London Film Festival review - Janis: Little Girl Blue

Janis doing what she did best. 

Amy Berg directed one of my favourite documentaries of all time, West of Memphis, which I had the pleasure to see at the LFF a few years ago. So I was very excited to see her new film, a biography of Janis Joplin. 

Unfortunately this is a pretty standard rock documentary, lifted only by the inclusion of Janis’s letters home to her family. This allows Janis to be the narrator, really bringing her alive and showing a side of her that perhaps people would not have seen before. Somehow it is quite strange that this wild child wrote to her square parents in Texas to update them on what she was doing. But I suppose everyone is normal underneath it all.

For fans, or those interested in the period, it is a chance to wallow in her amazing voice and relive her crazy and sad story. For everyone else, it is nothing to write home about (somewhat ironically).  

London Film Festival review - Talvar (Guilty)

Irrfan Khan investigates.

The 2008 murder of Aarushi Talwar, the 14-year-old daughter of two dentists living near Delhi, transfixed India. After seeing this film, which recreates events and examines the incompetence of the investigation, I can see why. It is an extremely strange case.

In the film Aarushi is renamed Shruti. One morning her parents wake up to find her dead in her bed, her throat slit. Immediately the family and police suspect their servant, who is missing. But things aren’t as simple as that. Inspector Ashwin Kumar (Irrfan Khan, giving a strong performance) from the Central Department of Investigation takes over the case from the local police when it becomes clear that they are not up to handling something so high profile and complex (I loved Gajraj Rao as the amazingly bumbling local inspector). But the politics in Kumar’s own department frustrate his every turn.

Director Meghna Gulzar and writer Vishal Bharadwaj did a lot of research to cover all the details of the crime and the investigation, and they use a gritty style to enhance the realism. They decided not to pick a side, but instead show the night of the murder three times throughout the film, letting the different explanations put forward by the police play out. Some of the scenarios are more believable than others, but none completely explains all the evidence. These scenes are, however, some of the most effective parts of the film, which does unfortunately drag a little towards the end when it focuses on the internal politics of the police.  

For those drawn to real life crime stories, this is a genuine mystery that will grip you but unfortunately (for everyone involved) does not offer a satisfactory conclusion. For those interested in India, Talvar paints a picture of a very under-resourced and overloaded criminal justice system, unable to cope with the modern world.  

London Film Festival review - My Scientology Movie

It all gets a bit meta for Louis in My Scientology Movie

What do you do if you want to make a documentary about people who refuse to speak to you? This was the problem facing Louis Theroux and director John Dower when they started making a film about the Church of Scientology. Their solutions, while creating plenty of interesting moments, unfortunately do not result in a fully satisfying look at the organisation, or the motivations of the people drawn to it.

The first solution was to talk to ex-Scientologists, since practicing ones wouldn't be involved. Most of these now campaign against the Church and its controversial leader David Miscavige. The majority of the film shows Louis getting to know Mark Rathbun, who was Miscavige’s right hand man until 2004.

The second solution is a bit weirder. Louis decides to recreate scenes from the history of Scientology using actors, with Mark directing proceedings based on his recollections. The process of casting the parts is hilarious, and the actor they find to play Miscavige is amazing (he deserves a successful film career, but could have ruined his chances if Scientology still holds any sway in Hollywood). However, I am not convinced that this conceit makes any sense - they aren't really trying to make a film about Scientology, so it's just an excuse to get Mark to talk about his experiences, like some sort of drama therapy.

The filming sessions do get the attention of the Church, though, and unsurprisingly they aren't happy about it. Pretty soon Louis is being followed and filmed himself (a common tactic of Scientology), and this leads to some very bizarre - and of course funny - situations.

Other film makers have successfully made films without access to their subjects, most notably Michael Moore in Roger & Me (where he went on a mission to talk to the head of General Motors, meeting people affected by factory closures along the way). But Michael and Louis have very different styles. Michael always has a message to push through. Louis's documentaries - and I've been a fan of them since Weird Weekends back in the day - are more experiential. He disarms his subjects through his interviews, getting to know them, slowly revealing their inner workings, and never really taking a side. The interviews are everything.  

Unfortunately for My Scientology Movie, Mark Rathbun is not a particularly fascinating interviewee, remaining prickly throughout. Louis never really gets a chance to properly press him on his involvement in the alleged abusive practices at Sea Org, Scientology's elite base. We never even find out when he joined the Church, or how he managed to climb so high in the hierarchy, only that he feels persecuted since leaving.

