Over the years we have seen Casey Affleck develop from Ben Affleck’s goofy little Brother to a brooding and brilliant screen presence and I can honestly say that right now I consider Ben to be the lesser Affleck! It was only a matter of time until he worked with Kenneth Lonergan as he specialises in brooding and sombre and it has resulted in his most powerful performance to date. An oscar nomination is surely on the horizon after what he brought to the table here.
Lonergan is best known for his success as a screenwriter for such polar opposite movies as the Robert De Niro/Billy Crystal vehicle “Analyse This” and Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” however as a Director he is somewhat of an indie legend. His debut “You Can Count on Me” back in 2001 showed us an understated masterpiece about family relationships and the fragility of taking it for granted. He then followed this 10 years later with “Margaret” which was an emotional character study about life going on after sudden tragedy. Luckily we only had to wait another 5 years for his third feature “Manchester by the Sea” and what we have here is an understated masterpiece about family relationships, the fragility of taking it for granted, and a deeply moving character study about how life goes on after extreme and devastating tragedy.
I won’t beat around the bush, I absolutely adored this movie! It is shot with a sombre, steady, confident hand and is constructed so expertly that it can literally have you laughing one second and crying the next. The story is so powerful and I believe you should try to go into this knowing as little about the narrative as possible. The way Casey Affleck’s character Lee is revealed to us, and the bigger picture becomes clearer, is exponentially heartbreaking and a huge part about why this film works so well.
The supporting cast are uniformly fantastic. Michelle Williams plays Lee’s ex-wife and is a revelation! She has always been a great talent in my opinion and this just goes further to prove that point. It will be interesting to see her go into more leading roles in the future as she obviously has the chops. Kyle Chandler is reliable as always as Lee’s Brother Joe and C.J. Wilson brings in a tender and loyal performance as Joe’s best friend and business partner but the real standout is Lucas Hedges as Joe’s Son and Lee’s Nephew Patrick. So many scenes revolve around Lee and Patrick going toe-to-toe and they are never anything less than exhilarating. I completely believed their relationship, their bond, their resentment, their love, and it is something that so easily could not have worked. It is testament to the actors, and the screenplay and the direction that this all comes together so effectively.
I have already gone on too long so I will begin to wrap this up. It is a story that has been done before yet due to Lonergan’s masterfully subtle writing it is without cliche and it’s themes resonate through it’s sincerity. It is Kenneth Lonergan’s best film to date, it is Casey Affleck’s most powerful performance yet, and it is another film that has proven 2016 to be a truly wonderful year for cinema. I cannot recommend it enough!
A late night courier boy agrees to pick up the feisty daughter of an important client. The two youngsters form a close connection and spend two nights exploring LA’s local food scene while their romance blossoms.
It’s a ships that pass in the night romance, with mild flirting and some cringeworthy innuendo thrown in. The pair get off on the wrong foot, and Jasmine (Julie Zhan) accuses Cameron (Chris Dinh) of being ‘sketchy’, even though he’s the most squeaky-clean, meet-your-grandmother boring type. There is little point in pursuing the antagonistic angle, as the pair aren’t up to Leia/Han levels of chemistry. Instead, Jasmine decides she likes Cam once it’s clear she can manipulate him for as long as she can be bothered.
There seems to be a nod to Twilight, Cam is keeping his reasons for being nocturnal a secret, but the comparison ends there. There is a little more in the way of Disney going on, and although they name-check Beauty and the Beast, Comfort is an even split between Cinderella and Aladdin.
Jasmine does not care about Cameron, beyond being able to bend him to her will. It’s pretty dull to watch some rich little princess telling a hard-up delivery guy that his problems aren’t so big: So you want to have your own food van business? Why not just work at someone else’s? See? Easy! Now listen to my problems: I never get to see daddy because he is so busy making money to provide for me. Wah wah wah.
But let’s take a moment to think about the real villain of the story. A shady character we never get to see, but surely an evil mastermind. That lowdown sonofabitch graphic designer who keeps screwing up the posters, forcing Martin (Dad) Hot Sauce King (to be) to work all night rather than seeing his daughter. What’s the deal with all-nighters anyway huh Martin? If you really want to be Hot Sauce King, you’d better get your shit together.
The boy-girl romance is pretty chaste. Where things really heat up is in the kitchen. Cameron is having a mad love-affair with foodstuffs. Not in an American Pie way, but in a foodie-Instagram way. The couple have slightly forced conversation on the topic of food, then there are steamy slo-mo shots of tasty comfort food being cooked up, as though it’s the strangest porno ever.
I will say this for it, Comfort sure made me hungry.
