Glasgow Film Festival: Mid90s review

If you are a fan of the TV series Spaced, you will remember a scene where Tim and Daisy bond over watching skate videos. Making increasingly more audible and physical reactions as the falls and hits as people fall off their boards get more and more extreme and intense.

This was the scene in the Glasgow Film Theatre during the Opening Gala UK premiere of Jonah Hill’s Mid90s.

They were one voice reacting with uproarious laughter one minute and shock and horror the next as the lead character Stevie (played by Sunny Suljic and based only slightly autobiographically on Hill), learns to face what life throws at him, whether that be ollies, grinds, girls or punches; pick himself up and get back on the board.

It is a testament to Jonah Hill’s directorial debut that if you didn’t know, you would believe that Mid90s was made in the Mid 90s.

Shot entirely on 16mm, it has the look and feel of the skate videos that the character of Fourth Grade wants to produce.

Soundtracked by some of the period’s greatest hits (who didn’t have a copy of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged gig on at every gathering?), Hill showcases some real talent behind the camera. Particularly during a house party scene that features some Superbad use of editing and camerawork. Now that is superbad meaning good of course, as was the vernacular in the Nineties.

There is a rawness to the film that is reminiscent of Larry Clark’s Kids. Although not as extreme or exploitative, it is honest in its portrayal of what the youth culture was engaging in at the time.

Mid90s is about finding your place in this world and Jonah Hill may have found his place in the industry. Albeit a future where he is behind the camera instead of in front of it.

4 stars

Glasgow Film Festival - Top Ten Films To See At #GFF19

This week the Glasgow Film Festival announced the full line up for this year and once again they never fail to deliver the goods.
From 20 February to 3 March, the city's 15th annual celebration of cinema will feature 337 events and screenings including 7 World premieres, 102 UK premieres and 49 Scottish premieres.

The full brochure can be viewed and downloaded here but for now, here are my top ten screenings you should grab a ticket for when they go on sale at 10.00am on Monday 28th January.
Tickets for all performances can be booked here.

Alien

Every year, GFF pull out all the stops when it comes to their Special Event screenings and 2019 is no different with 20th anniversary events for The Blair Witch Project and Fight Club but as someone called Dallas, the screening for me had to be a 40th anniversary celebration of Alien that includes a scary, interactive laser tag build up to the main event.

Dragged Across Concrete

Following on from his incredible debut Bone Tomahawk and sophomore effort Brawl On Cell Block 99, can writer-director S. Craig Zahler make it three for three with his latest film?

At the very least, this tale of two police officers' descent into the criminal underworld should continue the welcome career re-Vaughn-aissance of Vince Vaughn following his revelatory turn in Brawl with another film that is as harsh and unforgiving as the concrete surface after which it is named.

Eighth Grade

As one half of The A24 Project, it is no surprise to see this film on the list. Originally released in the US in August 2018 having made its way through the festival circuit (picking up Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominations along the way), UK audiences have to wait until 26th April to see Bo Burnham's stunning coming-of-age film go up against Avengers: Endgame... unless of course you are lucky enough to catch this screening complete with Q&A with Burnham!

Fighting With My Family

When it comes to cinematic tag teams, can you think of an odder but more perfect pairing than The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment and King of the Box Office Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Stephen Merchant? IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!

Produced by (and starring) The Rock, Stephen Merchant directs Florence Pugh and Jack Lowden in this comedy-drama based on the true story of how Norwich-born Saraya-Jade Bevis defied all the odds to make it to the top of the WWE as Paige, becoming a WWE Divas Champion along the way.

Mid90s

This year's Opening Gala is Jonah Hill's directorial debut and another coming-of-age story for A24, this time set in the mid 90s and revolves a 13 year old kid finding a place in the world of skateboarding and the music that defined an era.

The Sisters Brothers

The cast list alone is enough for Jacques Audiard's Western to make the list as it includes Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The Surprise Film

Place your bets now. Possibilities include Serenity, Us, The Kindergarten Teacher, At Eternity's Gate, Hellboy and High Life.

Under The Silver Lake

Completing the hat trick of A24 films screening in Glasgow, David Robert Mitchell's urban noir promises to subvert the genre in the same way as he did with his horror debut It Follows.

The Vanishing

What's this? A Gerard Butler film being a must see at a festival?! No, it's not a sequel to Geostorm. Butler actually has form when it comes to homegrown filmmaking, just check out Dear Frankie. In this film, he costars with Peter Mullan as part of a trio of lighthouse keepers who are assigned to a remote island but a terrifying discovery threatens to pull the trust and friendship between the men apart.

Vox Lux

Now I was lucky enough to catch this film in New York in December but I can heartily recommend this dark cousin to A Star Is Born to anyone attending the festival. My only caveat is, don't read or watch anything about this film before seeing it. It is best experienced, like revenge, cold.

