Trailers Week 69: 01/11/15

The Sound and the Fury

Since James Franco went and did a literature course at NYU, he only makes movies based off the lesser known works of literary greats. This time it's William Faulkner. Also starring Seth Rogen, Joey King, Danny McBride, Scott Haze and Tim Blake Nelson.

The Brothers Grimsby (NSFW)

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest is about the football hooligan brother of the world's best super spy. Also starring Isla Fisher, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane and Mark Strong.

By The Sea

Okay Ange and Brad's new film looks like it has some merit. We'll just have to wait and see.

Hello, My Name Is Doris

Director Michael Showalter brings Sally Field into the quirky comedy genre in a movie that looks like it really suits her. Also starring Tyne Daly, Kyle Mooney, Kumail Nanjiani and Max Greenfield.

Dirty Grandpa

Robert De Niro shares a road trip with his grandson before his wedding, but also wants to get his rocks off. Also starring Zac Efron, Julianne Hough and Aubrey Plaza.

Criminal Activities

It's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels meets Pulp Fiction without the things that made either of those two movies great. Starring John Travolta and Jackie Earle Haley.

Don Verdean

An archaeologist must recover the Holy Grail in order to make his local parish relevant. Starring Sam Rockwell, Jermaine Clement, Leslie Bibb, Amy Ryan, Will Forte and Danny McBride.

Burnt

At That Other Movie Blog we have a special relationship with the food film. We don't know whether it's just the fact that they are always slightly weird or if it's because we love food porn. Director John Wells dives headlong into this genre, but unlike Chef's take on street food or The Hundred Foot Journey's exploration of a home cooked experience, Burnt takes into the high stakes kitchen of a high end restaurant.

Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) is a chef looking to get back on top of his game. After shucking a million oysters in Louisiana, he journeys to London where he seeks out old friend Tony (Daniel Brühl), who is mâitre d' at a high end restaurant. Adam reveals to Tony that he has come back to get a third Michelin star, the highest honour a chef can attain. To do this he acquires his own dream team of chefs, including Michel (Omar Sy), David (Sam Keeley) and Helene (Sienna Miller).

I'm pretty sure that the food film is the 2010's equivalent of the 80's action movie because it has all the same beats one of them. Guy who was once on top has hit rock bottom and through a series of montages defeats the bad guys and comes out on top. In the case with Burnt, the bad guys are Adam's own demons who are getting in the way of him being able to achieve that third Michelin star. I'm not entirely convinced though that this is an interesting enough conflict for a film like this because it forces the other characters to just fade into exposition or motivation for the main character.

And the other characters do suffer. Daniel Brühl's Tony only serves to hint at the life that Adam used to live. Young up-and-coming chef David goes around and tells everyone what a god Adam used to be. Characters like Michel and Helene are both different motivations that drive Adam forward, but that's all they serve as. There was a real missed opportunity in making rival chef Reece (played by Matthew Rhys) a bigger part of the film. The same could be said of Adam's ex-girlfriend Anne Marie (Alicia Vikander), who appears in only two scenes just to make a little bit of unnecessary conflict.

I'm not sure if the London setting was a good choice, or why they didn't take advantage of it more. I understand that it is a city where the Michelin Guidebook holds a lot of weight, moreso than any US city, but at the same time not as much as other European cities, but Burnt doesn't really go out of its way to show that London is a culinarily interesting city. Yes, we do get shown a lot of the multicultural influence that immigrants have on the food culture, but these forays are all too brief, oftentimes being shown in the films many montages.

The performances are all fairly average, with no one really sticking out. Cooper's sociopathic performance doesn't really make him relatable apart from a heart touching scene where he makes a cake for Helene's daughter. Sienna Miller reunites with Cooper again after American Sniper and proves to me once again that they have no chemistry. Brühl can make any performance his own, but Tony feels too much like a weak background character. Omar Sy is very understated in this film and would probably give a better performance in a better film, which this is not.

I wouldn't say I disliked this film, but I also wouldn't say that I liked it either. It's definitely a movie that you have to go and eat at a restaurant after, even if it's Burger King, because the one thing I did learn from Burnt is that there's nothing wrong with a Whopper.

Trailers Week 68: 25/10/15

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

That Mr Darcy must be one tasty man. Based on Seth Grahame-Smith's mash-up novel where Elizabeth Bennet and Co decide that ridding the world of zombies is far more important than finding a well to do man. Starring Lily James, Lena Headey, Matt Smith, Douglas Booth and Charles Dance.

Daddy's Home

Look, we're not biased here at the blog or anything, but Mark Wahlberg's definitely going to win this competition.

