Ex Machina: NZFF Review

Ex Machina: NZFF Review

Finally making its way onto the screen after languishing unreleased (hooray for the New Zealand International Film Festival) is this brilliant tale of AI and mind games.

Domnhall Gleeson plays Caleb in Alex Garland's psychological thriller, a winner in a staff-run lottery to head to an island owned by company CEO Nathan (a suitably creepy Oscar Isaac) and check out some new tech.

When Caleb arrives on the island, he's introduced to Ava (a deliciously slinky and deliberately ambiguous, yet achingly vulnerable Alicia Vikander) and ordered to carry out a Turing Test on her to see if she can pass as a human.

However, as time passes, Caleb begins to question what he's doing on the island and who is playing who.

Devilishly smart, this three-hander psychological game has a claustrophobic feel that's as creepy as it is clever. As the time begins to pass, this sci-fi treat will have guessing from beginning to end; it's almost as if you are expecting something but don't have a clue where it will come from.

There's a sleekness and sophisticated sheen to the film, which really does achieve its day-after-tomorrow aesthetics with worrying ease; there's a very real feeling that this jump into AI could be in our very near future and be more subversive than we'd expect.

But while the film may be about concepts and ideas, its human personification and execution is nothing short of enthralling.

Vikander seals her rising star status with utter ease; her near emotionless face manages to convey more than you'd ever expect, a tangled set of wires may be part of her back head giving you a physical peek into what's within but you can never glimpse a full picture of what's being thought.

Equally, Gleeson relishes his time in the spotlight as the pieces of the puzzle float around his head - the swirling paranoia is gleefully orchestrated by Garland, but it's thanks to Caleb that we're given access to this quandary. Gleeson easily steps up and seizes the opportunity, turning it into something that begins as intriguing and ends with dread.

But it's Oscar Isaac who impresses most - his alpha male Nathan is a terrifying glimpse into where tech svengalis may already be heading and what lengths they're willing to go to get there. But not once does he ever leave you questioning the vision and humanity of the ethical dilemmas within thanks to a nuanced performance.

Elegant and intelligent, Ex Machina is thought-provoking cinema at its best.

Jack Tame - review - Mr Holmes and the NZIFF

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-mr-holmes-nziff/

The Wolfpack: NZFF Review

The Wolfpack: NZFF Review

Six figures, all with long hair, boyish grins and all movie fans.

All of them suited and booted, engaged in acting out scenes from Reservoir Dogs within the confines of their Manhattan apartment. All of them fully enthused about the projects and all of them clearly happy in their outlook on life.

Except that The Wolfpack is anything but.

Director Crystal Moselle's film takes a look into the lives of the Angulo brothers, and reveals they have never ventured outside of their apartment, at the command of their father. What follows in this doco mixes home footage of the boys throughout their years of tenure inside their Lower East Manhattan apartment and never quite fully answers why it's turned out like it has.

Thankfully, the subjects are engaging - both as they tentatively head out from under their oppressed lives within and with their interactions from home movie footage of the past. One even intones a thought many attending the New Zealand International Film Festival will share - "If I didn't have movies, life would be boring." But its double meaning won't be lost on those watching the story, as the growing concern manifests that the Angulo brothers have been imprisoned and unable to experience what many believe to be the formative years of their lives.

It takes Moselle a long while to get to the father, and to question some of his motivations for the home-schooling of the kids, his paranoid tyranny given a gentle prod, but it appears that Moselle shies away from asking some of the bigger questions of the father and his reasons. That she lets him cite the fear of the government, the fear of living in New York, and the fear of what may happen to his sons to be all the reasons she needs to understand. Sadly, the audience wants more, and it's only because the subjects shine, that The Wolfpack reaches the heights that it does, with so many mysteries left unanswered.

We're given an in-road into the world of The Wolfpack, and what transpires is ultimately troubling (one Angulo brother reveals that "we were frightened kids", something that's backed up by disturbing home footage from their youth) but yet is also optimistic in its resolution. Trips to Coney Island have a thrill to them as we experience the Angulo Brothers' joy at being out in the world, but their reactions and inevitable withdrawal reaction to the world around them is never quite fully probed; one suspects that Moselle's friendship with the group may have compromised some of her objectivity to her subjects.

