Stir of Echoes

David Koepp, USA, 1999

Typical ghost story  enhanced by superior performances and realisation of the domestic. A little outshone at the time by the trend-setting the Sixth Sense, Koepp’s film delivers what all good ghost stories should: latent family anxieties brought to the surface by a supernatural presence with demands of its own. There are a host of films it reminds you of, most of which Koepp himself admits: 'The Dead Zone' for one and of course 'The Shining' for the other – the last hinted at not only by the psychic boy, but also his psychic black policeman pal, which is the plot’s almost literal dead end alley and least satisfying diversion. 

The supernatural elements are a little fuzzy in their rules – for example, why would the ghost become suddenly silent as Kevin Bacon sets off digging in the wrong places? Wouldn’t she become more agitated? And then, as soon as he starts digging, the film stops being scary and suspense convention takes over. The supernatural manifests itself as a feminine threat to this little family unit: only the males are receptive to it; only a female voice calls spookily-seductively to Jake out of the pool of ghostly whispering at the end.*  

All the pluses lay with the acting, with a number of shocks, chills and the odd trance sequence providing the required genre thrills. Nothing new but agreeable nonetheless.

[*]        Originally, Koepp was going to end with the birth of the baby, and it would be clear that it too was psychic – if that baby had been male too, it would have increased the interpretation that the males are receptive to destructive forces – the sister studies and knows about it, but she is not psychic; she is also gay…

Mongol: The Rise to Power Of Genghis Khan

Sergey Bodrov, 2009, Russia-Germany-Kazakastan

‘Mongol’ is more John Milus’ ‘Conan’ than Akira Kurosawa. It has gorgeous scenery and photography (by Rogiers Stoffers and Sergey Trofimov), where it is only revealed how pallid the colour-scheme actually is when the carnage starts and blood like ketchup throws bright reds across the screen. Genghis is an expressionless child, rigid with growing, premature masculinity, horribly hunted down by his enemies; then he is a rugged loner hero who we know shall overcome and teach his enemies a bloody lesson. Which he does, but not before we understand that, somehow, it is all to do with his love for his wife which is matched only by his fraternal bonds. Historical accuracy does not seem to be on the agenda for this is too much a ‘movie’, albeit with subtitles. The cues for its drama, heroics, slickness, absurdities and weaknesses all seem such recognisable beats from American cinema rather than Russian. Sergey Bodrov’s film feels like it’s simply taking the biography of the notorious warlord as a pretext for epic film-making rather than insight or education.  

Kings and Queen

'Rois et Reine' - Arnaud Desplechin, 2004, France

Arnaud Desplechin’s ‘Kings and Queen’ looks the part: it is well performed, occasionally funny, looks slick, looks good and feels breezy. It also demonstrates what happens when a film's character's become increasingly annoying.  It runs on two parallel stories of a woman Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) about to remarry, suffering the terminal illness of her father and trying to get her ex-husband to adopt her son. The ex-husband is Ismael (Matthieu Amalric), a viola player who spends his time battling authority figures, being contrary and insufferable and getting committed to a mental health hospital. 

The film is too long and so gradually exposing that there is less to these characters than their emotional outcries and tics. The script runs on Ismael’s arrogance and intolerable behaviour and Nora’s grief and reflections. At first, we might believe there is something righteous or motivated at the former, and something touching and revealing about the latter: then it becomes apparent that the emotional motivation of the relationships depicted in the film are driven by faux-angst and that there will be nothing to truly interrogate the behaviour and narcissism of our protagonists. Empathy wanes as more and more whimsy and scenes are thrown on top of one another.

When we find that there is nothing but boorishness and pretension to Ismael, that he has not really been misunderstood much at all, then his forced incarceration seems sensible enough. He would probably think it justifies his denunciation of the world and people around him and therefore his immaturity. He is not proving a thing. The film is also tiresomely flippant about the relationship between mental illness and the artiste, that the artistic sensibility must be irresponsible and irrepressible, that any conflict with reality and accountability can only result in frictions of ‘insane’ behaviour. His scenes add up to less and less. Finally, there is a funny but deeply irrelevant robbery attempt on his father’s store: it’s a highlight, but it amounts to nothing.  

When we find that Nora is actually a egotistical bore, whispering to her first husband (well, they marry after he dies, but…) that she is his “nightmare” into his ear as he sleeps, driving him to a spontaneous and successful suicide attempt… it is then that we find that the touching hospital scene where Nora dreams a conversation with him (in a gentle style that reminds me of the films of the Taviani brothers) was in fact built upon bad self-indulgent theatre dramatics. Oh, how young tortured love drives le artiste to express himself with impromptu Russian Roulette! And when the saddening and affecting tale of Nora sitting with her father through his terminal cancer culminates in her father’s deathbed condemnation of her egoism, one wonders where it sprang from. She’s problematic but she is hardly Betty Blue. Is it just that the script wants to have him talk about how they seduced one another (no, not incestuously but poetically) and how he wishes she would die rather than him, that he will die with hatred in his heart for her or to know what it amounts to. It is hard to locate the foundations of this hatred: is it in his complicity in covering for Nora over her first husband’s death? Is there an abundance of condemnably selfish conduct that she exhibits that we do not see?  

