Steven Spielberg's latest exercise in good ol' fashioned American wholesomeness, integrity and diplomacy transports us back to 1957, where undercover KGB agent Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is about to be busted by the FBI under suspicion of passing secrets onto the Soviets. The idealistic man at the centre of the story is James B. Donovan, an insurance lawyer working in Brooklyn who joins the likes of John Quincy Adams, Oskar Schindler and Abraham Lincoln on the list of great, conflicted men caught up in a difficult period of upheaval and portrayed by Spielberg in an admiring light. And who better to play a man of such a clear sense of morality than Hollywood's favourite nice-guy Tom Hanks?
Working with frequent collaborator Janusz Kaminski, Bridge of Spies is about a good-looking as a film gets. Infused with the same eye for detail and greyed-down solemnity of Lincoln (2012), the backdrops on show provide the perfect location for serious men talking serious business. The main crux of the film rests in the blossoming friendship between Donovan and Abel, who are captured on an equal par in a bleak interrogation room as the sun blazes through the blinds. These are two men from opposing sides, but share the share the same determination, stubbornness, and loyalty to the ideals of their country. Abel accepts his increasingly-likely execution as one of the requirements of his job, but Donovan wants to exercise his rights as a PoW, making himself public enemy number one in the process as his face splashes across the newspapers.
Donovan also hopes to keep him as a tool should the need for a prisoner exchange rear its head in the future, which was incredible foresight for anyone who knows the true-life story. As Donovan fights for Abel in the courtroom, the United States are prepping their own mission - to send a spy plane over the Soviet Union to take photographs. Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down and, after failing to swallow the cyanide given to him by his commanding officer in case he finds himself in such a perilous position, is taken prisoner by the Soviets and routinely tortured for information. The U.S. government again turn to Donovan in the hope of setting up an exchange just as American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is also arrested.
For a story so littered with intrigue and espionage, Bridge of Spies is oddly lacking in thrills and tension. When Donovan arrives for the exchange in Berlin as the Wall is being put in place, the city is hostile and seemingly lawless in areas, but instead the film focuses on the various bizarre characters, including a Petter Lorre-alike KGB man, who flock around Donovan, a man they simply do not know. Perhaps the unevenness in tone is down to a script-polishing by Joel and Ethan Coen, who never shy away from taking a genre and stamping their own particular brand of humour on it. Spielberg also cannot resist resorting to sentiment at the film's climax on the eponymous 'bridge of spies' (Glienicke Bridge). Still, this is Spielberg at his most professional, harking back to classic Hollywood while maintaining the relevance of the films themes.
Questionably considered the first entry in the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave, movement, Claude Chabrol's debut feature serves more as a precursor to the highly influential approach to film-making. While Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard broke new ground and had surprising international success with The 400 Blows (1959) and A Bout de Souffle (1960) respectively, Le Beau Serge still retains a classical feel. Still, Chabrol's self-financing, on-location shooting, unorthodox editing and the use of non-professional actors proved to be highly influential to the Cahiers du Cinema crew and the first of its kind.
After more than a decade away from his home town, city boy Francois (Jean-Claude Brialy) returns to Sardent for the winter to rest and recover from a recent bout of life-threatening illness. Upon arrival, he notices that the place has barely changed but is oddly deserted, with only a handful of his old friends and acquaintances remaining. One who has remained is Serge (Gerard Blain), Francois' former best friend. The man once dubbed 'handsome Serge' has now been reduced to a bitter alcoholic, trapped in an unhappy marriage with Yvonne (Michele Meritz) who he blames for the loss of his child. Finding himself now at odds with small-town life, Francois still feels compelled to help his old friend.
Despite the odd flash of New Wave characteristics, Le Beau Serge shares more in common with the Neo-Realist movement in post-World War II Italy and the 'angry young man' films that would pepper Hollywood throughout the 50's. Chabrol, who grew up in Sardent, captures the crumbling town with both nostalgia and sadness. While obviously fond and whimsical of such a life, Francois' character feels oddly isolated in the town he once called home, unable to understand how accepting its inhabitants are of their inconsequential existence. The narrative drags in places, but this is both a funny and powerful film, especially if you hail from similar small-town beginnings. Chabrol would build his career on thrillers, but his debut shares a sensitive and socially insightful side rarely seen from the director.
When Return of the Jedi ended its cinema run back in 1983, Star Wars fans were forced to endure a terrible 16-year wait for George Lucas to final greenlight the next instalment, The Phantom Menace (1999). Fan delirium soon turned to head shaking and bewilderment when the result turned out to be a soulless CGI-fest with bad acting and the most annoying character ever to grace the silver screen (narrowly beating Kate Capshaw from Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom). The prequel trilogy mercifully ended in 2006, bringing to a close one of the most disappointing movie events in history.
When Disney bought the rights to Lucasfilm in 2012 during a spending spree that would see them also gobble up Marvel and Pixar, they wasted no time at all developing a brand new trilogy and various spin-offs. The wait for the final product was far shorter than the build-up to The Phantom Menace, and I have no doubt that fans will be far more impressed with the result than back in '99. J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens, subtitled Episode VII, re-captures the spirit of Lucas's original trilogy while correcting the many flaws of the prequels. It has about as much depth as Attack of the Clones - the poorest of the series in my opinion - but makes sure it brings its ensemble of new characters to life while welcoming back a handful of familiar faces.
30 years have passed since Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) watched his father die while Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and an army of Ewoks sent the Empire fleeing for their lives. During this time, Luke has fled into hiding following a disastrous attempt to train a new batch of Jedi warriors, and a new enemy named the First Order have emerged in his absence. Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is sent to the planet Jakku to retrieve a map revealing Luke's location from hooded elder Lor San Tekka (Max von Sydow). However, the First Order - led by the brutal Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) - arrive and capture Poe, destroying Tekka's village in the process.
One of Ren's stormtroopers, FN-2187 (John Boyega) - who is later given the name of Finn - has a change of heart following his first experience of battle with the First Order, and helps Poe escape in a TIE fighter. Arriving back at Jakku to retrieve the map from Poe's droid BB-8, Finn comes across scrap metal scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) who is taking temporary care of the vulnerable robot, and the two flee together when they are attacked. Stealing a ship that just happens to be the Millennium Falcon, they are soon re-captured by a charismatic smuggler called Han Solo and his furry friend Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), who understandably want their ship back. Soon enough, Rey and Finn find themselves caught up in an intergalactic war between good and evil.
If that all sounds kind-of familiar, then it's probably because you've seen A New Hope (1977) before. It's a thinly-disguised recycling of the same plot, which it turns out works both for and against the film. In many ways, it feels like the natural continuation of the original story that most of us love, suggesting that history does repeat itself and few learn from the errors of the past. It could also be argued as lazy storytelling, copying a proven formula and avoiding the risks that come with taking a familiar world into new territory. While I think both points are valid, I feel it actually works on easing us back into a franchise that many feel was reduced to a laughing stock following the calamity of the prequel trilogy, and this really does feel like Star Wars again, with sets that can actually be touched and CGI aliens that feel full of life.
Rey and Finn prove to be multi-dimensional new protagonists while their back-stories are spoken of rather than explored. Abrams exploits their quirks to comedic effect - Boyega in particular is very funny - and both are suitably flawed and poor enough to feel like actual heroes when they finally grab a lightsaber. Ren is also interesting - masked for the bulk of the movie, it's a surprise when he is revealed to be a wet-lipped and long-faced Adam Driver (even though I knew he was under there), prone to immature temper tantrums and facing his own inward dilemma. The movie's main issue is its lack of depth. While the First Order are painted more broadly as Third Reich-esque than before - especially in one ridiculous rally scene in which the pasty-faced General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) shouts to a meticulously arranged army like a Leni Reifenstahl documentary - we never really understand their motives.
And so we are left with a basic good vs. evil story with a startling lack of grey, which may have been refreshingly old-fashioned had the experience not been so similar to A New Hope. Similar to what he did with re-booting the Star Trek franchise, Abrams keeps things light and simple for the most part, treading carefully to avoid overdoing the homages. Chocked full of contrivances that seem like the writers have forgotten that the action is taking place across an entire galaxy, you have to forgive a lot of the films flaws to truly enjoy it, and although this was far from a perfect experience, I was happy to be back in a world that I thought (and hoped) I'd seen the last of. And when the toe-tingling final scene cuts to black, I was quick to check what year the next one is due.
Mario Bava arguably created the giallo; that very Italian brand of horror/thriller that combined psychosexual undertones with astonishingly beautiful women, a killer with black gloves, and penis-shaped weapons. Along with the likes of Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento, the giallo was highly inspirational to American film-makers such as John Carpenter, leading to the creation of that very American brand of horror, the slasher. As innovative as Bava was (and still is), his filmography contains a few duds, and Five Dolls for an August Moon is one example.
Taking inspiration from, of all people, Agatha Christie and her novel Ten Little Niggers (now commonly referred to as Ten Little Indians, understandably), Five Dolls groups a bunch of wealthy people together at a weekend getaway owned by George Stark (Teodoro Corra). One of the guests is scientist Gerry Farrell (William Berger) who, as we come to learn, has made a revolutionary breakthrough in creating a new formula for industrial resin. Farrell quickly realises that he was invited to the retreat so Stark and his fellow industrialists can persuade him to sell his formula, which he declines. As frustration grows, the inhabitants shortly start turning up dead.
The film is sporadically fun, especially the running joke that has the victims wrapped in plastic and hung in the freezer one by one which, by the end, is almost overflowing. Yet, although the premise sounds like classic giallo material, Bava makes his group of characters so indistinguishable from one another (although there's no mistaking the stunning Edwige Fenech) that it's difficult to get engrossed by the increasingly outlandish plot. For a Bava film, the visuals are shockingly bland, with only brief glimpses of his famous visual flair and complex use of colour. There are also precious few memorable set-pieces to savour between the quieter moments, with many of the murders taking place off camera. Certainly lower-league Bava.
While I wouldn't exactly call Seth MacFarlane's live-action debut Ted (2012) a pleasant surprise, it was still slightly better than I expected. It took a relatively original idea, built it around the story of a man who refused to grow up, and delivered a few laughs along the way. The film's box-office success cemented the need for a sequel, and the original idea was to have Ted (voiced by McFarlane in a thick Boston accent) and best friend John (Mark Wahlberg) road trip across America with a van full of weed. But when they realised this was the story of We're the Millers (2013), the plan had to change.
Instead of the road trip we are given a half-baked and borderline offensive civil rights allegory, which never settles on how and when it should get to the point. With John now divorced from Mila Kunis's character from the first movie, he cannot help but feel lonely as he watches his friend Ted marry his girlfriend Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). Soon into the marriage, they are bickering like an old couple, and decide that the only way to repair things is to have a baby. However, due to the fact that Ted lacks reproductive organs, they opt for a sperm donor. With Sam J. Jones running low and a failed attempt to steal NFL star Tom Brady's seemingly sacred juice, along with the discovery that Tami-Lynn's years of drug abuse have left her infertile, they choose instead to adopt.
It is at this point that Ted is flagged by the government having previously ducking under their radar. Declared an item of property as opposed to an actual person, Ted has his marriage annulled, loses his job, and has every legal right he thought he once had taken from him. Seeking legal aid, Ted and John turn to rookie lawyer Samantha L. Jackson (Amanda Seyfried), a fellow pot-head who agrees to work the case pro bono. Meanwhile, Ted's nemesis Donny (Giovanni Ribisi), now working as a janitor for Ted's manufacturer Hasbro, looks to exploit this opening the law and convinces his boss Tom Jessup (John Carroll Lynch) to let him steal Ted back in order to open him up and see how he works, with the hope of making a fortune in allowing every child to own their own Ted.
The main problem with Ted 2 is that the comedy just seems off. Often seeking to simply out-gross anything that came before like the wave of comedies that hit the big screen in the wake of There's Something About Mary's success in the late 90's and early 2000's, the film is also peppered with pop-culture references with the running joke that Samantha L. Jackson doesn't even know who Samuel L. Jackson is. Conversations are often so vulgar that it's difficult to feel sympathy for Ted, who is voiced without any trace of charm or cuteness by MacFarlane. At almost two hours, it also drags, dipping in and out of the main plot thread without any care for narrative flow. I did laugh during Ted 2 - a cameo from Jay Leno and a Jurassic Park nod in particular - but this is a messy, often outright unfunny experience.
When the news broke on July 23rd 2011 that singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse had been found dead of complications brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse, there was almost a "told you so" response by the public, or at least the people who I interacted with. People certainly mourned the passing of a truly great artist, but there was an air of inevitability, almost as if this was the natural end to her brief career. Her life played out in front of the tabloids and no doubt played a key part in her sad demise, but Amy, directed by Asif Kapadia of Senna (2010) fame, explores a wealth of home footage previously unseen in an attempt to unravel just what drove the young lady to such self-destruction.
