New film review coming very soon, but in the meantime here's Charlton Heston talking on my behalf regarding my feelings on the EU referendum result. Over to you Charlton.
Song of the Sea
A few years ago I remember being impressed by The Secret of the Kells. The likes of Pixar And Studio Ghibli, while very different in their styles, have produced some amazing animated children’s films - but The Secret of the Kells was a refreshing change in that it possessed a distinctive hand-drawn ‘old school’ feel and felt decidedly closer to home.
Song of the Sea is the second feature-length film by Carton Saloon, the Irish animation studio who made ‘Kells’. Both films hold the distinction of not even being given a theatrical release in the UK before going on to a receive a nomination for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards (in 2009 and 2014 respectively).
I’m very grateful to nine-year-old Madeleine Rose for being my Song of the Sea guest reviewer. Thanks Madeleine, you did a brilliant job.
I found it fantastic, with beautiful hand drawn illustrations that gave a brilliant effect to the whole film.
Song of the Sea is about a young girl named Saoirse who is a selkie (a selkie is a person young or old who needs a white coat to help her or him live, when the selkie wears the coat in the water he or she turns into a white seal).
The names of the main characters are Conor the light house keeper and father of Ben the little boy. Then we have Conor’s other child Saoirse, a young girl ,and Bronagh mother of the children who is also a selkie too - which means that Saoirse is half human and half selkie. Last but not least we have Cu the sheep dog.
This film was bursting with exquisite elements which lit up the entire story with love, magic, fun and some very moving moments which made me enjoy this film very much.
I love this film because it has a brilliant flow as the whole story line connects, one part to another. All these very good ideas are jam packed into one, with all the fantastic elements which means this film is amazing.
Song of the Sea made me feel like I was in it with all the emotional moments. I felt the happy moments, sadness, love and fun which created a lovely film.
This film really makes you think how caring and loving people really helps people in the future.
All the funny, fantastic, joyful, loving characters make you really want to watch this film.
Madeleine Rose
Dust yourself off and start again...
2016 has proved turned to be a tough year so far and, for personal reasons, The Garage Cinema had to be put on hold for a while. However, my enthusiasm remains undiminished. I’m determined to make the website bigger and better, so thank you for reading and keep with me!
Hail, Caesar!
© Universal Pictures
Hail, Caesar! is the 17th film to be written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and stars Josh Brolin as Eddie Mannix, a fixer and troubleshooter for Capital Studios during the latter years of Hollywood’s golden age.
Mannix’s entire raison d’être, day and night, is to ensure Capital’s top stars preserve their squeaky clean public personas by intervening, with whatever means necessary, to keep their sleazy antics away from the eyes of the police and the press. It’s a relentless, thankless and neverending job - but one in which he excels.
In truth, the movie’s plot is almost inconsequential. The real joy of the film lies in its exquisite recreations of working film sets during the early 1950s. Many of these are from the OTT biblical epic of the film’s title, starring the Charlton Heston-a-like Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) in full Roman centurion costume.
Other behind-the-camera glimpses include hammy westerns, costume dramas and overelaborate musicals. One of many standout scenes is a hilarious, meticulously choreographed singing and dancing number in which Channing Tatum tapdances his way around a bar full of sailors on shore leave.
Channing Tatum as Burt Gurney
© Universal Pictures
The film is poking fun at films from this age but, in equal parts, it’s also a love letter to them. The sets and costumes are a star of the film in their own right. It’s all beautifully done.
Aside from regular Coen brother collaborators Clooney, Brolin and Frances McDormand, the rest of the cast reads like a who’s who of the Hollywood A-list of today. There’s clearly a clamour to work with the Coens but none of the casting feels like gratuitous cameos.
What’s so impressive about the Coen brothers isn’t just that they continually and consistently make such brilliant films, it’s also that they are all so different. There’s always that undercurrent of offbeat humour, but the sheer breadth and variety of their storytelling is astounding.
Hail, Caesar!’s standout character is arguably Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), a movie star with James Dean looks but hampered by an excruciating hillbilly voice and an acting ability that makes everyone else at Capital resemble RSC veterans. Normally required to say little or nothing and twirl a lasso, the studio decides to broaden his appeal by casting him in a costume drama directed by uppercrust director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes).
Alden Ehrenreich as Hobie Doyle and Ralph Fiennes as Laurence Laurentz
© Universal Pictures
The results of this miscasting are entirely predictable, but no less funny for it. A scene in which a blissfully ignorant Doyle repeats a line of dialogue to an increasingly exasperated Laurentz is a comedy masterclass. Following his successful turn in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fiennes again displays an impressive comic ability.