What seems to be at stake is the welfare of Elias, Nora’s son, who drifts tokenly in and out occasionally. Nora says he is the centre of her world, and it is hard to doubt she thinks so, but she spends most of her time finding someone else to take care of him. What is it that she does? Her little gallery? Is this a problem of the privileged that can afford such things? He seems to have been taken care of mostly by his grandfather, who when in a sickly state she decided not to bring Elias to see: this being more to do with her suffering and repulsion at the old man’s condition. Then the boy is sent to friends. Then a nanny gets mentioned. Elias does not like his new stepfather, so Nora’s solution is to have Ismael adopt him in a plan that does seem remarkably selfish and irresponsible. We are to take it that Ismael was good with Elias when he was married to Nora and yet truly one would not trust Ismael with a pencil sharpener. Elias himself is precocious and seemingly palmed around and yet impervious to the inane self-absorption of the adults. When this overarching theme comes to its conclusion, Ismael takes Elias out around some museum to tell him that he will not be adopting him and to waffle on a bunch of meaningless pretentions and pointless posturings which, again, have less to do with anyone else other than Ismael himself. 

Overlong, over-indulged, well performed and presented; nevertheless any emotional poignancy disappoints in the egotism of the characters and the failure of the script to cross-examine and explain their behaviour so that their self-absorption and this production means something. 

The Witch: a New England folktale

Robert Eggers, 2015, USA-UK-Canada-Brazil

It is perhaps going to mislead the casual viewer when people say ‘The Witch’ is scary and frightening and terrifying if they believe those descriptions come from ‘Insidious’ style jump-scares. Although it may indeed make you jump ~ I did ~ the frightening qualities of Robert Eggers’ debut film ‘The Witch’ come from a deeper source: the ambience, the hints, the human behaviour, people ranting religiously, strangeness, distrust, ambiguity. It comes from making children’s rhymes and prancing goats sinister, from leaving the uncanny unexplained and much left to interpretations; it comes from several images haunting the memory long afterwards. 

In the 17th Century New World, an English family is banished from their community and try to survive on the edge of the woods. But it seems that something from the woods has a thing for stealing babies and when the youngest member disappears, the family starts to fall apart. 

Scenes of the father William (Ralph Ineson) chopping wood might conjure a paternal figure’s pending homicidal madness as in ‘The Amityville Horror’ ~ and I have seen trailers for the film that promote this suggestion ~ but this too is misleading. He doesn’t really prove a threat and his children aren’t really scared of him, even when he boards them into the stable. Such red herrings dominate to make us distrust everyone. If the supernatural elements are to be taken at face value ~ and proceed with caution here too ~ there is then perhaps the question of maybe who summoned this malevolence? The adolescent son’s budding lustfulness? The twins’ incantations and their blindly harmful play? Or is it the eldest girl Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) after all, through whose standpoint we mostly see things? After all, she is just entering womanhood. Or are the parents bringing this all upon their own family through pious belief and unhappiness? Everyone is perhaps blameable: everyone is a sinner. Or is this just mass hallucination caused by ill crops and a worldview being hammered into the children (Eggers is careful to show a rotten cob of corn)? And of course this is The New World, so  then have the family perhaps brought witch with them from England or was she already there, just waiting for victim?

Apparently the influences upon director Eggers include ‘The Shining’ and Ingmar Bergman. Indeed, the ambiguity and the sinister atmosphere can readily be divined from ‘The Shining’, but in my experience people also forget how chilling and unsettling Bergman could be without warning, with the unreal and dreams apparently seamlessly informing and interacting with the characters as much as the tortured dialogues (‘Fanny and Alexander’, ‘Wild Strawberries’ and ‘Hour of the Wolf’ all feature uncanny sequences within their dramas that would not be out of place in a horror). And that also goes some way to indicating how Eggers’ favours the open interpretation and its realistic qualities. It has an apparent legitimacy that exceeds the fabrications of based-on-a-story films: this is down to the frequently impenetrable era dialogue and Craig Lathrop’s production design: it’s not that the film will not footnote its sources, but it leaves this to the end and doesn’t sell it as legitimacy (it has a far more sinister and convincing mood than ‘The Conjuring’, for example). Eggers says:

“So much has been made of the authenticity of this, and of course that’s important to me, but authenticity for the sake of authenticity doesn’t really matter,” says Eggers. “To understand why the witch archetype was important and interesting and powerful—and how was I going to make that scary and alive again—we had to go back in time to the early modern period when the witch was a reality. And the only way I was going to do that, I decided, was by having it be insanely accurate.”

What ‘The Witch’ shares with other contemporary films such as ‘The Babadook’, ‘It Follows’ and ‘Martyrs’ is a sense of where horror comes from (grief, growing up, religion, etc.). This is not the same knowingness of ‘Scream’ or ‘Cabin in the Woods’ which satirise genre tropes, but a self-awareness of how external horrors feed on internal paranoia and anxiety, on human weakness. But of course, any film evoking witchcraft in such a way is going to make people look back at Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’, and if perhaps Eggers evokes the kind of eeriness of, say, Jan Svankmajer’s animated shorts, he doesn’t forget that claiming others are witches is also the product of petty blame-gaming and hysteria. The family proves they are as much their own enemies as any outside force. See the family turn on each other, for they have nowhere else to turn.

Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography gives this New World washed-out, depressed tones to fit the family’s doom laden outlook. The performances are exceptional across the board with all the characters given time to express complexities before they all implode (except perhaps for the twins). These are tales and horrors that we have heard from folklore and by sticking close to the history of it and leaving much unspoken, Eggers taps into something genuinely unsettling in a way derived from nightmares rather than shocks. Many have seen the ending as literal, which it may be, but I would still be wary of doing so. The film haunts like a fever dream and that’s why it frightens.

Deadpool

TimMiller, 2016, USA-Canada

The reason why films like ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ have proven so successful is surely not only their humour but in the sense that they feel like huge money-making studios are looking over their shoulder less, that they have at least some room to breathe. You can’t help but watch ‘The Avengers’ with one eye aware of the huge calculations and scheming around each character; and studio wariness is maybe why ‘The Fantastic Four’ was so dull, even if basing it more on the Ultimate universe was a bold move. Not that there isn’t a corporate presence behind ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Guardians’ but you get the sense these films are written by people rather than committee, that they have their own voices. It certainly adds to evidence that the more interesting stuff is happening on the edges of the super-hero genre.

‘Deadpool’ himself proves a formidable character, one that overwhelms the film that the whole aesthetic is filtered through his sarcasm, from the opening titles to the closing credits. The promotion itself takes a pot-shot at ‘Spider-Man': “With great power comes great irresponsibility” it says, with Deadpool striking a faux-sexy pose. Indeed, so all-consuming is this attitude – especially as numerous other characters also talk this way – that one might miss the moments of earnestness. But Deadpool can’t shut up and although that ought to be annoying, he is very funny and this makes all the difference. This isn’t quite the wisecracking that Spider-Man does as camouflage, but something more acerbic and relentless, something more fraught. So okay, perhaps it’s also camouflage but of a different kind, a coping mechanism.  It helps that Ryan Reynolds plays him with such conviction, giving a caricature texture that implies there is more viewpoints and emotions outside of this particular world than we’re seeing. It’s in the way his gag about dreaming of Liam Neeson in a ‘Wanted’  scenario is funny, but the tone and the delivery segues into something hushed; it’s as if he is delivering the gag to both distract from his real thoughts and as if it’s a reflex-action that really isn’t needed right then but he can’t help but finish it. Okay, so he’s finishing the gag for our benefit as the external audience, but the shift to a more quiet and anticlimactic note moves into something more revealing and poignant. It’s in the way he thinks he’s been so disfigured that his girlfriend won’t want him anymore only to discover he is wrong. It’s in how the final kiss is played straight, if briefly, with no sarcasm attached for distraction. All this hints that there is more going on beneath the knowing surface, of both the film’s character and it’s reality.

It’s easy to see why Deadpool would be a genre favourite: he is an invulnerable killing machine with a fanboy’s snarkiness about the very genre he is a product of. He gets to beat bad guys un-ironically and pull jokes at the context all around him simultaneously. It knows exactly what it is doing as a wish-fulfilment fantasy in a way that ‘American Ultra’ didn’t, deconstructing by self-referencing the genre without resorting to saying “what if this was real?” like ‘Kick Ass’. This is, after all, the same reality as the The X-Men, but even so Deadpool will make a joke that maybe the film couldn’t afford more than two of X-them. (And there's a joke at the expense of the X-Men time-travelling storylines...) It’s not as anarchic as it thinks and maybe those straight moments make it more conventional than it thinks, but those moments also ground the drama, balancing out the meta-gags. 

One would think Deadpool’s arrogance is born of invulnerability, but the film shows that he was like this before becoming Deadpool. In fact, many of the characters he associates with are similarly wide-cracking, perhaps turned down a notch or two: it’s a mode of expression that seems as defensive as it is passive-aggressive, a means of talking about difficult subjects whilst burying them with outré humour. For example, he connects with his true love Vanessa (Moreena Baccarin) by trying to top each other’s traumatic back-story: indeed, one-upmanship plays a big part here. Perhaps what is most surprising is that Deadpool – the film and the character - has his cake and eats it in our faces. It’s easy to see how the very qualities that make this so funny – its in-your-face knowingness, its snarkiness, the frequent breaking of the fourth wall – are the very things that would put a viewer off if they aren’t on the same page. Breaking the fourth wall is one of those tics that usually throws me out of the film’s internal logic (as it’s often mistaken for cleverness) but director Tim Miller and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick find a quick and seamless balance, often by making these breakages all so quick and in the service of comedy rather than being ponderous: it’s in the way other characters say that Deadpool should visit a place because it’s bound to further the plot; or when  Deadpool is trying to figure out the mathematics of breaking the fourth wall within breaking the fourth wall. 

