'The Wolf of Wall Street', 'Inside Llewyn Davis', and 'August: Osage County': review round-up + A Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

'The Wolf of Wall Street' - Dir. Martin Scorsese (18)

Funnier than most straight comedies, Martin Scorsese's biopic of stockbroker Jordan Belfort is consistently entertaining over its daunting three hour running length. In many ways it's very similar to 'Goodfellas', albeit following a different (less physically violent) type of criminal, but the beats are the same and the same questions remain, namely "why would somebody choose to live this life?" - with the suggestion made that we will all envy the Belfort even as we come to despise him as a human being. And despicable he is. For all the moral panic about the film failing to condemn its protagonist, Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio paint a picture of a charismatic but morally bankrupt figure, ultimately without any real friends or meaningful human connections. He's an out of control, drug-addicted monster by the film's final third, punching his wife (Margot Robbie) and driving his young daughter into a wall. If you think the film doesn't make his life seem unappealing enough, or that it doesn't show the dark and sinister side of his character, then I don't know what version of the film you saw.

The performances are great across the board, with DiCaprio getting to demonstrate a deft comic timing and lightness of touch we haven't seen in years, whilst physically he's also required to do some incredible and very odd things. Yet the star performer is Jonah Hill as his business partner and supposed best friend Donnie Azoff, who owns the best moments and generates the biggest laughs in a film full of them. Matthew McConaughey is typically brilliant in what amounts to an extended cameo at the start and Kyle Chandler is similarly memorable as the straight-laced, incorruptible FBI agent seen in just a few key scenes. I also have to mention how enjoyable and inspired the casting of Rob Reiner is as Jordan's hot-tempered father - a force of nature who blusters into several key scenes to great comedic effect.

It's typically slick and punchy from beginning to end, carried briskly along by DiCaprio's playful narration and it never really stops for air. That Scorsese continues to make such dynamic, exciting and contemporary films in his 70s (long-serving editor Themla Schoonmaker is showing the likes of 'Spring Breakers' how it's done at 74) is quite something and possibly part of what makes his a unique and enduring voice.

'Inside Llewyn Davis' - Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen (15)

A slight and deceptively simple entry into the Coen canon, in the mould of the criminally underrated 'A Serious Man', Oscar Isaac stars here as the title character - a struggling folk singer, moving from couch to couch in the Greenwich Village of 1961. As he bumbles from sometime lover to casual acquaintance we're introduced to a number of strange and variously pathetic and/or unlikable characters, given life by a half-dozen impactful cameos from the likes of John Goodman, Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. In the Coen tradition all of them seen to have some measure of private sadness, whether it's a hidden box of unsold records, a crippling drug problem or a decision to sell-out artistically and settle down in the suburbs. Llewyn is vaguely contemptuous of nearly all of them and yet he is simultaneously beholden to them as he endlessly rotates through his New York contacts for places to stay or people to hitch a ride with.

Llewyn is an interesting character. Superior, aloof and prideful - refusing to sell out his artistic sensibilities, living hand to mouth and playing 'real' folk music with thankless results and no commercial future. A user and a man without responsibility or attachments. Yet he is on occasion, paradoxically, upstanding and decent in his quiet way. Both humble and egotistical. Emotionally detached and yet harbouring his own grief and inner turmoil. A complex and nuanced character perfectly suited to Isaac's intelligent and introspective demeanor. He's not a hero in any sense; he's infuriating and maybe a little pretentious - but he's entirely human. The Coen's get criticised often for not liking their characters enough, but this kind of nuanced depiction of people - with all their faults and idiosyncrasy - to my mind comes from a place of empathy and understanding. I think they understand people very well, but they aren't afraid to admit that we're all basically a bit rubbish.

'August: Osage County' - Dir. John Wells (15)

I imagine a slight variation on this short conversation accounts for every single factor behind the making, distribution and ultimate viewership of 'August: Osage County': it goes "hey, Chris Cooper! We got a great part for you." "Yeah?" he replies "What's the movie about?" "Well, I'm glad you asked, Chrissy boy. It's an adaptation of a stage play about a dysfunctional mid-Western family dominated by a cruel matriarch and rocked by incest, substance abuse and general misery." "Oh, I dunno" replies Mr. Cooper "that sounds kinda interesting but I think I'll pass." "That's a shame, pal, because Meryl was personally extremely interested in you coming aboard with us." "Excuse me? Meryl?" "Yeah, didn't I mention Meryl Streep is taking the lead part?" "Oh my lord! Meryl Streep!? Where do I sign! This is going to be amazing!"

