What an utterly, utterly dismal week. First Bowie, then Rickman, and it's starting to feel as though my youth is being dismantled piece by piece. It's a horrible feeling, an unwanted reminder of my own mortality during the darkest, coldest days of the year.
It's been weird, to be honest, watching other people's reactions and realising the celebrity they felt was theirs was so very different to the person you admired and almost loved. There's a whole generation who think of Bowie as the Goblin King from Labyrinth, and I maybe should have been one of them. My first exposure to him, though, was as the singer who did Let's Dance, and this is who he'll always remain in my head.
In a similar vein, I'll never be able to bring myself to think of Alan Rickman as Snape from the Harry Potter films, not really. I was seven or eight years too old for them, I suppose, and ten or twelve years too cynical, and it took me a long time to be able to appreciate them for the solidly-crafted pieces of fantasy and British actors' pension plans that they were. Die Hard was more my era, I suppose, but I was always turned off by the particularly senseless brand of violence it espoused - I distinctly remember it being the first film where I found myself feeling dreadful for all the collateral damage characters who got so mindlessly murdered for the sake of a few fancy-looking explosion effects.
No, the character when I think of when I think of Rickman is the Metatron. the voice of God from Dogma, Kevin Smith's cheerful meditation on the nature of modern Catholicism. There's a lot of things I love about Dogma, but I love Metatron the most, a snarling, whining ball of rage that initially looks like pure petulance but is gradually revealed as something both far warmer and far more melancholy. Rickman's performance makes me ache inside in the very best way, and returning to it yesterday was a genuine joy.
There's not much about the film that isn't a pleasure, though - Smith's dialogue is thoughtful but punchy, performed by a talented cast who mostly bring their A-game. Linda Fiorentino makes a fine lead as the world-weary Bethany, who hopes her church will never find out that she works at an abortion clinic, while Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are endlessly entertaining as Loki and Bartleby, the pair of rogue angels she's informed she has to thwart in order to prevent the unmaking of all existence. Damon in particular sparkles - it's not often he's allowed to play the villain, and if this is anything to go by that's actually a real shame. Here he displays a laid-back but gleeful sense of malice and fantastic timing that makes me wonder what he might have done if Marvel had cast him in a certain, ah, similarly-named role.
I seem to remember something at the time about movie theaters being picketed over the alleged blasphemy. I mean, as an atheist I'm probably not qualified to have an opinion, but I'm not sure I saw anything there to be offended by. God is presented as all-powerful, loving, funny and Canadian. Is there any kind of deity you'd rather believe in?
If you've missed this one - and I get the impression plenty have - it's definitely worth a shot. The combination of laugh-out-loud wit and transparent humanity are hard to beat, especially during a week like this.
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Zoolander (2001)
...My sadness at David Bowie's passing hasn't been tempered in the least by the discovery that he appeared in a lot of really, really crappy films.
I mean, like, really crappy, not just Labyrinth bad. Not even The man who fell to Earth bad, and God knows that was bad enough. No, it appears that Bowie was a serial Nolan collaborator, one of a series of bad judgement calls that will hopefully go unremembered thanks to all the other amazing, wonderful stuff he did.
Today I will not be writing about any of the works of Christopher Nolan, because guess what? When Hell freezes over, I still won't have reviewed any of his films, although I might possibly pen a few pithy lines on how being buried beneath several thousand megatons of ice might have actually warmed his heart a little. If he had one, obviously.
Where was I?
Bowie, that was it, and how I wanted to review a film with him in because I really admired the guy, but not so much that I was prepared to have a wretchedly bad time doing so.
Hence, Zoolander.
It all started a very long time ago in the Tesco Express in town, when the cashier tried to upsell me the DVD for a fiver. I'm a pushover for this stuff, so I brought it home and we took a look. It was funny, definitely; we watched it, enjoyed it, then passed it on to my parents as something we were unlikely to feel the need to view again. After a few months, however, I found odd lines seeping back into my consciousness and realised how much I missed it. I'd love to say that I begged my folks to give it back and that some sort of weirdass DVD custody battle ensued, but I think we probably just bought another copy instead.
None of which tells you what the movie's about, of course. Look, it's been a long day, can't you just take it on trust when I say that this one's worth a look? I appreciate that the only time you normally let me get away with halfassing it like this is when I mollify you with cat pictures, but what can I say? My cats have been really, really boring lately.
