Get Out - comedy / thriller / horror. All that and more.

Took a rare trip to the cinema back in April (and rarer still these days that I am blogging about it - even if it is 5 months later).  I had a free weekday evening and so I did that thing that I do enjoy doing, watching a horror film in the dark at night.  Better still when one has to walk home at midnight in the dark.  All about there scares innit.

Get Out stars Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, a guy who has been going out with Rose (Allison Williams) for a few months.  Naturally Rose wants Chris to meet her parents.  However he is reluctant.  She is white, he is black; Chris is cautious about how they will react.  Rose's reassurances about her parents' ludicrous liberalism put Chris mostly at ease, but his nagging doubts aren't about to vanish at any point.  This is America after all, and race is as much an issue today as at any point in its history.  What could possibly go wrong?

The film continues into 3 acts, each with a very distinct tone.  We go from borderline cringe-comedy, to spooky mystery, to slasher horror, with the end of each act clearly signalling the transition to the next.  Everything is tied together with a playfully comic undertone as Chris stays in touch with his friend (comic relief) Rod throughout his entire time with Rose's parents.  From this we pretty much know that nothing can really happen to Chris as he navigates his way through the minefield of parental hyper-liberalism - Texas Chainsaw Massacre this is not.  One could criticise this as undercutting the horror elements of the story, but I think it actually helps create a playful tone that reminds us that horror films are meant to be entertainment.  Carefully done, it is possible to create a light tone around sinister ideas.  Black comedy is after all a thing, and Get Out is nothing if not that (but with a lot more horror).

I distinctly remember Kaluuya starring as the lead in the best episode of Black Mirror's original run back in 2011, but I can't recall seeing him in anything else.  A strong performance in both these roles surely sets him up for more work in the future.

My opinion is that this isn't quite the game-changing thriller is was billed as in some parts earlier this year, but it is an extraordinarily good horror / thriller.  Of particular note is the film's tone, which is shifting but well-crafted to great effect.  I await with great interest to see what writer / director Jordan Peele gets up to next.

Moonlight - a story waiting to be told

Took a bit of time to get around to it, but I have now kept up the record I try to maintain - that of making sure I see the Academy's Best Film award winner as soon as possible.  You may recall that Moonlight was eventually awarded this year's top prize at the Oscars after an envelope malfunction in which L A Land had originally been read out as the winner.  Cue the internet going wild for about 90 seconds as accusations of white washing were slung at the Academy on social media, and then going wild for days afterwards as everyone struggled to work out how something as well-co-ordinated as the Oscars ceremony could have managed to get the wrong name into the hands of the person doing the reading.

Whatever.  We are where we are.  Moonlight won the Academy award for Best Film this year, and rightly so.  It presents a story that feels like it has been waiting to be told for some time, a story of sexual awakening in the unforgiving world of the inner city druglands of urban America.

The film shows us three vignettes from the life of Chiron, at first a young boy, then a teen, and finally a man grown.  As a boy he is timid, confused by his sexuality and in yearning for a role model.  As a teen he is isolated, insecure and picked-on.  As a man he is physically powerful but deeply unsure about who he is and how he fits into a world that isn't sure how to react to him.

Marshala Ali won an Oscar for his performance in the first of the vignettes, when Chiron in a small boy living with his drug-addicted mother in the rough end of his home city.  Ali plays local drug dealer Juan, a character that on the surface we think we know from endless portrayals of people like him in the media and film.  The reality is that he is confused and powerless as everyone else trying to find their place in the world.  One particular scene sees Chiron join in with dinner at Juan's place, a scene that makes a curveball out of our expectations of the characters.  It's perfect in its simplicity, able to completely hold our attention through the power of words.

The film's themes are mutli-layered but perfectly woven.  For me the main thrust was about role models and expectations of ourselves and out lives.  We may have role models who are good, bad, right or wrong, but ultimately we become our own person as a result of everything we see and feel.  And crucially we might turn out to be someone no one ever would have expected - witness the dramatic change in Chiron from skinny kid to muscled young man by the final act, no one meeting him for the first time could hope to guess at the timid and confused upbringing he suffered through.

