Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Spoiler Free Review

The narrative of Rogue One is sufficiently simple to explain. We join a group of dissidents as they look for plans that will eventually help Luke Skywalker destroy the Death Star. Rogue One is more than just a prequel. It works both as a standalone film and as a form of fleshing out the existing Star Wars franchise.

Let’s answer the question anyway. Such rare creatures will find something like a self-contained narrative. The movie opens with Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), a director of weapons research for the Empire, arriving with the eagerly anticipated "Death Troopers" at the home of martial engineer Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen). The Star Wars films have always had clear samurai and Wild West influences. The opening tends more to a Western than Kurosawa as Krennic drags Galen off while Jyn Erso, the captive’s daughter, watches terrified from nearby rushes.

Jyn is rescued by a muttering Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) and spirited away to the life of a mildly criminal nomad. Galen Erso is forced into designing the Death Star, but he has not turned to evil.  Jyn Erso falls in with a gang of hooligans who, in defiance of Rebel command, set out to locate the plans Luke will one day require.

Star Wars fanatics needing commentary on and references to the wider canon will not be disappointed. Minding the current hysteria about spoilers, I will be no more specific, but we can safely praise the computer boffins for two creations that, even in this time of digital wonders, fairly take the breath away. Laamu Atoll in the Maldives provides a beautiful closing location that looks to have been peeled spectacularly from the cover of a golden-era science-fiction paperback.

K-2SO, the franchise’s latest robot, voiced elegantly by Alan Tudyk, is so charmingly lugubrious – part Iron Giant; part Marvin the Paranoid Android – that one can’t help but yearn for a reboot somewhere else in the universe.

Rogue One’s greatest selling point is, however, an old-fashioned, 21st-century human. Felicity Jones is endlessly charming and spirited as the grown Jyn Erso: a brigand who can’t sustain the amoral pose. Jones’s achievement is all the more remarkable given the blandness of the dialogue.

Other members of Jyn’s posse struggle to establish any sort of personalities. The great Donnie Yen is there. The equally fine Jiang Wen is here. There is a lot of potential with the characters but they failed to succeed anything further than one dimensional personalities.

Happily, the final conflagration is sufficiently punchy to push thoughts of such underdevelopment from the mind. Gareth Edwards shoots that sequence in the style of a second World War battle. Almost to the same quality of Saving Private Ryan.

The Missing Hand - Movie Review - Indie Film

The Missing Hand is the rare movie that succeeds on almost every level, where each character, scene, music, and joke firing on all cylinders to make a film worth watching over and over again. An excellent script written by Daniel Harding really drags the viewer into every scene and makes you question what you would do yourself if you was in the position of the characters.

In terms of the visual elements of the film, there really isn't much that needs to be said but perfection. A few of the shots have a very distinctive symmetrical style. The use of framing and focus really improves the overall viewing experience of the film and gives it a very professional aesthetic.

The first thing that really gripped me was the original score that was composed and orchastrated by Jack Blume, it really captures the mood and essense of the film. The music is full of suspense and mystery. It's a sound that even Ennio Moricone would be proud of.

Excellent performances from all the cast that really suits the dark comedy narrative. For me the most stand out performance was from Meryl Griffiths who really seemed comfortable in the role she was playing which lead for a very natural and overall great performance.

The directing from Daniel Harding is excellent, it really makes for a smooth flowing film from start to finish because your eye is always looking at something.

Overall I am incredibly impressed with The Missing Hand and it definitely exceeded my expectations by a couple of miles. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for 231/2 Productions.

The Jungle Book 2016 - Movie Review

Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book isn't just a captivating adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic children's novel, but has forever changed the way CGI and real world settings will be integrated in film. There's no question about it: The Jungle Book is one of the most beautiful movies to come out of the studio in years. The attention to detail painted on every computer generated animal is impossible to ignore and the effect is a captivating experience like no other.

For the first time in a movie like this, which attempts to blend CGI elements with an actor and physical setting, the computer generated aspects of the film aren't distracting. After the first ten minutes or so, it doesn't even feel like there are CGI characters.

Paired with an A-list group of actors who are perfectly cast as the animals they're voicing, The Jungle Book is an enthralling, illuminating experience that not only pays tribute to a great story, but manages to make it that much better.

The Jungle Book follows the "human-cub" Mowgli (Neel Sethi), who has been living in the jungle among a pack of wolves since he was a toddler. He loves his life in the forested world, endlessly running through the open area with his pack brothers and sisters. Despite that, he can't help but feel a sense of not belonging to their world.

Still, that doesn't stop his pack leader Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) from taking him in and protecting him like he was one of their own. Things change, however, when the vicious tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) decides that it's time to kill Mowgli once and for all, leading to the boy's immediate departure from the clan.

Alongside his most trusted friend and protector, a leopard named Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), Mowgli travels deeper into the jungle than he ever has before, informed he must forever leave and live with other humans in the neighboring village. A home, he's informed, that he was supposed to have lived in his entire life.

During his journey, he encounters new friends (like the bear Baloo, voiced by Bill Murray) and dangerous creatures (like the snake Kaa, voiced by Scarlett Johansson) that show him a side of the world he grew up in he never knew existed.

One of the biggest advantages the film has is its cast. To say that each actor perfectly suited their character and made the performance as believable as possible would be an understatement. Johansson, Murray, Elba and Christopher Walken (who plays the giant orangutan King Louie) breathe life into the movie that other actors may not have been able to capture, and part of that credit is rightfully deserved by director Jon Favreau.

Because so much of this movie is CGI, the voice acting cast was instrumental in making it as successful as it turned out to be. That means quite a bit of studio time, working with screens in front of them to nail the menacing or mischievous tone of their character.

Despite Chris Rock's claims that voice acting is the easiest job in the world, it can be difficult to connect with an animated character that you're not physically acting out, but there is nothing unbelievable about these performances.

Again, some of that comes back to just how realistic the CGI looks in the film. It's an aspect that can't be understated. The Jungle Book has redefined what CGI can do for a movie. In doing so, however, Favreau's Jungle Book is a much scarier adaptation than the previous animated Jungle Book from 1967. There are quite a few moments that get the heart pumping, and while you won't jump in your seat from any of the darker, violent scenes, there's definitely a sense that this movie wasn't made for children in the same way the former Disney cartoon film was.


The Jungle Book, while definitely still a children's movie, goes back and forth from providing the type of entertainment young kids (between the ages of four and nine) will appreciate and adding just the right amount of intensity in other scenes that adults will enjoy.

One other aspect to the film that deserves a big mention is Neel Sethi's performance. Sethi, who played the young Mowgli, is the only human in this movie and therefore carries a lot of the weight. He's the one that people are going to connect with and, as both the hero and a young child, he's the character you want to root for the most. That's a lot of responsibility and pressure for a young actor —€” Sethi was only 11 or 12 when the movie was being shot. He manages to not only portray the character extremely well, but even adds his own charming take.

Simply put, Sethi is downright adorable, talking animatedly in every scene he's in and using his exuberance for the role to his advantage during more physically demanding scenes. It's an even more impressive feat after acknowledging that Sethi would have been filming almost every scene by himself entirely, both in front of a green screen and on location.

In many ways, this was a movie filmed between Favreau and Sethi, with the voice acting cast's parts thrown in to support the young actor. Because Sethi is the only human being on screen, he's the person we naturally gravitate to and have an instant connection with. It's vital that he's someone we like and want to support. Sethi goes above and beyond expectations, and brings a much needed lightheartedness to the film.

