CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET***** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 11

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET is an absolute delight and a worthy sequel to the beloved first film. It has everything you want from a family adventure comedy - verbal, visual and physical humour; beautifully executed action set-pieces; characters you actually care about; and an uplifting message about caring about your community and female empowerment.

As the film opens, we see our liberated chickens living the good life in a chicken version of The Shire. Our hero and heroine Rocky and Ginger have a lovely baby daughter, Molly, who seems to have a spirit of adventure that her mother at least is eager to suppress.  They are so happy, and the world so unsafe, why leave their idyllic island?  All of this changes when Molly runs away to an apparently bucolic chicken fantasy land only to discover that it's an horrific factory designed to make chickens docile so that they make tastier nuggets. And so, after the escape movie if the original, we now get a heist movie, as Ginger Rocky and their friends have to break IN to the chicken farm to liberate their daughter. 

The resulting film is beautiful, smart, imaginative and endless fun. I wouldn't change a single stop-motion frame. It was wonderful to be back in the company of old friends, if newly (and controversially) voiced.  Bella Ramsay (The Last of Us) is wonderfully courageous and earnest as Molly and I particularly loved her rogueish rat uncles voiced by Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays. But most of all it was wonderful to see the cine-literate team behind this film reference and re-imagine so many heist movie and evil lair tropes - not least British ones! - with just the right amount of mischief and irreverence.  We had a wonderful time, and our lovely youngsters were bouncing with delight all the way through. 

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET is rated PG and has a running time of 97 minutes. It opens on limited release in UK cinemas on December 8th and then on Netflix globally on December 15th.

DOWNTON ABBEY

DOWNTON ABBEY the movie is exactly what DOWNTON ABBEY the TV show is but glossier and longer - it's sort of akin to a super version of their Christmas specials. I doubt anyone who isn't a fan of the show would watch the film - indeed no concessions are made to those who don't know the backstory of the aristocratic Crawley family. We simply dive in, in media res, with the family preparing for a Royal visit. Some characters are absent - notably Bates, and for much of the film, Mr Talbot.  Some characters are present with essentially nothing to do - notably Lord and Lady Grantham.  The action centres on Mary Talbot (as usual) - wondering whether to keep the show that is grand country living on the road - and Lady Edith missing her old career - in both cases of course we are meant to sympathise with the grand people with their obligations, and look to the loyal servants to sympathise with them, enable them, and provide moral support.  Of the visitors, the action centres of Imelda Staunton as Lady Bagshawe, and a backstairs secret she is holding that also involves Jack Leech's Branson - after all with the Downton family married of, he's the only candidate left for romance!

The resulting film is everything one expects from Downton, fully satisfying to fans of the series, and probably irritating to those who aren't. It is essentially conservative in its views of the value of the aristocracy and a rural way of life, but mildly progressive in its B plot - sympathy for closeted homosexuals; working women who have to give up their careers to be decorative arm-candy.   It looks sumptuous, with lavish costumes and ball room scenes.  And while the plot and dialogue are rather mechanical, one does of course have the joy of Maggie Smith as the dowager Duchess, with her witty one-liners, not to mention a rather emotional and lovely denouement.

DOWNTON ABBEY is rated PG and has a running time of 122 minutes. It was released earlier this year and is now available to rent and own.

MALEFICENT 3D

I fell in love with MALEFICENT despite its obvious weaknesses. Maybe it's because I'm one of those kids who was terrified by the Disney villain but also kind of wanted to be her! She was wicked and sarcastic and marvelous in the way that made Alan Rickman a scene stealer in the Kevin Costner ROBIN HOOD - that supercilious British aristocratic charm that makes Americans fawn over Dame Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. That, and I'm a sucker for a gothic fairy tale - and a subversive Angela Carter investigation of the sexual motives at their heart.

