Review: ODEON LIMITLESS CARD

After being underwhelmed by the limited range of films offered by the (ironically named) Cineworld Unlimited card, I voted with my wallet and defected to the Odeon Limitless card as a means of watching as many films as I wanted to in the year instead.

In terms of cinemas, the venues ranged from plush, comfortable and state-of-the-art (the newly renovated Orpington Odeon is as luxurious as any cinema I’ve been to, and one of the finest things about my otherwise fairly humdrum hometown) to scummy and very badly maintained (Birmingham, where I saw Lights Out, had muck all over the floor, as well as brats watching the film who were clearly under-15).

Film review: CERTAIN WOMEN (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)

Certain Women is a triptych of stories about three women living in Montana, whose lives are peripherally connected. In the first instalment, lawyer Laura (Laura Dern) struggles to get through to a stubborn client, who later takes another character hostage in order to get what he wants. In the middle segment, Gina (Michelle Williams) and her husband try to build a house together, the procurement of sandstone for which betrays some fundamental fissures in their marriage. And in the final story arc, a nameless ranch hand (Lily Gladstone) attends an evening class taught by Beth (Kristen Stewart), and develops a crush on her teacher.

Relative unknown Lily Gladstone, who has been picking up various critics’ awards for her beautiful performance as the rancher, is easily the film’s MVP, and consequently, her section of the film was my favourite. In another universe, where independent films could afford to distribute screeners for the Oscars (and Oscars were actually awarded on merit), she’d be a shoo-in for a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The majority of her character’s feelings are illustrated through her face rather than words and her big brown eyes convey a lifetime of longing for human company. It's a mesmerizingly moving performance, all the more poignant for its artlessness.

Interestingly, in Maile Meloy's short story collection from which this segment was adapted, the character Gladstone played was a man. But it’s a curiously gender-fluid role, and a sign of cinema graduating with the times, that Reichardt successfully adapted the character to be female in her film. In fact, the besotted way in which Gladstone gazes at Stewart was hauntingly reminiscent of the loving look Jesse Eisenberg gives the same actress in Café Society, as well as the way Emory Cohen looks at Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn. Both actors gave fine portrayals of men in love, but in witnessing the unguarded yearning in Gladstone's eyes, and knowing that the object doesn't feel the same way, filled me with more pathos than watching the guys did.

Michelle Williams cements her reputation as one of the best actresses of her generation as a hardworking and under-appreciated wife and mother. As with her most powerful scenes in Brokeback Mountain, Williams makes excellent use of body language to convey a mountain of resentment at her slack husband. Michelle Williams, Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart all impressively shed their natural grace and beauty to inhabit far more ordinary characters, without the de-glamorisation process feeling too ‘awards-begging’.

The fact that the actresses so convincingly slip into their run-down roles make the human interactions which they are implicated in the more urgent, even if the register of the film never reaches a dramatic crescendo. In Certain Women, there are 'good' or 'evil' characters, epitomised in the first part, where the disgruntled client who entangles Laura in a hostage situation, it transpires, really was screwed over by his previous company, and feels he has nowhere left to turn. Such scenes are reflective of the real world, where there are no easy answers, and people can only try to make the best of bad situations.

Essentially, Kelly Reichardt's understated, intelligent film makes like that Beyoncé lyric; "Who run the world? Girls." Except in her celebration of the minutiae, she illustrates that while certain women don’t make a song and dance about their actions or their consequences, it doesn’t render them any less profound.

8/10

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If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my other reviews here. Certain Women hits UK cinemas on the 3rd March 2017.

Film review: THE EYES OF MY MOTHER (Nicolas Pesce, 2016)

My second film viewed at the BFI London Film Festival, a surprising choice for me, a horror movie!
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Francisca lives an unusual but tranquil life with her reticent father and hands-on surgeon mother, who teaches her all about dissection, secluded from the test of the village. One day, her sheltered upbringing is rocked when a man purporting to be a salesman murders her mother, thus triggering and endless sense of longing, as well as morbid curiosity about the human, within her. This fascination with human bodies and a desperate need not to be alone manifests itself in devastating ways.

Horror is not one of my preferred genres (FYI, those would be 1) romance, 2) drama, 3) comedy), and the influx of mindless torture porn titles a la Hostel in recent years has made me even more averse to it. But The Eyes of My Mother is one of those rare things: a horror movie with brains and a beating heart.

In Francisca, you have a beguiling protagonist, whose motivations for her destructive actions are not jammed down your throat with a ham-fisted tale of past tragedy, but instead, hinted at in Kika Magalhães's haunting performance. Throughout the film, and whilst carrying out villainous acts, her character maintains a placid, almost cold facade. Yet the more intimate scenes where she speaks to her dead mother, betray her true vulnerability. The film's ability to make us empathize with such a monstrous character really cannot be applauded enough.

