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Non-Review Review: Lights Out

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Darren

For the bulk of its runtime, Lights Out is a very old-fashioned and very clever horror movie.

The basic premise of Lights Out is quite clever, even on its own terms. The central antagonist of the film is a demonic entity that seems to move through darkness. Characters are safe from its influence so long as they remain in the light. It is a very smart riff on a primal fear. The fear of darkness is the most primal of fears, the anxiety about the unknown and what might lurk in the shadows. Lights Out takes that universal fear and mines it for scares, in a fashion that is very classic while also quite clever.

A bit of the old ultraviolet…

The premise alone is enough to drive Lights Out, to power an eighty-one-minute horror film. However, director David Sandberg and writer Eric Heisserer go a great deal further. In the style of many classic horror stories, Lights Out positions its demon as an allegorical device. This demon that stalks its prey through darkness is treated as an apt metaphor for depression, a creature that has latched on to a small suburban family and tormented them quietly for years. It is a premise that The Babadook used to great effect, and it adds a little extra heft to Lights Out.

However, there is a sense that Lights Out is just a little bit too clever for its own good. The film follows its basic premise to a very clever and innovative conclusion within the world that it has created. The problem is that the movie’s final big plot development rather brutally undercuts the central allegory in such a way that the film trips over its own wit. Still, discounting those final few minutes, Lights Out is a visceral thrill-ride and a joy from start to almost-finish.

Red sky at night…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, lights, Movie, non-review review, out, review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Suicide Squad

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Darren

Suicide Squad is a mess.

Like many contemporary blockbusters, it is overplotted and convoluted. For a film with a (relatively) straightforward story and an impressively large ensemble, Suicide Squad twists and turns in a way that makes it impossible to pin down. The film never seems entirely sure when enough is enough, and always seems ready to pile more on top. The film is never entirely sure what the audience should know at a given moment, particularly compared to the characters. Character development is secondary to a series of quick gags and cheap one-liners.

Whacky.

At the same time, there is a certain charm to the film, once it gets past the clunky exposition or the twisty plot or the inevitable myriad of complications that serve to eat up screentime. The core concept of a team of supervillains enlisted to deal with a national crisis is a great story hook, and Suicide Squad featured a collection of intriguing characters brought to life by a fairly great cast. Suicide Squad works best when it lets those characters cut loose, when it cedes the screen to Margot Robbie or Will Smith. There is an energy and verve to it that is contagious.

That energy does not make up for the movie’s shortcomings, but couple with David Ayer’s sense of momentum, it helps to keep the train from coming off the rails for most of the movie’s two-hour runtime.

‘Sup Squad?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: batman, David Ayer, film, Movie, non-review review, review, suicide squad | 10 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Shallows

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Darren

The Shallows has a pretty great high concept that it stretches just far enough that it begins to creak, but not so far that it snaps back in the audience’s face.

The Shallows is very much a pulpy creature feature horror film, with a healthy dash of tourist anxieties thrown in for good measure. It is a film about a young surfer who finds herself stranded on a rock about two hundred metres from shore as she is menaced by a really determined shark. It is very much a high-tension high-stakes survival thriller, one that lends itself to pithy summaries like “Jaws meets Phone Booth“ or “Buried, where the part of Iraq is played by a menacing computer-generated shark.”

Still waters…

It is an absurd set up to sustain across a ninety-minute runtime, and it is to the credit of The Shallows that the movie realises this. The Shallows never resists the absurdity of its premise. It never hesitates or second-guesses itself. The film moves incredibly quickly, recognising that any moment where the tension slips is a moment at which the audience might begin question the underlying assumptions that hold the film together. Like its animal antagonist, The Shallows understands that it needs to keep moving forward if it is to survive.

The result is a survival horror movie less interested in subverting or deconstructing classic genre tropes than it is revelling in the pulpy possibilities of a story like this. The Shallows is much stronger for that.

Oh buoy…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Blake Lively, film, Movie, non-review review, review, the shallows | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Darren

It is very strange to think of Ghostbusters as a film.

For the past year or so, the word has existed as part of a storm ravaging the pop cultural landscape. It became the source of heightened controversy, its own front in the pop culture wars that had already consumed video gaming and the Hugos. To venture an opinion on the film was to wade into that storm, to chase the tornado and to find your opinion subject to all manner of criticism and second-guessing. If you were interested in the film, you were a raving feminist crushing the hopes and dreams of a generation. If you were sceptical, you were a misogynist.