My Scientology Movie is Louis's first feature-length film, but just isn't his best work. It doesn't get deep enough into the psyche of the interviewees, or tell you enough about Scientology, for my liking. However, that doesn't mean it's bad and it is still definitely worth seeing. Spending a few hours with Louis is always lovely. And Scientology is always good value because of its intense strangeness. 

London Film Festival review - The Fear of 13

After two decades on death row, Nick Yarris wrote to the judge dealing with his case and asked to be executed. What makes a man do that? In this mesmerising documentary, Yarris tells his story straight to camera.

His tale is heartbreaking, gripping and inspiring by turns. British director David Sington carefully reveals the details, keeping the audience hooked. The use of subtle and haunting reconstructions adds to the experience, but you can’t help feeling that the bulk of the credit should go to Nick himself. He is an excellent storyteller. His use of language is quite literary and almost floral in places, a side effect of educating himself through books in his cell.  Watching quite a few documentaries about the American justice system in the last few years. I have learnt two things. One, when being interrogated by the cops, don’t say anything except “I want a lawyer”. And two, being on death row is an excellent way to become incredibly eloquent and poetic.

Nick is a deep thinker with a soul open to emotions and experience. Listening to him describing the wonder he felt in the tiniest sounds and scents (which are all he was afforded in solitary confinement) really makes you see the world around you in a new way. He really plays your heartstrings like a harp, telling tales that seem straight out of The Shawshank Redemption but are true. Can you imagine anything better than that?

The Fear of 13 will get a limited UK release on the 10^th November, and has been part funded by BBC Storyville so will probably be on TV sometime soon. I really can’t recommend seeing it enough. I’d particularly suggest going to see it at select Vue cinemas on the 11^th, to see an exclusive Q&A afterwards. If it’s anything like the Q&A at the showing I went to, it will be worth it.

London Film Festival review - Chronic

Michael Cristofer and Tim Roth share a rare laugh

Oh I do love Tim Roth. And not just because he is Mr Orange (though I went through a rather obsessive Tarantino phase as a teenager, so that is a significant achievement in my eyes). It’s always worth seeing his films because he chooses such interesting projects, and usually gives pretty interesting performances. And Chronic is no exception.

Roth plays David, a nurse caring for the terminally ill in their homes, who seems to be getting a little too involved with his patients. Now, palliative care is not a subject often depicted in film, what with how uncomfortable it makes the viewer feel. Writer/director Michel Franco has really made up for this historic shortage with Chronic. The film is mostly made up of a series of long, static shots of David washing, moving and feeding patients. The voyeuristic feeling is a little disconcerting, but the film really shows how gentle, slow, boring and beautiful caring can be.  

Unlike, say, the recent film Nightcrawler, this is not the study of a creepy loner that perhaps it seems to be at the start. I think the more you find out about David, the less creepy he is. Roth’s understated performance is of course excellent, managing to build a picture of a troubled soul with very little dialogue, and instead mostly through quiet and calm movements. 

One interesting aspect of the film is its setting, or perhaps its lack thereof. While obviously set in Southern California, this very familiar place is made to feel very anonymous. Franco is Mexican, and this could just as easily have been set in Mexico, Britain (Roth keeps his English accent, which oddly no characters comment on) or anywhere else in the world. This film definitely has a very international feel.

Although very slow, Chronic is a mood piece that is, perhaps surprisingly, never boring. The ending did annoy me, though, and just seems so unnecessary. A less eventful ending would have been much more effective than the one we are given, and would have suited the loose, ambiguous nature of the film. This is a pity, as it almost spoils a quietly moving character piece about a topic that is often overlooked. 

London Film Festival review - Nasty Baby

Silva and Wiig contemplate parenthood in Nasty Baby.

Set in the same hipster-ful Brooklyn seen in Girls and the films of Noah Baumbach, Nasty Baby follows artist Freddy (played by writer/director Sebastián Silva) and his boyfriend Mo (Tunde Adebimpe) as they attempt to have a baby with Freddy’s best friend Polly (the wonderful Kristen Wiig in a refreshingly low-key role).

What starts off as a genuinely funny and touching look at characters dealing with life’s disappointments becomes something quite different, as sinister undertones begin to creep in. Although it purports to be a true story, luckily it was just inspired by a few different experiences and thoughts Silva has had. 

