MICHAEL***

Like many, I was reluctant to watch a Michael Jackson biopic sanctioned by his family. I was a huge MJ fan as a kid - his Bad tour was my first live concert - and I was crestfallen when the abuse scandal broke. Like many, my relationship with his art has become tainted.  And yet I know from my childhood obsession that he was a victim of physical and verbal abuse, with extreme body dysmorphia, and an exposure to sexuality way beyond what was appropriate at an early age. I don't think any of us truly have a hand on what his sexuality was - maybe he didn't either. And for me the jury is still out on his crimes.  

So we come to the film - which I watched VOD rather than in the cinema. It's a handsomely made straightforward emancipation story featuring some breathtakingly good performances from Juliano Valdi as young Michael, and Jackson's own nephew Jaafar as the older MJ.  They are both absolutely stunning as Michael and one can only imagine the innate talent and artistry and rehearsal time to pull of his singing style and dance moves. Jaafar in particular is absolutely joyous and breath-taking to watch.  The movie is worth it for the iconic concert recreations alone - whether the first Billie Jean moonwalk, or the final recreation of Bad live.  Kudos to director Antoine Fuqua (THE EQUALISER) and cinematographer Dion Beebe (CHICAGO) for getting us as close to that feeling of seeing MJ live as we could hope for.

The problem was always going to be what was unsaid and unexplored.  How did MJ's mum really feel seeing the family abuse?  Nia Long is warmly supportive as MJ's mother in this version, but wasn't she collusive, and what impact did her strict religion have on MJ's sexuality.  That sexuality is of course not explored at all. We fast forward through puberty. We never see any interiority from Michael about that. Only his need to escape his father.  His sisters get short shrift and his brothers barely feature.  How did they feel when he moved away from them? This movie does not care.  Yes there is the rising eccentricity and the menagerie of animals. A passing mention of vitiligo.  The awful Pepsi commercial fire.  But no interrogation of Michael's deeply messed up mental health. It's such a damn shame. But given the family estate constraints, I guess this is a good as writer John Logan (GLADIATOR) could have done.  Moreover, even without the constraints, going inside of Michael's head would involve making judgment calls, which would be highly contentious. This movie is for the fans, and most fans (unlike me) have long-since acquitted Michael of any wrongdoing.

MICHAEL is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 127 minutes. It was released in cinemas in April and is now available on demand.

POWER BALLAD****

Writer-director John Carney specialises in funny, heart-warming, music-centred films about ordinary people whose lives are transformed by song.  If that sounds schmaltzy and earnest, it is, and the world is better for it.  His latest movie is a genuinely delightful genuinely laugh-out-loud funny film called POWER BALLAD.  

It stars as Paul Rudd as an ageing wedding band musician whose music is ripped off by Nick Jonas' former boy bander who needs a hit to turn his career around.  So Rudd's character and his best mate and band mate Sandy (co-writer Peter McDonald) go to LA to confront the musician and get paid.  The moral of the story is that real love, real family, real friends matter more than success but that most people haven't got the emotional depth to realise it.  I laughed a lot - McDonald's Sandy is iconic - but it also got a little dusty in the cinema at the end. A good time was had by all!

POWER BALLAD has a running time of 98 minutes and is rated R. It is on limited release in the UK and USA.

SAVAGE HOUSE***

BARRY LYNDON meets BIG NIGHT in screenwriter Peter Glanz's directorial debut. It starts off as a dark, nasty, witty social satire on social climbers, takes a turn into a genuinely moving love story, but just loses steam in its second half. After such a sharp take-off in its first thirty minutes, I then wanted something, anything to happen, and it never did.  That's the point, but it made for a rather dull watch. This is all rather a shame as the two lead performances are absolutely superb.

The Crown's Claire Foy gives a wonderfully layered performance as Lady Savage - a properly aristocratic woman who defied convention to marry the dastardly rake and parvenu, Chauncey.  She gives a powerful defence of female agency and genuinely moved me.  But despite this, she pawns the last of her family jewels to scrape her way back into high society, when the chance to host the Marlboroughs comes her way.  And what of her husband?  Grant plays Chauncey as a kind of ageing Withnail, fuelled by port and gambling, all charm, wit, petulance and aching vulnerability. He wants to be accepted and also to avoid the bailiffs.  

The movie hits cruising speed fast.  And then stalls.  We get a nice side plot involving Jack Farthing and Bel Powley's valet and woman of all work respectively.  But ultimately this is a morality play about two people hellbent on social climbing and the agents of their own ruin.  It would have worked better as a sixty minute short.

SAVAGE HOUSE is rated R and has a running time of 113 minutes. It is on limited release in the USA and UK.

DISCLOSURE DAY**

Bless his heart! Steven Spielberg still thinks that network news is relevant. Steven Spielberg still thinks that if people watch something on network news that they'll believe it. Steven Spielbering still thinks that Roswell is cool. Steven Spielberg is still obsessed with midwest middle-class childhood Americana. Steven Spielberg still believes that, in the words of Woody Allen's MANHATTAN, "you have to have a little faith in people". FFS. Have you not seen the past decade? In the words of Peep Show's Super Hans, "People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can't trust people, Jeremy." Which is not to say that Spielberg hasn't made a simultaneously schmaltzy AND cyncal film. How else to explain the very deliberate care to tell ticket-buyers in Red States that the existence of aliens is compatible with the Book of Genesis?

