Sorry We Missed You

Sorry We Missed You is Ken Loach's follow up to 2016's I, Daniel Blake and it mines a similar vein of problems with modern British society. In this case, it's the 'Zero-hours economy', whereby companies can keep workers on call or franchise (virtually 'non-employed' employees), leaving the way clear for mass exploitation. Not a new thing, sure, but the loosening of regulations to allow this kind of economic fascism shows just what kind of politics rule the roost these days.

Loach is a master at this genre, he's been doing this kind of film for years, and he's getting even more angry if these last two films are anything to go by. The focus of this film is the Turner family, specifically husband and father, Ricky, shaggily played by Kris Hitchens. He naively (or desperately) agrees to the terrible conditions set out by the foreman of a parcel delivery company, Maloney, played by Ross Brewster. This guy is a prime prick but Brewster imbues him with the threat of sympathy before pulling the rug out from under us. It would be veering into black comedy if it weren't so realistic. The performances are very natural - characters occasionally stumble over lines, some of the younger actors mumble a bit (now there's a tricky dialect to follow - 'Mumble Geordie'). Many of the cast are making debuts here, the standout for me being Katie Proctor, who plays Ricky's daughter, Liza.

Sorry is written by Paul Laverty, Loach's usual scribe, and he joins cinematographer Robbie Ryan and editor Jonathan Morris as Loach returnees. The story plays out as you'd expect, riddled with despair, alongside the odd bright moment and one or two simmerings coming to the boil (hats off to Debbie Honeywood for an NHS-set eruption). It's hard to know how to judge the ending - without giving anything away, it's maddeningly, seat-punchingly, foreseeable.With a loyal crew and a (reasonably) novice cast, it would seem that box office isn't an issue - no need for bottom line, hence Loach can basically make what he wants. But here's the rub - he's been making left-wing, workers' rights, solidarity films since the 1960s. Fat lot of fucking good he has done when you look at what's going on in the UK and the world in general. And yet, if he isn't making these, if he does retire, like he planned after Jimmy's Hall, then we'd most likely be even worse off.

So overall, a bleak way to spend a Saturday morning but bleak Loach is better than no Loach at all.

See also:

Riff-Raff (1991) is another little Loach gem, as is The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006).

SPOILERS IN POD!!! (and apologies for slightly different sound quality...)

Listen to "Sorry We Missed You" on Spreaker.

Knives Out

So by my workings, this is Rian Johnson's fifth feature and his career would look explicable were it not for the lumping great behemoth of his fourth film. Brick in 2005 - low budget, clever reworking of hard-boiled detective fiction. The Brothers Bloom in 2008 - appreciably higher budget, more well-known actors but still quirky and indy. Looper in 2012 - interesting time travel sci-fi with Bruce Willis. So far, nice little trajectory. But wait, what's this? A FLECKING STAR WARS FILM!?! Fast forward a couple of years while the online invective wears off and here we are at Knives Out, which is, for me, his best film yet.

On the face of it, this is a murder mystery 'whodunit', set mostly in a lovely old country home. The quaintness goes a little further with Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc, a southern US detective with an eloquent turn of phrase. But underneath, Knives Out is a scathing attack on the 'haves' of society and what they'll do to keep their pound of flesh. These 'haves' are manifested by the Thrombeys, who are gathered at the old house to see off the departed patriarch of the family, grotesquely rich Harlan Thrombey, played in flash-back by Christopher Plummer. The performances of the family members are fantastic - Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans and Toni Collette all arguably handing in their best performances. And their characters are quite well balanced too. There are conservative elitists and liberal elitists but, make no mistake, they are all cunts. When their way of life is threatened by an 'other', very much a 'have not', their true colours come to the fore. The 'have not' here is played by Ana de Armas, last seen in Blade Runner 2049, and a very different role it is. She plays Harlan's nurse from Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil or possibly somewhere else. It's a running theme that none of the family members actually know which country she's from. The film credits Craig and Evans first but it's de Armas's film. The story revolves around her and she carries it off with reserved ease.

While the acting is top notch, I reckon it's the script that is the star of Knives Out. The overarching storyline is complex enough to make you wonder if everything scans but satisfying enough to shrug off the improbabilities of it all. Johnson fills the narrative with neat tricks (the dogs as a Deus Ex Machina) and pay-offs (the baseball is almost a character in itself). The dialogue is littered with gems. Don Johnson's character assumes that his nephew has been "joylessly masturbating to pictures of dead deer". Blanc muses about "..the terminus of Gravity's Rainbow" (referring to a famously inaccessible Thomas Pynchon novel). And virtually everything Toni Collette says is annoyingly brilliant.

The credits provided some eyebrow raises. It seems Joseph Gordon-Levitt was an off camera voice at the beginning of the film, meaning he's been in all of Johnson's films so far. Frank Oz also made an appearance - he was the will reader. Not too often you get James Bond, Captain America, Detective Sonny Crockett AND Yoda in the same film.

See also:

Johnson's, Brick (2005) is an assured debut feature and have a look at Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001) for more class-based mystery.

POD TO FOLLOW.....??

The Irishman

I feel a bit guilty about this now but I decide to skip the option of seeing Martin Scorsese's latest film at the cinema and wait a week or so for its Netflix release. As with any film, it would have been better on the big screen but it's what it is.

The Irishman tells the story of Frank Sheeran, an Irish-American mafia hitman, and his links to the disappearance of union boss, Jimmy Hoffa. The film is based on a book by Charles Brandt called 'I Heard You Paint Houses', which refers to the blood from the exit wound of a hit. Martin Scorsese returns to the themes of criminal loyalty, machismo and the side effects of this kind of lifestyle, which pervade films like Goodfellas, Casino and even back to Mean Streets. The running time of 3 and a half hours may seem off-putting but there was nary a point where I felt my attention flagging and credit must go to writer, Steven Zaillian and Scorsese's (anything but) regular editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. And, of course, Scorsese knows his onions too.

