Nick’s Weekend Film Diary

The long holiday weekend (thanks Mssrs. Washington, Lincoln, et. al.) allowed for some excellent movie watching. I’ll go in reverse chronological order to give some brief (well brief for me) thoughts on them.

Having just seen this I can now finally understand the hubbub over it. Aside from the atrocious but obvious big money Fifty Shades of Grey, Kingsman: The Secret Service did very well for itself at the box office and I helped to contribute to that total. It was a perfectly self-aware ode to spy films of the late 60’s to early 80’s where gadgets, puns, girls, and absurd villains ruled the day. This movie was exactly what the most recent Bond films aren’t: fun. Don’t get me wrong I love what Daniel Craig and team are doing with the new Bond films, but they are deadly serious at this point and following in the footsteps of Jason Bourne. The movie was just fun to watch from start to finish and actively referenced Bond and Bourne and even Jack Bauer. This was made by people who grew up on the early Bond films and want some of that particular magic back and we totally get it. Colin Firth would’ve been an amazing 007 given his turn in this film. Sam Jackson is a fun villain, (he had a similar role in xXx (another ode to Bond). I highly recommend seeing this film when you’re not in a serious mood and want a crazy romp of a spy film. I hope they turn this into a series and Matthew Vaughn proved he wasn’t a one trick pony on the Hollywood scene after X-Men: First Class.  I do generally like more serious films at this stage, but I need to have fun from time to time too and there’s no better way to have fun if you love the spy genre.

This showed up on Netflix last Friday and I gobbled it up as soon as I could. It was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and given the star power on screen I’m surprised this didn’t get a wider theatrical release. Viggo Mortensen plays a suave ’60s businessman with a secret. We don’t see enough of him on the big screen, he’s very picky with his roles so I was very pleased to see him here. Kirsten Dunst gives one of her better performances here, though she’s still third fiddle at best. What you’ve really signed up for is to see Oscar Isaac do his thing. He’s a rising star and is in both prestige pictures like Inside Llewyn Davis and A Most Violent Year and will soon be featured in potentially one of the biggest blockbusters ever; Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The story is reminiscent of The Talented Mr. Ripley in both characters and setting, which is fitting given it is from the same author. The director, Hossein Amini, gives a good freshman effort. He’s best known for writing the terrific Drive and shows here that he is more than capable of handling actors well and making a visually interesting film. If you’re asking yourself some night, “What do I watch on Netflix?”, the answer is The Two Faces of January.

This film and the next I was able to watch because a friend sent me copies of the blu-ray that have already come out in the UK. These films won’t be in theaters until February 27th. Luckily Maps to the Stars will also be on iTunes to rent on the same day. If you have an iTunes credit laying around I’d suggest using it on this in two weeks. If not it’ll still be cheaper to rent it than to go to the movies so it’s an easy choice. This film may be only for David Cronenberg fans, but if you’re not a fan of this subversive director then you’re doing something wrong. Cronenberg adds to his filmography of weirdness with Maps to the Stars. It’s an ensemble piece with interweaving pieces that satirizes southern California as a whole and Hollywood more specifically. It’s a film that is as self-aware is Kingsman but much more sardonic and grim. Despite this it has moments of absurdity that heighten it from just a satire to something that at least attempts to be more transcendent, though I’m not sure if it gets there. The reviews on this are a little more mixed but I’m a fan of whatever Cronenberg puts in front of me. He’s shown that Robbert Pattinson is much more than just Twilight with both this and his prior film, Cosmopolis. He also gets a very spooky performance out of Mia Wasikowska (who also was creepy in Stoker). But it’s Julianne Moore, who as usual, steals the show. If you have no other reason to watch this at least check it out for her.

The conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland makes for great cinema. Whether it’s Bloody Sunday, Michael Collins, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Five Minutes of Heaven, or Hunger, the backdrop and the themes it provides makes for great films. ’71 is an admirable addition to this tradition. Jack O’Connell is starting to make a career out of getting tortured on screen, as he has done in his two previous biggest films Starred Up and Unbroken. He basically plays a slightly rougher variation from his character in Unbroken (though this film was actually made first I believe). He’s a soldier who gets lost and left behind after his squad is out to assist in the arrest of an IRA supplier. The IRA and secret British forces are in a race to recover the lost soldier. The chase sequences are done incredibly well and the whole film gives off a claustrophobic vibe on the streets of early ’70s Belfast. The Troubles, as they were known, are a brutal part of British and Irish history and this film doesn’t pull any punches. While the middle of the film does trudge along rather slowly the beginning and end are superbly done. I guess this reflects reality rather well but doesn’t always offer the best cinematic experience in the middle minutes of the runtime. One of my favorite character actor of late, Sean Harris (24 Hour Party People, The Borgias, Prometheus, Southcliffe) gives another great performance here as the leader on the ground of the secret British Military Reaction Force (read up on their interesting story on Wikipedia) and you should really look for him in anything he does.

All of these films are well worth your time and you should give them a chance.