Ultimately, The Wolfpack offers a tantalising view into a world of insular bonding, but never quite fulfils the promise of explaining how it could happen - it appears that the Angulo Senior's oppressive reach may also have affected Moselle's ability to tell the story she always suspected was lurking within.

Tangerine: NZFF Review

Tangerine: NZFF Review

Sean Baker's Starlet was a sweet nugget of a film that played the NZIFF a couple of years back and had a friendship between a young girl and an elderly woman at its core. It was gentle, savvy and earnest.

His latest, shot on iPhone (everyone has to have a gimmick, right?) is a lurid blast of West Hollywood, a slice of in-your-face-life that plays up to its over-exposed sunshine beating down.

Set on Christmas Eve 2014, it's the story of two transgender BFFs, one of whom Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is fresh outta jail and looking to catch up with her beau Chester. But when pal Alexandra reveals that Sin-Dee's been cheated on, she sets out to find the "bitch what done her wrong" and deliver her justice.

A collision of Short Cuts mixed in with cinema verite, Tangerine is to be frank, shrill in places and an ear-drum piercingly startling film.

Baker's brilliantly caught the banter between the blaring sounds of the street and those who inhabit it, with this tale of essentially, revenge and friendship.

With everything bathed in the Hollywood glows of the sun and the way of life, it takes a little time to adjust to this flick that has a bombastic OST blaring at every available opportunity. Its rawness equally takes time to adjust given that the character of Sin-Dee appears to be naturally set to overdrive, slotting perfectly into the flick as the revenge tale plays out.

When the film slows down and breathes, it has much in common with Starlet. 

Once again, Baker's explored the bonds of friendship - despite everything that Sin-Dee goes through and is going through thanks to a philandering other half, she moves heaven and hell to get to Alexandra's spot to witness her singing because it's a pledge that's been made and an implicit and taciturn recognition that above all else on the strip, you only have your friends to rely on and a code of honor (Starlet explored similar themes)

With Baker's eye for verite, it's fair to say there will be moments of this film that will polarise some, but it doesn't shy away from a truth that's out there and rarely explored on film. It all collides at the end with perhaps some level of contrivance, but in among the sound, bluster and a ballistic lead, the ripples are potently powerful - particularly in the film's final scene, where the theme couldn't be more implicitly stated or more subtly.

Certainly Rodriguez's performance is blessed with as much vulnerability as there is bravado; and Mya Taylor's turn as Alexandra is perhaps more taciturn, but proves to be a perfect emotional foil to Rodriguez.

Above all, there's heart in Tangerine - look past the glare and blinding shrillness of the strip and those who inhabit it to get a feeling of grace, darkly comic humour as well as a simple tale of when it all comes down to it, life will let you down.

But if you're lucky, in your time of need, your friends never will.

I Am Thor: NZFF Review

I Am Thor: NZFF Review

How would you feel to be on the comeback trail for over a decade?

That's part of the thrust of I Am Thor, a tremendously entertaining doco from Ryan Wise, playing as part of the Incredibly Strange section and centring on Jon Miki Thor.

In the 1970s, Jon Miki Thor was already forging his own path as his own version of the Norse God - and the centrepiece of this body-building dude's act was making a hot water bottle explode. Believing his own hype, the blonde, buffed-up shaggy-haired Thor and his band of rockers were determined to conquer, with their power rock that pre-dated Kiss.

Despite harbouring big dreams and a self-belief that continued to fuel him, the perennial underdog JMT never quite made it - but bizarrely, he never let that put him off.

Wise's doco, deemed affectionate by many, is clearly hilarious but never at Thor's expense. (You could say it never deems to take the Miki)

Assembling hours upon hours of footage from the man himself as well as interviews from his band members and stand-in band members, you get the measure of the man; a man who was his own manager but created a faux persona for that manager (a hilarious trade-off later on when Thor and his band play a Swedish festival) ; a man whose drive for showmanship was never compromised, even when it looked like his capabilities fell far short of his own skills.

As the deluded bluster continues, you actually end up really wanting Thor to achieve his goal - and Wise is smart enough to know that this guy gives himself enough rope to hang his blonde ambition and provides great cinema for those sat in the audience. Yet, it's an endearing portrait, a genuine examination of how ambition fuels and fires someone throughout the years, no matter what life throws at them.

