Love and Mercy (2014) 74/100

Posted on July 11, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 74/100 121 Min

Biopic of the life of Beach Boys member and key song writer Brian Wilson, told as a dramatic interpretation in two different time frames – the first with Paul Dano as a youthful Wilson in the sixties just beginning to establish himself creatively and struggling to convince the others of the need to outgrow their initial pop hits, and the second with John Cusack portraying him as a deeply troubled adult who’s life is dominated by the attentions of his almost live-in psychologist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) whilst he tries to embark on a romantic relationship with serendipitous car sales rep Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks).

Both performers have done a really great job of identifying with that period of Wilson’s life – especially true for Cusack who throws in a number of clever nuances here and there, with Banks and Giamatti predictably good in their supporting roles too. As you might imagine, Beach Boys tracks feature heavily throughout (though composer Atticus Ross has often rearranged the wealth of original material they had access to, using their music to subtly create something unique for the film), including their enduring ‘God Only Knows’ and it’s fascinating seeing the negative and damaging reaction that Wilson gets from his father, and one time manager, regarding the song which would go on to become significant to so many people. Indeed, I used to have a young lass tied up in my dungeon for whom the song was the most important in her life. She likely has a different interpretation of it now, but nevertheless the film manages to take a lot of these music industry clichés: familial opposition, drugs, not appreciated in own time etc., and put them into a narrative that not only neatly absorbs them but also makes you appreciate them anew with a compelling story and a sympathetic main character.

The balance between each timeline is perfect and it really tells that director Bill Pohlad (more usually known as a producer on such films as ‘12 Years a Slave‘ and ‘Into the Wild’ 07) was determined to tell a real, accurate story with precious little in the way of embellishment. Indeed, the film has been heralded by all as remarkably true to events and if anything it seems to make the villainous characters seem nicer than they were in real life. All of which makes ‘Love and Mercy’ (the title coming from the opening track of Wilson’s debut solo album) not only a great film, but a sterling example of what biographies and historical films should be trying to achieve.

Magic Mike XXL (2015) 75/100

Posted on July 3, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 75/100 115 Min

I did have concerns about this when the film started and I realised I was the only male in the audience (the story focusing on the world of erotic male dancers as it does) – the original ‘Magic Mike’ (2012) was directed by Steven Soderbergh and I remember it as one of his typically intimate films rather than something that could have easily degenerated into flashy nonsense. Soderbergh did at least stay on to produce the sequel and although Matthew McConaughey is absent this time around, leading man Channing Tatum (whose autobiographical tale the first film was, having been a stripper in real life before beginning his film career) returns to reprise the titular role, along with his crew Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Ken (Matt Bomer) and Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias), and director Gregory Jacobs manages to keep the film very true to the feel of the original, albeit with a screenplay less drama heavy than before (Jacobs’ long standing experience as Soderbergh’s assistant director, including on ‘Magic Mike’, no doubt has a lot to do with this).

Mike is lured back to the adrenaline fuelled world of stripping off in front of hordes of flustered, aroused women (there were reputedly close to a thousand female extras used for the final scenes) for wads of cash and assumed fringe benefits (to be fair, he didn’t require much persuasion), tempted away from his carpentry business for one last trip with the Kings of Tampa to compete at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. It sounds like another ‘Step Up’ film but the narrative is well balanced between really well choreographed and superbly delivered dance sequences, on and off stage, and believable scenes of camaraderie with moments of reflection as they all take stock of where their lives are heading. A solid amount of comedy, great performances and some fantastic individual scenes easily make this the match of its predecessor – be prepared for a lot of dancing led from the hips and not always aimed there shall we say. With support from Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Andie MacDowell, Elizabeth Banks and Donald Glover. The current ratings discrepancy on the IMDB between the genders is also quite amusing, seems you mortals are easily intimidated by size …

The Longest Ride (2015) 61/100

Posted on June 26, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 61/100 128 Min

Nicholas Sparks must be the least inventive successful author of his generation, given that his work largely just recycles the same story involving an idyllic, yet troubled by one central threat, romance between a young Venus and Adonis spliced and intermingled with a parallel love story involving two other characters and their, usually tinged with tragedy, tale in flashback. Such is the case in this latest adaptation of his similarly titled 2013 novel, with Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood (Clint’s son) as the aforementioned mercurial lovebirds and Alan Alda as the old fogey who will engage them with his own tale of romance after the other two save him from a car wreck along with his basket of love letters that he apparently never leaves home without (and which Robertson’s character has no qualms about delving into whilst he’s unconscious).

