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  • LX 2048: Review

    LX 2048: Review

    I can’t deny my fandom for low-budget science fiction, which often leaves me championing overlooked films that many simply dismiss. As modern sci-fi predicates towards bombastic thrills over idealistic conceits, indie efforts like writer/director Guy Moshe’s latest LX 2048 play a vital role in keeping the subgenre’s spirit alive. Though his final product comes with some unevenness, Moshe’s film successful colors familiar beats with its own twisted, macabre approach.

    Set in a post-apocalyptic future where most spend their days hooked into a virtual world (citizens must avoid the sun due to its damaging qualities), LX 2048 follows Adam Bird (James D’Arcy), a VR executive who vehemently works to assure his family a prosperous future (Anna Brewster as his wife Rena) before dying from heart failure (once Adam dies, a superior clone version will seamlessly take his place). As Adam digs deeper into the VR realm, he discovers that all may not be what it seems.

    LX 2048 grabs audiences from jump street with its intoxicating world-building. Moshe masterfully manages his inexpensive assets to create a defined landscape, turning our planet into a desolate world that rings with a lingering emptiness (a scene where Adam drives through a vacant Los Angeles with a hazmat suit was particularly resonant). The only interactions Adam has outside his home is with AI units, which Moshe morph into an uneasy presence that tries (and fails) to replicate human behavior. Whether it’s the bright rays of the sun or the speeding trains racing by Adam’s window, Moshe uses every world-building device to develop a pervasive atmosphere that sticks with audiences. The vacant qualities of the landscape create an apt representation of humanity’s emotional distance in a VR-driven world.

    As a great sci-fi film should, Moshe’s script introduces intriguing societal questions for audiences to untangle. It’s easy to observe the parallels between the film’s technologically-driven future to our own reality. Thankfully, these comparisons are drawn with a thematic bite and proper emotionality, rendering Adam’s journey for human connection into a universal search for attachment in a detached world. James D’Arcy central performance sells the character’s arc with an unhinged mania, slowly depicting Adam’s unraveling without an ounce of theatricality.

    LX 2048’s notable strengths efficiently mask the narrative’s inherent flaws. Mosche’s screenplay draws from several genre hallmarks, often reusing ideas that have been conveyed with more depth and resonance before. Much of the cliches derive from the film’s go-for-broke third act. I appreciate the writer/director’s desire to keep the audience’s on their toes, but the late twists can be predicted from a mile away. Mosche’s film works better when it favors its desolate atmosphere over the screenplay’s mechanical plotting (Delroy Lindo has a supporting role that goes nowhere).

    LX 2048 isn’t without its unkempt qualities, yet Guy Mosche’s film thankfully values substantive ruminations over superficial thrills.

  • Halsey Edition: Bits & Pieces

    Halsey Edition: Bits & Pieces

    A materially successful young man, riddled with anxiety, embarks on a world-wide journey of self-inquiry. From the streets of NY, to the stillness of the Ganges, and deep into the jungles of Peru, he immerses himself in meditation, self-inquiry, and plant medicine to find the root cause of the problem and learn how to finally find freedom from his crippling anxiety.  Along the way, he finds answers to why a person who seemingly has it all can continue to suffer from debilitating panic attacks, recognizing the beauty and power that lies within each of us, if we are willing to go there.

    On the 60th birthday of music industry svengali, Alan McGee, Burning Wheel Productions are delighted to reveal a brand new teaser clip from their upcoming title CREATION STORIES.  CREATION STORIES is the feature film of the life of McGee – the adaptation of his highly acclaimed autobiography ‘Creation Stories – Riots, Raves and Running a Record Label‘.

    This film follows a British Pakistani rapper who, on the cusp of his first world tour, is struck down by an illness that threatens to derail his big break. The film will be part of the Dare Strand at this year’s 64th BFI London Film Festival, with virtual and physical screenings beginning on the 10th October. The film will then have its general release in the UK and Ireland on the 30th October. 

    Always dreamed of being James Bond? Well, Moneyshake have looked into exactly what it takes to get that seriously glamourous 007 lifestyle. 