Perhaps in its appeal to more adult fanboys ‘Deadpool’ has fulfilled the promise that might have once have been expected of a solo Wolverine venture. The story otherwise turns out be a standard origin tale with the inclusion of other franchises – just like, say, ‘Ant-Man’ (and of course there’s the Stan Lee cameo) – and perhaps this ordinariness is a surprise/disappointment when so much else seems agreeably wayward. Narratively, despite the surface bells-and-whistles, it’s conventional. The action scenes are brutal, taking this to a higher rating than usual, and possess enough physicality to compensate for the CGI. And it all ends in a grand punch-up, of course. And it’s true that by letting Deadpool hog the limelight as both hero and anti-hero, the film’s nominal nemesis Ajax (Ed Skrein) isn’t left much room to make a mark. So as formulaic as it actually turns out to be, ‘Deadpool’ is greatly entertaining, funny, and possessed of a surprisingly genuine emotional angle that eludes so many other entries in the genre. 

Exists

Eduardo Sánchez, 2014, USA

‘Exists’ is a good monster-movie romp but a lousy drama. You will spend a lot of time thinking of how stupid the lead characters are. And it’s not the same as the flawed thinking that marks realistic, inexperienced people - the kind that colours in the characters of ‘It Follows’ for instance - but the kind of character behaviour that makes you aware of mediocre writing. So you have the hysterical girl that won’t stop crying and potentially giving their position away (which I can go with because as annoying as this may be, people will do that under extreme duress, etc) but then there’s the guy coming out of hiding just to blast away all his ammo and trying to confront the Sasquatch with challenges I guess he would’ve heard from sports programmes and action movies. Good going, stupid, you’ll be thinking. Yes, pretty soon they all stand out as annoying movie types.  So no, it won’t be challenging ‘Willow Creek’ as a definitive Bigfoot film. Or a found-footage film.

Director Eduardo Sánchez was one half of the team that made ‘The Blair Witch Project’, but ‘Exists’ doesn’t solve the major problems of the hand-held-camera genre the former instigated: why keep filming? Who’s editing this afterwards for maximum drama? Etc. To justify all the covering shots (like the creepy exterior one of the Sasquatch coming up the cabin in shadow), we begin with one guy (hey, you won’t remember the names of these characters) having a considerable stash of cameras: I guess we are to take for granted that he could afford all this and that he would set it all up without any trouble or comment. (And then he never checks them?) Although this reaps rewards with a helmet-cam when the beast is running after a speeding bicycle (shades of Sánchez’s funny ‘A Ride in the Park’ entry in ‘V/H/S/2’) or a vision of the Sasquatch jumping onto the camper van, at other times it will just make things incomprehensible. Again, the intimacy of subjectivity forfeits the drama of a well-placed shot. This has none of the care or ambiguity exhibited in his ‘Lovely Molly’.

On the plus side, it wastes little time with getting on with things: these privileged idiots knock down something that is probably just an animal and won’t let that get in the way of having a good time to show on social media. And then they get attacked, the creature besieging them and then retreating, tormenting them and showing evidence of intelligence in its assaults. And, the film does have a great Sasquatch and that makes up for so much if you are a monster fan. Oh, it's an excellent Sasquatch.Brian Steele wears the suit designed by Mike Elizalde with sound design and grunts and roars by Kevin Hill and Matt Davies. It’s impressive. At first, the creature is seen in shadow, then long-shot, then medium shot, then in fragments like an eye or a foot… all implying that this monster suit is going to be kept at arms’ length to keep up credibility. But this isn’t the case. There is a good cellar attack scene and visions like the Sasquatch keeping pace with the bicycle or coming out of the smoke and the final close-up justify this is a creature feature.

The Homesman

Tommy Lee Jones, USA-France, 2014

Ultimately, what we are left with is a sad, sad story. Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) is a woman whose female independence and self-sufficiency is a turn-off in a buyer’s market, so she feels she has nothing to lose by volunteering to transport a handful of women in the community who have all “gone mad” and had breakdowns to the care of another parish. But then she meets George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) dangling from a rope and only has until his mount runs off to live, and she decides saving him is enough of bargaining chip to enlist his help on the journey. 

‘The Homesman’ is less self-conscious than ‘Slow West’ but shares its melancholia; indeed, it plunges headfirst into it. Tommy Lee Jones provides the quirkiness and Hilary Swank the gravitas and they are just as good and compelling as expected. These are meaty roles. Mary Bee Cuddy tries to cut into capitalism – she has assets – but the men are having none of that from a woman. The accent on the feminine experience is a nice counter to a very machismo-led genre. George Briggs (probably an alias) doesn’t want any part of apparent civilisation – he’s a deserter and probably undependable – but the west is more accommodating of his wayward ways. Indeed, men aren’t particularly to be relied upon in this landscape. And it’s worth mentioning how Meryl Streep does much with her little screen time, implying that perhaps her Altha Carter might be hiding a harder if not crueller side with the dropping of facial expressions when no one is looking. 

The imagery is direct: a carriage of madness, a hotel full of promising luxuries, merry-making men drifting away while we’re left on the bank. ‘The Homesman’ is far less showier than its contemporary genre peers, but it’ll likely haunt and trouble long after.  

