Film Catch-Up: Fantastic Beasts - The Secrets of Dumbledore

 

Been a while since I've reviewed something on here so this'll be a quick one before I transfer my film "criticism" to a new blog I'll be working on (I'll still write on other stuff here though).

The new Fantastic Beasts is arguably the best of the series so far (but even then, like its politics, it's pretty middle-of-the-road), if only for having the most memorable monsters: 1) a very cute cross between a lamb and a giraffe called a "Chillin" that bows to anyone who it deems to be pure of heart; 2) some cave-dwelling lobster-like creatures that seem to imitate human movements, which gives us the funniest part of the film; 3) a creature in a pit that at first recalls the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi before turning out to be more like Shelob in a prison breakout scene that's like a mix of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. 

The replacing of Johnny Depp as Grindelwald with Mads Mikkelsen takes some getting used to (bearing in mind what had been going on behind the scenes, it feels at first like an elephant in the room) but one can get over it when seeing Mikkelsen's own take on the role. With the bleached spikes replaced with slick comb-over, our magical populist demagogue seems to have become a full-on wizard Hitler.  Perhaps in a future instalment, an ancestor of Dobby the House Elf will be cast as a cipher for Putin.  Hard Remainers may get a vicarious kick out of the (arguably tasteless) way in which evil is defeated this time round.   

Directed as per the previous two by David Yates (who also helmed half the Harry Potter series), this more Steampunky take on the "Wizarding World" continues to be filmed in drab greys and doesn't quite have the magic that the Potter movies had.  I'm not sure these films will be enjoying much repeated viewing on one of the ITV channels in years to come. Jude Law is a comforting presence though as a younger incarnation of the titular wizard. Ezra Miller's Credence, meanwhile, seems to have turned into Kylo Ren.

Film: Grimsby (2016)

Two fingers are well and truly shoved up the anus of good taste before wiping them on its face in the latest work from "the man who brought you Borat" and Bruno as well as the director of two Transporter movies, save only to say that .  The trailer only glimpses at what is in store, which one might describe as an 80 minute extension of the anal sex joke at the conclusion of last year's Kingsman: The Secret Service, another R-rated action comedy featuring Mark Strong.  Here, Strong is upgraded from a Q-type to Agent Sebastian Butcher, brother of Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen).  The film opens with a decent POV action sequence (more of which to come later in the year in Hardcore Harry) before Butcher goes to London to prevent an assassination at a conference for "World Cure", presented by Rhonda George (Penelope Cruz).  Both Butcher brothers have not seen each other in thirty years and as soon as Nobby finds Sebastian, things of course go wrong and Sebastian finds himself hiding out in Nobby's hometown of Grimsby (Pitch Perfect's Rebel Wilson - wasted in more ways than one in this year's How To Be Single - cameos as Nobby's partner).  Later, the brothers go to South Africa and find themselves having to foil a plot not unlike that seen in Kingsman to decrease the planet's surplus population, culminating in a showdown at a football match.  During this, Nobby takes on the role of agent (at one point doing an impression of Sean Connery as Bond before switching to what sounds like an impression of Steve Coogan doing an impression of Sean Connery as Bond) and ultimately becoming an action hero.  Over the course of the film, there is perhaps a laugh-out-loud moment about every two minutes or so (on average) and at least two snorts.  The barrel is scraped beyond the point of bleeding, splintered fingers with jokes involving ejaculation (of varying degrees), genitalia from both humans and animals of both genders, and wheelchairs as well as touching on leukemia and AIDS (one recurring gag plagues on the OCD fear of getting a sexually transmitted disease without sexual transmission).  One celebrity "cameo" is particularly politically well-timed.  Appearances from Ricky Tomlinson and Johnny Vegas seemed rather superfluous.

The Danish Girl (First impressions)

TITLE: The Danish Girl
DIRECTOR: Tom Hooper
SCREENWRITER: Lucinda Coxon (Based on the novel by David Ebershoff)

There is a line that suggests that the titular "Danish Girl" may not refer to Lili (Eddie Redmayne, The Theory Of Everything, Les Miserables) but to her partner, Gerda (Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and perhaps the idea is that this film is not just about someone discovering their identity and making a transition, but also about someone close to them witnessing the changes they are undergoing. The film has been a cause of a bit of controversy owing to the casting of a so-called "cisgender" actor in the role of a transwoman. I personally cannot speak on behalf of Redmayne's identity (director Tom Hooper has spoken about recognizing a "certain gender fluidity": http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-real-reason-eddie-redmayne-was-cast-as-a-trans-woman-in-the-danish-girl-10480658.html) but I think the film's intentions are largely honorable - Redmayne is listed in the end credits as playing "Lili" as opposed to "Einer" or "Einer/Lili". Plus, trans actress Rebecca Root has a cameo as a nurse. It could be argued that the film is aimed those unfamiliar with the subject and perhaps it might inspire some to get themselves educated. Writing about it here, I shall try to be careful in the use of pronouns where appropriate.

