New Release Review: 'Calvary'

With John Michael McDonagh's latest, Calvary (which I have called 'Calgary', 'Cavalry' and 'What film are we going to see again?', and I apologise to Mr. McDonagh for my ineptitude in this matter), he proves he's just as capable a writer as his brother (Martin, In Bruges), but perhaps not quite as capable a director.

Getting its first act over and done with in a single scene, Calvary opens with Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) in the confession box, listening to a parishioner tell him that he's going to kill him because he's a good man. Why kill a good man? Because who would notice the death of a bad one? Odd as this sounds, in the end it turns out there's a strange sanity to the plan's seeming insanity. But that's for the end, which is a good seven days away: the amount of time given to Father James to 'put his house in order'. And it's a rather cluttered house: his daughter (Kelly Reilly) has returned home after an attempted suicide, an older member of the congregation has been ruminating on doing the same, another parishioner is thinking of doing it to others, whilst a previous member of the flock (Domhnall Gleeson) has done it already (several times in fact), and that's just the first few troubled souls. There's also a misanthropic millionaire (Dylan Moran), a cuckolded husband (Chris O'Dowd), a nihilistic doctor (Aidan Gillen), and a cretinous back-up priest. As Father James attempts to offer guidance to his wayward flock we're trying to guess which is his would-be murderer. Something the Father doesn't need to do. He already knows.

Calvary is so very close to being spectacular. Most will probably find it out and out spectacular, and with good reason; and truth be told the issues I have with it are minor, and mostly due to my being particular (see: awkward). So don't take the following to seriously. First minor irksomeness: it's shot on digital. The format has the capacity to look majestic, as it does here during the grand sweep of the exterior shots, but when McDonagh shifts inside the look suddenly becomes muted and oddly framed. At times the film looks like it's the best acted, best written episode that Coronation Street never saw. Second irksomeness: it feels like theatre. It's almost pure dialogue, the characters (as described above) wouldn't sound out of place in a farce or a comedy of errors, and the few times the film goes meta it's almost as if it thinks it's a play. Now I like theatre, I'm all for theatre, but a film that feels like it (yes, whilst also feeling like TV) can seem like it's at war with its medium. On the flip side, the dialogue is a thing of beauty. Which makes for a pretty good flip side.

Since I've started with the hyperbole I might as well continue. Brendan Gleeson does his best work since In Bruges, Reilly is quietly affecting, O'Dowd and Moran show they're capable of playing far darker shades then they'd previously hinted at, Domhnall Gleeson (Brendan's son) gets a single scene, but it's a killer one (pun possibly intended), and the rest of the cast all get their big moments too. So many of them initially seem like stereotypes, but the truth is they're wearing their extravagant roles as masks. Over the course of Calvary's running time those masks get gently pulled back, and it's hypnotic to watch.

Ignore my quibbles. All told, it's rather spectacular.

Overall: 8/10

New Release Review: 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'

During the lead up to Captain America: The Winter Soldier's release everyone's being noticing that Robert Redford is in it, and that it has a conspiracy at its centre; from which they've concluded that the film must be a 70s style conspiracy thriller. Which makes the genre sound like a rather simple construct: Redford + conspiracies = 70s conspiracy thriller. Now everyone is seeing the connection. But like most conspiracy theorists they’re seeing something that isn’t really there. 

Picking up a little while after Avengers Assemble, Rogers (Chris Evans) is still adjusting to life in the modern day. He spends his nights handling missions for SHIELD, although any morally grey tasks get passed on to the less ethically stringent Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) since her boss, Nick Fury (played by the ever present Samuel Jackson), believes his all-American boy scout has a blinkered and idealised view of the world. Nick's boss, Alexander Pierce (Redford), is even more of a pragmatist, and is intent on shoring up the world’s defenses so that all the really bad world-ending stuff stops happening. The slight knock on effect of his plan is that the Free World’s idea of freedom might constrict a tad. Throwing a spanner in the works of all this is our other titular character: The Winter Soldier, a mysterious masked menace. 

Despite Rogers being one of Marvel’s least interesting characters the setup is interesting. Rogers is the embodiment of everything America can be but that image doesn’t fit well with SHIELD’s foreign (or domestic) policy. Seeing him deal with that would have been more than just engaging, it would have given Evans something to do for once; but there's little to the setup beyond the tagline. The Russos are more interested in slightly above average bombast. On the odd occasion when the film achieves comfortably above average bombast it’s hard to care. There's a certain irony that for Captain America to work, the henchmen of yore (particularly the early-Bond era iteration) have had to go from never hitting their target to always hitting their target. Every shot is either a headshot or body shot, and every one of them ricochets off the Cap's shield. Why no one aims for his legs is one of the Marvel Universe's greatest Mysteries. 

