Films round-up
Sep. 10th, 2018 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rich_jackoJust when I was beginning to despair at the standard blockbuster fare and lack of choice at the cinema, along come a bunch of films that are massively varied and pleasantly surprise me. Alongside some decent blockbuster entertainment too, of course...
Hotel Artemis - This was an unusual one. Jodie Foster plays a nurse running a secret hotel / hospital for hardened criminals in a dystopian, near-future LA. She brooks no nonsense and runs a tight ship. Why does she do it? We gradually learn more about her past as her present day unravels over the course of the film. With riots outside the hotel, and feuds between rival criminals inside, just keeping herself and her patients alive becomes a struggle. And then Jeff Goldblum shows up... I thought this was very good. It's bleak and not to everyone's taste, but at the very least it's an interesting experiment.
Leave No Trace - Another radically different film. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a father and teenage daughter who have chosen to live completely "off the grid", camping out in the forests. But when the authorities find them, they only see a homeless family needing to be re-housed. Father Will can't stand the idea of being trapped by the system, but daughter Tom isn't so certain. The film follows their physical and emotional journey to find a new home. It's a thoroughly believable character piece, with a lot to say about the structures of modern society. The film is hard to track down, but worth the effort.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout - Rather more standard fare for the sixth (!) entry in Tom Cruise's spy franchise. It has no pretensions of being anything other than a Bond-style action thriller, but it does it surprisingly well. All the IMF gang are back, including Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson, this time joined by Henry Cavill, who's been assigned by the CIA as the team's babysitter. The plot is your typical "some of our nukes are missing" stuff, but it's only there to serve as a framework for all the insane stunts and frequent double-crosses. All of which are enough to grip your attention, but what really lifts it is the team dynamic.
Ant-Man And The Wasp - After the baggage-laden Infinity War, it's a breath of fresh air to get back to a Marvel film that's simpler and just plain fun. Ridiculously, this 20th MCU instalment is the first to have a female character sharing title space (Where's that Black Widow movie, Marvel?). Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly form a true double-act, teaming up to rescue Wasp's mother from the "quantum realm" while tangling with a pair of new villains (one intriguing, the other less so). There's plenty of comedy along the way, and the size-changing tricks are exploited for every laugh, stunt and ingenious trick that they're worth.
The Meg - Jason Statham vs. a giant, prehistoric shark. That about sums it up. I was expecting big, dumb, popcorn entertainment and it did not disappoint. Piling on the clichés with gleeful abandon - the hero dragged reluctantly out of retirement for one last mission, the estranged wife in danger, the unbelieving authorities, the amoral businessman endangering lives to exploit the monster for a quick buck, the supporting characters you just know are going to die - this is not a film that takes itself too seriously. Switch off your brain and enjoy!
BlacKKKlansman - This "Spike Lee joint" tells the if-it-wasn't-true-you'd-never-believe-it tale of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), a black Colorado police officer who successfully infiltrates the Ku Klux Clan. His Jewish partner (Adam Driver) meets the Klan in person while Stallworth coordinates and speaks to them on the phone. Meanwhile, he grows closer to the local black rights activists, including student union leader Patrice (Laura Harrier). Lee gets the balance just right, between being funny and entertaining while having a serious underlying message. Although set in the 1970s, deliberate modern references remind us that race issues are still raw, and the fade-out to 2017 footage of Charlottesville leaves an uneasy feeling in the stomach...
The Children Act - More a TV drama than a movie, but a strong performance from Emma Thompson makes it a good one. She plays High Court judge, Fiona Maye, who has to rule on whether a 17-year-old Jehovah's Witness (Fionn Whitehead) should be given a life-saving blood transfusion against his parents' wishes. As she becomes drawn into the case, the teen develops a slightly creepy attachment to her. Meanwhile, her marriage to her unfaithful husband (Stanley Tucci) is breaking down. Based on an Ian McEwan novel, this is nothing special and doesn't grapple too hard with the moral questions it raises, but it's a decent slice of drama nonetheless.
Searching - A highly experimental film, in which David Kim (John Cho) searches for his missing teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La), with the help of dedicated detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing). The gimmick is that every frame of the film is a view of a computer or smartphone screen, as the story unfolds through David's online searches, social media, video calls and news footage. It has to stretch credulity a few times to get certain scenes onto screens, but by and large it works. It's clever and, as with any good mystery, the real fun is to be gained from trying to unravel the clues for yourself and guess the twists before they happen.
Hotel Artemis - This was an unusual one. Jodie Foster plays a nurse running a secret hotel / hospital for hardened criminals in a dystopian, near-future LA. She brooks no nonsense and runs a tight ship. Why does she do it? We gradually learn more about her past as her present day unravels over the course of the film. With riots outside the hotel, and feuds between rival criminals inside, just keeping herself and her patients alive becomes a struggle. And then Jeff Goldblum shows up... I thought this was very good. It's bleak and not to everyone's taste, but at the very least it's an interesting experiment.
Leave No Trace - Another radically different film. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a father and teenage daughter who have chosen to live completely "off the grid", camping out in the forests. But when the authorities find them, they only see a homeless family needing to be re-housed. Father Will can't stand the idea of being trapped by the system, but daughter Tom isn't so certain. The film follows their physical and emotional journey to find a new home. It's a thoroughly believable character piece, with a lot to say about the structures of modern society. The film is hard to track down, but worth the effort.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout - Rather more standard fare for the sixth (!) entry in Tom Cruise's spy franchise. It has no pretensions of being anything other than a Bond-style action thriller, but it does it surprisingly well. All the IMF gang are back, including Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson, this time joined by Henry Cavill, who's been assigned by the CIA as the team's babysitter. The plot is your typical "some of our nukes are missing" stuff, but it's only there to serve as a framework for all the insane stunts and frequent double-crosses. All of which are enough to grip your attention, but what really lifts it is the team dynamic.
Ant-Man And The Wasp - After the baggage-laden Infinity War, it's a breath of fresh air to get back to a Marvel film that's simpler and just plain fun. Ridiculously, this 20th MCU instalment is the first to have a female character sharing title space (Where's that Black Widow movie, Marvel?). Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly form a true double-act, teaming up to rescue Wasp's mother from the "quantum realm" while tangling with a pair of new villains (one intriguing, the other less so). There's plenty of comedy along the way, and the size-changing tricks are exploited for every laugh, stunt and ingenious trick that they're worth.
The Meg - Jason Statham vs. a giant, prehistoric shark. That about sums it up. I was expecting big, dumb, popcorn entertainment and it did not disappoint. Piling on the clichés with gleeful abandon - the hero dragged reluctantly out of retirement for one last mission, the estranged wife in danger, the unbelieving authorities, the amoral businessman endangering lives to exploit the monster for a quick buck, the supporting characters you just know are going to die - this is not a film that takes itself too seriously. Switch off your brain and enjoy!
BlacKKKlansman - This "Spike Lee joint" tells the if-it-wasn't-true-you'd-never-believe-it tale of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), a black Colorado police officer who successfully infiltrates the Ku Klux Clan. His Jewish partner (Adam Driver) meets the Klan in person while Stallworth coordinates and speaks to them on the phone. Meanwhile, he grows closer to the local black rights activists, including student union leader Patrice (Laura Harrier). Lee gets the balance just right, between being funny and entertaining while having a serious underlying message. Although set in the 1970s, deliberate modern references remind us that race issues are still raw, and the fade-out to 2017 footage of Charlottesville leaves an uneasy feeling in the stomach...
The Children Act - More a TV drama than a movie, but a strong performance from Emma Thompson makes it a good one. She plays High Court judge, Fiona Maye, who has to rule on whether a 17-year-old Jehovah's Witness (Fionn Whitehead) should be given a life-saving blood transfusion against his parents' wishes. As she becomes drawn into the case, the teen develops a slightly creepy attachment to her. Meanwhile, her marriage to her unfaithful husband (Stanley Tucci) is breaking down. Based on an Ian McEwan novel, this is nothing special and doesn't grapple too hard with the moral questions it raises, but it's a decent slice of drama nonetheless.
Searching - A highly experimental film, in which David Kim (John Cho) searches for his missing teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La), with the help of dedicated detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing). The gimmick is that every frame of the film is a view of a computer or smartphone screen, as the story unfolds through David's online searches, social media, video calls and news footage. It has to stretch credulity a few times to get certain scenes onto screens, but by and large it works. It's clever and, as with any good mystery, the real fun is to be gained from trying to unravel the clues for yourself and guess the twists before they happen.
