Fyre: The Festival That Never Happened - Netflix Originals Review

If one wanted to use a film quote to aptly sum up the failure of #FyreFestival that went from the "hottest party" to an example of the perils of PR, marketing and poor event management that will be taught in schools for years to come, one need look no further than Jerry Maguire:
"I'm finished, I'm fucked. Twenty-four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now... I'm a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it? Because I don't really need it because I'm cloaked in failure!"
In 2017, the world watched on social media as a group of privileged American "influencers" had a meltdown on Twitter and Instagram as they arrived on an island in the Bahamas for an exclusive music festival only for it to go horribly wrong and quickly turn into a "first world problems" version of Lord Of The Flies as panicked Instagrammers ran around trying to find tents to sleep in and wept about the awful state of a cheese sandwich.
This Netflix originals documentary (one of two on the festival out this month) has been developed by one of the teams who were involved in the marketing of #Fyre so they have behind the scenes footage of owners Billy McFarland and Ja Rule as they plan to put on an event to help promote their music booking app #Fyre but just seem more concerned with having a massive piss up with supermodels on a deserted island than actually planning the logistics of successfully delivering a high-end, luxury event for people paying thousands of dollars to attend.
As the film counts down to the day of the festival, the sheer level of ignorance, ineptitude and stupidity on show is staggering as the team, under the leadership of McFarland, lurch from one disaster to another. McFarland, despite being in the face of an insurmountable number of problems, just keeps moving forward. It was as if he was the captain of the Titanic who could see the "Iceberg, right ahead!" and just continued on his current course, thinking everything will be fine, even to the point he goes down with the ship.
He is the physical embodiment of the dog in the house on fire meme "This is fine" and the festival-goers are Donald Glover walking into the room on fire meme!
The film has been described as a Jaws for millennials and the description is apt because the #Fyre team (including the affable, nice Andy King who has the single most shocking anecdote you will hear this year regarding Evian water) come across like the Murray Hamilton's Amity Island beach. He knows there is a shark that could kill everyone but still lets them in the water. The #Fyre team know the festival will fail, that they don't have enough accommodation and food for everyone (not even getting to the fact the accommodation is not what was advertised) and yet they still let them come to the island!

"I'm pleased & happy to repeat the news that in spite of some rumours, we have plenty of tents & cheese sandwiches for everyone attending. It’s a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Fyre Festival as you know, means Friendship!"

There is an old adage in Hollywood that "you couldn't make it up" and that the truth is stranger than fiction and this is one of those stories which is so incredulous and unbelievable in how it all unfolded that you will be sitting slack-jawed and shaking your head in disbelief throughout.
It is a fascinating look at the world that we currently live in and a timely reminder of the power that social media can have over our lives and that sometimes we should take a step back and switch off every now and again to avoid getting burned.

4 stars

To All The Boys I've Loved Before - Netflix Originals Review

Netlfix's latest film to hit the streaming service is To All The Boys I've Loved Before is a refreshing, female led take on the high school movie.
Directed by Susan Johnson and adapted from Jenny Han's novel by Sofia Alvarez, it is perfect for anyone looking to achieve the #52FilmsbyWomen challenge this year.
Lara Jean Covey is a shy, high school girl. She has never had a boyfriend but she has had plenty of crushes. Including one of her best friends Josh who happens to be going out with her older sister. Rather than tell the boys how she feels, she writes them a letter and keeps them in a box hidden in her bedroom.
In one of those "only in the movies" moments, these letters (which just happen to be, as Stevie Wonder might say, signed and sealed and stamped) are delivered to the unsuspecting recipients which causes shockwaves through her social life and social standing at school.
Where the film might have taken a High Fidelity-style trip down memory lane as Lara Jean is forced to track down and confront all the boys she has loved before, instead it takes a different path.
Focusing on two boys in particular, the plot veers more towards a She's All That/Pygmalion plot as she forms a pact with high school jock Peter to pretend to be a couple in order to make their exes/friends jealous.
The film might not be reinventing the wheel but that does not matter one single iota thanks to a tight, fun screenplay and a star-making performance by Lana Condor. Previously best known for a small role in X-Men Apocalypse in which she managed to make one of the worst X-Men in Jubilee actually appealing, she is destined for great things on the back of this film.
As Lara Jean becomes to come out of her shell, Condor's confidence shines through as the character becomes more independent and sets out a strong example for young women as she refuses to be treated as the butt of the jokes and catty attitudes to girls at school who are the targets of jealousy and sexual promiscuity.
As mentioned, the ending of the movie is written in the stars before the letters are even posted but that is no fault of these stars Condor and Noah Centenio who are perfect together and have the audience rooting for them all the way.
One minor point though. Are we really expected to believe that teenagers these days i.e. people born in the Noughties are watching John Hughes movies as their guides to growing up? Would they not be watching the likes of Mean Girls or even Clueless? Which themselves are scarily 14 and 23 years old already! Surely the Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Clubs of this world are the childhood movies of their parents who would show the kids these movies and the young people would be bemused as to what makes them classics?
Will To All The Boys I've Loved Before achieve that cult classic status itself thirty years from now? Only time will tell but until then it is the perfect love letter to all the high school romance movies that have come before.

