Category / Cinema

by hutchwp

Sanjay’s Super Team (Sanjay Patel, 2015)

If you were keen enough to get to the cinema early enough before The Good Dinosaur, one of the worst Pixar feature films thus far, you’ll have been treated to Sanjay’s Super Team, one of the worst Pixar short films thus far.

Sanjay realises just how bad The Good Dinosaur is.

The story, based on the true memories of director Sanjay Patel, revolves around him as a young child and the conflict between him wanting to enjoy a superhero TV show and his father wanting him to join him in prayer. Frustrated when his father turns the TV off and forces him to pray, Sanjay uses his time of reflection to daydream into a strange world where his Hindu gods are more like superheroes.

The cel-shading technique used in the daydream sequences is a bit of a let down and feels like a quick solution, despite the best efforts to make it look as colourful as possible. I couldn’t help but imagine how good it would have looked with more attention to detail.

This is a film about a child having doubts over his beliefs and a clash of cultures. Whilst many won’t understand the precise religious and cultural aspects at play, most will appreciate the story from the position of a child not wishing to have to follow in the footsteps of the parents. In principal I don’t agree with using religion as a basis of children’s entertainment, but it works well in this case to create a story for the older audience members.

Unfortunately, the overall result is a bit bland. There was no dialogue, the brilliantly coloured dream sequence lacked any real wow factors and it didn’t move fast enough to make use of the lengthy running time for a short film. The children in the audience voted with their restlessness and disinterest. 

In this sense, it was the perfect warm up for the main feature.

by hutchwp

Riley’s First Date? (Josh Cooley, 2015)

If you loved the Pixar animated feature film Inside Out then chances are you’ll… like “Riley’s First Date?”, the short included as a bonus feature on the various Blu-ray versions of the release.

It centres around a mysterious boy showing up at Riley’s household to take Riley out, with most of the jokes coming from the parents’ reactions to interacting with him. If you’ve seen Inside Out itself, it is essentially an extension of the final sequences of the film, popping in and out of the characters’ heads in rapid succession for quick laughs.

It lacks any of the emotional pull that made the film a huge success over the summer, but it does succeed in getting a few jokes that make it worth a watch. It can’t go down as a reason to purchase the Blu-ray – you don’t need any more reasons than the fact it’s the best Pixar films released for years.

by hutchwp

Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015)

After a relatively long break, Steven Spielberg is back behind the director’s chair, and it was worth the wait.

Reading the description of Bridge of Spies, his first film since the hugely successful biopic Lincoln, it has all the hallmarks of some of his greatest achievements in cinema. It’s based on a true story. It’s a story about individual battles within a larger situation. It stars Tom Hanks. It would have been a surprise if this wasn’t a huge success.

Set between 1957 and 1960 during the height of the Cold War, the film focuses on James B. Donovan (Hanks), a lawyer tasked with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), a pilot whose U-2 spy plane has been shot down over the Soviet Union. The negotiation concerns trading Powers for Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet KGB spy held captive in the USA who Donovan has previously defended in court. However, tensions rise when Donovan shows his determination to include an additional US citizen – student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) – in a move that seemingly only he is keen to see through.

bridgeofspiesscreenshot

The film at times threatens to be sabotaged by a slow pace, though Spielberg keeps it going just enough to avoid it becoming a snooze-fest. The plot is one full of intricacies that reward the attentive viewer, so I’m not sure the modern audiences will get it in the same way they did with Schindler’s List, for example. [1]

This is an ode to traditional storytelling and any movements it makes to remind us of Spielberg’s supreme talents are trumped by its underlining of Tom Hanks as one of the greatest living actors. This is not a story about espionage, politics or the Cold War. It is a film about one man’s unwavering desire to stick to his principles. Hanks portrays Donovan as a totally unassuming man whose aggression is only touched on when he feels the principles for which he stands are threatened. As with most of his best roles, it has a way of pulling you in and asking you what you would do in his shoes.

If it is considered for any awards in the next few months, it will be for Hanks as an actor in a leading role. For all the clever cinematography and attentive set design, they are merely the stage on which Hanks is allowed to fly.

Bridge of Spies is release in cinemas worldwide on 27th November 2015.

[1] I’m well aware that this sounds condescending. It is fueled directly by the woman in front of me who three times during the film decided to have a quick check of her phone next to her pocket. Whilst it was only a minor distraction for me (it wasn’t so bad to warrant me tapping her on the shoulder), she missed two critical plot points and the description of what the characters did next in the final credits. Definitely a justification for the theory that the audience’s participation level is as important as the care put into a film.

by hutchwp

Nightmare City (Umberto Lenzi, 1980)

Nightmare City falls under the category of “so bad it’s good”. Umberto Lenzi manages to pull off some ridiculous scenes but gets away with it through consistency and dedication.

