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By the Sea

(2015)

(SPOILERS) Angelina Jolie’s movie horribilis, the tale of a troubled marriage that preceded the actual break-up of a troubled marriage and was met with general critical disdain and public indifference. Is By the Sea the bust that has been widely reported? No, but it’s definitely on the soporific side, and illustrates that, while Jolie has some skill calling the shots, scribbling is not her forte.

Which isn’t to say the rocky relationship between Roland and Vanessa in ‘70s France (well, Malta’s island of Gozo but who’s being picky – perhaps she should have just gone to Manchester) lacks a resounding emotional substratum. Rather, it feels desperately thin and conflated, and there isn’t enough conviction to its central conceit to sustain it. Namely, that the pair conspire to distract from their own issues by peeping on the young, vibrant couple (Melanie Laurent’s Lea, Melvil Poupaud’s Francois) next door for their jollies (Jolies?), so firing up their dwindling passion.

There’s something rather masochistic about the alter ego Jolie (or, Jolie Pitt, not a credit built to last) has written herself into, a bitter, barren former dancing star intent on turning her husband away from her in whatever way she can. Not that he’s any saint, fond as he is of hitting the bottle as an escape from his domestic and authorial inadequacies. The one island of contemplative calm in this emotional storm is Niels Arestrup’s bar owner Michel, there to offer Roland sage advice on love, life and loss. It may just be Arestruo’s conviction, but these scenes are by far the best in the picture.

Although, Christian Berger (a sometime collaborator with Michael Hanke) ensures the naturally-lit vistas are very nice throughout. Sure, it’s like watching lustrous paint dry for much of the time, but it’s nevertheless impressively lustrous paint. Part of the problem is, there’s nothing believably compelling about Lea and Francois, nothing that sells the strife-ridden duo’s interest in the copulations and contemplations of these newly marrieds.

Laurent’s as lovely as always, but Poupaud is a charisma deficit with abs. The likes of De Palma and Hitchcock have impressed upon us the allure of voyeurism, but observing two who would more likely be the recipients of the casual voyeur engage in it themselves is unconvincing. On top of which, Jolie has crafted a piece that, over the course of two hours, turns in torturously concentric circles around Bradley’s voiced concern of “Am I wrong to think you’re trying to destroy us?”. Pitt’s okay, rocking a fine moustache. Angelina looks ever-more insectoid and brittle, a caricature of a Hollywood icon, like she’s angling for a remake of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

As to the resolution, it’s unclear where Roland and Vanessa stand, whether after fourteen years they will see things through for the duration, but they already have two years on their real world other halves. There’s much rumination in here, and Jolie may actually be more directorially suited to arthouse posing than the strident, overblown staging of Unbroken, but she needs to come up with material that’s less emotionally and philosophically arid if she’s going to spend so long waxing over it. The biggest mystery is how By the Sea cost $25m. Unless it all went on Illuminati snake sacrifices.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

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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…

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The Predator (2018)
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It Couldn't Happen Here (1987)
(SPOILERS) "I think our film is arguably better than Spiceworld" said Neil Tennant of his and Chris Lowe's much-maligned It Couldn't Happen Here, a quasi-musical, quasi-surrealist journey through the English landscape via the Pet shop Boys' "own" history as envisaged by co-writer-director Jack Bond. Of course, Spiceworld could boast the presence of the illustrious Richard E Grant, while It Couldn't Happen Here had to settle for Gareth Hunt. Is its reputation deserved? It's arguably not very successful at being a coherent film (even thematically), but I have to admit that I rather like it, ramshackle and studiously aloof though it is.

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5.21: You Have Just Been Murdered
Slender in concept – if you're holding out for a second act twist, you'll be sorely disappointed – You Have Just Been Murdered nevertheless sustains itself far past the point one might expect thanks to shock value that doesn't wear out through repetition, a suitably sinister performance from Simon Oates (Steed in the 1971 stage adaptation of the show) and a cartoonish one from George Murcell (1.3: Square Root of Evil) as Needle, of the sort you might expect Matt Berry to spoof.

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Ghostbusters (2016)
(SPOILERS) Paul Feig is a better director than Ivan Reitman, or at very least he’s savvy enough to gather technicians around him who make his films look good, but that hasn’t helped make his Ghostbusters remake (or reboot) a better movie than the original, and that’s even with the original not even being that great a movie in the first place.

Along which lines, I’d lay no claims to the 1984 movie being some kind of auteurist gem, but it does make some capital from the polarising forces of Aykroyd’s ultra-geekiness on the subject of spooks and Murray’s “I’m just here for the asides” irreverence. In contrast, Feig’s picture is all about treating the subject as he does any other genre, be it cop, or spy, or romcom. There’s no great affection, merely a reliably professional approach, one minded to ensure that a generous quota of gags (on-topic not required) can be pumped out via abundant improv sessions.

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Brian Clemens' witty take on village life gone bad is one of the highlights of the fifth season. Inspired by Bad Day at Black Rock, one wonders how much Murdersville's premise of unsettling impulses lurking beneath an idyllic surface were set to influence both Straw Dogs and The Wicker Mana few years later (one could also suggest it premeditates the brand of backwoods horrors soon to be found in American cinema from the likes of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper).

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Darkest Hour (2017)
(SPOILERS) Watching Joe Wright’s return to the rarefied plane of prestige – and heritage to boot – filmmaking following the execrable folly of the panned Pan, I was struck by the difference an engaged director, one who cares about his characters, makes to material. Only last week, Ridley Scott’s serviceable All the Money in the World made for a pointed illustration of strong material in the hands of someone with no such investment, unless they’re androids. Wright’s dedication to a relatable Winston Churchill ensures that, for the first hour-plus, Darkest Hour is a first-rate affair, a piece of myth-making that barely puts a foot wrong. It has that much in common with Wright’s earlier Word War II tale, Atonement. But then, like Atonement, it comes unstuck.

Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
(SPOILERS) The cliffhanger sequel, as a phenomenon, is a relatively recent thing. Sure, we kind of saw it with The Empire Strikes Back – one of those "old" movies Peter Parker is so fond of – a consequence of George Lucas deliberately borrowing from the Republic serials of old, but he had no guarantee of being able to complete his trilogy; it was really Back to the Future that began the trend, and promptly drew a line under it for another decade. In more recent years, really starting with The Matrix – The Lord of the Rings stands apart as, post-Weinstein's involvement, fashioned that way from the ground up – shooting the second and third instalments back-to-back has become a thing, both more cost effective and ensuring audiences don’t have to endure an interminable wait for their anticipation to be sated. The flipside of not taking this path is an Allegiant, where greed gets the better of a studio (split a novel into two movie parts assuming a…

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Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

If Panos Cosmatos’ debut had continued with the slow-paced, tripped-out psychedelia of the first hour or so I would probably have been fully on board with it, but the decision to devolve into an ‘80s slasher flick in the final act lost me.

The director is the son of George Pan Cosmatos (he of The Cassandra Crossing and Cobra, and in name alone of Tombstone, apparently) and it appears that his inspiration was what happened to the baby boomers in the ‘80s, his parents’ generation. That element translates effectively, expressed through the extreme of having a science institute engaging in Crowley/Jack Parsons/Leary occult quests for enlightenment in the ‘60s and the survivors having become burnt out refugees or psychotics by the ‘80s. Depending upon your sensibilities, the torturously slow pace and the synth soundtrack are positives, while the cinematography managed to evoke both lurid early ‘80s cinema and ‘60s experimental fare.

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I think World War II was my favourite war.

Small Soldiers (1998)
An off-peak Joe Dante movie is still one chock-a-block full of satirical nuggets and comic inspiration, far beyond the facility of most filmmakers. Small Soldiers finds him back after a six-year big screen absence, taking delirious swipes at the veneration of the military, war movies, the toy industry, conglomerates and privatised defence forces. Dante’s take is so gleefully skewed, he even has big business win! The only problem with the picture (aside from an indistinct lead, surprising from a director with a strong track record for casting juveniles) is that this is all very familiar.

Dante acknowledged Small Soldiers was basically a riff on Gremlins, and it is. Something innocuous and playful turns mad, bad and dangerous. On one level it has something in common with Gremlins 2: The New Batch, in that the asides carry the picture. But Gremlins 2 was all about the asides, happy to wander off in any direction that suited it oblivious to whether the audience was on …

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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