The home footage that has been uncovered is often extremely intimate stuff. We at first meet Amy as a teenager. Pretty, loud and full of life, she and her friends are just lounging about being regular teenagers until Amy suddenly bursts into a rendition of Happy Birthday. The soundtrack then kicks in with her youthful version of Moon River, and it's difficult not to be bowled over by such a soulful voice coming out of the then 19 year-old. As her career begins to pick up, she is asked how she believes she would react to fame. She replies that she doesn't believe she could handle it. Following the release of Frank, her first album, the excessive drug and alcohol intake begins, just as two key male figures re-enter her life.
Kapadia avoids laying the blame on anyone in particular, as the two people who come across the worst in this documentary - her father Mitch Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil - are heavy participants in the film. It was Fielder-Civil who first introduced Amy to crack, and when her friends gathered around her to try and put a stop to it, her father told her that she didn't need help. This, of course, was the inspiration for the song Rehab. It is at this point, around the half-way mark, that Amy becomes difficult to watch. We all saw the pictures of her bloody and red-eyed at the end of one particularly heavy binge in the newspapers, but its the revelation that Amy told one of her friends everything is boring without drugs during a clean spell that hits home the most.
However, this is not just an extremely sad tale of a talented artists death, Amy also celebrates the music and, in particular, her song-writing ability. During most of the stunning performance footage on show here, her vocals are accompanied by her lyrics written on-screen, which are not only extremely important in helping to understand Amy, but help sculpt the narrative of the film. She is praised as one of the finest jazz singers of all time by Tony Bennett, and it's difficult to disagree. The praise lavished upon her here makes it even more difficult to watch the footage of various comedians mocking the troubled singer. In an age of instant reactions on social media, I guess it has now become socially acceptable to make jokes about a woman in her twenties crippled by mental illness and addition. It's an extremely upsetting story, and when the credits roll it genuinely feels like you have lost a friend.
The poster for Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi masterpiece Alien told us that in space, no-one can hear you scream. 36 years later, and it would seem that no-one can hear you colonising a planet in a desperate effort to stay alive either. Scott's latest, which has recently invited controversy due to its ridiculous Golden Globe victory in the 'Musical or Comedy' category, takes a refreshingly optimistic view of one man's struggle when left stranded on Mars with only his wits and a never-ending list of obstacles to overcome to keep him from losing his sanity. After the let-down of Scott's recent return to the sci-fi genre with Prometheus, The Martian has the director firmly back in form.
In 2035, the crew of the Ares III, commanded by Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), are exploring the surface of Mars when a violent dust storm forces them to flee. Botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris and when his space suit reports a breach and no sign of life, the remaining crew reluctantly escape presuming Mark to be dead. When he awakes hours later with an antenna protruding from his stomach and his oxygen levels dangerously low, he makes his way back to the living quarters and quickly sets about calculating how long he can survive on what he has. Discovering he only has about a month left, he "sciences the shit" out of whatever he can salvage and successfully starts growing food.
As ludicrous as The Martian's inclusion in the Musical or Comedy category was, the film is still very funny. In one of many efforts to hold on to his sanity, Mark talks to himself while recording a log of his actions, revealing a laid-back and sardonic sense of humour which seems to come naturally to the actor. With little in the way of explosive set-pieces, The Martian opts to be subtly engaging as opposed to outright exciting. Mark's can-do attitude gives a stubborn optimism to the movie's outlook, and with comments such as "fuck you, Mars" following one particularly hard-earned achievement, it's hard not to cheer him along.
Also absent are any suggestions of puffy-chested patriotism or evil-doing among the people back on Earth trying to bring Mark home. The only person resembling a 'baddie' who mission director Vincent Karpoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) clashes heads with is NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), but even he retains his humanity throughout. If there is a criticism to be had, it's that Mark never feels truly in danger in such an inhospitable landscape. But The Martian takes care to lay out and explain all the science-y stuff going on with clarity and without heavy exposition, and although I wouldn't have a clue if what they were saying was nonsense or mathematically correct, you have to marvel at the detail. A smart and unexpectedly joyous space survival movie, with what is undoubtedly Damon's finest performance to date.
Kenneth Branagh's live-action re-telling of the famous Cinderella story does not attempt to offer any kind of fresh spin on one of Disney's most beloved movies. Where the likes of Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and Maleficent (2014) played out well-worn fairytales from a different perspective, changing the entire outlook of the tale in the process, the 2015 version of Cinderella alters very little and adds even less. The real stars of the movie are the set and costume design which, with the exception of Cinders' rather drab ballgown, are sadly the only hint of magic on show here.