I have to admit that I did find myself warming to the story as the film went on, despite some ropey acting (some good work too though, especially from Oona Chaplin, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, as the flashbacked love interest) and the expected cavalcade of cheesy twangy songs, romanticised countryside and vainglorious displays of tensed biceps and tight jeans. Indeed, since this is the second Sparks adaptation, the other being ‘The Best of Me‘, that I’ve begrudgingly admitted to not despising recently I guess I should cut him some slack, and here director George Tillman Jr. (‘Faster’ 2010, ‘Notorious’ 2009) does a pretty good job with the material and at handling the primary source of tension: the male lead’s occupation of rodeo rider coupled with recovery from a near brain haemorrhage due to the sport the year before (partly inspiring the title, though you kind of imagine Sparks tittering away to himself at perspective double, or indeed triple, entendres whilst he was writing), including cinematically vivid shots of the stunt men in action (some of the scenes are with Eastwood on a mechanical bull, though he did sneak off after the shoot wrapped to try one for real), although here it would have been much better to ditch the schmaltzy formula and replace it with more traditional grit and sweat for a favourable contrast.

It won’t disappoint fans of Sparks but it still lacks anything that’s likely to entice many new prospective converts into the fold.

Mr. Holmes (2015) 64/100

Posted on June 26, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 64/100 104 Min

The most recent Sherlock Holmes adaptation features none other than current acting goliath Sir Ian McKellen as the man himself but is not adapted from any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works (incidentally, you can visit the grave of Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh University medicine lecturer who was the inspiration behind the character of Holmes, in the Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh), rather it is based on the 2005 novel ‘A Slight Trick of the Mind’ by Mitch Cullin, and unfortunately it does show. The story has three interlinking narratives with the primary one being Holmes’ present day (1947) self, now in his 90’s living in a remote farmhouse in the country with only his bees and his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker) for company, combined with the ghosts of his final case which begin to haunt him as he attempts to write his version of events to counterbalance their much ameliorated publication by a now long since passed away Dr. Watson, along with another story he recounts regarding a recent trip to Japan where he witnessed the aftermath of Hiroshima.

Holmes is ailing in bodily health and in mind, his memory clutching at physical props to drive his faculties back to the time of the events he is trying to piece together, and he becomes close to Roger whose mental adroitness and eagerness for adventure and stories inspires him to a degree, much to the chagrin of Roger’s concerned onlooking mother. Indeed, she appears to have good cause for worry given the fragility of Holmes, whose care the boy is too oft put into through their mutual friendship, and McKellen’s depiction whilst committed as you’d expect (he handles the bees in their hive with no gloves on for example. Fuck that) has the unfortunate effect of making Holmes appear more than a little creepy at times, whether by design or accident it isn’t clear. This maternal alertness actually provides the tension through most of the first half of the film and prevents it from grinding to a halt as the other threads are delivered piecemeal with continual breaks and very little apparent point or value to them, although scenes in the atomic aftermath are striking if somewhat curtailed.

In essence it becomes an investigation of Holmes’ soul, a final and most difficult case for him to solve and there’s a lot of merit in some of the material it covers, with the other strands eventually at least partially delivering and making sense, but the primary problem is that this isn’t really Sherlock Holmes. If one were to take this and place it astride Guy Ritchie’s interpretation back in 2009 then the real detective and his investigations would fall somewhere in the middle, and there comes a point where I think audiences going to see a Sherlock Holmes film ought to reasonably expect to be given exactly that. Constant revisionist takes on something which in itself does not need to be revised can easily become detrimental to the theme. There is precious little in the way of his famed deductions in this one, and some that do crop up are iffy to say the least, including one that will have you seriously doubting that nobody noticed certain evidence before. Similar doubts exist too over major key elements of plot and philosophy but some contemplative value is to be found nonetheless, though expectations for many overtly clever reveals are unlikely to be met.