Very surprised that Natalie Portman's performance in this has not made more waves on the Awards race this year and she is fantastic.

22 Jump Street - review

When Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum's Schmidt and Jenko fail to capture a drug dealer during an explosive aid at Metro City Port because they, as Nick Offerman's Deputy Chief Hardy, "weren't doing the same undercover student thing as last time".

"Do the same thing. Everyone's happy."

And so begins what is arguably the most self-aware and meta film ever constructed.

With the number of knowing winks to the pitfalls and genre cliches of sequels, their increased budget, flashier gadgets and cars, etc its amazing Hill and Tatum kept both eyes open the entire movie.

Their unexpected (and at times unspoken) bromance remains the heart of the film and becomes the main focus as they repeat the same plot: go to school, wait no, college, infiltrate the dealers, find the supplier.

While the film starts to sag slightly in the middle with the repetition of beats from the original film and the constant rom-com comparisons with Jenko and Schmidt's partnership, it is easy to forgive when the jokes are this consistently funny.

Highlights include the funniest poetry slam since Mike Myers's "woman, woman, woman" poem in So I Married An Axe Murderer, Ice Cube's dinner table etiquette and the world's finest Cate Blanchett joke (which I freely admit to having used twice already in normal conversation).

Hill and Tatum once again deserve high praise for their comic delivery and on screen chemistry but the prize for the film's best double act goes to Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

"Everything is awesome" in 2014 for Lord Miller because along with The LEGO Movie they have delivered the two funniest films of the year and proved that they are the most visually inventive and creative action comedy directors since Edgar Wright.

Any worries that they might have blown their comedy load prematurely this year are put to rest with the funniest end credits sequence I can remember that shows they have LOTS of ideas for the rest of the Asian churches residing on Jump Street.

4 stars

The Wolf Of Wall Street - review

Wall Street, Rogue Trader, American Psycho, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the news in general.
It would be fair to say that cinema hasn't painted the most flattering of pictures when it comes to bankers and traders and just when you thought it was safe to go back in the trading floor, along comes Scorsese's blistering biopic of Jordan Belfort aka The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Belfort made millions of dollars through selling dodgy penny stocks to wealthy people and pocketing the commission amongst other securities frauds. At least I think that's what he did. It's all financial mumbo-jumbo to most people and Belfort even breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience he's not going to bother explaining what he's doing as they'll never follow it anyway.

Besides this film is not concerned with exactly how he made his fortune but what he did with it once he got it.

This is a movie that is all about excess as Belfort and his cronies indulge in a copious amount of sex, drugs and a MPAA record-breaking number of F-Bombs.

Some have complained that the film glamorises Belfort and his lifestyle but it is the same as Trainspotting in that it is important to show the highs (why people become addicted to this lifestyle) in order to sell the lows and inevitable downfall.

This is a movie about sales and the entire cast sell the hell out of their roles.

McConaughey shines in an early scene imparting advice onto DiCaprio's Wall Street newbie, setting the tone for the rest of the film. Australian Margot Robbie delivers a flawless New Yoik accent, Jonah Hill is more than just teeth and tantrums and there is an entire portfolio of juicy cameos including Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner and Joanna Lumley!

Yet this is Leonardo DiCaprio's film. With shades of the Goodfellas Henry Hill voiceover, DiCaprio is our (potentially unreliable) narrator on this career-best descent into quick cash and quaaludes. He is as comfortable charming his clients out of there money as he is a woman out of her panties, offering up the perfect amount of sleaze to seduce and repel us at the same time.

What is surprising though is how good DiCaprio is at comedy. Although not an out-and-out comedy film, it is funnier than most mainstream comedies of the last couple of years and in one hysterical sequence of physical comedy, Leo has to shuffle and scrape his way along the floor of a country club to get to his car after vintage quaaludes kick in.

Like Belfort after taking a Popeye-sized hit of cocaine, it feels like Martin Scorsese is firing on all cylinders, giving us a film with more energy and balls than filmmakers half his age. All while delivering a 179 minute long opus that feels like 90 minutes.

Leo was once rumoured to play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho but Belfort is just the type of Paul Allen, Grade A Douchebag that Bateman would take an axe to. He lies, cheats and steals. Buys into his own hype after being called "The Wolf Of Wall Street" after his first wife tells him there is no such thing as bad publicity and there is no thought or remorse shown for his victims. Why not? Because he probably didn't have any. This is a man who sold out his own friends to reduce his own sentence.

For those people that claim the movie glamorises Belfort, if you come out of this film wanting to be like him, you are probably already a complete and total banker.

Wall Street said "Greed is good" but Wolf Of Wall Street would say that "Greed is Motherf*cking Great!". It's lewd, rude and crude, un-PC and offensive and I for one fell for Scorsese's sales pitch and enjoyed every minute of it. I'm investing all my cash in Marty and Leo's next project.

5 stars