Category: REVIEWS

Sport is a safe choice for filmmakers. Even if you don’t subscribe to the hype, it doesn’t require any explanation. The Butler Brothers (Mourning Has Broken, 2013;  Confusions of an Unmarried Couple, 2007) use Ice Hockey as an anchor for their action “comedy” First Round Down.

We live in a world where sports are greeted with religious fervour and high hopes are pinned on young sports men and women. Sometimes with tragic consequences: I, Tonya (2017); Senna (2010); I am Ali (2014). Now lower your expectations. First Round Down is not really about sport, it is simply shorthand for the “boys will be boys” mentality. Essentially, if you’re good at sports, it is a license to be a dickhead in all areas of your life.

First Round Down equates spectator sports with brutality. Tim Tucker is hard-wired for violence and this reputation is bolstered by others on a regular basis. The blow of a career-ending injury can be softened by turning your abilities towards a life of violent crime. They are after all transferable skills, and heaven forfend you become a (whisper it) pizza delivery guy.  

First Round Down was screened at Edmonton International Film Festival, Canada in 2016. The landscape of cinema has since experienced some welcome shifts. Just as western politics has experienced some unwelcome ones. Brushing misogyny, homophobia, and general dickishness off as “just locker room talk” has never been ok, but it is increasingly difficult to laugh it off. It’s the thin end of the wedge.

Trading comedy for excellent camerawork, First Round Down is Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) with all of the humour stripped out. Director of Photography Michael Jari Davidson is one to watch, though most of his work to date has been horror (hard pass for me).

Here’s a brief overview:

Tim Tucker, a pouty Ryan Gosling type played by Dylan Bruce, and his goofy Seth Rogen type sidekick Bobby (Rob Ramsay) get involved in humourless hi-jinx and armed robbery.

Everyone likes to talk about the station wagon in which a lot of teenagers had sex. Tim Tucker and Coach trade profundities second only to the Goss brothers. The scenes involving Tim’s little brother are accompanied by wistful guitar music (A Love Song to the City by Kalle Mattson): see, he’s a good guy really. Gimme a break.

You could start watching First Round Down at 1 hour in, and not miss a thing as far as plot goes. First Round Down is a good excuse to get lost down a rabbit hole of Ice-Hockey-themed films, and there are a lot. Slapshot (1977), Youngblood (1986), Red Army (2014), but Mighty Ducks it is not.

Peggy is what society would call a typical, stay at home wife. She is a mother to five children yet doesn’t show any signs of it at all. She owns a lovely, tidy house with a pristine garden. She has an attractive and successful husband, who is a wonderful and loving father to their children. She cooks purely organic and vegan food and is completely prim and proper.

For this, everybody hates her. Everyone. Her husband, and presumably her kids included. So, everyone on the street is invited to attend her son’s big birthday – and decide to stick it to her with buying presents they know she will not approve of. But beneath her gorgeous exterior, something dark and psychotic lurks within…

Peggy was a very creative and very funny short to me. The film does a great job of making Peggy detestable with having her do literally nothing throughout the whole film. The way she talks, the way she acts, the way she moves, the way she simply exists is intolerable. I loved hating her. The second the dog is introduced, Peggy becomes something more sinister. But even then, she doesn’t do anything. I’m not saying that to complain. I thought that she was great – the character and the actress playing her.

There was a clever idea on the filmmaker’s part to have Peggy and her lifestyle feel like something from the 1950’s – from the way she dresses to the way she acts socially – almost like she’s a Stepford Wife, but then having everything and everyone around her feel more modern. This is clearly in the 2010’s. It helps to create this separation between Peggy and the world around her. It feels like everyone at the party is against her.

This isn’t like Carrie, where it feels meanspirited and like bullying – you get where they are coming from. We all know those people – we don’t agree with them or are simply envious of them. It leads to some very funny internal monologues. One particular internal monologue about how Peggy looks after five children made me laugh harder than it probably should have.

Peggy Teaser from Justin Miller on Vimeo.

At first, I was a bit torn about how it was shot. It’s light and whimsically shot – feeling a little like a 90’s – 2000’s kid’s films. The colours are bright and the cinematography feels fluid. A part of me wanted the films to feel like one shot in the ‘50’s, with the static camerawork and maybe a grainy feel. But as it went on, I found that the filming done was perfect for the product. It keeps us on the side of the guests, not Peggy, and makes the ending feel parodical.

Without wishing to spoil, I loved the ending. The scene involving the owl had me in stitches. It’s a good show of how important tone is in your film. What happens is, by itself, horrific. It could easily be something in a horror or thriller film, and could be very disturbing. But, executed in this light-hearted and whimsical way, it was hilarious. It’s like the bit from Robocop when ED-209 shoots up that office worker – despite the horror it is simply hilarious, and sticks with you for how much it makes you laugh.

Peggy is certainly worth a watch. If you like your dark comedies then it’s simply a must. I can’t find any fault with it. I am one of those people who laughs at anything in the real world, but can watch a comedy without breaking a smile. So, to say that this film had me laughing as much as it did is a huge compliment from me. Just put it on and enjoy watching a woman that we’ll all love to hate.

By J Simpson.

You’re either going to love Softness Of Bodies or you’re going to hate it. Some reviewers call it “a frustrating watch,” due to the main character’s “entitlement and narcissism.” Others liken it to “a really bad wreck that you just have to see as you pass by it,” lamenting the character’s lack of development,” asking the question, “Is a movie about a self-destructive character something I should watch?”

In this case, the answer is: yes. If you can handle kind-of aimless indie drama about lost youth in Berlin and their weirdly scrabbling, scribbling lives that is. 

Softness Of Bodies mostly orbits Charlotte Parks, “Charlie,” an American poet living in Berlin, scratching out an existence while she aspires to a poetry grant, played liked an unlit firecracker by the delightfully droll Dasha Nekrasova. She rides a bicycle, smokes hand-rolled cigarettes, is a barista. She’s also a kleptomaniac, is having an affair, and is probably a narcissus. 

Charlie spends her days pilfering high-end boutiques, upgrading her all-too-chic wardrobe. Charlie steals everything, though. This begins to have ramifications immediately. 

She gets busted shoplifting and suddenly has to raise 800 euro. She also finds out she’s up for a prestigious poetry grant and that she’s competing against her poetic rival, Sylvie (Nadine DuBois).We begin to meet the network of people surrounding Charlie at this point, as well. Her gay best friend roommate Remo (Johannes Frick) and his search for love. Her boyfriend Franz (Moritz Vierboom), who happens to be married. Charlie’s photographer ex-boyfriend Oliver (Morgan Krantz) shows up from L.A., complicating matters further. 

Things begin to topple fairly quickly, although Charlie’s already been starting to unravel, at this point. Not that you’d ever know it. Nekrasova’s Charlie is cool as a glass of Grey Goose on ice; as unreadable as a November lake. She appears untroubled, while trouble spirals all around her. 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJbz8WgKp0

Charlie steals a pair of shoes from Franz’s house, ultimately tipping off his wife, Marianne (Lena Reinhold) to their affair. Oliver’s seducing Charlie’s contemporaries, meanwhile, getting close to her life. Franz leaves his wife on a whim, moving into Charlie’s flat unannounced. All the while, Charlie’s still trying to raise the money to pay her court fee and write her grant poem. She’s working her barista job and hosting poetry readings at night. 

Outside her apartment, Marianne punches Charlie in the face, and the final dominos begin to fall. 

Softness Of Bodies final third explodes, the dry powder keg tension of all the proceeding ugliness and messiness. And yet, still, you never see it coming. And it’s not the full point of the film, anyway. 

Joel Blady’s poetic, cinematic, steamy, sleazy, tawdry, wonderful debut ends with Charlie reading her poem to the grant board, an original composition of Dasha Nekrasova’s, who supplied all the film’s poetry. It reads like a laundry list of all the happy things that money can buy – lilacs and silks and cuts of red, marbled meat. It reads like a litany of desire, and ends with a shrug. 

Other reviewers have talked about how Softness Of Bodies revolves around Charlie, and it does, but not entirely. She is a poet, a wordsmith, a psychic dowser, giving voice to the unspoken cravings and desires of what unfolds around her. The question was asked “should we watch films about self-destructive characters?” and the answer is “Do self-destructive characters exist?” 

An earlier reviewer referred to Softness Of Bodies’ “millennial navel-gazing.” They’re not wrong. But while Lena Dunham once called herself, annoying, “the voice of a generation,” perhaps, then, this film could be the zen nihilistic cosmic Tumblr epiphany that shakes you to your core at 3 a.m.

The devils are in the details with Softness Of Bodies. There’s fine performances all around, with props once again to Dasha Nekrasova. She’s the embodiment of slack, detached self-obsessed creation. She moves like an arrow through life, like her trusted bike, with which “she shares a spiritual connection.” And while Charlie may be expressing and emoting for the people, places, and things, this is her story, at the end of the day. It’s a fascinating window into a not-exactly-likeable character, that is still rivetingly watchable. 

The cinematography is wonderful, as well, casting Berlin in a faded nocturnal glow, giving a timeless, worn quality to what unfolds. Stylish, tense, incredibly well-acted, exquisitely produced, Softness Of Bodies is a triumph and a poetic evocation of a lost generation. 

What’s one third exposition, one third pointless fight scenes and one third character flashbacks that nobody cares about? That’s right, it’s the 2019 reboot of Hellboy. In 2004, Guillermo Del Toro brought the beloved but unconventional comic book hero to life. The mixture of fantasy, heart and Ron Perlman’s charismatic performance gave the movie a cult following and despite the less successful sequel, fans still hoped for a third instalment. Unfortunately, it was never meant to be and the reigns of the potential franchise were given over to Lionsgate and director Neil Marshall.

