Feature - Big Screen versus Small Screen Part 1

I hate television. I hate it as much as eating peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts. Orson Welles

Of course Orson Welles never watched Game of Thrones on a 50" flat-screen. Had he watched television in 2017, he might have found more to love.

I was having one of those classic pub chats with a friend a couple of months ago - you know, about something utterly trivial that really, really matters. He commented that while he still quite enjoyed going to the cinema, it didn't provide him with the kind of enthralling moments he got from an extended TV drama series. Moments based on long-term investment in characters and the gradual unspooling of plots, so that they land with much greater impact. He made a very good point. 

We're living through the so-called 'Golden Age of TV' after all, at least in terms of output from the US. (The UK has had pretty good TV game for decades. Just saying.) It's the era of Netflix and Amazon Prime and of box-sets that don't actually require a box. There are manifold reasons for staying at home rather than being cordially fleeced down the local multiplex. American cable TV, unshackled by the restrictions on content faced by network shows, has been producing high-end drama for most of two decades now. And the networks have responded by asserting their own creative powers, treating whatever code they must adhere to as a challenge rather than a restriction. It's a good time for armchair entertainment. 

I totally accept what my friend was saying. Five seasons of The Wire introduced me not just to cops and criminals, but to an entire city; I learned about Baltimore's blue-collar workers, its politics, its school system, its press, and how they all interacted with the police and the drug dealers who formed the plot's core. As drama goes, this was huge, complex and immersive. Then take Breaking Bad. Less sprawling and more tightly focused than The Wire, it convinced me over multiple seasons that a high-school chemistry teacher could evolve into a villain of Macbeth-type proportions, because it had room to do so. No film has space to convey such a vast character arc in a way that the audience will believe.

The examples keep springing to mind. AMC's The Walking Dead knots my guts more efficiently than a battalion of undead Boy Scouts could ever do. And it's not as a result of the zombie horror. (I'm almost fully desensitized to that by now.) It's due to the fact that I've come to love the characters who have endured this long, and cringe anytime I think another of them is going to be cruelly claimed by the Apocalypse. It took several years' worth of watching to get me to that point, but now I'm invested up to my eyebrows.

And let me return to Game of Thrones for a final example. There's a crucial point in the series - an event steeped in red, that created an internet sensation and had many fans vowing never to watch the show again, a promise they kept for an entire seven days. If you're a Thrones watcher, possibly even if you're not, you know the one I'm talking about. And the point is this - that yes, a film can deliver a shock. Sometimes it can seriously pull the rug from under its audience. But only a multi-season TV show can deliver the kind of how-could-they-do-that gut-punch that leaves viewers reeling. Or reunite characters after what might literally be years, so that fans weep with relief. Or do a plot reveal that confirms or confounds a theory those same fans have nursed forever. 

Movie franchises can do a little bit of that stuff, for sure. James Bond's Skyfall trades on a relationship between Daniel Craig's 007 and Judi Dench's M that has been cultivated over several films. The central confrontation in Captain America: Civil War matters to fans because they have witnessed the deepening of Cap's friendship with Ironman/Tony Stark over multiple films and now see it being horribly jeopardised. And there was a joy in being reunited with Trainspotting's Renton, Spud and co back in January, two decades after we assumed we'd seen the last of them. Even the newly arrived Blade Runner 2049 will plunge fans back into a dystopian vision they thought they'd never revisit. 

But face it - film can only give us brief moments of that immersion. How can it compete in terms of drama with a medium that lets us hang out with characters for say forty, fifty hours or even more? What has it still to offer that's distinctive? Have I just talked myself out of my first love? 

Of course I haven't. I'm planning over the next few weeks on viewing Breathe, The Death of Stalin, Battle of the Sexes...  one-off film experiences to which I'm thoroughly looking forward.  

But it's going to take a whole other article to pinpoint what, in this era of turbo-charged TV drama, I still love about the cinema experience in its own right. Believe me there's a lot.

(To be continued...)

Film Review - Goodbye Christopher Robin (PG)

I'd really like it if you wrote a book for me.

