Say When / Laggies (2014) 70/100

Posted on December 25, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 99 Min

An endearingly sweet film that sees central character Megan (Keira Knightley) realise that a decade after the end of high school her life hasn’t really changed all that much compared to her peers and when her boyfriend, the same one from high school, proposes to her she panics and bunks off for a week to live with sixteen year old Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), whom she befriended after being successfully entreated by the latter to purchase alcohol for her and her mates. Initially, it’s like a breath of fresh air compared to the stuffy seriousness of her more grown up friends but Annika’s father (Sam Rockwell) isn’t exactly impressed when he finds a strange woman sleeping over with his daughter, but since the woman in question is Keira Knightley he quickly decides to get over it and tries to bang her anyway, complicating matters further.

Megan is shown to be carefree but still grounded enough to like – in fact, she has a playfulness about her that is absolutely necessary for adult life and which her friends seem to have forgotten, and this in no small way comes from Knightley herself, shining through into her character quite naturally. Set in America, Megan sports an accent that is at times applied a little too thickly but when a bit more subdued is perfect, and the film is directed by Lynn Shelton who enjoyed success with another comic drama centred around three main characters in 2012’s ‘Your Sister’s Sister’. Some of the comedy here could have done with a few hammer blows to make it stand out a bit more, but it’s quite impressive for a debut screenplay, from writer Andrea Seigel, and the movie is amiable, fun and has a great starring turn from the leading lady herself. Look out for the bit where she flips a sign for her father’s company, all dressed in white – almost like the universal obverse of her Coco Mademoiselle adverts (the ones with the bike and the jumpsuit), and also where she convinces one of the young girls to step up to the plate and tell the boy she likes how she feels, a refreshing and sensible change from the norm.

Keira Knightley recently posed topless for Interview magazine (if you are ever thinking of doing it again Keira, I can offer you tea and biscuits …) to highlight the endemic and somewhat ridiculous use of the fake enhancement of women’s breasts in the media, as she herself has famously had this applied to her own image multiple times by the industry, on the likes of the advertising surrounding ‘King Arthur’ (04) for example, and indeed she wants the photoshoot to propagate for that reason. Ah, human female breasts, fascinating for all sorts of reasons – such as their unique existence within the animal kingdom, human females being the only primates that have protuberant breasts all year round and not just when they have milk in them, demonstrating their primary sexual role and the importance of sex for the human species – whether you argue for pleasure or pair bonding. Indeed, a strong theory is that when your ancestors first walked upright, the females had no breasts, as we would describe them now, and they simply evolved to mimic the buttocks as seen from behind – providing a sexual image from both directions.

The concept of one’s own body compared to another’s is so often manipulated to a sickening degree in the modern Western world, and The Red Dragon’s own personal view has always been to regard it as impossible to criticise one’s looks without also disrespecting your ancestors, and in particular your family. To them you are the most beautiful thing in the entire cosmos and you only hurt them unimaginably by putting yourself down, but not only that if you take a common complaint such as the shape of one’s nose – this evolved in order to adapt itself to the air your ancestors had to breathe, as when it reaches your lungs the air must be within a certain range of temperature and humidity and the nose is nature’s filter, thus not only does its shape point directly to where your antecedents lived but it was also a great aid in their comfortable survival and indeed your very existence, thus you should be proud and grateful – not wanting to change it just to look like someone else. Plus, it really doesn’t matter what you look like so long as you take care of what you’ve got and enjoy it – I mean Keira is quite obviously the best among you but then she has to suffer lots of unwanted attention and screeds of text about her look and people analysing every inch of her body, and ultimately even if one person thinks you are a one out of ten, someone else will think you are a ten – just don’t waste any time or thought on the ones, and as for female’s breasts your femininity is the entirety of your body, mind and soul combined and each elemental part is what makes you unique and special – embrace what you look like, enjoy the truly remarkable creature that you are and for both sexes remember – a genuine smile is always attractive. See below for a mathematical analysis of romance and dating, from another rather appetising human morsel …

Serena (2014) 58/100

Posted on December 24, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 58/100 109 Min

Based on the novel by Ron Rash, Susanne Bier (‘Love is All You Need‘) directs a tale of corruption, tragic love, and jealousy on a timber yard in the Smoky Mountains (though it was actually predominantly filmed in the Czech Republic) of North Carolina in the 1930’s. Bradley Cooper runs the yard, against the protestations of various environmentalists, and one day happens upon the inimitably beautiful Jennifer Lawrence, whom he decides should immediately become his bride. She lost her family under tragic circumstance so decides why not, but she soon proves a force to reckon with in the business world and it’s not long before various feathers are more than ruffled.

