Hammer is now the second actor to drop out of the role, the first being Ryan Reynolds. Although Reynolds decision doesn’t involve the same peculiar and unsettling reasons as Hammer’s, and he remains attached to the project as an executive producer. The film is set to be directed by Jason Moore, who was the man behind Pitch Perfect and Sisters, based on a screenplay by No Strings Attached’s Liz Merriwether and Two Night Stand’s Mark Hammer.
Indie production house (or, as I like to call them, film students’ favorite distributor) A24 will reportedly be distributing Aronofsky’s The Whale, which is about “a six-hundred-pound recluse hiding away from the world and slowly eating himself to death”.
Meanwhile, director David O. Russell has been busy filling out the cast of his as yet untitled new movie, which is currently shooting in Los Angeles and is expected to be released by 20th Century Studios (it took me a second to figure out who that was, by the way. Formally 20th Century Fox, of course, and while the merger with Disney is frustrating from a certain point of view, I will admit it’s nice to no longer have to add on that brand of hate at the end there…) as a late 2021 awards season contender.
We don’t even know what this movie is about, although Russell is no stranger to ensemble pieces, but let me tell you, with a cast list that impressive I’m listening. All we do know at this point is that Bale and Robbie will reportedly play a lawyer and a Doctor (although which is which remains a mystery). But look, Russell has a pretty good, if not a little forgettable, track record with this kind of thing, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Now, our final story today concerned the ever-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The most obvious theory is that Evans is returning to the role of Steven Rogers, aka Captain America, and that is return will involve some sort of time-travel. This makes sense since the MCU has already set-up the possibility of time travel and it featured heavily in Endgame itself. However, there are some more “out there” theories, including one that sees Evans returning to the MCU not as plucky Steve Rogers but as Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch, a character he played previously in the Tim Storey Fantastic Four movies (which are dumb as shit, but underrated lazy Sunday movies).
While audiences may be missing Batman’s menacing presence on the big screen (I’m counting the days till Battinson makes his debut), DC continues to provide a plethora of animated Caped Crusader offerings. These low-profile releases cleverly recontextualize the hero’s gothic image in an intriguing new light, including bringing Batman to the past (Gotham by Gaslight) and teaming him up with fellow pop culture icons (Batman vs. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). The latest in the hero’s animated catalog Batman: Soul of the Dragon imbues a 70’s martial arts spin that doesn’t work quite as well as it should.
Set in the 1970s, Soul of the Dragon follows Batman (David Giuntoli) as he’s reteamed with his fellow martial arts companions Richard Dragon (Mark Dacascos), Lady Shiva (Kelly Hu), and Ben Turner (Michael Jai White). The four former students most prevent the end of the world when their famed teacher goes missing.
Where most stories stew in Batman’s dour mindset, Soul of the Dragon takes a refreshingly low-steaks approach. Veteran director Sam Liu morphs Batman’s mythos with the campy energy of 70’s kung fu movies, utilizing the genre’s cheesy pastiche to subvert audience’s typical expectations (never thought I’d see Batman with unkempt sideburns). Liu’s playful sensibility generates a few high-flying action frames along the way, relishing the material’s inherent cheekiness with a few bright, uptempo fist-fights.
The veteran voice cast deserves praise for elevating their thinly-written roles. David Giuntoli’s rigid presence makes a fitting Bruce Wayne, while Michael Jai White and Mark Dacascos have a blast playing two of Wayne’s charismatic classmates. Both characters cleverly represent well-established trends of 70’s cinema. Dacascos has a blast playing a suave Bond-like superspy, while White carries a towering swagger reflective of the era’s best blaxploitation stars.
Soul of the Dragon’s promising aesthetics have a certain allure, but Liu and company do little to give the veneer much weight. A truncated 82-minute length allows little breathing room amongst the chaotic action, leaving several intriguing subplots in the dust (Batman loses his girlfriend in the opening scene, but it’s never brought up again). Where other animated efforts present thoughtful textures with their vibrant settings, Liu’s latest chases a style that isn’t implemented as successfully. Outside of a few playful references, the material mostly confuses formulaic plot notes as clever homages.