Ella (Downton Abbey's Lily James) lives happily in her peaceful kingdom with her loving mother (Hayley Atwell) and kind father (Ben Chaplin), who teach her of the existence of magic from a young age. After her mother takes ill, Ella is told to be courageous and kind with her final dying words. Years later, her father attempts to fill the void in his life by marrying the recently-widowed Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchett), who brings her two deplorable daughters Drisella (Sophie McShera) and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger) to his home to live. When Ella's father also dies on a business trip, the Lady Tremaine reveals her dark side, dubbing the young girl Cinderella and forcing her to live in the attic while tending to their every need.
While the 1950 version can be forgiven for its rather old-fashioned patriarchal ideas of young girls fantasising about marrying rich and escaping the blandness of their existence, times have moved on and such an over-simplification of an entire gender in modern film-making really has no place. The moral message of showing kindness is of course eternally relevant, but James, aside from having a naturally sweet demeanour, injects very little personality into her character. The bulk of the first half is made up of trying to develop these themes, but without any songs to distract or cutesy animals to provide the chuckles, the narrative seems to move along with the urgency and excitement of an ITV Catherine Cookson adaptation.
It only really kicks into gear when the Fairy Godmother (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up to help Cinderella on her journey to the King's palace, where the Prince awaits every maiden in the land as he searches for a wife. Although the pumpkin transformation looks very nice, her other creations - including two unfunny lizards - are rather grotesque creations unworthy of a bippity-boppity-boo. Game of Thrones' Richard Madden plays the prince blandly but handsomely, while the long-awaited dance with his Princess-to-be lacks the magic of the cartoon version. Ironically, the Prince finds himself in the same situation as that of his most famous role, Robb Stark - promised to one but insistent on another - but there is sadly no bloody massacre at the end of it all to liven things up. Aesthetically lovely but ultimately soulless.
There were many horror titles released by Universal around the 1940's and 50's which told short stories (usually adapted from literature) within a slim running time - routine B-movie fare bolstered by one of the many fantastic actors they had on their payroll. The Strange Door is one such example. It's a rather daft story, adapted from a Robert Louis Stevenson short about a playboy high-born caught up in the sadistic plans of a sadistic lord. With a tacked-on romance, this is pretty pedestrian stuff for the most part. But when Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff are on screen, this timid horror comes alive.
Sire Alain de Maletroit (Laughton) and his cronies manipulate troublesome rake Denis de Beaulieu (Richard Wyler) into a mansion. While the front door opens from the outside, the inside contains no handle, trapping Denis within the strange castle. Alain explains to Denis that he intends for Denis to marry his lovely daughter Blanche (Sally Forrest). At first apprehensive, Denis meets and eventually falls in love with the delicate Blanche, infuriating the huge lord who naturally has an ulterior motive to his sweet-sounding deal. Alain has imprisoned and tortured his brother Edmond (Paul Cavanagh) for the past 20 years, with the hope of making the poor man's daughter miserable as well. However, he doesn't anticipate Denis's redemptive qualities.
Laughton doesn't so much chew the scenery but swill it around his chubby cheeks. Whenever he is on screen, it is impossible to take your eyes from him. Alongside looking like he's having a ball, every gesture, eye movement and idiosyncratic ramble seem almost improvised, as if he knows how forgettable this movie is but wants to make damn sure you'll be entertained while you watch it. Karloff also brings wide-eyed sympathy to the faithful servant Voltan, a man tasked with the dirty job of watching over the prisoner but does all he can to help the poor man. Wyler is less impressive; a constantly wooden presence with a voice that almost hurts the ears. The film is formulaic and stretched, but is occasionally very entertaining and a must-see for fans of its two lead stars.
The Girl Cut in Two was one of the great Claude Chabrol's final films in an astonishing career that span 58 years before his death in 2010. The former Cahiers du Cinema journalist was famously a huge fan of the work of Alfred Hitchcock, writing about the Master of Suspense at length for the magazine before Chabrol's own work weaved together Hitchcock's sublime blend of melodrama and tension with Chabrol's own French New Wave (his debut Le Beau Serge is widely considered the first). This 2007 effort does much of the same, but the emphasis is more on the melodrama for the main bulk of the film and it lacks the New Wave edge of his early, greater works.
Pretty young weather-girl Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier) catches the eye of the rich and famous author Charles Saint-Denis (Francois Berleand) when the latter is interviewed at the TV station she works for. Charles performs a book signing at Gabrielle's mother's book store, where he is confronted by the filthy-rich heir to a pharmaceutical company, Paul Gaudens (Benoit Magimel), while Charles invites Gabrielle to accompany him to an auction. The clearly unhinged Paul also lusts after Gabrielle, and begins an aggressive pursuit of her while she is off falling in love with the arrogant and pretentious (and married) Charles.
