Your Sister's Sister (2011): UK premiere at GFF 2012

Glagow Film Festival 2012 opens tonight.   I got to do a review of Your Sister's Sister ahead of it's big UK premiere tonight.  Here's what I wrote:

Your Sister's Sister STV review


Really enjoyable little indie and some great improvisational performances from the cast - hard to believe it was shot in 12 days.

Casablanca (1942): 70th anniversary

This year Casablanca celebrates its 70^th anniversary.  It was made in 1942 at the peak of the Hollywood studio system, the golden era of cinema, well after the coming of sound and before the entertainment industry was revolutionised by television.  Shot in beautiful black and white this Warner Bros production has a reputation as quintessential classic cinema which has endured, if not improved since the year of its release.  With 70 years of watching, rewatching, studying, analysing and reviewing of this film before me, there’s no way I’m going to say anything new or revolutionary here.  Instead I modestly offer a brief look at what appeals most to me personally about this gem of Classical Hollywood filmmaking. 

Ask any film buff, critic, producer or anyone ‘what makes Casablanca so great’ and you will receive a multitude of varied answers with one consistent feature presenting itself most frequently of all – everybody loves the film.  This, for me, is probably the most prominent reason for Casablanca’s longevity: it’s a real crowdpleaser.

There is a great mix of romance and action - a characteristic which defines most films considered classical in the conventional sense.  The love triangle between Rick (Bogart), Isla (Bergman) and Victor (Henreid) is balanced with a complex action plot where the Gestapo chase blacklisted Nazi detractors across Europe.  The balance between the action and romance plots is the main feature of the film, although Casablanca is a mixing pot of genres.  It’s also political, historical drama, comedy and almost a musical.  There’s something there for everyone.

The level of focus in the story is intriguing.  Not only does the story hone in on a very intimate romantic drama, but tells an epic story that spans continents, cultures, languages and time.  The union of the small scale with the mighty has an overwhelming effect when you watch Casablanca.  

The story is incredibly complex.  What makes Casablanca such a treat nowadays is that it typifies a completely different style of filmmaking than what modern audiences are used to.  Instead of giving us the whole story on a plate in typically highly stylized form, as is the norm nowadays (for mainstream films!), Casablanca makes you work for it.  Most of the storytelling is done through dialogue, referring to back story and off-screen events through the exchanges between characters.  A lot of meaning is communicated very subtly too, so every time you watch the film you notice something new or you pick up new meanings and you question the way you originally put the story together in your head.  While this form of storytelling might be considered laborious or needlessly ambiguous by modern mainstream tastes, it was the accepted convention in the Classical age and its glory lives on.

The dialogue itself is great for another reason: it’s extremely quotable.   Many of the lines from this film are just spot-on and will be cited eternally: when Rick lovingly toasts to the beautiful Isla “here’s lookin’ at you kid”; when Isla asks “play it, Sam”; when a self-destructive Rick drinks and laments his long-lost love “of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”; when Rick puts it all into perspective “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”; when Louis makes the crucial decision at the last minute “round up the usual suspects”.

Who could forget the music?  ‘As time goes by’ is played repeatedly by the Café’s resident muso, Sam, at the request of the stricken lovers. The main melody is also incorporated into the orchestral soundtrack, augmented into a swelling uplifting arrangement during happier moments and pulled down into a minor feeling during emotional low-points in the plot.

The characters are also truly compelling.  Humphrey Bogart’s Rick is a cynical, self-deprecating businessman on the surface, but he hides sentimentality, an emotional weakness and an enduring principle to do the right thing.  Rick may well be a Hollywood analogy of the character of America during the globally turbulent period of World War II.  Ingrid Bergman’s character is, of course, absolutely gorgeous and full of intrigue, hidden secrets and emotional complexity – everything a classic femme fatale should be.  Paul Henreid’s Victor Laszlo is an international man of mystery, Claude Rains’ Captain Louis Renault is a fickle and corrupt police chief, Sydney Greenstreet’s Signor Ferrari is a fatcat blackmarket baron, Conrad Veidt’s Major Strasser is a relentless Nazi and Peter Lorre almost reprises his role in Fritz Lang’s M as a goggle-eyed murderer desperate to escape the wrath of his impending prosecutors.  All of the characters have some sort of dimension to them, some sort of story – even the waiter in the café has an implied back-story.  It’s only really the Nazis who occupy the realm of the stereotypical, and understandably so.

Generally, the complex interplay between compelling characters, complex stories, witty dialogue, provocative score and a fusion of genres makes Casablanca a popular classic which has enjoyed 70 years of fully-deserved love and fame.  But everyone has their personal favourite moments, lines, scenes and characters – that’s what truly makes Casablanca so great.