The Revenant

Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2015, USA

‘The Revenant’ is as much a box-of-tricks as Alejandro Iñárritu’s previous critic-pleaser ‘Birdman’, but it’s a box-of-tricks designed to win over a viewer like me. The unwavering long takes… repeatedly I found myself thinking Wait – this is a single shot! And it hasn’t finished yet… The camera moves from participant to participant in the opening camp raid, for example, and it doesn’t break. Then it goes underwater to follow a near-drowning and then back up again without cutting away. Long takes like this are showboating but also exemplary cinema. I am always a sucker for them.

The fact that this is supposedly based on the true story of frontiersman Hugh Glass is much touted, but of course one must always take such claims with a pinch of salt. It seems that Based on a True Story is equated with depicted truth and, maybe, a superior narrative. But this is rarely that case because films are fabrications and they have the habit of making the truth a pliable thing: they use oppressions, elaborations and omissions, usually not giving the complex truth at all and aggravating those well versed in it. For example, apparently Hugh Glass did not have a son. Besides, this true tale is surely just a framework to dazzle with cinema rather than narrative, although one can see why the idea of this tale is compelling. 

And then the bear attack. I thought perhaps they had blown a trump card by featuring it in the trailer. The trailer that baffled me at first and then slowly got me more-and-more intrigued. But the trailer does not prepare you for the length and execution of the bear attack. About halfway through the scene, I realised my jaw had dropped. So smitten was I with this scene that at first I wondered if it was setting a precedent for CGI in narratives, the interaction between the artificial and real actors. But then of course I came to my senses and remembered that we had Richard Parker from ‘Life of Pi’ and it is probably easy to forget that almost the entirety of ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ was a CGI animal showcase. Or even 'Paddington'. But yes, the bear attack in ‘The Revenant’ is an exceptional special-effects sequence. This is not the only jaw-dropper, but it probably tops all the others the film offers.

And of course the film’s length and slender narrative will cause criticism, but there is always another visual jaw-dropper around the corner. It is fuelled by ambience, showstoppers and themes. The length and episodic tribulations are narratively coherent when the theme is given as only God decides when vengeance is over. In this sense, DiCaprio’s defeating death multiple times puts him in some way as God’s envoy, or at least under some Divine protection until he has completed vengeance (and what this says about God is another discussion).  And there is the moment when Hardy/Fitzgerald states that there is nothing else to him but the identity his work gives him, which furthers the questions of what makes a man. But the film squarely puts the revenge fantasy centre-forward and that is always popular in American cinema. The film in not really interested in skewering this theme, just impressive rendering. 

And of course, it has to be noted that this is a Boy’s Own Adventure so no real room for womenfolk, except in Terence Mallick-y maternal and floating form. And speaking of Glass’ dreams: the pile of skulls may be impressive production design work from Jack Fisk, for example, but it’s not original symbolism (even if justifiable as rendering the limits of Glass’ imagination). As such, these excursions into dreams are the least convincing aspect of the adventure, even if the try to colour Glass with some softness against the relentless theme of revenge. It also nods to the villainy of colonialism and the savagery and nobility of colonialists and natives alike, but these are more asides, gesturing to a more complex humanity that Glass is forgoing on his quest. 

Tom Hardy swings from being impressively sullen to scenery chewing, often at the same time: at least these tendencies are fused here unlike ‘Legend’ where, playing both the Kray twins, one could see his tendency between both brilliance and gimmicks. He seems to be trying to trump Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte for occasionally incomprenhisble mumbling accent. Quietly, Will Poulter steals the film by getting on and not trying to show off, using his vulnerability to make an impression at odds with the other heavyweights. And of course, DiCaprio’s physical trials in this role will demand accolades – he looks so obviously like he’s suffering! 

S. Craig Zahner, the director of another exceptional western ‘Bone Tomahawk' really doesn’t like ‘The Revenant’:

"I certainly hope there’s going to be a western resurgence. My view on it is, The Revenant got made, Leonardo DiCaprio is a huge star and Inarritu is a big director. I think that movie is probably the single worst movie I’ve seen in the last five years and just totally empty and terrible and didactic. And it’s just awful—lacking humor and characterization, and anything I ever want to see in a movie. But that movie got made because there are two powerhouses there."

But ‘The Revenant’ isn’t about humour and characterisation (which both feature strongly and impressively in ‘Bone Tomahawk’). It’s about a world with the humour sucked out and reduced to survival and retribution and state-of-the-art film making. And the magic-hour vistas are just the start.

Massive Attack with Young Fathers - "Voodoo In My Blood"

 Massive Attack with a "Phantasm" homage and Rosamund Pike.

The Hateful Eight

Quentin Tarantino, 2015, USA

‘The Hateful Eight’ is both expansive in its 3 hour running time and use of Ultra Panavision 70 and claustrophobic in its locations, namely a carriage and then Millie’s haberdashery (of course it helps that this haberdashery is a big place). The snow and a storm outside keeps everyone in. It’s no surprise that this has been adapted into a stage play. It wants to be both epic and a chamber piece. And of course, there was the typical controversy that comes with each of his new releases: firstly, the leaking of the script and then, upon release, the Ultra Panavision 70 proved a stumbling block as the Picturehouse, Cineworld and Curzon chains did not have the equipment to screen this format and so would not be showing the film.

