StateLikeSleep Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. Meredith Danluck / Trailer State Like Sleep is a psychological thriller from writer/director Meredith Danluck. American fashion photographer Katherine Grand (Katherine Waterston, Inherent Vice) is slowly rebuilding her life after her actor husband Stefan Delvoe (Michael Huisman, The Age Of Adaline) is found dead in their Brussels apartment from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot.
Twelve months later with her mother hospitalised after a series of strokes, the property is due to be sold and Katherine returns to empty it. But revisiting her old life rekindles unsolved mysteries, and soon Katherine is drawn into a seedy underground club scene where she meets her husband’s secret friend Emile (Luke Evans, Midway) as well as her own enigmatic hotel-neighbour Edward (Michael Shannon, Midnight Special).
PROBLEM Despite some solid casting, the main problem is that the emotionally-anaesthetised characters and their sprawling story aren’t particularly interesting, yet neither are they presented in a particularly interesting way. And since Katherine knows at the time of his death that Stefan had issues with drugs and women, there’s no revelation awaiting her return. Everything she finds out about Stefan’s life comes more as an explanation rather than a shock.
The film’s 100 languorous minutes feel far more ordinary than a film with this cast ever should. Scenes taking place in the fetish club aren’t as provocative as they’re perhaps intended to be, and the sequences in which Katherine is quietly wide-eyed on a variety of recreational drugs feel worryingly similar to those where she’s not.
VOODOO And so what could easily have been a solid yet unambitious thriller turns out to not even make it to that mark. Originally filmed in 2016, State Like Sleep finally saw its US release back in January 2019, with an international straight-to-domestic follow up almost a year later. It’s not difficult to see why there’s been little enthusiasm to get this out there.
At one point, Katherine propositions Edward into casual sex with the disclaimer “It doesn’t have to mean anything, it can just be tonight”, seemingly unaware that this should really be the tagline for the front of the DVD…
A load of stuff on Netflix that you've never heard of.
The £3 DVD shelf in ASDA.
The distributors have wisely taken that decision out of your hands.
Stream it out of idle curiosity if you must.
Not not likely.
Quite possible.
Definitely not.
Level 2: Katherine Waterston is in this, and she was in that Logan Lucky with Adam 'Kylo' Driver and Daniel 'Gullible First Order Stormtrooper' Craig.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well I don't know what we've done to deserve the interesting films still within the months of Summer, but I certainly won't complain about that*1. Steven Soderbergh is back directing for at the big-screen after four years with a hillbilly-heist movie set in the drawling sunshine of Carolina and Virginia.
After being fired from his construction job, faded highschool football-star Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) begins plotting a daring robbery at the Charlotte Motor Speedway stadium during its busiest weekend. For this he enlists the help of his bartending brother Clyde (Adam Driver), hairdressing sister Mellie (Riley Keough) demolitions-expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and Joe's calamitous brothers Sam and Fish (Brian Gleeson / Jack Quaid). All they have to do is bust Joe out of prison first…
Quite unlike anything else which has crossed my path this year, Logan Lucky is a dryly-comic caper set against a backdrop of NASCAR, child beauty pageants and misspelled tattoos. But although the Southern States are mined for grins, this never becomes exploitative or unnecessary. While the trailer lets you know that there are jokes here, the final movie delivers them at a more restrained pace, going hand-in-hand with their perfect deadpan delivery. It quickly becomes evident however that Soderbergh can't direct comedy for shit, and just happens to be blessed with a cast who know what they're doing*2.
But this is a smarter film than it might first appear and even more charming, managing to craft an intriguing story and satisfying ending without tipping over into schmaltz. Despite the incredibly strong cast, I can't see Logan Lucky lighting up the box-office, and the natural home of a movie like this is on DVD, a future Saturday night cult classic. It's also the second film this year to hurl a borderline unhealthy amount of John Denver into the soundtrack*3.
One of the jewels in Soderbergh's varied (albeit uneven) crown, Logan Lucky is a lot of fun and should stand up to multiple re-watches. Each one accompanied with ice-cold beer…
*1 Not least because this year's Blockbuster Season has also presented us with far more than its fair share of absolute cack, too. [ BACK ]
*2 With the inglorious exception of Seth MacFarlane, outstaying his welcome during his first appearance, being every bit as engaging as we've come to expect… [ BACK ]
*3 Which is fine right now, but I can't help feel this musical train is going to reach the end of its track, and pretty soon. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Alien: Covenant (second-pass / SPOILERS! Also, LANGUAGE!)
Cert: 15 / 122 mins / Dir. Ridley Scott / Trailer
You see, I did enjoy Alien: Covenant the second time around (first and spoiler-free, here), it's just that…
• The two producers credited on-screen at the same time are David Giler and Walter Hill. Am I alone in wondering if this is related to the two synthetic characters in the film being called David and Walter? Like they got to name characters as part of a Kickstarter-perk, or somesuch?
• Jed Kurzel did the score for Covenant, and while I've no strong feelings on it either way, it seems a bit odd that in the opening scene, he's credited as David begins playing Wagner's Das Rheingold on the piano. That's quite a slap in the face from editor Pietro Scalia there, to be credited for the film's music the moment someone else's work is playing. Unless those are Kurzel's hands of course, because the framing of that sequence certainly suggests that Fassbender can't play the piano.
• Now I know everyone else is asleep, but why does the ship's computer, MU/TH/ER, bark on at Walter to deploy the recharge-sails? All he does is presses a button, which then begins an electronic sequence of automatically deploying the recharge-sails. Fairly certain the computer could have done that by itself?
• And while I'm on, why does the same computer harp on at Walter about retracting the sails because there's an incoming neutrino-burst instead of, oh I don't know, not wasting those precious seconds waiting for another button to be pressed and just retracting the sails?
• So, if the neutrino-bursts are pretty much unpredictable and unavoidable, and if one of those will damage the deployed hardware, then this weakness has been deliberately built into the ship, yes? Knowing it could happen and knowing the effects of it happening, Weyland/Yutani seem to have done nothing to build in dampers or surge-protectors. Well done, guys.
• Acting-captain Oram has a pop at Walter about the unpredictable nature of these natural phenomena damaging the ship, yet six minutes later he's sitting in a landing craft (which is essentially a big box of computers and sensitive electronic equipment, with seats and an engine) and telling the pilot to drive right through a fucking electrical storm, just because he's nosey.
• Even if the crew of the lander didn't clock the massive ship parked on a mountain which is sending out the beacon-signal on their way down, they land 8km away from it then decide to walk, over forests and mountain-sides. Why not get back in the lander and cruise over to the signal? That's what the craft was actually designed for. Transportation.
• And after David pops out of the night and is like "follow me!", they walk to the desolate city he's made home. This crew have landed on a planet - from space, up above - literally within walking distance of a city and not noticed it.
• When the two synthetics are discussing programming upgrades, I like that Walter's observation is that David's model was thought to be "too human". Given that the latter bore a deep-seated grudge against a parent, went mad after isolation on a long-haul flight, killed the entire crew through idle curiosity, committed planetary genocide, developed biological weapons then betrayed and killed the only person who still liked him, I'd say David was very human, yes. And indeed too much, so. To the point where you really can't blame his artificial side at all, to be fair.
• So watching Daniels and Walter scrapping, there's the moment where she drives that nail under his chin. Ah! I thought, I hadn't noticed the significance of that first time round. As well as the scripted giveaway later in the cryo-tube scene, she'll be looking up at the synth she thought was Walter, see the scar and realise it's actually David! So, I kept my eye open for that when the film's denouement arrived, and… no. Not there, mate. In the film's final moments there are at least two clear shots of the underside of David's chin, and there's not a scratch to be seen, despite the wound having been sustained at the same time as the ones on his face, which are still patched/healing. So either that android's got super-fucking-healing around his lower jaw only, or David transferred his consciousness into Walter's already-handless body (why bother, when they look alike and he's got to lose the arm anyway?), or it really is Walter after all and he's just turned into a massive space-bastard.
Who sets up a huge callback then forgets all about it? Answers on a postcard, please…
But that's not what's really got under my skin. No, for that I'll need to skip the bullet-points…
…why is this film so determined to reboot the history it has no real right interfering with? All credit (and deservedly so) to Ridley Scott for directing one of the finest genre-redefining movies of the 1970s, if not all time. But for the pedestal he's put upon, you'd be forgiven for thinking he wrote the story/script (Dan O'Bannon & Ron Shuster) and designed the creatures (HR Giger, as we all know). Now obviously as director he's still at the sharp edge of the creative team, but that's what it was, a team effort.