In every low moment of Thor's career, there's a feeling that his latest stage of the comeback is waiting around the corner - and his adaptability to each decade of despair is as heart-warming as it is hilarious. Watching him hawk his wares at ComicCon in San Diego is as sad as it is amusing; and therein lies the strength of I Am Thor.

It's a doco that's genuine, about a subject who's so affable despite being so incredibly deluded.

Funny and wry, smart and savvy, this cautionary tale is nothing short of ashamedly feel-good fun. This is one Norse god that continually resurrects himself admirably - and the ride he takes you on is well worth the price of admission.

Big Eyes: Blu Ray Review

Big Eyes: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz star in this straight-down-the-line flick about Margaret Keane from master of the slightly weird Tim Burton.

Keane was the painter of the pictures of children with over-large eyes (it's easy to see why Burton's Gothic tendencies were drawn to this story) - but her story is more complex than that. Walking out on her husband in 1958 with a daughter, Margaret comes to San Francisco determined to provide for her family and be creative.

One day she meets confident bon vivant and would-be artist Walter (an overly energetic Waltz) who falls under her spell - and one chance incident later, Margaret's paintings are a massive hit on the burgeoning 60s American scene. But Margaret falters when asked who painted them, leading to Walter claiming them as his own for their shared interest...

And things get worse as the Keane's art fame grows, and Margaret shrinks ever smaller in her husband's growing shadow - is his altruism real or has Margaret made a terrible mistake?

Big Eyes is surprising.

It features the usual crisp Burton aesthetics and shots (the opening moments are a pristine mix of colours and images) but the subject matter is relatively straight down the line, something he's not done since Big Fish. (And the soundtrack from Danny Elfman deserves particular mention)

However, a quieter turn from Adams is powerful and impresses as Waltz's turn becomes ever more OTT. It's not that it's a bad performance from Waltz, merely that his character needs the impetus to over-shadow Margaret and Waltz embraces it with a joie de vivre that's both compelling and frightening. A court-room scene particularly brings some peculiar laughs.

Occasionally, the story jumps around and motives for Margaret's behaviour are never fully explained (I was never quite convinced as to why she shrank from claiming the art was her own at the start, even though I guess walking out on a man was a big thing in the early 1950s) and a few scenes suffer from choppy editing.

Overall though, Big Eyes is an impressively quiet little film - it befits Burton to do the straighter turn from his usual kooky oddbeat fare. While the interest wanes towards the end and the conclusion of the storyline isn't quite as powerful as it could be, that remains a fault of the scripting, rather than of any of those involved.

Rating:

From Scotland with Love: NZFF Review

From Scotland with Love: NZFF Review

New Zealand director Virginia Heath and King Creosote have created something that will resound with many in the Dunedin district or anyone with Scottish heritage.

Taking in hours of archival footage and trawling through people's home movies, this unique collaboration has wielded some intriguing results which were initially released to coincide with the 2014 Scottish Commonwealth games.

Weaving themes of love, work, industry, immigration, and most importantly, Scotland's social history, this is the tale of thousands of ordinary lives told in an extraordinary way.

From trips to beaches, to protests being dispersed, the whole tapestry of the country in simpler times is put under the microscope and sound-tracked by King Creosote's folksy OST which bolsters the images and gives them an added dimension.

Several sequences stand out as they represent different parts of history - from the launch of a steamship in all its magnitude definitely feels like a moment brought to life and the sequences of ships leaving full of people as they emigrate packs an emotional punch that you'd probably not see coming.

Granted, perhaps afficianados of Scotland would see a lot more in this piece, and get some of the subtleties of the area - it's not a film that panders to a timeline, gives you captions to get into the timezone or definitive landmarks for you to scope out. But those factors don't hamper the film as it proffers up a window into simpler times, a ramble through the brambles of the highlands and striking images from a nation rich in heritage and culture.

The recognition factor will likely spark a wave of nostalgia in many who are going to see glimpses of families past, and of a time gone by. From a child wearing her mother's over-sized shoes to a child wrapped in calipers on the beach, the striking and universal images live from the screen as much as any overdone CGI blockbuster ever could.

This may be From Scotland With Love, but the love Virginia and Creosote have shown in compiling this comes poring from the home-movie format and linger long after the curtain has risen on us, but fallen on a past.