3 stars

Extinction - Netflix Originals Review

Extinction is the latest Netflix Originals film to hit the small-to-medium sized screens around the world and of the science fiction films to land on the streaming platform this year (Annihilation, Mute, The Cloverfield Paradox), it certainly feels the most generic and formulaic to begin with.
The ever-dependable Michael Pena plays Peter, a husband and a father, who is plagued by recurring nightmares of an alien invasion. As the frequency of the dreams increases, it causes him to drift further and further from his family.
Persuaded by his friend to visit a clinic to talk about his issues, he meets another patient having the same dreams and convinced of a conspiracy to wipe them of their memories. Is there something larger at work here?
Just when suspicions of a Body Snatchers-style situation are raised, Peter is unsurprisingly proved correct in his visions as aliens invade Earth in a huge action set piece that sees Pena try to escape their apartment building with his daughters and wife played by Lizzy Caplan (no stranger to alien invasion having appeared in Cloverfield and the Marvel One Shot set after the Invasion of New York).
The scope of the action scenes indicate that it was directed for the big screen but ultimately the budget and CGI make it feel more like a straight-to-DVD sci-fi film from the late Nineties.
It is a shame that the movie feels so carbon copy to others that have come before because with a format like Netflix, there is that danger that they could easily switch over to watch something else.
And in doing so, they would potentially miss out on dramatic plot developments in the second and third acts that flip everything on its head and make you question everything that you have seen before.
It is a fascinating twist that succeeds in temporarily elevating the film above its genre roots into something more profound.
While it is certainly no Annihilation, the twist should give Extinction a chance of not dying out on Netflix in the immediate future.

2 stars

Set It Up - Netflix Originals Review

The greatest back-handed compliment that you can give Set It Up is that it doesn't feel like a Netflix Originals film. It feels like a mainstream Hollywood Rom-Com that has found its way to the streaming site after playing in cinemas.
It might hit every single beat of the romantic comedy playbook but it does it with a slickness and charm, delivered by strong lead performances.
Set in New York, as so many of the classic romantic comedies are, it starts with a montage of assistants being treated terribly by their bosses to the tune of Nowhere To Run by Martha & The Vandellas (itself provoking images of another classic NYC movie The Warriors).
This introduces us to the two lead protagonists, Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glen Powell). They are executive assistants to high powered and extremely demanding bosses (played by Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu), who have clearly learned nothing from films such as Swimming With Sharks and The Devil Wears Prada and live in the Hollywood version of New York where you can still act like a complete dick to your staff and have no recourse from Human Resources whatsoever. Anyway, I digress...
The being-on-call-24/7 lifestyle leaves the assistants with no time for themselves. Harper dreams of being a writer for her boss's online Sports website but cannot find the time to finish an article. Charlie has a high maintenance model girlfriend who is sick of being stood up all the time.
After bonding over a meet-cute involving their boss's dinner orders, they decide to try setting up their bosses into a relationship that would provide them with more time out of the office and able to enjoy their own lives.
From that point on, well no spoilers but you only have to have seen one other romantic comedy to know that; the bosses will get together, working together will cause the assistants to develop feelings for each other, the bosses will split up, the assistants will fight and everything will need to be wrapped up in a big bow by a dash to a public place for a declaration in front of many people...
What sells the film is the lead performances of Zoey Dutch and Glen Powell.
Both have been grafting for several years with bit parts and supporting roles in the likes of Everybody Wants Some, Dirty Grandpa, Hidden Figures, Expendables 3, etc. This is their first mainstream lead role and they carry it off with aplomb. Convincing in their characterisation on their own and generating great chemistry together.
Deutch gets a bit more to do but that it is not too surprising given the film is written and directed by women (Katie Silberman and Claire Scanlon respectively).
Lucy Liu also gets more character development than Taye Diggs, who is rather more of a stereotypical cinematic boss. Liu however is seen as a strong, powerful businesswoman who has made a successful career for herself. Albeit at the sacrifice of her personal life and this duplicitous scheme by Harper and Charlie might just show her that she is worth more than just a career.
If anything, the film tries to show that work isn't everything and it is important to have a life outside of work... or at the very least, find a job/career that makes you happy.
So while relaxing after a hard day's work or typing up that dream job resume, you could do worse that setting up a viewing of this romantic comedy on Netflix.

