Archive 5, Vol.11

Featured

Posted on May 16, 2024 by badblokebob

I have a backlog of 515 unreviewed feature films from my 2018 to 2023 viewing. This is where I give those films their day, five at a time, selected by a random number generator.

Today, the main emergent theme is “films that weren’t so great” — although there are a couple of bright spots to be found, still.

This week’s Archive 5 are…

Dumb and Dumber (1994)

Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)

Mangrove (2020)

Out of Africa (1985)

Rambo: Last Blood (2019)

Dumb and Dumber

(1994)

The nicest thing I can say about Dumb and Dumber is that it does at least live up to its title: it starts dumb and gets dumber.

Despite the film’s later reputation in some circles as a modern comedy… if not “classic”, then certainly “success” — enough to eventually earn it both a prequel and sequel, at any rate — I’m clearly not alone in this view: apparently the original draft of the screenplay was so poor that it gained an enduringly negative reputation among investors; to the extent that, even once it had been rewritten, it had to be pitched under a fake title in order to get people to even read it. I feel like the final result only goes some way towards fixing that, with an oddly episodic structure and some bizarrely amateurish bits of filmmaking for a studio movie (the audio quality is relatively poor; there’s too much reliance on samey master shots).

There are a few genuinely funny bits between all the gurning, guffawing, and scatology. It’s a shame they’re not in an overall-better film.

Dumb and Dumber was #119 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021. It featured on my list of The Worst Films I Saw in 2021.

Bill & Ted Face the Music

(2020)

I wasn’t that big a fan of the original Bill & Ted films, so I didn’t have high hopes for this — after all, most decades-later revival/reunion movies are primarily about trying to please existing fans, not win round new ones; and it feels like a good number of them fail even in that regard. Face the Music is definitely full of the requisite nods and references, both explicit and subtle, major and minor; but they’re all in the right spirit and it kinda works (albeit a bit scrappily at times), bound together by a deceptively simple, pervasive niceness.

Alex Winter is particularly great as Bill. Given all the stories we hear about how awesome Keanu Reeves is in real life, it’s no surprise that — despite being the much (much) bigger movie star — he’s generous enough to be a co-lead and let Winter shine. Brigette Lundy-Paine is absolutely bang on as Ted’s daughter, aping Reeves’ performance in all sorts of ways. As the younger Bill, Samara Weaving is clearly game, but doesn’t carry it quite as naturally (apparently she was cast after Reeves discovered she was the niece of Hugo Weaving, who he’d of course worked with on the Matrix trilogy, so that might explain that).

“Be excellent to each other” is a message the world needs now more than ever, and that’s as true four years on as it was back in 2020. For me, that makes this third outing Bill and Ted’s most excellent adventure.

Bill & Ted Face the Music was #136 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Mangrove

(2020)

aka Small Axe: Mangrove

The line between film and TV continues to blur with Mangrove: a 127-minute episode of an anthology TV series, Small Axe, conceived and directed by Oscar winner Steve McQueen, that premiered as the opening night film of the London Film Festival. It was made for television, but in form and pedigree it’s a movie. Just another example in a “does it really matter?” debate that continues to rage — and is only likely to intensify with the increasing jeopardy faced by theatrical exhibition. (I wrote this intro almost four years ago, and while theatrical is fortunately still hanging in there post-pandemic, I do think the line remains malleable.)

I only ended up watching two episodes/films from Small Axe in the end. I did intend to go back and finish them, especially as they were heaped with critical praise, but the second (Lovers Rock) bored me to tears, which didn’t help. This first was better, but still not wholly to my taste. It tells an important true story about racially-motivated miscarriages of justice, but I found it overlong and with too much speechifying dialogue. That kind of thing works better in a courtroom setting, I find, so perhaps that’s why I felt the film was at its best once it (finally) got to the courtroom. When it’s good, it really is very good.

Mangrove was #246 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Out of Africa

(1985)

This is very much the kind of thing that was once considered a Great Movie, in an “Oscar winner” sense, but nowadays is sort of dated and attracts plenty of less favourable reviews. It’s long, historical, and white — not how we like our movies about Africa nowadays, for understandable reasons.

Certainly, there are inherent problems with its attitude to colonialism, but to a degree that’s tied to how much tolerance you have for “things were different in the past” as an argument for understanding. In this case, just because these white Europeans shouldn’t have taken African land and divvied it up among themselves and treated the inhabitants as little better than cattle, that doesn’t mean the individuals involved weren’t devoid of feeling or humanity. People like Karen, the film’s heroine, were trying to do what they thought was right within the limited scope of what society at the time allowed them to think. With the benefit of a more enlightened modern perspective, we can see that was still wrong and that they didn’t go far enough, but (whether you like it or not) there is an element of “things were different then”.

Morals aside, the story is a bit slow going, bordering on dull at times, but it’s mostly effective as a ‘prestige’ historical romance, which I think is what it primarily wants to be. It’s quite handsomely shot, although not as visually incredible as others make out, and John Barry’s score is nice — you can definitely hear it’s him: on several occasions it reminded me of the “love theme”-type pieces for his Bond work.

Out of Africa was #212 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Rambo: Last Blood

(2019)

Sylvester Stallone’s belated returns to the roles that made his name have worked out pretty well so far, I think, with Rocky Balboa and Rambo (i.e. Rambo 4) being among my favourites for both those franchises; not to mention Creed and its sequel. Unfortunately, here is where that streak runs out.

Running a brisk 89 minutes (in the US/Canada/UK cut — a longer version was released in other territories), the film is almost admirably to-the-point. We all know where it’s going, and more or less what plot beats it will hit along the way, so it doesn’t belabour anything, it just gets on with it. However, you eventually realise why other films ‘indulge’ in the kind of scenes this one has done away with: movies are about more than just plot, they’re about character and emotion and why things happen. Last Blood is so desperate to get to the action that it strips those things back to their bare minimum, thus undermining our investment. And then, weirdly, it hurries through the action scenes too. The climax packs in as many gruesome deaths in as short a time span as possible, meaning none but the most stomach-churning have any impact; and even those disgusting ones are mercifully fleeting. More, it feels rushed and of little consequence. Far from a grand send-off to the Rambo saga (which a slapped-on voiceover-and-montage finale attempts to evoke), it feels like a short-story interlude.

Did Rambo deserve better? Well, I wouldn’t necessarily go that far. But, on the evidence of this, it might be best if they don’t try again.

Rambo: Last Blood was #74 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Archive 5, Vol.10

Posted on March 27, 2024 by badblokebob

I have a backlog of 520 unreviewed feature films from my 2018 to 2023 viewing. This is where I give those films their day, five at a time, selected by a random number generator.

Today, we’ve got quite the variety, from Oscar nominees to straightforward action entertainment; from super-timely recent documentaries to pioneering animation from almost a century ago. But they’re all connected by… the fact I wrote some notes after I watched them. Thank goodness, otherwise reviewing some of them years later would be bloomin’ impossible. (That’s not much of a connection, I know, but it was on my mind after In the Mood for Love last time.)

This week’s Archive 5 are…

A Star Is Born (2018)

Boss Level (2021)

Coded Bias (2020)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)

A Star Is Born

(2018)

This is the fourth version of A Star is Born, for whatever reason, but I’ve not seen any of the others so I won’t be making comparisons. I’m sure the story has been modernised (the last version was made in the ’70s, with the previous two in the ’50s and ’30s) without losing its fundamental essence: successful musician (here, Bradley Cooper) uncovers a new talent (Lady Gaga) who comes to outshine him. I guess it’s a timeless tale in the age of celebrity.

Singers-turned-actors have a mixed history, though casting one in a story such as this is fitting, given how you need to believe they’re a top-drawer musical artist. Fortunately, Gaga actually can act as well as sing, so she’s an unqualified success here. The headline song, Shallow — a duet between the two leads, which attracted even more attention for how they performed it at the Oscars — is… perfectly fine. People went a little too crazy for it at the time, I feel. But it’s given weight by how well it’s used in the film, so I guess that could sway you.

Also pulling double duty (well, triple if you count the singing) is Cooper, directing for the first time. (With all the talk this past awards season about how desperate Cooper is for an Oscar, it’s easy to forget that Maestro was only his second time behind the camera.) I seem to remember there being some complaints when he wasn’t nominated for direction for this one, but I think that was a fair omission. It’s not bad, but his directorial choices are a little too wavering. Like, in the early scenes, when the camerawork is all a bit documentary-ish, is effective — it undercuts the “glamorous story”, the almost-inherent fakeness of Musical as a genre, by making it feel Real. But later he gives in to glossy stylings too often; and too many of the song performances are captured with a lazily floating camera, lacking focus or decisiveness. It’s how they often shoot musical performances on TV: just kind of nothingy, moving the camera back and forth and side to side for the sake of making it ‘dynamic’. But, when you remember this is his first film, that’s fine — there’s a lot more good than bad about his work behind the camera.

A Star Is Born was #18 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Boss Level

(2021)

For a long time, there was Groundhog Day. And then someone had the bright idea, “what if Groundhog Day but mixed with another genre?” So now we’ve had the sci-fi version (Edge of Tomorrow), and the horror version (Happy Death Day), and the YA version (The Map of Tiny Perfect Things), and the “what if there were two people” version (Palm Springs), and the TV series version (Russian Doll)… Here, we get the action movie version. And it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect and hope “Groundhog Day as an action movie” would be. That’s praise, not criticism.

Interestingly, considering the context I’ve chosen to place this in, the film itself acknowledges — you might even say relies on — the fact we’ve all seen time loop movies before. Rather than begin at the obvious beginning (i.e. the hero’s first loop), the story starts dozens of loops in, then fills in the backstory with flashbacks later on. It’s somewhere between a sensible choice (who hasn’t seen Groundhog Day?) and a bold move (what about people who haven’t seen Groundhog Day?) That said, I imagine people in the latter group can still follow it, it just might be what’s going on is mysterious for longer (most of us will instantly get “he’s in a day-long time loop”, they’ll just have to wait for that information to become clear).

In fact, it’s a pretty economical movie across the board, hitting the ground running and rarely letting up. There’s very little repetition of “the same stuff every day”, instead taking our hero off in different directions. It does lean on voiceover quite a lot to get through some of the exposition, which won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it means it can hurry through the technicalities and get to what we came for — action and gags — so I can let it slide. On the basis of the kind of entertainment it’s designed to deliver, Boss Level succeeds admirably.

Boss Level was #160 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Coded Bias

(2020)

Given the precipitous rise of AI in the past couple of years, I don’t know how relevant this documentary from 2020 still is. Back then, it was ultra-timely, but tech evolves so fast, I have to wonder if it’s already dated. Well, if you want to find out for yourself, it’s on Netflix.

Not that it’s just about AI. It touches on a lot of interesting tech-related topics, like how facial recognition struggles with non-white people, or how algorithms were increasingly being allowed to control… pretty much everything. It makes a lot of broadly scary declarations about these things, but often lacks the detail to back them up. Not that it’s necessarily wrong, but it doesn’t prove its point; doesn’t clarify what’s scary beyond the gut reaction that this all sounds scary. This is partly because there’s so much to cover — it keeps jumping around between topics in short vignettes — which at least makes clear what a big field this is. There are also signs of hope, with the film offering some solutions (primarily: regulation in law) and highlighting fantastic people (almost all women, incidentally) doing great work to combat these things.

Ultimately, the areas the film explores are interesting and it’s sometimes informative about them, but it’s also unfocused and disorganised in its structure, which is a shame.

Coded Bias was #243 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Shadow of a Doubt

(1943)

I feel like Shadow of a Doubt sits in a certain tier of Hitchcock film; one where it’s not one of his very best known (Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, etc), but regarded well enough that it definitely has its fans, for some of whom it probably is Hitchcock’s best film. Hitch himself repeatedly said it was his favourite of his own work, chiefly because he enjoyed how it brought menace into the surface-level perfection of small-town America. One critic has even described it as Hitchcock’s “first indisputable masterpiece”, which I would certainly dispute considering its predated by the likes of The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, and Rebecca. Well, taste is relative.

Personally, while Shadow of a Doubt definitely has a neat premise and strong moments, overall I felt it lacked any of the truly exceptional elements that mark out Hitch’s real classics. Sure, if most other filmmakers had made it, it’d probably be one of their best; but you’re competing with an incredibly strong body of work if you’re a Hitchcock film and, for me, this one is definitely second-tier. Of course, as I just intimated, being a second-tier Hitchcock film is still some achievement. It’s a shame the relative hype for this one is leading me to focus on the negative. Heck, maybe I’ll like it even more when I rewatch it someday. Until then, I feel it missed the mark of my expectations in places. I even thought it was the kind of movie someone could remake and possibly get something really great out of. (Blasphemy!)

Shadow of a Doubt was #90 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023. It was viewed as part of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” 2023.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed

(1926)

aka Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed

The earliest (surviving) animated feature film is an ‘Arabian Nights’ fairytale about… well, the short version is in the title.

But story schmory, because the real star here is the medium itself: Lotte Reiniger’s animation. There are so many wonderful little bits of work, it’s impossible to list. Consistent throughout, it’s remarkable how much character and personality Reiniger manages to convey through her ‘simple’ cutout silhouette puppets. Then there’s little naturalistic details, like boats bobbing on the water. Some of it even feels surprisingly modern. Not massively so, perhaps, but it doesn’t have that staid, stilted formality you might expect from a hundred-year-old rendition of a fairytale. And that’s not to mention the homosexual subplot. Plus, there’s so much more to the style than just silhouettes on plain backgrounds. There are shades and effects, to add depth or style: the wavy lines of a river; a mountain range fading into the distance; and subtler and clever things, too. It’s a visual feast.

The restoration could be better, mind. There are a lot of dirt and scratches, which I can live with (there are so many of these, it would have to be manually patched up frame by frame, which would cost a fortune), but more egregious are stability and alignment issues. For example, during one scene, the top part of the next frame keeps appearing at the bottom. Surely that could’ve been fixed?

Better is the soundtrack. The BFI Blu-ray offers a choice: the original 1926 score by Wolfgang Zeller (recorded in 1999) or an English narration (with effects), based on Reiniger’s own translation of her German text (recorded in 2013). Having watched the film with both, I’d say the narration adds nothing of value to the experience, especially as it sounds like narration from a preschool storybook. Just stick to the original music.

But however you watch it, minor technical issues can’t distract from the artistry on display. This is truly the work of a master of her craft. Magnificent.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed was #35 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

2022 | Weeks 16–17

Posted on June 16, 2022 by badblokebob

Ooh, it was gonna be a classy one this week, with two recent Oscar winners — of Best Picture and Best Animated Feature, no less — and a highly-acclaimed Kurosawa classic — the 12th greatest film ever made, according to Letterboxd users. But then two of those reviews got so long I thought they better belonged in their own posts, and so we’re just left with two very different coming-of-age movies…

CODA (2021)

Cruella (2021)

CODA

(2021)

When CODA became the Best Picture victor at this year’s Oscars, it wasn’t exactly unforeseen, but it certainly wasn’t what anyone had expected early on in the awards race. Indeed, the very reason it had became some people’s prediction hinged on the way the Best Picture votes are counted: a preferential ballot, which means that having a lot of second- and third-place votes is arguably even more important than first-place ones. The idea behind the system is to create a consensus around the winner, rather than the award going to the film with the largest minority of voters backing it. Certainly, pretty much everyone can agree that CODA is a nice film — but probably too “nice” to have won Best Picture, unfortunately.

It’s not the kind of movie many will come away from feeling wowed. It’s a solid drama about a teenager coping with fairly typical teenage stuff, with the added twist that the rest of her family are deaf but she isn’t. Chalk up a mark in the ‘positives’ column for representation, then, in this case of the deaf community. It’s not one token character, either, but several major characters, who the film treats as real human beings who happen to be deaf, rather than as The Deaf Character. One reason it succeeds at this is because they’re not all perfect people just because they have a disability. Another is that the film doesn’t pretend their deafness isn’t a barrier — there are multiple obstacles it creates when engaging with the rest of their community. But CODA is a nice movie, remember, so everything turns out alright in the end; and it does so with enough effectively-managed (some might say “manipulated”) emotion that you may find yourself with a tear in your eye; or perhaps even bawling with tears flowing down your cheeks, depending on your susceptibility to such things.

So, the best film of 2021? Almost certainly not. The one everyone is likely to agree they all liked? Most probably.

Cruella

(2021)

Disney’s wave of live-action remakes seem to fall into one of two camps: straightforward remakes of the original Animated Classics, sometimes to the level of feeling like shot-for-shot do-overs; or extensions and reimaginings that seek to fill in around the edges of the original work. Perhaps because they already did a live-action version of 101 Dalmatians back in 1996, Cruella takes the latter approach. It’s a prequel, naturally, showing how an ordinary(-ish) little girl grows up to be a wanton dog murderer.

Except (non-specific pseudo-spoilers incoming!) not really, because the film ends in such a way it’s very hard to imagine this Cruella becoming the deranged villain of the original text. Indeed, I’ve seen some commenters refer to this as a reboot rather than a true prequel, which seems like a fair enough angle. I mean, this is a Cruella de Vil who has a dog for a best mate. Even with the “dalmatians killed my mother” backstory (which I think the film knows is a gag. Considering that such a plot point came up as a joke on social media as soon as the project was announced, you’d hope the filmmakers were aware how daft the audience would find it), it’s hard to imagine how this version of the character could go from how we see her here to being prepared to roundup and kill hundreds of animals.

Setting aside the need for connectivity and looking to the film in its own right, I would describe it as delightfully stylised. It’s got a particular tone and style that will turn off some viewers (and, certainly, some critics), but — even if you don’t personally enjoy it — I think it’s something we should celebrate. We sometimes talk about big-budget movies being homogenised; focus-grouped to the point of blandness and similarity. Cruella isn’t that, instead hitting notes that are suitably camp and gloriously unhinged. It certainly isn’t the most radical variation in tone ever — it merits comparison with early Tim Burton, without ever being as genuinely out-there as his best work — but it’s more so than the average. It’s so much madder than it needed to be, and that’s why it’s fun and not the usual Disney live-action cookie-cutter money-spinner.

To my mind, its only sins are an over-reliance on obvious needle drops and cheap green screen. The latter has been brought up online as a damning example of how poorly crafted big-budget movies are these days. They’re not wrong about the examples used: two key scenes that take place at a cliffside have clearly been shot day-for-night in a studio and lit very flatly. The nighttime (i.e. ultra-dark) colour grade helps to hide some of the sin by covering it in darkness, but whack up the brightness and it’s all too apparent how awful it looks. But I would counter that these are fairly isolated examples. Cruella is hardly a go-to example of the wonders of cinematography (and there are other weak shots, too), but most of the film looks pretty good.

2022 | Weeks 14–15

Posted on May 26, 2022 by badblokebob

Only four reviews this time, taking us up to April 17th. It was going to be five, but then Spider-Man got far too long. So, we’re left with…

Withnail & I (1987)

Munich: The Edge of War (2021)

tick, tick… BOOM! (2021)

Move Over, Darling (1963)

Withnail & I

(1987)

This may be a beloved cult comedy in its own right, but I can’t help but make comparison to a certain other British cult property. You see, each of the three primary cast members — Richard E. Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann (‘I’), and Richard Griffiths (Uncle Monty) have an atypical relationship to the lead role in Doctor Who. That has no bearing on the film itself, not least because their involvement (or non-involvement, in one case) took place years later, but it’s a correlation I can’t shake. I mean, what other work can claim to star the man who was simultaneously the shortest and longest serving Doctor; the man who was definitely, officially the new canonical Doctor, until he wasn’t; and a man who might well have been the Doctor if things had gone to plan? Nothing else that I can think of, that’s for sure.

Setting all that aside, everything about Withnail & I screams “cult favourite”, and I guess that’s what it is — not a film that started out with a dedicated fanbase before being subsumed into the mainstream, but one that remains beloved of a relatively few devotees. Perhaps that explains why it’s one of those films I thought would’ve wound up on my Blindspot list by now, but never has: because it lacks that crossover appeal. (Maybe I need to factor in some lists of cult and/or British movies when compiling my Blindspot choices.) Coming to it afresh in 2022, aware of that rep it’s built up over the last 35 years, does it no favours. The characters aren’t likeable or interesting enough to truly enjoy hanging out with (even as they’re convincingly brought to life by the talented cast); the “gay panic” stuff that drives several sequences lands differently now than I suspect it did in 1987; and the supposedly never-ending quotable lines didn’t materialise (there are a small handful of memorable ones, at least). That said, there are quite a few lines that would be fun for a game of “did Paul McGann say this in Withnail or in Doctor Who?” (Oops, sorry to bring that up again.)

The best bits of Withnail have been dulled by repetition out of context (variations on “we’ve gone on holiday by mistake” are a certifiable meme at this point), and I suspect I personally left it too long to see it, allowing it to build up too much of a reputation. I didn’t dislike it, I just wasn’t won over.

Munich: The Edge of War

(2021)

Robert Harris has been a best-selling author for decades, but his works have had a rockier reception on the screen; perhaps not helped by the fact a couple have been helmed by director non grata Roman Polanski. Harris’s stock in trade is fictionalised tellings of historical events — the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii; the politics behind the invasion of Iraq in The Ghost; and so on. His 2017 novel Munich is set around war-avoiding negotiations between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain that took place in the titular city in 1938. This film adaptation gains a subtitle, presumably to differentiate it from Steven Spielberg’s Best Picture nominee, which retold entirely different historical events.

The big names aren’t the main characters, however. Those would be a pair of low-ranking civil servants from the opposing sides: Brit Hugh Legat (1917‘s George MacKay) and German Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner), former university chums who fell out when Hitler came to power. Now, von Hartmann is disillusioned with the Nazi regime and wishes to pass information to the British, but will only make contact with Legat, thus roping the inexperienced diplomat into the world of espionage, untrained. If the storyline is ringing bells, perhaps you too recently watched The Courier with Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s not an identical narrative — I’m not accusing anyone of plagiarism here — but there are definite parallels. Legat even has a strained relationship with his wife, who he has to leave at home and not tell the truth.

But where the story in The Courier was true, and thus lent an inherent fascination, the story of Legat and von Hartmann is fictionalised. That’s not necessarily a problem — most thrillers are entirely made-up, of course — but Munich is hampered by feeling kind of muddy. It’s not so bad as to be described as muddled, but does seem like it’s perhaps the victim of being badly truncated from the book, or possibly just in its own edit. It’s not always clear what the point is of what we’re watching, or where certain characters have disappeared off to. That makes the overall experience longer and, occasionally, more plodding than it needs to be.

That said, though it takes time, it does eventually develop the tension it needs; and it has definite merit for depicting a bit of history that’s normally relegated to footnote status. Indeed, it makes an interesting argument for “what Chamberlain did was good, actually”, which is not the normal point of view on politicians’ pre-WW2 actions.

Munich: The Edge of War is the 27th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

tick, tick… BOOM!

(2021)

Rent was one of the definitive Broadway musicals of the ’90s, but its creator didn’t live to see its success: composer, lyricist, and author Jonathan Larson died, with poetic timing, the night before the show’s premiere. It came after years of Larson struggling trying to break into the industry, much of which was documented in his semi-autobiographical (almost-)one-man show, Tick, Tick… Boom! This film adaptation broadens out and adds additional detail to become a more direct biopic of Larson, albeit one with musical numbers.

Struggling musical theatre people in Manhattan… Yes, some people are going to find this insufferable. Others will look upon it as a dream life, especially as any actual hardship (Larson’s apartment didn’t have heating, for example) is played down or romanticised. Even setting that side, it remains the kind of movie that will speak to anyone who’s dreamt of making art (especially if that art is musical theatre), but might leave others (primarily those without such ambitions) identifying more closely with some of Jonathan’s friends — “there are bigger things to worry about,” they say.

In the centre of it all is a pitch perfect performance from Andrew Garfield. He throws himself into the role, transformatively so: his Larson seems to be powered by a restless enthusiasm that I don’t think I’ve seen the actor portray in anything else. In the musical numbers, he holds his own against much more experienced singers (Garfield couldn’t even sing before production began — he spent a year learning and practicing).

This is more than just a ‘one good performance’ film, though. Although based on a stage show, the screen version certainly doesn’t feel stage-bound, coming to cinematic life through Alice Brooks’s photography and Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum’s editing as if it had always been meant for the screen. However, many people have been critical of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s direction. While I wouldn’t shout it out as anything amazingly special, I also don’t think it’s bad. You routinely see lesser work in Marvel movies, for example.

Move Over, Darling

(1963)

Doris Day and James Garner star in this remake of My Favourite Wife, one of the trio of screwball comedies Irene Dunne and Cary Grant made together, and which I watched back in May 2020. Two years ago?! Time flies. Despite which, I’ve not reviewed it yet.

Well, Move Over, Darling is an incredibly close re-envisioning. If someone authoritative told me it used the same screenplay with only minor tweaks, I’d believe them. I’m sure it’s not that close, in actual fact, but it’s darn near it. Certainly, one bit is definitely new: a fun sequence that sees Day recount the plot of the earlier film. Very meta. Alongside the screenplay, the remake also carries the original’s primary flaw, which is that they both lack the pace and snap of the very best screwball comedies. Day does her best to enliven the material, being a consistent source of fun and clearly game for a laugh — a sequence where she goes through a car wash in a convertible is a highlight. Garner can’t manage to equal Cary Grant, but who can?

Nonetheless, on balance, I slightly preferred this version. That might just be due to my lowered expectations — knowing it had the double drawback of being (1) a remake, and (2) of a film I hadn’t particularly loved the first time, it was able to overcome that by simply being not too bad.

Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise (2007)

Posted on February 5, 2022 by badblokebob

Bruce David Klein | 88 mins | DVD | 16:9 | USA / English

The singer Meat Loaf was very protective of his creative process, and apparently this documentary was the first time he’d allowed cameras behind the scenes to document it. Certainly, he’s frequently uncomfortable with or begrudging of their presence, although he seems to get used to them over time, allowing us some rare insights.

The film follows Meat and his band as they prepare for and commence a mammoth 18-month world tour following the release of Bat Out of Hell III. Despite the lengthy schedule, a DVD recording of the concert is scheduled for just a few gigs in. It’s never mentioned who was responsible for booking that, but it clearly causes added stress for everyone: rather than allowing the show to become refined and polished over a long series of gigs, it’s got to be good enough to be documented almost as soon as it starts. No one here is ever pretentious enough to refer to the recording as an “historical record”, but that’s what it will be. This is the first tour in which Meat will perform songs from the entire Bat Out of Hell trilogy, and the gig that’s recorded for DVD is the one that will endure as the record of this tour. It’s got to be right.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the fact that Meat Loaf is never satisfied. At one point, Meat’s mate Dennis Quaid is in town and pops by to watch that evening’s gig. Afterwards, he describes it as “an incredible show”. “It wasn’t one of my favourites, but thank you,” replies Meat. So Dennis asks, “how many times are they your favourite?” “Never,” Meat answers, “I hate ’em all… I’m waiting for the perfect show.” Of course, the perfect show never comes, and so Meat never feels it’s gone as well as it could have; he’s always apologising to fans that it won’t live up to expectations. But it’s not that the tour is genuinely coming up short — the band are happy; the crowds are certainly entertained — it’s just something in Meat Loaf’s character. He pushes himself so hard — too hard, given how exhausted it makes him, to the point he physically collapses after most shows. Whether you like his music or not, this film leaves you in no doubt about his dedication to his craft; to trying to give his fans exactly what they want.

That desire comes to a particular head in one of the film’s major subplots: the show is generally well reviewed in the press, but every critic takes issue with the staging of Paradise by the Dashboard Light, a number about teenage sex in which 59-year-old Meat duets with 28-year-old Aspen Miller — who looks a lot younger, especially in her skimpy cheerleader outfit. Frankly, I reckon the critics were at least partly jealous that Aspen Miller wasn’t writhing all over them, but maybe that’s just giving away something about me… Anyway, the number should be one of the highlights (as guitarist Kasim Sulton says, he’s been touring with Meat for decades and they’ve never done a show without it), but the criticisms are a cause of irritation backstage. Importantly, Miller doesn’t share the critics’ concerns; indeed, she seems to find it frustrating that they’re dismissive of her part in the performance, writing her off as a victim of it, when she’s an adult involved in the planning of what is a fully-choreographed routine. But the criticisms get to Meat even more — it’s not meant to be a song about a handsy old man attempting to assault a young girl, after all — and so various fixes are attempted to improve the song’s reception. It’s like a case study in revising a work while it’s already in performance, and shows that these tours don’t go out on the road locked and unchangeable — or, at least, they don’t when Meat Loaf is involved.

The film’s final line is given to Meat Loaf himself. As he walks away after that all-important gig filmed for the DVD, he repeats several times: “I tried.” That’s his attitude in summation: he never thought it was good enough, but he always gave it his all.

Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise is the 10th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Muse: Simulation Theory (2020)

Posted on February 20, 2021 by badblokebob

Often cited as one of the best live acts around, for their latest concert movie British rock band Muse have attempted something a bit different: rather than just footage of them performing songs in front of a massive audience, Simulation Theory attempts to tell a sci-fi narrative… driven by and/or interspersed with the band performing songs in front of a massive audience, natch.

It begins with a slow track into a television set playing a news station where the presenter is talking about some kind of global events that have been traced back to the O2 Arena in London. Cut to a team of hazmat-suited scientists entering said arena, which they find deserted. Then, an arcade machine rises from the stage. One of the scientists approaches it, tries to play it, and is transported to another time/place/something, where the arena is full of screaming fans and a certain band begin their show. From there, the film cuts back and forth between Muse performances and a storyline about alternate simulated worlds, a highly infectious disease, and a few other bits and bobs. Frankly, it’s not the most coherent tale ever told.

Combining a concert film with a sci-fi narrative is the kind of concept that immediately piques my interest, but I’m not sure how well Simulation Theory really pulls it off. Ultimately, it’s kind of just a few scenes sprinkled between the songs. Occasionally there’s a link between the music and the story, but not as often or as clearly as one might expect. This isn’t akin to, say, Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, where the music is like a soundtrack just waiting for its visual accompaniment. Indeed, despite the title and ’80s-style retro theming being taken from Muse’s 2018 album, fewer than half the songs performed come from that EP. That’s not a criticism, just an observation that the album wasn’t exactly waiting for the movie treatment. If that’s what they wanted to do, previous albums — like 2009’s The Resistance or 2015’s Drones — are concept albums more ready to be converted into a narrative.

Setting aside the narrative aspirations, judged as ‘just’ a concert film, Simulation Theory is still only a mixed success. Perhaps because of the desire to connect it up with that cinematic storyline, the actual concert footage, editing, and sound mix are all a little too slick, feeling more like a big music video than a replication of the “in the room” experience. In fairness, that doesn’t seem to be the goal at all, with the film mixing up the order of the set list and even ditching half-a-dozen songs (more on that later). Eventually, it can no longer half-ignore the crowd. That doesn’t come until the ninth track played, Uprising, but suddenly you can really feel that Matt Bellamy has a connection with the audience, which then resurfaces in later songs (not least Mercy, aided by Bellamy going for a little off-stage walkabout).

For me, Muse were at their creative peak back in the ’00s, so it was often when those songs emerged that I felt their performance was at its most enjoyable, with the likes of Supermassive Black Hole, Starlight, and the aforementioned Uprising. That said, the film gave me a new appreciation for some of their more recent songs, like Mercy, Algorithm, Dig Down, and Madness (I say “recent” — Madness is from 2012), although others primarily work thanks to the theatrical staging — Propaganda, for example, looks impressive on stage, but I still think it’s an odd track.

As noted, the film has dropped several tracks from the live show, meaning we miss out on some of their very best material, like Plug In Baby, Hysteria, Time is Running Out, and Knights of Cydonia (actually the closing number in real life). That’s a shame — I’d rather the film had given us the full track list than spent time on the interstitial narrative. But why not both? Surely there wasn’t a restriction on the film’s running time? (And if there was, why?)

Despite all these nits I’ve picked, overall I enjoyed Simulation Theory. It’s not wholly a success as a narrative, and, in my estimation, it’s a long way from being any kind of “greatest hits” gig for Muse; but the ambition is admirable, and most of the music plays well in situ. Plus, the finale involves a giant evil puppet hovering over the stage, so that’s got to be worth some bonus points.

Muse: Simulation Theory is available on BBC iPlayer for the next 11 months.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)

Posted on June 26, 2020 by badblokebob

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

The Eurovision Song Contest: if you’re from Europe or Australia, or one of the other countries that competes but isn’t really in Europe, it needs no introduction. If you’re from somewhere that hasn’t been enjoying/subjected to it every year for the past seven decades… well, it’s hard to explain. Actually, the basics are easy: it’s a continent-wide song competition, where each participating country submits one artist performing one song, and everyone votes for the winner. But, oh, the cultural connotations and ramifications are so, so much more! For some countries, it’s deadly serious — it’s a way to get noticed on the world stage; it may even make the artist famous. For others, like us Brits, it’s a big campy silly joke… except we’re also rather fond of it (some of us), and we’re terribly annoyed that we don’t win it every year (or at least on a regular basis. Like, once a decade or so would probably keep us happy). And that’s just scratching the surface — it would probably take a book (or, at least, a reasonably long article) to fully explain every nuance.

Will Ferrell’s latest comedy attempts to distill all that history into a globally-friendly movie-length spoof. It’s a big ask, not just because there’s so much background information to assimilate, but because us Brits have been ripping the piss out of Eurovision for decades. And not just sometimes, but constantly: each country provides a local commentary over the live broadcast, and each year ours is basically a roast. (Notoriously so: some countries are not impressed by the sarcastic, piss-taking attitude being our ‘official’ stance on the contest.) We’re not alone, either: a few years ago when Sweden hosted the contest, they did a pitch-perfect sketch about creating the perfect Eurovision song. If you want to get a feel for the entire Eurovision experience in just six minutes, watch Love Love Peace Peace.

And so with all that in mind, Ferrell and co are on a hiding to nothing; especially as the film has been made with the cooperation and endorsement of Eurovision’s producer, the EBU (they even get a credit right up front), so it was never going to be able to truly get stuck in for fear of offending its subject. So I guess that’s why they barely even bothered. Oh, there are certainly references to and riffs on Eurovision-y things, so viewers in the know can pick up on them and not feel like it’s about Generic Foreign Singing Contest; but this isn’t really a comedy about Eurovision, it’s about a small-town music duo wanting to make it big. Their chosen method is Eurovision, but it could just as well be The X Factor or The Voice or, well, anything, and it wouldn’t change the core narrative.

Said narrative goes through all the motions you’d expect. About the only thing that could be described as a twist is that the smarmy “bad buy” isn’t actually up to anything evil after all, he’s genuinely quite nice. As he’s another contestant, you do wonder if that was an EBU stipulation… The man in question is the Russian entry, Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens, who’s excellent as usual), renowned as a “sex player” and the subject of an overlong bit about how he probably has a massive penis. “Overlong” is the watchword for most of the comedic routines in the movie. It’s a form of self indulgence that plagues many a comedy nowadays, and here it helps contribute to a running time that’s simply too long. I always feel like the best comedies are within sight of 90 minutes, but this runs a full two hours. Of course, a comedy made for a famously hands-off studio like Netflix is hardly likely to be exempt from indulgence. Maybe a more interfering one would’ve questioned the wisdom of letting Ferrell include a bit where his character criticises American tourists for coming to Europe and ruining it. Um… It could work in a meta way, but it feels like it’s lacking any kind of knowing wink, beyond it’s very existence.

One thing that does often work are the songs. You may well have heard Volcano Man when Netflix released it as the first promo for the film, but Fire Saga themselves get two or three more numbers, all of which are varying degrees of “surprisingly catchy”. The one they sing as the climax even made me feel a little emotional. I expect it’s the manipulation of the key changes or whatever (I’m no musician), because I didn’t really feel invested in the characters’ relationship before that point, but hey, if it works it works. Then there are the other contestants… where, unfortunately, the film drops the ball again. Lemtov’s number, Lion of Love, clearly had the most effort put into it — it’s quite fun and very Eurovisiony. But a montage of other acts is weird because it feels like it’s been edited to emphasise the jokes, only there aren’t any. I’m not even being clever, saying “there aren’t any” because I didn’t find them funny — the lyrics aren’t humorous, the staging isn’t particularly laughable… they’re just mediocre songs. It’s a wasted opportunity to provide some quick-fire riffs on Eurovision staples. The best it can do is the first of the montage, a rock song by guys in monster costumes — a reference to Lordi, who won in 2006. As far as I remember, no one has tried the same trick in the intervening 14 years.

The weirdest musical number comes halfway through: at a party Lemtov is hosting for all the contestants, a “song-along” breaks out. Not a singalong, a “song-along”. Suddenly, a bunch of previous real Eurovision contestants show up (much to the bafflement of viewers who’ve never seen the real thing, I suspect) to sing a medley of… songs. Not Eurovision songs, just… songs. Well, Waterloo is in there, but I think that was the only one. It sort of almost works as a kind of mid-film celebration of the real Eurovision, but it’s all so random. Why isn’t it a medley of previous Eurovision tracks? Who even are some of the singers? (I recognised most but not all.) Do people who aren’t fans even get what’s going on during that sequence? It’s a cheesy but potentially fun idea, which I’d embrace wholeheartedly if I felt they’d nailed it. Or even if they’d just had them all cover Love Love Peace Peace.

Yet for all the film’s faults, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. By sticking to tried and tested plot beats and gags, it has an unchallenging comfortableness. There are laughs along the way — some are just echoes of better versions, yeah (most notably, a bit that’s almost jumping through hoops to avoid Rachel McAdams repeating her iconic line from Game Night. It would’ve been better if they’d just leaned into it and let it be a meta-gag), but there were a couple that caught me with a genuine chuckle.

Sporadically funny; often dated; with tired and rehashed routines; longer than Alexander Lemtov’s penis; and surprisingly emotional at the end… Actually, maybe The Story of Fire Saga is like Eurovision after all.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is available on Netflix now.

The 100-Week Roundup IV

Posted on May 28, 2020 by badblokebob

When I started my 100-Week Roundup project, I thought I’d be posting a lot of unedited notes and/or summary paragraphs skirting across multiple films (like I did in my FilmBath shorts roundup, for example). Instead, I’ve mostly still been writing full, albeit short, reviews. Well, that continues here, although these reviews often stop dead rather than being fully-formed pieces.

Today’s roundup contains the remainder of my unreviewed films from June 2018, with one exception: A Thousand and One Nights, the first film in the Animerama trilogy, which I intend to review along with its two brethren. I watched the second of those in 2019 and the third just this month, so that’ll come up in due course.

As for what’s still here, if these weren’t linked by the theme of when I watched them, maybe I’d’ve bundled them together for having the same star rating. They are…

Doubt (2008)

Gaslight (1944)

The Florida Project (2017)

Swingers (1996)

Amadeus: Director’s Cut (1984/2002)

Becoming Bond (2017)

Doubt
(2008)

It’s funny how time can change perspective. For instance: Doubt is a drama starring three widely acclaimed powerhouse actors, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams… except Adams doesn’t get above-the-title billing, which, yeah, is a bit of an inside technicality for people who are aware of these kind of things, but does remind you that this came out just a year after Enchanted helped propel her to mainstream awareness. But at least she makes the poster, unlike Viola Davis.

All four stars earnt Oscar nominations (Adams and Davis went up against each other for Supporting Actress, which was instead won by Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona), which only seems fair. The film may set itself up as a mystery (did this priest abuse a child?), but the film’s real qualities lie not in the investigation, but in the people involved — the confrontations, the act-offs, between these great players, all of whom give powerful, nuanced performances,

This is a film that leans on ambiguity in almost every regard. I mean, we know what it’s about, and yet no one ever even outright says what they suspect the priest of, they just intimate it. It’s also there in the morality, which moves in shades of grey, something such emotive subject matter could easily lose in lesser hands. Writer-director John Patrick Shanley earnt the film’s fifth and final Oscar nomination for the screenplay he wrote based on his own play (losing to the ubiquitous Slumdog Millionaire), and that also seems well deserved.

Gaslight
(1944)

2018 #134
George Cukor | 109 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG

In modern parlance, “gaslighting” is when you manipulate someone into disbelieving something they (correctly) believed was true, which has come up an awful lot in the past few years thanks to the actions of politicians in particular. It’s a bit of a random term, but that’s because it stems back to the plot of this film (and/or the 1938 play it’s adapted from, or the 1940 British film that inspired MGM to buy the remake rights to produce this version, which was originally titled The Murder in Thornton Square in the UK to avoid confusion). The connection comes because it stars Ingrid Bergman in an an Oscar-winning turn as Paula, whose new husband messes with her sanity to cover up his criminal activities.

Leaving aside its cultural importance, as a tale in its own right this version of Gaslight is well performed and directed, but Evil Husband’s scheming is so damned obvious from very early on (at least to modern eyes_ that it becomes a bit of a finger-tapping exercise in waiting for someone, anyone, to do anything about it. I guess part of the point is that it’s a long, slow game of convincing her she’s mad, but it still felt like it needed to get a wriggle on to me. We know what he’s doing and how he’s doing it — how it will be undone and saved is what we’re left waiting (and waiting) for.

At least it’s worth the wait, with a helluva climactic scene where Paula turns all her husband’s lies back against him. What it lacks in suspense it makes up for with a fantastically committed performance from Bergman, which evolves gradually and believably over the course of the film, and gets some excellent showcase moments too, not least the aforementioned confrontation. As her husband, Charles Boyer makes for a suitably sneering villain — too suitable, in a way, in that it’s almost hard to believe Paula would ever fall for him.

The Florida Project
(2017)

A story of life on the poverty line in modern America, about a young single mother and her six-year-old daughter struggling to make ends meet in Kissimmee, Florida. You’d be forgiven for not having heard of the city, unless you’ve visited its neighbouring tourist magnet: Walt Disney World.

It’s a slice-of-life kind of film — relatively light on plot, more about showing the difficulties of the characters’ lives. Some viewers will (indeed, have) lose patience with it for that, and at times it does feel a little long in the tooth. It’s worth sticking with, but paring it back by 10 or even 20 minutes would help.

It’s mostly shown from the kid’s point of view, but there’s enough there that, as adults, we can see the struggles and choices the adults are dealing with. That these kids’ hand-to-mouth make-your-own-fun lives exists in the shadow of expensive, hyper-consumerised Disney World would seem like a contrivance were it not a truth, and the film acknowledges the juxtaposition (it’s hard not to — Disney is everywhere over there) without leaning into it too heavily (although the film’s title is a reference to how Disney referred to the park while it was in development).

It’s a portrait that’s sympathetic to these people and their lives. How objective is it? It doesn’t blame them for the situation, but also shows it isn’t right, especially in their (limited) interactions with the authorities — maybe if there was different, better help offered earlier, the actions they eventually have to take wouldn’t be necessary.

The film’s final sequence sits weirdly with the rest of the movie, which provokes some to write if off. The contrast is clearly a deliberate choice, but I’m not sure how I feel about it — it smacks of not knowing how to end the movie, or wanting to put a more upbeat capstone on something that’s become too depressing. It’s certainly striking, at least.

Swingers
(1996)

To be honest, this is one I watched more out of box-ticking (of Doug Liman films) and vague curiosity (it’s sometimes (though decreasingly, I feel) mentioned as a key work of ’90s indie cinema), but I wound up genuinely enjoying it. It’s not what I expected from the posters and blurb — I thought it’d be all about slick operators and The Scene, but really it’s about some jobbing twentysomething mates just living and trying to have fun during the swing revival in ’90s Hollywood. In other words, it’s a lot less obnoxious than I’d feared. In fact, it has a kind of sweet positivity. That even extends to Vince Vaughn, who’s playing kind of a dick as usual, but he’s kinda likeable anyway. That said, if you cringe and squirm at people making fools of themselves in social situations (as I do), oh boy, this film has some examples that are more uncomfortable than any horror movie.

It feels typically ’90s in so many ways, but then as it’s about the ’90s lifestyle, that’s wholly apt. One aspect of this is its cinematic literacy. For example, the characters debate whether Tarantino is copying or homaging Scorsese, and then later the film both homages (or copies) Reservoir Dogs and Goodfellas. And like Tarantino, the film came to be an influence on the ’90s itself, through catchphrases like “you’re so money” and “Vegas, baby!”, and popularising the term “wingman”. There’s probably a whole book to be written on the self-referential-ness of ’90s culture as an expression of angst at the forthcoming millennium, or something like that.

Amadeus:
Director’s Cut
(1984/2002)

The story of the one-sided rivalry between court composer Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) and wunderkind Mozart, aka Wolfgang, aka Wolfy (to his wife) — who also had the middle name Amadeus, of course, which for some reason lends itself as the title. (As per IMDb Trivia, “an important theme of movie is the change of Salieri’s belief in God. That might have been the reason for the title Amadeus, which means ‘love of God’.”)

Amadeus‘s reputation places it as a 10-out-of-10 absolute-classic kind of Great Movie, including ranking in the top 100 of IMDb’s Top 250, the top 200 of Letterboxd’s equivalent, and placing on various other lists, like the 1,000 Greatest Films. I wouldn’t go that far, personally, although I did think it was good. There are very strong performances (amusingly, Tom Hulce studied the temperamental behaviour of John McEnroe to help inform his interpretation of Mozart). There are great depictions of music and its creation. The production values are strikingly high, including sumptuous sets, locations, and costumes; nice camerawork (apparently the entire film was shot with natural light, which makes the cinematography even more impressive); and some spots of excellent editing.

The version released theatrically in 1984 was cut down to 160 minutes because, according to Forman, it was the era of MTV: a long movie about classical music was already a risk, so it was decided to limit the running time. 2 hours 40 minutes is hardly shot, though, is it? Anyway, come 2002 and the DVD release, Forman felt they may as well recreate the film as written, leading to the longer cut, which has since become the standard version (it’s even the one shown on TV, which is by no means guaranteed with director’s cuts, I find). Forman says the shorter version was created by ditching every scene not directly related to the plot, though I’m not sure how much I buy that. Having read what was added back, I’m sure an awful lot more could’ve gone without impacting the story a great deal, if that was indeed their goal. One thing the longer cut did achieve was up its US certification from a PG to an R, thanks to a brief appearance by boobies. Oh, you prudish Americans!

The film also inspired the song Rock Me Amadeus. Now that’s something I might give five stars.

Amadeus was viewed as part of What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 2018.

Becoming Bond
(2017)

A documentary about the life of George Lazenby, most famous — or, rather, only famous — for replacing Sean Connery as James Bond for the sum total of one film. The blurb tries to spin it as “a unique documentary/narrative hybrid”, but it’s just a docudrama — i.e. a documentary with some scenes dramatised by actors. In fact, it’s basically just an interview with Lazenby that’s been dressed up with reenactments.

Lazenby comes across as likeable and it’s a helluva story, and it doesn’t hurt that they’ve had a lot of tongue-in-cheek fun with how the recreations are done (swearing, sex, nudity, hanging boots off erections…) It’s mostly a “mad, true story” kinda thing, but it pulls out some surprisingly heartfelt, emotional stuff later on, including regret of opportunities missed (and not just Bond ones). The only significant downside comes from being a British viewer, because the dramatisations were all clearly shot in the US with American actors: most of the British and Australian accents are terrible; their idea of the exterior of a British pub is questionable; frankly, I’m amazed they even bothered to use right-hand drive cars (err, most of the time).

(Bit of an aside, but just think: there’s an alternate universe somewhere in which Lazenby didn’t behave like an idiot and instead starred in Diamonds Are Forever, and therefore probably carried on into Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun, and maybe The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker too… And I guess in that universe Roger Moore never played Bond (because surely they wouldn’t’ve cast him for the first time when he was over 50, would they?) Funny to think about, isn’t it?)

There’s an interview clip included where David Frost asks Lazenby if he carries on the James Bond thing in real life, and Lazenby says no, it’s just a movie, no one could carry on like that in real life — which is funny because we’ve just been hearing all about how Lazenby basically did lead Bond’s life (minus, you know, the spying and killing). Whether that’s actually a desirable way to lead an entire life… you be the judge.

Yesterday (2019)

Posted on April 12, 2020 by badblokebob

Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is an aspiring — and failing — musician. He’s unlucky in love too, although that’s also his own fault, because he’s missed the blatant fact his friend-cum-manager Ellie (Lily James) has fancied him for the past couple of decades. One day there’s a weird blackout thing across the world, and (long story short) Jack is apparently the only person who remember the Beatles exist. Shocked that the world has been deprived of this amazing, culture-defining music, Jack begins to perform and record it… with zero success. Clearly, there’s more to it than just the music and lyrics. And he’s still none the wiser to Ellie’s obvious affections. Maybe Jack is just one of life’s losers?

Ooh, that all sounds a bit depressing, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, this is a Richard Curtis movie — things pick up. Because of course someone notices the music Jack’s now playing is amazing, and of course that leads him to global success. Curtis is a massive Beatles fan — I believe that’s how the concept for the movie came about in the first place — so there’s no way he’s going to let what he believes is the wondrousness of their music go unnoticed. We know that as well, I think, so the bit where Jack still fails, despite now having good material, is a nice little plot red herring.

It’s welcome, too, because the plot doesn’t have a whole lot else surprising going for it. (Well, there’s a subplot about the song Wonderwall that is such a plot structure red herring as to seem like a plot structure mistake, but I’m not sure it counts as a surprise when it’s only likely to be noticed by film buffs who incorrectly predict where it’s going.) It’s one of those films where the one-line premise is more interesting than what the film actually does with it. “What if only one man remembered the Beatles?” sounds like a neat idea for a story, but where is there to go with it? For the sake of there being any story at all, he has to be able to perform these songs that only he can remember. Then he either has to be a success or not, as discussed. It all feels inevitable, the only real question being what’s the ‘out’ — how does this end? Well, I shan’t spoil it.

To add more bulk, there’s a romance storyline. Of course there is, it’s a Richard Curtis movie. But a romcom is hardly more original, is it? No, this is a very comfortable movie — you’re rarely going to be surprised about where it chooses to go. That said, I liked this side of the film more. In fact, I feel like the film would actually have been better without the whole Beatles thing — just a movie about a struggling wannabe musician realising he doesn’t really love music, he loves Lily James. As it is, at one point he has to choose between his lifelong dream of pop music mega-stardom or being with Lily James, and he choose the dream, which is wholly implausible because Lily James.

But for all its predictability, there are some really nice bits along the way. (Proper spoilers follow.) It turns out there are two other people who remember the Beatles, and they begin to stalk Jack as he has success… but it turns out they’re just glad this music is back in the world. Neat twist. The surprise-cameo John Lennon scene is another unexpected moment heavy with emotion. The closing montage not being to any ‘big’ Beatles song, but to Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (well, life does go on). Ed Sheeran ruining one of the greatest songs ever written. That one’s not so much nice as “funny because it’s true”, but I’ll take it. (If you thought Ed Sheeran was bad in his Game of Thrones cameo, just wait ’til you see him try to act as, er, himself. The role is very convincingly written, mind.)

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the film is that it’s not only the Beatles that have disappeared in this alternate world. Oasis have gone too, which, as Jack observes, “makes sense” — though the film doesn’t go very far in this regard. It’s based on the notion that the Beatles’ music was The Best Ever, but what has removing them from history actually changed about pop culture? As far as we can see, all it means is that Oasis don’t exist. Is that really the sum total of the Beatles’ influence? Anyway, my point was that other stuff has disappeared too, including Coca Cola, Harry Potter, Saturday Night Live (although that’s just become Thursday Night Live for some reason), and smoking. So this isn’t just “a reality without the Beatles”, it’s a subtly different world entirely. That’s an interesting creative choice. It’s basically just used as a source of humour — an easy go-to gag — but it still provokes the question: why has this random selection of things disappeared? What else has gone that Jack doesn’t notice?

Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because this is a comedy like Groundhog Day or Sliding Doors in that the sci-fi/fantasy aspect is a means to an end, not a thing to be queried in itself. But in those films the change only affected our hero: in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is the only one in the time loop; in Sliding Doors, it’s only Gwyneth Paltrow’s life that’s significantly different (and none of the characters are even aware there are two versions of events). In Yesterday, Jack isn’t the only person this happened to, which emphasises the “what happened?” question. Why did it affect most people, but not these few? Why is so much of the world the same, but random things are missing? The film doesn’t care — it’s not about that — but, with the narrative choices the storytellers have made, it invites these kinds of wonderings.

That is, unless you just switch off and let it be a pleasant bit of fluff about a guy becoming famous with borrowed music while finally realising that the girl who’s wasted her life waiting for him to realise she loves him, er, loves him (Jack doesn’t deserve Lily James). Yeah, it’s mostly predictable, but that’s part of the comfort factor. There’s some good music, some likeable performances, and a general amiability to its tone. Let it be, indeed.

Yesterday is available on Sky Cinema from today. (Maybe I should’ve reviewed it tomorrow…)

Rocketman (2019)

Posted on March 27, 2020 by badblokebob

The director and star of Eddie the Eagle reunite for another biopic of a bespectacled British icon… though I’m not sure how favourable global music megastar Elton John would consider that comparison.

Both films concern a regular lad from a working-class background who dreams of something bigger — in Eddie’s case, Olympic glory; in Elton’s, music stardom. But that’s more or less where the films diverge, because whereas Eddie’s ski jumping adventure was rendered as a family-friendly comedy, Elton’s seduction by sex and drugs and rock and roll is altogether more adult. But it’s also a world away from grim and gritty seriousness, because director Dexter Fletcher regularly injects flights of fancy and fantasy. Elton may end up in a very dark place (before inevitable salvation, natch), but it’s a helluva lot of fun getting there.

In my review of the year before’s big musical biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody — which Fletcher ended up guiding through a third of its shoot and post-production after credited helmsman Bryan Singer was fired — I wondered which director was responsible for that film’s “occasional bold directorial flourishes”. On the evidence of Rocketman, I’d guess they were Fletcher’s idea. His staging and camerawork are often highly imaginative here, really cutting loose during the musical numbers. (Fletcher’s next job is taking over the Sherlock Holmes films from Guy Ritchie, a task that certainly requires the kind of visual panache he’s demonstrated here.)

Indeed, this isn’t just “a film about music”, but a proper musical. It isn’t just a simplistic jukebox musical either, nor a standard musician biopic where the character performs some of their hits. Well, it is both of those — it’s a jukebox musical because all the songs are from Elton’s back catalogue (plus one new one so it could vie for the Oscar, of course), and the character of Elton John does perform some of his hits in recording studios and on concert stages. But it’s also more than that in the way it’s executed. Other characters break into song from time to time too, and there are clever reimaginings of several recognisable tracks. This is a restlessly imaginative movie.

Egerton is superb in the lead role, crafting Elton as a much more nuanced figure than he’s sometimes regarded; a truly rounded individual with a considered interior life. One might argue the whole drugs storyline is somewhat predictable or even rote, with some surprising mirrors of the much-criticised Bo Rhap (“surprising” because where that film was roundly criticised for its clichés this has received a much more generous critical response)… but if that’s the true story, that’s the true story, right? Egerton certainly negotiates it with believability. Much praise for the film has focused on his performance, leading to significant awards nominations (like at BAFTA) and wins (a Golden Globe), but there are several great supporting players too, not least Jamie Bell as Elton’s lifelong songwriter and true friend, Bernie Taupin.

The cumulative effect is a movie that is highly enjoyable but not without depth; that offers toe-tapping entertainment and filmmaking thrills in its musical numbers, while also digging into its subject’s troubles and their causes. Like an eagle, or a rocket, it doesn’t just fly, it soars.

Rocketman is on Sky Cinema from today. It placed 10th on my list of The Best Films I Saw in 2020.