A blog by Tim George. Follow my other work at http://www.tewahanui.nz/by/tim.george, http://www.denofgeek.com/authors/tim-george, and theatrescenes.co.nz.
Burned-out rock manager Richie Lanz takes his last client on a USO tour to Afghanistan. After she bails and abandons him, Lanz tries to figure a way out of his predicament. Along the way, he runs into a collection of oddball characters: Kate Hudson's saintly call girl; Scott Caan and Danny McBride's gun runners; Bruce Willis's hard-nosed mercenary; and a young Pashtun girl who dreams of becoming a singer (Leem Lubany).
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The same goes for Hollywood dramas with social relevance. Hollywood has a history of taking important political events, figures and issues, and refracting them through a white guy's point of view (Cry Freedom, The Help or this year's Bruce Lee kinda-biopic Birth of the Dragon).
Rock the Kasbah is a particularly obnoxious example of this storyline. Every decision made, at every level of production, reads like checklist of what not to do with a movie based on real events.
To be honest, this movie feels like a dodge. Two studio executives had some money in an offshore account that they wanted to get rid of, and so they took a bunch of drugs and dictated a rambling story about their own lives to some poor schlub and presto!
Throw in a talented director and cast in need of some quick cash... and you got yourself a movie baby!
It is almost unbelievable how strong the cast's collective pedigree is here, and yet everyone is completely off-base. Murray, usually so sure and on-point in his choices, is a cartoon. A portrait of a boorish Ugly American, Murray's self-obsessed scumbag completely overshadows the central figure of the story: Leem Lubany's Salima.
Ultimately this movie never clarifies what its purpose is. While it offers a dedication to the real woman the movie was based on in the closing credits, that story is never foregrounded - it just becomes another kooky subplot, and a catalyst for Murray's redemption.
But even that arc makes no sense. Murray's asshole producer does exactly the same thing he did at the beginning at the end. The only thing that changes is that he gets shot - taken out of the third act entirely. It falls to other characters, offscreen, to get him out of trouble.
There is the kernel of a movie here, but it is buried under a bunch of self-consciously eccentric characters and subplots. For such a simple concept, it feels so top loaded with unnecessary nonsense. It feels like five or six movies mashed together.
It is so frustrating, because the story does not need to be padded out. Murray's character is so unnecessary for the story, yet he is in every single scene. Salima never gets a sequence on her own - her whole story is basically cutaways from whatever BS Murray is doing.
Lubany is good, but is completely stranded in this dreck. Hopefully she finds better roles in the future, and is not just 'exotic' window dressing for Hollywood egos.
After his fiancé is murdered by terrorists, Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) goes on a one-man war against the cell responsible. His activities draw the attention of the CIA, who recruit him to become an assassin for America.
Rapp is soon on a new mission to stop a former agent (Taylor Kitsch) with a nuclear weapon intent on death and mayhem.
Vince Flynn is one of those thriller novelists I've seen on the shelves but I've never bothered to read. Hopefully his books are better than this movie, because it's been less than a day since I've seen it and I can barely remember what happened.
Sometimes you watch a movie and all you can see is the movie it desperately wants to be. American Assassin has all the ingredients of something decent: a great cast, a focus on the protagonist's psychology, as well as the old standbys of fights, explosions and pointless hot chicks. The fact that all these elements are also the building blocks for a hundred Redbox rentals and direct-to-streaming dreck should also be an indicator for how far this movie fails to engage as a theatre experience.
American Assassin is stuck between these two poles, offering early promise that it is more than it's generic title, before completely falling off a cliff into mind-numbing mediocrity.
The cast are mostly solid. O'Brien is strangely believable as a baby-faced killer; Sanaa Lathan and David Suchet add a little class (but not much else); and Taylor Kitsch is completely vanilla as the psycho bad guy. The highlight is Michael Keaton as Rapp's taciturn instructor in the art of American Assassin-ing. He brings his offbeat intensity to what could have been just a gruff cliché, and it adds a little bit of spice to the otherwise bland proceedings. I don't know why they just didn't make him the bad guy.
The movie is at its most interesting in its first act, as the script moves economically through his transformation from traumatised victim to hardened vigilante, coolly tracking down the cell responsible for killing his fiancé. From there the movie turns into a conventional 'loose nuke' story - complete with an obvious double agent and a finale in which our hero has to go rogue to get the job done.
The script wants to be a bit deeper than a simple action movie - it makes reference to the parallels between the villain, a fellow agent who lost his mind, and Rapp's own inability to keep the mission and his own murderous desires separate. This is a solid foundation for a character in an action movie (or any movie, really), but this movie never clarifies exactly what Rapp's flaw is, mostly because his flaw is a need for violent retribution, and that is what his enablers/employers are in the business of doing.
