film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Blog

  • Love Express: Review

    Love Express: Review

    By Alif Majeed.

    One of the first interviewees in Love Express is Andrej Wajda, the legendary Polish director who was a batchmate of Walerian Borowczyk at film school. He is narrating a story about his teacher, who acknowledges that the most talented student after the first year is Borowczyk. The expression on Wadja’s face is filled with a mixture of pride and despair. As if saying that while he recognizes his genius, he is sad thinking of his classmate’s wasted potential.

    That pretty much sums up the narrative that the documentary Love Express: The Disappearance Of Walerian Borowczyk takes throughout its short run time. What he comes off across as in the end is more of an underachiever than a misunderstood genius that the movie tries to project him as. 

    It also has a lot to do with his career trajectory. Borowczyk is a guy who followed his real passion and did make some inventive animation shorts and movies, but then somehow took a left turn by being relegated to directing soft porn towards the end of his career. That is the kind of stuff that lends itself some dramatic narrative. But how this transition happens is never adequately explained. 

    There is some incredible set of talking heads taking us there, though, including filmmakers like Terry Gilliam, Neil Jordan, Bertrand Bonello, and the late Andrzej Wajda. Watching the documentary, you can see the influences Borowczyk might have had on them. Especially with Terry Gilliam movies’ fantasy elements or his work on Monty Python and even the early films of Neil Jordan like The Company of Wolves. 

    The best part of the documentary was when the various interviewees are shown clips from his movies and their reactions. To see them relive their memories of him while watching the clips shows the genuine affection they had for him. The fun element for them amplifies when many of them also acknowledge how absurd his movies can be. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8bKV-kAQpg

    It comes out pretty well to the fore by the time we get to The Beast, one of Borowczyk’s most controversial and erotic films. More than the eroticism, they focus on the absurdity, as at least some of them come off as apologetic for enjoying his movies at this point as his filmography gets more, you know, odd. Especially when describing the love scene between the female lead and the titular beast who looks like an overgrown rat. (‘No one can squirt as good as Borowczyk,’ an actual quote from one of the interviewees). 

    There is also a scene where the makers make a close inspection of the beast’s costume. The reverence shown for it comes off as a bit showy. As if to hype up a non-existent legend.

    A lot of screen time is also dedicated to his penultimate movie, Emmanuelle 5, and its troubled production. By his admission, he just directed the film within the film in the beginning. The rest being directed by one of his assistants, which is confirmed as much in the documentary. Even if based on fact, this only adds to the apologetic nature of the latter half of Love Express, coming in the light of everything they showed before.

    After watching Love Express, you tend to admire the clips from his early animation works, which look like they are truly worth seeking out. But you don’t feel the need to search out for the rest of his body of work. That in itself is one of the movie’s biggest fallacies as we don’t get a real idea of why we need to know more about him in the first place. 

    Rather than celebrating his work and craft, you just feel sorry for him for getting trapped in unfortunate circumstances. If the makers of Love Express wanted to portray Borowczyk as a genius trapped under the weight of his sordid reputation, it never clearly comes out. He just comes across as a person who was voted most likely to succeed after graduation but ends up blowing his opportunities. 

  • Let’s Watch The Paranormal Activity Franchise: Part 1

    Let’s Watch The Paranormal Activity Franchise: Part 1

    I Dislike Paranormal Horror Films…So Let’s Watch The Paranormal Activity Franchise: Part 1

    Every Halloween, I always make sure to watch specific horror films: ‘Saw’, ‘Trick ‘r’ Treat’, ‘Jeepers Creepers’ and ‘Tusk’ are all watched every year to the point where I probably know the script by heart. However, I wanted to do something different this year, and step out of my comfort zone a bit. 

    One of the horror subgenres that I dislike the most are Possession films. Films like ‘Devil’s Due’, ‘Amityville Horror’ and ‘The Last Exorcism’ never seem to hold my interest, and even a classic like ‘The Exorcist’ took me a few days to finish because I kept losing interest. So, I want to give myself a challenge: at the end of each week this month, starting today, I will be watching all of the ‘Paranormal Activity’ films, with the last four acting as a double upload on the last two weeks of October.

    Why this franchise? Firstly, because it’s a long-running horror franchise and I want to bring a weekly horror feature to Battle Royale With Cheese. And, secondly, this is one of the highest grossing Found Footage films in recent years. From its $15,000 budget, it has grossed over $193 million worldwide, thus spawning its 5 sequels.