Sagnier is particularly lovely as a character who may have come across as spoiled and selfish if not handled quite so delicately. There are fewer things quite as uncomfortable to watch than a nice girl caught up in a love triangle with two absolute arseholes, and Berleand and Magimel certainly bring a complexity, and even flashes of sympathy, to their loathsome man-children. Gabrielle is pulled back and forth between the two - the metaphor of the title also plays out almost literally in a slightly surreal final scene - and this goes on for quite a while. It gradually builds up to the inevitable and the film begins to feel more juicy, however by the time this happens there aren't quite enough minutes remaining to fully explore its full potential. Certainly engaging but one of the French auteurs lesser works.
Every now and then I'll come across a movie made by a director who has since vanished into cinema obscurity; a one-off of such outright lunacy that it may have just been pretty good had more money been in the pot, they employed actors who could act, or the screenplay was written by someone with the ability to string a few half-convincing scenes together. George Barry's Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977) comes immediately to mind. The experience is confusing and often laughable, but somewhere beyond the ropey special effects and wobbly sets, there's something interesting going on. Christopher Speeth's Malatesta's Carnival of Blood is one such movie, having recently emerged from decades in the basement.
The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around a run-down carnival operated by the creepy Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey). A young lady called Vena (Janine Carazo) and her family move into a trailer in town to run a shooting gallery at the carnival, and Vena quickly becomes close friends with the hunky guy who runs the tunnel of love. However, lurking beneath the fairground is the owner, another creepy guy called Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich), who looms over a family of weird zombie-cannibal types who stalk the grounds at night. As she awaits the arrival of her boyfriend, Vena and her family quickly discover that they are in danger, but will they escape Malatesta's grasp before they are devoured?
If you're a fan of acid-trip cinema, you just may enjoy Malatesta. There is a moment in the film when Vena, trying to escape the clutches of a hungry hoard, seems to experience a series of dream-like moments, caught up in weird devices and running down an abandoned road. It's a visually striking, mind-bending moment, but sadly the only aspect of the movie to be savoured. Along with the confusing plot (the father keeps talking about getting revenge for something that isn't made clear), the film also suffers from terrible dialogue, wooden acting, headache-inducing editing, shoddy make-up, and a distinct lack of action. I find carnivals a fascinating setting, especially for horror, but the park here is constantly empty and in darkness. See only for an early appearances by a near-inaudible Herve Villechaize.
Shot back-to-back with Critters 4, this third instalment of the relatively successful comedy-horror series featuring the oddly cute but deadly crites was the first to skip theatres and arrive straight to video. The movie starts as widowed father Clifford (John Calvin), his daughter Annie (Aimee Brooks) and son Johnny (Christian and Joseph Cousins) drive home from their family vacation. When they are forced to pull over due to a flat tire, Annie and Johnny head to a rest stop to play a bit of Frisbee, where they encounter Josh (Leonardo DiCaprio), a floppy-haired cool-kid with an arsehole of a stepfather (William Dennis Hunter), who just so happens to be the landlord of the family. While stationed there, they encounter alien bounty hunter Charlie (Don Keith Opper) who warns the children of another crite invasion.
After a summary of the previous two movies by the former Grover's Bend sheriff-turned-intergalactic alien killer, the family arrive at their apartment building where a collection of comedy archetypes reside. Some eggs hatch and the usual havoc ensues as the new collection of furry killers travel from floor to floor munching anything they can get their teeth into. The action stops at the apartment building once we arrive there and this is where the budget constraints become obvious. Not that the Critters franchise was ever blessed with innovative special effects or puppet-work, but things seem especially lazy and poorly done here.
With everything taking place in one location, we are forced to sit through set-piece after set-piece, as the crites do little but bounce or roll to the next attack and use their poisoned darts to varying degrees of success, usually depending on who they're shooting at. The attempts are humour are childish, with one of the few interesting characters - no-nonsense maintenance lady Marcia (Katherine Cortez) - left literally swinging from a wire for an extended amount of time in a running joke that quickly wears thin. Similar to Gremlins (1984), there is an attempt to give the critters some kind of personality, but they prove as indistinguishable from one another as they have previously. Worth watching only for the curiosity of seeing future A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his earliest appearances.
