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  • A Field In England – Review

    A Field In England – Review

    Ben Wheatley is without the doubt one of the most exciting British film makers of his generation. Kill List and Sightseers are both bold, original and utterly fantastic films. Not since Shane Meadows has anyone grabbed the film industry by the balls and done it his own way. His latest, A Field in England, certainly continues his opus of disturbing Anglican tales borne in the shadow of Jeffrey Chaucer, but it might be a little on the mental side for the general public.

    Set during the British civil war, A Field in England begins in a smoke ridden field, (in England obviously) with a frantic Reece Shearsmith attempting to escape the battle and head back to civilisation. After meeting a pair of equally cowardly chaps, the trio are captured by Cutler (Ryan Pope) en route to a local ale house. Cutler then coaxes them into a venture across the plains to find AWOL alchemist O’Neil (Michael Smiley). After feasting on a soup of hallucinogenic mushrooms, the intoxicated foursome are forced into finding a hidden treasure within the countryside by the Alchemist. Proceedings then quickly descend into utter chaos and things get trippy…like, ridiculously, headache inducing trippy.

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    There is no doubt A Field in England will score 5 stars across the board when it comes to the critics, and to a certain degree I have to agree with such acclaim. It is after all wholly original, wonderfully acted and for all intents and purposes, a technically crafted marvel. I do however, think that this is one of those films that is strictly for the art college crowd. A film for the movie-goer who feels intellectually superior for enjoying a film of this ilk, who doesn’t buy coffee from well known chains, or succumb to products of Nestle for morality reasons. It’s a film where 20 minutes of nonsensical quick-cut editing, that will no doubt induce epileptic fits, is regarded as groundbreaking. Where a 5 minute slow motion sequence of Reece Shearsmith walking with a beleaguered and psychotic glare is hailed as pure genius merely because it’s “a bit creepy”. In reality, scenes like this are what you would find in the showcase of a fine art degree that make Joe Everyman stare in utter bemusement wondering why they didn’t just go to the local Odeon. I am a Joe Everyman, and while I do really enjoy a cerebral film, and the films of Ben Wheatley for that matter, A Field in England feels just a bit too much. While film making is of course an art form, and should often be treated as such, a 90 minute trip into the land of fiction should fundamentally embody enjoyment. Yes, it should challenge the mind, yes it should deliver the unknown, but all Wheatley does is relentlessly poke your frontal lobe repeatedly with a stick to distract you from the nonsense unfolding. To controversially lay it out bold as brass on the table; I just could not enjoy A Field in England. Despite it’s expert balance of dark comedy and even darker satanic undertones, more often than not, I was just bored and confused. I really wanted to love Wheatley’s latest, but for all the man’s originality and undoubted talent, it was a struggle to get on board for the duration.

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    Having said all that however, it does seem a bit redundant to even attempt to review this film. If there was ever a piece of cinema that will divide an audience to the extreme, this is it. After receiving a highly publicised and unprecedented multimedia release on Friday, (it was released in cinemas, on DVD and Blu-Ray and broadcast on Film 4 simultaneously), the acclaim it garnered on social media was mixed to say the least. I was totally baffled to see it being lauded as “genius”, especially when that praise was often followed by “but I don’t know why”.

    Ben Wheatley is a talented man, he really is, but the work of an extremely talented person shouldn’t be automatically lauded as good. While its desaturated palette looks fantastic, and the foray into the English Civil War is an interesting one, it just too frequently becomes an incoherent and confusing head fuck. Its madness will ingrain itself into your psyche long after the credits have rolled, but when the questions posed outweigh the answers given, its hard to forgive A Field in England for essentially being a pretentious bore.

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  • Silent Cry: Review

    Silent Cry: Review

    Silent Cry is the unsung production by Julian Richards, director of Summer Scars and The Last Horror Movie. The film itself is a mixture of suspense and drama, a true crime thriller. Although circulation was mostly in Germany, it is soon to hit the shelves on August 20th, hopefully giving Silent Cry the notice it had originally intended for.

    The plot tells the harrowing story of single mum Rachel (Emily Woof) who’s newborn dies shortly after giving birth. Unconvinced of the death, Rachel teams up with unlikely friend Daniel (Douglas Henshall). Their quest to find her son snowballs into a world of death and destruction as they attempt to overcome the relentless bad cop DS Dennis (Clive Russell). Richards states himself, the use of a tortured heroine allowed him to experiment with his inspiration from Hitchcock, as he delves the viewer into her nightmare of horror and suspense. There certainly is an air of desperation about Rachel’s search, particularly during the setting of the hazy red light district, almost making for a smutty scene of a crime novel.

    Although the movie has a bit of a slow start, the pace certainly picks up, particularly as DS Dennis’s web that he creates becomes increasingly deadly. The climatic scenes, although a little hyperbolised, hold some cut-throat violence. To go along with this Woof’s performance as Emily is truly believable and you will find yourself routing for both her and Daniel along the way. One of the saving graces for the film is the acting, as Richards has managed here to haul an all-star cast. As well as including Clive Russell, there are roles from Craig Kelly (Titanic), Kevin Whately (The English Patient) and a hilariously husky performance from Steve Sweeney (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels).

    Upon its earlier release Silent Cry received some positive feedback from the critics, with Jay Slater from Darkside describing the film as, “A brutal thriller with Sucker-punch violence.” It’s certainly thrilling and certainly brutal; one to look out for with its cry far from being silent.

  • Spanish Fly: An Acquired Taste

    By Harriet Mould

    Spanish Fly, a gently erotic comedy based on a German play, set in Spain starring English actors, was re-imagined for the big screen in 1976 by Bob Kellett. Responsible for quintessentially British comedies such as Futtocks End (1970) and The Chastity Belt (1971), Kellett leant starring roles to overwhelmingly English comic actors Lesley Phillips (Empire of the Sun and, as the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films) and Terry-Thomas (The Abominable Dr. Phibes).

    The result of Kellet’s efforts is a film that is wholly Carry On in its style. The opening sequence introduces the audience to Spain through the eyes of a seventies British sightseer, as we follow back roads and costal routes from the bonnet of plush Bentley owned by one of our leading men, the eccentric gin and tonic obsessed expat Sir Percy de Courcy (Terry-Thomas) who, accompanied by a very British soundtrack and his right hand man, the obviously-named Perkins (Graham Armitage), is the first half of the largely uncomfortable storyline.

    Sir Percy, it quickly becomes apparent, has made a series of unsuccessful ventures that has left him with a lavish lifestyle that he is unable to afford. In an effort to improve his circumstances, Sir Percy buys a huge amount of very cheap local wine with a mind to re-sell it to his British countrymen, explaining that ‘with the right amount of snobbery attached, people will buy anything. Especially the English.’ Almost on queue, enter his hugely snobby schoolmate, tiredly impotent British businessman Mike Scott, who has found himself overseas accompanied by four beautiful models who are there to shoot his wife’s lingerie line. But of course.

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    In an effort to improve Sir Percy’s ‘cats piss’ wine, Perkins (effectively the comically smarter Watson to Percy’s bumbling Sherlock) attempts to improve the batch, accidentally polluting it with Spanish flies, famed for their aphrodisiac properties, and needless to say, model-based frivolities ensue. It is the type of comedy that, at the time of its release, was hugely daring, wildly amusing in its slapstick, naughty way, and a certain hit with the generations fed by the earlier hits of Spanish Fly’s leading men. However, unlike the free flowing wine, it is not a film that has aged well at all.

    Whilst once upon a time, Terry-Thomas’ gap-toothed grin and school-boyish Lesley Phillips’ slick hair might’ve been the source of much amusement to cinemagoers, to modern (okay, modern, young female) eyes, their scuttling after oddly besotted, personality-less beautiful young women is little more than disturbing and distasteful. It is quite clear to any generation that neither man is in their prime, and the age difference between the men and the (wholly one dimensional) models is just enough for the viewer, irrespective of their level of prudishness or liberalism, to identify the plot as seedy and misogynistic. As a viewer watching for the first time now, these veins of smarmy sexism swell to bursting point under the strain of modern acceptability. There is only so many times a person can dismiss under-skirt groping of utterly empty female leads as ‘of the time’. This may have been improved had the actors, particularly Thomas, been up to it. What were once twinkles of wickedness and almost attractive roguish behaviour has morphed into something far less amusing and far more sleepy and strained. It isn’t surprising to learn that this was one of Thomas’ final leading performances, and meanwhile, whilst his unhappy marriage might be convincing, the idea of Leslie Phillips’ character being entirely irresistible to all four women is perhaps the only truly laughable part of the film.

    Harsh? Well, perhaps. Watch it to get lost in quintessential British ‘rumpy-pumpy’ slapstick humour, if you love Carry On films, or have similar taste in cinema to the most stereotypical of grandpas (but for the love of god, don’t actually watch it with your grandpa. Far too much tits and arse. Speaking of which, perhaps that’s the best reason of all to give it a go). I personally, as a happenin’ and modern young thing, just couldn’t get into it at all.

    Perhaps I’m just too stuck in my ways.

  • Identity Thief Clip List

    Identity Thief Clip List

    Here’s our review, and here are some clips…

     

    Diana Attacks Sandy in Her House

     

    Diana Orders at Diner

     

    Sandy Asks Diana Where His Shoes Came From

     

    Sandy Meets Diana and Big Chuck at Bar

     

    Melissa’s Car Stunt – EXCLUSIVE

  • DVD Review: Chasing Ice

    DVD Review: Chasing Ice

    The Oscar Nominated Chasing Ice concerns itself with the story of James Balog, a former Geomorphology student turned photographer, who’s work has revolutionised environmental photography since the 1980’s. Formerly concentrating on wildlife photos, Balog’s attention turned to the natural yet other-worldly beauty of the Earth’s ice glaciers – gargantuan ice fields who’s size often defies logic.

    As anyone sensible now knows, humankind’s greedy consumption of fossil fuels is effectively killing these icy monoliths – and ‘killing’ is Balog’s own description. Over the course of this documentary we see his emotional reaction to the destruction of nature – and his project, known as the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) shows us exactly why he feels this way.

    The doc’s narrative is simple – we follow Balog’s team and their efforts to set up dozens of timelapse cameras around the globe near glaciers in order to catch stark, visual evidence of the effects of climate change. There’s the expected trials and tribulations – camera malfunction, faulty helicopters and Balog’s growing knee injury as he hikes through icy deserts, but what’s most important here isn’t the journey, but the findings the team make.

    Presented with expert talking heads and simple graphics, Chasing Ice shows the irreversible damage being wrought on our environment – miles and miles of ice simply melting into the sea frighteningly quickly. Some of the most viscerally terrifying footage shows the ‘calving’ – the sheering off of the edge of a glacier  – of a section of ice roughly the size of the tip of Manhattan (and twice as high). 600ft shards of ice crash into the ocean and flip almost 180º in what seems like slow motion.

    The scenery is breathtaking, and Balog’s expertly framed images create stunning vistas of some of nature’s most impressive architecture. Although Chasing Ice presents the facts simply and calmly, it’s images are almost overpowering. Crucially, the film reflects the real gravity of the situation, and the emotional core is James Balog -when we see him candidly struggle to hold back tears while discussing his work, we’re feeling with him.