Month: July 2018

Funny Cow

Rated: MA15+Funny Cow

Directed by: Adrian Shergold

Written by: Tony Pitts

Produced by: Kevin Proctor, Mark Vennis

Composer: Richard Hawley

Starring: Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine, Stephen Graham, Tony Pitts, Alun Armstrong, Kevin Eldon, Christine Bottomley, Lindsey Coulson, Macy Shackleton, Hebe Beardsall, Kevin Rowland and Richard Hawley.

 

Seeing the title and hearing the song, Funny Cow, my reaction was defensive.  Being called a Funny Cow is not a compliment.

But growing up in Bradfield during the 80s, being called a Funny Cow is about the best a female comedian can hope for because, ‘unstable bitches aren’t tolerated in the pack’.

Opening to ‘Funny Cow’ (Maxine Peake) on stage, famous now, she reminisces about her past: her father (Stephen Graham) a great communicator with his fists; her mother (Christine Bottomley as younger mum, Lindsey Coulson as older mum), an alcoholic.

After sending her father off with a, ‘goodbye you miserable bastard’, she meets her husband, Bob (Tony Pitts), where the cycle starts all over again.

Sometimes life is so bad it’s funny.

The film follows Funny Cow through her life, surviving not because of a backbone but because of her funnybone.

Funny Cow

Funny Cow is raw, written by Tony Pitts (also starring) with truth and an extraordinary performance from Maxine Peake.  The times of the working men’s clubs during the 70s and 80s captured so well it felt like the story was based on an autobiography.

What makes the film so interesting is the poignant moments, to see behind the veil, to see the truth.

Being an outcast is tough.

Trying to be a female comedian, to stand-up in front of those audiences is even tougher, particularly when the threat of a broken nose is waiting for you at home.

Director Adrian Shergold pieces together a life over four decades.   Looking back the film shows Funny Cow walking past her younger self contrasting her new polished self, driving a red sports car, with the mud and poverty of her younger years: if only we could tell that young girl, the one we used to be, that everything will turn out okay.

We can be who we pretend to be and die, or we can hold onto the truth and live.  That’s the message I got.  Being able to laugh at life when it’s at its worst takes the bravest person.

The character, Funny Cow, is so relatable that I can say she’d be the last person to want to be an inspiration, describing herself as a monster.  Adding to the legend that all great comedians are depressives: to see life, to live it and see the truth of it and be able to share that truth with an audience takes talent.

But this isn’t a comedy.   Funny Cow is the journey taken to become a comedian, with all the good and bad shown with a rare honesty.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Rated: PGMamma Mia! Here We Go Again

Written and Directed by: Ol Parker

Based on the Original Musical Mamma Mia!

Story by: Richard Curtis and Ol Parker and Catherine Johnson

Based on the Songs of ABBA

Music and Lyrics by: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus

Produced by: Judy Craymer, p.g.a., Gary Goetzman, p.g.a.

Starring: Christine Baranski, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper, Colin Firth, Andy Garcia, Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, with Cher and Meryl Streep.

 

Going to see a musical makes me brace myself like some people cringe at the thought of watching a gory horror – it didn’t help I attempted to watch the original Mamma Mia! The Movie (2008) recently and just couldn’t stand the enthusiasm of idiots for more than half an hour…

So, from the perspective of someone who doesn’t go for musicals, I found Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again a far more subtle version of the original with the humour based on the silly rather than the ridiculous.

Opening on the beautiful Greek island of Kalkairi, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has transformed her mother’s Hotel Bella Donna in preparation of a grand opening with views of an aqua sea, plantation blinds (that actually work) and a gentleman-manager: Señor Cienfuegos (Andy Garcia); the share of his niceties and fire bargained over, the final offer an 80/20 split between returning Dynamos, Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters).

But there’s a sadness that descends when Sophia is left without her Sky (Dominic Cooper also cast in a favourite series of mine, Preacher – talk about a different character!) who has a job offer in New York, the conflict reflected in the weather as rain falls, threatening to ruin the opening.

The film then follows threads back and forth between current day to 1979 where young and free Donna (Lily James) and best friends Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) and Rosie (Alexa Davies) graduate from University.

There’s clever splicing and layers between the two times showing the young Donna as she meets Young Sam (Jeremy Irvine), Young Bill (Josh Dylan) and Young Harry (Hugh Skinner), to reveal what really happened with possible dad: one, two and three.

The film embraces the circle of life as fate turns from mother to daughter and all that brought their world together to fall apart to be brought back again all threaded together with the music of ABBA.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

I found the songs here calmer and more melodic compared to the original soundtrack with tracks such as ‘Fernando’ (by Cher and Andy Garcia), ‘Andante, Andante’ (Lily James) and ‘My Love, My Life’ (Amanda Seyfried, Lily James and Meryl Streep).

But don’t worry disco fans, Cher still manages a grand gesture: frilled, fluffy-haired and freed into the spot-light with ‘Super Trouper’ (Cher, Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Andy Garcia, Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Lily James, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Alexa Davies, Josh Dylan, Jeremy Irvine and Hugh Skinner).

I’m just thankful the whole film wasn’t over-done like teens spliced with the older versions high on champagne and some hybrid of stimulant and steroid to beef up the screech of ridiculous in song!

Instead, Here We Go Again is kinda sweet (Lily James warm like sunshine reminding me of her role as Debora in Baby Driver (2017)) and funny with original Greek owner of the hotel, Sofia (Maria Vacratsis) commenting on young Sam’s wandering eye and restless groin.

And the harking back to young Harry’s virginal awkward days where he saw, ‘very little reason not to crack on’.

I admit I got caught up because I found the film able to take a crack at itself, to allow some of the enthusiasm to calm, to allow the charm and humour and silliness through like a village goat who gives chase through a grove of orange trees.

Not my style of film but I admit there were some laughs, and with a glass, a friend or partner (or piece of cake!), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a good bit of fun with a few emotional bits, some singing and life decisions all mixed with the turquoise beauty of Greece.

What Will People Say (Hva Vil Folk Si)

Directed and Written by: Iram HaqWhat Will People Say

Produced by: Maria Ekerhovd

Executive Producer: Alex Helgeland

Music Composed by: Lorenz Dangel, Martin Pedersen

Starring: Maria Mozhdah, Adil Hussain, Rohit Saraf, Ekavali Khanna, Ali Arfan, Sheeba Chaddha, Lalit Parimoo, Jannat Zubair Rehmani, Isak Lie Harr, Nokokure Dahl.

Released in Australia as part of the Scandinavian Film Festival 2018

Winner: Audience Award, AFI Fest 2017

Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018

Official Selection Toronto International Film Festival 2017

It took many years for director and writer, Iram Haq to tell the autobiographic story of her past.  To be able to tell of her experience as a sixteen-year-old, in the film known as Nisha (Maria Mozhdah), growing up in a Pakistani family living in Norway.

Now, after enough time has passed, Iram is able to show the pain of being betrayed and kidnapped with an unflinching eye.

No mean feat as the pain of this difficult time was caused by her family – her betrayal, the threat to kill, her abuse – all because, what would people think of her behaviour?

What Will People Think is an apt title as the embarrassment of the family is more important than the life of a girl growing up, just like her friends; the film about her father (Adil Hussain) as much as about her because it’s his over-reaction when finding a boy in her bedroom that sets the course of her life.

And the family follow his instruction.  His son; her brother partaking in sending her back to Pakistan against her will, telling her to enjoy the trip, talking to his father about how cool the new BMW is while Nisha has no idea of her fate.  Her life, not her own.

We are taken from the cold and snowy world of Norway, where kids play basketball and go to parties, to the heat of Pakistan, the crumbling old buildings and markets and mosquitoes showing the contrast of two completely different worlds.

What Will People Say

It’s a nightmare that deepens as Nisha’s left with relatives in Pakistan, trying to make her way, only to be betrayed again and again, all under the guise of being for her own good; the continued harassment and relentless discipline, to do what she’s told under threat of death, her constant reality.

There’s a fierce emotive story here, told without dramatisation so the performance of Maria Mozhdah as Nisha hits harder, digs deeper.

The times I did have tears spring to my eyes were those warm moments when Nisha was seen, heard and loved – a little sister giving her a hug, or the simple attempt to fly an orange kite upon a rooftop.

And the humanity of members of the family are shown through their love of being together: cooking, eating, praying, bickering.  All normal family stuff.

It’s the terror of stepping outside the social boundaries, of being found-out and shunned that turns good people into fearful people, into something cold.

