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Avenue 5 (2020)
Hugh Laurie can't save this
Hugh Laurie's brilliant early comedic work led me to have a look at this, but I didn't have high expectations. The first episode is as confused as it it unfunny, with a large number of completely unlikeable characters (is this supposed to be what makes them funny?) all engaging in a fictional disaster while the real disaster is the show itself. I was cringing every time Josh Gad was on screen. Watch this if you think Lost in Space meets The Poseidon Adventure would make a great comedy.
The Florida Project (2017)
Outstanding performances from actors new and old
The Florida Project lifts the lid on a story few of us know- the would be homeless people trying to make ends meet whilst occupying cheap motels. The motel manager (Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe) tolerates intolerable behaviour, knowing these people have nowhere else to go. The families go about their lives, working low paying jobs if they are lucky; whilst the kids do what they can to alleviate the boredom.
First time performers Bria Vinaite (Halley) and Brooklynn Prince (Moonee) are exceptional as the mother/daughter team struggling to survive. Halley is still a child herself, overwhelmed by the responsiblities of single parenthood and falling into the traps that young women do when they are desperate. Six year old Moonee creates havoc with the other children as they run amok in the surrounding area. Together, they show us a bond of tenderness, friendship, and loyalty to one another as their world begins to crumble.
I felt like Brooklynn Prince and the other children must have been improvising their dialogue, since it is so natural and free flowing. However a few scenes indicate this child is an absolutely extraordinary actor. The final scenes are heart wrenching and raw, while early in the film she uses language you'd expect the adults around her to use. Either she has come straight from a poor neighbourhood to star in a film, or she is talented enough to respond to coaching. This is a performance that has to be witnessed to be believed.
In terms of narrative, there is little. The film is made up of small vignettes, day to day experiences which could easily be so very boring; but they fit together seamlessly and create a story woth investing in by allowing the depth of Dafoe's and Vinaite's characters to be revealed. This is one of Dafoe's best performances, as it relies on him mostly saying variations of "stop doing that" to numerous people. His face and voice are so unique it is hard to forget who he is, but this performance had me watching Bobby the hotel manager rather than watching Dafoe playing Bobby the hotel manager.
Visually, the film is a maelstrom of bright colours and pastels tempered by the occasional sub-tropical downpour. Emotionally, it is a film which should both distress and move you. Ultimately, this is a story about people struggling to survive in one of the world's most wealthy countries, a country which provides so little support to its poor residents they have no chance of being able to rent an apartment and adequately feed and care for their children. Heartbreaking.
12 Strong (2018)
Good actors let down by appalling dialogue
This is another one for the flag wavers. 12 Strong is the story of a Green Beret unit which helped Afghani warlords defeat Taliban and Al Qaeda forces to take a strategically important town in the very early days of the US-Afghanistan war.
First time director Nicolai Fuglsig was a war correspondent in Kosovo, so his experiences no doubt lend some realism to the action scenes; of which there are plenty. However, his inexperience as a director, or perhaps the producers' desire for a return on the budget, reduce this film to a forgettable mash of bombs, bullets and fragile egos.
Michael Shannon is IMO one of the best character actors since Philip Seymour Hoffman. He has no opportunity to show his skill here, with some of the worst lines he will probably utter in his entire career being his standout moments in this film.
Michael Pena reprises the role he's been playing repeatedly since the early 90s: a gung-ho soldier who loves his country. Trevante Rhodes gets lumped with all the most cringeworthy scenes. Navid Negahban provides us with the Pashto version of "Hasta la vista, baby". And Chris Hemsworth is Chris Hemsworth.
This sums to a film where instead of being immersed in the action, we are frequently reminded we a re watching a film when dumb characters say dumb lines. If you are a fan of Thor et al, then you will probably find this film enthralling. If you have never seen a good war film, I would recommend watching Gettysburg or Das Boot instead; two films which didn't treat the audience like morons.
Eye in the Sky (2015)
A real world application of the Trolley Problem humanises drone strikes
The Trolley Problem is a sociological experiment where an individual is asked how they would respond to an unfolding tragedy. In this, the individual is positioned in a place where they can see a tram or trolley travelling towards a person working on the line. The person will be killed, unless you pull a lever which will send the trolley onto another track. Simple choice, yeah? Now imagine that there are people on both tracks, and either your action or inaction will result in deaths. Action may result in fewer deaths than inaction, but ultimately it comes down to how you think you will deal with the guilt of being directly responsible for x deaths versus being indirectly responsible for y deaths.
Eye in the sky cleverly uses this idea in a way which is much more plausible: A drone strike on a terrorist cell hiding in a densely populated area. Helen Mirren is in charge of an international anti-terrorism operation in possession of intelligence indicating the location of some high level targets. Drone pilots Aaron Paul and Phoebe Fox are to fire the missile which will neutralise these targets. As the senior pilot, Paul is the one who must pull the trigger; however the potential for collateral damage is too high for his liking. At the same time, politicians overseeing the operation lack the will to give an order they feel will come back on them if it is unsuccessful. What follows is a first ever look into how the drone strikes we read about in the news every other day may weigh on the consciences of those who pilot them, and the political fallout from their actions. While the tension mounts, and the probability of success versus failure is calculated, Mirren struggles to straddle the two worlds in which she must convince the military brass and politicians that the action is necessary; and at the same time convince the team she has authority over that it is vital. The end result is a film where nobody escapes the emotional engagement of such an event and all must resolve their actions in their own ways.
This was Alan Rickman's last onscreen performance as Mirren's boss, acting as the conduit between the operations centre and the politicians as they sit at antique furnishings drinking tea and try to avoid making any decision which they may be held accountable for. Paul condenses the emotional range he showed in Breaking Bad to provide a compelling illustration of the conflict in the mind of the man with his finger on the trigger. Mirren's dogged determination and self assuredness is the balance between the two conflicts, trying not to let either one derail the operation. And all the while, the people walking the streets of Nairobi unaware that their fates are being decided by people in far off lands.
Eye in the Sky is both original and captivating. This is a fantastic way to bring modern warfare, fought not on battlefields but from offices in various parts of the world connected by communications technologies, to the big screen with tension and emotion.
Salt and Fire (2016)
Herzog, Kafka and a cosmologist walk into a bar
Werner Herzog is known for pushing boundaries in his films. He has gone to the extreme ends of the earth and walked alongside a madman dragging a Spanish galleon over the mountains to create unique cinema. Salt and Fire is in itself a film about extremes: Extreme environmental conditions, and extremists who kidnap scientists who come to study these conditions.
As a man-made ecological disaster unfolds in a South American nation, three scientists from the United Nations embark on a journey to discover the extent and causes of the disaster, only to be kidnapped by armed men and held hostage. What unfolds from here is a swirling tale which flirts with surrealism and science fiction. At times this felt Kafkaesque to me, as the kidnappers refuse to answer the simplest of questions and respond with non-sequiteurs. This flirtation with fantasy had me wondering what was to come... and a visit from aliens seemed the most likely scenario.
Perhaps this feeling of unreality I was experiencing was cognitive dissonance, driven by the appearance of cosmologist Laurence Krauss on screen. This is his first turn as an actor and I suppose he must be on sabbatical from the University of Arizona to be appearing in films where he isn't explaining the universe for us. He does tell us a bit about the major non-human player in the film, the "Salar de Uyuni", a salt lake high in the Andes which is world's largest flat surface. "Satellites use it to calibrate their distance from the ground," he says.
As head of the UN envoy Professor Laura Sommerfeld (Veronica Ferres) and head kidnapper Matt Riley (Micahel Shannon) drive out onto the salt, we learn it is expanding at 800 square miles per year, as the nearby dormant volcano threatens to become active and destroy life on earth as we know it. But it is here the story begins to unfold, and Riley's plans as a kidnapper are revealed. You'll have to see for yourself whether or not aliens turn up.
Herzog films can be challenging, and judging by some other reviews there are people who clearly hated this film. I did not. While the ending is a bit unsatisfying, overall the originality of the story kept me interested. Like most of his films, this is more of an experience than a story; but the story is there. When someone is kidnapped, we expect it to be a life changing experience, and that is exactly what Sommerfeld withstands as the film unfolds; however it is not in a way which we expect.
