Now, as some readers may recall, I wasn't exactly going a bunch on the trailers and previews for Sony Animation's new franchise-milker Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. I like ol' web-head, although he's far from my favourite Marvel hero, but this looked like it was going to be a two-hour migraine. In fact, it's probably not unfair to say that the more I saw, the more cautious I became at the prospect of watching the entire movie. But I digress; to the pitch...
PARKER Teenager Miles Morales is struggling to fit it, both at school and at home. Bitten by a radioactive spider as he sprays graffiti in a subway, he meets Peter Parker and begins to realise he now has the potential to be New York's next superhero. But with Kingpin's subordinates attempting to build a machine which bridges alternate universes, a rift in the spacetime continuum causes other iterations of Spider-Man to appear in Morales' city. Together, the heroes attempt to destroy Kingpin's creation and return to their own realities before everything is ripped apart. But Morales has a learning-curve to climb first...
So, good things first. The film is ambitious both in scope and execution, an increasing rarity in the superhero genre as it becomes more crowded. As potentially confusing as the narrative is, everything is laid out clearly yet not over-explained, and the well-directed voice performances sell everything in between, so that even if the audience misses some of the minutiae, the emotion of each scene comes over neatly.
PENELOPE But. Into The Spider-Verse is, as suspected, a headache-inducing two hour funfair ride which feels like trying to burn out a fever by washing down bags of Haribo with Sunny Delight. Sony's handling of Spider-Man as a property has been 'scattershot' for a long time now, and this broad sweep feels like someone in an office calling down to the writing-room for brighter colours and more Easter Eggs, irrespective of what the movie might need.
The art-style and character designs are gorgeous, but let down by an ADHD approach to pacing and soundtracking, with distractingly framey animation. The film often looks like it's been rendered in 12fps in a bid to save time and money. And on top of the 100%-saturation palette, there's so much stylised ghosting and blurring, alternating between background and foreground objects that I genuinely kept wondering if I'd accidentally booked the 3D screening and walked in without glasses (alas I would have seen this in 3D, but the timings didn't work out now that cinemas aren't prioritising stereoscopic screenings any more).
Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman's screenplay is very self-aware, but in all honesty I think that DC's Teen Titans Go! To The Movies played the existential comedy card with more charm. And that's a sentence that me from twelve months ago didn't think I'd ever be typing (although Aquaman lands later this week so let's not get too excited, eh?).
GAGA I like that this is Sony playing with the multiple threads of Spider-Man continuity, but Spider-Verse doesn't so much tie those together as just point out that they all exist. It feels a lot like a feature-length pilot for a dimension-hopping anthology series, in which case it would serve its purpose very well. But I'm not sure how much a casual audience is going to get on with the intricate in-jokes and frenetic presentation.
All in all, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse reminded me that I am a middle-aged man and that not all cartoons are made for me nowadays. Which is fair enough. The film's engaging enough while it's on*1, but I'm forgetting it already…
The business-end:
Is there a Wilhelm Scream? Not sure, really.
Is there a Stan Lee cameo? There is.
Is there a mid-credits scene? Nothing animated, but a great message.
Is there a post-credits scene? There is.
If you're going to watch it at all, go big or go home.
It is, but you won't get the full effect.
Which may not be the worst thing in the world.
I have no idea
Although while we're on the subject, it's nice that Nic Cage has now voiced a Superman and a Spider-Man, this year. This is a trend I hope and expect to continue.
*1 However you end up reacting to Into The Spider-Verse, boredom will be the last thing you feel. [ 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.
Suspiria Cert: 18 / 153 mins / Dir. Luca Guadagnino / Trailer
Let's be honest, if you're having a production meeting and one of the outcomes is that Thom Yorke should do the music for your film, there's a good chance that you're making something which is going to test my fucking patience. Suspiria is impeccably made, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't long stretches during which I was thoroughly bored.
The plot: In 1977, a young American woman runs away from her religiously strict family to a dance school in Berlin, right next to the wall which divides the city.
Turns out it's run by witches. There we go.
BREAKING MY HEART Now to be fair, my main problem here is that I don't 'do' dance. I appreciate the coordination and precision, and I understand that there's emotion and symbolism contained within, and that's all well explained within the film itself. But it's just not a visual language I understand*1. They may as well have the characters speaking in tongues, frankly.
A point of note could also be that I haven't seen Dario Argento's 1977 original movie, but in all honest that shouldn't matter - this is a remake, not a sequel. I'm under the impression that this is a relatively faithful interpretation and expansion of that, so any issues I had with the new film are likely to stem from the original.
SHAKING MY CONFIDENCE Another problem could be that Dakota Johnson is interesting to watch, as is Tilda Swinton, but everybody else? Really not so much. The overall grotesquery is nicely escalated, but it's like a two and a half hour episode of The League Of Gentlemen without any jokes. Any which way, Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria is too long. I expected self-indulgence, I'd just like to be more engaged while that's happening (cf. Mandy).
Don't get me wrong, I admire Suspiria a great deal. But over two and half hours, it's going to take more than chin-stroking to keep me onboard. Besides, at least I'm not the guy in front who sighed audible for the last 120 minutes of the film.
Oh, and since the film prides itself on its technical prowess, I'm just going to say it: the drop-shadow on the subtitles is too far from the source lettering, there's a gap between the two and it's distracting as fuck. Yeah, I do typography, not dance…
I imagine it'll struggle even harder to capture your attention in the living room, unless you're already onboard and are the kind of viewer who'd normally watch it in the cinema anyway.
No.
Hahahaha, absolutely.
There isn't.
Level 1: Prosthetics makeup designer Mark Coulier also worked on Attack Of The Clones, and since Suspiria has some truly outstanding effects, I'm counting that as a direct link.
*1 Nor is it a series of movements I can fully understand, ie - I don't dance. Not that I watched the film with a sense of growing envy you understand, but at no point was I thinking 'yeah, I know that move'. The dancing itself is fine, is what I'm trying to say. It's more the fact that it meant little to me in scenes which weren't directly a telekinetic voodoo sequence. [ 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.
Well, then. The 2018 British Horror Film Festival took place at Cineworld Leicester Square on Sat 24th November, and I was lucky enough to see some of its content. I've done a quick roundup of some of the short films on offer here. There were things to watch, there were questions to be asked and I'm delighted to note that most of my pointers from last year seem to have been taken onboard. Nice to know I'm not wasting my time, at least.
Part of all this was Rob Heydon's Isabelle, the story of Larissa (Amanda Crew) and Matt (Adam Brody), a young couple expecting a baby who move into a new house in New York State*2. When Larissa miscarries, the trauma and isolation she feels is heightened by the strange young wheelchair-bound woman in the neighbouring house, Isabelle (Zoë Belkin), who always seems to be watching from the upstairs window. And none of this is helped by the girl's reclusive mother Ann (Sheila McCarthy) and the hushed whispers in the neighbourhood about the house…
First things first, this wasn't a hate-watch. Second things second, I didn't hate it. Third things third, but I have issues. Or rather, the film has…
NEIGHBOUR Oh, mate. When your supernatural neighbour is actually, really, actual cackling, you're probably trying too hard. Yet conversely, not hard enough. It's fine having the creepy villain sitting in the upstairs window next door, but like the Eiffel Tower in a bad euro-thriller, she's apparently visible from every room in Larissa and Matt's house.
The film feels let down by its own jump-scares and desaturated colour-palette. Blumhouse have already flogged that horse to death and I'm certain Isabelle had more to offer at an early stage. Heydon can't quite make up his mind what story he wants to tell, or how it needs to be told. Between the eerie nursery, the near-death experience, the Samara-Lite™ across the way, the third-act exposition coming from a series of old newspaper articles and a possession sub-plot which isn't sure if it's based around fanatical Catholicism or the occult, there's a disappointing lack of anything actually new.
Oh, and the baddie has glowing red eyes. That's how we know she's bad.
SULLIVAN Isabelle is structurally sound but feels like it's bringing nothing to the party. It has the air of a short film which has been expanded out to feature-length*3, but then doesn't have the extra writing to properly explore the psychological roots of it characters. On top of this jumble, we get occasional scenes from inside next door's house which telegraph the backstory before our protagonists find out, so that it's not clear whose perspective this is all coming from.
The film runs on rails like a ghost train made by people who have only ridden on other ghost trains. The story's big reveal takes its sweet time coming, which is ironic since it's been telegraphed since the first appearance of The Ghoul Next Door. Mark Korven's score is intrusive, not bad per se, but just generic fare played too loudly and too often. And Finder Spyder, the in-movie search engine equivalent of the Wilhelm Scream, for when you know in advance that Google will just say no.
Oh, and then there's some tacked-on, batshit-crazy Sliding Doors type ending which can only be because a) writer Donald Martin wanted a happier ending than the one the screenplay was otherwise headed to, or b) writer Donald Martin thinks this might leave it open to… a… a sequel (quiet at the back).
SON AND DAUGHTER I actually felt slightly bad about watching Isabelle in a cinema (although it was thankfully the one of the day where the creators weren't present in the room), because this is otherwise destined straight for the DVD shelf in Sainsbury's. And not the one with the chart releases on it.
The worst thing is that the emotional cornerstone of Isabelle is grief, with Amanda Crew and Adam Brody both turning in really strong performances and moments of genuine upset. To a lesser extent there's a parallel story playing out over at Isabelle's house, although that's really not explored. All of this seems like it's gone to waste as a lot of heavyweight issues and themes are papered over with a cheap horror flick, the very opposite of what the genre is best at.
Fun fact:Isabelle won the award for Best Feature Film at the British Horror Film Festival 2018.
Unrelated fact: Because the screening of The Exorcism Of Karen Walker was cancelled at the 11th hour*4, Isabelle was the only feature film to play at the British Horror Film Festival 2018.
Make of that what you will.
All of the other suburban horror-flicks, let's be fair.
It's not.
Stream it, tops.
Nope.
I've you've watched it as well, probably not.
There isn't.
Level 2: Amanda Crew was in that Age Of Adaline with Harrison 'Solo' Ford.
*1 Well, the rating on my ticket and on Cineworld's website says it's an 18, but the film isn't actually listed on the BBFC site yet which means it isn't officially rated. It plays like a 15, anyway. [ BACK ]
*2 Yeah, I don't quite understand how a film from a Canadian director, with a Canadian cast and set in America is being presented at the British Horror Film Festival, either. Although this sort of thing happened last year, too. [ BACK ]
*3 Well, 80 minutes. I mean, 90 is the rock-bottom standard for a feature, but 80 (including the end-credits, remember) just feels like it isn't trying. Yet at the same time, there's a lot of padding which could come out with no adverse affect (probably the opposite, in fact). [ BACK ]
*4 And this is in no way intended to put down the BHFF, but what was last year a multi-day festival with four feature screenings plus shorts on the one I attended, seems to have become a one-day event with twelve shorts and one full-length movie (due to the aforementioned cancellation). Less of a Festival™ and more of a Hiring Out Screen 2 For The Day™ with some trophies in the corner. And while it was moderately busy, the screenings I was at weren't sold out and seemed to be mostly populated by people coming to watch their own movies, although I suspect that's a Film Festival thing in general. I just get the impression that either interest in the BHFF is waning, or it was organised at the last minute. Frightfest doesn't have this problem. There, I said 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.
Mandy Cert: 18 / 121 mins / Dir. Panos Cosmatos / Trailer
It does seem that every new Nic Cage film arrives accompanied by the descriptor 'going full Nic Cage' as its selling point. Obviously the guy can't be trapped in an ever-escalating gyroscope of cinema, but it does sometimes feel like movies are being written with him specifically in mind.
This offering from director and co-writer Panos Cosmatos sees Cage star as Red, a logger residing in the Californian mountains with his artist girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) in 1983. When the members of a cult pass through the backwater, their leader Jeremiah (Linus Roache) becomes obsessed with Mandy and orders his followers to kidnap her to join the group. Mandy is resistant to both the ideology and the psychotropic drugs forced upon her, and in a fit of pique Jeremiah orders her to be killed while Red watches. Left for dead, our protagonist frees himself and embarks on a rampaging odyssey of brutal revenge, where the boundaries of reality become as warped as the morality of his nemeses…
CAGE And it's glorious. Two hours of extravagantly outlandish, glorious carnage paying homage to space rock and pulp fantasy novels. Because obviously in a movie where cultists play an ocarina to summon a gang of knock-off Cenobites on quad bikes without batting an eyelid, Nic Cage is going to wear a Ray-Ban Aviators as safety goggles while he forges himself a battle-axe, before later eschewing that weapon to have a chainsaw fight. Everything about this screams fuck yeah.
Mandy is the sort of movie where the viewer never loses track of what's going on, but if it was paused and they were asked to give a summary probably wouldn't know where to start. It's a ponderous, vigorous, hallucinatory companion piece to Drive Angry with notes of Rocky Horror and The Hills Have Eyes. It would be self-indulgent if it wasn't so gleefully volatile.
GOFFE As much as the film effects an air of schlocky trash, Mandy can't disguise the precision and joy with which it's been made. As if Robert Rodriguez, Eli Roth and Darren Aronofsky raised a child in some twisted parody of Three Men And A Baby and then unleashed it upon the world. And that's not to say this is an exploitative, mindless gorefest - it's not. But it clearly loves the films which are and has channeled that fondness through the prism of Nic Cage's desensitised fury.
The film is split into acts, each presented with their own uniquely styled (yet visually continuous) title card. Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb treats the story like his own fever dream, with neither a prop nor pixel out of place in each meticulously constructed shot. Whether it's the blood-hued interior of a stark, angular wooden church, an alien cosmos resting over the forest skyline or just Nic Cage screaming on the toilet in his pants as he necks vodka from the bottle, you'll be hard pushed to find more arresting imagery this year in such an accessible format*1.
SHERIFF'S BADGE Mandy is precisely the sort of thing I enjoy travelling into London to watch, and it quickly became apparent why this didn't play at my local cinema (not that I'd expected it to). At this late stage, the cage fight*2 for the Film Of The Year award just got a bit more crowded.
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.
