Good Time: DVD Review

Good Time: DVD Review

Wearing its Euro-scuzziness like a badge of honour, Josh and Benny Safdie's Good Time is a nervy thriller that has a pounding first half, before slightly going off the boil.

In many ways, its ethos is the Dardenne Brothers via Luc Besson.

Robert Pattinson stars as Connie, who, at the start of the film, breaks his mentally handicapped brother Nick (Benny Safdie) out of facility to help him rob a bank. However, unsurprisingly, this goes south, and Nick ends up being arrested.

With Connie on the run and desperate to assuage some guilt over the incarceration, the clock ticks as he tries to do what he can to restore his brother's freedom.

There's absolutely no doubt the first half of this film, complete with its scummy outlook and its pounding Euro techno beat OST from Oneohtrix Point Never, is utterly thrilling, edge-of-your-seat stuff. Dragging out the pre-titles over a 20 minute period works well for the guerilla film-making ethos of the Safdie brothers, and it gives a pace to the film that's compulsive and nerve-shredding.

Setting on the streets gives it a vibe of the grubby and guarantees that those watching will be hooked, but the film comes slightly unstuck in its second half when Connie's forced into partnership with someone else, due to narrative constraints. It ultimately leads to a series of escapades, and despite the great settings (the streets at night, a fairground complete with Barkhad Abdi as a security guard), the frenetic pace disappointingly slows as it becomes a little more of a psychological insight into Connie and his family.

Pattinson is watchable throughout, imbuing his Connie with a sense of the desperate, yet a sense of being in control. With continual close ups, the Safdies bring a sense of the claustrophobic and the tense, draping everything in Euro neons and reds helps matters a lot too, and helps build atmosphere.

There are moments when the visceral edges help to really reach its potential as this gutter thriller plays out, but the film's desire to build up characters then dispose of them for narrative reasons make it hard to latch on to anything. And while Connie's still the centre of it all, and it's his odyssey, the time spent with others feels wasted.

All in all, Good Time is simply that. Nothing more, nothing less - it's a solid experience which feels like two films stylistically meshed into one pulsing lump that, like any sugar rush, lasts while you're in it, but feels like a comedown at the end. 

Win Tad The Lost Explorer prize packs

Win Tad The Lost Explorer prize packs

To celebrate the release of Tad The Lost Explorer in cinemas now, you can win a prize pack!

About Tad The Lost Explorer

Tadeo Jones travels to Las Vegas to attend archaeologist Sara Lavroff’s presentation of her latest discovery – the papyrus that shows the existence of the Necklace of Midas, the mythical King who turned everything he touched into gold. 

But this happy reunion will be clouded when an evil rich man kidnaps Sara in order to find the talisman and get infinite wealth. 

Along with his friends, the parrot (Belzoni) and his dog (Jeff), Tadeo will have to use his wit to rescue Sara on a trip around the world, where he will meet new friends ... and new villains!

Rated: G

 Tad The Lost Explorer is in Cinemas Now!

Downsizing: Film Review

Downsizing: Film Review

Cast: Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Udo Kier
Director: Alexander Payne

With an eye on the insignificant and how small can mak a big difference, director Alexander (Sideways) Payne's Downsizing, starring Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig (briefly) clearly has lofty ambitions.

Juggling genres from sci-fi to hippy utopia to humanitarian issues, Payne's film is such a mish-mash of anything that it slightly struggles to garner its own identity.

Set in a world where over-population is a real issue and where scientists have discovered there's a way to shrink people and their possessions down and relocate them to gated communities, Payne's film centres on Paul and his wife, the average middle American.

A terribly bland Damon plays Paul, an occupational therapist and middle American, who's stuck in the humdrum way of his life - unable to get into a new home with his wife (Wiig, who's in the film far too briefly), they decide to downsize.

Enticed by the idea of becoming millionaires and having everything they always dreamed of as part of the process (wealth and property are multiplied in value under the irreversible scheme), the pair decide to undergo the process.

However, while Paul completes the procedure, his wife panics and leaves him before beginning - meaning that Paul is destined to find his place alone in LeisureLand, the community set up for smaller people.

