tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183609142024-03-15T13:49:12.323+00:00Bina007 Movie ReviewsBina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.comBlogger3004125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-86180088446323414142024-03-09T08:29:00.000+00:002024-03-09T08:29:01.849+00:00THE GENTLEMEN (TV)****<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhznXhB7bsvElwKtNvf0O0AM1ZHbootINc0pK10TZ3ALD2ME-kIS_QDjQFE0D75pOGm8Kxl1-UoKswE8IdYpTiYKp9rBs7Vt_Rg4hy-G-NgbxO7GNiEiTFhSl95LW9K9Mkl0qsj_E2YT4eK_U13OBkuYCy7wkqOQ2Z27DoWQjDORSY-xej9cWs6/s1200/5m6YYLseLkhknLUdhMikkV-1200-80.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="1200" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhznXhB7bsvElwKtNvf0O0AM1ZHbootINc0pK10TZ3ALD2ME-kIS_QDjQFE0D75pOGm8Kxl1-UoKswE8IdYpTiYKp9rBs7Vt_Rg4hy-G-NgbxO7GNiEiTFhSl95LW9K9Mkl0qsj_E2YT4eK_U13OBkuYCy7wkqOQ2Z27DoWQjDORSY-xej9cWs6/w400-h243/5m6YYLseLkhknLUdhMikkV-1200-80.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Guy Ritchie comes to our TV screens with a series that is a highly satisfying greatest hits mash-up of his mockney gangster films, like <b>LOCK, STOCK</b> to <b>SNATCH</b>. All the classic Ritchie tropes are here. Colourful East End gangsters in well-cut tweed. Thick as mince posh boys snorting coke getting rinsed by aforementioned gangsters. A cool, smart, stunning woman at the centre of it all. Vinnie Jones in a cameo role. Illegal boxing. Travellers. Ganga farms on country estates. And a handsome protagonist who spends most of his time sorting out other people's bullshit. Oh and let's not forget the plotting - so complex, so full of double-crosses - and yet all resolving beautifully in the final act.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The good news is that while this show is set in the same world as Ritchie's feature film of the same name, you don't have to have watched that to enjoy the TV show. It opens cold establishing the bona fides of our hero, Eddie Horniman. He's a British soldier serving with UN Peacekeepers - and his skill for refined violence and defraying anger are going to come in handy. Eddie is played with suave cool by Theo James, of <b>White Lotus </b>season two fame. James treats this is a James Bond audition and is highly convincing in the role. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The action begins when Eddie's father dies, leaving his title and estate to Eddie rather than his feckless big brother Freddy. Turns out daddy was leasing out the estate to Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone) to grow industrial quantities of ganga, managed by Bobby's daughter Suzy (Kaya Scodelario). Oh, and Freddy is in hock to some mean Liverpudlian cocaine-dealers who funded his drug-induced gambling binge. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Esposito plays a mega rich American dealer who is keen to take over the business, and Eddie just wants to clear his brother's debts and get his estate back. The series arc is effectively the process of Eddie discovering that as much as he says he wants out, he's actually pretty good at being a gangster. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I really enjoyed this show. The lavish country house settings are beautifully filmed. The characters are compelling, the costumes stunning and the music propels the action scenes. Ritchie knows exactly what he's doing with this material, and while the the tropes are familiar, it still felt fresh and I was genuinely struggling to figure out how it would all resolve. I absolutely loved the final final final twist and really hope we get a second season.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of the performances, Daniel Ings is the break-out star, with an instantly iconic chicken scene - you'll know what I mean when you see it - at the end of the first episode. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Vinnie Jones deliver a modulated performance, rather than just playing a pastiche of his bad boy football persona. I can't believe I am saying this, but it's Jones who delivers the one genuinely emotional scene in the whole series. Kudos to him.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">THE GENTLEMEN is an eight episode miniseries available on Netflix.</span></b></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-49686075381646665262024-03-05T17:27:00.005+00:002024-03-05T17:29:10.895+00:00MARY & GEORGE (TV)****<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhvNt5DjkIKxGxzxAbOb9G4mCLl0rOQbPLyo-gNLGIrj9IgtofdXPYDoCb9XaS18AADgMUfG6BC1FAv8v2L_QKs-OhLBwgvjQYxVMP8jkd3AK3Wl_ZEWY0Zq2hJ-uPDjM4CqossailhOI0Fas37ivfUSi_GkNKVTJ_bz2X72joWHj2EatpSkwt/s2280/7382.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="2280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhvNt5DjkIKxGxzxAbOb9G4mCLl0rOQbPLyo-gNLGIrj9IgtofdXPYDoCb9XaS18AADgMUfG6BC1FAv8v2L_QKs-OhLBwgvjQYxVMP8jkd3AK3Wl_ZEWY0Zq2hJ-uPDjM4CqossailhOI0Fas37ivfUSi_GkNKVTJ_bz2X72joWHj2EatpSkwt/w400-h240/7382.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>MARY & GEORGE</b> is a sumptuously produced costume drama set in the court of King James I of England. Despite being known to most English schoolchildren as the sponsor of a new translation of the Bible, historical sources tell us that he was definitely homosocial and most likely bi- or homosexual. In this retelling from D.C.Moore, based on a work of history by Benjamin Woolley, any ambiguity is eradicated. James was most definitely homosexual - able to sire children with his Danish Queen - but taking pleasure in a series of young beautiful men.</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This gives our heroine Mary Beaumont her chance at societal advancement, wealth and power. Born a serving woman, by the time we meet her she has already successfully faked an aristocratic lineage and buried her first husband. She marries a country booby in order to maintain her children, and grooms her son George to seduce the King. That they both achieve great power and set up her descendants as those the Dukes of Buckingham is a testament to Mary's intelligence, ruthlessness and strategic brilliance. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Iconic actress Julianne Moore (<b>MAY DECEMBER</b>) perfectly embodies this complex and ambiguous woman. She is no feminist - happily sacrificing a rich heiress to her mentally ill and violent younger son. But one cannot help but admire her resilience and resourcefulness in a world where she had no lineage and few legal rights. It is testament to Nicholas Galitzine (<b>RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE</b>) that he matches her beat for beat. When we first meet his George he is young, fragile and drifting. By the end he is out-strategising both his mother and the King. He remains compelling throughout. In smaller roles, I admired Tony Curran's ability to make James so much more complex and indeed admirable than just a "cockstruck" dilettante. I also very much liked Sean Gilder as Mary's new husband, and Nicola Walker gets all the best lines as the scabrous, independently wealthy Lady Harron.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The production design, costumes, music, and locations are all beautifully done. The show is a joy to watch, and as far as I can tell, the broad historical outlines are close to the real history. My only real criticism of the show is that it cannot maintain the brilliantly funny brutal comedy of its opening episodes and that once the Villiers get closer to power, a dark pall falls over the show. I felt that somewhere around episode 5 the drama lost its intensity and zest and we drifted toward the inevitable grim ending. I wanted more of the bawdy language and nakedly open powerplays - notably between Mary and Lady Harron. The show suffered for the latter's loss.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">MARY & GEORGE is available to watch in its entirety in the UK on Sky. It releases next month in the USA on Starz.</span></b></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-91289636008340366792024-03-03T12:36:00.000+00:002024-03-03T12:36:14.008+00:00DUNE: PART TWO***<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjpimJ_bUCGQNPlgVjARpZmhygz-H495igjSikPTOTsctE3C2prqjJ5kbqhXwRrU5pI4fqYqPqwKg5lHdCA4u9AqPfFccxFAMlMCkmhEBQQk-qXqfkX4-o2Key_LP5jFBMMfasaqe9hc0RDQZ4IpQAWj4IX4l_XIuGAIv6_bvkzN1SJH4G8Ao-/s2280/6000.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="2280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjpimJ_bUCGQNPlgVjARpZmhygz-H495igjSikPTOTsctE3C2prqjJ5kbqhXwRrU5pI4fqYqPqwKg5lHdCA4u9AqPfFccxFAMlMCkmhEBQQk-qXqfkX4-o2Key_LP5jFBMMfasaqe9hc0RDQZ4IpQAWj4IX4l_XIuGAIv6_bvkzN1SJH4G8Ao-/w400-h240/6000.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>DUNE: PART TWO</b> is probably about as good a film as one can make about Frank Herbert's iconic religio-sci-fi book. The flaws I found in this film are mostly down to how distasteful and uninspiring I find the source material - with its superficial embrace of Middle Eastern and North African culture and the fact that its female characters are almost entirely reduced to breeding vessels. I understand that I am not perhaps the appropriate demographic for the books. But Denis Villeneuve has taken it and created two films of arresting visuals and a stunning score. Greig Fraser's IMAX cinematography is bold and beautiful and truly envelopes us in Arrakis. And Hans Zimmer is at his finest combining sandworm-commanding drums, rock guitars, and menacing prophecy-reciting choirs.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As this instalment opens, we are mere days after part one. Paul Atreides and his mother Lady Jessica have survived the massacre of their House on the desert planet of Arrakis. Paul has proven himself a fearsome warrior to the indigenous Fremen, some of whom think he is their long-awaited messiah. This delights Lady Jessica and Atreides loyalist Gurney Halleck, who believes the Fremen will be a powerful fighting force. But Paul's lover Chani has it right - these prophecies are just stories being used to control the Fremen. The narrative arc is powered by the choice that faces Paul. Will he be swayed by his prophetic dreams of devastating interstellar war and reject being a messiah. Or will he exploit the Fremen for revenge on the Harkonnens and seize the imperial throne?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is so much to love in how Villeneuve brings this to the screen. He wisely leaves the sandworms as barely seen epic creatures. The production and costume design of the Harkonnen's world and of the Baron and Na-Baron in particular are arresting. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But the performances veer from mediocre to weak. I found something almost comical in Timothee Chalamet's petulance as Paul and was unfortunately reminded of<b> THE LIFE OF BRIAN</b> - "He's not the Messiah - he's a very naughty boy!" Once you see the film through that lens - "the gourd!" - there's no turning back. There was zero screen chemistry between Chalamet's Paul and Zendaya's Chani which is odd as they seem to be constantly low-key flirting on the red carpet. Christopher Walken is hopelessly miscast as the Emperor - totally bringing me out of the film with his unique American accent. Only Javier Bardem stood out as Stilgar - petrifying in his increasing religious fervour.