The performances are roundly excellent, even Al Pacino's scenery-chewing wasn't too out of place for his character, Hoffa. In contrast, Robert De Niro is all hunched, unsure, conflicted - a great, nuanced turn from him. The stand-out though is Joe Pesci. As Reece Shearsmith said on Twitter,

Joe Pesci with the lid kept on so tight is terrifying. https://t.co/kZuLqRTdZw

— Reece Shearsmith (@ReeceShearsmith) December 7, 2019

Some of his looks in this film are extraordinary, like he's completely at home in the skin of the character. Like his well-known roles are Hulked inside of him. The conscience of the film is Sheeran's youngest daughter, Peggy, played icily well by Anna Paquin. As has been mentioned, she has very few lines but her enmity towards her father is felt via her silence. Other tips of the hat must go to Harvey Keitel, Stephen Graham and Ray Romano.

The time shifts throughout the film are handled well, and not just due to the 'de-aging' CGI techniques. It takes a little time to get used to seeing a 'younger' De Niro on screen but the gimmick wears off quickly enough. The locations and set design are fantastic and, along with the digital effects, go some way to explaining why this is supposedly Scorsese's most expensive film. The way Scorsese and Zaillian weave these characters through historical events such as The Bay of Pigs and JFK's (SPOILER!!) assassination is a real boon to history buffs and I think this brushing up to reality is one of the reasons it cracks along without the viewer drifting. There's a lot to cover story-wise and it's done with aplomb. Kind of wish I'd seen it at a cinema.

See also:

Can't go wrong with many Scorsese films but I'll say Goodfellas (1990) and Taxi Driver (1976), both with De Niro hitting worldies all over the fucking shop.

SPOILERS IN POD!! (Listen out for the different sound quality - human quality remains the same)

Listen to "The Irishman" on Spreaker.

Finding Santa

So, here's an odd thing. A week or so ago, I got an email from a film distribution/production company in California asking if I was keen to review a film they are rolling out. I figured I'd give it a go. The film is a Danish animation called Den Magiske Juleaeske, or anglicised to Finding Santa. Now, right off the bat, I admit to not being a fan of Christmas, and therefore Christmas films in general. Clearly, this film wasn't made with my demographic in mind. The director, Jacob Ley, has form with this kind of children's animation in Denmark and I assume there's a market for it, especially at this time of year. But it's not for me.

The story follows an irritating orphan named Julius who loves Christmas but has to confront the possibility that Santa isn't real. He's bullied by other kids in the orphanage and is drawn into a magic realm where he's lumped with the task of rescuing Santa and Christmas. The antagonist in all this is a camp Krampus, a creature I hadn't heard of until recently. The voice performance of Krampus is one of the highlights - he seems to be in a different film, playing it like a stroppy goat diva. The elves in this section of the film are also kind of batty. I'd have been more on board if the whole film was played like this but, again, it's aimed at small humans. Incidentally, Krampus has been making some trouble in Austria, according to this report in The Guardian.

The dubbed English dialogue in Finding Santa is somewhat clunky and I assume it's the translation from Danish that's caused it. The whole film is an unusual diversion into a more naive, unironic style of animation, worlds away from the Pixar or Aardman type. The animation is a kind of stop-motion, drawn rendering and while it looks nice in the landscapes, it comes across as a bit jarring, even creepy, with the characters. 

One more thing to note - I couldn't work out the significance of two speaking snow statues named Joan and Kurt. Some kind of Danish folklore? 

Thanks to Tricoast Entertainment for the screener and the chance to watch something I'd never normally go for. Finding Santa is available on digital streaming platforms such as Amazon, iTunes, DirecTV, Vimeo on Demand and others.

See also:

If you like Christmas animation, have a peep at Arthur Christmas (2011), directed by Sarah Smith and Barry Cook (and co-written by Partridge alumnus, Peter Baynham) and, though I haven't seen it, Krampus (2015), directed by Michael Dougherty, could add some festive balance.

By the Grace of God

A stupidly hot Saturday morning was a great time for the Luna Leederville preview screening of Francois Ozon's new film, By the Grace of God. This is a drama set in Lyon, based on real-life, current events surrounding the crimes of a paedophile priest, Bernard Preynat. The catholic church of Lyon and its high-ranking officials, including Cardinal Barbarin, were found to have known about his actions for some time and not acted upon this knowledge.

The film starts with one of the victims, a now 40-something family man, Alexandre, discovering that the priest who abused him was returning to work with kids in the Lyon area. This sets off a chain of emails and calls to the diocese, culminating in a weird, arranged meeting between Preynat, Alexandre and a church psychologist. The frustrating formality of the church culture in these scenes forces Alexandre's hand and he ultimately feels he needs to involve the law, rather than relying on the church to gets things done. Here's where the film takes an interesting turn by essentially removing Alexandre from the story for a huge chunk of time and leaving another victim, Francois to take up the baton. He is instrumental in creating a support group of fellow victims and this part of the story is then followed by a third victim's section. Emmanuel is the most troubled of the three and the scenes of his epilepsy and social interactions make for some awkward viewing.

The title of the film refers to a statement made by Barbarin at a press conference, where he seemed to be relieved that most of the crimes were committed outside the statute of limitations in French law. The film explores the role of the church in covering up the crimes in a similar way to Spotlight, though that film focussed more on the journalists breaking the story in Boston than on victims themselves. The relationships in the film - Alexandre and wife, Marie; Francois and his parents; Emmanuel and his girlfriend - are key. They highlight the real, natural connections made by choice, as opposed to the sickness (Preynat's own words) of the priest's actions.

Ozon had heaps of trouble bringing By the Grace of God to screens. In an interview with the Observer, he says,

“There were two court cases, but each time there has been legal action the judges have found in our favour. Fortunately.”

It appaers all the church's platitudes are just lip service, designed to placate and hinder victims and their families. Alexandre's son's final question to his father is pretty notable - "Do you still believe in god?" Ozon's decision to leave it unanswered is cleverly designed to let the viewer decide.

See also:

Another Ozon film, Swimming Pool (2003) and Tom McCarthy's Spotlight (2015).

SPOILERS IN POD!!!

Listen to "By the Grace of God" on Spreaker.

Terminator: Dark Fate

This latest Terminator film is nominally number 6 in the series, though it appears to be doing a retcon of numbers 3, 4 and 5. And fair enough, as they were, for the most part, shit. Dark Fate picks up 25 years after T2 and is the first film since that one to star Linda Hamilton. She gets top billing here too, but I think the star turn is Mackenzie Davis as augmented arse-kicker, Grace. She plays the Kyle Reese character, sent back to protect a Sarah Connor saviour from being terminated by the machines of Legion (Dark Fate's version of Skynet). That saviour is Dani Ramos, played by little-known Colombian actress, Natalia Reyes.

The interplay between the three female leads is well handled, with mistrust and confusion dominating. At one point, Dani asks why the machines are after her and is told by Sarah that they aren't afraid of her, they're afraid of her womb. I read this as a swipe at OWAMs (Old, white, American men) and their attempts to control abortion, in particular, and women in general. There are a few more hints at the film's leanings - at a border control facility, Grace asks where the prisoners are being held and is told that they're referred to as 'detainees', resulting in some quickly administered chin music. Arnie justifies his weapons hoarding as a necessity for when the human race begins to go berko. Also, he says, this is Texas. Speaking of Arnie, his character here seems an improved riff on the one in Terminator: Genisys, only hated, not loved by Sarah Connor. He also provides the comic relief and it's just about the funniest he's ever been.

The new iteration of the nasty Terminator is the REV-9, played by Gabriel Luna. This little shit has a neat trick of being able to separate its 'outer shell' from its 'frame' and perpetrate mass violence with both constituent parts. Pretty cool wrinkle for these films. Unlike other Terminator films of late, Dark Fate doesn't overload the story with too much guffle. It seems content to be a fast-paced, tightly-edited chase flick in the spirit of the first two films. And here's the crux - the story is nothing new, only the details are tweaked to add value. It's well structured and some of the set pieces are really exciting (the plane scene had me tensing up) but it seems like it was designed for maximum profit. Bring back Hamilton? Check. Arnie provides the cool and the funny? Check. Modernise by gender swapping the Reese character? Check. Make the antagonist EVEN HARDER to beat? Check. Oh, and don't forget to drop in some references to the first two films, or at least tease them. Check.

In saying all this, I have to admit to enjoying the hell out of this one. Nefarious manipulation or not, it worked for me. But as Freddie said, "When the machines take over, it ain't no place for rock and roll."

See also:

Head back to where it all started with James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) and, for more Mackenzie Davis, try the Black Mirror episode, San Junipero (2016), written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris.

SPOILERS IN POD!!!

Listen to "Terminator: Dark Fate" on Spreaker.

Joker

A fairly packed house at Morley Event cinemas for this Saturday evening screening of Joker. Lots to chew over in this film and it's been fairly beaten around and praised in equal measure, from what I've read. Two people I know were pretty down on it and another really enjoyed it. Me? Kind of in the middle, actually.

The best aspect of the film was the atmosphere, the look, the similarity, in this regard, to films from the American New Wave of the 1970s. There are lots of influences here - Taxi Driver, The French Connection, Blow Out (incidentally seen on a Gotham City cinema marquee, along with Zorro the Gay Blade) and The King of Comedy are just the ones I can think of. The performances are mint, especially Joaquin Phoenix, who is really staking a claim to being the best American actor going around at the moment. His turn in Joker put me in mind of a film he made recently for Lynne Ramsey called You Were Never Really Here. Both films required physical transformations and intense explorations of the characters' mental health. And here's one of the major themes of the film - mental illness. Written in (future Joker) Arthur Fleck's notebook is this:

The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you DON'T.

Fleck has an ailment whereby he laughs uncontrollably. He imagines things happening around him (more of this later). He takes a gun to a children's hospital. And he kills people. In the climactic scene on the talk show, he asks Robert DeNiro's host, Murray Franklin:

What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I'll tell you what you get! You get what you fucking deserve!

And this feeds into another of the major themes - a society's treatment of its poorer, less stable citizens. This is also where the nihilism ratchets up a few notches. Much of the bad press the film has been getting relates to both of these themes. I can't really comment on the accuracy of the mental illness angle but the anarchy of Gotham seems just a dog whistle away. And I quite liked this film's two fingers up to the establishment, but then I guess I always do.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Back to the imaginings. We see that Fleck imagines himself in the audience of the Murray Franklin show. We know that isn't real. Later, we understand he hasn't been having a relationship with Zazie Beetz's character - a few Sixth Sense style flashbacks illustrate this. But please, don't tell me there are more fakeries. I'm not having it. That's a cop-out. It's too easy for film-makers to make the unreliable narrator a complete bullshit artist and nullify much of what we see in the film. But then again, as has been mentioned to me (Roly's reading), that's part of being immersed in the mental illness stream of the film. I'd still rather read it as most of what we see on film, actually happened - not a dream, hallucination or fudge of some sort.