After nearly 14 years there’s not really much more than can be said about The Room, the bizarre chamber drama that’s widely regarded as “the Citizen Kane” of bad movies. Yet after all this time, the enigma of the film still persists, and so has the cult fandom spawned by the films myriad of unique flaws and idiosyncrasies.
Yet, what sets The Room aside from plenty of other films in the “bad film canon” such as Troll 2 or Manos: The Hands of Fate, and has in my opinion allowed the popularity of the film to transcend the “bad movie” genre so much that it has a making-of biography and an upcoming film-adaptation of said biography, is the enduring cult of personality and mystery of main star/director/writer/producer/visionary Tommy Wiseau.
The Room LIVE
Wiseau has managed to ride the wave of popularity generated by The Room for almost a decade and a half by now, yet still he eludes any public knowledge of his private identity. His public persona, however, is just what you’d expect from the man who attempted to make, and his mind actually did make, the greatest film of all time.
So after all this, how does one go about meeting such a man? By attending one of his screenings of The Room of course, which tours all around the US and UK every year, where you can get the chance to meet Wiseau (and sometimes other members of the cast and crew of The Room) and ask him questions, buy some of his odd merch and of course, watch The Room in a crowded hall full of likeminded fans who want nothing better to do than to shout at, heckle and sometimes even assault the screen with spoons. It’s madness, not unlike attending a screening of a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and that’s exactly what I experienced last Sunday at the Princes Charles Cinema, London.
The Room LIVE
Stretching all the way down the street, the line to the event was staggering, but absolutely not surprising. Seeing The Room has less to do with the actual film and more to do with the experience, so when the film comes to the UK, which is somewhat rarely, the fans will line up in droves to see it. After half an hour of waiting (the line started about 50 minutes before the doors opened I’d say) we finally got let inside, before being quickly ushered downstairs to the basement screening room (which sort of made sense really, given the film). There we got our first glimpse at the man himself: Tommy Wiseau. Set up next to the bar that adjoins the screening room, Tommy Wiseau appeared to have completely overrun half the room with an impressively packed market stall of sorts where he flogs his numerous Tommy Wiseau brand products. Everything from rucksacks to watches to underwear, Tommy Wiseau will sell you something with his name on it. As the crowd moved past the display, he waved us all in, stating his love and gratitude for our attendance – the guy sure loves his fans.
After finding our seats, we were subjected to a serious of what I can only describe as increasingly psychedelic pre-show title cards that I’m almost certain were designed by Wiseau himself. Ranging from adverts for his many clothing products to trailers to his upcoming projects such as his web series Neighbours to even just images of his own head against a black background (which brings to mind Mussolini’s fascist headquarters in the 30s), it makes for quite a funny if slightly uncomfortable experience. But then again, that’s the feeling exuded by The Room, so it all felt very in-keeping with the mood of the night.
Pants
Before long, Wiseau himself comes on stage, welcoming us in and quickly rolling out a trailer for his new project Best Friends, an upcoming feature film that sees him re-teaming with The Room co-star and real life best friend Greg Sestero. It’s definitely… interesting and maybe worth a whole separate post.
In any case, after the trailer ended Wiseau was back on stage, ready to take at least 10 questions from the audience. Earlier when we were waiting an employee of the theatre announced that they needed at least 10 audience members to ask questions for Tommy to answer. It seemed odd, almost as if he would actually refuse to come on stage if there was any less than 10 people asking for him. She even went on to say something along the lines of “Seriously, ask him anything, he’ll answer it. Got any life problems you need help resolving?”. Eventually 10 queued up and the Q&A was in motion. Weird.
The Room LIVE
Wiseau has this amazing air of aloof superiority when in his question answering mode, no doubt attempting to mimic old hollywood starts of old such as his obvious hero, Marlon Brando. The first question was “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” an attempt to start the evening off with a joke that ended with a swift and decisive “I don’t know what that means, move on, next question.” I guess after all these years Tommy’s heard pretty much all these jokes, and perhaps he sees it as somewhat disrespectful. Who knows. Pretty much all the questions were answered was in his uniquely vague and barely understandable mumbles, except for a few here and there that he refused on principle, such as the financing behind the film. A decade on and he’s still never going to open up about that one it seems.
