Macbeth

Shakespeare has been a fixture of adaptation since the birth of cinema. Whilst there have been many attempts to modernise his works, the best adaptations have come when they make a straight adaptation (two great examples that come to mind are Oliver Parker's Othello and Ralph Fiennes Coriolanus). Australian director Justin Kurzel's latest film Macbeth follows this strong tradition.

In the closing battle of a bloody civil war in Scotland, Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) proves his loyalty to King Duncan (David Thewlis) by killing the treacherous MacDonwald (Hilton McRae). After the battle, Macbeth and his friend Banquo (Paddy Considine) come across three witches who tell Macbeth that he will be king and that Banquo's children will be kings. Macbeth is lured into killing Duncan by his wife Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) so that he can become king, but only after Duncan's son Malcolm (Jack Reynor) flees to England. Once Macbeth becomes king, Duncan's closest ally Macduff (Sean Harris) begins to suspect Macbeth's involvement in the old king's death. At the same time, Macbeth is haunted by what he has done and descends into madness.

It is very hard to fault one of these adaptations on its story. There is little you can do to make the story better than what has been written. So therefore they must be judged on the performances and technical aspects. Luckily this film excels in both areas and that is largely due to the fantastic direction of Justin Kurzel.

The most important part of this film is its performances. You really need to be able to cast the right actors for the roles because people know the characters so well. Choosing Michael Fassbender was a genius move. He has the physicality to carry the battle scenes as well as the vulnerability for the madness scenes to be genuine. Marion Cotillard was good, but I felt as though she didn't have enough of a villainous attitude. Sean Harris is amazingly scary and brutal as Macduff. While both Paddy Considine and David Thewlis have rather short roles they both have a great screen presence. Elizabeth Debicki does a great job with her small role as Lady Macduff and Jack Reynor does the same. The problem that a lot of people are going to have getting into this movie is the thickness of the Scottish accents. This combined with the language of Shakespeare can make for some tough viewing.

Technically, this film is a masterpiece. The locations chosen in the Scottish Highlands are beautiful as is Bamburgh Castle on Northumberland coast. Kurzel employs a lot of frame rate experimentation with this movie as well, which gives it an almost ethereal quality. The battle sequences are all shot in super slow motion which heightens not only the tension and action, but also visceral emotion in the scenes. He also uses time lapse in a great scene when Macbeth is descending into madness, wandering around his chambers.

Even if you're not a fan or unfamiliar with the works of Shakespeare this is a great entry point, despite the fact that it can be a little difficult to follow at times. It's an even better if you do like the play, but it's not at all a prerequisite.

Pride

It's been a long time since I've seen an ensemble piece with a perfect cast, but that's exactly what I found in Matthew Warchus's fantastically enjoyable LGBT feature Pride.

During the height of Margaret Thatcher's term and the 1984 Miner's strike, Mark (Ben Schnetzer) and his friends at the 'Gay's the Word' bookshop recognise similarities in their struggle for LGBT rights and the struggle of the Miners, so they decide to form a fund-raising group, Lesbians & Gays Support Miners (LGSM). After contacting various Miner's groups with little success, LGSM decides to work directly with a Welsh mining town, with a council representative, Dai (Paddy Considine) coming up to meet them in London with plenty of enthusiasm.

When the group drive down to the town in South Wales, they are met by sceptical residents that are driven by homophobic preconceptions. Though soon enough - with the support of local mother Sian (Jessica Gunning), and council members Hefina (Imelda Staunton) & Cliff (Bill Nighy) - the majority of the town show their support. It's really quite a wonderful story.

Based on true events, Pride manages to be both wonderfully amusing and sincerely real at the same time, but not in a particularly confronting manner. It's the British equivalent of Priscilla, just not quite as flamboyant. At times it does become overly-sentimental, but these moments are few and far between, and are outnumbered by the many great scenes that tell this enthralling story. Though the true reason that it manages to come to fruition so effortlessly on screen, lies in the superb performances from, not just a few, but all the cast.

Pride has at least twelve leading roles, as well as numerous supporting characters, and it's difficult to find a fault in any of them. There are definitely some standouts, namely the hilarious Imelda Staunton (she is one of my favourite, and yet quite underrated British actors), the young George MacKay as Joe, Bill Nighy (because he's Bill Nighy), and Dominic West as Jonathan, in possibly his best role since The Wire. But overall, this is a real team effort and a fantastic job by casting. It's great to see a good ensemble piece and the story of LGSM just screams for a united cast with plenty of shared screen time. 

 

Pride is not only heartwarming, but it's enourmously funny, and manages to be so without being condescending or degrading...apart from perhaps to homophobes. It's an absolute joy to behold.

 

The World's End

The comedy team that began with the TV show Spaced, have finally finished their Blood and Ice Cream trilogy with The World's End. I hope that this will not be the last time that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright team up, because they make such good comedies.

In The World's End, perennial loser Gary King (Pegg), is wanting to reunite his old group of friends from high school to complete a pub crawl that they failed to complete in 1990. He rousts up his friends, including his former best friend, Andy (Frost), and drives them to their hometown of Newton Haven to commence a night of drunken debauchery. The only problem is that they are all in their 40s and have lost the drive to get belligerently drunk.

Once they get back to their hometown, they realise that not is all as it seems. They slowly find out that all the people in their hometown have been replaced by robots. They continue on their crawl and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This film is a really fitting end to the trilogy (the other two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). The film did give a feeling that it was slightly similar to the British indie comedy Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel, but I suppose that only stems from the fact that they both take place in pubs. Pegg and Frost have a great chemistry that has been built up of over a decade of working together. King is character that you almost feel sorry for, even during his most cringeworthy moments. You also feel sorry for Andy being dragged along on his exploits.

The rest of the cast are also fantastic performers. Martin Freeman (The "British" Office), Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) and Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum) play the rest of the crew that are conned into coming along. My only gripe with the movie is that these characters are not fleshed out a bit more and given some more interesting backstories. Rosamund Pike (Jack Reacher) also makes an appearance and shows that she has great comedic timing.

For the fans of the other two movies, all the recurring jokes are there, including fence jumping, Bill Nighy and Cornettos. It would be interesting to see how this movie would work as a drinking game, drinking whenever they do in the movie. But I'm not advising it, I think any normal person would die from that amount of alcohol. Also I don't think they'd let you drink in a movie theatre. Unless you're in Amsterdam.

Verdict: A great comedy for all to see, but fans of the trio will feel vindicated. Pegg, Frost and Wright are hilarious.