BlacKKKlansman - Review

2018 is being widely viewed as a game-changing year in cinema. The #MeToo movement is starting to make changes behind the scenes in the industry; LGBTQ+ are beginning to experience more representation on the big screen (Call Me By Your Name, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Love Simon and Hearts Beat Loud); #52FilmsByWomen.
However when 2018 comes to a close, two of the most important films to be released this year will both feature "Black" in them.
Black Panther is the highest grossing film in the US, and second worldwide to Avengers Infinity War. It caused Hollywood to sit up and take notice that African-American audiences will come out in force to see strong, heroic black characters on the big screen. It represented a huge step forward.
Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman also features a strong, heroic black character but looks back at the past and to the future to show that not much has really changed and there is still a lot of work to do.
Based on one of those incredible true stories that sounds too crazy to be true, John David Washington (son of Denzel) stars as Ron Stallworth, an African-American police officer who managed to become a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
A new recruit to the Colorado Springs police force in the early Seventies, the rookie takes a huge punt and calls up the local chapter of the KKK and establishes a rapport with them and gets invited to join.
Obviously he cannot attend himself so it becomes a joint operation with a white officer playing Stallworth while at the meetings. This responsibility falls to Philip "Flip" Zimmerman (the always excellent Adam Driver).
The investigation that follows is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.
The humour naturally comes from the juxtaposition of this intelligent, streetwise man taking the KKK for a ride as he worms his way into the Klan over the phone. Even getting to the man at the top of the chain David Duke (Topher Grace).
Given what transpired in the investigation, it is safe to say that the KKK do not come out of the film looking like the sharpest tools in the box as the two Ron Stallworths run rings around them. In fact, there is a certain trio that make the Nihlists from The Big Lebowski look like criminal masterminds.
However Lee never looks to dampen or diminish the threat, power and hate that made them so dangerous.
This is evident in several scenes; A crosscutting between a Black Student meeting where a lawyer talks about a horrific case and the initiation ceremony for new KKK members that ends with a party and watching Birth Of A Nation; the naive Stallworth stating that America would never elect a man like Duke to political office and the ending of the film which jumps forward to real life footage of the Charlottesville protests from last year that saw the death of a protester by white supremacists driving through people.
It was a stark reminder that the fight is not over and the war rages on. For despite it being a period piece, it feels fresh and startlingly relevant as many of the phrases and language used e.g. "America First" generated awkward laughter in the auditorium due to its prevalence in Trump's campaign.
BlacKKKlansman is easily Spike Lee's best and most important film since The 25th Hour and it is a welcome return to form for one of cinema's most important voices. So Do The Right Thing and watch it on the big screen ASAP.

4 stars

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - review

"There has been an awakening... have you felt it?"

There certainly was an awakening last night as this Star Wars fan found that the love he had for the original trilogy, a love that was thought lost forever, returned in force.
From the moment the Lucasfilm logo appeared and the famous crawl stretched up the screen to the familiar score of John Williams, you couldn't remove the grin from my face.
But wait, I had been here before. Star Wars for want of a better analogy is like the love of your life who broke your heart and turns up years later wanting to get back together. You know that it could end badly but you just can't help yourself and give it another go.
Thankfully JJ Abrams et all knew that the passion I and many other fans had for Star Wars was still inside us. We might not have know it ourselves but just as Luke believed that there was good still inside Darth Vader and fought to bring it out of him, they have done just that with The Force Awakens.
I will not go into details of the plot for fear of spoilers, after all we don't want another Homer Simpson situation on our hands do we?

Suffice to say that The Force Awakens is everything that fans who were disappointed with the prequels would want from a Star Wars film.
Gone are the trade federation taxation routes and political posturing. Gone are the overly CGI backgrounds and wooden acting.
The movie feels like it has been shot in real locations with CGI characters used sparingly with a focus on make up, costume and puppetry to bring them to life.
The script is a lot sharper and brings back that sense of fun. There are a lot more laughs in the film than I was expecting but it all works for the characters.
Not only that but the film has what was sorely missing from the prequels... Han Solo. It was his world-weariness and roguish charm that appealed to audiences, and that presence was not filled by any characters such as Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan or Jar Jar Binks.
The newcomers to this saga such as Finn, Rey and Kylo Ren fit in perfectly to the established universe and the welcome return of Han Solo and Chewbacca acts as a nice bridge between the trilogies, especially as Harrison Ford really does look like he is enjoying being back in the cockpit again.
Kylo Ren in particular, proves to be a much more complex villain than initially thought (just look at how his reaction to bad news differs to that of Vader) and Adam Driver is excellent in the role which will evolve into something really special over the course of the films. The same goes for Daisy Ridley as Rey.
Is The Force Awakens a perfect film? No, it is not. You are occasionally left wanting more from some of the characters, some of whom deserve more screen time, and the movie poses more questions than it answers (clearly conscious of being part one of a new trilogy rather than a stand alone film like A New Hope was originally).
Is it the best film of the year? No. However this film was never going to be judged merely on the quality of this one particular installment. It would always be reviewed and thought of as one part of a much larger universe.
Compared to the crushing disappointment and anger that the prequels generated, causing many people to turn to the dark side, this has shown us the path back to the light.
Any film that has me consistently laughing, close to tears on three separate occasions and leaves me with a grin frozen in place like Han in carbonite is always going to win out on an emotional level.
The Force Awakens proves that "the force will be with you always" and as I left the screen as the credits rolled I whispered "I love you" and Star Wars replied simply with... "I know".