And while the 1979 original laid the groundwork for everything to come, the universe didn't really expand until seven years later with Aliens, where we learned of the creatures queen/hive system. The species further adaptability was explored in Alien³ and Alien: Resurrection, and notably in around twenty years' worth of novels, comics and video games. The life-cycle of queen/egg/facehugger/chestburster/drone has been given biological resonance by comparing the species to bees or ants, not to create any sympathy for the xenomorphs, but to add a layer of practical believability (and, therefore, danger). And the many, many authors and artists involved in this narrative evolution all used O'Bannon's story as a seed, but they added to the story, they didn't re-write it.
So then Prometheus comes along and goes, 'actually they're a bio-weapon, mate'. Which is a little disconcerting, but basically fine. ThenCovenant comes along and goes 'no really mate, the aliens you know won't even be invented until 2104 by a crazy synthetic living in a cave. All the proper 'Aliens' films take place after that anyway, but all those 'Predator' tie-ins? They can go fuck themselves into a cocked hat. Xenomorphs start now, with David. Alright?'
And it seems a bit… well, disrespectful, frankly. As if Scott and the Covenant writing-team of Jack Paglen, Michael Green, John Logan and Dante Harper had invented the sandpit, rather than just being invited to play in it. And that's where the sentiment creeps in of 'oh, but it's Ridley Scott, it's all his'. Not really, see above. He helped, fair play. It's bad enough that the highly-anticipated (and now apparently aborted) Alien 5 movie from Neil Blomkamp was going to re-route the series own timeline*1, without this one sticking two fingers up at everyone who's coloured within the lines for so long. I just get the impression nobody at 20th Century Fox really has any direction for this series and they're hoping it'll freewheel into something cohesive.
None of this would even matter if Scott's grand vision for a clean-slate universe wasn't so smugly oblique. First there were going to be three films in this pre-Alien cycle, now it's looking like four. Although Scott's mentioned six, and said the next movie 'might' be set before Covenant*2, even though the audience now knows what happened to a) Elizabeth Shaw, b) David the synthetic, and c) The Engineers. And there's still no sign of LV-246, despite both prequels so far deliberately framing shots to match the curved ship from Alien. It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if the final prequel answers precisely no questions on the run-up to the Nostromo's fateful encounter. All I want is a cinematic universe where there's the possibility of the Yautja walking around the corner at any moment. Fat chance.
Level 2: This film stars that Demián Bichir, and he was in that Hateful Eight along with Sam 'Windu' Jackson.
*1 Okay, Resurrection's not great by any stretch of the imagination, but you stick by your past endeavours, Fox. Think of the problematic areas as potential ret-cons, not narrative black sheep to be airbrushed out of the family photos. If the film was good enough to release and promote in 1997, at least have the courage of your convictions when it comes to retrospective appreciation. If I as a Star Wars fan can stomach the Holiday Special, I'm fairly certain Alien 4 should be workable. And I'm not even going to apologise for David Fincher's Alien³, it's a good movie. [ BACK ]
*2 Although Scott also went on record as saying there'd be no Xenomorphs in his Prometheus sequel and that it was going to be called Paradise Lost. In terms of sticking to his word, it's not dissimilar to David standing next to four facehugger-eggs and saying "Yep, totally safe mate. Come on, have a gander. No, seriously!"[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Alien: Covenant (first-pass / spoilers in the footnotes)
Cert: 15 / 122 mins / Dir. Ridley Scott / Trailer
Taking place around ten years after the events of Prometheus*1, the crew of the Weyland Corporation vessel Covenant are transporting two thousand colonists across deep space to their new home, when they're brought out of cryo-sleep by a power surge which damages the ship. During the repair cycle, the onboard comms system intercepts a transmission coming from an unknown planet. Naturally, they go to investigate; naturally, I don't have to tell you what's coming next...