Initially there seems to be precious little point to the film as it dawdles along with nothing really happening – in fact, it’s only when Lawrence appears that the very force of her own personality as well as that of her character make it more interesting. The acting from her companions is equally strong, in particular perhaps Rhys Ifans (and not for the first time it took me a little while to be certain it was actually him – I managed to watch the whole of ‘Anonymous’ 11 without identifying him he was that good in it) and the human tragedy level continues to painfully rise amongst the austere, barren and rather isolated backdrop of the wintry logging site. The costumes and sets are up to scratch with the performances but sadly it is the basic story and its execution that undo all the other good work on display, turning the story into melodramatic mulch and effectively ruining the whole film. Marks the third release after ‘Silver Linings Playbook‘ and ‘American Hustle‘ to have Cooper and Lawrence working together, indeed it was reportedly the leading lady herself that sent Cooper the script for this, for which I am sure he is eternally grateful.

Sex Tape (2014) 30/100

Posted on September 10, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 30/100 94 Min

An oddly necrotic and narcissistic film, devoid of almost any humour or value from start to finish. Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz play married couple Jay and Annie, who are reasonably happy, successful and content with their two young children, only thing is they haven’t really been having sex for a while due to their busy lifestyles and, in an effort to spice things up, they decide to make a sex tape together. They are supposed to typify the average young family going through the sort of mundane problems common to all and in this sense the comedy will arise by throwing them into out of the ordinary circumstance – beginning with their epic porno being uploaded to the cloud and then synced with several ipads they gave out to friends and co-workers as presents.

It all gets ‘blown’ away, however, when they go to the home of Annie’s potential future boss (she is trying to sell her ‘mummy’ blog to him) and she sends Jay to look for the ipad while she distracts him, and to do this she decides quite casually to snort coke with him. Indeed, she really enjoys it, seems quite excited by it, and if Jay hadn’t made a reappearance she probably would have began fucking her boss to be pretty soon as well – it’s essentially an advert for doing blow. Jay pulls her up on it briefly when he finds out, but quickly forgets about it. It’s the continuation of the promotion of drug abuse through American comedies that has been going on for some time – for example, if we look at light hearted romcoms like ‘Going the Distance’ (10), where the two romantic leads start socialising to get to know one another and then they start taking hits from a bong together (I think it was a bong, it was a while ago) as if this is a fundamentally socially acceptable thing for all young people to be doing, and similarly with ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ (07) where Ben Stiller marries the wrong person and then he meets the girl of his dreams, Michelle Monaghan, whilst on his honeymoon and they sit smoking marijuana on the beach together – the assumption being that the other girl is square and the two leads are hip and relaxed. Incidentally, it’s a little known fact that marijuana can kill, as was the case for two young men in Germany recently after it stopped their hearts, and indeed in the cases of many such deaths the drug is rarely even tested for.

What we are looking at here is agenda, nothing to do with characterisation, plot, comedy or social commentary but filmmakers who basically want to show off that they think drugs are cool, some of the rich elite in Hollywood that not only have a rather skewed insight into the drug scene compared to the rest of the world but also seem to gloss over the famous and numerous deaths in their family from overdoses, Philip Seymour Hoffman for a recent example. Jason Segel in this film does not look particularly healthy – you can see it in the picture above. He looks decidedly gaunt in the face compared to certainly the last thing I seen him in, which I think was ‘The Five Year Engagement‘, now, for this role he has had to get into pretty good shape for all the nudity scenes and perhaps the stress of this combined with maybe a new diet, or maybe even just stress in general, could account for this – or maybe he is doing cocaine. Given he is one of the screenwriters for this, it would certainly fit the bill. If this was to be the case, and, obviously, I have no idea if it is or not, then he would simultaneously be glamorising drug abuse and also showing the side effects – and that is of course the problem with the casual nature of what they’ve done, they have made it look fun without any thought to the physical harm and the psychological devastation it can wreak on people’s lives and the lives of the ones that love them, and really the market shouldn’t tolerate it.