In fact, it's their scenes together that stick out the most and it's when the film becomes the most fun. There's a sense of childlike wonderment between the two characters in all of their excursions, from floating down the river and singing to hiking through the forest and collecting vines for rope. While the entire movie focuses on the strange friendships that Mowgli has developed over the years, his scenes with Baloo are the only ones that feel like watching two buddies hang out. It's the only time that doesn't feel like Mowgli is in a dire situation and that's partly what makes it so enjoyable. There's no question that Sethi is a talented actor, and The Jungle Book will act as a launching pad for his career. It can't be said enough just how crucial his fantastic performance is in carrying the 90-minute feature.

The only issue the film faces is its decision to include two songs from the original 1967 version.
"The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" both make appearances in the movie, and while they're done with a wink, they feel totally out of place both times, especially the latter. It's not a major issue with the movie, but it is noticeably distracting. In a movie like The Jungle Book, where one of the main goals is to ensure that nothing distracts from the heavily reliant CGI characters, it's the only time that the movie feels somewhat absurd. Murray makes the song work, but just barely. It doesn't seem entirely out of place that his character would start singing while floating down a river, but it's still unnecessary and that's the main issue with both tracks.

The film doesn't need the musical angle to make it more appealing. It was amusing, it was intense and it was emotional. If the film wasn't set up as a musical from the very beginning, or at least close to the beginning, it's difficult to inject a couple of three minute songs and expect the audience to not be confused by it. "I Wanna Be Like You" is an even more confusing addition for a couple of reasons. For one, the song isn't actually sung, but spoken. For another, Christopher Walken isn't the type of actor who can get away with seamlessly bringing a song in and running with it. He, and his character, are too awkward and the result is an embarrassing couple of minutes.

That said, The Jungle Book is a fun and extraordinary film. It may not be an instant classic, but its use of CGI technology is a major game changer that I hope the studio uses again. On that note, The Jungle Book is the type of film you're going to want to see in theaters: It's completely deserving of a top-quality screen for the best possible experience.

A good movie provides a couple of hours of entertainment, but a great one transports you from your seat into an entirely different world, wrapping you in its embrace and immersing you in a land full of fantastical beings. The Jungle Book isn't just a good movie, but a great one, and you won't want to leave the world Favreau built even long after the credits finish rolling.

Batman V Superman - Movie Review

A dark force has been unleashed in a new cinematic universe—an enemy of levity, a besieger of vulnerable psyches, a merciless wielder of advance technologies against which ordinary humans sit defenseless. And Zack Snyder is only the director of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” The other two guys are really downers.

This underdeveloped, overlong and stupendously dispiriting duel of unlikely antagonists is the first in a projected series of interconnected films based on DC Comics characters. Ben Affleck plays Bruce Wayne/Batman—he’s impressive, within the script’s limits, even though Christian Bale’s Caped Crusader in the Christopher Nolan trilogy was a formidable act to follow. The Clark Kent/Superman role is reprised by Henry Cavill, who is just as inexpressive as he was almost three years ago in the superviolent, ultraturgid “Man of Steel,” which was also directed by Mr. Snyder. The ending of that film and the beginning of the new one overlap. Gotham is again under attack from the cosmically evil General Zod, and Superman, in fighting him, causes vast collateral damage—to the city, and to Bruce Wayne’s enterprises and employees.

That provides the pretext for the conflict between two mythical figures. For Bruce, “Batman v Superman” becomes a tale of revenge. For Mr. Snyder and his writers, Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, it’s a would-be dissertation on the nature of heroism—“The Incredibles” without the fun—and on two deeply flawed superheroes. Would-be as opposed to what is, because spasms of highfalutin philosophy, and howlingly pretentious dream sequences, serve only as the thinnest of veneers for incessant action in one of the most assaultive movies ever made. (I saw it on a big IMAX screen—there are not-so-big IMAX screens these days—that upped the assaults into virtual felonies.)

In the philosophical scheme of things, Superman is seen as a good guy in a time of terror—a suicide bombing links the movie’s sci-fi fantasy to current reality—but also a loose cannon, a unilateral interventionist and, when public opinion turns against him, an illegal immigrant. (Who knew that extraplanetary visitors needed green cards?) Batman, by contrast, turns into a brutal vigilante who brands his victims with a bat sign. (He’s an aging vigilante, as we’re meant to see when he takes on younger adversaries in a labored ballet of martial arts set in Africa.)

Yet the contrasts are blurred by the movie’s penchant for equal-opportunity pessimism—“We’re all criminals,” says Batman; “No one stays good in this world,” says Superman. (These are indeed dark times, but so was the Great Depression, and Hollywood in the 1930s gave us Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire along with violent mobsters.) And the conflict between them, far from seeming inevitable, feels exactly like what it is, an arbitrary notion for a big-budget extravaganza that contains trailers—disguised as disjointed action sequences—for sequels to come. Among the characters who surface is Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, played unwonderfully by the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.

The action gets blurry too, not from a deficit of energy—Mr. Snyder, a merchant of bleakness, is also a maestro of high-tech kinetics—but from a lack of variety. After a while everything looks the same, thanks in large part to the ugly blue-and-teal palette the filmmaker favors (the cinematographer was Larry Fong), and everything sounds the same, thanks entirely to a pitiless score, by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL, that suggests platoons of percussionists high on magic mushrooms. The climactic battle between you-know-who is a slugfest, as inelegant as it is extended. Amy Adams is back as Lois Lane, though she doesn’t have much to do. Jesse Eisenberg has lots to do as the villainous Lex Luthor. This time Lex is conceived as a demented version of the Internet icon Mark Zuckerberg, whom Mr. Eisenberg played in “The Social Network,” but the dementia is more embarrassing than funny. (Oh, for the days of Gene Hackman’s exuberant evil.)

Honor bound as I am to avoid spoilers, I can tell you without fear of divulging too much that there’s a product placement toward the end for Turkish Airlines—an odd if not unseemly aberration in a production that supposedly cost a quarter billion dollars—and that a crucial, and preposterous, plot point turns on mother love.

High Rise - Movie Review

If you enjoy shots of dogs leaping to safety from flaming near-doom in disaster movies, steel your eyes. It’s no spoiler to say the mutt sizzles in this adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel from Kill List/Sightseers director Ben Wheatley. As a paw is spit-roasted, the point is well made: faced with extreme material for his first adaptation, biggest budget and biggest cast (not his only hapless hound, mind – RIP, Sightseers’ Poppy), Wheatley doesn’t flinch.

Wheatley and screenwriter/wife Amy Jump’s Ballard riff is unrulier than Crash, David Cronenberg’s take on Ballard’s other supposedly ‘unfilmable’ novel, also produced by Jeremy Thomas. But Wheatley and Jump pull off a similarly seamless author/filmmaker hybrid, honouring the novel while making it their own highly cinematic beast.

The result drew mixed festival reviews, but roll with its anarchic satirical punch and you’ve got rare meat: a Brit-film of singular vision, blackened wit and dog-toasting audacity, cooked with such brio that its flaws seem like acceptable casualties. As the dog cooks, we meet Tom Hiddleston’s Dr Robert Laing, a seemingly vacant neurologist reclining on a Brutalist tower-block balcony in mid-’70s London.

As placid as he seems, one of many clear mergers of the Ballard/Wheatley/Jump mindsets is established as the voiceover comments, “Now that so many residents were out of the way…” Hell is often other people in Wheatley/Jump’s films, from the singing Christians in Kill List to the fellow holidaymakers up for the chop in Sightseers. Here, the resentment is largely class-based, a point emphasised as we rewind three months and Dr Laing moves into the isolated tower’s 25th floor.

With his charm, looks, slippery personality and copious medicinal know-how as pass-keys, Laing floats between classes and floors. Just above him is Sienna Miller’s free spirit Charlotte Melville; down below, there’s arch-revolutionary documentary-maker Wilder (Luke Evans) and his class-strapped clan, pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss) and watchful son Toby (Louis Suc). Way up on top is the architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), who designed the tower as a “crucible for change”, a kind of “experiment”.