Dad's Army

This comedy is about the British Home Army trying to find a German spy during WW2. Starring Toby Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bill Nighy.

Fathers and Daughters

A girl learns how to fall in love after being scarred by the death of her close father. Starring Amanda Seyfried, Russell Crowe, Aaron Paul and Bruce Greenwood.

Joy
This family is bound together by one tough woman.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

I was going to show this one earlier in the week, but I thought I'd make you wait instead. Will we learn about Luke's family? Did the Rebels actually take power? Didn't the Jedi already return? Guess we'll all have to wait.

Bridge of Spies

Despite the critique from many a historian, nobody does history as consistently well as Spielberg. Schindler’s List, Lincoln, and Munich were all fine retellings that balanced fact and emotion extremely well. Other of his films such as Empire of the Sun, War Horse and perhaps most-notably Saving Private Ryan inhabit a detailed, rich historical world, despite adapting the circumstances into their own story. His latest film, Bridge of Spies takes a look at the events surrounding the exchange of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and American U-2 pilot Gary Powers. 

The year is 1957 and in Brooklyn, KGB spy and talented painter Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance) goes about his business; retrieving secret messages and not getting caught in the process. However, this time the FBI are on his tail and he’s arrested whilst his hotel room is raided. Elsewhere in town, insurance lawyer James B, Donovan (Tom Hanks) is asked by his boss (Alan Alda) to take on Rudolf’s case. It’s imperative that the U.S justice system is seen to be fairly representing the spy, and the Bar association has unanimously voted that Donovan should draw the short straw. 

A guilty verdict is a forgone conclusion, however Donovan gives the case his all, and even after the verdict, talks with the judge to downplay the sentencing from death to incarceration. There may be a time when an American is captured by the Russians and a trade required. That’s exactly what happens when U-2 reconnaissance pilot Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) crashes over Russia and fails to kill himself. Donovan is chosen to negotiate the trade, however he must travel to the divided Berlin to do this. 

Bridge of Spies plays out like a classic espionage thriller, subtle and nuanced like the most recent notable example Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but with Spielberg’s personal touch thrown in for good measure. The period style is immediately evident through the set design, and the entrenched fear of the time palpable through minor details like everybody’s favourite civil defence film Duck and Cover. In the Berlin scenes, the fear and panic is noticeable as construction starts on the Berlin Wall; a snapshot of Europe’s instabilities at the time. Thomas Newman’s score stays largely unannounced, but when it does come out, there’s a distinct Road to Perdition feeling to it all. 

Much like his last film Lincoln, Spielberg accents the themes of this quite astounding story through what can be most closely described as ‘selective patriotism’ – drawing out the inherent humanism in liberal American values, whist rejecting the cold bureaucracy that seems to have taken their place. Donovan cites the constitution in his appeal for Abel, partly because he believes in its protective principles – even if Abel’s not an American – partly because he’s foresees the value in keeping him alive, but also because he empathises with Abel. It’s here that Spielberg reveals his true intentions, which are as usual to draw out compassion and build character. 

These areas are what really sets Bridge of Spies apart from what the film could have been in lesser hands. The well-rounded, often witty Matt Charman/Coen Brothers script covers the historical ground exceptionally well, and the gritty cold-war environment is brought to life through Janusz Kamiński’s reserved cinematography. However the good-natured James B. Donovan is the root of this film and carried through by the always-exceptional Tom Hanks. Hanks gives this film everything, both to his role and to others. He’s well known for his generosity as a co-star, and it really shows. Everybody that shares the screen with him is at their very best. Mark Rylance brings a composed genteelness to Abel that makes him immediately likable, and other standout roles include Stowell as Powers, Jesse ‘Lydia O Lydia’ Plemons and all-round acting legend Alan Alda (despite only making a brief few appearances). 

Not only does Bridge of Spies continue to prove that any Spielberg/Hanks collaboration turns to gold, but it marks a strong return to the classic espionage sub-genre, evident even through the notably “old-school” editing. This film is unashamedly Spielbergian in all its glory – from the human interest core to the final moment of minor sentimental overreach. Many criticise Spielberg for his neat and tidy endings but as a piece of historical storytelling, you don’t need anything more. This is a film that brings out the humanity behind the events and is also the first film I’ve seen in ages that got a healthy round of applause at the end, which certainly says something.

Crimson Peak

                     "It will run red first because of the clay in the pipes but the water will clear up."