 

Louis Zamperini is Unbroken

This is really just an OK movie. It has lots of great qualities, but in the end it hits too many of the typical prestige awards picture cliches to register as much emotion as its subject truly deserves. Oddly enough I feel this movie had similar issues to Lone Survivor. Maybe it’s just that we’ve reached an apex in what can be done with our current War film stories. I did end up liking this more than that Mark Wahlberg vehicle but still was left somewhat unsatisfied. Unbroken tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympian, WWII plane crash survivor and prisoner of war in Japanese camps. It’s hard to argue that anyone deserves to have their story told more. There are things that were left out about his great life, particularly that he actually met Hitler during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. But when you survive 47 days adrift at sea only to be reported as killed in action, imprisoned and brutally beaten at the hands of your captors only to forgive them I guess you have to leave somethings out of the story. I would’ve liked to see more of his early life however. It is shown in flashbacks in the first third of the movie only to abandon the flashback format for a linear storytelling during his capture. Oddly enough this film seems similar both in tone and even visually at times to Seabiscuit. That 2003 film shared the same author of the source material as does Unbroken. The best known thing about this film is that Angelina Jolie directed it. What is less known is that Joel and Ethan Coen, famous for writing and directing their own original films like The Big Lebowski and Fargo, adapted the screenplay for this film. Despite all this the voice that shines through the most seems to be the author of the biography.

Angelina Jolie has directed just one movie before, In The Land of Blood and Honey, a romantic drama set during the Bosnian War in the 90s. This received mixed reviews and I never got around to seeing it back in 2011 when it came out. Obviously you can see a lot of care went into this movie and from all the press done for this it seems like Jolie cares deeply for the subject, it’s just it all felt sort of paint by numbers. There are films that cover this sort of thing, admittedly a popular topic, that have succeeded. Rescue Dawn by Werner Herzog covers the POW genre very well and offers new approaches while also hitting the points you expect. Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima show how well WWII can be covered in the Pacific theater. So what went wrong here to not make this more memorable? I think a lot has to do with the visual style. Everything is too clean and too bright. There isn’t enough grittiness and it’s rather inoffensive as none of the violence is too brutal or makes you look away. It seems to want to be safe. To offend no one and to bring this to the widest audience possible, but in that process you just end up with sometimes bland and uninspired filmmaking. I might be too harsh, but I just wanted more. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy seeing it. I still think it was worthwhile. Jolie directs the film By the Sea for release next year that she wrote herself and that stars both Jolie and husband Brad Pitt. We’ll have to see how she does with that before making any final judgments.

The performances are all solid and relative newcomer Jack O’Connell is able to carry the film with quiet dignity and real hope. His work in Starred Up earlier this year is much bolder and shows he’s a talent to watch. I’ve been waiting for him to break out big since his appearance in This is England and it seems he’s finally done it. The best work though is in the smaller roles that don’t have to have the breadth and weight of the entire picture on them. Miyavi (yes just one name) is a Japanese rock star and you would have never known that because he gives such a solid performance as Zamperini’s main torturer and leader of the POW camp. Garrett Hedlund does equally well as the imprisoned officer in charge of the others. Lastly, probably the best work is done by Domhnall Gleeson, a Navy pilot who was stranded on a raft at sea for over a month and a half with Zamperini.  Gleeson had a great 2014 with his turns in Frank and Calvary already. Next year he is poised to explode after being cast in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But also look for him earlier next year in Ex Machina and then The Revenant which is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s (Birdman) next film.

The part of the film that was most emotional was the very end, and I mean the very end. Not the teary reunion with Zamperini’s family which is all but guaranteed in a film like this, but rather the epilogue. He was supposed to run at the 1940 Olympics that were to be held in Tokyo. His appearance in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin was a bit of a surprise and he was the youngest to ever qualify for that event, the 5000 meter run. His best chance to win would be in 1940. The film skips over his post Olympic collegiate career at USC before his entry in WWII where he set records. The 1940 Olympics were cancelled because of the war. When he is being transferred to the prisoner camp he introduces himself to fellow prisoners asking if the city they were in was Tokyo and said he was supposed to run there in the Olympics. He seemed pleased to finally be in Tokyo even though the circumstances were so horrible. So then at the very end of the film there is real life video footage of him in 1998, as an 80 year old man running with the torch in the Nagano Winter Olympics. That’s when things really hit home. So I guess all my prior complaints are kind of moot. The film did ultimately get to me. Zamperini actually died earlier this year at the age of 97. He’s a real hero. And despite the film’s shortcomings I’m happy to have learned about him.

I think most people will end up liking this film and won’t be so nit-picky about it a I was. I had the same reaction when I was critical of Lone Survivor, which had an amazing true life inspiration but I thought failed to deliver. Still the movie is a crowd pleaser and should offer a good time to all who see it. And lots of people have seen it as it’s doing very well at the box office. I would slightly recommend this film as it’s probably the best new wide release during the holidays, though there are smaller movies that a worth seeing more, like the recently reviewed The Imitation Game.