In contrast, Diaz looks absolutely great and we see a lot of her naked body, and by that same token it’s impossible not to think she only agreed to do the film in order to essentially show off. Annie also continually has a go at Jay for forgetting to delete their recording since, because she is a ‘woman’, she is incapable of doing it herself or for that matter checking that he had deleted it if she was so concerned about it. The website YouPorn features in the film with Jack Black playing its founder, and so again we have to look behind the scenes and realise YouPorn must have a cushy business arrangement with the producers, and by and large the entire film just drags on feeling ever more lame and corrupted, I think I might have laughed once or twice but the jokes were so uninspired that I can’t for the life of me remember when.

Sin City : A Dame to Kill For (2014) 67/100

Posted on August 30, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 67/100 102 Min

Wow. I don’t believe I have ever seen a film where the lead actress’s breasts are essentially the main character and focus of the visual narrative, to the point where significant discussion and storyboarding must have taken place as to exactly how to shoot them in each scene, and just how much exposure to give them each time. The actress in question, and the appropriately titular dame to kill for, is Eva Green, who is running a fairly impressive bare breastage to big screen appearances ratio so far (see ‘The Dreamers’ 03 and ‘300 : Rise of an Empire‘ for two exemplary examples), possibly giving Penélope Cruz a run for her money, and my goodness you can see why, with a visage of sassy and tempting perfection that surely leaves all mortals of both sexes in silenced awe.

This is the long anticipated (too long really) sequel to 2005’s monster hit ‘Sin City’, based on Frank Miller’s graphic novels of the same name and both produced in strong collaboration with Miller himself – director Robert Rodriguez wanting to create as faithful a rendition as possible, to the point that only Miller is given any of the writing credits for either film and they shared the directing duties on both (they have a brief cameo scene together here too). Again, it’s a compendium of interlinking stories which take place chronologically both before and after events in the first film, with two of the sections written solely for the screen this time around (alas, these are the weaker chapters). Lots of familiar faces return – Mickey Rourke wonderfully portraying Marv again, for example, and Jessica Alba as high class striptease Nancy (who does an especially memorable routine, also one of the highlights of the film), although Clive Owen is replaced by Josh Brolin as Dwight, Jamie Chung takes over from Devon Aoki as Miho, and of course tragically both Birttany Murphy and Michael Clarke Duncan have passed away since the first film, with Dennis Haysbert taking over the latter’s role of Manute.

It’s not as accomplished as its predecessor, with a jittery start and less compelling stories, and although they have remained true to the green screen noir style of the first one and have certainly paralleled its violent and bloody body count, it is within the depiction of the lavish and diverse femmes fatales that the film is singularly successful. Initially Green’s womanly assets are nude but partially obscured, inducing The Red Dragon to muse ‘Oh come on, that’s crap’, you don’t have to wait too long until they are revealed in all their glory though, to the point where even I had to concede they probably dominate one scene too many. I’m not sure though, I think I’ll have to go and see it again. Too much is always better than too little anyway ….

Step Up 5 Million : All In (2014) 47/100

Posted on August 1, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 47/100 112 Min

Ok, so this is Step Up 5 (aka Step Up : All In) not five million, but really it’s so formulaic and derivative of its predecessors that they could rinse and repeat and get up to that number without any real effort. It has been billed as the film reuniting cast members from the other films, but what they really mean is that Moose (Adam Sevani) and Andie (Briana Evigan) are back in it – there is no Channing Tatum, for example, and although a few other semi familiar faces appear they, just as before, receive so little character development and so few lines that they might as well be new blood for all anyone is likely to care. The acting is terrible, and the screenwriting is offensive to writers everywhere, with possibly the worst element being lead male character Sean (Ryan Guzman), who does return from the previous film but who seems to have retained none of the life lessons he bored us with last time, managing to be both an indistinguishable carbon copy of all the leading male characters in the franchise as well as the least likeable of the lot.

The dancing, at least, is for the most part very good and has been well choreographed, but even the biggest fans of the series are going to struggle sitting through the garbage comprising eighty percent of the film to get to it. The story is the usual ‘some crew will try to bond in order to win a dance competition against the bad guys and the hot leads will fall for one another, even though one of these leads did the same thing a few films ago and that didn’t seem to work out too well for her and the other one would clearly rather make love to himself’ – eighty percent dancing with twenty percent story would have been far better. Evigan is by literal leaps and bounds the best thing about the film – and indeed it wasn’t until I sat and tried to remember the other four films that I realised her shaking her ass in ‘Step Up 2 : The Streets’ (08) is pretty much the only thing I remember about any of them. Bring on ‘Step Up 6 : All Out’, when Andie tires of male dancers breaking her heart and must now seduce the hottest girl in town through erotic, sweaty street dance – the girl is tempted, but what will her Republican Senator daddy who’s about to fund the state ballet have to say ..?? Only Moose knows …

Senna (2010) 81/100

Posted on July 24, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 81/100 106 Min

An absolutely seminal moment in documentary filmmaking and indeed easily one of the best films of 2010. This masterful film follows the rise to fame of Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, focusing on his time with the sport and, unusually, it only uses footage from the time rather than filming interviews now and cutting back and forth, feeling much more like an unfolding drama than a conventional documentary. Personally, I’m not in the least bit interested in F1, so the fact I loved this already speaks volumes. The story it tells has all of the best ingredients that true legends are made from, with high drama that you couldn’t artificially create and a very, very human element at its heart.

In essence the film asks two questions, what to do when you find yourself in a corrupt environment (as Senna does with the FI setup), whether that be a social group or a place of work, and what does it take to be happy, something which is hammered home by Senna telling us he enjoyed himself the most when he was racing for pleasure, with no money or politics attached to it, and we see him constantly chasing the next title never really seeming completely fulfilled – something which is common in many walks of life, certainly to the average person winning even one world title is enough to be pretty satisfied with and yet the reality for the individual can be quite different. Similarly, we watch him fight against the system, but it invites discussion about how to do that effectively without perhaps it getting to you more than you it – is it better simply to leave and walk away?

Not knowing the details of the story makes this all the more compelling so I won’t say anything more, other than give it a go and let its significance play out for yourself …

Sabotage (2014) 55/100

Posted on May 24, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 55/100 109 Min

The latest film from director David Ayer, who continues with similar themes from his last film ‘End of Watch‘, although he has largely ditched the hand held camera aspect this time around. We once again are put in the midst of American law enforcement, this time a squad of hard as nails DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) operatives led by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, with Sam Worthington, Mireille Enos, Joe Manganiello, Terrence Howard, Josh Holloway, Max Martini, Kevin Vance and Mark Schlegel rounding out the rest of the group. Catchphrases like ‘high octane’ and ‘adrenaline fuelled action’ could probably be used to describe the action but really I think the term ‘sick’ is the most accurate descriptor for the piece. The team are caught up in a scandal when they all decide to steal some of the bad guy’s money before they burn the majority of it, but it’s not waiting at the point of egress as it should be – so where has it gone?

One by one we see the group brutally murdered, and we have to guess if it’s an internal thing, if the hits are being planned by the drug cartels, or if the rest of the department aren’t too happy about a rogue unit planning thefts of millions. The level of bloody violence has really been taken to the nth level here, which is just indulgent and silly – the same as in End of Watch when the officers uncovered all sorts of stuff when they were on the beat, things that you would normally expect to see in horror films. Olivia Williams turns up as the FBI agent assigned to investigate the assassinations and the acting is fine overall, but the plot, as well as being soaked in buckets of blood, just doesn’t add up in several places. Ayer has the skill to make an exciting action film, but he has to learn to ground it in reality, not the darkest regions of hell.

Starred Up (2013) 66/100

Posted on May 10, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 66/100 106 Min

From director David Mackenzie (‘Young Adam’ 03, ‘Perfect Sense’ 11) and very sensibly filmed in chronological order, this at least attempts to show the progression within prison of an extremely violent character, from the young, hyper aggressive newcomer on the wing with experience of prison tactics, to the member of an inmate ‘anger management’ group, something that makes him feel part of something and we can see the inklings of potential reform appear.

