film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

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!

  • A Star Is Born: The BRWC Review

    A Star Is Born: The BRWC Review

    Lady Gaga is definitely the star right from the opening scene of A Star Is Born. This film is Lady Gaga’s Whitney moment from The Bodyguard. She most certainly inherited the mantle of critically acclaimed successful singer turned actor. American Horror Story showed us a glimmer but A Star Is Born confirms that she can deliver the full emotional range on screen. Bradley Cooper’s version, and directorial debut, of A Star Is Born is the third remake of this film. Does he have anything worth adding to the conversation, and more importantly is it worth watching?

    The story in its’ most simplest terms, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) a successful but alcoholic singer who rather than looking for his next musical hit is looking for an alcoholic one. He walks into a bar: hears Ally (Lady Gaga in a sure fire award winning role) sing, takes her on tour, they fall in love, her star rises and his rapidly declines. What will become of them?

    This is the third remake and did we really need another one especially when it is centred around the tired old story of: boy meets girl, makes her a star, gets jealous of her success and blames her for his misery. Probably not, although the remake is brought slap bang up to date with drag queens, gay best friend, feminist ideals and Jack’s demise is not by a car accident but suicide. The latter is important as suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 50. The film maintains a good tempo until the final third when it starts to drags. Cooper’s direction throughout is very assured and quite possibly award winning but his performance on screen is quite another. Whilst there is no denying the chemistry between the two leads, his performance feels a little identikit and in some of the dramatic moments the camera lingers a little too long on him which comes across as self indulgent as he also directed the film. Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart gives a better performance of a wildly successful singer whose star has fallen due to drink and drugs.

    We can’t talk about A Star Is Born and not mention the music. The soundtrack is phenomenal. In particular, I’ll Never Love Again will be as popular as I Will Always Love You, (your ears have been warned!)

    There is no need and in actual fact I wouldn’t rewatch the previous remake of A Star Is Born with Streisand/Kristofferson. This version stands on its own. It is enjoyable romp and there are some emotional moments that deliver a jolt but that is it. I wish Hollywood studios would stop with the remakes: it is a lazy way to make money and stifles creative diversity behind the cameras. There are plenty of talented writers with lots of stories to tell who deserve studios to invest and take risks on them.

    A Star Is Born is released in cinemas across the UK on 3 October.

  • Review: Great Dane

    Review: Great Dane

    In this day and age, is it still possible to just meet someone out of the blue and fall in love? Great Dane perhaps isn’t intending to answer this question, but it’s certainly relevant. A woman has lost her dog, Princess, in a park, and an aspiring actor offers to try and help her find it.

    Maddie Rice gives the better of the two performances, managing to turn her initial innocence into something altogether more unsettling as the film goes on. This is impressive, considering the noticeably fewer lines she is given than her co-star, and the multiple accents the script throws at her. Tom Machell struggles to charm and his awkward nature is never quite cute. There are moments of intelligence in James Webber’s direction – winks to genre tropes and pacey editing – but for the most part there is nothing experimental or impressive here.

    Poking fun at the “meet-cute” found in so many romances, and commenting on the loneliness of modern society, Great Dane succeeds in keeping us guessing about where the script will take the film next. But in an effort to do so, the characters become alienating when perhaps they are meant to be endearing or quirky. By the end, our thoughts are not dissimilar from the elderly couple witnessing the protagonists’ antics: the two may deserve each other, but do they deserve my attention?

    Cynically, it wouldn’t be difficult to view the film as one long advert for a dating app – use their service so you don’t have to wade through a pool of lunatics you might meet in real life. Then again, if you’re looking for a simple film that puts a spin on the classic formula, you can’t go wrong with this tale of strangers – emphasis on strange – meeting in a park.

  • Sink: Review

    Sink: Review

    Micky (Martin Herdman) is a working class, middle aged man who gets laid off from his part-time job. To make matters worse he struggles to keep his son, Jason (Josh Herdman) from relapsing into a life of drug abuse and looks after his father, Sam (Ian Hogg) when he can no longer meet the payments to his nursing home. As life gets harder and the world grows colder, Mickey makes some increasingly tough moral decisions to survive, leading him to question his values.