So in this movie, per Linda Woolverton's (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) script, Maleficent was once a wonderfully romantic innocent child who happened to fall in love with an ambitious man who used her cruelly, physically and violently to gain the throne. Mutilated and bent on revenge she curses the new King Stefan's daughter Aurora and he descends into paranoia, sending his daughter off to a cottage in a forest guarded by three good fairies. But in another twist, they are self-absorbed and incompetent, and it's only Maleficent's at first-reluctant, and then eager, care that keeps the girl safe. In a wonderful irony, the girl herself is not insensible of this care, calling Maleficent her "fairy godmother", and as all of us who have seen FROZEN know, true love's kiss can be recast - this time as a maternal rather than sibling bond.

Am I spoiling the ending? No, I think it's telegraphed widely beforehand.  As soon as we see the perfectly cast, almost fey Elle Fanning as Aurora gushing over her fairy godmother, the brilliantly comedically uncomfortable Maleficent, we know where the story is heading.  And perhaps this is the place to point out how marvelous Angelina Jolie in the role. Of course, her looks are perfect for Maleficent, and enhanced further by super-sharp prosthetic cheekbones.  But it's her rarely scene comedic acting that seals the deal  - the bemusement and discomfort when the cute baby Aurora (played her real-life daughter) asks to be picked up, or the patronising amusement as she prevents the baby from wandering off a cliff.  The supporting cast is similarly well appointed. I loved Sam Riley as Maleficent's soft-hearted "evil henchman" Diaval - and I'm sort there's fanfic being written about the two of them as we speak.  But how lovely to see Juno Temple as one of the three good fairies too.

So kudos to all involved - for Linda Woolverton's well-thought out script, to Peter Stromberg for his direction which is 9/10th amazing production design, to the charismatic Jolie and the believable relationship with Fanning's Aurora. If there's any false note it's perhaps Sharlto Copley's almost method-insane Scottish King Stefan, curiously grim and out of step with the almost self-consciously arch delivery of Angelina Jolie. He seemed to be in quite another film.

MALEFICENT has a running time of 97 minutes and is rated PG. MALEFICENT went on global release on May 28th. It will open in Japan on July 5th and in Bangladesh on August 6th.

THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS aka THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS

I love this movie!  Parents with small kids should go see it!  Adults without kids should go see it!  It has wit, charm, intelligence, pirates, the Elephant Man, a dodo, swashbuckling, ham-eating, Brian Blessed, and all in an action-packed, emotionally satisfying 85 minutes.  Honestly,  this is about as good as cinematic entertainment gets!  Kudos to Aardman Studios (home of Wallace and Gromit) for brilliantly mixing hand-made stop-motion animation and CGI backdrops, and achieving a level of visual wit that demands repeated viewings. Kudos to director Peter Lord of Morph fame, for delicately balancing comedy and action.  Kudos to all the voice artists, but particularly Hugh Grant as Pirate Captain - a rare chance to see his comedy chops.  But most of all, kudos to Gideon Defoe, who wrote the screenplay based on his own novels. I really hope Aardman follow the ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS!* with the rest of the series.

In this instalment, we meet Pirate Captain and his dead-pan named crew (Number Two, Albino Pirate, Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate...).  He's a loveable old cove, but pretty hapless and destined to lose the Pirate of the Year award unless he can pull off a massive coup. His chance arrives when he mistakenly holds up Charles Darwin's Beagle, and Darwin (David Tennant) tells him that his beloved parrot, Polly, is in fact a Dodo!  There follows a trip to London to display Polly at the Royal Academy, thereby winning some booty, and an adventure against a sword-wielding Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) who hates, hates, HATES pirates!

There's so much to love here.  The richly decorated backdrops are full of visual jokes.  But in the foreground, I loved the whole Brian Blessed worship.  I loved the idea of Darwin's butler being a trained monkey with comedy flash-cards.  I loved the idea of Queen Victoria as a murdering ninja.  Most of all, I just loved Hugh Grant in his best performance since ABOUT A BOY.

This is hands down my movie of the year to date.

THE PIRATES! is on release in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, France, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Kuwait, New Zealand, Serbia and Estonia. It opens on April 12th in Greece; on April 20th in Argentina, Colombia and Romania; on April 27th in the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Canada, India and the USA; on May 11th in Brazil; on May 17th in Hungary; on June 7th in Serbia; on July 20th in Spain; on July 26th in Hong Kong; on August 9th in Israel; and on August 30th in Singapore.

*I'm not sure why the film has been retitled for the US market unless the marketing department think the US has become a crypto-theocracy in which even the mention of science is going to alienate audiences?

London Film Fest 2011 Day 14 - THE AWAKENING

Dominic West (Robert) and Rebecca Hall (Florence) star in THE AWAKENING.

THE AWAKENING is an intelligent, adult horror movie that sees Florence (Rebecca Hall), a notorious debunker of spiritualism, invited to a boy's boarding school by Robert (Dominic West) to investigate an apparent haunting. This sets up a classic haunted house movie, in the manner of Alejandro Amenábar's The Others - but with the refreshing site of a clever, independent woman as the protagonist, and the pervasive air of  post-war mourning hanging heavy over proceedings. The resolution is satisfyingly complicated and there were enough genuinely unexpected scary moments to make this good horror - particularly the pivotal bathroom scene. Admittedly, there is nothing particularly innovative in the set up (Nick Murphy and Stephen Volk), but first time feature director Murphy creates and sustains a genuinely tense and morbid atmosphere that completely sucked me in, largely thanks to superb cinematography from DP Eduard Grau (A SINGLE MAN, BURIED) and a desaturated colour palette.

THE AWAKENING played Toronto and London 2011. It opens in the UK and Ireland on 11th November.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 6 - ANOTHER YEAR

Mike Leigh returns to the Festival with a typical Mike Leigh product: heightened social realism mixing comedy and tragedy - finely observed, and improvised by the actors he often works with. The resulting film is a quality product if less memorable than, say, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, and less scarring than SECRETS AND LIES.

The movie is set around a couple called Tom and Jerry (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) - solidly middle-class, nice, cheerful, and happily married. They have a 30 year old son called Joe (Oliver Maltman) who through the course of the year finds a cheerful Poppy-lite girlfriend called Katie (Karina Fernandez). They all get on really well. This stands in sharp contrast with the people who surround them and who are, by turns, taken under their wing. As the movie opens we see Jerry, a counsellor, deal with a depressed woman called Janet (a cameo from Imelda Staunton). And then, the person who really anchors the work is Lesley Manville, playing a lonely middle-aged woman called Mary, who consoles herself by drinking too much and constructing an unrealistic fantasy that Joe will ask her out. Finally, we meet Tom's elder brother Ronnie (David Bradley), recently bereaved, living numb in a grey house.

As we pass through the year, we see that Tom and Jerry are kind and sociable and create a lot of fun around them. They are constantly telling people to sit down and have a cup of tea and asking them if they are okay. But, in essence, the people who surround them aren't okay - they are miserable - miserable and pretending, badly, not to be. This is best shown by a superb little end-scene for the character Jack, played by Phil Davis. His wife is ill. Jerry asks if he's okay and he says "Well we try not to let it get us down", but then looks to the ground forlorn.  So, how far is the friendship of Terry and June enabling that delusion, by blithely making cups of tea - and how far is it making it worse by presenting these poor folk with an image of smug domestic bliss? To that end, I found ANOTHER YEAR problematic, but I think I was meant to. I also found it, despite the laughs, a profoundly depressing, if well-made, film.

Additional tags: Michele Austin, Karina Fernandez, Martin Savage, David Bradley, Oliver Maltman, Gary Yershon

ANOTHER YEAR played Cannes and Toronto 2010 and opens in the UK on November 5th. It opens in the Netherlands on November 11th; in France on December 22nd; in the US on December 31st and in Germany on January 27th 2011.

