JUNGLE BOOK (2016) - Crimbo Binge-watch #11

Disney's live action remake of its iconic animated classic is a triumph - a superbly executed mix of live action and animation and a respectful update of an old story.  I absolutely adore the original and was sceptical of the need for a remake, but found myself won over by this version's intelligent reworking, the beautifully rendered animal CGI, and the sheer charm of its lead actor, Neel Sethi.

As we all know, THE JUNGLE BOOK is the story of a young boy called Mowgli who has been raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. When Shere Khan the tiger (Idris Elba - suitably menacing) returns, he threatens to kill anyone who won't hand over the man cub to him. I love the fact that in this version we get more explanation of the tiger's hatred of man and fear of fire - he is battle-scarred from man's tiger hunts.  Accordingly the wolves hand Mowgli over to his friend Bagheera the panther (a perfectly cast Ben Kingsley) to take him to the man village. He rebels and runs away to be befriended by the hip bear Baloo (Bill Murray but I really thought it sounded like Bradley Cooper!)  They have a run in with a scheming ape (weird casting of Christopher Walken and yet it somehow works!) en route to a final confrontation.

If the casting choices really work well then so too does the reworking of the ending. I love the idea that instead of using Man's Red Flower to defeat Shere Khan, Mowgli turns away from the destructive violence of man and uses the group power of his animal friends.  That said, the decision to leave Mowgli in the jungle at the end of the film does feel like a cynical opening to a sequel. 

JUNGLE BOOK has a rating of PG and has a running time of 106 minutes.  It was released in 2016.

BABY DRIVER

With BABY DRIVER, writer-director Shaun Wright moves from British pastiche comedies to a stylish, beautifully choreographed American action movie. It's exhilarating, funny, moving and (weirdly) unique.  

The conceit of the film is that it's young protagonist "Baby" was involved in an horrific car accident as a child that left him scars and tinnitus;  a love of old-fashioned ipods stocked with great music; and a gift for both boosting and driving cars.  This leads him into debt with a local gangster who exploits his unique talents as a getaway driver, for a different crew every heist.

Naturally, this leads us into the territory of derivative genre-tropes.  Kevin Spacey's "Doc" is a cool calm business like crime boss straight out of a Tarantino movie, and the kooky collection of colourfully nick-named thieves are similarly Tarantino-esque.  Ansel Eglort's Baby is the classic good guy in a bad situation, doing that One Last Job before his debt is cleared, but like Al Pacino in Godfather 3, pulled back into a life of crime that wears him down.  And Lily James' diner waitress Debora is nothing more than a pretty vacuous heart of gold character upon which Baby can fashion his dreams of escape.

THE WORLD'S END

So here's the latest podcast review, covering the new film from the team that brought you the hilariously funny SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ.  Where the team stick to that original premise of schlubby suburban Brits tackling ludicrous otherworldly scenarios, the movie retains its laugh out loud brilliance. But, sad to say, director Edgar Wright has brought some of his ueber-stylised, comic-book action over from SCOTT PILGRIM and it's just tedious.  Still, despite that CGI, over-choreographed excess, when this film works, boy does it work, and it's definitely worth checking out. 

The film has a running time of 109 minutes and has been rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK for strong language and strong sex references.

THE WORLD'S END opens on July 18th in New Zealand; on July 19th in the UK and Ireland; on July 31st in Iceland; on August 1st in Australia; on August 23rd in the USA; on August 28th in France; on September 5th in Russia; on September 12th in Germany and Singapore; in the Netherlands on September 19th; on September 26th in Italy; on September 27th in Sweden; on October 3rd in Denmark;  on October 4th in Finland; on October 16th in Belgium; on October 18th in Norway; and on October 25th in Brazil. 

SCOTT PILGRIM vs. THE WORLD - Heart-stripped Part Deux

So, I want to state that I DO think I have a sense of humour and I'm not some kind of kill-joy. It's not that I hate all things comic book or gamer or hipster, although lately Michael Cera has started to annoy me with his one-note, "hey I'm so geeky, but in a sort of superior way to you", schtick. I think what gets me with these hipsters is the fact that they're all making so much damn mainstream money out of trying to be counter-cultural. Like you can be counter-culture when your interviewed in Interview magazine. Anyways, despite my hipster-fatigue, I was REALLY looking forward to SCOTT PILGRIM vs THE WORLD for the simple fact that I think its director and co-adapter, Edgar Wright, is some kind of comedy genius. This is the man who, with SHAUN OF THE DEAD and the absolutely amazing HOT FUZZ made movies that combined a post-modern, slippery playfulness take on genre-cinema with real heart. And, boys and girls, you gotta have heart. Without heart - without characters that we emotionally engage with - no movie, no matter how clever and witty and inventive, is worth my time. And SCOTT PILGRIM really wasn't worth my time.