So Covenant is far more a sequel to Prometheus than a lead-in to Alien (which is fine), and it's interesting to see which of the 2011 threads Ridley Scott has picked back up to weave further, and which he's happy to basically abandon. The film also tackles its predecessor's somewhat cavalier approach to biological continuity more directly, still not answering all of its questions, but at least asking far fewer, this time*2.
Second best line in the film:
"There's so much here that doesn't make sense..." ~ Katherine Waterston's Daniels, around 45 minutes after everyone woke up and things started making little or no sense.*3 On a performance level, the Covenant cast mostly deliver pretty much what's needed and what's expected. Katherine Waterston does well though, bringing enough of herself to a role which could easily have been Cardboard Cutout Heroine. But the talking point of the film will be Michael Fassbender, of course. With his performance here ranging from theatrical to pantomime, this really is his spin on 'Legend'*4. And as a result, Covenant is every bit as bold, complex and problematic as that implies.
The film works better as an action/survival-horror flick, rather than a morality-thriller*5. That's not to say a film can't be both, just that this can't balance the two evenly. Although I didn't find this entry as instantly satisfying as Prometheus, it's an intriguing film and takes the overall story forward every bit as gleefully. It just also feels deliberately obscure and logic-defying*6, at times. There's definitely the feeling that Scott's enjoying leaving the big questions unanswered.
"Watch me, I'll do the fingering..." ~ Michael Fassbender's android character, playing with himself.
Prometheus, really.
It's certainly more Prometheus than Alien.
Which is as it should be.
Yes, it looks gorgeous.
Although again, try comparing the birthing-scenes in this movie to the 1979 Alien and you'll realise why you won't be watching these movies in narrative-order.
Too early to tell at a first-pass…
Probably not, but there's no shame in that.
No, but I'll want to talk about it at great length either way.
There isn't.
Level 2: Both Danny McBride and James Franco starred in 2011's 'Your Highness' alongside Natalie 'Padmé' Portman, Kiran 'Teedo' Shah and Simon 'Blue Five' Farnaby.
*1 Footnotes contain spoilers: Highlight-to-read…
It's nice to see that USB plugs have evolved by the year 2104, but Jack Daniels bottles are the exact same ones we have now. Presumably they couldn't face the moaning about changing the design again. And I'm not imagining a writers-link between that bottle appearing on-screen, and characters with the names Daniels and Tennessee, am I?[ BACK ]
*2 Of course, if the face-huggers we know and love are the specific result of David's own genetic experimentation between 2093 and 2104, that would rudely de-canonise their usage in the present-day-set Aliens vs Predator movie. I worry about these things. Come on, I can't be the only one who loves the first AVP.[ BACK ]
*3 The Covenant crew have tracked a surprise signal to a previously undiscovered planet, to the point where they land about 8km away, then make the rest of the journey on-foot. Y'know, rather than actually landing where the signal is. Which, incidentally, is a city that their scanning equipment doesn't seem to have picked up. Although at the same time, this is once again a team of apparently professional space-explorers who land and step out of the ship after undertaking the absolute bare minimum of research, then proceed to smoke, spit and piss into an alien eco-system whilst prodding anything which looks unusual. You'd be forgiven for thinking they deserve the misfortune that comes of it all.[ BACK ]
*4 To be honest I rarely see eye-to-eye with Ridley Scott, but he's a director who can control not one, but two of Michael Fassbender's non-native accents. For that, he has my undying respect. I also liked that when David has long hair, he looks a bit like Iggy Pop, but when he's half-way through cutting it, he looks like Joe Elliott. Part of me hopes that's intentional, but god knows what it means if it is.[ BACK ]
*5 What's also interesting that the ersatz captain of the ship raises the matter that his faith is frowned upon by the Weyland Corp, especially odd since they had no problem with bringing Elizabeth Shaw along on the Prometheus mission with a similar philosophy and in such a critical role (even if she wasn't technically crew). Although fair play to the film for showing that poor decisions aren't down to the difference between faith and reason, but just because humans are naive, irrational and stupid.[ BACK ]
*6 So if David drops a hold-full of Alien-sauce capsule bombs (and remember the carnage which can be caused by a couple of drops in vodka and some black goo in a puddle) on a city-full of people, how come the place isn't still crawling with Xenos a decade later? They can't all have been killed in that initial blast, surely? Besides, even David describes it as a biological weapon rather than an explosive one. To be fair, this is why I need to see the film again.[ BACK ]
*7 Thanks for reading all these, though. I appreciate it.[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Firstly, a disclaimer. This is a civilian review of a geeky movie. I'm a fan of the Harry Potter timeline in that I've seen all the films in the cinema*1, but it goes no further than that. It's not that I'm dismissive of the series at all, but all those shelves in your brain which are used for storing interconnecting trivia about the history of Hogwarts are pretty much full of Star Wars stuff in mine. The jug can only hold so much water. I only make the point because I can tell (as a fan of film in general) that pretty much every scene of Fantastic Beasts is stuffed with Easter-Eggs, in-jokes and foreshadowing for future installments, yet I can't quite make the connections. No matter, as this is a movie designed to work for mainstream audiences as well as the hardcore faithful, but I'm getting ahead of myself...
