Mudbound

Year of Release:  2016
Director:  Dee Rees
Screenplay:  Dee Rees and Virgil Williams, based on the novel Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Garret Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, Mary J. Blige, Jonathan Banks, Rob Morgan, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Running Time:  134 minutes
Genre:  Period drama

The film follows two families (one white and one black) in rural Mississippi in the years during and immediately after World War II.  Henry McAllan (Clarke) struggles to make a living as a farmer with his unhappy wife, Laura (Mulligan), their two young daughters, and Henry's racist father Pappy (Morgan).  Hap Jackson (Harrison Jr.) is a tenant farmer living with his wife Florence (Blige) and their large family, enduring horrible racism, and dreaming of a better life. 
Henry's brother Jamie (Hedlund) and the Jackson's eldest son, Ronsel (Clarke), join the military to fight in the war.  After the war is over, Jamie and Ronsel return to Mississippi, both suffering from their traumatic experiences overseas, and Ronsel increasingly angry at the racism he is forced to suffer. 

This is a powerful film dealing with themes of racism, poverty and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The film takes place over a number of years but it always maintains it's focus on the two families and their struggles, depicting rural Mississippi in powerful detail, while the wartime experiences of Jamie and Ronsel are depicted in brief, vivid sequences.  The cast is fantastic all around, and the film is well directed and beautifully shot (the film's cinematographer, Rachel Morrison, is the first woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography).  It's kind of a pity that it is just on Netflix, because it would be incredible on a big screen.  The film deals with powerful themes which are still relevant today, particularly the corrosive effects of racism.  It's an important film and needs to be seen, although it is obviously not a fun time at the movies.  it's deeply troubling, as it should be.

Mary J. Blige and Carey Mulligan in Mudbound     

Colossal

Year of Release: 2016
Director:  Nacho Vigalondo
Screenplay:  Nacho Vigalondo
Starring:  Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudekis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson
Running Time:  110 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, dark comedy

New York City.  Gloria (Hathaway) is an unemployed writer with a serious drink problem.  After being kicked out by her boyfriend (Stevens), Gloria returns to her small hometown to sort herself out.  Shortly after arriving she reconnects with a childhood friend, Oscar (Sudekis), who now owns the local bar.  Accepting his offer of a part time job, Gloria's alcoholism gets worse, as Oscar gradually reveals that he has a a very dark side.
Meanwhile, in Seoul, a giant monster is periodically showing up and rampaging through the city.  A monster which has a bizarre connection with Gloria.

Have you ever stumbled home drunk from a night out?  Then you know how bad it feels.  However for Gloria the drunken walk home is even worse, because every time she crosses a particular playground at a particular time, she inadvertently causes a giant monster to smash up a city on the other side of the world.  The film plays like a dark, gritty comedy-drama about alcoholism and emotional abuse which has had a Godzilla-style giant monster movie edited into it.  The mix of tones doesn't always work because the darker dramatic elements sit awkwardly with broader comic moments, and the monster movie elements are something else entirely.  The performances are great, particularly from Anne Hathaway, who is superb in the lead.  Jason Sudekis is also impressive as an all too human monster.  The special effects are impressive.  There are some odd continuity issues (for example a character runs around a corner and it's night, and into the street in broad daylight).  It's a film that is disorientating for it's first half with it's odd switching of tones, but once you get used to the film and realise what it is doing, than it becomes a lot more entertaining.  The main problem with the film is that it would have been better with more focus on the plight of the people of Seoul.  The events are entirely seen from Gloria's point of view, with the monsters rampage appearing on TV and internet news bulletins, and there are no prominent Korean characters in the film.  However, I would recommend this film, because it is inventive and features some great performances.

Creature feature:  Colossal
        

To the Devil a Daughter

Year of Release:  1976
Director:  Peter Sykes
Screenplay:  Chris Wicking, John Peacock and Gerald Vaughan-Hughes, based on the novel To the Devil - a Daughter by Dennis Wheatley
Starring:  Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Nastassja Kinski, Denholm Elliott,
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror

John Verney (Widmark), an American horror author living in London, is asked by an old acquaintance, Henry Beddows (Elliott), to collect his teenage daughter, Catherine (Kinski), from the airport.  Catherine is a nun who has lived her entire life with a mysterious heretical order in Bavaria, under the control of the sinister priest, Father Michael Rayner (Lee).  Verner soon discovers that Rayner plans to make Catherine the vessel for a demonic manifestation. 