I appreciate your understanding - see you on Saturday!
I mean, like, really crappy, not just Labyrinth bad. Not even The man who fell to Earth bad, and God knows that was bad enough. No, it appears that Bowie was a serial Nolan collaborator, one of a series of bad judgement calls that will hopefully go unremembered thanks to all the other amazing, wonderful stuff he did.
Today I will not be writing about any of the works of Christopher Nolan, because guess what? When Hell freezes over, I still won't have reviewed any of his films, although I might possibly pen a few pithy lines on how being buried beneath several thousand megatons of ice might have actually warmed his heart a little. If he had one, obviously.
Where was I?
Bowie, that was it, and how I wanted to review a film with him in because I really admired the guy, but not so much that I was prepared to have a wretchedly bad time doing so.
Hence, Zoolander.
It all started a very long time ago in the Tesco Express in town, when the cashier tried to upsell me the DVD for a fiver. I'm a pushover for this stuff, so I brought it home and we took a look. It was funny, definitely; we watched it, enjoyed it, then passed it on to my parents as something we were unlikely to feel the need to view again. After a few months, however, I found odd lines seeping back into my consciousness and realised how much I missed it. I'd love to say that I begged my folks to give it back and that some sort of weirdass DVD custody battle ensued, but I think we probably just bought another copy instead.
None of which tells you what the movie's about, of course. Look, it's been a long day, can't you just take it on trust when I say that this one's worth a look? I appreciate that the only time you normally let me get away with halfassing it like this is when I mollify you with cat pictures, but what can I say? My cats have been really, really boring lately.
I appreciate your understanding - see you on Saturday!
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Helvetica (2007) and Hot Fuzz (2007)
The plan today was to write about Helvetica, Gary Hustwit's 80-minute documentary about the world's most iconic typeface. It's a fascinating piece of filmmaking, thoughtfully shot and soundtracked and featuring interviews with luminaries of the design world both old and new. I loved the serenity of it and the people it introduced me to, the discussions it provoked with Mr. B and the way I'll never be able to look at another poster or brochure or sign without thinking of what cultural significance the style of lettering might carry. I'm not sure it's the kind of film I could sell to anybody, though - if it's your sort of thing, chances are the mere knowledge of its existence will be enough to have you hunting a copy down. I know that was how it happened with me.
Besides, it's been a while since I've written something rambly about the Cornetto Triology, hasn't it? Luckily, ITV2 was showing Hot Fuzz last night and there aren't many pleasanter ways to spend a quiet evening. Granted, I dozed through a line or two of dialogue, but I've been watching it three or four times a year since a cinema trip during its original release period, so I feel this is probably forgivable.
As with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz takes a genre dominated by the US, translates it to a typical UK setting and then follows this to its extreme logical conclusion. This time round we have a typical buddy cop set up, as we're introduced to London supercop Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) just as he finds himself uprooted from his preferred environment to sleepy Sandford, a village so beautiful it wins awards. Here he lands up partnered with the hapless Danny Butterfield (Nick Frost) who he first encounters when he drunkenly reverses his car into a fountain. An amiable sort, Danny has apparently gained the entirety of his knowledge of policing procedure by watching the likes of Point Break and Bad Boys 2. Of course, this is hardly going to be a problem in Sandford, is it? Not Sandford, where everybody's lovely and the most hardened criminal is an escaped swan.
Nick's a stickler for the rules and takes a lot of flak as a result. You'd think that once the murders start the rest of the local plods would be glad to have someone like him around, but no, it's easier for everybody simply to pass them off as accidents and the new face in town as a fanatic. Only the faithful Danny is prepared to believe he might be onto something...
Boasting the same top-notch editing as Shaun, Hot Fuzz is a delight from start to finish. Granted, it rambles a little more than Shaun, but then, I'd argue that the world it presents is more detailed and benefits from a more lengthy viewing. I was raised in England's leafy shires, in the world of church fetes and vegetable growing contests, and I know the levels of spite and superiority that lurk beneath the immaculately-manicured flowerbeds. It's nice to see it all, err, honoured, particularly (spoiler) in the climactic shootout scene.
There's lots of other things to enjoy here, in any case. Is actor-spotting your thing? On your left, look out for veteran character actor Billie Whitelaw of The Omen fame. As we travel on further, meanwhile, you may catch a glimpse of a tall gentleman of somewhat limited intellectual capacities. Are you sure you haven't seen him before in, say, Game of Thrones, as Sandor Clegane, the Hound? Particularly perceptive types may even notice appearances by Cate Blanchett and Peter Jackson, although if you find these without looking them up you have sharper eyes than I do.
