Review: Her

Year: 2013 (U.K Release 2014)

Director: Spike Jonez

Screenplay: Spike Jonez

Starring:  Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Scarlett Johansson

Synopsis is here 

Don't call it a backlash. It's not that I didn't like Her. The ideas it brings up are provoking in the same way they are in RoboCop (1987) or Blade Runner (1982). However in watching The Lego Movie (which also plays with the ideal of free will) afterwards, I found myself more entertained by the latter’s more subversive elements. After Her, I kept asking: does this world have to be so miserable?

That's not the best way to describe Her: a film which lands us in a pastel and placid LA in which people are more obsessed with their handhelds than we see now (even in this screening I had some ignorant ass on giving off their light pollution). But Her sits us next to Theodore, a un-engaging sad sack who writes heartfelt letters to long distanced love ones, a man who provides the right emotions for other but none for himself.

As the film delves deeper into its sci-fi premise, we realise that this is computer as confessional; a personal live journal who embraces you and grows with you. You shout into the void and it responds back to you in a deeply profound way. No doubt we can see the obstacles over the horizon. Think of children.

As Samantha; the love interest and programmed operating system; Scarlett Johansson has possibly the most difficult performances she’s possibly faced (I have not seen Under the Skin yet). Even animated characters have facial tics. One of the films strongest factors is witnessing the screenplay and Johanson’s performance (in which we only see as her voice) expands as the film moves along. Samantha grows from an advanced yet empty program to a spirited personality with an inquisitiveness entirely of it’s own accord. Johansson’s husky, sensual tone not only accentuates the playful, flirty aspects of the character, but she also brings out the empathy of a being that is slowly learning of the world around itself.

This is Jones' prettiest film, the crisp, clean aesthetic sparkles and the small details that display a futuristic America has a plausible texture to proceedings. Jones' use of space is powerful but it's also quite isolating while his lead is frustratingly distancing. Jordan Belfort in Wolf of Wall Street is a sexist man a misogynistic world, but his charm has a sleazy allure to it and his antics are quick to remind a viewer of how you should feel about such a douche. While WOWS is a film which has us laugh at Belfort, Her wishes us to believe that Theodore is someone to sympathise with entirely despite his anti social world view which is much of his own creation. I don’t have to like a character to love a film, yet Theodore  lacks the engagement that would help me respond in the way that Jonez would like me to.

The creepy, slightly insidious way he wants to control the women (who are smarter than himself) in his life is placed to the side. Its absorbing to see how Samantha grows and appreciates the world, it's awkward to see how limited Theodore wishes to keep both his and her view. But it's fine because he doesn't have the snarky OK Cupid profile to show his darker side. The films latter half also considers the idea that not only Theodore, but we as people are sadly limiting, stunted and slightly disabled of our own view. To put it another way, Dave wouldn't be able to disable Hal.

I have similar reservations to Her as I did with Being John Malkovich. The concept is provoking but the character is selfish and self absorbed in a way that the beautiful score and future quirks cannot hide and that places me far too at odds with a character who wishes to appear pleasant. I think that's my tragedy with Her. It does well to remind us how human we can be. Then we realise the problem with her is him.

Review: RoboCop

Year: 2014

Director: Jose Padilha

Screenplay: Joshua Zetumer

Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Jackie Earle Haley, Samual L Jackson, Michael K Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel

Synopsis is here

I’ve never had a truly strong affinity to RoboCop, although I do enjoy watching the original movie a lot. It’s not really a fault of the film; however, the 90’s kid in me often kicks in when viewing the movie. The 80’s consumerism and Jesus imagery feels commonplace now despite being so outrageous in 1987. Personal preference has me warming to Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers as I get older as it still feels radical. The original RoboCop, while still a smart sci-fi, almost feels like it lost the war it was raging at the time. I remember watching the film again while at university and seeing a class of kids glaring uninterested at the film. I’d dread to think how millennials would see the film.

It’s talk like that which probably helped make a reboot of the property so appealing.  It’s hard not to think of executives probably spying the Boba Fett merchandise fetish that spurred on the sequels, TV and cartoon series. While not an uberfan of the 80’s feature, I do remember feeling a slight discomfort at the remakes’ first press leakings. From the drab trailer to the new suit, I couldn’t find anyone too impressed with the shiny new direction the filmmakers looked to be going.  

It’s been stated that Brazilian director Jose Padilha (Elite Squad) had a lot of trouble on the production (one that was already halted due to “creative difficulties), yet he and screenwriter Joshua Zetumer struggle on to craft a broad sci-fi procedural that display enough hints of ambition. Robo 2.0 toys with the idea of PR led, globalised crime fighting in entertaining ways, from its impressive Middle Eastern opening and Samuel L Jackson’s winking media “news” presenter, to the sudden realisation Murphy gets when he discovers where his new parts come from. The film’s humour may not be as strong as Verhoeven’s, but Robo 2.0 displays the type of smarts that some remakes simply don’t bother with.

The film does struggle over certain hurdles due to the pressure of what it now needs to become. The original films feminist and urban readings take a strong hit, while the amount of violence use for a 12a is beyond problematic. It never thinks why Verhoeven’s use of gore was considered. Yet despite this, the philosophical element of man and his tools, the marketability of safety and talk of free will, still engage. One shouldn’t regard the clean Apple design of Omicorp or the chilling use of surveillance that RoboCop once uses to try and track his killers. There’s enough with the film to remind us just how close we are to certain possibilities. It helps that Padilha brings his Elite Squad energy to the action, although the sequences become less interesting towards the end.

With all this said, Robo 2.0 is a serviceable entry to a franchise that was completely fine as a one shot. Take that last sentence as you will, but if producers are to be incessant with ramming these types of reboots in our faces, at least, they saw sense in hiring a socially conscious director with something to say and a screenplay with an amount of texture under the surface. Total Recall Remake this is not.

Review: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Year: 2014

Director: Kenneth Branagh  

Screenplay: Adam Cozard, David Koepp

Starring: Chris Pine, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightly

Synopsis is here:

I’m guessing some people are considering Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit as a return to the old school. Well, fair play to them. Despite what my friends sometimes think, I do like to take in the thoughts of others. However when it comes to my view on the film (which I keep calling it Shadow Agent, such is the generic title), I found it to be a cornucopia of cliché which will most likely be forgotten in a blink of an eye. Then again that’s what people want right? How dare people have high expectations for a spy thriller. They should be farted out with no distinction at all, right?

Jack Ryan may have nabbed a little from  the likes of Bourne, but it’s taken a lot more from older, more typical spy jaunts. You can see this by the vast amount of times super secret items are passed covertly between people. If you were to make this a drinking game, you could be so inebriated that you’d forget the first 2 acts.

Then again, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit also struggles with the idea of lasting effects.  Our dear Mr Branagh may state that Chris Pine’s Jack is no superhero, but trust me we get a Jack Ryan who performs near impossible feats with a near broken back and is hopping skipping and jumping better than Mario during a Bowser level. Emotional depth fares no better, but then again the limp arguments that Ryan (a spirited but slumming Pine) faces with his wife Cathy (an anonymous Knightly) come across as vague and ineffectual despite their intent.        

The only thing that remains in the mind is the idea that it’ll be those nasty Russians that will cause America’s “2^nd Great Depression”. After watching how Wolf of Wall Street dissect the type of near psychotic excess that help take a dent out the western world from within, to state that it’s those pesky Red’s who be causing financial grief because of cold war flash backs, seems more than a little rich.

Sparring with the old enemy may be the only thing to spark interest in a film which is dedicated to keeping one foot in the grave, but the cold war memories also hint the issue with not only Jack Ryan, but one or two of the more recent entries of the spy genre. Do we really need a Jack Ryan now?  A spy all jazzed up for a younger audience who probably have little care for the Cold War? While an older audience may have the knowledge to check out older features that don’t seem so slight and forgettable?

The film’s disappointing box office has still managed limp into the black, so it won’t surprise me if we see another entry in the Jack Ryan series. Although money made doesn’t mean movie enjoyed, there appears to be enough greenbacks behind this to nudge an executive into action. I’m guessing I’m once again in the minority asking why. 

Review: Inside Llewyn Davis

Year: 2013 (U.K. Release 2014)

Directors: The Coen Brothers

Screenplay: The Coen Brothers

Starring: Oscar Isaac

Synopsis is here:

Ask me to describe the Coen brothers and the first word that comes to mind is American.  For 30 years, their particular brand of storytelling has an uncanny knack of detailing small time Americana and personage in such a way that bleeds authenticity. The most popular example for many is of course Fargo, which has often been summed up with the now iconic “funny looking” sequence. It’s the kind of “funny because it feels real” moment that often appears in the brothers films, grounding the film no matter what hysteria occurs around the characters.

The second word would have to be moralists. As explained exquisitely by Tasha Robinson in a recent article of The Dissolve, the brothers seem to have their own rules about them that their hapless characters are fools to break. One of the reasons people appear to enjoy the Coens is down to the knowledge that no matter how despicable the likes of Jerry Lundegaard or Barton Fink can be, there will be comeuppance and it will be severe.

On the surface; Inside Llewyn Davis is no different from other Coen accounts, but there’s one ingredient that separates it: isolation.

I found Inside Llewyn Davis to be the Coen’s loneliest feature, one which has a character whose dismissal of moral high grounds set by the Coen’s universe, has landed him in a cold, bleak and penniless urban purgatory. Even those who know Llewyn aren’t really friends, more acquaintances that he’s allowed to use their couch for a couple of days.

Filmed in a near washed out grey, in an alien looking New York, some of Llewyn’s misdeeds are mentioned in hushed tones in tiny coffee shops, while past grief is hinted at but left to interpretation. A tragedy is mentioned involving Llewyn’s ex singing partner and there’s an underlying (and unsurprising) feeling that Llewyn’s ego may have played a part in it. This is not to say that the pain he brings to his folk music is crocodile tears, far from it.  But the emotion he feels while he strums his guitar almost seems to play into the circular nature of the narrative; an endless ring of distress with only his own thoughts for comfort. They bring little.

This odyssey of the common man lends itself a lot to the brother’s 1991 acclaimed black comedy Barton Fink. Llewyn, like Barton, believes that his work is made to touch the inner essence, yet he spites/screws himself when faced with the idea of commerce.  Oscar Isaac plays Llewyn with impeccable timing, whether on the guitar or sniping acquaintance. Both Llewyn and Barton are non-conformists with the uncanny ability to self sabotage themselves, even when they finally reach any sense of self realisation.

I found myself more struck by Inside Llewyn Davis more than expected. I expect great craftsmanship from the brothers and their crew, but despite the typical, cynical nature of the piece I found the film to have a yearning with it that is often considered missing in the Coen’s pieces. And like how so many people have mentioned; it’s obviously something to do with the cat and what a viewer believes it represents.   

After watching Inside Llewyn Davis, I found myself in three different conversations about the Coens. Within those conversations I’ve heard them being considered pretentious or that they lack depth. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like that as their films often feels like they’re mocking their characters, running them within a booby trapped hamster wheel. Strangely, I don’t find them any more pretentious then the characters of George Lucas. Both work around worlds of exact good and evil and while you could say the Coen’s planet is a little more skewed, the forces of nature seem to be just as adequate.   

Inside Llewyn Davis expresses that Llewyn is nearly always master of his fate, but it is one he himself sabotages. The problem is in this world the consequences hold no scrutiny. It’s no surprise that people are running cold on the Coens, when they’ve shaped their selfish characters and cold worldview so well, how can you be shocked? But there is something about how the folk song soars and how much Llewyn needs to keep hold of that damn cat that belies the film’s hidden heart. 

Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Year:  2013 (U.K Release 2014)
Director:  Martin Scorsese
Screenplay: Terrence Winter
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Margot Robbie, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConnghey

Synopsis is here:

Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street is like a speedball. Once again investigating American criminality, Wolf first hits like a cocaine high as it rattles through indulgence after indulgence, I found myself almost losing myself often in its depravity. In its first few minutes we are given a ludicrous dwarf throwing sequence. As the film goes on, the fornication and debaucherous excess seem limitless. The well known gangster arc seeps in within time and the slow heroin fall enters, it too seemingly going on forever. The crash is going to be a heavy one.

In terms of structure, WOWS doesn’t steer to far from my favourite Scorsese film; Goodfellas (minus that fact the speedball allegory is inverted somewhat), but here Scorsese takes his view of blue collar crime which bread and butter and bleaches it white. The calls are made with more reckless abandon, the numbers are larger, the hold and desire of greed seemingly stronger. Looking back through Gangs of New York to Casino to here with Wolf’s Jordan Belfort, Scorsese’s film is at times laugh out loud, but no less acidic. It looks to make the statement that here, in the right place and time; this is where all his psychopaths end up. Legit.

I feel this is why so many people have spent their time attacking WOWS. The likes of Toby Young have
aimed articles as shallow as the characters we’re observing. Belfort isn’t the be all and end all of the recent financial collapse. He is just one of the people who didn’t help matters. But then again, Young doesn’t bother to mention documentaries such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room or The Inside Job in his piece (why would he, the free market is fine, right?). Scorsese uses one man to illustrate just how widespread the problem was/is (delete as appropriate).

Leonard DiCaprio takes on the role of swindler Jordon Belford with the same charisma that infiltrated his Great Gatsby. In his finest physical performance to date; whether doped to his gourd on Quaaludes, or restraining his body from sexual desire, DiCaprio manipulates his body to silent comedy era levels. Meanwhile his Liotta-like narration has him spitting snake oil with each sentence. Every word is precise, every smile looking to be hiding something.  Twice while detailing the intricacies of his schemes, he stops, smiles and distracts us. Why do we need to know about details, when we should be enjoying the ride?

Scorsese’s film is always aware of reminding the viewer in what way the scales are tipped.  During one of the company’s weekly blowouts, we witness a woman shaving her head for a fraction of what Belfort earns. The sight of this is disturbing enough, but the way the women is nearly pushed aside and disappears into the lewd crowd of testosterone is telling. Early in the film, Belfort’s boss, Mark Hanna (a spirited McConaughey), installs the idea that clients must remind in a land of fantasy.  Scorsese’s film casts a shadow over the illusion with sparks of painful reality. It’s easy to laugh at Belfort giving the finger to a poor sap he’s just sold junk, but the pain lies in the voice on the other end that thinks they’ve got a good deal.

For a 180 minute film made by a 70+ year old man, The Wolf of Wall Street particularly crackles with energy. After Hugo; one may have been expecting a softer touch from the old hand, yet WOWS shows that there’s no signs to winding down from the director (or his regular editor Thelma Schoonmaker) in term of intensity. The controversy that has followed the film has come across as frivolous, with many arguments suggesting that such indignity should be sanitised. Many seemingly forgetting that the “lovable losers” of Marty’s past were psychopaths in the same way. It's just that Terrence Winter's script is smart enough to capture the amusement in the shennagans.

I’m happy that such provocative and vibrant films are still being pushed into the mainstream. While I won’t lie in saying that certain readings will not be kind to WOWS, but I also feel that WOWS is scabrous enough in its indictments. The Wolf of Wall Street is hilariously funny in the same knowing way the likes of Chris Morris’ comedy can be, but is intelligent enough to keep the audience at the right distance. Its final moments are taunting ones, asking a question to a crowd of desperate faces. We know the answer but after what we’ve seen, do we want to respond?