The Norwegian Child Welfare Services are brought in to assess and act when the family show behaviour unacceptable in the culture they’re living.  Yet the family isn’t all bad, the film showing love and warmth making it harder to see the turning away – the authoritative stance and abuse giving insight into the culture clash that stuns the sensors.  To see a father spit in his daughter’s face, for her to lack any control makes me furious because it’s so unfair.

But the film isn’t about anger or hurt, in the end it comes down to courage and I was left with a lingering admiration of Nisha’s bravery.

Skyscraper

Rated: MSkyscraper

Written and Directed by: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Produced by: Beau Flynn, p.g.a., Dwayne Johnson, Rawson Marshall Thurber, p.g.a., Hiram Garcia, p.g.a.

Cinematographer: Robert Elswit

Composer: Steve Jablonsky

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Roland Møller, Noah Taylor, Byron Mann, Pablo Schreiber, Hannah Quinlivan.

Going to see an action blockbuster with Dwayne Johnson at the helm, I felt I already knew what to expect with Skyscraper.

And as advertised Skyscraper dazzles with huge effects including: a burning super tower of 225 stories and more than 3,500 feet high, giant wind turbines used as power, an internal garden thirty-stories high with waterfall and all the tech that goes into the maintenance and functioning of such a massive building all controlled by the touch of one device, a tablet operational only with the bio imprint of security consultant, former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and U.S. war veteran, Will Sawyer (Dwyane Johnson).

The film opens on an operation that goes bad, Will severely injured losing his left leg below the knee.  But while getting treatment in hospital he meets his wife, Naval surgeon Dr. Sarah Sawyer (Neve Campbell).

He moves on with his life, getting married and having twins, Henry (Noah Cottrell) and Georgia (McKenna Roberts), but still struggles with his day-to-day life as an amputee.

Now consulting for the job-of-a-lifetime (thanks to his old buddy, Ben (Pablo Schreiber)) underwriting the security for the highest and most technologically advanced building in the world, Will and his family move into their new address on the edge of the Kowloon side of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour: the first residents to move into the Pearl.

Skyscraper

We see the injured hero nervously getting ready to meet the building’s visionary creator Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han), and see the love and support of his family making it seem anything is possible, until it all turns bad when deadly assassins and bad guys’ hell-bent on revenge steal the tablet to shut off all counter-measures as a fire rages on the 96th floor – below the floor where Will’s family are trapped.

It’s amazing what Will can do to save his family: leaping off a super-crane 1,000 feet in the air, edging along a window ledge so high above ground you’d need oxygen; all believable because it’s The Rock and as always, he manages to bring you alongside with him – like the crowd below the burning building, I cheered him on.

I made a comment before heading into the cinema, wondering if the character would weaponize his prosthetic leg, and the attachment comes in handy as he escapes death again and again.

The injury also gives Will vulnerability – a different role for The Rock that forces the character, Will to overcome not only external forces but also internal as he battles his own insecurity.

And the way he overcomes each obstacle with self-deprecating, yet practical self-reliance, adds some great humour to the film – a talent writer and director, Rawson Marshall Thurber has also shown in previous films, Central Intelligence (2016) and We’re the Millers (2013). 

I was also impressed with the performance from Neve Campbell as Will’s wife, Dr. Sarah Sawyer, her quiet strength making a stoic contribution, the two parents a good team in keeping their family alive.

So, if you’ve watched the trailer, you know what’s coming but you won’t be disappointed either with good action, vertigo-inducing effects and a solid story.

I won’t say my expectations were surpassed but there was some good fun here making Skyscraper a worthwhile entertainer.

The Gospel According to André

Rated: PGThe Gospel According to André

Directed by: Kate Novack

Produced: Andrew Rossi & Josh Braun

Cinematography: Bryan Sarkinen

Original Music: Ian Hultquist & Sofia Hultquist

Starring: André Leon Talley, Sean Combs, Divine, Tom Ford, Whoopi Goldberg.

The scene is a Paris show for the international fashion elite. A model in a lavish fur coat removes it to reveal an equally lavish fur bolero as she attempts to catwalk through a crush of bodies in an overcrowded suite of rooms. This documentary opens a window onto a world of dress-ups, where haute couture is an instrument to uplift the soul and the task is to remake the world into a more inclusive and light-hearted place. At least, that is the mission for André Leon Talley.

A tall black man. ‘A pine tree of a guy in fedora hat’. Could a more unlikely candidate be welcomed into the highest echelons of the international fashion scene in the 1970s, than a man who more than once has described himself as a manatee (a large sea mammal with flippers)?

Whenever I watch a biopic, one particular question always intrigues me. How did they do it? And when that question is asked of such an unlikely subject as Talley, the answer is even more compelling.

The Gospel According to André

When he arrived there, New York was considered to be the centre of everything, and Talley found himself at the very epicentre when he worked for Andy Warhol at the Factory. Here, he met and became a lifelong friend of Karl Lagerfeld and, soon after, the legendary Diana Vreeland’s protégée. They met when he helped Mrs Vreeland set up one of her high fashion extravaganzas at the Metropolitan Museum. This, too, would be the beginning of an enduring friendship and eventually lead to a thirty year association with Vogue.

All this was a very long way from his early life. Talley was brought up by his grandmother in the Deep South, the heart of Jim Crow country. Not only did the Jim Crow laws define a particularly vicious type of segregation, but it also meant that lynchings occurred until as late as 1975. It is hard to imagine how frightened, disenfranchised and deeply angry Tally must have felt as thirteen-year-old taking a shortcut back from the newsagents when a car full of youths pulled up and they hurled rocks at him, all because he was a black person with the temerity to walk across the campus at Duke University.

Even so, those early years laid the groundwork for Talley’s future path in life. The Church as the bastion of southern culture was essentially a fashion show and introduced Talley to its unspoken language. He began with hats, since his beloved grandmother had one for every season and every occasion, but he soon learned to read with fluency and subtlety across the lexis of style: ‘two bracelets instead of one means you’re wealthy’.

André Leon Talley became so many things he wasn’t supposed to be. A long-time friend described him as, ‘A man with a pure cashmere heart.’ And he was ‘A man who achieved his dreams’, according to André.

For those who wish to take a peek from a fashion insider’s perspective as well as those who want to look closely into an unusual life and find out how he did it, I can recommend this as a sensitive portrait of the man and a captivating documentary of his times.

Show Dogs

Rated: PGShow Dogs

Directed by:  Raja Gosnell

Screenplay by: Max Botkin and Marc Hyman

Produced by: Deepak Nayar and Philip Von Alvensleben

Co-Produced by: Paul Sarony

Executive Produced: by Tom Ortenberg, Nik Bower, Raja Gosnell, Max Botkin, Scott Lambert, Kassee Whiting, Yu-Fai Suen, Robert Norris, and Norman Merry

Starring: Will Arnett, Natasha Lyonne

Voiced by: Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordin Sparks, Stanley Tucci, Shaquille O’Neal,  Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Alan Cummings, RuPaul Persphone, Anders Holm, Kate Micucci and Blake Anderson.

It’s school holiday time which means it’s time for some silliness at the cinema.

Show Dogs is no exception complete with talking dogs including Max the NYPD Rottweiler loner police dog who’s, ‘Good at taking a bite out of crime.’

And his human partner, Federal Agent Frank Mosley (Will Arnett) who does his best to keep up with his four-legged friend without ‘mounting him’.

Puns proliferate as the dynamic duo search for baby panda Ling-Li stolen from his mother by an animal smuggling ring, to be sold at the Canini Invitational Dog Show in Las Vegas where all the glitz and glamour of the best dogs in the world are shown by the equally competitive and glitzy handlers.

To track the smugglers and find Ling-Li, garbage eater and proud toilet drinker Max must be entered into the competition by the clueless Frank.

Without help from special canine consultant Mattie Smith (Natasha Lyonne), a professional dog handler and groomer, along with a disgraced and abandoned aging Papillon, once known as ‘Philippe De Fabulous’ for being a three-time world champion Show Dog, the-one-who-bites (AKA, Max) and the-one-who-doesn’t-know-where-he’ll-be-bitten-next (FBI agent, Frank), doesn’t stand a chance.

Show Dogs

Director Raja Gosnell takes us back to the family-fun times of live-action movies, which is rare these days with most kid-movies’ animation.  So, I was expecting some big-time silliness escaping a dreary winter Sunday afternoon: talking dogs – tick!  Silly?  Not silly enough!

I realise I’m not the targeted audience but there was an undercurrent of serious in Show Dog, a holding back I didn’t expect.

I’m not saying the film wasn’t light-hearted, with dogs wearing sunglasses and pigeons getting, well, ‘pigeon bumps’.

But there was a forced moral to the story kinda thrown in with Max re-writing what it is to be a Show Dog while learning to trust people who see the world a different way.

Being such a fan of his character in Arrested Development I expected more humour from human Frank, played by Will Arnett.  Yet, he was more reserved here with the focus on the dog Max who wasn’t a funny character, more the, I-listen-to hip-hop, take-me-serious, character.

The humour didn’t always hit the mark but jez the panda was cute, and yes, I’m one of those people who don’t own a dog but get down to the dog park whenever I can to hang out and be entertained by their pure delight of running, smelling and fetching.  And the director here explains, “the only things we’re doing in post-production, in terms of the dog’s performance, is eyebrows and mouth and a few eye shapes. The rest is 100% the dog’s performance.”

Not my cup-of-tea but tolerable to take the kids for an outing.

Adrift

Rated: MAdrift

Directed by: Baltasar Kormákur

Based on the Book by: Tami Oldham Ashcraft with Susea McGearhart

Screenplay by: Aaron Kandell & Jordan Kandell and David Branson Smith

Produced by: Baltasar Kormákur, p.g.a., Aaron Kandell & Jordan Kandell, Shailene Woodley

Director of Photography: Robert Richardson

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Sam Claflin, Jeffrey Thomas, Elizabeth Hawthorne, Grace Palmer, Tami Ashcraft.

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.  Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”

Adrift is a survival story, the focus on how love conquers all.

Based on the book written by Tami Oldham, “Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss and Survival at Sea”, Adrift is the true story of how Tami (Shailene Woodley) survived forty-one days lost at sea after the boat she was sailing in with her fiancé and long-time sailor, Richard (Sam Claflin) encountered the most catastrophic hurricane recorded in history, Hurricane Raymond.

We’re taken back and forth in time, from the devastation and aftermath of waking in a wreck, floating on an unforgiving sea, to the time when Tami first met Richard.

Opening in Tahiti in 1983, Tami’s in her early twenties, traveling the world working at each destination until she saves up to travel to the next.  She spends her days surfing, immersing herself in the culture and being free.

Then Richard literally sails into her life on a boat he’s made by hand, sharing her passion for freedom and travel.

When asked to sail a friend’s boat back to the States, they decide that thirty days at sea together would be the perfect adventure.

Adrift is a romance including the hesitation, the thought of being stuck together and wondering if it’s really a smart move (Being together, yes.  Sailing to the States? Definitely not!).  But the couple are shown sailing the seas, living in a blissful love-bubble.  Until they sail straight into hurricane Raymond.

Adrift

I’m not one who usually goes in for the emotional, romantic dramas.  And yes, Adrift has all that awkward marriage proposal, cheesy flower-in-the-hair and kisses and general sweetness when two people find, The One.  But with admitted tears streaming down my face at the end of this film, there was more to this story than romance.

Growing up on the water in Hawaii, screenwriters, Aaron and Jordan Kandell (Moana (2016)) wanted to write a story with the ocean as the setting.

And director Baltasar Kormákur (The Deep (2012) and more recently, Everest (2015)) being a world-class sailor was able to push the limits of filming to capture the survival story in-camera, working with academy award winner, cinematographer, Robert Richardson (JFK (1991), The Aviator (2004) and Hugo (2011)) to take the audience into the reality of being lost at sea and the devastation of living through starvation, hallucinations, loneliness and fear.

I could feel the sun beating down on cracked lips, the harsh cold ocean heaving the boat, the pain and the thought of what would I do in that situation?

Yet the romance of the love story is sometimes a little hard to take, with the constant woops of travel-mad Tami showing her wild side and independence.

Sam Claflin as Richard plays the English sailor well; here as the injured Richard (and in a previous role of dependence in, Me Before You (2016)) – what can I say, he has that adorable English charm about him.

And Shailene Woodley as Tami with her quiet will a trade-mark of strength that gives way to softness eventually won me over by the end of the film.

So yes, Adrift is a bit cheesy, but there’s more to this romance with a few surprises in the telling of this incredible story of survival.

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