The humour is a nice mix of slapstick and on-point satire; Frost in particular has a bunch of quotable lines. He has the difficult task of providing the film with its heart and moral grounding, and in the end, the gifted but tightly-wound Nick has as much to learn from Danny as Danny does from him. The friendship elements here are absolutely spot-on, far more nuanced than they were in Shaun and at times, genuinely touching.
It's not perfect, of course, and it probably wouldn't be even if the casting team had seen fit to furnish the film with a single non-white face. Women receive similarly short shrift, for the most part - granted, not everybody in a comedy needs their own character arc, but there's a real lack of three-dimensional female characters here. This is, unfortunately, becoming something of a trademark in Wright's work, and is part of the reason I've given up trying to like his Scott Pilgrim vs. The World no matter how great it might look.
Still, Hot Fuzz remains close to the top of my list of favourite comedy movies, and to paraphrase Shaun of the Dead's Ed, I'll only stop watching it when ITV2 stops showing it.
Besides, it's been a while since I've written something rambly about the Cornetto Triology, hasn't it? Luckily, ITV2 was showing Hot Fuzz last night and there aren't many pleasanter ways to spend a quiet evening. Granted, I dozed through a line or two of dialogue, but I've been watching it three or four times a year since a cinema trip during its original release period, so I feel this is probably forgivable.
As with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz takes a genre dominated by the US, translates it to a typical UK setting and then follows this to its extreme logical conclusion. This time round we have a typical buddy cop set up, as we're introduced to London supercop Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) just as he finds himself uprooted from his preferred environment to sleepy Sandford, a village so beautiful it wins awards. Here he lands up partnered with the hapless Danny Butterfield (Nick Frost) who he first encounters when he drunkenly reverses his car into a fountain. An amiable sort, Danny has apparently gained the entirety of his knowledge of policing procedure by watching the likes of Point Break and Bad Boys 2. Of course, this is hardly going to be a problem in Sandford, is it? Not Sandford, where everybody's lovely and the most hardened criminal is an escaped swan.
Nick's a stickler for the rules and takes a lot of flak as a result. You'd think that once the murders start the rest of the local plods would be glad to have someone like him around, but no, it's easier for everybody simply to pass them off as accidents and the new face in town as a fanatic. Only the faithful Danny is prepared to believe he might be onto something...
Boasting the same top-notch editing as Shaun, Hot Fuzz is a delight from start to finish. Granted, it rambles a little more than Shaun, but then, I'd argue that the world it presents is more detailed and benefits from a more lengthy viewing. I was raised in England's leafy shires, in the world of church fetes and vegetable growing contests, and I know the levels of spite and superiority that lurk beneath the immaculately-manicured flowerbeds. It's nice to see it all, err, honoured, particularly (spoiler) in the climactic shootout scene.
There's lots of other things to enjoy here, in any case. Is actor-spotting your thing? On your left, look out for veteran character actor Billie Whitelaw of The Omen fame. As we travel on further, meanwhile, you may catch a glimpse of a tall gentleman of somewhat limited intellectual capacities. Are you sure you haven't seen him before in, say, Game of Thrones, as Sandor Clegane, the Hound? Particularly perceptive types may even notice appearances by Cate Blanchett and Peter Jackson, although if you find these without looking them up you have sharper eyes than I do.
The humour is a nice mix of slapstick and on-point satire; Frost in particular has a bunch of quotable lines. He has the difficult task of providing the film with its heart and moral grounding, and in the end, the gifted but tightly-wound Nick has as much to learn from Danny as Danny does from him. The friendship elements here are absolutely spot-on, far more nuanced than they were in Shaun and at times, genuinely touching.
It's not perfect, of course, and it probably wouldn't be even if the casting team had seen fit to furnish the film with a single non-white face. Women receive similarly short shrift, for the most part - granted, not everybody in a comedy needs their own character arc, but there's a real lack of three-dimensional female characters here. This is, unfortunately, becoming something of a trademark in Wright's work, and is part of the reason I've given up trying to like his Scott Pilgrim vs. The World no matter how great it might look.
