Movie Review: A Ghost Story

Director:  David Lowery

Writer:  David Lowery

Stars: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara

Verdict: Fucking fantastic; a strong, strong, five stars.

I have a theory about A24, once they’d gotten over their middling indie era at the beginning with Spring Breakers and The Spectacular Now they started releasing hard hitting intelligent masterpieces like The Lobster, Green Room, and Swiss Army Man before picking up some Oscars with Room and Moonlight. Now they have a following they’re like, how far can we push this..? So now we have A Ghost Story which can only be described as 2001: A Space Odyssey for millennials.

Ok that isn’t exactly right, but the production design will press all of your hipstery millennial buttons. It plays somewhat like the last act of 2001: A Space Odyssey where Bowman watches himself grow older as a metaphor for artificial evolution in some kind of alien experiment. The difference is that this makes a lot more coherent sense, visually it is very literal unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey whilst also being incredibly expressionistic. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot because it’s so much more than you think it is, or than I thought it was going in.

The cinematography is unique. It is presented in 4:3 which is a very televisual ratio with curved edges which makes you feel like you’re watching a moving polaroid like something out of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. You are watching memories through a moving photograph. The colour work itself is also incredibly evocative of this. You are detached, you are foreign in your own world, everything feels like something you’ve voyerisitically just stumbled across and happened to observe like you are yourself the titular spectre. This can at first seem irritating but slowly begins to make sense, and that’s part of why I need to see it again I need to digest this again knowing what I know now about the film. There are times when the film will just be going along how it does and something brilliant, and virtuosic and extraordinarily watchable will come out of no where and sideswipe you and leave you frankly, breathless.

The production design is incredible, it makes awfully mundane things seem awfully important and emotional. The score is exquisite and I’m getting it on vinyl. The sound design evokes works like that of Lynch, (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Eraserhead), and Kubrick, (2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange ) and Mallick, (Badlands, The Tree of Life), and it looks and visually references all of these films makers as well in a way that I really didn’t expect from the maker of Pete’s Dragon.

The film will divide audiences, but I thought it was just beautiful. It has something interesting and relevant and often profound to say about art and legacy and death and the afterlife and it has something to say about how our personal ghosts are just the memories that we attach to places and it inspires us to move on and it’s almost like the film is from the perspective of one of those memories. The nature of that life is what inspires us to leave it behind in a way few films achieve. I thought it was transcendent. I loved it, when it comes out in two months I’m going to do whatever I can to see it again. It might end up being one of my favourite films ever if it works out on rewatches. I need, I need to see it again right fucking now!

Cinefix What’s The Difference – A Clockwork Orange

“we were sitting in the corova milk bar, drinking miloko velocet, miloko plus, or milk +, trying to make up our razoodoks what to do with the evening”… I think that’s the quote…

anyway, Cinefix’s What’s The Difference are back and they’re doing Stanely Kubrick again. This time it’s his cult classic, A Clockwork Orange.

Movie Review: La La Land

Director: Damien Chazelle

Writer: Damien Chazelle

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone

Verdict: A Joy

Y’know just before going into this movie I was like “I had a load of horror films in my top list for 2016, wouldn’t it be funny if La La Land was my favourite of the year for 2017?”. I mean all the peices were in place, I loved Chazelle’s last film Whiplash, (my dad said, ‘a film about a jazz drummer, what was the point?’ would it be too obvious to say that’s kind of missing the point of it?), Ryan Gosling is one of my favourite actors working at the moment and I’ve always felt Emma Stone, (The Help, Easy A, Birdman) has had the potential to do great things, and I’ve been looking for a really great musical to fall in love with. I will say though, I saw this on the 8th at a preview screening, (I know how luxurious, little old me), 8 days into the year and I feel it’s pretty safe to say this might well be my favourite film of 2017. Then again I havn’t seen 20th Century Women, yet which just seems geared towards me. 

La La Land is, at it’s core, a fairly standard romance, it’s essentially a twist on Singin’ in the Rain only, better, and less sexist. A lonesome jazz pianist meets a struggling actress and at first they hate eachother but, y’know what, very quickly the ice begins to melt. The premise may be conventional but how the story unfolds from then on is not, and the plot is really just an excuse to have dazzling set peices and musical numbers. 

Not since I think Mad Max: Fury Road have I seen a film as dedicated to purely entertainng you as this one. It begins with one of the best cinematic traffic jams since Sicario, and one of a very different sort. Instead becomming one of the tensest shootouts I’ve seen for quite some time, it turns into one of the most dazzling, colourful, and best choreographed dance routines I’ve seen for quite some time. It’s all filmed in long takes to sell the routines, and the routines are great. No one fucks up, it’s all synchronised and just looks dazzling. The cinematography on display is truly astounding. It was done by Linus Sandgren, who most recently did Joy, which I recently reviewed, (here), and the cinematography was actually probably the best thing about that film. Actually to hear him talk about the difference in approach for those two films is very intersting. 