Some more things to note. The talk show stuff is a direct lift from The King of Comedy, with DeNiro in the Fleck role and Jerry Lewis as the host. It also references Phoenix himself on Letterman during the I'm Still Here phase. I'm not sure the film needed to focus on young Bruce Wayne as much as it did and the retconning of his parent's death to blame the Joker was shite. Oh, and it needed a tighter edit, if only to trim some of those bloody dance scenes. Yes, Phoenix has found some creepy ways to utilise his malnourished frame. No, we don't need that much of it.

So, ultimately, I'd say it was an above average film with some controversial takes on thorny topics. The homage to earlier films was nice and it seems Joe Public is lapping it up as well, so there may well be a sequel of sorts. Something to look forward to?

See also:

A predecessor to Joker, Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1982) and for more hard-core Phoenix, Lynne Ramsey's You Were Never Really Here (2017).

SPOILERS IN POD!!!

Listen to "Joker" on Spreaker.

Ad Astra

I caught this oddity in Taipei at the Q-Square cinema near the Taipei Main Station. And the queue was actually a square, 25 minute waiting block. Just made it into the screening on time. Seeing a film in Taiwan was pretty similar to other countries, the main difference being the steep, stadium-style seating. And there were pricks with their phones on, just like any other place. Fucking philistines.

So, onto Ad Astra. This is one of those big(ish) budget 'indy' films so admired and supported by Brad Pitt and his production company, Plan B. Pitt stars in this one and James Gray directs, with Hoyte Van Hoytema as DP - and supremely well-shot it is. There are lots of things to enter in the positive side of the ledger.....and almost as many in the negative side. One of the highlights is the already mentioned cinematography. Vast space vistas juxtaposed with claustrophobic interior shots and weirdly tinted off-world living areas give Ad Astra a fairly unique look and feel. There are some discrete sequences that are worth admission - the moon chase and a Trek-ish mayday call are standouts. The performances are roundly solid, Pitt even reins in his excessive tendencies here. Tommy Lee Jones is quietly menacing, Donald Sutherland is just great to see any time and Ruth Negga adds some much needed female input.

But the main theme is where Ad Astra drifts for me. The pacing could be tighter too, but that's a minor issue. The through line of the film involves Pitt's ability to deal with his father's absence. Jones abandoned Pitt and his (non-existent) mother to go into space 30 years before and now it seems there's a chance that he may be alive after all. Jones, having gone all Space Kurtz, may also be responsible for cataclysmic anti-matter occurrences (that was as hard to write as it probably is to read). Now, Daddy issues are not uncommon in film and they can be done well. I'd say this attempt sits just above the watermark. I appreciate Pitt's emotional wranglings and his efforts to not emulate his father's personality and behaviour and there's an pivotal scene where Jones opens a box of bitter truth all over Pitt's space suit. My mini-gripe would be the meandering it takes to get to this point. Pitt must give vocal records for psychiatric evaluations and, though slightly reminiscent of Gosling in Blade Runner 2049, these scenes waft and repeat and float like Terrence Malick has infected a Star Trek film with his piss and wind.

Financially speaking, it hasn't washed its face yet and may not become profitable. I do appreciate Plan B, though, and Pitt's attempts to deviate from the mainstream ever so slightly. Hope he eventually bankrolls a winner.

See also:

This film's jungle forebear, Apocalypse Now (1979) by Francis Ford Coppola and, for a film with a similar mission, Danny Boyle's Sunshine (2007).

The Nightingale

Popped along to the Luna the other night with Roly to see The Nightingale, Jennifer Kent's second feature after The Babadook. I've been vacillating about this film since then. I can't quite decide if I liked it or not and that's the nub of things. It's a beautiful film. And it's an unsettling film too. Set in 1825 Tasmania, it's humming with violence and the constant threat of it. This has apparently been a major turn-off for some audiences, with walk-outs and folk staying away from screenings. As confronting as this sexual and racial violence is, I reckon it's required viewing, especially for Australians unaware of our history. But I think the 'story' of the violence detracts a bit from the themes of trauma, companionship and trust that Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr portray so well throughout.

The story is a pretty straightforward revenge journey and the scenes of the Tasmanian bush are amazing to see, betraying the horrors in and around the landscape. Much of The Nightingale reminded me of the excellent novel The Roving Party by Australian author Rohan Wilson. Do yourself a favour and dig this out.

A couple of quibbles. I found myself wondering if they couldn't maybe have trimmed 20 minutes from somewhere. I'm not quite sure where but it dropped the pace slightly in the second act. Another issue is the character played by Sam Claflin. He's the villain of the film and he's one of the most evil seen on screen for a while. But he has zero shade. No nuance whatsoever. Clearly, this is a creative choice and it could be argued that this kind of scum actually populated the colonies at the time, but he felt too panto for me.

The Nightingale is uncomfortable, stunning, powerful and an essential entry in the Australian film catalogue. But sadly, I reckon most people will give it a swerve.

See also:

Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout (1971) and John Hillcoat's The Proposition (2005) for similar story echoes.

SPOILERS IN POD!!

Listen to "The Nightingale" on Spreaker.