Although it took home the Best Picture gong last year and I personally found it an immersing and wonderfully bizarre experience, Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was far from the year's most satisfying movie. Still, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu demonstrated enough desire to take the movie-going experience to the next level (with unfathomably long takes masterminded by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) to have me excited about his next project, and the revelation that it was to be set in 1820's America around the legendary story of Hugh Glass had me foaming at the gills. While The Revenant is not the masterpiece I was hoping for, it is a gruelling, brutal and frequently breathtaking tale of survival.
Glass's story has been altered to fit a more conventional narrative, and the opening scenes introduce us, Terrence Malick-style, to his Pawnee wife (Grace Dove) and son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), in flashback. These floaty, dream-like moments quickly give way to the harshness of the Louisiana wilderness where Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his son are working as part of a fur-trapper party under the command of Captain Henry (Domhnall Glesson). While Glass hunts for pelts, the rest of the party are set upon by hostile Arikara Indians, who slaughter a third of the men before the ragged group, with Glass, escape down river. This opening scene, as teased in the trailer, is the film's Omaha Beach, and is captured by Lubezki's never-still camera, constantly swirling from one act of brutality to the next.
We jump on the back of the horse and off again, follow men as they kill and then be killed, under water and onto a boat, and then we are left to catch our breath. Combined with the eerie score, it makes for a delirious and awe-aspiring set-piece. As the group decide just how to get back to camp with their lives, they touch land again where Glass is set upon by a grizzly bear, in what is surely cinema's most convincing moment of man vs. nature. The attack has been compared to a rape, and as Glass screams for his life while being brutally and helplessly torn apart by the giant beast, it's hard to avoid the comparison. Found by his group, he is left in the care of the unhinged John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and youngster Jim Bridger (Will Pouler). Betrayed and left for dead, Glass must drag his broken body across 200 miles of wilderness for revenge.
The famously difficult shoot, in which the crew were given the task of shooting chronologically on location using natural lighting, all in the harshest of environments, certainly benefits the film. The exhaustion is etched on the character's faces, with DiCaprio in particular carrying the film on his shredded back as he sucks marrow from a long-dead animal carcass and snuggles up inside the body of a horse for warmth. The film doesn't so much celebrate the strength of human will when faced with impossible odds, but marvel at how much the human body can withstand in the most unwelcome of locations. Through Lubezki's lens, the wilderness has never been a more fearsome foe, but also rarely quite as beautiful. Both DiCaprio and Lubezki are surely odds on favourites come Oscar time - the former a talent deserving of Academy recognition and the latter looking for his third triumph in as many years.
However, the film is not without its flaws. The tweeks to Glass's real-life story (or what is known of it) mean that Inarritu has opted for a more conventional revenge flick that side-steps any deeper questions that may arise about America's dark history, and fails to add any real dimension to the other races caught up in the action. The Arikara's certainly have a reason for their relentless pursuit, but no explanation is given to why this group is so hostile. The same can be said for the team of French trappers, who appear briefly and serve as little more than a plot device. Near the end of its 150 minute running time, it ponders the purpose of revenge like a thousand movies before it but fails to say anything new. Yet, while it arguably fails thematically, The Revenant is at its best when its showing off, delivering a couple of key set-pieces that throw you head-first into the mayhem like nothing else I've seen, backed by impressive performances by DiCaprio and a mumbling Hardy.
For his eighth feature (as the film's introduction reminds us), film-maker and cinephile Quentin Tarantino capitalises on the critical and commercial success of Django Unchained (2012) and delivers another western set in the South, where racial tensions are high. Set post-Civil War, as opposed to in Django where the slave trade was very much in full swing, The Hateful Eight lumps eight characters of dubious moral fibre in the same shack while a raging blizzard whistles outside. Evoking memories of his breakthrough feature Reservoir Dogs (1992), Tarantino's latest ultimately suffers from stretching a wafer-thin plot over a three hour plus running-time.
Peppering the movie with chapter titles a la Inglorious Basterds (2009), the film begins with a magnificent long take as the credits flicker on screen to the sound of Italian legend Ennio Morrecone's beautiful score. Grizzled bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is transporting notorious criminal Daisy Domegue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the town of Red Rock to collect his reward and see her hang. Fellow bounty hunter and war veteran Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) hitches a ride, and they also pick up former Lost-Causer Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who is on his way to Red Rock to be sworn in as sheriff. The three men discuss their past and future, but find each other hard to trust.
