You don't want the bumpers, life doesn't give you bumpers.

Boyhood

(2014)

(SPOILERS) Richard Linklater’s one-time shoe-in Best Picture winner went from being early favourite to also-ran as the initial wow factor of its logistical achievement subsided. Making a film at intervals over a 12-year period is indeed quite something, but more impressive is how it achieves its storytelling goals seamlessly and subtly. It has no earthly need to be nearly three hours long, yet it never becomes a chore to watch, despite its young protagonist having resoundingly uneventful formative years. The drama occurs on the periphery, as do Linklater’s less measured indulgences. This is where you can hear the same guy who made the Before… trilogy voicing his adorably trapped-in-amber student philosophising and political discourses.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the picture is how passive Mason Jr (Ellar Cochrane) is. That’s not a negative in this case, although it may be for some; we follow Mason Jr from the age of six and, the odd flare up aside, he never becomes a clichéd troubled or rebellious youth (perhaps that is really why his girlfriend calls him weird, since there are no other obvious indications). In a genre (and reality) where this age range is always the end of the world for those experiencing it, it’s interesting to see a teen go apparently untraumatised through such turbulent times, a contemplative observer, even as his domestic situation undergoes tumultuous change.

Cochrane isn’t always the most naturalistic physical performer, but his understated manner helps him along (more consistently impressive is Lorelai Linklater as his sister Samantha). Linklater only comes unstuck when he attempts to foist his own preoccupations on the character, diving into the kind of shallow stoner contemplation that is probably his most consistent trope. So Mason Jr musing on how we’ve become robots through technology is a bolt from the blue; where did that come from? At least his campaigning for Obama has the touch of dad (Ethan Hawke).

That’s the main problem here. If you’ve seen enough Linklater films you recognise the same conversation clusters repeating. One can put that down to the “like father, like son” influence here, but Hawke’s Mason Sr is a slacker version of his Before… character. Political punctuation points never feel finessed, so the War on Terror repeatedly intrudes on the conversation with a big arrows pointing to it. While Mason Sr’s wife’s family turn out to be Bible bashers, Linklater at least exercises some restraint in not making them evangelical crazies. They still give Mason Jr a shotgun for his sixteenth birthday, though. Linklater handles the way in which kids are wont to idolise the less-than-perfect absent parent perceptively, but his parting shot of Mason Sr’s empty wallet when he offers to contribute to his son’s graduation party is clumsy at best.

The best passages are those focusing on the experiences of mum Olive (Patricia Arquette, more than earning her Oscar statuette) and her serial lack of luck with the men in her life. Marco Perella amps up the charm as her second husband and former professor, until his drinking problem manifests as spousal abuse. Perella perhaps isn’t so good with the dramatics (the tense meal scene featuring flying glass borders on parody at moments; I could easily see Will Ferrell performing it), but Arquette contrastingly carries these episodes powerfully. We also witness her repetitive cycles and tendencies matter-of-factly; her passivity in relationships until the situation snaps and she is compelled to act, and the recurrence similar types recur in one’s life; Jim (Brad Hawkins), her next beau, is a veteran and one of her students (a little too neat mirroring there of her previus hubby) and he too has problems with drink. Her moment wondering where life goes as her kids leave the roost and she moves house is somewhat telegraphed, but poignant nevertheless.

Being in part an exploration of his own upbringing, it’s probably no surprise Linklater should have Mason Jr gravitate towards a career in the arts, so its welcome that he doesn’t opt to have his alter persona offered everything on a plate (his photography teacher advises that talent isn’t enough on its own). Generally though, Linklater’s film is more successful when he doesn’t announce his themes and indulge his pop sensibilities. The picture begins with the easy emoting choice of Coldplay’s Yellow and ends with a space caked rumination on how we don’t seize the moment, “the moment seizes us”. Both are Linklater at his most Linklater, but in between it’s the restraint and contemplation that impress the most.

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

We’re not owners here, Karen. We’re just passing through.

Out of Africa (1985)
I did not warm to Out of Africa on my initial viewing, which would probably have been a few years after its theatrical release. It was exactly as the publicity warned, said my cynical side; a shallow-yet-bloated, awards-baiting epic romance. This was little more than a well-dressed period chick flick, the allure of which was easily explained by its lovingly photographed exotic vistas and Robert Redford rehearsing a soothing Timotei advert on Meryl Streep’s distressed locks. That it took Best Picture only seemed like confirmation of it as all-surface and no substance. So, on revisiting the film, I was curious to see if my tastes had “matured” or if it deserved that dismissal.

Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
(SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several of his pictures, including his last, The Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low budget horror arena. Split continues that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

Life is like a box of timelines. You feel me?

Russian Doll Season One
(SPOILERS) It feels like loading the dice to proclaim something necessarily better because it’s female-driven, but that’s the tack The Hollywood Reporter took with its effusive review of Russian Doll, suggesting “although Nadia goes on a similar journey of self-discovery to Bill Murray’s hackneyed reporter in Groundhog Day, the fact that the show was created, written by and stars women means that it offers up a different, less exploitative and far more thoughtful angle” (than the predominately male-centric entries in the sub-genre). Which rather sounds like Rosie Knight changing the facts to fit her argument. And ironic, given star Natasha Lyonne has gone out of her way to stress the show’s inclusive message. Russian Dollis good, but the suggestion that “unlike its predecessors (it) provides a thoughtfulness, authenticity and honesty which makes it inevitable end (sic) all the more powerful” is cobblers.

Mountains are old, but they're still green.

Roma (2018)
(SPOILERS) Roma is a critics' darling and a shoe-in for Best Foreign Film Oscar, with the potential to take the big prize to boot, but it left me profoundly indifferent, its elusive majesty remaining determinedly out of reach. Perhaps that's down to generally spurning autobiographical nostalgia fests – complete with 65mm widescreen black and white, so it's quite clear to viewers that the director’s childhood reverie equates to the classics of old – or maybe the elliptical characterisation just didn't grab me, but Alfonso Cuarón's latest amounts to little more than a sliver of substance beneath all that style.

Even after a stake was driven through its heart, there’s still interest.

Prediction 2019 Oscars
Shockingly, as in I’m usually much further behind, I’ve missed out on only one of this year’s Best Picture nominees– Vice isn’t yet my vice, it seems – in what is being suggested, with some justification, as a difficult year to call. That might make for must-see appeal, if anyone actually cared about the movies jostling for pole position. If it were between Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody (if they were even sufficiently up to snuff to deserve a nod in the first place), there might be a strange fascination, but Joe Public don’t care about Roma, underlined by it being on Netflix and stillconspicuously avoided by subscribers (if it were otherwise, they’d be crowing about viewing figures; it’s no Bird Box, that’s for sure).

We’re looking for a bug no one’s seen before. Some kind of smart bug.

Starship Troopers (1997)
(SPOILERS) Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trio of Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers are frequently claimed to be unrivalled in their genre, but it’s really only the first of them that entirely attains that rarefied level. Discussion and praise of Starship Troopers is generally prefaced by noting that great swathes of people – including critics and cast members – were too stupid to realise it was a satire. This is a bit of a Fight Club one, certainly for anyone from the UK (Verhoeven commented “The English got it though. I remember coming out of Heathrow and seeing the posters, which were great. They were just stupid lines about war from the movie. I thought, ‘Finally someone knows how to promote this.’”) who needed no kind of steer to recognise what the director was doing. And what he does, he does splendidly, even if, at times, I’m not sure he entirely sustains a 129-minute movie, since, while both camp and OTT, Starship Troopers is simultaneously required t…

If you could just tell me what those eyes have seen.

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
(SPOILERS) Robert Rodriguez’ film of James Cameron’s at-one-stage-planned film of Yukito Kishiro’s manga Gunnm on the one hand doesn’t feel overly like a Rodriguez film, in that it’s quite polished, so certainly not of the sort he’s been making of late – definitely a plus – but on the other, it doesn’t feel particularly like a Jimbo flick either. What it does well, it mostly does very well – the action, despite being as thoroughly steeped in CGI as Avatar – but many of its other elements, from plotting to character to romance, are patchy or generic at best. Despite that, there’s something likeable about the whole ludicrously expensive enterprise that is Alita: Battle Angel, a willingness to be its own kind of distinctive misfit misfire.

Can you float through the air when you smell a delicious pie?

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
(SPOILERS) Ironically, given the source material, think I probably fell into the category of many who weren't overly disposed to give this big screen Spider-Man a go on the grounds that it was an animation. After all, if it wasn’t "good enough" for live-action, why should I give it my time? Not even Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's pedigree wholly persuaded me; they'd had their stumble of late, although admittedly in that live-action arena. As such, it was only the near-unanimous critics' approval that swayed me, suggesting I'd have been missing out. They – not always the most reliable arbiters of such populist fare, which made the vote of confidence all the more notable – were right. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is not only a first-rate Spider-Man movie, it's a fresh, playful and (perhaps) surprisingly heartfelt origins story.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog