional scale. This film is larger than life emotions done right. I mused for a minute over what made the difference as I watched the Wolf of Wall Street. Because God knows the setting is modernised but not that different : Jordan lives in a huge fairy tale mansion with his trophy wife, kids, cars, yachts, helicopters and God alone knows what besides. The parties are unbelievable but not “classy” like Gatsbys – more sleazy. But still, larger than life. And for me, it felt right. But why did Lhurman’s film feel beautiful but fake while Scorsese’s felt completely real? It hit me as I watched a little further. And it’s a lot simpler than you might think. Belfort’s life is one we actually live. No, we do. It is very much a story of our times. First up, we have lived Jordan’s life on a much smaller scale- and possibly not quite in the sequence he does things. But most of us have been to a few truly wild parties where we got rip-roaring drunk back in our day. Some of us even experimented with narcotics. Who doesn’t know that “graduating to the big league” feel of your first pay check? You remember your first apartment? Yeah? Did it not feel like Jordan’s mansion when you first moved out of your parents’ place? Your first beat-up car, remember that? Not the hand-me- down from your Dad but the one you BOUGHT with your own money?  Was that not the coolest ride ever, for all the GIP it gave you breaking down every other day? Yeah… We all know that feeling. Well that and the fact that, come on. I’m not saying we would all go around boozing, doing drugs and defrauding people but who doesn’t want to be rich? I know, I know, there are a lot of hippies out there, like myself, who would fiercely argue that money isn’t everything and it really, really isn’t but… You would enjoy that life. You would love your life to be one long party. Hopefully one you didn’t have to fuel by lying and cheating but the pure “party” aspect of it? You’d love it. You know you would.

Maybe if we watched Gatsby or indeed Lhurman’s other films, Moulin Rouge for example, in a different era it would feel different. Imagining cinema was as it is today back in Gatsby’s day, the audience may well have reacted to the film the way we are reacting to Wolf of Wall Street right now. That would be such an interesting experiment actually. I must remember this for when I have a time machine.

This is also why, I reckon, critics are in such a panic about Wolf of Wall Street glorifying a certain lifestyle. It does not matter that Belfort and his cronies are painted with almost no redeeming features. It’s the “realness” of it all that creates the strongest temptation. DiCaprio and Scorsese may well complain about this particular bit of the backlash but it was, I suspect, a risk they knowingly took. It was the fact that they were tapping into this already existing dream that makes the film sell so well. Critics can lambast the film all they like. As The Wolf of Wall Street says, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

I mean, apart from anything else, including the quite serious messages it encloses, The Wolf of Wall Street is basically a heist movie mixed with a drunken-boozey- hangover comedy. I refer you, for one example, to the EPIC scene portraying Jordan and the “delayed action” drugs – you know that particular event that marks the beginning of his downfall. I do not laugh out loud much at this kind of comedy but this… Oh my God I was in STITCHES. The entire film is worth watching for DiCaprio’s performance alone.

Well, so what can we say? The film does tell a very “materialistic” story but hey… Guess what, that is the world we live in. If we’re all going to start griping about art’s duty to change the world, let’s please remember that art is also a reflection of the society we live in, albeit the larger than life subconscious. The Wolf of Wall Street is precisely that. I mean, in the same vein, I remember a rather bitter tweet stating (I paraphrase because I can’t for the life of me retrieve the Tweet) “I never go to a Scorsese film if I want to see strong female characters”. Err No. Honestly, neither do I. But then again, that’s the way Scorsese’s films have always been. He has always been a “lads” type of filmmaker and has always done what it said on the tin. His female characters are always sketchy stereotypes with no real “meaty” part in the story and the whole affair is generally full to bursting with testosterone. The Wolf of Wall Street makes no exception. Jordan’s wife is the typical trophy wife in all ways, as for his employees, there’s the sassy secretary character –who is refreshing but has about two handfuls of lines – and one single female stockbroker. One. I mean I know this was the ‘80s but come on people, surely in real life there were more than one per floor? At least God I hope there were… I mean, honestly, this almost is the topic of a whole new blog post but you know what? Long story short, again, art is a reflection of the society it is created in. So is this film. We need to change the society we live in before we start griping about what we see in the mirror art holds up to us. I mean, if you look into the mirror and see the warts… It’s not REALLY the mirror’s fault… You can see that – right?  

HOPE, DESPERATION AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN : "THE GREAT GATSBY"

I was genuinely excited when I heard this film was being made. Especially since it was starring Leonardo Di Caprio AND Tobey Maguire… They are two of my favourite actors and The Great Gatsby is one of my favourite books. I was a little unsure of what I thought of Baz Lhurman directing it…  I mean don’t get me wrong, Moulin Rouge (the film he is the most remembered for as far as I can see) was beautiful but… Well it that was it really. It was beautiful. A film needs to be beautiful but in an ideal world it needs to have a bit more meat than that on its bones. And I have to say, the film (The Great Gatsby) has been lambasted quite badly by the critics, in some circles at least. I was eager to see what it was about – and have decidedly been stricken by the film – but I can’t say I blame the critics either…

Ok for those of you who aren’t big into literature, a brief summary.  Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is a budding author who has left his artistic aspirations to one side to sell bonds on Wall street. It is the 1920’s, the golden age of Wall Street and Nick is quickly swept up into a world of fast living and boozey parties (all this despite Prohibition of course). Nick’s head is turned by the glamour and glory that assails him for all sides but he is unaware – at least at first – that the true “place to be” in New York of the 1920’s is on his very doorstep. His neighbour, an elusive man called James Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) who has seemingly never-ending financial means that he uses to throw the most spectacular parties New York has ever seen, week after week. Nick is drawn into these parties… But he is treated to something a little more than the usual guests: the confidences of Gatsby himself… Because although it may seem to the untrained eye that Gatsby is simply living a carefree and privileged life the way so many are, but in actual fact, Gatsby is a man with a plan…

Now first up: There is a reason this film was nominated for Oscars for Costume and Production Design. It is hands down one of the most beautiful films I have seen in a very, very, VERY long time.  Now don’t tut or dismiss this as “make-up” because it really isn’t as simple as all that. Gatsby’s whole mentality and whole struggle with society is based on that beautiful exterior. The fanfare, the trappings and, according to Tom Buchanan (the husband of the ill-fated Daisy)  marks him out clearly as a “nouveau riche”. The whole point is that, at the end of the day, Gatsby is “different” from all his party guests and all those stunning trappings are shams. Tom Buchanan sees this as a bad thing – the trappings hide a simple bootlegger and a crass man according to him… We however, through the eyes of Nick Carraway and Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) see that while there is indeed, a different Gatsby under the trappings and fanfare – it is not as simple a matter as Tom paints it…

Or at least we should. I hate to say this, I really do. But this particular film does a STUNNING rendition of what Gatsby’s trappings looked like… And gets tangled up in them. I could plainly see the efforts to put that depth across but it’s just not working. What annoyed me the most about the whole thing was the way he got Nick Carraway to narrate over plot points that are made supremely clear through the actor’s performances. I mean I know that modern Hollywood does, from time to time, feel the need to take a neon sign and point at what we are “meant to be feeling” but the way Lhurman does it almost harks back to the “chorus” in Greek tragedies of yore. I fully realise that this is, in the end, entertainment and we don’t necessarily want the film to pose us mental puzzles that we work out over 3 or 4 viewings but come on… Leave something to the audience. I mean heck, leave something to the actors! Between the pomp and circumstance and the rather forced narration, in the 2 hours and 20 minutes of film there is surprisingly little room left to show the depth of character Gatsby truly possessed.  I mean ok, we are shown clips from his childhood where he is shown (literally) reaching for the stars; a cute if rather stock image, but is it really sufficient proof he had vision and ambition? It’s the same problem – a beautiful picture: a blond blue eyes scallywag reaching up into a beautiful starry sky – but it doesn’t really tell the story does it? I feel it happens to a lot of key scenes in the film. In so many places, all the emotions are put across in the most cliché way possible… Executed with grace and beauty but still, not one iota of originality; and that is such a strange thing to say about a film that has as stunning visuals as The Great Gatsby…  I guess the fact that the film is based on a book as emotionally “filling” as Fitsgerald’s classic just makes things worse. I wonder if that was why the narration bit was added? You know, a desperate attempt to capture that atmosphere of the book by actually reading sections from it.