After the Q&A, the lights went down and the madness began. Watching The Room with an audience is truly one of the closest experiences I believe one can get to watching something like El Topo at a midnight screening in the 70s. People play along with the film, they shout at the characters, they laugh at everything. It’s truly exhilarating. One of the strangest aspects is a truly “you have to be a fan to get it” activity: throwing spoons at the screen whenever a spoon is in the film. I have absolutely no idea how this began, but it’s quickly become one of the most commonplace acts that occur at these screenings. Midway through the film we decided to leave the screen and see if Tommy was still around. It turns out that Tommy’s willing to hang around for a bit during the film to meet and greet fans outside the screening room, so long as you are nice enough to buy some of his merchandise. This may seem cheap to some, but the guy’s gotta make a living. I’d take a pair of £6 signed Tommy Wiseau boxers and a photo op instead of pay $200 for a quick photo with Felicity Jones like some fans will be doing in Orlando later this year. Please note though that Tommy doesn’t appear to stick around for the whole screening, so you better catch him quick when you attend one of these events!
The Room LIVE
After meeting Tommy Wiseau himself, we sat back down and enjoyed the rest of the film. And that’s pretty much it: when the lights come up, the show’s over. Unfortunately there was no Tommy to see us out, in fact the speed of which he must have packed up his stall and got out of there is actually impressive. But overall, I would 100% endorse and recommend taking a trip to see The Room in person, even if you’re a first time viewer. It might just be one of the most lasting filmic memories you’ll ever have, if only just to see a real life cult experience.
Written and directed by David Hollinshead and Philip Thompson in their feature film debut, Essex Spacebin is a darkly funny movie in the Troma tradition. One of the taglines for the film goes, “the maddest thing you’ll ever see,” which is true enough, but not in in the kind of gonzo way you might expect. As much as Essex Spacebin wants to be a grossout comedy, it’s actually a fairly sensitive, though absurdist, portrait of mental illness. The stilted performances, the cheap FX, the homemade look, are definitely in the Troma style, but like the best Troma movies, there is plenty of brain food to chew on. Weird, yes, but also a rather heartfelt portrait of mental illness.
Lorraine (Lorraine Malby) is a plain looking, obese woman who is missing a few teeth. She’s got a fragile, sad look about her, which makes her easy to relate to. At first it seemed as though the filmmakers were going to make fun of her, but, no, they’re on her side. Convinced that there are secret star gates hidden in plain sight and encouraged by a weird rasta internet guru, Lorraine is always reaching for something bigger than her mundane, poverty-stricken reality. Ultimately she’s harmless, though everyone but her husband and her daughter, including her mother and her psychiatrist, belittle and abuse her.
Lorraine’s husband Bri (Philip Thompson) also lives in a world of fantasy. He’s a drug addict and unemployed, can’t take care of himself. He might have had brain surgery, but that all depends on whether you believe anything our unreliable narrators (mostly Lorraine and her mom) have to say. Lots of weird and funny drug scenes with this guy. One scene early on has Bri and some friends of his sitting around doing some pretty strong drugs. The drugs make them hallucinate, and they imagine themselves as cheap-looking CGI aliens in an early 1990’s-looking VGA graphics world. Later, Bri and his buddy smoke something or other given to them by the rasta which sends them off to a weird ancient Egyptian scene. Drugs, of course, are about illusions as much as Lorraine’s insanity.
This is a world where everyone is so involved in themselves and their own visions that they can’t take care of themselves, let alone other people. Lorraine’s daughter is a particularly sad case. Not only is she actually physically abused on her milk delivery route, having bottles smashed over her head, but she’s probably been sexually abused, too. Lorraine’s neglect of her daughter is unintentional. She’s too lost in her delusions to take care of her daughter. This is a hard lesson for the young woman to realize, but when Lorraine has to go away for a two-year stay in a mental hospital, she realizes that her mom has done her best by her. In voice-over, the daughter says, “I miss your apocalyptic visions.”
The camera movement and framing is expert, though highly stylized and distracting at times. Though this is Hollinshead and Thompson’s first feature, they’ve been making short films for over a decade, so they know their stuff.
The music by Andy Jenkinson is particularly catchy. It never gets goofy, which is a direction a lesser composer might have chosen for this kind of comic material. It’s creepy and beautiful and contributed in large part to my finding the movie more surreal that laugh-out-loud funny. It really brings out the sadness and vulnerability of the characters.
In the end, Lorraine does find a satisfying conclusion to her quest to find a star gate. Ultimately, whether or not Lorraine is delusional (she is) doesn’t matter very much. She finds a measure of happiness and peace, and that’s sometimes all we can really ask from our lives.
Why is it that Will Arnett has become one of the best incarnations of Batman? Batman himself being one of the best parts of the amazing ‘The Lego Movie’, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprising that he got his own spin off movie. Upon hearing of this film I definitely had my doubts about it. But I quickly reminded myself that I felt the same about ‘The Lego Movie’ and ‘Storks’ (which was made by the same studio) and they both ended up being either great or immensely entertaining. I am an avid believer in seeing a film and judging for yourself so a trip to the cinema was in order to see what ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ had in store.