    Shot on a micro-budget in South-East London, Mark Gillis’ directorial debut reflects the daily hardships of working life in the 21st Century. A decade on from the financial crisis, Sink depicts the desperate times suffered by the working class, from the zero hour contracts to the antiquated ineffectiveness of the U.K. benefits system(s). While these are universal concerns within the western world, Gillis creates an intrinsically British viewpoint that is bolstered by solid performances throughout.

    Martin Herdman imbues Micky with a tangibility that can only come from a multifaceted realisation of a character. Micky is an everyman caught in an ever-spiralling predicament in which he must seize a semblance of control. Caring for a father ailed by dementia and a son who struggles with addiction, Sink hints at generational hardships, and how every son sired toils with their bespoke demons. To its credit, the dramatic here never ventures into misery-porn. Micky’s pressures are often eased by a support network including an elderly neighbour, Jean (Marlene Sidway), a would-be lover, Lorraine (Tracey Wilkinson) and an understanding case-worker (Joanna Monro).

    While the burgeoning relationship between Mickey and Lorraine unfurls sweetly and cinematically, there are other elements that don’t quite work as well. Micky’s relationship with his son is relegated to a couple of scenes that aren’t fleshed out. There are a couple of oddly melodramatic beats that would have been more at home in a soap opera. While I can understand their inclusion from a writer’s perspective, the character interactions and central theme are enough to carry the weight of the narrative without the inclusion of such adornments.

    I appreciated my time with Sink. This isn’t a geezer’y breeze into London’s underworld, nor an anchored-to-reality drudge through life’s hardships. There’s an air of humour within the adversity that endears you to the characters. Martin Herdman is pretty great and I was left wanting to see more from his life and those he cares for.

  • The BRWC Blu-ray Review: Ghost Stories

    The BRWC Blu-ray Review: Ghost Stories

    I had high expectations when going in to see Ghost Stories. I had heard about the play which had garnered exceptional reviews and was apparently scaring audiences silly since 2010. I was aware of Andy Nyman as an actor as I was a big fan of his work in Dead Set (written by Charlie Brooker and Directed by Yann Demange before either of them were ever really a thing) but also as a magician and mentalist due to his frequent collaborations with Derren Brown. I was also an enormous fan of Jeremy Dyson due entirely to the twisted genius on display from his sketch comedy team The League of Gentlemen. It is safe to say that the stage was set for something really special and i’m very happy to say that is what I go, at least for the most part!

    Firstly, Ghost Stories really is an exercise in “old school” horror tropes. It is an anthology in much the same way as Tales From The Crypt or any of the Creepshow franchise with a through-thread that is as entertainingly feasible as it is flimsy. For his TV show “Psychic Cheats” professional skeptic of the supernatural Professor Philip Goodman (Andy Nyman) publicly debunks stories of the psychic and the supernatural. He receives a mysterious audio cassette summoning him to the home of aged psychologist Charles Cameron, who also made a career out of disproving paranormal claims, and asks him to take three case files that he was never able to figure out. Will Philip be able to debunk these stories or will the journey take him somewhere altogether more twisted and terrifying?

    The problem that seems to plague most horror anthologies is the issue of consistency. It is a very rare thing to find one that manages to make each segment as good as the last. Most of the more high profile anthologies such as Twilight Zone: The Movie, or more recently V/H/S and The ABCs of Death have each segment written and directed by entirely different auteurs and therefore your enjoyment of each section is usually dependent on your feelings towards the filmmakers themselves. Ghost Stories has the benefit of the same directors throughout as Nyman and Dyson very smoothly transition through the caseload and it has a consistency to it that is refreshing. It also helps that the cases themselves are fantastic anyway and all of them are great showcases of the talent of the central performers.

    Case 1 is my personal favourite, with Paul Whitehouse on top form as Tony Matthews, a former night watchmen who recounts a terrifying night spent as a security guard in a former mental asylum. The story is incredibly creepy and feel very much like a haunted house or ghost train you would enjoy at a fairground. You know what is coming but it still gets you anyway! The reason it is my favourite though is the subtle brilliance of Whitehouse. This isn’t “The Fast Show” or “Harry Enfield and Friends” Paul Whitehouse, this is haunted, damaged, life beaten alcoholic Paul Whitehouse and it is superb!