Okay so what's the plot? Super intelligent aliens have been making contact with man since Roswell, and man - or at least American men - have been hushing it up and exploiting them ever since. A bunch of rebels (Colman Domingo, Josh O'Connor) steal the video proof and rather than just uploading it to TikTok they partner up with Emily Blunt's TV weather girl to put it out on local TV. That's it.

Now there are a bunch of MacGuffins and side hustles involving Blunt's character being able to suddenly speak a bunch of languages, and O'Connor's character being a maths savant, and Eve Hewson's character having a crisis of faith, but it's all just bollocks really. Colin Firth occasionally turns up in a turtleneck as a cross between Dr Evil and Basil Exposition and almost every line reading of a deeply hackneyed script (David Koepp and Spielberg) prompts unintended mirth.

And my enjoyment is not helped by the fact that Emily Blunt now falls into that category of actor (Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Nicole Kidman) whose plastic surgery and over-filled face is a distraction. I spent the entire movie wanting to give her an antihistamine. 

Oh yes, this being Spielberg there's also a weird-ass interlude featuring a Hansel and Gretel house and some poor kid has gone through CGI. I was wondering if Emily Blunt's face is now so waxy and unreal that they were forced to CGI a real kid to make her look like Blunt's younger facsimile.  The CGI is really bad by the way. The CGI animals are rubbish. I have seen a more convincing and emotionally affecting fox on Lego Masters Australia.

It's sad to see an old man stuck in 1987 and churning out sci-fi as if the past thirty years of film-making (or politics for that matter) didn't happen. Has he not watched any Gareth Edwards or Denis Villeneuve? Are we meant to be impressed by car chases that look like the Dukes of Hazzard when we just saw Paul Thomas Anderson break cinematic ground not once but twice in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER? 

Retire, mate. Retire.

DISCLOSURE DAY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 145 minutes. It is on global release.

THE DRAMA**** (spoilers)

Kristoffer Borgli's THE DRAMA is a nasty little relationship drama and social satire about good people doing bad things and bad people who are po-faced and judgmental. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson continue to make challenging and interesting choices that belie their teen-star good looks.  They play Emma and Charlie - a young loving couple who seem perfect for each other until goaded into reveal the worst thing they have ever done by their best friends Rachel and Mike.  Emma reveals that as a young teenage girl she planned a school shooting but did not go through with it and is immediately shunned by her maid of honour Rachel (Alana Haim) despite the fact that Rachel didn't just plan but did something really horrific - imprisoning a young developmentally challenged boy and leaving him for dead. 

In fact, there is something wrong with the whole way in which the friend group reacts. Nobody thinks to ask why young Emma might have been so disenchanted and alienated and bullied that she felt she had to commit an act of mass killing.  Nobody asks how she is feeling now that she has revealed it.  Just judgy Karen being the true villain of the piece and dragging her poor husband Mike along with her.  And nice earnest fiance making poor Emma restate her motivations despite the fact that reliving the memory is making her throw up.  

The resulting film is a nasty, raw and occasionally mordantly funny drama. I really believed in Emma and Charlie and wanted their relationship to work.  I also really liked how Borgli was very consciously playing with rom-com tropes - the meet-cute, the dumb cutesy in-jokes, even the .... well... end-cute?  It's like he's saying I know this is dumb and makes no sense and is incredible but go with me because I am using this genre-bullshit to show you what's going on with this young black woman in this hyper-white judgy scenario.  And I was there for it. 

THE DRAMA is rated R and has a running time of 105 minutes. It was released earlier this month.

CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN'***

X-MEN actor James McAvoy turns director in this charming, fast-paced, you-cannot-believe-it's-true story of two young Scottish lads who adopt Eminem-adjacent American personas to fool the prejudiced London music industry into giving them a recording contract.  Unable to attract interest as "the rapping Proclaimers", Billy and Gavin get a recording contract as their California avatars Silibil and Brains, and predictably proceed to exploit their new-found access to booze and girls.  They want to reveal their true identities on a famous MTV show live on air, and show up the music industry as bigots, because will they have the courage to go through with it? And if they don't, what will lying to their colleagues, friends, family and even to themselves to do their psyches?

The arc of this film is pretty unexciting and predictable. Decent kids get fame, go crazy, fall out with each other, turn their backs on all that is wholesome and true, before a last-act redemption.  What makes the film worth watching are the kinetic, grab-you-by-the-balls direction;  the compelling central performances from Samuel Bottomley and Sean Maclean Ross, who have to rap as well as act; and the sheer insanity of the story.  After I watched this film, I went on to watch the documentary, "The Great Hip Hop Hoax", and to read the real-life Gavin's autobiography. If anything, this feature film re-telling underplays just how good the boys were musically, just how far they got in the music industry, and just what utter nightmares they were when they started exploiting alcohol and women. 

A special shout out to actress Lucy Halliday (currently starring in The Testaments), who forms the calm moral centre of the film.  There's something really transfixing about her stoicism and quiet, understated performance.  Where another actress or another director might have asked her for histrionics, Halliday just radiates good sense, disenchantment and a quiet fierce strength as Billy's girlfriend Mary.

CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN' has a running time of 107 minutes. It played Toronto 2025 and is currently on release in the UK.