The story this time around almost completely ignores the events of ‘The Lego Movie’ despite being in the same universe. Batman is great, he beats the bad guys, has a huge fan base and has his own soundtrack. The problem is that he is all alone. At the end of every day he returns to the Batcave and Wayne Manor with no one but Alfred waiting for him. That all changes with a bizarre string of events, including new commissioner Barbara Gordon wanting the police force and Batman to work together, Batman mistakenly adopting Dick Grayson and the Joker hatching a scheme that will destroy Gotham once and for all.
The Lego Batman Movie
Despite the films short run time there is a lot that happens in this film, and almost all of it is hilarious. This film feels less like a film such as ‘The Lego Movie’, an animated comedy with heart at its core, and more like the spoofs of old. Not the disastrous spoof films like ‘Scary Movie’ or anything excreted by Friedberg and Seltzer; ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ is more like ‘Galaxy Quest’, ‘Airplane!’, ‘Top Secret’ and anything crafted by Mel Brooks. Unsurprisingly, this parody is of everything to do with Batman in any form of art or media. We have the obvious ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’, ‘Batman Vs Superman’ parodies, but we also have pokes at the animated series from the ‘90’s and we even go back before Adam West put on the oddly blue cowl and hit the original detective comics. But luckily, much like ‘Airplane!’, you don’t need to know what is being made fun of to find the jokes funny. No joke is just the film makers pointing at a reference (not a joke, a reference) and saying “recognise this and laugh at it!” What we get is a great showcase of perfect timing and well thought-out jokes that mostly come at Batman’s expense. There is an early joke about the old comics and even though I haven’t read a comic book in my life I still laughed at it.
The jokes keep coming and they come fast. Too fast at times really; you can laugh so much at the jokes (particularly in the second half) that you miss the following ones. Some could say that this is an issue but really if your problem is that you are laughing too hard then you can only blame your sense of humour. But I have found that the best comedies tend to have a story with goals and likeable characters who just happen to be funny, not just Adam Sandler putting on a strange voice again. And ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ knows this too.
The Lego Batman Movie
Let’s be honest, from reading the plot you know exactly what the message that is going to be conveyed is. It all comes down to family and respecting and loving others and not shutting yourself away from those who care for you. We know it, we’ve seen it, all that can be done is to have it well incorporated into the story. And, yes it is. It never gets sappy, although some of these heart-felt moments do have an effect on the pace at times. In fact they are the only times the film slows down from the high gear it drives in. And it must be said that after a fast-paced but stable first half, things get incredibly bonkers in the second half. But the best jokes and references are in that part of the film so I’m not going to complain. Other than that the story really does just give reasons for jokes and character drama so it’s not really worth diving into further.
As for the characters, Batman is still hilarious. Will Arnett brings his A game to the voice work and he perfectly captures the teenage-full of himself persona that the character has this time around. We also get Michael Cera as Robin, who is really just there to deliver the heart to the story but he does well with it. Ralph Fiennes is Alfred and, as I had imagined going in, he turned out to be the funniest character of them all with his dry humour and monotone gentleman voice. Rosario Dawson joins in as Barbara Gordon, who like Robin is just here to deliver heart and move the story along, but again like Robin she does a good job with it and is completely likeable as Batman’s polar opposite. And finally we have Zach Galifianakis as the Joker. The idea for the Joker here is that he has a “relationship” with the caped crusader; he wants to be his worst enemy the exact same way a person wants to be their crushes partner. He even gets jealous when Batman fights other bad guys. I must admit I’ve never seen this before and I found it weirdly hilarious and almost endearing at the same time. There are other guest stars as guest villains but I won’t get into that here.
The Lego Batman Movie
All else that can be said is that all characters and the world around them are exceptionally well animated. Like ‘The Lego Movie’ it’s really hard to tell if some moments were assembled in a computer or if they actually took the time to stop-motion animate them. Not once does it feel like an advertisement for Lego; it clearly is in the end but you really wouldn’t think it with the respect they give the audience by telling a good story with likeable characters and deliver legitimate laughs. Christopher Miller and Phil Lord have started something really strange with ‘The Lego Movie’. Strange, but by no means unwelcomed.
It never reaches the highs of ‘The Lego Movie’; it’s not quite as funny or heart-warming, and in the end Emit was a more compelling hero than Batman was. But in the end I’m glad I saw it. It’s a good sign that the spoof film is not dead yet and hopefully never will be. It’s ironic and almost sad that ‘The Lego Batman movie’ is a far better film than ‘Batman Vs Superman’; in fact I’d argue it’s better than ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. In a world where superheroes and product placement are everywhere, it’s nice to finally see a mixture of the two that is fully self-aware.