The film was part of the “Debate” strand at the festival. I think many people would struggle to find any messages behind Nasty Baby and just write it off as self-consciously weird and clumsy. The Toronto Film Festival apparently refused to show the film unless the ending was changed. I wouldn’t go that far, as though I agree that it was a bit clumsy, I did get something out of the latter part of the film, even though it is so different from the more enjoyable and safer beginning.  I liked the examination here of the darkness that lies within people, and the fragile façade of order that we have in society. 

But when it comes down to it, I’m not clear whether the overall message is that “Some people deserve to live more than others”, or “Some people think they deserve to live more than others”, which are really quite different lines for a film to take. Perhaps Silva is leaving that up to the audience to decide, just to add to our general discomfort. 

London Film Festival review - The Falling

Florence Pugh and Maisie Williams while away the hours

Out of the hundreds of films in the distressingly massive London Film Festival programme, I chose to see The Falling for four reasons:

1. It is directed by Carol Morley, who also made the documentary Dreams of a Life, which is so beautiful and poignant and sad that it will haunt you forever and you must see NOW if you haven't already.
2. It is set at an English girls' school (as was my teenagerhood).
3. It is set in the 60s (as I wish my teenagerhood had been).
4. It has Arya Stark in it.

Arya (otherwise known as Maisie Williams) plays Lydia, a slightly moody teenager who has reasons to be moody. Her mother (Maxine Peake) is agoraphobic and hasn't left the house in years. And her older brother has started seeing her best friend, the luminous Abbie (Florence Pugh). The intensity of this friendship has profound consequences for Lydia.

I don't want to say too much about the plot as Morley specifically asked the audience not to after the screening, but this is certainly a very interesting exploration of female friendship at that age, with all of its competing love and jealousy, and of school life. I went to see it with one of my school friends and we agreed that we had never seen a better recreation of what it is like at a girls' school. We particularly enjoyed the "alternative orchestra" the friends ran, which is just the sort of thing that serious and artistic 15-year-olds would do given half a chance.

Williams gets her teeth into this emotional role, and newcomer Pugh is perfectly cast as the clever and charismatic Abbie. She is definitely one to watch. It was also great to see an almost unrecognisable Greta Scacchi as the headmistress. The scenes between her and the other teachers are delightfully well observed.  

While there are flashes of brilliance, the film's dreamy and impressionistic approach to storytelling left me feeling rather cold. Much is left unclear and unsaid, and quite a lot of screen time is devoted to panning shots across the tops of trees. While stark and beautiful - and possibly very meaningful for someone deeper than me - this did tire after a while. 

This unusual film is worth seeing as it is so evocative of a time and a time of life, but unfortunately it didn't quite add up to more than the sum of its parts. 

Film review - Boyhood

Ellar Coltrane and Ethan Hawke as father and son

Richard Linklater's grand experiment - to spend 12 years filming two children growing up - was always going to produce an unusual and interesting movie. But what could have been gimmicky turned out to be one of the most special, moving and quietly joyous film I have ever seen. This is a film where not very much happens, but everything happens. Life happens.

Boyhood follows a boy called Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from the age of five to 18, showing the ups and downs and milling arounds of his family, made up of older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) and his divorced parents (Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke). The audience is given snatches of their lives, dipping in once a year to see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.

Linklater doesn't signpost the plot or the characters' feelings. Instead the realistic scenes wash over you, and you understand what is going on in a very organic way. This is a long film, and while the three hours don't hurtle by, you are never bored as you are right there in the moment with the characters.

Coltrane gives a soulful and understated performance as a thoughtful little boy. While he is ostensibly the focus, it is Arquette and Hawke that make the biggest impression, as parents who grow up along with the children.

Boyhood is a quiet masterpiece that shows just how amazing everyday life is. This is one experiment that definitely succeeded. 

London Film Festival review - Beti and Amare

An Ethiopian micro-budget fantasy set during the war with Italy in the 1930s? When I saw the description in the LFF guide, I thought I had to go. It's the sort of thing you'll only see at a festival, and the whole thing sounded so intriguing: a young girl called Beti travels to her grandfather's house to flee the fighting. There she happens upon a visitor from another world, who she calls Amare. Together they try to survive alone in a world of dangers.

I mean, who on earth would come up with that idea?

Well, the answer became slightly clearer once the writer/director took to the stage as the credits rolled. Andy Siege is the son of German aid workers and grew up moving around Africa listening to local stories. He wanted to make a film inspired by African legends of shape shifting monsters, but blended with Western sci-fi traditions.

Unfortunately, this genre-bending didn't really work, and if I hadn't stayed for the Q&A afterwards, I would have just been incredibly confused. Not much happens over the course of the film - mostly Beti walks back and forth to a watering hole through the stunning grasslands of Ethiopia. When things do happen, they are very strange, sudden and never explained. Amare's origin and intentions are kept deliberately very mysterious. Is he real or a figment of Beti's imagination?