The film is set in 1920s Copenhagen and is bookended with a shot of some trees that inspire one of the latest works by artist Einer (Redmayne), who is married to fellow artist Gerda (Vikander). Interesting to note is Einer is seemingly "cis" early on ("Can't a man watch his own wife get undressed?") prior to Lili's "awakening". One day, Gerda gets Einer to model for her, which involves putting on stockings and holding onto a dress without having to wear it properly. However, it seems Einer might quite like this. Friend Ulla (Amber Heard) gives him the name "Lili" and soon, it is suggested that Einer attend a party in character as Gerda's cousin, Lili (Einer learns how to perform as a woman beforehand) and it is there that she attracts the intentions of a romantic named Henrik (Ben Whishaw, Skyfall, S.P.E.C.T.R.E.). Henrik is initially forceful in getting Lili to kiss him and this is witnessed by Gerda, for whom the donning of the Lili "character" had been a game. For Einer, however, it's soon no longer just a game (during one romantic encounter as a couple, Gerda starts to strip Einer down to discover that Einer is wearing a dress belonging it her). We later learn of a childhood encounter between Einer (wearing an apron belonging to a grandmother) and a boy named Hans, played as an adult by Matthias Schoenaerts (Far From The Madding Crowd, A Little Chaos). Einer and Lili develop symptoms (nose-bleeding and stomach cramps) and is subjected to radiation treatment as an attempt to cure an apparent "delusion". This fails and Einer sees other doctors in secret and even has to escape one when diagnosed as a schizophrenic (when out in public, Einer also suffers some homophobic abuse).

Beautifully shot by Hooper's collaborator Danny Cohen (The King's Speech, Les Miserables), pretty much every establishing shot of Copenhagen can be framed and hung on a wall. My only nitpick with the filmmaking is Hooper and Cohen's bending of the 180-degree rule when characters are in conversation. Arguably, the film is about image, whether its in the paintings of Einer and Gerda or reflections, both in mirrors and windows. At one point, Einer recluses to what is essentially the wardrobe of a theatre (the film's own "closet", perhaps?) and strips down and examines the body in the mirror and tucking genitals between legs. Later, Einer pays to watch a nude performer through a window and imitating her moves (which had some resonance for me). The film is also perhaps about the human body as well. As well as the bodily examination, we have scenes of intimacy between Einer and Gerda (Vikander's nudity is just one example of the "15"-rated "sexualized scenes"); the discussion of the life-risking operations to complete Lili's transformation concern a change of genitals. It's also a film involving secrecy (again, not just the scene in the wardrobe); Lili seeks out Henrik and ultimately finds in him a confidant whilst Gerda is temporally tempted by Hans. It could also be said to be a love story of sorts about a couple who, ultimately, grow apart when a new person enters the scene - Lili is presented as something of another personality before "Einer" tells a doctor that "he" believes that he is a woman and Gerda expresses support in this belief.

I found some of the film-making exciting (only towards the end when Lili goes on her trip for the surgery did it seem to become "ordinary") and at some point I will devote some time to listening to the score by Alexander Desplat.

Film: Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

What an utter joy and cause for celebration the new Star Wars movie is.  This film should inspire street parties in commemoration of the series being revived in such a wonderful way.  JJ Abrams and the folks at Bad Robot should be patting themselves on the back for successfully rebooting a cult Sci-Fi franchise - twice (the first, of course, being Star Trek in 2009).  With the franchise under the ownership of Disney and George Lucas out of the picture, fans can finally get the long-mooted "sequel trilogy" of Episodes VII, VII and IX.

A relatively simple story to set up this new trilogy, we find ourselves thirty-odd years after Return Of The Jedi and hearing only vague references to the prequels ("balance in the Force", the Sith, and the suggestion of cloned Stormtroopers).  The Empire is dead but now a new take on an old enemy has arisen from the ashes in the form of the "First Order", commanded by the human General Hux (a fantastically maniacal Domhnall Gleeson), Kylo Ren (a deliberately-Poundland Vader played by Adam Driver) and the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke (a motion-captured Andy Serkis).  We also find a hero-to-be on the other side in the person of Stormtrooper, Finn (Attack The Block's John Boyega) who finds himself overwhelmed by the requirements of the job.  But the focus of the film is Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scavenger on the desert planet that is not Tatooine and soon falls in with Finn and a lone droid named BB-8 and they find themselves joining forces with old favourites Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewie (their entrance almost invites the audience of a US sitcom to whoop and applaud).  They all end up on a quest to find Luke Skywalker (and when Mark Hamill finally appears... there are no words).  Meanwhile, the First Order have constructed the latest Death Star in the form of Starkiller Base, the size of a planet rather than a moon and can destroy multiple planets at once - a demonstration of its firepower is worth seeing the film on the big screen alone and may well evoke the feeling of seeing Alderaan being blown up for the first time.  The First Order are to be countered by the latest incarnation the Rebel Alliance, the "Resistance", led by the now-General Leia (Carrie Fisher).

Yes, there is very familiar territory being revisited and perhaps there could have been less use of CGI (particularly a man-eating monster).  The work done on Snoke is creaky but in an acceptably cheapy Sci-Fi/fantasy way like Azog in The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (2014).  But the film is both fun and laugh-out-loud funny (we're a long way from Jar Jar Binks shouting "Ex-squeeze me!").  How fun it is to see our new leads fun aboard the abandoned Millennium Falcon (curiously unchanged in the duration of its various changes of owners).  Abrams and co have made a pretty-much note perfect tribute to the Star Wars films of old, whether it's using '70s graphics in the Falcon's gunner targeting system, or the performances of the First Order's fascist Imperial-esque officers (a nice little touch harking back to The Empire Strikes Back has a nervous young officer remove his hat before reporting a failure to Kylo Ren).

But at the centre of the film is Rey, in whom the Force appears to be awakening.  After two generations of whiny Skywalkers and women of royalty being used to sell dolls or fulfill Lucas' onanistic fantasies, we finally get a female leading the story and at no point is exploited for eye candy (one gag has Finn asking her if she has a boyfriend but that's about it) and gets to be rather badass too.  Both her and Ridley have quickly become a symbol that there is indeed a "new hope" for the series.

Film: The Bad Education Movie (2015)

Spoilers ahead.

A few years ago, comedian Jack Whitehall had an idea for a sitcom about a schoolteacher who was "a bigger kid than those he teachers" (IMDB).  Before sitting down to write it, he had a bowel movement and suffered a horrendous case of diarrhea.  Before flushing the lavatory, he gazed into the shit-spattered abyss and found that despite all the undeniable crap, there were still traces of sweetcorn and he had what passed for an idea.  Why work hard when you can sketch out whatever and include the odd, passable gag when you happened to think of one by accident?  Rather than write it, he would simply use his toilet paper to gather some samples.  Due to the physical impracticality of using a stapler to join the corner of each sheet, he had to resort to a few wanking sessions in order to provide the glue.  When the manuscript was dry, he slipped it into a manuscript and posted it to E4, the channel that broadcast The Inbetweeners (2008-2010), a sitcom that proved popular with young people.  E4 decided that this submission - entitled Bad Education - was beneath them and the reader chucked it down the rubbish chute and it found itself drifting down a sewer.  Sometime later it passed a door built into the tiled walls of the dank underbelly.  The door was marked BBC3 (a channel which, yes gave us Doctor Who Confidential, Torchwood and reruns of Family Guy, but also puked up the satanic Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents).  A security camera fitted to the ceiling spied the debris and the door opened.   Someone emerged from the darkness within and grabbed it before it could sail on forever.  BBC3 loved it and the series grew up to become - according to Cineworld's synopsis - "one of the BBC's most cherished sitcoms".

Apparently the series proved popular enough to garner a feature-length motion picture spin-off  (Helloooo No. 8 in the UK Box Office Top 10).  Well some of it would be passingly amusing and not intolerable company, even if might never be laugh-out-loud funny (something which Mrs. Brown's Boys could achieve at least once) so perhaps the same could have been said of the film.  And could it?

The film opens in Amsterdam with some Hasidic Jews visiting the Anne Frank house.  The camera dollies past a queue of these quiet visitors until we come to the back where some British pupils are being disruptive.  Yes, the ever so unloveable Alfie Whickers (Whitehall) - who is also inexplicably romantically linked to the pretty-but-dull (Sarah Solemani) - has taken his charges on a field trip to the house where a young girl was hiding from the Nazis with her family.  Whickers decides to jump queue by pretending that the disabilities of a chair-bound student aren't restricted to his leg.  Afterwards, he is drugged as a prank and hallucinates his Chinese pupil as a panda.  He then mistakes an Anne Frank dummy for the real deal and abducts it, escaping on a bicycle.  During this, the dummy is wrapped in a white towel while Alfie is dressed in a red hoody.  Yeah, you can tell where its going before John Williams is invoked.

A year later, Whickers takes the class on another trip, this time to Cornwall.  This time, they are joined by the overprotective Trunchball-like mother of one of his students.  She dons a pair of what are essentially Google glasses so she can record everything that goes on (the one gag which passes for a joke is where a student tells it to search for "Two Girls, One Cup").  The class stay in the "Baits Hotel" and witness a Summer Solstice procession straight out of The Wicker Man (1973) (the filmmakers even go to the trouble of recreating a shot of two masked participants poking their heads out of a window).  Are the majority of the target audience really likely to get these references?  They might get the later references to Braveheart ("They can take our lives but they'll never take our..." "Pasties!") and 300 ("This.  Is.  Cornwall!") when a parodic battle is about to take place (Zack Snyder's use of slow motion is also given a nod).  Someone makes a jokey comparison between the procession and pantomime - presumably Whitehall thinks nothing of pantomime when tucking into his Christmas dinner or chocolate Easter egg.

In a pub, they fall in with members of the Cornwall Liberation Army and they mistake Whickers for a member after seeing his amateur tattoo "CLA...", which was meant to read "CLASS K FOREVER" before he fainted.  So at least, Whitehall understands the concept of "set-up" and "pay-off".  One of the members persuades Whickers to smuggle in what he thinks are drugs into a party for toffs (where Alfie is dared into "teabagging a swan" - the least funny gag involving a large bird this year since Kevin James fought a peacock in Paul Blart Mall Cop 2) but it turns out to be a bomb.  It takes some gall to depict toffs as victims of extremists whilst the country is under Tory occupation but this set piece is bookended by passing seemingly liberal quotes as "...the rich get richer..." (just like Whitehall will from the profits made from this abortion) and "Austerity is bullshit".  Alfie is later mistaken for a leader of the group and this is captured on the News (which brings to mind the infinitely superior Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa).

There is no excuse in all of conceivable reality for how this film exists in the state that it does.  With no laughs and no Michelle Gomez, The Bad Education Movie is not just a bad film, it is a call-to-arms.  Critics and reviewers should feel compelled to implore their audience no to spend one penny on this furball of British "comedy" (this is the same country that gave us The Ladykillers and Monty Python).  If anyone was curious about wanting to watch this in good conscience, the most ethical solution might be to find a cinema where a season pass is available.  Then it might motivate aspiring filmmakers to get their hands on what they can find and afford to produce something worthy of the faintest praise, free and independent of the industry responsible for this film's existence.  How dare this get past the script read-through without someone with a tenth of a brain cell raising an objection?  How dare the actors say yes to the project in exchange for more money)?  How dare there be more carbon emissions from the vehicular transport of actors and equipment to the various locations?  Really, Britain?  This is what it has come to?

Film: Fantastic Four (2015)

Quite possibly existing for the same legal reason that the unreleased (but available on bootleg) 1994 Roger Corman production, this latest Marvel reboot sees yet another cinematic origin story for one of their properties yet to join Spider-Man in his assimilation into the MCU collective.  As had with what is now the Amazing Spider-Man duology from Sony, the previously bright, light-hearted series is succeeded by a darker, arguably more "emo" retelling (both ASM entries were helmed by (500) Days Of Summer's Marc Webb).  Gone is whatever goodwill there was in the Saturday morning cartoon that was Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007), replaced with a film that descends into the reputed body horror of bodily transformation, followed by heads blowing up through telekinesis.  Indeed, the sigh of Mile Teller's Reed Richards awakening in a lab to find his arms and legs stretched far out makes for Grimm viewing.  Not one for a slumber party unless there are some spare PJ's handy.  Thankfully, Kate Mara's cold checkered shirt-wearing music fan is a favourable replacement to Jessica Alba's XXX parody of Sue Storm (although Googling the character now seems to have proved me wrong).  The Human Torch's makeover has also caused a Storm owing to his race - a fuss that should be unthinkable in the 21st century.  But surely Michael B. Jordan's street racer (a scene which has a little setup wherein his car catches fire before crashing) is more preferable to the womanizing tomfoolery of Chris Evans (who has now, thankfully, been recast as a fine, upstanding avenger).  As for the Thing (played in human form by Jamie Bell), the CG is no more convincing than Michael Chiklis' rubber suit.  I'd rather spend time with these people than Alba, Evans or Grufford.