Cut to 2019, Hellboy (David Harbour) is a hard drinking, demon fighting machine who reluctantly takes on the worst monsters that hell can spit out and puts them right back. His father, Professor Broom (Ian McShane) gave him a home after stopping a hole being ripped open between hell and Earth. However, unlike the 2004 loving father/son relationship between John Hurt and Ron Perlman, McShane’s Professor Broom treats his ‘son’ like a weapon and so to hide his anguish, Hellboy drowns his sorrows in drink and buries himself in his work, which mainly consists of gory, overly violent fights.

In fact, the 2019 Hellboy reboot is squarely aimed at teenage boys whose fathers have never told them they love them. However, even when the movie tries to explore the emotions of its protagonist, it quickly fails as Hellboy is thrust into nonsensical fight scenes which are designed to pad out the running time. Whether it be the studio or the director’s choice, the message is clear that a man should bury his emotions and resort to drinking and fighting.

Hellboy is joined on his adventure by Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane) a psychic who Hellboy saved when she was a baby and by Major Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) a soldier who hides a dark secret about his time in combat. It’s a shame then that despite these character’s back stories (and the audience finds out about them whether they like it or not) that neither of these characters hold any kind of emotional connection to Hellboy. It’s as if he just picks up these supporting characters along the way and they form no bond, no emotional growth and absolutely no character development. In Alice’s case she is just a walking plot device. Add to that the supporting actors appalling English accents and their presence only seems to emphasise the weak and stilted dialogue.

Many characters are also thrown at the screen and are no doubt nods to die hard fans of the comics but for the most part they are quickly discarded with barely a nod or a wink to the audience. The brief moments of comedy come from Hellboy and Harbour puts in a good performance but has very little to do as the script never really gives his character a chance to shine. There are also fleeting moments of comedy from the Liverpudlian warthog, Gruagach (Stephen Graham) but again the inferiority complex that the character displays and his history with Hellboy is never fleshed out enough to make it funny. Finally, we come to the villain of the piece, Nimue (Mila Jovovich) who I should have guessed by her involvement that the quality of the film would be less than stellar. Many bad roles have extinguished any hope of Jovovich’s screen presence and she comes across as somebody who just turned up to read the lines and go home. Much like McShane’s performance now I come to think of it.

The Hellboy reboot is a complete failure as far as characters, plot and emotional weight are concerned. Director Neil Marshall’s early 2000’s horror hits Dog Soldiers and The Descent made him a perfect fit for a darker take on the Hellboy franchise but it’s clear that something went very wrong in the edit. The result is an unwatchable, incoherent mess that’s unsure what audience it’s aiming to please. The film even has the audacity to tease a sequel which suggests that the studio was so blinded by the prospect of making money that they forgot to make an enjoyable movie.  Hellboy sure is hell, boys and girls.

By Siobhan Eardley.

I could happily never watch another MCU film after Endgame because it perfectly concluded the journey we have all been part of for the past eleven years. Endgame is a truly special film, it is the culmination of years of hard work, which was all pieced together with such care and attention, I couldn’t help but adore it.

I will say this, Endgame isn’t anything special in terms of film making, but when have we ever expected that of a Marvel film, really? What Endgame’s succeeds at is that it shows off how much thought, time and care has been put into the MCU over the years, and it takes you on a wonderful journey that makes you reflect on what has been achieved in this time.

The story was great, I can’t go into much detail about it at all, because I don’t want to risk ruining anything for you guys, but I really think they did a great job at following on from the devastating ending of Infinity War Pt.1. The opening scene was perhaps one of the most impactful scenes of the MCU so far. It set the dark and foreboding tone for the rest of the film, truly showing what was at stake for the remaining Avengers.

Even though there were a lot of darker moments throughout Endgame, there were a lot of injections of humour, that really broke the tension, but never felt crow-barred in, they were all natural, and provided some of the funniest moments we have seen in an Avengers film so far.

Endgame also showed off some of the best performances we have seen from the cast so far, especially from Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner, who both were given so much more depth in this movie. Something that I think a lot of us have been hoping for over the years.

The dynamic between the remaining cast was also very well handled, I think one of the issues with Infinity War was how overcrowded it was, and although I think it was managed well, Endgame felt like a well-needed rest from the chaos, and it enabled some deeper exploration into certain characters.

Overall, Endgame was a very satisfying and extremely emotional end to an epic saga. It is truly the best we could have hoped for and it did not disappoint and although there were a few questionable moments, they were outshone by everything else. Like I said at the beginning, I would be content if Marvel left it at that, however, there is a part of me that can’t wait to see where they take the universe next!