Category / Cinema

by hutchwp

Film review – Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi, 2016)

SPOILER ALERT – There’s a spoiler pretty much immediately in the first paragraph of this review. Sorry, it just turned out that way. Come back when you’ve seen the film and rejoice in its excellence with me. General  and spoile-free review: it’s excellent and well worth watching.

Here we go…

…

There is a moment, about twenty minutes into Hunt for the Wilderpeople, where the laughs start rolling in and the set up falls into place, proving that very good things come to those who wait. That this happens in the middle of the funeral of one of the lead characters, who is unexpectedly killed-off in the middle of the opening act, proves the point that comedy doesn’t have to be routine to be absolutely hilarious.

Indeed, looking at the two lead actors, there is nothing to suspect they would work on a comedy duo level. Sam Neill has been doing fantastic work for years, delivering memorably serious performances in the likes of The Hunt for Red October, Dead Calm, The Piano and Jurassic Park. His partner in crime in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Julian Dennison, is pretty much a newcomer to the industry, having starred in 2015’s Paper Planes and not much else (at least not much that has troubled the international market).

It’s strange then that they have formed a bizarre chemistry around which this film’s many successes hang, taking turns to be the straight man when the time is right. It’s a successful combination and one that takes what could have been a simple live-action remake of Pixar’s Up and turns it into an enjoyable romp through the New Zealand countryside.

Dennison is, ultimately, the real find of the film. As the rebellious youth that nobody wants, he is privy to some of the best lines in the film. His delivery is natural and faultless.

Taika Waititi may be in the process of directing the upcoming next instalment of the Thor film series (set for release in late 2017), but he is staying rooted to what he knows best for as long as possible. One can only hope that Marvel allow him to finish his journey with the film rather than lose faith at the eleventh hour as they did with the last quirky comedy director they went with: Edgar Wright.

On this evidence, they would be wise to not make the same mistake twice.

Hunt for the WIlderpeople is available now on DVD.

by hutchwp

Film review – A United Kingdom (Amma Asante, 2016)

Kicking off the 2016 BFI London Film Festival in style tonight was Amma Asante’s triumphant ‘A United Kingdom’. After the glitz and glamour of the red carpet, the film’s central themes proved to be an apt starting point for a programme that festival director Clare Stewart claims will focus on diversity.

The film tells the true story of Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo). Khama is the King of Bechuanaland (the country now known as Botswana) and in 1948 he marries London girl Williams amid opposition from their families and countries, sparking a political debate that led to the country’s independence movement.

Asante is the first black woman ever to direct an opening night film at the London Film Festival, and she was keen to point out the relevance of her being the person at the helm telling this important story.

“[The Botswanians] were comforted that it was going to be told through the gaze of a woman of colour… There was relief, and of course a curiosity, as to how their country, and they as a people, would be reflected on screen.”

Pike and Oyelowo

The resulting picture is a moving portrayal of a changing time in two countries with a message that is as valid today as it was then. True, there has been much progress in the world since 1948, but looking back at the changes in the past 70 years should give humanity hope that as much progress can be made again in the next 70 years. Indeed, many comments from the stars on the red carpet referenced that there is still much wrong with the world and a film like ‘A United Kingdom’ serves to highlight that we should never give up the fight. This is a fact not lost on Asante, especially given the marginal bandwidth available in the film industry to both people of colour and women – something that should be considered one of the big talking points of this year’s festival.

Oyelowo and Pike work together perfectly, each delivering powerful performances worthy of the story they are telling. The film’s genesis lies with Oyelowo, who started writing the script six years ago after reading the Susan Williams book Colour Bar, and his passion for the story seeps into his emotional delivery.

The film perhaps suffers from appearing saccharine, with the story telling us that their love was so strong it overcame political opposition and brought a continent together. The truth is that the film isn’t too far from being perfectly accurate, with only a couple of timeline changes for the benefit of pacing.

This is a story that is one piece of a much larger puzzle that can be filled in with what can be seen as companion films: Mandela – Long Walk To Freedom (2013) and Hotel Rwanda (2011) are two good recent examples. There is a rich history that is still being written in Africa, from which deeply moving stories continue to be drawn in both film and literature.

It is remarkable that the actors and actresses involved knew little of the source material before receiving the script. It is likely that the same can be said of the many viewers this film will eventually reach – I have to admit that I was also blissfully unaware of the history of Botswana before seeing this film. Khama’s story isn’t one that has been well-documented and that is something that Oyelowo and Asante will be more than happy to rectify.

A truly important story told in such a captivating manner deserves to be seen. A wonderful start to the festival.

 

by hutchwp

Film review – The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, The Touring Years (Ron Howard, 2016)

There is a single reason why The Beatles hitherto remain a subject largely untouched by documentarians. Quite simply, the story has been told to death. It is a well-reasoned argument that stems from the fact that a story is far more interesting if we don’t know the ending; even less so if we know the beginning, middle, end and every conversation along the way.

As a result, we have been treated to a flurry of fascinating documentary films in recent times on artists relatively unheard of to the general public: Rodriguez (Searching for Sugar Man), Anvil (Anvil! The Story of Anvil), under-celebrated back-up singers (20 Feet from Stardom); Phil Ochs (There But For Fortune). All excellent films that manage to capture the imagination of cinema-goers precisely because they tell a story as fresh as any fictional tale in the same media.

The Beatles are, however, one of the greatest bands of all time, taking over the world as clean-living heart-throbs that made radio-friendly sounds that were loved over the world. Their live performances were legendary and, at the time, revolutionary as they proved that rock bands could turn massive profits by putting in performances in large stadia.

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It’s a story that has been told many times over and it would take a brave director to try to tell it in an interesting way that didn’t feel like retreading old ground. Fortunately, the man at the helm on the clumsily titled The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years is the one and only Ron Howard, the genius behind the likes of Cocoon, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind and Frost/Nixon.

It is a truly brilliant piece of documentary film-making, managing to tell the familiar story with a flurry of individual memories that bring to life again a rise to stardom that has not and will not ever be replicated. There are wonderful talking head contributions from the likes of Howard Goodall, Dr Kitty Oliver, Sigourney Weaver (who the editors managed to pick out from the crowd footage of the 1965 Hollywood Bowl performances) and Elvis Costello. It is Whoopi Goldberg’s retelling of her mother surprising her with a ticket to the Shea Stadium performance that really stuck out and showed the positive effect they were having on both small and large scales throughout their tours.

The real stars are The Fab Four themselves, and with hours and hours of footage recorded by a press hungry for a piece of them (a point touched on in the film by Paul McCartney), we are lucky enough to be able to build up a truthful story of what was happening to a level impossible for all other artists in the charts at the time. As Eddie Izzard points out, their ability to respond to heckling in press conferences puts them all up at the same level as professional comedians.

The film is centred around their live performances rather than their time in the studio and as such it was essential the largely bootlegged sound recordings from their gigs were remastered to a usable state. Up steps Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin, to ensure everything hits the mark. Audible for the first time in such high quality, these sound recordings are evidence that despite them not being able to hear themselves or each other play they still functioned as a wholly tight musical four-piece. All that hard work out in Hamburg seemed to have paid off, then.

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It is a shame that the film cuts off in the middle of 1966 as the band released Revolver. They wound up their US tour in California, and it was a tour they were glad to see the back of. John Lennon had to painfully respond to the “bigger than Jesus” comments, there were death threats from the Ku Klux Klan and ticket sales were in decline (a point unsurprisingly missed out of the film). As a result, whilst Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band gets partial coverage, the albums Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album), Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be are covered in about 30 seconds, before a welcomed clip of their Abbey Road rooftop performance rounds thing off with them revisiting their glory days just before bowing out.

The film is genuinely crying out for a sequel to do justice to these missing years and perhaps beyond, though many of this is covered by the much-celebrated Anthology series released in 1995 but sadly still awaiting a Blu-ray release.

If you’re a fan of The Beatles then put this straight on your Christmas list as it will be a perfect trip down memory lane to revisit the greatest band of all time.

Eight Days a Week is available to purchase as a special edition Blu-ray and a standard DVD.

by hutchwp

Film review – Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar, 2016)

The latest film from Pedro Almodóvar, Julieta, is a stunning interwoven story of mystery and intrigue that the director takes great care in unraveling for our viewing pleasure.

Centred around the titular character, we are introduced to Julieta as she plans to move from central Madrid to Portugal with her boyfriend Lorenzo. However, a chance encounter with a friend of her daughter causes her to completely rethink her decision. Her daughter, Antía, has been missing for several years and moving will mean any chance of reconnecting with her will be lost. She opts to stay behind and rent an apartment in the last known address that her daughter could contact her. She fills her time hand writing her thoughts on the events that led to her daughter’s disappearance, which play out in the form of a long flashback that makes up the bulk of the film.

It is an adaptation of three stories by Alice Munro taken from her 2004 award winning book Runaway, which Almodóvar first hinted at in his brilliant 2011 horror thriller The Skin I Live In via a Spanish-language version of the book being prominently read by one of the central characters.

The music in Julieta plays a critical part in setting the tone, switching it from serious drama to something slightly more sinister. It borders on sounding like a horror film at times, with the implied effect of hinting that whatever story has been revealed thus far still has more secrets within.


The success of the film ultimately lies on the two actresses who portray Julieta at various times through it her life. Fortunately, both Emma Suarez and Adriana Ugarte provide brilliant turns as the older and younger incarnations of Julieta, respectively. They are very different takes, resting either side of a devastating incident in her life. It works perfectly well and the change is handled with a certain elegance that ensures buy in from the audience.

Some ardent Almodóvar fans have been disappointed with his recent output, with some pointing to airplane-disaster-comedy  I’m So Excited as an indication that he’d lost his edge. Any doubts about how seriously he takes his work can be put to bed with Julieta – a beautiful work of art and a must see for anyone with a penchant for high quality cinema.

Julieta is available now on DVD.

by hutchwp

Film review – Café Society (Woody Allen, 2016)

There is a moment in Café Society where the magic of 1950s Hollywood romance is really captured: a chance glance, an excited exchange, the promise of unfolding romance recognised instantly. That this exquisite one-shot involves not Kristen Stewart – the woman we need to believe is Jesse Eisenberg’s raison d’etre – but rather Blake Lively, reveals everything we need to know about why this Woody Allen effort fails to hit the heights of his more recent successes. That is, Kristen Stewart simply isn’t a believable love interest. At least not in this kind of film.

The 1930s-set story centres around Bobby (Eisenberg), a young Jewish man who has moved to Hollywood to pursue new career opportunities under the supervision of his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), a powerful and well-connected film talent agent. He instantly falls in love with Veronica (Stewart), an assistant at Phil’s office,  unaware of the fact that his uncle is on the verge of breaking off his marriage to pursue his affair with Veronica.

The film hangs together on Jesse Eisenberg’s shoulders, as he starts off by doing his best Woody Allen impression and progresses towards his final position that is ever-so-slightly more alpha male than that. It is genuinely an excellent performance, bringing energy to the screen whenever he graces it.

He works best playing off against the plethora of supporting characters who never fail to exude the feel of the time and he’s clearly having fun under the supervision of one of the greatest living film directors. It’s a beautiful homage to the heyday of Hollywood, as Bobby develops into a socialite, bouncing from party to party first in Hollywood and then later on his return to New York.

Whenever Stewart appears on screen, she feels like a woman out of place in the era and unable to match the authentic performances of those around her. This goes against some excellent post-Twilight performances that have given her a route out of potential typecasting (American Ultra is a great example of this), but a classic Hollywood leading starlet she is not.

The film is not a complete failure. A hilariously delivered exchange between Bobby and a first-time prostitute is just one example of the smart comedic dialogue we’ve come to expect in Allen’s recent film. The jazz-centric score heightens the positioning in the era.

It’s just a shame that I was routing for he wrong girl.

Cafe Society is available now on DVD, along with the sumptuous Vince Giordano soundtrack.

by hutchwp

Film review – Weiner (Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, 2016)

The worst thing about watching the political equivalent of a car crash is that politicians never seem to learn from their predecessors’ mistakes. Wars keep happening, smear campaigns take precedent over actual policies in the run up to elections, mayoral campaigners Tweet pictures of their erect penises to strangers.

Wait, what?!

Okay, that last one is a new one on the political landscape. Anthony Weiner is a great sport though. He lived up to his name whilst figuratively – though thankfully not literally – taking one for the team by playing out the lesson twice, first in 2011 and then again in 2013. That the second one happened during under the prying eyes of documentary filmmaking duo Kriegman and Steinberg, at the time trying to capture the rebuilding of a shattered political empire, makes it all the more fascinating.

The film left me a little split on my opinion of him. On the one hand, he is clearly a driven man who is good at his job, galvanising public opinion and canvassing support for what he truly believes is right for his city.

What I can’t deny though, and I think we can all agree on this, is that the mayor of New York shouldn’t have an alter ego on the dark web called Carlos Danger tweeting pictures of his dick to women behind his wife’s back.

His wife, Huma Abedin, leaves the film with her head left relatively high. She is a woman of unbelievable strength in the face of a continuously catastrophic husband who laughs in the face of public opinion, even though his livelihood depends on being popular with his public. The only question is why she sticks around when he is clearly a huge damage to her political career (she has been an aide to Hilary Clinton throughout the two scandals and leading into the presidential election later this year).

As a documentary, Weiner is about as good as it gets. It isn’t putting the pieces together after an event, instead getting lucky and being able to present a truly spectacular political scandal from the inside of the bubble. The characters are their interactions are as captivating as any fictional story.

It might not be a comfortable watch, but there’s something about Anthony Weiner that’s hard to not get addicted to. He’s an almost great political swamped by his own ability to ruin his own chances of achieving anything other than the total humiliation of himself and everyone associated with him.

Well worth 90 minutes of your time.

by hutchwp

Film review – Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross, 2016)

Captain Fantastic is not the latest in the never-ending chain of Marbel superhero films. Nor is it a profile of former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, who is fantastic for about half of Liverpool and few others.

No, despite the title, Captain Fantastic is the directorial debut full-length feature from Matt Ross, better known as Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley. Beyond the superficial veneer of a twee, heartwarming, quirky indie flick, there is something a little more substantial and special at work here.

Viggo Mortensen takes the lead role as Ben Cash, a father raising six children as an only parent after his wife is hospitalised with bipolar disease. Nurturing them off-grid in a sort of wilderness commune, he is forced to bring them back into society when he receives the news that his wife has committed suicide. The journey to New Mexico for the funeral forces him to re-evaluate his choices in bring up his children, exposing them all to a world they have shunned.

Many of the greatest films to grace our screens have us questioning are inner-most philosophies. Whilst this isn’t likely to be considered an all time great, it does push the right buttons in its ability to be thought-provoking. The six children are for the most part absolutely happy, well educated, physically fit individuals that seem to have had no ill-effects from the unique brand of homeschooling afforded by their father Ben. The portrayal from them is so convincing that I was left seething when their families began to interfere and bring them back into “normality”. 

One thing that was very evident was the chemistry between the six children and Mortensen. George MacKay takes centre stage as eldest child Bo on the brink of leaving for college but struggling to find the best way to tell a father to whom he is completely devoted. Samantha Isler and Annalise Basso are great as the inseperable pair Kielyr and Vespyr. Charlie Shotwell,  Nicholas Hamilton and Shree Crooks all have extremely bright futures in the industry, the latter of the three having a charismatic charm that brought an element of hilarity to everything she said.

It is this sense of comradery and unbreakable dedication that is essential to the success of the film and without it we’d be left with nothing. Thankfully it’s here in abundance.

The music from Alex Somers (Sigor Ros producer) plays into the mood perfectly, reflecting the subtle charm of the visuals on screen. It’s non-offensive but beautifully balanced.

A must-see, feel-great film.