Sketching reviews

I've always had a habit of doodling. Occasionally those doodles would become illustrations. And even rarer, sometimes those illustrations would get a wee bit of colour when I could find the time.

Now I'm going to see if there's a way to make use of that irregular habit: I'm going to throw a sketch into most reviews. I think it'll be a good way to crystallise my thoughts about the films (and tv shows/books... etc) that I see. At least in theory.

I'm not sure exactly what shape they'll tend to take. But going by the one I've just put together for Star Trek Into Darkness, I'd say that they're going to tend towards absurdism.

Any feedback from you, dear reader, would be much appreciated.

First Look: 'Arrested Development', season 4, episodes 4-6

Well that was better. Admittedly being better would have taken not much at all, but I'm trying to be positive about the show I once loved, so leave me and my doomed optimism alone.

Episode 4, a Michael-centric episode, actually had moments that felt like the old show. I laughed a good few times, which is a fair step up from the one laugh (it might have been more of a mild titter than a laugh) an episode of the first few. The Ron Howard gags that play throughout are fun enough, and even when they don't work they also don't grate, as the jokes did in 'Indian Takers' (episode 3), the weakest episode the show has ever done.

As with the the first few episodes, and no doubt the whole of this season, the episode could do with losing a good third of its runtime. I also think that Michael is becoming more unlikeable than Hurwitz intends. He's always been deluded and narcissistic, but when he's surrounded by the rest of his family it's offset by the fact that they're much better at it. The characters work because of how they play off each other; stranded on their own they've had a tendency to walk a fine line between being kooky and annoying. Unfortunately it's usually the latter.

Episode 5 is devoted to Tobias (David Cross), a longtime fan favourite. I've always thought Cross's manic performance felt strained, and I don't feel much different about it now. I can imagine most people will enjoy this one: the usual Tobias double entendres come thick and fast and there are some inspired moments, particularly John Beard's To Entrap A Local Predator, but I think a little Tobias goes a long way.

Episode 6 is George Sr's: the next most incidental character in the main cast after Tobias. During the original run he was used effectively because he was used sparingly. But give the character 30-minutes of running time to fill and you're going to put me to sleep. Which is what happened. 

After a brief kip I rewound and took a second run at it. There was some fun poked at Republicans, and there was the continuing laboured storyline about building a wall on the Mexican border, but I felt like I was sleep-watching and it never full engaged me. 

Overall: (thus far) 5/10

You Should Be Watching: 'Hannibal'

Bryan Fuller can be a grating individual. Or, rather, his shows can be. Dead Like Me had the most sullen pouty lead I've ever come across; Pushing Daisies was fun, but its relentlessly peppy cast, and primary coloured sets became trying well before it was cancelled; and Wonderfalls, which I never had a chance to see (it was cancelled before it was even half-way through its first season), had the central premise of a young woman who talks to figurines: which sounds just as trying as the rest of his oeuvre.

So it comes as some surprise that his new show, which focuses on the events preceding Thomas Harris's first Lecter starring novel Red Dragon, is the antithesis of his previous work, ie. less with the twee, more with the watchable. (Well almost the complete antithesis: Fuller's fascination with death is as prevalent as ever, if not more so.)

Currently, as the show approaches its last few episodes in the US, the cast and crew wait in a state of limbo, neither cancelled nor renewed. Most people have probably steered clear of the show because Lecter has suffered from almost as much overexposure as vampires. It doesn't help that the show has the same title as Ridley Scott's sequel to Silence of the Lambs, which turned the character into a bog standard boogeyman; Anthony Hopkins seemed to be having fun, but it was all just hammy nonsense. And the prequel Hannibal Rising did nothing to restore the previous menace of Brian Cox in Manhunter, or Hopkins in Silence. Which is a long-winded way of saying that Fuller has had a somewhat uphill battle convincing people that there's something new to say about dear Dr. Hannibal.

The reason the show works is because it isn't about Hannibal. He's important, no doubt about that. And he's had episodes where he's taken centre stage. But the focus is on Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), a man so good at getting into the minds of killers that he's ever on the verge of losing his. I've only seen Dancy in the odd bit part prior to this, and he's never really stood out. In Hannibal he's staggeringly good. Watching him cling to his sanity for dear life is the reason to watch this show. That and the visuals. I don't think I've ever seen a show that looks quite this good. TV is looking ever more cinematic, but with Hannibal you'll find yourself wondering if there's any difference between this and film.