This is a film where it is best to just relax, take in the general mood of the piece, and then marvel at how it could have been made for €14,000. The landscape is beautiful and well shot. Siege has chosen to mix colour with black-and-white footage, sometimes flitting between the two within a few seconds, and sometimes picking out just one colour in a sea of grey. Although intermittently effective, I personally found this technique distracting and over-used. The special effects were understandably ropey, but to the film's credit there was no attempt to make them seem realistic.

The main positive in the whole film is the central performance from Hiwot Asres. With very little dialogue she manages to convey a lot of different emotions and you do really care about what happens to her.

For the budget, this is a very impressive debut from Siege. But dialogue and plot cost nothing, and I would have preferred a little bit more of that to help keep me engaged rather than a sort of meditative tone poem. When it comes to micro-budget films, I might be more of a Clerks person than a Beti and Amare person.

Still, I can tell people that I've seen an Ethiopian sci-fi film.

London Film Festival review - Citizenfour

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

London Film Festival review - Welp (Cub)

Maurice Luijten as Sam

This nasty but enjoyable Flemish horror film tells the tale of a cub scout camping trip that goes horribly wrong. As the group venture further into the forest, the scout leaders' stories of a young werewolf called Kai grab the attention of Sam (Maurice Luijten), a quiet boy who doesn't quite fit in with the others. Sam discovers that there is indeed something lurking in the woods. Something that likes to kill.

First-time director Jonas Govaerts is not afraid to hurt women, children or animals (cinematically, that is - not in real life I'm sure). So although this isn't the most violent slasher film you will see, it has an unpleasant edge to it. It's also not that out-and-out frightening in what I call a "jumpy" way (I don't do that well with jumpy horrors). But it is definitely creepy.

For its modest budget, the sets and locations are marvellous. Luijten is an excellent child actor (why do all the best ones look exactly like River Phoenix in Stand By Me? See also Mud), and the two scout leaders (Titus De Voogdt and Stef Aerts) are a lot of fun. I would have preferred the story to have been slightly better sign-posted, as sometimes it wasn't wholly clear what was happening or why. But this is a sterling first effort from someone who obviously loves his genre.

London Film Festival review - Une Nouvelle Amie (The New Girlfriend)

Romain Duris as David, avec baby Lucie.

Every year, the thud of the London Film Festival guide landing on my doormat heralds an intense week of study. Which of the hundreds of films should I choose? A few years ago I just decided to go with "all the documentaries about murder", which helpfully narrowed down the selection. This year I had no theme in particular, just films that intrigued me.

I was drawn to French film The New Girlfriend because the guide told me very little of the premise. "We can't tell you what it's about because it would spoil it", it said. My review will be similarly infuriatingly vague about the details so as to keep you spoiler free.  

But I can outline the main set-up. Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) has idolised her luminous best friend Laura (Isild Le Besco) since they were little girls. When Laura dies shortly after having her first child, Claire promises her that she will watch over her husband David (Romain Duris) and her baby daughter. This watching over leads Claire to discover a secret about David, that will ultimately change both their lives. 

Perhaps surprisingly, The New Girlfriend is based on a Ruth Rendell short story. In the hands of director Francois Ozon this has become much more of a human story than a mystery or suspense one. The performances from the two leads are what really recommend the film - Demoustier is absolutely riveting, her wide, expressive eyes telling so much. Duris is by turns hilarious, creepy and absolutely heartbreaking. 

Although slightly melodramatic and silly in places, this is an intriguing tale of tolerance and self-discovery that avoid sensationalising the topic. 

Are Shropshire’s floods caused by climate change?

The very high River Severn at Shrewsbury.

Shropshire has been battered by heavy rain and strong winds over the last week, as two storms passed over the county within a few days of each other. Hundreds of trees fell (Shropshire Star, 2014a), including one in my garden. With the ground already saturated thanks to months of wet weather, the already swollen River Severn burst its banks at Shrewsbury and Ironbridge, damaging houses (Shropshire Star, 2014b).  

A fallen tree on Haughmond Hill.

This has been the wettest January on record for Britain (Carrington, 2014), so the recent weather is out of the ordinary. But is it part of the normal variation from year to year that we would expect, or has it been caused by climate change? And if so, are we likely to experience this kind of wet and windy weather more often in the future?

What is climate change?