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I suspect that performances aren't really what interest Villeneuve. He is all about spectacle. Script and character are somewhat beyond the point for him. But this leads to weird choices around narrative. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Most obviously, Villeneuve's choice not to allow the narrative to unravel over several years problematic. It felt as though Paul's journey from young pup to Emperor had taken place over a few weeks! Is it really so easy to seize power? And how is this going to impact the timeline around Alia, who we see as a grown woman in Paul's dreams. Another choice I disagree with is to minimise the influence of the Guild and put all of the machinations onto the Bene Gesserit cult. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But perhaps the biggest macro issue I have with both books and film is that there's no-one to really root for. On the one hand you have a decrepit Emperor who seems flaccid and pointless. Then there are the comically evil and therefore uninteresting Harkonnens. The Bene Genesserit are nuts and seem to have no endgame. The Fremen are religious extremists. And Paul is a self-acknowledged harbinger of mass genocide. It's like watching <b>Succession</b> but without the comedy swearing.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>DUNE: PART TWO has a running time of 166 minutes and is rated-PG-13. It is on global release. </b></span></div><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-19203470977557053662024-03-03T12:01:00.003+00:002024-03-03T12:01:29.287+00:00THE IRON CLAW*****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Px3UiV0h1YWSvw-Jpxv37ZUFhxRVfohlm1vl2JYswObP-5Ikd8sxG97vqXrXIS5fajOC6_xcdujQQXod0p5beXHR7qoFxnu3iyHyQMABrAhrz47fWlTdAwxAKe4eUjfjMCXsTa8rrg-fJWq1cQUjd3rDi85o089m-WZwyxlGvtQKyJGoUjwg/s2280/5078.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="2280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Px3UiV0h1YWSvw-Jpxv37ZUFhxRVfohlm1vl2JYswObP-5Ikd8sxG97vqXrXIS5fajOC6_xcdujQQXod0p5beXHR7qoFxnu3iyHyQMABrAhrz47fWlTdAwxAKe4eUjfjMCXsTa8rrg-fJWq1cQUjd3rDi85o089m-WZwyxlGvtQKyJGoUjwg/w400-h240/5078.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Sean Durkin's<b> THE IRON CLAW </b>is an absolutely mesmerising and deeply moving drama that tells the story of the real life Von Erich family. I had no knowledge of them before this film but apparently they are wrestling royalty, infamous for a much-mythologised series of tragedies. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As the film opens, we are treated to a black-and-white flashback where the paterfamilias, Fritz Von Erich, is apparently denied his chance to win a title. His revenge is to seemingly raise a large family of boys who are pressured and groomed to win his approval and also win wrestling titles. The Iron Claw is thus not just his trademark wrestling move, but also the way in which he exerts toxic control over his family, the wages of which we will see play out over the running time.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Zac Efron stars as Kevin von Erich. It's a performance of great vulnerability and physical prowess that reminded me - inevitably - of Mickey Rourke in <b>THE WRESTLER</b>. Efron bulked up for the role and in the opening shot of him the camera interrogates every vein and muscle on his body. He is a machine created by his father for vengeance. Efron's mournful performance is a career-best and no doubt benefits from what we bring to seeing him on screen. His real-life arc from teen idol to indie darling by way of addiction and body dysmorphia adds a layer of pathos to this role. The parallels between Hollywood and wrestling are painful to contemplate - the extreme body mutilation and pressure to perform - the substance abuse and toxic svenaglis - it's all here.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Next comes Kevin's brother David, played by <b>THE TRIANGLE OF SADNESS</b>' Harris Dickinson. David is the natural showman, more articulate than Kevin, and so finds himself top of his father's preference ranking of his sons - a game that both Kevin and David seem willing to play.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We are in trickier water with the two youngest sons. Kerry (<b>The Bear</b>'s Jeremy Allen White) wants to compete in the Olympics, but his dreams are dashed by the 1980 boycott. He is pulled into wrestling, is good at it, but resents it. White's performance is one of such searing sadness that he barely needs to speak to convey the tragedy of his situation. Finally we have young Mike (Stanley Simons). He's just a kid who wants to make music with his literal garage band. He has no place in the ring, but what father wants, father gets.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">All of this feels fairly hopeless and as a study of male toxicity it is. Maura Tierney gets a great scene as the religious oppressed mother who lets all of this happen. And Lily James is impressive in a small role as Kevin's wife. And really it's through her that the film avoids being unilaterally miserable. Because by anchoring in Kevin in marriage, the joy of fatherhood, and the opportunity to be a different kind of man, she gives us a path out of the Iron Claw. There's a scene near the end of this film between Kevin and his sons that made me cry. I don't want to spoil it - but it's one of the most well-earned moments of hope in recent cinema.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Kudos to Sean Durkin for writing and directing such a pellucid, affecting film. I absolutely loved his recreation of late 70s and early 80s small-town America - the music, the clothes, the cars, the garage bands. I loved the cinematography - the apparently meticulous recreation of the fight scenes - and the astonishing performances Durkin pulls from his cast. I do not understand why this film wasn't as big a deal on the awards circuit as <b>THE WRESTLER </b>was all those years ago. It deserves all the plaudits and all the success. And Efron deserves his own version of a McConaugheyssance. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>THE IRON CLAW is rated R and has a running time of 132 minutes. It is on global release.</b></span></div><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-43445607457676295282024-03-03T11:13:00.001+00:002024-03-03T11:13:38.933+00:00SILVER HAZE*****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdP0-n0xJNn8j0ZYBAKymtC6M46MKmrl5QS6dEhCCPnM-FI6gfRPT8jbR0SPQdSyUeOWxlc5NLBxAKn57FKpicm1nZql9BJRL9SUsoxfh2N768sjPToIFpIfgLKYPiYstnpu_2Po54D2B9VworWGolVXKYPBQey8I6oCbY3DkqFgtUQnyB41O/s1504/Silver+Haze.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="846" data-original-width="1504" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdP0-n0xJNn8j0ZYBAKymtC6M46MKmrl5QS6dEhCCPnM-FI6gfRPT8jbR0SPQdSyUeOWxlc5NLBxAKn57FKpicm1nZql9BJRL9SUsoxfh2N768sjPToIFpIfgLKYPiYstnpu_2Po54D2B9VworWGolVXKYPBQey8I6oCbY3DkqFgtUQnyB41O/w400-h225/Silver+Haze.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Dutch writer-director Sasha Polak's <b>SILVER HAZE</b> a lightly fictionalised depiction of actor Vicky Knight's life story. As a young child, Franky (Vicky's on-screen avatar) was badly burned in a fire in her uncle's pub, and still holds her father's new wife Jane responsible. This film picks Franky up as a young woman who is filled with anger and resentment. She lives in a chaotic crowded family home in an economically-deprived part of East London. The threat of verbal or physical violence is always just under the surface and Franky gives as good as she gets. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>The narrative is propelled by Franky's relationship with Florence (Esme Creed-Miles), a privileged but troubled girl who now lives with her grandmother Alice in Southend. It begins as a liberation, allowing Franky to discover she is gay, and allowing her to create a found family with the wonderfully supportive Alice, and Florence's younger brother Jack.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I really admire this film for its delicate balance between laugh-out-loud family banter - genuine menace in a scene of a London bus - and joyous emotional release. Sacha Polak handles the shifts in tone and mood so beautifully that you emerge from a film that deals with epically profound topics feeling uplifted. I also admire how brave the film is. Not just Vicky Knight having the body confidence to be naked on screen, and to show her unique beauty, but her real-life siblings playing her on-screen family and revisiting a traumatic experience. In a sub-plot, Franky's sister explores converting to Islam, and her need for that is treated with respect but also good humour. That feels brave in the current climate. Finally, I am grateful to any film that lets me spend time with the charismatic Angela Bruce. As Alice, she is no pushover, but radiates warmth. A tricky balance to pull off.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Behind the lens, Polak's largely Dutch crew create some memorable visuals of Southend, and a beautiful soundtrack, on what must have been a low budget. It just cheers my soul that unique, brave, entertaining and moving films like this can still be made and released. I really hope it finds the audience it deserves.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">SILVER HAZE has a running time of 102 minutes. It played Berlin and London 2023, and will play BFI Flare 2024. It will be released in the UK on March 29th.</span></b></span></div><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-6640672642771323732024-01-18T09:42:00.002+00:002024-01-18T09:42:43.559+00:00THE COLOR PURPLE (2023)**<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0yOSULYWBLRBlju6GhdWopdSha9KlBUD90DnBN5ewhTAPpc4KxZ_iaZjUbHy4wHz0grL0oxm6qvnu0CqxUetCsopWA6aveAlQTDWjufcCSKNENZ3f3hRx0_juDPJ6agG7Yl8LVgvrfYuAvcu0tY6v2_tIcedAMLNr_8ZKEIxRmFoHoDcLE7m/s1240/5352.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0yOSULYWBLRBlju6GhdWopdSha9KlBUD90DnBN5ewhTAPpc4KxZ_iaZjUbHy4wHz0grL0oxm6qvnu0CqxUetCsopWA6aveAlQTDWjufcCSKNENZ3f3hRx0_juDPJ6agG7Yl8LVgvrfYuAvcu0tY6v2_tIcedAMLNr_8ZKEIxRmFoHoDcLE7m/w400-h240/5352.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Alice Walker's iconic novel of African American female endurance, <b>THE COLOR PURPLE</b>, has a new life as a movie-musical. I cannot fault the look of the film, clearly inspired by Julie Dash's iconic <b>DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST</b>, nor its production values, cinematography, costumes, or performances. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Fantasia Barrino is deeply moving and convincing as the heroine, Celie - a woman we first meet as the victim of her father's sexual abuse. We watch her children abducted, her marriage to the equally abusive Mister (Colman Domingo), and late in life discovery of her sexuality and economic power. By the end of the film she is a late middle-aged woman, with all of the physical change that that implies. She is framed by two other impressive performances. Taraji P Henson plays the renamed Shug Avery - the glamorous nightclub singer who has to reconcile with her faith and father. And Danielle Brooks plays Sofia - Celie's no-nonsense duaghter-in-law who is humbled by a racist white woman. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Every individual element of this film is calculated to impress but I just could not get over the fact that it was a musical, and moreover that the music was not contemporary to the period in which the film is set (the first half of the twentieth century). As a result, whenever the production design and performances pulled me into an emotional space, the anachronistic music pulled me right out. It also didn't help that the director Blitz Bazawule chooses to have the actors lip synch to the ruthlessly studio clean soundtrack. Given that so many scenes are outdoors with the sounds of nature around, I feel this is really a film where it would have been of benefit to have the actors to sing live, as in Tom Hooper's<b> LES MIS</b>, or at least make the songs sound less airless and clean.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The upshot was that I never felt involved with the characters or their story and while I admired it theoretically I was not moved. The original film made me cry, I felt keenly the humbling of Sofia, and the more discreet relationship between Celie and Margaret sizzled with sensuality. I didn't need the awkward intervention of anachronistic music. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">THE COLOR PURPLE is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 141 minutes. It was released in the US on Christmas Day 2023 and will be released in the UK on January 26th.</span></b></span></div><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-68107335591548476912024-01-18T09:22:00.000+00:002024-01-18T09:22:08.844+00:00THE BOYS IN THE BOAT**<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqCJdZGd2UV3jFLf5etkgV8w1USdBnq8h_yIyhN4hGk7eZhcCK_xWkhnoeDkM7zVDy9MVKoIL6TgJ0EV9u2cpLlGSMx4O2hILKtNfXNVgnMozbLZhyphenhyphen7HP1kuZsel2ueUnjKdQcrPHUNULFuMFRoLdEhMpdUV63-64jeRoHLRFnd8PCTi0WUEks/s1240/4500.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqCJdZGd2UV3jFLf5etkgV8w1USdBnq8h_yIyhN4hGk7eZhcCK_xWkhnoeDkM7zVDy9MVKoIL6TgJ0EV9u2cpLlGSMx4O2hILKtNfXNVgnMozbLZhyphenhyphen7HP1kuZsel2ueUnjKdQcrPHUNULFuMFRoLdEhMpdUV63-64jeRoHLRFnd8PCTi0WUEks/w400-h240/4500.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>THE BOYS IN THE BOAT</b> is a deeply dull, paint-by-numbers underdog sports biopic about a working class American rowing eight than won Gold at the 1936 Olympics. We don't learn much about them, other than that they are poor and motivated. We know they are poor because is an opening scene the hero (Callum Turner with an absurd and distracting blonde dye job) is putting cardboard inside his shoe. We don't learn much about their coach (Joel Edgerton) who just looks taciturn and unknowable for the entire film. We certainly don't understand why they are so good and what he did to make them that way. And we don't really understand the stakes. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This was the Hitler/Berlin Olympics but director George Clooney has no interest in showing the real peril of fascist Germany, just as he isn't interested in showing the real tragedy of Depression-era America. Instead, he puts a few Nazi flags up, has a few brownshirts cheer for Germany, and some guy play dress up as the Fuhrer. It's actually so trivialising it's insulting - particularly to Jesse Owens. What we learn from all this is that Clooney doesn't want to get his hands dirty in the period. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Instead he creates a film that is book-ended by a sappy grandpa-grandson bit of nostalgia; that is forever bathed in twinkling sunlight; and where the hero's girlfriend forever has perfectly styled hair and no character or lines to speak of. This is dull retrograde film-making of the worst kind, and all the more embarrassing because <b>CHARIOTS OF FIRE</b> figured out how to inject emotion, stakes and modernity forty years ago.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">THE BOYS IN THE BOAT is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 123 minutes. It was released in the USA on Christmas Day 2023, and in the UK on January 12th</span>.</span></b></div>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-27197062000877323482024-01-14T11:11:00.000+00:002024-01-14T11:11:04.499+00:00DREAM SCENARIO****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ2hIT-vO7FRniSlHjx-LFqdqli2obi_WrgodN-ZoDPhpBFbbLKCNaRTOKiSBF4gByQ-Tio4NHleJwmEqJmR0RGrfyP6-ATHeOwmdy5HmrZqAGmIIzKfaojqynJw5Q_8XGPigFhyWnGY-zfH3dIWK12-_pBwcaiK0W6bM9pNJTkPYFrmnEEpr7/s1240/3000.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ2hIT-vO7FRniSlHjx-LFqdqli2obi_WrgodN-ZoDPhpBFbbLKCNaRTOKiSBF4gByQ-Tio4NHleJwmEqJmR0RGrfyP6-ATHeOwmdy5HmrZqAGmIIzKfaojqynJw5Q_8XGPigFhyWnGY-zfH3dIWK12-_pBwcaiK0W6bM9pNJTkPYFrmnEEpr7/w400-h240/3000.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli's <b>DREAM SCENARIO</b> is a film that feels as though it could have been made by a collective of Spike Jonze, Charlie Kauffman and Michel Gondry. This is a good thing. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nic Cage stars as a schlubby university professor who starts showing up in everyone's dreams. At first this leads to a wonderful surge in popularity - students actually turn up to his lectures and he gets a book deal. But when his dream avatar turns into a nightmare, the world turns on the real life professor. He and his family are shunned, and then subject to violence. The book deal morphs into a crass trashy occult-baiting book. The poor man's entire life is upended.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The film has lots to say about the absurdity of the mob - whether in hyping someone up or tearing them down. The increasingly surreal dreams are beautifully executed. And through it all we have Cage's measured, disbelieving, horrified Professor. People are right when they say it's the most well-modulated performance Cage has given in years - playing against type - or rather the caricature that Cage sometimes puts forth of himself.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The resulting film is an intelligent and darkly absurd satire that entertains and provokes. Superb!</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>DREAM SCENARIO is rated R and has a running time of 102 minutes. It played Toronto 2023 and was released in the USA and UK last November.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-17902333399918544482024-01-14T10:40:00.001+00:002024-01-14T10:40:22.357+00:00THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRR8vsEk1iT8g0UBenijULzNZ5gEMM-wNBTotl-rjg6HakhJVe2AIngmJCmLdmdNwKDpwX9ZJ9B38YfVXUcvD6D9tXmhBeYrk667RgnSJDblh0X7cGdai1b7Q9PwtTD1IiziDQ4LsezsswrfRXWvx7vPMnifoeGQ8OCet_ezPYyiyPcGI6Zhv9/s1000/The-Disappearance-Of-Shere-Hite-Still-1.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRR8vsEk1iT8g0UBenijULzNZ5gEMM-wNBTotl-rjg6HakhJVe2AIngmJCmLdmdNwKDpwX9ZJ9B38YfVXUcvD6D9tXmhBeYrk667RgnSJDblh0X7cGdai1b7Q9PwtTD1IiziDQ4LsezsswrfRXWvx7vPMnifoeGQ8OCet_ezPYyiyPcGI6Zhv9/w400-h225/The-Disappearance-Of-Shere-Hite-Still-1.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nicole Newnham's new documentary is an urgent, well-constructed and desperately relevant film about a feminist sociologist and publishing sensation cut down by the patriarchy. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Shere Hite was a beautiful, intelligent, curious and sex-positive woman. She supported herself through college at Columbia and then in her sociological research by modelling, some of which was nude. She saw nothing wrong with this. She became famous for publishing The Hite Report in 1976 - summarising the results of a survey of 3000 American women. The most shocking of its revelations was that the best way to satisfy a woman sexually was through clitoral stimulation, and that conventional vaginal intercourse was a poor way to achieve this. As a result, most women's best sexual experiences were through masturbation.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The severity and savagery of the masculine backlash was comprehensive. The publishers tried to sabotage the book by restricting sales and the first print run. They refused to run any publicity. But they couldn't stop the juggernaut of interest. Apparently it's the thirtieth best selling book of all time, even though few today have heard of it. But the accompanying PR interviews, many of which are excerpted here, show the toll it took on Hite. She was pilloried on TV shows and accused of making men irrelevant. Men tried to discredit her based on her nude modelling and the sample biases in her research (you try getting a representative sample of women to answer a sex survey!). Publishers would not give her a contract for her ongoing research and she ended up giving up her US citizenship and forging a new life in Europe.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Perhaps this cancellation and suppression is ongoing. People today all know about the Kinsey report on men, but how many now about the Hite report on women? Why - after immense critical acclaim at the Sundance film festival, did this film not get wider distribution, despite a star as big as Dakota Johnson voicing the words of Shere Hite? Why does the world not care when Shere Hite was speaking to exactly the repression of female sexuality that we now see rearing its head in the United States? All of these factors speak to the continuing importance of Hite's work. This film is a worthy argument along those lines.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE is rated R and has a running time of 118 minutes. It played Sundance 2023 and was released in the USA last November. It was released in the UK this week.</b></span></div><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-44501700364473086772024-01-14T10:10:00.002+00:002024-01-14T10:10:55.668+00:00GOOD GRIEF**<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGYfs7wmc84MD7i2rZKO61yUMUBOIORDmYAvZuXKGV1LqdX-WSB3fRmg9Pzw2amzxhl1uKMeXMASuTmFvr0sIG_Al16gscwUzmh7m0HPZPRSZSeyjr1tqO77RXqFxLNpQKVfUCk1LOJsHubvdN6_KLMtfZsmlzWJ97VBYSlAY-qm1Pm8QmY8h/s1240/8192.jpg-2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEGYfs7wmc84MD7i2rZKO61yUMUBOIORDmYAvZuXKGV1LqdX-WSB3fRmg9Pzw2amzxhl1uKMeXMASuTmFvr0sIG_Al16gscwUzmh7m0HPZPRSZSeyjr1tqO77RXqFxLNpQKVfUCk1LOJsHubvdN6_KLMtfZsmlzWJ97VBYSlAY-qm1Pm8QmY8h/w400-h240/8192.jpg-2.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">An artist turned househusband loses his apparently rich and loving spouse in a car crash on Christmas Eve. Over the next year he grieves with the help of his two best friends: an earnest art gallerist and a flaky creative with an problematic relationship with commitment and alcohol. On the anniversary of the death they go to Paris for a healing weekend of indulgence and honesty. The artist becomes an artist again. The addict gets sober. The nice gallerist doesn't grow because I guess he doesn't need to? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The film is not funny. I don't think it's actually meant to be but the fact that it's written by, directed by and stars Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy is likely to raise some expectations in the audience. This wouldn't matter if the film worked as an emotional exploration of grief - after all, that's purportedly its aim. I don't think the writing is insightful enough or moving enough for that. Instead what we have are some very well-dressed moving around beautifully appointed houses having fairly superficial conversations. There is no actual peril - neither financial, nor emotional - and one could argue that the addiction story is not given the respect it deserves either. I remain convinced that Dan Levy is missing his true story as an interior designer. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>GOOD GRIEF is rated R and has a running time of 100 minutes. It was released on Netflix. </b></span><p></p></div></div>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-25013544714272372212024-01-05T08:59:00.000+00:002024-01-05T08:59:38.868+00:00SOCIETY OF THE SNOW*****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9URwzGiMhuAuXoxJe5CrtQC1KkrsaeLtaudUP0w8sE2aLIiGQcZZ_v3m-Rv5AwhwKujXBWh4wklFbKhWk30O9PHIXuFehYlM2y7dJ8Rk-sAAscqUDSbgtUzAC4XGLYx30IRtf5PbaZ9LzOEZor5XHh3ddbh8TE5C4w5krxEDX8EF1iOq7I1k0/s1240/4100.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9URwzGiMhuAuXoxJe5CrtQC1KkrsaeLtaudUP0w8sE2aLIiGQcZZ_v3m-Rv5AwhwKujXBWh4wklFbKhWk30O9PHIXuFehYlM2y7dJ8Rk-sAAscqUDSbgtUzAC4XGLYx30IRtf5PbaZ9LzOEZor5XHh3ddbh8TE5C4w5krxEDX8EF1iOq7I1k0/w400-h240/4100.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Spanish writer-director JA Bayona's retelling of the iconic 1972 Andes air crash is his career best work, which is a big call given how masterful his 2016 film </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">a </span><a href="http://www.bina007.com/2016/10/a-monster-calls-bfi-london-film.html" style="font-family: verdana;">A MONSTER CALLS</a> <span style="font-family: verdana;">is. There is evident care taken to listen to the testimony of the survivors and honour both their experience and that of the victims. What lifts this film beyond earlier movies covering the same topic is its technological prowess in showing the crash, and then by contrast, the quiet moments of philosophical and moral contemplation as the survivors decide how to live.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The film opens with a brief but powerful essay on life before the crash. We see these young college students full of life and exuberance as they plan for a flight to Chile for a rugby match. Within five minutes we are on board and the fun continues until the first dramatic moment of air turbulence shifts the mood. Bayona moves as fast as events would have in real time, showing the plane hit a storm, wildly gyrate before having its wings sheered off, the fuselage ripped, before crashing into a mountain. We feel the impact viscerally - it's the most frightening depiction of a crash yet seen on film - and matched in impact by an avalanche shown later in the film. We feel the peril and the suffocation and claustrophobia of endless hostile snow.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And then we move into the main bulk of the film which has a far quieter, more contemplative tone. The team captain with his quiet gentle manner becomes the leader of the 29 survivors, raising their morale, rationing food and organising their tasks. When their hope of rescue is quashed by a news report heard on the radio. And so they realise that they are on their own, with no food, but a misperception that Chile is just on the other side of the mountain. And so they take the fateful, profound decision to use the "protein" of their dead comrades, build strength, survive and achieve their own rescue. Two of them hike an incredible ten days, without any mountaineering equipment or experience or even a compass or a map, and achieve rescue.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The most moving scene is how JA Bayona chooses to end the film - showing the Society Of The Snow reassembled, now seemingly safe and clean in a hospital ward, but still emaciated. They look confused and concerned, maybe now facing up to the decisions they took and the improbability of their rescue and the injustice of who did and did not survive. Bayona chooses to give us the essential truth beyond the sensational headlines - that these boys survived because they were truly a society - they were friends, they trusted each other, they cared for each other, they helped each other do the unthinkable, and willed each other to survive. And that this community care is going to have to continue as the men process what they have been through.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">SOCIETY OF THE SNOW is rated R and has a running time of 144 minutes. It played Venice 2023 and was released today on Netflix.</span></b></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-46677823348281159632024-01-04T09:28:00.001+00:002024-01-04T09:28:23.726+00:00STRANDED (2007) *****<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfvH8wgP0LI9lgnvZd765KruI807jYKi0Ilc7qjO84QyWddfwNTM5bkcOFfVMLNis2yS_m-OEDIpYvnxAayakdepOcxkvnIVpNDhkgkYpMJiBGWnTPvFvhfthb8iYCaL0183xp0iMCCevZM-fNaQntT0L70rbtHK65OaCHf710XHzObytOHiMT/s381/Strandedposter08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="261" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfvH8wgP0LI9lgnvZd765KruI807jYKi0Ilc7qjO84QyWddfwNTM5bkcOFfVMLNis2yS_m-OEDIpYvnxAayakdepOcxkvnIVpNDhkgkYpMJiBGWnTPvFvhfthb8iYCaL0183xp0iMCCevZM-fNaQntT0L70rbtHK65OaCHf710XHzObytOHiMT/w274-h400/Strandedposter08.jpg" width="274" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />In 1972 a charter plane carrying a Chilean college rugby team crashed into the Andes when the pilot made a navigational error amidst a heavy snowstorm. These were rich medical students who lived by the sea and had, many of them, never seen snow before. The atmosphere on board before the crash was one of high jinks and festive jubilation. This ended abruptly with the crash. The pilots soon died, the back of the plane had been sheered off, there was very little food, and the radio told them the rescue had been called off. Faced with certain death, this group of Catholic college boys were rallied by two things - the leadership of their team captain who rationed their food with discipline and fairness. And then the profound decision to cross the taboo of cannibalism in order to survive. For some, this was a challenging but rational decision - these were men of medical science after all. But for others, with a deep Catholic faith, it was a sin that could damn them, and it needed to be justified in terms of an act of consuming the Eucharist. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gonzalo Arijon's documentary, made 35 years after the accident, is a triumph of film-making. He has access to many of the survivors and their family members and reconstructs the events through their testimony and some recreations. They are candid about their emotions at the time and in retrospect. We hear grown men describe almost dying - slowly through starvation - and suddenly when an avalanche buries them alive. We see the pain on their faces and in their voices when they discuss the need to eat their friends. We see the deep care taken to respect the dead, and to be honest with the rescuers for the sake of the families.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The result is a film that is by turns moving and dramatic. Despite knowing the outline of the story I was again and again taken aback by the men's candid insights and resilience. Truly this is a story of the importance of friendship, camaraderie and the willingness to survive. I was left with nothing but admiration for the men.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>STRANDED has a running time of 130 minutes. It played Sundance 2008 and can be viewed in full on YouTube.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-88498188901796083182024-01-03T14:04:00.003+00:002024-01-03T14:04:44.225+00:00THE ARCHIES**<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGez5DZ4l3LyyG4xYAhbWDaBPox-eLBPAwJ_CQhtYK_dWbMDI0nBFBCCTqJXQKFsNND8jvgdFK0MQ6u5zrDqW621DiQyGL4fhXIapG2aj7moRQwrg5j-XUtT6p3V4890gBuNWUBy6hs0UYnop-3Rtbeni3vdbdpf-YYH7uGT8Ebp9j9ROEemb/s1240/6838.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGez5DZ4l3LyyG4xYAhbWDaBPox-eLBPAwJ_CQhtYK_dWbMDI0nBFBCCTqJXQKFsNND8jvgdFK0MQ6u5zrDqW621DiQyGL4fhXIapG2aj7moRQwrg5j-XUtT6p3V4890gBuNWUBy6hs0UYnop-3Rtbeni3vdbdpf-YYH7uGT8Ebp9j9ROEemb/w400-h240/6838.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zoya Akhtar's Indian adaptation of the Archie comics is a strange beast. One assumes that these comics are aimed at kids, and apparently they were very popular in India in the sixties. But why then do we have a film that seems neither aimed at kids nor at adults? On the one hand, we have pantomime villains and heroes and an entirely sexless love triangle. On the other hand, Akhtar is trying to say something about the unique position of the Anglo-Indian community in a post-Independence India. None of it hangs together. The film might have been saved by wonderfully catchy songs, but the songs are trite and unmemorable with bizarrely statically shot dance sequences. And as for the performances..... Much has been made of the fact that Zoya Akhtar (herself a "nepo baby") cast three scions of major Hollywood dynasties in lead roles. Archie himself is played by Agastya Nanda, grandson of Amitabh Bachchan, and his love interests are played by Suhana, daughter of Shah Rukh, Khan and Khushi, daughter of Bonny, Kapoor. None of them can act (yet?) but if I had to rank them, Khushi seems to have the most talent, followed by Suhana then Agastya. Maybe it's just the thin characterisation giving them nothing to do.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So what is there to like about this film? I genuinely liked the prologue where we get the history of the Anglo-Indian community and something of their culture. This isn't something we ever see in mainstream Indian cinema. I liked the production design and beautiful rendering of the interiors. I felt a sense of place in Riverdale and its central Green Park and independent stores, and peril that this would be demolished to make way for a mall. In other words, I liked the background, but not the plot or action.</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>THE ARCHIES has a running time of 141 minutes. It was released on Netflix last December.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-72003829425319517462024-01-03T13:43:00.003+00:002024-01-03T13:43:32.006+00:00WONKA****<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqF604fAPO4IMkn2EexG9-hc6caQcDyxYH6bYa88PqzUvMJ_HdwqLofm4JFTHBJOnMSanyCEL2ndk6pCi2QV-1Z7YO47ddkHP1N1lYzdWAmcMandKAA9A2g8Iw5DE7bzz8hg8_XqBaXVLB10adkxVeq4UtdgLIjvIjPKt5q14GbqREVrW9weep/s1400/3748.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqF604fAPO4IMkn2EexG9-hc6caQcDyxYH6bYa88PqzUvMJ_HdwqLofm4JFTHBJOnMSanyCEL2ndk6pCi2QV-1Z7YO47ddkHP1N1lYzdWAmcMandKAA9A2g8Iw5DE7bzz8hg8_XqBaXVLB10adkxVeq4UtdgLIjvIjPKt5q14GbqREVrW9weep/w400-h240/3748.