London Film Fest Day 13 - TAKING WOODSTOCK

TAKING WOODSTOCK sees Ang Lee, director of tense, beautiful tragic romances - LUST, CAUTION and BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN - take a step back into gentle comedy. The resulting film is warm-hearted, earnest, occasionally funny, but also somewhat ramshackle, meandering and ultimately, unsatisfying. Interesting characters are given too little screen time in an ensemble film, uninteresting characters are left to over-act wildly, and the third act acid trip is a complete waste of half an hour. Maybe the problem is that Ang Lee doesn't quite have the conviction he needs to make a film about a famous concert that IS NOT a concert film. He wants to tell the story of the family who's run-down motel became the HQ of the organisers and the impact the festival had on them. He wants to make a point about Woodstock being, for most people, about the journey there and the people you met, rather than the concert itself. But Ang Lee does cave in and gives us his protagonist journeying toward the mainstage and getting dragged into acid trips and mud-slides. It's just too much of a tease! Either focus on the motel, or give us the concert, but don't flail around in the mud!

The movie starts of well. We have a likable protagonist called Elliot - a sweet kid, who's compromising on his dream of going to San Francisco because he's helping out on his parent's run-down motel in the Catskills and because he can't quite admit that he's gay. Faced with foreclosure, he decides to invite the Woodstock festival to relocate to his parents' motel and his neighbour's land, when the folks in that town rescind the permit, scared of thousands of freaks showing up. Before you know it, the cash is rolling in and Elliot's conservative parents are surrounded with hippies and beats. Both they, and Elliot, experience many-splendored life, and then the festival rolls of out town.

The period setting and casting are absolutely spot on, with the exception of rather broad performances from Emile Hirsch as Billy and Dan Fogler as Devon, the Earthlight Player. Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman are particularly good as Elliot's rather flummoxed parents, and Demetri Martin is affable and congenial as Elliot. But the two most interesting characters get way too little screen time. The first is Eugene Levy in a fairly straight performance as farmer Max Yasgur, the guy who actually rented out his fields to the festival. Why was such a provincial farmer so very liberal minded? Fascinating, but unexplored. The second fascinating, but too little explored character, was Vilma, a former US marine turned transvestite, played by Liev Schreiber. What a wonderful character! And what a fascinating nascent relationship with Elliot's father! I would have loved to spend more time with them. But instead we get Ang Lee trying, very clumsily, to speak to Vietnam in the form of the cliche of a battle-traumatised Vietnam vet, and to speak to the counter-culture in the form of a completely pointless acid trip. And when Ang Lee tries to create some real dramatic tension with a final act revelation involving Elliot's mother, it all seems out of tone with the rest of the film. Shame.

TAKING WOODSTOCK played Cannes 2009. It opened earlier this year in the US, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the USA, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Estonia, France and Spain. It is currently on release in Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, India, Italy, Taiwan, Belgium and Greece. It opens in the UK on November 6th, in Argentina and Mexico on December 10th and in Brazil on January 15th 2010.

A BUNCH OF AMATEURS - Imelda Staunton steals the show

A BUNCH OF AMATEURS is a British comedy directed by Andy Cadiff (CHASING LIBERTY) and co-written by the scabrously funny editor of PRIVATE EYE, Ian Hislop. It's a classic fish-out-of-water comedy in which an aging, insecure but insufferably arrogant Hollywood star is duped into starring in an amateur production of King Lear in the middle of the British countryside. He wants a suite in the Four Seasons and a personal trainer: he gets a room in a B&B, rehearsals in a barn and accusations of an affair with the sponsor's wife. He also gets to finally empathise with Lear as a man who has a ruinous relationship with his children.

As plots go, A BUNCH OF AMATEURS is pretty creaky, and the production values are pretty flaky too. Given that Hislop was involved in the script I was surprised that the movie wasn't more sharply satirical. Indeed, I was hoping for something along the line of David Mamet's incendiary STATE AND MAIN. Still, while the comedy may be more lukewarm, A BUNCH OF AMATEURS has its moments. Burt Reynolds is stealth funny as the insecure actor who builds himself up to a moment of existential angst on a rain-swept hill, but its Imelda Staunton who steals scenes as his adoring landlady. Her facility with physical comedy is captivating and makes up for the inadequacies in the script. Other than that, Samantha Bond and Derek Jacobi are rather wasted.