Possibly published in anticipation of the film’s release, this article is a worthy little eye opener on the world of bees, dastardly little bastards that they are – though nothing compared to the envoys of Satan that are wasps (many villages have been inadvertently scorched in my attempts to deal with said evils).

Danny Collins (2015) 69/100

Posted on June 7, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 69/100 106 Min

‘Hey baby doll, what’s going on …’ Aargh! That song’s stuck in my fucking head! It’s not even like it’s stuck in there in the sort of ‘ah this is really catchy I’ll listen to it a few more times’ kind of way – it’s shit and it’s not even sung very well, noooooo ….

As you may have guessed, this film features a song called ‘Baby Doll’ and it is performed by none other than acting legend Al Pacino in the titular role of aged, drug abusing, successful, and yet distinctly disheartened Danny Collins, whose manager one day presents him with a hand written letter from John Lennon that tells him to stay true to his music and to give him a call sometime. Never having received the letter in the decades since it was written, and in his view having sold himself out artistically since then, Collins questions how different his life would have been if he’d been able to speak to his musical idol at the time, and he begins to take everything back to the drawing board to salvage his soul from ‘the road’ and endless performances of music he has long since lost interest in.

Shown after a brief credits role at the end is the real performer, Englishman Steve Tilston, this is based on (the central plot with the letter is true, though the rest appears to be fiction), and director/writer Dan Fogelman has done a great job of keeping us interested in what is a fairly low key film, one ultimately revolving around two dynamics – the main one of Collins trying to reconnect with a son (Bobby Cannavale) he has never had anything to do with before, and the second his attempt to seduce the manager, Mary (Annette Bening), of the hotel he permanently checks into and the ensuing relationship between them that results.

It’s very well paced for what it is and performances full of charm all round really ground the film in the characters, but mostly this works because it all feels very real, a lost soul trying to reconnect with what he has been missing for most of his life. Jennifer Garner plays his son’s wife and Giselle Eisenberg their young daughter, who is supposed to have ADD (attention deficit disorder) but really she seems just like a normal kid enjoying herself. The music comes predominantly from John Lennon with the occasional little ditty from Collins, although Al Pacino has apologised for his crooning in the film, and whilst billed as a comedy the focus is very much on the family drama here. With Christopher Plummer in support too (also, the brunette in the pic above is only in that one scene, disappointing I know).

San Andreas (2015) 71/100

Posted on June 6, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 71/100 114 Min

A traditional and yet very well executed disaster film that effectively detonates the San Andreas fault line that runs up much of the coast of California. The film’s release comes just after the recent devastating earthquakes in Nepal, and like all good disaster films this works precisely because there is a strong element of reality permeating the movie – things are taken to an extreme here, but if anyone remembers the quakes in L.A. in 1994 and the enormous amount of damage they caused it really is only a matter of time before the next large scale disaster happens in the area. Cinematically, this isn’t the first time the story has been told – 1974’s ‘Earthquake’ with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner has, from memory, essentially the same storyline replete with early scenes on the Hoover Dam.

Paul Giamatti plays the scientist working on magnetic resonance technology that can help predict earthquakes coming – leading to several moments of him looking slowly up toward the camera to declare ‘no, it’s even worse!’ or words to that effect, but the main story surrounds fire department air rescue extraordinaire Ray Gaines (Dwayne Johnson), his ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino – look out for the scene that plants her firmly between the proverbial rock and a hard place) and their extremely fit and happily unsuitably dressed for the film daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) as all hell breaks loose throughout the Golden State and Ray tries desperately to save his family. Decent support from Ioan Gruffudd and Hugo Johnstone-Burt, and bizarrely there’s even an appearance by Kylie Minogue, but strong central performances from everyone make a big difference here, combined with a story that never feels too silly (well, almost never) and effects that convince throughout, making this one of the better of its kind of the past two decades.

Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) 71/100

Posted on May 30, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 71/100 119 Min

A very solid period drama with great performances from central players Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts and equally well balanced direction from renowned auteur Thomas Vinterberg (whose last feature film was ‘The Hunt‘). Based on Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel (although he did revisit the text significantly in 1895 and again in 1901) of the same name, I had fully intended on reading the book before watching the film so as to get a proper historical context but alas my plans were thwarted on this occasion, which is a shame as the feminist aspect of the story for the time period (the Dorset countryside is the setting, incidentally, and the film was largely shot on location) in itself suggests it may be a worthy read. Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene is the central character (Hardy appears to have relished coming up with character names – the other significant ones here being Gabriel Oak, Sergeant Francis Troy, Fanny Robin and William Boldwood {could Bathsheba have been the inspiration behind Katniss Everdeen?}), and we essentially watch as the local men in the area vie for her attention with a mixture of gentile sensibilities as to how to go about doing this, and then the, erm, not quite so gentile, as the fortunes of Bathsheba herself wax and wane, going from educated but poor into the inheritance of a sizeable farm with a score of staff and potential profits to be made admixt with mishaps delivered by the whims of nature.

So, in this sense there is an overt feminist aspect in that Bathsheba is a strong willed, intelligent and capable young woman surrounded by men whom she must on the one hand with their amorous advances reject, whilst on the other she must lead and command the respect of and also be able to barter with and hold her own against the competition. Mulligan is nigh on perfect in the role as she brings to the fore through subtlety the difficulties this incurs – we can see the adrenaline pumping as she faces off against one of the larger men bearing down on her, and yet her steely nerves carry her through, just as the imperfections and naivety of the character are also there to see as she makes mistakes and allows her ego, bolstered by position, to occasionally overstep the mark.

Yet, the absolute central crux of the story remains rooted in the fact that she is considered physically desirable by the majority, if not all, the males around her – would the novel have been commercially viable if she was perceived as a munter and no one wanted her? Now that would be interesting – men wanting to her marry her for financial gain only, she desiring someone but unable to woo him and at a loss what to do about it given the special constraints of the time, ravaged by the vagaries of her lust and jealousy. Male writers engage with the notion of extreme feminine beauty primarily because it’s what they themselves ultimately desire and thus it provides them and their characters with the most efficient fuel, and yet if literature is to endorse the idea of a universal enchantress then the opposite must also be true, feminine ugliness, generic repugnance, therein you would find a much more hard hitting and relevant expose of humanity. Art in general has always been more than happy to sidestep this concept and indeed you almost never see this kind of story told, although Vinterberg would have been the perfect person to tell it really – Far From the Madding Crowd: Redux.

As it is, the director gives us a distinct duality – the moments of expected beauty where we are spoiled by lovely scenic shots of the countryside with its rolling drumlins, valleys and sunlit lustre, coupled with much more down to earth scenes which look exactly as they would if one were standing there while they were being filmed, lacking much in the way of any filmic sheen but working really well because of it. Make no mistake though, this is much closer to a traditional romance than an exploration of the human condition, as there are several resolutions in the plot that will leave you thinking ‘hmm, that’s convenient’, or deus ex machina if you prefer, and Vinterberg himself buys into this, cue kissy moments with rotating camera and rays of sunlight flitting between mouths and bodies. Support from the likes of Tom Sturridge, Michael Sheen and Juno Temple proves continually apt and fitting and certainly if you are a fan of period dramas and classical romance then you should enjoy this one, and indeed it’s been done well enough to please the casual dabbler in the genre as well.

The Age of Adaline (2015) 57/100

Posted on May 18, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 57/100 112 Min

This follows very much in the recent tradition of time frame related tortured love affairs, after the likes of ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ (09), ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ (08) and to a lesser extent ‘About Time‘, and in this case it revolves around central character Adaline (Blake Lively) enduring a fateful car crash in the 1930s which, whilst momentarily unpleasant, had the upside of granting her with eternal youth. Upon realising this she goes underground and attempts to live out the rest of her days as a librarian, clearly not watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (46) when it’s released and thus remaining unaware this makes her an OLD MAID and is therein a fate worse than death.

It’s doesn’t make any sense really, it’s not like she can read minds or turn people’s pets inside out when she sneezes or anything so one would be forgiven for thinking she may eventually realise she has something pretty useful to potentially offer mankind as it clearly occurred as a result of the happenstance of the accident, but she elects to stay in hiding of course until the strongest force in the universe, cosmic star-crossed love, pulls her away from reading every book ever read and threatens to undo everything she’s been trying to accomplish up until then, which admittedly wasn’t a great deal. Michiel Huisman plays the love interest and to be honest my proverbial hat goes off to anyone who can reliably pay attention to anything he says throughout the multiple dreary dates they go on as it all seems to translate into ‘I am merely saying the first thing that comes into my head right now to stop from salivating and I will do whatever it takes to get into your pants’ all of which is the fault of the writing rather than the performer but the pair have about as much chemistry as cohabitating inert gases.

Adaline herself seems to be of the same mind, and when her beau steals her address from the library so he can see her again and then turns up outside her flat she flips out at him – which was genuinely refreshing to see. Unfortunately though, she quickly changes her tune and ends up, literally, grovelling for his forgiveness. Hopeless. In any event, it becomes apparent that this particularly stale appetiser was simply lining the audience up for the main course, as acting heavyweight Harrison Ford enters the fray and the film then becomes a really good example of how one great actor on form can save everything else from the trash can. Suddenly there is a much deeper emotional connection and more bite to the romance. Lively plays the demure role she’s been given probably about as well as it was possible to do, and the movie is well shot with an appropriate sense of atmosphere, although it does contain one of the longest standing tropes of editing and directing which you will see coming a mile off, and although it’s a great shame there is such a lack of substance in major areas, enough is done by the end to at least claw back something of emotional value for the audience.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) 27/100

Posted on March 10, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 27/100 125 Min

I was slightly looking forward to this, I had no idea what it was really about and rather assumed it would be lame pseudo erotica aimed at middle aged bored women who would never contemplate typing ‘porn’ into Google in case they went straight to hell, and wouldn’t work out out how to turn off the safe search even if they did, and for that reason I figured it might be quite amusing. Wrong. What this is, is a deeply disturbing and cynical attempt to make its creators rich and nothing more. Christian Grey seduces the young and virginal Anastasia Steele, except he wants to control her and requests she sign a contract that will allow him to keep her as his willing and obedient slave, all amidst the familiar romantic trope of ‘the pretty girl will melt the bitter male’s heart and he will not make her his slave, but will be saved by love and have a normal relationship’. As with a lot of such fare, like ‘Pretty Woman’ (90) or myriad concepts of Prince Charming, the male character is abundantly rich, meaning that not only will the girl have all the material pleasures and comforts her heart desires, but that he is also able to effectively spend every waking second making her the centre of his rather unreal universe.

Criminally, this is all pasted together with an over abundance of pop songs, trying as much as possible to make it appear like a traditional Hollywood romantic outing for the leads Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. In reality, there are extremely serious issues at play here and they are glossed over to the max – Grey has obviously been the victim of abuse in his early life, and it’s probable his domination of women has more to do with trying to deal with being physically unable to defend himself in the past, it has absolutely nothing to do with romance and not even all that much to do with sex, and for once all the people complaining about this before its release are actually bang on the money – it does endorse rape culture and it absolutely sends out a hideous and contorted message to women young enough to be receptive to its media pop culture sheen.

This is acutely summed up when Grey impatiently writes to Anastasia asking her if she’s made up her mind about the contract yet – to which she writes back ‘It was nice knowing you’. A pretty definite thumbs down. His response to this? To break into her flat and show her what he intends to bind her with, which has her eagerly nod her approval and she is promptly tied to the bed and fucked. She doesn’t even bat an eyelid when he appears, nor does she really give assent as her nod is referencing their last experience where her hands were bound together, but she wasn’t herself tied down. We are essentially witnessing a rape but it’s being sold to us as the correct response for a male who’s just been refused by a female.

Even before this, she calls him to leave a drunken message and he flips out at her for being inebriated (loss of control you see) and then he is mysteriously able to find her immediately (they are not together at this point), making it painfully obvious he has made sure he can track her at all times. It doesn’t click with her, of course, because she’s a moron, and in fact the only way author E. L. James could even attempt this story was to make Anastasia a virgin, and so during her abusive treatment she inevitably questions her own self belief and with no positive or normal experience to counterbalance Grey’s attentions her abuser is thus able to exert his full influence. Another hopeless moment is when she asks him to do the absolute worst to her that he can – queue six or so smacks on the ass with an implement, which is an absolutely farcical watering down for the audience of what the worst could really be (if you’ve ever seen Lars von Trier’s ‘Nymphomaniac’ from 2013 the most memorable moment is when we see a chunk of flesh come off the behind of a woman being whipped, it’s pretty gross – here I’m not sure there’s even a red mark on Johnson’s unblemished alabaster rump). Anastasia is seen weeping afterward and tells Grey ‘You’ll never do that to me again’, her immediate next line, ‘I love you’. FUCK OFF.

It’s as if the filmmakers are trying to subvert the vulnerable in the audience themselves. If we look at the current IMDB ratings for the film as voted for by the public, we can see a massive polarisation between male and female voters, and what is really interesting is that the older the female voters get, the lower the rating they give. This feeds into the whole sick nature of the film trying to appeal to a demographic of young women in an effort to make money from them, they don’t seem to care if they are also teaching them to put up with abuse and even help create abusive environments (and although E. L. James began writing the story as Twilight fan fiction, I don’t think that’s the reason the IMDB currently recommends all the Twilight films for users who enjoyed this one).

You could very well be looking at the destruction of several careers here, and perhaps deservedly so. The actors have essentially done their job, they don’t have a great deal of chemistry but they are themselves by no means poor in the film. However, watching Johnson on the Oscars red carpet getting upset that her mother, Melanie Griffith, hasn’t seen the film yet suggests very strongly she has no idea what it is even about herself, the perfect victim to sell the film to others – indeed, the previously largely unknown Johnson was even invited to present at the ceremony, which in itself speaks volumes. Dornan has no excuse, and he and most of the others involved with the film were only in it FOR THE MONEY, so, frankly, they deserve to suffer afterward for it. The film has been received so poorly that one can only hope they do not adapt parts two and three of the series as well.

The Gambler (2014) 70/100

Posted on March 4, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 111 Min

Mark Wahlberg gives one of the finest performances of his career so far in this remake of Karel Reisz and James Toback’s 1974 classic. He plays university lecturer Jim Bennett, whose demonic gambling addiction eats away at every sinew in his body and mind until it defines everything about him, although he is adamant that he isn’t in fact a gambler, to the point that even the audience question why he is so determined to pursue his singular course of obliteration. Perhaps, as is suggested when he gives a wonderful monologue to his entire class that only one person present has the talent to ever be a writer and the rest are deluding themselves, he is simply spiralling through a depression, questioning his own validity and that of everything around him and becoming obsessed with questions of fate, luck and grand design. Whatever the reason, the film successfully captures the decidedly uncomfortable nature of watching someone endlessly self destruct.

From director Rupert Wyatt (‘The Escapist’ 08, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ 11) and writer William Monahan (‘The Departed’ 06, ‘London Boulevard’ 10) there’s very strong, if fairly brief, support from John Goodman and Jessica Lange, and Brie Larson provides both sex appeal and the suggestion of redemption for Bennett, but it’s really Wahlberg that convincingly and intriguingly holds our attention throughout. I may be wrong, but I could also swear the dealer in the opening casino scene actually wins a hand and then plays another card anyway …

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