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />So cards on the table. Gene Wilder is my Willy Wonka. I love that film. It remains perfection. Silly and fun and sinister and melancholy and everything wonderful and enchanting.* But I am pleased to report that Timothee Chalamet's musical origins story is charming and delightful, and if lacking the sinister melancholia, well he is just a young lad. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This version of Roald Dahl's iconic character sees him as a young impoverished man, desperate to share his chocolate with the world so that he can feel close to his dead mother. (Okay it's not as creepy as that just sounded). But he is up against two interlocking groups of villains. First, Olivia Colman and Tom Davis are Wonka's evil landlords, straight out of <b>Les Miserables</b>, complete with an abandoned cute orphan girl called Noodle (Calah Lane). The second group of villains are the chocolate oligopoly who control the supply by bribing the local police chief (Keegan Michael Key) and cleric (Rowan Atkinson). And in case you didn't think that was story line enough, we have a delicious cameo from a scene-stealing Hugh Grant as the original Oompa Loompa.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">All of this makes for a complicated but never hard-to-follow adventure story set in a kind of fantasy Victorian mittel-europe that is sumptuous and wonderful in its production design. Chalamet is absolutely delightful as Wonka, Calah Lane adds empathy and earnestness as his sidekick Noodle, and all the adults are wonderfully cast. Of course, this is Hugh Grant's film. He is always better as villains and rogues, but his Oompa Loompa really does have some pathos to him too. Kudos to the writer-director behind<b> PADDINGTON </b>(Simon Farnaby and Paul King) for creating yet another warm-hearted but never schmaltzy family adventure. My only quibble is that the songs - from <b>The Divine Comedy</b>'s Neil Hannon - are not as immediately catchy as those from the original film - something that is highlighted whenever they use one of those iconic vintage tunes. Nonetheless, I await the inevitable West End musical!</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>WONKA has a running time of 116 minutes and is rated PG. It is on global release. *Let's not even discuss the abomination that was the Johnny Depp version. </b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-76466364590306481112024-01-03T13:06:00.000+00:002024-01-03T13:06:21.852+00:00HOW TO HAVE SEX*****<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_OHDhxXAo-U4l01ah0eNh1v6gkmwEfGr47AN9NYTkIkenvehTmf-ESA6CAu8MmAlLY0V44p56qjd-NKxIi6_Rm4Lc5tMJX8TZjCksEdiYF2p1BB-3HTxvbwJBxJUL1QMlytKiP8_3vJtNcEQEAFI7VsPcaK5qvXsAXnO40Z1NE_xm-nHijGP/s1400/8192.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="934" data-original-width="1400" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_OHDhxXAo-U4l01ah0eNh1v6gkmwEfGr47AN9NYTkIkenvehTmf-ESA6CAu8MmAlLY0V44p56qjd-NKxIi6_Rm4Lc5tMJX8TZjCksEdiYF2p1BB-3HTxvbwJBxJUL1QMlytKiP8_3vJtNcEQEAFI7VsPcaK5qvXsAXnO40Z1NE_xm-nHijGP/w400-h266/8192.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Writer-director Molly Manning Walker's debut feature is an astonishingly raw, brave and affecting drama about a teenage girl's summer holiday turned horror. I am unsurprised to learn that Manning Walker won the <i>Un Certain Regard</i> prize at Cannes for her work, and can't wait to see what she does next.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The film stars Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara, a sixteen-year old girl hoping to have some post-exam summer fun in Crete. She is travelling with her two best friends, but we soon learn that friendship only goes so far when you both fancy the same boy. We root for Tara to hook up with Badger (Shaun Thomas), who at least seems to have something of a moral conscience, but she inevitably ends up with his friend Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) who it is implied is more typical of the kind of guy you are going to meet on a party island. Molly Manning Walker unflinchingly shows us the misogyny and sexual violence embedded in toxic holiday destinations like Cancun and the Med resorts. The most brutal part of all of this is how it manifests in the girls - the internalised misogyny of shaming someone for being a virgin, and the internalised pressure to have sex. You watch in terror as you realise the inevitable outcome of lots of booze, lots of pressure, and high-risk situations. All of this is portrayed with complete credibility by McKenna-Bruce and culminates in a final heartbreaking scene in an airport where she confesses the reality of what happened to her, and the evasive, equivocal reaction of her best friend. If you weren't worried about how teenagers think about consent before watching, you will be when you leave.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>HOW TO HAVE SEX is rated 15 and has a running time of 91 minutes. It played Cannes and the BFI London Film Festival in 2023 and was released in the UK on December 29th. It will play Sundance 2024 before a February 2nd release.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-24724215603415578192024-01-03T12:34:00.006+00:002024-01-03T12:35:58.690+00:00DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) *****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJAt70OFO355_oEWaaH9fKlMHTjuT50jhTIPsoLH7kdFWW2Zwza7DwZf5pw8hciUYXM1YcJWTWZINvuFLQwVXujPDRjczt5cLoBecIuzwAM1dZMpguIHNEJsjmCJcNM_6M05VDsSad1SKsmBRHgg4UMn7nuDZWUny5rSIg1ddiA3o3Bf2k_dlL/s1240/1600.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJAt70OFO355_oEWaaH9fKlMHTjuT50jhTIPsoLH7kdFWW2Zwza7DwZf5pw8hciUYXM1YcJWTWZINvuFLQwVXujPDRjczt5cLoBecIuzwAM1dZMpguIHNEJsjmCJcNM_6M05VDsSad1SKsmBRHgg4UMn7nuDZWUny5rSIg1ddiA3o3Bf2k_dlL/w400-h240/1600.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In preparation for the release of the new adaptation of <b>THE COLOR PURPLE</b> I decided to finally watch the critically acclaimed<b> DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST</b> by writer-director Julie Dash. This is a film that debuted at Sundance in 1991, but where other indie debutants like Richard Linklater went on to get many feature films financed Julie Dash disappeared from view. If one laments the fact that the original<b> THE COLOR PURPLE </b>didn't win an Oscar, despite its eleven nominations, consider the further and ongoing racism of Hollywood that Julie Dash could create a film of such unique and beautiful vision as <b>DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST </b>and never make a feature again. Which is not to say that her presence has not been felt. Beyonce's <b>Lemonade</b> is just one of the examples of films that reference Dash's visual style and social concerns. And the new <b>COLOR PURPLE</b> apparently also references her now iconic visual style.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The movie takes place in the saltwater Gullah community off the coast of South Carolina in the early years of the twentieth century. Their story is told by the wise old grandmother of the family, Nana Peazant, and by an as yet unborn daughter. We learn that their isolation was a blessing, freeing them from large-scale plantation slavery and preserving their specific language, religion and customs. Much of the film takes place in conversation amidst the beautiful sun-drenched sands of the island, with strong women shaping their history and future.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The story is not told in a straightforward linear fashion but we soon discover that this community is in its dying days, and the younger members of the family feel the draw of greater opportunity on the mainland. That brings with it cultural contamination - from Christianity and Islam - but also the actuality of white violence.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Where <b>THE COLOR PURPLE </b>has a surfeit of plot, and is structured in a conventional manner, <b>DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST</b> is poetic and loose and enchanting. The former is anchored on Celie's house, to where characters return and retreat, and the ownership of which is a key plot point. By contrast, the Gullah woman seem to be eternally outdoors and connected to the water and sand and trees. This maybe speaks to the fact that the seawater Gullah have managed to retain their African heritage in a way that the mainland post-slavery society that Celie lives in has been thoroughly alienated from its proud heritage. In <b>THE COLOR PURPLE</b>, Nettie has to return to Africa to discover her culture, but even then arrives as an outsider, a missionary, with a patronising civilising influence. In the Gullah community, Africa survives and is proximate.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The glory of <b>DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST </b>is the time spent with these fascinating women, contrasting their differing attitudes toward spirituality and the choice of where to live. Cinematographer Arthur Jafa creates stunningly beautiful beachscapes populated by people in gorgeous white dresses against trailing moss. It's no wonder these images have been so influential. The only thing that felt anachronistic and dissonant watching it now was composer John Barnes' synth heavy score.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 113 minutes.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-82696839638345554312024-01-03T11:35:00.004+00:002024-01-03T11:35:32.668+00:00THE COLOR PURPLE (1985)*****<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHMtCnzs6SHa39wvsWqY-cOo38CILaJS5P1fRKZH1wj3EjFmoDV0wubGnICMcy9-UYFfWEcb1eSp0Oia8p5r9Kta2jheB9VN_m4okivwv57SH3RXNr7JxpYsfJdLXajxh6vocUJGxF9B_D0-e29i-SXsUjy5XjapWhurGB3OriuA6GdXO2ZP3/s2048/whoopi-goldberg-reads-bible-in-a-scene-from-the-film-the-news-photo-1608281308..jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1383" data-original-width="2048" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHMtCnzs6SHa39wvsWqY-cOo38CILaJS5P1fRKZH1wj3EjFmoDV0wubGnICMcy9-UYFfWEcb1eSp0Oia8p5r9Kta2jheB9VN_m4okivwv57SH3RXNr7JxpYsfJdLXajxh6vocUJGxF9B_D0-e29i-SXsUjy5XjapWhurGB3OriuA6GdXO2ZP3/w400-h270/whoopi-goldberg-reads-bible-in-a-scene-from-the-film-the-news-photo-1608281308..jpeg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />In preparation for the remake of <b>THE COLOR PURPLE</b> I thought I would revisit the original screen adaptation. It was directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Menno Meyjes and based on Alice Walker's iconic novel of black southern female misery. At the time this must have seemed like rather an odd combination of director and writer for such material - two white men, known for their work in blockbuster action movies. Indeed, the race of the directorial choice attracted a lot of criticism, as well as Spielberg's coy depiction of its lesbian storyline. I feel that both of these criticisms fail to consider the context of the time: the need to attract commercial backers and keep a PG-13 rating for the mass market. They also fail to acknowledge the opportunity to see so much black talent in front of and behind the lens - with stunning debut feature central performances from Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, as well as a masterful score from Quincy Jones.