By the late 1970s Hammer Films were becoming out of date.  With bigger budget and more graphic American horror films coming out of major studios and dealing with contemporary fears, Hammer was becoming quaint and obsolete.  To the Devil a Daughter was their effort to hitch on to the success of films such as The Exorcist (1974).  The film is watchable enough, and it has some entertaining moments.  However the film lacks the campy sense of fun of the studio's previous Dennis Wheatley adaptation, The Devil Rides Out (1968).  It features a supposedly terrifying monster, which is very obviously a cheap puppet, and a ludicrously sudden conclusion.  Hollywood veteran Richard Widmark is a fairly unengaging lead and Christopher Lee is wasted in the chief villain role.  Nastassja Kinski (who was still a teenager at the time) does well with her role as Catherine, however she does have a nude scene which leaves a pretty bad taste in the mouth and sours the whole enterprise.  Particularly as Kinski has said that she was bullied into doing the scene. 
Dennis Wheatley branded the film "obscene" and banned Hammer from ever again adapting any of his books.     

Nastassja Kinski in To the Devil a Daughter

The Devil Rides Out

Year of Release:  1968
Director:  Terence Fisher
Screenplay:  Richard Matheson, based on the novel The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley
Starring:  Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi, Leon Greene, Patrick Mower, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davis, Sarah Lawson, Paul Eddington
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror

Set in England, in 1929, the film tells the story of the Duc de Richlieau (Lee) who learns that his friend, Simon (Mower), has become involved in the occult and is under the influence of the evil Mocata (Gray) and his coven of Satanists.  As Richlieau and his friends attempt to rescue Simon, and another young initiate, Tanith (Arrighi), from the forces of darkness they find themselves in danger from mortal and supernatural forces.

During the 1930s into the 1960s, Dennis Wheatley, dubbed the "Prince of Thriller Writers", was one of the bestselling authors around, although he is now largely forgotten.  Specialising in adventure stories, thrillers and horror novels, and was best known for his books about Black Magic, of which The Devil Rides Out was the first and most popular.
The film itself is from Britain's legendary Hammer Films and is scripted by horror novelist Richard Matheson.  It's really more of an adventure story than a proper horror tale.  While it has plenty of supernatural goings on, it has a heavy focus on car chases, narrow escapes and fist-fights.  It moves along at a fair old pace, and is entertaining enough.  Christopher Lee gives a powerful performance in a heroic role, for once, and the supporting cast all seem to be having a good time.  While there are some memorable set-pieces, the special effects are not very good, with a scene involving a giant spider more funny than frightening.  Another odd element, that was apparently pretty common in Wheatley, is that all the characters are frightfully upper class, and everyone seems to live in huge mansions, when someone asks Richlieau if he can borrow the car, he breezily replies: "Oh, just take any of them".
This is a far from perfect film, but the script is witty, it's well-made, well paced, full of action, and Christopher Lee is at his best.  If you want a couple of hours entertainment, it's worth giving it a shot.

Christopher Lee fights the forces of darkness in The Devil Rides Out     

     

Zelig

Year of Release:  1983
Director:  Woody Allen
Screenplay:  Woody Allen
Starring:  Woody Allen, Mia Farrow
Running Time:  72 minutes
Genre:  Comedy, mockumentary

The film is structured as a documentary, exploring the phenomenon of Leonard Zelig (Allen), a nondescript individual who develops an ability to take on the personality and even the physical traits of people around him.  As the "Human Chameleon" Zelig unwittingly becomes one of the biggest sensations of the 1920s and 30s. 

This is one of the most innovative films Allen has made.  The film has the appearance and style of the newsreels of the 1920s and 30s, interspersed with interviews from contemporary intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Saul Bellow.  Similar to Forrest Gump (1994), at various points throughout the film the actors are edited into contemporary photographs and footage from the 1920s and 30s enabling Zelig to appear with everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Charlie Chaplin, to Adolf Hitler.  The effects are quite astonishing, looking extremely convincing throughout, and the documentary format works well.  The film is pretty funny throughout, and there is a lot of fun to be had with the novelty songs about Zelig at the height of his popularity.  Leonard Zelig really just wants to be accepted and loved, but the cost of that is he drowns his own personality and identity to take on those of the people around him, and the film does have a point to make about the dangers of being too eager to be part of the crowd that you lose who you are.  One of the problems with the film is that so much of it seems to take second place to the technical aspects.  Mia Farrow never really gets to make much of an impression as the kindly psychiatrist who helps Zelig, neither really does Allen as Zelig, who of course is supposed to be kind of a blank slate.  It is one of Allen's most impressive films, if not one of his best.

Mia Farrow and Woody Allen in Zelig 

The Post

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Steven Spielberg
Screenplay:  Liz Hannah and Josh Singer
Starring:  Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys
Running Time:  116 minutes
Genre:  Drama, thriller

In 1971, the struggling Washington Post newspaper is owned by heiress Katherine Graham (Streep) with editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Hanks).  Graham has inherited the paper following the suicide of her husband, and has severe doubts as to her ability to run a paper, while Bradlee constantly sees the paper being left behind by other, larger newspapers, and is determined to break a big story.  When they become aware of a leak of thousands of pages of Top Secret documents from the Pentagon relating to America's involvement in the Vietnam war (the so-called "Pentagon Papers"), they are forced to decide whether or not to publish, even if it means severe consequences.

Based on a true story, this is definitely part of the "newspaper drama" subgenre, full of serious looking people running around corridors with files and large boxes, chattering typewriters, bustling newsrooms and stirring speeches about the integrity of the press.  Apparently the film was made while Spielberg was waiting for the special effects to be completed for Ready Player One (2018).  The echoes with current events cannot be ignored, at a time when the press and the veracity of news seems to be constantly under fire, this is a film about why journalists and editors cannot allow themselves to be bullied by governments and politicians.  The villain of the piece is then-President Richard Nixon who appears very briefly seen from the back through the White House windows, ranting and growling threats.  It's an intriguing film, which tells an interesting and relevant story with a real sense of urgency.  The performances are excellent, especially from Meryl Streep, who plays someone who is kind of in both camps.  She is someone who is very much part of the Washington establishment, she is friends with many of the politicians, many of whose careers, as she well knows, will be ruined by the publication of the Pentagon Papers.  She is also someone who is perpetually patronised, overlooked and belittled by people who are technically her employees.  An early scene shows her at a board meeting where the all-male board talk over her, ignore her and sometimes repeat exactly what she's just said. 

Compulsive viewing at The Post               

Twin Peaks (2017 series)

Year of Release: 2017
Director:  David Lynch
Screenplay:  David Lynch and Mark Frost
Starring:  Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Michael Horse, Chrysta Bell, Miguel Ferrer, David Lynch, Naomi Watts, Robert Forster, Harry Goaz, Kimmy Robertson, Harry Dean Stanton, Laura Dern
Running Time:  18 one hour episodes
Genre:  Horror, crime, mystery

The original series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, ran for two seasons between 1989 and 1991 and centered on eccentric FBI agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) investigating the murder of teenager Laura Palmer (Lee) in the picturesque small town of Twin Peaks.  The show mixed murder mystery, small town soap opera, cozy comedy and surreal fantasy.  Despite only lasting for two seasons, before being cancelled due to declining ratings, the show was hugely influential and is probably one of the biggest cult TV shows of all time.  The series was followed by a movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which despite being released to largely negative reviews and poor box office back in 1992 has come to be regarded as a major work.  For years Twin Peaks appeared to be pretty much dead in the water, though, with David Lynch going back and forth over whether there would be a return to the strange, small town.  Until a new eighteen part Twin Peaks series was broadcast on Showtime in 2017, every episode written by Lynch and Frost and directed by Lynch.  It could have been that the new Twin Peaks would be yet another exercise in the recent nostalgia boom. 

