Gotti

Dir: Kevin Connolly

2018

*

Any film that is slated before it is even open is a film I want to stick up for. Gotti’s turbulent journey from conception to cinema is well known. Fiore Films announced that it had secured the rights from Gotti Jr. to produce a film about his life back in 2010. Initially, the great Barry Levinson was to direct the film, then Nick Cassavetes and then Joe Johnston. Al Pacino was originally meant to star too and it felt that the film could have been the next Goodfellas or Godfather. Chazz Palminteri was going to reprise his role as Paul Castellano from Boss of Bosses and both Ben Foster and Lindsay Lohan were attached at one point. One by one the directors and actors left the project. Joe Pesci originally was cast as Angelo Ruggiero early in development and gained 30 pounds in order to properly portray him. After having his salary cut and being recast as Lucchese underboss Anthony Casso, he sued Fiore Films for $3 million. Film makers have been trying to coax Pesci back into the movies for years without success, so for Fiore Films to pull a fast one like that just goes to show just how inept they are. In the end, John Travolta was cast in the main role and it does feel like he convinced his wife to come out of retirement to play Gotti’s wife just because they had run out of actors to play her. The last director they could find was Kevin Connolly who was totally unsuited and unqualified for such a film. Spencer Lofranco – whose only claim to fame at this point was a conviction of a hit and run – played John "Junior" Gotti. Gotti’s son and wife actually oversaw the filming and were on set to make sure everything was authentic but I suspect that they were either ignored or allowed to indulge themselves. The story leans heavily towards John "Junior" Gotti account of events and is very sympathetic towards the gangsters portrayed. I don’t understand why people glorify gangsters but I acknowledge it happens, but nothing of what they do is ever morally questioned. It is as if they’re just part of a family business and are harassed unnecessarily by law enforcement and other enterprises. The characters shrug, look around the room and ask ‘Wadd did di do?’ right after committing murder but it isn’t supposed to matter because they ‘did a lot of work for the community’. It’s a part of the story that I’ll never understand but a biopic should be impartial and show everything for what it is, letting the audience decide whether or not Gotti was a king or a criminal. The film is an absolute mess. The direction is poor, with many different styles explored and none of them particularly working. It’s like it was shot by five different directors but it wasn’t, it was directed by one who couldn’t make up his mind on how he wanted the film to look like. The character development is shocking, so when a main character dies in a tragic accident or is bumped off by a rival gang we really don’t care as we have no emotional investment in them. There is a complete lack of build up or suspense, leaving nothing in terms of intrigue, mystery or interest. The narrative sucks, seriously, it’s probably the worst example I have ever seen. I’d heard about Gotti only through Fun Loving Criminals’ 1996 song King of New York and I still don’t feel I know that much about him. The whole film we are told how much Gotti was a part of New York and New York was part of him but apart from the first and last 30 seconds of the film New York is no where to be seen (not surprising as the film was shot in Ohio). Lionsgate pulled the film ten days away from its scheduled opening date but the producers exercised the buy-back clause in their contracts. This sort of thing tends to send all the wrong signals to distributors and audiences alike, I went in with an open mind but I now know exactly how Lionsgate must have felt after seeing it. All that said, I felt that John Travolta put in a good performance, he was just terribly let down by every other element of the film. I thought his visual aging process was well handled – he should totally just accept his baldness as it looks good on him – but the impressive prosthetics and make-up are totally let down by the fact that absolutely no one else is given the same treatment. Within twenty-five years Gotti goes from dapper to old man while his son goes from young boy to young boy with glasses. And what was up with his haircut? It went unchanged in twenty-five years and the real Gotti Jr actually never had that haircut in the first place. The music is particularly awful, sounding like a b-movie action film all written within half a day on an old Casio keyboard. Rapper Pittball also provides the film with the most misplaced rap songs ever to grace the wrong film. The way MoviePass handled the publicity and marketing of the film tells you everything you need to know. Not only did they brazenly buy 40% of the tickets to make themselves look good, they also created thousands of Rotten Tomato accounts to write amazing reviews of the film. They went a little overboard and were caught out when the audience approval score was 80% and the critics' score was 0%. Their response was "Audiences loved Gotti but critics don't want you to see it... The question is why???” but people saw through it when all the accounts that praised the film were only a month old and all of them had only one other review on their accounts – American Animals – the only other film that MoviePass owned. The film deserves all the hate it has received apart from John Travolta who I personally think was let down. Shame, because if it wasn’t directed by an idiot who was trying so desperately to copy Goodfellas – it could have been the next Goodfellas.

Swimming with Men

Dir: Oliver Parker

2018

*

I’ve been quite vocal over the years about the dislike I have for The Full Monty but compared to Swimming With Men it is a bonafide masterpiece. It is amazing sometimes when a film is so bad that it makes you of your least favorite films suddenly seem appealing – like believing that guy who punched you in the pub last week is an old friend – but that is the effect the film has had on me. I suppose it is because The Full Monty was made during a funny time for British film, it made sense that films were desperately aiming for American audiences but in 2018 shouldn’t we have learned our lesson? Swimming With Men started badly and got considerably worse. Rob Brydon’s a funny man but he is desperately let down here. He plays Eric, a Reginald Perrin sort of character, who is tired of his job and is going through a mid-life crisis. His mid-life crisis isn’t the true to life kind of course, but more of the soap-opera cartoon variety that Hollywood movies and sit-coms have been getting wrong for many, many years. That said, Swimming With Men gets it spectacularly wrong, especially when none of it is justified. Watching a successful accountant, with a corner office, big house, loving family and clearly a sizable salary, ‘suffering’ his success is never going to make an audience warm to him but when he breaks down in such an over the top buffoonish manner – leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves – we’re going to care for him even less. It even more shocking (although it clearly doesn’t realise it) that the reason he leaves his wife is because she has become successful herself as an elected Council member. To wind down after work, Eric enjoys a swim at his local pool. To suggest a ‘stressed’ and ‘busy’ accountant, who has a corner office, has time to swim after work before coming home at a reasonable hour is ridiculous and I think you’d find many less stressed people in London if everyone was able to enjoy such luxuries. While at the pool Eric begins to notice a group of men who always seem to be doing something underwater that he can’t quite make out. He soon discovers that it is an all male synchronized swimming which he ends up joining after many excruciating minutes pretending he isn’t. The group comprises of Rupert Graves (the handsome leader), Daniel Mays (who desperately need to be cast in something better), Thomas Turgoose (who desperately needs Shane Meadows), Jim Carter (old wise one) and Adeel Akhtar (who has gone a long way backwards since the brilliant Four Lions). A good bunch of actors, cheated into a crummy comedy, although I can see how they probably thought they were in something better than they were. The team also has two other members but they’re not famous so aren’t featured much and never speak. The groups first ‘gig’ as it were is performing at a kids birthday party in the rain, which makes you wonder who on earth is writing this utter garbage. They soon hear of a world championship taking place in Italy and begin training after many tedious minutes of them pretending they’re not going to take part. They don’t loose and everything is awesome. While most wives would have divorced their seven month absent husbands by now, Eric’s wife (Jane Horrocks in a role she should have seen coming and thus avoided) is still waiting. She needs to be won back officially though, so the group turn up in their swimming trucks outside her office during a very important meeting and perform a dance outside her window. The only women in the office, standing up to the all male establishment, being danced at by a group of men in tight pants. I’m not sure a film has ever failed to see how bad it is in the history of cinema. Take away the stupid ending and the whole part about Eric leaving his wife and there is a good story there somewhere. The frustrating thing is that this is actually based on a true story. The real Swedish team that we see in the film are the actual team that won the Men's Synchronised Swimming World Championships in 2007. It was made up of a group of men who found Synchronised Swimming as a release from their lives and challenged the notion that the sport is just for women and goes against the concept of masculinity. In fact their case is good in showing up the ridiculous notion of masculinity in general, something ruined by this dreadfully written film. It is a turd in the swimming pool, a verruca on your big toe and the most derivative film I have seen in years. It has no redeeming features whatsoever.