The character arc is clearly meant to be Rapp learning to not let his emotions get in the way of being an assassin for America, but this is just lip service in the movie. There is a creepy implication from the CIA bigwigs that they are eager to use Rapp because of his psychotic drive to kill, something which they have been unable to find in their other American Assassins. This attempt at moral ambiguity is blunted by the movie's celebratory focus on Rapp's inability to follow orders. The movie ends with his bosses unable to track him down. While they bumble about Stateside, the movie ends on Rapp as he is about to assassinate the next president of Iran. The character does not really change that much from the beginning of the movie until the end, apart from the fact that he learns how to properly stab a dude in the neck. He is a stone-cold killer at the beginning, and is a stone-cold killer at the end. So much for character depth.
In the end, the movie feels like a 20 page treatment for a generic spy movie, rather than a fleshed-out story. All the key beats are there, but they have no connective tissue tying them together. The movie just winds up feeling like a bad network TV pilot, hinting at storylines which will be explored across 22 episodes. This is one of those projects that clearly needed a few more minutes in the oven.
Even with a generic script, something entertaining could have been salvaged by the direction, but sadly it is not much more inspired. While he avoids shaky cam, Michael Cuesta does not show a lot of imagination or understanding of dramatic staging, particularly in the fight scenes. The angles and cuts are often confusing and fail to establish a clear sense of geography. There is a sequence in a Turkish bar in which a key piece of plot info is revealed, our hero and villain meet for the first time, and a semi-important character dies. Watching the scene, I could not even describe the room, let alone where characters were within the room. There is an overreliance on coverage, and a disinterest in scene-setting which reinforces why this movie feels like it belongs on the small screen.
The art direction and choice of locations does not help. A large portion of the movie is set in Rome and Istanbul. You would not know because the movie takes place in shadowy rooms, tunnels and back alleys. It just feels banal. In the case of the tunnels, they evoked the similar tunnel used in episodes of Alias back in the day. This lack of care is evident in the one set that does pop - a hotel room with a massive floor-to-ceiling window, against which Rapp battles an arms dealer's bodyguard.
Wow, I am amazed I had that much to say about this movie. American Assassin is not an aggressively bad movie, but it is an exceptionally dull and uninteresting one. Which is even worse.
On this evidence, O'Brien and Keaton deserve another shot at an action franchise, but for Mitch Rapp, the mission is over.
In the small town of Derry, Maine, a group of kids who call themselves the Losers have begun to notice something strange going on. Kids are going missing. And whatever is behind the disappearances is after them too...
I have never read the book this is based on, nor the 1990 miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown. It improves the viewing experience if I don't having anything to compare it to, and allows the movie to stand on its own feet.
The original novel switches between the Losers facing Pennywise as kids, and later as adults. The filmmakers here have made the choice to seperate the two narratives - this movie ends with a tag rebranding itself as It: Chapter 1.
The biggest part of the movie's success is the young cast. They are all terrific - as soon as they are together onscreen, the Losers feel like a group of friends.
The standouts are Finn Wolfhard as the clownish Richie, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben and Sophia Lillis as Bev. Already known for his role in last year's Stranger Things, Wolfhard has a lion's share of the film's comedy. As the one female of the group, Lillis would stand out, but she gives her role such a weight and sense of pain that it almost feels like she is in her own movie. It helps that the script basically makes her a co-lead with the group, as she tries to evade tormentors at school and home. Honestly, Lillis had such a gravitas to her performance that I thought she was a 20-something playing a teen. As the new kid in town who has a crush on Bev, Taylor is the most relatable character in the movie. Within the ensemble context, his story feels a little compressed - there is a beat during the climax that does not quite translate. I wish he had more screen time.
And now onto the title menace. It is a great antagonist, and It's main incarnation as Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) is pretty creepy. The old fashioned design is interesting (I particularly liked the unfocused eyes). I have more comments on the villain which I will save for a little later.
Andres Muschietti's direction is good when it comes to the scares and the atmosphere, and he handles the relationship and comedic elements competently. The scenes where It confronts the kids with their fears are highlights (the lady in the painting is terrifying). And while the movie is R rated, it never feels gratuitous. Despite having kids as the main characters, the movie has a nice take-no-prisoners approach to its violence which I appreciated. Pennywise's attack on Georgie was surprisingly brutal, and sets the tone immediately in a neat way. I also liked the set piece in which a fire-obsessed bully comes to a nasty end in a sewer pipe, and the sequence in the library.
While the scares are good, what elevates this movie is the tonal balance it strikes. The movie has a great sense of humour (the Gazebo line killed me), and it really helps glue the Losers together as a group of people that you can grow attached to. Movies are always better when the characters feel vaguely like human beings, and It boasts a really terrific ensemble.
The movie does have its flaws, mainly in the script. For one thing, a few members of the Losers feel superfluous. There are a few points where it feels like the movie's emotional beats are not tied together in a believable way. I have a feeling that it might be a case of there being too many kids - with not enough development for their stories (the book is over a 1000 pages long). As the story develops, it feels like we are rushing through set pieces, and the scares became a little repetitive. And because of the focus on the group, Bill's emotional arc (dealing with his brother's death) feels a little undercooked. The one element I could have done without is Benjamin Wallfisch's score, which is a little overbearing and cuts into the film's impact.
As the movie progressed, I began to feel like my own taste in horror and the movie's choices became a bit at odds. My big thing was how much time Pennywise is onscreen. With horror, I've always felt it is scarier when you can not rationalise what it is you're seeing (compare the murderous phantom of the original Alien with its flaccid return in this year's Alien Covenant).
This idea is one that Stephen King himself dealt with in his book-length essay Dance Macabre, using the example of a monster behind the door. When the only information you have is the sound of claws and a silhouette under the doorframe, your mind runs wild (think of Mel Gibson trying to catch sight of the alien trapped in the pantry in Signs). But once the door is opened, and the monster is revealed as a vampire/zombie/Godzilla etc, your mind is able to comprehend it, and the fear - to whatever degree - is reduced.
For me, while he was effective for the most part, by the end of the movie Pennywise had lost his novelty. Thanks to modern filmmaking (and the use of modern special effects), there were times where I felt like he was not disconcerting enough. By the finale, when he is morphing into all of the kids' fears, it felt like the tension drained away. The ending still works, but having such a firm grasp on what the character looks like and It's modus operandi took away from the tension a bit.
Final thoughts? It is a really good movie, which boasts enough characterisation and humour to match the scares. I chalk up my own criticisms to a certain amount of over-hype. Hopefully with a few more viewings I will be more onboard with the raves the movie has been getting. I'm definitely in the bag for the sequel. For anyone reading this review, It is definitely worth checking out.
Released in 1927, this film stars the original 'It' Girl Clara Bow, a massive star of the Twenties.
Shop girl Betty Lou (Bow) has a crush on her boss, Mr Waltham (Antonio Moreno). While he quickly falls under her spell, their romance is jeopardised when Betty Lou puts her reputation on the line to save her roommate's child from being taken away by welfare workers. Sadly, Waltham's idiotic buddy Monty (William Austin) witnesses this ruse and runs off to tell his bro. Despite the source, Waltham believes that she is an unwed mother, and hence spoiled. Waltham declares that, while he loves her, she can only be his mistress, and nothing more. Heartbroken, Betty Lou breaks off heir relationship. In time-honoured tradition, Betty Lou realises what has happened and goes after the moron to win him back.
A lively audio-visual experience, this film proves that silent cinema can only truly be appreciated on the big screen.
In the title role, Clara Bow is terrific. Based on her reputation, I went in expecting something more overtly carnal (she is held up as an exemplar of the kind of cinema that the Production Code was designed to quash). What was striking about It is how much agency the character has, and how that agency is not conveyed as sheer lasciviousness (which is the stereotype I was expecting). Bow is interested in her boss, but she is also interested in having her own life and independence - it's a combination that you do not see a lot of in classic Hollywood cinema m(or a lot of modern-day rom coms, to be honest). She does not have the firecracker intensity of Louise Brooks (who does?) but she has a bolshiness and charisma that are extremely watchable.
For the time I am guessing Bow's forthrightness was pretty outrageous, but there is a sense of agency and confidence that feels timeless. This is especially true in the scene where she pretends to be an unwed mother to protect her flatmate from losing her baby. It is a mark of the times that her character is never punished (to be honest she does not really do anything that bad).
The times make themselves felt in less appealing ways - the movie betrays a casual disregard for women who are not in Bow's position - Waltham's fiancé is a doormat who exists purely to highlight how fixated Waltham is on the new 'it' girl in his life. And while the movie is based around Betty Lou's subversion of traditional patriarchy, the third act boils down to a final romantic clinch with Waltham. While the movie ridicules him as a pompous idiot, it feels a little too convenient for them to wind up together, considering his earlier behaviour.
William Austin as dim bulb Monty
The performances by the rest of the cast are perfectly attuned to the tone of the piece. While the style is broader than sound features, it feels appropriate to the story and the limitations of the medium. The standout is William Austin as Waltham's dumb(er) friend Monty. He becomes a romantic rival to Waltham, and is the one who informs him that Betty Lou is a scarlet woman. His reactions provide some of the biggest laughs in the movie; he really is the standout comic character.
Stylistically, this movie is fascinating as it shows how, by 1927, filmmakers had developed the basic cinematic grammar that we now know as classic continuity filmmaking. The limited use of close-ups and title cards to convey key points of information - it is like a jigsaw puzzle where the audience can fill in the obvious detail. It reminded me of the Lubitsch equation for filmmaking: if you show the audience '1 + 1', they can figure out the sum by themselves. Clarence G. Badger is not a director I'm familiar with, but his work is pretty solid here (according to Wikipedia, Josef Von Sternberg also had a hand in directorial chores, although it is hard to identify his stamp on the final product).
Yes, It is an artefact from another era. But do not confuse age with irrelevance or lack of entertainment value. It's a fun movie, and a great instalment of the film festival's Live Cinema showcase.