As a wailing blizzard approaches, Ruth's stagecoach pulls up at Minnie's Haberdashery, a cosy rest-stop which has been apparently left in the temporary care of Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir). This instantly arouses Warren's suspicions, who has frequented the place before and knows the owners well. Also resting at the haberdashery is eccentric British hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the shady loner Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and former Confederate general Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern). Locked up together with no hope of moving on until the storm passes, the eight naturally talk and size each other up, with the events of the Civil War still firmly in everyone's mind. This being a Tarantino movie, it isn't long until guns are fired and blood is shed.
The dialogue crackles in the way that only Tarantino can deliver during the opening half, but an absence of humour and some twists and revelations that hardly come as a surprise throughout the second act tests the patience. Similar to Django, conversations go on longer than required, and unnecessary narrative devices - such as the sudden introductions of a narrator that comes and goes without reason - distract from a central story that needs to be more complex and unpredictable to justify the lengthy running time. Still, there's much to savour. Tarantino has always made inspired casting choices, and the ensemble - Russell, Leigh and Goggins in particular - are sublime. Filmed in 70mm Panavision to Morrecone's score, the filmcaptures the glorious wide-wide screen beauty of the great westerns of the 50's and 60's. Sporadically thrilling but ultimately frustrating, The Hateful Eight ultimately fails to reward the audience for their time.
Denis Villeneuve's previous films, 2010's Incendies and 2013's double-whammy of Prisoners and Enemy, delved into the darkness of the human psyche at its most primal level. Sicario, penned by actor-turned-writer Andrew Sheridan, continues the trend. While its setting demands something all the more high-octane to what we are used to from the Canadian director, Villeneuve makes sure to keep his primary focus on his lead trio, all who are suffering psychologically in some way from the extreme violence they witness on a regular basis. But Sicario delivers on the set-pieces too, sculpting a steady stream of intense set-pieces handled delicately and with a refreshing coherence.
During a SWAT raid of a house believed to be hiding wanted kidnappers, strong-willed agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) and her idealistic partner Reggie (Black Mirror's Daniel Kaluuya) make a gruesome discovery. Although the raid is a success, it doesn't come without casualties, and soon enough Kate and Reggie find themselves sitting outside an office where high-ranking officers from a variety of agencies are in deep discussion. Flip-flop wearing CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) wants Kate along with him as he and his team head out to Juarez, Mexico, to find the men truly responsible for the carnage and bring down cartel boss Manuel Diaz (Bernardo P. Saracino), with the hope that it will lead to an illusive drug lord.
Just why Kate has been asked to tag along for the ride isn't made clear until near the very end, but Kate's stubbornness and natural curiosity means that she is determined to see it out, regardless of the questionable methods employed by Matt and another mysterious figure, the shadowy Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). Sicario asks questions of whether bending the rules or using brutality can be justified when faced with an enemy willing to do anything to live another day. When the team first roll into the war-zone of Suarez, mutilated corpses dangle from a bridge to serve as a warning to anyone entering. How can you truly stay within the law when faced with an opponent so devoid of humanity? The psychological weight of these questions press down on Kate as the film progresses.
The film often paces briskly from one set-piece to another, without forgetting to amp up the tension beforehand. A stand-out scene takes place on the Bridge of the Americas as the team are transporting one of Diaz's top men back to the United States. Caught in a traffic jam, they immediately sense danger as vehicles stocked with tattooed men slowly pull up nearby. It's a nerve-jangling moment, one of many in the film, and the action is dealt with clinically, not allowing any of the characters to be forgotten or blurred within the frenzy. Towering above everybody else is Del Toro as the mysterious Alejandro, a man Kate cannot truly unravel. His background and ultimate purpose is left in the dark for the most part of the film, but it soon becomes clear that this is in fact his story. This is dark, visceral stuff, bolstered by an outstanding cast and an intriguing tale to tell.
Working with frequent collaborator Janusz Kaminski, Bridge of Spies is about a good-looking as a film gets. Infused with the same eye for detail and greyed-down solemnity of Lincoln (2012), the backdrops on show provide the perfect location for serious men talking serious business. The main crux of the film rests in the blossoming friendship between Donovan and Abel, who are captured on an equal par in a bleak interrogation room as the sun blazes through the blinds. These are two men from opposing sides, but share the share the same determination, stubbornness, and loyalty to the ideals of their country. Abel accepts his increasingly-likely execution as one of the requirements of his job, but Donovan wants to exercise his rights as a PoW, making himself public enemy number one in the process as his face splashes across the newspapers.