If Irons’ roles in Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly provide a roundabout link to Cronenberg, so does a med-school scene where the skin of a cadaver’s head is peeled away in a kind of metaphor for society’s thin surface.

The results of Royal’s experiment also recall the dabblings with sex parasites in Cronenberg’s tower-block ‘splatire’ Shivers, where orgiastic chaos bloomed. As power cuts and class-sparked clashes over swimming pools stoke rage in High-Rise, society’s lid blows and apocalyptic rioting erupts, with Che Guevara-loving Wilder its enthused advocate and Dr Laing our amoral eyes.

In Ballard’s spirit, Wheatley and Jump play out this scenario as a retro-futurist sci-fi allegory. Ballard was writing about the near-future in the mid-’70s: Wheatley and Jump smartly stick with a period they know well. The overflowing bin bags, broken bottles, nasty sideburns and swingers’ indulgences reek of late-’70s Britain, even before a familiar prime minister’s voice intones over the climax.

If that final nod is faintly on the nose, one or two performances also stumble. Whether it’s the effect of asking a large ensemble to evoke the chaos of a kids’ party ‘gone a bit Game of Thrones’ or not, a couple of comic turns overstate their grotesque case.


Yet the core cast are electric. Hiddleston is terrifically nonchalant (and quite a mover) in a role that links a Wheatley/Ballard theme: the psychosis behind British reserve. Miller makes bright work of Charlotte, Moss’ neglected wife is touching, the Oliver Reed-ish Evans is seedier than a ’70s ’tache and Irons oozes curdled aristocracy. And he gives good press-ups.

Wheatley and Jump’s flair for comic incongruity and deadpan dialogue is equally well pumped. Recalling the camping/killing collisions in Sightseers, weaponised tinned goods are deployed in an all-out supermarket civil war. A child scoffs cereal as he watches a man brutalise another over paint tins; as hell erupts, someone casually remarks, “There’s some very unhappy bunnies bouncing around.” That skewed sensibility extends to some fabulous surreal flourishes: horses and goats roam a top-floor garden paradise.

Even as the plot turns choppy, eye-watering marvels of artful detail keep its grip sharp. Mark Tildesley’s lavish production design ranges from mouldering fruit bowls to posh parties decadent enough to cause a French revolution. Indelible money shots include a kaleidoscope of death and a suicide plunge, while the music is practically an extra character. Clint Mansell’s deliciously jaunty, drunk-baroque score ingeniously offsets the darkness; equally startling is a lush ABBA cover by Bristol torch-noir titans Portishead.

As Portishead’s Beth Gibbons coos her ‘SOS’, the cry for help comes too late for the dog. But anyone who likes their cinema off-piste should ignore the sniffier reviews and give Wheatley’s call the chance it deserves: a good shot at some cult love.

10 Cloverfield Lane - Movie Review

It might have the C-word in the title, J.J. Abrams producing and a monster in its midst, but this is not Cloverfield 2. Anyone expecting/desiring a sequel to Matt Reeves' 2008 monster mash will feel disappointed at best, cheated at worse, so let's make that thunderously clear from the off. Rather, 10 Cloverfield Lane is, as Abrams puts it, a "spiritual successor" or "blood relative" set in the (shudder) "Cloververse” – a hint of overlap here, a pinch of DNA there.

In fact, so faint are the echoes, not everyone will be convinced that debut director Dan Trachtenberg's suspense-thriller is anything more than a standalone effort. Originally entitled Valencia, it doesn’t take a cynic to point out that slipping 'Cloverfield' into the title of this Bad Robot production can only boost box-office prospects.

What's not to be doubted is the effectiveness of this tense, claustrophobic three-hander. Gone is the setting of a New York teeming with an astonishingly designed kaiju, scuttling alien-arachnids and unpardonably attractive twenty somethings. Instead we have a remote farmhouse – the address of the title – located 40 miles from Lake Charles in Louisiana, though the action is primarily confined to an underground bunker.

Our way in is, who we meet as she packs her stuff to flee a relationship. So forceful is the car crash that she’s subsequently involved in that we, like her, are stunned when she awakens to find herself hooked to a drip in a bare, windowless room with breeze block walls. She’s also chained.

Michelle’s captor is Howard (John Goodman), slovenly clothed, salt ‘n’ pepper beard, routinely flexing his hands as anger and paranoia surge through his tremendous frame. “There’s been an attack, a big one… I’m not sure yet if it’s chemical or nuclear,” he informs Michelle, warning of a fallout that requires they stay underground for “one year, maybe two”. Is he speaking the truth?

The third player in this psychodrama, mellow, eager-to-please Emmet (The Newsroom’s John Gallagher Jr.), certainly thinks so. He supports Howard’s theory that the Southern Seaboard has been attacked, and offers testimony of an appalling flash, “like something you read in the Bible.”

If Cloverfield assaulted our eyes with seesawing, visceral, found-footage thrills, and our ears with the deafening roar of streaking jets and collapsing skyscrapers, 10 Cloverfield Lane is all about pregnant stillness and screaming silence. Trachtenberg is far more traditional in his filmmaking and suspense techniques, right down to the stabbing strings of Bear McCreary’s Bernard Herrmann-esque score, and here delivers a chilling chamber piece in which a bellowed word or a fist thumped down on a table can impact like the Statue Of Liberty’s head bouncing down a Manhattan street

The presence of Whiplash’s Damien Chazelle among the screenwriting credits speaks volumes: Goodman’s Howard is as terrifying as J.K. Simmons’ Fletcher. He might not stop at verbal and psychological abuse, either – 10 Cloverfield Lane burrows deep into horror territory, threatening, at times, to become Martyrs for the masses.

The atmosphere is one of ambiguity and distrust. At the top of the steps to a triple-locked door gleams a small window to the outside world, and through it can be spied two dead pigs, Frank and Mildred, their blood-blistered flesh seemingly lending credence to Howard’s ranting about Russia, North Korea, al-Qaeda, and extraterrestrials. But then how do you explain the Doomsday books on his shelves, or the very existence of this bunker, with its air-filtration unit and tidy living space kitted out with TV, DVDs, jukebox, fish tanks, plants, electrical stove and refrigerator? He is, as Emmet puts it, “a black belt in conspiracy theory”.

All three characters are strongly played by a cast that was allowed to act out the drama chronologically courtesy of the single setting, and each has a backstory that further ratchets the tension – Howard’s mentions of someone called Megan build into a particularly heart-stopping subplot.

But there is humour, too, with the trapped trio continuing to obey table manners in this most extraordinary of settings, and adapting their rhythms until they co-inhabit with something like harmony – movies viewed include Pretty In Pink and Cannibal Airlines. (The latter is a made-up title but Frank Marshall’s 1993 drama Alive is a close fit.)

Does the action ever unpick its padlocks and move above ground? And, if so, is there anything out there that more firmly locates Trachtenberg’s movie in the “Cloververse”? To answer that would be to do the script, with its incrementally-tightening chokehold, a terrible disservice. Although it’s fair to say that the suspicious, strong-minded and thoroughly resourceful Michelle has one eye forever on that outer door, the other on the keys swinging from Howard’s hip. It’s also fair to say that Winstead’s unflashy, deep-dive performance elicits more emotional investment than any of Cloverfield’s comely cut-outs.

It’ll be too slow-burn for some and others are sure to say it’s a Twilight Zone episode stretched over 104 minutes (to which we say: “And?”), but 10 Cloverfield Lane has enough suspense, shocks and scares to be a monster hit. Let’s hope so – someone needs to give Trachtenberg a wad of cash to go shoot Cannibal Airlines.

The Witch - Movie Review

It’s safe to say that writer/director Robert Eggers‘ feature debut, The Witch, giveth no shites about your genre expectations. The film is a powerful slow burn dripping in period detail, dialogue authenticity and atmospheric dread, and while it moves at its own pace the end result is like a Halloween-themed episode of Little House on the Prairie by way of Ben Wheatley’s Kill List.

The oldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), is tasked with multiple chores and responsibilities, but when her baby brother is stolen during a game of peekaboo she finds herself under increasing suspicion by her God-fearing family. Accusations of witchery are lobbed her way by her fraternal twin siblings — who, let’s be honest, add to their pre-existing creepiness inherent in all twins by having conversations with their ominously named goat, Black Philip — and the familial tension continues to ratchet upwards as things go bump in the night and the isolated farm fails to deliver a bounty.

Eggers’ film, subtitled “A New England Folktale,” hits fast and early with the kidnapping/mulching of the youngest family member, but it settles down some as they decide to believe a lone wolf made off with the baby. Life goes on and all of that, but their loneliness and crop troubles quickly bring everyone — characters and viewers — back to the edge. The film’s design, from production to sound, is partly responsible for that as a score made of strings and choral voices works alongside crisply terrifying sound effects to immerse us in this dark new world. That same level of meticulous design and construction is evident in the house, costumes and conversations.

The dialogue adds immensely to that immersion, and Eggers has credited written period accounts with achieving that authenticity. “Did ye make some unholy bond with that goat?” asks William at one point, and it’s both amusingly on point horror-wise and frightening in its implications.

The film does take a minor misstep around its midpoint as the finger pointing grows out of control. Accusations of devilish intervention roll across the screen like a game of whack-a-witch as William reacts violently towards one child, then the next, and then back again without pause. It speaks to the conflict between knowledge and religious belief, where unexplained events could easily be blamed on or credited to supernatural design, and while the back and forth frustrates for a short while it ultimately adds to the uneasy atmosphere. Equally noticeable (and ultimately forgivable) is the film’s desire to build its mystery by intentional misdirection and flat-out avoidance of the truth.We’re made to wonder as to certain characters’ allegiance even though another present in the room should be able to reveal what’s happened.

The cast does strong work, from Ineson and Dickie on down to the twins, but it’s Taylor-Joy and Harvey Scrimshaw (as the family’s oldest boy child) who connect emotionally through powerful, fear-filled performances. Scrimshaw delivers with one scene in particular that sees his character speaking in tongues and terrified of what lies beyond the curtain of our world. Taylor-Joy has the tougher role of balancing her innocence in the face of increasing suspicion.

Make no mistake, The Witch is a horror film, but it’s as interested in the terrors we bring upon ourselves as it is the ones well out of our natural control. The dangers of blind faith, the trouble with interpretation, and the inability to accept the unknown as simply a temporary gap in our knowledge all combine to form a world where man continues to be his own worst enemy. Well, the witch in the woods still isn’t helping matters any either.

Goodnight Mommy - Movie Review

Like many of you I’ve been following the hype and reviews for the Austrian film Goodnight Mommy for months. When twins Lukas and Elias’ mother arrives home from an apparent cosmetic surgery operations they begin to have suspicions that this woman may not be their beloved mother. She’s cold, distant, and prone to violent rages which she takes out on the boys. Isolated by rolling fields of corn and farm houses, the boys are left to their own devices and set out to find the truth. But is it the truth they want?

The film opens with the boys, Lukas, and Elias, playing hide and seek in a giant cornfield and exploring the woods around the house. I immediately got a strong sense of texture from the first scene. Everything in this film has a distinct texture whether it’s the corn field swaying or the blinds in the home that are continuously being opened and shut. I wanted to reach out and touch everything. Once back home the boys run in to find their mother grotesquely bandaged from her surgery making their first encounter unsettling. The language barrier helps with the dread and overall ferocity that spews from Mother (who’s name is unknown) as she explains the new rules in the house. Complete silence, blinds closed at all times, no bringing things in from outside, etc.

Goodnight Mommy suffers from a misleading trailer. Everything that happens in the trailer happens in the first 20-25 minutes.The film is full of haunting imagery, namely the gigantic collection of hissing cockroaches the boys keep and follows a somewhat slow-burn structure which mainly consists of following Lukas and Elias around their giant house and endless trails. The build up does a fine job of inducing a sense of dread in the atmosphere. In a particular scene, Mother grabs Elias by the hair and forces him upstairs away from Lukas and forces him to say multiple times he will not talk to his brother anymore while Lukas bashes his fists into it.

As I mentioned before, Goodnight is highly texturized but that’s not the only interesting aesthetic too. Overall the theme of the film is isolation and this is extremely evident within the home. Despite the giant floor to ceiling glass doors/windows in every room, the house seems very clinical but what I found the most intriguing was the wall art. There are various pieces of artwork hanging up featuring blurred or distorted female figures. This plays heavily into the is she/isn’t she their real mother. I found that little nuance to be a nice touch.

The film is also wrought with disturbing imagery such as the fish tank of cockroaches, a dead cat, and images of torture. Let’s talk about that list bit for a moment. Once the boys decide to find out the truth it’s on like Donkey Kong between them and mommy dearest. I don’t want to give away too much because what occurs between the boys and Mother happens to be where the movie slides into predictability. However, I was genuinely disturbed by some sequences between them. It’s worth mentioning that the twins in this film are quite good child actors. They never grate on your nerves and because they are really brothers it almost feels like they aren’t acting at all when paired together and on their own.

But unfortunately, all the dread and suspense is undermined by the highly predictable ending. I was really annoyed with it honestly because I had enjoyed the film so much up to that point. This was a co-written and co-directed debut feature from Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz who’s only other works consist of a few shorts and a documentary. So perhaps I’m being too critical but the twist ending just really blew it for me. Mad props for filming on 35 mm but…ugh. I will say that this team has enormous potential so I do look forward to what they do next.

Eddie The Eagle - Movie Review

It’s not to be taken too seriously, but Eddie The Eagle definitely succeeds as a silly, entertaining underdog story.

From Bad News Bears to Cool Runnings to The Mighty Ducks, it’s hard not to love an underdog sports story. Sure, they can occasionally be formulaic and predictable, but there’s always pleasure in cheering for David in a fight against Goliath, and there’s always tremendous potential for fun character work in like-minded films. It’s become a great cinematic tradition, and it’s one that director Dexter Fletcher’s Eddie The Eagle falls right in line with, mixing kooky period style with a ridiculous and fantastic tale of true passion and fortitude.

Inspired by the feel-good true story that emerged from the 1988 Winter Olympics, the film stars Taron Egerton as Eddie Edwards: an awkward young Englishman who, despite being largely uncoordinated and unskilled, wishes to do nothing in his life other than compete for a medal in the Olympic Games. Throughout his youth, he constantly searches for the sport in which he can actually compete – and has a revelation when he discovers the art of ski jumping (a sport that Great Britain hadn’t competed in for decades).

Leaving his entire world behind, Eddie travels to Germany to learn at an elite ski jumping training center – but being as old as he is, he’s constantly mocked and told that he doesn’t have a chance. That is, until he catches the eye of an American, retired, and consistently drunk former ski lumping champion named Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), who begrudgingly agrees to take Eddie under his wing and teach him how to compete on the global level.

Admittedly, from that plot description, you can probably predict each beat of Eddie The Eagle as it plays out, but what the film lacks in big surprises it makes up in miles of heart and really perfect style. It’s clear that Dexter Fletcher knew exactly what kind of movie he was making going into the project, as it functions as a wonderful throwback to the era of classic underdog sports movies – complete with a rich, synth-filled score from Matthew Margeson that simultaneously keeps you pumped for the action while winking at the silliness of its subject matter. You’ll run out of fingers and toes trying to count the number of overused sports-movie tropes that find their way into the story, but because it’s done with such knowing flair instead of sheer laziness, it all feels strangely refreshing and fun, instead of laborious.