As well Dancy the show has Laurence Fishburne: for once not sleepwalking through his role as he has in most others over the last decade; Caroline Dhavernas: in a seemingly thankless love interest role that she invests with much more character and humanity then was probably ever in the script; and, in the title role, Mad Mikkelsen: who's quiet, restrained take on Hannibal is reminiscent of Brian Cox's portrayal. He skulks in the background, keeping his true nature hidden. Which is a very effective way to build tension and to give the other characters room to grow. Plus its Mads Mikkelsen. Any film or show can do with more Mikkelsen. I have a similar theory about Tom Hiddleston.

What's interesting about the show is that it starts where most shows would end. It's not all that interested in how the killers get caught (which would be the sole focus of an episode of CSI), but who and why the killers are.

Now this isn't to say that the show's perfect. There are narrative leaps that don't make sense and are excused by pointing at Mr. Will Graham and saying: 'He's really empathic; he just knows.' Even when he couldn't possibly. And after keeping Hannibal in the background, only hinting (albeit rather strong hinting) at his true nature, they then bring him to the forefront in rather blunt unnecessary fashion. But Fuller and co. do so much right that the detractions are very minor.

If you haven't started watching it yet: do. Hunt it down. Find it on iTunes, record it on SkyLiving, do whatever you gotta'. Because if it gets cancelled its on you. And it'd be your fault that we can't have nice things. And we all like nice things.

Overall: 8.5/10

First Look: 'Arrested Development', season 4, episodes 1-3

I don't think anyone ever thought it'd turn up. Cancelled seven years ago, and watched by what felt like me and one other guy, Arrested Development has actually been resuscitated.

The first two seasons were near perfect, so long as you had the patience for the slow build of each gag as it gets brought back several episodes, if not seasons, later. And the third and final season was still better than any other comedy going. Part of what made it so good was that it moved at a lightning fast pace, so that even the jokes that didn't land would be gone in the blink of the eye. Unfortunately this is... No longer true. I can't speak to the later episodes of season 4, as I've only watched the first three, but fans of the original would be best off viewing it as an entirely different show that just happens to share some of the same characters and locations from AD circa 2006.

One thing I'd particularly like to know is whether Mitchell Hurwitz, the creator of the show, had been given free licence in respects to the length of each episode - now anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes longer than the original episodes - or whether Netflix pressured him to produce a certain amount of content. The episodes, which each focus on an individual member of the Bluth family, are extremely baggy; moving at a pace that you would struggle to call a light saunter. Most jokes don't land, and even the good ones go right past you; not because of their speed, and dry delivery (as used to be the case) but because the whole thing seems to have been directed and edited by the more inept members of my old film school. Jason Bateman's home in the original run was a show home, and looked intentionally fake; now every set looks like the show home. You feel you could push against any wall or vista, and the cardboard facade would topple over. More disappointing is the fact that I actually felt this about some of the original cast. Jessica Walter's is still fantastic, making even the worst lines work (but then she's had plenty of practice, as she's essentially been playing Lucille Bluth for the last three years in the FX show Archer); Tony Hale, Will Arnett and Michael Cera are only seen briefly in the first few episodes, but they settle right back into their roles; whilst Jason Bateman, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, and Jeffrey Tambor come across as, respectively: tired, a broad caricature, plain bored, and also tired.

The most troubling parallel that came to mind while I was watching these episodes was Community's latest season. Once Dan Harmon left the show it stopped being Community and became something different, and less substantial. Arrested Development feels much the same way. But in this instance the creative team is the same. So who's suddenly gone missing? My best guess at the minute is that they must have lost one hell of a good editor.

Overall: (so far) 3/10

Original run of the show: 9/10

Overlooked Gem of the Week: 'Code 46' (2003)

Science fiction films have a tendency to date very quickly. The technology, the clothes, the cars, and the pop culture on show all say more about the era the film was made then about the future the filmmakers believe might come to pass.

Released ten years ago, Michael Winterbottom's Code 46 stands up remarkably well. Like Minority Report the film goes with a same-same but different aesthetic; never going too overboard on the stylistic changes. The most effective change is the evolution of language: English now incorporates Spanish, French, Mandarin, and others besides. It's an elegant way of making something both familiar and yet (in this case somewhat literally) foreign.

To even begin touching on the story would require a half-dozen paragraphs, and would ruin much of the fun of getting to grips with the changes that have taken place in Code 46's dystopian future. The bear essentials are: Tim Robbins falls for (the perpetually brilliant) Samantha Morton. This isn't allowed, as it's a Code 46 violation. If you want to know what that means then you'll have to delve into this wonderfully densely and immaculately constructed future.

Critics felt the rules and regulations of Code 46's world were too murky and dense. And when you couple their confusion with the not-quite-A-list cast, and a British director prone to making rather harrowing films (Jude is a particular favourite of mine, and also criminally overlooked) you don't find yourself with an easily marketable film.