The climate change we are experiencing now is caused by an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases absorb heat from the sun, warming up the air, and therefore the land or water below. Burning fossil fuels to heat our homes or generate electricity causes more carbon dioxide – a key greenhouse gas – to be produced, and destroying forests or other vegetation means that less carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. With more carbon dioxide entering the system than is being removed, the concentration has risen from 278 parts per million (ppm) in the pre-industrial period to 400 ppm today. In turn, the global mean temperature has increased around 0.8°C over the same period (World Bank, 2012).

Climate change and rain

Increasing the temperature of the atmosphere affects rainfall patterns across the world, both in the amount and location of rain. This is because the warmer it is, the more water evaporates from the surface of the earth, and also the more water vapour the air can hold – the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by 7% for every 1 °C increase in temperature (Trenberth, 2011).  It is thought that the net effect of this “speeding up” of the water cycle will be that dry areas of the world will get drier, and wet areas of the world will get wetter (World Bank, 2012). With Britain already famous for its drizzly weather, it seems likely that Shropshire will receive more rain rather than less.

Scientists use climate models to simulate the effect of increasing carbon dioxide levels on precipitation. A study by NASA (2013) using 14 models showed that not only will there be more rain in wet areas across the course of a year, the pattern of rainfall will change so that there are more days with heavy rain and fewer with moderate rain. The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) states that by the late 21^st century, it is very likely that heavy precipitation events will occur more often and more strongly in areas of the world like Europe.

So, in the future our wet weather will come in shorter bursts, making it more difficult for natural drainage systems to cope and river flooding more likely. A study by Ciscar et al (2011) showed that if global average temperatures increased by 2.9 °C above industrial levels, 12,000 people would be affected by river flooding in northern Britain. If temperatures rise by 3.9 °C, this figure rises to 48,000.

Were these storms caused by climate change?

Shrewsbury's Theatre Severn's flood defences held out. 

Climate change is a long process that has many different and overlapping effects. It is therefore very difficult to blame any specific weather event on it, and instead scientists talk about particular aspects of weather being more or less likely in a warmer world. However, this has not stopped politicians and some public figures making statements in the last few weeks either attributing this unusual British weather to climate change, or actively denying it (Shuckman, 2014).

Interestingly, while there is evidence that specific instances of very heavy rain in the last few years are due to climate change, evidence surrounding storms specifically is less clear (Coumou and Rahmstorf, 2012).

Conclusion

Scientific evidence suggests that the unusually high rainfall levels we have experienced in the last few months may become less unusual in the future, as increasing global temperatures make Britain an even rainier place. While we cannot lay definitive blame for the storms of the last week on climate change, as we move forward we may see clearer patterns emerging. After all, the climate is really a collection of all our weather, so we must expect the weather to change unless we reduce carbon emissions drastically.

References

Carrington D (2014) ‘January was England’s wettest winter month in almost 250 years’, The Observer, 01/02/14. Available at www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/01/january-uk-wettest-winter-month-250-years

Ciscar J, Iglesias A, Feyen L, Szabó L, Regemorter D V and Amelung B (2011) ‘Physical and economic consequences of climate change in Europe’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Available at: http://www.pnas.org/content/108/7/2678.full

Coumou D and Rahmstorf S (2012) ‘A decade of weather extremes’, Nature Climate Change, 2, 491-496. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n7/full/nclimate1452.html

IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013 – the physical science basis: Summary for policymakers. Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/docs/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf

NASA (2013) NASA study projects warming-driven changes in global rainfall. Available at: www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/may/HQ_13-119_Rainfall_Response.html

Shropshire Star (2014a) ‘Hundreds of trees felled by the storms’, Shropshire Star, 14/02/14. Available at: www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/02/14/hundreds-of-trees-felled-by-shropshire-storm/

Shropshire Star (2014b) ‘Ironbridge residents urged to move out over flooding’, Shropshire Star, 11/02/14. Available at: www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/02/11/waters-rising-as-floods-swamp-shropshire/

Shukman D (2014) Barrage over climage change link to floods. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26242253

Trenberth K (2011) Changes in precipitation with climate change, Climate Research vol 47: 123-138. Available at: www.int-res.com/articles/cr_oa/c047p123.pdf

World Bank (2012) Turn Down the Heat – Why a 4 °C warmer world must be avoided. Available at: www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/11/18/Climate-change-report-warns-dramatically-warmer-world-this-century

Film review - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Walter Mitty – writer James Thurber's dull everyman, who in his fantasies is a hero famed for his derring-do – is one of those rare characters who has had a psychological complex named after him. Ben Stiller's new version takes this basic idea as a starting point, but moves very far away from the original tale. The result is not wholly successful.