    Apple and Billie Eilish announced that the highly anticipated documentary feature film, “Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry,” directed by award-winning filmmaker R.J. Cutler (“Belushi,” “The September Issue,” “The War Room”), will premiere in theaters and on Apple TV+ in February 2021. The documentary is from Apple Original Films, in association with Interscope Films, Darkroom, This Machine and Lighthouse Management & Media.

    Based on true events set in 1928, in New Jersey, teenage sisters, Bessie and Jo, dream of faraway places as the paint glow-in-the-dark watch dials at the American Radium Factory. When Jo loses a tooth, Bessie’s world turns upside down as the mystery of Jo’s disease slowly unravels. Bessie befriends two young activists and in a radical coming of age, she exposes a corporate scandal. Bessie and the “Radium Girls” file a lawsuit against American Radium. This notorious case ultimately led to a lasting impact in the area of workplace health and safety as well as the study of radioactivity.

    After the disappearance of her husband, Lemon, a struggling farmer in an isolated Appalachian community, must repay her husband’s debt to the oldest family on the mountain and their murderous biscuit-making matriarch in order to save her young son’s life. Armed with only her wits and tenacity, Lemon must unravel the mysteries her husband left behind or lose everything she’s ever loved.

    Following the loss of their son, retired sheriff George Blackledge (Costner) and his wife Margaret (Lane) leave their Montana ranch to rescue their young grandson from the clutches of a dangerous family living off the grid in the Dakotas, headed by matriarch Blanche Weboy. When they discover the Weboys have no intention of letting the child go, George and Margaret are left with no choice but to fight for their family. 

    What started out as an inside joke amongst two self-proclaimed weirdos in Ft. Worth, Texas soon becomes much more than they bargained for when they decide to turn their conservative southern ideology on its head and invent a new religion all their own in J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius – in virtual theaters and on demand this October.

  • Eternal Beauty: Review

    Eternal Beauty: Review

    Even the most celebrated films to delve into the realm of schizophrenia have the peculiar habit of taking the most literal of approaches. So often, fully formed people appear and make it near impossible for audiences to differentiate the delusion from reality. Generally, this difficulty is intentional and often used to significant effect allowing twists in a story. However, what makes certain depictions so peculiar is that the hallucinations of schizophrenia are known to be primarily those that appeal to the sufferers hearing as opposed to their sight. I say this to be clear about what I love about Craig Roberts’ second feature film, “Eternal Beauty”. 

    Not only does this film serve as a more plausible interpretation of the struggles of mental disorder, but it also plays like a breath of fresh air in a genre riddled with fierce melodrama or otherwise overly quirky misfires. Eternal Beauty finds the sweet spot right in between and is genuinely one of the funniest movies of the year while still managing to keep intact its emotional core. 

    The story is that of Jane (Sally Hawkins), a lonely woman who succumbed to schizophrenia after being left on the alter 20 years before meeting her. And while it is her lost love that caused her ailment, it is the actions of her sadistic and manipulative mother which have entrenched Jane into her psychosis. We learn of Vivian’s (Penelope Wilton) manipulative ways through a series of flashbacks depicting her as a mother demanding beauty and success, primarily through the avenue of teen beauty pageants. Despite Jane’s striking beauty as a youth, she was always far too shy to speak in front of the judges, leading Viviane to displace her for her younger sister Nicola (Billie Piper), who instantly adored the limelight. 

    These cruel maternal actions of the past twist Jane’s reality in the present. She continually receives phone calls from a mysterious man she believes herself to be in love with. She then convinces herself her nephew is her son with this man and attempts to run away with the utterly bewildered child. These are just two examples that fall into the vat of hilarity that is her generally eccentric nature. So strange is Jane’s life day to day that when we meet her, she has bought her own Christmas presents, intending to invoice her family the costs. With this said, no matter how funny things get, there’s an inescapable sombre undertone. One formed from the fact we know Jane can’t help herself and that she didn’t deserve what happened to her. Everything changes when she reunites with an old childhood acquaintance, Mike (David Thewlis), who is just as quirky as she is and the two almost instantly fall for each other. 

    Despite the clichéd nature of their relationship Thewlis and Hawkins are irresistible together on screen and become delightful to watch. However, it isn’t to last, and when they sour, the film reveals itself to be about the catharsis of three tormented sisters far more than it is just about Jane. The eldest sister Alice (Alice Lowe) never forgave her mother for sectioning Jane years earlier and has become estranged from her mother in exchange for becoming Jane’s main form of care. But when it becomes clear Vivian is dying, the tortured trio must find their way back to one another and to the side of their ailing mother. There’s a fair argument to make in saying that Roberts loses his focus here, and he does. The final act feels near entirely separate from the rest of the film, it may still emanate the same dramedy cocktail as the first half, but it lacks clear thoughts about what to do with its characters, with Nicola especially feeling redundant. 

    Uncomfortable as the transition into the films final act may be, there is one true and shining constant aspect throughout, and it is the gorgeous work of Sally Hawkins. Her work here is the funniest performance of the year. Full of quirky indifference and Jane’s own kind of razor-sharp rhetoric. Near every line that isn’t designed to make you cry will have you laughing. Thewlis is her brief but just as endearing and humorous counterpart, and as mentioned before, together, they positively command the screen. 

    Eternal Beauty loses its way in the final act but remains a refreshing look at mental illness and an avenue for the fantastic work of Sally Hawkins.

  • Les Misérables: Review

    Les Misérables: Review

    Les Misérables: Review. By Alif Majeed.

    As Les Misérables begins, the camera follows a group of kids celebrating the French team’s victory in the 2018 world cup. As they swim, scram, and jump in joy through a swarm of people to their way to the Champs-Élysées, they are celebrating with seemingly everybody in Paris. That moment of tremendous joy is so great at encapsulating everything that comes later when things go up in flames. As if the director, Ladj Ly, wanted to show how all the jubilation is just a façade that will give away once the euphoria is over and everybody goes about the regular lives and places in the hierarchy of things.

    The movie then shifts focus on a group of characters in Montfermeil, which, as one character stresses, is a significant setting in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, as if foreshadowing that nothing has changed after all those years.

    As the movie characters are being introduced, a gang of circus artists causes a stir in the neighbourhood as their lion cub has gone missing. Accusing the local gang of the theft, they threaten everyone with dire consequences, forcing three local cops who happen to be there to intervene at the local godfather figure’s, fittingly nicknamed The Mayor, behest. Suspicion quickly falls on Issa, well known in the neighbourhood for his penchant for stealing and generally causing trouble. They promptly catch Issa among a group of his agitated friends, who decide to intervene. As the kids get more defiant and hostile, one of the cops shoots Issa in the face with a flash-ball in a moment of panic.

    The whole scene is recorded accidentally with a drone camera by Buzz, a resident voyeur. Thus, a mad scramble ensues to find the boy and the footage, with each group joining the hunt for the footage to use it for their vested interests.

    Les Misérables is a movie about that says a lot about choices and actions. A character is quick to harshly judge a man for pulling the trigger in a heated moment of madness. But when faced with the same choice in a much more pressure-cooked situation, it looks like he would have to make that tough choice himself.

    Each characters’ actions also make logical sense in their own wrapped way, right down to the guy who is willing to throw another person into a lions cage to teach him some life lessons.

    The children’s plight at the centre of the piece is rather tragic, and you feel for them. As the hunt, first for Issa and then for Buzz, goes on, they are treated almost like disposable items by the adults around them. Like Buzz’s beloved drone camera. They have gotten so cynical about their lives because of how everyone treats them, which they seemingly cannot possibly escape. Causing them to choose to do whatever suits them the most to escape their humdrum existence or even as an act of defiance, including recording girls changing or stealing lion cubs as they have nothing better to do.

    It makes it fitting when the kids take that last stand when they have had enough with their disappointment at their treatment at the hands of adults who they wish or perhaps even hope knew better. Even the cops have got cynical and jaded and have come to believe there is no point in trying to help any of them unless there are personal stakes for them.

    The movie does a strange tempo and rhythm, taking its own sweet time to establish the movie’s characters and settings. But as it builds up to a tremendous crescendo, it becomes nerve-wracking trying to figure out who will get the video and whose fortunes would oscillate and change. It again loses steam a little bit after the footage angle is resolved, and the characters go back to their everyday life.

    But this did not bother me as it feels like it played out exactly as it would have in real-time. With long lazy stretches of boredom before someone’s action has a snowball effect that quickly escalates and spells disaster for everyone involved. Only for things goes back to normal once the situation is diffused.

    But all that gets tidied away by that brilliant and breath-taking climax as the final confrontation takes place in the dingy apartment complex. And characters are finally made to make some tough choices. When the row, which was boiling over waiting to explode throughout the movie, finally happens, you understand and empathize with everything that has lead to that point.

    What is depicted here is is not the Paris of Midnight in Paris or countless other romanticized Paris travelogue movies. The version that tourists to Paris never get to see or even hope they never encounter least the city’s magic gets lost to them. Guess that is the very point Ly was trying to make in trying to force us not to look away.

    It is a pity that Les Misérables had to get caught in the Parasite wave. Every year plenty of movies are quickly swept under the rug because one movie got all the attention and rode the wave to glory. Last year the eyeballs were grabbed by Parasite and deservedly so. But Les Misérables is a movie that demands your attention. It is a powerful movie that is not afraid of looking ugly, and therein lies what makes it unique.

  • Enola Holmes: The BRWC Review

    Enola Holmes: The BRWC Review

    Whether its the quirky whimsy of Robert Downey Jr’s big-screen performance or the steely-eyed precision of Benedict Cumberbatch’s take, Sherlock Holmes is a figure who has numerous personifications in popular culture. Instead of delivering more enigmatic mysteries from Sherlock’s repertoire, Netflix looks to jumpstart a new franchise with Enola Holmes, which follows the journey of Sherlock’s precocious younger sister. While the film never reinvents its familiar trappings, this assured origin entry delivers a briskly-paced diversion packed with charisma and wit.

    Based on Nancy Springer’s novels, the film follows Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown), who lives outside of society’s gender norms with her mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter). When Eudoria suddenly goes missing, her elder brothers Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft (Sam Claflin) return home, setting Enola off on a mystery to solve her mother’s sudden disappearance.

    Enola Holmes is well aware of audience’s preconceived notions about Arthur Conan Doyle’s source material, cleverly turning those established conceits on their head. Jack Thorne’s screenplay aptly centers itself in Enola’s chipper perspective, conveying her idealistic and rambunctious spirit with a naturalistic light and wry sensibility. This isn’t your grandparent’s typical period piece, with director Harry Bradbeer unabashedly embracing a youthful voice that conveys resonant truths about adolescents (the fourth-wall breaking segments are used effectively). Bradbeer and Thorne also ground Enola’s struggles in a modern sensibility. The character’s timeless battle against stereotypical gender roles registers a genuine impression that should connect with younger viewers.

    Much of the material’s innate charm derives from the assured cast. Millie Bobby Brown displayed instant star power as Eleven in Stranger Things, but it’s her portrayal of Enola that marks her best performance to date. Brown carries the film like a seasoned pro, imbuing a sly sense of humor that keeps audiences on their toes while capturing the humanity behind Enola’s sharp facade. Henry Cavill and Sam Claflin make for a dynamite one-two-punch as Sherlock and Mycroft. Cavill implements the legends’ suave charm from his own voice, which Claflin counters brilliantly with his stuffy portrayal of Mycroft’s rigid sensibility.

    Enola Holmes registers a positive impression for its first outing, yet there are some areas a potential sequel can improve on. Bradbeer’s direction tries to implement a stylistic pulse through his usage of collage-based transitions. The issue arises from the film’s inability to do much outside of that, with generic framing leaving a familiar “Netflix movie” aroma. I was also left wanting more from Thorne’s fairly predictable narrative, as the film rarely deceives audiences the way a cunning mystery should.

    Starting a promising franchise on the right foot, Enola Holmes eschews its YA formula by implementing its own distinct charm.