Still, Hot Fuzz remains close to the top of my list of favourite comedy movies, and to paraphrase Shaun of the Dead's Ed, I'll only stop watching it when ITV2 stops showing it.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Notes on a Scandal (2006)
Never Google your exes. I mean this, kids. Up until about a month ago, I would've sworn that the most depressing possible outcome of this would be the discovery that they're contented and successful, with a nice house and whatever the regulation number of kids is these days. Up until about a month ago, when I looked up C, who I wrote about in August and who introduced me to the works of Tarantino and Boyle as well as The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I'm not sure what I was expecting to find - happy Facebook photos, perhaps? Cosy domestic scenes, children growing up, maybe (given that he'd been studying for a PGCE) grumbles about how hard teaching has become nowadays. A jail sentence for having had improper relations with an underage student, though? Yeah, not so much.
Notes on a Scandal has been on my mind a lot since then. It's the cinematic adaptation of Zoe Heller's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, about... well, yes, it's about an affair between a teacher and a student, but that's not the meat of it, not in the book and not in the film either. Rather, it's about loneliness and obsession, and how self-delusion can drive us to acts that we would not ordinarily believe possible.
Judi Dench stars as Barbara, a history teacher at an inner-city comprehensive school. Jaded and isolated, Barbara is nearing retirement age. She (specifically her diary) serves as our narrator, detailing the arrival of Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a former potter turned art teacher who hopes to instil a love of art in the students' often bleak and deprived lives. Fey, Barbara tells us dismissively, but just like the rest of the staff, she finds herself falling under the transcendently beautiful but deeply naive Sheba's spell.
Barbara craves company of any sort, but perhaps of one sort very specifically, and when she accidentally uncovers Sheba's potentially career-ending secret, she sees not a scandal but an opportunity. She installs herself as her confidante, offering to keep quiet and help her through but exacting an unspoken price in the form of demands on her time and increasing emotional intimacy. Of course, eventually something happens for the deception to be uncovered, leading to predictably explosive consequences...
With lead actresses like Dench and Blanchett, there was never any real way Notes on a Scandal was ever going to be anything less than quality. Director Richard Eyre gives them a great screenplay penned by Patrick Marber and top-notch support from the likes of Bill Nighy and Joanna Scanlan, and then lets everyone have at. The result? Quite the most elegant, engaging, intellectually and emotionally satisfying B-movie melodrama you're ever likely to see. The dialogue fizzes and crackles with spite and angst, with both Dench and Blanchett more than willing to abandon all dignity and likeability to get properly down and dirty. Pay no attention to the trappings, children, this is joyous trash of the first order. This is Whatever Happened to Baby Jane moved to the inner city, right down to the slash of purple-red lipstick Sheba dons as the prelude to a good old-fashioned screaming and throwing things breakdown.
This is a magnificent film, but also a twisted, dirty, nasty one, and I mean that in the best possible way. Highly recommended, because even intellectuals need a little trash in their lives from time to time.
I'm not sure what I was expecting to find - happy Facebook photos, perhaps? Cosy domestic scenes, children growing up, maybe (given that he'd been studying for a PGCE) grumbles about how hard teaching has become nowadays. A jail sentence for having had improper relations with an underage student, though? Yeah, not so much.
Notes on a Scandal has been on my mind a lot since then. It's the cinematic adaptation of Zoe Heller's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, about... well, yes, it's about an affair between a teacher and a student, but that's not the meat of it, not in the book and not in the film either. Rather, it's about loneliness and obsession, and how self-delusion can drive us to acts that we would not ordinarily believe possible.
Judi Dench stars as Barbara, a history teacher at an inner-city comprehensive school. Jaded and isolated, Barbara is nearing retirement age. She (specifically her diary) serves as our narrator, detailing the arrival of Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a former potter turned art teacher who hopes to instil a love of art in the students' often bleak and deprived lives. Fey, Barbara tells us dismissively, but just like the rest of the staff, she finds herself falling under the transcendently beautiful but deeply naive Sheba's spell.
Barbara craves company of any sort, but perhaps of one sort very specifically, and when she accidentally uncovers Sheba's potentially career-ending secret, she sees not a scandal but an opportunity. She installs herself as her confidante, offering to keep quiet and help her through but exacting an unspoken price in the form of demands on her time and increasing emotional intimacy. Of course, eventually something happens for the deception to be uncovered, leading to predictably explosive consequences...
