Remember: Film Review

Remember: Film Review

Cast: Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Dean Norris
Director: Atom Egoyan

The past weighs heavy in this drama about former Auschwitz survivor Zev Guttman (wonderfully portrayed by Christopher Plummer), who's sent to find the blockfuhrer who murdered his family.

The problem is that time is against Zev, as he's suffering from dementia. Armed with a letter and help from a fellow Auschwitz survivor and nursing home inhabitant, he sets out across America to track down the man responsible for such misery - one Rudy Kurlander.

Remember is a film that packs an emotional sucker punch in its midst, but a film that's anchored by Plummer's frail and relatable turn as Zev, the survivor.

With his usual gravitas and dignity, the frustration he feels at his body giving out and his dementia taking hold is masterfully played and sensitively handled by Canadian director Egoyan.

The central piece of the film, a thrilling confrontation between Dean Norris's cop and Plummer's frail Zev crackles with electricity and underlying tension. To say more is to spoil the reveal, and reveals are certainly something Egoyan piles on carefully in this film. It almost threatens to topple everything over at one point, but because of the careful way the crafting is done, the ultimate result is one of tragedy and pathos.

Mostly though, Remember succeeds because of Plummer; his gradual piecing together of what's going on as this road trip of mistaken identity continues is nothing short of something that draws you in. From his frailties to his moments of strength, Plummer's Zev is the guide to lead you on this journey - and it's all the more enticing because of his partnership with Egoyan.

Ghostbusters: Film Review

Ghostbusters: Film Review

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth
Director: Paul Feig

"I ain't afraid of no ghost" goes the rallying cry from Ray Parker Jr's iconic theme.

But based on the online furore resultant from Paul Feig's first look Ghostbusters trailer, it appears many were fearful of an all female cast taking on the mantle of Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson's characters.

So in its newest iteration, it's all about the nostalgia and the ladies when Manhattan is under siege from a phantom menace. Enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates (Wiig and McCarthy respectively) discover an increase in activity in New York - and coupled with nuclear engineer and loose cannon Jillian Holtzmann (Saturday Night Live's Kate McKinnon) and subway worker Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), they set out to save the day.

Thirty years on from their first appearance, the Ghostbusters are back for a new generation.

While large swathes of this film are bathed in the same kind of nostalgia that JJ Abrams executed with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (and indeed the film struggles to etch out its own identity), there's no escaping the fact this 2016 Ghostbusters is essentially the same film as 1984 Ghostbusters, but with the original group appearing in various cameos (as well as others from the series).

It's hard not to read into the furore that's surrounded the film's inception when the script throws in such meta- lines like "Ain't no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts" (from an online commenter on one of the group's uploaded videos) and a Melissa McCarthy put down about reading comments late at night, but for the most part, director Paul Feig wallows in what made the original Ghosbusters so much fun - silly goofiness in between some paranormal moments.

The team gels solidly but never spectacularly together throughout, and while McKinnon manages some zany moments, her antics have a tendency to stick out within the group.

Certainly, Wiig and McCarthy channel earnest into the ineptness of the group and their estranged friendship and Jones' street-smart Patty fits in as she brings something of value to the group. There's certainly no tokenism here and there's never any sign that all of this has been retro-fitted to an all female lead cast - and the very fact that even has to be mentioned decries the state of Hollywood in 2016. It's not a film that makes smart commentary about women in the 21st Century - nor should it. It's a film that has a simple brief and sticks to it.

Essentially, Ghostbusters 2016 is a kids' movie, a family outing for all, that may have benefited from a burst of extra humour (a lot of the laughs come from Chris Hemsworth playing dumb as receptionist man-candy Kevin) over its 2 hour run time.

There are certainly moments towards the end that feel flat and dialogue that chugs rather than flies, but it's more a script issue than an ensemble problem. It culminates in a Godzilla CGI Spooktacular/ Avengers portal mash-up that may lack some stakes and a series of cameos that start to stand out, but it certainly never lacks any reverence for its source material or a reason for being.

Much maligned it may be, and while it's a case of setting expectations to a lower end of the spectrum, there's nothing offensive about this reboot. Many may be afraid of this, but to be frank, the 2016 version of Ghostbusters is silly, disposable fun in a world that just takes itself too seriously sometimes. Maybe if they get the sequel that's hinted at in a post-credits scene, there's work to be done, but for now, this reboot is fine.

NZIFF Q&A - On an Unknown Beach

NZIFF Q&A - On an Unknown Beach

Our film is ……On an Unknown Beach. 

