Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Posted on September 12, 2014 by badblokebob

Disney attempted to replicate the success of Mary Poppins with this, another musical adaptation of a fantastical British novel set in Britain with British people in it — including some kids who, based on their accents, must be from the same part of London as Dick Van Dyke’s Bert. A childhood staple for others, it somehow passed me by ’til now.

Set during World War Two, it follows a gaggle of evacuated siblings who are placed with Angela Lansbury’s white witch. Or, rather, white-witch-in-training — via a correspondence course, which has stopped just before the end. So off they pop to find the course’s director, after which hijinks ensue, culminating in a stealth invasion of Britain that can only be thwarted with magic.

Tonally, it’s every inch Mary Poppins 2, helped no doubt by having the same director, screenwriters and songwriters. There’s the bemused-but-game kids, the quirky magic-performing woman, a male adult to round out the gender-coverage; the story is a series of loosely-connected vignettes, many of them featuring songs, and one that’s mostly animated with our live-action heroes integrated; plus a climax where the good guys defeat one of the world’s great evils, with Poppins’ bankers here switched for the almost-as-bad Nazis. The magical special effects in that final sequence won an Oscar — and well deserved it was too. They look great, definitely holding up today, and it’s actually hard to be sure how they were all achieved.

As a whole, it’s good fun, though lacks the je ne sais quoi that has made Mary Poppins so beloved across the generations. Not being quite as good as one of the all-time-great children’s movies is hardly something to be sniffed at, however, rendering Bedknobs and Broomsticks a perhaps-underrated success.

Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

Posted on September 10, 2014 by badblokebob

There seems to be a certain brand of animated film that I think looks dreadful so avoid, then I hear good things about, so I try it and find that, actually, they are really good. There was How to Train Your Dragon, then Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and now — yes, you guessed it — there’s Monsters vs Aliens.

On her wedding day, Susan is struck by meteorite whose contents causes her to grow to 50 feet tall. Seized by the government and renamed Ginormica, she’s taken to a special facility that houses an array of other creatures: B.O.B., an indestructible blob; Dr. Cockroach, a part-insect mad scientist; the Missing Link, a prehistoric fish-ape hybrid; and Insectosaurus, a skyscraper-sized grub. But when evil alien Gallaxhar arrives seeking the energy that gave Ginormica her powers, it’s realised the only way to combat his giant robots is by unleashing the monsters. Yes, it’s The Avengers with ’50s B-movie monsters.

If that doesn’t sound like a fun concept, you’re probably already on a hiding to nothing. It has a love and understanding of B-movies that should keep many a genre fan happy, suggesting it was created for them almost as much as its true audience, namely the same kids as… well, every other US animation. I suppose in that regard it’s a bit like The Incredibles, still one of the best superhero movies in any form.

That’s a big comparison to make, but one I think Monsters vs Aliens can withstand more often than not. The climax is a little samey — why do all action-y kids CGI movies seem to have the same final act? — but before then it has a nice line in satirical humour, bold and broad characters, and even some quality action sequences. This is not a film where someone had an idea and coasted on it, but where they poured in a lot of love and elements you might not expect — see: satire, in an American kids’ movie! Not to mention the emotion you’ll get from a giant moth. I mean seriously…

Computer-animated kids movies are two-a-penny these days, meaning if it doesn’t have “Pixar” above its logo or a number at the end of its title, there’s a good chance it’ll be brushed off as “oh, another one”. (Of course, to get the aforementioned number on a title you need a successful unnumbered one first — like the other two films I mentioned in my introduction, for example.) There’s probably a lot of dross that’s being rightfully ignored, but some gems seem to have passed by with less fanfare than their enjoyment-value merits. Megamind is one that comes to mind; Monsters vs Aliens is another.

* Full running time is 94 minutes. A saving of 10 is what you get for watching it in a PAL version (i.e. sped-up 4%) created for broadcast TV (i.e. hardly any credits). ^

The Battle of the Somme (1916)

Posted on September 7, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #71
Producer: William F. Jury* | 74 mins | DVD | 1.33:1 | UK / silent (English)

Arguably the most famous clash of the First World War, the Battle of the Somme lasted four-and-a-half months from July to November 1916 and, with over a million men wounded or killed, is “one of the bloodiest battles in human history.” As the BBC’s History website puts it, although it was “intended to be a decisive breakthrough, the Battle of the Somme instead became a byword for futile and indiscriminate slaughter”. Not that you’d guess it from this contemporary documentary, which is essentially a propaganda piece produced by the British government.