Yes it is slow, yes the camera lingers on at the end of scenes, yes the silence tells a story - all reasons many people might find Moonlight boring.  But I think this is what makes the film perfect.  It isn't an easy thing to use silence to your benefit, but here it is like an extra character, bringing development where dialogue would just muddy the waters.  A worthy Oscar winner.

Prevenge - novel, gory, comic, brilliant

Catching up with my Lovefilm DVDs recently left me in possession of a rather odd film I couldn't remember adding to my list.  Prevenge comes with a synopsis that should have most people rolling their eyes: Ruth is a heavily pregnant woman who's unborn baby is telling her to kill people.  Gotta love High Concept.

Rather than being simply an excuse for B-movie gore, Prevenge is surprisingly satirical, while being every bit as darkly comic as you would hope.  Amongst the people Ruth murders are a pet shop owner, fitness fanatic, two potential flatmates and DJ Dan - the most disgusting excuse for a man to ever have lived.  Dan acts in just about the most outrageously sexist, childish and vomit-inducing way around Ruth as she pulls him in the shit bar where he's plying his trade.  The audience is encouraged to have little sympathy over his murder as he shouts at his elderly mum in his flat while throwing up into his wig.  Yup - that.

Therein lies much of Prevenge's satire and appeal - what woman hasn't endured horrible sexist 'banter' in a bar and wished they could stick the boot in (ok well Ruth uses a knife - but metaphors innit)?  When women get pregnant they change right?  We are told a mystical connection is formed between mother and baby right?  Well who says that has to be loving and caring - maybe the baby is the next Charles Manson in wating?!

The one person Ruth can't quite seem to kill is the person intrinsically linked to the implied reason for her homicidal rampage, and the reason the father of the baby isn't around.  The story-line veers wonderfully close to the heartwarming towards the end, as Ruth comes to see how her pregnancy is impacting her mental health.  However the film cannot quite bring itself to shift the focus back into the real world (we assume that in the real world Ruth would have been caught many months ago - such is her disregard for covering up her tracks), preferring instead to remain in the bafflingly surreal world of Ruth's actions.  It's a difficult story to wrap up after all, and by letting this bonkers world hang around until the final shot I think the writers did it extraordinarily well.

Alice Lowe stars as Ruth.  She was outstanding in Sightseers, but here she is also the writer and director.  The film was apparently shot in on a short timescale on a tight budget, a triumph for Lowe who's work I will be looking out for the in future.  I fully endorse Prevenge.  It has a tight and engaging script, and is comic, dark and satirical in all the right amounts.  It's exactly what you want to discover when you watch a small budget film from an unknown writer / director.  Go and see it.

The Inbetweeners - it's all great, apart from the second film

The second movie based on the cult TV classic The Inbetweeners was available on All 4 over last weekend, as such me and my girlfriend in our hungover states settled down to a very weird double bill - the first of which was David Lynch's much-lauded Mulholland Drive.  Quite a double bill indeed.

The Inbetweeners is a cult classic for good reason.  It hit the popular zeitgeist back in the mid 2000s when it attained popularity for its cringingly realistic portrayal of teenage boys and their disgusting foul mouths, foul minds and even fouler behaviour.  Nothing was considered taboo.  The show even invented its own swear word that somehow manages to be even more wince-inducing than any actual profanity.

Of course any successful TV show needs a film, and so it was that in 2011 the original writers of the show penned a feature length episode in which the lads go wild on a classic 'lads on tour' holiday to a Mediterranean island.  The second film followed in 2014, this time in Australia.

The transition from small screen to large is hard to pull off, and where the first film managed it quite well the second struggles hugely.  The point is that you need to have a story to tell, and your characters have to go on a journey.  In 25 minutes of television you can restrict yourself to a short gribly tale of teenage poo and vomit.  However to sit through 90 minutes you need a lot more.  The first movie manages this by having its characters come of age.  They spend their time being themselves and carrying on as they always have, but each end up with the girl they didn't originally lust over, learning along the way that sex and relationships in real life are a million miles from the screwed up fantasy land of their hitherto teenage experiences.  It's called an arc innit.

