Review: Battle Of The Sexes

Battle Of The Sexes
Cert: 12A / 121 mins / Dir. Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton / Trailer

"You know where you are with sport, it's good. [...] In badminton if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first (or second) rallies you've won in that game (or 10 for the third), with a indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally, other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two ten-points (or 15-points) segments clear of their opponent. It's clear and simple."

~ Alan Partridge, 2011

Although written as a satire, this deliberate obfuscation is how my brain sees pretty much All The Sport anyway, so going to watch a film about one of them - not least the one used in the example above – had already put me into a place of some apprehension. I could tell from the trailer of course, that Battle Of The Sexes is more than a film about The Tennis. But at the same time, it is also very much about The Tennis.

But as Ron Howard demonstrated back in 2013, it’s possible to keep a sport-free cynic like me happy by telling a great story about people, rather than arbitrary gaming rules. And Simon Beaufoy's screenplay here is very much about the people. And about The Tennis, centering on the heavily publicised 1973 grudge-match between Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs, each champions in their respective gendered leagues. Along with the fantastic work from the wardrobe and makeup department, cinematographer Linus Sandgren captures the sunbleached graininess of 1970s California, and it’s a feeling which comes through the performances as a result, with a visual and narrative symmetry increasing as the story unfolds.

Emma Stone is on fantastic form as King, although it feels slightly awkward to note that this is no real surprise from a performer of her calibre (awards will follow, and justifiably so). Playing her unequal opposite is Steve Carell, although not the real villain of the piece of course; he’s the showman, the buffoon. And as surprisingly nuanced as Carell's performance is, with the sheepish grin, heavy glasses and ludicrous sideburns, you get the feeling he’s only ever two steps away from going full Brick Tamland again. Andrea Riseborough also lends great support, even if her character suffers at the hands of a screenplay which keeps jumping lanes.

The central struts of the love story, the sporting-underdog parable and the exposure of institutional misogyny are all impeccably executed, but the film has trouble blending them together, and it ends up feeling like directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton are spinning plates in three different rooms. A certain amount of this is obviously down to King’s propensity for partitioning sections of her life, but it makes for a slightly disconnected viewing experience. That said, even a non-sport viewer like me was impressed by the climactic match (not that we see much actual tennis before that point), since as well as actually playing against each other, the cast are, presumably, recreating the precise scoring moves from the game*¹?

The whole thing is a little heavy-handed in places of course, but that’s entirely forgivable, given the times it’s portraying and quite frankly the times it’s playing in. Overall, Battle Of The Sexes is a remarkable story of perseverance and hope. But ultimately, I still didn’t care about All The Tennis…*²

All The Tennis.



Only if it specifically piques your interest. The 70s aesthetic means you shouldn't lose too much by watching this in your living room.



Ultimately, yes.



Perhaps not best best, but it'll certainly be one of the most celebrated.



Nope.



Nope.
I'd have put one in every time someone belts a tennis ball.



Level 1: The voice of Clone Wars Nute Gunray is in this. By which I mean Tom Kenny is in this, not just his voice.





*¹ I should hope so anyway. Otherwise the tennis historians in the audience will be watching going "well that's not how that shot played out; ridiculous". And much the same as the aforementioned Rush, when I sat down for Battle Of The Sexes I didn’t actually know how the climactic game ended. Although obviously, had Billie Jean King actually lost, there’d be little or no point making a film just to rub her nose in it, given what it all stood for. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And I know you're saying "yeah, but it's not about the tennis" - and I know exactly why you're saying that, but this film is very much also About The Tennis. It's just a game mate, leave 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.

Review: Strange Magic

Strange Magic
Cert: U / 97 mins / Dir. Gary Rydstrom / Trailer



Okay, I'm very late to the party with this one, but Strange Magic didn't get a particularly robust release in the UK, least of all around these parts. Lucasfilm's first standalone animated feature had already been through the critical mill when it finally arrived on these shores six months after its US release; a reputation which saw it relegated largely to weekend-morning showings, a slot it's still sporadically filling now (hence me finally catching up with it).

It's no secret round these parts that I'm a firm advocate of the godfather of Star Wars, but even I become hesitant when one of the film's marketing lines is "from the mind of George Lucas". Because so was the Holiday Special, as well we know. Strange Magic is a tale of good and evil, love and sorcery, all filtered through the medium of hi-res CGI animation and the jukebox-musical. Yeah, you were onboard until that last bit, weren't you? Hmm. The story centres around two fairy-princess sisters trying to find happiness in the magic kingdom, while the Bog King tries to "ban love" (familiar?) by destroying all the forest's Primrose flowers, which are used to make the Love Potion™ (the mystical equivalent of hypnotic-Rohypnol apparently, so not necessarily a bad thing in itself).

The film bears all the stylistic hallmarks we've come to expect from the fantasy-genre, gorgeously rendered in pixels with lithe voice-acting to match, courtesy of Evan Rachel Wood, Meredith Anne Bull and Alan Cumming (along with many others). But a one-track story interspersed by heavily-produced pop songs makes the film unwatchable. The arrangements aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but the disconnect between polished-musical and the narrative-genre just isn't bridged by the film which wants to wield them both. It's not even that the film doesn't make much sense, but that it's not interesting enough in the first place to try and make sense of.

The final product plays out like 2013's Epic locked in a karaoke bar with only absinthe and Haribo Tangfastics to keep them going. Each time the inhabitants of Dingly-Dell launch into Sugar Pie Honey Bunch you'll be wanting to punch your own face off.

A fantasy tale with as little ambition as it has imagination, this bad Disney fan-film is the dad-dancing equivalent of a West-End rock-opera*¹ refitted for a provincial theatre.

As much as it pains me to hate on a Lucasfilm project, Strange Magic is dreadful.

Oh, I have no idea. I'd normally cite Dark Crystal or Willow, but I don't want to drag them down by association.



No.



No.



No.



Depends entirely on which aspect we're disagreeing on.
But, yes.



Didn't notice one, but I spent a lot of time trying to punch my own face off.



Level 1: Ungle George's pawprints are on this project.





*¹ Although to be fair, that's a charge which can be levelled against most rock-operas; especially when paired with the 'jukebox' format, the laziest of all musicals whereby the writer doesn't have to actually write any music.



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.

Review: The Mask 2 - Son Of The Mask (#CrapSequels)

We've all been there; Browsing in Blockbuster, the HMV sale or the bargain-DVD section in Sainsbury's, and we come across a plastic case which gives us an involuntary tingle of excitement. Someone's made a sequel to that movie we like! How did this slip under our radar? Why wasn't this on at our local cinema? Why are we only hearing about this now? Well, there's only one way to answer that question; it involves spending the requisite £3 and usually ends with the question 'Why did this get made, never mind how?'.

The rules for selection are as follows: 1) The film needs to be a poorly received sequel to a generally successful film (so no crap sequels to crap originals, and no crap remakes of originals), 2) Films from longer series are fine, but the choice needs to be part two of that line, 3) I'm not intending to watch any of the associated part-ones as part of this run (whether I'm familiar with them or not), so there'll be extra pressure on the crap sequel to work on its own terms. So join me as I delve into some of the crappest, most unwarranted follow-ups of all time (hopefully with a couple of underrated, misunderstood gems thrown in).

How bad can it be, right? I mean, the original was good…

---

#CrapSequels: The Mask 2: Son Of The Mask
Cert: PG / 91 mins / Dir. Lawrence Gutterman
Year: 2004 (10 years after the first movie)

The general feeling: RT Score: 6% / IMDB Score: 2.1



This film was released in the same year as Kill Bill Vol. 2. Think about that for a second. Riding the wave of the first outing's popularity, New Line Cinema rushed to fill the void a mere 10 years after the original with this madcap sequel, and there's definitely the thought that a little more 'draft-time' may have helped the final film. I reckon about 200-300 years would have been sufficient*¹.

This is, allegedly, a continuation from 1994's gurn-fest, tracking The Mask as it falls into the hands of a new owner (who also co-incidentally owns a Jack Russell terrier, so those sections with Milo in the last film can just be regurgitated), and becomes the grand maguffin as Norse god of mischief Loki attempts to retrieve it to appease his irate father, Odin (played by Bob Hoskins, meaning that Super Mario Bros was not quite his worst film, after all). Throw a heavily CGI'd baby into the mix, and that's your movie, give or take some acute cringing.

Son Of The Mask's opening scene encapsulates the film perfectly, and has all of the comic-book insanity of its predecessor, but with none of the charm or nerve to carry it off (by which I mean, no Jim Carrey). Instead we get Alan Cumming embarrassing himself as Loki in a sort of Darth Maul / Wicked Witch Of The West incarnation (not for all of it, just occasionally), and Jamie 'Scream' Kennedy proving that audiences are much happier when he's running around trying not to be stabbed. Indeed, the film's shoehorning in of a musical number with a bastardised version of 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' should be punishable as a war crime (No, I'm fucking serious. Watch it.. Watch. All. Of. It).

Kennedy has a hapless affability when he's playing Tim, a harassed and aspiring animator, but the scenes featuring him wearing the titular Mask are like something from an eight-year old's paint-fume induced nightmare. The film veers between being reminiscent of Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed*² and a live-action cartoon in the vein of the 1930's Tex Avery classics (giving rise to the lead character being called 'Tim Avery'; yeah, that subtle). Except the last time I saw Jerry give Tom a thorough thrashing, I don't recall the editor then cutting to an ashamed looking middle-aged actor staring into the camera with pleading eyes.

The curious thing is, as detestable as this is, the production values are more or less on par with what went last time, and visually it's mostly acceptable, (with the exception of the weird looking CGI baby. Then again, whenever we see the non-CGI baby, he's pretty weird, too). What the film may have in aesthetics and ambition is held back by the cast, script and overall concept. And that's without going into the way the screenplay treats Traylor Howard as a cutsey, nagging, manipulative baby-making machine who's not happy unless she's reproducing; to criticise that would be to credit the writers with a malice which is greater than their ineptitude.

Oh, and it loses a point from its already low-score for the twee ukulele version of 'What A Wonderful World'. Bastards.

"This is the crappiest piece of crap in Craptown."

Jamie Kennedy ~ having summed up Son Of The Mask a mere 16 minutes into the running time (and around 12 minutes after the audience have).

I haven't, no.



Loved the original to an inordinate level back in the day; still have a soft spot for it now.



It'd help, since the sequel half-arsedly explains what's going on in a way which will mean little to anyone who doesn't already know.



Ben "Anyone..? Anyone..?" Stein returns as Doctor Neuman. THAT'S IT.
(although he was in the animated series as well, and I suspect he goes to conventions cosplaying as his character to this day.)



Fuck, no.



People who complain about Jim Carrey being irritating should be made to buy this film and watch it repeatedly in its entirety, before they beg for mercy and retract their ill-considered opinions. For everyone else, avoid.



I didn't hear one.

I can't remember the last time I saw a PG movie with an animated impregnation-scene, can you?>

*¹ HAHA, I AM HILARIOUS AND FUNNY and this is actually better than anything in the film so YOU shut up.
*² And you can say what you like, but I actually rather enjoyed the Scooby Doo films. Compared to this they're like Citizen Kane.

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.