Centred around 1st July 1916, the day of the first British assault on the German trenches, the film mostly covers the build-up and aftermath of the initial fighting — despite the title, there’s very little footage of combat. There’s probably two reasons for that: one, the footage of the battle wasn’t very good and so, infamously, was staged (aka faked) later; and two, the battle was a bloodbath, making it a somewhat inappropriate spectacle to show to the general public, especially when it was their friends and relations being slaughtered on “the worst day in the history of the British Army” (they suffered around 60,000 casualties on that first day alone). Not that we’re spared the sight of dead bodies elsewhere in the film, but the moment of death itself is another matter.

The faked footage of men going ‘over the top’ has dogged the film’s reputation to a degree. As Roger Smither, the keeper of the Imperial War Museum’s film & photograph archives, notes in the booklet accompanying their DVD release, “despite a common perception that The Battle of the Somme is ‘full of fakes’, the staged ‘over the top’ scene is in fact a significant anomaly in a film that is otherwise characterised by nothing worse in the way of fabrication than the kind of ‘photo-opportunity’ arrangement that remains a continuing part of television news and photo-journalism to this day.” It’s also one that lasts only a few minutes, if that; a tiny fraction of the entire film.

The British press certainly believed they were seeing “the real thing at last” (the Manchester Guardian), feeling it showed “war, grim, red war; the real thing” (the Daily Sketch). The British public agreed, flocking to see the movie en masse: twenty million admissions were sold in the first six weeks of release. At the time, the battle still raged (the film debuted on 10th August 1916) — as Smithers notes, “to its original audience, the film was not history but a despatch from the front”. It is such an historical document now, but at the time it wasn’t even recent-history — it was produced as newsreel, a record of current events, designed to make people at home feel connected to the everyday lives of their family, friends and countrymen serving on the frontline.

It can still serve that role today, to an extent. From much of how World War One is presented in modern fiction, documentary and education, you’d be forgiven for thinking troops were shipped directly into trenches, went over the top and died or, if one of the few lucky enough to survive, then went directly to hospital/home/back to the trench. The Battle of the Somme puts lie to that from the start: we begin with preparations for the battle, lines and lines of troops marching or standing around waiting for something to do, in normal-looking fields and towns, far removed from the cramped, muddy, horrid trenches of our imagination. Smiling faces follow the camera, running around to remain in shot, lifting tarps uninvited to helpfully show off stacks of ammunition. It’s all very jolly.

Equally striking is the scale of the operation. You know it was a monumental effort, but actually seeing so many men… You never see that scope in dramas because they don’t have the budget for all those extras, I guess, but here the crowds of soldiers just waiting around are remarkably large. And crikey, the heavy artillery! Even though you know these were real weapons, today they look more like some fantastical steampunk creation, so covered are they in rivets, and so damn huge.

Signs of disruption to the happy masses creep in, though: it’s surprising how scruffy the uniforms are — not when the soldiers are at rest, but while performing duties like reloading guns. Hats are at odd angles, some are jacketless — just a general lack of the smartness you’d expect to see in an official documentary about the military. Later, we see a gaggle of smiling and laughing faces as men attach special barbed wire cutters to the end of their rifles. Hindsight lets us know few of those men would’ve got close enough to need them.

But there’s no hindsight here; no mention of the incompetent strategy and the severe loss of life it led to. If anything, it makes even the post-battle front look not-so-bad. We see some of the wounded, but they’re either walking or seem to be enjoying a nice stretcher ride, the intertitles informing us we’re seeing “how quickly the wounded are attended to”. Even the captured enemy look just as chipper as the British soldiers escorting them. When we do see action, any British attack is successful and described with words like “glorious”, while any German counterattack is “one of five unsuccessful” ones. It’s brazenly propagandistic. Towards the end we’re shown — and I quote the intertitle accurately — “some of the booty”! (That being artillery, etc, salvaged from the captured German lines.) The closing section opens with shots of devastation wrought on the landscape by British shellfire, accompanied (in the 1916 musical medley) with triumphant music. The tone is shocking.

Speaking of the music, the Imperial War Museum DVD release offers up a choice of two scores: a newly-commissioned (in 2008) one by film composer Laura Rossi, and a recreation of the kind of music that would have accompanied the film in 1916. The film’s producer and distributor, William F. Jury, was also the editor of trade paper The Bioscope, and had columnist J Morton Hutcheson draw up a list of suitable pieces to be performed alongside screenings, which was published days before the film’s release. To quote Dr Toby Haggith (the Imperial War Museum’s film programmer), again in the DVD booklet**, “for this reason, it may be fair to describe this medley as the ‘official score’ for the film. Although cinemas were not obliged to use these recommendations, we know that it was used in at least seven of the cinemas where the Somme film was screened and there is other evidence that it was widely adopted. However, the point is not that the Morton Hutcheson medley was used on every occasion The Battle of the Somme was shown, but that it is the kind of selection that was typical for this film”.

Rossi found the “medley was much more positive and light-hearted than I imagined… I think it’s interesting to hear the medley and see how it was watched in 1916… but I think someone watching the film today would watch in a totally different way, as we can now look back in hindsight, and we have a pre-conceived idea of what the war was like”. This is partly why I chose to view the film with the 1916 soundtrack: to get an idea for how the film was originally perceived, rather than the laden retrospective view. Rossi avoided listening to other scores when composing her own, preferring to respond to just the film itself. Admirable, and probably the ‘right’ way to do it; but it also brings all that associated baggage of “this was a terrible thing”, whereas the original film, produced as propaganda-newsreel, is going for more “this is hard but honourable”. The 1916 music selection is indeed quite jovial on the whole, though marginally more somber when the occasion calls. The (very small) sampling I listened to of Rossi’s score was more ominous, rumbling, haunting and haunted — much more in tune with our modern understanding, I’m sure.

Haggith summarises many of Hutcheson’s choices as “motivated wholly by the needs of propaganda… jaunty, martial and unashamedly heroic. Given the nature of the scenes recorded and the bloody history of this phase of the battle, the selection of such upbeat music seems deeply inappropriate.” However, other selections “reflect Hutcheson’s personal response to scenes that he found distressing on a universal level, and which led him to warn musicians that ‘they must realise the seriousness and awfulness of the scenes’… These contradictions suggest that Hutcheson had difficulty selecting music for the film because he was torn by the contrasting images and messages it conveyed. In this way the medley highlights the tension at the heart of the film.” Musician Stephen Horne, who leads the 1916 medley recreation, agrees that the film is torn “between a sense of propagandist duty and a desire to honour the reality that had not evaded the camera’s gaze.” It’s true that, however positive the final movie wants to be, it can’t completely escape reality. At one point it cuts abruptly from a jauntily-scored scene of men happily receiving post to “German dead on the field of battle”. A deliberate juxtaposition of happiness with the fate that awaits them with near inevitability? Seems a bit radical for a propaganda piece…

As a whole, The Battle of the Somme offers little atmosphere or sense of narrative; just the presentation of a series of broadly-chronological tableaux that the cameramen captured. Even the intertitles only describe what exactly the following shots will be showing us, almost like an onscreen footnote or picture caption. This is formative documentary making, and that apparent simplicity only adds to its veracity: because it seems so determinedly unstaged, we believe it must be real.

But it can’t avoid drawing parallels: the film ends almost as it began, with artillery being moved up for the next assault and men marching to the front, waving merrily as they go. History repeats — probably not the lesson a propaganda film wants to impart, but one it can’t quite escape. And one that, even a hundred years later, we can’t quite learn.

This review is part of the World War One in Classic Film Blogathon, which you can read more about from hosts Silent-ology and Movies Silently.

In that spirit, you might be interested in my reviews of certified-classic Lawrence of Arabia and Stanley Kubrick’s anti-war diatribe Paths of Glory; or, for World War One in modern film, my pieces on the very good Canadian melodrama Passchendaele, and Steven Spielberg’s exceptional, epic adaptation of War Horse. Plus, if you want to really push the definition of “films about the First World War”, there’s always Sucker Punch.

* There’s no credited director. As well as producer Jury, the full credits include cameraman and editor Geoffrey H. Malins, cameraman J.B. McDowell, and editor Charles Urban. ^

** Believe it or not, I’ve avoided quoting too heavily from the Imperial War Museum’s DVD booklet in this review. It’s filled with insights, into not only the film but also its different musical scores and the in-depth restoration process, that make it an enlightening read for anyone interested. ^

Crimes of Passion: Death of a Loved One (2013)

Posted on September 6, 2014 by badblokebob

aka Mördaren ljuger inte ensam

2014 #82
Birger Larsen | 84 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | Sweden / Swedish | 15

It would seem there’s a market in Sweden for series of feature-length crime dramas that begin with a first episode released in cinemas before continuing in regular direct-to-DVD/TV instalments. It’s what happened with the Krister Henriksson Wallander (which eventually totted up five theatrical releases across its three series), and the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films also exist in cropped and lengthened TV versions (released in the UK and US as “extended editions”). The latest example is Crimes of Passion, the first episode of which debuted in cinemas in March 2013, before five more feature-length mysteries were released on DVD between August and November the same year. In the UK, it’s the latest Scandi-crime acquisition for BBC Four, airing in their regular “foreign crime” slot of Saturday nights at 9pm.

Marketed as “Mad Men meets The Killing”, it would be more accurately described as “Agatha Christie with subtitles”. There’s some of the ’60s style of the US critical hit — not least a detective who looks like he’s Don Draper’s twin brother — and there’s murder with a Scandinavian accent, as per the cause célèbre of Nordic Noir; but those are surface similarities. The fundamental elements are Christie through and through: a small group of people in a confined location where one (or more) mysteriously dies and the detective solves the case simply by interviewing the suspects, all in a pretty early-20th-Century setting. There’s a little more nudity (a skinny-dipping bottom!) and gore (a fly-bothered corpse!) than Poirot or Miss Marple usually have to deal with, but anyone au fait with the ITV iterations of those characters from the last twenty-or-so years will be in comfortable territory here.

The specifics of the plot see young university lecturer Puck (Tuva Novotny) invited to spend midsummer on the island home of her supervisor, who’s really asking on behalf of attractive history lecturer Eje (Linus Wahlgren), who Puck has been to a café with three times. A whole gaggle of old chums of Rutger and Eje are also there, including a couple of uninvited guests who arrive out of the blue — and before you know it, Puck finds one of them dead. Eje calls in his chum, detective Christer Wijk (Ola Rapace), and, after the island is cut off from the mainland in a more permanent fashion, the three set about getting to the bottom of things. Cue suspicious actions spied through trees, suspicious conversations partially overheard, suspicious evasion of perfectly reasonable questions, and all the usual suspiciousness you’d expect from a Christie narrative — only subtitled.

The storytelling is very much on a par with recent Poirot and Marple TV adaptations, for better or worse — if you enjoy those (as I do), then this should float your boat also; if they’re not your cup of tea, this doesn’t have anything startlingly original to add to the mix. There’s some pretty cinematography by Mats Axby, and director Birger Larsen’s choice of a 2.35:1 aspect ratio is shorthand for movie-quality, but isn’t inherently backed up by what’s in the frame. That isn’t to say it’s badly directed, just not strikingly cinematic. It’s a completely standalone tale at least, unlike some of those Wallanders, which were very much episodes-of-a-series that happened to get a big screen outing.

Novotny makes for a likeable lead, though the attempted love triangle between her, Wahlgren and Rapace feels like a non-starter. The biggest surprise is Rapace: previously seen as troubled young copper Stefan Lindman in Wallander and, most famously, as shaven-headed silent assassin Patrice in Skyfall, here he’s every inch the slick Draper ladies’ man. That he ends up seeming to do less detecting than Novotny’s amateur sleuth isn’t too troubling.

How well Crimes of Passion works for BBC Four remains to be seen, but it’s suitably different to their usual dour Scandi acquisitions to perhaps tempt in a different kind of viewer. Or maybe just inspire an interest in our good old murder-mystery yarns for anyone previously too highfalutin’ to bother.

Death of a Loved One is available on BBC iPlayer until 10:25pm tonight. The second episode, King Lily of the Valley, is on BBC Four at 9pm.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Posted on August 23, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #27
Ken Russell | 90 mins | TV | 16:9 | UK / English | 18 / R

The Lair of the White Worm looks cheap, has a ridiculous story, overacted characters and overcooked dialogue, and by all rights should be a disaster. And maybe it is… but I don’t think so. In the right frame of mind, at any rate, it’s a whale of a time.

Perhaps it’s “so bad it’s good”, but I’m also not sure of that — I think perhaps director Ken Russell and his ensemble (which includes Peter Capaldi, Hugh Grant [both of whom have now played the Twelfth Doctor] and Amanda Donohue) knew they were creating the ludicrous. There’s an indefinable charm that a hundred slicker, objectively more accomplished, films just can’t match.

To be frank, the whole thing’s pretty much worth it just for the following monologue, delivered by Donohue’s priestess-type:

Now, if you’re sitting comfortably, I shall tell you why you must not be afraid to die. To die so that the god may live is a privilege, Kevin, and if you know anything at all about history, you will know that human sacrifice is as old as Dionin himself, whose every death is a rebirth into a god ever mightier!

[doorbell rings]

Shit.

If you don’t really understand why that’s so good, The Lair of the White Worm isn’t for you. If it clicks, however, then this is a forgotten minor gem.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Posted on August 22, 2014 by badblokebob

Thor was one of the best surprises of Marvel’s Phase One for me: they took a character I had no interest in, and if anything thought seemed like a silly idea (what’s a Norse God got to do with superheroes?), and produced one of the first wave’s most entertaining and accomplished movies. They followed this up by turning the widely-acclaimed Avengers Assemble team-up into Thor 2 in all but name: sure, there’s plenty for all the other sub-franchises’ characters to do, but the major villain and cosmic scope are much closer to the events of Thor than any of the other lead-in films.

Cut to the real Thor 2, The Dark World, and there’s no small degree of expectation to live up to — not to mention that director Alan Taylor and the five credited writers (story by Don Payne and Robert Rodat, screenplay by Christopher L. Yost and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely) are landed with the need to resolve plot threads left dangling by not one but two preceding films. What are the chances of them succeeding?

Mixed, as it turns out. When it works, The Dark World is exciting, inventive, and often genuinely hilarious. Placing most of the movie’s biggest laughs during its climactic battle — which already features a thrilling conceit in and of itself — makes the ending one of the best action sequences in the entire Marvel movie canon. Sometimes that climax is a long time coming, though, with a story that has so many disparate elements to juggle, you can be certain some have got lost in the mix. There’s hints of a love triangle, which disappears almost as soon as it begins; the rules of Loki’s green-tinged cloaking-y-thing are never expounded upon, meaning it can be whipped out whenever a cheap twist is required — indeed, it’s ultimately used once or twice too often.

Good will towards the participants counts for a lot, though. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki steals pretty much any scene he’s in, but Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is not an unlikeable hero, building further on the responsibility-and-honour story arc of the first film. Idris Elba also benefits from an expanded role, but others are less lucky: one of the Warriors Three is ditched as soon as we’re reacquainted with him; more criminally, Christopher Eccleston’s villain has nought to do but stomp around spouting exposition in a made-up language. Anyone could play that role, you don’t need an actor of Eccleston’s ability. Maybe something got cut (though it’s not in the Blu-ray’s deleted scenes), because I don’t see why else he’d’ve taken the part. Well, possibly the payday.

At the helm, Taylor was a late-in-the-day replacement for Monster director Patty Jenkins. Previously best known for TV’s Game of Thrones (as well as episodes of pretty much every other major HBO series), thanks to Marvel Taylor is now a Major Motion Picture Director: his next project is the Terminator reboot/prequel/whatever. He steps up to feature film level well enough, though the much-heralded “more grounded” Asgard he was supposed to be providing is little shown: we see a pub and a training area, and other than that there’s too much going on to linger in the one-realm-to-rule-them-all. In fact, we get a better look at the film’s Stonehenge-and-sunny-London version of England, where if you get arrested at Stonehenge you’re locked up in London. Ah, American movies.

Despite the title, there’s much fun to be had with The Dark World. It can’t deliver on all of its aims — the equally-promised expansion of Thor and Jane’s relationship is equally sidelined — but there’s enough entertainment value to make it a worthwhile proposition. Perhaps the longer lead-in that the third film seems to be getting (there’s no announced slot for it among Marvel’s numerous future release dates, meaning it’s unlikely to arrive before 2017) will allow them to round everything out a little better.

Thor: The Dark World is on Sky Movies Premiere from today at 4:15pm and 8pm.

Amélie (2001)

Posted on August 4, 2014 by badblokebob

aka Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain / Amélie from Montmartre*

Quirky director Jeunet uses quirky cinematography and quirky special effects to tell the quirky story of a quirky girl, who had a quirky upbringing by quirky parents, and now lives a quirky life with quirky friends. A quirky coincidence leads her into the quirky hobby of cheering up strangers in quirky ways, during which she meets more quirky people who do quirky things, and she quirkily falls for the quirkiest.