With lead actresses like Dench and Blanchett, there was never any real way Notes on a Scandal was ever going to be anything less than quality. Director Richard Eyre gives them a great screenplay penned by Patrick Marber and top-notch support from the likes of Bill Nighy and Joanna Scanlan, and then lets everyone have at. The result? Quite the most elegant, engaging, intellectually and emotionally satisfying B-movie melodrama you're ever likely to see. The dialogue fizzes and crackles with spite and angst, with both Dench and Blanchett more than willing to abandon all dignity and likeability to get properly down and dirty. Pay no attention to the trappings, children, this is joyous trash of the first order. This is Whatever Happened to Baby Jane moved to the inner city, right down to the slash of purple-red lipstick Sheba dons as the prelude to a good old-fashioned screaming and throwing things breakdown.
This is a magnificent film, but also a twisted, dirty, nasty one, and I mean that in the best possible way. Highly recommended, because even intellectuals need a little trash in their lives from time to time.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
To Die For (1995)
Time for a bit of a palate cleanser, I think, in the form of Gus Van Sant's small but perfectly formed black comedy To Die For. It's the perfect antidote to all that bloating and tinsel and CGI, running at an hour and three quarters but passing in an eyeblink.
We start at the end of the affair, with the opening credits rolling over a background of newspaper footage detailing the implication of weathergirl Suzanne Maretto in her husband's murder. For reasons which only become clear far later on, the narrative here isn't strictly linear; it follows a fairly straight trajectory as it describes Suzanne's meeting with and marriage to one Larry Maretto, but isn't afraid to take the odd detour along the way.
The majority of these detours are to an interview with Suzanne herself, played by Nicole Kidman as one of cinema's truly memorable monsters. Endlessly coquettish but tightly wound, Suzanne seems to think that a life lived off-camera is a life only half lived, if at all. Annoyingly, however, she's managed to land up married to sweet-natured Italian homebody Larry (Matt Dillon), who wants nothing more than to settle down, run the family restaurant and have a litter of kids. Given the social unacceptability of divorce, really, what's a girl to do other than recruit a bunch of no-hopers from the local high school and convince them to bump him off, leaving her to frame them and make her name and a tidy sum of cash from selling a documentary about it all?
To Die For is an easy film to love, thanks to Buck Henry's smart, witty script and a bunch of killer performances. Kidman dazzles, of course, in the sort of villain role that has now become her trademark - traces of Suzanne can clearly be seen in the terrifying Marisa Coulter from The Golden Compass. The most frightening thing about Suzanne, however, is how believable she is - I defy you to listen to her voice and watch her mannerisms and not be reminded of somebody you know. This isn't operatic evil, it's the sort of small-scale, banal self-delusion that causes emotional and physical harm in homes and workplaces across the country every day of the year.
The film isn't a solo effort, however, with even the minor characters benefiting from careful casting and a real sense of depth. My favourite was Alison Folland's Lydia, one of the few completely likeable characters of the piece, so achingly lonely that you can't help but wish her well. Her co-conspirators, meanwhile, are played by Casey Affleck and an unsurprisingly effective Joaquin Phoenix.
Only as the movie draws on does it slowly dawn on us that the heroes and villains of the piece aren't so cut and dried as we might think. Suzanne is vain and stupid and eventually murderous, but then, Larry's family are parochial, oppressively traditional and, er, eventually murderous. I'm not really sure if there's any sort of moral to be drawn from this, in fact, other than that most people are arseholes but that the smarter arseholes are sometimes able to get away with it.
With this in mind, please accept the following New Year's wish from me: Here's hoping that this year, all the arseholes you meet will be stupider arseholes than you.
We start at the end of the affair, with the opening credits rolling over a background of newspaper footage detailing the implication of weathergirl Suzanne Maretto in her husband's murder. For reasons which only become clear far later on, the narrative here isn't strictly linear; it follows a fairly straight trajectory as it describes Suzanne's meeting with and marriage to one Larry Maretto, but isn't afraid to take the odd detour along the way.
The majority of these detours are to an interview with Suzanne herself, played by Nicole Kidman as one of cinema's truly memorable monsters. Endlessly coquettish but tightly wound, Suzanne seems to think that a life lived off-camera is a life only half lived, if at all. Annoyingly, however, she's managed to land up married to sweet-natured Italian homebody Larry (Matt Dillon), who wants nothing more than to settle down, run the family restaurant and have a litter of kids. Given the social unacceptability of divorce, really, what's a girl to do other than recruit a bunch of no-hopers from the local high school and convince them to bump him off, leaving her to frame them and make her name and a tidy sum of cash from selling a documentary about it all?