I’m especially disappointed because the film was SO visually striking, I was actually under the influence of the atmos a day or two after I watched it… If it was only half as striking emotionally as it was visually we’d have a masterpiece on our hands. As such, it breaks my heart to say this, but it’s the victory of style over content… 

PAPILLON - ON THE IMPORTANCE OF NEVER LOSING HOPE... NO MATTER WHAT...

Love is a strange and many splendored thing. Sometimes it comes with a flash of light and a clap of thunder, engulfing us all in an instant. But sometimes it sneaks up on us quietly taking us over so gently we don’t even realise until we have been completely engulfed. This film crept up on me exactly in this way. I started off watching it almost out of a sense of duty – it’s a known classic and I felt as if I should have watched it by now – and for the first hour or so honestly wasn’t that hooked. I ended up deciding that my first tattoo will be the butterfly that gave the film it’s name – the butterfly tattooed on the main character’s chest. I have the pain threshold of a slug when it comes to needles (terrified doesn’t scratch the surface of how they make me feel as anyone who has tried to take blood from me can testify) so this is really something. Allow me to endeavour to explain how.

The film is based on the memoires of the same name of Henri “Papillon” Charriere,  a petty criminal native to France. Convicted (all his life he claimed wrongly) of killing a pimp, he is sent to the penal colony in French Guyana. This is a dismal place where the prisoners are treated little better than animals and the more unruly ones (like Charriere) are kept in solitary confinement for years ( that’s “years”, plural) so that they are “broken” (and often killed). Of course it’s completely possible to get yourself into trouble even in solitary confinement in which case you are deprived from light for up to six months… As you can imagine, Charriere is not an easy prisoner by a long shot. Two things keep him alive and (relatively) sane: his friend Dega who is a renowned forger and a man of means who can make *ehm* connections even in this most dismal of jails and his dogged obsession with escaping. The trouble is that this place is specifically designed so, as the guard so succinctly puts it, France can “wash her hands” of the men and dispose of them. For ever. It is going to take one hell of a lot more than determination for Papillon to escape…

You may have made the analogy already. And to tell the truth, yes,  in places the film has that distinct feel one gets from “escape from POW camps” type tales that were so popular around the time of the 2^nd World War. You know, completely disparate characters pulling together against a common brutal enemy and almost impossible odds. The fact that we have Steve McQueen (who was the lead in The Great Escape ten years before this film was made) in the title role does nothing to alleviate this analogy. Of course genre-wise, it’s your basic buddy-movie really. The strong decisive “masculine” one (Steve McQueen) and the more effeminate, “scaredy” one who “gets things done” aka Dustin Hoffman as Dega. Technically the film is brilliant in so many ways. One of my particular favourites was that beautiful if slightly jarring contrast between the paradise island of French Guyana and the brutality of the colony. And to me, to be absolutely honest, this film stuck out with its story, more than anything else…

First of all, a tiny bit of research straight away proved what I strongly suspected: it is widely presumed that the stories Charriere tells as his life story partly come from other prisoners. You could very well argue that the story is a bit like a swashbuckling pirate story. And I do not mean that in a disrespectful way. It’s just one of those things where when you look at the list of misfortunes that befalls the hero, it is almost numerically impossible for one single person to be THAT unfortunate. But then again, I don’t think the fact that it didn’t happen to a single person detracts from their force – considering they were probably true. I’m pretty sure 6 month blackouts happened as did solitary confinement for years on end along with God knows what else besides…  I mean these stories are unbelievable, but the truth often is stranger than fiction…