* A more convincing criticism of both book and film is its depiction of black male sexual violence. Added to this, one might criticise the racism of the film industry. While the film was nominated for eleven Oscars, it didn't win a single one. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The book and film take place over the first half of the twentieth century in the rural South. Their protagonist is Celie - a black girl so oppressed that she is raped by her father and her incestuous children taken from her. She is then given to another violent man as his wife, dudgeon and surrogate mother to his children. The only love in Celie's life is her sister Nettie, but they are cruelly separated by her husband and she spends much of her life believing Nettie is dead. The only friendship Celie has is with her stepdaughter-in-law Sophia, whose fierce temper and assertiveness are an inspiration and then a tragedy. And the only lover Celie truly has is Shug, her husband's long-time mistress, who teaches Celie what real sexual pleasure can be.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The standard criticism of Spielberg films is that they are sentimental and gauche. There is sentiment here but it is all earned. Whoopi Goldberg's debut as Celie is so heartbreakingly sincere that one cannot help but glory in her small moments of happiness and love. I was similarly deeply moved by Shug (Margaret Avery), the stunning singer, in her final homecoming to her disapproving pastor father. And there is something quite haunting about Sophia's humbling, portrayed by an otherwise vivacious and scene-stealing Oprah Winfrey. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is so much else to admire in this film beyond the economic script and great performances. Allen Daviau's cinematographer portrays both the lush warmth of the South as well as the oppressive claustrophobia. There is both beauty and violence in this film. But for me, it's all about Whoopi Goldberg and Quincy's score. This is tremendously powerful film-making.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>THE COLOR PURPLE is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 154 minutes. *I am curious to see how the new film - based on a musical adaptation of the book - will better the final "coming home" of Shug to a thrilling gospel score.) </b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-72554110266854183962023-11-22T21:11:00.003+00:002023-11-22T21:11:31.136+00:00NAPOLEON**<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO-XqQGvLSLUQJJn8AwlOl4QxcILVt7uVc0IWfyVXsrMU14pFth7TU8qgh5U0EI-PBZrt21XqEXmALDYwoBcIw6-Mb9hcESXWHwbHT31bRExR1aoqYw7hYVn1AlFc0bg1v3VFcFtwr44tALfcWFIhJEX9U4h32ko1Ax3m3nXD-Qbh-YFTRmipA/s1240/2660.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO-XqQGvLSLUQJJn8AwlOl4QxcILVt7uVc0IWfyVXsrMU14pFth7TU8qgh5U0EI-PBZrt21XqEXmALDYwoBcIw6-Mb9hcESXWHwbHT31bRExR1aoqYw7hYVn1AlFc0bg1v3VFcFtwr44tALfcWFIhJEX9U4h32ko1Ax3m3nXD-Qbh-YFTRmipA/w400-h240/2660.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ridley Scott's <b>NAPOLEON</b> gives us at least one stone-cold classic battle scene, one decent runner-up and an admirably concise tour through the iconic French General and soi-disant Emperor's career. It's all wrapped in a pacy two and half hour historical epic complete with luscious costumes, lavish locations and emperors aplenty. But the film as a whole does not coalesce - it is not as compelling a story as Scott's<b> GLADIATOR </b>- and this is because of screenwriter David Scarpa's fatal decision to balance fifty percent battles with fifty percent love story.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In Scarpa's retelling, the tragic story of Napoleon is not one a military genius brought low by his political egotism and tyrannical excess. No, in Scarpa's view this is the tragedy of a man who succeeded when he was with Josephine and failed when he was not. The problem is we never actually see what Josephine does for him. Did she perchance give him confidence, or teach him etiquette, or inspire his victories, or make him happy? We see none of this on screen - at least in the theatrical cut. Rather, we get Joaquin Phoenix's childish, sex-obsessed, possessive boor acknowledge his wife is a "slut" but remain loyal to her regardless. And poor Vanessa Kirby is saddled with some laughable dialogue as Josephine, and precious little character development. It isn't clear why either of these characters like each other, let alone love each other.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The major crisis in their relationship is that she can't bear him a child and heir. In real life this was explained by the fact that she was older than him and fifteen years into the marriage, past her child-bearing years. But Scott has cast a woman visibly much younger than Phoenix so all the chat about fertility just feels bizarre. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The casting is even more problematic when it comes to Phoenix, who is a fine actor, but just too old for the vast majority of this film. He works well as the weary, older, defeated, delusional egomaniac. But he does not work at all as the younger, charismatic, soldier who inspired not just a nation but a world of progressive liberal democrats. We see nothing of his charisma - no explanation of why his coup d'etat succeeded, why the French accepted him as Emperor, or why soldiers returned to him in 1815 despite his having been responsible for so many deaths in Russia.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You can probably gather that I am not a fan of this film, although I will withhold final judgment until the contains one stone-called classic sequence: the recreation of the battle of Austerlitz. Napoleon's most famous tactical victory against the Russian-Austrian alliance is visually arresting, clearly delineated, and profoundly moving. Moreover we see its political importance in bringing about a temporary peace in the European wars that would absorb the continent for the better part of twenty years. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The rest of the battles are more or less fine. Toulon is depicted as Napoleon's early triumph. Borodino is scarcely touched: wise, given that Sergei Bondarchuk's <b>WAR AND PEACE</b> will never be beaten in that regard. And Waterloo is compressed and flattened but basically does the job it needs to do. I am not entirely sure why Ridley Scott cast Richard Everett, twenty years too old, to play Wellington. After all the British General was Napoleon's exact contemporary: they were born on the same day. I rather enjoyed Everett's robust performance as a no-nonsense British victor, but let's be honest, it bears nothing to do with the real Wellington.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But here we get into the realm of nitpicking. Of course Napoleon didn't see Marie-Antoinette beheaded, or bomb the pyramids, or ride into battle sabre in hand once a General. Ridley Scott says we should "get over it". I kind of agree. I don't require my historical fiction to hue to the facts. I love big historical dramatic films. The problem with this one is that it gains nothing entertaining from its inaccuracies, and forces us to watch an altogether limp love affair when we might have seen more battles.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>NAPOLEON is rated R and has a running time of 158 minutes. It was released in cinemas today and will be released later in a director's cut on Apple TV.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-78295023534903524642023-11-18T14:35:00.001+00:002023-11-18T14:35:48.735+00:00AMERICAN FICTION****<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9rKEVWRRxuuwGES-jVBRNLJIQ3pZWRWYALA3w3obXzjtzGFdpxoq6jPccExQFyhbP23DlGp2V2hlRPuzuylD5_7J6KM4BPWE-J6RCoSI2VRrcr4TteeBAx0OJLZTfZxX02AY30Ytpx8ZYMweI_Xp3DQZqeZrHJkc-DbCbOliYOWbJMMBtOGKo/s1000/american-fiction.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9rKEVWRRxuuwGES-jVBRNLJIQ3pZWRWYALA3w3obXzjtzGFdpxoq6jPccExQFyhbP23DlGp2V2hlRPuzuylD5_7J6KM4BPWE-J6RCoSI2VRrcr4TteeBAx0OJLZTfZxX02AY30Ytpx8ZYMweI_Xp3DQZqeZrHJkc-DbCbOliYOWbJMMBtOGKo/w400-h225/american-fiction.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, <b>AMERICAN FICTION</b> is being sold as a scabrous take-down of modern politically correct sensibilities. It is that, but also so much more. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jeffrey Wright (<b>Westworld</b>) stars as Thelonius "Monk" Ellison, a tenured academic railing against the sensitivities of his Gen Z students, and the moronity of a publishing industry that wants to cage all black authors in the prison of poverty porn, rather than accepting that they can write a variety of stories. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Monk returns home to Boston and realises his outwardly wealthy and successful family is in crisis. His sister (Tracee Ellis Ross, <b>Blackish</b>) is divorced and weary of caring for their mother, his brother (Sterling K Brown, <b>This Is Us</b>) is manically embracing his new gay identity, and his mother is declining into dementia. Desperate for money and outraged at the commercial success of a nakedly exploitative book by his rival (Issa Rae, <b>Insecure</b>), Monk pens an equally trashy novel that predictably becomes a wild success. For the first time in his life, his alter-ego is selling well, optioned for a movie, and appeasing the consciences of rich white people. Monk hates it, hates himself, and hates all those being duped by his ruse, including his new girlfriend. The question is how this will resolve.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is much to admire in Cord Jefferson's first directorial feature. It is genuinely, brilliantly, hilariously funny it taking down the sensitivities of the progressive Left, but also Monk's own delusions. This is a movie whose pre-credits sequence contains more belly-laughs than most soi-disant comedies have in their whole running time. But what I love about this film is that it moves beyond that to deliver what Monk seeks: whole stories about contemporary black lives that are more than simply ghetto or slave stories. The Ellisons are a successful middle class family - highly educated and refined. Their emotional problems are fully described and beautifully acted by a fine cast, among whom Sterling K Brown steals every scene he is in.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">My only criticism is that the movie doesn't quite stick the landing. This is partly by design. Neither Monk, nor the director, nor maybe the novelist who wrote the source material, are interested in easy answers and pat endings. Indeed, with their movie director character played by Adam Brody (<b>The OC</b>) they satirise the very concept. But I did want some consequences, if not a resolution. We all know of real life novelists exposed as lying about their real lives. I wanted to see the literary as well as the personal consequences. But this isn't that film, and as such, I was left wanting more.