Dogman

The first time we tried catching Dogman at the Luna Leederville the showing was sold out, so we returned the next day. I reckon the full house may have had more to do with the fact that there were 24 seats in the screening room than any 'buzz' around the film. This was selected for competition at Cannes and Matteo Garrone is a fairly big name in Italian cinema, what with Gomorrah and Reality to his credit, but a sell-out? Hmmm. Anyway, Dogman is not a film based on the popular kids book, nor is it some kind of werewolf drama. It's Garrone's bleak look at the dodgy side of Italy - drugs, violence, poverty and unhinged masculinity (the only females in the film are the Dogman's ex(?)-wife and daughter).

The dogman of the title is a dog groomer/kennel owner, played by relative unknown, Marcello Fonte and for all his simpering unlikeability, he's pretty good in this, his first lead role. He actually won the Best Actor award at Cannes for the role. There are hints of Garrone's other Italian films here (the ones I've seen, at least) in the run-down setting and naturalistic performances but it's the themes that run through his work that show the clearest link. These are probably best summed up as futility and resignation. The characters in Dogman (as in Gomorrah and Reality) are from the low end of town, struggling to get by. The cycle of poverty and disenfranchisement eats away at them until circumstances push them over the edge. The spotlight in this film is on a horrible relationship between two guys - one bully, the other bullied. I found myself getting frustrated at Marcello (the weak dogman) and his inability to stand up to the bully (Simone, played boof-headedly by Eduardo Pesce). But there's the reality of the situation. In many cases like this, nothing works. No heroes. No closure. No happy ending.

As much as I appreciated Dogman for showing places like this and people like this, I was fairly bored throughout the film. Maybe the pace, maybe the uncomfortable nature but it didn't leave much of a mark on me. Still I'll be looking out for Garrone's next film - maybe I'll even turn up earlier next time.

See also:

Garrone's Reality (2012) and a different take on bullying, Tomas Alfredson's, Let the Right One In (2008).

Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood

A lucky day off on Thursday, so off to see the much anticipated new film from Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood. Quite a few things to chew over here so I'll start at the middle. Not really, just thought I'd go for a little QT humour....hello? Hello? Hmmm. There's a lot to like about this film and a fair bit not to as well. Let's start with the positives. Tarantino really knows how to get the best out of his actors. Leonardo DiCaprio is great in the role of a fading TV gunslinger who can see the sunset of his career approaching. His attempts to handle this twilight are precious and DiCaprio aces it all. There's an especially mint section where he's playing head villain in an episode of Lancer, directed by Sam Wanamaker (which seems to have actually happened). DiCaprio's character, Rick Dalton, has been on the turps the night before and he's having some trouble remembering his lines. His over-acting in these scenes and subsequent meltdown in his trailer show peerless technique. Brad Pitt, as Dalton's stunt double and best mate, Cliff Booth, is charmingly laid-back and this, he can do quite well. Anything more though, and he's usually swimming. The other cast members are fine, even though Margot Robbie seems ephemeral AND ethereal throughout. More on this later.

It's also a pretty funny film, in parts. It starts with a swagger, clips from Dalton's earlier success on 'Bounty Law' and a tabloid interview with Dalton and Booth cuts to an almost Scorsese-esque restaurant meeting with Al Pacino's Marvin Schwarz. This scene culminates with Booth ordering Dalton not to "cry in front of the Mexicans." There are also a couple of scenes relating to Steve McQueen and these were worth the price of admission alone. Damian Lewis briefly plays the man himself at a Playboy Mansion party and Dalton explains wistfully to Timothy Olyphant's James Stacy how he almost landed McQueen's role in The Great Escape - accompanied by digitally enhanced DiCaprio in place of McQueen in a scene from the film. Excellent. McQueen also represents a successful transition from TV (Wanted Dead or Alive) to film - pretty much what Dalton is aiming for.

But here come the issues. This is a long film but not as long as you might think. The 2 hour 40 minute running time felt a lot longer for two reasons. First, there are two films here competing for our attention - the Dalton/Booth blackly comic essay on passing your prime and the more troublesome one, the Sharon Tate/Manson Family film. Now spoilers be fucked here - most of us know what happened that night (if you don't, look it up) and I reckon Tarantino's gimmick of re-writing the wrongs of history sits askew in this. I was happy enough to go along with it in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained but this felt like a ham-fisted attempt to pretend that the innocence of 1960s Hollywood didn't end that night. Perhaps Tarantino was trying to mirror Dalton's fade to that of the decade but as he signposts a probable rosy future for him, I don't buy that angle.

Secondly, there are far too many nostalgic nods throughout - TV screens, film posters, neon signs, LA streets, old actor/director references. Yes, he knows his shit but all this seemed a bit overdone. I may have said it before (possibly about Peter Jackson) but the geezer really needs a strong-willed editor.

The questionable ultra-violence in the climactic scene was a bit of a double-edged sword. It was played for laughs and I admit to one or two chuckles but I also recall muttering 'nuh, too much' at a specific point. This kind of immature, comic violence shouldn't surprise any QT regulars. The Hateful Eight spilled well over into gratuitousness and there's a similar issue here, as though it's ok to bloodily brutalise a woman, as long as she's an evil nutter. We know Tarantino makes exploitation flicks but I'd kind of like to have seen a more truthful take on the whole Tate section, even if it wasn't clear which way he'd go with it until the climax. Robbie plays Tate like a doomed princess with not a blemish to her (aside from a hint of insecurity in the cinema sequence). She's fine but she floats around, meatless, oblivious to what may or may not be coming. This is most likely due to Tarantino's semi-voyeuristic adoration of Robbie/Tate than any performance issue on her part.