Walter (played by Stiller himself) works at Life magazine, locked in the negatives department but dreaming of a more exciting life with one of his co-workers (Kristen Wiig). When the new owners of Time Life decide to close the title, Walter receives a package from a mysterious photojournalist (Sean Penn) supposedly containing the perfect photo for the last issue's cover. Unfortunately, the photo is missing. In an effort to find it, Walter embarks on a journey that will change his life.

This is essentially a very sweet film about finding yourself and those you love, and you can tell that it is a very personal project for Stiller. It is also very beautiful to look at, with gorgeous shots taken in parts of the world that Hollywood very rarely explores. Stiller is in his best straight man mode, Wiig is adorable as always, and all the performances are solid. There are some problems, though.

Firstly, I would question the need for this to be called a Walter Mitty film at all. Mitty's fantasies occur mostly early on, and are not necessary for the plot at all. They are also some of the least enjoyable parts of the film. Since the original story was written, dream sequences have become such a cliché, and I suppose it doesn’t help that I personally had my fill around 2001 when TV was full of them. They ruined the otherwise perfect Sopranos, and I’m sorry, but if Ally McBeal was really seeing a dancing baby, she is suffering from serious psychosis and needs to be hospitalised.  It does not mean that she is "ditzy".

Although I didn’t like the fantasies, if they have to stay you almost need more of them to properly set up Walter’s world. While watching this, I had a feeling that a lot had been cut out to shorten the running time, and perhaps some fantasy bits had to go; more worryingly, there were a few times when characters referred to things that hadn’t happened earlier in the film, or the plot seemed fuzzy.

And what a plot it is! I must say, it is the most specific plot I have seen for a while, with Walter working for a specific magazine (another problem with the film – too much product placement) in a very specific job, looking for a very specific McGuffin in some very specific places. It is also extremely surreal and basically completely ridiculous, requiring a liberal amount of belief suspension from the audience. It must be remembered, though, that while on the surface this is a big studio comedy, it really is an indie at heart, and most reminded me in tone of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

All in all, Stiller's take on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is moving, and it is funny at times. There was just something stopping me completely going along with Walter's journey of discovery. Perhaps I'm just not enough of a dreamer to understand.

London Film Festival review - The Spectacular Now

This indie coming of age tale provides an interesting counterpoint to Superbad. Both films are about a confident, mouthy, academically unremarkable high school senior who concentrates on drinking and partying to avoid contemplating the future. The Spectacular Now takes a much more serious look at this condition, and at times is truly heart breaking.

Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) thought he had it all – a great girlfriend, a job, a car. But when his girlfriend leaves him, his latent alcoholism and lack of direction become harder to hide. He meets Amy (Shailene Woodley), a good girl who really should know better than to go out with him, and love begins to blossom. But will Sutter allow himself to be happy?

Both leads are excellent, and look young and normal enough to make you feel they are real. The script (from the writers of 500 Days of Summer) is a lovely mix of funny and poignant. Amazingly, the film lasts only 95 minutes but feels much longer (in a good way), with ample time to breathe.

A quick look at director James Ponsoldt’s CV shows that all three of his films so far have been about alcoholics. This is obviously a subject close to his heart, and it shows in the sensitivity with which he treats the characters. The Spectacular Now is a sweet film, which while it doesn't particularly break new ground, takes you on an engrossing journey.

London Film Festival review - En Som Deg (Must Have Been Love)

Eirik Svensson's debut feature is a low-key, poetic romance that is more about loneliness than love. The film opens in Istanbul, where Kaisa (a Finnish girl) meets Jakob (a Norwegian guy) on holiday. They have an instant connection, but he leaves before they can swap mobile numbers, or even tell each other their surnames. When she moves to Oslo, she bumps into Andreas, who looks a lot like Jakob, and begins a relationship with him. But he just isn't the same.

What is lovely about this film is how naturalistic the conversations are. Unafraid of using silence, the characters talk to each other in awkward English and much of what is said is through the eyes.

And what eyes. Pamela Tola is luminous as Kaisa. Alone in a new city, we can feel her longing for warmth and familiarity. Espen Klouman-Høiner does an amazing job of playing two characters – I really didn't realise he was both Jakob and Andreas until I saw the credits (though that may have been because Klouman-Høiner looks 10 times more attractive without a moustache than with one).

