SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

By now I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but how wonderful to confirm that all the hype is justified - SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is an absolutely delightful film! It's heart-warming, witty, visually inventive and has such a wonderfully light touch about diversity.  I cannot imagine a better version of Spider-man, and learning that this is based on a comic book series that pre-dates the latest live action version, I'm utterly disappointed that Sony/Marvel didn't take the bold step of using this continuity rather than reverting to the old one.

In this Spider-man story, Peter Parker dies early and his role as crime-fighting hero is taken over by a kind called Miles Morales (Shameikh Moore) - a young boy who just got bitten by a radioactive spider. Peter Parker  (Jake Johnson) is around just long enough to pass on a few tips before Spidey 2.0 is joined by a bunch of other Spideys from parallel universes - including a schlubby Peter Parker (Chris Pine), a female Spidey, a noir Spidey (brilliantly cast Nic Cage!) and even a Looney Tunes Spidey!  I am reliably informed that all of these are from old comic book series, and I have to say that I would pay good money to see a full length Spidey Noir movie starring Nic Cage.  All the different Spideys have to team up to save the world from evil Doc Ock - both sending back all the parallel universe spideys through Ock's evil machine, before Miles can destroy it for good.

What I love about this story is that doesn't condescend to it's young audience - giving them a story that hinges on parallel universes and rather hallucinogenic depictions of what it might look like to be in an unstable environment.  I also love the film's core message that anyone can be a hero - even if you haven't seen a hero on screen that looks like you before - whether because you're a girl, or an ethnic minority. In fact, anyone can be a supervillian too! Just look at female Doc Ock. It's a film that doesn't shy away from showing what it must mean to be a poor kid who gets selected for an elite school and has to leave his friend's behind. It's a film that will casually show a homeless person sleeping outside of a shiny building. And it's a film that will have a African-American/Latino kid speak to his mum in Spanish without feeling the need for subtitles. I love that courage, self-confidence and inclusion.

But most of all I just love how visually inventive this film is, and how manifestly the creators love comic books.  They have a real understanding about how the flow of panels works, how we turn a page on a story, even giving Miles thought bubbles as soon as he becomes a superhero.  This gives the film a wonderfully kinetic energy, real joy, and wit in also parodying the 3d blurring around its edges.

All in all, I really hope Sony/Marvel will capitalise on this film's success by continuing the Miles Morales storyline in animated form if nothing else.

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE has a running time of 117 minutes and is rated PG. 

GRANDMA - BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Day 2

A teenage schoolgirl called Sage needs six hundred bucks for an abortion that evening. Scared of her mom she calls in on her grandma, a tough-talking writer with a mean tongue but a heart of gold. Problem is that grandma used all her cash paying her lover’s medical bills, setting the two women off on an all-day goose chase to put together the cash without, if at all possible, facing mom. Along the way we learn that maybe when Grandma was dumping her young girlfriend that morning, the mean things she said had more to do with grieving her forty year marriage. And maybe she wasn’t as confident in her sexuality as she is now. And maybe she didn’t always handle big life choices without hurting people. And maybe her daughter comes across as bossy and mean because she too is grieving. And maybe everything is going to be okay.

THE PINK PANTHER 2 - Cinema Hate-Crime

Peter Sellers made five great comedies playing the incapable but serendipitous French cop, Inspector Clouseau. Herbert Lom seethed with anger as his boss. Burt Kwouk exemplified physical comedy genius as his side-kick Cato. Those movies are Cinema Gold. That Steve Martin fool-headedly decided to remake the Clouseau movies, churning out the piss-poor 2006 film, was bad enough. That he lacked humility enough to try it again is unforgivable. The resulting cinema dreck troubled the multiplexes only briefly, and rolled onto DVD with a mere USD70million gross. Here's hoping that's the end of this humiliating little experiment.

As to the particulars, the plot sees The Tornado stealing priceless world historical arefacts as well as the eponymous French diamond. An international dream team of cops is brought together to track them down. Clouseau embarasses them all, almost loses his sweet-heart Nicole, but finally foils the thief. The movie is set in a stylised picture-postcard Europe, and peopled with characters in stylised costumes and deliberately hammy accents. One can only assume that the likes of Jeremy Irons, Lily Tomlin, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno and Andy Garcia were doing it for the phat cash alone. The exception is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who presumably also did it to raise her profile in Western cinema, and whose uneven Anglo-Brit accent is presumably not deliberate. The physical comedy is predictable and worst of all, leans heavily on CGI. The direction is competent at best. The plot is utterly predictable. The only surprising thing about the film is that it us written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber who also wrote 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.