And secondly, just because an event is based on reality but doesn’t match up to it 100% must we, in every single case, wag our fingers and dismiss it because it’s not “telling the truth”? This is a story about the amazing capacity human beings have to find inner strength and keep up hope. And shall I tell you something else? I don’t even think it’s that important whether Papillon made it to freedom or not…  (SPOILER ALERT!) What matters is, when he is put on Devil’s Island – a minimum security branch of the colony where the prisoners are pretty much left to their own devices on a tiny island surrounded by shark- infested waters and nowhere to launch a boat from Papillon, who is now old and grey and not a little insane after 5 extra years in solitary confinement, STILL hasn’t given up. While Degas (who has somehow landed himself on the same island) is happy to settle in and concentrate on growing carrots, Papillon is still plotting… Now call it obsession or madness if you will, I think Papillon’s tireless bids for freedom speaks to something in all of us. You know. The part that secretly “knows” that one day you will be famous. You will be rich. You will have that red Ferrari. The entire world may be telling you that that plan, whatever it is, is very probably going to end in heartache. Outwardly you agree. Inwardly, there is a tiny voice inside insistently telling you to keep plugging at it. Papillon is the story of a man who never, never lost that voice. And I think this is a far more important message than any other the film may or could contain.

I mean, look at it this way. As I write this review, Holocaust Remembrance day is almost upon us. I just finished watching a documentary about British Holocaust Survivors. They site a lot of different “ingredients” for survival in those most horrific times, blind luck being one. But the second? Optimism. A sense of humour. And if that doesn’t tell you something about what it takes to survive in this world, I don’t know what will…   

OSCAR SEASON MUSINGS AND A DISCUSSION ON EMOTIONAL CINEMA : "12 YEARS A SLAVE"

Well. With the Oscar® season now officially upon us with the nominations and the dates set, what remains for us movie buffs is to discuss the nominees and put the finishing touches to our own guesses as who this year’s little gold men will go to. One cannot, of course, guess everything. But one thing seems pretty certain from where I’m sitting, judging from all the discussion it has raised alone, 12 Years A Slave will be walking away with some awards on March the 2^nd. So, in my quest to get up to date with the Oscar ®buzz this year, this is where I started.

I just want to add a quick parenthesis here and add: Man, I missed actually going to the cinema! Watching films from home is just so easy these days thanks to various different platforms enabled by 21^st century technology. I have, in the process discovered one of my favourite cinemas to date : The Screen On the Green in Angel. I loved the “double seaters” complete with little foot stools for couples, the café / bar INSIDE the screening room itself and the fact that the toilets led straight off the screening room itself – allowing one to nip in and out quickly and discretely J I know I digress but just… The whole experience was great. I mean sure, the film would not be any less great if I had watched it at home in my jammies but… The whole experience was awesome. Seriously. Look up your local independent cinema. Go to it more often. You’ll be pleasantly surprised; especially if, like me, you’re lucky enough to be able to go during “office hours”.

But I digress. The film. Quite. Now, you probably have, if nothing a vague idea of what goes on in the film. But let me quickly go through it anyway. Solomon Northup was an accomplished violin player who lived in New York in the mid-19^th century. He was a black man, but a free man as he was lucky enough to be born in “the north”. And he was living a quiet life with his family, his beloved wife and 2 small children until a business deal that seems almost too good to be true has an unexpected… Backlash… Kidnapped, taken south and sold into slavery, Solomon has to wait 12 years before any real hope of salvation comes his way. In the meanwhile, through his memoires, we follow him move from master to master, plantation to plantation and fight to keep his sanity… And his life…