    ‘Paranormal Activity’ was released in 2007 and written, directed, filmed, edited and produced by Oren Peli. It follows a couple, Katie and Micah, as they move to a new home in the hopes that they’ve outrun a demon that haunted their last house. However, as Micah films on and places a camera in their room, they discover that the demon has far from vanished.

    My first viewing of this was less than praising; after all the hype that the film had received, my Dad and I watched it, but ended up switching it off at the halfway mark. Therefore, I was a little unsure about how this viewing would go. But I was pleasantly surprised. 

    While I wouldn’t call this film scary, it was definitely tense and had its shocking moments. The build up of events per night was extremely effective at making it seem that things were getting progressively worse. While there weren’t many jump scares present, it definitely got me when they did occur because they were unexpected. 

    Two aspects that Found Footage films struggle with is the reason why the camera is still rolling, and the motivation behind the filming in the first place, even when nothing’s gone on. Even a classic like ‘The Blair Witch Project’ struggles with this at times. However, the motivation here makes sense. Because Micah and Katie have moved to a new house to try and run away from a demon, Micah wants to film in the hopes that he’ll catch evidence of whether the demon is still following them or not. Whereas, with other Found Footage films, the events don’t start until a quarter of a way into its running time, this film is different because the demonic events are already occurring. This also means that Micah and Katie’s relationship is a little strained from the beginning of the film; they’re frustrated, and they want the demon to disappear.

    The lead actors, Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, carry this film perfectly. Their onscreen chemistry is fantastic, and they trick the audience into thinking they’re an actual couple right from the start. The divide between the two character’s reactions to the situation, plus their thoughts on how to fix it, also make this gripping. Katie has known this demonic presence throughout most of her life and she’s scared and just wants to get rid of it. Micah, on the other side, doesn’t take the situation seriously despite their unseen past with this entity, and decides to agitate and provoke the demon. It isn’t until near the end of the film that he tries to actually help Katie, by which point, it’s too late. Because the audience is with these two characters throughout the film, the casting was the most important aspect to get right and they definitely succeeded in getting fantastic actors who have great chemistry. 

    The film does drag in the middle, despite it having a strong start. With films like this, the paranormal events have to start small and build up, showing the audience that the entity is slowly getting stronger or, in this case, angrier. However, this one takes a little too long, in places, to get to where it wants to go narratively. The film wouldn’t have suffered too much from another cut in the editing room. But, because the film was edited at the same time as the next scene was being filmed, it’s understandable that this was not possible.

    Overall, ‘Paranormal Activity’ was a surprise re-watch. It’s not necessarily scary, but it has its tense and shocking moments. The lead actors carry this film comfortably on their shoulders from the start and it’s an impressive film, production-wise, due to its tight filming and editing schedule. While this won’t be for everyone, I would consider this a Halloween must-watch for fans of the Possession subgenre. 

    To finish the article, I wanted to add in another aspect to the weekly experience: during each film viewing, I will be writing down any quotes that I said that I think stand out. Enjoy!

    -At the 8:52 mark: ‘Oh, I forgot how quickly this film gets going. We’re at the first night!’

    -At the 26:10 mark: ‘Wait, you never told him about the demon until you both moved in together?!’

    -At the 38:30 mark: (Katie stands up and stares at Micah for about an hour on the camcorder timer): ‘No thank you! Don’t like it!’

    -At the 41:25 mark: (Micah has just asked Katie come inside the house after a loud noise has occured) ‘She’s not coming inside after that loud noise!’

    -At the 1:16:05 mark: ‘Micah’s the real villain here!’

  • Let’s Have A Look At The Optoma LH200 Projector

    Let’s Have A Look At The Optoma LH200 Projector

    Optoma LH200! What a little treat! This Optoma LH200 projector is a compact LED-powered 2,000 lumens model with decent features designed to help with usability and flexibility.

    It has an integrated battery for mains-free operation, so a great way or movie nights while camping, etc. I checked out a few clips and trailers via YouTube and it gives great images! Other great extras like Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity are helpful. For around £875 the LH200 is decent value

    Measuring 280 x 192 x 57mm and hitting just 2.2kg, it is compact and portable and comes complete with a carry case. Although it’s pretty small it packs a big punch.

    Optoma claims 200,000:1 contrast and 30,000 hours of lamp operation. It also has a 3.5mm output jack, which is handy for FireSticks and Chromecasts. Nice to see the two HDMIs too.

    It didn’t take very long to set-up and get it up and running. The LED projector is running at full brightness in just a few seconds. It takes you directly to the home menu, where you can switch to your source.

    I pushed my Sony Bluray player, MacBook Pro and Nintendo Switch through it. All looked sweet.