THE PINK PANTHER was released in spring 2009 and is available on DVD.

THE WALKER - the localised and global consequences of a corrupt political establishment

THE WALKER is the latest film from celebrated writer/director Paul Schrader. As a writer, Schrader gave us the definitive picture of the disenfranchised, angry young man in TAXI DRIVER. And as a director he has given us many iconic images of men who are outside of the establishment but mingle with it and luxuriate in its superficial beauty. Until, of course, they are ensnared in the seamier side of the power structure. AMERICAN GIGOLO is perhaps the apex of this style of thriller cum character exploration.

In THE WALKER we see another exploration of character. This time, the central character is a flamboyant homosexual who precariously balances his lifestyle with his position as scion of a rapaciously Republican, Virginian family. Woody Harrelson's performance as Carter Page III is yet another career-best to rival his perfomance as Larry Flint. He struts through Washington high-society wearing an ill-fitting toupe, and speaks through a near-closed mouth with a broad Southern accent - and have they done something to his nose? His observations on Washington society are rapier-subtle and very, very funny, but he manages to maintain an almost boy-ish innocence and loyalty to his friends.

These friends are rather a different breed. They are the well-heeled wives of Washington power brokers. While their husbands hush up an Enron-style scandal implicating the Vice-President, Carter "walks" them to parties and to the opera - a convenient piece of arm candy to hire. Of the three lead actresses, Lily Tomlin is unusually, ambiguously evil as the wife of a Karl-Rove-style lobbyist. Lauren Bacall is magisterial as a rich widow. And Kristin Scott Thomas gives a rather auto-pilot performance as a philandering wife who happily lets her "friend" Carter get implicated in a murder-scandal on her behalf.

Yes, the witty script and strong performances from Harrelson, Bacall and Tomlin are the highlights of this drama. But there are other strengths. I rather liked the insidious, smooth flowing camera shots that circle and permeate political society. There is a wonderful homage to the infamous AMERICAN GIGOLO scene where Richard Gere gets dressed to go out. This time, the scene is reversed. An ageing, balding Harrelson takes off his vulgar but expensive clothes and the camera hovers lovingly over trays of cuff-links and ties. Then, he takes off his toupe!

I also rather liked the unabashed references to Abu Ghraib through the photography of Carter's boyfriend Emek (Moritz Bleibtrau). I like the idea that the venality of Washington; the unquestioning xenophobia; the sacrifice of constitutional checks and balances in the name of the national interest - all this leads to the relatively localised corruption in which Carter is implicated, but also leads to the wider loss of moral integrity seen in Iraq.

THE WALKER played Berlin 2007 and goes on release in the UK on August 10th and in the UK on December 7th.

A PRAIRE HOME COMPANION - Li-lo in decent performance shock

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION is the story of one of America's most famous and best-loved public radio programmes. Broadcast out of Minnesota, then New York and then Minnesota, the programme was conceived by Garrison Keillor and combines country music acts performing in concert and adverts for fictional products. The show has all the ingredients for a classic Robert Altman movie, and the director essentially apes all his previous greats, such as GOSFORD PARK.

First, Altman finds a milieu in which a bunch of eccentric, fascinating characters can interact. So, where Gosford Park had an English country house, we now have the theatre where the final radio show is about to be recorded.

Second, Altman assembles a fantastic ensemble cast, largely on the strength of his reputation as a world-class film-maker. We have Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin - perhaps the finest actess and comedienne of their generation - as two country singers, plus Streep's on-screen daughter Lola, played by Lindsay Lohan, in what may be her break-out performance. I have always thought that Lohan had a great on-screen presence. She has the ability to make you want to spend time with her and, HERBIE: FULLY LOADED aside, has made some fantastic good quality comedies. (And yes, I AM being serious here.) We also have Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and the fantastic John C Reilly) as two cowboys who sing crude songs and tell fantastic off-colour jokes. My personal favourite, "Why do they call it PMS? Because Mad Cow was already taken." A special shout-out has to go Kevin Kline - the shambolic PD who provides the solid centre around which the ensemble cast turns. (How odd and sad to see him in this marvellous flick, and then the execrable new PINK PANTHER movie in the same week.) True to cliche, Kline gets hooked by an enigmatic blonde, in the form of Virginia Madsen.

Finally, Altman just follows these guys around. It's as simple as that. There are no big melodramatic moments, no epiphanies, but an authentic rendering of the little amusements, tensions and wonders of every-day life. With a cast this good, and a script this charming, you really don't need much else. The audience feels like it is part of the action thanks to the mobile camera-work of Edward Lachman, apparently using hand-held Hi Def cameras.

Is this a great film? Maybe. It is surely a sweet and funny film with some great performances and great lines. Some film-makers are shooting for worthier things, and a very small portion are succeeding. But you know what? I'll take a film-maker who can make me laugh over one that can educate me any day of the week.
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION premiered at Berlin last month, where it did not win the Golden Bear. It lost out to a great and worthy film about the aftermath of the Balkan War. Now, I am not saying that worthy films shouldn't win anything but sometimes you have to wonder why the "academy" does not praise comedies enough. Making someone laugh is, to be facetious, a serious business, and there is no lesser talent involved in playing it for laighs as in playing it straight. Anyways, PHC goes on release in the US in June. I'll add European release dates when I have them.

I HEART HUCKABEES collapses under the weight of its own eccentricity

I HEART HUCKABEES is a movie with so much chutzpah that you desperately want to like it, but in the end it collapses under the weight of so many kooky characters; so many superficial nods to philosophy. The sad truth is that no matter how many individually eccentric characters you throw up, no matter how many suitably indie cuts from Jon Brion you put on the sound-track, a movie has to be more that a kaleidoscope of cool. While HUCKABEES has something like a narrative arc, and some rather witty scenes, at times the whole thing just teeters over the edge of control into full on absurdity and brings the viewer out of the picture. But, in these sadly conventional times, I'd rather have a movie fail for attempting too much than retreading mediocre hits of the past.

Some of the complexity will be hinted at by my attempt at a summary of the characters involved. A young earnest man called Albert (Jason Schwartzman) spends his time campaigning against environmental damage by a Walmart-like chain of supermarkets called Huckabees. Afflicted by angst, he hires a couple of existential detectives (Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman.) What this means is that they believe that everything is inter-connected and fundamentally okay: they just need to spy on Albert's every move in order to find out the root source of his angst. Much of it lies in his interminable fight against Huckabees, personified in its ueber-smooth PR man, Brad (Jude Law), and his Barbie-doll squeeze, Dawn (Naomi Watts). However, life is not so green on the other side of the fence: Dawn is disillusioned with her brighter-than-bright image, and consequently making life hard for Brad. In the midst of all this we have a troubled fire-fighter (Mark Wahlberg) who wanders round in his dressing gown convinced that the world is going to hell on a high wind thanks to its addiction to oil. Tommy subscribes to an alternate philosophy proposed by a formidable French philosopher played by Isabelle Huppert, which is, shall we see more Herzogian. Life is cruel: get used to it.

I cannot really summarise the plot. Such as it is, it consists in these wildly eccentric characters interacting in a series of scenes that are alternately funny, funny yet strange or just plain strange. And then the whole thing sort of collapses under the weight of myriad ideas. There are wondrous moments: the conflict between Jason Schwartzman's Albert and Jude Law's Brad is hysterical, and perfectly cast. There is something maliciously enjoyable in seeing someone who appears to be as suave as Jude Law undergoing a complete breakdown. Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts display real comic talent - superb timing and deadpan delivery. But what can have attracted an actress of the calibre of Isabelle Huppert to such a role? I mean, seriously, how does one go from The Piano Teacher to I Heart Huckabees unless you are sending yourself up? Similarly, I have seen Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin funnier.

On balance I feel that in the case of HUCKABEES, sheer ridiculousness isn't enough to make the kind of film you want to see again, or tell your friends to see. It seems to combine one part Charlie Kauffman insanity with one part Wes Anderson eccentricity, shake them both together and put the results on screen without much disicpline or order applied. Perhaps this is the philosophical point of the movie? Either way, it doesn't leave much for the humble audience member to cling on to.

I HEART HUCKABEES played Toronto and London 2004 and is released on DVD today.