Did I ever tell you about the time I followed Paul Schrader from a cinema he'd just given a Q and A in, back to his hotel across Leicester Square? No I didn't, because it's a strange thing to do and this story has a totally unsatisfactory ending. Basically, at LFF this year, I saw Schrader's new film Dog Eat Dog and then the director participated in a Q and A. Afterwards, I saw him walking from the cinema and decided I'd go and shake his hand. For some reason, I didn't just stroll up and shake his hand immediately and instead thought it fascinating that a man as famous (to movie lovers anyway) as Schrader could walk around the centre of London unnoticed. So I followed him, slightly in awe that he was just casually walking around the Square. I thought I'd go and shake his hand in a minute and let him enjoy not being bothered by film fans. Alas, twas not to be as Mr Schrader then walked inside a hotel and disappeared from my life forever.
Anyway, the film Dog Eat Dog is released in UK cinemas on Friday 18th November so here's a snippet of my review:
Based on the novel by real-life criminal Eddie Bunker, Dog
Eat Dog is the tale of three jailbirds fresh out of the joint, who while
looking to make some fast money, become embroiled in a plot to steal a baby
from a rival gangster. With so much stupidity and psychopathic tendencies on
display from the central trio, it's not a surprise that nothing goes to plan.
Opening with a talk show interviewee
spouting some nonsense about making the world safer by having more people
carrying guns, Dog Eat Dog feels like it’s perhaps going to be a contemporary
crime thriller with something interesting to say. No such luck. Stuck in the
typical gangster milieu of strip clubs and sleazy bars, with its grizzled old
ex-cons spouting casually racist lines and engaging in bad taste ‘comedy’
killing scenes, this feels like Schrader trying to emulate Tarantino and all
the hip young filmmakers who probably grew up adoring Schrader’s early output
with Scorsese at the helm.
Trolls was the Family Gala film at the 2016 London Film Festival and was released in UK cinemas in October. Surprisingly, it's not as bad as it sounds. Read my full Trolls review at Starburst Magazine here. Here's the synopsis:
Justin Timberlake’s Branch is the only Troll with an understandable sense of
unease that dreaded monsters the Bergens are desperate to find the
eye-poppingly bright community of trolls living blissfully carefree in
the woods. Twenty years earlier, the Trolls escaped the clutches of the
Bergens, who are such a bunch of miserable creatures that they can only
find happiness when they eat the multicoloured-haired Trolls. Branch
warns his fellow trolls not to have parties full of loud singing and
glittery fireworks, but will the irrepressible Princess Poppy and the
other trolls listen?
No, they bloody won't, the annoying little buggers. No wonder Branch
is miserable and hiding in a hole in the ground. So when the Bergen head
chef finds the trolls and carries some off to Bergen town to turn into
tasty treats, Poppy must enlist Branch to help her in rescuing her
friends so that they don't miss out on anymore scheduled hug times,
singing, dancing, and lest we forget... scrapbooking.
American Honey played at the 2016 London Film Festival and was released into UK cinemas in October. My full review of American Honey is at Starburst Magazine here. Here's the synopsis: The film follows Star
who first jumps into a minibus full of carefree scruffy white kids who
love nothing more than blasting out hip hop, having a good time, and
making some money selling magazine subscriptions. Entrepreneur Krystal
runs the show keeping her crew of kids working hard, along with her
sidekick and best seller Jake (Shia Labeouf). Star jumps at the chance
to get in on the action, living the wild life on the road and falling
for Jake along the way.
American Honey’s
motley crew roll around the affluent neighbourhoods of America,
attempting to sell their wares by any means necessary, but the focus is
always on Star and Jake as he trains her in the art of the hard sell.
It's an episodic structure with no real goal in sight. It's telling that
two characters are asked what their dreams are and both reply that they
have never been asked that question before. These kids don't get to
have dreams. Their minibus is a cocoon of angry hip hop, where they all
get to spout repetitive brain-washing capitalist messages about getting
rich. Their chemistry comes from sing-alongs and snatches of clearly
improvised dialogue. Their single-minded little community lives only to
make enough money to buy food, drink and drugs.
I believe the expression is: 'there are no words'. The trailer for Trainspotting 2 has given me 'all the feels'. Finally, the sequel to one of the greatest movies of all time, and probably my favourite British movie ever, is here. And it's pretty much everything I could have hoped for.
T2 Trainspotting will be arriving at your cinematic station on January 27th 2017. Here's the poster and trailer:
Just a quick note to say I was lucky enough to get to recently interview Jeremy Saulnier, the director of Green Room and Blue Ruin and also actor Callum Turner who plays Tiger, the lead singer of punk band the Ain't Rights in Green Room.