Soon discovering the problems of the outside world still exist in Leisureland (crummy jobs, bad neighbours), Paul's dream of Utopia ends up more like a not for U-topia and he seeks his place in the world.

Toying with ideas of insignificance, a microcosm of a society that's less than idyllic, and a satire that has little to no bite, Downsizing aims for profundity but misses with a distinct thud.

It's helped little by Damon playing as bland as the script demands, time jumps that are less than crucial and add little to the drama.

Payne seems lost to know what to do with the little people, even throwing in some apparently timely talk of little people's rights - all the elements are in place in Downsizing, but frustratingly, the jigsaw is so messily assembled, it feels too much of a jumble to care about.

There's also the disturbing edges of Paul the white man American saviour in parts of the film, as the sadsack Damon tackles European attitudes, and Payne rolls out a thinly veiled Asian stereotype in Thai dissident and one-legged cleaner Ngoc Lan Tran, played by Hong Chau.

It's uncomfortable in the extreme and while the excuse script calls for it may be generous at best, it certainly doesn't sit right as the back half of the film meanders to a Lilluptian conclusion.

Ultimately, the fact that Downsizing has had its dramatic teeth shrunk down narratively does it no favours.

There's a kernel of a great idea here, and a doomsday-preppers style story which could have been smartly and cleverly executed. But the clever premise of Downsizing is squandered in an indulgent script and story which shrinks and shrivels as much as its titular characters.

The only way to perhaps enjoy Downsizing is to massively shrink any expectations you have before going in.

I, Tonya: Film Review

I, Tonya: Film Review

Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Alison Janney
Director: Craig Gillespie

It's hard to know where the truth lies in the cinematic and literal punchbag and punchline that is director Craig Gillespie and actor Margot Robbie's I, Tonya.

A non-conventional biopic that mingles fourth-wall breaking, Fargo-esque shenanigans, Goodfellas-style extreme domestic violence, comedy and unreliable narrators, the truth is as difficult to trace as the film is keen to promote Margot Robbie's Tonya Harding as a victim, not a villain.

As Verbal in The Usual Suspects intoned at the end, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist", much of a similar ethos has been thrown at I, Tonya and you're likely to emerge still not quite believing who is right, what the truth of the incident that hobbled Harding's contender Nancy Kerrigan in January 1994 actually is and assured that Alison Janney deserves all the plaudits she's being showered in for the role of Tonya's harridan mother.

Beginning with a relatively quiet start and a series of others piece-to-cameras explaining their role in the Tonya tale, Gillespie sets about building an image of Tonya before Robbie's presence is fully revealed.

Sitting in her kitchen, looking non-descript and complete with lank hair and limp bangs, Robbie portrays Harding as the victim in all of this, who never wanted anything more than to skate.

Taking in her childhood in 1970, where her mother LaVona (a nothing short of sinister and compelling turn from Janney under a pudding bowl cut and pair of unflattering glasses) daily verbally and physically abuses Harding, the film follows Tonya's rise to adulthood, her abusive relationship with Jeff Gillooly and her desire to simply skate and do nothing else.

Robbie's impressive as Harding for the most part - even if the back third of the film feels directionless and sprawling as it takes in a crime ripped straight from the annals of the Fargo anthology series in its ineptness and woeful stupidity.

But Robbie's game is seriously raised - and the film is indeed never better than when Janney is on screen and we dwell in their interactions. Simmering with an horrific tension and redolent of systemic abuse, these scenes are frank in their approach and as eye-opening an insight into character as could be expected.

However, Gillespie's desire to make the audience complicit (and Harding's on-screen end insistence that the audience is to blame for what happened to her) makes the film particularly conflicting viewing at times.

Punctuating moments of strong violence from Gillooly with Robbie's fourth-wall breaking leaves an occasionally uncertain taste in the mouth as the film goes on. Granted the material is pulled from a He Said, She Said style narrative, but the oddly jokey tone sits uncomfortably throughout.

That said, there are moments of directorial bravura in I, Tonya.

Gillespie's eye for dazzling sweeping shots of skating on the ice give the film a sequinned thrill and Tonya's tale an arc of tragedy, where the beauty she displayed in the rink is so fused with the ugliness of what lies off it in her domestic hillbilly life. (Though occasionally, it feels like some of the CGI fails its subject.)

Ultimately, and unfortunately, I, Tonya makes a literal punchline of its subject, and leaves you none the wiser to the reliability and relatability of what transpires on screen.

It does feel overlong hitting nearly 2 hours, and the farcical elements sit with unease next to the violence, but perhaps, in some ways, this is the point of I, Tonya.

Harding has always been a conflicting and divisive figure.

It certainly feels in its denouement as she protests her innocence that she believes she's misunderstood (and the film allows this agenda throughout).

Even with Janney's superlative turn and Robbie's occasional shining strength and resolute performance, I, Tonya spins a polarising story, a bastardisation of the American dream that's hard to get to the core of - and definitely one whose black humour and approach will leave you feeling deeply conflicted afterwards.

Oscars 2018: The list of nominees in full

Oscars 2018: The list of nominees in full

The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards have been announced

They are as follows:

Best picture

• Call Me By Your Name
• Darkest Hour
• Dunkirk
• Get Out
• Lady Bird
• Phantom Thread
• The Post
• The Shape of Water
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best actress

• Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water
• Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Margot Robbie - I, Tonya
• Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird
• Meryl Streep - The Post

Best actor

• Timothee Chalamet - Call Me By Your Name
• Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread
• Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out
• Gary Oldman - Darkest Hour
• Denzel Washington - Roman J Israel, Esq

Best supporting actress

• Mary J Blige - Mudbound
• Allison Janney - I, Tonya
• Lesley Manville - Phantom Thread
• Laurie Metcalf - Lady Bird
• Octavia Spencer - The Shape of Water

Best supporting actor

• Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project
• Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water
• Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World
• Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best director

• Dunkirk - Christopher Nolan
• Get Out - Jordan Peele
• Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig
• Phantom Thread - Paul Thomas Anderson
• The Shape of Water - Guillermo Del Toro

Best adapted screenplay

• Call Me By Your Name - screenplay by James Ivory
• The Disaster Artist - screenplay by Scott Neustadter & Michael H Weber
• Logan - screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green; story by James Mangold
• Molly's Game - written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin
• Mudbound - screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

Best original screenplay

• The Big Sick - written by Emily V Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani
• Get Out - written by Jordan Peele
• Lady Bird - written by Greta Gerwig
• The Shape of Water - screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor; story by Guillermo del Toro
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - written by Martin McDonagh

Best foreign language film

• A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
• The Insult (Lebanon)
• Loveless (Russia)
• On Body and Soul (Hungary)
• The Square (Sweden)

Best original song

• Mighty River - Mudbound (Mary J Blige, Raphael Saadiq & Taura Stinson)
• The Mystery of Love - Call Me By Your Name (Sufjan Stevens)
• Remember Me - Coco (Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez)
• Stand Up for Something - Marshall (Common & Diane Warren)
• This Is Me - The Greatest Showman (Benji Pasek & Justin Paul)

Best original score

• Dunkirk - Hans Zimmer
• Phantom Thread - Jonny Greenwood
• The Shape of Water - Alexandre Desplat
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi - John Williams
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Carter Burwell

Best animated feature

• The Boss Baby
• The Breadwinner
• Coco
• Ferdinand
• Loving Vincent

Best documentary feature

• Abacus
• Faces Places
• Icarus
• Last Men in Aleppo
• Strong Island

Best cinematography

• Blade Runner 2049 - Roger Deakins
• Darkest Hour - Bruno Delbonnel
• Dunkirk - Hoyte van Hoytema
• Mudbound - Rachel Morrison
• The Shape of Water - Dan Laustsen

Best costume design

• Beauty and the Beast - Jacqueline Durran
• Darkest Hour - Jacqueline Durran
• Phantom Thread - Mark Bridges
• The Shape of Water - Luis Sequeira
• Victoria and Abdul - Consolata Boyle