The Descendants (2011): a typically Payne-ful but forgettable flick.

Alexander Payne, best known for his low-key life-crisis films Sideways and About Schmidt, stays in his comfort zone with this film but opts for a slightly more family-friendly style.

The Descendants follows the story of a middle-aged Hawaiian lawyer Matt (George Clooney) whose wife has been knocked into a coma and will eventually die.  As he struggles to bring his somewhat dysfunctional family together to deal with her impending death, he finds out his wife was cheating on him.  The backdrop to this is an on-going legal process in which his wider family are trying to agree on whether to sell a sizeable and beautiful piece of Hawaiian land inherited from royal ancestry.

This film delivers a sentimental human drama whilst avoiding clichés.  The trailer and opening sequence states this as the premise: “my friends think that just because we live in Hawaii, we live in paradise.  Are they insane?  How can they possibly think our families are less screwed-up, our heartaches less painful?” etc.  The picture does seem a little too sugar coated though.  Its saccharine idealism overpowers the raw edge and potency which typifies Payne’s earlier films, such as Election. 

I get the feeling that even though I can relate to the characters on an emotional level, there’s still an irreconcilable gulf between me and the Hawaiian upper-classes on a material level.  I subconsciously dismiss the film as self-contained escapist cinema, making it as forgettable as it is enjoyable.  It's one of those films where you feel like you've really enjoyed the experience, but can't remember much of it afterwards.

It still retains Payne’s unique essence, however.  His originality, off-beat humour, lovably flawed characters, understated action and witty dialogue. The story world is very rich, but delivered in an easily digestible plot.  Seeing the seemingly emotionally inarticulate protagonist deal with the complex social pressures bearing down on him is sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, but always entertaining.  While not as cutting as some of his earlier films The Descendants adds another refreshingly frank and plausible feature to Payne’s consistently commendable filmography.

Me on TV!

I decided to take my film reviewing talents to the TV!  I did a vox pop length review of W.E. for a show called Moviejuice and it was broadcast through STV on Friday night.  You can find the video on the STV Player (for another 27 days).  You'll see an extremely nervous me at about 9 minutes in.  The full-length written review is on this blog and offers a slightly more comprehensive overview of the film to say the least!  I was going to review Coriolanus, which I loved, but no-one was doing W.E so the producers got me to rate that instead.  One star!  I just hope Madonna isn't coming after me now...

W.E. (2011): pretty, awful.

There have been a lot of mixed reactions to this film.  There’s a reason for that: it’s both good and bad.  I didn’t enjoy it but - staying away from the obvious tendency to judge this film based solely on the fact it’s Madonna who’s directed/co-wrote it - there are some diamonds in the (very) rough.

The film tries to take two storylines which are set in completely different times and places, and merge them into one film.  One of these plots are really good, the other really bad.  The good one is the story of Edward VIII who abdicated from his place on the throne in order to marry a commoner, Wallis Simpson.  The bad one is the story of an ordinary New York woman who’s in the process of leaving an abusive relationship.  The second story is trashy, melodramatic pulp.  Any relation between these two storylines is contrived and every time it cuts between the two, it feels very awkward, forced, meaningless and confusing.

It’s a real shame, because the story of the Edward VIII is an extremely interesting one.  There’s so much there to write about: his controversial lifestyle, marriage to Wallis Simpson, abdication, relationship with George VI and the rest of the royal family – not to mention his alleged Nazi sympathies and friendship with Adolf Hitler!  As a straight historical drama, this story would be truly riveting and I personally think it deserves a big budget treatment.  It could even do well as a glossy romantic drama or a gritty political drama – or a mixture of both.

I do appreciate that Madge has tried to tell this story (which has been done in film and TV before) from an alternative perspective: through the eyes of Wallis Simpson.  This is a credible idea but the film doesn’t focus enough on it.  Instead, it’s needlessly confused by a boring, ambiguous plot featuring a deluded and emotionally erratic protagonist nobody can relate to.

The film is occasionally historically inaccurate and utterly bizarre in places.  There is a point where a news reporter states that Edward is succeeding King George III, when it is in fact King George V (the former died more than a century before).  There are also several absurdities and moments of sheer bad taste, most notably a scene where Edward and Wallis are popping pills at a party as they dance to the Sex Pistols in the 1930s!  The fact Madonna chose the song 'Pretty Vacant' is probably more fitting than she'll realise.  There is a consistent stream of these absurdities which cause serious detriment to the film’s tone and coherency – as if it wasn’t already hard enough to understand.

There is no conclusion to this film either.  By the end nothing is resolved, everything becomes wholly ambiguous and no explanation is given as to the meaning or core purpose of the film.  Just before the credits role, as the camera pans up from nothingness to yet more nothingness, you’re left thinking “what was the point in all of that?”

Credit where credit’s due though: the film has some nice cinematography.  The fashion and costume design is great too.  It’s visually very good and you can tell there are some people working on this film who know what they’re doing, but it’s all wasted on a rotten script.  The film seems to concentrate on fashion, materialism, aesthetics and stylistic elements more than telling a compelling story.  It’s just superficial.

For me, the bad outweighs the good, and W.E. appears as nothing more than an opportunistic derivative of a sub-plot from the King’s Speech, with potential that would never be realised here.  Madonna’s film is brash and contrived at best, random and pointless at worst.

Coriolanus (2011): violent, engrossing and relevant.

Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare without Shakespearean language.  It might be difficult to understand exactly what the dialogue is during parts of Coriolanus, but there’s no difficulty following the meaning.  The action, the direction and some powerful performances – most notably from Ralph Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave – carry the film and more than compensate for the language barriers.  Some people walked out about halfway through but the climactic third act made it well worth the perseverance - especially Redgrave’s moving monologue as the formidable matriarch Volumnia.

Gerard Butler was pretty forgettable in this.  Whether that’s because he isn’t exactly of thespian discipline or because his character isn’t particularly pronounced in this play, is up to you to decide. Perhaps he and Jessica Chastain are nothing more than a bit of totty to sell the film?  Perhaps that’s just a bit cynical.

James Nesbitt added an interesting, somewhat unexpected dynamic to the play with his enigmatic nuances of jest and malice.  Also worth a mention was the little-known Dragan Micanovic who played a minor character, Titus, but delivered a couple of pivotal lines with engrossing presence.

The real star of the show is obviously Shakespeare.  His poetic prose courses through your mind and adds fuel to the fires of his drama.  His characters are bold and consistent, truly agents of their own destinies.  The subject matter resonates with political allegory and the film’s release is timely and relevant.  The play set in a present day context highlights the tribal social system which still dominates our affairs.  The story also works to express the futility of war.

Fiennes has done well to translate Coriolanus from the stage to the screen and he hasn’t stretched it too far so as to alienate it from the original text.  Stylistically, the film is quite gritty.  The focus is mostly on the actors, their eyes, their expressions and their delivering of lines, but there are a few purely cinematic moments (fight scenes in particular) which justify the adaptation to the screen.  There are a couple of truly violent moments in the film which blast the cobwebs off the old play and hook the modern, desensitized audience into the story.

Coriolanus is a tense and violent political wartime thriller which makes Shakespeare not only accessible but utterly captivating.  A credible directorial debut from one of the industry’s finest working actors.

Rango (2011): forgivably formulaic fun with lizards and guns

Rango was very entertaining.  There were a few belly-laugh moments for me, which is what I was hoping for.  The action and romance plots intertwined in a classic but original way and there was more than enough quirky style to keep things fresh.

There were a few moments of adult humour (the prostate joke comes to mind) handled cleverly enough so as to coast easily over the kids’ heads and keep the adults sniggering away - as is somewhat conventional for this kind of animated feature nowadays.  I’m not sure when this clever duality of adult and childish humour originated, but it’s certainly very prominent in contemporary films like Rango, Toy Story, Monsters Versus Aliens, etc.  It’s a feature that always drives me to animated films and something which I think will come to define this type of film.  I’m not entirely convinced this feature is even exclusive to animation, rather it’s just somehow more noticeable.

Rango was a lot like Monsters Inc., I immediately thought.  There were a few similarities and in this sense it seems formulaic.  The mayor character was quite like the company owner in Monsters: a bureaucratic fatcat who conserves a corrupt system for the apparent good of the people.  They’ve both also got slimy, formidable henchmen: in Rango it’s Rattlesnake Jake, in Monsters it’s Randall the chameleon-like lizard monster.  The plot is similar in that it follows a story of the feeble yet heroic protagonists’ efforts to uncover a conspiracy and save the day thus.

Cinematically, the film also pays tribute to film history.  It appears  obviously reminiscent of Western genre greats like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone.  Not to mention the tip of the cap to Fear and Loathing.

This breed of animated features endeavours to appeal to a mixture of demographics, not just age but cultures and nationalities (Shrek and Disney-Pixar’s upcoming Brave bring the world a little slice of Scottish culture, for example).   Films like these seem to adopt a formulaic approach in order to ensure global and trans-demographic popular success.   Often very classical and accessible, Rango is testament to the fact that films like this can be both somewhat formulaic and highly original and stylised.  Altogether entertaining, well-designed care-free cinema.