Here's a snippet of my review of the film:
"Punk band Ain't Rights are going nowhere fast, playing crappy gigs
and siphoning petrol just to keep their clapped-out tour van running. After an
interview with a local journalist and a disappointing take from their latest
gig, they hear of a backwoods gig where they can make some quick and easy cash.
The only rub is the clientele at the venue are far right (or are they extreme
left?) nutters and Ain't Right don't help matters by opening with a cover of
The Dead Kennedy’s Nazi Punks.
However, the poop really hits the fan when they witness a murder
backstage in the green room and find themselves trapped in the venue by those
who don't want them to get out alive. Led by Patrick Stewart's gang leader and
venue owner, an army of skinhead 'red laces' are soon lining up to pick off the
band members of Ain't Rights one by one."
The interviews with both Callum Turner and Jeremy Saulnier are both up at Starburst Magazine now and Green Room recently came out on Blu-ray and DVD so if you didn't catch it at the cinema (and not enough people did), then you should most certainly think about getting yourself a copy now. Or I'll send round Patrick Stewart to knock some sense into you.
Blue Ruin came out in 2013 was easily one of my favourite films of the year. This review was originally posted at Filmoria.
Jeremy
Saulnier is a name you better get used to. Writer, director and photographer of
the brilliant indie revenge thriller Blue Ruin, he will need to watch his back
if he carries on like this. Everyone will be after him and his considerable
talent and there are bound to be a few directors jealous enough of his skills
to try and take him out themselves. For that matter, the magnificently bearded
lead Macon Blair is also a serious talent to watch.
Blue Ruin
is the story of Dwight (Macon Blair), a homeless drifter who takes baths in
empty houses, sleeps in his car and gets food from anywhere he can. Dwight is
the silent type; his mouth seemingly lost beneath his impressively overgrown
beard. When he finds out that Wade Cleland, the man responsible for the murder
of his parents has been released from prison, Dwight immediately swings into
action, carrying out his burning desire for revenge. However, killing Wade may
only be the beginning of Dwight's one man rampage of revenge.
Because unfortunately for him, Dwight is no
Rambo. He hasn't got the skills, the savagery or the insanity to just
pick off bad guys left, right and centre. He is clumsy and clearly crap at all
this killing stuff. Though he is committed to his cause and clever enough to
carry it out with the possibility of getting away with it, he is also just an
ordinary guy. His early mishaps with a knife show his worrying lack of prowess
in the weapon-wielding department and it makes him believable, sympathetic and
impossible not to root for.
Blue Ruin starts
off like a deceptively typical indie movie; all intriguing close ups with
shallow depth of field and bereft of dialogue for most of the first half hour.
The composition of early shots are gorgeous with the camera later prowling
around the dark locations building an unbearable silent tension. The subtle
score exacerbates this, brooding in the background and anticipating the
violence. Suddenly and viciously, Blue Ruin becomes a black comedy and edge-of-your-seat thriller.
And when it
comes, the first murder is brutal, bloody and swift. The first act of the film
ends where most revenge thrillers would finish but Blue Ruin has plenty more in
store. The exact details of the murder that has spurred this mission are
deliciously drip fed through sparse bursts of dialogue, punctuating the scenes
of silent Dwight stalking. After he seems to have succeeded in his goal, it
suddenly and frantically becomes clear that what started out simple has just
become far more complex as Dwight has ignited a terrifyingly dangerous family
feud.
From
revenge thriller to home invasion movie and back again, Blue Ruin is never less
than absolutely thrilling. As Dwight rolls around in his old battered car, he
beautifully blurs the lines between victim and predator. Though he is a man of
very few words, he is impossible to take your eyes off. Macon Blair is
revelatory in the role, transforming his features so he is almost two different
characters during the story. His amateur assassin becomes reluctant protector
to his estranged family and his bravery, resourcefulness anddetermination are hilariously balanced by his
total authenticity, lack of faith in himself and deep sadness he lugs around
with him. It is a wonderful performance; at times bringing real warmth and
empathy to the character while being darkly funny as he is forced to tend his
wounds and deal in death. There clearly can't be a happy ending for poor Dwight
who never smiles and takes no pleasure in his actions. He is a man driven to do
what he simply has to do and he has no illusions that he deserves to get out
alive. However you are guaranteed to wince with him when he is hurt and cheer
him on when he takes revenge.