1926. As a conservationist of magical creatures, Newt Scamander arrives in New York with a suitcase already twitching and bulging at the seams. When one of his subjects manages to escape into the vaults of a bank, Newt finds himself enlisting the help of Jacob Kowalski, a No-Maj (the American term for Muggle) baker to recover it. This interaction leads to the involvement of the magical sisters Porpentina and Queenie Goldstein, and uncovers a larger scurrilous plot at the Magical Congress of the USA (Ministry of Magic, basically).
Short version: I loved this. With the story and screenplay written directly by JK Rowling, the authenticity of the continuity never feels in question, and the previous hurdle of adapting novels for the screen is removed altogether. Yet rather than relying on the already-created universe for familiarity, setting the story 70 years earlier and on the other side of the world allows the canon to expand and adapt, rather than rehash. And using the incredibly-British™ Scamander as the audience's window into this new (old) world allows things to unfold naturally, as he experiences them. 1926 is also, it has to be said, a fairly dark period in American history in which to set a light-hearted fantasy movie. While the film doesn't dwell on this too much, it gives rise to more than a few socio-political digs in the script which, naturally, are relevant to both the film's internal setting, as well as the one the audience goes back home to.
And as stated above, every single scene in this movie is rich and bursting with detail (although from a cinematic point of view, it's perhaps worth noting that every exterior location feels like a soundstage, somehow). But the cramming doesn't stop there. Rowling's story spends the first act transitioning the audience over the Atlantic, so there are a lot of comparative references and cultural translations, but at the same time it's setting up pins for future installments (four loosely announced, so far) and remembering to make a solid story out of this film itself. It does, at at times, feel slightly too crammed.
On top of this, I'm not entirely convinced that Redmayne's Scamander is the right lead for the film. He's fantastic in the role itself (as per) under long-time Harry Potter director David Yates' auspices, but the character's bumbling and avoidance of eye-contact begins to hold things back a little. Typically, that's when you'd hand over to Tina and Queenie to pick up the protagonist-reins, but the film is hesitant to really let them take charge. As a result, I don't feel like I got to know any of the three characters as much as I wanted to. And it's coming to something when the most memorable and developed character in a film about wizards is the Muggle who wants to run a patisserie...
But, all in all, this is a fantastic way to begin the next volume in the cinematic series. Rowling knows her universe and she knows her audience; long may she be this central to both…
From the cast, no.
From the director, it's a strong punt.
Nope.
I didn't hear one, but the climactic sequence is pretty much 45 minutes of white-noise, so there could well be one buried that I didn't catch and the insane volume of a cinema auditorium.
Level 1: This film stars Nick Donald and Jorge Leon Martinez, both of whom are basically extras here and who were basically extras in The Force Awakens, but it still counts so you shut up.
*1 Although as it turns out, I've only reviewed one of the Harry Potter movies here, as the rest were released before I started the review-side of the blog full time. Alas, my local didn't take part in the recent Saturday-morning-catchup series (one a week for eight weeks), otherwise I'd have been well up for that.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
State Like Sleep is a psychological thriller from writer/director Meredith Danluck. American fashion photographer Katherine Grand (Katherine Waterston, Inherent Vice) is slowly rebuilding her life after her actor husband Stefan Delvoe (Michael Huisman, The Age Of Adaline) is found dead in their Brussels apartment from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot.
