It's hard to know what to say about David Lowery's A Ghost Story without somehow spoiling it, even though (with perhaps one exception*1) it's not the kind of movie you can actually spoil. It was only after watching it in its entirety that I understood why the trailer is so vague; it's not that the film follows suit, but the story needs the full run-time to unfold and can't really be compressed into snippets. There are single, static, dialogue-free shots in A Ghost Story which are longer than the trailer. There will be some who don't get it*2, which is as all art should be.
The story is, as you would assume, about ghosts. And while the poster and trailer's figure-in-the-sheet may seem inherently comical, this is one of the most profoundly heartbreaking films I've seen. Less of a linear haunting, more a tone-poem on memory and loss. It's thoughtful, lingering, and treats time like a tidal-lake rather than a river. Lowery slowly administers an existential anesthesia, simultaneously telling you that everything's not going to be alright, but it's alright that everything's not going to be alright. A Ghost Story is either brilliant or merely intriguing, I can't decide which on a first-pass.
Rooney Mara is quietly compelling as always (this role seems to be tailor-made for her particular skills) and Casey Affleck may just have found the role where he can take his broodiness to its peak-level. There are many other cast-members too, in smaller roles, but to go there would be to undo the magic of watching it for the first time.
For the regular, non-arthouse movie-goer (let's be honest, me), there are a couple of hurdles to overcome, of course. The 3:4 aspect ratio with the addition of rounded corners makes the film look like it's being presented through a View-Master, as does the feeling that every frame has been post-processed in Instagram. I found the first half-hour simultaneously entrancing and infuriating. But at the scene when the central, restless spirit has its first meaningful contact with… well, anyone - a wide, sad grin spread across my face and it all clicked in to place in my brain.
Although I have issues with A Ghost Story, they're my issues, not the film's. I'm just aware that this is absolutely the work which David Lowery wanted to make and that counts for a lot…
I'm actually not sure.
It's definitely more M.R. James than James Wan, at any rate.
If you can, but you won't lose much by seeing this at home.
I'm pretty certain it does.
It's hard to tell.
Which is one of the things I liked about it.
It's entirely possible.
Not at all.
There isn't.
Level 2: Rooney Mara's in this, and she was in 2010's Nightmare on Elm Street remake, as was Clancy 'Opress' Brown.
*1 Vague spoilers, highlight-to-read: And sorry to be 'that guy', but the scene with the piano which the film waits the whole film to proudly unveil is super-telegraphed. Anyone who's seen the first two Insidious films will clock that one a mile off. Although by the same token, anyone walking out of the film saying 'well I knew that was going to happen' has fundamentally misunderstood what they've watched. Yes, of course I realise how contradictory this sounds... [ BACK ]
*2 On a similar theme to Overdrive's slack attendance record from the same day, there were three walk-outs during A Ghost Story's screening. I understand this with a Saturday night audience when Annabelle: Creation is playing further down the corridor and undoubtedly lost the toss for some folks standing in the foyer, but come on people, show some discipline… [ 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.
Y'know, I don't want to be that guy*1, but I've just watch a good film cropped out of its intended aspect ratio. With Manchester By The Sea projected full-width onto a 2.35:1 screen, the BBFC card was cut-off at the top and bottom since the film's clearly been shot and finalised in 16:9. I'd thought maybe it was just the card, but the closing credits (static on the screen) were far too close to the edges and occasionally cut off, too. And it's not a massive deal-breaker as the film was great anyway, but I'd put a fiver on cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes being pretty livid about it. Ho, hum.
Anyway, Manchester By The Sea is writer/director Kenneth Lonergan's drama about just-surviving janitor Lee (Casey Affleck) in Massachusetts, who learns of his older brother (Kyle Chandler) Joe's death and finds himself looking after his teenage nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Demonstrating that angst and frustration aren't just for the young, the film is an ambling study of the relationship between the two in the aftermath of bereavement. Irregularly interspersed with flashbacks of Lee's interactions with his family, the story reveals his own past traumas which he has to deal with before moving on.
The dialogue occasionally whiffs of improvisation, but as long as it's being handled by the main players, there's no real harm done. There's also little-to-no delineation between the main narrative and Lee's flashback sequences. It's quite disorienting at first, but as a way of making the audience work harder I have to applaud it. Michelle Williams is outstanding as always, especially given her limited screen-time here. Lucas Hedges puts in a deceptively complex turn as the emotionally blindsided teenager, but this is really Casey Affleck's showpiece, his character spending the majority of the film in a haunted, socially inept daze. Affleck is a burgeoning master at the meandering introspection of regret.
Okay, it's not quite as heavy as I've made that sound (although it is still fairly heavy), thanks in no small part to Lonergan's screenplay and direction. While the film is never flippant with the frequently recurring themes of death, among the soul-searching are moments of arch and bittersweet comedy, which is perhaps to be expected. But script also has some moments of much darker humour that I almost felt guilty chuckling at*2. Although again, that's much closer to the reality of the situation than many of us would admit. The film's funnier that you'd expect and not as emotionally heavy as A Monster Calls, yet it's still not to be taken on lightly...
Well if you watch it at home you'll be able to choose the aspect-ratio you prefer, but sarcasm aside, this is probably a Sunday night DVD.
I think it does.
Probably not, but that's not to do the film any disservice.
Oh, and looking at his IMDB page, Kenneth Lonergan really needs to mix it up with his poster designers…
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: This film stars Michelle Williams, and she was in that My Week With Marylin alongside Pip 'Colonel Kaplan' Torrens.
*1 Yes I do.
*2 It's either blackly-funny in places, or I have an appalling sense of humour. Which I do anyway, so it really could be both.
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.
Say what you like about cinema audiences (and I have, frequently), but their en masse reactions are a source of great amusement to me, at least. As we sat down on Saturday night for a Secret Screening, I could tell from the gathered demographic alone that many people in the room were hoping it was going to be Deadpool. Alas, it wasn't, and while there wasn't a collective groan this time around, the general reaction to the BBFC card bearing the words "Triple 9" was more a one of '…and what the hell is this?'. The UK marketing for this movie has been sparse at best, despite the A-list names attached. But credit where it's due, there were no walk-outs tonight; everyone gave the film a fair crack of the whip.
Set in present-day Washington DC and spinning a tale of organised crime, cops and bent cops, Triple 9 is a perfectly serviceable crime-thriller, lifted from the straight-to-DVD shelf by virtue of its cast. The film feels slightly formulaic on occasion, although stories like this are generally headed in one direction, anyway. I don't think it's a spoiler to tell you that a lot of people die in this film. In fact, my only real complaint is that Triple 9 could really do with being another half an hour longer, in order to let the central characters bed-in a little more. There are quite a lot of them here, and while the inevitable deaths are never treated as throwaway, they don't hold as much weight since we've barely gotten to know them.
Director John Hillcoat brings in a nicely understated collection of performances from his cast, given their pedigree, including a surprisingly restrained turn from Kate Winslet as Jewish-Russian Mafia matriarch, Irina Vlaslov (compare and contrast this with her performance in Insurgent). A feeling of claustrophobia and confusion bleeds through the whole film, but never to the point where the audience is lost, largely because corruption is reassuringly straightforward. The film works because both the cast and director are taking it seriously, rather than being the usual filler starring Russell Crowe or Liam Neeson. Although it loses a point for the frankly ridiculous amount of mumbled dialogue.
Triple 9 isn't going to set the world on fire, but it's very, very good at what it does and has the courage of its convictions.
I can't really ask for much more than that; I'd just like more of that...
Well, as nice as it is to have everything big and loud, this is really a DVD / sofa / bottle of wine kind of movie.
Almost.
No, but it's a comfortable supporting body of work.
Nope.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was in 12 Years A Slave alongside Lupita 'Maz Kanata' Nyongo.
Yeah, try saying that four times after you've had five pints.
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.
And so it was that the inhabitants of Screen 5 donned their light-reducing spectacles to watch another movie set mostly in blustery seas and at night, reducing visibility to what was presumably 'fairly realistic levels', given the nature of the story. In 1952, when the oil tanker SS Pendleton split in two during a violent storm, a brave and idealistic young coastguard named Bernie Webber braved the seas with a small hand-picked team to rescue the surviving tanker crew-members against the advice and expectations of his seniors. And he did it. That's basically the film*1.
The main issue I had was that the story quickly splits into three strands, and stays that way for the majority of the film. In the first, the adult crew of the oil tanker behave like petulant schoolchildren asked to tidy up the playground as their ship falls apart around them. In the second, tiny-faced Chris Pine earnestly rubs his hands away to stumps convincing the audience that working in sea-rescue is incredibly dangerous (we know mate, I don't think anyone was disputing that). And in the third, a turgid soap-opera unfurls in which Holliday Grainger (Mrs Chris Pine for the purposes of this film), drives out to the lifeboat office to complain that they've let her fiancé do his job, then drives into a small snowdrift and falls unconscious before being taken back to the harbour and turning her headlights on. That's basically the film.
And throughout all of it, the only scenes you can see properly are those set indoors on dry land, which are - by their very nature - the least interesting. It's the sort of story which would make a fantastic documentary, rather than a bloated, condescending parable about team-work and determination. But at least no-one had to disembowel a whale from the inside-out in this one.
Note to film industry: Just because a chain of events can be classed as 'a true story', that doesn't mean it'll automatically make a good film. Otherwise the evening news would generate more buzz than Avengers, wouldn't it..?
Even the film's title is borderline fraudulent...
In The Heart Of The Sea.
Come on, some of you must have enjoyed it?
Oh, if you like.
I have no idea.
Er, no.
Probably not, I'm fully aware that I'm in a minority here.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: The Finest Hours stars Holliday Grainger, who appeared in Anna Karenina alongside Keira 'Sabé' Knightley.
*1 I mean, obviously. They tend not to make movies of this sort of thing where everybody dies at the end (although I'm also sure there are some exceptions to that rule).
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.
Interstellar (SPOILERS …ish)
Cert: 12A / 166 mins / Dir. Christopher Nolan
You see, I'd wondered what I was missing in the trailers I'd seen for Christopher Nolan's space-epic Interstellar. People were getting very excited for this film, but try as I might, all I could think was "Okay, so Earth's dying, Mumbler McConaughey goes into space to find another home, and then what?". Because that seems like an initial setup rather than a plot in itself, and the trailers seemed to be deliberately coy with the film's USP. After watching the just-under-three-hour flick, I now understand that if the trailer had explained the level of moral and metaphysical pondering that was going to accompany the space-travel, the film's casual audience would be reduced dramatically. That's not to say that Interstellar is a brain-numbing minefield of Inception proportions, but it clearly wants to be.
After a series of crop-droughts in Earth's not-too-distant future due to irreversible atmospheric mutation, a NASA programme is developed to explore new worlds fit for human habitation. Farmer and ex-astronaut Cooper is called upon to head the culmination of the programme on what could turn out to be a one-way flight, but reconciling the continuation of the human race with losing his family is something that will haunt his journey for years to come...
With a lot of navel-gazing and a lot of star-backed docking-sequences, Interstellar seems to be reaching for the visual effects of Gravity and the philosophy of 2001, but ends up not quite achieving either*1. Nolan's use of time-differentials (think of the dream-layers in Inception) also goes some way to muddying the waters, even if there's a sound scientific reason for it being present. The film does a fantastic job of building characters, but the plot (and backstory in particular) is left to amble along at its own pace. Luckily Nolanesque stalwart Michael Caine steps into the trousers of Captain Exposition, as an elderly academic who in a film by any other director would be played by Morgan Freeman.
The performances are solid enough, even if many of the characters' motivations seem a little hysterical at times, and the production design is great, but without being remotely revolutionary. There's the feeling that with the themes being explored and the run-time to explore them, the whole thing should hold more weight, somehow.
Interstellar does a lot of things well but ultimately feels unfocused, mixing science and philosophy without being prepared to fully explore either. Crucially, it didn't leave me wanting to watch it again, so any callbacks and plot-points which my brain didn't piece together by the end look to be staying unstuck for some time, yet (and because of the erratic structure of the plot, there are plenty of those). Although with the best will in the world, the reveal™ in the third-act seems to have surprised Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Chastain's characters far more than it did anyone in the auditorium…
I think Nolan's vision may be grander than the film, this time.
The film's a lot more ponderous than the trailer, and that's a ponderous trailer.
Kinda. ish.
Not quite.
If you're going to see it, see it big.
Nope.
At some point, but I feel no burning need.
Not that I heard.
Why isn't this film called Relativity? That'd make far more sense for both the plot and the themes, surely?
*1 And interestingly - as in the film Gravity - NASA still seem to be prepared to send people into space who are completely psychologically unequipped to deal with it. It doesn't seem to have previously occurred to the any of the astronauts that they may not be returning; that the mission they're carrying out is clearly far more fucking important than them returning to Earth with rock samples and a tan.
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.