The second film doesn't seem to even attempt to tick this box of script-writing 101.  Instead we head off to Australia and have crude visual gags about poo and nobs and pissing.  Then each of our characters ends up in the same place as they started at the first film.  The funniest part of the film is a series of digs at fake new-age traveller types who have gone abroad to 'find themselves', but are in fact on a gap year paid for by wealthy parents in Surrey.  Aside from that, the poo-gags you can either take or leave.

It's a classic tale: popular TV series goes on to the big screen to make some money and fucks it up.  Just so happens that in the case of The Inbetweeners got the first film right, and so we had to wait for the second one before they fell back on toilet humour and forgot to tell a story.  The appeal of The Inbetweeners is fairly universal, my Dad enjoyed it when I showed it to him and as far as I can tell there are people between the ages of 20 and 30 who cannot watch it as it's too cringingly close to the realities of their teenage years.  It is a genuinely funny cult classic of its era that I would recommend to anyone who can abide the relentless smut.  Just don't bother watching the second film.

La La Land - is it a musical?

To say that La La Land has generated a lot of hype is to hugely understate the excitement that followed the release of this film earlier this year.  With 14 nominations and 6 wins at the Oscars in February, Hollywood agreed (though perhaps not to the extent some were initially predicting - the clean sweep did not happen and Ryan Gosling got no award).  Every year it seems which ever film is the big release is predicted a clean sweep - never ever happens though.

The film's title is a neat play on words - the telling a tale set in Los Angeles in a whirlwind of excitement and pastel-colour flourishes that's dizziness-inducing for its doe-eyed wannabies.  It's a story that's as old as the film industry itself, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) are Hollywood hopefuls looking for their big break.  She wants to create her own stage show.  He wants to run his own jazz club.  It's a story and a style of film making that harks back to the Hollywood golden age, with set-piece song-and-dance numbers, bold colours and a love story between forged out of the fires of Singin' in the Rain.  One can see why the Hollywood establishment loved it so, its opening sequence revels in the outlandish prospect of choreographing a full-on dance number amongst the motionless traffic of a Californian freeway.

Though I don't want to burst its bubble too harshly, I was not taken in by La La Land anywhere near as much as I was hoping.  It's a film with a very distinct split between its acts.  The opening act is 100% musical, but the second half drifts in a very different direction.  It's hard to discuss this too much without spoilerising everything, but the story drifts into territory that's a bit too real for my liking.  It's very difficult to come to terms with a shift in tone that sees us go from spinning dresses and outlandish choreography to the harsh realities of seeing a romantic relationship come under real world stress.  Is this meant to be a fantasy or not?

You could argue that the film is an indictment of the Hollywood dream - that's it really is completely 'la la' in its unrealism, of course there can be no real happily ever after when a relationship is based on singing a song together once under moonlight.  But I don't remember this happening to Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, so La La Land isn't really a throw back to the golden age of 1950s Hollywood musicals.  It is something else entirely.  Is it more a 21st century reboot of that genre?  Well maybe - but you kind of have to end on a curtain close and a kiss or the audience wants its money back.  You don't go to a musical for the realism after all.  When you come around to this way of thinking the film has much less of a gloss attached to it.

Director Damien Chazelle has very quickly become a Holywood darling.  His directorial and writing range extends across a wide range of genres in a very short career to date.  He could take his talents anywhere and into any field.  This I guess was his attempt to do a stage musical.  The results are enjoyable in the extreme, but as a viewer you will either go with the 21st century spin or you won't.  I didn't and I was left feeling rather flat by the entire final act.  Given the film had so much Hollywood hype I could hardly believe to see it end on such a misstep.

I'm not upset, just disappointed.

Don't Breathe - Don't hold your breath

A recommendation from my favourite youtube film reviewers RedLetterMedia - Don't Breathe is billed as an independent American horror / thriller in which a band of burglers rob the house of a blind man.  But he isn't as helpless as he seems, this blind man is an ex-army soldier with exceptional other senses that compensate for his lack of sight.  Let the thrills commence.  Probably.