As for the other characters, Jackson is really just a glorified extra; The Winter Soldier feels like an afterthought who might have amounted to something if he weren't played by a charisma vacuum; and Johansson’s still-not-interesting-enough Natasha is used as a half-hearted love interest. A subplot that's scuppered by the fact that Evans has more chemistry with a bearded Apple Store Genius. (No, really). 

If Captain America: TWS really wanted to work as a 70s-inflected conspiracy thriller than it would need a conspiracy that couldn’t be unravelled at a glance. Instead, in a story where we're told to trust no one and that nothing is at it seems, you'll mistrust exactly the right people and know exactly what is and is not as it seems. The film has more in common with later decades: taking the 80s indifferent attitude to felled henchmen, some of the action set pieces from the 90s (the opening feels like Under Siege if it were condensed to just 6-minutes), and from the 00s and 10s the Russos borrow the big bombast (most notably the money shot of huge-ship-crashing-into-big-city, which is a particular favourite right now). 

Cap 2 briefly aspires to the touchstones of the 70s, but too quickly gives in to the often overblown stylings of the years that followed.

Overall: 5/10

New Release Review: 'Starred Up'

The words 'British', 'gritty' and 'prison drama', when used in close proximity, don't tend to lead to packed out cinemas. That Starred Up is also brutalising, horrifying, and highly uncouth (with a particular fondness for using 'see you next tuesday') rather compounds the problem. Fortunately there's a counterbalance: it's f***ing great.

Eric (Jack O'Connell), 19, is 'starred up', the term for premature upgrading from a Young Offenders to an adult prison. After just shy of two decades of solving his problems with violence (which works surprisingly well, except for its habit of becoming self-perpetuating) he's close to institutionalised. As an example of how that would play out over another two decades we have Neville (Ben Mendelsohn), Eric's father, and long time resident of Eric's new home. Father and son are cut from the same cloth; they only know violence, they only understand violence. Neville has the instinct to play father (his orders of "Listen to the gentleman" and "Be good in class" are beautifully out of place in the prison setting), but his practical knowledge is somewhat lacking. Prison therapist Oliver (Rupert Friend) has a better idea how to help: a neat process known as 'talking'. All he needs to do to is convince Eric to get out of his own rage-fueled way, keep Neville from interfering, and manouever around a narrow-minded Governor (Sam Spruell). Oh, and also keep Eric alive.

Starred Up is, for all intents and purposes, a horror movie. Once we know what Eric's capable of -- how he can lash out and bring his world tumbling down in an instant -- the tension level is set high, with no intention of abating. To manage this the film takes a note out of Sam Raimi's horror playbook: add humour. Without the script's occasional lightness of touch the experience would be too dour, grim and, well, British.

The director, David Mackenzie, has previously proven himself very capable (far more people should have seen Hallam Foe by now), but here he makes a big leap forward, most likely thanks to first time writer Jonathan Asser, who used to work in the penal system, in effect in the same role as Friend. Asser's sharply observed exchanges, especially in the group sessions where he juggles a half dozen different volatile, but fragile, characters, are what make Starred Up unique. Everyone onscreen is fleshed out in a way you rarely see in British cinema, or cinema in general. As for the cast, just take whatever over the top superlatives you read on the film's poster, then add a few more: O'Connell is phenomenal, utterly convincing, showing the duality of Eric, that he's fragile and lethal, angry and broken, with a keen intelligence under the bravado; Mendelsohn, now perpetually typecast as the rage-fueled disappointments in society's gutter, continues to give each of his burnouts their own distinctive and warped manner; whilst Friend, best known for his forgettable one-note performance in Homeland, considerably steps up his game. Which would seem to suggest he's being underused in the American drama. There's only one hiccup: Spruell's Governor, who is one step away from being a full-on moustache-twirling villain. And that one step is really just the growth of a moustache for said twirling.

Up until the film's closing scenes it's grounded, credible, harsh, funny and fascinating. When it switches from grounded to high drama it's no less effective, but it's a shame there wasn't another way to play things. A more credible way. Which is little more than nitpicking. Asser and Mackenzie have created a brilliant raging account of a flawed system, and they've managed to do it with heart.

Overall: 9/10

New Release Review: 'Under the Skin'

Does a film need a story? Or a character arc? Does a film even have to entertain? Jonathan Glazer, the director of Under the Skin, is certainly making the case that it doesn't. His latest is pure art. It'll have no truck with entertainment; it has more serious concerns: the nature of humanity, the dichotomy between the exterior and the interior, and other wordy and weighty matters.