In fact, it was anything but.  If the original Twin Peaks broke the rules of traditional TV, this pretty much explodes the whole concept of traditional narrative television.  David Lynch has described it as an eighteen hour movie and it kind of is.  Most of the episodes end with a musical performance in a bar, otherwise the episodes just stop usually with no cliffhanger or real conclusion.  There is no real plot either, it's a collection of plot strands, which are picked up and dropped seemingly with no rhyme or reason, but most involve the reappearance of Dale Cooper after 25 years stuck in the bizarre netherworld known as the Black Lodge.  Or is it?  Is it Cooper's demonically possessed doppelganger?  Or is it Las Vegas accountant Dougie Jones (Maclachlan again)?  Or all three? Where as the original Twin Peaks was essentially a murder-mystery/soap-opera with surreal fantasy overtones, in this one the weirdness is central throughout the entire show.  Even scenes that seem to be relatively straightforward are filmed and performed in a strangely off-beat way.  It also opens the story up, taking place not only in Twin Peaks, but in New York, South Dakota, Las Vegas, Texas, and even New Mexico in the 1950s.  Frequently serving up some of the most bizarre and, at times, deeply disturbing images and sequences you are ever likely to see on your TV screen, this won't appeal to everyone.  I would recommend watching Twin Peaks:  Fire Walk With Me first, if you liked that then you will probably like this.  The series as a whole is David Lynch's masterpiece: a fascinating, maddening, funny, disturbing, scary, frustrating, mesmerising puzzle box that lingers in the mind, and makes me for one keen to watch it again to work out the clues that I have missed.

 

It only gets stranger: MIKE (Al Strobel) and Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in Twin Peaks

Broadway Danny Rose

Year of Release:  1984
Director:  Woody Allen
Screenplay:  Woody Allen
Starring:  Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Nick Apollo Forte
Running Time:  84 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

Danny Rose (Allen) is an unsuccessful talent agent, who is stuck with acts such as a one-legged tap dancer, balloon animal makers, and novelty bird acts.  The one act on his books that is showing any kind of promise is washed up lounge lizard, Lou Canova (Forte), who is enjoying a comeback due to a nostalgia craze.  Danny manages to get Lou a very prestigious gig, but Lou, who is already married, refuses to go on stage unless his girlfriend, Tina (Farrow), is in the audience.  He persuades Danny to not only go and pick up Tina but to pretend to be her boyfriend in public, in order to keep her and Lou's affair secret.  To make matters even more complex, Tina's ex-boyfriend is a gangster, who is convinced that Tina left him for Danny, and puts a hit on him. 

This film really is a romp.  It abandons the usual intellectual, up-town Woody Allen style of comedy for a more earthy style, with the humour coming more from situation and character than the usual Allen wisecracks and quips.   It also abandons the Manhattan elite setting more typical of Woody Allen films with Allen here playing the fast-talking agent,  and set in the swamps of New Jersey, seedy clubs, cheap offices and warehouses.  The film even has some action sequences with chases, and fights.  Mostly it is a nostalgic tribute to the New York showbiz world of the 1950s, despite apparently being set in the 1980s, it's filmed in black-and-white, and is bookended by scenes set in a deli where agents and ageing comics gather to tell jokes and showbiz stories.  Mia Farrow turns in a great performance as the loud, brassy Tina, all gravity-defying hairdos and huge sunglasses that hide half of her face.  It's not a great film and it's not hugely funny but it is very enjoyable and features a very funny shoot-out in a warehouse.       

Woody Allen and Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Martin McDonagh
Screenplay:  Martin McDonagh
Starring:  Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage
Running Time:  115 minutes
Genre:  Drama, dark comedy, crime

Mildred Hayes (McDormand) is a single mother who lives in the small town of Ebbing, Missouri.  Mildred is consumed with grief and rage over the brutal murder of her teenage daughter seven months previously.  Angry at the lack of progress in the official police investigation, Mildred hires three advertising billboards along a road into town and uses them to personally call out the town's police chief, Willoughby (Harrelson), as to why no arrests have been made.  This, of course, does not go down well with either the police or the townspeople, and Mildred soon finds herself a target.

This is something of a tragicomedy, dealing with seriously dark and disturbing themes and occasionally brutal violence, however it is also very funny, with some laugh out loud lines.  Frances McDormand dominates the film as Mildred Hayes, a tough, witty and angry woman, who does not care about what anyone thinks, but who still has doubts about her mission.  One of the strengths of the film is the way characters are introduced one way, and then are revealed to be more complex, particularly Woody Harrelson's turn as the troubled police chief.  The film raises some issues regarding police racism which it never really deals with, and some viewers may find the arc of Sam Rockwell's racist police officer hard to stomach.  However, this is certainly worth seeing, it's a dark but hilarious film, well-made with some fantastic performances.  It's a film about the corrosive effects of anger, revenge of violence, how it can become an endless cycle that consumes everyone and everything.

Frances McDormand and two of the Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri