A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Posted on December 12, 2015 by badblokebob

Yet more dystopian sci-fi! Who doesn’t love some dystopian sci-fi? Here we’re in the ’70s, though (makes a change from the ’80s), with writer-director Stanley Kubrick adapting Anthony Burgess’ novel into a film so controversially violent the director himself eventually banned it from release in the UK for decades. Almost 45 years on, it’s testament to the film’s power that it is still in parts shocking.

Set in a glum future Britain, the film follows eloquent juvenile delinquent Alex (Malcolm McDowell), whose violent acts eventually catch up with him when he’s imprisoned. Being the cocky little so-and-so that he is, he manages to get himself on a programme for rehabilitation and release… though that may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

The first half-hour or so of A Clockwork Orange is brilliant. I think there’s a reason this is the part that the majority of clips used when discussing the movie are lifted from, and it’s not just to do with spoilers: here is where the best imagery, and the most potent examinations of violence and the male group psyche, are to be found. It’s shocking and uncomfortable at times, funny and almost attractive at others (hence the perceived need for the ‘ban’), but the cumulative effect is precise and striking.

However, everything from Alex’s admission to prison onwards could do with tightening, in my view. It may be sacrilege to say this, but I think the film would benefit from having a good 15 to 20 minutes chopped out. All the prison bureaucracy stuff is funny, but is it relevant? “Relevance” isn’t the only deciding factor about what goes into a film, of course, but I feel like we’ve seen plenty of red-tape spoofing elsewhere. Maybe that’s just an unfortunate byproduct of the film’s age. Other parts just go on a bit too long for my taste — there’s barely a sequence after Alex’s arrest that I didn’t feel would benefit from getting a wriggle on. I don’t think this is me bringing a youth-of-today “everything must be fast cut” perspective to the film, I just found it needlessly languorous at times. Maybe I was missing a point.

McDowell’s performance is fantastic throughout. I’ve seen Alex referred to as a villain (not often, but by at least one person), which strikes me (and, I’m sure, many others) as remarkably reductionist and point-missing. He’s not a hero, certainly — a mistake I think some critics of the film made, in part because the use of voiceover invites us to identify with him, and I guess anyone other than the hero having a voiceover narration was fairly new 45 years ago (feel free to correct me on that point). But he’s not a villain, especially when he comes up against the terrifying forces of the establishment. McDowell’s performance, and Kubrick/Burgess’ storytelling, is thankfully more complex than that.

That continues right through to the ending, which is quite different in the novel and film — though I say this as someone who’s not read the book, so apologies if this is off base. Reportedly Burgess ends with Alex moving away from violence of his own free will, primarily because he’s grown up and grown out of it; the point basically being that all young men go through a violent phase (even if Alex’s is extreme) and then grow out of it. Kubrick ends on a much more ambiguous note… so ambiguous, I’m not really sure what it’s saying… or even what all the ambiguities actually are…

A Clockwork Orange remains a striking film, and not just because of the ultra-violence. It’s at its best early on, with the remainder not always working for me, but it’s a fascinating experience nonetheless.

A Clockwork Orange was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 2015 project, which you can read more about here.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

Blue Ruin (2013)

Posted on December 12, 2015 by badblokebob

This neo-noir revenge drama with a twist has received such acclaim from critics and bloggers alike that it’s practically set up to fail.

Its guiding principle is neat: a semi-comedic version of what would actually happen if an Ordinary Joe tried to enact violent vengeance on murderous criminals. So the action is less Taken and more that fight from Bridget Jones, but with guns and a real-world aesthetic.

Frankly, I admired rather than enjoyed it. It’s a one-hit premise that doesn’t scratch the same itch as a ‘proper’ revenge actioner, nor fulfil the more rewarding aspects of a ‘proper’ drama.

This drabble review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

Posted on December 11, 2015 by badblokebob

Shaun the Sheep started life in the 1995 Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave. Eventually granted his own TV spin-off aimed at little kids, it’s become a global hit thanks to the decision to make it a silent comedy — no need to pay for pesky dubbing into other languages, while its sheer quality (it is Aardman, after all) helps it to transcend national boundaries. This year, Shaun and friends made the leap to the big screen, in what may be the year’s best animated movie.

The film begins with Shaun and the other ovine occupants of Mossy Bottom Farm getting fed up with the daily grind of being sheep, so they concoct a plan to distract sheepdog Bitzer so they can lure the Farmer into a slumber and take over the farmhouse for a well-earned break. Naturally things go awry, and the Farmer ends up whisked off to the Big City. With no one to feed or care for them, Shaun, Bitzer, and the rest hop on a bus and set off to retrieve their friend.

Expanding a series of five-minute-ish shorts to feature length is always a risky proposal, but fortunately we’re in the more than capable hands of Aardman Animation here, and they’ve come up with a plot big enough to fill a feature running time. In a style one might describe as ‘classical’, you can break the film down into individual segments and sequences, each one a crafted vignette of silent slapstick. That doesn’t make the story episodic, but rather serves to keep the humour focused — no gags are overused or outstay their welcome. Indeed, some fly so fast that they’re literally blink-and-you’ll-miss it. I suspect this means Shaun would reward repeat viewings, particularly to spot all the little background details.

It’s also in the details that Shaun proves itself to be a true family film. Like the TV show, it’s sweetly innocent and simple enough for little’uns (that US PG is thanks to a couple of oh-so-rude fart jokes), but there’s a sophistication to the way that simplicity is handled that adults can enjoy. There are also references and in-jokes for the grown-ups; not hidden dirty jokes that’ll put you in the awkward position of having to explain to the kids why you were laughing, but neat puns (note the towns that the Big City is twinned with) and references to other films (like Taxi Driver. Yes, really.)

Naturally, technical aspects are top-notch. Aardman are the kings of claymation, consistently delivering work in which the animation is polished, clever, and surprising, but which also retains the sense that it was achieved by hand (unlike some other films — Corpse Bride, say — which are so slick you begin to wonder if they’re actually CGI). I always marvel at stop-motion anyway — the persistence to animate something a frame at a time, taking days to create one shot and months to create one scene, is a dedication and skill I can barely fathom — but Aardman’s productions routinely push beyond your expectations of the form.

Aardman’s stop-motion silent comedy will certainly lose to Inside Out across the board come awards season (apart from at the BAFTAs, perhaps), but it’s the more inventive, amusing, innovative, accomplished, and impressive achievement. Delightful.

Shaun the Sheep’s Christmas special, The Farmer’s Llamas, is on BBC One on Boxing Day at 6:10pm.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

Posted on December 11, 2015 by badblokebob

High-fantasy adventure about some elves trying to stop a crystal from destroying their planet.

It’s by Jim Henson, so there’s fantastic puppetry and strong design… but the story and the manner of its telling — the dialogue, structure, and characters — alternate between boring, annoying, and laughable. The hero is irritating, the dull villains are given too much focus, the plot borders on nonsensical, it takes forever for barely anything to happen, and the sequence where our heroes accidentally share their memories has to be the cheesiest thing since fondue.

Some people properly love this, but I thought it was just awful.

This drabble review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

The Babadook (2014)

Posted on December 10, 2015 by badblokebob

Essie Davis is best known for playing the sassy title role in popular Australian Christie-esque TV series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (for now — she’s in Game of Thrones next year), but here goes completely against type as single mother Amelia, who has to battle not only the stress of her awkward child, but also a strange storybook that may contain some kind of monster… but that would be silly… wouldn’t it?

Perhaps it’s best to not say too much about what’s going on with all that, because the film does a fantastic job blurring the lines between reality and dreams, facts and imaginings, whether it’s all happening or is all in Amelia’s head. For the majority of the film you’ll wonder: is this real? Is she being pranked? By who? A stalker? Her kid? Is she going insane and imagining it all? Sure, it’s a horror movie, so you’re thinking it’s real, but that’s what twists are for — the scares may be real, doesn’t mean the monster is.

And the scares are very real indeed. Not simplistic jump scares, but a festering tension that occasionally bursts forth in moments of specific terror. That doesn’t work for… a certain kind of viewer (to put it politely), but, for me, it makes the film far more genuinely scary, and memorably so, than being made to jump out of my seat a couple of times. Some have also criticised The Babadook for not being 100% original. Well, what is after a century of moviemaking and millennia of storytelling? What it does do is rearrange the familiar in new and terrifying ways, and tap into seams of fear that are harder to access and consequently too rarely touched by horror films. In that regard, the film it most reminded me of was The Shining — a horror film for people who think about what they’re watching, rather than just waiting for something to be thrown at the screen to make them jump. The slow burn tension will bore those content with the latter, who I suspect don’t tend to think a great deal (for one thing, they’d spot most of the jumps coming if they did).

Underpinning this is an incredible performance by Essie Davis. If this were merely a drama about a single mother coping with grief, rather than a genre movie, I’m sure she’d’ve been being rewarded all over the place. Again, I guess this turns off the ‘gorehound’ cadre of horror fans, but it’s the combined strength of the writing (by director Jennifer Kent) and Davis’ performance that mean the entire film is interpretable as a drama about grief and mental illness, rather than about an attacking monster or demonic possession or whatever else it might seem is going on (trying to avoid spoiling it again there!) For more on that, see this interpretation, for instance (bearing in mind it’s obviously spoilersome).

Although it’s Davis’ film, Noah Wiseman gives an accomplished performance as her kid. Well, maybe he’s too young to call it “accomplished”, I don’t know, but it must’ve been a difficult role to play — it calls for him to be a sweet little boy one minute, and a nightmare demon-child (in the real-world rather than horror-movie sense!) the next. He starts off immensely irritating — you can see why no one in the film likes him! — but he does grow on you. The next best performance is, of course, by their very cute little dog. (Do not watch this movie just because of the dog. Seriously.)

There is little in The Babadook that will make you jump, and even less that will make your stomach turn in disgust, but that’s absolutely fine. What it will do is chill your blood, make your hair stand on end, make you worry about every little creak or thump you hear elsewhere in the house after dark, and make you want to sleep with the lights on. Not just the bedroom lights, all the lights. Because once you’ve seen it, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

You’re Next (2011)

Posted on December 10, 2015 by badblokebob

From the makers of The Guest, a horror-thriller that’s really a dark comedy.

Murderous home invaders get a surprise when one of their targets is a secret badass. She’s cool; everyone else is thinly sketched. I’d’ve liked more character development; some viewers think it’s already too slow getting to ‘the good stuff’. That’s very violent, but imaginative and funny — the lead villain suffers an exceptionally inventive amusing demise.

You’re Next isn’t all it could be, but is pretty fun. My score errs towards generosity — those with no taste for horror, or laughs derived from murder methods, will like it less.

This drabble review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

Stranger by the Lake (2013)

Posted on December 9, 2015 by badblokebob

aka L’inconnu du lac

Iiiiiit’s the arthouse gay sex thriller!

I’m just going to mention that before it comes the elephant in the room: this movie features lots of ultra-explicit gay sex. If you catch it on TV, that stuff’s been partially removed (the BBFC may’ve passed it as an 18, but it remains illegal to show so much detail on TV, even at 1:20am when Channel 4 aired it), so even if I wanted to I won’t be discussing that aspect in detail. Still, even without the, er, money shots, the sex is more frank than you normally see. It’s also set on an all-male nudist beach, so even when they’re not at it there’s plenty of flesh to go round. If that kind of thing bothers you, this is certainly a film to steer clear of.