The Equalizer 2

Dir: Antoine Fuqua

2018

***

2014’s The Equalizer was surprisingly good considering it was an adaptation of an old television show. Classically, such adaptations saw their heyday back in the early 00s and even then very few of them have aged well (although I can’t think of any off the top of my mind), so by 2014 you would have thought most studios would have known better (ha! Who am I kidding?). Sequels to adaptations of old television shows are usually even worse, Mission Impossible is the only exception I can think of but even then it took them five films to really perfect the formula. Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua are proving themselves to be a great pairing and there is something about this particular franchise that is uniquely appealing to me. This sequel isn’t great – there is still loads of room for improvement – but I like the way it flows. Since the events of the first film, Robert McCall (Washington) now lives in a diverse apartment complex in urban Massachusetts. He is working as a taxi driver and assists the less fortunate with the help of his close friend and former DIA colleague, Susan Plummer. In the opening scene, McCall anonymously travels to Istanbul by train to retrieve a local bookstore owner's daughter who was kidnapped by her father. He also helps Sam Rubinstein, an elderly Holocaust survivor who is looking for a painting of his sister; the two siblings were separated when they were transported to different camps by the Nazis, but the painting is found to be auctioned off and Sam cannot prove that he owns it. After discovering that the apartment courtyard has been vandalised, McCall accepts an offer from Miles Whittaker (Ashton Sanders), a young resident with an artistic but troubled background, to repaint the walls. One day, Susan (Melissa Leo reprising her character from the first film) and DIA operative Dave York (Pedro Pascal), McCall's former teammate, are called to investigate the apparent murder-suicide of an agency affiliate and his wife in Brussels. When the two separate after reaching their hotel, Susan is accosted and killed in an apparent robbery by two men with backpacks who got off the elevator on her floor. When he receives the news, McCall begins to investigate both her death and the case she was working on. After reviewing elevator CCTV footage, McCall determines that while Susan could have been simply the victim of a robbery, as the official account concluded, the suspects' foreknowledge of her specific floor and the expertly-delivered fatal stab wound suggest that she was specifically targeted. He also confirms that the incident into which Susan was looking was merely staged to look like a murder-suicide, and that Susan's death is probably connected to it. McCall makes contact with York, who had thought him dead for years, and informs York of his findings. During one of his shifts driving, McCall is attacked by a man posing as a passenger. McCall kills the assailant and retrieves his phone. Breaking through military-grade encryption, McCall discovers that his former partner, York, was on the phone's call list. He visits York at his home and confronts him, where York admits that he's now a mercenary after feeling used and discarded by the government. York further divulges that he himself finished Susan off (his two hired assailants failed to eliminate her), as she would have figured out that he was behind the Brussels killing. McCall leaves the house where York's three teammates – Kovac, Ari, and Resnik – are arriving across the street. McCall promises to kill the entire team before escaping safely by getting a ride from York's unsuspecting wife and children. Resnik and Ari head to Susan's house to kill her husband Brian (played once more by Bill Pullman), but McCall evacuates Brian first. York and Kovac break into McCall's apartment, where Miles is starting the paint job he proposed to McCall. Monitoring via webcams, McCall instructs Miles to hide in a hidden passage concealed behind a book case; when York seems to close in on the passage's two-way mirror, McCall phones him to taunt him. Miles emerges from hiding shortly after York and Kovac seem to leave, but is captured as he opens the apartment's front door. Per his taunts to York, McCall returns to his seaside hometown - now evacuated as a hurricane approaches - and readies himself for York and his team. Kovac, Ari, and Resnik arrive and begin searching the town in gale-force winds, as York situates himself on the town's watchtower in a sniper's position. Kovac enters a tackle shop and is killed with a harpoon gun. When Ari heads toward the seaside, he is disturbed by pictures of Susan that he sees along the way; catching him off guard, McCall butchers him with a knife, leaving him mortally wounded. McCall then enters his late wife's old bakery to lure in Resnik, who is fatally eviscerated in a flour explosion set off by his own stun grenade. Enraged, York reveals that he has Miles tied up in the trunk of his car and begins shooting at it to lure McCall out, but he runs out of bullets after McCall foils his last shot. With the storm growing heavier, York is knocked down by a gust of wind before being confronted by McCall atop the tower. McCall gets the upper hand, kills York with a knife (stabbing him in the same spot he stabbed Susan), and tosses him onto the rocks below, where the ocean promptly washes away his body. Back in Massachusetts, Susan's information about Sam's sister's painting actually helps McCall to reunite Sam with his long-lost sister whom he always assumed was dead. Miles finishes repainting the apartment complex, returns to school and focuses on his art. Having moved back into his old house, McCall looks out towards the calm sea. The film is at its best when we see McCall helping others in random acts. His character also has a lot of depth to him and isn’t just an ex-operative with too much time on his hands. The falls flat however when McCall delves into his past and is helped by old friends. I believe the character should be a lone wolf to really shine through. Much like the first film, the big showdown ending lets the story down. The first film’s showdown took place in a Home and Garden store of all places but at least it was inventive. The sequels showdown takes place in a hurricane-hit coastal town and is one of the best examples of lots of money spent on pointless CGI effects. The style of the films should be drama with action – never action with drama – so the last few minutes undoes a lot of the good work done in the first half. It is far from being a great thriller, far from being a great drama and far from being a great action – but – there is something uniquely likable about it, that I want to see more. Ditch the silly action endings and I think this is a series with longevity.