Based on Michel Faber's novel of the same name, Glazer's film is less an adaptation and more a thematically linked sister piece to the novel. We follow Scarlett Johansson's unnamed alien as she stalks the streets of Glasgow, sashaying through shopping centres, backstreets and clubs to snare dull-witted men. Which makes the film sound like Species -- and I suppose it is -- only without the sex, or any immediately apparent (or even belatedly apparent) motivations. Johansson's interstellar foreigner eventually follows the same emotional journey as her literary counterpart: she's an alien, she has a job to do, she comes to question that job -- albeit in abstract fashion -- and runs from it when she begins to experience a sort-of humanity.

Little to none of the above is ever stated or made clear, it's just... Inferred. If you know the source material then said inferring might actually be possible. If you don't, then best of luck, because Under the Skin isn't interested in being explicable. It's about mood, suggestion and perception. It's a chilling film, with imagery that's striking and warped. It manages to be both singularly beautiful and blandly common within the space of a few frames; there's nothing like hearing people talk about Tesco's and Asda to pull you out of a film. It is by turns imperfect, amateurish and fascinating.

In some quarters the film has been described as erotic, which is inaccurate. It's primal. As Johansson strips off, enticing her prey further into her lair (and keeping them from noticing it's decrepit inhuman aspect), there's an insistent beat to the soundtrack, suggestive of the men's mental faculties being overridden by their desire. All they see is their need. Glazer wants us to see ourselves through an aliens eyes: we're petty, driven by hunger, sex and tribalism. Which sounds like an interesting film, but for it to work we'd need to get behind that alien perspective. Casting Johansson as the alien is both Glazer's best and worst move. Johansson has never been the most electrifying screen presence, and is usually at her best playing things of beauty that are hollow inside, as she did in Ghost World and The Man Who Wasn't There. Here she's used to similar effect, with the one (rather critical) difference being she has to carry the film; something she's struggled to do at the best of times, but here becomes impossible because Glazer limits her range of expressions to 'blank-face': whilst out hunting, 'slightly-animated-face': when her prey are with her, and 'confused face': which she tries on during the closing act. These constraints are about accentuating the alien-ness of it all. It works, but it doesn't give us a reason to care for Johansson's kind-of-serial-killer or for us to begin self-analysing and wondering at how we're all just rutting animals.

Under the Skin is, as a piece of art, intriguing; but as a piece of cinema it's ultimately lacking.

Overall: 5/10

New Release Review: 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'

Wes Anderson's latest is a confection that looks like a pop-up book, by way of a stage play, which got turned into a film. In other words it's a Wes Anderson film; only this time even more so. Picture the exacting, ostentatious set design of his previous films, then take that image a step further into picture book unreality.

We begin in the present day, in the non-existent Republic of Zubrowka, as a young girl opens the book 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'. From there we trundle backwards in time and hear from the famed author that produced it (1985), then meet the man who inspired it (1968), and finally settle into the heart of the story: the trials and tribulations of Zubrowka's greatest concierge (1932), Gustave H. The well meaning, poetry-spouting Gustave works day and night -- with an emphasis on the latter -- to keep the wealthy guests of The Grand Budapest Hotel happy. Unfortunately he falls afoul of the family of one of his wealthier patrons when she's shuffled off this mortal coil rather more promptly then she had anticipated. Gustave is, in short order, gifted with a priceless heirloom, threatened with violence for being indecent with an older woman, and is betrayed by his nearest and dearest. Then things get worse.

Anderson's always had a good ear for dialogue, and his craftmanship -- from the sets and the clothes to the militaristic precision of his busy scenes -- has never been up for question; but it often feels like he's waiting a beat for the audience to laugh, when all they can do is nod sagely and agree that the line, the setup and the acting in that moment were indicative of a sharp, dry and knowing wit. Which sounds like how a hipster might show mirth, but isn't quite close enough to actual, normal laughter. In The Grand Budapest Hotel he's learnt how to bridge knowing-a-thing-is-funny with making-the-thing-funny. Part of this is down to investing his characters with a warmth that had been missing before; at least until Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom. The odd friendship between Gustave (played by the usually grim and dour, but here surprisingly funny, Ralph Fiennes) and his lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) feels real despite the unreality of their world. As long as we believe in them, and the people they care about, then it's very easy to get caught up in the ride. Because of this, when Anderson punctures their egos and that of the rest of his vast array of characters, it works far more effectively -- and amusingly. Here it's affectionate, whilst in The Darjeeling Limited, and so many others, it could feel cruel. Even the villains of the piece, the family Desgoffe-und-Taxis (a name almost as satisfyingly silly to write as to say), are easy to like, or at least to laugh at. Adrien Brody's counterintuitive insults and Willem Dafoe's gaping maw make them oddly likeable.