It’s the kind of quirky that self-consciously ‘Quirky’ people feel they alone identify with and instantly declare their favourite movie; despite which, it’s a genuinely good film.

But very quirky.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long. You’ve just read one.

Amélie was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 2014 project, which you can read more about here.

* I don’t think I’ve ever heard it referred to by this title anywhere, but it’s what the subtitles call it on the title card of the English Blu-ray. ^

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

Posted on July 31, 2014 by badblokebob

A sequel to the suprisingly-good-in-spite-of-its-name animated comedy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (innovative title; though better than its original moniker, Revenge of the Leftovers) begins mere minutes after the first film ended; so closely, in fact, that someone decided it would be wise to begin with what is essentially a “Previously on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…” montage. Well, it has been four years in cinema-time.

Following the worldwide effect of Flint’s invention in the first film, the clean-up operation is being spearheaded by Californian mega-company Live Corp, founded and run by our hapless hero’s life-long idol, Chester V (can you see where this is going already?) The island of Swallow Falls has to be abandoned for the clean-up, but things only get worse when it turns out Flint’s machine wasn’t destroyed and is still churning out food. When his teams fail, Chester V persuades Flint to return to the island to destroy the machine (again); and, naturally, Flint ropes in all his friends — read: “your favourite characters from the last film!” Hijinks ensue.

That’s the quick version, anyway; though the film isn’t exactly slower: it moves at a restless rate of knots, much as the first one did. That’s not something to be sniffed at, as it throws plot and humour at the viewer with wild abandon. Sometimes such a methodology is a recipe for “chuck everything at the screen and see what sticks” — with the latter usually being “not a huge percentage” — but here it creates a pretty fine hit rate. It helps that new directors Cameron & Pearn (the original pair of Phil Lord and Chris Miller off furthering their career with 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie) don’t just rehash the best-remembered jokes from the first film, instead forging into largely-new territory. The humour is mostly of the “silly” variety, never missing an opportunity for a pun or bit of daftness (including breaking the fourth wall, very briefly, but quite neatly). The result could be groan-inducing, but instead is quite delightful.

The villain this time is a thinly-veiled riff on Apple and its messianic founder, Steve Jobs. Here they become the aforementioned Life Corp, whose logo (and headquarters) is a giant lightbulb, and the equally-aforementioned Chester V, Flint’s childhood hero. As with almost all hero-since-childhood characters, you can guess where that’s going from the moment he appears at the start of the opening montage. Nonetheless, his storyline and relationship with Flint mostly works — it does take Flint a long time to reach the point of realising The Truth, but for viewers the reveal comes earlier and isn’t treated as an inappropriately big shock. Again, kids less familiar with movie tropes will be even more accepting of it. Plus there’s a Moral Message there for said kiddies (naturally), this time about trusting in your friends. It’s all familiar fare to an adult viewer, but doesn’t dominate to the point of boredom.

Elsewise, the film is visually and conceptually inventive, particularly in its array of Foodimals. There are far more racing around than the film can hope to feature in major roles, which creates the impression of a rounded world and boundless creativity to match the boundless energy. There’s also a nice array of nods and references to other movies — nothing too overt, we’re not in spoof territory, but you can spy bits of everything from Jurassic Park and its first sequel to Predator, and probably several other jungle-set adventure flicks to boot. Such things go over kids’ heads, I’m sure, but it’s another element for grown-ups to enjoy.

In the end, Cloudy 2 isn’t quite as good as the first film, but not in a “notably inferior” way. It remains relentlessly entertaining, with an admirable energy and drive, which is in part a desperation to not be boring, but not in a shallow way. It may lack the extra little something that the first one has, but if that was an 8-out-of-10 then this is a 7 — which, because it’s fun rather than disappointing, rounds up to:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is available through Now TV and Sky Movies On Demand from tomorrow, and comes to Sky Movies Premiere a week Friday.

Blue Velvet (1986)

Posted on July 28, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #35
David Lynch | 116 mins | DVD | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 18 / R

Before he brought the disquieting underbelly of small-town America to television audiences with Twin Peaks — and revolutionised the medium in the process — auteur David Lynch subjected cinemagoers to its perversions in this 1986 cult masterpiece, the first cohesive expression of concepts, themes and motifs (and cast members) that would inform the rest of his career.

