Review #1,354: 'The Neon Demon' (2016)

The arrival of a new movie by Danish director and enfant terrible Nicolas Winding Refn is always a cause for excitement. Not because the filmmaker's name is any kind of guaranteed stamp of quality, but because of our natural curiosity to see just how far he is willing to push his audience. His 2011 smash and Hollywood breakthrough Drive was a surprise treat: a neon-lit journey into the underbelly of L.A. that featured a career-defining performance by Ryan Gosling. His follow-up Only God Forgives was a massive disappointment and received a near-universal panning, but there was enough style there to maintain the belief that Refn was still capable of delivering something special. Sadly his next film, The Neon Demon, is similarly hollow, kicking up such a stink at Cannes that it inspired mass booing, although just as many were cheering it.

Where the L.A. of Drive was dangerous and seductive, the City of Angels depicted in The Neon Demon is one cut straight from a glossy fashion magazine. Models are dolled up to look like corpses, staring dead-eyed into the lens as the shady photographer watches ominously. The city's latest arrival is porcelain-skinned beauty Jesse (Elle Fanning), who natural golden curls and cute nose draw jealousy from her cosmetically-enhanced rivals. She has just celebrated her 16th birthday, but a modelling agency talent spotter (played by Christina Hendricks) advises her to claim she's 19, should anybody ask. She soon catches the eye of some of the best photographers in the business, all of whom seems instantly enchanted by her looks and youth. As make-up artist Ruby (Jena Malone) puts it, Jesse just has that 'thing'. That thing is innocence, but such a quality cannot last in a cut-throat industry where models eat each other alive.

There's always been a grimy quality to Refn's movies, even in his most polished output. The Neon Demon is his closest brush with horror, and the director initially seems like the perfect fit for the genre. Yet this button-pushing slog will likely inspired yawns and frustration rather than gasps and shudders. It seems like Refn has a list of taboos he's eager to tick off his body of work, and The Neon Demon is happy to indulge in everything from necrophilia to cannibalism. It's a premise built on the flimsiest of metaphors, and the resulting message ultimately seems to be that some men are sleazy, women can be bitches, and the fashion world is vacuous and materialistic. Sub-plots are introduced, such as an incredibly dull love interest (Karl Glusman) and an unscrupulous motel owner (Keanu Reeves), but they lead nowhere and serve no real purpose to the story. It's provocative for the sake of being provocative, which wouldn't be a huge problem if the film wasn't so utterly ponderous. Like his fellow countryman Lars von Trier, Refn is eager to shock, but there can be little to no impact when there is a complete lack of substance.


Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Elle Fanning, Karl Glusman, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Keanu Reeves, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks
Country: Denmark/France/USA/UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,174: 'Live by Night' (2016)

I highly doubt that many people believed that Ben Affleck would ever recover from the plethora of awful decisions he made between 2000 and 2004, when he starred in such duds as Bounce, Pearl Harbor, Daredevil and, of course, Gigli. But recover he did, and he did so from behind the camera, delivering a stream of solid thrillers such as Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and the Best Picture winner of 2012, Argo (the first film to win the prize without the director receiving a nomination). For a star on a roll, 2016 wasn't particularly pleasant for Affleck, with his superhero movies Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad, along with his action movie The Accountant, all receiving a critical hammering (although I rather enjoyed the latter). His awaited return to directorial duties is also a bust; an underwhelming, cliched gangster picture with a half-arsed performance by its lead, pulling in only $21 million from a $65 million budget.

Joe Coughlin (Affleck) returns from fighting in World War I vowing never to kill another man. A petty bank robber and the son of an Irish police chief (Brendan Gleeson), Joe finds himself pulled into the gangster lifestyle when he falls in love with Emma Gould (Sienna Miller), the girlfriend of Irish mob boss Albert White (Robert Glenister). When their affair is uncovered, she wounds up dead and Joe is thrown into prison, serving only a few years thanks to the influence of his father. He comes out a changed man; one that is eager to take revenge and ready to embrace the lifestyle he always shunned in order to get it. Joe persuades White's rival, Italian boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), to let him take over business in Tampa, where the rum business is booming thanks to Prohibition, and where White is trying to carve out a piece of the action for himself.

Live by Night basically follows Joe throughout his criminal career, as he partners up with his comedy relief best friend Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) and sets about putting his rivals out of business. Yet the biggest challenge to his reign is not the White gang, but the Ku Klux Klan, who disapprove of his doing business with black folks, and dating Cuban beauty Graciela (Zoe Saldana). The most engaging sub-plot involves Joe's relationship with the local police Chief Figgis (Chris Cooper), a man who claims to be un-corruptible, yet turns a blind eye to Joe's dirty dealings. His beautiful daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning) goes off to Hollywood to become a star, only to come back a broken woman with a heroin addiction. She finds God, and draws a huge crowd as she preaches against the sin engulfing their city, placing Joe's grand casino development under threat in the process.