Steve McQueen and script writer John Ridley use Northup’s autobiography to cast an unblinking gaze on the utter horrors of slavery in the 19^th century. Northup is passed on from pillar to post much like a piece of furniture and virtually no consideration for even his most basic need and comforts. Once on the market, the rest is purely pot – luck. You could end up with a kind and fair master like Ford (Benedict Cumbarbach – incidentally I was so sure for some reason he would be the “mean” master; I think he would make an excellent villain. Oh well. That’s for another film I guess). But even so you had no guarantee that the overseers you were made to work under would be just as kind. Paul Dano is beyond brilliant as Tibeats, Ford’s overseer. Tibeats is a typical, small-minded and mean middle-management figure. You know the type. That particularly mean boss who always has plenty of snide comments but no constructive criticism on your work. The one who is on the lookout to chip off your breaks and benefits whenever he can. Yeah. Except Tibeats can actually kill the people he is overseeing and get away with it. But then… Then he is moved on to Epps (Michael Fassbinder). We, along with poor Solomon, thought Tibeats was bad. Suffice it to say compared to Epps, he is a fluffy kitten with a bow round its neck. But I will let you discover the delightful Master Epps and the way he runs his plantation in your own good time.

12 years a slave will, without a shadow of a doubt, grab you by the gut and not let go until 2 and whatever hours later. I defy you not to cry. Hand on heart, even the slightly “Deus ex machine” ending of the film completely eclipses your attention (I will get to this in a second). At this point, I have actually read reviews that criticise the film, and if not the film, the fact that there is not enough intellectual involvement in films like this and that the "tear jerker" nature of the film is a bit of an "easy way out"  (Click here for a particularly fine example of this school of thought). I mean, there is some truth in this. I will fully admit that even as I sat in the dark crying my eyes out, I knew exactly what was coming in the end and I loved the fact that I was right. And that is not the mindset of an “intellectually engaged” critic of the movie. Lets get back to the Deus ex Machina bit. I mean, ok, I do get that it would take a large dose of chance for Northup to get out of the condition he was in. But still… A chance encounter with a stranger (I’m talking about Brad Pitt’s character) and “puff”, 12 years of agony at an end…  It would possibly be more realistic if, instead of – or possibly after – his reunion with his family, we at least saw something of his struggle in the courts and his ultimate failure to prosecute anyone who had harmed him. But no, the emotional reunion with his family is the end of the film and Northup’s later struggles are only seen in writing on a black screen just before the credits. I mean yes, add all those in too and we’d have a film 3,5 hours long… But would it maybe push us to think more about the political system of the time? One of the reasons Northup couldn’t have justice is the fact that the colour of his skin prevented him from testifying against a white man. Another fact that potentially gets washed away in our floods of tears at the finale.

So. I’m landing on the side that argues that 12 Years a Slave should be less emotional and more intellectual, is that it? Well… That leads me to another question though. Is it the obligatory function of all art to make us think and nothing else? Ah, now there’s a discussion for you. I would argue, no. Sure, art has a duty to educate the masses if nothing else by using the power that comes of being so “widely spread”. But it has another function. To make us feel. Art is primarily an emotional creature and from there springs its beauty; if art didn’t make us feel passionate and involved, if it didn’t sweep us off our feet from time to time, well… All art would be like those French films that are “meant” to make you feel disengaged and give “useful” messages. And we all know how popular those are.

So maybe 12 Years A Slave is more emotional than intellectual. Why is this a bad thing? In a world where racism is a sadly common occurrence, it gives a plain message. A message that we clearly needed reminding, seeing that racism is as common as it is: “Racism is a terrible thing”. “Slavery is a terrible thing” and before anything yes there still are people working in conditions approaching slavery, if not the actual thing, in this funny old world of ours. If we don’t have any “actual” messages, well maybe it’s because we haven’t come that far yet, so to speak. Once we can fully grasp that we should treat each other with equal respect regardless of race, sex, colour and creed we can move onto the complicated stuff…  In the meanwhile though, 12 Years a Slave shouts out its message loud and clear. And you should really, really stop and listen if you haven’t already.

AND THERE'S NOTHING QUITE LIKE FAMILY... ESPECIALLY THIS FAMILY... "DESPICABLE ME 2"

Phew, ok. Now, let’s try something a little happier, shall we? For all my “realism”, even I can’t abide 100% darkness the whole time. And when I say “let’s lighten things up a bit” I’m going all out. As we discussed above, the world can be a dark and scary place. Luckily we have things like family, laughter and more importantly animated movies to get us through the dark places…

I am deeply suspicious of sequels. I always have been. I strongly believe in leaving at the top of your game and all that. I know that the crew behind Despicable Me was good. But still… Good crews have tried other sequels and failed. This could have been the same. I mean it’s a good bet the kids would love it anyway but would we? The answer is yes. Yes, we would.

Gru and the crew are back. Although God only knows Gru didn’t want this. The plan was to give up “villaining” all together now and concentrate on legitimate business and family life- Gru does have three kids to raise now you know. How will they live? Well Dr Nefario and the minions are helping Gru develop a line of jams and jellies… It’s err… A work in process. But yeah. Sadly for Gru, his criminal talents are needed and they are needed urgently. There is a brand new super-criminal afoot and there is only one person the Anti Villain League can think of to help stop him: Gru! He takes a bit of convincing but Gru finally agrees to do “one last job”…  Coupled with the rather eccentric agent Lucy, Gru sets off to work saving the world once again. But what with teenage daughters and disappearing minions,  he may not quite have his mind on the job…

This is another one of those ones where I’m dying to literally tell you all about it but I don’t want to mess up any of the surprises. Suffice it to say that all our friends that we know and love are back and up to more tricks. The kids are as adorable as ever and Gru, not surprisingly, has got more of handle on parenting this time around. Look out for the minions – as if you needed telling – they have a considerably larger piece of the action this time around. I’m so glad they’re getting their own movie – aren’t you? Never fear, as you probably know, the rumours are in fact a reality. Check the end credits for this film if you don’t believe me J

So ok, I love Despicable me and I love the minions, but am I going to say “it’s perfect” and gloss it over? Well, no. I was a little upset that the series felt the need to “round off” Gru and the girls into a perfect family (oh come on. You KNEW Lucy was a love interest the moment I mentioned her. Don’t pull that face. You totally did). Having spent the larger part of my life growing up in a single-parent family I resented that a tiny bit. It’s a personal thing. I mean yes, of course having two parents is the ideal thing, no one can dispute that. But still, my point is single parent families do just fine thank you very much, they don’t necessarily need to be “rounded off” for the sake of being rounded off. But then again… I guess the film is more about love. And the fact that being a family doesn’t necessarily mean being blood relatives. The love comes, it brings people together and at the end of the day it even conquers “small details” like genetics. Which, I suppose, is also a worthy message. Ok yeah, it totally is. Besides it also puts out the message that love can come at any age etc. Gru is a “proper grown up” as opposed to the young 20-somethings (I can officially say that because the only two I’m getting in my age is on the far right from now on. Except if I live to a 120. Which is well… Unlikely.) finding love and settling down right at the beginning of “things”. So yeah. Actually a good mix of relevant real-life messages with your comedy. That’s exactly the kind of thing I like to see in a film. 

ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF IN A DARK PLACE... "DRIVE"

I fully intend to get more “up to date” on my reviews by the way. Just putting it out there. I was chatting to a colleague at work the other day and I was glad to hear that I am in fact not the only person who makes about ten New Year’s resolutions. I mean, you know, it’s good to have spares. I have like 5 or 6 this year. Tidying up the blog is one of them. Making my reviews more up to date comes under that heading. I mean, I will keep these randoms. Because this blog has always been about me going “Oh my God you guys, you’ll never guess what I discovered!” But yeah. Let’s  not lag too far behind either. I know this isn’t the clearest possible description of what changes I have in mind for the blog but don’t worry, it will become clearer. In the meanwhile let us concentrate on a more important question. How the heck did I take nigh on 3 years to watch Drive? It’s only, oh I don’t know, one of my top 5 favourite movies.

The driver (Ryan Gosling) is a man of few words. When you talk to him, you get the feeling life has made him this way. And to be absolutely frank, the life he leads doesn’t leave him much time to be touchy – feely. By day, he is a stunt driver on Hollywood movies. By night, he is one of the best get-away drivers that can be had for the right amount of cash. Meet his terms and he is yours, no matter what. And more often than not, he will get you out of no matter what. In short, as far as driving is concerned, he has a God given talent and he is using it every single way he knows how. And he has a rather solitary if fast-paced existence until his next-door neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her little son come into his life. This in itself is not a bad thing; it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s when his relationship with his neighbours enters a head-on collision course with his dark night-time dealings that the driver reaches a very dangerous point. He will need all his courage and talent to salvage even some of the things he loves. If he makes it out alive that is.

Ok, several things. First of all, be warned this film is full of dark places. I mean, you know me. I’m all about dark places and ultra-realism and all those things that make a film… Well not a fluffy romantic comedy. You know what I mean. No. The world of the driver is hard and dark. You may, at the beginning, be tempted to judge our hero as “bad” but it soon becomes very obvious that he is just keeping his feelings under lock and key. Why? We can only imagine. Because even in the credits Ryan Gosling is listed as “Driver” –we never even learn the hero’s name. And then, a ray of sunlight enters his world. A true, bright, warm ray of sunlight he cannot help but turn to. Unfortunately though, as is often the case with these things, clouds quickly scurry on to cover the sun and the driver is left bewildered and more vulnerable than before. Because those feelings he had under lock and key were there for a reason and now innocent lives are at stake.

Ryan Gosling is absolutely marvellous as the driver. One thing I loved about the whole film is that he is completely silent for a very large part of it. It is almost the character’s trademark. This, among other things, makes it very easy for us to project ourselves onto him. Well think about it; since you’ll be using your own experiences and imagination to figure out what’s going through his head, you will create a character sympathetic to yourself. Thus, anyone who has anything marginally similar to the Driver is going to end up adoring him. You might have been down on your luck relationship-wise and feeling lonely. You might be in a job you’re not particularly happy in and desperately want to get out. You might have been unlucky enough to have been backstabbed or may, for whatever reason, feel you need to keep your emotions hidden. You will like this guy. You will find something of yourself in him. The genius of the film is the fact that it makes it so easy for you to put it there J . Oh don’t get me wrong. I love the driver too. I’m just pointing out to you I reckon this comes about.

And then of course there is the supreme contrast of this state with his changed state when Irene enters his life. Pay attention and you will see all the little details like the changes in the lighting, the softer colours… But more importantly, the Driver speaks. He smiles. And the couple work so well together, the acting is just so brilliant your heart swells. I mean, at this point a word or two needs to be said about Carey Mulligan. She is one of the brightest stars of our time and yet I love the fact that she pulls of being completely, believably normal.  Yes, even an old cynic like me was rooting for a happy ending on this one. Did I get what I wanted? Well… Like a lot of things in life – and in this film – nothing is black or white. You will have to watch the film and figure the answer out for yourselves.

What I love about this film is that it is so close to real life and I saw – as I am confident a lot of you will – so many emotions I have felt and psychological places I have found myself in. I know that some people advocate a completely different you know, restful world where all the problems are nicely tidied up and any rough edges on characters are nicely filed down by the end. Thing is, that doesn’t tap into my real emotions. Life simply does not work out like that. I find it is rare that a film grips me at the heart strings like this and has me pausing the film now and again, simply because I just feel so tense I just can’t take any more adrenaline. It will not come on you all at once, oh but it definitely will grow on you… Now go watch the darn thing…