This is the concept. Scott Pilgrim is a loser, hipster, geek who plays in a band. He has no money but he can still afford cool trainers. (See video above.) He's dating a psycho-stalker high school chick called Knives Chau who is NOT as cool as her name would suggest and definitely needs to get to a SLAA meeting. But he really wants to be dating a hipster chick called Ramona Flowers, who has outlandishly coloured hair and Seven Evil Ex-es. I have yet to fathom why either girl would want to date Scott - let alone his ex-es, band-mate Kim, and now-successful rock-star, Natalie/Envy. He's a scrawny, incompetent, infantile guy who looks pre-pubescent. I mean, I know some girls like unthreatening, but this is unreal. Anyway, back to the movie. By quasi-dating Ramona, Scott unleashes the Seven Evil Ex-es who he has to fight, video-game stylee, in order to be with her; or gain self-respect; or discover who he really wants to be with; or something. Honestly, by about fight number three I was seriously losing interest. A mock video-game fight HAS NO STAKES. If you lose you don't die - you just click for your second life. If you win, there's just another stupid fight around the corner. And who cares who these characters end up with anyways? Yes the visual tricks are fun - the little knowing comments editorialising the action - and yes, it IS funny to take the piss out of Vegans and pretentious record producers but COME ON! This movie is a one-trick pony. Clever for the first ten minutes, but then repetitive, trite and superficial. I want and expect more from Edgar Wright. I want to see real friendship on screen - friendship like that shared between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in SHAUN and HOT FUZZ. Not this heart-stripped clever-clever nonsense.

Additional tags: Michael Bacall, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Ben Lewis, Aubrey Plaza, Nigel Godrich

SCOTT PILGRIM vs. THE WORLD is currently on release in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ireland, the UK and Iceland. It opens in late September in Croatia, Estonia, Sweden and Israel. It opens in October in Finland, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Brazil, Argentina and Singapore. It opens in November in Malaysia and Italy and in December in Greece and Spain. It opens in January 2011 in Germany and the Netherlands.

THE SPIRIT - disastrous noir spoof from Frank Miller

"The only thought in my mind was, 'It's too big — I can't possibly do it.' And I refused. And about three minutes later as I was at the doorway, I turned around and said, 'Nobody else can touch this,' and I agreed to the job on the spot".

Frank Miller should have trusted his instincts and passed up the opportunity to go solo and direct the feature length adaptation of Will Eisner's seminal 1940s weekly serial. 

The strip was a noir thriller about a rookie cop brought back from the dead, living under his grave stone, investigating crime in Central City. Miller gives the book the same treatment as SIN CITY - using digital backgrounds penned largely in gray scale with occasional flashes of iridescent red - and the film is extremely stylish as a result. Miller also does the decent thing in consigning The Spirit's politically incorrect sidekick "Ebony White.

Every other directorial choice Frank Miller makes is wrong. First, let's talk casting. Gabriel Macht lacks charisma as The Spirit. All the other actors turn in hammy, self-referential performances that are painful to watch. It's not entirely their fault. Miller has directed this movie as a pastiche. The movie literally takes the piss out of itself like some dumb SCARY MOVIE flick. The result is a complete waste of time: alienating, unfunny, plain embarrassing.  I just feel that Samuel L Jackson in particular needs to be really careful about taking these sorts of role - after SNAKES ON A PLANE and his increasingly mannered performances he's in danger of turning into a self-parody.  Jackson plays The Octopus.  Uh-huh.  Not only do we see The Octopus' face but we get to see him dress up as a Samurai, and as a Nazi, for no reason than because Miller wanted a bit of sport.  I mean, seriously, how crass can you get?

Avoid at all costs. 

THE SPIRIT is on release in Indonesia, Italy, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, the USA, Australia, Taiwan, France, Iceland, the UK, Denmark and Israel. It opens next week in Israel, New Zealand and Poland. It opens on January 15th in Russia, Brazil and on January 22nd in Argentina, Finland, Iceland and Norway. It opens on January 29th in Germany, on February 19th in the Czech Republic, on February 25th in Belgium and the Netherlands. 

FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS - what the heck just happened here?!

From the writer and director of indie cult hit SECRETARY and the director of photography of THE MATRIX and TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE comes a movie so off-the-wall that I left the cinema perplexed as to what I had just witnessed.

At first glance, FUR is another of those dramas about a conventional nineteen-fifties housewife who battles depression to find sexual and personal freedom. But this time, instead of Julianne Moore as Mrs Brown we have Nicole Kidman as notorious but acclaimed documentary photographer, Diane Arbus. She's married to a loving husband who supports her development as a photographer, even when she turns their studio into a salon for ex-circus freak show performers. In this fictional riff on the emotional life of the real Diane Arbus, our movie-Diane finds her true self through a friendship with a wig-maker called Lionel. Lionel has a genetic disorder resulting in him being super-normally hirsute. In short, while he has Robert Downey Junior's mournful eyes, he looks like Chewbacca in a rather fruity suit.

So, this upper-middle class housewife is allowed to develop her taste for exhibitionism and voyeurism. Kidman plays her with such a naive simplicity that we believe that she simply finds all these people beautiful and fascinating. Within the context of her love affair with Lionel - and the whimsical, enchanting tone of the film - that holds up. But I'm sure that some viewers familiar with the controversial nature of Arbus' work will regard the film-makers as side-stepping the exploitation issue.

My problem with FUR is more prosaic. I admire the bravery and originality of the film-makers in daring to make a psychological rather than generic biopic. I love the production design and the lead actors do well with unusual material. But this is a *long* picture. Over two hours, despite the fact that all that really happens is that a stifled, happily married woman, summons up the courage to fall in love. The film-makers are perfectly at liberty to excise the boring old biographical details; the actual photographs; the controversy; the suicide; the legacy.....Sure, they are free to fashion a whimsical love story, but ye gods, if that's all we have, can't we move things along a little?

FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS was released in the US, Italy and Israel in 2006. It opened in Greece, Belgium, France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Mexico and Sweden earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK and Finland and opens in Japan on May 19th.