</span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>AMERICAN FICTION is rated R and has a running time of 117 minutes. It played Toronto 2023 where it won the People's Choice Award for Best Film. It will be released in the USA on December 15th (cinemas) and December 22nd (streaming).</b></span></div></div>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-34356158968630817322023-11-18T14:07:00.000+00:002023-11-18T14:07:06.959+00:00AMERICAN SYMPHONY***<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNS0d96eQZ3qATMTnTW61GULPGUCUu_l1dITnyqS-wzGocNxtUFynZsbk6QIk7ykrzr7c2Tf8H3UJQqBCxWbyaL4jlIkd80-Uc2GIHDT5NqPxipnFkm5q2i2OPQcTwvdZrJla8zBgMJrZE9Bxyb59E3Qxw7Lvz2XTLwfvOBpYJKSrc0tkg9OtW/s1000/American-Symphony-C018C244_220311LL_MATT0.01554220-H-2023.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNS0d96eQZ3qATMTnTW61GULPGUCUu_l1dITnyqS-wzGocNxtUFynZsbk6QIk7ykrzr7c2Tf8H3UJQqBCxWbyaL4jlIkd80-Uc2GIHDT5NqPxipnFkm5q2i2OPQcTwvdZrJla8zBgMJrZE9Bxyb59E3Qxw7Lvz2XTLwfvOBpYJKSrc0tkg9OtW/w400-h225/American-Symphony-C018C244_220311LL_MATT0.01554220-H-2023.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Matthew Heineman's documentary, </span><b style="font-family: verdana;">AMERICAN SYMPHONY</b><span style="font-family: verdana;">, is an earnest, intimate picture of professional success contrasted with private pain. Its subjects are the incredibly talented musician Jon Batiste, and his equally talented wife, the musician, author and artist Suleika Jaouad. Heineman follows them in a monumental year, when Batiste wins multiple Grammys both for his pop album but also for scoring a movie, and when he is writing a symphony combining classical, jazz and folk music to be played at Carnegie Hall. But amidst all of this commercial success, his wife Suleika suffers a relapse from leukaemia, and has to endure a second risky bone marrow transplant, which involves great pain but also isolation. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Heineman has incredible access: we are with Suleika as she receives her transplant, and in bed with Batiste as he wearily offloads to his therapist, head under a pillow, like a frightened child. We delight in their evident joyous love and incredible creativity. And we suffer their separation and pain, especially as Suleika confronts potentially having to be on chemo for the rest of her life.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The problem with the film is that once it establishes the initial set-up it doesn't really move. The couple are in the statis of their respective success and suffering. I felt the film lacked momentum or evolution. I also felt that where it might have become more gritty it flirted with but did not embrace controversy. At one point Batiste gives an interview where he discusses how black artists are constrained by a history of being expected to act a certain, garish, simplistic, way. He uses a particular word, maybe as offensive as the N-word, to describe their activities of old and how that influences current perceptions. I wanted to explore that more. But this isn't that film, sadly.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">AMERICAN SYMPHONY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 104 minutes. It played Telluride 2023 and will be released on Netflix on November 29th.</span></b></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-63844876392879643322023-11-03T08:26:00.000+00:002023-11-03T08:26:20.475+00:00A HAUNTING IN VENICE**<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibTQsN_9aguERTxG0uV2Qh547yZAK4ixFcf_STSd0RopwCfdgXNHSOUCzoLynnqsv9bNZoNfuFo6v6txoIUVMwP7TtfXq6VTfIqzikxFR8oCipaMkzfFlcwy8rHCyhKeWq1VQwYT-ULLMoXNAyTaJRDAzQKoExWdM3fmZFytc64XQBpJCGRkjx/s1240/4011.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibTQsN_9aguERTxG0uV2Qh547yZAK4ixFcf_STSd0RopwCfdgXNHSOUCzoLynnqsv9bNZoNfuFo6v6txoIUVMwP7TtfXq6VTfIqzikxFR8oCipaMkzfFlcwy8rHCyhKeWq1VQwYT-ULLMoXNAyTaJRDAzQKoExWdM3fmZFytc64XQBpJCGRkjx/w400-h240/4011.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">We are trapped in a cycle of diminishing returns when it comes to Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot films. <b>ORIENT EXPRESS</b> was a beautifully done, subtly updated, but largely respectful adaptation of the Agatha Christie source material. <b>NILE</b> was also lavish and earnest in its attempts to update the material, but by changing an intricate plot, Branagh utterly ruined the story. And now we have <b>A HAUNTING IN VENICE</b>, incredibly losely adapted from A Halloween Story. It works neither as detective fiction nor as a ghost story.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Branagh stars as Poirot, now retired and reclusive, in post World War Two Venice. He is tempted out of his mansion by his old friend, detective author Ariadne Oliver, played by Tina Fey as if she's in a Screwball Comedy. It's a great performance but one wonders which film it actually belongs to. They are not trying to investigate a murder but to debunk a medium called Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), who Oliver and Poirot feel is exploiting the grief of opera singer Rowena Drake (<b>Yellowstone</b>'s Kelly Reilly). Rowena recently lost her daughter and gathers a motley crew in her spooky Venetian house to make contact with her. There's the daughter's fiancé Maxime, the family doctor and his precocious son, her housekeeper, and Joyce's assistant. When a storm sets in, we find ourselves in a locked-house mystery.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Writer Michael Green does not have form in creating his own murder-mystery plot and this one barely hangs together. Worse still, he lazily uses the Holocaust as character short-hand device. This seems crude, especially in a film where Tina Fey is then trying to be a wise-cracking broad. Pick a lane! I also didn't find the jump scares and obscure angles particularly frightening or effective. What a waste of a great cast and location!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>A HAUNTING IN VENICE was released in cinemas in September and is now available on Hulu or other PVOD streaming services. It is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 103 minutes.</b></span></div><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-33238496016816749732023-11-03T07:52:00.001+00:002023-11-03T07:52:22.265+00:00BOTTOMS*****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAASMU9MFaJ1u7WG9oN941uqmJZt9h2PoF4flNlDTLY-Q-s_OaBoQaVeQ8L5aGGQ8l3EGpA7HQyPPmm_jqZ_OJZv27o0TN9TUmZcAR3RQAM4C2HvsE9w879PvRn2jgMs47ghIqECigZXKOiWwE14UjfZApiGGcqiowGcO5T7ZqtZv4JXmP76Fm/s1240/2845.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAASMU9MFaJ1u7WG9oN941uqmJZt9h2PoF4flNlDTLY-Q-s_OaBoQaVeQ8L5aGGQ8l3EGpA7HQyPPmm_jqZ_OJZv27o0TN9TUmZcAR3RQAM4C2HvsE9w879PvRn2jgMs47ghIqECigZXKOiWwE14UjfZApiGGcqiowGcO5T7ZqtZv4JXmP76Fm/w400-h240/2845.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Director Emma Seligman (</span><b style="font-family: verdana;">SHIVA BABY</b><span style="font-family: verdana;">) and writer-actor Rachel Sennott (</span><b style="font-family: verdana;">THE IDOL</b><span style="font-family: verdana;">) reimagine </span><b style="font-family: verdana;">BOOKSMART</b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> as a tale of two high-school lesbian best friends who want to lose their virginity before college. They get their chance when a rumour goes around the school that they served time in Juvenile Detention, giving them instant cool status. The girls exploit this by setting up a kind of <b>FIGHT CLUB</b> to teach their fellow girls how to defend themselves from sexual predation. Naturally they are delighted when the two hot popular cheerleaders turn up.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The landscape of this film is familiar to those of us raised on John Hughes movies and </span><b style="font-family: verdana;">HEATHERS</b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> and </span><b style="font-family: verdana;">Friday Night Lights</b><span style="font-family: verdana;">. It's a culture that privileges the beautiful and the sports stars and is oppressively heteronormative. It's a culture that doesn't fund teachers or books but builds a new sports field. This film is here to rip the piss out of all of that. Not just in hilariously blunt dialogue that has characters say exactly what they think no matter how politically incorrect. But also with visual gags around posters and text written on chalk boards and aural jokes on the school's PA system. The result is a film that is laugh-out loud funny and that will absolutely repay repeated viewing. It features a cracking largely all-female diverse cast. That said, particular props to ex sports star Marshawn Lynch who has some of the most darkly funny lines as the girls' No Fucks Given high school teacher. And Nicholas Galitzine, most recently seen in the Amazon Prime gay rom-com <b>RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE</b>, is hilariously funny as the camp jock superstar.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Behind the lens, this film is exceptionally well put together by director Emma Seligman. The editing is sharp, the music choices stunningly good and the copious violence directed with real impact and flair. Most of all, I loved the production design and costumes. The team have created a kind of era-ambiguous contemporary but retro feeling, as in the TV show <b>Sex Education</b>. It could be any time between 1989 and now. It gives the film a timeless feeling but also acknowledges our shared love of the high school movie genre, adding layers of depth to the viewing experience.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>BOTTOMS is rated R and has a running time of 91 minutes. It played SXSW 2023 and was released in the USA in August. It goes on release in the UK tomorrow, November 3rd.</b></span></p></div>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-10839130602790488842023-10-21T14:33:00.002+00:002023-10-21T14:33:13.150+00:00THE PIGEON TUNNEL* <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJCPz2xsUjY8dIG5vEhnEHYGQ00qiOXC8CzjdKCIZl1DXj7kO0aExKD8vqa3ANl0gTpar3-qeLGkPHrKkYfn91FQTzF2OOTWpDnQiqxP-Q6ORoGT2oSab6ew-iM7YZxrp02sSl5fFsR62hhKb5p8nJf1iE-1cv9qgHnY4fT7DoWDAVepnt-AX/s1280/pigeon-tunnel-the-01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJCPz2xsUjY8dIG5vEhnEHYGQ00qiOXC8CzjdKCIZl1DXj7kO0aExKD8vqa3ANl0gTpar3-qeLGkPHrKkYfn91FQTzF2OOTWpDnQiqxP-Q6ORoGT2oSab6ew-iM7YZxrp02sSl5fFsR62hhKb5p8nJf1iE-1cv9qgHnY4fT7DoWDAVepnt-AX/w400-h225/pigeon-tunnel-the-01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The problem with Errol Morris' latest documentary is its slightness. It takes the form of an interview with the now deceased Cold War spy novelist John Le Carre. The problem is that Le Carre aka David Cornwell is a practiced liar and has no problem answering only the questions he wants to answer in exactly the way he wants to answer them. His protestations of candidness merely add to the mockery of the project. And let's be clear, David Cornwell does not actually want to reveal anything that he hasn't already revealed in interviews over the years, or indeed in his recent biography of the same title.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The problem is that this is a rather sanitised version of his story, shorn of all of his sexual misdemeanours. And this film, and the book upon which it is based, are rather a nasty revenge tactic played upon his official biographer Adam Sisman. When Sisman drafted his book, Cornwell persuaded him to leave out all of the sexual infidelity and to only publish after Cornwell's death. Cornwell then proceeded to publish his own autobiography to reclaim his narrative from Sisman, and now this film is being released precisely at the point when Sisman publishes his sex-filled follow up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This all sounds like I don't like David Cornwell. Actually I am indifferent. I just don't trust him. I LOVE the works of John Le Carre, and the Smiley novels in particular. I even picked my Oxford college on the basis that it was his alma mater. My point is that if you already know and love the novels of John le Carre, there will be nothing new in this documentary. And if you don't already know and love the novels of John le Carre why on earth would you watch?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The story here is the one we all know. Cornwell was born in the postwar period to lower middle class parents. His mother abandoned him at 5. His father was a fraudster and bankrupt who periodically paid for Cornwell to have the upper class education he (the father) aspired to. Cornwell therefore grew up only knowing duplicity and a lack of love. He goes to Bern (not mentioned in this doc) and then to Oxford where a Fellow recruits him to spy on the other students, arranges for him to continue when his father has no money, arranges teaching jobs for him, and finally a fully-fledged but short-lived career as a spy. He drops out and writes a spy novel that is immediately wildly successful, continues in that vein, shags around, makes this film, then dies. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The stuff on Kim Philby IS interesting, though covered in other interviews. I find it fascinating that Cornwall recognises addiction to lying in Philby. Did he in himself? But of course there is a category difference. Philby was a traitor, and in Cornwell's words "evil". I just wished we had had a more nuanced discussion of Cornwell's own relationship to his spying, his lying, and his dual persona in this film.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">THE PIGEON TUNNEL has a running time of 93 minutes and is rated PG-13. It played Telluride and London 2023 and will be released on Apple TV on October 20th.</span></b></div></span><p></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-43184835372472200282023-10-15T22:23:00.001+00:002023-10-15T22:23:14.866+00:00THE KITCHEN** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 Closing Night Gala<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpVlPdzyNXKRx4cvTy2mMbyJFnPbCp4dthuZ4VznphQ414whZey451GYB_uKXmtC_qf1yNpoTvOL_qZ_B4PTUTPp9As8dDJF4Hwvu_GlEh57sybakM6_aC1NhXkVzuQ4C349EyAyGtaHnGvhMJqoiSldjiDO8gLGBD9UBpiUk7D3EB3FGeLaxV/s1280/kitchen-the-01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpVlPdzyNXKRx4cvTy2mMbyJFnPbCp4dthuZ4VznphQ414whZey451GYB_uKXmtC_qf1yNpoTvOL_qZ_B4PTUTPp9As8dDJF4Hwvu_GlEh57sybakM6_aC1NhXkVzuQ4C349EyAyGtaHnGvhMJqoiSldjiDO8gLGBD9UBpiUk7D3EB3FGeLaxV/w400-h225/kitchen-the-01.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Acclaimed actor Daniel Kaluuya (<b>JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH</b>) turns his hand to writing and directing in partnership with Joe Murtagh (<b>AMERICAN ANIMALS</b>) and Kibwe Tavares respectively. Together they have crafted a film that is superficially a dystopian political nightmare about gentrification and police brutality. But it soon becomes apparent that the film's real themes are of fatherhood and community. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The film takes place in The Kitchen - the last piece of social housing in London. The government wants the residents cleared out so that they can build luxury flats instead, and when the residents refuse to leave they are punished by having their utilities cut off and periodic brutal police raids. Against this backdrop we meet Izi - a cynical man desperate to leave The Kitchen for luxury housing but constrained by the sudden appearance of a young boy called Benji who may be his son. What are the stakes of this film? At first we think they are whether Izi will have the money to move out. Then we think it's going to be a struggle for Benji's future - on the straight and narrow with Izi or joining a biker gang. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Part of my problem with this film is that actually the dystopian future idea is never particularly well fleshed out. We are just meant to understand - instinctively - as contemporary Londoners - that the housing situation is rigged. Maybe we do - but will global audiences? My second issue is that there are literally zero female characters that matter. In 2023. In a progressive, politically aware film. Seriously? I guess the writers might say that this is because the entire point of the film is to focus on fatherhood, and that its key narrative arc is a selfish man taking on that responsibility. Maaaaybe. Overall, the film just feels underwritten and lugubrious. I enjoyed the creation of The Kitchen in the first hour but very little actually happened. As I said, I could and did enjoy derping around with these characters for a while. I really enjoyed the more informal banter about cardamom flavoured pancakes and Hawaiian dancer lamps. But at some point we need to get out of The Shire.</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In front of the lens, Kane Robinson/Kano (Top Boy) shows little range as Izi, playing him as looking conflicted and staring into the middle distance all the time. He doesn't have much help from a script that makes him taciturn so this role needed some good, nuanced facial acting and we just didn't get it. We are on far more impressive ground with Jedaiah Bannerman, who is both heart-breaking and hilarious as Benji. He is an actor to watch. I will also confess that I got a thrill from seeing Ian Wright playing the voice and heart of The Kitchen, a DJ who spins classic vinyl while preaching solidarity. As a Gooner, I could happily watch hours of Wrighty vibing along to classic tracks. I am pleased and relieved to say that this is no cheap cameo either: Lord Kitchener is the emotional heartbeat of the plot.</span></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Behind the lens, production design did wonders with what I suspect was a small budget. I loved the grungy, vibrant, rotting, exciting, space of The Kitchen. It felt real somehow, and something worth fighting for, which is really important. This also felt disturbingly like the present - maybe because the budget to do anything too radical wasn't there - maybe because the film-makers were making a point - maybe because I am so familiar with the shooting locations I knew exactly where they were. Isn't it funny how people wanting to create the future always come back to my beloved brutalist notorious Barbican Centre? I also really loved the aural landscape of this film - the richness and diversity of hearing a cappella gospel; bass-thumping EDM; and classic tracks from Lord Kitchener. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">But films start and end with scripts and this one needed another pass.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>THE KITCHEN has a running time of 104 minutes, is rated R, and will be released on Netflix in 2024.</b></span></p></div>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18360914.post-5762816221390230572023-10-15T15:03:00.004+00:002023-10-15T15:04:37.871+00:00ANATOMY OF A FALL****<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFOIDOIXE6nUCzV59bYb6Mom1F7B-gqsCy0wPIqsfoqN5E7UMrR-owWZlRVCF9F90dqCD1m_RFEt5OIINOk4FmmwiN2XqSw37Md762b2lJm4BTcOrClssODYO8FCTElJ1NzffW6ux8P0XLlxIiyOCwsHbKrSHJ06xy8mC8CObi9ezIHcS7Kzq/s1240/3598.jpg-2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRFOIDOIXE6nUCzV59bYb6Mom1F7B-gqsCy0wPIqsfoqN5E7UMrR-owWZlRVCF9F90dqCD1m_RFEt5OIINOk4FmmwiN2XqSw37Md762b2lJm4BTcOrClssODYO8FCTElJ1NzffW6ux8P0XLlxIiyOCwsHbKrSHJ06xy8mC8CObi9ezIHcS7Kzq/w400-h240/3598.jpg-2.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Writer-director Justine Triet's Palme D'Or winning <b>ANATOMY OF A FALL</b> struck me less as a masterpiece of direction than a well-acted murder mystery. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In my more mischievous moments I thought of it as <b>BASIC INSTINCT</b> as channelled through Agatha Christie. Think about it: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Sandra Hueller (</span><a href="https://www.bina007.com/2023/10/horror.html" style="font-family: verdana;">THE ZONE OF INTEREST</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">) stars as an unapologetically successful, bisexual, author who is accused of killing her husband, of even referring to his future murder in her work, and has a somewhat flirtatious relationship with both the young journalist who interviews her at the start of the film, and with her attorney later on. In both films, we discuss gender roles, including toxic masculinity being undermined by a strong woman. In this case, the accused refuses to pander to her husband's need for more parental help and time to focus on his work. Bluntly, she tells him and the court to stop blaming her for his inability to finish his work, and his jealousy of her success. As the film progresses it becomes clear that her husband has been emasculated not only by her success but by her having an affair with a woman. Both films also talk about consent. In <b>BASIC INSTINCT </b>it's sexual consent: in <b>ANATOMY OF A FALL</b> it's whether the husband recording his interactions with his wife was done with consent. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of course, this is a differently serious endeavour, and the genre it ploughs is that of courtroom drama. The twist in the tale, or should I say tail, is that the key witness is the couple's son. He has the cruel experience of hearing the state's prosecution of his mother, and has to parse his own memories of the fall, and prior conversations with his father, to work out what he heard, and what it meant. Milo Machado Graner is superb in this role.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I really liked how Triet raised questions about gender roles in marriage and how far a single argument or episode can be taken as indicative of a relationship as a whole. It's great to see Sandra as a well-drawn, nuanced strong female character who is allowed at times to be "unlikeable". And I love the moral ambiguity that is not entirely resolved, even when we do know whodunnit. Is this a Palme D'or winning film for me? No. But it's a very fine, grown-up, character-led drama of the type I am pleased is still getting made. </span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>ANATOMY OF A FALL has a running time of 152 minutes and is rated R. It played Cannes 2023 where it won not just the Palme D'Or but also the Palme Dog! It went on limited release in the USA this weekend and opens in the UK on November 10th.</b></span></p>Bina007http://www.blogger.com/profile/01622085135305501711noreply@blogger.com0