Hidden Figures

With Hidden Figures you get a two-for-one deal. It tells the story of the forgotten black women who worked on the early days of the space program in the US, just like it's advertised as, but it also goes deeper and explores the damaging nature of the segregation laws that were present in many of the southern US states during the 1960s. Those two parts combine to make an impactful and inspirational story.

In 1961, Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson) works at NASA, crunching numbers on whatever project she is assigned to. She is one of a larger group of black female mathematicians that do this job that also includes Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monaé). One day she is hired by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) and his Space Task Group in order to put a man into space. There is immense pressure to do so from the government, as the Soviets have not only launched their series of satellites, but they have beaten the US in sending a man into space. Since Katherine is a black woman, she has the twin obstacles in proving that she can actually do the job and gain the respect of her colleagues.

After doing some research, I found out that the segregation of the facility in which they work had been basically non-existent since the 1950s. The reason I mention that fact is that it leaves the film in a strange limbo. The movie is very much about being a black person in the 1960s and the majority of society was subject to these Jim Crow laws, but at the same time the film has to be true to experiences of the people being portrayed in the film. I think that director Theodore Melfi balances these two elements really well and that although the segregation laws may not have affected these women in the ways presented in the film, it allows the audience to extrapolate them into the rest of society.

To make these strong women believable and sympathetic, they need to be backed up by strong performances from the female leads. Luckily this movie has plenty of those. Taraji P. Henson transforms into Katherine Goble so completely it's fantastic. She is able to really convey the strength and confidence that the Goble must have had to work in a completely male environment at a time when women were not at all seen as intelligent beings. I am a huge fan of Octavia Spencer and whenever I see something that she's in, I know that she is going to give the best she can and she doesn't disappoint. Especially when it comes to being the comic relief of the three leads, something that she excels at. It seems that to get your film nominated for best picture you need to put Janelle Monaé in it, because she has been in two Oscar nominated films this year (the other being Moonlight). Her character's struggle against segregation is the more amazing of the three as she became the first qualified black female engineer for NASA, which is no small feat. It's also worth noting that if you want to make a movie set during the Cold War, there is an obligation to put Kevin Costner in it.

Hidden Figures is an incredibly inspirational movie. I know that we don't live in a world that has such open discrimination where racism is acceptable (in most countries at least), it is good to be told a story that you can do whatever you want if you work really hard to go out and get it. This is especially true of a world where the pay gap between the genders is so big when it shouldn't be.

Midnight Special

Unique American filmmaker Jeff Nichols has achieved critical success with his first three features Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud, none of which found similar triumphs at the box office. His latest feature, Midnight Special - starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst and Adam Driver - is his most ambitious film to date, and with his largest budget thus far, so it has a lot to prove to audiences and critics alike.

Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher) sits in the rear of a car with Roy (Michael Shannon) and state-trooper Lucas (Joel Edgerton) as they cruise through the night with no headlights, evading a state-wide manhunt issued by the AMBER alert system. Alton wears bright-blue goggles and can only be outside at night. He has some serious powers that nobody fully understands and has been the religious focus of a cult on the ranch that he was taken from. The FBI and the NSA are out on the search, with agent Sevier (Adam Driver) trying to gain as much information about the boy as quickly as possible. Nobody knows where they’re going, not even us. All we know if that it’s crucial to the future of the planet.

Right off the bat, it’s clear that Midnight Special is a surprisingly beautiful movie. Shot on film and harking back to some of the more minimalistic 70s and 80s sci-fi flicks, it doesn't present a hyper real world or a CGI riddled environment, but the level of thought behind every visual decision from DoP Adam Stone is obvious. With large sections of the film occurring at night, it’s these sequences that shine, and there’s certainly no pun intended there because half the time it’s literally impossible to see what’s going on. The action is just hinted at; the silhouette of a car travelling down the road with no headlights on, the thin sliver of light on the horizon. The night scenes show a degree of subtlety which is often left abandoned by sci-fi films for fancy special effects sequences. Sequences which ultimately destroy any sense of noiresque mystery that make films of this ilk so unique.

But you didn't come here to read about the visuals, and Midnight Special’s soundtrack is just as impressive. The immersive sound-scape manages a lot with the few action sequences at hand, and in quieter scenes the subtle layers of environment come alive. David Wingo’s intense score pulls you in and somehow manages to only become intrusive at a couple of moments. But Ed, what about the costuming? Well the decision to give Alton goggles was...alright alright, so I admit, I might have struggled a bit with Midnight Special’s story. An obvious homage to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Midnight Special’s ambitious plot is mysterious, and often captivating but most of the time I just couldn't get enough information to really care about the characters or invest myself in the story.

Take the beginning for instance, through an intense opening montage we learn that a boy has been supposedly kidnapped from a ranch belonging to a religious cult, we know that Edgerton and Shannon’s characters are involved, and that’s about it. It’s clever and provides a set up that draws us in, but it continues like this for most of the film, with the little crucial details that keep us asking questions just not provided. It’s frustrating to say the least, especially since the film’s story clearly has some interesting things to say.

