Collateral Beauty

Collateral Beauty is the sort of film that requires a more in depth review to explain just how appalling it really is. This review contains spoilers.

Are you one of the poor souls that went to see the infamous Movie 43? A film with an incredible array of stars, magnificently poor writing and a horrendous sense of direction that left everybody wondering how it was ever funded. Collateral Beauty has been similarly shot down by reviewers, and whilst the obvious comparisons to the aforementioned disaster might be unfitting, the minor glimpses of potential are far overshadowed by the fact that Collateral Beauty gets worse and worse at every turn.

Howard Inlet (Will Smith) is a successful advertising executive who falls apart after the harrowing death of his six-year-old daughter. Depressed, contemplating death, and worst of all, under performing at work, Howard’s concerned “friends” (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Peña) worry in supposed equal measure for Howard’s mental state, and the state of their own professional futures. The trio hire an investigator, Sally Price (Ann Dowd) to acquire evidence that would allow them to take control of the company from Howard (with his best interests in mind of course), and they soon find out that he is writing letters to Love, Death and Time – three constructs that he once used in his advertising work and is now blaming for the death of his daughter. With all obvious options ignored, Howard’s “friends” hire three actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley and Jacob Latimore) to each approach him pretending to be one of the constructs, hoping that he will have a public outburst whilst their PI is filming so that they can then - after digitally removing the actors - show it to the board to prove that Howard is unfit to run the company.

*Oh the humanity*

Written by Allan Loeb (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 21) and directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me), Collateral Beauty had enough capability behind it to produce at least a half-decent film, but somewhere between the ethically-barren plotline and the kindergarten dialogue, the film collapses into a hilarious smoldering pile of Hollywood farce. The story in full is as unbelievable as it is in summary - a gently sickening ride through saccharine and syrupy messages, superficial plot twists and an array of A-listers trying to act their way out of one of the worst dramatic scripts in recent memory. One horrendous issue is the dialogue, which is more literary abomination than uplifting quotage - when you have Dame Helen Mirren spitting out lines like “Nothing is ever really dead if you look at it right” surely it must be obvious that you’ve created a steaming pile of script.

Putting aside the fact that none of the characters other than Howard are even remotely able to draw empathy from the audience because of their involvement in the repulsive scheme, we also have to sit through the hilariously-poor establishing of these token issues that each of them are struggling with. Norton’s Whit is drifting further apart from his daughter, Winslet’s Claire is running out of time to have a child, and Peña’s Simon is dying - we’re all dying Simon, but you decided to die an arsehole, so I don’t care. The acting is mediocre across the board, particularly when you consider the talent on screen, but the material is so atrociously bad that there’s hardly room for improvement. Will Smith’s is the only half-decent performance, but that’s mainly because he doesn’t have to talk.

There’s a swath of other annoying issues throughout like the fact that the investigator is “secretly” filming in the background with her phone in portrait mode, but when they show the footage to the board it’s in landscape and clearly shot with a cinema camera, or the hilariously stupid idea that they could simply digitally remove the actors without an expensive composite artist. Then when they show it to the board they acknowledge the fact that they’ve hired the actors anyway. What was the actual point of it then? I could go on, if not for the inevitable brain hemorrhage that analysing this excrement would give me.

Somewhere deep in the heart of this film there was a tinge of potential, completely lost in the overblown lunacy of this attempted storytelling. In the end though, watching Collateral Beauty is a bit like pondering how quickly your life is flying by, your crippling debt, the irreparable damage we’ve done to the environment, total nuclear annihilation, the futility of existence, the end of time, a Trump presidency; the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

Triple 9

Aussie director John Hillcoat is no stranger to making brutally violent films. Triple 9 is no exception to this rule, showing the brutal lengths that people will go to when their backs are against the wall. While it is an enjoyable heist movie, it can at times seem a bit predictable and some of the character motivations aren't even evident.

In Atlanta, a small crew of criminals led by Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are made to pull a heist on a bank by Russian mobster Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet). Among the crew are two corrupt cops, Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr), as well as brothers Russell (Norman Reedus) and Gabe (Aaron Paul). Despite the fact that they pulled off the heist without a hitch, the crew are forced to pull another with even higher stakes. To help avoid police attention, they come up with a scheme to murder a police officer, which they know the cops will have a higher priority to get to. They decide upon Chris (Casey Affleck), Marcus' new partner. Meanwhile, Chris' uncle Jeffrey (Woody Harrelson) is investigating the crew.