There's further minutiae that adds to the whole: Anderson's love of idiosyncratic words, the frenetic pace, visual gags and slapstick that strangely recall 80s TV series Police Squad!, the throw-away -- but perfectly cast -- cameos, the heartfelt narration from F. Murray Abraham (as a grown-up Zero). It all comes together to make one of Anderson's least trying films. In fact it's pretty much likeable through and through.

Overall: 8/10

Disappointment of the Week/DVD review: 'Safety Not Guaranteed'

To the best of my awareness Safety Not Guaranteed is the first -- and thus far only -- film to take a real classified ad as its inspiration. Although 'real' might not be the right word. The ad was filler for a magazine, but it was well written filler; it had a good hook, simple concept, deadpan delivery. The internet lapped it up. In tone and conceit the film is true to the ad's spirit, but well written it is not.

The story -- well, 'story' is probably too strong a word, but it'll have to do -- focuses on Darius (played by the Queen of Deadpan: Aubrey Plaza), an intern at a magazine where she's mostly ill-used. Her sort-of superior Jeff (Jake Johnson) pitches an idea for a piece based on a classified ad he's seen, which reads: 'Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.' Jeff is given leeway to chase down whoever wrote it, so he ropes in Darius and shy retiring intern Arnau (Karan Soni), and goes on the hunt. What follows is rather too lacking in plot or character to be worth transcribing. There are no credible hurdles for these characters to overcome, no relationships that ring true, no arc on which they're taken. On a script level the film is inert.

Plaza, although interesting to watch, is one-note in the role of Darius (a name which I will forever associate with the Persian King circa 550BC. When I first heard someone use her name, which wasn't until the halfway point, I thought it was a code name... ). Her perpetually deadpan delivery works well in moderation, ideally as part of an ensemble; here she's the focus - so not so much with the moderation and the ensemble in this instance. The casting isn't much better when it comes to the rest: Johnson is likeable as Jeff, when he probably shouldn't be, Soni is wooden rather than his true aim: emotionless, and Mark Duplass -- who plays the possibly doolally writer of the ad -- is lacklustre; giving off the impression that he's in the film as a favour to the director, first timer Colin Trevorrow.

Problematic as some of the casting and editing may be, the real problem is the writing. Subplots are dropped or forgotten, and one particularly odd sequence involving a prosthetic was seemingly included just to pad out the running time. When Arnau is hastily given a truncated subplot of his own during the last third it, in essence, wraps up with the messages 'Don't be yourself!' and 'Peer pressure. It works!' Writer Derek Connolly, also a first timer, hints at interesting subject matter, raising themes of loneliness and belonging, only to meander around them in his conclusion-less script.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a comedy. I know this only because IMDb and Wikipedia, as well as the film's production notes, tell me so, because the film is never knowingly funny. Instead it appears to be aiming for the easier, broader target of generic-quirky-indie. A hodgepodge of a word, but the right one.

Overall: 4/10

New Release Review: 'Her'

How quickly you get onboard Spike Jonze's Her depends on how bearable/cutesy you find the name Theodore Twombly (played by the ever-awkward Joaquin Phoenix) and how effective/thematically-pointed you find his job. The year is 2025 but feels like 2015, if Apple were allowed to design the world for a year. Theodore is about to be newly divorced, has a circle of friends so small that it's more of a triangle, and compounds his relative isolation by spending his days writing love letters for the emotionally tongue-tied; neatly keeping himself from dealing with his own stunted emotions. Doubling down on his hermetic life Theodore buys the latest OS ('operating system'), which comes with an enticing new feature: artificial intelligence. His OS chooses the name Samantha (and is voiced with surprising range and depth by the often one-note Scarlett Johansson). Samantha is funny, sharp, and (not surprising given the casting) rather sexy. But ultimately she's a disembodied voice constrained by the small (and of course immaculately designed) box that contains her being. A modern day genie in a bottle.

Thanks to some deft writing and great performances the film skips past a lot of problematic questions about what Samantha is. Theodore likes her, trusts her, perhaps even loves her, but the moment you think of what she is, Theodore's very own genie, personally created for him based on his answers to a handful of questions (such as the always reliable 'What's your relationship like with your mother'), the whole dynamic seems even more warped than it already is. Part of that is intentional. Samantha literally belongs to Theodore. He owns her. How many people have said the same of their other halfs? (Even if they didn't mean it quite as literally as Theodore.) There are other knowing relationship parallels, such as Samantha's emotional growth and evolution beginning to outstrip Theodore's. Later in the film, in one perfectly written scene which echoes so many break-ups, Theodore asks if she's talking to anyone else (rather than the usual enquiry of whether she's sleeping with anyone else), and the answer feels painfully true despite its science fiction twist.

Jonze recently said that Her isn't about our relationship with technology, it just uses technology to find a new way to explore relationships. Which rather fudges the truth. There are one too many cut aways of crowds flowing past Theodore, talking on their phones or just scanning them, keeping themselves apart. Isolated. No one looks 'connected'; they look alone. By falling for an operating system is Theodore the same, or is his relationship real? Jonze toys with the question but ultimately takes any choice out of Theodore's hands. Possibly because even he doesn't know.

Making the whole thing go down with more ease than it probably ought is Hoyte van Hoytema's beautiful cinematography. The film pops with bright bold colours, reds, yellows, oranges, evocative of late summer (or perhaps just of iPhone ads). Which goes some way to selling this not quite future.

Her isn't as unique as its premise initially seems (Ruby Sparks plays with similar ideas and is well worth hunting down), but it is surprisingly touching. With a clearer voice it might have ranked alongside Jonze's best. Instead it's just very very good.

Overall: 8/10

New Release Review: 'The Lego Movie'

'The Lego Movie' is a rather bland and generic title. Bland titles are usually a cause for worry; titles that end in 'Movie', even more so (see: Epic Movie, Disaster Movie and Scary Movie. Or, y'know, don't). Fortunately The Lego Movie comes from the minds of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were responsible for the brilliantly demented Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

The plot of The Lego Movie could easily be described as that of The Matrix because, well... It is. Except with a lego Neo, and rather more boundless joy. We follow Emmet (our Neo), a regular (lego) guy, working as a construction worker amongst thousands of others, all of whom follow the meticulous design plans laid down by Lord Business (essentially The Architect from The Matrix Reloaded). In Lord Business's world there is no creativity or choice. Everything must be built exactly as the instructions dictate. But there is a prophecy, about a 'piece of resistance', and a master builder who'll wield it and free the world. After happening upon the 'piece' it looks like Emmet might just be the (lego) man his world needs.

From this unlikely springboard we get one scene after another of beautiful chaos. There's so much happening in the foreground, background and, well, the middleground, that even the animators of the sight-gag heavy Aardman films would struggle to catch it all in one viewing. And once you realise the pair had the audacity to remake The Matrix as lego, only with added fun, you're distracted on a whole other level as you start seeing parallels everywhere: Good Cop/Bad Cop is Agent Smith, Wildstyle is Trinity, Vitruvius is both Morpheus and The Oracle, and Batman is... Um... Cypher? Or is he just Batman? But then who's Uni-Kitty? Is she The Oracle? What about Pirate Metalbeard? It's possible I'm overthinking this.

The reservations I have about the film are slight: the visuals are, at times, too chaotic (the exact opposite of the altogether too empty backgrounds in Frozen), something which probably couldn't be helped when making a film set in a world made up of little bricks; the film's central message is laid on rather thick, but it's a good message all the same; and finally, although it's funny and engaging, and you somehow end up rooting for little yellow toys that waddle divertingly, there are a couple of moments in the film where you wander if it isn't all just a very shiny surface.

In summary: someone remade The Matrix via a toyline, and somehow it's rather good.


Overall: 7.5/10

New Release Review: 'Lone Survivor'

Lone Survivor, a title so generic and forgettable that I can barely keep it in mind even whilst typing it, is based on the book of the same name: a true account of a Navy SEALs mission gone awfully awry. SEAL Team 10 go into Afghanistan to take out a Taliban leader, but the mission's compromised when a goat herder and his sons stumble across them; one of the few noteworthy moments in a film more interested in the immaculate recreation of a firefight than in dealing with difficult moral questions. Not long after this the team find themselves surrounded by a 50-strong contingent of Taliban fighters. Which is when the film Peter Berg really wanted to make begins; and it turns out that film is Assault on Precinct 13. The team of four, Marcus (Mark Wahlberg), Mikey (Taylor Kitsch), Danny (Emile Hirsch), and Matt (Ben Forster), are beset on all sides. Shots fly, RPGs are launched, and shrapnel goes everywhere. It's intense, disorientating, and probably not far from the truth of what happened that day. Several times the team comment on the astonishing speed of the horde: they're fast. Impossibly fast. Another (likely unintended) nod to Precinct 13. And that's the trouble. Is it a stylish action-thriller, in line with Berg's underrated The Kingdom, or is it a brutal realistic account of a terrible day (see: anything by Greengrass)? Berg goes back and forth between the two approaches, but never settles.

Even if the film weren't tonally confused, it still barely qualifies as a story. Instead it feels like a detailed recreation for a news segment. There's no reason the event can't be moving and compelling, but Berg does nothing to justify the film's existence. The SEAL team are so devoid of defining characteristics you wonder how they tell each other apart behind their thick beards. That the survivor of the title is the least fleshed out of the team is especially odd. The group have an easy manner with each other, highlighted by some passable banter, but they're each defined by a single characteristic or, if they're really unlucky, a single fact. One is engaged, another is married, the third one is competitive, and the fourth is... Well... His beard is rather straggly. Maybe he feels less secure around the more manly beards? There's more character work done in that sentence then the script does for any of the team during the entire running time. It's not until the closing act, when a small village intercedes and attempts to offer protection to our titular survivor - this despite the fact that it would mean their annihilation by the Taliban - that the film wakes up. Suddenly interesting questions are posed and deeper themes are intimated; but it's too little too late.

At the very beginning of the film there's a montage of real footage of men going through the gruelling training regime to become a Navy SEAL. Most who watch it will quickly realise they probably aren't amongst the 0.01% who are cut out to be a SEAL. Berg's film seems to exist purely to confirm that. SEAL Team 10 take bullet after bullet and keep moving. They take falls that would leave most human bodies in pieces, then get up again. Lone Survivor shows you how much hurt a body can take; but it doesn't show you much else.

Overall: 5.5/10

Random side note:
This does answer one of the greatest mysteries in film. (Okay, that might be slightly hyperbolic, but only slightly.) The mystery: why would Berg direct Battleship? Dear god why!? He's hardly a highbrow director, but even his weakest films have some intellect. Battleship has aliens, Rihanna, a complete lack of anyone saying "You sunk my Battleship!" (which is unforgivable), and a dearth of intellect. So why do it? Turns out it was a bargain. Universal would only give him the cash for his latest, Lone Survivor, if he made their little film first. Not a great bargain.

New Release Review: 'Inside Llewyn Davis'

February, 1961. New York. Llewyn - who I can't stop calling Llewellyn - is on the stage at the Gaslight Cafe singing "Hang me, oh hang me". For the three minutes the song lasts Llewyn Davis seems soulful, thoughtful, and compelling. He isn't. It takes perhaps another three minutes to get that. Every minute afterwards just clarifies it. Since the shortest accepted running-time for a feature film is (roughly) 72-minutes it's unlikely Inside Llewyn Davis would be released if it were 6-minutes long... But it would have been a better film.

The story runs thusly: there isn't one. Not really. Llewyn is an aspiring musician who sleeps wherever he can beg a couch. He's good at what he does, but not quite good enough. He's wrung out, tired, and close to giving up. He has family, and some friends who can still bear the sight of him, but he drifts in and out of their lives, leaving minor chaos in his wake. Very minor. He accidentally locks a cat out of its home (and carts it around with him for most of the film); he heckles a performer; he gets a friend pregnant; and he reduces one of his hosts at dinner to tears. Little of it makes an impression on him. Although he does seem a little sorry about the cat. That's about the sum of it. As Coen brother number one (Joel) said of the film: '[It] doesn't really have a plot [...] that's why we threw the cat in.'

It opens well enough, quickly setting the scene - almost any shot in the film could pass for a 60s folk album cover - and the music, to my layman's ear, fits credibly into the era; but the film never escapes the first act. Instead of a second act we get the opposite: act nought. (Or perhaps 'act minus one'.) Even when the film becomes a road movie and Llewyn has a clear destination, it never shakes its aimlessness. The lack of momentum is then compounded by the film's elliptical structure, which, although elegantly done, gives the impression that not only is Llewyn stuck in purgatory, we're stuck in it with him. Which doesn't make for the most rewarding cinema experience.

Inside... still feels like a Coen brothers film, thanks to the fantastic casting done by Ellen Chenoweth (who particularly excels at casting doddery old secretaries), but there's little to the script, which leaves everyone somewhat adrift: Oscar Issac expertly handles the singing but inspires little more than indifference as Llewyn; Carey Mulligan, a fellow folk singer (and one time fling), hurls out insults with an anger that seems paper thin; and John Goodman, as a random jazz musician, follows Mulligan's lead and shouts and bellows to make up for lack of characterisation. No one else fairs much better. Except perhaps the cat; the film's most interesting character. And I'm only being slightly flippant in writing that. (Behold as he wrestles with themes of identity and gender!) He's certainly the most likeable character. Whilst others do nothing, he acts. This is known as 'having agency'. Shame none of the humans do.

Overall: 5/10

New Release Review: 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

If you're sat in the cinema watching the credits roll, and you're not making a sound, nor is anyone else around you, odds are you just saw a film of great import; probably a true story, unflinchingly told. But there is another, rarer, reason for such silence, known as the 'Well... Where to begin?'

A bit of background first: The Wolf of Wall Street is the sort-of true tale of Jordan Belfort, a New York stockbroker with no moral compass. If you've seen Boiler Room or Wall Street, or any number of documentaries, then you'll get the gist of what Jordan's up to. For those that haven't seen the above, it's not terribly important that you know. Belfort (played by a very game Leonardo DiCaprio) tries to explain what he's doing on a few occasions - talking directly to the camera - but then waves it off, telling us not to worry about it. It's illegal, what else do you really need to know? Director Martin Scorsese does spend a bit of time showing the ins and outs of Belfort's double dealings, but since that's been well documented before (again, see the films above) he's more interested in showing just why Belfort would do what he's doing, and apparently the only way to get that across is with three hours of every known kind of objectification.

After walking for a spell, and spending as much time as possible avoiding it, my companion for The Wolf of Wall Street gave their thoughts on the film:

Companion: "Well... When it worked, it really really worked."
Me: "Yeah? Which bits really worked?"
Companion: "Um... There- There was that bit that... Uh..."

They'd forgotten. The film was so long, so of-a-kind, that little stood out. Which is a strange sentence to write considering the epic excesses to which we're witness; but that is what's hobbled it: it's a film about excess, but the film itself gives in to that excess. Not twenty minutes into the film Scorsese tell us all we needed to know on the subject: Matthew McConaughey's senior stockbroker, a dapper figure that Belfort looks up to, takes the young man to lunch and gives him the equivalent of Wall Street's 'Greed is good' speech. In his slightly unhinged discourse we can see both the appeal of what he offers whilst hearing how hollow it sounds. Spending the rest of the film showing just what this well dressed Mephistopheles was offering goes from being salacious to tedious before we're even out of the first act.

Many have accused the film of being misogynistic. I don't think it's misogynistic but I do think that it makes one too many tonal missteps - making it far too easy to level the charge. Scorsese's attempts to make the excesses of sex and drugs distasteful, by dialling things to eleven, might have worked if used sparingly; but because it's relentless, because he makes it the entire reason for the films existence (and that isn't much of a reason for existing) he becomes complicit in the things he's shown. It doesn't feel like he's stepped back and asked us to come up with our own conclusions - instead it feels like he's taking part.

I've got no problem with sex and drugs. I watch HBO. My tolerance is pretty high. But The Wolf of Wall Street is 60-minutes of plot, and 120-minutes of sex and drugs. A ratio that Game of Thrones wouldn't even try. The film is all about the high; perhaps you'll get caught up in it, but when you come down from it you'll struggle to explain its virtues.

Overall: 4/10

New Release Review: '12 Years a Slave'

The year is 1841. Two slaves heave a body overboard, leaving it to the sea. As the first looks on in despair the second tells him 'He's better off than we are'. Over the next 134-minutes 12 Years a Slave will go about proving that.

Based on the memoir of the same name, 12 Years a Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup: a black man, born free, but kidnapped and sold as a slave under false pretences. Solomon is given a new name, one he'll answer to or be beaten to within an inch of his life; after all, it's hard to sell a man if he keeps insisting he's free, and has a name which leads to proof of that fact. He's then shipped off and sold. That we know he'll eventually attain his freedom does little (by which I mean it does nothing) to soften the blow of what's to come.

It seems strange that motion picture (of one kind or another) has been around for 136 years but this is the first feature film to put slavery front and centre, and deal with it frankly. Others have dabbled with it, but it's been a subplot. We'd see its repercussions but get little more than glimpses of the thing itself. Director Steve McQueen conjures some startlingly effective imagery by not only putting slavery at the centre of the film but by making it commonplace. McQueen foregrounds the horror, then allows life to go on in the background as if nothing's wrong. The whippings are just another sound mixed in with the rustling of the corn stalks and the shifting of the trees.

I'm struggling to avoid using the word 'faultless' to describe the film. It's dangerous to say something's perfect - it's too easy to begin dismantling the assertion - but 12 Years a Slave, for me, was just that. The cinematography was reminiscent of Terrence Malick's nature-inflected lensing, but more grounded, more believable; the score by Hans Zimmer is surprisingly subtle, and is only noticeably Zimmer-y during Solomon's brief tenure on the ship that takes him to his new life - the oppressive doom-laden music that accompanies this sequence is a little on the nose, but it's very effective; and then there's the performances: Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon, Benedict Cumberbatch (Solomon's first master), Michael Fassbender (his second), Lupita Nyong'o (as a slave caught between Fassbender's lust and his wife's loathing), Paul Dano (once again playing a creep, and doing it well, but maybe he should branch out now that's he's mastered it?) and many others, completely disappear into their roles. Of them all Ejiofor has the hardest task: it's a quiet un-showy part that requires him to shrink inside himself. His back slowly curves and his voice deadens as he tries to fade into the background, to go unnoticed, to survive.

The film strikes only one off note: Brad Pitt as an open minded Canadian. Not that you'd know he's Canadian, as Pitt employs the same overly ripe Tennessee accent he used in Inglorious Basterds. There's something about Pitt that feels anachronistic. He doesn't belong. He can be a capable actor, and fits into the same period setting just fine when he's called upon to be otherworldy (Interview with a Vampire), but here that works rather less well.

12 Years... won't be for everyone. Solomon is a passive character. He has to be to survive. But for some that might make the film too much like a catalogue of facts - albeit beautifully and starkly rendered ones. If you can get lost in Solomon's journey the film is utterly immersive, brutalising, and eye-opening.

Overall: 10/10

New Release Review: 'All is Lost'

If you watch All is Lost pay very close attention to its opening lines, because it's all you're going to get of backstory. In fact it's practically all you're going to get of dialogue - except for a cry or two for help and one well earned expletive. Robert Redford's mini monologue hints at a turbulent past, a family left broken or, perhaps, something else entirely. Because that's all it is. A hint. A suggestion. The film says make of it what you will, because it's not going to mention it again, nor is it going to give you anything else to guide you.

The story is simple: Redford, the film's one and only cast member, and credited simply as Our Man, wakes to water filling his cabin. His boat has been struck by a wayward shipping container, and it's just the start of his troubles. Over eight days he'll use body (albeit a slow and aged one) and soul to hold his boat together; but (non-spoiler alert!) as the title suggests, it's unlikely to end well.

All is Lost is a film paired down to its bare elements. For some that makes it the purest kind of cinema. It sticks so rigidly to the central tenant of screenwriting - show don't tell - that it almost feels like its being wilful about it. To a degree it can't help it: Redford is on his own, he has no one to talk to, so how could the film do much of any 'telling'? But that doesn't mean we should be left quite so lacking in things with which to connect. Halfway through the film Redford takes a sextant (a ye olde' form of plotting your ship's course) out of a box and briefly looks at a letter attached to it. The letter's open. There's nothing written on the front. For a moment it looks like it might be a window into his past. The sextant must be a gift from a loved one! Maybe a dead son? He's escaped to sea to forget that tragedy! Except no. What's more likely is that it's from the makers of the sextant and it simply says 'Thank you for buying from Sextant Suppliers - purveyors of top quality sextants!' For those that were frustrated by Alfonso Cuaron's at times heavy handed use of backstory in Gravity, here director J.C. Chandor offers a counterpoint. This is what Gravity would have been like without it, and it's not an entirely welcome change.

In another actor's hands the above might not have been so frustrating. You don't need backstory to tell a story, but you do need an actor with whom you can empathise, and onto whom you can project a past, whether bleak or otherwise. Redford's screen persona tends to be charming and suave, but with a hint of smugness to it. Here that sits ill, and in a film with just one actor, that's highly problematic.

Chandor's film is often compelling, and at times beautiful, but it's ultimately to cold and distant to care about.

Overall: 7/10



Since I've been away for a spell I've also set down a few quick lines on some of the other recent releases:

American Hustle - Great cast, great director, mostly okay film. In the early noughties there was a glut of conman films with tricksy intricate plots and not a single character you could trust. American Hustle sits neatly amongst these. The only thing that marks it out as different is its warped sense of humour (which is most notable in Bradley Cooper's pent up aggression and Jennifer Lawrence's beautifully unhinged singing). The gang orchestrating the (accidentally) long con on a group of gangsters and senators are all amusingly colourful, but continually having to guess at their true motives - particularly those of Amy Adams - becomes exhausting, and then annoying. Perhaps the main problem is that it's an ensemble film that keeps trying to pick a lead, but doesn't know how to settle on one. 6.5/10

Frozen - The youngling I took along to Frozen stated that it was his favourite film ever. Since said youngling has been on steady diet of Pixar and Miyazaki, that's high praise. Frozen is dryly funny, with some fantastic songs (and I don't tend to go in for this whole musical malarky), but it often looks oddly empty. It's been animated immaculately, but there's an awful lot of dead space on the screen, as if the filmmakers want to make it as easy possible for Disney to turn it into a hit stage show on Broadway. How else to explain the large empty sets the characters inhabit? Yes, the characters live in vast castles that are supposed to highlight their loneliness and isolation, and yes, the environment just beyond them is a vast snowy tundra, and very pretty for it - but it still looks more like a broadway set than it does their home. 7/10