    Case 2 involves teenager Simon Rifkind, played by Alex Lawther fresh off the back of “The End of the F***ing World and THAT Black Mirror episode. It is a dueling segment as not only  are we told the story of his disturbing night stranded in the woods after hitting a strange creature whilst driving his parent’s car without a license, but we are also subjected to the very creepy environment in which he still currently lives. It is an uncomfortable watch and it is very cleverly constructed.

    Case 3 is the story of Mike Priddle, played with smarmy charm by the exceptional Martin Freeman.  Mike explains to Philip about his experiences encountering paranormal phenomena in his home whilst his pregnant wife was in hospital. This is where the film veered off in a direction that I truly wasn’t expecting and to tell you any more would be to do the film a massive disservice. Needless to say it was shocking and a hell of a lot of fun!

    In the end Ghost Stories is a well-crafted love story to the horror days of yore which is as witty as it is nerve-wracking. It has all the tropes you come to expect but it has much more up its sleeve too. For those of you who are tiring of the way that modern horror is going and wish to go back to an altogether more classic experience then this is definitely one to check out. The main thing I took from the experience however was that I want Paul Whitehouse to be in much more darker material. He may be considered a bit of a homegrown king of comedy here in the UK but this really proves that he has more than enough chops to show us his twisted side. Here’s hoping for a Ghost Stories 2 down the line!

  • The BRWC Review: A Master Builder

    The BRWC Review: A Master Builder

    A Master Builder, with an updated and translated script by Wallace Shawn, focuses on the latter days of skilled architect Halvard Solness. An extremely fortunate man by his own confession, Solness is irritated by his protégé Ragnar, who he is holding back from developing his own projects. Solness neglects his wife and manipulates his assistant Kaia, who Ragnar desires. In all aspects of his life, he is in control – he has power. And then a woman from his past, Hilda, arrives, claiming on a promise Solness delivered to her when she was a child.

    The film is adapted from the late 19th century play by Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen, and as such there is a jarring lack of naturalism achieved by placing the film in the modern day. Simply by referring to Solness as a master builder (rather than an architect) is enough, but added to by dialogue and performances that feel eerily out of sync with the film’s grounded aesthetic. Shawn’s script is the most to blame for this, managing to lose all of the intriguing symbolism in the play in favour of a simple story about an aging man undone by a young woman. Solness’ search for meaning and allegories for religion lie are buried, if at all existent, beneath superficial explorations of pride and age.

    It is easy to write off the text simply as “unfilmable”, as admittedly many similar aged texts could be considered to be. Still, Shawn, in the title role as Solness, utilises the words he has written to great effect – it is hard to imagine anyone but he wrangling the script with such unabashed enthusiasm and subtle arrogance. At his side, Lisa Joyce is wonderfully manipulative as Hilda, becoming a sort of femme fatale or accelerant for Solness’ hamartia, but she fills the role with an immaturity and glee that elevates the middle of the film. But all of this seems somewhat secondary to the driving force of the film, the real star, never seen on screen. And that is director Jonathan Demme.

    With Demme’s passing last year, he will long be remembered for being an accomplished documentarian – a pioneer and perhaps a perfecter of the Rock-Doc. But his early career arguably piggy-backed the work of 70’s up and coming auteurs, and even his most famous piece, The Silence of the Lambs, owes a lot to Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Demme turned down the camp and upped the suspense, but he still relied a little too heavily on the performances of two fantastic leads. But if A Master Builder shows anything, it is Demme’s capability as a building block director. There are likenesses to be seen here in all of his previous work, as he borrows the strengths that have served him well before. First, there is the sense of realism and attention to detail that serve a documentary so well. Demme’s trust in talented actors is key to his style, and no one lets him down here. And then there’s his pared back style, his fondness for shooting the scene as if it is utterly naturalistic and yet somehow imbued with a magical cinematic charm. 

    As proved by his later career work – particularly Rachel Getting Married – Demme knows his subject matter, he understands how to draw meaning out of pause, and he knows how to exact brilliance from all various elements at play in the scene. As a director, Jonathan Demme’s career was filled with dramatic highs and disappointing lows, and from a clinical point of view, A Master Builder should be forever listed in the first column.