A BUNCH OF AMATEURS is on release in the UK.

THREE AND OUT - terrible as a comedy, but not bad as a drama

The centre of THREE AND OUT is a beautifully acted, well-written domestic drama about a decent woman who is confronted by the scoundrel who ran out on her eight years ago. He is repentant and, though she doesn't know it, terminally ill. Imelda Staunton beautifully essays the mixture of resentment and attraction; Colm Meaney carefully balances the sympathetic and unsymapthetic. The problem with THREE AND OUT is that this family drama is wrapped up in a goof-ball comedy of dubious quality, based on a dodgy premise. The idea is that a loser tube-driver (Mackenzie Crook of THE OFFICE fame) needs to find a suicidal man to fall under his train and win him a big pay-out from London Underground. Hence, he stumbles upon Meaney's suicidal rogue and takes him on a final weekend of reconciliation in the Lake District. The movie would've been better without the obligatory romance and an excruciatingly unfunny sideplot about a fetishistic suicide. And it must also go down as one of the most mis-marketed films of all time. Far from selling it is a crazy British comedy, the PR guys should've focused on its superior dramatic core.

THREE AND OUT is on release in the UK.

Early review from Al - HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

This review is brought to you by guest reviewer, Al, who can usually be found here. For BINA's review flip to the end of this review.....

Like many of you, I've followed the Potter franchise through every book and film it has spit out - and with every new installment comes a wave of anticipation and excitement, particularly bigger this time around since the last film set the bar pretty high.

I'll start off with the good stuff, then work my way down. Imelda Staunton as plays the part of Dolores Umbridge perfectly and hits all the right notes. Aside from Potter himself, the other main characters weren't given much attention and as a result constantly appeared dull and uninteresting. Umbridge, however, was simply a joy to watch, and they certainly managed her character nicely. The special effects were not too shabby, all the wand-waving and so on isn't something we haven't seen in the previous Potter films. The high point when Dumbledore battles Voldermort is executed magnificently (and I found it the most memorable part of the film), and they certainly took the SE opportunities the part of the story handed them.

The biggest problem with the film was its jarring inconsistency: for a large portion of the film the mood continually alternates from good to bad. The lighter, less serious scenes would constantly interrupt whatever sense of suspense or tension that was being developed. Consequently the heavier scenes were undermined and the build-up to the climax was significantly stunted.

The script felt like it was guided by a checklist at times, responsibly including parts of the book that mattered most (without overstuffing), and while this effort is commendable, they could've given more time for certain important parts to completely develop and be part of the story, instead of simply adding to it. Terms like 'Order of The Phoenix' and 'The Prophecy' are introduced impatiently then given skimpy explanations, after which they're repeatedly mentioned and used as a character's motivation.

Compared to previous installments, there's little room given for subplots and the film is largely dedicated to Potter. As a result there are only a handful of scenes without him, and sadly Daniel Radcliffe is incapable of carrying such weight on his shoulders. His acting chops haven't improved much - he seems awkward in the role and has a lot of trouble emoting -e ven a simple smile looks unconvincing - a lot of overacting when he's supposed to look frightened/threatened. Personally I found that Radcliffe's poor acting did a lot of damage to this film.Even with music and special effects attempting to convey a certain scene's darkness, Radcliffe's acting still comes off as distracting and makes the whole thing look plain fatuous.

The characters we've grown to know and love - Potter's two main compatriots, Dumbledore, Trelawney are provided little screen time and simply blend in with the rest of the supporting cast. Even Hagrid appears less than thrice - a shame considering how far previous films had gone to make his character (and few others) likable and essential to Potter's life.

HP&TOOTP is an enjoyable but forgettable follow-up to the last installment, though the ending effectively sets up a solid platform for the next film - establishing a sense of continuity and hopefulness that tells us it's not the end,and however unsatisfying this Potter film may be,the journey's still incomplete and there's more to go on for.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX is on release in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, the USA, Venezuala and Argentina. It opens on the 12th in Germany, Hungary, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, Sngapore,Slovakia, South Korea, Thailand and the UK. It opens on the 13th i Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden and Turkey. It opens later in July in Egypt, Croatia, Czech Republic, Israel, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. It opens in China and Greece in August.

