film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Rosalynn Try-Hane

  • The BRWC Review: Swallows And Amazons

    The BRWC Review: Swallows And Amazons

    Swallows and Amazons is Arthur Ransome’s classic children’s book brought back to the big screen once more in 2016. It will make you nostalgic for your own childhood pre-mobile phones and Pokemon Go. Full of adventure, childhood innocence and battle between boys and girls – it is a joy to watch and is captivating for the entire 1 hr 33 mins of screen time. Although the added spy drama is a distraction. It didn’t need sexing up

    For those not familar with Arthur Ransome’s classic, Swallows and Amazons is about the Walker family made up of their mother, Mrs Walker (Kelly Macdonald) and her four children. They live down South and head up to a cottage run by Mr Jackson (Harry Enfield) and Mrs Jackson (Jessica Hynes) for the summer. Mr Walker is never seen as he is away in Hong Kong and is a Captain in the navy. Here at the Lakes the children are free to lark around and set off on adventure in Mr Jackson’s dinghy, Swallow, to the small eyot or lake island in the middle of the lake. They have Mrs Jackson’s cake, a hamper full of food (although lost in the water during the journey to the island lake) and hearts full of adventure. However, when they arrive at the island it has already been claimed by the Amazons: Nancy (Seren Hawkes) and Peggy (Hannah Jayne Thorp) who already own the island. The children decide to have a boat race to decide who can rightfully claim the island – Amazons or Swallows.

    Swallows and Amazons reminds us of a time when children were allowed to roam free and the only limit on imagination and adventure was your own. Adults watching will wistfully think how can I disconnect from the outside world. Although it is not all rose tinted spectacles in Andrea Gibb’s screenplay we now have an added spy element. One could say that the train espionage is necessary in order to move the narrative along although it does sort of cast a shadow and dampens the wonderful childhood innocence especially when John Walker is holding a gun against Lazlov. Swallows and Amazons has been sexed up unnecessarily. Pirates, Amazons and children attempting to cook and look after themselves should be enough but now a spy adventure and cold war element has been added to the story. Also one of the Walker children’s name has been changed from Titty to Tatty. Maybe children in 2016 are too innocent to hear the name titty rather than tatty.

    I vaguely recollect the book and for those who haven’t read it they will be happy enough with this and the added drama. For those who have, the tinkering with names and adding the spy element might send them overboard. For me Swallows and Amazons is about a childhood holiday not coming of age. Nonetheless, with the summer holidays it is a great distraction from 2016 and may even encourage some to take up sailing. Also it is just the right length of film and no lulls. Rafe Spall as Captain Flint is wonderful and the child actor playing Roger Walker encapsulates the very essence of this wonderful children’s classic book – innocence and adventure.

    Swallows and Amazons opens in cinemas across the UK on Friday 19 August.

  • The BRWC Review: Wiener-Dog

    The BRWC Review: Wiener-Dog

    Wiener-Dog is directed by Todd Solondz. It follows a daschund and the impact it has on characters in different interwoven stories that make up this film. The first story is the strongest. Although Ellen Burstyn in story three steals her slot with cancer and that’s it. It is a poor imitation of The Gun (From 6 to 6.30pm) by Vladimir Alenikov that follows the journey of a gun through several stories of people who want it and have to have it for their own personal reasons. Whereas as this Wiener-Dog is billed as a comedy when what it is one of those intellectual comedies that really wants to be a deep intellectual metaphor for life itself that leaves you thinking can you even be arsed to try and understand.

    It is produced by Annapurna Pictures – maybe you aren’t familiar with the name but you know the films – Zero Dark Thirty, Hero, The Master and then there are others that just aren’t very good. What do they all have in common money. The issue is sometimes you have so much money to produce films and can obtain high profile actors that you overlook the necessity of good editing and a script doctor both of which this ensemble piece of Wiener-Dog absolutely needed.

    The cast of Wiener-Dog is stellar: Danny Devito, Ellen Burstyn, Greta Gerwig, Julie Delpy but even they cannot save this poorly edited ensemble piece.

    Short stories are fantastic but rarely work when transposed to the medium of film. Todd Solondz’s earlier film of Happiness did but in this film the shocks felt exhausted, the jokes bloated and the dog wasn’t even the same dog throughout so it went from a living creature to a metaphor for what I still don’t know.

    Go and see this if you like ensemble pieces and meta type films otherwise avoid as it’s just not that funny.

    Wiener-Dog is released on 12 August 2016.

  • Review: Barry Lyndon #KubrickDay

    Stanley Kubrick’s film of Barry Lyndon adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel will be rereleased on Friday 29 July. Despite having a running time of 184 minutes it is: engaging, witty and contains a message of greed and self destruction that wonderfully demonstrates that human nature has not changed over the centuries.

    The epilogue to the film is this: It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now. It sums up the film wonderfully yet reveals very little.

