Misbehaviour Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Philippa Lowthorpe / Trailer
Bolstering the March schedules comes the crowd-pleasing portrayal of the infamous events surrounding the 1970 Miss World contest, touching as it does on misogyny, racism, conformity and activism. Don't worry, it's not as heavy as all that sounds. Which turns out to be a problem, if anything. The main hurdle not quite cleared by Misbehaviour is that the story is about the ongoing struggle against women being reduced to entertainment. A struggle which is, for the most part, reduced to entertainment.
The outstanding cast of Keira Knightley, Jessie Buckley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Keeley Hawes, Loreece Harrison and a criminally-wasted Lesley Manville arguably handle the story's racial politics with more dexterity than the sexism, but still with surprisingly few sharp edges. Spirited performances from Rhys Ifans and Greg Kinnear wisely resist going full-pantomime under the director's auspices (very much the point, in fact), and are better for it.
Director Phillippa Lowe just about spins the plates of highlighting exploitative behaviour and the fact that the competition does mean a lot to its contestants. It just does this in a way that's not going to challenge or upset its audience*1. In its weaker moments, Misbehaviour feels like a victory-lap for a race that's still ongoing (a point it acknowledges in closing). Awareness is everything of course, and I certainly won't criticise the film's intention, but there's a more biting, urgent and ultimately satisfying movie to be made here. With Lowe at the helm of Rebecca Frayn and Gaby Chiappe's screenplay, the film may not be bound by the patriarchy but it's still very much a part of the cinematic establishment.
This is at its best during quieter scenes, when the script has more to say and can be heard more clearly. There's some fantastic character-interplay between Knightley and Buckley, then Harrison and Mbatha-Raw. Gugu is probably better than the rest of the film in fact, although that's not unusual. But at the end of the day it's a textbook Pathé Films offering with Nina Gold casting and too many musical montage sequences; this has West End Stage Adaptation written all over it...
Misbehaviour is good.
Is good enough?
It's a bit Made In Dagenham, a bit Kinky Boots, a bit Pride.
*1 Unless my wishing for a grittier interpretation of the story is the challenge, of course. [ 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.
Everest (3D)
Cert: 12A / 121 mins / Dir. Baltasar Kormákur / Trailer
I think we all remember where we were on Friday May 10th, 1996. On the other side of the world, a few brave/determined/foolish souls were desperately trying to make their way to the peak of one of humanity's greatest immovable challenges. Me? I was losing a boot in a White Zombie mosh-pit at Brixton Academy. All I'm saying is, one of those two events has left an indelible mark on my memory and will continue to do so...
It's a cinematic truism that a well-made film will take a subject that the viewer is ambivalent about, and make them care about the characters experiencing it. Anyway, I'm still waiting for that great mountaineering movie.
Featuring far too many characters and far too many ominous "I'll be fine / I don't feel too good" lines, along with their accompanying phlegmy-coughs and sidelong glances, Everest is A True Story™ that was apparently full of awful cliches. As a result of two teams (needlessly) competing to reach the summit and get home before tea/lightning-storm time, there are also far too many appearances of characters you'd assumed had died two scenes earlier because everyone looks basically the same when they're in cold-weather gear with beards and frost, and all-but-two of the characters are sold short due to a lack of screen-time. These on-screen personas are a barely-likeable lot (which is a problem when the film is about them dying), but then again I suppose it takes a special kind of narcissist to believe they're better than one of the world's most treacherous mountains, and a special kind of sociopath to make money from encouraging them. Everest comprises almost entirely of those two types of people.
At no point does the spirit of Ben Kenobi stand over a prone, snow-caked mountaineer commanding them to go to Dagobah. At no point do any of the team uncover a hoard of Nazi gold, awakening the undead guardians that are damned to protect it for eternity. It's 2015, Universal; you're going to have to give me more than 'you can count the number of people who went up on both hands, but the number of people who came down on one; and I don't mean because of the frostbite'. And Ted Moult? Nowhere to be seen.
On the plus side, it turns out that Jason Clarke is actually a much better actor when he's allowed to use his own accent. Although it also turns out that Sam Worthington isn't. And being used in wide, brightly-lit exterior shots, much of the 3D in the first half of the film looks beautiful, although suffers under the night-time, close-quarter photography which follows. And speaking of which, why does the scene where they're at the summit of Everest look for all the world like it was shot on a sound-stage, with its flat, azure-blue sky and oddly-yellow lighting? Surely that's the most important exterior-shot of the whole film?
Everest may indeed be 'based on a true story', the problem is that it's just not a particularly interesting one. The most disquieting thing about it is that the members of the teams who didn't make it back in May 1996 weren't the first ones to die trying, and they weren't/won't be the last; a thought which the film doesn't even take the time to raise. And don't go giving us a 'real-life' photo-montage at the end like you've told an awe-inspiring story of bravery and humanitarianism, rather than a faintly exploitative made-for-TV disaster movie to be shown on Channel 5 at 2pm on a Wednesday...
A caption-card at the film's beginning tells us that of the mountaineers to climb Everest around that time, 1-in-4 died. Ironically, that's also the exact the ratio of audience members who made it to the end of this film. This afternoon's screen held four people at the start of the movie, and one of those left after an hour and a half.
Today's survivors of Everest bonded over an ordeal they're not inclined to repeat…
If you like that sort of thing?
A rental. You won't need to see this film more than once, whether you're a mountaineer scoffing at all the mistakes or a non-mountaineer squirming slightly at hubristic yet gullible people dying in the cold.
No, although in Sam Worthington's case that'd be an odd case to try and argue.
…probably? I have no idea
Nah.
No. There isn't.
I mean, if you won't use a Wilhelm Scream when someone falls actually off a mountain, when the fuck will you?.
The film features a simpering performance from Queen Amidala's favourite handmaiden, bodyguard and decoy, Keira 'Sabé' Knightley.
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.
You can't really go wrong with Benedict Cumberbatch. There. I said it. I wouldn't class myself as a fanboy by any means, but I've yet to see him in a role where he's disappointed me*1. Benedict is really the selling-point for The Imitation Game. And this is just as well really, as everything around him is certainly 'good', but rarely rises above that, somehow.
Telling the story of mathematician Alan Turing's work during the Second World War to break the infamous enigma code used by the Nazi forces, the film shifts between 1928 when Alan is a pupil at Sherborne School, 1941 when he's recruited to help crack the code at Bletchley, and 1951 when he lives as a troubled recluse (which is essentially the wraparound segment). The main narrative takes place during wartime, of course, with the other two stories being intercut to support the themes of the film. All in all the device works well, but I couldn't help notice that occasionally we'll be treated to a '1928' (or '1941' or '1951') caption; but not always. To the point where it seems intrusive when the person in charge of the captioning machine seems to have woken up again. As a viewer, you're never lost*2, but either caption all the cuts, or none of them, surely?
So, as I've intimated, Cumberbatch is fantastic as Alan Turing. Awkward yet enthusiastic, shy yet blunt, we get a sense of a man who was a genuine pain in the arse to work with but still wasn't inherently unlikeable, and I genuinely can't think of another performer who'd have brought him to life in this way. Elsewhere the cast is largely solid; Charles Dance plays his role as Commander Deniston straight down the middle*3, Matthew Goode is understatedly great as always as Turing's long-suffering colleague Hugh Alexander, and Keira Knightley seems to have been woefully miscast as Joan Clarke, the team's only female member (this was the 1940s, and that sort of thing simply wasn't done under the normal run of things). It's not that Knightley is awful in her role; the scenes in which Joan is prim-and-proper and quietly determined suit her down to the ground. But at the film's denouement she's called upon to do some actual, emotional acting, and she seems to struggle terribly with it. It's not a deal-breaker, but it is one of the film's weaker points.
With Cumberbatch's performance seemingly more far delicate than the rest of the story, he prevents things from becoming mawkish, even at his most vulnerable. An admirable film which seems to have trouble meshing 21st century values with their post-war counterparts, The Imitation Game never quite grasps what it's reaching for, but it's still an outstanding film and worth watching for what it's actually about rather than how that's done, necessarily.
Wow, that sentence was far too long, even by my standards.
All in all, The Imitation Game is very good; you should see it.
Hmm, well, ...ish?
For the most part, yes. As much as I wanted to? No.
I'd say it probably does.
You'll lose nothing by watching this on a Sunday afternoon at home.
Nope.
At some point, but probably only the once more.
I didn't hear one. Which means no.
Spoilers ~ highlight to read: Really, though? It took them that long before they figured out the words 'heil Hitler' may be a key phrase in Nazi communications and they could use that as a kickstart to breaking the code? I'd probably have been too embarrassed to mention that part if I'd been in the team. Which makes it all the more admirable that they did, I suppose…
*1 Not saying that can't or won't happen, it just hasn't yet. Them's the breaks.
*2 Unlike the other Cumberbatch film which switches unannounced between two timelines which look pretty much identical. Yes, I'm still annoyed by that. Still. *3 But it's at least an atonement for Dracula Untold...
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.
Begin Again Cert: 15 / 104 mins / Dir. John Carney
"What's that?", Greta asks, pointing to a dual-cable with two jack sockets and one plug hanging from record-producer Dan's rearview mirror. "It's a headphone splitter", he replies. How down-with-the-kids is this modern piece about the music industry, knowing that no-one uses 'head phones' any more, except for everyone in this film all of the time, and also pretty much everyone in the real world who's watching the film? Headphones, grandad? With wires? This is the reality we're in, here.
I must confess that as someone who has spent (admittedly limited) time in a recording studio, I found the trailer for John Carney's Begin Again fairly objectionable. The thought of recording acoustic instruments in such close proximity to one another indicated that the film would have as accurate a relationship with the music industry as Button Moon does with space travel. Then again, the central male protagonist is a washed-up, has-been, producer who makes a web-viral star out of a twee songwriter with the most ineffectual voice imaginable; so in that respect it does have some documentary-like credentials, I suppose.
The film opens with an interesting narrative-structure, where we keep coming back to Greta's solo performance in the trailer, which underscores the title of the film perfectly, a little like a musical Groundhog Day. Then, as soon as the second act kicks in, we're back into linear-mode, where things progress at an altogether more predictable pace. In and of itself, the film's story-premise isn't a bad one, but it's let down by the horrible miscasting of Keira Knightley as Greta, where the role calls for someone with more dramatic weight to bring. It would certainly have helped if the film-makers had chosen a singer who could act, rather than an actress who can sing (albeit uninspiringly).
The annoying thing is that I completely bought Mark Ruffalo as Dan, the confused mess of a middle-aged man in a world that's left him behind, desperately wanting to connect with anything in a genuine way again. It's just everyone else in the movie I had a hard time believing in. Given that the central thread of the film is about platonic friendship rather than romantic, and they've chosen to illustrate this with a bunch of the most vacuous hipsters you'll see on-screen this year, you sort of end up wondering what the point really is?
Every bit as bland and superficial as the side of the music industry it purports to fictionalise, Begin Again is an hour and a three quarters of self-congratulatory back-slapping (to the bitter end of the tacked on coda which plays behind the credits), for an 'album' which would, in reality, sound like it had been recorded in a toilet.
And just when you thought that James Corden getting people to dance at a party was the most cringeworthy thing you'd ever seen, Hailee Steinfeld plays a guitar solo. Which Keira Knightley has the audacity to increase the volume of.
Soul music for people with no soul.
It's not as godawful as the trailer looks, but it's not a massive improvement on it.
Nope.
For me? Nope.
Whatever.
Yep.
Nope.
There isn't.
How come no-one mics up Greta's acoustic guitar for a single one of the outdoor recording sessions? Unless you beat the living shit out of the thing (which she doesn't), you won't hear a damned thing.
Has no-one on set ever played an acoustic outside before, let alone in a noisy area and less than ten feet away from a fucking drum kit?
And no, it's not an electro-acoustic.
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.
Wow. I get the impression that Chris Pine landed the role of Jack Ryan after his performance in last year's This Means War, an action/spy caper in which he gets to trade barbs and punches with Tom Hardy. It's not a bad film by any stretch, but its saving grace is the constant comedic flow between the leads. Replace that banter with mumbled CIA gibberish between Captain Kirk and Robin Hood, and you've got the new techno-thriller, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.
It's more Mission Impossible than James Bond, but throughout, it lacks the fun, style or wit of either. An opening sequence truncates Jack's early career, from brilliant financial whizz studying in London, to brilliant brave soldier shooting people in Afghanistan and rescuing his comrades from a burning helicopter, to brilliant undercover spy working on Wall Street and tracking terrorists by their financial slip-ups. All of this while routinely lying about his job to his nurse/carer/fiance, Cathy, and that's her own fault really because she won't marry the secretive fibber (CIA rules, apparently. Jack said so).
So is it any good? Not particularly. It's reasonably competent at what it's doing, but that's just not particularly great. Initially crammed with computer idiot-displays which don't exist in the real world, and top-secret organisations with the crappiest security money can buy, the film doesn't take long before it resorts to good old car chases and men punching the shit out of each other. And all the while, director Kenneth Branagh doing his bit to let Hollywood know that North Korea is back off the xenophobia menu, and now it's time to start baiting the Russians again. Go on, Ken! Tell Keira how "I em bed men; listen to voice, da?"
And I'm not even sure how Keira Knightley manages to struggle in a role that demands nothing of her. I actually quite enjoy her work in the right roles, but this isn't one of them. That said, her part of The Girl One is so underwritten that anyone would struggle to perform it. Pine makes the best of a bad job (ie not enough oomph to gain any critical acclaim, but enough to get a sequel). Kevin Costner is Kevin Costner; then again, that's what he was no doubt hired for.
On a technical-grumble level, the constantly moving/sweeping/juddering camera is irritating enough, but there are several shots in the film which are slightly blurred and ghosted. It looks for all the world like the editing team have zoomed and cropped an existing shot, using a section from the middle of the frame somewhere, then upscaled it and hoped no-one would notice. I can't be the only one who did.
The Moral Of The Story: Hey, the next time you're slagging off the global finance industry, just remember: some of them are really working for government spy agencies and trying to save you! Capitalism and covert surveillance are your friends, you idiot, not The Russians!
It's not absolutely awful, but you deserve better, frankly. At least Tom Cruise did this shit with a smirk on his face.
The trailer tries harder than the film, I'll give it that.
Not really.
I suspect it actually does.
DVD. Tops.
I will, a bit.
I can't see that eventuality.
Not that I heard, although by act three, it's basically just white-noise and handheld cameras, so there could be.
Have the CIA ever actually recruited anyone fucking stupid enough to compromise their cover by leaving a cinema-ticket stub in their trouser pocket for their girlfriend to find?
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.
Bolstering the March schedules comes the crowd-pleasing portrayal of the infamous events surrounding the 1970 Miss World contest, touching as it does on misogyny, racism, conformity and activism. Don't worry, it's not as heavy as all that sounds. Which turns out to be a problem, if anything. The main hurdle not quite cleared by Misbehaviour is that the story is about the ongoing struggle against women being reduced to entertainment. A struggle which is, for the most part, reduced to entertainment.