    • Let's Have A Look At The Optoma LH200 Projector
      Let’s Have A Look At The Optoma LH200 Projector

    The contrast performance is pretty good to be fair. Some darker tones in video playback can look a little washed out and there’s an overall lack of colour saturation and vividness. The fan isn’t too noisy.

    The built in speakers are pretty loud, if a little thin. With the battery operation, fast start up times and relative robustness of the LED light, it’s a projector with which you can use almost anywhere, anyplace, anytime.

    Great images!

    As a compact and flexible unit that gives a decent DLP experience on the move, the LH200 has a lot going for it.

    Thanks to Carina Neighbour.

  • Save Our Cinemas!

    Save Our Cinemas!

    Save Our Cinemas: How the Coronavirus crisis didn’t cause this mess, it just magnified it.

    In 2018 I wrote a think piece about my relationship with the then current studio output in mainstream cinemas. I spoke about my growing disillusionment with the seemingly never-ending slew of mega-blockbusters, each more expensive and extravagant than the last. I didn’t know it then, but my frustrations were more than simply tiredness with what was on offer, and in the years since then this odd sense of something being off has only grown.

    With the news this week that Cineworld may be closing their doors as a result of the latest Bond movies reschedule, finally that curious and uncomfortable feeling in the back of my head came clearly into fruition. The slew of mega-blockbusters, the increasing budgets, the endless recognizable properties and broadest possible tones, the reason all of these things never quite sat right with me seemed to suddenly be transformed into a clear and concise concept.

    If your business model works only when you make a billion dollars at the box office, it’s not a viable business model. Coronavirus may have forced audiences away from screens – after all, the industry was booming pre-COVID – but this issue has been there for a while. Disney’s supposed failure with Solo was, by any stretch of the imagination, not a failure, except they’d funneled so much money into the thing in the first place that even though it made a bomb at the box office, it was still considered a box office bomb. Coronavirus didn’t create the circumstances by which the cinema system is failing, it just poured fuel on the fire. Already the cracks had started to show.

    Hollywood’s reluctance to release their big-budget tentpole movies comes from a fear of audiences simply not being there to see the movie. In an age when streaming is a legitimate medium by which movies can be released, when almost every household has some form of Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, or whatever, that’s fucking bonkers. But the fact that dropping a film only will net them a loss so catastrophic as to cause genuine damage speaks volumes.

    How this scenario is resolved from a studio standpoint remains a mystery. After all, they’re losing money no matter what they do. Don’t release the films and they’re losing money. Release the films and they’re losing money. But one thing is for sure – if they continue pulling the movies, thereby removing the incentive for anyone to go to the cinema, there won’t be a cinema left to release the film in once all of this is over.

    Of course, the Government’s continued refusal to do literally anything about the Arts situation in the UK will only make matters worse. Without some sort of help from those in power the entire industry is doomed to destruction. Not to get all super political here, after all, I know politics can be divisive and aggravating in this post-Brexit age, but Boris Johnson’s Government has been all but useless outside of the furlough scheme that, truthfully, didn’t even do enough in and of itself.

    Mind you, they’ve been useless on the theatres front as well, so at least cinemas and the movie industry aren’t alone in this. I wonder what the plan is for when this does all come to its conclusion. When a vaccine is finally found, or when we’ve all acquired heard immunity, or whatever the hell actually does get us back to some sense of normality in the end, do we really want to find ourselves living in a country without any theatres or cinemas? These are industries, and jobs and people, who may very way struggle to maintain viability at this current point in time, but this does not make them not viable. In fact, the only thing that’s making any of them not viable is the Government’s refusal to do anything about it.

    Oliver Dowden, Secretary State for Culture, Media and Sport, has also been more or less silent on the subject. He seems to have nothing to say beyond “it’s clear more needs to be done”, which, now that I come to think about it, is a line I’ve heard repeated from most Government ministers again and again over the last five or so months. At what point does it stop being “it’s clear something needs to be done”, and becomes “we’re doing something”?

    Not that cinemas have helped themselves much, of course. Replaying the same tired classics over and over again is all well and good for a while, but it won’t sustain repeat custom, even when there isn’t anything else on. Where’s the creativity and inventiveness of what’s on offer? Why not bring in live Q&A’s? It’s not like the technology doesn’t exist. Why not host double bills? Why not have themed nights? There are options here that could have been explored before we got to potential indefinite closure.

    So, where do we go from here? It’s a mystery, and one that I’m not in any position to try to answer. I don’t know. All I do know is that I’m worried. In the end it seems to me that for all the talk of streaming services taking over the cinema experience the real threat ultimately came from the ones reliant most upon them..

  • Electro, Morbius, Godfather: Weekly Round Up

    Electro, Morbius, Godfather: Weekly Round Up

    Okay. I’m going to skip over the Cineworld news and focus on the actual movie stuff this week, since it’s kind of depressing and I think we all need a bit of a pick me up. So, to that end, let’s talk about what might be the weirdest announcement around the Marvel Cinematic Universe in quite some time. Apparently, if the reports are to be believed, Jamie Foxx has been cast in the third solo-outing for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, and will be playing Electro, the character he also played in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a film that starred Andrew Garfield as the titular wall-crawler.

    What does this mean, exactly? Well, at the moment it’s all sort of up for speculation. Of course, it’s important to note (Maybe. Maybe it’s not important at all. It could be nothing. Who knows?) that Sony’s MCU Spider-man films have, for the most part, made a lot of effort to separate themselves from the films that came before, mostly in the form of the connective tissue between them at the Marvel Studios productions. However, the end of Far From Home did see the return of J K Simmons as J Jonah Jameson, the character he famously played in the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies from the early 2000s.

    It was assumed, perhaps naively now, that Simmons was simply playing an alternate version of the character, but Foxx’s casting could suggest something else entirely. Let’s not forget that the smash-hit Into The Spider-Verse introduced the concept of multiple realities featuring different versions of the same character, and that the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel, interestingly enough set to be directed by original Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, is titled Doctor Strange in the Multi-verse of Madness, and is expected to introduce the idea of alternate realities within its narrative.

    Could it be, then, that Foxx isn’t in fact playing a new version of the character he already played in the Andrew Garfield movie, but is in fact playing the same character?

    It’s also worth noting, I think, that prior to all this Coronavirus weirdness, Sony dropped the trailer for Morbius, starring Jared Leto, a film that was expected to be a standalone movie or possibly even take place in the same universe as the Tom Hardy starring Venom, and fans were surprised to see Michael Keaton’s Vulture appear, a character that appeared in the first Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. It’s also also worth noting, perhaps, that the upcoming Flash movie is slated to see the return of Keaton’s Batman, suggestion multiple realities within that narrative too.

    Are we now seeing the natural evolution of the Cinematic Universe? At what point does it end?

    And while we’re on the subject of Cinematic Universes, who here has been looking at the recent slate of upcoming connected movie franchises and thought to themselves, “Well, this is all fine and dandy, but what I really want is a Doctor Suess shared universe”? Only me? Okay then.

    Well, either way, it appears like I’ll be getting my wish, as J J Abrams (or, as I like to call him, man who ruined both Star Trek and Star Wars by doing the exact same thing to both and not learning from his mistakes) and his Bad Robot production company have teamed up with Warner Bros. to produce an animated adaptation of The Cat in the Hat in 2024, followed by a spin-off about the side-characters of Thing One and Thing Two in 2026.

    This new cinematic universe is being dubbed the “Suessiverse” (*rolls eyes so hard they get stuck in the back of my head*) and will continue with an adaptation of Suess final book before his death, Oh, The Places You’ll Go, which is scheduled for a release in 2027.

    In an odd sort of way, this actually does kind of make sense. Suess himself introduced the idea of a sort of shared universe in his books, with Whoville and the Whos appearing in a lot of his stories. Of course, the Grinch lived on a snowflake, while Horton of Horton Hears a Who was protecting a spec of dust on which the Whos of that story lived. So, with that in mind, it isn’t that much of a stretch to suggest that all these Whos are from the same town or place or whatever. Though, since this is J J Abrams we’re talking about, expect it to start intriguing, fizzle out, and ultimately lead nowhere.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIQFTBsGccA

    Let’s move away from the cinematic universes now, though, and over to a new trend that seems to be taking Hollywood by storm – the true-life movie about making a movie. We’ve already had news that Ben Affleck is currently working on a project detailing the production of the iconic Chinatown, and of course David Fincher is busy working away on his upcoming Mank for streaming giants Netflix, which will detail the making of the Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane, and this week we’ve got a third movie to add to the list.

    Francis and the Godfather will reportedly star Jake Gyllenhaal and Oscar Isaac and will tell the story of the making of The Godfather. Isaac will star as a young Francis Ford Coppola, who battles against studio exec Robert Evans, played by Gyllenhaal, to get his vision of the now iconic movie produced, and will include his famous struggle to cast Marlon Brando in the title role.

    There’s no word yet on who will play Brando, but this does sound like an interesting film. Of course, my fascination with movies does sort of make me bias. The film will be directed by Barry Levinson, whose behind films like Rain Man and Good Morning Vietnam, so we’re in solid hands.