3 stars

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World - EIFF review

Synopsis:
At the dark and bloody heart of this period film by director Franck Ribière is real-life iconic actor Paula Maxa (played by Anna Mouglalis), the most famous of the Grand Guignol’s leading ladies and the titular woman, who was graphically slain on stage multiple times a day. A young journalist suspects the theatre is linked to a series of gruesome murders. After falling for Paula and learning of her painful past, he aims to save her from a mysterious killer.

Review:

Back in its heyday, the Grand Guignol theatre in Paris became so famous, or should that be infamous, that the name became synonomos with any form of theatre or film that was designed to shock and horrify its audience.
Although literally translated, Grand Guignol actually means "the big puppet". Who were the ones being manipulated though? Was it the actors or the audience? Will it be the same for this audience?

Paula Maxa was the reason that people came to the Grand Guignol and Anna Mouglalis is the reason to watch the film. Delivering a mesmerising performance as the woman haunted by the ghosts of her past and feels that the only way to truly live is to die.
The true story of Maxa is the inspiration for this gleefully gory tale of murder, mystery and intrigue set during a murder spree in the city of lights in the early 1930s. Imagine Theatre of Blood meets From Hell set in gay Paris. Jacques The Ripper if you will.
The Most Assassinated Woman In The World is certainly not for everyone but that is true of any piece of art. Some will call it art. Others trash. Some will be entranced, some will walk out in disgust but this is trash of the highest order and you have appreciate the pure theatre of it.

4 stars

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World has its International Premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wednesday 27th June, 6.00 and Thursday 28th June, 11.10. To book tickets, click here.

Calibre - EIFF review

Calibre is the debut feature film from writer/director Matt Palmer. Matt has experience directing short films but many know him as the programmer and curator of All Night Horror Madness, an annual celebration of horror movies that takes place at The Cameo.
It is clear that his love of horror and film has given him the tools to craft a tense and thrilling tale.
Childhood friends Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and Marcus (Martin McCann) head up to the remote Scottish highlands on a hunting trip before Vaughn settles down with his fiancee and baby that is on the way.
After a night of heavy drinking with the locals, ruffling a few feathers along the way, the pals set out to stalk deer in the woods. Only the peace of the misty morning is shattered by a tragic accident that will set the friends down a road from which there may be no return.
What can let a horror or thriller down is when it strays too far from believability but this is not an issue here. Every single decision or choice that the two lead characters make comes from an honest and believable place from where they are at that time. It dares to ask the question of "what would you do?" in a situation like that. Would you have acted any differently? We like to think we would but...
Palmer understands the notion of "best laid plans" and slowly dials up the tension and naturalistically placing obstacles in the way of the duo's success and escape.
Yet the note perfect script would all be for nothing if not they had not assembled a talented group of actors to deliver the goods and they are uniformly terrific.
Jack Lowden is fast becoming one of Scotland's finest talents (Dunkirk, England Is Mine) and completely convinces as a young man whose life as he knows it is suddenly over with the click of a trigger. Torn between a need to tell the truth and a desire to be there for his growing family, he allows himself to be dragged further and further into an impossible situation by his friend.
Where Vaughn is quiet and reserved, Martin McCann's Marcus is loud, brash and cocky. The Northern Ireland actor has the swagger of a young Michael Fassbender and his behaviour sets him at odds with the rural locals (played by the likes of Tony Curran and Ian Pirie) and stirs tensions that potentially put any chance of reconciliation off the table.
The film certainly plays on the differences between the rural and city folk. Not to the over-the-top stereotypical levels League Of Gentlemen ("are you local? there's nothing for you here") or The Wicker Man (even though a bonfire is mentioned at one point) but instead coming in this modern landscape where the gulf in wealth and opportunity is as great as the physical distance between the Highlands and the City.
Palmer's debut deserves to be mentioned in the same conversations as the likes of similar genre films Eden Lake, Deliverance and Straw Dogs. Effectively ringing every drop of tension and menace out of this unsettling moral dilemma.
This is Scottish, and indeed, world filmmaking of the truly highest calibre.

5 stars

Calibre has its World Premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Friday 22nd June, 8.30 with extra screenings on Saturday 23rd June, 3.15 and Saturday 20th June, 3.15. 
To book, click here.
Calibre will debut on Netlfix from Friday 29th June.

To listen to interviews with the cast and crew of Calibre, check out the latest Filibuster podcast on The Nerd Party/