Wednesday, 30 December 2015

Sicario

#StokerScore 9/10


Slow-burn movies are those that while taking their time to get where they're going never forget to take the audience with them. If director and screenwriter get it right, then the experience is often one of the best of movie experiences. The brashness that many action movies rely on, the goriness of horror movies, the sentimentality of dramas and romantic movies, all are worthy traits but think of those movies that seemed to draw you in and then take you along with story rather than set pieces, that's the domain of the slow-burn movie and which can also apply to most of those other forms of movies I just mentioned, if done right.

I'm sure you have a favourite or two? A few years ago, struggling to decide on a movie to watch I bought Trade starring Kevin Kline. It was the story of sex trafficking between Mexico and the US and the movie just seemed to keep getting better, partly due to the chemistry between Kline's off-duty policeman and Cesar Ramos as the brother of a kidnapped girl. I remember at the end that I sat back, satisfied that I'd been told a great story, accepting that life isn't fair and definitely NOT needing a sequel. Don't misunderstand me, the characters that Kline and the others were playing weren't unlikeable, it's just that the story was told. End of.

This week I got to see another little gem in the form of Sicario. Starring Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro, who I last saw together in the much maligned The Wolfman, the cast is augmented by Josh Brolin and Daniel Kaluuya, and all of them are bang on form.The story again centres on the connection between Mexico and the US but this time, instead of people, it's the drugs trade. Many of the characters have dubiuos backgrounds and morals, and ethics seem flexible in search of  each character's goal.

Of the three main actors, Blunt has never been better in all of the movies I've seen her in. Josh Brolin is articulate, easily convincing of his potential duplicity and again I've not seen him take on anything this good recently. Even Del Toro tones it down, allowing his character to come to the fore.

If you're in the mood for a movie that makes you think, especially about subject matter that continues to be used by much more mediocre projects, give this a go.........

Saturday, 26 December 2015

The Hateful Eight

#StokerScore 3/10



Movies are a personal choice. Professional critics have generally been educated as to the different techniques and the lighting and the script-doctoring and usually know what a best boy and a key grip do on a movie. But for those of us without film-related degrees we are driven by what we enjoy. Those movies may change over the years or become more refined but the originals? the ones we saw throughout our formative years? They never stop influencing us.

"Go on, I dare you to say again that Excalibur is better....."

We're about to head into awards season and already movies are shuffling and jockey-ing for position and, in many cases, have a team of people whose sole job it is to get the awards committee to recognise the movie they've been paid to promote. Certain film directors are always shoe-ins for recognition and it's widely understood that if you make a movie that contains specific themes then it's also more likely to be in contention. 

"We've got you, me, and Michael Mann. The Oscar is in the bag."


Laughingly, and in contrast, you hear of movies being voted worst ever and Golden Raspberries being handed out but what does that really mean? If a movie produces 'x' in terms of ticket receipts, this may be due as much to the number of cinema screens that it is available to be seen in and the marketing machine behind the movie to promote it as it is to if it's a good or bad movie. But trust me when I say I have seen bad movies too.

"the name's Cage, depatment of  bee movies"

So it is that I don't like all movies and I don't think that makes me a bad person. I also have reasons for liking and disliking the movies that I do. I like some horror movies, I like selected comedies, I like many action movies and a lot of sci-fi movies. I'm generally not a fan of dystopian future movies but I can think of some that I enjoy, and what some people call classics I have sometimes called bullshit. I like feel-good movies but conversely I also like black comedies and noir cinema. I'm certainly difficult to pidgeon-hole and friends are constantly surprised, amazed and appalled, in seemingly equal numbers, by my choices.

I suspect, to bring it back to my original point, that this is becuase of our individual conditioning. It's that conditioning that means I love westerns. I rank Pale Rider, Open Range, and Once Upon a Time In The West, ahead of Dances With Wolves, Unforgiven and A Man Called Horse. and because my Dad was a fan I was exposed to more westerns than any other genre as a kid growing up. 



Quentin Tarantino isn't a film school graduate, he's basically just a guy who loves movies, has worked around movies and had a number of peers who exposed him to movies. A mixture of good luck and a singular vision led to Harvey Keitel investing in the production of Reservoir Dogs and once that was followed up by Pulp Fiction it appeared that a new voice in film had been discovered. 

But just how singular that vision is has been open to debate ever since parallels between Reservoir Dogs and a number of other properties were noticed. Maybe I'm being unkind but his reliance on the word 'homage' has really started to lose its value in favour of just rehashing old movies and polishing them for a new generation.

Lots of people like Tarantino movies and forgive him his idiosyncrasies because they are recogniseable by the casts he puts together, the way the timeline jumps around and the clever dialogue. The Hateful Eight very clearly has the first, The cast is a solid mix of Tarantino regulars plus the inclusion of some new faces. The second area it employs sparsely but it's the third where I had problems as it also has a running time that drags unbelievably. I've never walked out of a movie but this one tried my patience. What is potentially a simple set-up and execution in the style of an Agatha Christie drawing room mystery is drawn out to the extent that I was just plain bored. I wanted to enjoy it, hoping that it was going to back to his lean, early movie best rather than my perception of the bloated excesses of his recent films. Maybe an M. Night/Tarantino collaborative piss up might produce more meaningful results for both of them...


Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Crimson Peak

#StokerScore 1st Half 8/10, 2nd Half 2/10



Guillermo Del Toro

Genius film maker? Uber geek? Misunderstood auteur? Are these titles mutually exclusive?

I've never met Guillermo Del Toro but I'd like to. I've read a lot about him and his works and I've also seen him interviewed on numerous occasions. He's passionate about his work, he works in genre fim making and he responds vocally and vociferously to his fans. But, look at some of his personal film choices and ask yourself, why the hell did he choose to make that?

Imagine that you're being allowed to make a personal project. The studio have negotiated a deal where if you make a film for them then in return they'll bankroll a film for you. It's not exactly unheard of and if you look at some of your favourite stars, either actors or directors, if they've had a big hit then they may also have a pet project that may have been made too. On more than one occasion, to confuse movies and humane approaches to sick animals, that movie should also have then been taken out behind the barn and put out of its misery.

Examples of this are rather too easy to find. John Wayne's bloated Alamo, Angelina Jolie's recent directorial effort By The Sea, Steven Seagal's On Deadly Ground, Travolta's Battlefield Earth, or Shyamalan's After Earth would all apply as studio-funded vanity projects and in at least two of those cases the studios should have known better.



In contrast, and purely my own opinion, Del Toro seems to be considered to be different. The fans love him because if you believe his interviews he says he wants to make films for the fans and he drops project names like confetti; Justice League Dark, Pinocchio, and lets not forget the most deeply personal film that he talks about even more than Hellboy 3, his interpretation of Lovecraft's novella At The Mountains of Madness. This in turn makes the studios love him because he brings that Hall H fervour from San Diego's Comic Con and all the fans that go with it. This may account for why he goes and signs on to stuff like Pacific Rim and follows that with a supposedly personal project like Crimson Peak. I understand that the studios may balk at funding a particularly niche project like ATMoM, especially when the director wants a hard R certificate version, but that didn't necessarily hurt a movie like Cabin In The Woods or even Event Horizon which while not the commercial success it could have been has grown to be more loved. I know they have different source material, hell, they're completely different kinds of movies, but the premise of cost and certificate vs not making the movie at all is similar and with a bit or marketing Cthulu could become better known?

Cthulu plush doll - strange choice for your sleeping infant?


That Del Toro has an eye for the unusual isn't ever going to be in question. Look at the original films that he's made like Cronos, Mimic, and Pan's Labyrinth or his work on Hellboy and Blade 2 to see what he can come up with. My assertion, and I truly believe this, is that he's at his best when working with a small budget.



Thanks to IMDb we know that Blade 2 was made for the cost of $54,000,000 and was green-lit primarily because the first one was such an unexpected hit. Yet Cronos came in at a miserly $2,000,000 and garnered even more praise.

Crimson Peak, made thirteen years after Blade 2, was supposedly budgeted at the same amount as the 2002 vampire sequel and when you look at Crimson Peak from a purely visual and casting perspective he's done a stunning job. But what is Crimson Peak supposed to be? Is it a drama that has ghosts? A ghost story that has drama? A gothic horror with little horror to point out that that is what it is? The movie has a fun first half and, to be frank, a boring second half. Anyone waiting to be scared will no doubt still be waiting. Personally I was expecting a ghost story with touches of Edgar Allen Poe's "Fall of The House of Usher" in terms of tone. But, whilst it certainly has a ghost, it turned out to be more Legends of the Fall for me

Monday, 21 December 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

#StokerScore 9.5/10

I've really enjoyed going to the cinema this year partly because I'm lucky enough to live in a country where cinema tickets and all of the add-ons like drinks and food etc are all reasonably priced, plus we have an IMAX screen too! So yesterday, for less than $10 (6.50 in English currency) , I saw the latest installment in the Star Wars franchise...in IMAX.

I suppose the score I've given generally tells you everything you need to know about my thoughts on the film but instead I'll try to explain why the missing half point rather than the actual score itself, and all without spoilers.

Like many others who are giving up their thoughts on this movie, my memories go back to being a ten year old kid being taken to either the Odeon or ABC cinema in Darlington (somewhere in the following 38 years I seem to have forgotten which).



In 1977 we weren't really used to cinematic blockbusters. Two years earlier had seen Jaws start to change peoples' perceptions on the concept of big tentpole movies, but they were still in their infancy. Saying that, '77 saw plenty of big movies including Richard Dreyfuss playing with his mashed potato in Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Roger Moore's underwater Lotus Esprit emerging onto the beaches of the Cote d'Azur in The Spy Who Loved Me, Travolta's advert for polyester suits, Cuban heels and Bee Gees music in Saturday Night Fever, and everyone's favourite moustache in Smokey and The Bandit. Interestingly the total cost of all five of these movies was $50 million, or as near as dammnit is to swearing.



This was also the year where, as a young cinemagoer, I got my first look at Nicholas Hammond as Spider-Man - a tv movie that got a cinematic release in the UK, The awesome Sinbad and The Eye of The Tiger, and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, all of which were equally as high, if not higher than Star Wars on my personal movie radar at the time and often inspired as much by the poster art rather than the trailers for the movies. Obviously the following years have shown which of these movies would stand the test of time.  



That Star Wars has gone on to become so highly regarded owes nothing to the initial thoughts of many of the cast. Alec Guinness who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first (4th chronologically-speaking) movie reportedly thought it was fairytale rubbish and only agreed to be in it once his pay was doubled. Harrison Ford lobbied for Han Solo to be killed off in the first movie and even George Lucas himself ditched the premiere in favour of a Hawaiian holiday, so sure was he that the movie would be a flop.

So after the high expectations for the disasters that were the Star Wars prequels, I admit that even through the hype I still had doubts walking into the cinema. I'd managed to keep myself spoiler-free having only seen the trailers so I, my wife and five friends settled back to watch amidst a packed house.

From the familiar scrolling text to the iconic music, from the weird and diverse alien characters to the ones who we're more familiar with, from the action to the quieter, character-defining moments, this movie did the unimaginable and exceeded all of my expectations. We left the theatre over two hours later questioning much of what we had seen and how it would impact on future sequels. But we left knowing that we had seen Star Wars return triumphantly and due in no small measure to J.J. Abrams. The director has followed, some might say a little too closely, the ideas that made the original Star Wars film so memorable to audiences and critics alike. I'm going to need to go back and re-watch it now that I am comfortable in what I'm looking out for as well as just to damn well sit back and enjoy it all again, especially knowing what's coming.

The acting talent is great from the returing characters to the debutantes. That there is not one annoying character says as much for directorial influence over the marketing department and I have no doubt that your first glimpse of the Millenium Falcon in action will leave you gobsmacked. The potential for where this story can go next is so diverse I can't wait to see what's in store.

So why the half mark? Well it is down to that slight sense of repetition with which I watched some things play out. It's a small, small thing in the concept of a much bigger and immensely varied tale, and it didn't stop my enjoyment of the movie, but in the hands of such a talented director I think he could have switched things up a tad........

Monday, 7 December 2015

Victor Frankenstein

#StokerScore 1/10


I have been reading horror stories ever since I can remember. My Nan and Pop (Grandparents, in the Geordie dialect) had a little book of northern tales that I came across during a stay at their house outside Durham and it contained the grisly story of "The Lambton Worm". This, along with having the surname of Stoker, was like a gateway into all that was fantastical and horrific in fiction and I devoured every piece of pulp horror I could find and, with the invention of VHS, did the same with movies too. No movie was too Z-grade for me. 

In novel and novella form I was a big fan of Stephen King, Shaun Hutson, Guy N. Smith, Clive Barker and Brian Lumley, as well as the compendiums you could buy too. I never forgot the classics either, the ones that provided all of the inspiration. As well as dear old Bram there was Sheridan Le Fanu, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and of course, Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley.

a doctor's worst nightmare that took a lot more than wire wool to get rid of


I was always aware of Frankenstein, even before reading the book. As a kid growing up in the 70's, the BBC would show occasional, late-night summer double-bills where they would pair a classic black-and-white horror from the 1930's with a contempory Hammer Horror. Such was Hammer's love for the classics, you could watch Boris Karloff, with the iconic square head and bolts, and then be blown away by the more visceral (Hammer movies were in colour) Christopher Lee.



I assume that because of the iconic nature of the visuals, Frankenstein eventually became the victim of parody, similar to other equally dark characters. 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein' was the end of the run for the character as something to make you squirm and cinemagoers would have to wait nine years for Hammer to revitalise the character and return him to something of his former glory.

The ensuing years saw Frankenstein's monster appear many times, but it wasn't until 1994 that we saw Shelley's character truly come to life through the eyes of Kenneth Brannagh and in the form of Robert de Niro. 


So how does this latest movie compare? Is it a new look at an old character? Well, it has certainly tried to take a different point of view, that of the maligned assistant Igor. But for all of that it is still lacking. The story of the monster, his creation and what it means to the worlds of science and theology, these are lost under overwhelming subplots of unfathomable revenge and unrequited love. It's a mess that even when pared back to the basics seems to lack a sense of direction, instead stumbling from one hackneyed scene to another.

Was the world ready for another Frankenstein movie? Well considering Universal's attempts to design a "Monster Universe" akin to marvel's superhero one, I have a feeling that it won't be too long before we get another one, whether we like it or not. Whether yet another telling of this tale can wash away the memory of Victor Frankenstein,  we'll have to wait and see. But if Dracula Untold and it's tacked-on ending are anything to go by, I won't be holding my breath.

I'll leave you with my favourite version of Frankenstein's assistant and the hopes that no-one ever tries to remake this