Whenever Cooper and Fanning are on screen, the movie hints at the far more interesting experience it could have been. The rest is a by-the-numbers gangster flick with the familiar good man corrupted by a thirst for success and power at its centre. There is some sumptuous cinematography and some colourful costume design to distract from the mediocrity of the story and performances, and an exciting shoot-out finale, but this is nowhere near enough to make up for how utterly bland Affleck's picture is. The talents of Gleeson and Saldana are wasted in underdeveloped roles, with only Messina's affable sidekick Bartolo identifiable as a fully realised character. Affleck plays the lead as stoic and damaged, but he fails to convince of the emotional turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. While it's hardly as outright embarrassing as Warner Bros.' other crime saga flop Gangster Squad (2013), the studio obviously knew they had a stinker when Live by Night was rushed onto Blu Ray a measly two months after hitting theatres.


Directed by: Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Chris Messina, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper, Elle Fanning, Sienna Miller, Brendan Gleeson
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,022: 'Trumbo' (2015)

Jay Roach's Trumbo, like many recent biopics so accurately lampooned in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), plays like a film version of a Wikipedia page, covering all the necessary key events from the topic's life without so much as attempting to dig beneath the surface of the man at the centre of it all, ushering in actors to do their best impressions of famous people, a device that seems to serve as a 'spot the movie star' game for the audience as opposed to having much of an immediate effect on the story. You may leave the film a bit more educated on the subject of the infamous 'Hollywood Blacklist', but you'll learn little about Dalton Trumbo himself.

The film is far too polished to truly transport you back in time to the 1940's and 50's, failing to achieve a 'lived-in' sense of time and place. Beginning with Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston) on the set of Our Vines Have Tender Grapes and on the verge of signing a contract that will make him the highest-paid writer in Hollywood, his affiliation with the Communist Party of the USA comes under scrutiny by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and actor John Wayne (David James Elliott), with the latter seen delivering a speech on the threat of communism. Trumbo, along with other screenwriters, are called to testify by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and find themselves blacklisted from Hollywood when they refuse to answer questions.

What follows is little more than the key points in the history of this frightening abuse of free speech by a country that prides itself upon its democracy. It's a topic that will anger, confuse and frustrate you, but the film fails at doing the story any kind of justice by demonstrating a startling lack of emotion. Cranston, who somehow received an Oscar nomination for his efforts, seems to sleep-walk through the proceedings. Every line he is forced to deliver seems to be plucked right out of a Hollywood movie, almost as if it is destined to be someday carved into stone. Having loved Cranston since Malcolm in the Middle, I don't blame him for the limp performance. Director Jay Roach has made a career out of mediocre comedies, and he doesn't seem to possess the skill to convincingly juggle the facts with any resemblance to character development.

The people surrounding Trumbo are a collection of biopic archetypes and Hollywood celebrities. Trumbo's relationship with his wife Cleo (Diane Lane) predictably goes from solid to strained, as the lengths he must go to in order to find work begins to take its toll. On paper, Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper seems like an Oscar in the bag, but her antagonist is painted in such broad strokes that she may as well have been called Rita Skeeter, On a positive note, the only character acting like a believable human being is Frank King, a larger-than-life B-movie producer played by John Goodman, who employs Trumbo, working under a pseudonym, to doctor his scripts. He arrives like a force of nature, breathing fresh air into a film so utterly devoid of life. For a more informative and intimate film on the subject of the genius Dalton Trumbo, check out the 2007 documentary, also called Trumbo, instead.


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alan Tudyk
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #788: 'Maleficent' (2014)

Anyone who has seen Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959) will no doubt remember the horned wicked sorceress that is Maleficent. She appears only briefly, but her extremely dark persona and complete lack of empathy make her a memorable and intriguing Disney villain. Maleficent the film continues the trend of allowing female fairytale antagonists to tell their side of the story, as well as Hollywood's desire to re-make every film ever made that was ever a success. Disney is sitting on a treasure-trove of beloved stories, all ripe for 're-imagination' and money-making. But, cynicism aside, Maleficent is actually not that bad, thanks mainly to a purring performance by Angelina Jolie as the titular witch.

Opening in the CGI-heavy world of the Moors, we meet a young girl with mighty wings. She is Maleficent, the fairy-queen who is one with the strange-but-loveable beasties and natural kingdom all around her, which borders the land of men. She meets a young man named Stefan, and the two becomes friends and eventually fall in love. As they grow older, Stefan stops visiting the Moors, and when he becomes an adult (Sharlto Copley), begins to work for the greedy King Henry (Kenneth Cranham). Henry, terrified of Maleficent's magical power, declares war, only to be beaten back by Maleficent and her army of tree creatures.