I support what Soul of the Dragon attempts to achieve, especially considering the refreshing R-rating at hand. It’s just a shame most of the approach comes with half-measures. It’s humorously referential, but not entirely mature for its target demographic. There are some sparks of intrigue on the page, although most of those are undermined by the relentless pace. The whole experience registers as one of the Caped Crusader’s more weightless endeavors.
I’m sure Soul of the Dragon will please some diehard fans, but the wishy-washy delivery doesn’t live up to its distinct premise’s promise. That being said, I’m always happy to support these brisk animated vehicles. The platform allows DC to take intriguing risks with properties that are rarely able to bend onscreen.
Happy Face Director Alexandre Franchi: Interview – There’s always a concern when a new film that focuses on disabled people comes around. Will they be played by disabled actors? Will they be portrayed as sweet, inspirational characters who overcome their disabilities so that they can triumph? Will the filmmakers be able to understand how their cast want to be put across?
I had the opportunity to talk to one such filmmaker, Alexandre Franchi and I’m happy to say that Happy Face shows people with facial differences in a way that they may have never been seen before – as people. For good or for bad, Franchi’s new film shows a small group of people with facial differences as flawed, funny, depressed and overall human. Even though a lot of Franchi’s film is inspired by his own life.
How did you come up with the idea for Happy Face?
I grew up with a single mom in Montreal, Canada and she worked in the cosmetics industry working for companies like Christian Dior. She was a woman who always defined herself by her appearance and she always had perfect make up, perfect features and a perfect body and when I was a teenager, she got breast cancer. She had to lose her breast, she lost her hair and she had to go through treatment and well, I was very young at the start and when it came back, it came back during my years as a teenager. So, growing up with a single mom I saw how the loss of her ‘femininity’ affected her and how the loss of that beauty that she clung onto was part of herself. When that was gone, I saw her basically shatter and try to find other ways to try to define meaning and value for herself and it really affected me.
You know teenagers, we’re all a little ashamed of our parents. We think they’re a little weird or strange and I had this extra layer with her because of her appearance. Although I loved her and I wanted to help her, I found myself ashamed of her appearance, ashamed to bring friends home or go out with her in public and it would cause immense guilt.
I obviously loved her, but then I’d have the desire to run away and I couldn’t cope with the situation. That created a lot of guilt that stayed with me for a long time and that kind of guilt, that kind of push/pull was the core feeling that drove the film. It was supposed to be a short film for film school where I just had this very kind of angry, cathartic idea to have the story. I would put people that were facially different and disfigured on screen and they would break stuff and be in our faces and this kid would disfigure himself at the end because he couldn’t cope with his mom’s illness. He felt like shit and his unresolved psychological issues were what prompted this film.
I think that with this process of growing up and being an adult, getting therapy and self-help I kind of learned over the years that you’re not supposed to deal with that kind of stuff as a teenager. So, the film evolved from that cry of anger or anguish and into Happy Face.
How did you find the cast?
We went first to an organisation called About Face in Canada which is like a smaller version of Changing Faces in the UK and that’s where we found David Roche who plays Otis. I contacted them and I said I wanted to give a free acting workshop for one day with an acting coach because acting is good for self-esteem, public speaking, it’s fun and can break the ice. Once you take up acting, you’re going to have an easier time talking to people on the street or doing presentations at work. So, I said I just wanted to do it for one day and at the end talk about the film and leave it to the participants to see if they wanted to be part of the project or not. No strings attached.
So, we did an acting workshop which was more like acting with a therapy session. I participated in it as well and as we went through the acting exercises, we had several other people who wanted to be part of it. But we still needed a lot more people, so we sent out calls on television, radio and contacted casting agents from New York and LA.
You can’t just find people like this, it’s not like a menu where you can just cast non-disfigured people, random actors where you can really pick and choose. So, after a while we realised that it’s better to find people that had charisma, that had a spark and some of my cast had experience and some of them had no experience.
For example, Alison Midstokke who plays Maggie had done some modelling, she had done some short films, David Roche is an inspirational speaker and a humourist, but Cyndy Nicholsen who plays Buck was found in a subway car.