This is definitely a film for Herzog fans, with his trademark use of astonishing scenery and sparse dialogue coming together to create something we've never seen before. There are some interesting scenes using a single camera, such as one within a moving vehicle panning around from the back seat to the front to reveal the vast emptiness of the salt lake. The contrast between the verdant gardens of the compound where the hostages are held and the sea of desolation is juxtaposed by the types of prisons these two environments represent. And within all this is a visit to the train cemetery where pre-WWII trains used and abandoned by a long extinct mining industry rust and rot, a typically extraordinary location common to Herzog's films.
This is not Herzog's best film, but is certainly enjoyable and vastly more original than the majority of films released in 2016.
Bokeh (2017)
The landscape is the star
Bokeh is the latest take on a sci-fi idea which stretches back more than a century: What would life be like for people who woke up one day to find everyone else gone? As an introvert, I find this idea enticing and am always interested in films which use this plot, of which there have been several. Many focus on the idea of a post-apocalyptic world where survivors must navigate various treacherous elements (e.g. On the Beach, 1959; Last Man on Earth, 1964; Z for Zachariah, 2015); while other more mysterious plots have been inspired by Thomas Bailey Aldrich's 1904 two sentence story which asks us to imagine someone waking up to find they are the only person alive (e.g. The Quiet Earth, 1986). Bokeh uses the latter idea.
An American couple holidaying in Iceland awaken to find everyone else in the city (I presume Reykjavik) has vanished. Electricity still works, as do the phones and internet; however nobody is answering or responding to messages back in America. The couple explore their surroundings and try to piece together what has happened.
While Riley (Matt O'Leary) seems to accept this mind-bending change in reality, Jenai (Maika Monroe) undergoes an existential crisis. This is the crux of the story, if you can really call it a story. Most of the film involves the couple driving around to incredible locations, bingeing on what they pilfer from stores, arguing, making up, and arguing again.
Only so much can happen without another character appearing; and as with the previous films listed above, that is exactly what happens. If you haven't seen The Quiet Earth or Z for Zachariah, it may be harder to predict when this will occur; but I found myself wondering if this was the scene when person x appears moments before person x appeared. In every example this new character's function is to drive conflict and where Bokeh differs from the resulting love triangles of The Quiet Earth and Z for Zachariah is that their appearance provides a resolution to the crisis Jenai has been grappling with.
On the whole this is a reasonably good film. Where I found it lacking was an absence of explanation as to what has happened to the rest of the world. The cinematography makes this film worth seeing, so many beautiful Icelandic landscapes which really made me want to visit the country. If you are in it for the story, I'd suggest The Quiet Earth is the one to watch (as the mysterious absence of other humans is explained), if not then Bokeh is good enough to get a taste for what it might be like as the last people alive on our planet.
Lion (2016)
A devastating true story
I normally wouldn't dream of watching a film with Nicole Kidman in it, but having seen author Saroo Brierley interviewed on Australian television I was interested enough in his story to want to see this film.
As a 5 year old, Saroo became lost in India and wound up in an orphanage because he was simply too young to be able to provide details as to where he came from and who his family was. He was adopted by an Australian couple and raised with all the luxuries he would have missed out on in India. Yet he has a yearning to find his family, to let his mother know that he is OK. The film explores the unique story of how as a young adult he began searching for his family using google earth, looking for familiar landscapes in the satellite images in the region he believes he came from.
Both the young Saroo (played by Sunny Pawar) and the adult (Dev Patel) give beautiful performances in this film. Pawar takes us through the terror such a small child must endure to be lost in a megacity like Mumbai, and Patel is the rudderless young man with everything to be grateful for who is tormented by dreams of his family of origin. Kidman was surprisingly very good as Sue Brierley, and accompanied by master actor David Wenham as husband John they show us how the Brierly's desire as a childless couple to give love and affection to orphaned children from disadvantaged backgrounds is confounded by the traumatic backgrounds the boys they adopt cannot escape from. Both Patel and Kidman were nominated for Oscars for their performances.