You'd expect a film dealing with the creation of Winnie-the-Pooh to be beautiful. Likewise you'd imagine it to be whimsical and touching. What you might not be quite so prepared for is how much anguish it might contain. And there's anguish-a-plenty here - just look at Domhnall Gleeson's face in the poster. Yes this story has its sweetness, but it's tempered with a good dose of bitter, and you'll know that from the opening moments.

Goodbye Christopher Robin, for all its ritzy London and bucolic Sussex settings, is shadowed by war - the shadows most apparent on the faces of survivors such as writer A A Milne (Gleeson). Known for his comic plays, Milne is reeling too much from his experiences in the Great War to rediscover his writing gift. He's failing too as a husband and as a father to his young son Christopher Robin ('Billy' as he's more often known), depending on the services of a loyal nanny rather than devoting his own time to the boy. Only when circumstances leave father and son fending for themselves do the pair discover common ground - involving stories about Billy's collection of soft animal toys, notably a bear.

This is a movie of numerous acts, where apparent resolutions morph into something different and unexpected for those (like me) who knew nothing of the Milne/Christopher Robin real-life story. The film feels noticeably long as a result, although the final scenes do tie things everything together in a dramatically satisfying way. These characters' emotions run deep and their dynamics are complex (a bit like real life then). The sheer joy of the Pooh stories only serves as a counterpoint to the dark struggles that exist in the real world, whether between nations or family members.

Serious kudos goes to Gleeson, 2017's Actor Who Is Everywhere (American Made, Mother!, Star Wars: The Last Jedi). Son of the great Brendan and fine performer in his own right, he excels here as the distant, war-tormented playwright, who finds healing through the innocence of writing children's fiction and through actively being a dad. The sequences where he and Billy (terrific newcomer Will Tilston) improvise Pooh stories while tumbling through the woods are as uplifting as they are aesthetically gorgeous. If only everything in the story were this uplifting...

Margot Robbie is also strong as Daphne Milne, a society woman - brittle beneath her gregarious exterior, whose maternal love comes in irregular bursts rather than a steady flow. And Kelly Macdonald is at her earnest best as Nanny, young Billy's beloved 'Nou' and chief source of stability throughout his childhood. 

Most notable however is the tension between the look movie's look (cinematographer Ben Smithard captures rural England at its most gorgeous) and its feel. Christopher Robin/Billy's story has charm and lots of it, but it also has a troubling undercurrent. Humans are complex and problems can beget other problems. Even when Hundred Acre Wood is dappled with sunlight and the weather's good for a game of Pooh Sticks.

Gut Reaction: Charmed and frustrated turn-about by the characters' behaviour. Very touched by the ending.

Ed's Verdict: Stunning to look at and acted to perfection by all concerned, this is as moving as you'd expect, but significantly darker.

DVD/Blu-ray Review - Moonlight (15)

At some point you've gotta decide who you wanna be. Can't let nobody make that decision for you.

Here's the problem about reviewing an award-winning film months after its release. On one hand there are numerous five-star poster comments telling you how much you should like it. On the other there are responses from some who've seen it post-plaudits and been utterly underwhelmed. It's had the hype and the backlash. I avoided Moonlight reviews until such times as I watched it, but even so I'd heard that it was beautiful and ponderous, artistic and pretentious, essential viewing and a waste of my time. So I did my best to push all that all aside and treat it like it was brand new - pre-reviews, pre-Oscar hoo-hah, pre-everything.

For the next two hours, film I have never seen, I am yours. Do with me as you will.

Well, I liked Moonlight. It was nothing to do with critics or Academy Awards or worthiness. I really deep-down-liked it on its own terms. Here's why.

If you haven't seen it, Moonlight is a coming-of-age story set in Miami, Florida. It observes the progress of Chiron, a sensitive and introverted African-American boy growing up in a culture that demands he be tough. His lone-parent mother, we quickly discover, is a crack addict, and while he is too young to understand his own sexuality, taunts of 'faggot' are hurled by the bullies who chase him. We watch him grow into adolescence and from there to young adulthood, played in turn by three actors. Throughout he is grappling with his sexual identity - the person he should be and the person circumstances dictate he must be.