The performances are lovely. Who knew how funny Ryan Gosling was? He’s turning into a proper Ryan Goose, but I feel like that joke’s been done to death at much earlier stages of his career but there aren’t many adult gosling puns you can make. He’s had three movies out in last year and this year; this film, The Nice Guys, and The Big Short. This role combines the wit of The Big Short, which was actually the film that made me stop and go ‘wow Ryan Gosling knows exactly how to do comedy on a technical level well done him’; with the physical comedy of The Nice Guys; with the melancholia of Drive. There’s a face that Ryan Gosling does at the end of that iconic lift scene in Drive of just utter sadness and longing and regret and it’s a great face, and he’s really good at it, and he does it a lot in this film. He is really, really good, and he sings and dances and plays the piano and it’s lovely. Emma Stone I have never before seen at this level of good. She has a way of talking that makes it sound like it’s coming out of an actual person. She looks like she’s improvising in the sense that it doesn’t look like she’s saying lines that she’s rehearsed, she looks like someone having a conversation in real life. She is such an individual screen presence that it’s almost incongruous but I’m really glad she’s there because I love that manner of acting and I wish more people were doing it. 

If I was to nitpick I would say that it is a bit contrived, there’s one particular scene where Ryan Gosling makes a point about Emma Stone’s heels so she immediately gets tap shoes out of her bag and you go ‘oh right it’s this kind of musical’ but that’s not really representative of the rest of the film because in general, La La Land does make an effort to seem natural. Chazelle has talked in interviews about wanting to make it feel like you were ‘falling into’ the songs and for the most part I think he manages it.

If you go out onto the street and ask people to name a director, they’ll probably say, Steven Spielburg, (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), Stanely Kubrick, (The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey), Martin Scorcese, (Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street), maybe George Lucas, (Star Wars), and probably Micheael Bay, (Transformers). If Damien Chazelle keeps this up, this already quite extraordinary winning streak after only two big films and co-writing credits on 10 Cloverfield Lane, he might well join that linneage. You see the poster and it’s incredible that any film could get that many five star reviews and they wouldn’t have to scrape the bottom of the barrel of publications to get them. I tell you now, if I did stars, they could have included me. It’s wonderful!

Movie Review: Singin’ In The Rain

Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

Writers: Betty Comden, Adolph Green

Stars: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen

Verdict: Good fun

What a delight Singin’ in the Rain is, it’s considered one of the classics of cinema and it’s not hard to see why when it’s just bursting with as much joie de vivre as it is. From the opening shots, although it might not be particularly seminal, not nearly as cynical and intelligent as it things it is, or particularly insightful, it’s just a whole load of fun. 

Singin’ in the Rain follows Gene Kelley’s Don Lockwood, a pretty despicable Hollywood star, stuntman, and dancer, and his studio’s move from silent pictures into talkies with the arrival of The Jazz Singer. 

As with any movie, good things and bad things, (unless we’re talking Fight Club and The Thing), luckily the good things outweigh the bad things, although the bad is definitely worthy of mention. 

The good things are many; the songs are great; the dancing is fantastic if, by the end, at tad repetitive with the endless tap dancing; the jokes funny, (Donald O’Connor’s ‘make ’em laugh’ number is one of the highlights of the film); and the characters endearing. The production design, by Randall Duell, (The Asphalt Jungle), and legend of the industry Cedric Gibbons, (The Wizard of Oz), winner of 11 Oscars, is incredible; it’s vibrant, striking and, (at least for the era), the sets never look to… setish. At least when they’re not actually on a diegetic set, and the cinematography’s really nice too. It was done by a one Harold Rosson, (The Wizard of Oz, El Dorado). It is worth mentioning one of Singin’ In The Rain’s 2 Oscar nominations were for the score by Lennie Hayton, (On the Town), although I actually have no idea whether that means the musical numbers or the actual score. 

Which brings me onto the bad. I’m not so happy with the gender politics of the film, it might be of its time, but there are two principle female characters, one is an archetype of romance films that portrays women in this very classical Hollywood way, this very specifically nuanced classical Hollywood way that I’m not particularly comfortable with. The other one is the Oscar nominated, note that, Oscar nominated, turn by Jean Haygen, and it’s not her fault but her character is just ghastly, just ghastly, and enforces all these kinds of anti feminist stereotypes that have been keeping women down since Chaucer. It’s not ok, I mean it’s really not ok, and the film isn’t clever enough for you to begin to suggest to me that the film was trying to subvert that because it’s not. Shame on you movie.

On the other hand, maybe now I’ll be able to listen to the song Singin’ in the Rain without thinking of A Clockwork Orange. 

Movie Review: The Witch

Director: Robert Eggers

Writer: Robert Eggers

Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie

Verdict: Nearly a masterpeice

The Witch is the debut film from Robert Eggers, most well known otherwise for his sort film adaptation of the quite fantastic Edgar Allen Poe story The Tell-Tale Heart. He’s rooted in production design and that comes through in The Witch, which, despite it’s stripped back setting and nature has wonderful costumes, location choices, and world building. Despite this the real magic lies in the acting, cinematography, score, and script. The Witch is actually nigh on perfect, despite a 55% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (What, would you rather go see Annabelle or Transformers: Age of Extinction?)

The Witch follows a New England family in the really early days of the English colonisation of America. The family that constitutes the main body of our cast are cast out of their puritanical community for being even more puritanical and they head out to start up their own little hamlet. However when the crops start failing, and the baby disappears, things fall apart and the centre cannot hold. 

I look at The Witch as the little film that could. Everything is going against The Witch, especially as a horror film, it’s main characters are children, it involves animals, it’s a period piece with period clothing and language, and it’s a slow burn. However it takes these things that would normally go against it and makes them work for it. In the same way that in A Clockwork Orange, Alex’s Nadsat future slang takes on some form of Chaucerian poetry, in the case of the syntax in The Witch, Eggers has such ability with it that the words take on something Shakespearean. The frame is narrower than most, so that animals with long thin faces with eyes at the side like rabbits and goats look huge and imposing. The period detail is great and really sells the weirdness of the family who are obsessed with sin and being born into sin and in the world they create you really believe it. In the same way as something like His Bloody Project, their obsession with sin and religion works so well because of the mephitic atmosphere created in a more brutal world. The children are just great, Anya Taylor-Joy, (Morgan, Split) is just a revelation, a really extraordinary performance. I wasn’t such a fan of Harvey Scrimshaw as the brother figure Caleb, I mean he can’t do the accent to save his life. However, there’s this one scene, that is just incredible, I mean genuinely terrifying, and he’s great in it. 

The performances from the adults are great as well, Ralph Ineson, (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Game of Thrones, The Office), is pretty much note perfect and Kate Dickie, (Prometheus, Filth), is just mad in the best possible way. 

The real joy, though, comes from the atmosphere and world building coming from the cinematography and score. I mentioned earlier the narrowed frame accentuating the faces of animals, it works with the setting also. They are surrounded by a forest in which dark spirits supposedly lurk, and the narrowed frame makes the trees fill it and rise about everything. The colour palate also mainly consists of whites, greys, and washed out browns, so there’ll occasionally be a red or yellow that really stands out, and this effect is used perfectly to accentuate the drama. The score is great and has something of the Carter Burwell Fargo score about it. It’s strong, acoustic, and piercing, which matches the tone of the film quite nicely I think. 

However, that being said, here’s the problem with all of this, it’s the ending. See the best element of the film, I mean the very best, is that it’s ambiguous. We’re not even sure if there really is a witch, it is, in reality, a film about a family imploding upon itself. There’s a moment where if they’d have ended it I’d have been happy, they cut to black, and it’s great, and I love it. However after they cut to black it comes back for a little 5 minute coda that to a degree ruins the film. I mean it’s done very well but it moves from psychological to supernatural and I like that less, it’s less interesting. So it’s a really good film, it’s really interesting, really well made, really atmospheric and actually scary right, but it’s those 5 minutes that spoil it for me. I mean it really bugs me. In a way I’m more annoyed that the film squandered all that promise more than anything else, like as a short those 5 minutes would actually have been really good on their own, but they’re inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the movie. 

Despite this, The Witch succeeds due to committed performances from a game cast, legitimate psychological scares and a level of technical accomplishment belying the director’s inexperience. 

The Witch, it’s the new Sunshine. 

Movie Review: A Clockwork Orange

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Burgess

Stars: Malcolm McDowell

Verdict: Good enough

We continue Halloween month with a look at the most horrific non-horror film to don a bowler hat and offer us a glass of milk +, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

A Clockwork Orange is an interesting if problematic piece of work. This has been my third time of watching it and I truly believe that twice is the ideal amount. The first time I watched it, I was uncertain but thought it was solid, the second time I was absolutely knocked out by it, but the third time, I’m not sure again. Maybe this cycle will repeat and I’ll be even more knocked out on a fourth watch but I doubt it. 