Well, this was a long write. I don't want to do this film down too much. There are some great set-pieces - Booth's visit to the Manson Family's camp at the Spahn Ranch is a lesson in drawn-out tension building, and well played by all. The meeting of Dalton and his young co-star, Trudi, is excellent comic acting and the Bruce Lee ding-dong with Booth is a fun aside. But overall, I'd have to put this down as a flawed cracker. Uneven, episodic, it almost suffers from dissociative identity disorder. But not entirely in a bad way.

See also:

I found myself thinking of another LA-set, recent history, double act (Gozzle and Crowe) in Shane Black's The Nice Guys (2016). Also, why not Tarantino's most mature but under-appreciated film, Jackie Brown (1997).

SPOILERS IN POD!

Listen to "Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood" on Spreaker.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Well, it's been almost a month since I saw Spider-Man: Far From Home and I have to admit, I've been dragging my heels on this one. It's not because it's terrible, though it wouldn't be far off the bottom of the Marvel pool. I think it's a deflation factor. Coming so soon after the Endgame colossus, this just didn't grab anything for me. It might also have a bit to do with my antipathy towards the character of Spider-Man. He simply shits me. Tom Holland is a charismatic, winningly gormless presence but sadly, he's not enough to win me over. That said, Spidey in the other Marvel films has been fun and reasonably interesting but in these stand-alones, I'm not having it.

There's a case to be made that the best part of this film is the post-credit sting. Not the mid-credit sting, though the return of J.K. Simmons is a good move by the Marvelii. The final sting asks some questions and sets up some tasty possibilities for Marvel's fourth phase. The producers are on a hiding to nothing in their attempts to follow the events of Endgame so maybe having a 'buffer' film for people to kind of reset their expectations is a necessary evil. A buffer that has made over a BILLION US dollars at the time of writing.

Some things to half-heartedly note about the film - Mysterio (played a Rizla's width away from ham by Jake Gyllenhaal) is basically Syndrome from The Incredibles. There's the same misplaced megalomania with suspect, but understandable, reasoning. The idea of faking a disaster event then saving the public from it comes straight out of Syndrome's handbook. There are some sweet moments between Holland's Peter Parker and Zendaya's MJ and the wrinkle of Mysterio taking the role of a film director specialising in 'fake news' is nicely worked. Oh, and there's a surreal sequence where Spido wigs out thanks to Mysterio's illusions. Slightly reminiscent of the mind-bending parts of Doctor Strange.

Ultimately though, I couldn't get on board with the whole American high school kids go on tour to Europe bollocks. Too affected and twee for this grumpy old bastard.

See also:

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is an off-kilter, multiverse animation rendering of the character(s) and Denis Villeneuve's Enemy (2013) with Jake Gyllenhaal and a different kind of spider (!).

Diego Maradona

Asif Kapadia's newest doco follows Diego Maradona's time at Napoli, with the occasional glimpses of his life before and after. It focusses on this period (1984 - 1991) as this was Diego at his best and, arguably, worst. I've seen a couple of docos and lots of highlights of Maradona as a player but this is the first film I've seen that balances the two sides - Diego AND Maradona. This dichotomy is best summed up by his old fitness coach, Fernando Signorini - "With Diego, I would go to the end of the world, but with Maradona, I wouldn't take a step." Kapadia treats his subject pretty even-handedly, neither fawning nor condemning, letting the visuals and interviews inform the audience's judgement.

On the topic on interviews, Diego Maradona, like Senna, relies purely on old footage to tell the story. There are no new 'interviews' aside from audio of Diego and others played under old game vision or news reports. I reckon this technique is well chosen, as it almost forces Kapadia and his editors to 'find' the story without falling back on filmed interviews, 'voice-of-god' narration or shit re-enactments. And some of the found footage is fantastic, albeit a bit time-worn. Victor Morales, the commentator from the 1986 World Cup Quarter final against England, screams, "Who is this cosmic kite?! What planet are you from!?" after Diego scores his wonder goal. Cosmic Kite? Brilliantly bonkers. The film starts inside a car driving to the Stadio San Paolo to unveil Diego to 75,000 ecstatic fans. There are clips from parties, changerooms, tennis courts, training grounds - the collection is fairly exhaustive.

The seedy side is covered by Maradona's connections with the Guiliano family, members of Napoli's infamous Camorra gang. Kapadia looks at his dalliances with cocaine, prostitutes and nightclubs, his acrimonious parting from Napoli and the general Italian fan's hatred of him. The film actually ends with a resolution of sorts regarding family issues (spoiler territory, perhaps).

Diego Maradona is a supremely made documentary that looks like it took years to make (and reportedly did) with a nicely balanced excavation of the career of one of the greats, if not the greatest.

See also: 

Senna (2010), Kapadia's look at the life of Ayrton Senna and When We Were Kings (1996), Leon Gast's doco on Ali and Foreman's Rumble in the Jungle.

SPOILERS IN POD

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Toy Story 4

Let me begin this by saying I saw the first Toy Story some years after release (maybe around 2008) and I really didn't like it. Couldn't see what all the fuss was about. So when my kids (and wife) proposed seeing number 4 at the cinema, I was reluctant to say the least. Add to this the necessity of seeing ALL the films in the series before the new one because, well, I want to bring them up correctly, and the task bubbled with dread. But, imagine my surprise when I actually enjoyed Toy Story 2, wasn't too annoyed with Toy Story 3 and, yes, quite liked Toy Story 4.

This was the first film for the kids at the cinema and there's something to be said for watching kids watching films, especially when they're experiencing a completely new environment. The interest dropped off slightly during the talky exposition points in the film but for the action scenes, they were buzzing.

