Chasing Leia is the short film debut from writer/director Henry Wentworth; who also appears in the film. The story follows Billie (Harry Wight); a recovering addict as he battles with his addiction and inner demons with the aid of his group of friends; who are all members of the local comic book/pop culture geek community.
The film-makers make no pretence about their love for writer/director Kevin Smith; and in-fact the plot is largely inspired by real-life stories of actor Jason Mewes struggles with addiction (as told by Smith, and in a more biographical adaption in fan film Get Greedo).
There are also references littered through-out the film; most notably in the shape of the films own pseudo ‘Jay & Silent Bob’ aka Jo & Silent Ben (Annie Davis/Henry Wentworth). But beyond this the film is a treasure trove for pop culture fans and is littered with references to comic books & movies with particular allusions to Star Wars (as the title would suggest).
Disguised as a film about fandom – on a deeper level the film deals with addiction and the power of friendship and a community of like-minded individuals to help each other. There is also some visually fun and interesting sequences including some quite graphic scenes of drug use and plenty of explicit language.
There is a very ‘London’ feel to the film and the film-makers have been able to make use of some great locations that really make it feel, look and and sound like London; it is bold and brash and doesn’t pull any punches.
As a debut this is fairly strong and well put together although the production and dialogue was a little rough around the edges in places – especially enjoyable for hard-core fans of Kevin Smith, Star Wars and comic book movies who will pick-up on all the references as well as the underlying story.
A veteran D.C. journalist (Anne Hathaway) loses the thread of her own story when an errand for her dying father (Willem Dafoe) turns her from author to unwitting subject in the story she’s trying to break.
Political thrillers come quite often it seems. Throughout the years, we have been blessed with some gratefully emotionally investing and interesting films in this genre such as Steven Spielberg’s The Post, George Clooney’s The Ides of March, and my personal favorite of the past couple years, Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies.
But to be honest, we haven’t really had a great political thriller in at least a couple of years. It is a shame because, with the right screenwriter and director attached, political thrillers can be some of the best films of the year.
Dee Rees is a director who I greatly admire. Although she has not directed a whole of films, the films that she has directed up until this point have all been greatly impressive, namely 2017’s Mudbound, which was a favorite among critics when it was released, and was even nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress.
However, her latest feature The Last Thing He Wanted is nowhere near as good as her previous efforts. In fact, it is the first movie directed by Rees that I would flat out say is bad. It is a film that falls flat in virtually every way possible, but particularly in the way it tells its complex story that ultimately leads nowhere with an unsatisfying conclusion.
Throughout the course of the film, we jump between different time periods rather rapidly. The opening sequence alone jumps between different days and we are never really given any time to breathe and follow the story in an easy and coherent way. A large portion of the dialogue written by Marco Villalobos and Rees feels empty and lifeless in a way that has never happened before in Rees’ films. Usually, her films are rich with interesting and moving dialogue that propels the story forwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL5Ac0NP6CU
The characters in Mudbound are ones that were deeply interesting and you felt sympathy for them. Their motivations were one hundred percent clear. With The Last Thing He Wanted, we got long sequences filled with expository dialogue that feels like the two wrote it thinking it was smarter than it actually was. Confusing, bland, and lazy are just a few words that would best describe the screenplay here.
As a whole though, that’s really the film’s biggest issue – it’s a thriller that’s not thrilling. It’s a nearly two hour picture that feels longer than that even, due to the fact that there is never a time in the screenplay where anything all that exciting happens. There are a couple of scenes that feel like they could be going in a great direction, but they ultimately fizzle out being bland and uninspired like the rest of the film.
In terms of the positives here, the acting on display is pretty great for the most part. Ben Affleck and Anne Hathaway are at the front and center of The Last Thing He Wanted, and while the characters that they played were not all that interesting to follow, their performances were strong. It’s rare when Affleck and Hathaway have an acting misstep, and this is gratefully not a misstep in terms of their acting. Everybody else does a good job here as well, particularly Rosie Perez and Willem Dafoe in smaller roles. I wish they would have gotten more to do than spew expository dialogue.
It’s also a decently shot picture by Bobby Bukowski. It does not contain some of the best cinematography of the year or anything of the sort, but in terms of presenting things in a gritty and stylish way, it did the trick.
But at the end of the day, The Last Thing He Wanted has an abundance of problems, mainly relating to its script. It has some good aspects to it as well such as the performances and the camerawork, but as a whole, it is a film that feels bland and dull which is all the more disappointing since it was helmed by such a talented filmmaker.
The Last Thing He Wanted has an incoherent screenplay with poor character development and lacks in entertainment value. It’s a thriller with no thrills.
“Chained For Life,” written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, challenges notions we have surrounding people, beauty, filmmaking, the way audiences visually consume films, and the blurred lines between fantasy and reality.
In the film Mabel (played by Jess Weixler,) is a movie star in a low-budget horror film directed by a German man nicknamed “Herr Director,” (Charlie Korsmo,) the fun and playful use of heavy German accents reminded of “Inglorious Basterds” (2009.) Mabel’s on screen love interest, Rosenthal (Adam Pearson) is severely disfigured due to a condition called neurofibromatosis that causes tumors to form along the body’s nerve tissue, yet despite their obvious physical differences they connect emotionally and form a relationship with one another.
We can see this from the beginning of the film when Mabel offers to help Rosenthal run his lines, and Rosenthal asks her to show him how she expresses herself emotionally for scenes. He gives her an instruction, such as “show me empathy” and, Mabel, practically breaking the fourth wall, shows with facial expression the emotion, something Rosenthal, due to his disfigurement, obviously can’t do.
This was really where the movie began to raise some important questions. We choose to watch beautiful people portrayed on screen because they’re nice to look at and we, as audiences, are almost transfixed by their faces. As a filmmaker myself I have always called this unexplainable phenomenon “some kind of gravitas.” You either have it or you don’t.
It’s not something that can be manufactured or borrowed; an interesting and expressive face that tells a story. This film shows us that sadly not everyone can express and emote facially, but does that make their story any less important to be shown on screen? Can we chalk this up to just being a part of human nature that we cannot fight, the desire to watch beauty as an expression, or can we blame society and culture for conditioning us this way?
Although this film raised some very important topics, it continued on its journey as a self-reflexive movie within a movie. Independently, this is an interesting risk to take; though I, personally, struggle with these types of films. It can be hard to separate the reality of what is happening to the characters from the movie version of what is happening to them.
In general these types of films tend to be very hard for audiences to consume, and, as a result, they typically seem more offbeat and funky to the filmmakers than to the audience who just end up confused, which is basically what happened to me while watching the film.
The choice did distract from the true meaning of the film, and separated this piece from being truly unique to something that was just kind of flimsy story wise, but I digress. It sent an important message overall, but could have done with better formatting.
Chained for Life is out now on VOD and Blu-ray with loads of extras.
Sonic (voice of Ben Schwartz) tries to navigate the complexities of life on Earth with his newfound best friend — a human named Tom Wachowski (James Marsden). They must soon join forces to prevent the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) from capturing Sonic and using his powers for world domination.
If you are an avid film lover like myself, you probably know that video game movies are almost always terrible. It almost inevitable at this point that films based on video games are going to be bad. It’s kind of a big shame, really. Video games are home to some of the most immersive worlds and storylines you can find in the entertainment industry.
Throughout the years, we have seen the lows of films such as Paul W. S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, and its sequel Annihilation. We have also seen the incredibly bad Super Mario Bros. movie, Assassin’s Creed, DOA: Dead or Alive, Doom, and Double Dragon just to name a few. It truly seems like there exists such a thing as the “video game movie curse”.
With that being said however, there are some highly rare instances in which these types of films turn out to be either okay, not bad, or actually good. One of the good ones in recent years was Roar Uthaug’s Tomb Raider, which was a reboot of the series. Another one that was not all that bad was last year’s Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which was highly successful and was faithful to its source material.
But, since most of these projects turn out to be awful cringe-inducing nightmares, I was really not looking forward to Jeff Fowler’s Sonic the Hedgehog at all. None of the trailers looked too promising, and the marketing as a whole seemed heavily misguided. Why would you put “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio in a trailer for a film that is aimed towards families and young children?
Plus, you have more than likely seen that picture of Sonic’s original design for the movie. It was also in that aforementioned initial trailer. It probably isn’t a stretch to say that practically nobody liked the design of the iconic blue speedster. Everything about it looked off and it did not look anything like the video game character counterpart.
However, surprises are always welcome, and yes, Sonic the Hedgehog is exactly that. A welcomed surprise. This is by no means an amazing movie that is going to win awards. Not even close. But in terms of being a fun action film that has some heart and good jokes along the way, this succeeds greatly.