A Clockwork Orange follows our protagonist Alex on a very active night of ‘ultra-violence’ in a warped future vision of London and the aftermath thereupon. It’s an exciting, outrageous, powerful, political, expressionistic piece of sci-fi horror with a dash of black comedy. As a film, it contains some of Kubrick’s best work. He’s really thrown everything at the wall here because this film is mad, and tries a lot of stuff. Apparently Kubrick threw out a conventional script and approached every scene as a chapter from the book saying “how would we do this chapter?”, he even gave a copy of the treatment to the doorman because “If anyone has a good idea, I want to hear it”, and there’s a lot of ideas here. The best example is the sped up sex-scene scored by The William Tell Overture of all things.

Kubrick has created one of the most original and believable visions of dystopia ever conceived. It’s like 28 Days Later in that it’s still recognisable London, but in the same way that in 28 Days Later you might just get attacked by zombies on the M1, in A Clockwork Orange you just might get attacked by droogs under the overpass. Like any Kubrick film, (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Dr. Strangelove), there’s a lot to love. It’s full of just powerhouse performances, Malcolm McDowell, (Halloween, The Artist, Caligula), is just magnetic as the psychopathic Alex DeLarge, and Aubrey Morris is just barrels of fun as Alex’s reformation officer. The use of classical music as in any Kubrick film is really great, and the Nadsat OH MY GOD THE NADSAT, is, incredible. I mean it’s like listening to Chaucerian poetry. I know it’s meant to hark to the future and be inaccessible to adults, but, not only can you actually understand it, but it’s a joy to listen to. 

Here are some problems, A Clockwork Orange markets itself in the title as a philosophical debate, it’s what the title of the film refers to. Thing is after a couple of watches, the debate just isn’t really that interesting or important, I mean the first time round I wasn’t sure what it was, he second time round I got it, and the third time I’m like, ‘yeah, I’ve got it now’. When that happens the rest of it isn’t really that interesting. So, the film is great, an absolute masterpiece, just everyone says, ‘oh Kubrick films you can watch them endlessly and just see more and more in them’, not this one sonny. Don’t watch it more than twice. 

Thoughts on new trailer for Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire

Let’s get one thing clear; I love Ben Wheatley. (High-Rise, Sightseers, Kill List). I haven’t seen many of his films mainly because I saw Kill List when I was far too young and it pretty much traumatised me, the image of I-think-Micheal-Smiley-but-I-Haven’t-Rewatched-The-Film-Yet-So-I’m-Not-Sure taking off the bandage of an infected would has really stayed with me, but on reflection, I don’t think my at-the-time hatred of Kill List was right, I think the film was doing exactly what it was meant to do. The film starts off almost as a dark comedy, in the way that the ‘funny how’ scene in Goodfellas is kind of funny, but the film slowly spills over into horror, and it’s bloody terrifying, the atmosphere is almost mephitic. and then last year High-Rise came out and I thought that I’d give Ben Wheatley another chance. Now I didn’t love it but I liked it and it stayed with me, and then I re-watched it, and liked it a whole lot more. 

I think at the end of the day, I like the idea of Ben Wheatley, he makes uncompromising, interesting genre films that show interesting people. He works in this interesting hole between horror and comedy in a completely different, more straight faced, more scary in the ‘this will eat away at you’ sense than someone like Sam Raimi, (The Evil Dead, Drag Me to Hell). This new film looks not different, and banterous gangster flick it seems no surprise to see Martic Scorcese, (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, The Wolf of Wall Street) attached as it looks something the now-legend would have directed in his younger days, I’ve already referenced that Wheatly may have been influenced by Scorcese before, although I’d point more to someone like Ken Russel, (The Devils, Women in Love, Altered States), or in something like High-Rise, something like Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, a film which Wheatley himself has professed to loving .

I almost universally already like the cast, I was one of the few non-gamer defenders of Sharlto Copley film Hardcore Henry, and District 9 is a fine piece of work. Armie Hammer is great in The Social Network and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and this film looks like a perfect vehicle for his charismatic charms after the turgidity of The Lone Ranger, (and I have a fond affection for the TV show). Brie Larson is the obvious star attraction, in true hipster fashion I havn’t seen her Oscar winning performance in Room but my mum and sister tell me it’s fabulous, I have however seen her in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and she’s fabulous in that too. However the real attraction for me here in Cillian Murphy who I have never disliked in a film. From Batman Begins to 28 Days Later… to Peaky Blinders, this man is a real acting talent, who is just on the fringes of stardom but must one day take his pedestal amongst the great pantheon of British acting talent, alongside the likes of Gary Oldman, or Toby Jones. 

It seems after the high sheen of something like High-Rise, Ben Wheatley is ready to play with the big boys with this muscular, gun driven action comedic thriller, and I personally can’t wait.