Ultimately, Lion is a film that will be remembered by cinema-goers for the empathy it makes us feel; but in addition it is very well crafted, with some beautiful cinematography and great dialogue. This is the first film by Garth Davis, who previously directed the sensational miniseries Top of the Lake (2013). Lion has well and truly launched him into the US market, with his next film (Mary Magdalene) due out late in 2017 starring Rooney Mara, Joaquim Pheonix and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Lion clearly shows why Davis is now working on such a big project.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Clever, funny and unique
I don't normally like comedy movies. My tastes are more towards live comedy and topical humour and these don't translate well to cinema. However this was a film I found really enjoyable and I actually lol'd a couple of times.
I watched this film because I'm a fan of Jemaine Clement and I enjoyed Taika Waititi's previous film "Boy" (2010) immensely. I love their quirky NZ sense of humour; and despite not really liking their earlier collaboration (Eagle vs Shark, 2007), I thought this would be worth seeing.
The cast is superb and the performances exceptional, from Taika Waititi's bossy vampire to Stu Rutherford's subtle discomfort. Throw in Clement as the burnt out vampire who struggles to display the great power he once had, and Rhys Darby doing his usual thing and there is not a moment in this film I didn't enjoy.
This is a good one to watch with a few friends who share an enjoyment of dark humour.
Ghosts... of the Civil Dead (1988)
Terrifying realism
I've been trying to complete a review for this film for over a year, but have found it hard to really pin down what makes this such a unique and fascinating piece of cinema. I was 16 when Ghosts...of the Civil Dead was first released and seeing it at the cinema had a massive impact on me. Viewing through such young eyes perhaps makes it more memorable, I can't say. But this is a film which should have you thinking about it for days or even years afterward.
Except for a few external shots and the closing scenes, the film occurs entirely within the walls of a privately owned maximum security prison. A cheery automated voice tells us this corporation is "the future of containment". This future is laid out before us over the next two hours- where guards terrified of what the inmates are capable of routinely abuse and dehumanise the prisoners until they explode in rage. Some of the inmates are then released, to commit yet more heinous crimes and prove to the general public the need for the so-called prison-industrial complex. The insinuation is, at the cost of a few lives, the corporation continues to grow.
The soundtrack, not mentioned on the IMDb page, was by long time collaborators Nick Cave and Mick Harvey (both of The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds). Bandmate Blixa Bargeld provides voice overs in the film, and Cave (who co-wrote the film) appears as the chaotic "Maynard" to astonishing effect. Another Melbourne musician (Dave Mason of The Reels) surprised fans with his turn as Lily, the desirable trans inmate who flaunts her sexuality whilst struggling to escape her reality through using drugs.
This film is not for the faint-hearted. There are graphic scenes of drug use and violence, which was actually shocking for the time. Today, maybe it isn't so extreme thanks to the films which came after it. But for film buffs, this is definitely one to see. Despite the heavy reliance on explicit violence, Ghosts...of the Civil Dead has a story which is executed with chilling precision.
Passengers (2016)
Putting the awe back into awful movies
Nobody does garbage like Hollywood. Except maybe Bollywood. Anyway, this film has Chris Pratt in it, so if you are not expecting plot holes large enough to fly interstellar spacecraft through, lower your expectations and leave your brain at the door when you go to see this film.
On the plus side, the sfx are great. The craft looks real inside and out. The ship design doesn't really make sense but the filmmakers don't bother explaining anything anyway. So this isn't really science fiction, it is just fiction which happens to occur in space.
As for spoilers, if you saw the trailer or the actors doing the rounds of the talk shows you knew that more than one person appears in this film. The protagonists, played by Pratt and Lawrence are on a ship with 5000 others heading to a distant planet. They are meant to hibernate for 120 odd years for the journey, but something goes wrong and they wake up.
What happens next is where the hint of originality evaporates from this film. Basically from the moment Lawrence appears on screen, you can predict almost every event that is to come. The only exception is the appearance of Laurence Fishburne, but oh dear the protagonists forget to ask him how to wake up the crew and are left on their own to deal with the "drama" in the most clichéd ways the scriptwriters could imagine. This is Hollywood at its most self indulgent, the manufactured drama being so predictable it is just boring. The final act is supposed to be suspenseful but we have seen this kind of paint by numbers cinema before.
So, if you are like the protagonists and have just spent 120 years in hibernation, this film will be a thrilling experience filled with exciting twists and suspenseful turns. For anybody with the desire to not have their intelligence insulted this is just another big budget low effort mountain of crap that you can avoid and miss out on nothing.