To be honest it is a little difficult to write this review, because there isn't a huge amount that actually happens in this film.  Our three burglers break into the house, avoid a dog (Chekhov's Dog obviously), then disturb the guy and then for some reason don't just run out of the house immediately and cut their losses.  There's some stuff about how the fact that one of them brought a gun to the house means that this is armed robbery and therefore so bad that they can't just leave (why?) and then the plot does branch out when they discover someone else in the house - but still the solution to all this is just to use the fact that you're not blind, turn the lights on, and run the hell out of the house before the old guy has a chance to realise what's happening.  Guess what - he ain't going to pick you out of an identity parade!  Then call the cops anonymously and send them into his house to deal with the 'plot branch'.  Couldn't be easier?!

Not really understanding what RedLetterMedia saw in this.  Perhaps they're just trying to big up independent American film-makers as opposed to the huge studios, which is fair enough I guess.  Don't Breathe isn't really that bad, it's just a bit too much of the same thing for 90 minutes.  Which would still be ok if it wasn't that the thing that's the same couldn't be resolved very easily by just doing all the things I already said.

Anyway, would still rather watch this than the new Alien remake.  Ridley Scott has remade one of his own films.  And he didn't choose to remake Kingdom of Heaven, you know, one that wasn't very good, make it better and all that.  No - he has remade Alien.  For.  Fuck.  Sake.

The Neon Demon - Hollywood will consume you

This - the most recent film to emerge from the mind of writer / director Nicolas Winding Refn - is a bonkers film.  Refn's work to date (Drive and Only God Forgives) indicates he is a writer eager to layer up textures and oft-baffling metaphor, and a director eager to play around with the stylistic opportunities provided by the cinematic medium.  The new film by Refn is not one to take someone on a first date - not unless that person's favourite film is Erasorhead.

The Neon Demon is at its simplest the story of Jesse (Elle Fanning) and her attempt to inveigle herself into the Holywood fashion / film industry.  Jesse comes - like many before her - from a rural background seeking the bright lights and fame of the big city.  She is taken under the wing of Ruby, Gigi and Sarah, barely older than her but bitter beyond their years and jaded about the industry that has given them the fame and style Jesse now craves.  As Jesse moves closer to an inner circle that she desperately wants to be part of, what will she find there?

Refn's style is unique has needs to be experienced to be understood.  He uses colour, shape and lighting to create a style that's brutal, unsettling and predatory.  Jesse is the bambi trying to become the wolf, and yet the wolves circle her, all the time fearful of her youth, innocence, and the fact she represents their eventual decline.  On top of this the sound track adds layer of sensory discombobulation, the relentless dance rhythm beats play over an opening scene where Jesse meets her 'mentors' in a club.  The tension in the room is there for all to drink in.  The comparisons to Susperia are easy to make, which in itself is plenty enough to recommend a watch.

At its heart the film is a critique of the fashion industry.  It is an industry that idolises youth over everything, while at the some time fearing the very same youth that represents the downfall of its established stars.  The careers of those who have 'made it' last only as long as it takes for the next youngest prettiest thing to emerge out of the desert into Hollywood's bright lights.  In parallel, it is a critique of those who go in pursuit of that world.  It talks about the dangers of letting unknown forces into your life.  How so you know these people are your friends?  You keep your friends close, but your enemies you keep closer right?

As to if what happens in the film is to be taken literally or not... well to ask the question implies that you might not be a fan of Refn's oeuvre.  It doesn't really matter if what Refn puts on screen is a literal depiction of a story he has come up with, or a weird metaphysical construction that deconstructs the horror of the fashion industry and reconstructs it as an all-too-real horror, Refn's work speaks for itself.  His constant use of image, music, colour, form and fashion as a way of building tension and meaning may leave some behind, but his horrific metaphors for the dangers this industry impose upon young wannabies aren't particularly dense.

To conclude, I thought this was a superb film.  Refn is one of a very small number of film-makers these days who has a very singular and recognisable artistic style, but who's work still pierces into the mainstream.  Beware kids, Hollywood will eat you up.