4 stars

Glasgow Film Festival - Opening Gala: While We're Young

The 2015 Glasgow Film Festival kicked off in style last night... well, the type of style that includes pork pie hats and skinny jeans because the film chosen to open proceedings was While We're Young by Noah Baumbach.

A couple in their forties (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) are growing restless and treading water. Stiller's character is still working on a documentary project he started ten years ago. Unable (or unwilling to have children) they are losing touch with their friends who are having kids, etc.
When they meet a young hipster couple at one of Stiller's lectures, they embrace their "joie de vivre" spirit and start embracing the "hipster" lifestyle but it starts to put hitherto unknown pressures on their work and relationship.

Baumbach's last film Frances Ha was centred around a group of New York hipsters and alienated a lot of viewers who just didn't particularly like or understand this "scene" and there was some initial hesitance going into this film that it would be more of the same.

However, Baumbach's screenplay is very much written from the point of view of the older characters and therefore whilst it paints an alluring picture to convince you that a world of homemade ice cream, street cookouts, pork pie hats and hip hop dance classes would appeal to a couple going through a mid-life crisis, it is not afraid to call the hipsters on the "oh aren't we cool, we use a typewriter" bullshit.

As the gloss starts to fade on their newfound "lifestyle" and friends (Adam Driver plays his role well coming across as appealing yet also a bit of a douche), Josh rallies against it. Bemoaning the fact that there are bands ironically named after adverts he saw as a kid. Or having a massive vinyl collection because it looks good in the oversized loft apartment where for Josh it was essential as a young guy as it was the only way to listen to music.

Stiller's Josh is from a generation of documentary filmmaker, inspired by his father-in-law (a nice cameo by Charles Grodin), where truth is paramount. Adam Driver's Jamie is of the generation where truth is "nice and all" but not if it gets in the way of telling a good story.

The first two thirds of the film are very funny, with a slight Nathan Barley-feel to its critique of a culture (amplified by great performances from Stiller and Watts as the fish out of water) but once an actual "plot" comes in and Stiller tries to expose his protege Jamie (who has now exceeded Josh's success) as a fraud, it feels rather weak and underwhelming.

Indeed, Josh's final rant and speech comes across as anti-climatic yet perhaps this is the point. The world is changing and people have to accept that and embrace the change... although they themselves do not have to change and instead be comfortable in their own skin.

After all, I myself am 34 years old and own a few trilbies but found myself agreeing with the viewpoint of the 44 year olds.

Perhaps Huey Lewis and the News were right and it IS hip to be square these days.

3 stars

This Is Where I Leave You - review

This Is Where I Leave You features an incredibly new and revolutionary concept for a movie. A disfunctional family are brought together by a tragedy/crisis and forced to work through their issues.

Oh wait, that's been done before... many, many times.

Why is it that you never see a conventional, happy family brought together by a funeral in a movie? Now THAT would be a novel twist on the formula!

Instead talented actors like Bateman, Stoll, Fey, Olyphant and Driver and brought together and forced to confront their problems that include the tried and tested "infidelity", "inability to commit", "inability to conceive", "mid-life crisis" etc, etc.

Sadly the screenplay and film offers nothing new to say on any of these topics and so this is where I leave it...

2 stars

What If - review

Daniel Radcliffe has continually impressed in his choices and performances since leaving Hogwarts and his turn as Wallace in romantic comedy What If provides further evidence that he will be able to forge a successful career out of the shadow of "he who shall not be named".

Wallace is single. He meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan perfectly playing the smart, sassy cute pixie girl) at a house party where they have an instant connection. Just one problem. She has a boyfriend who is a UN Lawyer (in copyright law) played by Rafe Spall (refreshingly playing him as likeable and un-douchy).

Cue a funny, well acted but completely unoriginal take on the question everyone has asked since the time When Harry Met Sally, "Can a man and a woman really be friends or does sex always get in the way?".

Radcliffe and Kazan's appealing chemistry leads to the question What If they had been given more original material to work with, as this could have been a rom-com to go the distance rather than a quick rebound fling as you continue to search for the next (500) Days Of Summer.

3 stars

Tracks - review

Mia Wasikowska goes walkabout with a bunch of camels in this true story of Robyn Davidson who completed a 2000 mile trek across the deserts of Western Australia in the 1970's.

Inspired by the National Geographic article and photographs which documented Robyn's story, this film recreates the "how" of the journey but never really gets to grip with the "why", despite adding in some flashbacks to try and give reason to the character's motivations beyond "I want to be by myself".

A beautiful looking film that will work very well as a picture postcard for the Australian tourism industry but doesn't quite deliver on the promise that the journey is more important than the destination.

3 stars