Helped
along the way by an old friend who warns him not to make speeches before
killing people, Blue Ruin is gripping from start to finish even when it pauses
for pitch black humour. The villains may not have much shading, but their love
of guns is enough to make them (for the most part) a mysterious and chilling
foe. Bleakly funny, tense beyond words, breathtaking and heartbreaking, Blue
Ruin is everything you could possibly want in a thriller. Dwight is undoubtedly
one of the best characters of the year and his story will keep you riveted. As
Dwight travels to another showdown, he hears a song about having no regrets on
the radio. Like Dwight after his spree, you certainly won't have any regrets
after seeing the brilliant Blue Ruin.
You've got to wonder where the parents of Heather and James
Donahue are, and what exactly they think they're doing. We didn't see them
before their daughter got lost in The Blair Witch Project and now they've only
gone and let their son James wander off in search of his sister 20 years later.
Surely one of the parents might have advised against this madness.
And so Blair Witch begins with director Adam Wingard (The
Guest, You’re Next) taking us back into the haunted woods of Burkitsville as another
group of camera-carrying crazies go in search of the elusive Elly Kedward. This
time there’s six doomed younglings; James Donahue was four when Heather
disappeared, Lisa wants to make a documentary on James’ ill-advised search for
his missing sister, and their friends Peter and Ashley are just along for moral
support (and to handily up the body count and prove that in horror, black guys
are still first on the kill list). The four friends are then joined by oddballs
Lane (darknet666) and Talia who uploaded footage to YouTube that they claim
to have found on a tape in the woods. The shaky camera video appears to show a
female figure in a house just like the one at the end of Heather’s original
project. Is Heather still alive after all these years, or is the Blair Witch up
to her old tricks again?
No points if you guess the answer, but prepare for another
bumpy ride on you’re way to the climax. Blair Witch ditches much of the
ambiguity of the original film. There’s no room for any real debate over what exactly
happens to this bunch of terrified youths. Anyone still fuming that they sat
through The Blair Witch Project and never got a single shot of the Blair Witch
can rest assured that there is definitely something to see here. Thankfully,
not too much though. Wingard is smart enough to know a little goes a long way
and milks the most suspense possible from his characters’ shaky cameras and
inability to confront the Blair Witch face to face. The sound design is also
racked up a notch, sometimes a little too much as it sounds like the black
smoke monster from Lost might have found its way into the woods of Maryland.
Though the Donahue kids’ parents could have done much more
to stop at least their second child from heading into the woods, at least James
and his buddies are much more prepared for their camping trip than Heather,
Mike and Josh were back in 1994. This new crop of tech-savvy millenials have Walkie-talkies, GPS, wearable cameras, a drone camera, lots of lights, food and just more
cameras than you can shake a spooky stick-man at. Unfortunately, they obviously
didn't watch that footage filmed by Heather and Josh carefully enough as they
don't seem to realise that it's all bloody useless when faced with the power of
the Blair Witch.
And if you thought she was too passive in the original, or maybe you don't believe that there was a curse
and that everything can be explained rationally in the footage from Heather’s project,
prepare to think again. In Blair Witch, the late Elly Kedward really unleashes
her powers. She messes with their technology, messes with time and space,
magics that old house from out of nowhere again and even throws in a few new
tricks that are best left unspoiled. Wingard leaves you in no doubt that the
Blair Witch exists and she's pretty much as terrifying as she ever was.
Fans of the original have to endure a little catch-up
exposition to fill newcomers in on the legend of the Blair Witch, but at least
a little more is added to the mythology. Rustin Parr’s house is also
expanded with previously unseen elements providing one particularly claustrophobic
moment. However, it's what goes down in the house that really gives the sweat
glands a workout as familiar beats (people standing in corners, apologies,
unseen attackers) get new and thrilling updates.
For those sick to death of found footage films, this offers
little to win you over. There’s more cameras and camera technology so a
slightly more varied visual experience than many other similar films. And the
old charge of ‘why would they still be filming in this situation?’ is at least
partially answered by having the characters wear their cameras on their head
requiring them to not have to think about filming when the shit really hits the
fan in the final act. These cameras also provide Peep Show style interactions
as the characters talk to each other but gaze directly into the cameras. This
pays dividends when two characters can only see each other's torch-lit faces
while the space behind them remains in total, terrifying darkness.
So Blair Witch is scary, but it's not as ingenious and won't
be as influential as the original. It's mostly a shame that Wingard didn't use
the ‘method directing’ tactics of original directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel
Myrick. Clearly some of the scenes were unpleasant to film, but the actors in
this film got off lucky. Though there is less ambiguity in Blair Witch, there’s
a higher body count and more hysteria to make up for it. It's just a shame that
there isn't anything as iconic, moving and ‘real’ as Heather’s final apology in
the project that started it all. Still, Blair Witch fans won't be disappointed
and newbies will learn that the woods of Burkitsville can be scarier than
Crystal Lake, Elm Street and Haddonfield put together. Go
back to bed Paranormal Activity, the Blair Witch is back with a vengeance and
as terrifying as ever.
