Hot off the heels of two very hot Oscar favourites in three years, comes red-hot David O. Russell’s hot new Academy-fancied flick American Hustle. Now that’s really hot.
David O. Russell’s American Hustle (MAN, that’s satisfying to say) is a film utterly clad in veneer. It’s very much a haircuts, nail varnish, dodgy accents, more hair, heaving cleavage, aviators, even more hair kind of a movie.
Set in 1970s New Jersey, Christian Bale’s be-toupéed Irving Rosenfeld is a flabby career-conman, making decent wedge from knocked-off paintings and trifling lending scams; juggling his be-bouffanted, haphazard handful of a trophy wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) and be-frizzied soul-mate and partner-in-crime Sydney (Amy Adams). When be-permed, ambitious undercover cop Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) busts Irving and Sydney, he offers them the chance to secure their freedom by bagging him bigger fish in the form of senators, governors and be-pompadoured family man and mayor of Atlantic City Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner).
But despite all the facade and the follicle topiary, you’d be a fool (a fool I say) to labour under the misapprehension that American Hustle hasn’t got depth; it’s got it in volumes. Continue reading →
Now five years a director, Steve McQueen’s third feature 12 Years a Slave is the former Turner-winning artist’s most ambitious one yet – and that’s no mean feat considering it follows his bleakly graphic Bobby Sands picture Hunger and the seedy sex-fiend festival Shame.
Like the holocaust and, apparently, Spider-Man, the incarceration into slavery of the black race in 19th century North America is one of such despicability and resonating outrage that it bears perpetual retelling and retelling again. And although ‘Spidey Senses’™ and ‘Kirsten Dunst in a sodden low cut top‘™ would seem somewhat out of place in 12 Years a Slave’s narrative, Steve McQueen instead brings the full weight of history with all the unmentionable veracity and heft the subject and film requires.
Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) begins the film a ‘freeman’ living with his family in 1840s New York State, until he is kidnapped by two white chancers and sold into slavery. The subsequent 12 years (I know, what a coincidence, eh?) is a relentless fight for Northup’s physical and mental survival, under the oppression of slave owners ranging from the relatively kindly Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) to the near enough psychotic Epps (Michael Fassbender).
It is always slightly tricky to review a film which is so universally well revered as 12 Years a Slave. It leaves one resorting to hole picking in order to find something new or insightful to proffer. But finding fault with McQueen’s work is rarely an easy task, and this is two and a quarter hours of film making from the very highest order. Continue reading →
J.C. Chandor’s ocean-based study of isolation and survival watches Robert Redford all at sea. In fact, that’s all it watches, as Redford’s ‘Our Man’ does everything in his 77-years’ worth of power to weather the storm and return to his friends and family on dry land – whoever they may be.
So tell me…when exactly did Hollywood decide that water was cool? I enjoy a wild dip as much as the next man, but over the last couple of years a fleet of film-makers have had the bends for the deep blue sea. Last term’s Oscars saw Life of Pi, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Norwegian Kon-Tiki take a dip in the Academy pool , while Captain Phillips embarked on its own awards voyage earlier this year. And now Margin Call’s J.C. Chandor has jumped on board with his one man sophomore movie All Is Lost.
The premise is almost perverse in its simplicity. Solo seaman Robert Redford has sprung a leak in his yacht after colliding with a stray cargo container. Over the course of the subsequent 106 minutes, Redford swims, climbs, flails, bails, gets knocked unconscious, and generally does everything his frail bones will allow him to stay alive.
And it’s this threadbare synopsis in which the success of All Is Lost lies. Despite the absence of dialogue and twilight years of its star, the film moves on at an engaging rate of knots. It is a tribute to the director’s ingenuity and Redford’s presence that the action, or lack thereof, rarely tests the viewer’s patience. On the contrary, it invites sincere absorption in ‘Our Man’s’ plight and his anonymity is no obstacle to the viewer’s compassion.
Although the sea-based setting evokes parallels with the picture’s aforementioned briny brethren (particularly Life of Pi during scenes in which Redford tows himself along in an inflatable life-craft while trying to catch fish, purify salt-water and talk to a tiger), the more apposite comparison is with this year’s Gravity. An individual’s near-impossible struggle for survival with no sight, sound or sign of assistance and relying on their own wit and spirit to survive.
If only young Alfonso C had delayed production of his visual masterpiece by a year or so and caught All Is Lost on a legal subscription-based streaming service before putting the pen down on his own screenplay. He would have learned that an audacious vacuum in Sandra Bullock’s script matching the vastness of outer-space would have served to heighten – not lessen – the drama. That by crowbarring in a dismal after-thought of a back-story would palpably detract from the jaw-dropping spectacle he’d created.
Chandor eschews any notion of ‘Our Man’s’ history, family or friends; he is simply fighting to live, allowing him to stand as a totem for any allegory that we choose to thrust upon him. In doing so, the director avoids getting shackled by clunky narrative gimmicks to sketch a biography that we never needed to know in the first place. Alex Ebert’s minimalist, almost prosaic, score is the perfect accompaniment to a story that is low on the bombastic and high on realism.
With a fraction of Cuarón’s budget, Chandor was never going to compete on a visual footing, but there is a CGI-lite charm to his effects. Redford’s vessels are convincingly tossed, turned, battered and capsized (one of the film’s cinematographers, Peter Zuccarini, worked on Life of Pi and the Pirates of the Carribean franchise) and you can almost feel the damp chill of his perpetually saturated attire. While the visual effects are unlikely to feed the thoughts of the Academy, it is buoying to see a throwback to action that doesn’t resemble a cut scene from an animated computer game.
After surprisingly missing out on a Screen Actors Guild nomination, Redford still has an even chance of picking up an Oscar nod following his Golden Globe recognition; and with good cause. It goes without saying that a solo film like All Is Lost lives and dies by its lonely performer and, 40 years after his only performing Oscar nomination to date for The Sting, Redford is equal to the task. Craggy of face and weak of limbs, he is entirely convincing as a semi-experienced sea-farer now well out of his depth. His calm under pressure at the beginning of the piece intensifies his acute desperation when conditions escape his control.
But it is Chandor’s bravery to deliver a script so refreshingly bereft of flotsam that will hopefully cannonball All Is Lost into the Best Picture category as a dark [sea]horse in January.
All Is Lost; 2013; Dir: J.C. Chandor; Stars: Robert Redford; 106 mins; 7/10; Probable nominations: Best Actor (Robert Redford); Possible nominations: Best Picture, Best Cinematography (Frank G. DeMarco & Peter Zuccarini), Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score (Alex Ebert)
Let me take you back to that long, magical summer of 1996. Football was coming home, Girl Power was taking over the charts and that Tory scumbag John Majors was nationalising all the mines and stuff. Am I right, comrades?
It was also the summer made famous by the fact that 12-year-old me walked out of two consecutive cinematic experiences spluttering those three momentous words: “Best. Film. EVER!”. First came Twister, the dazzling visual effects lead thrill ride of tension about man’s battle with tornadoes. But this was quickly usurped by Independence Day, the dazzling visual effects lead thrill ride of tension about man’s battle with aliens. Now hold that thought…
Because it’s true. All of it. Everything you’ve heard. Every word that people have told you about how bare amazebollocks (that’s what these so-called ‘people’ say, right?) Gravity’s visual effects are have got it bang-the-fuck on (oh my God, my 12-year-old self would have got so told off for saying that).
This story of a team of astronauts (two of which comprise Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) stranded beyond the earth’s atmosphere when space flotsam writes off their shuttle, is a technical master class. Alfonso Cuarón’s decision to put us up close and personal with the characters and action shows guts as well as astronomical faith in his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and team of effects artists. And they repay him with a seemingly flawless display of discombobulating, dizzying shots. The genius is to set the camera steady, not trying to keep up with the wildly spinning and swinging characters and apparatus. The result is that we feel the full force and desperation of the disaster, and leave the cinema feeling as though we’ve spent the last 90 minutes rolling down Everest in an out-of-control zorb.
Consider then that this is done in a zero-gravity setting, and the achievement is more impressive still. Now factor in the fact that Cuarón has thrown 3D into the mixer, and it is undeniably astonishing. The use of 3D puts one in mind of the Wim Wenders dance documentary Pina, the way the camera waltzesintimately between the protagonists, but Gravity sets a new high water mark for visual effect cinema to which the likes of Cameron, Abrams, Blomkamp and, yes, why not, Emmerich, will be clambering to match and eventually exceed.
Particular highlights, as if any are required, include the remarkable 17 minute (although possibly Rope-esque) opening tracking shot…in space; a take where the camera literally pans into and out of Bullock’s space helmet; the in-space-nobody-can-hear the obliteration of a massive space station; and a wonderfully artistic shot of Bullock adorned in vest and pants recoiling into a floating foetal position, which brings to mind Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey in equal measure.
It is when you begin to compare it to such other cosmic classics however, that you realise that Gravity isn’t one.
In fact, the title itself should be a clue, because gravity is the not the only thing notably devoid from the movie. There is no connection with the two leads. Bullock’s quasi-existential crisis is a real bum note. “Protagonist tries to avoid facing the personal tragedy by doing x”, is a well-trodden narrative arc and one that Cuarón has exploited with resounding success through the likes of Y Tu Mamá También and his no-less ambitious Children of Men. But “protagonist tries to avoid facing personal tragedy by becoming an astronaut and embarking on lonely trips to space” simply doesn’t cut the mustard, no matter how much portentous and, frankly, second-rate monologue you want to shove in the script.
And with the disconnect, follows a lack of genuine suspense. I’m sure Bullock’s characterisation was researched to the nth degree, but the cold, measured way in which she updates the deteriorating status of her oxygen supply could be reportage of the battery on her iPhone as she tries to squeeze in one last game of Cut the Rope. Considering Alien is clearly an influence, there is a marked lack of jeopardy.
It doesn’t help that, ironically, there is only so much you can do in the infinite paradigm of space in order to build drama. Can the spaceship avoid the flying debris? Can the human avoid the flying debris? Will the rope hold the weight of the spaceship? Will the rope hold the weight of the human? Will the spaceship burn up on re-entry? Will the human burn up in the aflame shuttle? Even at meagre 90 minutes, Gravity doesn’t do enough to maintain suspense.
On a final side note, the bizarre plot device where it materialises that Russians cause the carnage by destroying one of their own spy satellites seems like an anachronistic throwback to post-Cold War films a couple of decades older. I thought that the jingoistic days of the perennial Russian baddie and lingering close-ups of heroic Stars and Stripes were over. Apparently not.
Gravity is style of substance incarnate, something that my 12-year-old self would have loved but Avatar was rightly ravaged for by the critics. And, while I’m not quite that perverse as to compare it to Twister or Independence Day, it shouldn’t take the Academy voters the Hubble Telescope to see that, just because Gravity has been made by a ‘proper’ film maker’, phenomenal effects do not a phenomenal film make.
Gravity; 2013; Dir: Alfonso Cuarón; Stars: Sandra Bullock; George Clooney; 91 mins; 7/10; Probable nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing; Possible nominations: Best Actress (Sandra Bullock), Best Supporting Actor (George Clooney), Best Original Screenplay (Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón), Best Original Score (Steven Price)
If we’ve learnt anything from the last few years (and only God knows whether we have) it’s that journalists are a bunch of little shits.
Possibly the most remarkable thing about this fresh and unexpected acquired knowledge, is that it was left to two of Britain’s most dazzlingly inscrutable celebrities to take the time out of their hectic schedules and impart it upon us unworthy hordes. Thank you, Hugh. Much appreciated, Steve. We truly are unworthy.
And yet, Steve Coogan has been big enough and, dare I say (for the very real fear of being sued for defamation), ugly enough to adapt journalist Martin Sixsmith’sThe Lost Child of Philomena Lee – the account of his investigation into the inhumanely cruel swiping of Philomena’s infant son by the nuns from her Irish convent in the 195os – and even to cast himself in the role.
After being recently shamed out of his position as a spin-doctor for the Labour government, Sixsmith is initially reluctant to take on the eponymous Philomena’s (Judi Dench) human interest story. Until, that is, he realises it could be good for his dwindling profile.
The disarming strength of the film is that it plays out as a classic buddy road movie between Sixsmith and Lee, as their search for her son goes transatlantic. He’s a curmudgeon through and through. He goes to swanky (with, seemingly, a silent ‘s’) parties and the opera. Has plans to write a book about the Russian Revolution. Is used to a first-class lifestyle and, a hardened atheist (his exclamation of “Fucking Catholics” is a comedy highpoint), has no qualms in treading all over the little guy. She is entirely lead by her faith, enjoys nothing more than to indulge in trashy romance novels and is awed by the size of American food portions.
Inevitably, but with no ounce of saccharine and only a mere smattering of cliché, Sixsmith realises that there is more to life than his career and profile. He establishes himself as Philomena’s champion, finding it impossible but to become embroiled in her sorrow.
As do we, for a tag-team of reasons. The first is Dame Judi. The very essence of charm, humility wit, and helplessness, it is an astonishing turn that the Academy will find difficult to ignore. Although Cate Blanchett’s Blanche DuBois-esque soak in Blue Jasmine is hot favourite, only a Godless bastard would begrudge Dench to beat Cate to Oscar number two.
The second is the razor-sharp script from Coogan and appropriately named co-writer Jeff Pope – winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival. Its power is derived from the jarring contrasts between devilishly funny and demoniacally tragic. The laugh out loud lines are invariably succeeded by an incident of crushing sadness. The effect is genuinely flooring.
Unfortunately – and as a lover of all things Partridge I say this with a heavy heart – the film’s one real misstep is Coogan’s casting. There is nothing actively wrong with his performance. But the haughty, self-interested Coogan that we have previously been proffered in the likes of The Trip and, you know, The News, is so close to Sixsmith that it is difficult to get lost in the character. This is only exacerbated by the utter quality of his opposite number; imagine having to compete with Dench. In The Trip ‘Coogan’ claims that he has lost out on many roles to Michael Sheen and, reluctant as he is to do so, he will perhaps only be successful on the big screen by taking on more diverse and caricatured personalities.
But Philomena is a human interest story of the highest order and if, as Sixsmith grouchily asserts at the head of the tale, such stories are for weak-minded, ignorant people then my old boss is completely correct – I’m about as weak-minded and ignorant as they come.
Q. What’s the difference between The United States of America and a gang of Somali pirates?
A. One is a thieving parasite on the world; breaking international laws; breaching universal morals; callously and violently stealing things that don’t belong to it; generally reviled by every nation on earth and, what’s more, it doesn’t even seem to give a damn or consider for one moment that what it is doing is wrong.
And the other is a gang of Somali pirates.
Good one, eh?
And so goes Paul Greengrass’s exceptional action thriller. In adapting the true story of the eponymous Ricky P (SPIOLERZ!!!!!!1111) – who fought to defy the odds and ambushers after the merchant container ship under his charge was captured by Somali bandits – Greengrass highlights the parallels and, indeed similarities, between the protagonists and antagonists as a metaphor for their respective synecdochial equivalents.
The film opens by showing Phillips and his opposite number, the Somali rabble-rouser Muse (played by impressive debutant Barkhad Abdi) preparing for their fateful voyages. Throughout the piece each has ample opportunity to question and contemplate their own role and that of their superiors, while steadfastly asserting the correctitude of their mission objective. Although the resistance to vilify the Africans and aggrandise the yanks is a welcome change, this isn’t always executed subtly and occasionally the philosophical dialogue is somewhat heavy handed.
But, nobody is watching Captain Phillips for its politics and in all other departments it succeeds admirably.
It is the perfect vessel for Greengrass’s expertly honed pseudo-documentary unsteadicam style. A route well sailed in United 93 and the Bourne films that he helmed, Greengrass (together with his tried and tested collaborating cinematographer Barry Ackroyd) puts us up close and terrifyingly personal with the encounter. The result is a relentlessly absorbing action flick that accelerates pulses to the speed of the Bluebird.
The sense of jeopardy is exacerbated by the fact that the titular skipper is: a) a well drawn and rounded human man. Less Casey Ryback and more Captain Haddock, Phillips is tubby, anxious and has a tendency to rub his staff up the wrong way. In spite of the globalised narrative, the film is an intensely personal story and when he ingeniously uses the resources around him and eventually selflessly puts the safety of his crew before his own, the viewer is compelled to will Phillips to safety; and b) it’s Tom flipping Hanks.
What a joy to see Hanks back in a truly great role, arguably his first (animations excepted) since 2002’s Catch Me If You Can. A physically grueling performance, look up the expression “being put through the ringer” in the dictionary and the ravaged, battered image of Hanks in the picture’s last scene is bound to appear. As the final act threatens to divert away from Phillips’s personal story – it verges on a combination of two of last year’s nominees Zero Dark Thirty and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Navy Seals! – thanks to remarkable acting from Hanks, the ultimate shot elevates the film to ‘must-watch’ acclaim.
It would be an injustice if Hanks doesn’t pick up his sixth Oscar nomination and floating the notion of matching Daniel Day-Lewis’s hat-trick of wins is legitimately not beyond the ocean of possibility. He’ll be joined by Greengrass, who is likely to be among the five nominated directors and, if not, can console himself with a nailed-on Best Picture nod. Technical noms for sound, editing and cinematography are also probabilities, but in a strong year for supporting actors, I would not back Barkhad Abdi to mirror Haing S. Ngor’s win, or even nomination, for The Killing Fields.
I’ll soothe his woes by ending, as I started, with pirate-based ‘humour’…
Q. Why are pirates called pirates?
A. They just arrrrrgh!
Now make a film of that, Greengrass.
Captain Phillips; 2013; Dir: Paul Greengrass; Stars: Tom Hanks; Barkhad Abdi; Barkhad Abdirahman; 134 mins; 8/10; Probable nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Tom Hanks), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing; Possible nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Barkhad Abdi), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score
His name's Adam Marshall and he LOVES talking about himself in the third person. He thinks he's an expert but the truth is that he probably just likes talking about the films and the Oscars and the such.
I hope...that is to say, he hopes...that you like the words that are written down.
David O. Russell’s American Hustle (MAN, that’s satisfying to say) is a film utterly clad in veneer. It’s very much a haircuts, nail varnish, dodgy accents, more hair, heaving cleavage, aviators, even more hair kind of a movie.
Bloscars 