Firstly, let’s talk about the performances here. Ben Schwartz is the voice of everybody’s favorite fictional hedgehog, and he does a terrific job in the role. He sounds great as the character, and brings such a sense of warmth to him. He is incredibly likable and charming which is also thanks to the writing by Pat Casey and Josh Miller. While their script is nothing groundbreaking, they both did a good job at making an entertaining family flick.
James Marsden, who I feel is a fairly underrated actor, does well as Tom Wachowski too. We get to learn a little bit about him and his home life too. We know that he has a wife named Maddie (Tika Sumpter), and that he desperately wants to be a cop in San Francisco, instead of being one in Green Hills, Montana, because there, all he does is little things. He doesn’t feel like he is being a true cop. He wants to get a chance to prove himself. Out of all the characters, he was the one that was probably given the most of a backstory.
Usually in a movie where the lead protagonist is some kind of creature like Sonic, cutting back to human characters is annoying and frustrating. It makes you question why they don’t just focus on the creature characters. The humans in these films just tend to be annoying and unlikable, but that gratefully was not the case here.
Now, last but not least, let’s talk about what I feel is one of the best aspects of Sonic the Hedgehog – Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik. This is some seriously brilliant casting. In the source material, Robotnik is quite the character. He is always portrayed as being insanely bonkers. Screaming and yelling and just acting crazy. Carrey is an incredible character actor. When it comes to over-the-top comedic performances, I always think of the same two actors – Nicolas Cage and Jim Carrey.
Casting Carrey as one of the most zany video game characters of all time was a great idea, because he is truly hilarious here. Sure, there are definitely some scenes in which it somewhat felt like he was overdoing the performance, but at the end of the day, I would be lying to you if I told you that I did not enjoy watching him have the time of his life in this role. He brings it all here and he is perfectly over-the-top and wild.
Since this is a family/children’s movie, there needs to be some sense of fun and action involved. The kids are going to want to see this movie to see Sonic fight some bad guys and race around really fast, and they are going to have a blast. There are plenty of sequences here that are actually filmed quite well and all of the action was done in a great way. It was fast moving, fluent, and never boring to watch.
If you really boiled it down, you can pick apart this film like there is no tomorrow. It’s filled with problems. The humor, while good at times, also has its issues. A lot of the jokes fall incredibly flat, and there was a shocking amount of product placement here too, with one of the biggest ones being for Olive Garden. Several characters mention the restaurant in the film and it just made me shake my head.
Its story is nothing original, either. It’s probably one of the most familiar film stories I have seen in quite some time to be honest with you. It does not have a lot to say and doesn’t reinvent anything. But, this is Sonic the Hedgehog we are talking about. This film does not need to be the most incredible movie of all time. It was never going to be. It just needed to be a greatly entertaining and fun time at the theatre, and it was exactly that.
Sonic the Hedgehog manages to delightfully impress with some truly entertaining action sequences, and contains yet another wildly fun Jim Carrey performance.
Director Nathan Pfaff, editor of the documentary The Advocate, displays an interest in people who eschew financial success in favour of altruistic fulfilment. Film School Africa sees the successful Katie Taylor leave her burgeoning Hollywood career to continue this project in South Africa.
Initially braced for white-saviourism, I was relieved to find a story of empowerment. However, I found the use of subtitling jarring. White people speaking English were never subtitled, but people of colour speaking English were. It didn’t sit well. Nonetheless, Film School Africa embodies the best type of youth programme—challenging, yet rewarding. Teachers Katie and Marie coach young people from different backgrounds on their journey to become filmmakers.
Knowing very little about present-day South Africa. I found Film School Africa eye-opening: As post-apartheid South Africa is still massively segregated, it is highly unusual for people from the various groups to be mixing with each other. Those involved in the making of the documentary are keen to express this fact, with special emphasis on the trepidation that Juan, a young white man, feels at first when spending time in the township of Kayamandi.
Youth projects such as Film School Africa have the potential to break these patterns over time, validating young people and creating a space for them to share their own stories, in their own way. In the first instance, they seem to use this space as a forum to engage in DIY trauma therapy.
Film School Africa draws on footage of almost a decade of the project, documenting the achievements and sorrows of group members. It captures their passion and ambition, despite having limited opportunities in their community. Katie and Marie provide context throughout, but the real stories come from the group: Repholositswe “Repro” Mpitsa, Juan Van der Walt, Tsakane Shikwambana, Gasthon Lewis, and Sihle James, who presents their situation at the beginning of his own documentary.
‘Kayamandi’, from the Xhosa-speaking people, means ‘nice home.’ He says “But you shouldn’t let the name fool you. This is far from being a nice home.”
