by hutchwp

Film review – Hail, Caesar! (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2016)

Hail, Caesar!, the new film from the Coen Brothers, is a film heavy on nostalgia and authenticity but light on focus to moving along the central plot. It has so many fantastic elements that seeing the final product fall short is a huge disappointment.

The film tells the story of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), head of production at Capitol Pictures whose job involves firefighting the many problems created by the studio’s roster of stars who seem to have an uncanny ability to mix themselves up in controversy. The studio’s next big film will be Hail, Caesar!, a biblical epic in which Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) will star. However, when a prop wine goblet is spiked by an extra on the set, he is kidnapped by a group of communist scriptwriters called The Future and held to ransom for a then significant total of $100,000, putting pressure on Mannix at a time when he is considering a career change to join the aviation industry with the Lockheed Corporation.

  
It felt at times that the Coen Brothers were so hell bent on fitting in a plethora of big-star cameos that they didn’t care that each time they did so they completely derailed the focus of the story. Take, for example, Frances McDormant’s studio film editor CC Calhoun. Her hammed-up effort is a nice comedy turn introduced at a critical point of the film. She could have easily turned into a key character, but never reappeared and thus there didn’t really seem to be much point to her appearance.

A bigger offender comes in the form of a more significant subplot featuring pregnant star Dee-Anna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) and surety agent Joe Silverman (Jonah Hill). It’s a huge eater of time but in the end resolves itself with little input from Mannix at a time when he is deciding that he needs to stay in the film industry, presumably because he is so critical to it.

Similarly, Channing Tatum, who features as Burt Gurney, gets a great song and dance scene – a real highlight to the film – but is probably only in three scenes in total. The time spent with Johansson and Hill may have been better served with Tatum. Instead, none of the three characters really feel significant enough to elicit the response they could have achieved had more time been spent with them.

  
One character that does end up getting fully fleshed-out is the Western star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich). He is introduced as a big studio star that has got where he is by his ability to perform massive stunts rather than any of his acting qualities. There are some fun scenes with Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes) as he tried to get the best out of his acting abilities or lack thereof. Near the end of the film there is some subtle symbolism involving him figuratively lassoing Baird Whitlock and taking him back to the studios from the communists, a nod to the cowboy as an upholder of traditional American values. Whether or not they needed to spend so long in the film emphasising his cowboy skills to set this up is another question, but at least this character takes us on a journey and proves to be critical to the resolution of the story.

At the heart of the story is Josh Brolin’s Mannix, a man who is essentially a fixer for the studio. It is an interesting character and, along with Clooney’s bumbling Whitlock, he carries the film. His climactic scene with Whitlock underlines why his decision was made – he sees the communist issues surrounding the film industry as a huge threat to America and something he can have a significant impact on from his position. He takes what he considers to be the harder option but in doing so gives his future life more worth. 

There is an underlying message about the wider issues facing Holllywood at the time this film is set (1951) and how easy it was for people like Whitlock to get involved with communist cells. The discussions on such topics is outside the intended remit of this review, though the recent film Trumbo is a good starting point.

Hail, Caesar! offers a lot to fans of the Coen Brothers, though it feels like a hugely missed opportunity due to failings of an over-complicated plot that could have been significantly trimmed to focus the story on the most relevant characters. Fun in parts but overall a disappointment.

by hutchwp

Academy Awards 2016 – Full List of Winners

Best picture
Winner: Spotlight
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room

Best actress
Winner: Brie Larson in Room
Cate Blanchett in Carol
Jennifer Lawrence in Joy
Charlotte Rampling in 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn

Best supporting actress
Winner: Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl
Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara in Carol
Rachel McAdams in Spotlight
Kate Winslet in Steve Jobs

Best actor
Winner: Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant
Bryan Cranston in Trumbo
Matt Damon in The Martian
Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl

Best supporting actor
Winner: Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies
Christian Bale in The Big Short
Tom Hardy in The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight
Sylvester Stallone in Creed

Best Director
Winner: The Revenant – Alejandro G. Iñárritu
The Big Short – Adam McKay
Mad Max: Fury Road – George Miller
Room – Lenny Abrahamson
Spotlight – Tom McCarthy

Adapted screenplay
Winner: The Big Short – Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
Brooklyn – Nick Hornby
Carol – Phyllis Nagy
The Martian – Drew Goddard
Room – Emma Donoghue

Original screenplay
Winner: Spotlight – Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy
Bridge of Spies – Matt Charman,Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Ex Machina – Alex Garland
Inside Out – Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
Straight Outta Compton – Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge, Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff

Cinematography
Winner: The Revenant – Emmanuel Lubezki
Carol – Ed Lachman
The Hateful Eight – Robert Richardson
Mad Max: Fury Road – John Seale
Sicario – Roger Deakins

Best Costume Design
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road – Jenny Beavan
Carol – Sandy Powell
Cinderella – Sandy Powell
The Danish Girl – Paco Delgado
The Revenant – Jacqueline West

Best Animated Feature
Winner: Inside Out – Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera
Anomalisa – Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran
Boy and the World – Alê Abreu
Shaun the Sheep Movie – Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
When Marnie Was There – Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura

Best Documentary Feature
Winner: Amy – Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees
Cartel Land – Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin
The Look of Silence – Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
What Happened, Miss Simone? – Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom – Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor

Best Documentary Short
Winner: A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness – Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Body Team 12 – David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Chau, beyond the Lines – Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah – Adam Benzine
Last Day of Freedom – Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman

Editing
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel
The Big Short – Hank Corwin
The Revenant – Stephen Mirrione
Spotlight – Tom McArdle
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

Foreign language film
Winner: Son of Saul (Hungary)
Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia)
Mustang (France)
Theeb (Jordan)
A War (Denmark)

Production design
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road – Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson
Bridge of Spies – Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
The Danish Girl – Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Michael Standish
The Martian – Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak
The Revenant – Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Hamish Purdy

Make-up/hairstyling
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road – Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared – Love Larson and Eva von Bahr
The Revenant – Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini

Best Original Score
Winner: The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone
Bridge of Spies – Thomas Newman
Carol – Carter Burwell
Sicario – Jóhann Jóhannsson
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – John Williams

Best Original song
Winner: Writing’s On The Wall from Spectre (Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith)
Earned It from Fifty Shades of Grey (Music and Lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio)
Manta Ray from Racing Extinction (Music by J. Ralph and Lyric by Antony Hegarty)
Simple Song #3 from Youth (Music and Lyric by David Lang)
Til It Happens To You from The Hunting Ground (Music and Lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga)

Sound editing
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road – Mark Mangini and David White
The Martian – Oliver Tarney
The Revenant – Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender
Sicario – Alan Robert Murray
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Matthew Wood and David Acord

Sound mixing
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road – Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo
Bridge of Spies – Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
The Martian – Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth
The Revenant – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson

Visual effects
Winner: Ex Machina – Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett
Mad Max: Fury Road A- ndrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams
The Martian – Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner
The Revenant – Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould

Animated short film
Winner: Bear Story – Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
Prologue – Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
Sanjay’s Super Team – Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
We Can’t Live without Cosmos – Konstantin Bronzit
World of Tomorrow – Don Hertzfeldt

Live action short film
Winner: Stutterer – Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage
Ave Maria – Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
Day One – Henry Hughes
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut) – Patrick Vollrath
Shok – Jamie Donoughue

by hutchwp

Film review – Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016)

Deadpool may be many things. Some call it a superhero film. Some will call it an action film. Some will call it a romance. Some will call it a comedy. It may be all of these things, but one thing it doesn’t do is take itself seriously.

Deadpool has opened with the largest first weekend takings of an R-rated movie ever ($132.7m). Both the taking and the rating are well deserved. Where its superhero counterparts have sanitised the violence portrayed, Deadpool plays to it. There are beheadings. There are dead human carcasses splattered at high speed into road signs. There is terrible, offensive and graphic language. The violence is non-stop. There’s even more after the opening scene. Later, we visit a strip club. Indeed, there’s a sex montage that lasts about five minutes and is played for laughs. Nothing is off-limits.

It never loses its sense of humour, and at the centre of this achievement is Ryan Reynolds who proves that he’s the right guy for the job after all. We have seen Reynolds’s take on Deadpool once before, albeit in what is generally regarded to be a butchered take on the comic book character. His first appearance as the chatty bad ass was in 2008’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which he was inexplicably not able to talk once he became Weapon XI / Deadpool. It was seen at the time as a missed opportunity by fanboys of the comics, though in hindsight it is hard to pin the blame on Reynolds. What else could he do with a silent character, especially acting alongside will.i.am?

This time around he is actively encouraged to pastiche other superhero films. Several times the fourth wall is broken to humorous effect, usually to take a poke at the previous Marvel films, the messy timeline involved in the X-Men franchise, Hugh Jackman himself and, most frequently, that underwhelming Origins film.

It’s refreshing to see a superhero film not taking itself very seriously. It was also great to see a director – a first-time director at that – given the ammo to do exactly what he wants with a film and not be told to fit it into a larger universe. We can only wonder if Ant-Man could have been this good if Edgar Wright was allowed to finish it.

Tim Miller has directed one short film prior to Deadpool. It was an animated short film from 2004 called Gopher Broke. You can view it here:

Supporting Cast

One of my favourite X-Men characters as a child was Collossus (Stefan Kapicic). Here he is given yet another outing on the big screen in a CGI creation that is well realised visually if not in terms of characterisation. He is present as one of Deadpool’s sidekicks solely for comic relief rather than to provide any real threat, and as a result it’s difficult to see him having any room to manoeuvre in future X-Men films.