In a Valley of Violence (2016)
Like a Tarantino film with the good parts removed
This film looked promising until about halfway through, when it descended into mediocrity. The dialogue is poorly written, characters clichéd and action scenes predictable. If Tarantino had made it, it would at least have had good dialogue, but without that it is just a chore to watch.
Ethan Hawke plays a mystery man travelling with his dog through Texas to Mexico for some reason. Along the way he meets an array of unsavoury characters who insist on popping up again and again. You can predict their appearance well ahead of their arrival on screen every time. The dog is cute but performs so many cute tricks I wondered aloud if this was actually a kid's film. Nope, rated R. Shame really, since kids might not have seen all the various clichés 1000 times already and find this film more entertaining than I did.
If originality and creativity are not your thing, you might enjoy this film. Otherwise, proceed with lowered expectations.
Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
A masterpiece of 21st century cinema
When I told a friend that the only good vampire film was The Hunger, they told me to watch Let The Right One In. I dispute the horror tag given to this film, rather I see this as a love story between two children where one of them happens to be a vampire. Of course, that means this will not be everyone's cup of tea; and I've had friends who were unable to sit through the entire film because of the violence. But for anybody who isn't put off by the blood lust of a preteen vampire, the rewards are many.
The cinematography is spectacular, with the usual bleakness of the Scandinavian winter offset by clever use of sunshine creating luminescent scenes set in icy woodlands and atop frozen lakes. The performances of Lina Leandersson (Eli) and Kåre Hedebrant (Oskar) are outstanding, conveying both innocence and yearning for relief from the lives they find themselves enduring. The occasional glimpses into the darkness tormenting Eli and the intense loneliness Oskar endures show us why the two are drawn to each other, the tenderness of their friendship acting as a refuge as chaos unfolds around them.
This is a great story, perfectly crafted, and is certainly the best film I've seen this century.
Concussion (2015)
Disappointing treatment of a serious issue
I have watched with interest the wave of change moving through the world after CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy) was revealed to be occurring in young football players and not just boxers. A PBS doco from a few years ago was enlightening and described how the American football industry fought against the science. While this film tells the story more or less accurately (as I understand it) it does so in such a clichéd and insulting manner it is barely watchable.
OK so it's got Will Smith in it, enough said. I think he is a good actor, but he tends to make awful films (Six digress was clearly an anomaly). I never found him believable as Dr Bennet Omalu, the radically religious pathologist from Nigeria who stumbles upon the first ever documented CTE case. Maybe it was the accent, maybe it was the performance. But he just seemed like a mellowed out Will Smith talking in a funny accent rather than a real person who I felt was worth investing 2 hours in.
The film-makers were obliged to tack on a romantic sub-plot to give Smith something other to do than cut up the brains of dead footballers. The long list of not nice things which happen to the devout doctor are peppered with your typical Hollywood mechanisms, trying to force you to feel empathy and join the cast on an emotional journey. It just doesn't work... we've seen it all before: Sport as a form of patriotism, the tragedy, the unrealistic soundtrack (turns out Nigerian doctors enjoy listening to nice accessible 70's soul music when they are working, none of that weird African stuff you might expect them to listen to). I knew the story and I still wasn't able to care about what was happening to these people.
What this comes down to is Hollywood trying to take a collision between sport and science to the lowest common denominator. American football gets a mention in this film, therefore football fans might be part of the audience, therefore they need to dumb this down as much as possible for them. They actually refrain from even naming the types of proteins causing the brain damage, instead having smith refer to them as "bad proteins".
What films like this do is remind me how the film-makers don't actually care about the story, they are creating a product and ultimately want to sell their product to as many people as possible using as little creativity as possible. They even end the film with a nice feel good dollop of sickening patriotism, revealing that Dr Omalu has become an American citizen. They chose to finish with that detail but ignore the fact that as a result of Omalu's determination to have the issue placed under the spotlight, sporting codes all around the world are reassessing how contact sports are trained and played, with concussion assessments being implemented on game day in soccer, rugby, Australian rules etc.
But why would the film-makers care about that? They have awards to win...