To Die For is an easy film to love, thanks to Buck Henry's smart, witty script and a bunch of killer performances. Kidman dazzles, of course, in the sort of villain role that has now become her trademark - traces of Suzanne can clearly be seen in the terrifying Marisa Coulter from The Golden Compass. The most frightening thing about Suzanne, however, is how believable she is - I defy you to listen to her voice and watch her mannerisms and not be reminded of somebody you know. This isn't operatic evil, it's the sort of small-scale, banal self-delusion that causes emotional and physical harm in homes and workplaces across the country every day of the year.
The film isn't a solo effort, however, with even the minor characters benefiting from careful casting and a real sense of depth. My favourite was Alison Folland's Lydia, one of the few completely likeable characters of the piece, so achingly lonely that you can't help but wish her well. Her co-conspirators, meanwhile, are played by Casey Affleck and an unsurprisingly effective Joaquin Phoenix.
Only as the movie draws on does it slowly dawn on us that the heroes and villains of the piece aren't so cut and dried as we might think. Suzanne is vain and stupid and eventually murderous, but then, Larry's family are parochial, oppressively traditional and, er, eventually murderous. I'm not really sure if there's any sort of moral to be drawn from this, in fact, other than that most people are arseholes but that the smarter arseholes are sometimes able to get away with it.
With this in mind, please accept the following New Year's wish from me: Here's hoping that this year, all the arseholes you meet will be stupider arseholes than you.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
The Indefensibles - Year 2
I knew I remembered doing this last year, but apparently I did so at the end of October, to close off the original 31 Days Challenge. Oh well; probably makes more sense to do it at the end of the year, when everybody else is rounding everything else up, too.
Here, then, is a quick rundown of the best and worst of my viewing year - I hope you've had as much fun as I have.
PRESENTING... THE INDEFENSIBLES!
Winner: Kristen Wiig, for a stunningly brave performance that actively avoids courting audience sympathy.
Winner: Jack Black, because while James Marsden can't help the configuration of his facial features, Black can sure as shit help that abysmal accent.
Winner: Peeping Tom, for being so very clever on so very many levels. NB: This was an exceptionally hard category to judge. I had about a dozen nominees longlisted and on a different day, any one of the other three films listed above might have taken the honours.
Winner: Hop, for its complete absence of any even remotely redeeming feature.
Winner: I Heart Huckabees, which combines inventive instrumentation and on-point lyrics to create an experience that weaves itself into the movie's very fabric.
Winner: The Lorax. All of these were bad, but The Lorax was the most offensively loudly bad.
Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road. Endlessly inventive and lyrically beautiful - not bad for an action flick.
Winner: The Polar Express - as big and bleak and barren as the space in Robert Zemeckis' heart where his creative spirit should be.
Winner: Kingsman: The Secret Service. Takes what could be a dodgy concept and turns it into an enjoyable and implausibly big-hearted romp.
Winner: Crimson Peak, which managed to make incest seem even more embarrassing than in Game of Thrones.
Winner: Megamind, a kids' cartoon with properly adult emotional literacy. True, there's not that much to be ashamed of here, but Will Ferrell voices the lead role so that will have to do.
Winner: Toys. Granted, Small Soldiers subsequently filled the same hole, but this could have been something darker, artsier and altogether classier.
Winner: Meryl Streep. We all know La Streep isn't averse to slumming it, but here director Robert Zemeckis (again) has done her wrong and should be ashamed of himself.
Winner: Funny Bones. Whoever marketed this dark and slightly surreal little drama as a comedy has a lot to answer for.
Winner: Chappie. Warmed my cockles to toasty perfection.
That's all for 2015, folks - see you next year!
Here, then, is a quick rundown of the best and worst of my viewing year - I hope you've had as much fun as I have.
PRESENTING... THE INDEFENSIBLES!
Best Actor (gender neutral)
Nominees: Ralph Fiennes (Grand Budapest Hotel), JK Simmons (Whiplash), Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), Kristen Wiig (Welcome to Me) Sharlto Copley (Chappie)Winner: Kristen Wiig, for a stunningly brave performance that actively avoids courting audience sympathy.
