'World War Z', 'This is the End', 'A Field in England' and 'Frances Ha': review round-up

Before I get to the reviews, I should (for once) make an effort to plug the Live at the Essoldo Cinema Podcast - the latest episode of which saw Toby and I joined by our friend Craig Ennis and director Ben Wheatley, to discuss his upcoming film 'A Field in England' (reviewed below). You can download that conversation here. Whilst you're there, check out earlier episodes of "The Essoldo", which launched earlier this year from the ashes of Splendor Cinema.

So... reviews:

'World War Z' - Dir. Marc Forster (12A)

I can only put the relatively kind reception this film has received from critics down to severely diminished expectations. It is profoundly terrible, but maybe not in the car crash fashion everybody had been primed to expect. Shot back in the summer of 2011, and subjected to numerous script changes and re-shoots since then, 'World War Z' was shaping up to be a disaster of notorious proportions: this generation's 'Waterworld' or 'Ishtar'. And it isn't that - at all. In fact, as I write, it's number one at the international box office and, whilst it's apparently still got a way from being profitable for Paramount, not any sort of box office disaster story. But it is completely and utterly rubbish - a film genuinely without redeeming qualities of any sort.

Terrible CGI (it's all helicopter shots of unconvincing computer-generated crowds, flocking through various big cities), non-existent action scenes (the climax involves a nap, a monologue, some meningitis, a can of Pepsi and interminable scenes of staring at a fairly docile zombie), thinly drawn characters (what is Brad Pitt's vital, most-necessary-man-on-Earth UN job supposed to be anyway?), gaping holes in internal logic (zombies that can topple city walls and push over buses, but can't get past a pile of office desks?), dubious politics (peaceful cohabitation between Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem attracts the zombies!), the worst-written child characters ever ("I'm scared!", "I need my blanket!"), plot threads that go, literally, nowhere ("my family aren't safe!!!"... um, well they seem OK) and... I could go on.

It's bad. It's a waste of your time. Writing any more about it would constitute a waste of my time.

'This is the End' - Dir. Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (15)

I've written here before, probably numerous times, that it's very difficult to review all-out comedies (as opposed to comedy-dramas), in that whether or not the film succeeds ultimately comes down to one question: "did it make you laugh"? Comedy is probably the most hit and miss genre out there, when you think about it, because there's usually nothing else going on but a string of gags and, if they don't work for you, there's usually nothing else there that's going to keep you entertained. In fact, being in a room full of people laughing at stuff you (at best) don't think is funny or (at worst) think is utterly moronic can be an alienating and irritating experience. Luckily, for me at least, 'This is the End' made me laugh more often than not.

It's got all the hallmarks of the sort of US dude-comedy that I don't usually like: every gag is more or less based around a bunch of slacker, man-child "bros" talking about sex, chicks, drugs and booze - with ample comic millage taken from taboo subjects, such as rape and masturbation - and, aside from a brief cameo from Emily Watson, there aren't any female characters whatsoever to break up the sausage-fest. Yet there is a real warmth to the central male friendships between (co-writer and director) Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill - all playing exaggerated versions of themselves. It's big, it's silly, it's broad - but the novelty of seeing these stars playing with their screen personas, talking trash about each other's movies and sometimes (in the case of Michael Cera) knowingly going against type, is often really fun.

'A Field in England' - Dir. Ben Wheatley (15)

This bizarre, sometimes unfathomable, mix of pitch black humour and sleep-disturbing horror won't be a surprise to fans of Ben Wheatley's other films - or at least to those who've seen the equally macabre 'Kill List'. Set during the English Civil War, 'A Field in England' follows a group of deserters as they flee a battlefield, stumble upon some magic mushrooms and become embroiled in an unsettling, occult treasure hunt, whilst ostensibly looking for the nearest pub. The performances, from the likes of Reese Shearsmith and Wheatley regular Michael Smiley, are enjoyably exaggerated and thespy, the sound design is magnificent and Laurie Rose's black and white cinematography yields wonders that belie the film's tiny budget - facts that all combine to create a unique sensory experience.

'Frances Ha' - Dir. Noah Baumbach (15)

Noah Baumbach films have a way of reaching directly, perhaps uncomfortably, into my heart and brain in a way that makes me feel as if they've been made especially for me. If 'The Squid and the Whale' seems to speak directly to my late-teens and young adulthood, then 'Frances Ha' absolutely nails that feeling of post-graduate aimlessness I share with many of my peers... I can only speculate that 'Greenberg' represents some future mid-life crisis!

Co-written by Baumbach and luminescent star Greta Gerwig, the film depicts Frances as she drifts between temporary, low-wage jobs, flits between various apartments and generally struggles to belong in the world of adulthood that she is nominally now considered part of. A wannabe dancer who looks destined to fall short of being quite good enough to really make it, this is the story of a wide-eyed kid who is gradually coming to the realisation that they might not get to be an astronaut and may have to accept being just another normal person. But that's OK. Baumbach and Gerwig deliver this timely and sobering message with a lightness of touch and touching humour that stops it from being in any way bleak: Frances maybe a bit of a fuck-up, but she's a loveable fuck-up and one I can certainly relate to.

This isn't simply one of the best films I've seen this year but, personally, it's the rare kind of film I can see making a lasting impression on my life in the way very few films can lay claim. Usually, at the very best, films find ways to challenge or perhaps just effectively articulate how you feel about the world. But, for me, films like 'The Squid and the Whale' and 'Frances Ha' seem to bring into sharp focus truths about myself that actually help me better understand the world I live in and my own place in it. That's possibly just me, but - in any case - that's a rare thing for a film to do.

'Sightseers', 'Amour': review round-up, plus Special Ben Wheatley Interview Podcast!

Quick update with a couple of short reviews, but first I wanted to flag up the fact that the latest Splendor Cinema podcast is an interview with 'Sightseers' and 'Kill List' director Ben Wheatley. iTunes subscribers can get that now, whilst it will take a few days before it's uploaded to sound cloud (and streamable from this blog).

The interview was recorded during a Q+A I conducted with Wheatley following a rare screening of his debut feature 'Down Terrace' at Brighton's new cinema Duke's @ Komedia. It was the first such event hosted at the new venue and I was honoured to be able to host it. During the Q+A, the director talks about all three of his already released features as well as next year's 'A Field in England' and a few others besides.

Anyway. Reviews.

'Sightseers' - Dir. Ben Wheatley (15)
The pitch-black humour of this British comedy - about a resolutely ordinary, working-class couple on a caravanning holiday around Yorkshire who become serial killers - will come as no surprise to those familiar with the directors other films. 'Sightseers' finds Wheatley's by now traditional mix of the mundane and the ultra-violent, all with a low-key, sardonic sensibility. It's a film in which people's heads are staved in with visceral, cover-your-eyes detail only for the perpetrators to bemoan that their ghastly crime has "ruined the tram museum" for them now. Other gems in a smart and quotable screenplay include "he's a pig in clothes, Chris" and "he's not a human being, he's a Daily Mail reader"! It's a terrifically funny hour and a half that should build a lasting following over the years to come, in no small part due to the performances of co-writers Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, who create a memorable screen duo.

Like the two Ben Wheatley films that preceded it, 'Sightseers' could appear cold, cynical and nihilistic to some. However, the unease the director makes you feel at each killing, quickly making you question each knee-jerk laugh, shows to my mind a sort of humanism that elevates the material even further. The characters themselves maybe glib about killing and dismissive of their victims, but Wheatley's handling of each act is certain to have you torn awkwardly between horror and laughter - with no act of violence seeming to lack consequence (on friends and loved ones, if not the happy murderers).

'Amour' - Dir. Michael Haneke (12A)
Michael Haneke's previous Palme d'Or winning film film, 'The White Ribbon', was one of my favourites of that year. And though his follow-up also snagged that prestigious prize, 'Amour' is not in the same weight class - either in the way it's been made or in terms of narrative. It's a smaller film with a more intimate feel and a subject matter that - whilst huge in that it deeply effects each and every one of us - feels much more personal. As such the movie is fittingly filmed around one location - several rooms of a nice Parisian apartment - and features only a half-dozen actors, focussing for the most part around only two: an elderly couple hauntingly played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

It's an accomplished film, perhaps slightly over long, but boasting terrific lead performances and painting a very complex and non-judgemental picture of both a terminally ill woman wishing to die and her distraught, occasionally rash husband - who, in one tough scene, is driven so angry by her refusal to take food that he strikes her frail and immobile body. Yet this is overall a story about love, or rather which seems to redefine love or at least view it through a different lens. It's the final days of a couple who, it seems safe to assume, have lead happy and successful lives together, and yet we focus on a man caring for his sick wife and dealing with uncaring nurses and unwanted visitors (including the couple's demanding daughter, played by Isabelle Huppert). Haneke seems to be saying this is what love is, that everything else is perhaps the build up to this the greatest test of affection and, in a sense, romance.

It's a film called love in which, at least as far as I can recall, nobody says "I love you" or shows anything like passion. But 'Amour' is unmistakably a love story. Even if it's a troubling and depressing one without a solitary shred of hope! A terrific film, and an important one, but the scope and technical prowess of Haneke's previous instant classic (perhaps unfairly) casts an inescapable shadow over this more modest endeavour.

General chatter...

Aside from the previously reviewed 'Kill List' and 'Attenberg', I've not yet seen any of this week's theatrical releases, which include the poorly received 'Apollo 18' and the only slightly less shat-upon remake of 'Fright Night', so in lieu of any new movies to opine upon I just thought I'd post links to what I've published so far this week.

I've had another DVD review in The Daily Telegraph, this time casting my eye upon Denzel Washington's 'The Great Debaters' and yesterday saw me looking over the new Blu-ray release of Sergio Leone's seminal 'Once Upon a Time in the West' for What Culture.

At the moment I'm writing up transcriptions of my interviews with people from last week's IFA technology show in Berlin, and there's a two-month old interview with 'Warrior' actors Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton that needs to be readied soon for that film's release later this month. There are also articles about two of my great childhood loves, 'Star Wars' and 'Jurassic Park', to coincide with the upcoming Blu-ray releases.

Finally, I hosted a Q+A with 'Kill List' director Ben Wheatley and the film's DP Laurie Rose at the Duke of York's Picturehouse on Sunday night. It was a good turnout (just under 200 people) and a lot of them stayed at the end to ask their questions. They were a pleasure to interview and the whole thing was so relaxed (Ben is especially down to Earth and unflappable) that any stage fright I had quickly subsided once it was underway. The director's refusal to explain the film's ending frustrated some audience members, but there was still a lot of interesting stuff. For more of Mr. Wheatley, check out one of the most recent Splendor Cinema Podcasts where the director joined Jon and I to discuss everything from the rubbish marketing for his first movie 'Down Terrace' to our shared disbelief at the cheapness of 'The Planet of the Apes' Blu-ray box set.

'Kill List' review:

Ben Wheatley's superior British horror 'Kill List' came out today and I've a review of it up on What Culture. If you want to hear what the 'Down Terrace' director had to say about the film, check out the recently recorded 64th Splendor Cinema Podcast.

I've just returned home to Brighton after two hype-filled days at one of the world's biggest consumer electronics shows - Berlin's IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin). I was there to look at Epson's freshly unveiled new line of home cinema projectors - which were very impressive indeed - and I'll be writing a full report on those for What Culture in the week. A splendid city, some exciting tech (including Sony's new handheld gaming console Vita and the affordable 3D PlayStation TV) and superior company made for an amazing last couple of days. It almost compensates for not being in Venice this time around!

'Kill List' Podcast with Ben Wheatley

'Kill List' and 'Down Terrace' director Ben Wheatley came into the projection booth of the Duke of York's yesterday to chat with Jon and I on the latest Splendor Cinema Podcast. Our 64th episode sees us talk to Brighton-based filmmaker about his upcoming horror film, before drifting off into random chatter about 'Planet of the Apes' on Blu-ray.

That podcast is available now to subscribers on iTunes, whilst it'll also soon be available in the embedded player on this blog's podcast page. My review of 'Kill List', which is released next Friday (September 2nd), will be up at What Culture some time in the week.

Also, on an unrelated note, I've just published a huge "top 30 games" feature on What Culture about the lovely SEGA Dreamcast. The near 10,000 word beast of an article can be read here.

'Down Terrace' review:

"Never judge a book by its cover" goes the saying - and it's equally true of DVDs. The UK release of Ben Wheatley's Brighton set debut feature 'Down Terrace' has a ghastly front cover: an old geezer in a sharp suit looking like he wants to nut you, with the film's title styled as a Union Jack. There is an obligatory "best British gangster film in years" quote from BBC Radio Five and the dreadful, hooligan-bating tagline "it's about to kick off". Yet, as you might infer from the way I began this review, this is not a fair representation of the sort of film 'Down Terrace' is: a smart, well observed and subtle family drama with a dash of crime to up the ante.

'Down Terrace' is, at its core, the story of a tired minor crime boss, Bill, and his browbeaten, manchild son Karl - played to great effect by real-life father and son Robert and Robin Hill - a bickering, hate-filled pair who resemble a modern take on 'Steptoe and Son'. Karl has recently been released from prison to find that his girlfriend (Kerry Peacock) is pregnant, to the disgust of his father and the family's worn down matriarch Maggie (Julia Deakin). A crime plot, involving a series of murders, misunderstandings and a few twists, gets underway as Bill and Karl come to suspect a rat in their midst, but this is really about the twisted, abusive relationship between Karl and his parents.



If you have to liken it to another gangster movie, it belongs in the company of moody Australian ensemble drama 'Animal Kingdom' rather than 'Lock, Stock', for many reasons (some of which come with spoilers attached). Though, with its naturalistic performances and dry wit, 'Down Terrace' is a closer cousin to Mike Leigh than anything else. It's a low-key British kind of humour that wins the day, preoccupied with mundane concerns and peppered with gentle stray observations. For instance, at the height of the drama Bill tells Karl that - were it not for the recent murders - he could have finished painting the breakfast room by now. One pivotal blackly comic scene sees the 35 year old son screaming "mum!" at the top of his voice because he can't find something in his cluttered bedroom.

Despite the Brighton setting, Wheatley resists indulging in the now cliche iconography of the city, such as the Pavilion and Palace Pier. There is one reference to "trouble in Whitehawk" that will make natives chuckle and a scene on the Sussex Downs, but on the whole the fact that it's set in the area provides character and nuance without being tacky or fetishistic (unlike some bigger productions). The whole thing speaks of great discipline and the director makes the best of film's low production budget by focusing on the claustrophobic interior of the family home and a small group of authentic seeming actors.



For those enticed to the DVD by enthusiastic pull quotes about its Brit gangster movie credentials: there are a few scenes of brutal, bloody violence and several foul-mouthed conversations about the importance of "family". But 'Down Terrace' is much more concerned with character and relationships. It's sinister, damn funny and, as it reaches its climax, even a little moving.

'Down Terrace' was released in 2010 and is now available on DVD. Ben Wheatley's new film, 'Kill List', is in cinemas from September 2nd.