It’s worth mentioning that the film also takes many liberties with the story of Eddie Edwards – to the point where most of the movie is basically fictionalized – but in this day and age, that tactic actually feels worth applauding. Cinemas are regularly filled with by-the-book biopics that have no interest in straying from the details of the true story (possibly due to fears of inaccuracy claims), but Eddie The Eagle rather brazenly defies this approach and fabricates some rather huge parts of the story (such as the existence of fictional coach Bronson Peary, for starters). While some may admonish the film for this fact, it’s actually really great to see filmmakers (including Dexter Fletcher, in addition to screenwriters Sean Macaulay and Simon Kelton) who understand the line between emotional truth and factual truth, and use it to their advantage by making a more compelling story from the source material. Eddie The Eagle might not get everything completely right, but there’s also no denying that the movie is a great reflection and representation of its central figure.

Of course, a lot of that spirit comes from the actual portrayal of Eddie, and in playing a role that is a complete 180-degree turn from his breakout performance in last year’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, Taron Egerton not only demonstrates great range, but also some very abnormal and fascinating charisma. Sporting a pair of glasses that take over half his face, and a prominent under bite that makes him look consistently confused, Eddie is an awkward guy and unconventional protagonist, but Egerton really makes you care about his success simply by selling his extreme passion and unwillingness to be put down by all the “No’s” that he has heard throughout his life. Add in the great chemistry that he shares with Hugh Jackman (who puts in a fun, engaging performance of his own), and you realize that Eddie The Eagle will be one of the films we look back on with extreme fondness as Egerton rises to greater prominence in the industry.

Looking back, the 1990s was a great era for family sports movies - with the release of not just the aforementioned Cool Runnings and The Mighty Ducks, but also The Sandlot, Rudy, and more – and Eddie The Eagle feels more in tradition with those films than anything we’ve seen in a while. It’s not to be taken too seriously, but it definitely succeeds as a silly, entertaining underdog story, so understand that going in, and you will have fun.

Alien: Covenant and The Predator Get New Release Dates

Not to be distracted by the small matter of the Oscars this weekend, studio Fox have been doing a spot of release-date reshuffling. And while the news is muted for X-Men spin-off Gambit, it's more positive for the return of two monster franchises. Alien: Covenant will now be with us sooner than we thought, while The Predator now has a firm date for his unleashing.

Unlike its predecssor Prometheus, which came out in December of 2012, Fox have now staked Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant as a full-on summer tentpole, picthing it on August 4, 2017. That shows a good deal of confidence on Fox's part that a "proper" new Alien after the curveball of Prometheus is a big thing indeed. It also gets it safely out of the way of Star Wars: Episode VIII, with its only direct competition on its new date currently Pitch Perfect 3 and Blazing Samurai.

Shane Black's The Predator, meanwhile, opens on March 2, 2018, likely more-or-less kicking off that year's "summer" blockbuster season. It currently shares its slot with an as-yet unnamed Warner Bros. big-hitter: probably a DC superhero movie; possibly the Ezra Miller- starring The Flash (Aquaman is slated for July the same year).

Fox has also shifted Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiars out of its packed December slot into a quieter berth on September 30 this year. Avoiding Rogue One and Assassin's Creed, it'll now face Peter Berg's oil rig disaster movie Deepwater Horizon.

Alien: Covenant stars Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender, Demián Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Carmen Ejogo and Danny McBride. It's set ten years after Prometheus, has proper Aliens in it, and has been confirmed by Ridley Scott as aiming for an R-rating: itself significant for an August blockbuster.

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiars is adapted by Jane Goldman from Ransom Riggs’ novel, and finds Hugo’s Asa Butterfield discovering the ruined gothic institution once run by Eva Green. Samuel L. Jackson, Judi Dench and Allison Janney are some of the inmates who never left...

And we don't know much about The Predator yet, but we're very excited.

Anomalisa - Movie Review

There's everything else happening in America cinema, and then there's whatever Charlie Kaufman is up to.

Ever since 1999's "Being John Malkovich," he has been on a short list of American screenwriters whose work is so original that he must be thought of as an auteur, even though film is supposedly a director's medium. Formidable filmmakers have adapted his scripts, including Spike Jonze("Malkovich" and "Adaptation") and Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Human Nature"), but however assured the results, they were still unmistakably Charlie Kaufman movies, speaking their own alternately down-to-earth and elevated language.

Kaufman's mix of mordant humor, broad slapstick, self-aware storytelling devices, and images and language drawn from psychoanalysis, poetry and dreams coalesced even more strongly in his directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York," about a playwright spending years (or a lifetime?) rehearsing and rewriting a massive production that was about his life but seemed indistinguishable from it. The undercurrents of wonder and despair ran deeper there than in any other Kaufman story, even "Eternal Sunshine."

They course throughout "Anomalisa" as well. The film could be described as a midlife crisis drama with puppets, about a depressed corporate efficiency expert (voiced by David Thewlis) who hears every voice, male or female, as the same voice (Tom Noonan's), and who becomes infatuated with a shy young woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who is attending his seminar in Cincinnati, Ohio. "Anomalisa" is based on an "audio play" by Kaufman. It was originally presented as part of a series of such plays, in collaboration with Joel and Ethan Coen and composer Carter Burwell, who has scored movies by both directors, including this one. The actors performed their lines while Burwell conducted a live score and sound effects artists provided background noises. Kaufman co-directed this film version with stop-motion animator Duke Johnson, whose work includes the "Community" episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas." It puts a "visual track" to Kaufman's audio play. The puppets are physically recognizable as "puppets," down to the segmented lines of their "face plates." But they move so realistically and speak so naturalistically (even when they're skipping across the tops of desks, as in the image at the top of this page) that there are times when you may forget that they're not people.

The puppet characters in most other films are more sprightly. They exist mainly to amuse. The characters in "Anomalisa" unsettle. Their plight makes you think about 21st century loneliness, despair and alienation— subjects that would be unpalatable if Kaufman didn't write his characters so compassionately and with such dry humor. Kaufman and Johnson shoot the characters in a carefully considered way, not cutting much, just sort of letting them sit there, and be. There are a few stealthy "long takes" in this film that would be much praised if they appeared in a live-action feature—sequences where the filmmakers simply follow characters as they traverse levels of the hotel, or have sex in a slab-like bed.

It might sound strange to say, but this puppet movie gives you a more accurate sense of what it's like to spend a few days in a nice hotel in a city of bad memories than most live-action films ever do—not that that's necessarily the kind of description that will make people want to rush out and see "Anomalisa." Like so many Kaufman characters, the ones in this movie are struggling, stumbling even, towards what might be a mirage of happiness, while battling both their own social conditioning and pathologies and the bland indifference of the world around them—a world that includes billions of other people who all think they are the stars of their own life-movies, and at times seem deeply frustrated by the fact that they haven't experienced one of those transformative moments that tell moviegoers, "Everything is going to be fine for this character now, don't worry."

Thewlis' Michael Stone is clearly unhappy with his work, his marriage, even his child. He seems disconnected from himself and the world. Not much happens to him in the plot sense. His plane touches down in Cincinnati. He settles into the hotel and orders room service while pacing and smoking a cigarette. He impulsively invites an old flame out for a drink hoping to get lucky, oblivious to the fact that he hurt her so terribly that it's painful for her to be in the same room with him.

Then he becomes smitten with a guest at the conference, a young woman who wears her hair to one side to hide a scar on her face. Her name is Lisa (Leigh), and she's the only character in the film who has her own voice (everyone else is voiced by Tom Noonan, remember). It's love at first sight—or Michael thinks it is. He seems to view Lisa as a redemptive figure, somebody who will pull him out of his existential malaise. But by that point we've spent enough time with Michael to know that he's not the best judge of what he needs. In fact his judgment is consistently terrible, and in typically Kaufman-esque fashion, we move from feeling for Michael and rooting for him to be happy to wondering if he's got some sort of debilitating emotional or mental condition (beyond the titular disorder). Then we progress into thinking about ourselves as much as Michael, contemplating our own fears, weaknesses, blind spots, and repetitive behaviors in relation to a world that barely seems to notice us.

For all its visual audacity and honest feeling, "Anomalisa" is a modest, even slight work, aesthetically sealed off from the same reality it engages. It ends a bit abruptly, just when it seemed to be ramping up towards a more definitive statement of some kind, and the general outlines of Michael's story aren't new. (Middle-Aged, Upper Middle-Class Male Grappling with Despair is pretty much a genre by this point.) But there's so much beauty and sadness in it, and so many exquisitely conceived scenes (including an impromptu musical performance that ranks with Kaufman's greatest moments), that it would be miserly to underrate it. Whether you leave the film ecstatically impressed, indifferent or disappointed, you will know you've seen something unique. Too many movies speak in a boringly typical storytelling voice. This one speaks in a voice as singular as Lisa's.

Triple 9 - Movie Review

John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 sees Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) playing a bad-ass alongside a team of thieves and corrupt cops who find themselves in the deep end of organized crime.

‘999’ is led by a notable cast, which include Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), Clifton Collins Junior (Star Trek), and Anthony Mackie (Captain America). After the enraging death of one of the crew, Chiwetel’s character is forced to take on a near impossible task of stealing some files for the Russian mob, headed by Kate Winslet, whose self-consciously languid cigarette-smoking bring a slight element humor to the otherwise gritty two-hour thriller.

Daryl and Jesse as brothers?! If you’re a fan of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead you’ll know what we mean. It makes for an interesting watch when two iconic TV characters come together to pull off mission impossible, but we’ll leave our fantasy of a Breaking Bad and TWD crossover at the door. Yet to transcend typecasting, Aaron Paul’s character felt a little like Jesse’s long-lost twin, only he’s not driving around the desert making meth in an RV; though refreshing seeing Norman Reedus looking well-scrubbed for once.

In order to successfully pull off the heist, the authorities must be distracted elsewhere. Their solution is to pull a “triple 9” AKA as an “officer down” call. Casey Affleck plays partner to one of our corrupt cops. Targeted as the “mark”, uncertainty, betrayal and fear embroil the team after he survives the attack. Like dominoes, bodies fall one after the other. Filled with enough nudity even HBO might re-evaluate it’s airing, Triple 9 will hold your attention, unapologetically throwing you shocker after shocker.

With enough blood, guns, boobs, and over-saturation to keep you desensitized for a while, could you survive with not seeing this film? Probably, as it rarely strays into a field of originality. We’ve seen the decaying results of inner-city demographics before. Triple 9 serves no further purpose, other than to further perpetuate negative stereotypes. Even Woody Harrelson plays a familiar role, that of a corrupt southern cop with very few ethical boundaries.

With its testosterone-fueled shoot-outs and not-so-subtle decapitations, Triple 9 might be a film you’d stay in and watch on a Friday night, but, despite its top-notch cast, there’s little here to lure you to your nearest multiplex. With its electric score and rough aesthetic, Triple 9 is definitely for fans of the no-nonsense, straight-to-point action thrillers – think Oceans 11, Inside Man, and The Equalizer all wrapped into one – but this would seem to be a case of identity theft.

Indie Film News - 10th February 2016

Dark Dignity




Dark Dignity is the story of the women of a nomadic tribe, searching for a new home five years after the world crumbled. Civilization as we know it is gone due to The Infected that plagued North America and beyond.
This diverse mix of former suburbanites – teachers, doctors, police officers – must always be prepared to fight for survival in the badlands of rural landscapes and desert vistas. The dangers hiding behind every shadow may be thieves or gangs… or perhaps creatures once human and now forever changed.

Website - www.darkdignity.com

A Legacy of Whining

The ghosts of both past and present collide as two former high school friends reunite after thirty years and embark on a darkly humorous nocturnal fever dream of a journey where old emotions and resentments bubble to the surface once again. Written by Ross Munro

I have been granted an exclusive online viewing of this movie so that I can review it, the review will be up withing the next day or so.

Website - http://www.nextoneproductions.ca/

Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnEUlrPdfxg

Street Shots

Go check out my friend's blog "Street Shots". Posts are about photography, skating, street culture etc.

Website - http://streetshots-ds.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter - @StreetShots_ds

Hail, Caesar! - Movie Review

If self-plagiarism were a criminal offence, the Coen brothers would be facing a long stretch in San Quentin.

Hail, Caesar! shares the Hollywood-studio setting of Barton Fink, and, no doubt to the delight of Coenverse theorists everywhere, the exact-same fictional studio: Capitol Pictures (they’ve come a long way from Wallace Beery wrestling flicks). Its plot, such as it is, hangs loosely on a kidnapping hook, just like The Big Lebowski, whose Busby Berkeley dream sequence also finds good company in Hail, Caesar!’s elaborate musical numbers. It’s slathered with the ’50s period sheen of The Hudsucker Proxy, tussles with similar existential issues to A Serious Man, and gathers a sprawling ensemble of big names in character-actor roles, as Burn After Reading did. There is an ill-fated suitcase full of money, a shouty fat man, a little yapping dog, philosophical monologues from an eccentric white-hair, and George Clooney mugging.

Though it’s not really Clooney’s film. As kidnapped matinée idol Baird Whitlock, another George-shaped Coen creation who’s two steps behind the rest of the room, he is merely their MacGuffin; like the baby inRaising Arizona, only not as smart and a touch more helpless. It’s Josh Brolin as Capitol’s Head Of Physical Production, Eddie Mannix, who drives things — albeit not always using the most direct route.

Mannix, the closest thing this movie has to a main character, is another of the Coens’ serious men. A fixer for the studio, there’s a little of Tom Regan from Miller’s Crossingabout him, though he’s armed with petty cash rather than a pistol. He will do something as objectionable as slapping an actress for taking part in an unsanctioned photo-session, but is also wracked with Catholic guilt over lying to his wife about quitting smoking. And there’s a greater temptation than tobacco: a big-time job offer from aerospace company Lockheed. “Aviation is serious,” he’s told. “You won’t be shouldering a load of crackpot problems.” But Mannix — played by Brolin as a charming bruiser who’s not quite as unflappable as he’d like people to think — thrives on the crackpot problems.

Of which Whitlock’s disappearance is but one. There’s also the matter of cherub-faced B-Western star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) being roped into a pristine, drawing-room drama, to the despair of its mannered English director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). Then there’s the Esther Williams-ish mermaid (Scarlett Johansson), facing the scandal of being both pregnant and unmarried. Plus, rival twin-sister entertainment columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton, tasked with basically playing a double Hedda Hopper who’s at war with herself) are on Eddie’s back, too.

This is the Dream Factory operating at maximum productivity, and Joel and Ethan revel in the absurdities of the studio system, whereby directors can’t pick their stars, and stars have to change their image at the wag of a fat finger and date who they’re damn well told. On the one hand, the brothers are snickering at the silliness of how things used to be, but on the other they are celebrating this bygone Golden Age. Because, beyond all the trademarks, gags and Georgian gurning, whatHail, Caesar! essentially amounts to is a series of impressively mounted pastiches.

There’s the Johansson-centred synchronised-swimming sequence, featuring a giant, mechanical whale. There’s a full-on, astonishingly inventive song ’n’ dance number featuring a tap-dancing Channing Tatum and a bunch of sailor-boys lamenting that “We Ain’t Gonna See No Dames”. There’s cowboy Doyle’s latest picture, a twee Western named Lazy Ol’ Moon, complete with a cantankerous prospector-type. And there’s Hail, Caesar! itself, which glows convincingly with all the grandeur and pomposity of a true, old-school Hollywood epic. In each case, the Coens’ A-crew (including Mary Zophres on costumes, Roger Deakins as DP and Carter Burwell scoring) nail the genre perfectly. It’s an astonishing technical achievement.

Where Hail, Caesar! falters, though, is in the glue that binds all these elaborate sketches. Mannix’s travails don’t entwine satisfactorily, and while the flourishes are fantastic, none really move the story forward. It’s clear the Coens aren’t interested in sustaining the sense of mystery at who exactly has starnapped Whitlock, so it’s hard for the audience to care either when the big reveal hits. And, as good as Brolin is, the character lacks the culty appeal of, say, The Dude in The Big Lebowski, whose shambolic nature matched that film’s saggy, shaggy storytelling. It’s not like the film is hollow — hidden at its heart, in fact, is a struggle for the soul of Hollywood — it’s just that it feels more like a series of pleasant diversions rather than a single, solid journey.

That said, if you’re a committed Coenophile (as we all should be, right?), you’re unlikely to be too bothered by all this. Likely to fry the mind of anyone who hasn’t yet built up a resistance to the brothers’ foibles and predilections over the past 16 films, it’s easily the most Coen-y Coen movie they’ve put out. But then, they are stealing from the best.

Point Break - Movie Review

Takes the outline of the original and translates it for an audience that has chugged 15 Monster Energy drinks and stayed up for a week mainlining Dude Perfect videos.

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one puts it on YouTube, did it really happen?”

This is an actual line of dialogue, delivered with total sincerity, from Ericson Core’s remake of Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break. It’s one of several dumb “wisdoms” suggested by a screenplay that’s littered with bubblegum philosophy. But if you’re OK with the pseudo-Zen sentimentality of the insta-upload message in that statement, then the shallowness of this derivative and unnecessary reboot might not bother you as much as it did me. The original Point Break wasn’t Shakespeare, by any means. But it was never insultingly stupid. This is.

Core’s Point Break essentially takes the outline of the 1991 genre thriller starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, but translates it for an audience that has chugged 15 Monster Energy drinks and stayed up for a week mainlining Dude Perfect videos. In the process, Core misunderstands everything that was important to the original film, believing that ramping up the “EXTREME” at every turn will lead to a more rewarding experience. It isn’t. It’s exhausting. Remember the exciting skydiving sequence in the original? This time out, you are going to get large-scale skydiving, surfing and motorcross stunts in the first 15 minutes! But the skydiving sequence from the first movie mattered because by the time it arrived, you cared about the characters involved in the stunt. The new Point Break people have as much depth as actors in a Mountain Dew ad.

Right off the bat, Point Break 2015 makes a fundamental error in setting up Johnny “Utah” (Utah is a nickname this time out, which makes no sense). Keanu Reeves’ version of the character in 1991 was a former athlete but a clean-cut and dedicated FBI agent who reluctantly joined a group of surfers suspected of robbing banks wearing masks of dead Presidents. (The crooks wear similar masks in one scene of the reboot, and never again, because the remake doesn’t get why that gimmick was important.) When Reeves’ Utah gets pulled into the wake of Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi, it goes against everything that Utah stands for, setting up an internal conflict that transcended the impressive stunts.

Point Break 2015 paints “Utah” (Luke Bracey) as a former extreme-sports addict who recognizes the actions of Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez) and his crew because they behave the way that he one did. No internal conflict. No stakes in the game. It’s strange, too, how after one criminal mission at the start of the movie, Bodhi and his team of elite athletes stop committing crimes (hence, the lack of presidential masks) and really don’t create any conflict that would need the FBI… taking the wind out of the movie’s sails. We’re left with new versions of Bodhi and Utah, and the comparisons between the original and the remake – which are inevitable when reviewing this movie – show how wrong this remake is. Swayze’s Bodhi was a charismatic Zen flame drawing Keanu’s moth. Ramirez’s Bodhi belongs more to the tattoo-and-leather Euro-trash category of extreme-stunt seekers. There’s far less appeal – to both him, and to the movie.

Is Point Break 2015 bigger than the original? Yep. Where Kathryn Bigelow limited her action to the sleepy beach communities of Southern California (for the most part), Core’s Point Break is a global affair that has “Utah” chasing Bodhi to the far-reaches of the Earth to stop him from… well, again, he’s not really committing any crimes, so I’m not surewhy the FBI is so hellbent on bringing Bodhi to justice. The members of Bodhi’s gang are interchangeable and forgettable. Teresa Palmer has a painfully thankless role as the Mother Hen of the gang, cooking meals for The Boys after they complete their missions, and sleeping with “Utah” because the script thinks it needs an emotional conflict. Does bigger mean better? Nope. Because really, how often does “bigger” equal “better” when it comes to Hollywood remakes?

“Let’s just be here.” That’s another pearl of wisdom spoken by a serene criminal in Point Break 2015. When you are at the movie deciding what to see, however, you should just be anywhere else.

Star Wars Rogue One News - Boba Fett

We caution you that the following is all speculation, but it's intriguing. Design and manufacturing lead times often mean that toy companies unwittingly reveal a potential spoiler or two. In this case it's Lego who've set the womp rat among the banthas with an image of a ship in its Rogue One: A Star Wars Story range that has all sorts of implications. Leave now if you don't want to know, before you look too closely at this tweet.

Still here? So yes, that image above the words "Rogue 1 Oktober" (it's a toy fair in Nuremberg) - spotted by Twitterer @StudShooter - looks very much like Slave 1, the iconically odd craft belonging to Boba Fett. Does that mean the cult-favourite bounty hunter will be making an appearance? There have been rumours before about the second of the non-numbered Star Wars "anthology" films - following Rogue Onein 2018 - centring on Fett. Is this just a fly-past cameo teasing that? Or is it simply some other modified Firespray-31-class patrol and attack vehicle? Can't be too many of them in the system...

Some rumours that have already surfaced even peg Felicity Jones' character as Fett's daughter. We couldn't possibly comment - except to say that if everyone in the revivified Star Wars turns out to be the kid of a legacy character, it's getting to be a small bloody universe.

Gareth Edwards finished cranking his cameras on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story at the end of last year, with the post-production process now well underway. The story of how the rebel pilots stole the original Death Star plans arrives in UK cinemas on December 16.

The Birth of a Nation - Movie Review - Sundance 2016

For film historians, the audacity of Nate Parker's Nat Turner biopic begins with the title: The Birth of a Nation. It shares its name with D.W. Griffith's century-old ode to the creation of the Ku Klux Klan — which, like Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda, is too innovative for its time to completely ignore, at least from an academic point of view.

But Parker beats Griffith at his own game. His take on the largest slave rebellion on American soil, which Parker directed and wrote as well as starred in, may be a little choppy, but it's also a remarkable and important teaching tool.

The story begins in Southampton County, Virginia, where young Nat, a slave on the Turner plantation, is adored by his parents and grandparents, who believe he will grow to a special purpose. As far as these things go, the Turners are “good” slavers who refrain from doling out brutal punishment and even aid young Nat by teaching him to read.

The Mistress of the house offers Nat Bible lessons (no other books, she says; those are only for whites), and he grows to become a preacher. Nat's sermons gain attention, and soon his master Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer) is essentially pimping him out to other plantations, hoping that hearing the Word of God from a fellow slave will have a quieting effect.

But seeing the enormity of slavery — especially when it takes a more demonstratively brutal form on other plantations — begins to open Nat's eyes. It's increasingly difficult for him to reconcile the Gospels with the reality around him.

As calamities befall people close to him (his wife is raped and beaten by a group of slave catchers that harassed his father), Nat decides that armed insurrection is actually his true calling.

