Category: REVIEWS

Here is where you would find our film reviews on BRWC. We look at on trailers, shorts, indies and mainstream. We love movies!

The Royal Road: GSFF Review

Esme Betamax | @betamaxer

In the run-up to Glasgow Short Film Festival’s online edition (17th – 23rd August) we have been treated to DIVE IN cinema. It’s a week of films curated by Africa in Motion, Alchemy Film & Arts, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Central Scotland Documentary Festival, Dardishi, GSFF, IberoDocs, LUX Scotland, Matchbox Cineclub, Scottish Queer International Film Festival, Screen Argyll and Take One Action.

My pick from this selection is The Royal Road by Jenni Olson. Screening five years after its initial release, it has a peculiar resonance with 2020. It is a diary of a road trip and a history lesson. Narrated by Olson, it is an account of self-discovery and self-reflection of a type common in the gay/queer community, and now popping up in the mainstream (Hannah Gadsby; Mae Martin). Olson cuts through the layers of history in San Francisco and the Royal Road (AKA El Camino Real), reflecting as she goes, and using cinema as her reference points. She likes to show her workings and provides multiple links to the history of the area on the film’s website, aware that her audience will likely want to dig a little deeper.

Everyone has some sense of what San Francisco is like. It has seeped into the common psyche through music, literature and film. But whether you draw inspiration from Armistead Maupin or The Grateful Dead, it’s cinema that does the heavy lifting.

Film locations are a funny beast. Some iconic: The Golden Gate Bridge in It Came from Beneath the Sea; some eerie: the former Sutro Baths in Harold & Maude; some pretending to be elsewhere altogether: San Francisco City Hall appears in Raiders of the Lost Ark as a DC government building. And many that all but the most dedicated fans would walk past without a second thought.

Olson seeks out corners of the landscape where there is beauty in the mundane, and captures them on 16mm to add to her collection. Sometimes they have significance to classic cinema. Other times they are simply a beautiful image. They are a visual accompaniment to her story of unrequited love. San Francisco is known to be densely populated, but these images are captured at quiet times, with sometimes only the slightest bit of movement captured. This is why The Royal Road feels connected to 2020 — urban space depopulated.

The Royal Road is nostalgic, and Jenni Olson has romantic tendencies. When that is paired with a fear of innovation, it can develop into conservatism. That’s when she brings in Tony Kushner. As the only point in the film when someone other than the director speaks—over halfway through—it feels striking. Olson refers to it as a “voiceover cameo”. It’s an excerpt from his lecture “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism with a Key to the Scriptures.” (City Arts & Lectures. San Francisco. 28 Apr. 1998). He warns of the perils of nostalgia, and she takes this very personally, as though he has exposed her. It’s a brilliant move to include his criticism and evaluate it. She realizes that although she has a deep love of the old, she does accept the certainty that the urban landscape will change over time. She no longer feels the need to fight it, because she has that piece of time and place preserved in her collection.

The landscape of “pure industrial beauty” never ceases to change, but for the most part, buildings outlive people, and that perspective shift sets the film’s tone. It’s reminiscent of Chris Ware’s Building Stories: people are fleeting but the building remains. The Royal Road is as much of a love letter to a place as it is a love letter to a person.

18th August 2020
Babyteeth: The BRWC Review

Babyteeth is a coming of age story with teeth, pun intended. It is a surprising and striking directorial debut film by Shannon Murphy based on the screenplay, and play, by Rita Kalnejais with a great cast.

Milla (Eliza Scanlen) is a sixteen year old whose been diagnosed with cancer. She lives in the suburbs, middle class and with little time left disrupts her status quo by falling in love with a drug dealer, Moses (Toby Wallace).

This is as subversive as coming of ages stories get. Babyteeth subverts what you expect a 16 year old who is taking chemo to behave like. Then again she does have a lot of living to do in what little time she has left, so as with all good teenagers who go completely off the rails. She falls in love with Moses who her parents invite to live with them. Eliza Scanlen as Milla and Toby Wallace are both electrifying on screen. Essie Davis as the mother and psychiatrist father (Ben Mendelsohn) as Henry are so good to watch.

Whilst this is a coming of age story, it’s not just focused on Milla’s journey but that of her parents. They too have a lot of growing up to do not least the father who as a psychiatrist should have the answers but is actually the most mentally fragile of the group. Babyteeth’s narrative is episodic and that works well as a metaphor for showing how fleeting life is so every memory is a snapshot of a moment. One of the most poignant scenes comes at the end when Milla is taking photos of her parents.

Babyteeth is challenging and visceral and the metaphor of baby teeth is subtle and strikes you just as the film ends. One loses them just as your new permanent ones grow, and one of the central themes of the film is growth. Colour and light are used in a bold way throughout the film to also tell strands of the story and reflect the moods that Milla goes through. It’s so vivid and plaudits should go to the colourist and cinematographer.

Ultimately Babyteeth is a visceral and challenging coming of age story that reminds us all that we shouldn’t take life for granted. It is filled with humour and great acting and should be watched by all

Babyteeth came out in cinemas on Friday 14 August.

17th August 2020
Starting At Zero: Reimagining Education In America – Review

Everyone in the world knows that education is important. A good education that is engaging and thought provoking can enable children to reach their full potential, giving them the best future possible.

Education is not only about studies though, as many other skills can be learned from just being in a school environment. The interactions made and the friendships formed can influence a child at a very young age and stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America is a documentary that aims to discuss how beneficial life can be even before children enter the classroom – this stage is what they call Pre-K (pre-Kindergarten). Through interviews with many educators, politicians and education experts, Starting at Zero takes a politically unbiased look at the different ways that children can benefit from a Pre-K environment.

Split up into 5 episodes, each section looks in detail at every single aspect of life and how parents, teachers and even the friends they make can raise them up, giving their lives the proper start. Starting at Zero even talks to some of the children themselves, because who knows better what they want than the kids?

Focussing largely on the Alabama Pre-K program, Starting at Zero shows what goes on behind the scenes and how Alabama soon became the gold standard in pre-school education. There’s real passion in the voices of all involved, from the current Governor of Virginia, to the enthusiastic pre-K teachers ready to teach the new generation themselves. However, this means that the documentary can get a little sentimental at times, but this is the future of children that they’re talking about, so a little hope is understandable.

However, the documentary doesn’t really address the issues surrounding children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia which can be identified at a young age. Hopefully though this means that the program intends to treat them equally rather than ignore them entirely.

Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America may be preaching to the choir because it’s doubtful anybody would disagree with their sentiments, but it’s good to know that the next generation is still being considered so thoroughly.

17th August 2020
Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn – Review

Muta’Ali Muhammed revisits the historic 1989 protests of New York in Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn. The documentary weaves interviews, graphics and evidential archive footage to map the timeline of events, and the political and social aftermath of the killing of Hawkins. In August 1989, Hawkins and his friends travel to a neighbourhood to buy a car, but he ends up being fatally wounded in a racially motivated attack.

The film is well balanced, giving both sides of the case a chance to tell their version of events, including Joseph Fama, who was convicted of Hawkin’s murder. Not only does the film focus on the effects on the family and the community, but also the unrest in New York at the time, and the lackadaisical attitudes of local government in relation to race crime in Brooklyn and beyond.

The film also peppers in cultural references such as Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ (Lee is interviewed in archival footage) and the rise of rap group Public Enemy, which reinforces to the viewer the socio-political changes in American culture at the time.

One can’t help comparing some of the archival footage with the present-day interviews and feel unsettled with the rhetoric and views that haven’t changed in 30 years. Photographic and video evidence shows segregation and racism in Brooklyn, yet, some of the interviewees are still denying it.

I wish we could watch these documentaries thinking ‘thank goodness this is a thing of the past’, but you will be left reeling by how relevant and true the events in this film are today. Films like this should not be watched under a political flame, but with a sense of compassion and fairness. Watching a film about a family destroyed because their loved one is murdered because of the colour of their skin is something that should stir change, not division.

Here’s hoping that a documentary like this will be released in 30 years, and the events are historical with a united audience that watches in disbelief.

17th August 2020
Project Power: The BRWC Review

The popularization of the superhero genre has empowered studios to explore avenues outside of the traditionalist Marvel and DC brands. Some craftsmen have elevated the genre’s formula (Upgrade and The Old Guard), while others lack the follow-through to live up to their potential (Brightburn). Netflix’s latest big-budget offering Project Power boasts some intriguing conceits, yet much of these ideals are lost in translation.

Project Power is set in a world where a mysterious drug called power hits the streets of New Orleans, which gifts its inhabitants a super-powered ability for a short period of time (some powers are superhero-esque, while others ravage a person’s body in vile ways). Robin (Dominique Fishback) is stuck at the bottom of the class structure, pushing power while working alongside police officer Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). When Art (Jamie Foxx) a man hellbent on revenge stumbles into their lives, the three must team up to take down the drug’s creators.

It helps that Project Power’s uniquely-fitted leads are able to carry the narrative. Up-and-comer Dominique Fishback displays impressive ease as Robin, portraying the dramatic frames with weight while offering a sly charm to liven up the character’s archetype conception. It’s also a joy to watch the continuation of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s comeback tour (he was great in 7500), with the actor’s effervescent charisma continuing to grab my interest (his jokey Clint Eastwood impression had me laughing every time). Jamie Foxx rounds out the trio with assured confidence and instant presence onscreen, as the three often left me wishing their talents were suited for a better movie.

Utilizing an intriguing high-concept premise, filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman imbue a slick visual edge that amplifies the production. Reteaming with Nerve DOP Michael Simmonds, the team shoot with a sweaty intimacy that fits in tandem with the film’s cop procedural approach to the superhero genre. The freehand camera moves swiftly and with precision, dreaming up a plethora of inventive setpieces that bring some much-needed ingenuity to the table (an action scene shot from the perspective of someone trapped in a pod is particularly impressive). Joost and Schulman may not be marquee names yet, but their promising directors who remain on my radar, developing a distinct sensibility that often enhances familiar trappings.

While the duo presents a visceral voice on camera, their work still leaves room for refinement. Project Power is desperately lacking a sense of identity on screen, often fluctuating between the grandiose thrills of superhero ventures to the grounded grit of police dramas. I appreciate the notion of trying to marry these two genres together, it just doesn’t translate smoothly onscreen. Joost and Schulman’s lack a deft touch in the handling of the film’s dramatic frames, often drowning out the character’s turmoil with abrasive score choices and overly-stylistic framing.

Similar to the direction, Mattson’s Tomlin screenplay is equal parts promising and frustrating. Tomlin creates some absorbing zeitgeist conceits, attempting to ruminate on the drug crisis, the disenfranchisement of communities impacted by it, and the abuse of fragile power dynamics – especially by police. What could have been profoundly timely fails to register a strong impression, lacking the nuance or emotional sincerity to touch on grand societal issues. Tomlin also draws his characters in a generic, one-dimensional fashion, strapping them with heavy-handed dialogue that often clumsy overexplains its point (JGL’s character says “we’re not letting suits decide like the last time” in a goofily overt reference to Hurricane Katrina).

Project Power has the bones of an invigorating reinvention of the superhero genre, yet its delivery never lives up to its heroic aspirations.

16th August 2020