Twin Peaks’ Kyle MacLachlan plays Jeffrey Beaumont, home from college to visit his hospitalised father when he discovers a severed human ear in a field (as you do) and, unable to resist playing private eye, gets drawn into a bizarre web that includes a burgeoning romance with Laura Dern’s high school student, a twisted sexual relationship with Isabella Rosselini’s trapped nightclub singer, and, most famously, Dennis Hopper, whose character and performance invites descriptors like “creepy” and “perverted” but transcends such notions to the point of their obsolescence.

There’s a mystery plot to tie things together, but it’s not really Lynch’s point: by the end, things that would be The Big Twist in other movies are almost glossed over; present because they’re needed for clarity, but not what Lynch wants to focus on. The film is heavy with symbolism, although for once you don’t need to be a genius to spot the major signifiers: it opens with a shot of a lovely suburban lawn, but moves closer until underneath it we see a swarming nest of nasty bugs. I was always led to believe Blue Velvet was about the secrets lurking behind small-town America’s white picket fences, and parts like that opener suggest such a reading.

But… is it, really? The white-picket-fence-dwellers are pretty clean; it’s the people inhabiting the scuzzy apartment blocks and industrial estates nearby who are the problem. Those characters are as corrupt and degenerate as their abodes might lead those with regular prejudices to suspect. It’s a less subversive point of view, and I don’t think it’s what Lynch was actually going for. Anyway, the entirety of his moviemaking technique is so outré that you can’t help but find the whole twisted nonetheless.

Exposing the (sometimes-)reality behind the perfect veneer of American suburbia was not something all audiences at the time were prepared to embrace, though a couple of decades or so of emulation — not to mention the odd news story exposing reality — have led such a perspective to be less controversial. Yet the extreme ways Lynch employs to depict this nastiness mean the film hasn’t lost any of its impact. Back in 2001, critic Philip French wrote that “the film is wearing well and has attained a classic status without becoming respectable or losing its sense of danger.” Another 13 years on and I think that quote is still on the money. Blue Velvet is a film that features on respectable “Best Ever” lists (it’s in the top 100 of Sight & Sound’s latest, for instance, tied with Blade Runner (amongst others)), but is still quite shocking to watch. It’s not so much that it’s sexually or violently graphic — though, in places, it is a little — but the mood and feeling Lynch evokes is so darn unsettling and weird.

“It’s not a movie for everybody,” Lynch himself said (to Chris Rodley for the book Lynch on Lynch). “Some people really dug it. Others thought it was disgusting and sick. And of course it is, but it has two sides. The power of good and the power of darkness.” He’s not wrong. Despite the acceptance of it in some mainstream circles (arguably, you don’t get much more “mainstream” than the Best Director Oscar nomination Lynch received), Blue Velvet remains the very definition of a cult film: some will (and do) love it unreservedly; some will (and do) hate it with a passion; and some, like me, will look it and kind of go, “…hm.” The more I read about it, though, the more I warm to what Lynch was tilting at. Given time, and inevitable (though, knowing me, a long time coming) re-views, I can only see my appreciation growing.

Blue Velvet was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 2014 project, which you can read more about here.

The Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery and the Missing Pieces Blu-ray box set is a surefire contender for “release of the year” even before it is released — which is tomorrow, Tuesday 29th July, pretty much worldwide.

The Raid (2011)

Posted on July 11, 2014 by badblokebob

aka Serbuan maut / The Raid: Redemption

“20 Elite Cops. 30 Floors of Hell.”

So proclaims The Raid’s marketing. Except most of those 20 cops are explicitly stated to be rookies, and the big bad baddie is on the 15th floor. This is indicative of the whole problem with The Raid a couple of years on from its release: it’s become a victim of its own hype.

The plot, such as it is, is well summarised in that tagline. A group of heavily-armed coppers stage a dawn raid on the high-rise HQ of a crime boss. A no-go locale for the past decade, this mission is a Brave and Daring thing. It all goes smoothly at first… until a lookout spots them, warns the (literal) higher-ups, and all hell rains down. Never mind completing their mission, will any of them get out alive? Cue lots of shooting, stabbing, punching, kicking, jumping… and not much else.

In this regard, perhaps the other film that The Raid is most like is Mamma Mia: a perfunctory plot that exists purely to link together the bits we’re really here for — Abba songs. Or “fights”, in The Raid’s case… though, let’s be honest, how much more original and interesting would it be if they were fighting to Abba songs? A lack of story isn’t necessarily a problem, however: much as some people basically wanted an excuse to sing along to a bunch of catchy pop tunes, some people just want to watch well-choreographed punch-ups. The only issue I have with the slight storyline is that the climax leans on it: instead of ending with our hero duelling our villain, a fight with the top henchman is followed by a bit of plot clean-up between the villain and a supporting character. It’s the very definition of anti-climactic.

That aside, the film coasts along on its lengthy action sequences. They’re pretty good on the whole, if a little numbingly repetitive by the end. The style is largely of the punching-and-kicking variety — no parkour-esque leaping about here — but the speed is impressive, even if that means you sometimes can’t quite keep up. Still, at least you can see the people fighting — the direction and editing by Welshman (a whole other story, that) Gareth Evans isn’t based in the Hollywood school of extreme close-ups and super-fast cuts.

A lot has been made (by some) of that US comparison. It’s true that the fighting is leaps and bounds ahead of your standard American actioner, replete with done-for-real stunts, long takes of fast-paced choreography, and no ShakyCam close-ups or single-frame editing designed to create the illusion of someone who can fight for real — these guys can fight for real. But it’s ultimately an unfair comparison, because Asian movies do action differently to Western movies. Put The Raid with its true brethren and, while it doesn’t come up short, it’s not quite as impressive. Leading man Iko Uwais and his fellow duellers are undoubtedly very skilled, but there were no “wow!” moments like I’ve had from the best of Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Tony Jaa, or others. The sequences offered here mean The Raid can sit comfortably in their company, but does it outclass them in a way that merits it being a break-out hit? No.

Another way it’s pleasingly unlike its current American counterparts is the lack of focus on gore. There are plenty of stabbings (of a blood-stain-on-shirt variety), and a couple of sliced necks, but none are lingered on. Things like a hammer beating or repeated machete strikes take place either just off screen or just after we cut away. It’s unquestionably a violent film, but it doesn’t revel in the gory aftermath of that violence in the way many US films increasingly seem to.

While we may not have to endure ShakyCam in the fights, an awful lot of it is still shot handheld — the sea-sickness-inducing close-ups we’re so familiar with from a decade-and-a-half of 24-inspired quick-to-shoot photography are certainly present. Indeed, all of the cinematography is ugly. Maybe someone massively over-compressed it for the BD, but I suspect it may be due to low-budget digitally-shot roots. The image is distractingly laced with banding, weird bursts of colour… And even ignoring such technical issues, the palate is unrelentingly brown. Whole frames are just slightly varied shades of dark murky brown, perhaps with a splash of grey, and maybe some blue streaks where one technical element or another has gone awry.

You’re likely aware of the fuss that was kicked up when the trailer for sci-fi comic book actioner Dredd was released a couple of years ago, and a lot of people said it looked like a Raid rip-off. Such comparisons are largely superficial: the similarities are more pronounced in trailers than in how the full films feel. Comparing the finished results, however, I found Dredd to be more entertaining. It can’t boast the realism of The Raid, both in the level of bloody gore and in the way the action was achieved, with highly trained professionals and thorough choreography; but the 2000 AD adaptation still features effective, exciting action sequences delivered on its own terms, and alongside those offers greater doses of story, character and humour, to make for a much more rounded experience. The fights in The Raid may have blown the minds of people who haven’t seen enough Asian action flicks, but I’d argue Dredd is the better film as a whole. And if you still insist on accusing one of plagiarising the other… well, let’s put it this way: Dredd had finished shooting, and its screenplay had leaked online, before The Raid even entered production.

Sadly, by this point, The Raid doesn’t really live up to the hype — probably because it’s been laid on so thick. The fights are impressive, but not the most incredible ever, unless your action diet is purely American. Plus, those looking for a solid story with the odd punch-up need not apply: what plot there is — and it’s a thin one — exists to service some action, which will drag on and on (and on) if that’s not your thing. For genre aficionados, however, it does still merit your time.

The UK TV premiere of The Raid is tonight at 10:55pm on Film4.

* The international release was cut by 10 seconds for violence, thanks to two short MPAA-mandated excisions to gain an R certificate. The uncut, US-unrated version is available on Blu-ray, and is the one I watched. ^

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