The Children Act

Dir: Richard Eyre

2018

***

Based on Ian McEwan’s 2014 novel of the same name, Richard Eyre’s adaptation of The Children Act is part theatre, part courtroom drama and part average television drama. It’s the sort of thing you watch on a Sunday night if nothing else is on. The screenplay was solid - also written by McEwan - and the direction and performances are great, but I just couldn’t invest much emotion into it, even though emotion should have been integral to the story. Emma Thompson plays Fiona Maye - a judge in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. The first case we see her on involves the separation of conjoined twins – the parents don’t want to intervene but without separation both will die. Maye decides that one should die so that the other lives, a decision she seems to have no issue delivering. Soon after, a case is brought before her involving a seventeen-year-old boy, Adam Henry (Fionn Whitehead), who is suffering from leukemia. Adam's doctors want to perform a blood transfusion, as that will allow them to administer more drugs to cure him. However, Adam and his parents (played by Ben Chaplin and Eileen Walsh) are Jehovah's Witnesses, and believe that having a blood transfusion is against biblical principles. Maye is convinced this is a special case, and more to the point that Adam is a special boy. She decides to go against the grain and goes to the hospital to visit Adam for herself. The two talk, with Maye attempting to determine what it is that Adam really wants, and whether he has been persuaded by his parents. Adam starts to play Down by the Salley Gardens, which Maye then sings. Adam is very drawn to Maye, and begs her not to leave. She nevertheless leaves, and returns to court. She rules that, as a matter of law, Adam's welfare is the "paramount consideration" and declares that the medical treatment, including blood transfusion, may proceed despite the absence of Adam's consent and that of his parents. Meanwhile, Maye's marriage is failing. Her husband Jack (Stanley Tucci), has said that he wants to have an affair with a colleague. He has become tired of her constantly working and never having time for him. He says that he will have an affair, but is being totally open about it. He claims that he has never stopped, and will never stop, loving her. He packs his bags and drives off. She carries on with work without making contact and changes the locks. He returns after two days. After letting him in, she acts very coldly towards him, resulting in an argument between the two, after Fiona is seen to have been to the office of a divorce solicitor. The transfusion is successful, and Adam is released from the hospital. He leaves many messages for Maye, saying that she has changed the way that he thinks about the world. He follows her to work one day, and gives her various poems and letters that he has written. She tells him to stop following her, she has other cases as he is still young and has his whole life in front of him. Next, Maye travels to Newcastle, and Adam follows her there. He tells her that he wants to live with her, as he does not understand why his parents were happy for him to die. She sends him back to London. He kisses her on the lips and in the moment she accepts. Shortly after she returns to London, Maye accompanies her friend and colleague on the piano as he sings at a lawyers' concert. Just before she is due to play, she gets a note saying that Adam has relapsed and may not make it through the night. Instead of the planned encore, she plays and sings "Down by the Salley Gardens", before running to the hospice to see Adam. Adam has refused another blood transfusion, saying that it is his choice. Maye returns home, and breaks down in front of Jack, telling him the story and calling Adam a "lovely boy" before falling asleep. Adam dies and Maye attends his funeral, before walking away with Jack. I’ve not read the book, I’m sure it’s very good, but I do wonder whether this is another case of a great book being somewhat impossible to adapt into a film of equal quality. The performances were fantastic but I’m not sure the meaning behind each action was as explained as it would have been in the book. I’m not sure I’ve seen a film where the performances are so strong when the story is so flat and lifeless. The performances outweigh and somewhat overwhelm the general mood of the film. It was like watching defibrillation on an Egyptian mummy -  Emma Thompson and Fionn Whitehead are the spark that keep you hopeful but in the end you can’t bring something to life that is well and truly dead. The problem here is Richard Eyre. He’s a director who has indeed made good films but only because he’s had amazing actors to rely on. I’m afraid these actors have been carrying his films, and him, for years.

Shockproof
Dir: Douglas Sirk
1949
***
Shockproof is a stunning noir that starts off brilliantly but goes down hill once the romantic story begins. The film starts with the stunning but dangerous Miss Jenny Marsh (played by the stunning but dangerous Patricia Knight) who waltzes out of prision on lifetime parole after serving five years for murder. She’s edgy, sharp and a real femme fatale that can’t be trusted. We soon learn that she had gone to prison in order to protect Harry Wesson (John Baragrey), a gambler with whom she was having an affair. Harry visits her the day she arrives at her assigned apartment at the same time her parole officer Griff Marat (played by Knight’s real life husband Cornel Wilde), compromising her new identity. While Griff (Samuel Fuller films always feature a character called Griff) warns her to stay away from former undesirable friends, Jenny meets with Harry and his crime boss friend to try and get reassigned and out of the parole system for good. Griff keeps a close eye on Jenny and knows not to trust her and although she doesn’t want a life of crime, she feels somewhat indebted to Harry for sticking by her while she was in prison. Griff knows that Harry is taking advantage of her and decides to get close. After asking her to dinner one evening and introducing her to his small family, Jenny soon ends up moving in with him as a paid carer for his blind mother. She soon becomes torn between two men, loyal to Harry but in love with Griff. It’s such a shame, as she was such a strong and mysterious character to begin with but she soon turns into a pathetic wreck who lets men make all of the decisions for her. I believe Jenny Marsh could have been an iconic character of the golden age but instead she’s just another blond dame who needs help. Harry isn’t much of a gangster and Griff’s character has absolutely no development whatsoever. You wonder how any of them have fallen in love with each other when they are all about as animated as a kitchen stool. Harry soon convinced Jenny to marry Griff so they can use it against him and his political aspirations. Jenny panics and refuses him, ending up with her shooting him at his home. She then flees to be with Griff who takes her out of state and towards Mexico instead of taking her in. Then for the next few months the pair go from place to place looking for work until they find work and a small home in an oil refinery. This part of the film is long and doesn’t seem to go anywhere until they are predictably caught. Turns out Harry didn’t die from the gunshot, and in wanting an easy life and recognising that Jenny wants out, he lies and says Jenny didn’t actually shoot him, clearing her name and letting everyone live happily ever after. Except for Harry of course who can no longer walk but serves him right for gambling. When wild stories such as this happen and then go back to normal as if they didn’t happen, they become utterly pointless. It looks like a sophisticated noir thriller but it really isn’t. There is nothing wrong with Douglas Sirk’s direction, and I do love his films, I just think the producers meddled too much with Samuel Fuller’s original script and Helen Deutsch was the wrong choice for the re-writes. Samuel Fuller wrote Pickup on South Street and I Shot Jesse James, while Helen Deutsch wrote National Velvet and The Loves of Carmen – all great films but worlds apart from each other. Fuller’s script ended with Griff taking violent revenge against those who refused him and Jenny the right to be together but Deutsch simply wrote the happily ever after conclusion. It just doesn’t work. Sirk was dead against the changes but there was nothing he could do, Shockproof remains a decent enough noir thriller but overall it’s something of a wasted opportunity.

Glass

Dir: M. Night Shyamalan

2019

***

After the 2000 release of Unbreakable, rumors of possible sequels began circulating with Bruce Willis quoted as saying he was up for an Unbreakable trilogy. Director and writer M. Night Shyamalan however denied rumors he had written Unbreakable as the first installment of a trilogy and stated that, because of the disappointing box office performance, it was very unlikely we’d see the characters again. The DVD sales were successful however, and kept the dream alive. Shyamalan had many other projects he wanted to work on first though, but it is safe to say that Unbreakable was always on his mind. Shyamalan’s following films didn’t have the same impact as Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, some were good and some were bad (some were really bad) until 2016’s Split. It felt right, like a return to greatness. The last scene in the film though was an entirely different twist than we were used to from the king of twist endings, as we see Bruce Willis return as the unbreakable David Dunn. Suddenly, a return to form, the first great Shyamalan film in ages became the sequel to one of his best, and one of the best superhero/comic book films of all time. It was announced that Samuel L. Jackson was set to return as Elijah Price, AKA Mr Glass, alongside Bruce Willis and James McAvoy for a big old Unbreakable/Split showdown. McAvoy’s character, Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder, was actually in the original script for Unbreakable but was written out due his addition complicating the story. Shyamalan had thought about making a different film just about him but in the end decided to include David Dunn and make the trilogy he deep down always wanted to make. Kind of amazing though that he didn’t have a finalized idea of what Glass was going to be before he announced it. What was even more amazing was that, because Unbreakable had been produced under Touchstone, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, while Split was produced through Universal Pictures, Shyamalan managed to obtain permission from Disney to reuse the character of Dunn. He met with Walt Disney Studios president Sean Bailey and came to a gentlemen's agreement, whereby Bailey agreed to allow the use of the character in the film without a fee and Shyamalan promised that Disney would be involved in a sequel, if developed. It’s a real first and quite a monumental happening and if it sets a president, then so many more films – particularly sequels that we’ve always wanted to see – could now happen. Glass was a go and Shyamalan announced that the films should now be referred to as the Eastrail 177 Trilogy – the Eastrail 177 being the train that crashed in the first film. James McAvoy was up for it following the last scene in Split and Willis said he was up for it if Samuel L. Jackson was, so when Jackson said he was up for it if Willis was, it was set in stone. I’m not sure whether Glass is the sequel I thought it would be and there were elements about it that I found negative but on reflection, I think it contains the same genius we see in the first two films. Set three weeks after Split, where Kevin Wendell Crumb earns the nickname "The Horde", vigilante David Dunn and his now-grown son Joseph (a now grown-up Spencer Treat Clark returning from Unbreakable), who have been working together to take down criminals, set out to save four cheerleaders Crumb has abducted. David comes across Kevin in his Hedwig persona and discerns the cheerleaders' location using his extrasensory perception. After freeing all four cheerleaders, he confronts Kevin only for both to be arrested when the ensuing fight spills out into the streets. The two are sent to a mental institution where Elijah Price, David's sworn enemy, known as Mr. Glass, has been held since the events of Unbreakable. Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), the head doctor of the mental institution, works with patients who claim to have special powers. Staple reveals that she has been given three days to persuade David, Kevin, and Elijah that they are "normal" people who simply believe they have superpowers. Staple also knows that David's alleged weakness is water and has a machine that forces The Horde to switch identities, effectively disarming The Beast. Joseph, Mrs. Price, and Casey Cooke (who survived an attack from the Beast in Split) all visit at separate times to attempt to aid their associates, but fail. Staple puts the three superhumans in one room for an evaluation and poisons David and The Horde with doubts about their abilities, accusing David of having the same ability as trained magicians and Dennis (a persona of The Horde) of copying rock climbers and being shot by defective cartridges. Suddenly the film feels like a psychological thriller, rather than a superhero movie. I loved the ambiguity for here on in and the role that the main characters play but also the part each of their associates play. Joseph, Mrs. Price and Casey Cooke have far more input than the main characters do and the film plays out like a true comic book and not like a comic book movie. I believe this is why it has been met with some criticism. The final scene, the promised showdown if you will, was probably not what everyone thought it would be, indeed, it isn’t at all what is promised in the film itself, however, if you look beyond it, you’ll find that everything that happens is truly authentic. The conclusion is unexpected, especially from a superhero movie but on reflection it does feel like a logical progression and very much a 21st Century twist. The original cut is supposedly three and a half hours long and part of me wishes I’d seen that instead, as I do feel there could have been far more to it than there was and I really wanted more. It is a subdued film in many respects as it is about the mythology, rather than the superhero action sequences and fighting. Over the top special effects were always going to be out of place in this film and they were missing from both Unbreakable and Split, so I’m not sure anyone can complain of a lack of them. I’m thrilled that Shyamalan stuck to his convictions and I have absolutely no problem with any of the plot, I just feel that a certain something was missing. I’m not sure what that certain something was, I just don’t feel like this was the best sequel to Unbreakable or Split and it certainly wasn’t the re-introduction to Mr Glass that I had got all excited over. I have stacks of respects for it though, I think it is just as genius as the first two films, it just wasn’t as pretty. I guess I’m sad that its all over, as well as being happy that they ended it correctly and maybe, just maybe I’m disappointed that Shyamalan didn’t go all out Marvel style but overall I think it was fine. Maybe leaving it nineteen years was always going to lead to an element of anti-climax but I think there are two ways of looking at it. If you see it as an Unbreakable follow up you may be disappointed. If you look at it as a Split sequel however, then I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I think that’s the best way to look at it too, as James McAvoy steals the show in every scene he’s in.