On the epic side, the snowscapes that define the opening act are glorious. They reminded me of ‘The Great Silence’, but you expect blatant homage in a Tarantino flick and I am sure they allude to others I don’t know. Homage is part of Tarantino’s language.

That and rip-offs: on the soundtrack, you will hear not only a grand new score by Ennio Morricone, but also the expected choices from Tarantino’s album collection: now using The White Stripes and Roy Orbison is one thing, but the score also includes ‘Now You’re All Alone’ from the ‘Last House on the Left’ and more Morricone with ‘Regan's Theme (Floating Sound)’ from ‘The Exorcist II: The Heretic’. I had the same reaction as I had with the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ use of the Moroder/Bowie title song for ‘Cat People’: I could get past the post-modern incongruity, but here was the use of another film’s entire theme song and not only would this kick me out the film’s internal reality, but it felt a steal rather than a homage. It's as if Tarantino can't get past other people's films. And besides, ‘The Hateful Eight’ already had music by Morricone so why need anything else, let alone take from another Morricone score? Aside from that, Tarantino’s narration leading the audience into the second half was a gigantic misstep that also kicked out any goodwill the film had gathered until then. You can almost feel him enthusing, “See, I’m storytelling here!” But this proves only a momentary glitch.

The length of 'The Hateful Eight' (yeah, about that counting...) will of course trigger claims that it’s too long, but the joy is surely in its taking time to unspool. There may be padding, but if it’s working for you, the indulgence of the padding will provide enjoyments too. The script wants to take its time setting characters up and letting the true identities reveal themselves. The basis of the plot is that John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is a bounty hunter transporting notorious Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) when they bump into another bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson), and then find themselves holed up at Minnie’s Haberdashery with other suspicious types. But Ruth is certain that someone will try to spring Daisy – but who?

And as a chamber piece, the cast give it their all, as you would expect, and enjoyable they are too. There has always been room in Tarantino’s universe for hamming it up and Tim Roth channelling Christophe Waltz leaves no chamber pot unturned, redeemed by the fact that it all turns out to be an act. Only Zoe Bell truly fails to hit the right pitch. And although there is no one to care about – these aren’t real people but movie types – there is fun to be had in the unfurling of the interactions.

The gravest critical thematic conclusion is that all these hateful men are unified in their misogyny against a hateful woman.  But I don’t believe this is so: I perhaps wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s equal opportunity to have Daisy as loathsome and as formidable as any of the men, but I think accusations of misogyny are misplaced when Tarantino’s full oeuvre is taken into consideration. The first time she is punched, it is perhaps the only time in the film that the audience’s empathy is engaged with the violence: it’s hurts and there’s no doubt it is gratuitous and feels wrong. From then on, when she is physically abused, it’s more slapstick and a running gag. I would say the ugliness is equal opportunity. Otherwise, the violence is just part of the palette. 

The shallowness of the film, whilst in no way impeding the enjoyment, perhaps makes me have greater respect for the bonkers ending of ‘Inglourious Basterds’, which at the time I felt betrayed the subtleties of its earlier scenes: there is no doubt it was reaching and perhaps there's some merit to that. ‘The Hateful Eight’ has no such genre peculiarities. Deeper readings of narrative may have the opening snow on a crucifix resembling a KKK hood, Minnie’s Haberdashery as an American democracy  which is then divided up as a platform for Civil War grievances*. And maybe all that is there, but I wouldn’t venture ‘The Hateful Eight’ as meaningful or thematically profound: it’s just a well presented and enjoyable film, featuring many of Tarantino’s strengths and weaknesses.

* There certainly seems some inconsistencies with the Major’s claims that Minnie was bigoted against Mexicans although there is an argument that is just another of his lies. Sure, I'd say without doubt to Tarantino's attention to detail; but then there's some to-do about a revelatory blood stain and candy caught in floorboard gaps, and then considering the recent massacre revealed in the second half, don't those floorboards seem greatly absorbent of bloodstains?

Young Romance

Young Romance are a band that I have been fan of for a long time and last night I saw them live at the Shacklewell Arms, Dalston. Claire’s drums stomp and Paolo’s guitar roars and the vocals are like a honey trail through the shrapnel being kicked up. Thrilling.

Killdozer

Jerry London, 1974, USA

Through which you might be thinking How much more 1970s can one film get? It’s so much of its time that’s a surprise it doesn’t play disco or prog-rock on the killer vehicle’s radio (surely a missed soundtrack opportunity, and one Stephen King would not miss out on with ‘Christine’). However, the score by Gil Melle is mostly setting the synth on “spacey” and achieving a fair bit of ambience with it. For unintentional humour and campness, it helps of course that this was made for TV with all the limitations and earnestness that format brings with it. It helps that the cast, lead by Clint Walker, treat this with complete deadpan seriousness. 

A meteor lands on an African island a long, long time ago and when inadvertently discovered by a construction crew in 1974, and – apparently being an alien entity that knows no better – it possesses the bulldozer banging into it. Of course. This somewhat limited alien invasion requires that the crew of six men on the island act somewhat stupidly to ensure that the killdozer meets its kill quota: there’s a lot of standing in front of ‘dozer blades and not getting out of cars when the dozer is bearing down at a moderate pace – that kind of thing. It also requires macho-bonding of a latently homo-erotic kind in the example of Dutch (James Wainwright) going on and on about his dead best pal and what great times they had (“Hey, did I ever tell ya the time when me and Mack, well we…”). And when he gives up on that, he goes on and on about swimming, so much so that you just know it’s going to be his undoing. The script by Theodore Sturgeon and Ed MacKillop is full of tough guy talk: maybe Sturgeon's original novel has more in the plausibility stakes or revels more on it's gleeful absurdities. (Certainly the comic book adaptation appears to have more females, judging by the cover.)

All this gives off a meagre enjoyment for nostalgia’s sake for a time when this kind of sci-fi scenario was everywhere, and of course it’s agreeable bonkers if not quite as good as it ought to be. And you could read into it a cautionary tale about shoddy work safety... But as far as these kind of possessed-thing threats goes, ‘Killdozer’ is unlikely to make you look at passing construction vehicles with anxiety.

First Blood

Ted Kotcheff, 1982, USA

Although it set the template for many an action movie, ‘First Blood’ is far more influenced by the social conscience of Seventies cinema: that is, it’s more ‘Deliverance’ than ‘Die Hard’, more Bob Clark’s ‘Deathdream’ than Michael Winner’s ‘Death Wish’.  John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is a Vietnam vet suffering from PTSD who wanders into town looking for an old war friend, only to find the friend has died from the toxic gases used in the war. Right from the start, from the tone and expression of the friend’s mother telling Rambo this, the film reeks of bitterness at the official treatment of vets, resentment at those that gleeful warmonger at the expense of other’s children. Then, just wandering his way out through town, the sheriff sees how Rambo is a stranger dressed down and assumes the worst of him, sees him out and tells him he shouldn’t bother coming back. Of course, he has crossed the wrong guy.

‘First Blood’ appears to be two competing films, one pushing for the good-guys-versus-bad-guys dynamic that will typify action films and justify their carnage, and the other film featuring Stallone as a highly damaged vet, pushed into warfare by the uncaring civility that he fought for. Perhaps there is some trace of the reason for this in the story on IMDB trivia of how Stallone hated the first cut of the film and suggested his material be cut to let the others do the talking. This maybe accounts for the disconnect between the bravado of the dialogue and the harshness and bleakness of the action, which makes ‘First Blood’ more of discussion on machismo than one might expect. It would seem a lot just flew over people's heads: indeed, as a kid, I first heard about Rambo from friends going on about how he stitched himself up.

The other characters go on about how bad-ass Rambo is and act as part-time soldiers with their town as the battleground to protect, yet they’re not about to put themselves at risk unless the odds are irrevocably in their favour with a rocket launcher: they’re perfectly willing to kill the enemy (which for them is just a violent hobo) and pose for heroic pictures. Meanwhile, Stallone plays a broken mind, defaulting to soldier mode when misunderstood and provoked, but never really celebrating in this: there is a silent despair to his performance, helpless to what has been made of him. Rambo’s retaliation at wannabe tough guys may be translated as heroic, but he himself doesn’t really read his behaviour as such; no quips and one-liners from him, no sense that this is all some party or showing-off. Indeed, there is no heroic final act: the film ends with Rambo breaking down and sobbing about how he has been treated and what he experienced and then surrendering to the authorities. The sense is that the men will talk tough and tell tough stories about this long afterwards without understanding at all. And the action genre went on to mostly do the same. 

* Tagline: "This time he's fighting for his life." As opposed to what? When he was in war?

Ex Machina

Alex Garland, 2015, UK

Alex Garland’s ‘Ex Machina’ does what all good sci-fi does: questioning our views of humanity and reality, giving a subjective vision of what we mean and our context. It plays games with its characters and therefore with the audience. Smarter people than I may have seen the end coming, but I was so busy watching for the moment where everything fell apart  that I wasn’t predicting anything else - but it didn’t. Quite the opposite.* One of the complaints I’ve always had the screen versions of robots is that an urge to anthropomorphise something that is innately inhuman is rarely resisted (‘Star Wars’ is a great offender of this). But Garland premise takes anthropomorphising as the very basis and weaves a who’s-being-played? chamber piece from it. Is it Caleb (Domhall Gleeson) being played as the unsuspecting programmer who wins a week with his hero Nathan? Is it even Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the creator of Bluebook and, it turns out, of a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence? Or is it Ava, the thoroughly convincing AI robot/android sitting in the basement as the next potential manifestation of consciousness? 

Garland draws from recognisable digital age technology (which will probably date this in the future) and quotes and art to create a wide, recognisable canvass from which Ava springs from and exists in. She herself is a work of technology and art, and by extension humanity. This is ultimately what Nathan forgets and it causes his undoing, forgetting humanity’s (and his own) potential for violence and abuse. And its resourcefulness. It is a premise full of things to think and talk about afterwards and it feels very connected to the possibilities of the digital age. It’s sleek and stylish, looking like a magazine spread from a modish home magazine (How does it stay so clean? Where are the cleaners?). Ava herself is a formidable creation, seducing as much as she’s whirring, impeccably performed by Alicia Vikander: Vikander finds the right balance for acting something that is mimicking human behaviour, restrained but fluid. She taps into those much talked about micro-expressions to turn tables, but not going over the top to make the audience forget that she’s been programmed. Gleeson has an easy-going, appealing charm that makes Caleb instantly relatable and sympathetic. Oscar Isaac gives a cunning performance as Nathan, at once winningly disarming, frank but manipulative. The disco moment where he dances with the servant robot is a highlight, showing that Garland knows that such seemingly throwaway moments can tell an audience so much whilst entertaining.

It would seem that the accusation against ‘Ex Machina’ is one of misogyny, but this appears completely in character to me: if Nathan is holed away in his research centre by himself all the time and it would follow that he would make, shall we say, fuck buddies. His awareness of others’ humanity and agency would be greatly compromised not only by his own ego but by being so detached. Who’s to stop him? Which is probably the key to his greatness and his downfall. That is, surely the plot becomes Nathan’s punishment for that misogyny: it would not seem superfluous that he is finally murdered by Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno). Ultimately, it is that old story of mankind’s hubris being its own comeuppance. A logical and worthy extension of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’.

And, of course, if we’re talking Deus Ex Machina meaning a happy ending for all…

* I was not a fan of Garland/Boyle’s ‘Sunshine’ and felt the weaknesses of their ‘28 Day Later’ overwhelmed its strengths. I enjoyed ‘Dredd’ more the second time around. Alex Garland wrote scripts for all of these.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - some notes

Yes: there will be spoilers.

·        It’s fine.

·       You know that ‘Star Wars’ thing you liked? Plot-wise, this just traces over that with more effects.

·     Even as a kid, I sensed that the dialogue of ‘Star Wars’ (it wasn’t quite ‘A new Hope’ to us then) was deeply lacking, even though I wasn’t able to articulate it. Something about how the dialogue onscreen could be transposed word-for-word to the comic book adaptation that I bought highlighted its limitations. And don’t worry: that dialogue will now be catchphrases and they will be quoted here.

·           John Boyega is good. Of course, I was pre-disposed to be in favour of him because I love ‘Attack the Block’ so. Even so, he shades Finn with just a degree of cowardice that makes him far more interesting and three dimensional than his written gusto demands.

·     But if Stormtroopers are no longer clones here but kidnapped children programmed to be evil, then are we supposed to consider them as more than disposable henchmen and start colouring in their life stories with empathy? I mean, they are kidnapped children…

·   And if, quite clearly, Finn’s brainwashing didn’t take, what does that say about The First Order’s programming?

·  Daisy Ridley as Rey is good too, less sappy than the Luke Skywalker persona coz feisty girls sell these days (and there’s some debate as to whether Leia was short-changed on this in the original series).

·    These are nice alien vistas. Gigantic spaceships in dunes, X-Wings flying over water,  etc.

·   Well okay, this is a universe where robots are programmed to be cute. And where a future Sith lord built a gold robot and programmed it to be whiny and camp. I guess I’ll have to just suck it up and accept.

·  Wow, Rey is sure instantaneously excellent at knowing languages, flying the Millenium Falcon, lightsabers and The Force. Luckily, she doesn’t need any training scenes like Luke in the first series.

· Speaking of which, Finn is pretty instantly nifty with a lightsaber for a former Stormtrooper too. A sanitation Stormtrooper. And they put sanitation Stormtroopers on planet raids? (Yeah yeah, it's a callback to the original or whatever...)

·   Wait, if Han is sacrificing himself for his son’s betterment, doesn’t that getting-ahead-in-the-Dark-Side include blasting entire planets and killing billions and billions? What on earth was going through Han’s head??

·    I like Chewbacca. Why don’t they make anything of his super-strength? He also spends about a scene grieving over Han before reverting to Chewieness.

·   And speaking of destroying planets on a grudge and a whim: what about the planet's resources? Seems like a foolhardy waste... And this is the point where I suspect I’m over-thinking this trifle.

·  The in-jokes and call-backs are everywhere, all the time. This simultaneously will please nostalgic fans and prove annoying.They help to poke a little fun at itself, like when Rey gets Kylo Ren to take off his mask because it makes him harder to understand. Or no, it’s a new jacket. But it’s probably just a lazy cop-out when another Death Star planet destroying thingy is revealed and they just act light-hearted about his groan-worthy development by jokingly justifying it because it’s bigger.

·    There’s a lot of good visual stuff that comes at you so rapidly it bypasses a lot of critical faculties straight to the pleasure zones. The screen sure is busy and going back to the more DIY and lived-in feel of the original series is a good, good move. Even so, I find I’m dwelling on the arbitrary logic and plot holes so large you could build another Death Star in them. It seems it’s as careless as it is satisfying to franchise fans.

·    JJ Abrams is good at revamping old franchises. The structure of action scene/change location/another action scene is greatly limited but it mostly works for this.

·     It looks the part and mostly captures the tones of the original but the thin storyline does not hold any surprises at all, so there’s a feeling of disappointment.

·           It’s fine.

·        I bet if I still had it, my collection of ‘Star Wars’ comics from when 1977 right past ‘Return of the Jedi’ would be worth a  small fortune now, if I still had it.