The narrative thread of the film involves the kidnap and disappearance of Baird Whitlock but, really, that’s by the by. What does matter is that Hail, Caesar! is that very rare thing – a comedy that’s actually funny from start to finish. It’s not necessarily all belly laughs but the film never runs out of steam and has you smiling throughout. Go and see it.
Simon Rose
The Hateful Eight
©The Weinstein Company
Back in 1992 I was a student at Hull University and a friend asked if I fancied going to see a new film called Reservoirs Dogs at the Film Theatre* in town. Apparently it was meant to be “Brilliant.” I have to confess I’d never heard of it and had no idea what it was about. In fact, to this day I’m still none the wiser as to what the title means. As a second year History student, though, one thing I had was plenty of spare time on my hands. Curiosity piqued, I went along.
I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs for many years but even to this day I can genuinely remember how exhilarating it felt watching it. I was hooked right from the scene at the beginning where the gang members walk towards the camera in slo-mo to the sound of Little Green Bag by the George Baker Selection.
Reservoir Dogs
©Miramax Films
Intense and tightly plotted, what really set it apart, and made it seem so fresh and exciting, was the dialogue and interplay between the characters. I’d never heard anything like it. Much of it was hilarious, but there was always an underlying, unnerving feeling in the pit of your stomach that it could descend into extreme violence at any moment.
Reservoir Dogs was the feature length debut of writer-director Quentin Tarantino, a man who swiftly became the stuff of legend – a self-confessed geek from California who’d spent five years working in a video store learning his craft by watching just about every film that had ever been made (good, bad or indifferent).
Musicians always talk about the ‘difficult second album’. No such problem for QT. Two years later he followed up Reservoir Dogs with Pulp Fiction - which managed to transfer all of the elements that worked so well in his first film, but successfully utilise them within a far more ambitious and complex storyline. Pulp Fiction is widely regarded by many critics (and myself, for that matter) as a modern classic.
What inevitably followed over the years was a slew of films heavily influenced by Tarantino’s style of film-making. It’s hard to imagine, for example, something like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels having been made had RD and PF not existed (and that’s one of the more successful examples). Indeed, Lock Stock itself inspired a host of inferior quality British imitators.
Another legacy of Tarantino’s first two films, even now over twenty years later, is that every time he brings out a new movie there’s an air of excitement. Could this be his next masterpiece? For many, Tarantino has banked a lifetime of goodwill so that even after his perceived failures, such as the much-maligned Death Proof (2007), it merely encourages debate as to what he needs to do to get back on track. Not many dispute he’s a film genius or that he has it in him to produce greatness.
It would appear Tarantino is well aware of this fact too. At the start of his latest film, The Hateful Eight (another western, following 2012’s Django Unchained), the screen is emblazoned with the words ‘The 8th film by Quentin Tarantino’.
©The Weinstein Company
The opening titles also proudly exclaim ‘Filmed in Ultra Panavision 70’. This super-wide format is instantly impressive - the snowbound landscapes looks beautifully panoramic. The opening scene cleverly plays tricks with your sense of perspective and immediately brings to mind the famous mirage scene in Lawrence of Arabia, when Omar Sharif arrives from the distant horizon on the back of a camel. It’s almost certainly no coincidence that that film was also filmed in the 70mm Super Panavision format.
In this instance, the distant object eventually appearing into full view is a stagecoach transporting bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Ruth is transporting Domergue to the town of Red Rock, where she’ll hang for her crime and he’ll collect a sizeable reward for his troubles.
The pair are joined en route by another bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson), who himself is travelling to Red Rock to claim his reward for three dead bounties he’s carrying. To escape the blizzardous conditions they take refuge at stagecoach stopover Minnie’s Haberdashery where, instead of the proprietor, they find four lodgers already taking cover there.
Kurt Russell and Samuel L Jackson
©The Weinstein Company
The opening scenes also sound fantastic, backed by an original Ennio Morricone score that provides the visuals with an even greater sense of grandeur and atmosphere.
Once the action switches to the interior of Minnies’ Haberdashery, however, the look and feel of the film changes completely. The basic set-up for the remainder of the film is a group of dangerous and untrustworthy individuals confined together within a small enclosed space. Violence could erupt at any time, and you know it almost certainly will.
The problem with setting the bulk of the film within one internal location is that you immediately miss the glorious cinematography you’d just been treated to. An even bigger flaw is that each and every character is so damn unlikeable you don’t really care whether they live or die.
Tim Roth, Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh
©The Weinstein Company
When you don’t care, you don’t feel real tension. Compare this, for example, to the scene in Pulp Fiction when John Travolta’s Vincent Vega thinks Uma Thurman’s Mia Wallace may be about to die from a heroin overdose. You genuinely fear for what will happen to him when her husband, Vincent’s boss Marsellus Wallace, finds out. You feel nervous on his behalf. You never feel that emotional connection with a character when you’re watching The Hateful Eight.
It’s not that the acting is bad. Far from it, none of it is. Jennifer Jason Leigh is wonderfully loathsome and Samuel L Jackson turns in a typically charismatic performance. Kurt Russell is also a standout, and perhaps the only character to hint at a more human side beneath the gruff exterior.
Clocking in at just over three hours, The Hateful Eight is also too long. It’s slow going during much of the middle section and, for a Tarantino film, surprisingly linear and conventional. The last couple of acts are more like vintage Tarantino – the pace accelerates and the use of timechanging flashback scenes also echo his earlier work.
Despite its weaknesses, by pretty much any other standards The Hateful Eight is still an impressive film. Because it’s written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, you are left wanting and expecting more. It’s entertaining, but it isn’t a classic. Moreover, it doesn’t offer anything radically new – we’re now familiar with his oeuvre.
Any new Tarantino film will always be worth watching, he’s a director who loves his craft. There’s also that nagging feeling that one day he’ll come up with another masterpiece. If he could write more sympathetic characters he’d be halfway there already.
Simon Rose
*As an aside, while researching that I’d remembered the name of Hull Film Theatre correctly (I had) I was saddened to discover that it closed in 2008. Another one bites the dust. I also learnt that the Hull Independent Cinema campaign is working to build a new venue for independent, world and art cinema in the city of Hull. Good luck to them.
Moomins on the Riviera
©Handle Productions
When I was about twelve years old I was off sick from school for several weeks and ran out of things to read in bed. During an exploration of a bookcase at home one day, for some reason one particular title caught my eye - Comet in Moominland.
When I studied the pictures within, many of which featured creatures who look a bit like hippos, my head was telling me I should probably be reading something a bit less ‘babyish’. My heart, however, was urging me to remove it. There was something alluring about those beautifully drawn illustrations.
That was my first introduction to the world of the Moomin family - Moomintroll, Moominpappa and Moominmamma - and all of the other bizarre and wonderful creatures who live within idyllic Moomin Valley. I’ve had a soft spot for the Moomins ever since. Written by Finnish author Tove Jansson between 1945 and 1970, the Moomin books achieve that rare feat of creating a self-contained alternative universe you can escape to within your imagination.
Comet in Moominland
©Tove Jansson
While home-loving at heart, the Moomins and their friends have a thirst for adventure and exploration. Their travels are both surreal and magical, and there is an underlying sense of foreboding and impending danger. The perils they encounter are counterbalanced by reassuring words of philosophy, usually uttered by the calming presence of Moominmamma, and a feeling that everything will be alright in the end.
I was an 80s teenager and a guilty, secret pleasure during that time was watching the Moomin TV series when I got home from school. The characters and landscapes were created in felt using stop-motion animation and, despite the basic techniques, its five-minute episodes perfectly captured the spirit of the books – as did its weird, eerily beautiful theme tune.
The writers of Moomins on the Riviera took the extremely odd, and fatal, decision to choose a tale that removes the characters from Moomin Valley and sends them to the very human world of the French Riviera. As a consequence, Moomins on the Riveria doesn’t so much capture the spirit of the Moomins as rip its heart out.
What we get instead is a rather dull morality tale, almost devoid of plot, in which two of the main characters are seduced by the lifestyles of the rich and famous people they meet. Yes, really. There is no magic hat, horrible Groke or Hattifatteners – just a load of pompous twits.
It won’t really be a plot-spoiler to reveal that in the end they eventually return to Moomin Valley and realise they were better off there in the first place. If only they’d come to their senses before they set off for the Riveria a decent film might have been created. It’s a shame, as the animation is nicely drawn.
At some point the world deserves a film that does the Moomins justice. Unfortunately, Moomins on the Riviera isn’t it.
Simon Rose
The Danish Girl
©Working Title
The Danish Girl tells the true story of landscape artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) who became Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery.
The title is misleading though. The story is just as much about the experiences of Einar’s loyal and selfless wife, Gerder (Alicia Vikander), who was also a painter. Indeed, a line in the film strongly implies that, in fact, it is her who is the Danish girl of the title.
The film starts with the husband and wife enjoying a seemingly happy and fulfilled life in 1920s Copenhagen. Their world is gradually turned upside down when Einar, after posing for Gerder in women’s clothing when her model fails to show, increasingly comes to the realisation he must live his life as a woman.
Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe
©Working Title
The film is initially slow to get going and rather plods long at first, waiting for something significant to happen. However, the gentle pacing allows greater character development and, as the couple’s story unfolds, this creates a deeper empathy for their plight.
All the headlines will inevitably go to Eddie Redmayne for his transformation into a woman for the role. Redmayne does a fine job of portraying Lili’s increasing confidence as a woman after her understandably awkward initial experimentation. It could be argued he somewhat overdoes the bashful smiles and averted gazes, but surely there is no right or wrong way to behave when you’re a complete pioneer?
However, this is undoubtedly Vikander’s film. She beautifully captures the heartache of someone still deeply in love, but gradually coming to the painful realisation she is losing the husband, and life, she knew forever. There are also strong support turns from Sebastian Koch as Lili’s surgeon and Matthias Schoenaerts as art dealer Hans Axgil.
Alicia Vikander as Gerder Wegener
©Working Title
While it’s nicely shot, the film has a somewhat escapist ‘Sunday night BBC period drama’ feel to it. The opulent locations and costumes make you want to time-travel back to 1920s Copenhagen, Paris or pre-WW2 Dresden. Even a supposedly seedy area of Paris looks rather inviting.
This is an important film for the transgender community, particularly in terms of its high profile. Its clear theme and message is that transgender is no more a matter of choice than gay or straight.
It’s impossible not to be moved by Lili’s story or to admire her bravery at a time when there was even more prejudice and ignorance than there is today. It’s also hard to find fault with The Danish Girl, but somehow the film never quite soars as high as you’d hope.
Simon Rose
Whiplash
Finally got round to watching Whiplash this week, the film which bagged JK Simmons an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor last year. The film was also nominated for Best Picture. Was it deserved?
Whiplash is the tale of fiercely driven jazz student Andrew Neiman, played by Miles Teller, whose obsessive goal in life is to become a world-class drummer. Neiman attends the (fictional) prestigious Shafer Conservatory in New York, where ambitious souls who want to make it seek the approval of conductor Terence Fletcher (Simmons).
Fletcher, whose harsh teaching methods border on the psychopathic, is admired and feared in equal measure by the students. In Fletcher’s class anything other than perfection is likely to be met with a barrage of humiliating personal abuse or a flying chair. It’s the type of ‘showy’ role Academy members seem to love when they hand out the awards. Nonetheless it’s undeniable that Simmons is utterly convincing and compelling as the cruel bully whose unpredictable fits of rage have both the students in the film and you as the audience on tenterhooks throughout.
JK Simmons as Terence Fletcher
© Sony Pictures
It’s interesting to note that, while Simmons went home with an Oscar, the excellent Teller failed to even gain a nomination for his efforts. A key theme of the film is the question of how you balance your personal life with a single-minded pursuit of perfection and success (or, indeed, if such a feat is even possible). Teller subtly captures this internal conflict and it could be argued his was a far harder, more nuanced portrayal to successfully pull off.
Teller doesn’t look entirely dissimilar to a young Dustin Hoffman. In 1988 Hoffman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of an autistic savant in Rain Man. It’s an interesting parallel that Tom Cruise, whose arguable career highlight to date was his evolving portrayal of Hoffman’s younger brother in Rain Man, also failed to receive an Oscar nomination.
Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman
© Sony Pictures
Another film Whiplash brings to mind is Shine, the 1996 film for which Geoffrey Rush won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Australian pianist David Helfgott. In that film Helfgott is pushed and bullied by his obsessive father, eventually leading to the young prodigy suffering a mental breakdown. Whiplash ponders the same question – how far should talented students be pushed to enable them to achieve the extraordinary? Where should the line be drawn?
Every time you think you know where the seemingly familiar story in Whiplash is heading, it takes you off in slightly different direction. Its smart script never sags and builds to a satisfying denouement. However, perhaps the film’s biggest achievement is that, even if you think you’re someone who doesn’t like jazz, by the end you’re guaranteed to be tapping your toes with the best of them.
Simon Rose
Force Awakens update
I thought I’d write a very brief update as last night I went to see the film for a second time, but this time in IMAX 3D (my first viewing was in standard 2D).
My wife (quite rightly) questioned the sanity of me driving the twenty-plus miles to Crawley Cineworld on a Tuesday night to pay to see something I’d seen less than a month ago, which is something I’ve never done before. My reasons were two-fold. Firstly, I’ve seen numerous comments on social media that the IMAX version is breathtaking and the way to see the film. Mark Kermode’s review on Five Live also extolled the virtues of watching it in IMAX.
Secondly, while I’ve seen IMAX at places like the Science Museum in London, I’ve never see a ‘proper’ cinema screening in that format. It’s something l’ve been meaning to do for a while and, given what I’d been hearing, I thought it made sense to try it with Star Wars while it’s still out.
For me, bar a few moments, the 3D element didn’t really add anything (the effect works well in ‘deep space’ scenes and flame embers in one sequence looked good). However, I have to agree that the IMAX format is perfect for this type of action film. The landscapes looked even more vast and it felt extremely immersive throughout. It’s certainly not vital but, if you do have an IMAX cinema near you, it’s worth paying the extra on this occasion.
Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens
Belated review of Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. Although it’s been out a few weeks I’ve been careful to avoid any plot spoilers.
© The Walt Disney Company
The Star Wars prequel trilogy – starting with the Phantom Menace in 1999 and ending with Revenge of the Sith in 2005 – has largely been consigned to history as a turgid mess that for most is hopefully nailed inside a wooden crate and stored in the same warehouse they used at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The tedious and rambling plotlines, set almost entirely against a backdrop of CGI by director and Star Wars creator George Lucas, created a soulless experience more akin to watching someone play a state of the art video game on YouTube. Alec Guinness added genuine gravitas to the original 1977 film, which also benefitted from unearthing the undeniable charisma of the then largely unknown Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. The central character in the prequels, Anakin Skywalker, was played by the horribly wooden Hayden Christensen.
One of the reasons The Force Awakens has been so hotly anticipated is that it’s directed by JJ Abrams, widely credited for breathing new life into another much-loved sci-fi saga, Star Trek. Surely they couldn’t mess it up so badly again?
It soon becomes clear watching The Force Awakens that everyone involved has carefully studied what made the last three films so unsatisfying and systematically set about correcting the mistakes. First and foremost, the script and accompanying action fizz along at an exhilarating pace. There is no bloated exposition about trade wars or midi-chlorians. All you really need to know is that everyone, good and bad, is searching the galaxy for the missing Luke Skywalker and trying to get to him first.
John Boyega as Finn
© The Walt Disney Company
What’s more the script doesn’t take itself too seriously, remembering that it is, after all, a kids’ film and balances the action with humour. One particular sight gag involving new droid BB-8 is laugh-out-loud funny.
Special effects have also come full circle in the film. The use of CGI is relatively moderate, real people walk around in real locations. The costumes and make-up are superb - it looks and feels like the Star Wars of old.
Crucially, the two new leads, the British pair Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, both possess a likeability and presence which connects with the audience. Of the two, Boyega plays the most interesting new character – a stormtrooper who discovers a conscience and decides to desert.
Harrison Ford as Han Solo
© The Walt Disney Company
Of the returning original trio of Ford, Fisher and Mark Hamill, only Ford is really given a role that requires more than phoning in a performance for the paycheque. His portrayal of an older, but still witheringly sarcastic, Han Solo is judged to perfection.
This isn’t a perfect film though. While it’s beautifully executed, the vast majority of the plot and ideas are lifted directly from the first trilogy. The Force Awakens has done such a good job of capturing their original spirit it’s forgotten to come up with many new ideas of its own.
Ridley’s character, Rey, was abandoned on a desert planet as a child. Sound familiar? The Empire, supposedly defeated in Episode VI, has been rebranded the First Order. The Rebellion is now the Resistance. The list could go on.
There are other flaws. The original trilogy had Darth Vader, arguably the silver screen’s greatest ever bad guy. In terms of iconic movie sounds Vader breathing through that mask (his real face is never seen until his death) is right up there with hearing those two notes in Jaws getting faster and faster. The main baddie in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren, looks the part but after his mask comes off he rapidly loses his initial menace.
For all its strong points (and there are many) ultimately The Force Awakens feels more like an extremely slick reboot to introduce the saga to a new generation than a true sequel. Thankfully, in the process it also delivers a genuinely exciting film whose two hour 15 minutes running time flies by. Abrams has put the fun back in to Star Wars.
Simon Rose