Unbreakable

Dir: M. Night Shyamalan

2000

*****

It is now easy to forget M. Night Shyamalan’s brilliant 2000 film Unbreakable as a superhero film, after Marvel and DC have both battled it out and made some of the most amazing superhero films of all time. The truth is though, that Unbreakable is still one of the most original, faithful and authentic superhero films of all time. When Shyamalan conceived the idea for Unbreakable, the outline had a comic book's traditional three-part structure: the superhero's birth/ his struggles against general evil-doers/the hero's ultimate battle against the archenemy. Finding the birth section most interesting, he decided to write Unbreakable as an origin story. The director has repeated the fact that this film remains the favourite of his own. The story begins in Philadelphia in 1961. Young Elijah Price is born with Type I osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare disease that renders sufferers' bones extremely fragile and prone to fracture. Growing up is hard for Elijah, his bones continue to break regularly which ostrasizes him from his classmates. His mother, his only parent, becomes determined not to let his condition hold him back and gives him a comic book full of superheros to inspire him to become something greater. Elijah (Samual L. Jackson) excels and grows up to become a wealthy comic-book art dealer, and develops a theory, based on the comics he has read during his many hospital stays, that if he represents extreme human frailty, there must be someone "unbreakable" at the opposite extreme.In the present day, another Philadelphia man, security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis), is also searching for meaning in his life. He had given up a promising American football career during his college days to marry Audrey after they were involved in car accident. Now, however, their marriage is dissolving, to the distress of their young son Joseph. As he returns home from a job interview in New York City, David's train, the Eastrail 177, crashes, killing the other 131 passengers. He is the only survivor, sustaining no injuries. At the crash victims' memorial service, he finds an envelope on his car's windshield, with a card inside bearing the logo of Elijah's art gallery, Limited Edition, that asks if he has ever been ill. David and Joseph meet with Elijah, who proposes to David that he is the kind of person after whom comic book superheroes are modeled and repeatedly pursues the issue with David and Audrey, trying to learn whether or not David has ever been ill or injured. Although Elijah unsettles him, David begins testing himself. While lifting weights with Joseph watching, he bench presses about 350 pounds, well above what he could do before. Joseph begins to idolize his father and believe that he is a superhero, although David still maintains that he is just an ordinary man. David challenges Elijah's theory with an incident from his childhood when he almost drowned. Elijah suggests that the incident highlights the common convention whereby superheroes often have a weakness. He contends that David's weakness might be water: it is easier for him to drown or choke than regular people. While surveying the stored wreckage of the train crash that he survived, David recalls the car accident that ended his athletics career, remembering that he was unharmed and ripped a door off the car in order to save Audrey. David used the accident as an excuse to quit football because Audrey did not like the violence of the sport. Under Elijah's influence, David realizes that what he thought was just a natural instinct for picking out dangerous people during security checks is actually a form of extrasensory perception. Now consciously honing this ability, David discovers that when he comes into touch contact with other people, he is able to glimpse criminal acts they have committed. At Elijah's suggestion, David stands in the middle of a crowd in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. As various people bump into him, he senses the crimes they perpetrated, such as theft, assault, and rape, and finds one he can act on: a sadistic janitor who has invaded a family home, killed the father, and is now holding the wife and their two children captive. David follows the janitor to the victims' house, frees the children, and finds their mother, but the janitor ambushes him and pushes him off a balcony into a swimming pool. David nearly drowns since he cannot swim, but the children rescue him. He then attacks the janitor from behind and strangles him to death, while he remains uninjured, but discovers the mother is already dead. That night, he and Audrey reconcile. The following morning, he secretly shows Joseph a newspaper article on the anonymous heroic act, featuring a sketch of David in the hooded rain poncho he wore while confronting the janitor. Joseph recognizes the hero as his father and promises to keep his secret. David attends an exhibition at Limited Edition and meets Elijah's mother, who explains the difference between villains who fight heroes with physical strength versus those who use their intelligence. Elijah brings David to the back room of his studio, extends his hand, and asks David to shake it. Upon doing so, David sees visions of Elijah orchestrating several terrorist disasters, including David's recent train accident, causing hundreds of deaths. David is horrified, but Elijah insists the deaths were justified as a means to find him. Calling himself "Mr. Glass", a nickname children had used to taunt him with when he was growing up, he explains that he now realizes his own purpose in life: To be the villain to David's hero. David walks away in horror and disgust. It is revealed that David eventually reported Elijah's actions to the police, with the result being Elijah convicted of murder and terrorism, and committed to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. After The Sixth Sense and now Unbreakable, Shyamalan became famous for his twist endings but of all his films this one was a little different. I didn’t see it coming and it was a shock but it worked beautifully within the superhero origins idea. You don’t need to know a lot about superhero comics to understand the idea that ‘Good cannot exist without evil and evil cannot exist without good’ as is said at the end of the film. It’s perfect. It’s Batman vs The Joker and Superman vs Lex Luther but without either of them being super wealthy, an alien or dressed as an animal. They are subtly colour coded and have many comic references surrounding them but essentially this is a superhero fantasy that feels about as real as it can. The first of its kind. Shyamalan always had Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in mind for the lead characters – Willis he approached during the filming of Sixth Sense and Willis actually mentioned it to Jackson when he met him at a Vegas casino while the both of them were on separate holidays. After the success of Sixth Sense Disney where happy to produce and thanks to its success Shyamalan was able to establish his own production company, Blinding Edge Pictures. He rather cleverly retained the rights to the story, meaning that any sequel would have to be made by himself. It seems strange that no one had had the idea before, as it was so simple and superhero movies were in dire need of an update at the time. There were a couple of great films made towards the end of the 90s but all in all the action/thriller genre needed something new. Unbreakable was a hell of a film to begin the new decade, indeed, millennium. Thanks to Marvel, we now have a million new superhero films but even with so many to choose from, Unbreakable is still quite remarkable and still ahead of its time. The only other film I can think of that tries a similar tactic is 2012’s Chronicle, written and directed by Josh Trank, but even then that film descends into superhero nonsense, loosing the authentic and realistic origins format. Unbreakable is, perhaps, untouchable.

Fyre (AKA Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened)

Dir: Chris Smith

2019

****

I have to admit that I felt pretty grubby watching Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened. Released in January 2019, it is the documentary everyone is talking about but I would bet my left arm it’ll become forgotten within weeks. I vaguely remember the Fyre festival hoo-ha from a couple of years ago, I remember it failed badly and many memes were created in response but I didn’t appreciate just how much of a shit show it really was. It was basically fraud committed by someone who didn’t know how to complete. Billy McFarland was the man behind the festival, a guy from a wealthy background whose parents were successful real estate developers. He attended an expensive private college and had been brought up to be confident and to never give up – two valuable lessons for you and me – but when the wealthy adopt those values, it’s usually only for their own gain, everyone else be damned. You say confidence, I say despicable arrogance. However, just being an ‘entrepreneur’, no matter where you got your start up money from, is seen as desirable by those who don’t know what it means. Precocious is the new word for prodigy, I don’t know, but I don’t like it. Chris Smith’s documentary explores where McFarland’s success and notoriety came from (something to do with metal credit cards - I really don’t understand any of it) and we meet various twenty-something computer nerds who are full of enthusiasm and the ‘possibilities’ that their rather bland sounding ideas could lead to. By possibilities, I believe they mean money. None of them look like they’ve ever climbed a tree or eaten real food and I suspect that most of them have rickets. The computer nerds, events planners and marketing people all merge into one, they seem to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing – but I guess I’m wrong, because they’re raking it in, selling dumb apps to dumb kids. The youth movement is dead, this is the new revolution and it’s about as soulless as it gets. It’s why I felt grubby about watching it. I laughed at the memes that mocked them but I did so on social media sites that they made and still profit from. I hate them and I hate myself and its their fault, and yet here I am blogging. Anyway, somehow this failed festival warrants not one but two documentaries made about it. I went with Chris Smith’s documentary for ethical reasons. The other documentary, Fyre Fraud, paid McFarland a ton of money for a series of interviews. Also, I have Netflix and I don’t know what Hulu is – I’m guessing it is what Betamax was to VHS but I’d have to ask Jeeves. The two films are the same apparently, except the Fyre Fraud delves into the murky world of promotion, on-line influencers, the shadowy people who fund such projects and all those other things I don’t understand that the kids are into these days. It features McFarland and others who where ‘there’. Smith’s documentary doesn’t have interviews with McFarland but it has more footage and is said to be prettier. Most of the interviews come from the app developers from where the idea for a festival came from, as well as the people from the promotional and media companies that were hired. These people work for companies that were also indited in the fraud case and each individual was involved in the festival. They play the violin well, but I’m afraid I have no sympathy for them. However, the film also focuses on the many people who worked on the festival at ground zero. Basically, the festival, sold as being the first of its kind, was to take place on Pablo Escabar’s Island in the Bahamas. For the promotional video, McFarland and ‘business partner’ Ja Rule hired twenty of the world’s leading super models to dance around the Island’s beach and drink cocktails. They promised luxury camping, sexy villas, personal chiefs and yachts galore, and of course the best music acts the world had ever seen. I believe the intention was to create such a dream festival but it didn’t happen and everyone knew it wouldn’t happen but McFarland carried on with it anyway. They lost the Island after breaking the only rule they had in order to play there, that was ‘Don’t mention Pablo Escabar’s name’. It was literally the first thing said in the promotional video. They ended up in a disused housing estate on the main island with hurricane tents that were left over from the previous storm. The personal chiefs were never hired - people made do with two slices of bread and a slice of cheese if they were lucky – and as night fell the scene turned into Lord of the Flies with people fighting over tents and mattresses, even destroying surrounding tends so they could have some privacy. Again, little sympathy for these kids – clearly a nasty bunch of brats with too much money and very little taste. It was the poor Islanders who worked night and day for months building the site that I feel sorry for. Not one of them got paid and at the end of the day, they are the ones that suffered. Credit due to Smith’s film that addresses this. We laughed at the rich kids who had paid thousands of dollars to see Blink 182 and we laughed at the greedy kids who cheated them but the hard-working poor are the ones we should be thinking of. It would probably be more entertaining if it was a film where horrible people screwed over horrible people and got screwed as a result – and much of the film is just that – but real people who weren’t horrible got screwed most of all. Unbelievably, McFarland began his next fraudulent project while out on bail, selling tickets to major events that he didn’t actually have. I think the water incident is all you need to know about to really know who these horrible people really are. When the Island’s customs withheld the festival’s container full of Evian water, McFarland begged his long time friend and business confidant to ‘take one for the team’. This guy had taken many hits for the team already and had said many nice things about McFarland throughout the film – even though McFarland asked him as their “gay leader”, to go to the customs guy and give him oral sex to get the water. Unbelievably, he was ready to do it. He didn’t have to of course because customs officials, like most people, are professional. They wouldn’t withhold water as it was essential for the crowds of people that were attending, they just needed a promise that it would be paid for at some point after the festival. This is how these people’s minds work and yet they are successful. The media companies that were ‘duped’, but were also somewhat responsible, co-produced this film and that is why it has so much exclusive footage, so now I feel even more dirty for watching it. It’s a well structured film and Chris Smith goes from strength to strength but the more you know about the whole thing the more upsetting and disturbing it all becomes. What I thought would be a film about laughing at stupid people soon turned into the realization that these stupid people are quite powerful, thanks to the many more stupid people who idolize them. Stop the world, I want to get off.