The cinematography is beautiful – all four featured cities are crisply realised in muted tones. A soundtrack full of acoustic Nordic folk rock matches this perfectly.

This is a film where very little happens, but what does happen means a lot. It explores how people can project their past onto those around them, seeing what they want to see instead of what is there. Ok – so of course I wanted them to just friend each other on Facebook, which would have instantly solved all their problems, but I still enjoyed this quiet and heartfelt journey.

London Film Festival review - All Cheerleaders Die

Sianoa Smit-McPhee and Caitlin Stasey vamping it up.

Do you like zombies? Do you like vampires? Cheerleaders? Lesbian witches? If the answer is yes, then this is the gloriously demented film for you.

Maddy (Caitlin Stasey) is a beautiful outsider in her high school who has vowed to take revenge on the popular kids. When she infiltrates the cheerleader squad, she inadvertently sparks off a series of very unfortunate events that leave her and her teammates undead and thirsty for blood.

This film is a mishmash of tones, genres and stereotypes – and you can definitely see the joins. Frenetically lurching from one set piece to another, with little logic in-between, it is a wild ride for those happy to surrender to its many charms and ignore its many shortcomings.

All the girls in this film are a hoot – gorgeous, but with a lot more character than your usual bland horror beauties (Australian Stasey is certainly pretty and sassy enough to be a star). The script has some hilarious lines, and the soundtrack is as loud and brash as it could possibly be.  

This All Cheerleaders Die is actually a bigger-budget remake of directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson’s first film (though the new budget could only stretch to some very ropey special effects). By all accounts, the pair followed the original with a string of iffy horrors. Second time around, they have still not created a “good” film, but it has a certain kind of brilliance.

Easily the stupidest, weirdest and most fun film I have seen this year, All Cheerleaders Die is a cult classic in the making.

Film review - Django Unchained

After the disappointment of Inglorious Basterds, I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing Tarantino’s latest offering, so I suppose I can no longer call myself The World’s Biggest Tarantino Fan™. I needn’t have worried, though, as Django Unchained avoids (almost) all of the ridiculous, poorly-judged moments of Basterds and is a thoroughly entertaining epic with a poetic script. It also manages to depict slavery in a more interesting and (I can’t quite say accurate, so I’ll say…) appropriate way than one might expect.

The setting is the Deep South in the 1850s. Verbose German bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) buys a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) because he can recognise the faces of three wanted men. Django quickly shows natural flair for the bounty hunting business, so the two partner up to kill the South’s worst offenders and to rescue Django’s beloved wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Quentin’s script is detailed, funny and shows his brilliant use of language. He is most famous for his chats about American popular culture, and in Inglorious Basterds these became chats about German cinema of the 1930s. As this is his first film set before the moving image, he has had to forego all that, making Django Unchained feel a little less referential and arch than his other films.

Instead we have the wonderful Christoph Waltz rat-a-tat-tatting through line after line of flowery prose. His character really is the best thing about this film – a charming, cunning murderer with morals. Why he is nominated again for best supporting actor rather than full actor, I do not know. Foxx’s Django is a tower of quiet strength, and he is impressive in the role, but Waltz is on screen just as much and has a lot more to say.

Perhaps the most surprising performance comes from Samuel L. Jackson, who is almost unrecognisable as an elderly house slave. He’s the one who should have been nominated for best supporting actor. The part is quite small but crucial, and asks uncomfortable questions. And he plays it exquisitely.

Slavery is an issue that is hardly explored in cinema. Apart from a few worthy films that focus on it, it is generally glossed over in tales of the Old South, or just given a gentle nod to make sure we know the filmmakers are aware of it. Here it is integral to the plot, but it isn’t the plot alone. And it is shown to be brutal in the extreme – Tarantino isn’t taking the subject lightly, as Spike Lee presumed without seeing the film. Although he is often accused of making violence seem fun, the violence inflicted on the slaves is that other type of Tarantino violence – shocking, real and deeply unsettling.

Unfortunately, the film does go downhill a bit at the end. After a wonderful build-up of tension we get a lot of silly shootouts. These go on for too long and aren’t as beautiful, or cool as any of the sequences in Kill Bill, and instead are a bit jokey. Of course the redemptive aspect to the violence is nice, but if it was done in a more majestic way, it would have been the ending the film deserved.

Which brings me to the one truly stupid bit of the movie. A scene which took me completely out of the story and made me truly despair of my favourite director. It is the scene close to the end in which he plays an Australian ranch hand.

An Australian.

In 1850s Mississippi.