For me, this was probably the first 'kids' film I've seen on the big screen since I was literally pubeless. It was diverting enough with some clever moments and one or two genuine chuckles - Ducky and Bunny's mooted plans for getting a key was a mirth highlight. The voice cast was fine, Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz must know these characters inside out by now. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele (director of Get Out and Us) are great fun as the previously mentioned Ducky and Bunny and it was slightly poignant to realise that Mr Potato Head was voiced from beyond the grave by Don Rickles, who died in 2017. There are also nice little cameos for Mel Brooks, Betty White, Carl Reiner and Carol Burnett as well as Carl Weathers, Timothy Dalton and Flea. Keanu Reeves, playing an insecure motorbike stunt toy and Annie Potts as newly empowered Bo Peep are top drawer too.

The gimmick running through these films is that the toys are not to be seen or heard in their animated state by humans. In Toy Story 4, the boundaries are pushed close and sometimes traversed - Buzz simply shouts something to his kid at one point in a reverse of Woody's threats to the evil neighbour kid in the first film. Admittedly, the tricks the writers, directors and animators have come up with in this series are pretty innovative and clever. Another nice touch was Buzz trying to emulate Woody's 'inner voice' by simply pressing his chest buttons and following the instructions given.

Woody is played throughout the series as a guy who constantly makes sacrifices for others, especially the kids that 'own' him, but here he finally gets his chance to do something for himself. Kind of similar to Steve Rogers in Endgame, or even George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life (without the suicide attempt). I'm guessing Woody's final choice spells the end of this cash cow for now but really, this animation has the potential to run and run until the profits stories dry up.

See also:

Brad Bird's The Incredibles (2004) and Andrew Stanton's WALL-E (2008) for the two best Pixar films.

SPOILERS IN POD!!

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Black '47

Black '47 is a revenge western set in Ireland during the Great Famine of 1845-1849. I saw this at the Luna Leederville as part of the Revelation Film Festival a week or so ago. There was even an intro from an actual Irishman, Dr. Enda Murray, who curates the Irish Film Festival.

The story follows a young Irish fella who returns home after fighting with the British Army in various exotic climes. He lands bang in the middle of the famine to find most of his family gone, primarily at the hands of the Brits he was fighting for. Needless to say, this shits him a touch. Though this guy, Feeney, played by the Aussie lad from Animal Kingdom, James Frecheville, is nominally the protagonist, it's his supposed nemesis, Hannah, played brilliantly by Hugo Weaving, who is the real star of the film. It's a clever angle that the villainous Englishman, who murders an Irish rebel at the start, can turn out to be the pseudo-protagonist by the end. A hint may have been that the first and final shots of the film are of Weaving.

Another nice moment was seeing Stephen Rea on screen again. He's always great and here was no exception, playing Conneely, a chancer with questionable loyalties, who tags along with Hannah and crew in the hunt for Feeney. This crew is made up of a proper posh twat, Pope, played by Freddie Fox and Hobson, played by the impressive Barry Keoghan. Most films of this ilk tend to portray the British as moustache-twirling, morally bereft rotters but even the aforementioned toff, Pope, has an inkling of shade to his character by the end. Admittedly, Jim Broadbent's character, Lord Kilmichael, is fairly irredeemable.

The pacing of the film is pretty solid, albeit after a slowish beginning and the miserable vistas are nicely shot. The images of loads of houses without roofs scattered through the countryside made me wonder what the deal was with 'tumbling' - ripping the thatched roofs from houses. Was it for feeding livestock? Burning for warmth? Or just an evil British ploy to freeze people out of their homes?

I'd recommend this film, mainly for the performances and the nuanced treatment of characters. There are some neat set-pieces and the final scene is just about perfect, a very Coen-esque ending.

See also:

Ken Loach's excellent The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) and for more Stephen Rea, try Neil Jordan's The Crying Game (1992).

Parasite

I caught a screening of Bong Joon-ho's Palme d'Or winner, Parasite at the Innaloo Event Cinemas on Saturday night. This is a dark satire on class distinctions in modern day Korea, and more broadly, the world. It's weird, funny and shockingly brutal at times. The premise concerns a down-at-heel family of four living in a poor neighbourhood of Seoul, who suddenly get a break when a friend of the son passes a tutoring job onto him. Slowly, the whole family manoeuvre their way into this rich household and much of the bite comes from the way the two sets of families interact. Things take a pretty sharp deviation about halfway through the film, which raises the tension, as well as providing motivation for the themes of class and bigotry to come to the fore.

The Bong man is responsible for Snowpiercer and Okja, among other films, but from what I've seen, this is his best work. He gets some great performances from the likes of Jo Yeo-jeong as Yeon-kyo, the wealthy, easily-distracted mother and Song Kang-ho as Ki-taek, the father of the poor family. The sets and locations are superb also. Most of the film gravitates between the stark, modernist finery of the Park's house and the grubby, busy streets running into the sub-basement abode of the Kim family. This setting is a real feather in the cap of Parasite. It manages to look cool and miserable at the same time and there's a fantastic set-piece where Ki-taek and his two kids run home through a downpour to be caught in a sewage flood in their neighbourhood. Really great film making here, epitomised by the daughter, Ki-jung sitting on the shite-spewing toilet to have a smoke while the water rises around her.

Speaking of sewage, smell is an integral part of the film. The young rich kid tells his parents that the new staff all smell the same (and as they've entered the home 'unknown' to one another, this is potentially troubling). Mr. Park tells his wife that his new driver reeks, as "all people who ride the subway have a special smell." As Ki-taek hides under a table, Mr. Park muses that he can still smell him now. In fact, smell turns out to be a pivotal point in the bloody climax but I'll say no more on that front.