24X36: A Movie About Movie Posters

Dir: Kevin Burke

2016

**

Finally I thought, a documentary about two things I adore – films and art. Movies posters is one of those things that help create cinephiles. For me, my interest in film came from; looking at all the VHS boxes in our local Chemist (who also rented out videos), Saturday matinees with my Grandmother and looking at all the cool posters either in the cinema foyer, video shop window or for sale in Woolworth. I have a couple of vintage posters in my collection (although I bought them new and looked after them) including Superman III (a good movie, I don’t care what anybody else says), Army of Darkness (why I didn’t get it signed when I met Bruce Campbell recently I don’t know), Delicatessen (I totally framed it and unbelievably my wife let me put it up), Driller Killer (believably my wife won’t let me put it up), Run Lola, Run (French Poster which is cool) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula I think, although it is ripped and my sister once threw butter at it (best not ask). I also have an excellent limited edition Mondo poster (1/50) of Aguirre, the Wrath of God which I bought back in 2010. I though I was going to watch a film about nostalgia featuring the great poster artist such as Bob Peak, John Alvin, Reynold Brown, Drew Struzan and Richard Amsel – and the film did – but only for around fifteen minutes. The majority of the film seemed to be collectors of Mondo posters, something I’m afraid I have little interest in. However, I do dig what many of these new young artists are doing and why they are doing it. Back in the day, studios saw their posters as advertising, but not as art. As a result, many of the great artists/graphic designers/illustrators/typographers went unappreciated. Shocking now when you think about it but none of the artists were allowed to add their signatures to their work, meaning that we have no idea who made some of cinema’s early classics. Who produced the iconic Frankenstein poster of the 1930s? No one knows. I would argue that the last iconic poster was probably made sometime in the late 90s, I’m not saying posters made since then haven’t been good, but I can’t think of many that can be truly described as ‘iconic’. One of the main problems was the shift in technology, photography and photoshop was a thing, it made making posters quicker, easier and cheaper but it seems so many studios were just so bad at it. Again, posters became more about advertising and many posters – of great films I might add – have just the giant head of the main star on it and nothing that suggests what the film is about. It’s the wrong kind of mystery that a movie poster should have. Many modern mainstream posters are boring and samey, so Mondo definitely has a place. Rob Jones, head of Mondo, is a colourful character and I would credit him in relaunching the art of movie posters and you don’t have to look much further than what the likes of Arrow Video and Scream Factory are doing now to see why. I just wish we could have seen more of the original artists. There was hardly any time spent looking at the work of Roger Kastel for instance, even though his posters – specifically Jaws – is more iconic than many of the actual scenes in the movie. Maybe I just wanted a film about Roger Kastel, I don’t know, maybe there isn’t that much to say and the truth is that the analysis of poster design is a bit dull at the end of the day but I’m sure, with the body of work Kastel is responsible for, that he must have a few stories worth sharing. I guess the clue was in the title, as most classic posters were actually 27x40 – it is the Mondo posters that are 24x36. I’m a nerd but I have never felt the need to measure any of my various collections of nerd items. I did like hearing from the new wave of artists and I think it is great for fans that they now have great art from some of their favorite movies that all generally had disappointing posters. Although there are also lots of fan art for films that had genuine ‘iconic’ posters (Jurassic Park for instance). Mondo have to make money from non-nerds too I guess. Content aside, the documentary itself is a little uncreative. It is just talking heads with questionable sound quality. I’m afraid they’ve made an interesting and creative subject appear boring and a little sad. Not without some interesting interviews but by and large this is a bit of a wasted opportunity.

American Animals

Dir: Bart Layton

2018

****

Bart Layton’s American Animals reminded me of his 2012 film The Impostor but with an element of Capturing the Friedmans and American Splendor. It’s a great antidote to the usual formulaic documentary that mixes talking head interviews and reconstructions. American Animals features both but occasionally the real people jump into the film and interact with the actors playing them, discussing memories of each event and how they differ between the key players. I remember in a scene from American Splendor, Paul Giamatti is interrupted by Harvey Pekar – the real life character he is playing in the film – because the real Pekar suggests that the scene isn’t realistic and didn’t quite happen in the way they were suggesting. It was very much in keeping with the world of Harvey Pekar but I had not seen it before of since until now. It’s a very effective way of producing both a intriguing documentary and a suspenseful thriller. The story takes place in 2003 in Lexington, Kentucky. Spencer Reinhard is an art student who feels his life has no meaning, that he needs something exciting, even if tragic, to happen in his life to inspire greater artistry. He believes that all great artists in history have had a pain to draw their inspiration from. Warren Lipka is a rebellious student on an athletic scholarship, though he does not care much for sports and is only pursuing the education to please his family. After Spencer is given a tour of Transylvania University library's rare book collection, the two friends begin to plan to steal an extremely valuable edition of John James Audubon's The Birds of America and a couple of first editions written by Charles Darwin. The pair travel to New York to make contact with a possible buyer – the real Warren and Spencer separately musing how neither can remember what really happened and whether they were now only remembering what the other had told them. After securing a contact, Warren travels to Amsterdam to meet some black market buyers who express interest in buying the books. One of them is played by the great Udo Kier, which made me very happy. Upon returning to the US, Warren informs Spencer that they could make millions of dollars, much to their excitement. Realising that pulling off the heist will require more people, they enlist the help of childhood friends Erik Borsuk and Chas Allen. Borsuk is a loner, very intelligent, with aspirations of one day joining the FBI. Allen is wealthy and can-do, approached only for his money and fast car. Borsuk provides the logistics of the operation and Allen becomes the getaway driver. They all take time to prepare, learning that the only person guarding the books is the special collections librarian, Betty Jean Gooch. On the day of the robbery, they disguise themselves as elderly gentlemen, and enter the library. After noticing that there are too many people in the special collections library, they quickly abort the heist and retreat. Three of the conspirators want to end the attempt altogether, but Warren calls the library asking for a private appointment the next day. They decide to drop the elaborate old-age disguises. While Spencer acts as a lookout outside the building, Warren and Eric enter the library dressed as young businessmen. Warren clumsily tases the special collections librarian and makes Eric help tie her up and gag her, even though he had promised to take care of it himself. They take the rare books and blunder to an exit. In a panic, they drop and have to leave behind the biggest prizes, two enormous Audubon books comprising "The Birds of America." All four manage to escape with two of the rarer books. They take the books to Christie's auction house in New York to get the authentication of value that Warren had said the Dutch buyers required. Spencer is told he has to come back sometime the next day and leaves his cell phone number with an auction assistant. In the van outside, Chas berates everyone for their stupidity, and they return to Lexington with the books. Shortly after, Spencer realizes that the police will be able to trace them from emails they used in setting up the heist as well as his cell phone number. The thieves show signs of great stress as they try to lie low: Warren attempts to shoplift from a grocery store; Spencer gets into a car accident; and Eric starts a bar fight. Inevitably, the FBI raid all four of their homes and arrest them. The four men serve over seven years in federal prison. Director Bart Layton contacted the four men in prison and the developing friendship turned into the movie with each man – and librarian Betty Jean Gooch – agreeing to the film and to feature in it as themselves. I would say that the conclusion is a little bit of an anti-climax given the hype and intensity of the film but while Layton’s 2012 film The Impostor was left excruciatingly ambiguous, American Animals was something of a sensible relief in that it gives the real-life robbers an opportunity to express their regret for attempting the heist, assaulting Betty Jean Gooch and noting how much pain they have put their families through. We are left a snippet of mystery – did Warren actually go to Amsterdam, but the overall message is that crime doesn’t pay and while heist movies are cool, they’re ridiculous and stupid in real life.

Belle

Dir: Amma Asante

2014

*****

I remember director Amma Asante when she played a schoolgirl in Grange Hill during the golden years of the late 1980s. I’m not knocking Grange Hill – at all – but from that to being one of the most interesting contemporary directors working today is an impressive step. I don’t exaggerate either, Assante’s film is sublime and one of the best of 2014. Belle tells the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, or at least what is known of her. The film is inspired by the 1779 painting of her alongside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, at Kenwood House, which was commissioned by their great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was then the Lord Chief Justice of England. Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay (played by the captivating Gugu Mbatha-Raw) was born in 1761, the natural daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies, and Captain Sir John Lindsay, a British Royal Navy officer. After Dido's mother's death in 1765, Captain Lindsay takes her from the West Indies slums and entrusts her to his uncle William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice (played by Tom Wilkinson), and his wife Elizabeth (Emily Watson), who live at Kenwood House, an estate in Hampstead outside London. Lord and Lady Mansfield raise Dido as a free gentlewoman, along with their niece Lady Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon), who came to live with them after her mother died and her father remarried. When the two cousins reach adulthood, the Mansfields commission an oil portrait of their two great-nieces, but Dido is unhappy about sitting for it as she is worried that it will portray her as a subordinate, similar to other portraits she has seen depicting aristocrats with black servants. Dido's father dies and leaves her the generous sum of £2,000 a year, enough to make her an heiress. Lady Elizabeth, by contrast, will have no income from her father, whose son from his new wife has been named his sole heir. Arrangements are made for Elizabeth to have her coming-out to society, but Lord and Lady Mansfield believe no gentleman will agree to marry Dido because of her mixed-race status, so while she will travel to London with her cousin, she will not be "out" to society. Lord Mansfield agrees to take a vicar's son, John Davinier (Sam Reid), into an apprenticeship for law. In 1783, Mansfield hears the case of Gregson v. Gilbert, regarding the payment of an insurance claim, for slaves killed when thrown overboard by the captain of a slave-ship — an event now known as the Zong massacre. Dido helps her uncle with his correspondence and after John tells her about the Zong case, she begins sneaking correspondence to him which he believes will advance the cause of the abolitionists. Lord Mansfield and John have a disagreement on the main issue of the case. John is told not to see Dido again, and his apprenticeship is at an end. Dido’s aunts, Lady Mansfield and Lady Mary Murray (Penelope Wilton), Lord Mansfield's sister, seek to steer Dido into an engagement with Oliver Ashford (James Norton), son of a scheming grand dame and younger brother to the bigoted James Ashford (Tom Felton). At first James is interested in Elizabeth but stops courting her once he discovers she will have no inheritance. Oliver, who is without fortune, proposes to Dido and she accepts, although she continues to see John. James takes Dido aside, tells her she will disgrace his family's name, then insults and manhandles her. Dido later tells Elizabeth of his true character and says she will give part of her inheritance to her for a dowry so she can find a different match. Lord Mansfield finds out about Dido's visits to John and confronts both of them. During the confrontation, John professes his love for Dido. Sometime later, Dido meets with Oliver and breaks off their engagement. Dido is relieved when the painting is unveiled, showing her as Elizabeth's equal. She tells Lord Mansfield that the portrait commission proves that he can defy convention. Dido sneaks into the balcony of the Inn of Court, so that she can hear Lord Mansfield narrowly rule that the Gregson slave-trading syndicate, based in Liverpool, is not due insurance payments for the slaves the crew threw overboard during the voyage. The ship's officers claimed they ordered this action because they were out of potable water. Lord Mansfield discovers, however, that the Zong passed by many ports without stopping for more water, before killing the slaves. It appeared to Lord Mansfield that the slaves' quarters were over-crowded, making them sick and not likely to fetch a high price at auction, so the officers decided they would be worth more in insurance payments after their loss. Lord Mansfield sees John and Dido outside the Court after his ruling and says that Dido can only marry a gentleman. Therefore, he agrees to resume John's apprenticeship in law, so that he can become a lawyer. Dido and John share a kiss, both in full acknowledgement of their romantic feelings. Learning about how Belle was (and wasn’t) accepted in society is an amazing insight into how many an opinion could have been changed during such an important time in history. The film is fiction in that Belle really didn’t get involved with the case at all but she was taken in by Lord Mansfield and was loved by him. The film reads between the lines and sugar-coats it somewhat – and to be honest Lord Mansfield only really asked for a re-trial due to a lack of evidence, it was an earlier trial - Somerset v. Stewart – that was key in abolishing the slave trade but most of the issues raised in the story ring true and must have been true of the time and situation. The film hits all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order which I think is rarely acceptable but with exceptions. The script is utterly sublime as are the performances that deliver it. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is phenomenal as is Tom Wilkinson. I really liked Sam Reid also and Penelope Wilton was wonderful as always. Everyone else was brilliant too but I can’t help but think Tom Felton has fallen into the type-cast trap and it was almost impossible not to see Miranda Richardson’s Lady Ashford as anything but a toned-down Queenie, the role she played for several years in Blackadder. However, all the performances were great and the film is near perfect, except in its forgivable historical accuracy.

The Host (Gwoemul)
Dir: Bong Joon-ho
2007
*****

If Godzilla was a metaphor for the atom bomb and Cloverfield was a metaphor for 911, than The Host is definitely, albeit subtly, a metaphor for the disaster that is waiting to happen due to pollution and world government’s slow reaction to do anything about it. Joon-ho Bong also seems to have a problem with the Korean Government and American military involvement overseas. This fun film full of adventure and comedy is full of antagonism and symbolism. In 2000, an American military pathologist (Scott Wilson) orders his Korean assistant (Brian Lee) to dump 200 bottles of formaldehyde down a drain leading into the Han River. Over the next several years, there are sightings of a strange amphibious creature in the waterway and the fish in the river die off. A suicidal man, just before jumping into the river, sees something dark moving in the water. Five years later, a slow-witted young man named Park Gang-du (the brilliant Song Kang-ho) runs a small snack-bar in a park near the River with his father, Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong). Other family members are Gang-du's daughter, Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung); his sister Nam-joo (Bae Doona), a national medalist archer; and his brother, Nam-il (Park Hae-il), an alcoholic college graduate and former political activist. While Gang-du is delivering food to some customers, a huge creature emerges from the Han River and begins attacking people. Gang-du sees his daughter in the crowd and tries to grab her and run. As he realizes he has grabbed the wrong girl, he sees the creature snatching Hyun-seo and diving back into the river. After a mass funeral for the victims, government representatives and the American military arrive and quarantine people who had contact with the creature, including Gang-du and his family. It is announced that the creature is not only a direct danger, but also the host of a deadly, unknown virus. Gang-du is in a hospital when he receives a phone call from Hyun-seo. She is on the phone long enough to explain that she is trapped somewhere in the sewers with the creature, but her phone stops working shortly after. Gang-du tries to explain this to others, but his claims go ignored by all except his family. The four of them escape the hospital. Hee-bong buys a truck, weapons, and a map of the sewers to look for Hyun-seo. They soon encounter the creature and they discover their gun only serves to anger it, and Hee-bong is killed buying time for his children to escape. Gang-du is captured by the Army. Nam-il and Nam-joo escape but are separated from each other. Meanwhile, two homeless boys who are searching for food are attacked and swallowed by the creature. It returns to its sleeping area in the sewer, a large hole, and regurgitates them. Miraculously one survives, a boy called Se-Joo. Hyun-seo helps Se-Joo hide in a spot the creature cannot reach them. Nam-il meets an old friend (Yim Pil-sung) to trace the location of Hyun-seo's call. He learns that the government has placed a bounty on his family. The friend tries to capture Nam-il, but he manages to escape after obtaining Hyun-seo's general location. He texts the location to Nam-joo and Gang-du. He meets a homeless man (Yoon Je-moon) who knows about the quarantine but decided to stay in the city. After learning of Nam-il's intentions, the man decides to help him. Gang-du overhears an American scientist (Paul Lazar) discussing the fact that there is no virus; it is all made up to distract people from the creature's origin. The scientists decide to lobotomize Gang-du to silence him. Gang-du escapes by taking one of the nurses hostage and continues searching for his daughter. Back in the sewers, while the creature is sleeping, Hyun-seo makes a rope from old clothes and uses it to get out of the hole. She realizes too late that the creature only feigns sleep to lure her out of her hiding spot and Hyun-seo and Se-joo are both swallowed by the creature. The government announces the plan to release a chemical called Agent Yellow into the river and the surrounding area, hoping it will kill the creature. Gang-du finds the creature's sleeping spot but sees no one there. As Gang-du climbs down to the hole, the monster passes over him. He sees Hyun-seo's arm hanging out of its mouth and gives chase, meeting Nam-joo on the way. The creature makes its way to the location where Agent Yellow is released and a large crowd has formed in protest. As the creature attacks the crowd, Agent Yellow is released, which appears to stun the creature. Gang-du pulls Hyun-seo out of its mouth and sees her still clutching Se-joo; Hyun-seo is revealed to have died protecting him. Gang-du, enraged at his daughter's death, attacks the creature as it wakes up, but is knocked to the ground. Nam-il and the homeless man come to Gang-du's aid. While Nam-il throws Molotov cocktails at the creature, the homeless man pours gasoline onto it. Nam-il accidentally drops his last bottle. Nam-joo picks up the flaming cloth from the bottle with one of her arrows and fires it at the creature, setting it on fire. Before the creature can escape into the water, Gang-du impales it with a metal pole, finally killing it. As Nam-il and Nam-joo hold Hyun-seo, mourning her death, Gang-du revives Se-joo and takes him to safety. In the final scene, Gang-du has adopted Se-joo. The two live in his food stand, and he still watches over the river. They have a meal together, ignoring a news broadcast about the aftermath of the incident, on Se-joo's encouraging that they concentrate on eating. Never before has any film been so exciting, unexpected, funny and sad. It’s one hell of a film. Bong Joon-ho’s previous film Memories of Murder was so good, his follow up was hotly anticipated but no one knew it would be this good and so different. The initial idea came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in the Han River. Therefore, the director's wishes were for it to look like an actual mutated fish-like creature, rather than have a more fantastical design. The film was in also part inspired by an incident in 2000, in which a Korean mortician working for the U.S. military in Seoul dumped a large amount of formaldehyde down the drain. In addition to its environmental concerns, this caused some antagonism toward the United States. The American military stationed in South Korea is portrayed as uncaring about the effects their activities have on the locals. The chemical agent used by the American military to combat the monster in the end, named "Agent Yellow" in a thinly-veiled reference to Agent Orange, was also used to satirical effect. Bong Joon-ho, commented on the issue: "It's a stretch to simplify The Host as an anti-American film, but there is certainly a metaphor and political commentary about the U.S.” Because of its themes, which can be seen as critical of the United States, the film was lauded by North Korean authorities, a rarity for a South Korean blockbuster film. The film features a satirical portrayal of the South Korean government as bureaucratic, inept, and essentially uncaring. Korean youth protesters are featured satirically in the film, in a mixed way, partially heroic and partially self-righteous and oblivious. According to Bong Joon-ho, the Park Nam-il character is a deliberate anachronism, a reference to South Korea's troubled political history, which involved violent protest. "When you look in terms of this character, it's sort of like the feeling of time going backwards. You could say that he is the image of the college protester back ten years ago; it doesn't exist in the present day.” It’s everything a monster movie should be but with added intelligence and plenty of subtle satire. I honestly can’t think of another director who could have made a film like this. My favorite fact about the film is that Joon-ho Bong and the designer of the creature nicknamed it Steve Buscemi, based on the actor's screen persona and the way he acted in the movie Fargo.