The most involving aspect, in a film that defies expectations, is the boy himself. I cared about Chiron (or 'Little' as he is referred to in his earliest youth) from the start, largely because of young Alex Hibbert's vulnerable, near-silent portrayal. It's like the mirror opposite of Sunny Pawar's winning turn in Lion, but an equally authentic child performance. More than that, the actors who carry on his story (Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes as the teen and adult versions respectively) do so seamlessly, holding onto the thread of a single troubled life. The mature Chiron may have filled out physically, but the same hurting child lurks at his core. 

There are other beautifully judged characterisations too. Naomie Harris plays Chiron's mother over the three time periods, convincing utterly as a damaged woman whose love for her son is compromised by addiction. Mahershala Ali (you may know him as the smooth Remy Denton in House of Cards) is similarly believable as a drug-dealing father figure. Hidden Figures' Janelle Monae provides much-needed maternal warmth. And Andre Holland, the adult incarnation of Chiron's friend Kevin, is understated but superb in the scenes he shares with Rhodes. 

This is a film of silences - understandably, since the protagonist is so muted. But it's also one of profound emotional moments. A beautifully shot swimming lesson, an awkward teen encounter on a beach, the attempt by a mother who knows she's failed to reach her child. The camera lingers a lot, searching for what the characters (chiefly Chiron) are trying and often failing to say. If the melancholy classical score seems at odds with the environment, it ultimately fits a story of a boy dislocated from the world around him by nature and sexuality. 

Moonlight is a story of painful self-discovery, with a problem-fraught love-story at its bruised, beating heart. It's the hood shot unashamedly through an artist's lens, so that beauty is found among the ugliness. Should it have beaten La La Land (or Lion for that matter) to the Best Picture award? I have no idea how to choose between different types of excellence. All I know is that Moonlight got to me, and that I'll watch it again.

Gut Reaction: It drew me in slowly and then hooked me with moments of intense poignancy. The closing scenes were a subtle kind of stunning.

Ed's Verdict: A director's passion project and three great performances combining into an authentic one. It's got a really good claim on my vote.

Film Review - Kingsman: The Golden Circle (15)

We're from the Kingsman tailor's shop in London. Maybe you've heard of us?

2014 brought us Kingsman: The Secret Service, a comedy spy thriller based on the British Kingsman comic books. It introduced us to Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin (Taron Egerton), a track-suited petty criminal, who was effectively adopted by Colin Firth's dapper secret agent Harry Hart (code name 'Galahad'). He was then trained as one of the 'Kingsmen', an ancient and clandestine spy organisation operating from a Savile Row tailor's. It was daft, cartoony fun, like Pierce Brosnan's James Bond on steroids and even more tongue-in-cheek. It also had the enjoyable conceit of a chavvy hero made over into a pinstripe-wearing gentleman. 'Manners maketh man,' Eggsy was advised by his classy mentor, who saw past the baseball cap and bling to the potential 'Kingsman' beneath.

In Kingsman: The Golden Circle the franchise is firmly established, Eggsy having completed his training and more than proven his worth in the field. The result is an opening that plunges us straight into wild, splendidly choreographed action that takes in most of Central London. Egerton is tailored to the nines and fighting for his life against an unexpected opponent in seconds. Soon after, a certain seismic event has Eggsy and the Kingsmen's gadget guru Merlin (the always welcome Mark Strong) flying out to the USA to team up with their American counterparts the Statesmen, so they can pit themselves against a threat of global proportions. Julianne Moore is the demented master-villain of the piece, and her insane plan is already in motion. 

It's all preposterous fun, and any doubts I had about the wisdom of revisiting the world were rapidly dispelled. This is largely to do with the script, that like the first film invest proceedings with a huge amount of (sometimes dubious) wit and charm. Director Matthew Vaughn co-wrote once more with Jane Goldman (who also did great things with The Limehouse Golem) and they're an impressive proven team. Their greatest call is to hook up our London heroes with their American cousins, broadening the storytelling canvas and revisiting the UK/US culture clash in a fresh and entertaining way. Everything down to the code-names of their Kentucky-based comrades-in-arms is a delight.