Wow... some films take a while to make it from the festival circuit to cinemas. Some films take a while... Some films take over two years. I give you The Blue Room. I saw this at Cannes in 2014 and it seems to be getting a limited release in the UK in September 2016. Probably not a great sign, but hey at least it's getting a release!
Here's a snippet of my review:
Triple threat actor, writer, director Mathieu Amalric explores
infidelity, obsession and a tragic desire that turns from lust into
violence in his latest film, The Blue Room. While the star gives a
worthy performance, the story is slight and adds little to what could possiblly be called a sub-genre of '
secret-affair-turns-nasty' films.
Starting in a hotel room where lovers
Julien and Esther are having a lusty, erotic and passionate affair
behind the backs of their respective partners, The Blue Room then skips
in its chronology between the romance and its later repercussions. These repercussions include
Amalric’s Julien questioned in custody and standing trial for a crime
that remains a mystery for much of the running time. Julien has a wife
and daughter at home while Esther has a sick husband in her own life but
both are more interested in their frequent forays into the blue room
for lovemaking so intense, it even involves biting that draws blood... kinky!
So Adam Wingard, what have you been up to down in the woods today? The director of You're Next and The Guest has finally put his cards on the table. His movie The Woods is now officially titled Blair Witch and IS a sequel to the original 1999 found footage horror.
The trailer takes us straight back into what looks like psycho hermit Rustin Parr's house way out in the woods of Burkitsville where the Blair Witch is known to lurk. If you don't know the backstory of the Blair Witch, (what do you live under a rock?) then check out the original film's website and the mythology section here.
The found footage point-of-view shot shows a frantic rush around the old house, before it is revealed that this is footage from YouTube which a guy called James is watching. The footage was uploaded by another guy who found a tape in the Black Hills woods. There is the distorted sound of screaming and at 11 seconds into the trailer, there is a person visible in the footage. That's all I can tell you about that.
But then James states to whoever is now filming him, 'I think that might be my sister'. I'm not the only one who immediately thinks.... 'You're sister???' Heather Donahue? Did Heather have a little brother in the original movie? I don't think it was ever mentioned, but then this girl's voice, who I assume is the off-camera camera operator filming this guy says, 'You really think you're sister could still be out there after all these years?' That's 17 years by the way if we're counting and assuming this sequel takes place in the present day.
So the Wikipedia page for the film states that this guy's name is James Donahue, so it definitely is supposed to be Heather's brother, but I don't know if this is 100% confirmed. It looks like James and his five college buddies head out into the woods to search for Heather after finding this YouTube footage. They know the legends, they know about the curse, they know about Elly Kedward a.k.a. The Blair Witch.
So then shit hits the fan as you would expect. Those creepy stick men; they're back and they're bigger. The kids start walking in circles again. Somebody (probably) kicks a map in the creek.
There is a shot of one of the girls with a camera in hand, suggesting that there must be at least two characters that will be carrying cameras, and in the great words of Cloverfield's Hud 'documenting everything'. I wondered when I first watched this trailer if the film was all going to be found footage. The shot 7 seconds into the trailer suggests that either these college kids have a nice drone for capturing aerial shots (doubt it, though that would be awesome), or the film won't be all found footage, or it's just a nice shot to insert in the trailer but it won't be in the movie. I'm going with that last one.
Well anyway, then the kids start turning on each other and the woods start turning on them as the (hopefully still) invisible witch works her magic on them all. Looks like this film will have a lot more going on in it than the original. I suspect it will be gorier, more graphic and have more than just traipsing around in circles and arguing going on. There's a shot in the trailer that looks as though nature will attack them more than it ever did in the original. I'm talking Evil Dead style trees. And then there's the shots that remind me of The Descent with one of the girls crawling through a whole load of shite to escape from somewhere.
I hope they don't dare show us the Blair Witch and I hope this film keeps up the ambiguity. I'd love it if there was a link back to the original with Heather appearing in some form, but it needs to be ambiguous and it needs to be done well.
Also in the trailer: we have a person standing in the corner facing the wall, hand prints all over the spooky house and the voice of someone apologising. It sounds more like a bloody remake than a sequel when you put it like that.
More than anything, I hope this honours the original by limiting the gore, having no CGI whatsoever and being bloody scary. I don't want to see the witch, I don't want to know exactly what happens at the end and I don't want this to turn into a franchise that goes on and on and on with new batches of disposable teens. I'm already concerned that some of the six characters in the film are simply there to allow for a bigger body count.
I loved Adam Wingard's The Guest so I'm optimistic that this will have some good stuff in it. But I suspect that Wingard probably didn't go into original directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick's 'method directing' techniques and I think that is a huge shame. It will show in the performances, the cinematography and the dialogue and it will make Blair Witch a hell of a lot less believable than The Blair Witch Project is.
Blair Witch fans... it's here! After waiting 17 years and ignoring a pretty poor sequel (Book of Shadows) that already came and went, The Blair Witch Project looks like it might be finally getting the sequel it deserves. Formally titles The Woods, it's now been made official. This is a Blair Witch sequel, and frankly it looks wicked!
If you like your films a little out of the ordinary, then give Independence Day: Resurgence a miss this weekend and see if you can find a cinema playing Remainder instead. Think Donnie Darko meets Synecdoche, New York and you might be getting an idea of what an oddball little film this is.
Here's a snippet of my review from last year's London Film Festival:
Rushing through a city and pulling a black case behind him, an unnamed man (Tom
Sturridge) is hit by falling debris from the sky. After awaking
from a coma and going through extensive rehabilitation, he discovers
that he has been awarded with £8.5 million to keep quiet about the
incident. He is plagued by strange visions of a building, a boy, an old
woman and some cats on a roof, and decides to hunt down these elements
in order to piece together the fragmented puzzle forming in his head.
His recreations are handled by helper Naz and become more elaborate,
including eventually the staging of a bank robbery.
Sturridge's
character becomes like a filmmaker, manipulating and directing these
recreations from his mind, while an ever-expanding roster of 'actors'
are employed to carry out the actions and scripts that he envisions. The
surreal nature of his visions means he must dress extras in morph
suits, have people repetitively play Chopin in the same building and an
old lady constantly cook liver so that the smell will waft up to his
apartment. He is obsessive in capturing the detail, repeating the
process over and over again to the befuddlement of all others involved...
Do you really need three stories for the price of one? Tale of Tales thinks so. I wouldn't mind, but apart from being set in the same world, these three have nothing to do with each other. Pulp Fiction this ain't. This film is completely mad, but not in the most satisfying of ways. Here's the synopsis bit of my review:
Based on a 17th century collection of tales by Italian author
Giambattista Basile, the film features three different storylines, not
all as engaging as each other and never tied together in any
satisfactory way. First up, Salma Hayek and John C. Reilly take centre
stage as the king and queen of a dusty kingdom where all the
entertainers in the land can’t keep the queen from desiring a baby.
After a visit from a mysterious hooded figure who offers them the chance
of creating offspring, Reilly’s devoted king steps up to the plate and
boldly goes to kill off a sea monster in order for his wife to be able
to eat the heart and thus, magically conceive. Needless to say, things
are never this simple and things soon turn awry.
Meanwhile,
Vincent Cassel is a lecherous king who has seemingly used up all the
women in his nearby kingdom and is looking for more playmates to be
debauched with. After hearing a lone beauty singing beneath his castle
walls, he ventures out to find the owner of such a sweet voice. Little
does he know, the voice belongs to one of a pair of ugly old crone
sisters who may or may not have found their way here after auditioning
for Cinderella. Not wanting the king to see them in their decrepit
state, they hide behind the door of their home but the king is nothing
if not persistent. Then things get really weird.
Finally, Toby
Jones is yet another king, whose only daughter he dotes on until the day
he discovers he has a talented flea who has taken a shine to him. While
the flea grows into his beloved pet, his teen daughter wants to find a
prince, but gets more than she bargained for when her father makes a
dubious choice by giving her to an ogre.
The film that won Vincent Lindon the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2015 is finally released in UK cinemas this weekend. The Measure of a Man is a challenging watch, but worth the effort. Here's a snippet of my review:
Last year in Cannes, it was Marion Cotillard and the Dardennes
brothers examining contemporary workplace relations in Two Days, One
Night. That razor sharp, but repetitive critique of the ills of modern
corporate practices is bested this year by The Measure of a Man which
finds its unemployed protagonist facing a moral dilemma when he finds a
new job working in shop security.
We meet 51 year old Thierry mid
conversation at the job centre, frustrated by the pointless course he
has recently wasted his time completing in order to find that there are
no jobs waiting for him at the end of it. Along with his wife, Thierry
has a disabled son who he wants to put through further education. Money
is tight, and after meeting with his bank manager, Thierry grows
increasingly desperate to find employment. After rejections, humiliation
and disappointment, he finds work in surveillance and security at a
supermarket. But when required to spy on his fellow workers, Thierry may
be pushed to act in opposition to his morals.