Best make-up and hairstyling

• Darkest Hour - Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski & Lucy Sibbick
• Victoria and Abdul - Daniel Phillips & Lou Sheppard
• Wonder - Arjen Tuiten

Best production design

• Beauty and the Beast - production design by Sarah Greenwood; set decoration by Katie Spencer
• Blade Runner 2049 - production design by Dennis Gassner; set decoration by Alessandra Querzola
• Darkest Hour - production design by Sarah Greenwood; set decoration by Katie Spencer
• Dunkirk - production design by Nathan Crowley; set decoration by Gary Fettis
• The Shape of Water - production design by Paul Denham Austerberry; set decoration by Shane Vieau and Jeff Melvin

Best visual effects

• Blade Runner 2049 - John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert & Richard R Hoover
• Guardian of the Galaxy Vol 2 - Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner & Dan Sudick
• Kong: Skull Island - Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza & Mike Meinardus
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan & Chris Corbould
• War for the Planet of the Apes - Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon & Joel Whist

Best film editing

• Baby Driver - Paul Machliss & Jonathan Amos
• Dunkirk - Lee Smith
• I, Tonya - Tatiana S Riegel
• The Shape of Water - Sidney Wolinsky
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Jon Gregory

Best sound editing

• Baby Driver - Julian Slater
• Blade Runner 2049 - Mark Mangini and Theo Green
• Dunkirk - Richard King and Alex Gibson
• The Shape of Water - Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce

Best sound mixing

• Baby Driver - Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin and Mary H Ellis
• Blade Runner 2049 - Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill and Mac Ruth
• Dunkirk - Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker and Gary A Rizzo
• The Shape of Water - Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern and Glen Gauthier
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi - David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Stuart Wilson

Best animated short

• Dear Basketball
• Garden Party
• Lou
• Negative Space
• Revolting Rhymes

Best live action short

• DeKalb Elementary
• The Eleven O'Clock
• My Nephew Emmet
• The Silent Child
• Watu Wote/All of Us

Best documentary short

• Edith + Eddie
• Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
• Heroin(e)
• Knife Skills
• Traffic Stop

mother! Blu Ray Review

mother! Blu Ray Review

Is it a film about the art of creation?

Is it a film about subjugation?
Is it a film about the relationship between men and women and the give and take of marriage?

Is it a commentary on how ideas infiltrate and inveigle when least expected?

Is it a film that's completely out there and likely to polarise audiences and provoke debate?

Well, in short, Darren Aronofsky's psychological jolter Mother! is all of those and a lot more besides, making this 2 hour descent into madness more than simply the craziest episode of Grand Designs ever seen.

Dripping in symbolism, and open to plenty of interpretation, mother! stars Jennifer Lawrence as a nameless woman, who lives with Javier Bardem's nameless man, who happens to be a poet.
Lawrence's character has been spending time rebuilding the house where they live after a fire gutted it, and her husband has been spending time grappling with writers' block, unable to birth any kind of writing.

While the duo appear happy in their various ways, the world is shattered when Ed Harris's character shows up on their doorstep without warning, believing the house to be a B&B. Invited in by the poet, but most unwelcome by Lawrence's character, Harris' man makes for an odd guest, striking a relationship with the poet that feels exclusive to Lawrence's woman.
Things are further exacerbated when his wife shows up (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her intrusive questions cause Lawrence's suspicions to rise.

And it's there that mother! descends into something both bizarre and insane.

Best viewed without prior indication of what occurs, Aronofsky's mother! will be all things to all manner of people.

To creatives, it will be the aforementioned visualisation of the birthing of an idea and as the roles of the cast start to become apparent, that allegory makes for easier understanding than what actually transpires.

Using extreme close ups for Lawrence's character alone and reserving wider shots for everyone else, Aronofsky spends the entire film depriving her of full length shots (save for the beginning) and by doing so, starts to build the deck of paranoia and claustrophobia to manic effect. It helps greatly that there's little incidental music in the film, with the sounds of the house, various other noises and atmospherics helping create a soundscape that's as breathtaking as it is unnerving.

Much like Black Swan, though perhaps through a more opaque prism, Aronofsky loads the dice with mother!

There seems to be a lot going on in mother! though admittedly, it's never much below the surface, which is maybe why the unorthodox journey is provoking so much debate elsewhere.

There will be some that will dismiss the pretensions of mother! and while Aronofsky veers dangerously close to indulging during the 2 hour run time, for those willing to submit to the path taken, it's a richly rewarding ride that sparks as much in the cognition of the viewers as it will spew bile in its haters.

Lawrence is very good in the descent down; with her character gradually becoming unhinged and confused but understandably so thanks to the way she feels and with Lawrence's expressive turn, the mania is universally understandable and curiously universal.

Furthermore, Bardem's egotistical poet starts off sensitively before becoming blinded by his own belief and self-delusion; it's hard to see how this couple could be together initially, but as the pieces fall into as much place as they're ever going to when directed by Aronofsky whose MO is other's mania, there's a lot to unpack.

Much like Twin Peaks: The Return refused to pander to narrative conventions and interpretations, Aronofksy's assault on the senses is vehemently original, marginally indulgent and weirdly rewarding.

Ignore the belief that this is a "woman goes mad in house" as that will set you wrong; it may be many viewpoints on societal issues and wildly open to differing theories, but mother! is nothing short of the kind of film that channels both Polanski and Lynch's sensibilities in about as broad a way as is compellingly possible.

You may not see anything like mother! on the big screen this year - and while it looks destined for moderate commercial success at best, Aronsofky's to be saluted for being a wide berth to birth the most bizarre film of the year.

6 Days: DVD Review

6 Days: DVD Review

"Aggression's good, but control's the key"

It's a line uttered to an SAS trooper getting ready to storm the Iranian Embassy, but it could equally be applied to New Zealand director Toa Fraser's new thriller, 6 Days, the second offering of his out this week.

Billed by producer Matthew Metcalfe as our take on a world event, Dead Lands director Toa Fraser delivers an assured and steady re-telling of the events of the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980.

For those unfamiliar with the events, (most likely many outside of England itself, where it was a defining televisual and news moment), six Iranians stormed the Embassy, barricading themselves in and took 26 people hostage.

In the ensuing six days of the siege, police, negotiators and camera crews followed the tension and tried to resolve the situation, set as it was against a backdrop of increasing terrorist threats and governments caving to various demands.

Toa Fraser's calm and steady portrayal of the build up to the inevitable break down of negotiations and subsequent storming of the building proves to be relatively fuss-free.

It begins with the six casually walking in and taking over - there's no discussion of who they are, what their backgrounds are etc, it's simply a case of the execution of a job being done.

Equally, Fraser and script writer Glenn Standring's fuss-free approach to re-telling it all means this really does stick to the facts and quite simply gets on with the job. By powering through the days, taking in differing perspectives from the SAS training and running through scenarios, to the pomposity of Cabinet ministers coolly debating what needs to happen, 6 Days isn't really interested in providing either a glorified take on things or a gung-ho guns blazing approach to it all.

Using a stalwart Mark Strong as the hostage negotiator proves to be Fraser's winning moment, as Max Vernon's fragility and desperation to solve it all are clearly etched on his face. Abbie Cornish delivers a clipped English approach to the veteran BBC correspondent Kate Adie, and Jamie Bell brings a workmanlike pace to Rusty the SAS squad head honcho.

By stripping the film back and cutting off the soundtrack to showcase the sounds of the situation, Fraser brings a tension to bear throughout that's palpable, if not riveting. Characters are given the briefest of once overs, and end up feeling like cut-outs in context (though anything more than the slightest edges would have given this almost documentary-like pace an unnecessary edge).

With a smattering of humour and some nice touches (such as the SAS all geared up and bathed in green light as they ready themselves repeatedly), 6 Days is a solid film which delivers a solid recounting of events.

It may rightfully lack some of the edges of the usual of its fare, but that's a good thing here and if anything, the devil's in the detail, from the period trimmings to the atmosphere of the Sword of Damocles hanging over them all. By choosing not to morally apply judgements to all those involved, Fraser's multi-faceted approach to Standring's sensible script makes 6 Days a solid film that's worthy of showcasing his versatility as a director.