There is the distinct feel of something made for the movies here, with the violence and goings on accentuated for that purpose, and it is debatable how much of a character progression we actually see, indeed it is very difficult to get behind the protagonist at all in the beginning and unusually for a prison film we actually want to see the guards take him round the back and give him a good kicking. We eventually learn that our main character, Eric (Jack O’connell), has a dark past of abuse and that his own father, played by Ben Mendelsohn, is imprisoned on the same wing with him, and utlimately although it is well put together and acted, it never really completely escapes from that feeling of ‘is this just a little too much to get behind or really believe’.

The term ‘starred up’, we are told, refers to someone who has been marked as an up and coming leader, and in terms of a remorseless pathological killer it certainly fits Eric, though not exactly new territory for O’connell if you have seen the very memorable films ‘Eden Lake’ (08) and ‘Tower Block’ (12). Arguably a better and just as gritty, but not as well publicised, recent prison film is ‘Offender’ (12).

Saving Mr. Banks (2013) 79/100

Posted on December 10, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 79/100 125 Min

There was nary a dry eye in the house by the time this biographical tearjerker ended, and despite slightly over egging the pudding at times, it has set itself up nicely for multiple award nominations over the coming months. The plot focuses on the behind the scenes storyboarding and scriptwriting of ‘Mary Poppins’ (64), or, to be more exact, Walt Disney’s (Tom Hanks) invitation to P.L.Travers (Emma Thompson) to come work with his team in California to oversee that her Marry Poppins novel was being treated respectfully, in order to gain her signature on the rights to make the film – which Disney had been seeking for two whole decades. This task, however, would not prove to be easy.

Initially, Thompson’s Travers is far too ruthlessly curt and acidic to be likeable in any emotionally tangible way, but over time we warm to her and to the heart of the story as we learn that the titular Mr Banks (the father of the family in Mary Poppins) is in fact based upon Travers’ memories of her own father and her childhood in Australia – and we relive those memories via flashbacks, and great performances from Colin Farrell as her father and Annie Rose Buckley as her younger self.

Hanks is good as always (he grew his moustache to meticulously mirror Disney’s) but it is really Thompson that gives both a transformative and genuinely evocative performance – and so far she and Cate Blanchett for ‘Blue Jasmine’ are The Red Dragon’s top two contenders to take home the coveted best actress award at the Oscars next year …

Sunshine on Leith (2013) 71/100

Posted on October 15, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 71/100 100 Min

Does the sun ever shine on Leith? It is an interesting metaphysical question. The Proclaimers certainly seem to think so – and have celebrated both their songs and the city of Edinburgh with this musical, based on their previous successful stage production (for non Edinburghers, Leith is the dockland area of the city). There are six central characters – two young men Davy and Ally (George MacKay and Kevin Guthrie respectively) returning from military operations in the Middle East, Davy’s sister Liz (Freya Mavor) and her pal from England Yvonne (Antonia Thomas), and the sibling’s parents Rab and Jean, played by Peter Mullan and Jane Horrocks, who are about to celebrate their twenty fifth wedding anniversary.

Initially we are confronted by a war scene, and the effects from this underlie much of the ensuing drama, but for the most part returning to Edinburgh sees the story become all sunshine and rainbows and it is not until areas of conflict arise half way through that it starts to become more interesting. There is a freshness to the acting, although inexperience does show through for some of the youngsters, but in the musical department, which matters most, this shouldn’t disappoint. Even Jason Flemyng, close pal of director Dexter Fletcher and often appearing in the same films as him, manages to belt out a brief number with enough gusto to be charming and cover up the fact that he is probably not a regular at the karaoke machine.

Overall the film is fun and likeable, but it’s lacking any major gravitas. It is, however, very successful at showing off the city of Edinburgh – in fact for possibly the first time in history the city features as the main setting for two major feature films screening in cinemas at the same time, this and ‘Filth’, although they are somewhat juxtaposed together. I believe the reason for this is the Scottish government’s decision to offer a tax incentive to film companies, so probably we can look forward to seeing more of Scotland on the big-screen (there are several more recent films that have made use of this, such as ‘World War Z’, ‘Fast & Furious 6’ and the opening plane hijacking sequence in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ filmed around Inverness).

Oddly, The Red Dragon himself was in the crowd for the climatic scene of this film – shot between the Royal Scottish Academy and the National Gallery on Princes Street. Sadly, I believe they edited out the reels of people screaming in horror …

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