Ethel & Ernest (dir. Roger Mainwood, 2016)
One of the movies I ushered, this adaptation of Raymond Briggs' autobiographical graphic novel is wonderfully understated. Staring Jim Broadbent and Brenda Blythen in the title roles, the movie is a collection of key scenes from their marriage, from first meeting to their deaths - only months apart - in 1971.
Animated in a way that evokes Briggs' visual style, the film is relatively restrained and is largely confined to the family home. The movie begins in 1927, with the pair's initial meeting. Raymond himself is a side character, popping in and out of the story - sent away during the Blitz and away at university in the sixties. One element of the film that is noteworthy is how Briggs does not try to sand off his parents' rough edges - casual sexism; class consciousness; and the couple's political differences are all foregrounded. They feel more real.
We go through the depression, the build-up toward WW2, the Blitz and then the rise of the post-war welfare state (delighting his Labour-voting Dad, and inversely his Tory mum). Using sound bytes from the era, including radio broadcasts from the likes of Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. Some of this historical signposts come off a little obvious, but most of the time they become are a part of the background detail.
While some of the historical signposting is obvious, it is not a detriment. The film's simplicity is a major asset, as it reinforces Briggs' focus on two ordinary people who are extraordinary simply for being themselves. Having a child; buying a new home or appliance; or strolling through the park - this film is about the simple pleasures that come with living.
One of the most empathetic and human films I saw at the film festival, Ethel & Ernest is worth hunting down.
Why do two reviews when they're basically the same movie? Here's a rambling review of the 1965 Bondbuster Thunderball and its 1983 remake Never Say Never Again!
Thunderball (1965)
Released in 1965, Thunderball came out hot on the heels of Goldfinger, which had been a global phenomenon the previous year (due to the nature of movie distribution at the time, Goldfinger was literally pulled off screens to make way for the new Bond epic). For nearly sixty years, Thunderball remained the financial highpoint of the franchise.
Those nefarious brains at SPECTRE have come up with a diabolical new scheme: they have stolen a pair of nuclear bombs and are holding the world ransom. It now falls to James Bond (Sean Connery) to locate the bombs before the deadline.
This movie marks the point where the scripts for James Bond movies turned from stories with beginnings, middles and ends into a list of boxes to get ticked off. If you compare the first three movies with this one, there is no comparison. Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger are all constructed as traditional narratives. They don't really follow a set template, and they don't include all of the ingredients we have come to recognise as part of the 'Bond' formula.
Thunderball is the first time that the Bond formula really crystalizes: a pre-credit action sequence (tangentially linked to the main plot); a nefarious, scarred villain with an eccentric henchman (or woman, in this case); gadgets and a car; two Bond girls, one bad who must die, the other good; a loose plot connecting a bunch of impressive set pieces; and a large-scale finale involving Bond killing a crap ton of henchmen.
While this is not necessarily a problem (You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me have fun with these tropes), in Thunderball it rarely feels like these scenes are building toward something - the whole opening Shrublands section exists solely to explain that the pilot of the plane carrying the bombs has been replaced with a doppelgänger who has undergone plastic surgery. This set-up is already too complicated (in the book all SPECTRE has to do is bribe the pilot), and it just pads out the movie.
Once the action moves to Jamaica, the pace falls off a cliff. At the time, the underwater sequences were eye-boggling. With the novelty stripped away, they stop the movie dead. The filmmakers do their best to make the scenes exciting but they all suffer from being too slow and going on just a bit too long. The final battle avoids this problem for the most part, because there is a lot of action to follow. This gives veteran editor Peter R. Hunt plenty of material for his signature style, slicing and dicing the battle into a frenzied, visceral bloodbath. But even on land, the movie is in trouble.
The whole movie feels padded out. Even sequences with some kind of narrative thread feel like they go on too long. The scene where Bond uses a recording gadget to figure out that someone has searched his room is a cool idea - except that instead of a brief demonstration, we get an extended sequence of the camera moving through the room accompanied by the recording of the intruder. Another sequence which stands out is the scene where Fiona picks up Bond and drives to his hotel. With intense cross-cutting and overwrought score, the filmmakers try to make this scene feel like it is heading toward some kind confrontation - it ends in a joke (she just drops him off) but it adds nothing to the movie. You could have Bond get back to the hotel by himself and it would mean exactly the same thing.
Unlike the previous Bond movies, which move at a good clip, in Thunderball the tension flags, and for a good portion of the middle act, the movie lacks a real sense of stakes. But compared with later stinkers like A View To A Kill, Thunderball is far from the worst movie in the series. And there are many aspects of the movie which elevate it above middle-of-the-pack mediocrity.
While the plot is ridiculous, Thunderball does boast a pair of great villains. Aldofo Celi (and voice actor Robert Rietty) is fantastic as Largo. He has more machismo and swagger than most Bond villains, and is one of the few villains who seems capable of going head-to-head with Bond. While he is great, he is overshadowed by his muscle: Fiona Volpe, played by Luciana Paluzzi.
The inspiration for later femme fatales like Fatima Blush (Never Say Never Again), May Day (A View To A Kill) and Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye), Volpe is a great counterpoint to Connery's Bond. One wishes she had more to do in the movie - although her death scene is terrific.
The other elements in Thunderball's favour are the tropical settings and the wonderful score by John Barry. It may be the key ingredient which keeps the movie involving. Even if what is going on onscreen makes no sense, Barry goes all-in to give the scene as much atmosphere and drama as he can. The score underplaying the final battle, from the slow-build as divers parachute into the water, to the furious fight aboard Largo's boat, is one of the best in the series.
While it can be a hard sit, if you are in the right mood, Thunderball is a great chill out movie. It is perfect for the digital age - you can put it on and go get a drink or clean the house, and miss out on some of the dead patches.
Never Say Never Again (1983)
Released in 1983, Never Say Never Again marked the return of Sean Connery to the role that made him famous. It also pitched Connery's Bond against that of his successor, Roger Moore - Moore's sixth film, Octopussy, was released the same year. This 'Battle of the Bonds' was massively hyped at the time, and brought the series back to the headlines in a way it had not been in years. However, while Connery's rogue Bond won over critics, in the end Octopussy made more money at the box office.
Those nefarious brains at SPECTRE have come up with a diabolical new scheme: they have stolen a pair of nuclear bombs and are holding the world ransom. It now falls to James Bond (Sean Connery) to locate the bombs before the deadline.
Never Say Never Again is one of those strange pop culture one-offs where the backstory is more interesting than the film itself. This film's origins date back to the late fifties, when a young film producer, Kevin McClory, paired up with Ian Fleming to come up with an original film treatment for James Bond that was not based on the books. Among the concepts they came up with were the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his organisation SPECTRE.
The project, co-written by the duo with Jack Whittingham, never came to pass. In need of a new book, Fleming took this material and converted it into his next novel, Thunderball. This bit of nefariousness brought down the legal gods and inaugurated a fifty-year legal battle that had profound impacts on the future of the series.
When Eon Productions began work on their series of Bond films, they made use of SPECTRE repeatedly. Even when the legal battle between Fleming and McClory heated up, they were able to broker a compromise to produce Thunderball as the fourth film in the series. They gave McClory a producer credit and McClory got the rights to the Thunderball story, with the stipulation that he could make his own version of the film after ten years (I've collapsed a very complex case into a paragraph - for the full story I recommend reading the great book The Battle for Bond). McClory's court battles tied up the rights to SPECTRE, which is why he disappeared from the franchise after 1971's Diamonds are Forever.
From 1976 on, there were sporadic reports that McClory's Bond project was in the works, with Sean Connery in the mix as either a screenwriter or as the star. By the time the movie was released in 1983, it was seen as an overdue return to 'classic' Bond. By contrast, at this time the official series was seen as a bit of a joke. Roger Moore, three years Connery's senior, was visibly showing his age, and the tone of his movies (while successful) turned off critics and fans who missed the sixties.
Was it worth it?
I watched this movie a fair bit when I was younger. At the time, I did not put together that the movie was different from the others. Sure there was no gun barrel, the supporting cast were different, and there was no card at the end saying 'James Bond Will Return', but I did not know or care. It was James Bond, using gadgets, fighting bad guys and making out with beautiful femme fatales who get blown up by fountain pens.
Watching it now, Never Say Never Again is a weird beast. The lack of a gun barrel and the other Eon trademarks do irk, but the presence of Connery is ample compensation - at least for a while. My issue with Never Say Never Again is not that it lacks the signifiers of the Eon movies - it just does not hold up as a action adventure movie in its own right. it never comes up with any ideas or visual touches that can help it out stand out on its own.
The movie did suffer from production difficulties. The budget ran out midway through filming, Connery had to take on producing duties to keep the production on track and the release date had to be delayed from summer to October.
The film has its fans, and their favourite elements are the same as mine: the villains.
He does not have a deformity and he is not particularly over-the-top, but Klaus Maria Brandauer's Max Largo is one of the great Bond villains. Whatever the faults of the movie around him, Brandauer never puts a foot wrong. Where other Bond villain performers go big, Brandauer offers a masterclass in underplayed menace. His performance offers a strange example of meta-textual suspense - as viewers we are watching an actor in a part that we have seen many times before, playing the same kinds of scenes we have seen before, against a star we are familiar with. At every turn, Brandauer does not go for the expected choice, lending his scenes a sense of excitement and danger that the rest of the movie lacks.
And now to his lackey, the unstoppable Fatima Blush, played by Barbara Carrera.
When I was younger, Fatima Blush was one of my favourite movie crushes. I don't know what that says about me, but there is something diabolical about Carrera's vibe in this movie, in the most Bondian sense of the word. When you think of a Bond femme fatale, Fatima Blush is the perfect example of the type. Where Brandauer is operating off the grid, Carrera is so on the grid she melts it. While her role is roughly analogous to Thunderball's Fiona Volpe, Carrera's performance elevates Fatima to the level of cartoon - she is Jessica Rabbit if she was a completely one-dimensional psychopath.
Every time she smirks, or explodes with rage, or kisses her pet python, or dances down stairs (see below), or cackles as she literally blows up, the movie goes to another level. She is just awesome. If she was in the official series, she would get more love.
The performances from the rest of the cast are decent. Connery is having fun, but he does not get anything interesting to do (granted, it is a remake). Kim Basinger's performance is not as bad as Britt Ekland or Denise Richards in the official series, but she comes off as cold and lifeless. It does not help that she is operating against Connery, Brandauer and Carrera. On a good note, Bernie Casey is a lot of fun as Felix Leiter - although he gets little screen time in which to operate.
Edward Fox makes for a terrifically brusque M, and - in one of the movie's few attempts to tweak the formula - Alec McCowen offers a delightfully batty reading of Q. The flip side of Desmond Llewelyn's version, McCowen hero-worships Bond and complains about his lack of resources. Like the villains, it is too bad he was not a part of the official series. I would have enjoyed a few more scenes with him pottering around his shoddy workshop, daydreaming about working in the CIA or pestering Bond about his latest escapades.
Q (Alec McCowen).
The direction by Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back) is fine. A few of the set pieces are fun (the fight with Pat Roach; Bond's final confrontation with Fatima Blush) but overall the movie lacks a sense of pace and (more importantly) purpose. About half an hour in the movie just falls apart. We get a mission and a sense of the villain's plan, but then the movie just kind of wanders around for around forty (?) minutes, and by the time the plot begins to click into focus, the movie is almost over and it is hard to get invested. It's hard to even figure out the ending -- I've watched the movie several times and I can never remember how the movie ends.
The other big problem with the movie is the music. Even when compared with the nadir of Eric Serra's GoldenEye score, Never Say Never Again is terrible. Not only does the music by Michel Legrand lack the familiar theme, it lacks any character of its own. It just pops in and out of the movie, never building any sense of drama or tension. The theme song has a memorable chorus, but it comes off as a bit too contemporary to stand with the official series.
In the end, Never Say Never Again rides on the back of its star, and the nostalgia of his previous movies. It has a few elements to recommend it, but it does not get across the finish line on its own merits.
Final thoughts
I'm not a fan of either of these movies. I don't hate them, but they fall in the same middle road as Tomorrow Never Dies and The Spy Who Loved Me where they tick all of the boxes, but they are a bit too predictable to re-watch them that often. They are watchable, and fun, but they do not rank with the series' best.
As a compare and contrast they make for an interesting case study. As the last 'rogue' Bond, Never Say Never Again is worth a look just because, with the death of Kevin McClory and the reversion of all Bond-related rights to Eon Productions, we are unlikely to see its like again.
One weekend, two movies. One for the dudes, and one for the ladies. The Hitman's Bodyguard
This movie was not on my radar. And then I saw the trailer. And this poster.
Ryan Reynolds plays disgraced bodyguard Michael Bryce. Roped in by his ex, Bryce has to transport world class hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) to the Hague where he is the star witness against a murderous dictator (Gary Oldman). Much shooting and shouting follows...
The Hitman's Bodyguard is a dumb movie. It features stars you like doing things they have done before (Jackson plays a hyperbolic version of himself; Oldman plays a Eurtrash villain; perennial bad guy Joaquim de Almeida turns up as a turncoat) in an incredibly predictable script featuring one plot twist that you can see coming from the beginning.
But that does not mean it is not fun.
The stars may be operating in familiar gears, but the comedy beats are great: Jackson recalling how he met his wife; Reynolds fighting a henchman in a hardware store; The bit with Reynolds going through the windshield, which was in all the trailers but in the movie it acts as a terrific button to a longer set piece.
Oldman is pretty dull as the villain (weird considering his back catalogue), and Elodie Yung does not have a lot to do as Reynolds' former girlfriend (in a neat touch, he lists her as 'Pure Evil' on his cellphone). If the cast has a standout, it is Salma Hayek, as Kincaid's extremely irate wife, Sonya.
It is like her character from Fair Game dumped Stephen Baldwin, went to Honduras where she spent years punching and stabbing bar patrons, getting even more angry, until she met Jackson (about three people understood that reference but I refuse to rescind it).
Director Patrick Hughes moves the action at a good clip, even if he does resort to some incomprehensible over-cutting and shaky cam at points. The colour palette is extremely ugly - it makes the movie look like a VOD release. None of the action set pieces are that original, but they work fine as a spine for the stars' constant bickering.
The Hitman's Bodyguard defines junk food cinema. Honestly this one might be more of a rental, but if you are in the mood for something frivolous and fun, it is worth a look.
In Between (Maysaloun Hamoud, 2016)
This movie came out last week, and I finally got a chance to check it out.
As I get older, I find one of the types of movies that I look out for are movies based around female friendships, especially when they are united by some kind of shared pressure. Add to that the Palestinian context, and a female auteur (Maysaloun Hamoud), and it rocketed straight to the top of my must-see list (if I had one).