The late review from Bina007, back from Barbados: There are some things that are always faultless about HARRY POTTER movies. They are based on richly imagined source material and the studio spares no expense in bringing all the wonderful details of J K Rowling's world to the screen. I love the beautiful Hogwarts sets, the eccentric characters with their vivid costumes and the seamless CGI characters such as the House Elfs. The films are also leant a level of authenticity by the rich cast of British character actors.

Having said all this, the films remain a mixed bag. The first two installments, THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE & THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS were directed by hack Christopher Columbus and had zero visual flair. Still, they got the job done. And in those days, the job was easier. The material was mostly light, fun and magical. It was all about buying your first wand and winning the House Cup. The gripping finales were all about solving neat puzzles.

Then came THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, directed by Alfonso Cuaron of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN fame. He produced a film of rare visual style that followed the book in becoming far darker. The evil manifests itself as dementors - an analogy for depression and a brave theme for Rowling to introduce in what remains a children's book. We also first feel the power of the "real" wizarding world and the Ministry of Magic. Cuaron also made the movie more adult in that it focused more on Harry's emotional life rather than joining the dots of Rowling's increasingly elongated plot-lines. However, this also led to the movie feeling a little disjointed and less emotionally engaging.

The fourth film reverted to director-for-hire Mike Newell and I condemned it as uneven in tone and lacking in visual flair here. Still, this wasn't so much Newell's fault as a reflection of the fact that books were literally as well as substantively in puberty. The film therefore stumbled from teen rom-com dating angst to seriously scary death scenes as Rowling struggled to balance the maturing and darkening of what began as a children's book.

Which is all a long-winded way of getting to where I wanted to be, at THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. It is, to my mind, THE MOST SATISFYING FILM IN THE FRANCHISE. It has less visual flair than AZKABAN certainly. The dark tone mostly rips off Cuaron and there is some really clumsy colour-correct in the opening play-ground scene. I also think the lead actors are serviceable rather than amazing. Daniel Radcliffe plays it mostly in a stunned stupour - just look at his lack of reaction when he's told about his expulsion. Emily Watson and Rupert Grint also tend to speak so fast that they gobble up their lines.

But the movie has by far the most even emotional tone of the series in that it is unrelentingly dark. No more Quidditch. No more House Cup. Even the first kiss is basically a sombre affair - as Harry says, it was "wet" because the girl was crying. And Imelda Staunton is simply petrifying as Dolores Umbridge. Freed from the boarding school pranks, this movie has the space to simply be an affecting and well-produced tale of friendship under peril. IT IS THE ONLY FILM IN THE FRANCHISE THAT I WOULD HAPPILY WATCH AGAIN.

FREEDOM WRITERS - earnest yet alarmingly crass

FREEDOM WRITERS has everyone's favourite under-dog, Hilary Swank, play an inspirational teacher in inner-city LA. Based on a true story, the movie nonetheless has a tired feel: another white middle class teacher (viz. Michelle Pfeiffer in DANGEROUS MINDS) reaching out to ethnic minority kids afflicted by gang violence. She does this by working extra jobs to take them on trips and buy them nice shiny new books. The mid-1990s hip-hop sound-track has a nice nostalgic vibe (remember when rappers rapped about life rather than champagne?) and Swank plays earnest like no other. But I couldn't help feeling a little scandalised by the parallel drawn between life in urban LA and life for persecuted Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. Hollywood at its most earnest and yet also at its most crass.

FREEDOM WRITERS was released in the US in January and opens in the UK and Spain on March 2nd. It opens in the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Turkey on March 9th and in Belgium, France and Germany on March 15th. It opens in Australia on March 22nd, Singapore and Italy on March 30th and in Brazil, Norway and Sweden on May 18th and in Argentina on May 31st.