The other sidekick character making up the lead trio is Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). An emo-styled young mutant, she at least has some potentially useful strength. However, she is also on the receiving end of some great one-liners from Deadpool and doesn’t offer much to suggest she might ever become a fan favourite.

deadpoolcolossus

These two supporting X-Men were clearly only ever seen as a bit of background built around the requirement for a subplot in the final battle sequence. A joke is made at one point about the studio not being able to afford any more X-Men. There is doubtless some truth in this.

Elsewhere, the supporting cast also includes the annoyingly evil Ed Skrein, who does a good job of making the fairly generic character Ajax quite dislikable. Morena Baccarin is well cast as the romantic interest, though it’s a shame we saw yet another an initially headstrong female character dissolve into a damsel in distress. Hopefully she will be given more prominence if a sequel is made – if they stick to the comic books she will become the mutant Copycat.

Conclusion

It is a very good film, almost a great film. It’s brash, it’s offensive and it’s graphic. It’s almost like a superhero film from an alternate reality, where the primary goal isn’t to sell action figures and lunchboxes. Its failings are more than made up for by how refreshing it was to see a completely different take on the genre.

If nothing else, at least now we can say a film has done justice to the Deadpool franchise.

Deadpool is out now at cinemas globally.

by hutchwp

Film review – A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino, 2016)

A Bigger Splash tells the story of Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton), an ageing rock star taking a resting vacation on the remote Italian island Pantelleria with her boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts), a filmmaker. Their vacation is disrupted when Marriane’s larger-than-life ex Harry (Ralph Fiennes) arrives with his daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson).

Watching A Bigger Splash is a little like watching a car crash in agonisingly slow motion. As the tensions rise and tempers are frayed, you see the action unfolding and there’s nothing you can do about it. Even though you want to look away you just can’t.

abiggersplashscreen.png

An interesting choice attributed to Swinton herself was that Marianne is recovering from an operation on her vocal folds. It means that her abundant acting abilities risk going to waste. This isn’t the case at all. Indeed, that she is able to command her scenes whilst not even speaking highlights her presence in front of a camera. Her frustration at not being able to shut Harry up is evident. This, mixed with Paul’s desire to not be drawn into arguments and Penelope’s apparent disinterest in just about everything, means Harry is able to be the centre of attention at all times, much to the bemusement of the three people whose lives he is engulfing.

It’s a tremendous performance from Fiennes. He is most certainly an annoying person to watch on screen, let along imagine being on holiday with. He’s a tragic man desperate to avoid the realisation that nobody cares anymore. We all know someone like Harry in our lives, but none of us like him. Unfortunately, whilst the performance is fantastic and it plays out beautifully, it doesn’t necessarily make for great cinema. Achieving a cinematic goal doesn’t justify it.

One thing this film shares with La Piscine, the 1969 French film on which this is based, is the gratuitous nudity. It didn’t really feel integral to the plot, and lacked any kind of eroticism that it may have been angling for, feeling instead to be overly sleazy.

The political setting didn’t really give any edge to the film either. Set amid a backdrop of illegal migrants landing on Pantelleria, it just felt like a shallow attempt to date the film without adding much to the plot. This could have been rectified if we’d seen the migrants sooner, but by the time they were first mentioned it felt like an irrelevant afterthought.

The film also feels about twenty minutes too long, with the action seeming to reach a climax only to drag  on far beyond the point it held my attention. As with all car crashes, it’s not very enjoyable to watch. The elements are all there – great acting, beautiful scenery, fantastic plot development – it’s just that the overall effect doesn’t deliver on its component parts.

A Bigger Splash is out at cinemas now.

by hutchwp

Secret Cinema February 2016 Preview – Update

Well, tomorrow’s the day that the Secret Cinema 2016 Tell No One event kicks-off. If you’re taking part this year you’ll no doubt be fully engrossed in the messages we’ve all been receiving as part of the D. O. C. S. organisation. 

The picture has become much clearer since I first wrote about the event in December. There have been a heap of clues left across social media about what film it will be. Based on my character description – Montgomery McCord of the Data Operations Department – and the costume I’ve been recommended to wear, I’m fairly confident of the film it will be.

However, playing along with the game doesn’t involve telling everyone what the answer is. I will be reviewing my time there, but that review will go live on 13th March 2016 so I don’t ruin it for anyone.

I may provide a spoiler-free guidance sheet after I attend, but the important thing is to get involved, take part, make a half-decent attempt at your costume and have a great time.

Enjoy it!