The story concerns three flatmates living in Tel Aviv: Leila (Mouna Hawa), a secular lawyer who loves to party and has little interest in being tied down; Salma (Sana Jammelieh), a lesbian who hides her true feelings from her conservative Christian family; and Noor (Shaden Kanboura), a university student who is trying to balance a degree of independence while upholding the expectations of her dogmatic fiance.
Man, I really wish I had a deeper knowledge/any knowledge of the cultural context these characters are navigating. There are probably some layers that this review is going to completely miss.
Laila (centre) during good times.
Not that In Between is niche. It is an extremely straightforward portrait of three women attempting to preserve a sense of self and agency in a diegesis that is filled with traps - some hidden and some not. The characters and their dilemmas are all sadly relatable: parental expectations; racial prejudice; religious hypocrisy and rape culture.
The performances are all terrific. As Leila, Mouna Hawa possesses an easy charisma and sense of humour that makes her easy to gravitate toward: ballsy, cynical and boasting an extremely powerful sense of self-worth, Hawa is the cool surrogate mum who is always ready to step in when her friends are in jam, probably wearing some ridiculous outfit and with a cigarette in hand. She's so tough and cool, I would love to see her play a burnt-out PI.
Leila has her own subplot involving Ziad (Mahmud Shalaby), a man whose worldly liberalism she finds attractive. Their romance is quickly hamstrung when he voices doubts about the way she dresses and other activities (smoking, drinking). A bloodhound for hypocritical bullshit, Leila immediately dumps him.
Salma juggles two identities, entertaining her parents desire for her to be married by taking part in a series of awkward dinners with potential suitors; and her life at the flat, where she feels free to pursue her interests in DJ-ing, and spend time with her new girlfriend. There is a quiet sadness to Sana Jammelieh's performance that is extremely affecting - Salma recognises the restrictions and barriers around her but unlike Leila, she is unable to navigate them with the same assurance.
Noor, ostensibly the 'good girl' of the trio, is punished the most for her modest attempts at independence. Kanboura is rather loveable in the role. Noor is no innocent to the world, and not afraid to try new things (she is studying computer science), but she is also struggling to find herself under the pressures of her family and fiance. It's a hard balancing act to do, but Kanboura manages it with dignity and humour.
While these characters were great, I was also really impressed with Maysaloun Hamoud's direction, particularly her use of blocking within the frame. It is an important, but underrated part of a director's work, and Hamoud displays an understanding of how the blocking and framing of characters works to delineate power shifts between characters within scenes.
Two examples stand out:
The first is the scene where the girls discover Noor in the bathroom after she has been raped. Hamoud frames the scene in an extended, static, wide shot with Noor huddled against the wall in the mid ground, with the toilet visible behind her. Leila is introduced by a clatter of heels. At this point you would expect her to run to Noor's aid. Instead, she staggers into frame, past Noor and throws up into the toilet. She then turns and yells to Salma that Noor needs help. It is the first time that Leila has shown genuine compassion for her flatmate, and it is carried off in a fashion that feels real and organic to the character.
The other example is at the end of the scene where Noor and her fiancé, Wissam (Henry Andrawes) tell her father that their engagement is off. At this point, we have been primed with moments of patriarchal violence - Noor's rape; Salma's father slapping her when he realises she is gay; and so the expectation is that this scene will go the same way.
Noor is framed in a mid-shot, at the right side of frame. Her father can be barely glimpsed at the left side of frame. As he lurches into frame, Noor flinches. His arms rise into frame - and he hugs her. It is a beautiful reversal of expectations.
One of the most interesting aspects of the movie is the way it threads the broader issues of the region throughout the story without being obvious or clunky. As well as patriarchal violence, racism is a recurrent theme: when Leila and Salma go shopping at a department store, a suspicious clerk watches them; Salma also loses her job for speaking Arabic. It is not as obvious as the misogyny, but it is layered through the movie as yet another conflict that they have to take on.
The climax of the film ends on the women at an impasse. Leila has rejected Ziad; Salma is going to Berlin; Noor is on her own. The movie ends on the shot above, as they silently contemplate the night sky.
It is a great ending which really captures the essence of the movie's title. This is the first moment where the women have either overcome or escaped their dilemmas, and are left bloodied, bruised but still standing. There is no definite sense of catharsis, just a sense of reprieve. Tomorrow their struggle will resume, but for now there is just a quiet moment to ponder.
I hope this movie's success will act as a catalyst for more movies about Palestinian women and Palestinian female filmmakers (and their exposure overseas). While it is dark, and has some extremely confrontational scenes, it is also very funny and offers an extremely empathetic portrait of its main characters. If you have a chance, check it out.
I have volunteered at the New Zealand International Film Festival since 2010. I started reviewing the festival in 2015 -- and I feel like that was the high point. In 2016, I was unable to do too many shifts due to other commitments, and I don't think my reviews were that interesting.
I managed to see quite a lot in 2017. Too many, as it turns out. To make the posts as reader-friendly as possible I am going to group the reviews (roughly) according to genre and release them one at a time over the next few months.