On his death-bed, the King announces that whoever kills her will become his heir. Stefan, befriending Maleficent, tricks her into drinking a sleeping potion and, unable to kill her, cuts off her wings and brings them to his king. Years later, with Stefan now king and announcing the birth of his daughter, Aurora, Maleficent gets her vengeance by gate-crashing the party and cursing the child with the dreaded spinning wheel spell, promising release only by true love's kiss, something she knows not to exist. As Aurora is cared for in the woods, Maleficent watches closely, and sees Aurora (Elle Fanning) grow into a person capable of uniting the two lands.

Directed by visual effects artist Robert Stromberg (who won Oscars for his Art Design on Avatar (2009) and Alice in Wonderland (2010)), Maleficent has spectacular special effects, but the world it takes place in feels almost entirely soulless and fails to capture the magic created by those using a pencil 55 years ago. The story often goes to dark places, but it's difficult to care about the characters that inhabit the film, who aren't allowed to develop any extra dimensions other than the ones they were given in Disney's original vision. However, Maleficent, in the hands of Jolie, dominates the film as expected. She manages to juggle the understandable darkness brewing inside of her character as well as the humane, caring side. The film may be good-looking nonsense, but it's nice to have an interesting, morally grey female lead in a mainstream film for once.


Directed by: Robert Stromberg
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Sam Riley, Kenneth Cranham
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #371: 'Somewhere' (2010)

Perhaps a comment on celebrity culture, and particularly the intangible gloss as presented by celebrity gossip magazines and television shows, Sofia Coppola has produced a sombre, sparse and vapid portrait of a movie star, Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), focusing initially on his vacuous life of parties, women and strange and sycophantic encounters with the media and empty women who probably make a career out of shagging celebrities. The only problem with the character initially is that he is blissfully unaware at how empty his life truly is. That is until his ex-wife informs him that she has to go away, and has to leave their daughter, Clio (Elle Fanning), in the responsibility of him.

The films early scenes function is to present Marco in almost exclusive isolation. He is visited by women, including twins who seem to visit him for a pole-dancing act. He is constantly framed alone, in regular protracted shots: in one he is left seated upright with Plaster-of-Paris covering his head (he is having a cast made for a movie role), the camera slowly pans in, his breathing (through nose only) becoming the only audio, as it increases in intensity.

The time spent with his daughter becomes a clearly revolutionary event in the mans life, and he becomes increasingly dependant on the company. This is not in any way the best that Coppola has produced in her (so far) good directing career. The fact that she grew up with a famous father more than likely gives this film some realism. However, it seems to me to be a bit pretentious. Are we really supposed to care about this guy? Perhaps the Coppola woman should try living a regular life, and perhaps produce a film that doesn't centre on privilege.


Directed by: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Michelle Monaghan, Chris Pontius
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy

Review #186: 'Super 8' (2011)

Cor blimey! Spielberg's in box must be filling up incredibly with spunk stained love letters of late. This offering from J. J. Abrams (also produced by the bearded Jew of populist cinema), is a homage to the early, great movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Jaws (1975), and particularly E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Whilst I would usually go into a tirade about the references to Spielberg, I just am unable to do it with this often charming film. It displays the best elements of these earlier, very iconic offerings.

Super 8 focuses on a bunch of kids who are making their very own zombie film. The film is set in 1979 (proper Spielbergian suburban environment), hence the use of super 8 film instead of the later video. One late night the gang go out at midnight to film a scene. On this night a train is hit by a car and they capture this on film after the camera is knocked down in the action of fleeing. What they later discover, is that the film captured something non-human climbing from the wreckage. The Air Force come into town after this occurrence, and so begins a series of strange events: People and dogs disappearing; electrical and motorised goods also disappearing. I am going to point out one thing that bugged me (and it happened at the start it kinda stayed with me). At the crash site, one of the kids, Joe (Joel Courtney), picks up an unidentified object, that Charles (Riley Griffiths) comments on as resembling a Rubik's cube. Pedantic alert!!! Whilst the Rubik's cube was invented in 1974, it was not patented in the US of A until 1980!

The child performances are actually rather good too. Particularly Elle Fanning, who plays Alice, and brings the film a much needed emotional edge. She is second to Joe, who before the film begins lost his mother in a milling accident. Alice's father is the local drunk and trouble maker.

I was expecting not to like this film so much, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has all of it's military and authoritative nuances that are lifted directly from the 1970's aesthetic of Spielberg, it also has his knack for basic, yet interesting familial surroundings. I was thinking that it was a stylistic decision to not show the alien/monster so much, but on seeing it, I think it was a case of, like the monster in Cloverfield (2008), it's just a bit shit.


Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy