CHAPPiE, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Fifty Shades of Grey - Lazy Reviews

Blomkamp allows his love of Die Antwoord to tarnish what could have been a timeless Sci-Fi story. Although he underuses his otherwise talented cast he does prove once again that he is a master of visual grit. Chappie flirts with being great but just never gets there as the messengers were confused and plot gets tangled.

Kingsman is the perfect classic spy film homage that delicately blends in comic book action and excitement. The film is perhaps the ultimate “good time at the movies” something that Matthew Vaughn is now famous for. I just hope he sticks around for some sequels this time.

The definition of Twilight for older women. The film is total schlock with terrible dialogue and bad story telling. The direction is fine but with a much better script the film could have at least been bearable. 

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Whiplash

'There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.'

Whiplash is about a young man played by Miles Teller who desperately wants to impress his drumming instructor Fletcher, played by J.K Simmons.

I’d heard Whiplash was a film all about the performances. While I was happy to see a film that was mainly built from that, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a film that had a lot more moving pieces that I wasn’t aware of beforehand.

The performance from J.K Simmons is no doubt the best supporting performance I’ve seen all year. His character Fletcher is the definition of ‘not taking prisoners’ in his approach to drum instructing. Simmons is darkly hilarious in his attitude and line delivery and by the end of the film you totally understand his character as a man so completely focused on his goal. It’s great to see a character who is so invested in his ambitions and is willing to psychologically destroy his students to get it.

While Miles Teller was fine in his performance and I totally respect him for the amount of real drumming he did for his role, I never totally understood his character. He had been written as simply as someone who just wanted to be a great drummer, that sometimes was a flaw in the character as it made him slightly (and only in certain moments) one dimensional.

With all the drumming and jazz music in the film you must have great editing in order for the audience to keep invested. The editing in the film is absolutely solid, fast paced and added a layer of tension, especially in the final act of the film. It’s also shot beautifully. One shot specifically which I saw in the trailer of Miles Teller’s character putting his blistered hand in icy water was immaculately shot. There are many visually stunning shots like this in the film and they were an absolute treat to see.

The film runs with a very straightforward narrative which I appreciated as so many films of late have felt very bloated. It was refreshing to have a simple story about a guy who wants to be the best, Totally the opposite of what Foxcatcher achieved. The film reminded me of Rocky and some of those older sports films. My only real fault I had with the film is almost a compliment depending on how you look at it. When it ended I wasn’t finished watching these characters and would have been perfectly happy to have another twenty or so minutes of runtime, even though the ending is perfectly conclusive. 

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Nightcrawler Snubbed for Best Actor 2015 in Favour of Foxcatcher

Not caring too much for the Oscars I try not to get too worked up when I see that something or someone has been snubbed. I notice some people get really worked up about them, for me the ignorance of one hundred year old out of touch Academy members more amuses me than irritates. However right now I think I have a fair argument and opinion as to why Jake Gyllenhaal should have been nominated for Best Actor for his role in Nightcrawler either as well as Steve Carell for Foxcatcher or instead of. (In an ideal world where I decide everything film related, it would definitely have been instead of.)

In my opinion Steve Carell’s character in Foxcatcher was very superficially written and one dimensional. You understood his motivations in their most basic forms. He was rich but wanted to bring his own kind of honor to his family. He was willing to do anything to get it and we saw this through Steve Carell’s fair portrayal. But by the film’s conclusion, a question is still buzzing around the audience’s heads, why did he do that terrible thing at the end? Isn’t that what this film is mean’t to answer? Surely a true story, with this talented a director and these talented actors can’t end this abuptly and ambiguously after a two hour run time. The audience had so much time to understand John Du Pont’s motivations, and it just never happened.

Its easy to make the argument ‘sometimes psycopaths don’t have motivations in real life’ and that’s all well and good. But if you’re going to write a character who appears to have no clear or fleshed out motivations at least make them interesting. They don’t even have to be likeable just interesting. That is enough to keep the audience involved in the story and indeed the character. John De Pont wasn’t interesting, and that’s where his character differs from Gyllenhaal’s portrayal of Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler. Its true that you didn’t always understand Bloom’s motivations, and he absolutely was not a likeable character. But he was always interesting. You can always credit the writing for this but it always takes a great actor to pull it off. I am confused as to why Foxcatcher was nominated for Best Writing and Best Actor and deserves neither while Nightcrawler is missing the latter, and deserves to win the former. 

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Birdman

"Popularity is the slutty cousin of prestige."

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is an arthouse film about an aging actor who is largely known for his role in 'Birdman’ films. The film is about his attempt to shatter his ‘Birdman’ typecast by directing and starring in a Broadway play. The film stars Michael Keaton as Riggan Thomson, Emma Stone as Riggan’s daughter, Zach Galifianakis as Riggan’s agent and Edward Norton as Riggan’s unmanageable method acting Broadway co-star.

I will begin this review by saying that this film is a true piece of film art. Never before have I experienced something that hit so many levels of social commentary and surrealism. The film is made to look like one continuous take, something that I am sure was an absolute nightmare to film. But the director’s hard work and patience pays off beautifully as the cinematography is engrossing and mesmerising. It truly gave me the sense that I was backstage of this play with these characters, who in every sense of the word felt like real life people.

The acting in the film is absolutely flawless. Michael Keaton throws himself into the character to the point where you only see Riggan’s struggles and ambitions. Which is strangely ironic as Michael Keaton shares so many similarities with this character. A character that I believe will be one of iconic characters of this decade. Edward Norton is also incredible in the film, playing a character who appears to be some kind of strange and hilarious self-parody. Emma Stone shines some brilliant and needed social commentary with an engrossing monologue. That’s another thing about the film, it’s filled with this astonishing monologues that appear to be intricately written but somehow seem like they could have been improvised, something I know is impossible due to the extremely long takes.

Birdman was an absolute joy to watch and a film that I believe will have success and a future cult status. I only hope that the surrealism doesn’t lose audiences or indeed voting members of the Academy as I would love Birdman to win Best Picture 2015.

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Foxcatcher

"What do you want to achieve Mark?"

Foxcatcher is the true story of two brother wrestlers played by Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum who gradually both get financed by eccentric millionaire John Du Pont, played by Steve Carell.

*This review contains spoilers*

There is some serious Oscar buzz surrounding this film, for the most part regarding Steve Carell. Under heavy prosthetics he is physically unrecognisable as this weird psychopathic character. I say ‘physically unrecognisable’ for a reason, as I personally couldn’t take him seriously. Probably my own fault as in theory I can see this being a good performance, it has all the components that I understand a good performance to be but unfortunately I only saw Steve Carell. Specifically Michael Scott from The Office, of which I am a fan. His presence constantly pulled me out of the film, and it does make me wonder whether or not I’ll ever be able to see Steve Carell as a different character.

Though the performances were good I was bothered by either how they were being directed or how the script had written the characters. I know it’s a true story and I know that the murder is the entire basis as to why the film was made. But it seemed like John De Pont was nowhere near developed enough for this event to even happen. Which is incredibly strange to me. The writer didn’t allow the audience to properly understand the motivations of the character and because of this you leave the film simply confused about what you just watched or relieved because the film (which is frankly overly long) finally ended.

Many critics have called this film character study, a film that doesn’t focus on a plot. And that’s all well and good. But achieve that a writer has to at least make their characters interesting, they don’t even have to be likable, just interesting. But when you look plainly at the three main characters, you have Steve Carell who is an underdeveloped creep, Channing Tatum who is a guy with younger brother syndrome and Mark Ruffalo who is likeable. And for a film like this which is so heavily focused on its characters that’s simply not enough, especially because the audience is meant to be invested, to be extremely invested in all three of these characters by the film’s third act.

The film does redeem itself with some stunning cinematography, which made me sign with relief every time there was something pretty to look at. But then I wondered whether Bennett Miller had hired such a good cinematographer so the audience didn’t notice his characters were underdeveloped. And then that took me out of the film. The performances from Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo were good, considering how their characters had been written. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Steve Carell represented this film at the Oscars with some kind of nomination as all the buzz seems to be focused on him.

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Howl

I’m currently watching/re-watching a string of random films. Today I watched Howl for the first time.

Howl is the true story of Allen Ginsberg and how he came to write his most famous poetry book ‘Howl and Other Poems’. The film’s narrative moves backwards and forwards from when Ginsberg was writing the book, the court case that followed its publication and an animated reimagining of the poem as it is being read.

Before seeing the film I had dabbled briefly with some of Ginsberg’s work. Never actually reading ‘Howl’ in its entirety all I knew was that it was controversial and that Ginsberg was a visionary with wild ideas for his time which he expressed through poetry. Having now seen the film the poem inspired I can now say that this is a truly underrated piece of art.

As I’m reviewing the film I won’t linger on how incredibly insightful and revolutionary Ginsberg poem was, (at this point it goes without saying.) I could talk about how unconventional of a biopic this is with its lack of structure, or how excellent James Franco was as Ginsberg. But instead I will focus on the breath taking animation sequences within the film.

As the poem is being dramatically read by Franco we see the words being visually brought to life in graphic novel-like gothic animation. I’ve seen a lot of stop motion films, I’ve seen a lot of animated films in general but I honestly have never seen something as creative as this. The animation is graphic, colourful and truly hypnotic.

If you’re a fan of animation I would give this film your time, you don’t need to be interested in poetry because I guarantee that Howl will at least intrigue you. It’s rightly an experience and I wish I had seen it in the cinema on its release.

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As Above, So Below

Not being a fan of horror I can say that I was less than mildly interested in seeing this film. Though it is a found footage horror film it did have some redeeming qualities. So the story is a smart researcher lady and a few expendable supporting characters go into the catacombs beneath Paris to look for the philosopher’s stone.

First of all, while watching this film I couldn’t help but laugh and be completely pulled out of any suspense and tension every time “philosopher’s stone” was mentioned. I know it’s dumb and immature but I kept imagining the cast of Harry Potter suddenly appearing on screen.

With that over with I can say for the most part this film is a good time if you like horror. The opening act is where nothing at all menacing happens. But I personally didn’t mind it since it set up the characters nicely, giving a slightly bigger impact when they all inevitably start dying.

I will say this when they’re in the catacombs it was all filmed really creatively unlike any found footage film I’ve seen before. It did a good job of putting its audience in the same claustrophobic shoes that the characters were feeling. The thing I enjoyed most in these segments however was the sound design. Really great use of sound, which was totally vital in creating real tension.

The film as a whole was alright, better performances than you would expect and a solid third act.

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