The dialogue is a particular treat. Ki-taek's wife, Chung-sook tells the family that she'd be nice like the Parks if she were rich, saying, "Money is an iron; it smooths out all the wrinkles." Ki-taek morosely tells his kids that it's best to do nothing and that having no plans means nothing can go wrong. The son, Ki-woo explains that his forged university degree is not fake, it's just early, as he plans to go to university one day.

Parasite pushes all the right buttons - equal parts vicious and sweet, funny and morose, hopeful and bereft. One of the best films of the year so far.

See also:

Park Chan-wook's vampire romance Thirst (2009), also starring Kang Ho-song and for thematic similarities to a recent film, Jordan Peele's Us (2019).

SPOILERS IN POD!!!

Listen to "Parasite" on Spreaker.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Turned up at Morley Event Cinemas for a 10:30am screening of X-Men: Dark Phoenix only to be told it was a BYB showing. What's this, you ask? Apparently, it's a Bring Your Baby session. Ohhh no. But in fact, one quiet baby and a potentially scarred 3 year old didn't cause much fuss. The bloody lights were kept half-dimmed, though. No matter, onto the film itself.

This has taken a pasting online and in the film press and I can't quite see why. It's not brilliant but it's a clear head better than Apocalypse and surely a few lengths closer to the post than the Wolverine Origins fiasco. There are some well-structured action sequences that elicited a touch of excitement, some of the performances are solid (Fassbender, McAvoy) and the story plays with a couple of meaty themes - mainly abandonment and sacrifice, much in keeping with the earlier (better) films.

But, that said, there are some sizeable missteps. A few of the characters' decisions didn't ring true for me. Mystique railing on Xavier for supposedly putting himself above the team felt forced. Beast getting the hump and switching allegiances also. This whole approach felt crowbarred in. Instead of focussing on Jean Grey's story and the actual issue with Xavier 'scaffolding' her mind, we are subjected to the Mystique disillusionment angle. Maybe this is due to Jennifer Lawrence both wanting some hefty screen time AND wanting out of the franchise as soon as possible. Or maybe writer/director Simon Kinberg thinking she required some 'fridging' in order to give the lads something to get agitated about. Whatever the reason, this shifted the focus away from the central theme of Xavier and Jean's relationship, to the film's detriment. Kinberg has form with the Dark Phoenix storyline - he wrote the lame X-Men: Last Stand in 2006 - so you'd think he'd want to explore that pairing a bit more, I don't know, maybe even killing off Xavier, as was done in the comics (AND Last Stand). It's not like these actors are coming back anyway, now that Marvel have acquired the rights.

A couple of extra quibbles. Some of the dialogue phoned ahead to let the audience know it was on the way. Quicksilver was massively sidelined, probably with good reason. His star turn in Days of Future Past was great but followed by a similar, but much less inventive one in Apocalypse. As Groucho Marx once said, "Ah, ah! Bad luck, three on a midget!" Jessica Chastain is total bobbins too. Sure, she plays a hybrid Skrull/Terminator alien, but she just doesn't sell it. Oh, and there's a massive Huge Action shaped hole in the film.

All things considered, Dark Phoenix had a crack at it but didn't quite succeed. Still not as bad as popular opinion suggests, I'd wedge if firmly mid-table in the X-Men league standings.

See also:

To re-engage with the series, head back to the original X-Men (2000), directed by Bryan Singer or James Mangold's gritty gem Logan (2017).

SPOILERS IN POD (for what it's worth...)

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Peterloo

Popped down to the Luna in Leederville this morning to catch Mike Leigh's latest film, Peterloo. This is a seemingly accurate retelling of the 1819 massacre that took place in St. Peter's Field in Manchester, where the constabulary and the army waded into a crowd of thousands with sabres and bayonets. The people were there to hear a famous orator, Henry Hunt, call for national suffrage and to put pressure on the government and the royals. 18 of the crowd were killed and hundreds of others wounded. The knock-on effects of this catastrophe on the reform movement appear negligible, though it did bring about the creation of The Guardian newspaper.

History 101 over. Onto the film itself. It's around 2 and a half hours long and it feels every minute of that. The build-up to the massacre involves an awful lot of piss and wind with politicians spewing interminable chunks all over the shop, in the (presumably) wanky vernacular of the day. Oh do tell, sir. On the other side of the class divide the Northern workers welcome back troops from the Napoleonic Wars to poverty and a music-free My Fair Lady setting. See thee, Father!

All these goings-on are performed with the broadest brush strokes I've seen in a Mike Leigh film. Some of the characters wouldn't look out of place in a British seaside panto. From the pompous, jaw-wobbling, spittle-flecked magistrates, to the salt-of-the-earth Northern povvos, to toffee-encrusted Southern law reformers, to vomit-gargling, areshole Prince Regents, all the stereotypes are here. Said Regent is actually played by Tim McInerrny, who's had some experience with royal toffs in Blackadder 2. There's even a young soldier who seems to be auditioning badly for Dunkirk. Neil Bell, who plays prominent reformer Samuel Bamford, gives the only real stand-out performance here, though Rory Kinnear does alright as Hunt.

It's such a surprise that Leigh has turned out this film in this way. The minimalism of many of his previous films is there but not much of the realism. Everything feels so overblown and cliched. Vincent Franklin, usually pretty good, plays one of the magistrates like Rowley Birkin QC from The Fast Show. It seems odd to me that the guy responsible for some of the best British films of the recent past could turn in something as uninspiring and misjudged as Peterloo.


See also:

Mike Leigh at his best with Naked (1993) and Secrets & Lies (1996). David Thewlis or Timothy Spall would have improved the film above, no end.

SPOILERS BE RIDDLEDETH HEREIN!!

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