If you can get to grips with the future Winterbottom, and his writer Frank Boyce, have dreamed up, then great, but it's not the end of the world if just let it wash over you - as it's just a backdrop to the fascinating central relationship. 

Overall: 8/10

New Release Review: 'Mud'

A film that styles itself as part-Peckinpah, part-Malick (circa Badlands) and part-Twain's Huckleberry Finn was always going to have a fairly straight shot at my heart.

Matthew McConaughey plays the title character who two young boys (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) happen upon after discovering a large boat stranded in a tree; presumably due to a storm, but the film isn't interested in answering the question, and given the elegiac tone of the film, part of you will probably wonder whether it might even have fallen out of the sky. Mud is using the boat as a refuge whilst he waits for a meeting that may never come.

The focus of the film is Sheridan's Ellis, who's at that uneasy stage of being neither man nor boy. His exchanges with his best friend Neckbone (Lofland) is one of the best things about the film. Their manner as they try and exude a maturity which they have yet to earn (or fully comprehend), and their fascination with swearing and, most importantly, with the fairer sex, is spot on. I don't know what female audience members will make of the simplistic juvenile exchanges, but for me it was a perfect snapshot of what it was like at that age. The last time a film did that so effectively was probably all the way back in 1986: Rob Reiner's Stand By Me. 

Mud will be on the way out of theatres shortly - if it isn't already - as it's just a small independent film, but it deserves to be seen by a much wider audience. The way it presents Ellis's idealistic and naive worldview, particularly in respects to love, is quietly heartbreaking. You watch the film and want to believe people are as good as Ellis thinks they are; that love, true love, (a: exists, and b:) always works out; and that when a person gives their word, they'll stand by it. Ellis has his worldview knocked about a fair bit, leaving it scratched and dented, but we believe (or at least I believe) that he won't stop expecting better from the people in his life.

Except for a slightly baggy third act, the only other misstep Jeff Nichols (the writer and director) makes is the title, which fails to reflect the feel and tone of the film. McConaughey's character is the one that gets the plot moving, but it's Ellis that we follow throughout. The title connects, to a degree, with the world Ellis lives in, working the river with his father as they struggle to make ends meet - you leave the cinema fighting the instinct to check that you haven't got dirt under your nails - and Mud doesn't keep much better company himself, but the title still feels apart from the film I watched.

Overall: 8.5/10

As of this minute it's the best thing I've seen this year. But this year's been a tad average so far, so it's not the all-out recommendation it might be.

New Release Review: 'Star Trek Into Darkness'

I liked the last Star Trek film. It pulled you in from the off with a near perfect, highly bombastic, opening - then decided it'd just keep going at that pace. The 'new' Trek universe they set-up during the film, as an alternate one to the timeline that most people had grown-up with, was an ingenious get out clause for the writers, which ought to have given them a huge amount of freedom in the sequels. They wouldn't have to be beholden to decades of mythology, they could go their own way. So did they? *sigh* No... No they didn't.

Unlike the first film, J.J. Abrams does have his cast wrestle with a few big sci-fi questions; the kind the Trek TV shows used to deal with. The film opens with Spock trapped in an active volcano (this is first scene, first minute, first second stuff, but if you want to avoid even teeny-tiny spoilers then skip to the end of this paragraph), if the Enterprise save him they'll be seen by the primitive natives on the alien planet, and could inadvertently change the natives entire culture forever. Spock demands to be left to die - ever the pragmatist; Kirk wants to save his friend - 'cause that's how friends do, Starfleet be damned. It's a fun sequence, but it's over far too soon, and Abrams and his writers (Kurkman, Orci and Lindelof) aren't interested in following the question through. The main narrative tentatively deals with questions about terrorism, war, and weapons of war, but it's all just in service to the set-pieces. They don't really have anything to say about war, and that's not necessarily an issue - after all, this is just a summer blockbuster - but the first Iron Man showed that it was possible for a mainstream film to raise these questions and explore them in a fairly nuanced way.

Now I'm sounding more down on the film than I actually was. The set-pieces are still top drawer: the ship to ship space jump is thrilling, although it lose its impact by being a diluted version of the first Trek film's space jump; the running, jumping and gunning introduction to Cumberbatch's John Harrison is impressive, if altogether too reminiscent of my ill-spent youth playing laser tag; and the space-battles are as shiny (and lens flare-y) as ever. The problem is you won't care. There's no real investment in what's happening. In the first film we get Kirk's father sacrificing himself to save his crew and his wife and child, and towards the end of the second act an entire planet is destroyed. Those are big stakes, but more than that, we understood what they meant to the characters. We could empathise. In Into Darkness this is notable in its absence. The writers kill off the most expendable member of the cast - not the usual redshirt, as the Trek universe usually decrees (in a rather tongue-in-cheek moment the redshirts are given a reprieve by changing into non-red clothes) - so that Kirk et al can build-up some righteous anger and go hunt down the Big Bad.