It helps that Magalhães, who was consulted by Pesce throughout his screenwriting process, also got to inject parts of herself into the character she portrays. In a scene where she dances freely to a piece of music, this was one of the actress' mother's favourite pieces. Having this personal touches injects flavour into Magalhães' mesmeric performance, a welcome subversion of how females in horror movies are usually presented.

The black and white cinematography, selected because director Nicolas Pesce wanted to homage the movies of the 1950s that he adored (in a Q&A following the film, he revealed a penchant for Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, good man) suits the stark, bare set, and effectively conveys Francisca's heartbreakingly bleak view on the world. The jarring score adds to the sense of dread and discomfort that builds steadily throughout the film's 76 minute running time.

Nicolas Pesce, like Quentin Tarantino, is a director who loves films. His influences are peppered throughout the film, from the keeping a person barely alive held captive (evoking Takashi Miike's disturbing Audition), to the Alamodovarian underlying theme of the importance our parents play on our formation. Also like Quentin Tarantino, who's dextrous employment of the 'conceal and reveal' in Reservoir Dogs, Pesce fully understands that the best way to unsettle the audience is to not show them the darkest moments, but to leave it to their imagination.

Although Francisca's actions throughout the film are horrifying, the depiction of these are afforded surprising economy of expression; a murder will be indicated with a puddle of blood shown on the floor. The jumping from the serial-killing to the mundane also creates some off-kilter tonal jumps that evoke nervous laughter in the audience. However, there are some arresting images in the film, which impacts on a strongly visceral level.

Overall, The Eyes of My Mother is one of the most intelligent, haunting horror movies created. Pesce (who, depressingly, is only 3 months older than me) deserves a huge amount of credit for subverting the hoary horror movie tropes and put his own organic spins on them. In doing so, he has created Francisca, an enigmatic murderess for the ages.

8/10

Film review: SHALLOW GRAVE (Danny Boyle, 1994)

I saw this title at the Prince Charles Cinema as part of their Summer celebrating 35 mm film. In a luxurious cinema with plush velvet curtains, there couldn't be a better way for movie buffs to spend their evening. The schedule runs until August 20th, so make sure you check out the itinerary! 

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The lesser known of Danny Boyle's Scotland-set 90s collaborations with Ewan McGregor, Shallow Grave tells the story of three housemates, the mischievous duo of a doctor, Juliet (Kerry Fox) and a reporter, Alex (Ewan McGregor), and the more by-the-book accountant David (Christopher Eccleston, as un-Doctor Who'ish as you could possibly imagine). They recruit a fourth housemate who, overnight, is found dead from a drug OD. He also happens to have left behind a suitcase full of money, and the housemates decide to dispose of his body and keep the cash for themselves.

A Kafkaesque nightmare ensues as they find themselves interrogated by probing police, targeted by an unsavoury pair of henchmen who want to know where the money went, and, as a result, the paranoia and distrust between the three escalates. David, in particular, undergoes a character transformation in their precarious circumstances, changing from a meek white collar worker to a ruthless Machiavelli with a penchant for using his hammer.

The tension is wonderfully accentuated by a sparse but effective score from Simon Boswell, with discordant piano keys mirroring the audience's growing sense of discomfort. Yet, at the same time, Shallow Grave also offers levity; when arguing over who should cut up the corps, Alex says to Juliet, 'you're a doctor, you kill people everyday!'.

As the three leads find themselves in increasingly dire straits, the bond between them is stretched thinner and thinner, which potentiates David's magnetic transition from mouse into man. McGregor and Fox are very good, but Eccleston is brilliant, those owl-like eyes peering up from his tortoiseshell glasses throughout, in a sinister, wicked, yet utterly enjoyable morality tale about dishonour among thieves. 

A look ahead: CHECK THE GATE season at the PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA.

I absolutely adore the Prince Charles Cinema. I bought a lifetime membership (a bargain for just £50) back in 2014 and celebrated on the day by watching Richard Linklater's Boyhood. Since then, I have regularly given this delightful cinema my patronage, whether it be to see Francois Ozon's gender-bending The New Girlfriend, or their incredible Frozen singalongs, where I can unleash my inner Disney Princess with impunity. One of my chief lamentations about holding a Cineworld Unlimited card was how few independent films these cinemas screened, and a Prince Charles Cinema membership is an ideal panacea for that problem: for just a few quid, you can watch wonderful lesser-known movies (old and new) in an institution of London steeped in rich history.

Which is why I'm insanely excited about the upcoming Check the Gate: A Celluloid Celebration event at the Princes Charles Cinema, lasting between today, 9th July, until 20th August.

Casting my eye over the itinerary of films, some titles in particular that caught my attention are  Ridley Scott's unforgettable road trip movie Thelma and Louise (the last film to attain two Oscar nominations in the Best Actress category. Although if the Weinsteins hadn't tried to force Rooney Mara to commit category fraud, Carol might have attained such a feat, but that's a rant for another day), Nicholas Ray's iconic In a Lonely Place (which I raved about when I first watched), Paul Thomas Anderson's affecting patchwork quilt Magnolia (famed for, amongst other things, the frogs from the sky sequence), and a gripping film-noir and the picture which resurrected Joan Crawford's career - as well as won her an Oscar, Mildred Pierce. 

But these are just some of the few eye-wateringly exciting titles listed, check out the link above and you're bound to find a title that either you love, or have always wanted to see. The season opens tonight at 8:30pm with Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which I have watched on TV many a time, but never on the big screen. Just picturing the lights dim, the huge screen and the Prince Charles Cinema speakers blasting out Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries is epic. In fact, I'm pretty certain that once you've watched Apocalypse Now in the cinema - as it Coppola intended it to be seen - the thought of viewing it again on a small TV? The horror, the horror.

Ticket prices are extremely reasonable and as ever, there's a generous discount for members (honestly, for £50 to become a lifetime member, the membership pays for itself). I will definitely be making the most of the eclectic menu of movies (the selection was curated by, amongst others, The Telepraph's Tim Robey and Time Out's Tom Huddleston) and frequenting the PCC over Summer.

Hope to see you there!

Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin, 2011)

Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) has just escaped from a dangerous, abusive cult, run by evil but charismatic Patrick (John Hawkes). She is rescued by her sister, who is now happily married, and she is all too happy to facilitate her younger sister into her life, feeling guilty for times when she has not fulfilled her siblingly duties in the past. However, it is not as simple as just shaking off the past, and Martha is repeatedly plagued by visions of her past two years spent in the cult, under the name Marcy May.

Director Sean Durkin wanted an unknown actress for the eponymous lead, and held open auditions, before Elizabeth Olsen won the part. And indeed, I have never watched a film with her in, thus marking her introduction into the film world. But naturally, her surname precedes her; she is of course the baby sister of the Olsen twins, who went from twin sensation-come-television producers to notorious for their off-stage antics. Although I grew up with shows such as Two of a Kind and So Little Time and enjoyed the Olsen twins’ charm, I was never that bowled over by their acting style, finding them somewhat gimmicky. Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene, however, is no such thing. She is chillingly natural and lifts a difficult role into a sensational performance. Her Martha is an inscrutable character, and drifts from ordeal to ordeal without complaint. You watch as she is drawn into the cult leader Patrick’s beliefs and becomes brainwashed by the cult, hypnotized. Elizabeth Olsen commands every scene she is in, but the mastery is that she does not over or underact, judge or offer empathy towards what is clearly a very damaged character, she just lets the script and Martha’s persona do the talking.

The supporting cast are also very good, Sarah Paulson (who, ironically, made a TV appearance herself as Lynette’s hippy sister in Desperate Housewives) conveying her sisterly warmth, as well as the times when Martha’s infuriating behaviour drive her to want to be the polar opposite, and Hugh Dancy, though not given much to do as Martha’s long-suffering brother-in-law, is perfectly fine. John Hawkes, playing essentially the “villain” of the piece, gives another fantastic turn. Funnily enough, I felt the same vibe from Martha Marcy May Marlene as I did from Winter’s Bone, a film he was in in the previous year. Both are cold viewing appearances, without grand budgets or sets and glued together by the lead female (in Winter’s Bone’s case, Jennifer Lawrence was the star). John Hawkes’ character is threatening and a thoroughly unpleasant guy, but watching the clever way he changes his tune around the girls when he wants something from them, making them feel special, it is easy to see how an impressionable young girl could fall for his ugly charm.

Martha Marcy May Marlene has been billed as a “psychological thriller”, but truth be told, there was nothing terribly psychological or terribly thrilling about it. Director Sean Durkin spends far too long on meandering, pseudo-avant garde scenes of rippling water and characters staring wistfully into space that feel like they’ve been directly lifted out of a “how to make an arthouse film” book. That being said, he deserves credit for certain scenes in the film, which are undoubtedly disturbing, without ever being graphic; the power of the content is in the actors’ facial expressions rather than the violence being inflicted on them. Overall, it isn’t an easy film to like, and that I didn’t, but as a star-making picture for Elizabeth Olsen, it has succeeded resoundingly. Olsen really is a fantastic actress, with a rare quality of holding your attention without even trying. If she stays off the beaten track that her sisters went down, she is surely destined for great things, and an Oscar, before she turns 30.

Grade: C+/B-

06. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)

It could have been you and me before you broke my heart, and now I'm standing here.

I only watched three films this week, which is a bit poor, but in my defence, I did have tonnes of work as well as an increase in my TV-watching (Damages, Cambridge Spies, The Simpsons, The Wire, Desperate Housewives and Gavin & Stacey). Phew!

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009)

I wasn’t keen on this film from all the clips I’d seen (and the petty fact that I don’t like George Clooney), but it was a genuine surprise. Clooney, whilst playing a smug character, wasn’t actually as unbearably smug as he has been in the past, and was actually semi-likeable as he began to acquire an epiphany toward the end. Vera Farmiga was underused for the most part, but Anna Kendrick was utterly lovely and hilarious. The script was sharp enough, and I love the cameo from the guy that played Juno’s dad. On the whole, I would say I enjoyed the movie less than Juno, but it was much better-rounded as a piece of filmmaking.

Saving Face (Alice Wu, 2004)

I loved this film! It tells the story of Hwei-lang Gao, a 48-year-old Chinese woman living in America who, on getting pregnant, is sent into exile by her ultra-conservative father. She goes to live with her lesbian daughter Wilhelmina, who, from her sexuality, has enough problems of her own. What I loved so much about this film was that it expertly judged the dynamics of the Chinese community in a western society, both embracing its good points, and criticising its shortcomings. The main character, smart surgeon Wilhelmina who’s still struggling to come to terms with her sexuality, was likeable and I genuinely cared for her plight. A bit schmaltzy at the end, but nothing wrong with a bit of feel good. I felt proud to be Chinese after this movie.

Afterschool (Antonio Campos, 2008)
Um. This film was not good. A lad in a restrictive, internet-obsessed boarding school films the death of two cokeheads in his school and shows everyone the video, and afterwards, life just spirals out of control. An extremely pretentious movie, with a lot of long pausing, and one of the most awkward virginity-losing scenes in cinema. Not recommended at all.
a

Two Terrible Movies.

Now that I'm a University student, I don’t get as much time for watching movies as I used to. So when I do watch a movie, I expect it to be good. Sadly, the last two that I wasted my time with were anything but good.



The Quatermass Experiment
I went along to the Sci-fi’s society screening of The Quatermass Experiment with three of my friends yesterday, in complete blindness about the film and its plot. Which just goes to show that I should consult IMDb more frequently, because if I had, I would have had two hours of my life back, to have done some of the thick stack of Maths homework I have, to read a novel, or even, say, watching paint dry. Because any of those things would have been exponentially more exciting than The Quatermass Experiment.

The plot revolves around a failed space experiment (or something or other), resulting with, out of the three astronauts that had gone into space, two are missingng and the remaining one in a stage of crazed coma.

This was a remake of the 1953 film, and director Sam Miller must have felt a burning desire to the maintain the campness of 50s B-movies, because everything about it - from the stodgy script, to the actors who performances make Keira Knightley look expressive – was below par. The finale brought the lulz in the biggest way; my friends and I were just sat there blankly, and overall, nothing made sense, except that the BBC were really bored one day and couldn’t be arsed to make a proper movie. TQC has done little to sweeten my already tempestuous relationship with fantasy movies. As one of my friends said, “the only good thing about it was that it had David Tennant”, but for all his endeavours, no amount of Doctor Who impressions could redeem this “film”, a load of absolute bollocks. E.

Good Time Max
I downloaded this in time for the “Franco Revolution” (the non-Spanish civil war type) what with his performance in Pineapple Express being touted as one of the finest comedic turns of the year (I’m still yet to see it, but I will – any film that plays M.I.A.’s Paper Planes in the trailer has my interest as I bunging love that song). Anyway, this film was incredibly. Directed, co-written and starring James Franco, it’s about two brothers, Adam and Max, both born geniuses, but, whilst Adam purses a career as a surgeon, Max falls down on the slippery slope of drug addiction. After a drug deal gone wrong, Max convinces his brother to go far away and start a new life with him, but it’s not long before his rehabilitation process falls flat on his face and life gets worse than ever.



The only thing of interest in this entire film was probably the sight of James Franco in glasses, for everything else was just an indulgent, sprawling mess. Some of the acting was so poor that it wouldn’t have been out of place in my Sixth Form’s High School Musical-style-play, with Franco himself failing to shine, drooping back into his annoying Spiderman days; he came across as just a whiny, lazy little bastard who invoked no sympathy from me whatsoever despite being so aesthetically pleasing. I usually like to wax lyrical about independent films and their inner beauty, but this has to site alongside Lost in Translation and 40 Shades of Blue as one of the dullest indies I’ve ever seen. Bung, and not in a good way. E.

On the bright side, however, I’m going to the adorable Little Theatre Cinema with my friend Luke today to see the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading. Am excited!