I think that's an accurate transcript of how this film came to be and the sum total explanation of why audiences are going to see it, in spite of the fact that it's a hoary old bag of cliches adding up to a glorified episode of 'Eastenders'. Though it's easy to see why Meryl Streep took the role: she's this out of control, bitchy, shouty monster of a mother, parading around in a bad wig with a drink in one hand and a fag in the other - falling over, maniacally cackling and not so much chewing the scenery as violently chomping it to within an inch of its warranty. It's a role and performance preconfigured to make audiences say "oh, how brave!" And as Meryl Streep sprints over the top, all of the other actors race to join her - most notably Julia Roberts, whose "eat the mother-fucking fish, bitch" rant rivals that bit in 'The Paperboy' (where Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey and David Oyelowo watch Nicole Kidman masturbate) for shear "oh my god, what am I watching and is it really happening?"-ness.

There's one very nice father and son sequence between Chris Cooper and Benedict Cumberbatch, which is the closest the movie comes to feeling genuine and intimate. Then there's the film's real stand-out performance, delivered by Julianne Nicholson who plays Streep's meek and downtrodden youngest daughter with tenderness, vulnerability and genuine heart. But the rest is all histrionics and 'dark heart of the rural American family' tropes that we've all seen a thousand times before in better movies. Maybe Tracy Letts' play works better on the stage, where hammy excess is often part and parcel of the experience - but this big screen adaptation borders on ridiculous as it goes from one melodramatic family revelation to the next in all its plate-smashing pomp.

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Finally, I've been saddened by the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman - a man who could legitimately have claimed to have been the actor of his generation. He was certainly one of my all-time favourites and I'm upset that we won't be seeing whatever he might have gone on to do as an actor and director. As an actor he was always believable and could be relied upon to be the best thing in the rare bad movie that he appeared in. He was one of those talents that elevated bad material and made great material really sing. There is no such thing as a bad Philip Seymour Hoffman performance, at least not that I've seen.

In tribute, below are some clips of my favourite of his roles.








A good scene (and great performance) from a less than great movie...

  

And one from the best film ever made...



I'm genuinely going to miss this guy.

'Man of Steel', 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Much Ado About Nothing': review round-up

'Man of Steel' - Dir. Zack Snyder (12A)

I feel like a full-on review of 'Man of Steel' would be pretty redundant at this point, as everything I had to say about what's wrong with it has been said better elsewhere. I'm talking about blog entries by comic book writers like Mark Waid (author of fantastic Superman origin story 'Birthright') and articles from critics like (massive DC comics nerd) Chris Sims of Comics Alliance, who spoke eloquently - and at length - about why it's a bad adaptation of its source material. I wrote a little piece on here about the film's gender politics, though mainly because that was one of the few problems I had with it that I hadn't really seen expressed elsewhere. But between that piece and those other reviews, you pretty much have my feelings on Zack Snyder's cynical, dour and needlessly grimy take on the Superman mythos.

SPOILERS, but it's hard to come away from 'Man of Steel' feeling that anything heroic has taken place given that, in the words of comic writer Brian Bendis: "you basically had Superman save the world but not without causing a worse than 9/11 disaster, make out with his girlfriend in the middle of it, and then murder the bad guy in front of children". When civilians emerge from the rubble and say "he saved us", it's hard to take that seriously given the entire city (and untold millions of lives) seem to have been lost in the meantime. This is not a film in which Superman (Henry Cavill) goes out of his way to save people's lives - at least outside of scenes where that is the express purpose (such as the oil rig and school bus bits near the start). And the aforementioned make-out with Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is even worse when you consider Superman has super hearing: surely he's kissing her whilst hearing the screams and tears of those trapped in the rubble?

For those that think I'm over-thinking that bit or (heaven forbid!) "taking it too seriously", I remind you that Snyder's film - created with 'The Dark Knight' duo David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan - takes itself incredibly seriously, expending a lot of effort and energy creating a joyless, colourless vision of the hero and his world. A film in which young Clark Kent is bullied by stock movie jerks, when all he wants to do is quietly read Plato. And for a film that takes itself so seriously, it's really odd when it runs headlong into the cheesiest movie cliches - never more so than when Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent (the film's one genuine triumph) dies trying to save the family dog from an incoming tornado.

Aside from the greatness that was the casting of Kevin Costner as a kindly, middle-American patriarch, Henry Cavill makes for a compelling Superman (speaking with authority but never arrogance) and you're never going to get better than Michael Shannon as an intense, shouty, slightly insane bad guy - but all of the above are wasted by the dreadful movie that surrounds them. It's got more in common with Michael Bay's 'Transformers' than Nolan's Batman: over-loud, tone-deaf, disaster porn and destruction occurring without conscience or consequence. In last years' 'Avengers', we similarly see an American metropolis beset by alien invasion and, whilst the city takes a bit of damage (though nothing on the scale here: it isn't reduced to a crater), there is also emphasis on the heroes saving people's lives and trying to limit that damage. The spectacle in that film comes from all the awesome things the good guys do as they save the day. By contrast, 'Man of Steel' puts emphasis on buildings being punched over as spectacle in and of itself, and Superman rarely comes out of this seeming heroic.

It being a bad movie in its own rite is bad enough, but 'Man of Steel' also makes it extremely difficult to see how DC/Warner Brothers can spin this out into an entire DC cinematic universe of movies, culminating in a Justice League team-up (featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman et al). We've seen seen gritty Superman, and we know gritty Batman can work - and even gritty Green Arrow is currently doing the rounds on TV - but do we really now have to suffer through gritty Flash, gritty Aquaman, gritty Marsian Manhunter, gritty Shazam and gritty Wonder Woman? In the Marvel movies, which thrive on silver age, costumed spectacle and a sense of unabashed fun, it wouldn't be too strange for any character to turn up in all their weird and wonderful glory - a point born out by the in-production 'Guardians of the Galaxy': which features among its heroes a wise-ass, gun-toting Raccoon and an anthropomorphic tree. But with DC's movies to date, it's difficult to understand how this can work - and 'Man of Steel' poses more questions than answers in this regard.

It's also really difficult to see where the Superman franchise itself can go from here: a city got destroyed in this one, during a full-on invasion by dozens of soldiers with, basically, the same powers as Superman. That sounds like the final film in a trilogy, or the perfect scenario for that Justice League movie (with enough stuff going on to keep every hero occupied and necessary), but how can they top it with the next one in this series in terms of pure CGI-fueled spectacle? I'll say this for it: I'm intrigued to find out the answer, though I won't be surprised if the answer is even more explosions and an even higher body-count. Isn't the prevailing wisdom that sequels have to go bigger?

'The Great Gatsby' - Dir. Baz Luhrmann (12A)

This one's been out for ages, but I only found time to see it last week so I'll give my two-penneth a little late.

I haven't read Fitzgerald's celebrated novel - supposedly the masterpiece of American literature - so I can't speak with any authority on whether or not Baz Luhrmann's movie gets it right. But, for my taste, it's a vapid, tacky mess of a film, populated by underdeveloped, yet strangely hateful characters (is there anyone more simpering and with less agency than Tobey Maguire's Nick Carraway and Carey Mulligan's Daisy Buchanan?). A sickening, barely tolerable mix of hyper-active editing, overbearing music and a general busy-ness of aesthetic that drowns out all the details and is the enemy of subtlety. In some ways it feels like a Broadway musical stripped of its songs, and maybe a musical version would have been more watchable, but instead - with the exception of one character-driven scene: a climactic confrontation between Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby and Joel Edgerton's Tom - it's a total car crash.

It could be that these problems come straight out of the novel, but there are so many gaps in logic and reason that make this film infuriating. For instance, why is it claimed that nobody has ever seen Gatsby before, when he's constantly shown making the cover of national newspapers? Why are we told he NEVER comes to his lavish, celebrity-filled parties only moments before he makes an appearance at one such event? Why is Nick so instantly enamoured with Gatsby? What is it that Gatsby finds so appealing about the insipid Daisy? Why is it that Daisy and Tom's daughter - mentioned once in passing - doesn't feature at all? Why is it that Nick - the only character with a normal job - seemingly never has to go to work? Why is Jason Clarke's character totally fine with Tom seeing his wife (Isler Fisher) on the side? And why is he immediately enraptured by premeditated, homicidal rage towards a complete stranger when she's killed by accident? I imagine answers to these questions lie in the novel, but they certainly weren't apparent in the film. Which wouldn't really matter if the film was at least a little bit entertaining and not a flagrant abuse of your eyeballs.

And on the Jay-Z soundtrack - which litters the film with anachronistic modern R&B tracks from Beyonce and the like: I'm not inherently against that, even if I think the reasoning (let's show the kids that the excesses of the 1920s were similar to hip-hop culture today!) is spurious and superficial. But where that approach does become a problem is that it has the ultimate, unintended effect of giving the film a very short shelf-life: this is very much 2013's vision of 1925, and it's hard to see how that will have any value - or find much lasting favour - as we get further from the film's initial release.

'Much Ado About Nothing' - Dir. Joss Whedon (12A)

"Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites". Just one of many succinct and perfect lines in Shakespeare's play that really sing coming from the assembled cast of Joss Whedon regulars in this paired down adaptation of the bard. Directed by the 'Buffy' creator, with characteristic wit and lightness of touch, the film sees regular collaborators Amy Acker/Alexis Denisof/Tom Lenk (Buffy/Angel), Nathan Fillion/Sean Maher (Serenity), Clark Gregg/Ashley Johnson (Avengers), Reed Diamond/Fran Kranz (Dollhouse) in front of the camera, whilst brother and sometime writing partner Jed Whedon (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog) contributes the soundtrack: it's a Whedonverse reunion - all shot on location at the director's Californian house, during downtime from production of 'The Avengers'.

If the idea of a group of wealthy, LA pals, shooting a black and white Shakespeare film whilst on holiday sounds like a recipe for a slightly self-indulgent and incestuous love-in, then it is at least one that works. Not only is 'Much Ado' a really heartfelt and sincere version of the play, featuring stunning performances from Acker and Kranz in particular, it's also riotously entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny in a way most probably won't associate with 17th century iambic pentameter. Without deviating substantially from the original play, Whedon has created something that feels fresh and modern and, in part due to the naturalistic delivery of his cast, is very easy understand for a contemporary audience - giving the old English verse a new lease of life.

'Django Unchained' review:

Been a while, etc. Saw this a few weeks ago, when it was released in the UK, and even recorded a podcast about it - which subscribers to the old Splendor Cinema iTunes feed may well have already listened to - but a combination of work, holiday and illness kept me from posting a written appraisal. See below:

There is a good film buried somewhere within the three hours of Quentin Tarantino's typically self-satisfied western. Indeed, the first hour, which sees Jamie Foxx's slave Django pressed into the service of the ever-watchable Christoph Waltz's eccentric German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz, moves along at a good clip and is every bit as stylish, cine-literate and entertainingly violent as the filmmaker's acolytes would have you believe. The duo have a pleasing on-screen chemistry and their various (slightly wacky) escapades - though episodic and mostly inconsequential - are fun. So much so that I would quite happily trade the subsequent two hours of film for four half-hour TV episodes, in which these unlikely partners round up a new bunch of low-lifes each week against a Spaghetti Western backdrop. That would be better than 'Django Unchained' - the bloated and scattershot film from an ego-maniacal director, seemingly operating without checks on his power. Case in point: his truly risible cameo as an Australian people trafficker. Though the less said about that the better.

One of the appealing things about the first third of 'Django' is that, much like the enjoyably disposable 'Inglourious Basterds' before it, there is an overriding edge of sillyness and even moments of satire - both best exemplified by an amusing (if disposable) KKK skit - that help to undercut the unrelenting nastiness of Tarantino's characters and apparent world-view. In other words, it's easier to sit back and laugh at people's skulls being staved in when the overall piece is irreverent and daft, as opposed to when these actions are supposed to be cool. That last word, "cool", is key in terms of my relationship with Tarantino. The more desperately and self-consciously he seems to be trying to sell cool, to create cool characters and write cool dialogue, the more tragic and ultimately disturbing I find his films to be. The ever-present themes of Old Testament justice and revenge are difficult for me to stomach when taken seriously. Being asked to see them as cool is, to my mind, unpalatable.

And so we come to the latter stages of the film, in which Django fights violence and intolerance with the same and [SPOILER] wins. Leonardo DiCaprio's energetic and typically intense performance as the villain goes some way to offsetting the tedium of the second half but po-faced revenge fantasy blood-lust and a politically dubious finale - in which black collaboration with slavery essentially becomes the main villain of the piece, via Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen - leave a sour taste well before the credits roll and the horses dance. Throw in some baffling musical choices and the director's aforementioned cameo and 'Django' stops being irreverent fun and becomes, at best, sloppy and boring and, at worst, pretty hateful. It certainly wants a good edit.

'J. Edgar' review:

Critics have broadly expressed two major gripes with Clint Eastwood's biopic of notorious FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The first, and most significant, has been that it's a whitewash: shying away from his rumoured penchant for cross-dressing, coquettishly skirting around the issue of his apparent repressed homosexuality and backing away from any outright criticism of his controversial practices as head of his increasingly powerful state police force, abusing power to his own ambitious ends. In other words it's one of the 20th century's most powerful and influential men given 'The Iron Lady' treatment.

The second complaint has related to the film's heavy use of make-up and prosthetics to allow the eternally youthful Leonardo DiCaprio to play Hoover throughout his life - a decision which has been accused of burying an otherwise fine performance. On this point I agree at least partially. Armie Hammer (as lover and FBI deputy Clyde Tolson) and Naomi Watts (as life-long secretary Helen Gandy) join DiCaprio in donning the unsettling rubber masks and the effect ranges between eerily realistic to distractingly absurd. You get used to watching these plastic people after a while in their company, yet this isn't a process aided by Dustin Lance Black's time-hopping screenplay. Yet it still doesn't quite bury the performances, which are on the whole decent.

DiCaprio is blatantly Oscar-fishing at this point, moving between eye-catching portrayals of big historical figures (perfecting accents, mannerisms and peculiar ticks) and heroic leads in thinking man's genre movies, all under the direction of prestigious filmmakers. And whether he's cultivating dodgy facial hair - as in every film between 2006 and 2010 (such as 'The Departed', 'Shutter Island' and 'Inception') - or piling on the old man make-up (also see 'The Aviator'), there is no doubt he's obsessed with destroying memories of him as that baby-faced, pretty boy of 'Romeo + Juliet' and 'Titanic', or the child star of ''What's Eating Gilbert Grape'. Yet he is always convincing and creates fully-formed characters, with his Hoover no exception.

On the first point however, I would have to take issue. With little prior interest in the history of American federal law enforcement, I only know about Hoover what the film has told me. And though it uses the writing of a biography as a framing device to air Hoover's view on some of his more controversial actions (for instance his use of wire-tapping or mass deportation of suspected political radicals), giving an overall sympathetic depiction of his character, the film leaves little doubt that he was, at best, excessive and at, at worst, criminal: driven by dangerous obsessions and a hunger for personal fame. I also think much of the film's apparently skewed take on history (such as its demonising of the American left in the 1920s) can be seen as coming from Hoover's subjective viewpoint (a point ably made by Tolson near the film's climax, as he challenges Hoover's account of events).

As far as the cross-dressing goes there is only one brief visual reference to it, with no shots of DiCaprio in a dress, but there is nothing so ambiguous or cautious about the film's account of Hoover's relationship with Tolson, which is tender and, in its own way, tragic. True, we aren't shown them in the throes of passion, with Hoover played as a deeply repressed and almost A-sexual being - in thrall to his judgemental mother (Judi Dench) and unwavering commitment to "the bureau" - but there is great warmth between them that goes far beyond mere drinking companions.

It is implied strongly that Hoover employs Tolson because he fancies him. The two men are shown to go on holiday together and promise never to spend a lunch or dinner apart. We see them holding hands as Tolson tells Hoover that he loves him - and Hoover is shown to respond in kind (albeit in a whisper). In the same scene, Tolson gets incredibly upset upon learning of Hoover's consideration of a beard marriage - and, crucially, his sorrow is enough for the otherwise unshakable Hoover to abandon his plan. There is no way you could come away from this account of J. Edgar Hoover and not think that Eastwood and Black (who won an Academy Award for writing 'Milk') were of the firm opinion that he was homosexual.

'J. Edgar' is out now in the UK, rated '15' by the BBFC.