A late winter's day, overcast, as a carriage makes its way up the red-clay drive-way of the grounds to

the Gothic mansion that is Allerdale Hall in Cumberland, England. The open carriage laden with luggage pulls up out front, the dirty, elderly caretaker greets the arrivals, the lord of the manor Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his new young American wife Edith (Mia Wasikowska). Edith's welcome by the caretaker is polite, if a tad odd but the sudden arrival of a small Papillion dog surprises the newlyweds, to the delight of Edith and chagrin of Thomas. Edith presses inside the house, her new home, a dark, massive and open manor, her splendid ruffly grey dress with delicate flower arrangements upon it contrasts to the ruinous dark green and mahogany interior of the building, not to mention it's state of decay with dead flies and leaves littering the floor due to the open roof. The house creaks, groans, distant cries and winds mimic both agony and breathing. Edith searches the house, her inquisitiveness seeming to further the apparent life within the house, her new home. Crimson Peak is the latest film from Mexican cult director Guillermo del Toro, the film stars Wasikowska, Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain and Charlie Hunnam and follows Wasikowska's Edith as she marries the mysterious but charming Sharpe and moves in with him and his sister Lucille to the ludicrously large and certainly haunted Allerdale Hall, otherwise known as the Crimson Peak due to the red clay underground that seeps into the snow to a terrifying affect, and soon sets about uncovering the mysteries of the mansion as she is haunted by ghosts.

Guillermo del Toro is a director very much about style over substance, his films, regardless of their overt quality, are all bursting with inspired, mythic art and designs, and his stories often take the form of or relate to fairy-tales, myths and legends and thus Crimson Peak is book-ended with poetic narration and its title sequence is a CGI rendering of a classic fairy-tale book being opened. The plot, setting and design of the film all condition the audience to accept the film as a faery story rather than period horror-drama, there's even a line in the film in which Edith describes the manuscript she's writing as "not a ghost story but a story with a ghost in it", a phrase that certainly applies to the horror genre in this film.  Del Toro's ability to build a world is central to how he builds his characters, his film and directing style, which often involves a thematic exploration on family and place (Hellboy, Mako in Pacific Rim, the farm in Pan's Labyrinth). Scenes open with the moving camera finding it's way around the world before coming to the character or emotion of the scene and often-times using a neat transition such as a match-cut or shrinking the frame down to a single detail in the shot such as a butterfly or ring. The latter method being an overt throw-back to the editing of early cinema, close to the setting of this film, and even further relates to the writing and direction of Crimson Peak which both explicitly and implicitly engage with the different media's of the time, their engagement with death, as well as references to other films and the themes of memory and past.

Written by del Toro and Matthew Robbins who previously collaborated on del Toro's most celebrated film, Pan's Labyrinth, much of the script and editing of Crimson Peak is a return to form following the earnest, gleeful but ultimately (and purposely) average script of Pacific Rim, but the occasional flash of the script or editing can be cancelled out by the failings. Nice character details such as Hunnam's doctor being a fan of Sherlock Holmes thus providing a subtle justification for his heightened investigative nature is forgotten in the face predictable and soon-to-be-cliched third act revelation. In the opposite vein the perhaps too-brutal editing of early scenes is but a scant memory in the presence of some delightful match-cuts and scene transitions. Mia Wasikowska has built a career off playing waif-ish, inquisitive but strong-willed bourgeoisie protagonists with a dark side (see the excellent Stoker and The Double by Park Chan-wook and Richard Ayoade, respectively), and her role as Edith is another notch in that belt, though this is a perfect film for that kind of performance. Tom Hiddleston's effortless charm takes centre-stage as he seduces Edith but within his pauses and puppy-like blue eyes there is some depth and doubt that makes Sharpe more memorable in stark contrast to Charlie Hunnam who, while not bad, just doesn't quite fit in with the film. Chastain's aloof Lucille may be the topic of some debate but her portrayal felt like a well-travelled path, bringing little new or strong to the role until the later moments of the film, and even then the writing/scenario felt cliched instead.

While throughout the film there are several nods to classic films that obviously influenced del Toro, the red ball from The Changeling being one of the more overt references, the finale (without spoiling too much I hope)is particularly reminiscent. It's structure is almost beat-for-beat the same as The Shining, an influence which hangs over this film like a cloud, but the costuming and set design resembles the first Silent Hill adaptation, and for good reason. While marketed as a Gothic horror-romance, Crimson Peak is sparsely decorated with moments of great dread ruined by cheap jump-scares, though the CGI ghosts do look wonderful, unique and disturbing. The narrative of a del Toro film is usually secondary to the world and atmosphere it's always a disappointing experience to be able to predict the very next event in a film and though Crimson Peak is perhaps the most gorgeously produced film of the year, and once again del Toro has created a fantastical breathing world and likely his objectively best film since Pan's Labyrinth, Peak is another film by del Toro that falls just short of being great.

The Walk

Robert Zemeckis has a talent for telling eccentric stories on a grand scale, be it Back to the Future, Forrest Gump or Castaway. Now he’s adapted Man on Wire, one of the finest documentaries in recent years, into The Walk. 

Standing atop the Statue of Liberty's torch, our story begins with Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), reminiscing about his incredible experience atop the Twin Towers. Back in 1973, Philippe's livelihood rests on his ability to perform. His street act is filled with juggling, unicycles and of course, wire walking. A visit to the dentist's office however, give Philippe an idea for an incredible feat, a wire-walk between the two tallest buildings in the world (currently under construction).

After getting kicked out by his parents, he starts to practice at the Circus, where he falls under the watchful gaze of trainer Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley). Slowly Philippe forms a group of accomplices, starting with fellow performer, Annie (Charlotte Le Bon). The plan is in motion and they all travel to America, now all the group have to do is get to the top.

Considering the quality of the original documentary, it’s difficult to view The Walk as anything but unnecessary. It plays out as a heist film, similar to the re-enactments in Man on Wire, and plays up the theatrics well, with expectedly strong visuals from Dariusz Wolski. But the result is a hollow experience that doesn’t hold up to the whimsicality of Philippe Petit’s story. Zemeckis has bowed to peer pressure and favoured spectacle over story, and he’s done it with a film that should rely so strongly on the development and detail of the feat. 

Perhaps worse than that though, was the decision to cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit. I think Levitt is an exceptionally strong actor and has clearly trained himself to capture the charismatic essence of Petit, but all the electrifying performances and outrageous French accents can’t change the fact that it’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a wig. At least I hope that’s a wig. He never really inhabits Philippe, instead he becomes more of a caricature of him. 

The relationships between the characters also seem skewed, particularly toward the end with the way Phillipe, his girlfriend and his accomplices separated after the event, which is quite an emotional moment in the documentary. Historical accuracy always seems to be an issue with biopics, but here it's less the about inaccuracies and more about the lack of connection to the people that was so well established through the interviews and depictions in Man on Wire. I can't help but feel that perhaps this film would have been in better hands with a French production house like Studio Canal rather than Tristar, or better yet just not made at all. 

If you're recounting events and depicting real people then spectacle needs to be firmed up with half-decent story-telling, and unfortunately Zemeckis only achieves the spectacle. Man on Wire is the only way to go for Petit's story. 

Legend

It seems amazing that we still get a kick out of a single actor playing two separate characters. All the things superheroes and action stars can do seem pretty normal, but put two Tom Hardys on the same screen at the same time and everyone is baffled. Make them fight and we all lose our collective shits. But apart from this novelty value, is Legend offering us much?

In late 1950s London, the Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald (Tom Hardy) are gangsters on the rise. Reggie is seen as the brother that is more level headed, whereas Ronnie is an unrestrained psychopath, having been released from a psychiatric ward at the beginning of the film. They have a stranglehold on the East End of London and are looking to expand across the river, but are hampered by rival gangster Charlie Richardson (Paul Bettany). Meanwhile, Reggie is courting young Frances Shea (Emily Browning), with whom he is enamoured with greatly. In the background, Ronnie and Reggie are trying to snare a deal with the mafia that will put them on top.

That's the problem with this film, the main action that the film should focus on is relegated to the back seat. This movie should be a violent portrayal of how the Krays came to rule London instead of a twisted romance between Reggie and Frances. There is a missed opportunity as well in not delving into the police investigation that brought the Krays down. One thing I will give the film credit for is its frank and honest portrayal of Ronnie's homosexuality. It makes no bones about Ronnie's admission of it either.

Tom Hardy has had an interesting career path. If this film had come after 2008's Bronson and RocknRolla, I would have thought that he was setting himself up as a British gangster actor and that would have made sense. But in this post-Fury Road world where he is being set up as superstar of tomorrow, doing a film like this doesn't make much sense to me. Although I say that, his performance (or performances) do dominate, and he is incredibly charming in both roles. The best thing I could say is that there is a definite difference in the way he plays them, right down to their difference in physicality.

The other performances in this movie fail, not because the acting is bad, but because the characters aren't very interesting. Emily Browning's Frances just seemed like a flat and boring person and that made her scenes hard to watch. The Krays' business partner is played by veteran actor David Thewlis, but just serves to explain exposition. Christopher Eccleston could have done better if he was given more to do, but he floated in and out too rarely for me. Taron Egerton was a shining light in all this as Ronnie's lover and is present in nearly every scene he was in. I didn't even know Paul Bettany was in it until I had to write this review.

Look, this movie is a bit of a disappointment if you're going to watch it with expectations. If you're watching it for Tom Hardy, you might like it.