Let's jump in.
Beatriz at Dinner (dir. Miguel Arteta)
I have enjoyed Miguel Arteta's previous movies (Youth in Revolt and Cedar Rapids), and I like Salma Hayek, but this movie felt a bit like a breakthrough for both of them.
A practitioner of alternative medicine, Beatriz (Hayek) finds herself attending a dinner hosted by her wealthy clients. Lost in this alien environment, she finds her world view challenged by the callous self-absorption of her hosts and their guests.
Another movie based around an awkward dinner party, Beatriz at Dinner benefits from a terrific lead performance and understated, razor-sharp direction.
Salma Hayek is the real calling card here. The movie is good, but every time she is onscreen the movie is elevated to greatness. Beatriz is a potentially frustrating character: incredibly empathetic and spiritual, she does not talk so much as monologue. With someone else in the role, Beatriz could have been a hippy caricature, a joke, but Hayek gives the character a weight and earnestness that prevents this from happening.
John Lithgow plays Doug Strutt, a billionaire who becomes Beatriz's moral and ideological opponent. Like the title character, Strutt could have been an archetype of white male privilege. He is, but Lithgow underplays the bluster, giving Strutt a noxious level of self-confidence that feels more real.
Overall, the cast here are really terrific (Connie Britten is also good as the woman who invites Beatriz to dinner). Considering the issues the movie deals with, the cast do a great job to underplay the subtext. Nobody plays it too big or obvious, and so what could have been obvious and didactic is instead a skewering of the superficial morals and empathy of upper-class white people.
The third act I found somewhat puzzling. Beatriz is eventually ejected from the dinner. She does not really gain the upper hand or change any minds. After daydreaming about stabbing Strutt to death, she leaves in a taxi and goes to the coast, where she runs into the sea and disappears. The implication is that she is going to swim home to Mexico.
Is this sequence real? Is it a fantasy?
It is the one beat that I do not quite have a handle on. If this is her response to having views challenged is to a) commit suicide or b) revert to a childhood fantasy, then the movie is not saying anything complimentary about her principles.
When I first made my notes for this review, it was late July. Some pretty crazy shit has happened in the US in the month since, and it made me reconsider some of my initial impressions.
Thinking about the hypocrisy of the dinner guests, and their willingness to laugh off Strutt and the damage he is causing to people outside their bubble, it reminded me of the statistics breaking down the voting patterns in the last US presidential election. This movie is clearly designed to viewed through the prism of contemporary politics, but I feel that you could have made this movie at any time. The underlying issues of race and class would remain the same.
Beatriz spends the movie trying to remember where she knows George Strutt from. She recalls another gringo who came to her home town with false promises of jobs and prosperity, but just ended up destroyed her community. Ultimately it turns out that Strutt was not that man - but the movie's point is that it does not matter. Strutt is sadly just one member of this upper echelon. But the people who have given him power are the people who give him a free pass so that their lives can continue to prosper in his shadow. The movie is extremely bleak.
Overall, Beatrizat Dinner is a really enjoyable flick, and a sadly relevant indictment of America's white upper-classes.
Una (dir. Benedict Andrews)
Based on the play Blackbird by David Harrower, Una is directed by Benedict Andrews (making his film debut after a career as a director for the stage), and stars Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn.
A young woman, Una, (Mara) tracks down Ray (Mendelsohn) , the man who abused her years ago, looking for answers. Their confrontation does not go the way she expected...
Though it informs Una's journey, this movie is obsessed with frustrating any sense of closure or catharsis. The film is extremely oblique in style and tone - at the level of editing and (especially) sound design, the director Andrews never lets the characters or viewer get comfortable.
Like the central character, the viewer is constantly disoriented and displaced. We get brief flashes of Una and Ray's relationship, but not enough to cement anything. Rather than reveal anything, these slivers of the past just add more questions that the filmmakers never address. Even at the climax, a potential confrontation is deflected.
The acting by the principals matches the style of the movie. Mara's accent comes and goes, bt she gives Una a fractured quality which encapsulates the character's anger and confusion. Simultaneously strong and weak, worldly yet childlike, Mara is terrifically understated.
As Ray, Mendelsohn is a study in unreadability. Is Ray's remorse genuine, or is he just continuing his manipulation of Una? By the end o fate movie, it is hard to empathise with the character, yet Mendelsohn manages to articulate his sense of helplessness (which makes Ray even more unsettling).
Nobody fits into an easy box here. Una is a deliberately messy movie, framing catharsis and resolution as alien concepts, as inapplicable as young Una's romantic dream of running away with Ray.
If you are looking for easy solutions and a tidy ending, this movie is not for you. Una does not tread lightly around its subject, and the filmmakers' avoidance of a more conventional structure and resolution does it justice. As Una recognises, there are no easy answers, and the wounds Ray has caused cannot be repaired.
A tough, uncompromising look at child abuse, Una is a tough watch but definitely worth a look, particularly for the performances.