Worst Actor (gender neutral)
Nominees: James Marsden (Hop), Mike Jittlov (The Wizard of Speed and Time), Jack Black (Nacho Libre), Steve Martin (Looney Tunes: Back in Action)Winner: Jack Black, because while James Marsden can't help the configuration of his facial features, Black can sure as shit help that abysmal accent.
Best Movie
Nominees: Mad Max: Fury Road, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Peeping TomWinner: Peeping Tom, for being so very clever on so very many levels. NB: This was an exceptionally hard category to judge. I had about a dozen nominees longlisted and on a different day, any one of the other three films listed above might have taken the honours.
Worst Movie
Nominees: Real Steel, Hop, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, TomorrowlandWinner: Hop, for its complete absence of any even remotely redeeming feature.
Best Soundtrack
Nominees: Hairspray (2007), I Heart Huckabees, WhiplashWinner: I Heart Huckabees, which combines inventive instrumentation and on-point lyrics to create an experience that weaves itself into the movie's very fabric.
Worst Soundtrack
Nominees: How to be a Serial Killer, The Lorax, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club BandWinner: The Lorax. All of these were bad, but The Lorax was the most offensively loudly bad.
Best Visuals
Nominees: Boxtrolls, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Mad Max: Fury RoadWinner: Mad Max: Fury Road. Endlessly inventive and lyrically beautiful - not bad for an action flick.
Worst Visuals
Nominees: The Polar Express, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Titan A.E.Winner: The Polar Express - as big and bleak and barren as the space in Robert Zemeckis' heart where his creative spirit should be.
Pleasantest Surprise
Nominees: The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Rollercoaster, Kingsman: The Secret ServiceWinner: Kingsman: The Secret Service. Takes what could be a dodgy concept and turns it into an enjoyable and implausibly big-hearted romp.
Biggest Disappointment
Nominees: The Voices, Titan A.E, Crimson PeakWinner: Crimson Peak, which managed to make incest seem even more embarrassing than in Game of Thrones.
Guiltiest Pleasure
Nominees: Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Megamind, Death to SmoochyWinner: Megamind, a kids' cartoon with properly adult emotional literacy. True, there's not that much to be ashamed of here, but Will Ferrell voices the lead role so that will have to do.
Greatest Waste of a Cool Concept
Nominees: Death Becomes her, Toys, QuartetWinner: Toys. Granted, Small Soldiers subsequently filled the same hole, but this could have been something darker, artsier and altogether classier.
Greatest Waste of Actorly Talent
Nominees: Meryl Streep (Death Becomes her), Michael Gambon (Toys), George Clooney (Tomorrowland)Winner: Meryl Streep. We all know La Streep isn't averse to slumming it, but here director Robert Zemeckis (again) has done her wrong and should be ashamed of himself.
Most Misunderstood Work of Genius
Nominees: Con Air, Chappie, Funny BonesWinner: Funny Bones. Whoever marketed this dark and slightly surreal little drama as a comedy has a lot to answer for.
Happiest Ending
Nominees: Hairspray (2007), Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, ChappieWinner: Chappie. Warmed my cockles to toasty perfection.
That's all for 2015, folks - see you next year!
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Chappie (2015)
So, I have a confession to make: I never much liked Neill Blomkamp's 2009 fable District 9. There are those who'd argue that this makes me a racist; me, I think that anybody who requires that level of heavy-handed preaching to appreciate the fact that apartheid was a Very Bad Thing might want to examine their own prejudices before they go condemning others. I was left feeling as though Blomkamp had definitely wanted to make some grubbily violent sci-fi but had accidentally picked up the script for a pre-school TV programme about the importance of being nice to people and walking a mile in their shoes, and while it all seemed to make sense at first it soon became patronising on a level that started out as irritating but eventually landed up outright surreal.
This, then, along with some moderately shocking reviews, is why I wasn't in any great hurry to see Chappie. I've not been having much luck with films this Christmas, though (possibly because I've been having such great luck at falling asleep) and after the opening ten minutes of Open Season I knew I couldn't rely on the TV to bring me what I needed. At this time of year, I like my movies sentimental but subversive, and nasty without being too unremittingly bleak. At a pinch, however, I'll cheerfully settle for anything that 1) isn't a cartoon and 2) doesn't feature actors that look as though they've been airbrushed.
