Sundance London 2012 - LUV

LUV is an earnest film with flashes of brilliance, but ultimately it stretches credulity too far to be taken seriously. Written by Justin Wilson and directed by Sheldon Candis (YOUNG CAESAR), it tells the tale of a young kid called Woody living with his uncle and grandmother in Baltimore. The opening scenes clash with every preconception we have from watching The Wire. His clothes for school are neatly laid out and he's getting a proper breakfast.  But Woody's day takes a wrong turn when his Uncle - an ex-con ex-dealer trying to go straight - decides to take Woody under his wing and teach him about "real life".  This, it turns out, encompasses a quick lesson in firing a gun and driving a car - clumsy foreshadowing anyone?  Woody doesn't actually do much for half the film. He just watches his Uncle get drawn back into the game.  They share some sweet moments but the relationship is always slippery and slightly sinister - and I love that delicacy of writing.  

The problem is in the second half of the film when Woody becomes a Mary Sue figure, and the finale is quite simply absurd.  At the Sundance London screening, the director asked us to accept the film as a fable rather than as a realistic portrayal of events, but frankly there wasn't enough in the stylistic choices within the film to support this reading.

On the positive side, the film contains strong performances from Common as the Uncle and Michael Rainey Jr as Woody.  There are also some nice cameos from Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover and the legendary Michael K Williams.  The tech package, however, leaves something to be desired. A lot of the film takes place outside at night at the Red One's inability to capture true deep black is a problem. 

LUV played Sundance and Sundance London 2012. It opens in the USA on November 9th. 

FAME: I've had more memorable turds

This review is brought to you by Daniel Plainview.

We went into this film with very low expectations, which it constantly failed to live up to. At the very least, we expected some effort to remake the original FAME – instead we got a mish-mash of seemingly (and as it turned out, actually) unconnected scenes interspersed with disappointingly crap dancing, singing, acting and tunes. The original’s themes of sex, drugs, racism and disillusionment were replaced by a wank-a-log of superficial, pointless, middle-class “problems”, inconsequential relationships and breakups, and needlessly worried black parents. Even the songs from the original were depressingly absent.

The set-pieces were damp squibs, they were more about tits-n-ass than production values or choreography. The cardboard-cut-out so-called characters failed to develop in the audience even one iota of engagement or interest. The dialogue descended into meaningless drivel or saccharine monologues (“success is love” – “if you don’t open up you’ll never be an actor”). The camerawork was lazy, and like the rest of the film insulted the viewer’s intelligence.

10 minutes in, I asked myself, “is this as good as it gets?” Sadly, it was. An hour later I asked Bina007 whether I’d fallen asleep during the part that contained the point. She confirmed that I hadn’t, and she suggested we leave. Stupidly I declined. We waited until the bitter end, and were rewarded with an unintentionally hilarious finale, complete with slow-motion ballet to a song called “Don’t Be Afraid to Succeed!” I laughed – but the £8.50 I’d spent on a ticket wasn’t laughing with me.

Perhaps most damningly of all, an hour later as Mrs Plainview and I wrote this review, neither of us could remember a single name of a single character in the movie. The only disagreement we had was when Mrs Plainview thought the strapline to this review should be: "gives a bad name to the word 'shite'" As you can see I over-ruled her, but still went for a suitably poo-based slogan.

This was execrable. Rent the original on DVD, or better still, buy the “Best of the 80s” CD from Woolworths Online, turn up your ghetto-blaster, put on a red head-band and rock away. Whatever you do, don’t go and see this – it’s the worst film I’ve seen this year – and by far the most awful remake I’ve ever seen.

Really, truly shocking.

FAME is on release in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, Estonia and Singapore. It opens next week in Greece, Israel and Belgium. It opens in October 7th in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Sweden. It opens on October 15th in Slovenia, Brazil, Cyprus, Finland and Norway. It opens on October 30th in Austria and Spain. It opens on November 19th in Germany and Bulgaria. It opens on December 10th in Russia and on January 7th in the Czech Republic.

HONEYDRIPPER - a finely balanced, wonderful picture

So here we are again. Danny Glover playing an old man, Tyrone Purvis, trying to keep his business despite financial strife and seemingly unstoppable change. In BE KIND REWIND it was the change from gonzo VHS to DVD. In HONEYDRIPPER, it's the change from acoustic blues to electric rock.

HONEYDRIPPER is the name of Tyrone's club on the outskirts of an Alabama town called Harmony. It's 1950. People of colour are still under the yoke of the white man - terrorised by the local Sherriff and hired into cotton-picking by the local judge. Radical evangelicals demand conversion to righteousness and the ruthless sloughing off of sinful, unrepentant family members. Tyrone's bar, featuring an outstanding old blues singer is losing business to a rival club that has a jukebox and Hot Jazz.

As with all John Sayles' movies, HONEYDRIPPER balances a credible, emotionally affecting character-led story with social and political insight. The recreation of a time, not lo song ago, when racism was tangible and endemic is frightening and saddening. But Sayles is careful to never let it swamp the emotional heart of the story. That is Tyrone's struggle to keep his bar without alienating his wife Delilah. Tyrone crosses many a line to raise the cash he needs and it's tribute to Glover's performance that even when he's doing these pretty morally questionable things, we always believe he's basically a good guy and we always want him to succeed. But the real stand-out performance in a movie with a strong ensemble cast is that of Lisa Gay Hamilton as Delilah. She's a good strong woman and she's no fool. She recognises the strength and the flaws in Tyrone. Similarly, while she wants to be part of a Church she can see through the hysteria of the local evangelicals. Sayles has written a fully rounded character, and Hamilton has brought her to life wonderfully. Other notable performances include newcomer Yaya DaCosta as Delilah's daughter ChinaDoll and Mary Steenburgen as the well-meaning but ultimately clueless Amanda.

HONEYDRIPPER is in some ways Sayles' most finely balanced film - combining a fascinating story with devestating social critique. The script, performances, production values are all top-notch. It's one of those movies where you feel that you are watching a complete final product - that the director has a completeness of vision. The added bonus - or rather - the glue that holds the whole thing together is the sound-track. Even if the film were no good, it would be worth watching just for the music. Mason Daring corals a number of great blues, gospel and rock musicians for some live numbers that blow you away.

HONEYDRIPPER played Toronto and London 2007 and was released in the US in DEcember 2007. It goes on release in the UK on April 25th.