    Kubrick’s masterclass in filmmaking is not just in the writing or how he splits the film into three acts but in how he manages to bring all those pieces together and distil the central core of Thackeray’s tome. The narrator is a wonderful addition so as not to lose the audience yet not without his own views on Barry Lyndon’s exploits. Ryan O’Neal is cast in the central role of Barry Lyndon the amoral young Irish man who will stop at nothing to climb the social ladder.

    Barry Lyndon won 4 Oscars and 2 BAFTAs and they were duly deserved. The cinematography is wonderful as well as the direction. However, it is the language and dialogue that are remarkable – this film does not dilute the richness of the text.

    You have to engage and listen but from the very beginning you want to and do so with ease. You are both advocate and repelled by Barry Lyndon in equal measure. Here is a young man whose father was killed in a duel and raised alone by a socially ambitious mother who devoted herself entirely to her son. Spoilt, indulged and lacking accountability the young Barry Lyndon wrecks havoc first in family affairs and then in the affairs of others. With the ending one might say the premise of the film is not social climbing but to quote another great work of English literature the Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare: “the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children”.

    Enjoy this amazing film on the big screen will be re-released at BFI, click here to read more, on Friday 29 July rated PG.

  • The BFI Launches BLACK STAR

     

    At a special event held at BFI Southbank in London with comedian Gina Yashere and DJ Norman Jay MBE, the BFI tonight unveiled BLACK STAR, the UK’s biggest ever season of film and television dedicated to celebrating the range, versatility and power of black actors. BLACK STAR celebrates the relationship between stars and the audiences who love them, spotlighting great performances by black actors on screen.

    Heather Stewart, Creative Director of the BFI said: “Imagine cinema history without Paul Robeson, Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Pam Grier, and Samuel L Jackson – some of the greatest actors to light up our screens with their charisma and talent. Now imagine how much richer our shared memory would be, had the opportunities available to black actors matched their abilities. With BLACK STAR we are celebrating great performances and bringing them back to the big screen for everyone to enjoy. And we are also asking searching questions, of our industry and of ourselves, driven by a passion to meet the expectations of audiences who rightly expect to see their stories and aspirations reflected on screen.”

    BLACK STAR aims to bring strong characters and trail-blazing performances to the widest possible audience. The season will spotlight:

    · The leading men of classic Hollywood cinema; from Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier to Jamie Foxx and the hugely popular Samuel L Jackson

    · The star as political activist; the great Paul Robeson and Lena Horne through to Danny Glover and Beyoncé

    · Stars who have gone on to be major power players, who can open films, get films made, from Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith to Denzel Washington

    · Powerful and glamorous female stars who have created memorable big screen icons, from Dorothy Dandridge to Oscar®-winning Halle Berry

    · British home grown talent with star power who have gained international acclaim and found significant leading roles in the US: Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sophie Okonedo and David Oyelowo

    · The star names who have dominated music and film stories, from Sammy Davis Jnr through to Diana Ross and Motown, to Ice Cube and Hip Hop

    · The stars who have created a powerfully subversive take on the black star as entertainer; comedians including Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg and Eddie Murphy

    · Black rebels and Blaxploitation icons; Mario van Peebles, Fred Williamson and Pam Grier

    · A story of new and emerging talent, John Boyega, Michael B. Jordan, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Lupita Nyongo’o

    · Pioneering Afro-Caribbean stars who transformed the face of British film and television, like Earl Cameron, Carmen Munroe, Norman Beaton and Lenny Henry

    · And celebrating the stars emerging out of the fast-growing film industry and new star system of Nollywood, including Nse Ikpe-Etim

    BLACK STAR champions the achievements of black stars from the earliest years of cinema through to the present day, whilst exploring why opportunities to shine on screen have been historically limited for black actors. BLACK STAR celebrates films that feature black actors in central roles, bringing their work to a new generation of UK audiences and helping to reposition them and their performances in our collective memory.

    BLACK STAR Programmer, Ashley Clark said: “BLACK STAR shows us many stories of black stardom, on both sides of the Atlantic. From cinema’s earliest trail-blazers to today’s transatlantic stars, I’m excited for audiences to enjoy icons, heroes and heroines back on the big screen where they belong.”

    BLACK STAR will be available to audiences everywhere in the UK; in cinemas including BFI Southbank, on BBC Television, on DVD/Blu-ray and online via BFI Player from 17 October – 31 December, with further projects planned to celebrate the contribution of black practitioners working across film and TV in the coming years.

    www.bfi.org.uk/blackstar

  • The Science & Fiction Divide: Empire Cinemas Announces Most Realistic Sci-Fi Films

    Science Fiction films often come under scrutiny on how possible and realistic they are. Ahead of the release of Star Trek Beyond on 22nd July, Empire Cinemas has commissioned new research which looks at which space films Brits deem to be the most realistic and which Sci-Fi inventions they wish existed today.

    The poll by the UK’s largest independently-owned cinema operator reveals that the true story of the perilous Apollo 13 (1995) mission topped the list of most realistic space films by a landslide vote; convincing 29% of Brits with their realistic portrayal of space exploration. Coming in second place was Sandra Bullock’s Gravity (2013) with 8% of the vote, while the Sci-Fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) rounded off the top three with 7% of the UK vote.

    Donna Scott, Chair of the British Science Fiction Association, says, “Some of the best Science Fiction films, the ones that have the power to move us, shock us and make us think, are often not the most scientifically accurate. Science Fiction stories are often explorations of ideas, pushed to an extreme. My pick for most realistic Sci-Fi film would have to be Interstellar. Although it is still a way-out, fantastical story, some of the science makes sense. I find black holes fascinating and mysterious, almost magical, and the film plays with a lot of new theories, such as how time bends in space, and the form of black holes, too. For me, this film puts a confident tick in both the science and fiction boxes.”

    “Of course Apollo 13 was a realistic film. Being based on a true story, and containing original news footage, failure was not an option for this tale of adventurous astronauts and clever scientists pitching their wits against space to survive against all the odds.”

    In a world of constant innovation, with futuristic gadgets being produced more and more regularly, Brits love Sci-Fi inventions. Almost half (45%) of the UK population say that the teleportation system from Star Trek (1966) is the movie invention they would most like to see in real life. While 1 in 5 Brits (21%) chose the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981), a device which sits inside the ear and allows the wearer to understand any spoken language. Coming in third was a Star Trek: Next Generation (1987) invention, the Holodeck (17%), a virtual reality facility used to recreate familiar places.

    Donna Scott comments, “Modern films tend to be less about unfamiliar gadgets and more about how humans use technology to survive. In Interstellar, the feel of the film is retrograde for the most part, and contemporary science has had to become secretive in the face of financially restrictive times; technology is expensive, the space vehicles are functional, grim and sweaty.

    Compare that to a film like Oblivion, where the technician’s modular habitations, which have been provided by the evil aliens, are sleek and white with fitted table computers, infinity pools, and benign-seeming intelligent housing technology that hints of a lack of freedom, whilst making the technicians’ lives convenient and untroubled. It is not so far removed from what is available today; only the inverted triangles hanging in the air like some kind of corporate logo turned into a robot monster as they mine the Earth’s resources, are unfamiliar and uncanny.

    In all these films, dirt and grit and lack of tech is indicative of wholesomeness, while the privileged exploiters, be they alien or human, have the best stuff: things that look like they could have been made by Apple. The invention I can envisage existing one day are the healing booths of Elysium, which remind me of the MRI scanners we have today.”

    A gender divide appeared when Brits were asked their thoughts on the most realistic movie alien. The majority of women (14%) chose friendly and loveable E.T from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) as the most realistic out-of-this-world creature, while Xenomorph from Alien (1979) received the majority of the male vote (16%).

    It seems Sci-Fi films aren’t just providing entertainment, the research revealed that space films actually boost Brits’ interest in science, with almost half the UK (45%) admitting they have felt inspired to learn more about space following a film viewing.

    Donna Scott comments, “Science-Fiction certainly encourages an interest in science and technology, as well as space. When I got involved with building robots at school, though, I was hoping to recreate Johnny 5. Unfortunately, I failed to get my robot arm to successfully draw the requisite square, let alone make it ‘come alive’. And it was Disney’s The Black Hole that first got me interested in astronomy. But perhaps the next generation of astronaut has just seen Gravity or The Martian. It would be lovely to think so.”

    While it was an old classic that won the vote, the top 10 list is largely made up off newer releases including Gravity (2013), The Martian (2015), Interstellar (2014) and Elysium (2013), all of which are highly praised for their convincing depiction of space. The top 10 list is:

    Top 10 Most Realistic Sci-fi Films
    1. Apollo 13 (1995) 29%
    2. Gravity (2013) 8%
    3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 7%
    4. The Martian (2015) 6%
    5. Independence Day (1996) 5%
    6. Alien (1979) 3%
    7. Interstellar (2014) 2%
    8. Elysium (2013) 2%
    9. Moon (2009) 2%
    10. Prometheus (2012) 2%

    Top 10 Films with the Most Realistic Aliens:
    1. Alien (1979) 12%
    2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 12%
    3. Independence Day (1996) 8%
    4. District 9 (2009) 5%
    5. Men in Black (1997) 5%
    6. War of the Worlds (2005) 5%
    7. The War of the Worlds (1953) 4%
    8. Prometheus (2012) 3%
    9. Knowing (2009) 2%
    10. The Thing (2011) 2%

    Jon Nutton, Marketing Director of Empire Cinemas, says, “Science fiction is a genre that inspires imagination and offers curious Brits a glance beyond the veil of time, into a future where it seems anything is possible and movies like the upcoming Star Trek Beyond are opportunities to explore both your mind and outer space”.

    Click on the link to read more: http://www.empirecinemas.co.uk/synopsis/star_trek_beyond/f5076