The characters in Chappie definitely don't look as though they've been airbrushed, although they might conceivably have taken a few shots from a passing sandblaster. There's a few faces you might recognise, in any case - Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel as a kindly young scientist, and Hugh Jackman as the sort of sadistically violent bastard that comes as standard with every film that centres around an amiable robot.
Said robot, the titular Chappie, is played - in vocal and motion capture form - by Sharlto Copley, in what has to be one of the strongest performances I've seen all year. There's nothing new about the trope of a powerful robot with the mind of a child, but Copley is given the space to lay himself bare and display a vulnerability that's always endearing and occasionally flat-out heartbreaking. He receives able support in this from South African rappers Ninja and Yo-Landi as a couple of low-rent gangsters, each of whom have very distinct ideas about how their robotic child should be reared and for what eventual purpose. Despite the guns and the bluster, however, they prove almost as naive as Chappie himself, and things inevitably start to go very badly wrong.
It's at this point that you'd assume that the film would eventually culminate in a Tarantinoesque bloodbath, but you'd only be partly right. Blomkamp has far too much faith in his characters to blow it all by going all Shakespearean in the final act. He manages to find a real humanity in his grubby, scarred protagonists, and I'm not sure I can remember the last time I found myself rooting so hard for a bunch of figments of somebody else's imagination*. What we're left with instead, in fact (spoiler) is something more positive and tender than I could ever have hoped for.
People may tell you that Chappie fails to see the bigger picture, and they're probably right - it doesn't pose many questions about the kind of leadership that results in the sort of near-future dystopia in which the movie is set, and doesn't confront the sort of issues Blomkamp dealt with in District 9 and Elysium. That said, it's an absolutely cracking character piece with charm in spades and a surprising amount of emotional heft - could anybody really ask for a better Christmas present than that?
*Okay, I can, it was yesterday, it was The Doctor and River Song and I'd have given half my Christmas dinner if it would've guaranteed them the happy ending they both so richly deserve.
This, then, along with some moderately shocking reviews, is why I wasn't in any great hurry to see Chappie. I've not been having much luck with films this Christmas, though (possibly because I've been having such great luck at falling asleep) and after the opening ten minutes of Open Season I knew I couldn't rely on the TV to bring me what I needed. At this time of year, I like my movies sentimental but subversive, and nasty without being too unremittingly bleak. At a pinch, however, I'll cheerfully settle for anything that 1) isn't a cartoon and 2) doesn't feature actors that look as though they've been airbrushed.
The characters in Chappie definitely don't look as though they've been airbrushed, although they might conceivably have taken a few shots from a passing sandblaster. There's a few faces you might recognise, in any case - Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel as a kindly young scientist, and Hugh Jackman as the sort of sadistically violent bastard that comes as standard with every film that centres around an amiable robot.
Said robot, the titular Chappie, is played - in vocal and motion capture form - by Sharlto Copley, in what has to be one of the strongest performances I've seen all year. There's nothing new about the trope of a powerful robot with the mind of a child, but Copley is given the space to lay himself bare and display a vulnerability that's always endearing and occasionally flat-out heartbreaking. He receives able support in this from South African rappers Ninja and Yo-Landi as a couple of low-rent gangsters, each of whom have very distinct ideas about how their robotic child should be reared and for what eventual purpose. Despite the guns and the bluster, however, they prove almost as naive as Chappie himself, and things inevitably start to go very badly wrong.
It's at this point that you'd assume that the film would eventually culminate in a Tarantinoesque bloodbath, but you'd only be partly right. Blomkamp has far too much faith in his characters to blow it all by going all Shakespearean in the final act. He manages to find a real humanity in his grubby, scarred protagonists, and I'm not sure I can remember the last time I found myself rooting so hard for a bunch of figments of somebody else's imagination*. What we're left with instead, in fact (spoiler) is something more positive and tender than I could ever have hoped for.
People may tell you that Chappie fails to see the bigger picture, and they're probably right - it doesn't pose many questions about the kind of leadership that results in the sort of near-future dystopia in which the movie is set, and doesn't confront the sort of issues Blomkamp dealt with in District 9 and Elysium. That said, it's an absolutely cracking character piece with charm in spades and a surprising amount of emotional heft - could anybody really ask for a better Christmas present than that?
*Okay, I can, it was yesterday, it was The Doctor and River Song and I'd have given half my Christmas dinner if it would've guaranteed them the happy ending they both so richly deserve.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)