FRANCES HA

For the written review, well, keep reading! But for the podcast review, either listen directly below or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

Sweet tap-dancing Christ, but FRANCES HA annoyed me. It's exactly that kind of precious, self-aware smug hipster movie that riles me, in exactly the same way as HBO's Girls riles me.  We are meant to be charmed and empathetic toward these flakey, twentysomethings with their great books college degrees who studied semiotics and thinks that life owes them a living. And why oh why is "investment banker" always a lazy shorthand for the soul-less putz who puts up with this shit and pays the bills?  I don't find this behaviour - lazy, narcissistic, delusional - charming. And even if I did, I wouldn't want to watch it for the 86 minute runtime of this movie.  And I'm not buying the idea that just because you filmed it in black and white it's deep and meaningful.

But let's take a breath and look at what we have here.  FRANCES HA is a movie written and directed by Noah Baumbach, who made the stunningly good THE SQUID & THE WHALE and the more sporadically successful MARGOT AT THE WEDDING and GREENBERG.   The latter film starred Greta Gerwig, the charming actress who plays, well charming characters who win our hearts even as they're being doormats (GREENBERG), obnoxious (DAMSELS IN DISTRESS) or flakey (FRANCES HA).  In GREENBERG and DAMSELS, the movies worked largely because Gerwig is just one of those people that you're happy to spend time with.  And the fact that I didn't walk out of FRANCES HA is largely thanks to the fact that she is pretty charming even when she's being utterly irritating.

So what's it all about Alfie?  It's about the friendship between college best buddies, Frances (Gerwig) and Sophia (Mickey Sumner).  That friendship is tested when Sophia does what late twenties girls do - gets a series job, gets an aspirational apartment and gets a fiancée.   Meanwhile, Frances is stuck as an apprentice modern dancer with no real steady income and no real hope of won.  The fact that she's impressed with the fact that she even asks for more work sums up the low bar she has set herself - and even then she ends up a loser.  So that's it.  For the first hour of this flick we watch Frances fail, and infuriatingly never really deal with that, just telling herself and her friends lies about how she's doing okay.  And then there's a crisis and a resolution neither of which I think are particularly credible.

Here's the basic level at which this movie doesn't work.  You know how Sofia Coppola so brilliantly and effortlessly captures how young girls are in each other's company?  There are a number of scenes where Baumbach tries to establish the same intimacy and freedom between Frances and Sophia, but it always comes off as stage-y rather than authentic.  And if you don't believe in their friendship, then the whole dramatic love story played as platonic friendship just doesn't work either. Of course, one let out could be that Baumbach is trying to show us how Frances sees her own life - mythologised, romanticised, a series of beautifully staged montages.  But I suspect that the movie isn't as clever as all that.

I think the simplest conclusion is that if you are someone who likes HBO's Girls, and thinks Lena Dunham is the voice of your generation, then this movie is for you.  I would rather just watch MANHATTAN or ANNIE HALL and be done with it. 

FRANCES HA has a running time of 86 minutes and is rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK for strong language and sex references.

FRANCES HA played Telluride, Toronto, New York, Berlin and host of other festivals in 2012.  It was released earlier this year in the USA, the Netherlands, Russia and Canada.  It is currently on release in Belgium, France, Poland and Israel. It opens in Poland on July 19th, in the UK and Ireland on July 26th, in Germany on August 1st, in Sweden on August 16th, and in Iceland on September 6th. 

KILL LIST (2011) - Ben Wheatley Retrospective

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The next step in my retrospective of British horror director Ben Wheatley's career is the 2011 film, KILL LIST.  George Ghon reviewed the movie for this blog, but this was my first time watching the movie, and boy was I in for a shock.  

As with DOWN TERRACE, the first part of the movie is a quiet, unsettling take on modern suburbia, with snatches of violence occasionally visible beneath the cracks.  We meet Jay (Neil Maskell), a British war veteran back from what was obviously some kind of mission gone berserk in Kiev.  Jay clearly loves his wife and young son, but he's also clearly got some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, compounded by his wife putting pressure on him to make some money. She leads him explicitly back into partnership with another ex-soldier called Gal (Michael Smiley) who brings him into the world of contract killing.  

What I love about this first act is that with Laurie Rose's handheld shooting style and Robin Hill's almost art-house Mallickian editing, combining voice-over or dialogue with a shot of a contemplative character, we get a real sense of intimacy with the family. I also love the foreshadowing - the idea that play-violence is everywhere - roughing up on the lawn, playing with toy swords - but that the real thing is just around the corner.  That said,  at this stage of the film I thought the hints of cult behaviour were a bit cheesy - viz Gal's weird girlfriend scratching a cult symbol on the back of Jay's mirror and stuffing his blood-stained tissue into her bra.  That seemed to me less scary than just embarrassing.

In the second act we see Jay and Gal embark on their kill list, and as with DOWN TERRACE, the movie strikes an uneasy comedy-horror tone as their deadpan nonsense banter is interspersed with acts of violence that go from being off-screen and subtly hinted at to more and more explicit. Even worse is the genuinely disturbing feeling that the victims actually want to be killed. This, for me, is where the movie really kicks into gear, just as Jay starts to unravel and we get hints of what may have gone wrong in Kiev.  As for the third act, well, I can't reveal too much or else spoil it for you, but suffice to say that it goes batshit crazy in the best way, with cultish violence, third-act reveals of who's pulling the strings.  But for a more spoiler-ish discussion of its textured and provocative denouement, feel free to stay listening to the podcast after the show-notes!

KILL LIST played the festival circuit in 2011 including SXSW, Frightfest and Toronto.  It was released that year in the UK and Ireland, and the following year in the USA.

KILL LIST has a running time of 95 minutes and was rated 18 in the UK  for strong violence and language. It is available to rent and own.

DOWN TERRACE

With the release of A FIELD IN ENGLAND, I decided to review the work of British writer-director Ben Wheatley, charting his move from well-crafted but fundamentally straightforward character dramas to surreal, obscure horror.  His first feature was the low-budget gangster drama, DOWN TERRACE, which garnered acclaim on the festival circuit but got only a small release in the US and UK in 2010. 

The movie follows a small-town British family for a fortnight after the mobbed-up father and son, Bill and Karl, are released from prison.  The first half of the film feels a bit like The Sopranos, as mid-ranking criminals are deadpan funny in their petty arguments about banal everyday problems, contrasting with their high-crime professional lives.  It's the kind of movie in which the assassin moans about having to babysit his toddler, and the long-suffering mother offers his little kid some orange squash while offering his father a selection of knives for his hit. And there's a scene at a bust stop that I hated myself for finding so funny. There's even a feckless son of a former friend who may or may not have grassed up the father - mirroring Tony's irritation with Chrisopher Moltisanti. 

Wheatley turns his small budget and limited shooting time into a virtue, creating a feeling of claustrophobia and slowly building tension as DP Laurie Rose shoots almost exclusively handheld in situ in a small terraced house.  The soundtrack is also effectively used as a commentary and a counter-point - beautiful blues music from Robert Johnson and folk music from Karen Dalton juxtaposing increasingly out-of-kilter violent scenes.  In front of the camera, we feel the menacing domineering presence of the paterfamilias, even when he's not on screen, and the relationship with his volatile son is brilliantly drawn - no doubt helped by the fact that most of the cast are related in real life.  But it's really Michael Smiley who steals the show as Pringle - the family's in-house toddler-toting assassin - and you can see why Wheatley chose to work with him in his subsequent movies. 

Overall, the movie is an assured and accomplished feature début that manages that truly difficult balance of dark humour and dark violence - combining an almost surreal descent into violent paranoia with some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. It deserves to be seen more widely. 

A podcast review of this film is available on iTunes, by subscribing here.
It can also be played directly, below. 

DOWN TERRACE played a few festivals in 2009  and 2010 and went on limited release in the UK and USA in 2010.  It is available to rent and own, including on iTunes.  The movie was rated R in the USA and 15 in the UK for strong violence, drug use and strong language including one use of very strong language. It has a running time of 89 minutes.

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. 

The iTunes Podcast Feed

I'm excited to announce that my ten minute audio reviews are now up on iTunes for your listening pleasure!  Just go to the podcast part of the store and search for "bina007".  And if iTunes doesn't swing your boat, then you can use you usual RSS feed aggregator here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bina007

THE BLING RING

So here's my ten minute review of Sofia Coppola's new film, THE BLING RING, based on the true story as covered in Vanity Fair magazine.  It's a really scary, zeitgeisty flick about young rich kids so badly parented and so obsessed with reality TV and celebrity that they aspire to live that lifestyle, even if means casually robbing celebrity houses to get the labels.  Sofia Coppola's take on the story is straightforward and leaves us to make our own judgement about both the kids, their parents and our own complicity in turning them into pop culture phenomena. It's a less auteur film than SOMEWHERE but is visually superb and features a great performance from Emma Watson.

THE BLING RING has a running time of 90 minutes and is rated R in the USA.

THE BLING RING played Cannes 2013 and opened in June in the USA, Belgium, France, Australia, Sweden, Croatia, Israel, Canada, Poland, Bosnia, Hungary, Russia, Finland and Lithuania. It opened earlier this month in the Philippines, Kuwait, the UK and Ireland. It opens on July 12th in Denmark and India, on July 19th in Macedonia and Estonia, on July 26th in Mexico. The movie opens on August 1st in Argentina, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Brazil; on August 8th in Australia and Portugal; on August 16th in Germany and Romania; on September 6th in Norway; on September 12th in Peru and on September 19th in Italy.

Download the MP3 here.