Matilda

 I was blown away last night by the new film version of Matilda – but maybe blown away a bit too far?  

First of all it is magnificently staged and performed. Lashana Lynch, who I saw playing tough as Captain Marvel in Doctor Strange; In the Multiverse of Madness and as Nomi in In No Time To Die, here plays very tender as Miss Honey.  Emma Thompson, who we know can play just about anything from Alison Porter in Look Back In Anger through Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Nanny McFee, Professor Trelawny, and P L Travers in Saving Mr Banks, here inhabits Miss Trunchbull, the fascistic Headteacher of Crunchem Hall magnificently.  Alisha Weir, the young Dublin born actress from Don’t Leave Home, is a fabulous Matilda and Stephen Graeme and Andrea Risborough are properly over the top as her despicable parents.  

Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly’s adaptation of Raol Dahl’s book into a stage musical has been lauded – and rewarded – for over ten years now, and Matthew Warchus, who directed the 2010 stage show, is back to direct this film and obviously relished the opportunity. Most of his work has been on stage, but you might remember his work on ‘Pride’. The huge cast of amazingly talented children dance and sing their hearts out and the movement from stage to screen is utterly wholehearted. Anyone who goes to the trouble of getting a giraffe on set for a 2 second shot certainly has my vote.  

But.  

Maybe, sometimes, a stage musical is best kept to the stage? I once saw Stephen Sondheim’s Musical Into the Woods on stage. I loved it. Ten years later I saw Rob Marshall’s filmed version, garlanded with a dozen international stars. It was very well done, but although I was entertained, I was never really moved. Spoiler alert; people die in that musical, and on stage I was affected by their fates. On screen I was unmoved, and that is not simply about the difference between stage and screen. I have seen West Side Story on both and been moved by both. 

I can well imagine that seeing Matilda on stage I would be really excited by its amazing verve, wit and physicality. Im would really like that. On screen I was properly impressed, but never excited. In fact at times I felt rather exhausted by it.  

So; no reason not to go and see this movie, and many really good reasons to go and see it. It is really very well done and I would recommend seeing it soon in a cinema rather than waiting for it on Netflix. It is far too big for a TV screen. Maybe you will enjoy it more than I did. I hope you do.  

But (so many 'buts') I also think the PG cert is questionable. Miss Trunchbull is properly scary, and some children might really need someone’s hand to hold. 

The Banshees of Inisherin.

I recently went to see The Banshees of Innisherin, Michael MacDonagh's latest movie, a black comedy beautifully set on a West Coast Ireland in 1923,  exploring the effects of isolation, loneliness, angst and anger with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell playing wonderfully and rather heartbreakingly together again.  As you know Gleeson, Farrell and MacDonagh made In Bruges in 2008.  That was the first time I ‘got’ Farrell, despite having seen him in Miami Vice, The Recruit, Minority Report, and Phone Booth, but not understanding what the fuss about him was all about. But in In Bruges I saw him playing a vulnerable and not very bright man, not the kind of role that ‘film stars’ -  and he was already a film star by then -  often accept, or do well. In The Banshees he shows the ability to be look confused and hurt and not understand why he is being hurt.  Gleeson is as impressive as ever playing a rather unsympathetic character going through – or not going through – an existential crisis.   I am not going to give plot spoilers, but this movies certainty raises a number of philosophic issues – among them what the good Doctor Mark Kermode calls ‘the vanity of despair’.   

 

We also have Barry Keoghan.  I have only seen him – or known I was seeing him - in some minor roles until The Killing of a Sacred Deer(with Farrell again),The Eternals, The Batman and Dunkirk. Here he is unforgettable - Best Supporting Actor? Plus Kerry Condon, who has a busy CV, including being the voice of Iron Man Tony Stark’s Digital Assistant in the Avenger’s movies and had a small role in MacDonagh’s Three Billboards. Again, terrific here.

 

I am sure there will be a lot of nominations for this film and its cast.  Beautifully shot, seemingly using natural light as much as possible (it is set in dimly cottages and the island’s only pub) and with a subtle soundtrack underlying a poignant, biting and funny script that sometimes sounds like Sam Beckett.

 

My only distraction was that it was partly filmed on Inishmore, just  off the West coast of Ireland, and visible from my front room,  – and also on Achill Island.   I recognised the Inishmore settings again and again, having spent a lot of time walking there over the years, so the moves to Achill were obvious and disrupting.   That is not a criticism of the movie of course.   MacDonagh has based a number of his stage plays on the Arran islands, The Cripple of Innismaan and the Lieutenant of Innishmore , plus The Beauty of Queen of Leenane set up the Galway coast. He wrote The Banshees some time ago for the stage but was not happy with it so it was never produced. Well it works very well on screen.

 

Carter Burwell provided the music.  He is a veteran American film composer, used by MacDonagh for In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and 3 Billboards; by the Coen Bros (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, True Grit, The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men etc);  by Todd Haynes for Carol, and Spike Jonze for Adaptation.  (The are just some of my favourite movies, nowhere near his whole oeuvre!)  MacDonagh was determined to use the Bulgarian song Polegnala e Todora by le Mystere des Voix Bulgaria choir for the opening sequence. 

 

The film was shot by the Brit Bill Davis, rather a change from his recent Marvel jobs on Eternals, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy etc, but he also shot Three Billboards and Seven Psychopaths for MacDonagh.   

 

Mark Tildesley was the production designer for The Banshees, and has also worked on  No Time to Die, Phantom Thread,  The Two Popes, T2 Trainspotting, both 28 Days and 28 Weeks later, and The Constant Gardener.   

 

When we look at artists and professionals such as these I think we have to be impressed by their sheer range.      Quantity and Quality.      

 

There are some films I know I want to watch again as soon as possible after my first viewing.      These include Pulp Fiction, The Dark Knight, Tree of Life, Joker and Arrival.  I am going back to the movie house to see The Banshees as soon as possible.    

Amsterdam; a rich and tasty stew.

 Amsterdam is David O. Russell's new movie.  With Christian Bale, Margo Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy,  Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough and many other stars in the cast (and a sly appearance by Taylor Swift),  one might say the cast is as over-stuffed as the plot.    

Christian Bale says that he and Russell have been talking about this project for over ten years and he has seen over a dozen of Russell’s draft scripts for it.   Dr. Mark Kermode thinks that at least three of them are crammed into the final effort.    Let me say upfront that I do not mind. 

It could certainly be described as a period rom-com political-thriller caper, built on the (apparently real) plot led by a cabal of millionaire American businessmen to depose President F.D. Roosevelt from the White House in 1933 and install a fascist regime.  This was to be fronted by a WWI military hero,  General Smedley Butler and Butler appeared to go along with the scheme, but only in order to discover its details and report them to the FBI.  No court cases followed. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? 

 

Amsterdam is beautifully lit, designed and costumed.  So it should be:  shot by Emmanuel Lubezki who has often collaborated with Terrence Malik and Alejandro Iñárritu;  designed by Judy Becker (as were Russell’s last three movies along with the immaculate Carol and Battle of the Sexes);  costumed by the veteran Albert Wolsky plus J. R. Hawbaker from American Hustle.    Amsterdam was edited by Jay Cassidy (as with American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook) with music from Daniel Pemberton (Trial of the Chicago 7).    I think they all add immensely to the richness of this movie.    And it is a rich and tasty stew.   

Of course the actors are terrific, especially the leading trio.   Christian Bale is obviously having enormous fun,  and that is so good to see.  John David Washington has found the gift of stillness - or inherited it from his father, and Margo Robbie is simply wonderful.  I am  also delighted to see Andrea Riseborough being given a role that suits her considerable talents - and yes, that means I do think she has accepted some unfortunate ones.   Russell has his own distinctive way of making a movie which some actors relish but others struggle with.   In some ways (only some) he follows Mike Leigh’s character development process.  Not all actors can cope with that, and the fact that Bale and De Niro keep coming back for more tells its own story.     

 

I have enjoyed Russell’s movies ever since 1999’s Three Kings, especially Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, and I enjoyed Amsterdam a lot.    It seems that some find it confusing or confused, but I say sit back and enjoy the ride.   

See How They Run - or not as the case may be.

See How They Run is a cinematic spoof about the theatrical genre typified - and here exemplified - by Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, the world’s longest running play, involving a murder investigated by a Police Inspector played by Sam Rockwell and a female Constable played by Saoirse Ronan alongside a large cast of theatrical ‘suspects’. I will go to see any film with either of these two leads. Sam Rockwell is using here, I think, his first and immaculate ‘English’ accent and I loved him in many movies, especially Vice, 3 Billboards, Moon, JoJo Rabbit and Galaxy Quest. Is there anything he cannot do? And of course Saoirse Ronan is equally versatile in Mary Queen of Scots, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, Byzantium and Hannah, not to mention her Wes Anderton roles. They brought all their craft, energy and humanity to these roles, and this movie is handsomely staged, dressed, lit and filmed. 

But….

If you are going to call your lead Policeman Stoppard, and even reference Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Inspector Hound (another London theatre-based crime spoof) you had better polish your script until it gleams with invention and sparkles with wit.  

Sadly, this does not, despite the best efforts of Rockwell and Ronan, plus Adrien Brody and David Oyelowo and a showcase of British actors; Harry Dickinson (Where The Crawdads Sing), Ruth Wilson, very well known to lovers of Brit TV for Luther and His Dark Materials) Reece Shearsmith, (The League of Gentlemen), Sian Clifford (Life After Life and Fleabag, and Shirley Henderson (Happy Valley, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire and both Trainspotting movies) and hurrah for that. But sadly none of them have very much to do.  

There are plot elements that simply fall away, and the supporting cast have little to work with. Is this a snide critique of Agatha Christie, who some say had less skill at writing people than plots? Or is it just about the genre in general? I do not know and do not care. 

If you want to spoof meta-theatre you have to work very hard to get anywhere near Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation and if you want to reference Tom Stoppard scalpel skills you have to do much better than this. 

I was mildly entertained and there were a few genuine laughs (mainly dependent on Saoirse playing them as if they were much funnier than they were), so not an evening wasted, but not really one well spent, for me at least.  

 

Elvis

 

So, at last, Elvis.

  

What is it?  

A Biopic? Yes of course;  but not just a Biopic. 

Is this a Requiem: yes, but not just a Requiem.

Is this a Requiem Mass? Yes, but not just a Requiem Mass.  It is one where the Deceased is also the Celebrant.  

Baz Luhrmann may be the liturgist, but Elvis himself is the High Priest officiating.   

 

Elvis never wanted to be the King of Rock and Roll.  That crown, he was sure, belonged to BB King.    But right from the start of this movie we are reminded that the Blues and Gospel and Country came together in Elvis’s art.   American Country music often seems to be its own religion, but the Blues and Gospel are both profoundly spiritual.  The Blues pays attention to the joys and sorrows of love and sex, but still gives thanks to God for both, and Gospel can also produce ecstatic states of mind and body.   Ecstasy literally means be ‘out of our bodies’ and Elvis’s music did that too,  to the great dismay of many.  When he played to a younger ‘squealing teenage’ audience in the 1950’s this dismayed many of the men who saw their girls ‘getting off’ on his antics, and the camera here knows exactly where his sexual centre of gravity was.   Elvis’s Los Vegas shows may well have  brought a more middle aged - and more conservative - audience close to ecstasy too.  And of course, his early music and performances alarmed the socially conservative and racially prejudiced powers who feared the ‘Negro’ element there would dissolve their apartheid attitudes and corrupt the young.   

 

I wonder who other than Baz Luhrmann could have made this movie?   The opening credits remind us of The Great Gatsby.  The choreography is as integral as in Strictly Ballroom.  The love of musicals - and this is certainly a musical - is as clear as in Moulin Rouge.  The exploration of character – in this case two characters – is as forensic as in The Great Gatsby, and that, it occurs to me now, also has an unreliable narrator at its heart.  And the editing is as ruthless and necessary as in his ‘Romeo and Juliette’.    

 

And who else could/would combine the sleaze and kitschy bad taste of Showbiz – and it really is a story of show BIZ – with the profound tragedy of this life?    Luhrmann does not judge.   He celebrates.   

And of course, what he celebrates most is the Elvis’s voice.   How wise to use the original sound recordings, and how unobtrusively he blends in the singing voice of Austin Butler.  I confess I do not remember him from Tarentino’s Once Upon a time…in Hollywood, or Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, but here he does for Elvis what Taron Edgerton did for Elton.   It is a triumph of casting and performance.  I wonder if Luhrmann had to wait until he found the actor with the right body, face and eyes before making Elvis.    Madonna once said that ‘Elvis is back and he is a woman’, but that was long ago, when she came across the young KD Lang, and I think that although she was talking about the voice there was something about K D's face that also fitted.   

 

And then of course we come to Colonel Tom Parker, our unreliable narrator, impersonated or recreated by Tom Hanks.   I know far too little to judge the accuracy of his performance, but I guess the facts must be close to the truth.   What I do admire is Hank’s refusal to make his character in any way likeable or sympathetic.   It seems that Parker somehow won the trust of the whole Presley family, but here Hanks never tries to win ours.     I do not know if he has an Oscar due after more than 25 years since he won two in a row for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, and he has turned in some very fine performances since then.  This century has given us Cast Away, Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can, Charlie Wilson’s War, Cloud Atlas, Captain Phillips,  Bridge of Spies,  The Post and A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, with many nominations but no more Oscars.   

 

Among a large cast of actors who I did not know it was interesting to see Dacre Montgomery from Stranger Things as Steve Binder.  

 

The Production and Costume design are by Luhrmann’s wife and creative partner Catherine Martin, who has performed those roles ever since their Romeo and Juliette.  Ironically, she won two Oscars for Moulin Rouge and two more for The Great Gatsby, whereas Baz has none.   I suppose they share the same mantlepiece.   She might win another couple for Elvis, and maybe it is Baz’s turn.  

 

Is the movie long?   It takes only 2 hours and 40 minutes to tell his story, and sometimes feels a little rushed.  And at the end we are reminded – if we have ever forgotten – how shockingly, obscenely, young Elvis was when he died at 42.     It is also rated as 12A, and is therefore less explicit about much of the darkness in his life, especially in his later years.  We also see little of his Hollywood offerings, but apart from Flaming Star I doubt if much is really lost.     

 

I enjoyed Elvis, and I am old enough to feel the tragedy of his life.  This movie seems to be an act of love; but then so many good movies are - and some not so good ones too.    Making a movie can be hard labour gladly done for love.  Sometimes love of the subject, be it a person, a book or just a tale that needs to be told, or for the love of the art, craft or technical skills necessary to make a movie happen.   I make a point of staying in my seat to watch all of the credits, an utterly unseen and useless acknowledgement of the love and effort required by the hundreds of people who made the film.    

 

I am glad that together they made Elvis and made it so well.    

Back Again!

 Hi folks!

Since the summer of 2021 I have been unable to access my blog.   I really have no idea what I did to fix it - I am a computer Dren (is that the opposite of Nerd?) - but I will soon be posting notes about some of the movies I have seen in the last 2 years, including (of course) -  

Dune, The Batman, No Time To Die, West Side Story, Lost Songs; TheBasement Tapes Continued,  The Power of the Dog, The Lost Daughter, The Black Widow, Spider-Man;  No Way Home, The Harder They Fall, Dolomite Is My Name, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Little Women, Parasite, The Green Knight,  The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,  plus Turning Red,  Don't Look Up, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Tenet, Wonder Woman 1984, Mank, Enola Holmes,  Mulan, 1917, JoJo Rabbit,  Ammonite, A Quiet Place Part II,  The French Despatch, Petite Mamam, The Happy Prince, Cyrano, Lucy and Desi, The Silver Branch, and an article on Tom Shadyak and some more Netflix reviews.   

It will take a while, but 'I Am Back!'