Rocked and loaded.

With that in mind, it is strange to think of Ghostbusters as actually existing as a film that can actually be watched in a cinema. The film has been the source of so much discussion and debate – so much thought and energy – that it somehow feels “bigger” than two-hour long supernatural action comedy directed by Paul Feig and starring a great cast. Trying to separate the film from that larger discussion feels like a Herculean task of itself, one compounded by the fact that it is neither terrible nor brilliant.

Being sensational or being awful would make the matter a bit easier, because it would tie neatly into one of the two narratives swirling around the film’s production. Instead, it is merely very good. It is an enjoyable supernatural action comedy with a great cast that is always fun to watch, even if it isn’t perfect. In the end, it is just a film. A very good, very enjoyable, slightly flawed film.

Stream of thought…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, Ghostbusters, ghostbusters (2016), Movie, non-review review | 29 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Legend of Tarzan

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Darren

The Legend of Tarzan is a dysfunctional film.

It is an interesting film in many ways, eschewing a lot of the conventional choices when it comes to adapting the Lord of the Jungle for the silver screen. There are a lot of reasons why this adaptation might want to steer clear of familiar trappings like the origin story or opt for an unconventional starting point, and the result is one of the most intriguing of the year’s big blockbusters. The Legend of Tarzan never follows the path of least resistance, and the resulting film is more fascinating for that.

“Anyone for tea?”

It is also a lot less satisfying. Tarzan is an archetypal character. Many of the character’s trappings linger in popular memory. Even people who have never seen a Tarzan film will recognise the character’s battle cry. The loincloth is just as iconic as Superman’s red underwear. There are certain expectations in a Tarzan adaptation. Defying many of those choices is a bold storytelling decision, but that decision creates an absence at the heart of the film. Director David Yates and star Alexander Skarsgård never manage to fill that void.

The result is a film that is fun to puzzle out, but not entirely engaging on its own terms. Characters repeatedly acknowledge “the Legend of Tarzan”, whether sketched on posters or memorialised in song. However, the film spends so much of its first half picking apart the legend that it struggles to put it back together at the climax.

Note: there is more colour in this frame than in the entire film.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: David Yates, film, Movie, non-review review, review, tarzan, the legend of tarzan | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Absolutely Fabulous – The Movie

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Darren

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is that it feels very much like an extended special of the classic British sit-com. Sure, the film has an expanded budget that allows for some suitably glitzy location work. Of course, the film is stuffed to the gills with even more celebrity cameos than you could shake a stick at. However, there is very much a sense that Absolutely Fabulous has not been radically transformed in the transition from goggle box to silver screen. This is very much in the spirit and style of the source material.

That is perhaps both the best and worst thing that could be said about Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.

Saundering off…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: absolutely fabulous, absolutely fabulous: the movie, bbc, film, Movie, non-review review, review, Television | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Neon Demon

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Darren

Is it possible for a film set in the world of high fashion to be too superficial?

That is very much the crux around which Neon Demon pivots. Nicolas Winding Refn is a glorious stylish director with a strong visual sense and a provocative attitude. Thematically, his films tend to touch upon broad ideas like the correlation that exists between masculine identity and violence. It is familiar ground for anybody who has ever watched a film, followed a television show, read a book or even browsed a newspaper. Refn doesn’t necessarily do anything novel or compelling when it comes to his subject matter.

A cut throat industry…

Instead, Refn offers a striking aesthetic that is lush and overwhelming. It is too much to suggest that Refn’s films would work just as well (or even better) with the volume turned down low. After all, Cliff Martinez’s scores are a key part of the appeal of Drive and Only God Forgives. More than that, the blunt metaphorical “nobody in the history of the world has ever talked like this” dialogue is very much part of the appeal. Characters in Neon Demon converse around one another, talking in abstracts and affectations. It is a pure pulpy delight.

At the same time, Neon Demon brushes up against its own limitations. When Refn draws on archetypal female characters, he seems to fall back on shallow sexist caricatures. “Are you food or are you sex?” one character asks young model Jesse early in the film. The movie suggests its own alternative (and sadly all too conventional) dichotomy. Refn’s female characters are reductive and crudely formed; just like his male characters. However, the reduction of the female characters in Neon Demon is much more problematic than that of his male characters.

This business can murder.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Cliff Martinez, Elle Fanning, film, Movie, neon demon, Nicolas Winding Refn, non-review review, review | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Elvis and Nixon

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Darren

Elvis and Nixon is a larger than life account of a larger than life meeting between two unlikely legendary figures.

Much has been made of the fact that neither Kevin Spacey nor Michael Shannon bear much resemblance to Richard Milhous Nixon or Elvis Aaron Presley. In fact, the film even makes a point of mentioning it. After a weird encounter at the White House gate, one security guard concedes of Elvis, “He’s taller than I thought.” Of course he is; Michael Shannon is noticeably (about ten centimetres) taller than his character. Indeed, the lack of physical resemblance between the actors and the subjects seems to be the point.

“Yeah, I suppose he KINDA looks like he from an angle.”

After all, many of the best cinematic Nixons look rather unlike the nation’s thirty-seventh president. Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella picked up Oscar nominations despite the fact that there was no risk of confusion. The same is true of Dan Hedaya, even if he never picked up an Oscar nomination. Both Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley exist as larger-than-life figures in the American popular consciousness more than distinct individuals; both are recognisable archetypes who seem to speak to the nation’s cultural memory more than its specific history.

Elvis and Nixon realises and embraces this. The film is gleefully and archly ahistorical, to the point that this becomes the point. It is not so much that the line between reality and fiction blurs for director Liza Johnson, it’s that the boundary never existed in the first place. There is no record of what actually happened during the thirty minute conversation, but that’s probably for the best. Nothing could be quite as fun as the mismatched odd couple comedy of Elvis and Nixon.

Photo finish…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: elvis and nixon, elvis presley, film, kevin spacey, Michael Shannon, Movie, non-review review, r eview, richard nixon | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Conjuring 2

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Darren

The Conjuring 2 is effectively a tentpole horror.

It is very much a horror film, with James Wan demonstrating all the skill and technique that he had honed over years working in the genre. There some wonderful slow pans and creepy camera movements that emphasise negative space, some very effective use of timing and mounting dread, and a palpable sense of menace. There are jump scares and slow scares, and enough false alarms to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The Conjuring 2 is in many ways an old-school archetypal horror film.

He ain’t afraid of no ghost…

However, there is something interesting happening in the background. The Conjuring 2 might have all the basic ingredients of a horror movie, but they are assembled in the style of a tentpole blockbuster. To be fair, the big summer release date is a bit of a clue, as is the climax that features a sweeping race-against-time as the heroes try to desperately make it back from the train station. Indeed, The Conjuring already launched something of a shared horror universe with the spin-off Annabelle.

In some respects, The Conjuring 2 feels like something of a mash-up, reflecting contemporary pop culture’s fascination with mashing existing concepts together to form intriguing cocktails. What is really surprising about the film is how well it works.

“I’m sorry, you wouldn’t happen to be able to direct me to the Marilyn Manson concert, would you?”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, horror, James Wan, Movie, non-review review, patrick wilson, review, slender man, the amityville horror, the conjuring, the enfield poltergeist, Vera Farmiga | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Nice Guys

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Darren

The Nice Guys is a superb piece of work, a retro seventies buddy action comedy with charm to spare.

The Nice Guys is dripping with period detail. The opening tracking shot swoops behind the iconic “Hollywood” sign, still trapped in a state of decay. The characters wear brightly coloured suits. The soundtrack is populated by recognisable disco and funk songs. There are repeated references to President Richard Nixon. Characters smoke like troopers and drive around in open-top convertibles while somehow managing an unhealthy combination of sideburns, stubble and moustaches. In short, the film is set in the seventies, and the audience won’t forget it.

Cigarette-Smoking Man.

However, The Nice Guys has a much deeper retro charm. It harks back to the sort of buddy action films that have become a rarity these days, the story of two lovable klutzes who wander into a life-or-death mystery that gradually unravels over the course of two hours. The stakes are charmingly low-key; there is no city destroyed, no threat on a planetary scale. The characters are broadly drawn archetypes, but neither have be chosen or fated. There are at most a couple of lives resting on their shoulders, their own included.

The Nice Guy harks back to a very nineties buddy action comedy aesthetic, demonstrating a nostalgia that is more than skin deep, but which is nonetheless endearing.