If the slating this reboot has received is largely down to its darker slant, then surely its not much worse (exploding heads aside) than the colourless post-Heat, post-Dark Knight thriller that was Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), or - more controversially - the post-9/11 remake of Superman II that was Man Of Steel (2013).  One could argue in defense that what Josh Trank set out to do was no different from Zack Snyder with Man Of Steel or Christopher Nolan with the Dark Knight trilogy.  Whereas Snyder seemed to suggest the physical ramifications of a superhero battle in a city, Trank might have wanted to show the horror of bodily mutation (something of which is given little attention to in the X-Men film series).  And the film is not entirely without the colour of the source material.  Whereas what passes for the "superhero costume" in this film are now blackened jumpsuits, the rest of the screen is painted in varying shades of blue.

Needless to say, it's not without flaws.  Besides the bloody attacks of the now much more fearsome Doctor Doom, there is perhaps some resulting evidence of the apparent studio inference.  There are instances where CGI appears not to have been convincingly rendered - namely a place, a base and chimp test subject that looks to have been cut-and-pasted in from Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011).  There is also perhaps an oversight that the apocalyptic climax is surely a result of our heroes undertaking the unauthorized trip that resulted in their transformation in the first place (nothing is made of this if one recalls correctly).

Flawed maybe, but an unlikely Director's Cut might have shown a very interesting story and world, free of the ubiquitous Cinematic Universe.

Film: Pixels (2015)

Adapted from a two-minute short in which video game characters invaded the world through the broken screen of an abandoned television set, the latest offering from Happy Madison adopts a premise not dissimilar to Galaxy Quest (1999) by having aliens mistake 1980s footage of kids playing arcade games as a declaration of war and responding by sending various invasion forces modelled on various arcade games.  An episode of Futurama (2001) was brought up with regards to the premise, the episode in question (Anthology Of Interest Part II) containing a segment (David X. Cohen’s “Raiders Of The Lost Arcade”) that explored the premise of a reality based on video games and saw the Omicrons invade Earth with Space Invaders and Donkey Kong being the US ambassador of planet Nintendo 64.  That segment had more wit than the entirety of this film.  Brought in to defend the Earth are two nerds, including Adam Sandler (who largely seems to be sleepwalking his way through it), aided by their mutual childhood friend, played by Kevin James (better than he has been in some other Madison productions).  James also happens to be the President of the United States but has proved unpopular (yet curiously popular enough to have been elected in the first place).  Unbelievably, James in child form (in an opening flashback sequence – perhaps something of a convention in Sandler features, cf. Happy Gilmore, Grown Ups, That’s My Boy) manages to beat a claw crane in order to win a Chewbacca mask (this pays off later when his older self gets to use a crane).  They are joined by the incarcerated “Fireblaster” (Peter Dinklage), who seemingly beat Sandler’s younger self in a competitive game of Donkey Kong.  For Patrick Jean, having your short film adapted by Hollywood feature film must have seemed like a dream come true – at least until it transpired it was to be made by Happy Madison (like winning a trip to Switzerland only to be told you’ll be staying at Dignitas).  Sandler’s love interest this time is a single mother (Michelle Monaghan essentially being the “MILF” now that perhaps even the producers think the middle aged Sandler shouldn’t go after “hot teacher” as with Billy Madison twenty years earlier) who also happens to be in the military and has a son that Sandler can bond with.  Her husband left her for a “nineteen-year old Pilates teacher” and she is now trying to come up with a “slut-seeking missile”.  No actors involved could possibly have been interested in anything other than a pay cheque and no laughs are to be had (at least one moment which might have been funny in the trailer is Sandler’s “Pacman’s a bad guy?!”), which makes it even less funny than even the one-snort Jack And Jill (2011).   One sequence of merit is the climactic boss battle accompanied by Queen’s “We Will Rock You” but any goodwill earned is soiled when Lady Lisa is reintroduced as a “trophy” for one of the nerds.  Wow.  Go watch the original short instead.  Or Galaxy Quest.  Or Futurama.  Or Wreck-It-Ralph (2012).  Or Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)…