Category: REVIEWS

Lady in the Park follows a couple as their marriage falls apart in the midst of booze and money troubles.

I don’t usually need an excuse to binge-watch comedy, but if you need one, try Lady in the Park. It will leave you feeling miserable and robbed of a precious 12 minutes of your life.

Lady in the Park is set in the 1960s, portraying a family who are failing to make ends meet. This could be a recipe for heartbreaking drama, but this director is no Ken Loach. The characters are one-dimensional and utterly unlikeable. The exchanges are wooden and lack rhythm. It is a long ten minutes before anything truly dramatic happens, yet it prompts little in the way of empathy as it is gratuitous and makes little sense.

It is very unclear what message is contained in this short film. Steer clear from watery-eyed men who are bad at running sandwich shops? Men who sit in their Y-fronts, on the floor of their neat middle-class houses, swigging vodka from the bottle. Don’t file for divorce lest you be stabbed in broad daylight?

The carefully chosen sets look like carefully chosen sets. They are clean and stage-like, lacking the elements that should make them feel lived-in. The sets are as vibrant as the characters, which is to say not. The best thing about this film is its poster.

Star Wars fans are a dedicated bunch of people, and most have probably countless documentaries about George Lucas, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil, but few will have heard from the countless extras that helped  make Star Wars the  true classic that it is. Elstree 1976 solves this problem. Elstree 1976 brings together a group of extras who tour on the comic-con circuit and a few who don’t to tell us for the first time about their careers, and about the life of an extra and the battle between credited and uncredited stars.

Jon Spira delivers a well cut and well paced documentary that brings an in depth understanding  to its subject matter and goes from beginning to end with a good uninterrupted  flow. The only downside of Elstree 1976 is perhaps  its build up and premise. Opening with a lot,  and I mean a LOT of emphasis on Star Wars and marketing  itself pretty much  entirely asa picture about the franchise, much of the film it does dedicate quite a large portion of its time to their careers outside  of Star Wars near its start that often left me wondering when we would actually get to hear about their experiences on set. That being said, the discussion is interesting and keeps you watching, it just perhaps isn’t quite as advertised.

Elstree 1976 isn’t just for Star Wars fans, and in truth I think die hard Star Wars fans might not actually be happy. It is however, a film for avid and interested film fans. Elstree isn’t for your fair-weather film buff, but for  your true fanatic.

By James Connors.

There’s no doubt that Clint Eastwood’s late life directing career is unpredictable, with ‘Gran Torino’ and ‘American Sniper’ hitting both ends of the quality spectrum within just a few years of each other. ‘Sully’ feels like it fits somewhere in between the two, missing the character insight of Torino, and thankfully the black and white portrayal of what should have been a fascinating look into the mind of Chris Kyle in Sniper. ‘Sully’ simply exists, telling a story that took place over a matter of minutes and attempting to drag it out to a feature length movie.

Hanks is, of course, solid in the role but you have to question his choice in taking another real life hero story, told from a single viewpoint, so soon after ‘Captain Philips’. There’s no real challenge for him here, and it’s entirely down to the quality of the script which ranges from plodding, to outright embarrassing – in particular the scene in a bar where he finds out there’s a drink named after him. There’s barely a conversation that doesn’t feel stilted, or simply existing to buy time.

Attempts to make the passengers more than numbers are weak, where the aftermath of surviving the incident could have made for compelling drama. Instead, we’re shown how 3 people nearly missed a flight for unimportant reasons, and a man playing jovially with a baby prior to takeoff. Once the crash is over, they’re barely an aside in the story Eastwood wants to tell.

Jumping around the timeline in order to avoid the lack of any real progression, we’re never given any real time to take in how even the lead characters actually feel after such a life changing incident – which is understandable given the demeanour of Sully, which appears to be realistically based on the real life captain. Instead, fabricated drama is thrown in, and the film essentially feels padded out to get to its meagre runtime. It’s hollow and soulless, which seems genuinely impressive feat given the story its based on.

There’s no doubt that the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ is a fascinating and exciting tale, and that the rightful actions of Capt. Sullenberger saved the lives of many, but sadly the way this was produced does not translate to interesting filmmaking. Once again Clint Eastwood has taken a true life story, and removed any aspect of intrigue in order to weave his own ideas in, which is a massive shame.