Eggsy is even more likeable second time around, Egerton's performance served by a script that makes him all-round loyal - to colleagues, old friends, girlfriend - rather than a casual Bond-style player. He has strong back-up from the suave Brits, while Pedro Pascal is the standout of the US crowd (Game of Thrones devotees will know him as the vengeful Oberyn Martell), wielding an electronically enhanced lasso as his weapon of choice.

All these novelties are welcome, as the tropes of the Kingsman franchise are already firmly established. The tech is total science fiction, the action both balletic and lethal and the villains gleefully flamboyant. The movie risks sameness with its original, but is kept fresh at every point by attention to detail and by pushing each ludicrous premise to busting point. Take Julianne Moore's villain's lair - a garish theme-park tribute to classic Americana. More silly than sinister, even when the most vicious acts are being carried out there.

Ultimately this Kingsman sequel was much more enjoyable than it had any right to be. It certainly pressed all the buttons of a first-night audience, who judging by their laughs and gasps of recognition were largely well-acquainted with the original. Cram it and then go see the new one. As wastes of time go, it's a really good one.

Gut Reaction: A lot of smiles and quite a few lols, including some guilty ones. And surprisingly one or two moments that moved. Oh, and I want Eggsy's tangerine DJ.

Ed's Verdict: An evening of good, daft, throwaway fun - no more, no less. And while I'm not proud of it, a certain extended celebrity cameo made me laugh.

Film Review - Mother! (18)

Please. Please make them go.

It's surely the biggest cinematic prank of this or any year... Audiences assemble at their local multiplex to see a major Paramount Studios release starring Jennifer Lawrence (you know, from The Hunger Games, Best Actress Oscar, wears swanky frocks on the red carpet every year, call her Mainstream Jen)... and get smacked full in the face by the insanity that is Mother! Yes - the film really earns that exclamation mark in its title.

There was no warning. The trailer, despite all my recent grumbling on that subject, totally misdirects. You'd think you were about to watch a standard 'something-nasty-in-the-cellar'-type horror movie. But nothing is ever standard about a film by writer/director Darren Aronovsky. And here he achieves a whole new level of crazy.

The plot - what to tell you? J-Law is living with her older poet husband (Javier Bardem) in an isolated country pile, which she's helping renovate while he struggles with his writer's block. A stranger (Ed Harris) knocks on the door and is ushered in, soon followed by his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer!). Their behaviour is oddly intrusive. J-Law's husband is strangely accepting. She is feeling alienated in her own home. And there is something nasty in the cellar as it happens. And something even nastier in our minds as viewers. Because we sense that the peculiar home invasions and the weirdness are only just beginning.

This is an unsettlingly surreal experience, where our trust in all we see and hear is steadily undermined along with that of the protagonist. Aronovsky proved how freaky a soundscape could be in psychological ballet thriller (there aren't many of those) Black Swan; here he ups the ante, intensifying every noise in the house to match the increasingly bizarre occurrences and unnerving symbolism of the visuals. The young wife is an innocent, whose life is unaccountably turning into a (possibly literal) nightmare. We're perturbed along with her, as the camera lingers on her face or follows close behind, ramping up the sense of claustrophobia. The house that is supposed to be her haven from the world is under a very different kind of attack than anything you could possibly imagine. 

Lawrence is strong here, in an unforgiving role. She soaks up all the house's troubling secrets and events along with us, only occasionally blinking into the exterior sunlight. Bardem brings all the ambiguity you'd expect from him - empathetic at points, infuriating at other, with hints of a writer's preening self-regard. And every other face - including one or two which really surprise - are just there to mess further with your head.

Mother! is a film that builds incrementally but relentlessly into disconcerting strangeness and worse. It seems to plateau two thirds of the way in, and then you find it was just catching its breath at base camp, before a rapid ascent to the absolute summit of Mount Batshit. I was almost smirking at it for pretentiousness, before the final half hour took revenge and battered me into silence. 

If Aronovsky's Requiem for a Dream was despairing, this is full of anger - burning rage in fact. Mother! suggests a film-maker with one hell of a dark worldview right now, one who has the creative gift to let it all out in an astonishing, divisive way. To say more (if I had sufficient powers of description) would be to reveal too much. And that assumes you want to take on the craziest, most disorienting studio film of the season. Mother! may fill you with love or hate, but forgetting it simply won't be an option. You, if not those early audiences, have been warned.

Gut Reaction: I actually laughed at the end credits out of sheer relief. One of the cinema staff asked me if I liked it. I replied, 'I have no idea.' Then I stumbled home for a much-needed shot of single malt.

Ed's Verdict: It's bizarre, disturbing, brutal, baffling, symbolical, metaphorical, allegorical... and if you enjoy boundary-pushing cinema it's a must-see. Did I understand it? Bits. Did I like it? Give me another six months on that one.

Film Review - Victoria and Abdul (PG)

What CAN they be talking about?

Here we go - one more beautifully-embalmed heritage film to sell abroad, was my uncharitable reaction when I saw the trailer for Victoria and Abdul. But then the film upended my prejudices rather effectively, and entertained me into the bargain. It does have Judi Dench in it after all. How could I have doubted? 

However it's not Dame Judi's input, superb though she is, that initially impressed me. This is a fine-looking movie, but the finery only serves to emphasise how deeply satirical it is. 

Based on Shrabani Basu's novel of the same name, Victoria and Abdul digs out one of those previously lost, too-weird-to-be-true nuggets of history and tells it with style. Abdul Karim is a lowly young clerk in the Indian city of Agra, when he is plucked from his job and sent overseas to England to carry out a single function at Queen Victoria's golden jubilee celebration. But the queen is taken with Abdul, an unlikely friendship sparks, and he becomes drawn steadily further into her life and confidence. Such a relationship (and you'll know this if you've seen Dench's original outing as Victoria in Mrs Brown) can only cause disapproval in the wider royal household, and dissent begins to brew...

More than anything this film is deeply funny, much of the humour stemming from the po-faced commitment with which the royal servants carry out their duties. Even before the Queen makes her first appearance we see the vast machinery of the monarchy in operation, the visiting 'Hindu' delegation caught up in it with utter bewilderment. The director/cinematographer team of Stephen Frears and Danny Cohen create the same lavish feel as they did in Florence Foster Jenkins, once again underlining the absurd pomposity of what is actually going on. 

At the centre of proceedings is Dench as Victoria - cantankerous and deeply bored by all that surrounds her. As in Mrs Brown, to which this film acts as a kind of sequel, her face and voice are magnificently expressive, suggesting great wells of emotion beneath. When the script allows her to cut loose with irony and self-knowledge, it's a joy to watch.

The story's central relationship is charming in its simplicity, Ali Fazal playing Abdul as wise yet curiously guileless, and unflinchingly stoic in the face of prejudice. The friendship's bizarre nature is stressed further by being set within the context of the anti-British sentiment simmering back in India. Meanwhile an array of great supporting performances (Olivia Williams, the late Tim Pigott-Smith, The Thick of It's Paul Higgins) convey the ill-concealed horror with which these new best pals are viewed. Eddie Izzard is particularly enjoyable as Victoria's disgruntled son Bertie, the Prince of Wales. And stirring the pot is the always wonderful Adeel Akhtar (The Big Sick), as Abdul's bitter, put-upon friend Mohammed. 

Victoria and Abdul turns out to be a smart and subversive film, its period gloss doing little to disguise how much it laughs at the entire concepts of monarchy and empire. Virtually the entire royal entourage is portrayed as envious and petty. It's also (like The King's Speech) a hymn to friendship, demonstrating that the real thing can cut through all kinds of barrier - in this case social status, race, religion, age and gender. Full of heartbreak and humour, this is a film likely to surprise. It certainly surprised me.

Gut Reaction: Laughter, anger and - unexpectedly - moistening of the eyes.

Ed's Verdict: Full of genuinely savage mockery, this is also a film with a tender and unusual love story at its heart.

Feature - Movie Love (Filmic Forays 1-Year Anniversary)

Everything I learned I learned from the movies. Audrey Hepburn

Chin chin! That's Jessica Chastain leading the toast, not Audrey. Yes - it's one year to the day that I brought 'Filmic Forays' into being with a maniacal cry of 'It's alive!!!' And while I don't entirely agree with the lovely Ms Hepburn, films have made quite the impact on my life - hence this blog. So to celebrate EFF making it to One (it'll be wearing big-boy pants before you know it), here are a few highlights from my own movie-going experience - the kind that made me want to talk about film in the first place. 

Escape from the Dark - 1976

The first cinema excursion that I remember took place during my summer holidays, 1976. My parents had taken me to see a short called Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, but we were late and I only saw Pooh's final ten minutes. I was gutted and had no interest in sticking around for some feature about kids rescuing pit ponies, but this forgotten Disney film hooked me with ease. I loved it so much that to this day I remember the main theme (jaunty number played by a Yorkshire brass ensemble). It's full of adventure and friendship and has a happy-sad ending. You see, the oldest of the pit ponies has been down there so long that he's lost his sight, and... No, sorry, I can't even talk about it all these years later. Anyway, it now goes under the title of The Littlest Horse Thieves, in case you want to hunt it out and have a good cry. 

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - 1982

You know those near-transcendent moment of cinema, the ones where your spirits rise and all your vital signs speed up and you know you're going to leave the cinema on a natural high? Well the first of those I ever experienced was during E.T. It was specifically the moment where Elliott and his friends all lift off the ground on board their bikes due to E.T.'s telekinetic powers and escaped from their pursuers. I'd gone in that evening knowing that I liked cinema - but I exited knowing I loved it.

Footloose - 1984

Footloose isn't the best teen movie, the best dance movie, or the best Kevin Bacon movie ever made. It is, however, the film my friends and I went to see at the Iveagh cinema, Banbridge, on the evening after we'd finished our O-levels. And it summed up how we all felt. Like we wanted to dance forever. Lose - your blues. Everybody cut footloose. Timeless, I think you'll agree.

Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast - 1986-2005

I took out QFT membership on starting university in 1986 and kept it up for almost twenty years. I've probably seen more films in that venue than at any other (Thursday night was this film fan's arthouse night), including world cinema and lots of classics made before I was born. QFT wasn't always as salubrious as in the photo; their motto in the '90s was 'We're doing our best', which as advertising slogans go doesn't inspire huge confidence. ('We know we're a bit crap but bear with us' would have been no less effective.) However I loved the place, particularly their seasons of late-night black and white films with a complimentary half of Guinness. King Kong has never tasted so good.

Watershed, Bristol - 2000-2003

In the early Noughties I visited a friend in Bristol on several occasions, each time taking in a film at the Watershed cultural centre. It seemed a charmed place for me, because I never saw a dud there. In fact I kept taking in bona fide classics like Donnie Darko and Memento. They also serve great nachos in the cafe - or at least they did a decade and a half ago. Maybe it's the same chef today. Good times.

 The Lord of the Rings trilogy - Christmas 2001/02/03

It's not cool and it's doubtless not the mark of a true cinephile, etc. etc. - but I bloody love these films and they made Christmas special all over again for three beautiful festive seasons. I missed what had become a Yuletide event in 2004, but happily director Peter Jackson and his extended team provided more seasonal joy in 2005 with their magnificent King Kong remake. Ian McKellen facing off with the balrog, an army of marching trees, Sam's devotion to Frodo - precious memories. Precious. No?

Chatham Odeon 2013 - present

Yes I know it's got slightly more romance than Rosemary's Baby, but it's where my ongoing affair with cinema chiefly plays out these days. It's where I saw Lincoln, The Martian, Nocturnal Animals and most recently IT. The staff are lovely and if you're feeling extravagant they put Oreos in the popcorn. There's comfortable seating too, so you can have a nap during the likes of The Hitman's Bodyguard. Can't say fairer than that. 

It's been a splendid cinema-going twelve months, all the better for getting to share it with you. Yes, you. And with Mother!, The Death of Stalin and Star Wars: The Last Jedi all on the way, well - we've only just begun.