First off, if you’re new to Italian horror, you need to know that it can be quite off-putting watching a film in Italian with English subtitles, especially when it’s obviously been dubbed from English into Italian. If you’re quick you can read the sentence then lip-read the actors and realise they’re actually saying what is written. It can take getting used to but once you’re past that you’ll quickly realise that the acting is about as bad as you initially thought it was.

The plot doesn’t stray far from the norm for a zombie horror film. A group of humans have been subject to nuclear contamination, leaving them with superhuman strength. They are running riot in an unnamed city and television news reporter Dean (played by Hugo Stiglitz) is trying to survive as the city falls apart. As each person is killed, of course, the victim joins their cause, meaning their strength is ever-growing.

This film contains a number of hilarious shots and it worked exceptionally well in a packed and jovial cinema. A frequent feature is the appearance of young women’s breasts. You never quite know when the next pair is going to appear. The frequency of it was a source of great amusement. I’m not sure if this was common at the time but it definitely seemed out of place.

 

She certainly had an eye for detail.

 
Equally, barring the main characters, everyone was completely stupid. Getting attacked by zombies? Let’s just run from left to right panicking, then run from right to left doing the same thing until we get attacked. Brilliant.

Our hero, Dean, wasn’t very supportable and lacked the charisma required to get away with the things he was doing. He regularly screws over fellow survivors, at one point he punches his girlfriend in the face, he leaves a group of people trapped in an elevator. It made it hard to get behind him, even when it seemed he was the only one set to survive and we were forced to follow his story alone.

SPOILER ALERT!! The ending was the kind that all ten-year-olds go for when they run out of time and ideas in a story-writing class. Yes that’s right, it was all just a dream. It was disappointing and was rightly met with groans across the crowd. Nobody’s story was tied up. They just must have ran out of money.

It’s a bit of lighthearted old-fashioned gory horror that will no doubt entertain you, but probably won’t change your life. The ending is so disappointing it unravels any of the successes it has managed to pull off.

Nightmare City is available on Arrow Video Blu-ray now.

by hutchwp

Film review – THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971) – Asian Dub Foundation Re-score

A long time ago, precisely ten years before Star Wars hit the big screen in 1977, George Lucas was a young and experimental college student at film school at The University of Southern California. Packed with rich ideas and concepts of science fiction and Orwellian futures, he set about making the short film that would first bring him to the attention of Stephen Spielberg – Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB. This short won prizes and accolades, including first prize at the National Student Film Festival in 1968.
Soon after Lucas left college, production began on a feature length adaptation of the story, using the short film as a basis of the climax to the film and providing a backstory and richer background to the concept.
The film stars Robert Duvall as THX 1138, a worker at a factory that manufactures android police officers. His roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie, in her only major film role) is a CCTV operative. After she switches their mind-controlling pills, they disobey strict rules and have sexual intercourse, which is a punishable crime. Imprisoned with SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasance), LUH’s co-worker, and fuelled by the fear of being trapped for the rest of his life, THX launches an attempt to escape from this underground dystopian prison.

At times overwhelming

At times overwhelming

I have to confess that this live scoring event was the first time I’d seen THX 1138. This is a film that is itself much less immediate than the Lucasfilms pictures we are now more familiar of, and one that requires a level of concentration to follow the plot. Unfortunately, Asian Dub Foundation’s live scoring was somewhat relentless and unforgiving. On several occasions it simply drowned out the limited dialogue, making understanding the film almost impossible. Not only that, but the music didn’t really match up with what was happening on the screen. It felt like an Asian Dub Foundation gig for which they’d decided to use the film as a backdrop for their performance.

Sadly for the film and the musicians, a large portion of the crowd decided they weren’t on board with either element and left before the end. Perhaps it was a victim of clashing with the opening night of the latest Bond film Spectre, and maybe some of the attendees decided to catch a late showing instead of seeing how THX’s escape plan player out.

Where it did work, it was very impressive. The car chase in the final act of the film was excellent and the music added a lot to the scene. This is one of the most exhilarating car chases I’ve ever seen and is a worthy pay-off the often times slow paced story development in the preceding hour of film.

I’ll be seeking out the original version of the film to see if I enjoy it more without the distracting score.

THX 1138 is available on Blu Ray and DVD now. Of course, this is a George Lucas release so it is impossible to see the original film in its originally planned state. It has been tampered with. Since most probably never saw it in its original form, however, there shouldn’t be many issues here.

by hutchwp

What About 2045?

Whilst everyone compares what has happened in 2015 to what was predicted in Back to the Future Part II, I thought it would be more fun to make a few predictions about what 2045 will be like. Here goes…

Franchise Films

Whilst Jaws 19 still hasn’t been released, the prediction that 30 years on from 1985 franchised films will be the most popular was a very accurate suggestion. By 2045, I don’t think much will have changed on this front. The most likely franchises to still be churning out big films are Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Marvel or DC superhero films or, most pertinently, James Bond. Sadly the person playing Bond at that point may not even be born yet.

Back to the Past

Another film prediction: a film production company lacking in imagination releases the film “Back to the Past”. Set initially in 2045, the film sees the grandson of Marty McFly, Marty McFly Jnr. Jnr. travel back to 2015. Using footage from Back to the Future Part II, he set off a chain of events that make the plot so convoluted and impenetrable that the film is an instant flop. Plans to travel to 1925 in Part V are instantly shelved.

Technology

Flying cars are still a thing of sci-fi cinema and have failed to hit the market, although luxury hoverboards briefly hit the market before being banned due to health and safety and a lack of control over the speed and direction of the devices.

Coldplay

Coldplay release their 17th album “The Chosen Sword”, again announced as their final album. They headline Glastonbury for a record 8th time, bringing out Tim Rice Oxley for a duet of “Somewhere Only We Know” to a bemused crowd.

Blogging

I schedule in a blog post for 2045 to see how I did and forget about it, only to see the post not go viral, much like all my other posts here.

by hutchwp

Blogs I like – 52 French Films (Helen Van Kruyssen)

I keep an eye on a lot of blogs on WordPress. I find the original writing on the carefully selected bloggers a breath of fresh air from the published media and I’ve discovered a huge amount of fantastic books, films and games by simply reading about other things people like.

As a concept, the blog “52 French Films” is excellent. It is coming towards the end of its year-long run now, but there’s still time to get involved. Basically, the blog covers one French film every week. The author, Helen Van Kruyssen, writes passionately about each and every film and there never a hint that she has lost interest in the blog. That’s not something to be underrated – maintaining interest in a blog of this type can only be achieved by someone passionate about the subject. I picked it up back in July with the fascinating review of The Chorus. It was a film I’d bought a while ago but for whatever reason had failed to watch. I’m glad I read the review and I’m glad I’ve since watched the film.

Head over there and check it out – there are only 11 weeks left!

by hutchwp

Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle, 2015)

The 2015 BFI London Film Festival came to a close this evening with the European Premiere of Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs. With all the stars out on the red carpet, it had all the hallmarks of a blockbuster finale on the scale of any of the Apple product launches we’ve become so accustomed to.

The biopic plays out in three distinct acts, all during iconic Jobs-headed product launches: the 1984 launch of the first Macintosh home computer; the 1988 launch of the NeXT Computer for NeXT Inc. (the company Jobs set up after being forced out of Apple); and ending with the 1998 launch of the first iMac computer.

Jobs worth

Jobs worth

Whilst it may risk being a big advert for Apple, the poor picture painted of the figurehead of the company throughout ensures that is never the case. The Steve Jobs we get to know over the course of the three acts, which play out in real time in the lead up to each of the presentations Jobs is giving, is narcissistic and self-centred, only relenting from the power trip when he finally achieves the success he has been driving for. It shows softer sides of his personality and attempts to justify his unique traits but the focus on his tempestuous relationship with his ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan and their child Lisa ensures his best side is never seen.

It is actually a difficult watch throughout. It is basically two hours of arguments, eventually becoming tiring. It does successfully portray the frantic and intense atmosphere of a huge-scale product launch in a very real manner. It fails, however, to convince that this is a good platform for great cinema.

Michael Fassbender plays the Steve Jobs we see here to perfection, capturing the nuances required of someone who is heartless to the extent of being cruel. Kate Winslet’s turn as Joanna Hoffman is steadier than her accent, and Seth Roger puts in an adequate performance as Steve Wozniak. The standout performance is quite minor but nontheless critical: Michael Stuhbarg is exceptional as the bullied inventor Andy Hertzfield.

The biggest success is the genius move to film the picture on era-appropriate equipment. The three scenes were each filmed using totally different techniques: 1984 was captured on beautiful 16mm film, 1988 on 35mm film and 1998 on digital film. The evolution of technology is reflected in the format change and portrays each era in a manner that would have been impossible with digital post-production.

Whilst it isn’t a let down, it will be difficult to find a sustainable market for this film. It’s not a straight biopic, it isn’t hugely in favour of Apple, nor is it against it. It’s a struggle to watch and is unlikely to have people raving about its successes as they leave the cinema. 

It could be Danny Boyle’s Newton moment.

Steve Jobs is released in cinemas in the UK in November.

Further Viewing

If you enjoyed the film so much you’re interested in some further viewing, then check out the below videos. In the film you see the 40 minutes building up to the release of three products, but never get to see the keynotes themselves.

1984 – Original Macintosh home computer

The original keynote:

The Superbowl “1984” advert:

1988 – NeXT

The 1988 keynote speech isn’t available on YouTube, but this ABC news segment is a close fit:

1998 – iMac

The full video in all its glory:

by hutchwp

New The Force Awakens poster

The new poster for The Force Awakens has dropped. It is absolutely gorgeous and will no doubt further increase the interest in fans throughout the world, myself included.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning so don’t miss out. A new trailer is also expected in the evening in the USA, though there are no confirmed times in the UK.

The big question is… Where’s Luke?!