I was doing interviews in LA with casting agents and I heard about E.R. Ruiz who plays Jocko who comes from a rough neighbourhood in LA and the guy’s a rapper. At first, he didn’t fit my casting and at his first audition he was acting like they do in Los Angeles, overly badass and overly tough, but when I spoke to him, he was a soft-spoken guy and super sweet and then he told me he could rap and he did some that blew me away, so I knew we were going to find a role for him. I based it on his real-life persona, although of course he’s not a police officer in real life.
There was a process of seeing what they could do and like with any other actor it was a case of seeing what they could do. Some of them are naturals and some of them thought that they’re good, but they weren’t that good, because they were good at something else. So, I think for me it was finding their inner demon, their inner monster, their inner genius, their inner spark and we tailored the character and rehearsed to bring that shit up. We changed what was written on the page as supposed to changing the person. It was that process that made their performances so believable.
Did the actors bring anything to the roles that you hadn’t thought about before?
When I started researching for the film, I finally started to contact people with facial differences and learn of their life stories. I approached them with ‘look this is my life story, I felt ashamed of my mom’ and I wanted to tell the story of a superficial kid who became less superficial and goes about it in some kind of misguided self-therapy.
When we started meeting people without facial differences, they may have had a lot of experience, but they just didn’t ‘have it’ to play facially different people. Some people have the spark and some don’t.
Then when I listened to the stories of my actors, the film took on a different path where we incorporated their life stories and changed the characters for who they were and it became a blend. A blend where Happy Face was born over a writing process of something like fifteen years.
I love working with non-professional actors and try to go where other actors wouldn’t go because when I do this the film doesn’t become the end product at the movie theatre. It’s the process of the film that changes us and I think that helps make it less superficial. When we see ‘beauty’ or ‘ugliness’ it takes the form of poverty and filth. Before the film, when I’d see a homeless person and they’re dirty and when I’d give them money, they want to shake my hand, but I didn’t know if they’re going to give me germs.
After doing this film, something slightly changed in me because after that I would look at people and engage with people, look them in the eye and talk to them and not be afraid to listen to whatever pain they were suffering and just taking in that human moment. I was always shy to do that because it always scared me, I was always afraid I would get sucked into what they were doing or their stories would make me cry. So, the process of doing the film and with the actors opening up and soon the crew started doing the same thing. They would have tears in their eyes telling me things like ‘my cousin, she had cancer, and I didn’t dare to see her because I didn’t know what to say’ and the cast and the crew would mix and share experiences. It was a really good experience.
In Happy Face, the group are all shown to have vastly differing personalities. As a film that shows people with facial differences from different walks of life, were there any concerns about showing any of these characters in a bad light?
It was hard to finance, hard to fund because it’s not a very ‘film sexy’ idea where I wanted to do a movie about cancer and facially disfigured people and people were very reluctant to fund it. They would say things like ‘you’re a good-looking dude, are you exploiting these people?’ But I asked the cast if they felt exploited and they said ‘Exploit away! Exploit us, we want to be on film and film is about exploitation. You exploit Hugh Grant, you exploit Jude Law and other cool faces like Angelina Jolie with her looks, charisma and body, so why not us?’.
Everybody would tell me ‘oh, you have to be careful about how you treat the subject matter, how you treat those people’ and even my crew, my cinematographer, Claudine Sauvé took me aside one day and said ‘be careful how you talk to them, you’re kind of rough with them’ and I said ‘what do you mean by rough? They’re my actors and I talk to them like I would talk with any actor’.
They’re not angels or fragile little porcelain creatures. They could be idiots too. They could be petty or silly or bitter and at times witty, kind and funny and amazing just like everybody else, except they’ve just had it rougher with people. It’s like everybody else, if you had an upbringing where you had a support group of loving adults that helped you deal with the hand life dealt you, then you’re going to end up better than if you were alone or had adults that dumped their shit on you.
This was true for my cast because they had it rougher because of teasing, bullying and stares, stigma and discrimination, but essentially, I didn’t want to go into that zone because it feels fake to me. So, the process of the film was learning how to interact. We need to talk about anything, we need to joke about anything and if we go too far then they’d need to tell me and I will apologise and we will readjust. I didn’t want to do something preachy, who am I to do that? I hate that shit.
Did you want to subvert any of the cliches that are often seen in cinema when making Happy Face?
Because the story was centred around a character that was autobiographical, although I didn’t do exactly what Stan did like putting bandages around my face and joining a support group, it left me psychological scars for years. I think because we’re from France and I didn’t have a group of strong adults to support me, the film became about me in a narcissistic, ego centrical process. But in the film, Stan does try to help the others like the ‘white saviour’ and people pointed that out to me.
When I told my actors about this, they saw the point I was making, but they reminded me that ‘Stan tries to help and he’s more fucked up than we are’. Ultimately in the film it’s Otis that ends up helping Stan and giving him the courage to go and see his mom. The cliches became a non-issue for us, but in the film, I made sure that Stan didn’t resolve any of his issues by himself. He tries to help the members of the group, but he fucks up incredibly on all levels. Whatever he tries to do to fix it always backfires and, in the end, that’s where he’s at a loss.
Another cliché is that when you’re a boy sometimes you need a father figure to help you make those tough choices. But it was a natural choice that an older man like Otis who has troubles with his own family would step up to the plate and becomes a father figure for Stan. The resolution of that was more of a screenwriting resolution as opposed to social justice or raising an agenda about using facially different actors.
Did any of the cast bring anything to you in terms of their character or their experience?
They just brought themselves, they brought their own unique and strange personas. They brought their wounds and their scars and I mean psychologically. They were kind enough to open up about their lives in the rehearsal process; what they had gone through and their innermost fears and their despairs and so did I because that’s the way I work, that’s the way I am. That enabled me to ask them permission to ask if it was ok to go there.
Like Cyndy Nicholsen, she had been bullied and mistreated by her mother her whole life and she still lives with her mother in a tent outside of her house half of the year because her mother couldn’t stand her. Cyndy wanted to tell her mother how bad she was, but she didn’t dare to do it in real life. So, her goal was to play herself in the film so that when her mother saw the film, she would hear her daughter speak to her. That’s fucked up and great, so I put her in the film. She talked about her mom in the workshop, she’d say things her mother would say like ‘who would ever want to go out with you? Who’d want to date you? Who’d want to sleep with you?’ and start crying every time we talked about it because she just wanted to open up about it. That’s what they brought. They brought their vulnerability and their willingness to go all the way.
Stan likes Dungeons and Dragons, do you like the game yourself? Are there any characters you like the most?
I tried to put as many things in that I liked when I was a teenager and in my early Twenties. I’m a single child and when my mum got sick, I took refuge in stories, myths and tales from Dungeons and Dragons, so for me it was my drug. Some teenagers escape with music, alcohol, drugs, video games and for me it was the D & D fantasy world where I would be a hero. I would be a knight and I would sacrifice to do the right thing and a lot of people do that. We have escapist fantasy past times even if we have morally shitty lives and it’s the same where we love movies that have heroes.
In my films there are always characters that try to escape reality because they can’t cope, so they put themselves in imaginary worlds and I want my characters to find their strength in that imaginary world, to go back to reality and use that imagination to cope with reality. I did that in my first feature film, The Wild Hunt which was about people LARPing I used the metaphor of someone playing a knight in shining armour that was cursed to be a mummified monster. This gives the idea of Stan’s alter ego as this is how Stan would use the game and take it into reality to cope.
Were there any responses to Happy Face that you weren’t expecting?
When the film came to Frightfest, London they weren’t sure about showing Happy Face because they thought it would be exploitative and maybe afraid of the sponsors. However, it became really popular and the cast said ‘screw this! We’re getting awards!’. But I wanted to know why this was happening at a horror festival, because I was getting push backs about facial equality, and I was told that the people who love horror and other genre films were often misfits. Some of them were overweight, some of them were shy and were often the misfits and the outsiders and not part of the cool kids. So, a lot of us gravitated towards horror and niche past times and the characters in your film made the audience think of us.
What are you doing next?
I realised, you don’t choose your public, your public chooses you. So, this year I thought I’m going to do an action horror film called One Flesh and it’s completely for the horror film festival fans, I’m going to go full crazy, just to try it. I think a lot of horror films are one note with no character development, so I’m going to do my film which is very human and very much about the stuff of life and it’s going to be about fertility, but it’s going to be a horror film.
The other one is my second film in my ‘Cancer Trilogy’. Eight years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer which was really painful and traumatic and when I was hospitalised, I was put in a room next to a drug dealer that had been shot in both his legs. So, there I was hooked up on morphine with a 50/50 chance of survival, one hundred stitches in my leg and he was there with two huge wounds in his legs and we’re both not feeling very lucid. I then realised that he was put into my room because he was afraid for his life, and there was another hospital room that had more people that were wounded at the shooting. He was afraid that the gangs would come and finish him off, so they put him into my room.
As days went by and we got to know each other I was afraid of him, I realised the doctors were mistaking him for me because we looked alike and that our patient numbers were inverted in the computer system. I thought the gang members were going to come and finish this guy off and they’re going to mistake the beds and get me instead. What was supposed to be a regenerative hospital stay turned into a bloody nightmare where I was fearing for what was coming. When I found out about the gang, I thought I had better get out of there.
I also couldn’t sleep because of the pain and the morphine and so I concocted a hospital thriller, a psychological thriller in a hospital room where the two personalities of the two people in the hospital room start to blend. I wrote it and now we’re trying to get the funding. It’s going to be Stan from Happy Face, but twenty years later who has buried everything from his youth and started to live a good life. He’s got a girlfriend, a good job in advertising and he’s clinging on to what he had and doesn’t want to lose it all. So, when this happens all his inner demons come out.
The third in the trilogy will be embryonic. Honestly ever since I got sick and with my mum having cancer when I was a kid, I’ve been trying to spend the past 10 years trying to get better and move on with it psychologically. When I was a kid, I would always foster this sense of insecurity, I’m really close to my dad now, but he wasn’t really there during my teenage years when it mattered. I’ve tried to have kids myself, but when I got sick it stopped that because the chances of my survival were so slim.
So, the third instalment will either be a documentary or a feature and I haven’t really decided which yet, but it will be about me talking to a son and giving lessons for life. It should be very humoristic and will be about all the things I’ve tried over the years; psychoanalysis, shamanism, self-help, nutrition, fasting, binging on alcohol, sex and drugs and rock and roll. It’s going to be in the form of a life lesson to boys who want to have father figures. However, I’m sure it will be equally relevant to girls as well as it will be about the lessons that I wish I’d had.
It will take the form of a counselling session with me and it will go to the present, past and future, but the psychoanalyst will be me, it will be a metaphor for the narcissistic, ego centrical film director who loves himself. It’ll be a wacky, deranged and surreal escape into life lessons.
COVID-19’s cratering effects on society are impossible to ignore, even for the escapism of Hollywood movies. A few COVID-related films have found their way out of the patchwork, but most of these rushed efforts use their subject matter as an exploitable marketing ploy (the dreadful Songbirdmarked one of 2020’s worst films). The latest COVID-inspired heist dramedy Locked Down presents promise within its authentic set-up. Despite the potential, director Doug Liman mostly leaves audiences with a befuddling tonal mess.
Locked Down follows Linda (Annie Hathaway) and Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a couple in the midst of a break-up during the COVID-enforced lockdown. As the two grapple with the challenges of their predicament, they set their eyes on a heist to get revenge over ongoing corruption.
Any film boasting Hathaway and Ejiofor’s assured talents is undoubtedly better for it. The two commit to their archetype roles with the utmost sincerity, selling the character’s marital tension beyond what’s on the page. Hathaway’s cunning wit makes a great pairing with Ejiofor’s distinguished disposition, allowing for a few sharply-drawn sparring matches to take center stage. I was also pleasantly surprised by screenwriter Steven Knight’s dedication to intimate dramatic frames. Knight’s minimalistic effort puts character building in the foreground while also developing an authentic COVID portrayal around the periphery Unlike Songbird, this movie at least approaches it’s challenging subject matter with respect for its lingering hardships.
Admirable intentions aside, Locked Down doesn’t add much to the conversation. Knight’s story of two relatively well-off socialities feels oddly distant from the current struggles at hand. His script includes some familiar buzz words (Paxton heckles a guy who buys all the toilet paper), but his effort doesn’t engage with COVID’s deeper ramifications. The zeitgeist setting is instead utilized to highlight the duo’s repairing of marital trust.
While the actors make for capable sparring partners, neither talent develops palpable chemistry once the film forces its romantic subplot. Knight’s script reaches an awkward balance between studio comedy devices mixed with a more indie, character-driven approach. It doesn’t represent either tonality well in the process of the confusion. Several quirky inclusions, including Paxton reading poetry to locked-in residents, strain for comedic impact, yet most of the material lands with an uncomfortable thud. The jokes often range between over-written wordplay and simplistic references, rarely eliciting laughs despite the numerous attempts.
For a film presenting several promising qualities, Doug Liman’s effort lacks a playful spark. Liman’s capable hands as a genre filmmaker are reduced to sterile wide shots intermixed with some inconsistently-framed Zoom calls (Linda has a film-quality webcam while the other characters have choppy presentations). I was intrigued to see how the heist angle would play out, but it feels like an afterthought. Unlike Rob Savage’s well-constructed horror vehicleThe Host, this effort feels painfully restricted by its COVID circumstances. Liman’s lack of scale and kinetic energy leads to the film dissipating before it ever takes off.
I give the team behind Locked Down credit for crafting a tasteful studio yarn within the restrictive circumstances. This fact still doesn’t compensate for the film’s distinct lack of presence, as Liman and Knight collaborate an empty effort reeking of studio mandates.
Back in 2015, Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson won the Prix Un Certain Regard with his film Rams, which impressed critics with its dry humour, raw emotion and arresting visuals. It tells the story of two grizzled brothers who are estranged yet share a family farm. Borderline hermits, they dedicate themselves to their prize-winning sheep, obsessing over their nutrition and form. However, their lonely passion is thwarted when a pandemic ravages their livestock, leaving them no choice but to slaughter the animals they live for.
As with so many successful foreign language films, an English remake was on the cards. Australian screenwriter Jules Duncan has adapted this latest example, with fellow countryman Jeremy Sins serving as director. Duncan’s script is a ‘reimagining’ of Hákonarson’s film, following the same major plot points of two brothers, Colin (Sam Neil) and Les (Michael Caton), having their lives overturned by Ovine Johne’s Disease (OJD), an incurable infection that condemns their entire flocks.
The nuts and bolts of the story are the same, so why is this new film some 20 minutes longer? Is it the good stuff like character development, narrative depth and comedic set pieces? I’m afraid the answer is no. Instead, the running time is padded with flat mediocrity. It takes the trappings of an interesting premise and dawdles from scene to scene, showing little in the way of humour or pathos.
This could have been an earthy, Aussie juxtaposition to the original’s dour Nordic charm. But when Rams isn’t being outright dull, it just has this safe aesthetic that casts a middling sheen over its moments of boozing, gunfire and bogan behaviour.
The performances are a saving grace, with particularly naturalistic turns from Neill, Caton and Miranda Richardson, who plays Kat the ‘Pommy vet’. Less naturalistic is Leon Ford in the role of De Vries, a government stooge who has been caricatured to solicit maximum disdain from the audience.
He is the proverbial urban bureaucrat who lives for policy and cannot deal with anything that deviates from it. Spontaneity confuses his little mind nearly as much as the townsfolk of Mount Baker, whom he speaks to in a patronising and facetious manner. It’s an enjoyable caricature. But it is just that, a caricature.
Then there’s the predictability of it all. With a virus killing their sheep, forest fires ravaging their land, and bureaucrats knocking at their doors, do you think the estranged brothers will finally come together? Hmm, I wonder. Rams may delight a senior matinee audience, but for everyone else it will lack all edge.