It’s a film about exploring the unknown, like our prehistoric ancestors banging rocks together. Three characters engage their own processes (scientific, artistic, esoteric) for confronting different landscapes of ruin.

The reason we made this film is: 

In a really general sense to understand the world around us, and to frame it as an experience in a movie cinema to share with other mammals.

What's the one moment that stands out in your film and why? 

Seeing the devastation humans have inflicted on the seabed of the Chatham Rise. It’s just a completely new vision of how poorly we behave on this planet.

What was the hardest thing about completing your film? 

We approached the film as explorers ourselves. We started out with an open brief to discover images, ideas and new thoughts that bring our diverse characters and processes together. So just resolving a central idea was the hardest part. It meant a lot of exploratory editing, re-concepting, reshooting. There was nothing particularly typical about our workflow, and in a lot of ways we had to invent a process for making the film cohere together on it’s own terms.

               

What's the most satisfying thing about your film? 

The feeling that we’ve made something unique, something that offers an audience a different kind of experience in a cinema.

What's been the one piece of feedback from either peers or audiences that has struck you the most and why?

That the film gives you a ‘really strong sense of being a human on the planet’. That’s right on what we had hoped to achieve. To weave together really different human activities to somehow arrive at a feeling of human searching, fallibility, history, optimism. Just… the human yearning to understand.

What’s next on the cards for you?

We go our separate ways again. We last made a film together 10 years ago (Minginui, which screened in the AIFF ’05). So we’ll get together again in 2025 and see where we are at.

On an Unknown Beach will have its World Premiere at NZIFF on Fri 29 July 8.30pm at Event Cinemas Queen St, Auckland.

Hail, Caesar: Blu Ray Review

Hail, Caesar: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent


The Coen Brothers return to Hollywood with Hail, Caesar!

In a playful ode to Hollywood past, it's the story of Capitol Pictures head Eddie Mannix (a brilliant Josh Brolin) and how his life plays out over one day inside the studio system.

Mannix is a fixer, and his skill-set is needed when George Clooney's Baird Whitlock, the star of the studio's prestige picture, Hail, Caesar (The Tale of The Christ) is kidnapped. With only a brief ransom note purporting to be from The Future, Mannix is racing against the clock to ensure the production's not shut down and Capitol Pictures isn't plunged into anarchy and infamy.

Hail, Caesar! is The Player through a Coens-shaped prism.

Brolin's is hands down the star of the film, the thread that ties together what are essentially a series of well-executed cameos that occasionally threaten to overwhelm the thinnest of narratives to the casual viewer.

Talk of communism that echoTrumbo, the death of the movies with the advent of television and a long debate about spirituality sit alongside a brilliantly executed dance number with Channing Tatum channelling Gene Kelly. It's a flick of polar opposites in many ways, and as light a feast as the Coens have ever served up to us.

And yet on the surface, the film is a frothy ode to 1930s era surroundings; a film that revels in its gloriously recreated ethics and which delights in its re-staging of motifs you'd recognise from the pantheon of Hollywood's finest. A water set dance number with Scarlett Johansson oozes with panache and prestige but sits at odds with the drama that's unfolding around it; and while Mannix's push to solve everyone's problems is the main drive of the film, the zigzagging and meandering means the journey to the end is nothing short of occasionally frustrating.

Thankfully, some of the motifs of the latest Coens' film stays with you after the lights have gone up and once the thrill of Clooney playing Charlton Heston and Brolin playing a version of a real life Hollywood fixer has washed over you, the themes begin to surface and the perception that it's a patchwork pastiche of a collection of cameos and scenes subsides.

In its own perverse way, it's escapism of the purest level, as the studio's desires to detract from the depression and the threat of the Cold War are recreated for us to behold.

Hail, Caesar! is something more than a love letter to Hollywood though; it's an iceberg of a film, an under the surface look at the politics and ideology of the times with a few dance numbers thrown in and talk of the H Bomb to distract you.
It's a smoke and mirrors kind of film that is as frothy as it comes and dawdles on its way, lacking some of the tightness and pay-off you'd expect, but works thanks to grizzled Brolin's determination and whose arc sees him being tempted outside of Hollywood as he deals to the daily concerns. (Something many of the time would have faced with the impending demise of Hollywood, a threat we know never came to pass but whose image would be tarnished with the problems).

Not every journey is as successful and some off camera resolutions feel forced, slight and narratively cheating. Of the cast, Ehrenreich is perhaps the revelation as Hobie Doyle, a John Wayne-esque simpleton of a hillbilly chosen for his looks, his lassoing ways and his sex appeal. The scenes where Ralph Fiennes tries to direct him are a joy to behold, dripping in frustration and working against the clock.

Ultimately, Hail, Caesar! may not at initial sight be among the Coens' finest efforts, but thanks to its cohorts of cameos, its perfect casting and spot-on recreations as well as its scratch-the-surface message, it's still a cinematic sweet treat, if you're willing to forego and forgive its excesses and flimsinesses.

Rating:

Trumbo DVD Review

Trumbo DVD Review

There's nothing Hollywood loves more than a tale about the wronged getting final justice.

So, coupled with the fact that this tale takes that and wraps it up in the past of one of its own, and you could see how Trumbo would be a shoo-in for awards season with its prestige veneer and stand-out performance by its lead.

Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston plays Dalton Trumbo, an American screen-writer and heavyweight of the industry in this biopic which follows Trumbo's ostracism from the Hollywood community because of his political beliefs.

In 1947, Trumbo was put on the Blacklist and ultimately jailed for his beliefs, before entering the Hollywood community again under a veil of secrecy.

Predominantly known for his comedy films like Austin Powers and Meet The Fockers, director Jay Roach heads down the traditional path for the genre, choosing to recreate a myriad of scenes and moments from Trumbo's life.

Consequently, the almost made for TV film occasionally feels like it's too choppy and frenetic with the areas it decides to land on; it's an odd idea and rather than simply concentrating on one particular time-span or thread, there are parts which feel massively underdeveloped and characters which go to waste. Chief among these is Trumbo's long-suffering wife Diane Lane, who simply shows to offer support before crumbling. Granted, by concentrating solely on the domestic stress of dealing with the idealistic approach to the Red Menace and Trumbo's exorcism the film would have felt over-blown, but there are plenty of dramatic fruits to be successfully mined here.

Thankfully, it's Cranston's actorly portrayal of the clearly witty and urbane Trumbo that helps propel the film along. He's clearly having a ball with his pronounced intonations delivering lines that are of a Noel Coward withering nature ("I'd say go on, but you will" just being one of the examples) He delivers the film's script with a dazzling theatricality that's called for that helps elevate the rather average ideas and execution from its own intentions.

There are moments when Trumbo becomes a film of characters and impersonations - chiefly Helen Mirren's harpie horrible Hedda Hopper and Dean O'Gorman's double-take Kirk Douglas - but it's in the execution of the spoken word and the recreation of the era that Trumbo excels. (Plus John Goodman's appearance adds a great deal of vim in the back as movie mogul Frank King, a peddler of B grade trash that Trumbo finds himself writing for)

Perhaps the criticism for this tale is that the choice of canvas is too wide and given the bath-dwelling Trumbo's a rich source for the plucking, it could have paid dividends in its final fight back against his vilification.

While Trumbo gained two Oscars writing under nom-de-plumes or selling the work to others as it was the right thing to do, the moment when he's welcomed back among his own, unfortunately lacks quite the emotional punch that it needs to resonate.

All in all though, Trumbo is a small triumph; had it chosen to hone in a little more on some key moments in his bath-dwelling life, it could have soared a lot higher than it actually does.

NZIFF Preview - Nuts!, Under The Sun, A Perfect Day, The Lure

NZIFF Preview - Nuts!, Under The Sun, A Perfect Day, The Lure

The pull of the New Zealand International Film Festival is just days away, and with it, the promise of good times out of the rain and inside the warmth of some of the nation's finest cinematic establishments.

And treats are certainly in store, as well as some of the more eye-popping elements currently on offer.

One of those slightly more out there propositions is Nuts!, the animated story of American entrepreneur J R Brinkley. Renowned for his ability to improve fertility by grafting goats' nuts to the scrotum, Brinkley became a populist hero and made his fame and fortune. But as ever, The Man didn't like it and came hunting for him.

Nuts!

It's hard not to root for Brinkley in this tale, and the mix of animation, stock footage and talking heads spin a great yarn as the story takes a deeper edge. There's pathos and misdirection as well as some sadder elements - if anything Nuts! has charm aplenty as the web is spun. Don't be too surprised if the simplicity of execution gets you wound up in the story and you find yourself feeling slightly aggrieved when this is over.

Equally aggrieving, but for distinctly other reasons, Under The Sun is a monumental expose of how North Korea's propaganda machine continues to rumble on.

Russian film-maker Vitaly Mansky travelled to Pyongyang to make a film about a school girl who was about to become a fully vested citizen, but what Mansky ends up capturing is a film about control and a peek behind the curtain look which is unlikely to do much to change many people's views about North Korea and its machinations.

Under The Sun

The rub with this film is the breakdown between the filmmaker and those allowing them to do the filming - shots reveal officials fussing over takes and asking them to say something more positive or re-do shots. It's heartbreaking in many ways, because the anti-Japanese sentiments, the way the children are brought up and the continual cycle of manipulation is all caught so matter of fact by Mansky's camera. Shots of routines, workouts, bleak winter days and children fidgeting nervously with their hands and fingers while extolling propaganda in class give the whole thing a downbeat sheen.

There can't be many who didn't suspect life in North Korea was like this, but as we revel in day-to-day freedoms that we take for granted, the prompt from one official to get the child to "say something cheerful" is a depressing note - mainly for the children's future who have to be brought up in this world.

Staying in a world that's been hit by problems, A Perfect Day's aiming for black humour in the Bosnian conflict.

A Perfect Day

The Spanish film features Benicio del Toro and Tim Robbins as part of a group of aid workers trying to move a corpse from a well in a conflict zone. It's an easy task in theory - take out the thing that's corrupting the surrounding well-being of the people (an allegory not lost on the viewers) but the amount of red-tape and problems it poses for del Toro's Mambru and Robbins' B would be funny if they weren't so ludicrous.

Fortunately, director Fernando Leon de Aranoa mines the gallows humour to reasonably exasperating effect throughout; and while the idea that Olga Kurylenko's top ranking aid official would head out among them stretches credibility somewhat, the flashes of the horrors of war that are interspersed throughout ground the film in a horrific reality that never quite goes away.

The one day to go storyline for del Toro's Mambru may have been done before with the likes of M*A*S*H but not once does A Perfect Day's sedentary pace through conflict lose any of its resonance as it seeks not to lecture but to present a sobering reality that aid workers have to face.

The Lure

Sobering reality is perhaps the last thing on the mind of The Lure, a veritable melange of the deranged, body horror, love story and pop video all meshed into one fever dream of lurid trashiness.

When aquatic sirens Silver and Golden are discovered at a water's edge, they're immediately shipped out into a sleazy club that's every bit the salacious joint you'd expect in the Incredibly Strange section (even if it does channel Lynchian elements of the Black Lodge in parts).

When one mermaid falls for the guitar player in their band, all hell threatens to break loose in this Polish first time filmmaker's quest for infamy.  The Lure may slightly struggle to piece it all together in the final strait, but with committed performances, a soundtrack and a chutzpah that deserves commendation for presenting large swathes of dialogue as choreographed pop songs, there's lots to admire in the enticing fishy tale The Lure.

Life, Animated: NZFF Review

Life, Animated: NZFF Review

If Disney Pixar's latest Finding Dory is a parable about living with disability, Life, Animated is a tale of how Disney helped one family and their son rise above their debilitating problem.

Director Roger Ross Williams has already snagged a Sundance directing prize for the doco about Owen Suskind and it's not hard to see why.

Meshing animation, Disney favourites and fly-on-the-wall aesthetics, it's the tale of 23 year old Owen Suskind who at 3 years old stopping talking and being able to form sentences, muttering only gibberish to his family and leaving them in heartbreak.

Diagnosed with regressive autism, Owen's parents Ron and Cornelia despaired as they lived in a world which didn't have the insights we do today and struggled to find a way to connect back to the son who early footage shows was just a normal kid.

But Owen's way back to the world and his parents' way to meet him was through a chance discovery of what Disney's animated films had given him... and it's here that a Life, Animated review veers too closely into spoilers to deprive you of some of the uplifting moments and lows that ensue.

What Ross Williams has done has helped shed light on a moving story of both those living with autism and those around them - but without sugar coating any of it. Based on father Ron's book, we see the pain of the parents (the line where his father decries the fact that his son simply disappeared is heartbreaking of itself), the anguish of the brother who will have to assume the mantle of protector and we witness the joie de vivre of Owen as he negotiates his life and touches of TV series The Undateables.

Meshing family footage and candid honesty as well as some beautiful animation from Mathieu Betard and Olivier Lescot, Life Animated is nothing short of heartwarming but never manipulative.

Providing a glimpse into the world of autism from Owen the subject itself, this is a coming of age story that revels for the most part in restraint. There can be no denial the final scenes leave you empowered (as a moment from the Lion King rams home the point), but it's the wonder of Owen and the simplicity of Ross Williams' construction of the piece that make you marvel.

If Ron Suskind's book Life Animated is the number 1 special needs biography, it's fair to say that this feel-good piece will bring the subject to a wider audience and will succeed in sending crowds off into the cold nights with a warm undeniable glow.