For the less prudish, it’s worth getting past the initial titillation, because pornography isn’t the point. Rather, it’s an intriguing dramatic thriller about what we’re prepared to accept, risk, or ignore in the name of attraction: Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) fancies Michel (Christophe Paou), then spies him murder his former lover (in an extraordinary long, unbroken take), and then enters into a relationship with him anyway. This exploration plays out through a slow-burn pace, which balances burgeoning romance with an almost casual, incidental attitude to the thriller elements. It works thanks to our investment in the characters, their relationships (both sexual and friendships), and how these feed and influence the storyline.

In this regard it has a very particular speed and style — even if there was a version without copious full-frontal male nudity and explicit sex, it still wouldn’t be for everyone. It helps to evoke both a certain time and place (lazy summer days on holiday) and a particular lifestyle (that of gay cruising — which, much to the (presumably straight) policeman’s bafflement, continues virtually unabated even after one of their number is murdered in unexplained circumstances). This is further emphasised by the gorgeous cinematography. Claire Mathon apparently shot it using only natural light, and it looks fantastic — understated (this isn’t a heavily-graded hyper-real kind of beauty), but sumptuous.

The film never leaves its lakeside beach setting. That’s interesting for several reasons. One, it might seem like a limiting move, but isn’t — the beach is where the main action occurs, so why leave? Two, the story is about that aspect of these people’s lives — so that focus probably makes the film stronger. But, three, the characters’ lives do exist outside of this place. Franck gets drinks with friends from the beach; he has dinner with new acquaintance Henri (Patrick D’Assumçao) at least once, and misses an arranged meal at least one more time; he’s even interviewed at the police station, which you’d think would be vital to the plot. But we don’t see any of that. We learn about it when it’s arranged or after it’s occurred, from conversations at the lake. It’s an interesting choice; one that creates a particular kind of focus, and some sort of unity of space and time. It would give the movie a very different feel (though no less valid) if we actually saw those other encounters on screen.

The style is supported by strong performances. I suppose some would say “brave”, by which they’d mean “they’re naked a lot and having gay sex”… so, I mean, maybe it is brave, but, still, that’d be a euphemistic description. What I mean is that they’re strong because they’re calm, understated, realistic, and believable without tipping over into amateurish. You feel Franck’s complex mix of fear and excitement, his lust overpowering common sense; there’s a certain timidity, maybe even naïvety, present in his eyes. Conversely, his lover Michel is unreadable; a closed book, where you never know what he’s thinking, feeling… plotting. Franck’s new friend Henri is similarly tricky to get an accurate handle on, but he’s the yin to Michel’s yang (or vice versa). He’s not plotting, he just is. Or maybe he was plotting all along…?

Stranger by the Lake has a lot of factors that would put various people off, but for those that aren’t bothered by a slow pace or… nope, forgotten what the other ‘problem’ was… there’s a fascinating character drama cum murder thriller to be engrossed by.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

Posted on December 9, 2015 by badblokebob

Four acquaintances partake in duplicitous relationships and candid sexual discourse in writer-director Steven Soderbergh’s debut drama.

All four actors are good, covering every base on the spectrum of sexual openness, but, at the two extremes, James Spader and Andie MacDowell are excellent. They get the wealth of the material, the latter as a repressed, neurotic housewife, the former as an oddball whose truth obsession makes him both the strangest and most idyllic character.

26 years on, our world and attitudes have changed plenty — there are now whole websites dedicated to Spader’s weird, private obsession — but this is still strikingly frank.

This drabble review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

They Live (1988)

Posted on December 8, 2015 by badblokebob

Sci-fi parable about aliens controlling us via subliminal advertising.

There’s action, including a comically lengthy fight between lead good guys Roddy Piper and Keith David, but the meat is satire. Thirty years on, it remains thematically relevant; perhaps even more so. That no one’s actively considering a remake suggests how Hollywood has lost its political teeth. I’m not saying they should remake it, just, y’know, Hollywood.

In fact, considering the apparently-victorious ending is kinda bleak if you think it through, perhaps they should make a sequel with the status quo unchanged decades later. It might be rubbish, but there’s potential.

This drabble review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

The Grandmaster (2013)

Posted on December 7, 2015 by badblokebob

aka Yi dai zong shi

As a Western viewer, if you know anything about Ip Man beyond “he’s the chap who trained Bruce Lee”, it’s probably thanks to the pair of eponymous biopics starring Donnie Yen (soon to become a trilogy). Heck, if you know that much there’s a fair chance it’s due to those films. This take on the man, directed and co-written by Wong Kar Wai and starring Tony Leung as Ip, is tonally very different.

Some of the facts remain the same, naturally: Ip is a master of Wing Chung in Foshan, China, until the Japanese occupation ruins everyone’s lives. Post-war, he moves to Hong Kong and sets up a school there. Concurrently, there’s something about being the grandmaster of martial arts in all of China, or somesuch. When the previous incumbent is murdered by his disciple, the old man’s daughter, Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), has revenge in mind.

The Grandmaster is very much more an arthouse version of the story than the Ip Mans’ accessible action-movie stylistics, with elliptical storytelling and a carefully-measured pace, even in the action sequences. I’ve seen at least one review criticise Wong for leaning too heavily into ‘genre’ pictures — I guess that critic doesn’t actually watch too many genre pictures, because a good number of genre fans criticise this for being too arty. It is more “arty” than “genre”, even given its inclusion of numerous fantastic fight scenes. The duels are stunning, though pure adrenaline-junkie viewers seem to find even those a disappointment. Well, they’re wrong.

It helps that it’s gorgeously shot. Ultra-crisp blue-black rain-soaked night time duels; rich golden hues in pre-occupation Foshan; cold bright-white snowy landscapes; a train platform fight that’s almost sepia-like. Between the photography and the ever-excellent action choreography of Yuen Woo-ping (The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Kill Bill, et al), the film is immensely satisfying on a visual level.

One factor that may — or, as we will see, may not — have an effect on how the film fares beyond the purely visual is that there are at least three different cuts: a 130-minute original cut, a 122-minute international cut, and the 108-minute version released in the US by the Weinsten Company. “Ah,” you might think, “yet another Weinstein hack job.” Well, Wong himself says otherwise:

As a filmmaker, let me say that the luxury of creating a new cut for U.S. audiences was the opportunity to reshape it into something different than what I began with — a chance one doesn’t always get as a director and an undertaking much more meaningful than simply making something shorter or longer. The original version of The Grandmaster is about 2 hours, 10 minutes. Why not 2 hours, 9 minutes or 2 hours, 11 minutes? To me, the structure of a movie is like a clock or a prized watch — it’s about precision and perfect balance.

We always knew that we wanted to have a U.S. version that was a bit tighter and that helped clarify the complex historical context of this particular era in Chinese history, focusing further on the journeys of Ip Man and Gong Er. While the previous version was more chronological, adding narration and captions to explain certain plot points gave us the freedom to bring more life to moments in the characters’ stories. I also aimed to enhance the audience’s understanding of the challenges faced between North and South, especially during the Japanese invasion.

Well, the narration and explanatory title cards are at times useful, but at others feel heavy-handed. I guess that’s the result of them being added retroactively as an explanatory device — if Wong had felt that information needed to be in the film throughout production, I’m sure it could’ve been better integrated into the storytelling.

However you look at it, the other Ip Man films are undoubtedly more palatable to a mainstream audience. Does that mean they’re worse? No. Better? Not necessarily. But I don’t think The Grandmaster is all it could’ve been. It seems to run out of story and lose its way as it gets towards the end. The focus shifts entirely to Gong Er, and it feels less clear what it’s meant to about as a whole film. It becomes a movie of great moments, and maybe even scenes, but an unsatisfying whole. But oh, the images…

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

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Category Archives: Misc. Attributes

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Blue Ruin (2013)

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

The Dark Crystal (1982)

The Babadook (2014)

You’re Next (2011)

Stranger by the Lake (2013)

sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

They Live (1988)

The Grandmaster (2013)