The Birth of a Nation's most effective moments come in sequences that show the total madness of the antebellum South. The auction scenes are nauseating; even so-called “nice” whites gifting human beings to one another is almost too shocking to contemplate.

Unfortunately, Parker's style is extremely conventional in much of the film's plotting. Too often, the dialogue is on the nose, and some dreamlike images don't seem underpinned by much else in the film.

When the violence finally comes, it happens abruptly. Turner's change from a preacher to guerrilla isn't very smooth, and the independent film's low budget doesn't do the action sequences any favors.

Still: Nat Turner is, for many, just a few paragraphs in a history book. He's an important figure who reflected sentiment prior to the Civil War, but also killed a lot of random white people. Who needs to think about whether he was a hero or a crazy person; let's turn the page.

The Birth of a Nation takes a deeper dive into a man too often relegated to footnote status. The film suggests that, no, there weren't any “good whites” so long as they were enjoying an economic advantage derived from exploiting slaves. Maybe the wives of the slavers didn't “ask” to be put there, but neither did the descendants of those stolen from Africa.

It's a thorny topic, and still a relevant one; no, America hasn't solved its “race issue.” Stories like these must be told, not buried — and while this movie isn't a masterpiece (it has little of the cinematic grace and emotional resonance of Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, for example), it is absolutely one of 2016's must-see films.

Swiss Army Man - Movie Review - Sundance 2016

"Swiss Army Man" is a comedic action-drama that stars Paul Dano as a lonely guy who, while sailing one day, gets swept up in a storm in the Pacific Ocean and is washed ashore on a deserted island. Daniel Radcliffe is the dead body that washes up at the moment when Dano's character, Hank, is about to commit suicide.

We're not even close to the weird part yet.

Directed by Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), who are best known for their music videos and commercial work, the duo have created for their feature-length debut a movie that highlights what it's like to be a recluse and not taking chances in life — a topic not uncommon to Sundance Film Festival entrants. The story plays out in a fashion that's funny, touching, but most importantly, original.

Let's take the film's opening 10 minutes, for example.

After he comes across the dead body, Hank gives this touching speech on how his hopes have been dashed that it isn't a live person. He's lonely, and desperate for human contact. But as he opens up in this revealing moment, the dead body passes gas.

It's funny; Hank even finds it amusing, but the body does it again. Even as Hank prepares to try suicide again, the body continues to pass gas.

The body then gets pulled into the current and moves further into the water — because of its relentless flatulence. Eventually, Hank sits on top of the body and floats it like a jet ski off the island. The film score is triumphant. Hank is cheering as he moves further away from the island. Is this all a dream?

That's a question you'll be asking yourself often as the body doesn't just use its biological function to help Hank out of his predicament, but as Hank continues to search for civilization the body turns into a multipurpose tool. The body chops wood with its arms, can start fires with its fingers, is a source of hydration by spewing water from its mouth — which Hank drinks.

Importantly, over time, the dead body begins to talk. Manny (the body's name) is curious about everything and Hank is happy to have someone to share his life with. Hank talks about what he wants to do when he returns home to reunite with his love, Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

Hank and Manny build little moments from Hank's memory with sticks, brush, and trash found in the woods. But there are moments where Hank is too shy to go through with talking to Sarah, and tries to make Manny understand that doing almost anything instinctively will make a person look weird. "Swiss Army Man" is a look into the side of ourselves that's too weird to be revealed in public. But, what the Daniels show here, is that the eccentricities in us that we hide may, in fact, be the best version of ourselves. The Daniels just chose to drive home that point by creating a silly film with A-listers in it.

And that's the best part of this movie. Because the Daniels were able to land top-shelf talent like Dano and Radcliffe in their gonzo movie, it makes your chances of seeing "Swiss Army Man" outside of the film-festival circuit that much greater. So get ready.

Star Wars Rogue One News - Darth Vader, Stormtroopers and More!

The Star Wars franchise returned to the big screen with Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens in December 2015, and that film was only the beginning. Disney and Lucasfilm have grand plans for the galaxy far, far away, taking the movie series beyond the traditional Skywalker saga with standalone anthology projects. The first of these, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, hits theaters this holiday season and focuses on the team of Rebels who stole the plans for the original Death Star.

With the hype surrounding The Force Awakens starting to cool down, attention will be shifting towards Rogue One, especially on the ever active Star Wars rumor mill. Keeping that in mind, fans should be eager to check out a new report that provides alleged details on the various new characters Rogue One will introduce, as well as one returning Dark Lord of the Sith.

JoBlo has an exclusive scoop covering information about the initial Star Wars spinoff. There’s nothing too juicy in their rundown (i.e. crucial plot twists), so those concerned about spoiling the experience don’t have much to worry about. Their findings are presented in a bullet list below:
The film will feature stormtroopers that wear all-black armor called Death Troopers, seemingly taking a cue from the Shadow Troopers of the now defunct Star Wars Legends series.
There’s a new droid character that works with the Rebels, and he’s a “scene stealer”
One of the main characters is named “Cashen,” but it’s unknown which actor is playing him/her
A new TIE Fighter design and AT-ATs will be shown in Rogue One
Darth Vader is in the movie, and he has a “larger role than originally thought”

The report elaborates that the new droid was originally an Imperial robot that gets reprogrammed to aid the Rebels. As for his appearance, he has long arms, two legs, and is dark grey or black in color. The character is described as being a change-of-pace from the normal protocol droid design fans are familiar with (C-3PO). JoBlo is speculating that this could be Alan Tudyk’s motion-capture role, but there’s nothing to confirm or deny that so far. It’s a logical guess, since it sounds like the technology would be necessary to bring this particular character to life. Time will tell, but after Lucasfilm won fans over with scene stealing BB-8, it isn’t surprising that they’ve apparently created another droid poised to be an instant fan-favorite.

As for Darth Vader, it’s difficult to say what exactly JoBlo means when discussing his part in the film, since it’s never been stated how much screen time the villain will receive. From the wording, it sounds like Vader will be one of the central antagonists of the film, making life miserable for Felicity Jones’ character and her team. If Vader were to have a primary role in Rogue One, it would be a smart move on Lucasfilm’s part. Nostalgia was used to great effect in the Force Awakens marketing campaign. Since Rogue One takes place before the original trilogy heroes even met, their options are limited when playing that card for the spinoff. Placing a recognizable character like Vader front and center is almost a necessity when promoting Rogue One, as that would help sell casual audiences on a Star Wars movie disconnected from the main story line. His appearance is a huge selling point.

The other items from the scoop are not so instrumental to the overall story, but do show how director Gareth Edwards will be making his film differentiate from what came before. The revelation of the Death Trooper brings to mind a behind-the-scenes image Rogue One star Donnie Yen shared, which showcased a black helmet that hadn’t been seen in a previous Star Wars movie. Not only would a new stormtrooper outfit (along with a TIE Fighter redesign) give Rogue One something unique to call its own, it would also give Disney more merchandising opportunities when it comes time to launch all the Rogue One tie-in materials. As for why they’

Exclusive Revenant Behind the Scenes Documentary

Mind blowing western from the visionary director Alejandro González Iñárritu. The Revenant has turned the heads of everyone, and I would go as far as saying it's the biggest advancement in cinematography that we've seen in the past 16 years.

Whilst feasting my eyes on The Revenant the biggest question I kept asking myself all the way through the movie was how the heck did they manage to pull off all of those incredible shots. And thankfully my questions have been answered by this intriguing 45 minute Behind the Scenes documentary answers all of my questions and showcases all of the incredible work that went into creating this blockbuster.

If you're a hardcore movie fan like me, or even just a casual viewer then this documentary will blow your mind, highly recommend watching this.

Here's the link to the video - The Revenant | "A World Unseen" Documentary