Before more is revealed, you’re forced to side with either a misguided cult or two men who have kidnapped a young boy, yet any presumptions you might make about either side are not backed up with anything indicative of what you might expect, which makes it difficult to decide who - if any of them - is doing the right thing. It’s also unclear exactly what Alton’s powers are - even when we see them in use - and how they relate to these theories about another dimension of beings. The third stakeholder in the story is the government, specifically the FBI and NSA, who are the clear antagonists. The NSA agent Sevier - an Edward Snowden-like figure who secretly helps Alton - is sort of like the comic relief, and well played by Adam Driver. In fact the film has great performances all round, especially from Michael Shannon and Jaeden Lieberher. Sadly though the performances can only convey so much.

Midnight Special is an expertly constructed film. It’s beautiful, well acted and has so much potential lying under the surface. However, whilst I’m normally one to favour the ambiguous plot-line, it consistently failed to reveal enough to keep me on the edge of my seat, or away from that all-too-telling watch glance.

Robin Williams Tribute Month: Jumanji (1995)

Having not seen Joe Johnston's Jumanji since I was a kid, I swear the special effects looked better back then, but apparently this was a major flaw pointed out by reviewers at its release. Despite this, Jumanji is still great fun, and another of Robin Williams' energetic roles.

In the late 1960s, 12 year-old Alan Parrish (Adam Hann-Byrd), the son of a shoe-factory owner, unearths a mysterious chest that he hears beating away in a construction site. In it, he finds a board game, titled 'Jumanji'. After a row with his wealthy parents over going to boarding school, Alan and his friend Sarah Wittle (Laura Bell Bundy) start to play 'Jumanji'. Soon it becomes apparent that the game has supernatural powers. Alan is sucked into another world within the game and Sarah abandons him out of fear.

Some 26 years later, siblings Judy (Kirstin Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) also discover the game and rescue a grown-up Alan (Robin Williams) from inside. They must all now face the trails and tribulations presented to them by 'Jumanji', in order to finish the game.

Despite being adapted from a children's book, Jumanji manages to remain enjoyable for both children and adults, but not simply because it pitches different jokes at different levels (as many children's films attempt to do) but because it evokes some genuinely all age themes, including isolation, growing up and dealing with demanding parents, whilst still entertaining everybody through it's fun and fanciful plot line.

I had totally forgotten that Kirsten Dunst was in this as a child actor, but both her and Pierce are great as the two leading kids. Bonnie Hunt portrays the neurotic and anxious grown-up Sarah Wittle with ease, and David Alan Grier as Carl, shoe-factory worker turned cop, provides some great slapstick humour. However, every time I see this, I find Nora (Babe Neuwirth) absolutely intolerable, though that's more due to the character than Babe's acting.

As we saw with Hook and Aladdin, Robin Williams proves a fitting choice for a children's movie. Whilst his sense of humour may not have always be 'PG-13' (just check out any of his stand-up), his energetic delivery style breathes a lot of life into the characters. Here is no different. Its fun to see him explore the confusion of this boy, raised in the desolate jungles of the 'Jumanji' board, now thrown back into the real world to once more have the basic amenities of toilet paper and a razor.

This was never going to be Robin Williams greatest role, but there's no doubt that the film would have been much worse off without him. Jumanji manages to cross the age brackets and provide a fun experience for all, only slightly hampered by some fairly appalling special effects.

The Two Faces of January

I'd expect nothing less from the writer of Drive for his directorial debut. Hossein Amini is a master at adapting novels and if you can adapt James Sallis' existentialist Drive, you can adapt anything.

Rydal (Oscar Isaac) is a young American conman working as a tour guide in 1960s Greece. He takes around rich college girls whilst overcharging them for everything. One day he comes across the MacFarlands, Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and Colette (Kirsten Dunst), a mysterious wealthy couple from America. He is drawn to both of them and soon becomes embroiled in their dangerous past.

Based on the 1964 novel by Patricia Highsmith (who is known for writing The Talented Mr Ripley), Amini has constructed an intensely suspenseful adventure that very reminiscent of suspense films of the 1960s, not unlike those by Alfred Hitchcock. There were many times where I did in fact hold my breath at the outcome at many of the situations.

Isaac has proven himself once again in this film. His character Rydal is naive enough but not entirely unknowing of how things will turn out. Rydal's backstory is present, but because of the nature of him being a conman it is hard to know whether or not he is telling the truth about his past.

Both Mortensen and Dunst play perfectly off each other. Their chemistry is evident at the beginning and as the film goes on you believe that the strain in their relationship is genuine. Isaac also works well with both of them. The subtle hints of romance between Colette and Rydal are believable and Chester's strange surrogacy as father to Rydal is quite telling.

Verdict: An intensely suspenseful and gripping adventure through Greece. Amazing performances from all three actors.