Triple 9 ends up being a very generic heist movie. It does have some surprises, but it turns out to be very predictable. As you watch it, you can pick out who will turn on who and which characters will end up dying. I suppose that that is one thing where John Hillcoat makes a tiny bit of a difference. Life in this movie is cheap, people die when you think for sure that they are the main character. Maybe that stems from packing the movie with so many big name actors. I felt as though they were all important because of the star power that they brought to the movie. Turns out, they aren't.

Another problem that arises from stacking a movie like this with stars is that no one stands out in any way. Actors like Teresa Palmer, Gal Gadot, Norman Reedus and Michael K. Williams were only cast so that their names could be put on the poster so that people would go see the film. Casey Affleck, who ends up becoming the main character only appears after twenty minutes into the action. Clifton Collins Jr. is the only actor to give a truly good performance as the surprising second villain only due to the fact that he has no star power and has to work to be noticed. Kate Winslet is also good, but only when you compare how different her role here compared to Rose in Titanic is.

All in all Triple 9 is a movie that you're going to watch for the action over the story. It has surprisingly little heart. If anything you're not going to ever want to go to Atlanta.

Steve Jobs

Apple founder Steve Jobs has become a rather scrutinised figure in both documentary and film after his death in 2011. This latest biopic however, comes at the hands of both director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, both of whom are known for their rather honest depictions of the world as it is and portrayals of famous people in not so flattering terms. This already fixating combination of talents is made complete with a subtle but powerful performance by leading man Michael Fassbender.

Steve Jobs is split into three acts, each covering a specific period in the life of the man, taking place prior to a product launch that was important in his life. The first takes place in 1984 at the launch of Jobs' (Michael Fassbender) latest dream product, the Macintosh. He is supported by his marketing manager and confidant Johanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) as he contends with the mother of his daughter Chrisann (Katherine Waterston) and technical problems with the launch that he blames on Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg). In 1988, Jobs has left Apple and is working on a new project NeXT, which he thinks will be an important educational tool despite its high price. He also clashes with Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) about leaving Apple and Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) over comments made during an interview. Finally in 1998, Jobs is back at Apple and is about to launch the iMac G3, the product that revitalised the company.

Where this film succeds that past films have failed (particulary 2013's Jobs) is that is not an ambitious film in its scope. Instead of covering every aspect of Jobs' life, the film covers three important moments in his career. That's not to say that the film is lacking for details about Jobs' personality or where he came from. We learn a lot from brief flashbacks where characters discuss his background. Despite Sorkin's snappy writing, the film does have a certain level of predictability when it comes to each of the segments. It seems that Sorkin just had a formula for each one and just changed certain details. Somehow this dragged out the movie for me and made the film less riveting than it should have been.

Which was a lot, considering Fassbender's remarkable performance is completely riveting. He plays Jobs as a sociopathic egomaniac who just wants to make the world of his genius. And you do believe that he believes he is the smartest human ever because Fassbender plays him with the right amount of charm, Kate Winslet's role I found difficult to categorise. I was trying to figure out whether she was a lead character orm a supporting one, but I suppose they all are next to who the movie is about. She really was the emotional core of the movie. Seth Rogen's boyish lovability comes in handy as Steve Wozniak and Jeff Daniels plays a more depressing version of the CEO he played in The Martian. Newcomer Perla Haney-Jardine is a strong presence as Jobs' daughter Lisa in the older sequences.

Boyle's biopic is convincing at times and peters out at others and this has to do with a shaky script from the usually strong Sorkin. Fassbender's performance I think will be strong enough for him to take home the big prize at the Oscars.

A Little Chaos

You've gotta love Alan Rickman. I mean, who doesn't like Alan Rickman? Well, now Alan Rickman has directed his second feature A Little Chaos, written by (in part) Alan Rickman and starring, among others Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman.

The King of France, Louis XIV (Alan Rickman) is making extensive changes to the Palace of Versailles, including a huge landscaping plan to vastly improve the palace gardens. Louis has put André Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts), a man that is very much following in his father's footsteps, in charge of the project, with several other designers competing to supplement his designs. One such landscaper is Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet), who dismisses the structured approach of Nôtre in favour of a more chaotic design. Nôtre rejects her plans at first, but soon he decides that a little chaos could be exactly what the palace gardens require.

There have been a lot of period pieces set in both pre and post-revolutionary France, often  large in scale and covering years, if not decades of history. A Little Chaos on the other hand is about a relatively insignificant, yet still beautiful construction in the gardens of Versailles, and its narrow scope is refreshing. The world is a microcosm of the era, with not only the male-led hierarchy an indictment of its time but a subtle dichotomy between the beauty of the garden projects and the diseases and suffering that was occurring at the time. A point which is hardly touched upon until the final stages of the film, where it's laboured just a bit too much in one scene. There's also a back story for Sabine which is revealed slowly in flashbacks throughout the film, a structure which I found a bit irritating with ultimately, not much of a pay off. 

The plot is well rounded, with a good balance of character development and well..uh landscaping. I have no real idea how historically accurate it is, I know that the outdoor ballroom exists at Versailles but nothing about its construction. However I personally found it very interesting and liked the specificity of the story. For those who like the sweeping historical epics though, this may not appeal. Sitting at just under two hours, I did feel that it could probably have been cut down to ninety minutes. It's not excessively slow but I did find myself looking at the time at a couple of points. It develops at quite a good pace but towards the end it felt like it was trying to tie-up a whole lot of loose ends from diverging plot structures that probably didn't need to exist in the first place. 

The acting all round is fantastic. Kate Winslet is always able to draw empathy from the audience and playing Sabine is no exception. The trauma that Sabine's experienced in her past may not work very well in furthering the plot, but she's clearly a passionate and driven woman. Also it's nice not to see Winslet bare all on the screen again...well sort of...there is a very PG-13 sex scene. Matthias Schoenaerts, as the only character with anything resembling a French accent, brings some mystery to André Le Nôtre, and Alan Rickman proves his worth as a character actor, bringing out the eccentricities of Louis XIV whether they were historically there or not, that's right, he Rickmanizes (If it's not a word, it should be) Louis XIV. One scene in particular, a conversation in an enclosed garden between Sabine and Louis, elevates Louis' personality immensely.

The visuals are very impressive, especially the sweeping landscape shots, and the set design and costuming has the flare of such a powerful aristocracy. There's a sway towards simplistic montages in A Little Chaos but they don't ever become too tedious. A Little Chaos has flaws, but it's charming nonetheless. It's well written and has great performances. Also, don't forget Alan Rickman.

Movie 43

Please don't watch this movie. Don't see it at the cinema, don't buy the DVD, don't even download it, it's not worth the bandwidth. My friend who was with me at the time, walked out twenty minutes in and I would've have well if I didn't have to review it. I feel as though my IQ has halved. And I wanted to give this movie a chance.

Now I've got that out of my system, let me tell you about it. The plot begins with a filmmaker (Dennis Quaid) pitching a movie to a studio exec (Greg Kinnear). Okay, of to a good start, no problem there, that is until we get to the first short about Kate Winslet going on a blind date with Hugh Jackman. In a regular movie that would be a great set up for a romantic comedy until it all goes south when we find out that Hugh Jackman has balls hanging from his chin, fully grown male testicles. What am I ten, who would find this funny. It obviously doesn't appeal to Greg Kinnear's character either because he immediately wants to put an end to the meeting.

But still Dennis Quaid goes on with his pitch, with stories ranging from an extremely dirty mouthed Emma Stone (who is going to have to work extremely hard to regain my love) sucking on Kieran Culkin's (Macaulay's brother) finger to a sketch about a product called iBabe (a naked female that functions like an iPod) made by a company headed by Richard Gere. Other sketches include Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts telling their new neighbours about the disgusting ways that homeschool their son (some of which are borderline incestuous). I am sure their son will grow up to be a mass murderer. Another short involved young Chloe Grace-Moretz getting her first period, with all the men in the house freaking out.

One storyline I did like (I use that term insanely loosely) was called Gotham City Speed Dating. In this short, Robin (Justin Long) is at a speed dating night, only to be humiliated by Batman (Jason Sudeikis), who shows up because a bomb has been planted at the venue by the Penguin. Kristen Bell is Supergirl and Uma Thurman is Lois Lane. Superman is portrayed as some kind of perverted sex fiend. The only reason I "liked"this segment is because Jason Sudeikis played Batman similar to his character Schmitty from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and that's only because his character in that is a dick.

As the film progresses, we find out that Dennis Quaid isn't some big director, but instead some crazy guy who has wandered in of the street with the hopes of getting his film made. But then in an insane twist, at the end we find out that the camera that was filming this was just a behind the scenes camera all along.

I don't know what the makers of this film were thinking, the same thing with the actors. Was Peter Farrelly trying to make some bold statement about the future of film? I don't think so. Were the actors, keep in mind that these are Oscar and Golden Globe worthy actors, just doing this movie as a bit of fun? Maybe, we'll never know. Two particularly offensive performances come from Stephen Merchant (Ricky Gervais best mate) who ends up with plastic surgery that has turned him Asian a la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Terrance Howard (as in Terrance Howard from Crash, a Best Picture winner) plays a coach of an all black basketball team in 1959, who convinces his team that they can win purely because they are black. Come on, that's more racist than the whole of Django Unchained.

Verdict: It's unfunny, racist, disgusting and just plain horrible. Avoid at all costs. Go see any other movie.