All in all it was inoffensive fluff; except for the ill-judged, and now much discussed, shot of Alice Eve wearing negligible amounts of clothing. The quips were decent, the action was action-y, and Noel Clarke got blown-up. There are worse ways to pass the time.

Overall: 5.5/10

SPOILER SECTION (highlight to see - in case that wasn't abundantly clear):
Right, so Cumberbatch was Khan. Big whoop. We all figured that already. My problem is the gigantic loophole the story presents, right from the outset. Khan uses his blood as a bargaining chip because he's a super-soldier, designed to be the best of the best. His blood will even resuscitate a dead Tribble, or, slightly more importantly, a dead Kirk. But the technology that made him is 300 years old. It's never explained why the Federation wouldn't be using synthesised blood (or an equivalent) that would help the sick, the dying and wounded, even though they had that tech three centuries ago. And now that they have Khan back in custody are they going to sequence his DNA and produce a cure to death, or at least temporary death, severe illness, and other irksome maladies? Somehow I think they'll forget all about this when the next film comes around.

Disappointing Supposed Classic of the Week - 'Leaving Las Vegas' (1995)

I've long avoided Mike Figgis's Leaving Las Vegas as I thought it would be the filmic equivalent of being dragged through a hedge backwards. What would normally follow that sentence is a 'Boy, was I ever wrong', but it turns out preconceptions are, at times, spot on.

For those who don't know, the story follows an alcoholic scriptwriter (Nicolas Cage) who goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death after he loses his job. Shortly after arriving he 'befriends' a prostitute (Elisabeth Shue) - who of course has a heart of gold, because apparently that cliche wasn't old yet in 1995 - and they strike up a non-interference pact: she won't stop him drinking, he won't judge her career choice.

The film was lauded at the time of its release for the gritty cinéma vérité performances. Roger Ebert held it in particularly high esteem, putting it at #8 in his 'best of the decade' list. I think the problem with watching it so many years later is that we know the ticks and mannerisms that an actor uses. The less accomplished the actor, the quicker these reveal themselves. We're all well used to Manic Cage; practically Nicolas Cage's default setting these days - although there was a brief blip when he bothered to act: Adaptation (2002). Because of this the performance no longer feels raw and grounded; instead it looks like an actor using his limited resources to bother the Academy (the Oscars) for a nomination. Elisabeth Shue doesn't fair much better. The character isn't believable for more than five second stretches, and if it were, Shue is even less credible as a prostitute than Julia Robert's ever was.

Behold! Manic Cage!

                                                                                                 
Practically everyone in the film has sped towards irrelevancy since making this: Figgis hasn't been on anyone's radar since his digital experiment Timecode; Shue had a few lead roles post-Vegas, but was immediately forgettable in each one, and has since only cropped up in bit parts; Julian Sands, who plays Shue's pimp in the film (a job the filmmaker doesn't seem to really comprehend), hasn't been good in anything, ever, but is somehow still turning up in the odd minor role; whilst Nicolas Cage... Does anyone really care about Nicolas Cage at this point?

Overall: 2/10

I'd give it 1, but the film isn't hateful or moronic (and I've seen plenty that are), and it's credibly shot and edited. Everything else: not so good.

Overlooked Gem of the Week - 'The Way of the Gun' (2000)

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie - who's still best known for the tricksy script behind Usual Suspects - Way of the Gun follows two drifters out to make/steal/threaten their way to a decent sum of money. Kidnapping a pregnant woman is just the latest in a long line of schemes. 

The joy of the film comes from how it subverts expectations: the heroes aren't remotely heroic (but you like them anyway - that they're played by Ryan Philippe and Benicio Del Toro helps somewhat); the 'bad guys' mostly come across as decent people (leaving you wondering as to who to root for); and the shoot outs, death scenes, and character introductions all play out in exactly the opposite way you'd expect. Which made it... Difficult to market. Pitched as a crime caper spliced with a thriller, it doesn't begin to describe the whip smart film that it is.

It was accused of being arty (it really isn't), self-conscious (not inherently a bad thing, and it isn't here), and pretentious (which is probably the exact opposite of what it is), but as McQuarrie's latest film (Jack Reacher) shows, he clearly isn't interested in the former or the latter at all. The films principal aim was to subvert cliches, and find a way to ground them in reality. This is a good thing. It's just a shame that more films don't try and do the same.

If you want to be baffled, but amused, then check it out.

Overall: 7.5/10