I’m not going to take cheap shots at Tarantino’s acting ability (I actually like him in From Dusk Till Dawn and Pulp Fiction), but it isn’t even a good Australian accent.

Some switch must have flipped in Quentin’s head in 2008, and he can no longer tell when an idea is good or hideously embarrassing. This is why he is playing an Australian here, and why the whole scene with Mike Myers in Inglorious Basterds exists. If he had been walking this tightrope in 1994, one step to the left and he’d have had Jules and Vincent whacking each other over the head like the Three Stooges before bringing Brett breakfast.

So, if you ignore that bit, Django Unchained is a very enjoyable cinema experience. It does not reach the majestic highs of a few scenes in Inglorious Basterds, but it doesn’t sink to that film’s lows either. There are no truly great Tarantino moments, but this is mature filmmaking with only a smattering of self-indulgent childishness.  

Film review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I am not a Lord of the Rings fan. Kevin Smith got it right when he described them as “three movies about walking to a fucking volcano”. So I was not looking forward to ruining another three Christmases in a row with Peter Jackson’s new endurance tests. Yet somehow I quite enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Maybe it was because Cate Blanchett’s celestial droning was kept to a bare minimum. Maybe it was because Martin Freeman got to use Tim from The Office’s “Really?” face in a scene with Gollum. Maybe it was because I feel more kindly to Peter Jackson after watching West of Memphis. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t bored half to death.

The film tells the first part of Bilbo Baggins’s epic adventure helping the dwarves of Erebor regain their kingdom from the fearsome dragon Smaug. All the great effects, scenery and cinematography from the Lord of the Ring films are here again, and the cast give good performances. I particularly enjoyed the scenes with Sylvester McCoy’s Radagast the Brown (I believe these did not appear in the original book, so I risk the wrath of Tolkien geeks by saying that).

My problem with LOTR was not that they were bad films, just that they went on and on and on. If you are mesmerised by this universe, you want as much detail as possible and every incident from the books to be shown on screen. If you are not, it can be quite punishing. The Hobbit is a lot lighter in tone, reflecting its origin as a children’s book. Here you get the quality from LOTR with added fun.

Yes some scenes could probably have been shortened, and yes I am concerned about how another two films are going to be strung out of this one, reasonably short, book. But I will not roll my eyes when my family suggest seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug next Christmas. I might even be the one to suggest it.

Film review - Pitch Perfect

When I saw the trailer for Pitch Perfect, I got all excited. Though it is transparently a Glee rip off, it looked funny and bitchy and it stars Anna Kendrick (little miss actressy actress who is so amazing in 50/50 and Up In the Air – I love her!), Rebel Wilson (the strangely-Australian one in Bridesmaids – I love her!) and Adam DeVine (writer/creator/star of Workaholics, my new favourite stoner comedy series – I love him!). I even did a happy little dance in my cinema seat when it ended.

I should have quit while I was ahead.

This really is one of those films where the only good bits are in the trailer. The full-length cinema cut of Pitch Perfect contains exactly 27% of the wit of a season one Glee episode (which is equal to 43% of the wit of a season three episode).

The film follows college freshman Beca (Kendrick) as she is forced to join the uptight Barden Bellas a cappella singing group.  Now, Beca takes her music seriously, and doesn’t like the Bellas’ attitude and dreary, out-of-touch song choices. Can the Bellas change their image with the help of Beca and win Nationals? I think they just might.

My problem with Pitch Perfect isn’t that it is predictable, or even that it is silly (though it is both these things). My problems are:

1. Beca is extremely unlikeable, moping around for no reason and being horrible to everyone around her because she is “artistic” and “deep”. She is supposed to be cool and have a serious taste in music, but she seems to like only David Guetta and La Roux, neither of whom are cool. Someone must have explained contemporary music wrongly to the screenwriter.
2. Almost all of the humour fell flat for me because the director just didn’t get me onto his side. Vomit slapstick is not my favourite comedy style, but it seems to really tickle director Jason Moore. And the film also makes fun of Asian people much more than you would expect for a mainstream comedy from whatever-we-decide-to-call-this-decade (the Teens?). Usually I try to give people the benefit of the doubt about things like this, but it seemed mean-spirited and lazy in this case. 
3. A lot of Beca’s romance storyline is predicated on you believing that The Breakfast Club has the best ending in cinema history. And that you could understand why from watching just the ending without seeing the rest of the film. And that characters who were born in approximately 1993 could ever think these things. 

While there are some funny moments and lines (mostly from Rebel Wilson), this is a waste of a lot of talented people’s time.