Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Every Which
Way But Juice

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Directed by Tim Burton
USA 2024
Warner Brothers
UK cinema release print

Warning: Spoilers about the fate of Jeffrey Jones’ character from the first movie here.

Well this was a pleasant surprise.

Back in 1988 I went to my local cinema (which was two minutes around the corner at the time... it’s now a Tesco) and saw Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (kinda fuming then that it wasn’t spelled Betelgeuse as in real life). It was the first movie I saw by Burton and I liked it fine. When Michael Keaton, who starred as Beetlejuice, was announced to be cast as Batman in Burton’s next film and there was a huge backlash against that decision, I was pretty sure both he and Burton could pull it off and, yeah, they really did.

The next time I saw Beetlejuice would have been a couple of years later when it came out as a sell through VHS cassette tape (yeah, sell thru, as it was known back in the day) and, yeah, I think that was about it for me and that film... I saw it only twice and not again, since I kinda stopped being enamoured with the cinematic mystique of Tim Burton. He’s made some fantastic films... Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow, Planet Of The Apes etc but, as creative as he is, I do find him a bit hit and miss these days. So, it’s perhaps no surprise that I didn’t relish the idea of, 36 years later, seeing his new sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (a title destined to give computer grammar checkers an annoying wake up call the world over). I thought it would be kinda dull and I really wasn’t looking forward to it at all. I thought it would be a good one to review for the blog though so, yeah, I figured I could get it out of the way for good in the first weekend. So I dragged myself along to it, and...

I’m happy to say that, well, Tim Burton really is on form with this movie. As are the returning actors/characters Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz and Catherine O'Hara as Delia Deetz (all of whom are really impressive here and look almost as young as they were the first time around). Along with some nice visual and musical references to the first movie, we also have a bunch of actors who are new to the franchise, who are all also excellent, including Jenny Ortega as Lydia’s daughter Astrid, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, Arthur Conti and even Danny DeVito in a small role.

And it’s wonderful. Once again Danny Elfman gives us a score reminiscent of the old one and utilising some of the same themes (although, alas, my favourite piece of leitmotif from the first film is, for some reason, sadly absent from the score this time around). However, once again the people at Watertower Records have not made the score available on CD at time of release (because why should they give people the actual music in proper physical form rather than just a garbage sounding streaming experience instead, eh?).

And, just like most of Burton’s work, it’s wonderfully inventive both on a visual and conceptual level. Lighting the fuse of a chalk drawing bomb to open a portal to the afterlife was a nicely executed idea. And I think people are going to like the Soul Train sequences too.

There’s also a treat for Italian genre fans because, when we get to see the back story of the person who turned into Beetlejuice, it goes full on Black and White, subtitles and does its best to resemble an early Mario Bava or Riccardo Freda movie. And Bava also gets a nice name check here too, since Lydia mentions she saw a Bava all nighter at the cinema when she was nine months pregnant with Astrid, including her father’s favourite Bava Kill, Baby Kill (review eventually coming when I revisit that one on Blu Ray).

Then there’s the elephant in the room. Lydia’s father is in this but, Burton’s regular actor Jeffrey Jones doesn’t play him, now that he’s a registered sex offender (young boys apparently) and has been somewhat cancelled. Instead, although he’s in this all the way through, his photo appears and he gets half eaten by a shark early on in the film... his plane crash and adventures at sea depicted as an animated story. For the rest of the film, as he wanders through the afterlife, the top half of his body is missing (when he speaks, blood spurts from his windpipe), the rest presumably still in the shark. I’m thinking he maybe got paid something for the use of his likeness here, though.

But, look, I wasn’t expecting much from Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and was so surprised by just how good a movie it is. As I said earlier, Burton is back on form for sure and it’s a really impressive return from him and the cast in this one. I absolutely will be buying this when it comes out on Blu Ray (hopefully before Christmas) and I’ll probably reacquaint myself with the original around the same time. This one’s definitely worth seeing at the cinema so, if you liked the first one, make sure you don’t miss out on it.

The Flash

 

Allen, No Alyn

The Flash
Directed by Andy Muschietti
USA/Canada/Australia/New Zealand  
2023 Warner Brothers/DC
UK cinema release print

Warning: This one will have all the spoilers. Seriously don’t read if you don’t want to know.

The Flash is the long delayed DCU (DC Universe) movie which is being touted as a soft reboot of the franchise, so DC can mothball the old one and reboot the characters in a new series of movies. Which, frankly, is a bad idea, especially since one of the casualties of this bizarrely terrible decision was the cancellation of a third stand alone Wonder Woman movie, from what I can make out. Well, at least I got to see Gal Gadot reprise her role in at least two DC movies this year (so far... I’m hoping she’ll turn up in Aquaman but, you know, suspect she won’t).

The film has been long delayed, as far as I can tell, due to a combination of the Covid pandemic coupled with the somewhat psychotic, ‘how is this guy not in jail?’ behaviour of Ezra Miller. Miller reprises his role as Barry Allen (aka The Flash), a kind of heavily dumbed down and reinvented version of him than in the original comics, who first appeared in a cameo moment in Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice (if memory serves, reviewed here) before being introduced properly in the movie Justice League (um... both of them... reviewed here and here).

And basically, this is DCs big multiverse movie, following in the cinematic footsteps of Marvel’s Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse (reviewed here), Spider-Man: No Way Home (reviewed here) and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (reviewed here). Back in the 1970s or 80s, both DC and Marvel Comics had big event mini-series such as Crisis On Infinite Earths or Secret Wars to try and clean their huge and unwieldy universes of continuity errors and, honestly, it wasn’t the last time they had to do this. Now both companies seem to be taking a similar approach to clean house cinematically with their big screen counterparts but, honestly, I’ve no idea how the next two DC movies this year featuring Blue Beetle and Aquaman, destined to be the last DCU movies, will manage to fit in with this one. This one is very loosely based on the Flashpoint storyline.

As a movie itself... well a few people seem to hate The Flash and many are saying it’s the best thing DC have done in a while. My take is, it’s neither of those things. It’s action packed and has a lot of good comedy moments with a lot of spectacle and, in some ways, a morality lesson although, honestly, the endgame of the movie leaves a lot to be desired in terms of just where we are with the version of reality the first Ezra Miller Flash has landed in. Yeah, that’s right, there are two identical looking Barry Allens in this movie (plus one not so identical looking version) but, even so, it didn’t need to get confusing... except where it leaves things in both the pre-end credits scene and the post credits scene is... somehow not going to connect up with the next two films, I suspect.

Okay, so it’s got action, it’s got comedy and... it’s got a fair few actors from DC’s past crammed into it in much the same way as Marvel started using previous franchise iterations as manifestations of the multiverse. Primarily we have Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman (even though Ben Affleck starts off as Batman in this movie) and, I suspect he’s probably the main reason people are flocking to this film. He may be 72 years old now but his participation in this movie as a major character demonstrates just why he owns the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne. And once the ‘old man raggedy beard and long hair’ is gone... he doesn’t look that different to when he played the role twice in the 1980s, it has to be said.

Also, we have a new superhero in this film’s version of Supergirl, played with a lot of good screen presence by Sasha Calle... who ends up helping the two Barry Allens and Batman take on General Zod in his attempt to destroy the Earth (with Michael Shannon once again reprising the role of Zod, from his appearance in Man Of Steel, reviewed here). In addition we have, as I said, a lot of actors from DC’s past... both in the form of proper cameos and also CGI integrated moments. Most of these are uncredited too, on the final cast list and, I wish Warner Brother had put their names up there. And we really do get into spoiler warning territory here so, yeah, you were warned...

So, in terms of proper cameos with real actors doing new things, we have Gal Gadot back as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ben Affleck as a version of Batman, Jeremy Irons as Alfred and George Clooney as another version of Batman (or more strictly, just Bruce Wayne).

And then there are the computer integrated cameos. So we have a welcome return to George Reeves as Superman, Christopher Reeve as Superman, Adam West as Batman, Helen Slater as Supergirl, a version of the original Jay Garrick Golden Age Flash played by Teddy Sears and, yeah, even a terrible looking CGI version of Nicolas Cage turning up as the Superman he almost made with Tim Burton (although wearing the more traditional Superman suit, rather than the black version designed for him for Superman Lives). What I got annoyed about though, is the actors that don’t make it into the movie. How can you have George Reeves in this, who was the second screen incarnation of the last son of Krypton... and not have the original actor, Kirk Alyn, put in a cameo appearance? That’s crazy.

Yes, the film is piled high with cameos and, of course, multiverse jokes (Eric Stoltz didn’t get fired from Back To The Future in the version of the universe in which Barry Allen version one ends up, for instance). And it’s... relatively entertaining. It’s not the greatest thing ever but it’s not too terrible either and it’s great seeing Michael Keaton’s Batman trying to pull electricity into his Batcave in exactly the same way Dr. Frankenstein did in the 1931 Frankenstein movie (reviewed here). Yeah, this almost goes the full Strickfadden in regards to that... I suspect that’s the way Tim Burton might have gone with it if he was directing this thing. All held together by a quite good score from Benjamin Wallfisch (who also incorporates Danny Elfman’s Batman theme into the mix), which I really hope will get a proper CD release at some point soon and not just wallow in a useless digital version.

And that’s it apart from one more slight criticism concerning Ezra Miller... or more accurately, Ezra Miller’s character. I’m not going to pass any judgement on what he’s allegedly done in real life but he seems like a good actor to me. However... and this may be the reason why I found this movie to be only quite good as opposed to great... his character, specifically the alternate universe version of Barry Allen, is extremely grating and unlikeable. I mean, I get it. He’s supposed to be irritating but... guess what writers? Bullseye. Why did you think I wanted to be that irritated by this annoying character throughout? I was just hoping he’d get killed at some point because he’s so unlikeable. Oh... and for the record... I don’t believe The Flash has super-healing powers, right? If you get shot in the knee and are acting like you’re in agony and can’t walk properly for a while... it doesn’t kind of fix itself so you can carry on being a superhero after a few hours. A little verisimilitude wouldn’t have hurt here or... you know... have it so he doesn’t get shot in the knee in the first place, if he has to carry on doing all the superhero stuff.

Oh... and alright... maybe one more criticism, now I think of it. In an alternate version of Earth where Kal El never made it there, how the hell did anyone manage to capture his cousin and keep her trapped away from the sun for so many years? Surely you would have to have had some Kryptonite to do that (and recognise what that is) and, yeah, she’s obviously been in a Russian jail for many years before Zod arrives so, hmm... that’s a puzzler (or just bad writing) for sure.

Anyway... The Flash is a nice enough movie, not a disaster but certainly also not one of the best of the DC universe films, for sure. You might want to give it a go because, heck, it’s nice to be able to see George Reeves, however fleetingly, at a cinema again.

Batman Returns

What A Feline

Batman Returns
USA/UK 1992 Directed by Tim Burton
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

Batman: You know, mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it.
Catwoman: But a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it.

Okay, so my second Christmas movie of the year is Batman Returns, the only sequel that Tim Burton made to one of his own movies (reviewed here), so far. This one retains Michael Keaton, Micheal Gough and Pat Hingle as Bruce Wayne (Batman), Alfred the butler and Commissioner Gordon respectively but also welcomes a whole new cast of actors/characters into the mix. This was the second time a cinema released Batman movie had teamed up super villains to try their luck against the central protagonist, following the 1966 movie starring Adam West. This time around he goes up against Danny DeVito as Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman.

The look and feel of the movie is fantastic, far surpassing the first film (which I reviewed here) in pretty much every way. Everything is dark and cold but the way its designed and lit harkens back to, in some ways, a German Expressionist film with, also, a smattering of Russian architecture thrown in, if I’ve got my eye in. It’s also very Christmassy, not just with Gotham under heavy snow in both time settings covered in the film (pre-credits and then the main body of the film 33 years later) but because the whole film is heavily infused with Christmas iconography... mistletoe, Christmas parties, a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and even Michael Keaton’s last lines in the film... are all about the greetings of the season.

So, yeah, out of this loosely fitting tetralogy of movies, it’s this second one by Burton himself which I think is probably the best, although some of the staging and pausing to give various characters big visual moments does seem a little less subtle and inappropriately indulgent by today's standards, perhaps.

The architecture in this is not the only thing that’s post-modern either. The whole film is chock full of references to other things. For instance, Max Schreck’s company cat logo. I mean, I get it, it’s where Selina Kyle is working when she’s ‘killed’ and resurrected as the Catwoman but, honestly, why did they have to use the exact same logo as Felix The Cat. It’s one of a few things which completely popped me out of the movie, continually (because it’s used a lot) when I first saw it. I kept assuming a character would walk on at some point and explain how Felix The Cat was somehow connected to the Batman universe... pretty much expecting this culturally iconic visual theft to be somehow admitted and explained during the course of the film. I guess I was more naive in those days, expecting movie producers to acknowledge it when they outright stole something.

And talking about Max Shreck, here’s was this 24 year old sitting at the cinema, confronted with this movie, wondering why the heck the third of the lead villains, played by Christopher Walken, has been given such a famous name, that of the actor who played the title character in the famous German Expressionist movie Nosferatu - A Symphony Of Horror. I’m there in the audience thinking to myself how cool it is and waiting for one of the characters to explain that Walken’s playing some kind of ancestor of the real life actor but, no, it’s just an outright steal again. It’s been said the look of The Penguin also owes a debt to the look of the title character in the first German Expressionist film The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari and, looking at it now (and especially on some of the posters marketing the film), yeah, I think that might be right... there’s a smattering of  the look of the make up of Werner Krauss in that movie maybe rubbing off in the film here but, I think the look of Walken’s Schreck could also be said to have some similarities. It’ hard to tell for sure but, yeah, like I said... the film more than enters the realm of post-modernistic entertainment.

The chemistry of all the actors in this is great and the performances are... I dunno... maybe slightly dated but very watchable. The film starts off strongly with a set piece backed by a kind of extended 'Christmas jingly lead in' to Danny Elfman’s re-orchestrated Batman theme, which totally plays out the origin of The Penguin before the film has even started properly and one of the things the film does very nicely and quickly is to draw out all the new characters in a brisk, efficient manner. So Walken and DeVito get very quick character sketches which more than do the job. Pfeiffer gets a slightly more protracted story to show the contrast between the shy, ditzy secretary who gets transformed into the full blown super villainess (of a kind, she's not really a bad person) and this kind of approach usually works well. The post death scene after she’s resurrected by cats and wrecks her apartment, before becoming focussed on the extent of where her unhinged mind wants to take her and she transforms herself into Catwoman, is one of my all time favourite 5 minutes of film... with a beautiful introduction of her theme by Elfman which is also one of his greatest pieces of music.

However, it has to be said that her character is one of many ‘classic’ DC characters which have been fairly tampered with in terms of who they are. For instance, Selina Kyle was always more of a bad girl and in no way shy when it came to the original comics in the 1940s (heck, some of her origins in the strip in later incarnations even place her as a sex worker), so as brilliant a change it is in her character here, which really works in the film, it’s not really true to the source. That being said, one thing they stuck to was the underlying romance of her character as far as Batman was concerned... she was always using his attraction to her to get an advantage and even in the first time they meet in the comic, he kinda ‘accidentally’ lets her get away at the end of the story, if memory serves.

Similarly, The Penguin is a greatly changed creation and really nothing like The Penguin at all. Especially in terms of his deformity with fused fingers which form flippers here... that was never a part of Cobblepot’s character although, it was played out in comics at least once after the release of this film.

One of the things which is evident though, with all these new characters being developed, is that Bruce Wayne as a character is hardly expanded on at all and, despite Michael Keaton finally getting top billing in this Batman movie, he has much less to do... although pretty much all his scenes here are absolute gold and, frankly, he’s easily one of the greatest Batman actors we’ve had on screen. That being said, the romance between him and Michelle Pfeiffer is short but nicely played and it feels like a lot more than the screen time would be able to accommodate.

One bizarre character loss was the non return of Billy Dee Williams from the first film as Harvey Dent. Dent was originally supposed to be the Max Schreck role and when Walken came along, the names were changed and the character very slightly re-written. In fact, when Walken’s character has his come uppance at the close of the movie (in a scene I won’t describe here because I want to make this review relatively spoiler free), the original outcome of what Catwoman does to him was to scar him on one side of the face, thus fully bringing on his transformation as Two-Face with Billy Dee Williams heading up the next movie (Two-Face did appear as a lead villain in the third one but Williams’ contract was bought out and somebody else played him... I’ll get to that when I re-watch it and review it). I think maybe they should have just kept Dent as the villain here, all things considered... although Walken is great as Shreck.

There are some bizarre things in it too which either don’t make sense or are just a turn off. I was hugely angry at the sequence when The Penguin manages to take over the Batmobile as, at the time it just seemed so out of place tonally and something which wouldn’t be likely to happen anyway. That being said, I’m more comfortable watching that sequence now so, yeah, while parts of the movie have aged badly, others have become more palatable over the intervening years. Although, in terms of the whole script, the film seems to have a lot of highly sexualised dialogue... far more than I think a superhero movie would get away with today. It feels bizarrely out of place now and, well, just way too over the top for the mpre general approach to the material.

Also, I am still absolutely puzzled and confused as to how Danny Devito can lay flat on his back on his bed, flap his hands together right in front of his chest and... somehow make a shadow bat directly on the ceiling above him. I mean, for goodness sake, where the heck is the light source supposed to be coming from, his chest? And furthermore, I remember at the time wondering what the heck was going on when Michael Keaton takes his mask off at the end. It’s quite obvious from looking at him that Bruce Wayne blacks out areas around his eyes to hid his eyelids etc when wearing the Batman cowl. So when he takes this off then he should look like a panda or a racoon... instead, the shot cuts as Keaton takes his mask off and all of a sudden he’s got a completely clean face. I remember raving at the time about this at the cinema and, I think I was similarly offended on the opening sequence of Spectre for making a similar mistake when Daniel Craig pulls his mask off.

The best thing about the movie though, far more than the quite captivating (if predatory) art direction, is Danny Elfman’s fabulous score. Although the Batman theme is quite present, this isn’t just a do over score and the various new leitmotifs created for the other characters and some frenetic action scoring (with a lot of musical Mickey Mousing at times) is just generally a fantastic backdrop to the whole experience. It always bothered me that the original CD release of this film sounded kind of muted (a complaint I heard of from a number of people... it’s not just me) but this was finally corrected by LaLaLand records a few years ago with their deluxe, remastered and expanded reissue of the score. Also, the Siouxee And The Banshees song co-written by Elfman, Face To Face, is sadly underused (until the end of the end credits) but it’s a good one and Elfman manges to quite subtly weave a minimalistic version of his Batman theme in among the lyrics (it’s so well done that a lot of people at the time didn’t seem to realise that his main theme was even in the song). It’s a shame this wasn’t more of a hit in the charts because it’s one of my favourites of their songs (although nowhere near as brilliant as Peek-A-Boo, for sure).

And that’s me done on my second Christmas movie of the year, Batman Returns. It was nice seeing it and it’s easily the best of that particular bunch of films but I’m not sure I’m going to be re-watching it again anytime soon. It’s definitely entertaining and fairly easy on the eye though so, yeah, possibly even Tim Burton’s most interesting movie, I suspect.

Batman

Bat’s Entertainment

Batman
USA/UK 1989
Directed by Tim Burton
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

1989 came to be known as The Year Of The Bat for many, due to the release of Tim Burton’s Batman on the 50th Anniversary of the popular comic book character. I remember the mood of the time well. I also remember the queues to get in.

This was pretty much the last time I recall queuing for a movie that was quite literally a ‘blockbuster’. It’s something that, despite the popularity of films these days, you don’t really see anymore. I remember my first experience of the power of the blockbuster, trying to get through a packed Oxford Street in London to see Star Wars at the Dominion Cinema at the tail end of 1977 (literally a day or so away from New Year celebrations... it's a theatre now). Everywhere while the film played for months, monster queues would pop up outside cinemas going on for blocks. Even the word ‘blockbuster’ was first coined for this ‘film queueing’ phenomenon, with the release of Easy Rider in 1969, if memory serves. I remember seeing Batman a few times at cinemas but, the one time which really sticks in my memory is of lining up outside Barnet cinema for a midnight screening with my friend Kerry, in a queue which literally snaked back on itself about 12 times in front of the cinema before ending several blocks away. There was a fair amount of uncertainty as to whether the cinema would have enough seats on any given night to accommodate the amount of people trying to get into a performance.

So it would be fair to say that the film was a huge success (although, I think it technically was financially in the red for decades, in part owing to the deal struck with Jack Nicholson on this film... who was also, due to his shrewd contract, being paid for the sequels even though he’s not in them... at least, I seem to remember reading that).

It was well loved by audiences and critics too, although I remember George Peppard appearing on Breakfast TV at the time and, when asked, saying that the film was terrible. Most people liked it though and that included me. I wasn’t intending to watch this one again for a while but I keep meaning to watch the sequel for a Christmas review (it being a Christmas movie) so, I didn’t want to go into that one again without this one still fresh in my mind.

Okay, so, I absolutely loved it back in 1989 but, in some ways, the film doesn’t really hold up that well today. I don’t know what it is about Burton’s vision (a director I find really hit and miss, although always uniquely creative) but, while it does kind of scrape through as a coherent whole, the film does seem to be just a series of nice looking set pieces with maybe no real downtime to give them strength in contrast. It feels like almost every scene is screaming in your face for attention and you almost can’t quite hear everything in the crowd. To be fair, though, I think that’s probably also a criticism of the whole of Hollywood cinema from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s so, in itself it’s probably unfair to bury it just for that. It’s like this is the first wave of movies to be somewhat ‘detrimentally’ swayed by the aftermath of the huge impact of Star Wars on popular culture because, sometimes the things which make a phenomenon successful are not best understood by the art that it unintentionally spawns.

That being said, I didn’t dislike the movie this time around and can understand why Batman still holds a certain place of high esteem in the hearts of certain cinephiles.

One of the reasons that this was a phenomenon, I believe, is because super hero movies were few and far between at the time and, successful ones were hard to find. The Christopher Reeve starring Superman The Movie had been a big hit but that was over a decade prior to this. Batman had been portrayed in cinemas by different actors three times before this one but, the last time had been in 1966. So, audiences of various ages were ready for a new take. They didn’t want a comical version like the last one had been though, so the casting of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman, someone who was known more for comic roles, met with a huge letter writing campaign objecting to his involvement... boy, I wonder what would have happened if this movie was being made in the internet era. I never had a problem with the idea myself (I’d quite liked him in his previous collaboration with the director, Beetlejuice) and, when I eventually saw him in the role, I think I was justified in holding my tongue. 

Keaton is an absolutely brilliant pick for this film as so many of the actors and actresses here are. What a cast! Kim Basinger is brilliant but there are also some great character artists here, among them Michael Gough (as Alfred), Pat Hingle (as Commissioner Gordon), Jack Palance, William Hootkins and even Lando Calrissian himself, Billy Dee Williams, in the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent. I remember getting excited in the cinema when I saw this and was waiting for him to transform into super villain Two-Face before the end of the picture although, well, it didn’t happen. “Huh?” I thought when the credits rolled, “They must be saving that for the sequel.” Alas, although Billy Dee Williams was contracted to continue playing the role, his contract was bought out by Warners and when Harvey Dent finally becomes Two Face for the third movie in the series, Tommy Lee Jones took over the job.

Looking at the film now, there are some nice things about it. It looks lovely in that dark, gothic way that Burton soon became known for although, I think some of the editing on this one is a bit jarring. Sometimes deliberately so, when we are startled by a close up of a TV screen being smashed by a boxing glove and sometimes, less so, when Burton will attempt to hide the visual edit by carrying on the sound of one scene into another (on a specific sound cue like The Joker’s laughter). Incidentally, the destruction of TV sets by The Joker as opposed to, I dunno, just changing the channel or switching them off like a normal person, seems to be some kind of running character trademark here.

Other things of note would be the turning over of a Joker card from a deck at a key point in the narrative, foreshadowing his character’s fate... and the strangely deliberate lack of period in the film, where technology from all eras comes crashing together to give the setting a timeless appearance (much like the old 1930s and 40s Universal Horror movies which, I’m sure, Burton was probably influenced by as a kid). I especially like the way that both Keaton and Nicholson compliment Kim Basinger on her apartment with the observation that it has "lots of space"... something which obviously re-enforces the connection between their two characters as being different impressions of the same coin, in the way in which they both tend to express their psychological abberations.

There are also a lot of references to other moments of both comic history and pop culture scattered throughout the movie... such as the police file photos of Jack Nicholson’s character, which look to me like they’ve been taken from One Flew Over A Cuckoo’s Nest, or the references to Vicky Vale’s photographic work in Corto Maltese (after the famous comic book character of the same name, no doubt).

There are also some nice musical references such as the use of Beautiful Dreamer woven into the score which, to be fair, always reminds me of Mighty Joe Young but it’s used nicely here for an expression of The Joker’s more artistic side. Danny Elfman’s score is, of course, phenomenal and, although he’d already done a great score with Beetlejuice, this one really put him on the map. It is kinda clouded by comments that a lot of it may have been... let’s say ‘more than assisted with’ by Shirley Walker, who only receives a conductor’s credit in the final film. Certainly her scores for the Batman animated series sound very Elfmanesque although, to be fair, that was probably part of the brief. Now that she’s dead I suspect the truth will never come out but, I like both composers so I don’t really care. It sounds like this was, maybe, a great collaborative venture, asides from the usual orchestration work by Steve Bartek but, you know, I’m just guessing from differing viewpoints I’ve read and information which sometimes seems to come to light. Great score though, either way.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about Batman. If you watch it now, it’s almost more a film about what cinema was doing at the time rather than something which holds together as all that much more. It’s somewhat flawed, I feel but, strangely watchable and certainly entertaining in parts. I’ve no desire to see it again for a while but chances are I will circle back to it again at some point in my life. At the time it was a benchmark movie and deserves a certain amount of respect for that, I think. Not to mention, it also really put cinematic artist Tim Burton on the map too, I believe. Worth a look, if only for the nostalgia rush.

Apropos Of Nothing

Sleeper Beauty

Apropos Of Nothing
An autobiography by Woody Allen
Arcade Publishing ISBN: 139781951627348

Woody Allen was always my number one hero when I was a kid. I found just a few of his films almost unwatchable over the decades (Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, Bullets Over Broadway, Match Point) but, out of the 33 films I’ve seen of the 51 films which he both wrote and directed, I’d say the rest of them were... at their worst hugely entertaining, well crafted films and, at their best, works of cinematic genius. Now, it’s very clear Allen wouldn’t agree with me on that one and it’s made more than evident in Apropos Of Nothing, his autobiography, that he never watches one of his films after it’s done and never looks back at them. In fact, I think he might even have got the release date order wrong in one case so, yeah, that all rings true.

This book really isn’t about him specifically as a film-maker though and, I don’t think he’d ever write that book. Indeed, I’m surprised he’s wanted to write a memoir at all but I guess he wanted to address some issues about certain accusations which have been hurled at him over the years. You know the ones I mean.

When I first heard that he’d been accused of molesting an adopted daughter I really didn’t think it sounded right. Admittedly, I don’t want to confuse the real life person (who nobody could really ever know much about unless you were a friend or lover) with his on-screen writing but, there are enough loaded one-liners and tonal observations dotted about his back catalogue of work which suggest the absolute opposite. So my thoughts were, since the accusations have twice been disproved in court quite concretely, that he really probably didn’t and I couldn’t understand why so many actors turned on him and publicly denounced him in spite of what I assumed was overwhelming evidence to the contrary of his possible guilt of the accusations.

Still, I like to keep an open mind so, for a while he was just a fallen hero and someone I still admired as a writer and an artist. I didn’t ever expect an autobiography to come along and I certainly didn’t expect to see publishing houses falling over themselves not to publish it. I knew I wanted to read it though... not just to hear his side of that story (which I expected not to be included, actually) but because I really did want to know a little more about his films (more than I finally got here but, that’s okay, there’s still 'gold in them thar hills'). When a little publisher called Arcade finally made the book available, to such little fanfare that it was already up for pre-order a week or two before I found out about it, I hit that order button as soon as I knew, even though the times were a changing and the UK was in lock down.

Having read the book... and one would obviously expect the writer to defend himself in some way and so maybe not all the words could be completely trusted (that’s the mindset I had going in)... I can honestly say that I am in no doubt in my mind now whatsoever that a) all the charges against him were untrue and completely fabricated and b) he is a victim of one woman with a far reaching clout and her smear campaign against him. How do I know that? Well, stick with me for the rest of this review and I’ll get there.

Okay, so the first 20 or so pages of the book are dealing with the life of his parents and Mr. Allen’s childhood and, I have to say, I was in a state of shell shock. It’s a bit ropey for a while. The writing style didn’t seem like the Woody Allen I knew at all. Not the cultured and sophisticated writer of short story collections, plays and, of course, screenplays. It seemed completely unpolished and I struggled for just a little while... until, suddenly, once he starts talking about his career going into writing gags for comedians and upwards from there and into the career he’s known for today, it snaps back into the version of Allen I am familiar with and it suddenly becomes a bright and breezy, well written tome. All was well again... after a fairly shaky start.

Now, as I said, if you’re expecting to hear relevant minutia about the way his films are shot, what lenses and lighting set ups he employs, how he crafts a plot idea... you may be a trifle disappointed. However, instead we have little details about the various women in his life (including his current wife Soon Yi, with whom he’s lived in married bliss for over two decades), directors and actors who he’s worked with or met (he still thinks Mia Farrow was excellent in the films they made together), various legal shenanigans and, well, just about everything else... and it’s a trade off which, if you’re anything like me, will leave you thinking you came out a lot better on the deal.

The book is gold and I do get the illusion, at least, that I know certain parts of his personality a little better. The mask probably doesn’t slip much but, the mask seems to be a wafer thin one anyway as he tends to put a lot of stuff out there in his usual, self depreciating manner. It also jumps around a bit so, the sometimes chaotic structure is sometimes the lesser of two evils, I feel, when it comes to reading the book as if you’re face to face with someone recollecting their adventures to you in person. Which is not a bad thing.

Then there’s the issue of those troublesome and tainting accusations. I was surprised at how much ink he’s written on the two periods of his life where these accusations slammed into him but I did have some take-aways with his account of these incidents. Number one is that... and I certainly don’t wish to slander anyone here... Mia Farrow comes across a lot of the time as manipulative, vindictive and... perhaps... mad as a bag of frogs. The reason that Allen went through the court system twice and was acquitted was because there was nothing to acquit him of. There are numerous witnesses and enough evidence that, anybody who wants to just check what’s on file will know how the accusations made couldn’t possibly be true but were, instead (and also in the opinion of a fair number of experts, it seems to me), the harshly concocted and re-enforced grudge campaign of a vengeful mind. Not only that but the story made up seems to have been based on a song written by the ex-wife of a former husband of Ms. Farrow (Dory Previn) that was performed many years before the two even met, from what I understand.

And there are more horrendous things which have been left unpunished but which were certainly nothing to do with Woody Allen, it would appear. There’s some stuff I don’t want to go into about Ronan Farrow and some of the other kids that... I think are worth reading about from this book. I also think I understand now... or am at least reminded... how corrupt a system is in place in certain professions in the United States and have an inkling why, with so much evidence around to the contrary, Mr. Allen is continually depicted these days as some kind of devil’s spawn. I also found it interesting to know which of the actors who denounced him told him they were only doing that under orders, so to speak, from their overlords. All I’m saying is, I hope I’m alive when certain facts do finally see the light of day and I hope Woody is around to see himself redeemed in the public eye too.

But as a parting shot on that particular subject... let me just remind you that Woody and his current partner have two adopted children. Standards are quite strict and many fiery hoops have to be negotiated before an adoption agency will let you adopt someone, from what I can tell. A child molester would absolutely not make the grade and the evidence is all there that this is just not the case with Mr. Allen. He’s has been stringently probed and allowed to adopt. So, yeah, maybe just think about that.

Something that did surprise me about the relationship between Woody and Mia was that, by his account (and I believe him), he never even spent the night at her home. They were never married and the relationship was very relaxed to the point that she would spend each summer completely away from him and it sometimes sounds like the worst kind of failing relationship at best. And that really is the last I want to say about that toxic relationship because, although Allen produced some really great art in that period, it couldn’t have been the easiest working environment to be in emotionally.

Yeah, there is a lot about that whole non-incident but there are some great nuggets of interest too. For instance, I said there wasn’t much on his film work but, that being said, I know now what to look out for if I want to see Michael Keaton in the final cut of The Purple Rose Of Cairo (he was replaced by Jeff Daniels early on in the shoot). I was also vaguely aghast to discover that Allen completely re-shot one of his films again with some different actors before it was released because he just wasn’t happy with the film the first time he made it.

It’s also kinda telling that he remains friends with, or on good terms with, various ex-wives and girlfriends over the years, including of course Diane Keaton, who is also an excellent photographer and, indeed, a recent photo of Woody by her is used for the back of the dust jacket to this book (the front is designed like a typical Woody Allen set of film title cards, monotone with white American typewriter style font and no images). And I found all the stuff about Louise Lasser simply enthralling too. I always liked her in her starring roles in his films, a while after they’d divorced, in Take The Money And Run and Bananas... not to mention her little cameo in my all time favourite Woody Allen movie, Stardust Memories (I fractured my foot trying to see that movie but, that’s another story).

So yeah, this is a longer review than I expected but I certainly came away from this book knowing in my heart what I was only suspecting before, Woody Allen is completely innocent (of any of those infamous charges at the very least) and I don’t have to have any kind of problem re-evaluating his work as an artist again. Which is handy, actually, because I have three uncracked Blu Ray box sets of his to watch for this blog and so now I can do so with a clearer mind. It’s nice that I can start to think of him as a hero again.

In conclusion, all I can say is, allowing him a fairly shaky start early on in the book, if you’re a fan of this comedic genius then you should have... at least an informative time with Apropos Of Nothing and, certainly in my case, an entertaining and unexpectedly enlightening one. I hate the various media and news outlets just a little more after reading this but, you know... I’d rather know. Definitely a strong recommendation from me, especially if you’re one of those who have been condemning this man without actually checking out the evidence, which seems to have been inevitably ruled in his favour in court a few times. I think this is a true account and I think you should maybe give it a read.

American Assassin

Son Of A Beach

American Assassin
2017 USA Directed by Michael Cuesta
UK cinema release print.

American Assassin is a movie based on a ‘prequel novel’ from a successful series of books by Vince Flynn about a character called Mitch Rapp, played here by Dylan O' Brien and set in the world of international espionage. Now, I’ve not read the book but I understand there was at least one major change to the story settings here but, obviously, my ability to judge this movie in terms of adaptation is non-existent. But, as I’ve said so many times on this blog before, I may not be able to tell you how faithful it is to the original source material but I do know how it plays as a film.

The story starts with some poignant POV footage of Mitch proposing to his girlfriend on a beach. The POV stuff ends and the film goes into regular style footage when, as he runs off to get some celebratory drinks, terrorist open fire on the tourists and she is killed. The change to the story I was talking about earlier was, I believe, to have the girl killed in a beach shooting for this whereas, in the novel, I believe she was killed in the Lockerbie bombing. Jump to 18 months later and Mitch has been training himself up (cue long montage sequence) and is about to infiltrate a terrorist cell to start a long revenge/war on terrorism process. However, because he’s been drawing attention to himself, the CIA have been watching him and when things go a bit pear shaped for Mitch, they come to the rescue like the cavalry and eventually recruit him, sending him to train with super duper ex-Navy seal, killing machine turned instructor Stan Hurley, played here by Michael Keaton.

From here the film progresses along a familiar, somewhat clichéd but largely enjoyable story line as Hurley’s team, including Mitch, have to go after a large haul of stolen plutonium and preferably retrieve it before it can be made into a bomb. However, an ex-student of Hurley’s, who is bearing a grudge and was thought missing presumed dead, is also involved in the plot and... yeah, you get the picture. There’s nothing new here. It’s pretty much just a Western revenge story. Back in the old days the bad guys would have been red Indians. If the film had come out in the sixties it would have been changed to a cold war story and the Russians would have been the bad guys. Where we are with it now is that it’s centred around Middle Eastern terrorism to an extent but, whatever, a fairly typical film plot with just the bad guy stereotypes updated to modern times.

It also doesn’t matter though because the film is fast paced, doesn’t always rely on dialogue heavy scenes to tell its story and is actually not all that much about glorifying the violence although, it has to be said, there is rather a lot of it in here and it gets quite brutal at times (I really could have done without the extended torture sequence towards the end of the movie but it wasn’t too harrowing to watch, I guess). In some ways it’s a little bit like the other action movie I saw at the cinema a couple of weeks ago... Stratton (reviewed here) but this one seems to have a bigger budget and is a lot sleeker in terms of how thing looks. Of course it helps that you have wonderful actors like Michael Keaton added into the mix, playing somebody who he’s possibly just a little too old to play, I suspect but, because it is Keaton we are talking about here, he looks like he really could do everything he does in the movie without losing credibility and, as you might expect, Keaton knocks it out of the park. It also has a good little score by Steven Price which keeps things nicely ticking over when needed.

Some of the editing was a little bit more aggressive than I was expecting. You expect some fast, possibly out of kilter and sometimes jarring edits in an action sequence but even in the more slower paced sequences, I thought some of the ways in which shots were cut together didn’t show the most audience friendly route. Now, that might well have been because the frame designs being utilised in these sections seemed less likely to mesh without leading the eyes away from the place they were looking at in the previous shot... which is something modern directors sometimes lose sight of, I think.

Another thing which is a slight but not insurmountable problem here is that the movie, as formulaic as it is, has a tendency towards telegraphing its intentions somewhat during the course of the film. For instance, I was pretty sure that something very specific was going to be revealed about one of the characters from very early on in the film, once that character had been introduced and... yeah... I was right. However, that particular issue... which I’m trying not to talk about because I don’t want to included any spoilers here... is actually upended again later on in the film and the result of the specific twist I’m talking about is somewhat built on and realigned along a different path before the story is done... which is about as good a thing as could have happened with it, to be honest.

Ultimately, American Assassin never really rises above being a good little action thriller but, as far as that goes, that should probably be enough. It’s not one I could repeat watch or anything but it was a good evening out at the cinema and, as a bonus, you get to see Michael Keaton playing a tough as nails action hero character and, really, you couldn’t ask for much more than that. Also, the very last shot, which is pretty much a ‘break the fourth wall’ moment in the film, was the perfect way to end this one. Definitely worth a trip out to your local to catch this assassin’s ass in action.

Spider-Man - Homecoming

Fifty Shades Parker

Spider-Man - Homecoming
2017 USA Directed by Jon Watts 
UK cinema release print.

One of the things they’ve managed to do in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in the nine years since it’s been going in the current incarnation of it, is to take some second tier Marvel characters like Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Ant-Man and Thor and do something truly wonderful with them in their cinematic incarnations that, as far as the other non-MCU franchises go, they have emerged triumphant and very much become the first tier characters that they never quite managed to be in the comic books... outshining the majority of the films produced from genuine top tier characters like Spider-Man and The X-Men.

However, when they made a deal for the movie rights to the Spider-Man character so they can use him in conjunction with another company and bring him into the MCU proper... well, they made a real good go of it with his debut appearance in Captain America - Civil War (reviewed here) and one of the positive things I’ll say about both that movie and this one, Spider-Man - Homecoming, is that they have managed to take a character who has already headlined, in different incarnations, a number of big budget theatrical releases and still find a way to breathe new life into the character. Although you’ve seen it all before in terms of the Spider-Man character... you also haven’t, in that they manage to side step the strengths and weaknesses of previous versions and change things up enough that the character feels like a new MCU character. Rather than, say, a stray from another movie.

What this means, though, is that a lot of the things that people loved about the original comics are thrown out with the radioactive bathwater and I think some audience members, myself included to a certain degree, might find it a bit of a shame. I’ve only ever read the first hundred or so issues of the original comic myself but what I’m trying to say here is, if you are looking for a version of the character which finally matches the way he and his supporting cast are in the comic books then look no further than... the 1967 animated TV show because, honestly, that’s probably the closest thing you’ll find. So all of you classic spider-fans are forewarned... this isn’t like the version you remember from the comics.

For instance, the character’s Spider sense isn’t mentioned once here and seems to have been replaced by the voice of Jennifer Connelly as his ‘in suit’ computer on the costume which Tony Stark has manufactured for him. Which has a nice continuity in some ways because Connelly is married to Paul Betany who played the voice of Jarvis in the original Iron Man suit before he was ‘evolved’ into the live-action character of The Vision in Avengers - Age Of Ultron (reviewed here).

So yeah, there are some things which I feel are mis-steps in the new film. Mainly in the casting and characterisations.

For example, we finally have a version of Betty Brant in this version but, instead of looking like the character should look (done so well but without the star billing that Peter Parker’s original love interest should have had in what amounted to cameos in the Sam Raimi versions), she is way too young and has blonde hair instead of her classic look. Flash Thompson, instead of looking like his namesake Flash Gordon looks anything but and Pete’s other love interest from the early days, Liz Allen, rather than being the drop dead blonde from the comics, is 'beyond brunette'. In fact, I’m not sure that even was supposed to be Liz Allen because of the ‘thing’ which comes to light later on in the movie which, I surely won’t spoil for you here. As for MJ? Well here’s she’s not a Mary at all... instead she's Michelle so... don’t know where their heading with that one. Face it tiger... we don’t know quite where that jackpot is coming from as yet. So it’s all a bit of a mess although, it has to be said, the actors and actresses involved in bringing them to life here are all pretty likeable and watchable... so there’s that.

Tom Holland is pretty cool in the role, doing what he’s doing and, so is Jacob Batalon as his best friend Ned. Then there’s the usual MCU characters creeping in here who really work well with Holland’s portrayal, including the always watchable Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark and his former Iron Man director Jon Favreau reprising his Happy Hogan role. There’s also a great little cameo near the end of the movie by someone who I really didn’t think we’d be seeing return to the MCU franchise and that was a great little moment but... again, won’t mention who that is because I don’t want to spoil it.

So there’s all that and, of course, we have the truly brilliant Michael Keaton playing The Vulture as the main bad guy in this one. Now, this version of the character is, again, nothing like the one who made his debut in the pages of the third issue of Spider-Man’s comic book history, The Amazing Spider-Man Issue 2 from 1963... but the spirit of the character is in tact to a certain extent, although Keaton manages to play him with a lot more sympathy and I was really pleased that Marvel have continued with their uncanny knack for casting just the right people for the right roles because, as you’d expect from Keaton, his performance here is amazing. Especially in a certain scene in a car journey when a certain penny finally drops (aided by a nice moment in the way his face is lit) and you can see the wheels turning in his mind.

The film is a real hoot too. It’s crackingly paced, whizzing by very fast so that you won’t necessarily have time to catch your breath and notice certain weaker points of the film like how it fits into the timeline of the current crop of Marvel movies...

It starts off extremely strongly with a pre-credits sequence showing why Keaton’s version of Adrian Toomes decided to become The Vulture and it’s a sequence starting off in the wake of the big alien battle at the end of the first Avengers movie (which I reviewed here). It also has Tyne Daley (Yeah, that’s Lacey from Cagney And Lacey right there!) as the comic book character Ms. Anne Marie Hoag in a nice moment where the Marvel movies finally acknowledge the existence of Damage Control, the people who clean up after various superheroes have wrecked the place in their battles and who have turned up in a number of comic book series' over the years. We then come to one of those other kinds of problems I alluded to a couple of paragraphs ago in that the rest of the pre-credits... and the movie proper...  takes place eight years on from the events at the end of that first Avengers movie. So you do the maths then. The first Avengers movie came out and was, presumably, set in 2012... that’s only five years ago in reality, right? So why the heck they chose to set this film (and presumably Captain America - Civil War) in the year 2020 is beyond me. Especially since it has a major ‘this doesn't make any sense’ knock on effect in terms of the other movies in the series.

However, like I said, it’s not the kind of movie you’re going to enjoy if you get mired in both expertise in adaptation and continuity logic. Let’s forgive it for now and move on...

The film continues to open strongly post credits with a big excerpt from Peter Parker’s video diary as an alternate, ‘first person’ version of his involvement of the events in Captain America - Civil War and we take that as our starting point for a movie which continues to be strong and totally entertaining all the way through. It sets the tone nicely and gives the title character a good starting point to launch and swing into action from and it’s truly a nice and unexpected touch. There’s also another little unexpected thing later on in the film which I really should have seen coming but I didn’t. This seems to be a bit of a rare year for movies taking me by surprise, it seems, what with the awesome Wonder Woman (reviewed here) also managing to pull the rug from under me (for the most part). It has to be said that the thing I wasn’t expecting here, which I have alluded to twice already (hopefully without potential ‘blind’ audience members noticing it) relies on the kind of silly, clichéd movie continuity that you would almost always only find in a Hollywood movie but.. that’s okay too. I don’t mind being fooled by these things every now and again... love it, in fact. Even though I was particularly dense on this one.

Another great strength of the movie is that it doesn’t feel like the MCU have just borrowed the character to plug into their own movie and are now returning the favour. This film is completely integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe like all the other films in that particular franchise and it doesn’t feel like any of the characters have been thoughtlessly added on. The various Avengers characters like the, kind of, appearance of Captain America (you saw some of that in the trailer for this movie so it’s not a spoiler) and the old Avengers tower and the new Avengers ‘mansion’ are all in here for a reason... well mostly... and feel like a natural element of the film and the story line/characterisation... so that’s pretty good. There’s also a major event that happens to Iron Man, in a way, which will obviously need to be alluded to in future Avengers movies, for sure.

And all of this is good stuff.

Another good thing is Michael Giacchino’s inclusion of a newly arranged version of the 1967 animated Spider-Man TV show theme tune which plays here over the Marvel logo at the start (it’s the version which you could see the recording session from in that video which surfaced on the internet a few months ago). As for the rest of the score... well I really like Giacchino but I was hoping he’d use that old theme throughout on this and I was having real trouble with the main Spider-Man theme here because it really sounded familiar from somewhere else... although I couldn’t quit place it. There are  few moments where he seems to be subtly referencing the old TV show theme here but, as far as I could hear, the pay off to that never materialised... at least not in the way I wanted it to. That being said, “as far as I could hear” is an apt comment, I feel, because this really was a movie where the score was maybe dialled down too much and wasn’t allowed to properly compete with the noisy, explosive action scenes when they were scored. So, yeah, looking forward to giving the CD a spin when it arrives so I can hear the score properly, to be honest.

And that’s that. The film is an absolute blast and, although it has an absolutely awful end credits animation which really seems to dumb down the characters completely in about as inappropriate a manner as you can imagine, Spider-Man - Homecoming is a really enjoyable piece of modern popcorn fodder and fans of the MCU films should like this one. There are two ‘post credits’ sequences for the film... one half way through which is actually quite relevant to the future of the Spider-Man movies, in one way or another, followed by one right at the end of the credits which is... completely irrelevant and which some people may well feel is not worth staying on for. Irrelevance aside, though, the movie gets a big recommendation from me... with the caveat that fans of the character as he appeared in the proper comics of the 1960s and early 1970s might have a hard time adapting to what Marvel have decided to do with him here. It is, however, a humdinger of a web spinner.

Spotlight

A Priestful Of Dollars

Spotlight
2015 USA
Directed by Tom McCarthy
UK cinema release print.

So Spotlight, directed by actor, writer and director Tom McCarthy.... is not the kind of movie I would normally take a look at in my local cinema, to be honest. With the subject matter being the 2002 scandal of numerous Catholic Priests molesting children that the church was covered up or, more properly, the investigative team on The Boston Globe who brought it to light, the Spotlight of the title, it's really not something I would usually go for.

However, the trailer was pretty good for this one and it had a couple of actors in it, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, who I happen to think a lot of in terms of giving strong performances. I could tell from the trailer that the studio were trying to pitch it as a kind of modern equivalent, in terms of atmosphere, to the classic Watergate scandal movie All The President’s Men and I guess, yeah... that’s exactly what this is, in some ways. Although, if I’d known that the film was directed and co-written by the same guy who had written and directed The Station Agent, one of the great modern classics of American cinema, then I would have rushed to the cinema even faster.

Now, this is not a perfect film here, in my book, but it’s pretty close to being one and I have to say that if you want to be on the edge of your seat with a movie that’s based on real life events then this one’s a pretty good choice. It’s apparently fairly accurate to the original events and situations too... as much as a Hollywood movie could be, I guess. According to some quotes from various people who found themselves being played by some pretty great actors, that goes for the accuracy of the portrayal of the personalities in question too, by all accounts.

Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo knock it out of the park, just as I would expect form them. Liev Schrieber, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci and Brian d'Arcy James are all pretty darned amazing too, it has to be said. If you want believability and credibility... not to mention a sense of naturalism that can carry a drama of this emotional weight while still accenting it enough to give it all a broader sense of entertainment value, then this group of actors are very much people who you are in good hands with. If you admire films which can flow forward breezily as you follow the characters in the course of their investigation then this is definitely one for you. It’s the kind of investigative movie that does what it should do... explain what the Spotlight team are after, explain the individual's assignments and then follow through on their detective work with well put together montages punctuated by key excerpts from their interviews. So that’s all good.

One thing which didn’t sit well with me, however, were some scenes... not all that many of them but enough for me to sit up and pop out of the experience somewhat... where the editing of the footage didn’t seem all that great. Not necessarily the fault of the editor, by the way, it might have been the only way to sort out the footage in some sequences. Those sequences in question being some of the back and forth conversations which litter the movie in several places. These are often treated with static shots and the standard TV style of editing where we cut from one shot to the reverse is very much a present constant in some kinds of scene. I also thought the placement of the focus of the eyes on those shots and their reverse equivalent was conflicted and it was the contrast of forcing the eye to suddenly jerk between different areas of the screen at speed in a few places which really started distracting me from what I was supposed to be looking at. Not throughout the whole movie, for sure, but I did find it quite gruelling on a few occasions in there.

The other minor thing, and it is a minor thing, was that I felt that Mark Ruffalo’s passionate, hot headed reporter was somewhat bereft. His wife or girlfriend is mentioned a couple of times but, though we see him in something like a home environment on a number of occasions, we never catch sight of the lady in question. This is even when we see him working on stuff at home at night... when you would think the lady of his life would be present in some way. Maybe I missed a detail in the dialogue to explain that but I think it would have given Ruffalo’s character a little more context if we’d had seen the lady in his life, to a certain extent.

But yeah, minor grumbles at best in a film which delivers the tone and passion you would expect from people being forced to confront the truth of a story rapidly expanding in scope as the Spotlight team discover more about the unwritten conspiracies which have kept the story from breaking in the press over the decades that this kind of abuse had being going on. Their initial story began with just one priest and, by the end of the investigation, there were around 87 priests who had been uncovered.

The film is very sparsely spotted in the musical content and I would have expected this kind of movie to have no score at all but certain key montages and highlights are given a certain emotional presence by Howard Shore’s piano dominant score. At  points it maybe felt a little heavy handed in contrast to the many scenes without music but that’s always a hard balancing act to get right and, where some of these scenes reach for the music in a less naturalistic accompaniment... there’s always another scene where the score gets it dead right. I’ve been a big fan of Shore over the years, especially with his scores to the early David Cronenberg films and Kevin Smith’s Dogma and it’s not a bad match for the movie in most scenes. People who are only familiar with his brilliant scores to the less than brilliant adaptations of Tolkiens works by Peter Jackson may be a little surprised at the modest scope of this piece but, frankly, anything heavier may well have undermined a movie of this nature and even this one threatens that on occasion. I know I wouldn’t normally argue for this, being as I love movie music so much, but maybe the mix was a little more prominent than it could have been in certain scenes but... yeah, for the most part it’s pretty good and it may be a good stand alone listen too.

And that’s what I thought of Spotlight. A pretty amazing movie with some things which irritated me but which in no way put me off the movie as a whole. A brilliant cast and some nice dialogue make for pretty compulsive viewing, in my book, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if there isn’t at least one Oscar nod to this one sometime soon. Definitely worth a watch, as far as I’m concerned.

Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Bust Out Keaton

Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
2014  USA
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu 
UK cinema release print.

Birdman is one of those rare movies that comes along every once in a while that almost surprises you in it’s insistence to not follow any recognised formula. I won’t go as far as saying it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before... it does share it’s tone with certain other films I’ve seen in the past year, for example... but it’s not the kind of movie making you get to see that often and, as such, it’s a bit of a rare treat when it’s put together as well as it is here.

The story depicts a few days in the life of Riggan Thomson, an actor once a household name for his role in three successful Birdman movies, who is trying to regain his stature by directing and starring in a play based on a Raymond Carver short story. The film follows the previews two days before and on opening night... or rather, it follows all the stuff around the rehearsals/previews and the various challenges which make Riggan question himself and his decisions in life.

Great casting for this kind of movie would, of course, be having an actor who was once a household name for playing a similar superhero role in the late 1980s and early 1990s and then tailoring the details of the role to that lead actor. And, as it happens, what we have here is not just great casting... it’s perfect casting. The film goes with Michael Keaton for the lead and, frankly, it’s perfect casting for three reasons... at least for this humble audience member.

Reason one is... he played Batman/Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns so the Birdman personae is tweaked to that legacy, in part, for this movie. Secondly, Michael Keaton, as underrated as he is by people sometimes (it seems to me), is a truly great actor... so no problems here. And, last but not least, he’s got to be one of the most likeable personalities on screen so, if you want your audience to be rooting for and feeling with the character you’ve created... Michael Keaton is a very good “go to” guy to be able to fulfil that requirement.

And the movie itself, I have to say, is a bit of a minor masterpiece... if such a thing exists.

We have the actor Keaton supported by an absolutely terrific cast, with Edward Norton playing someone suspiciously like the guy the public assumes Norton to be (I suspect) and loads of great actors and actresses who are just absolutely perfect in this movie. You won’t have any problem believing in this film but it’s the amazing technical gymnastics in terms of the mise en scène, which the actors support by being brilliant themselves, that really gets your attention... if you’ll forgive me for using such a “catch all” expression.

That is to say, the film is shot and edited with almost a schizophrenic eye...

It’s all about the camera following the characters around in what is edited together, with various moving wipes and other trickery, to look like the whole thing is shot in one continuous take as the viewpoint follows one person, then catches somebody else and follows him or her etc. However, this strategy is beautifully undermined by the fact that their are many changes of time and costume... which shows that the director is not, in any way, expecting us to think it’s been shot in one take. He knows we wouldn’t be fooled in this day and age and, since there are big jumps in time, etc, then it makes me wonder what the point is of shooting in this style. Well, my guess is because it makes things go incredibly fast... you are usually in the midst of hubbub and general chaos, apart from the odd downtime with certain characters, and as such, the pacing is incredibly energetic. The other thing with this is, perhaps, because the kind of visual turbulence “caught” on screen maybe gives some indication of the mental state of Keaton’s main protagonist in certain places... so maybe there’s a clever case of visual technique commenting and informing the inner monologue of various characters going on here.

What it does do, however, and I’m guessing this isn’t unique to this movie... although I’d be hard pushed to come up with an alternative right now, is allow for overlapping dialogue from the same characters simultaneously in two different sequences. For instance, we can have Edward Norton trying to have sex with someone while we can also hear him in the next scene the camera is panning to, in part of its “one take” style of presentation. Seriously, it’s like Robert Altman on acid here and it’s one of the things that make this film very interesting from a technical viewpoint. It’s also not thrown in your face but done very subtly (I suspect a lot of people will miss it the first time around) so the execution of the idea is damn near perfect.

Surprising moments are had from the way the camera crosses scenes like this and also from the point of view of Keaton’s internal battle with his Birdman personae. It was good seeing Keaton wearing a costume with the blackened out eyes, as his Batman days, again and it was great hearing the Birdman part of his character talking in his old, gravelly Batman voice. This is really good stuff and a lot of superhero fans are going to love this... as they will love the side swipes taken at films like Iron Man and The Avengers (Avengers Assembled, reviewed here) and also the action sequence near the end of the movie which... I will not spoil for you here.

One of the outstanding things about the film is the drum score by Antonio Sanchez which has just been disqualified for, seemingly, the few very quick instances where classical music is used in the film. I think there’s more of a hidden agenda as to why this, frankly amazing and appropriately quirky underscore, has been taken out of consideration by the Academy... especially since The Artist (reviewed here) won the Oscar for a score which people seem to mostly remember as using Bernard Herrman’s score from Vertigo in it near the end, from my experience of audience reaction. The score in Birdman is nicely integrated in at least three moments of on-screen drumming by, in most cases, a single drummer but also by a band in the street outside the theatre at one point. This is quite amazing because what we have going on here, from a technical point of view, is a lengthy non-diegetic piece of scoring (aka with no onscreen source) suddenly transforming into a diegetic/source piece of music and then transforming back into non-diegetic again. This is frankly tremendous and I was thrilled when this happened a few times throughout the course of the movie.

Another interesting point is the question of Michael Keaton’s “Birdman powers” which, frankly, are really nice touches... the opening shot starts off with Keaton’s character levitating, for example. Is it real or in his head? The nice thing about this is... just when you think you’ve got a handle on the answer to that question, the film pulls you back the other way again. Some people will probably say that the very last shot in the movie answers that question for sure but... frankly, in a film where technical flourishes make the very fabric of the media into something less rigid and more flexible in intent, this last sequence doesn’t really answer the quesiton at all.

Which is... you know... kinda nice, actually.

And that’s about all I’ve got to offer on this movie. It’s a great piece of art and it’s immensely entertaining. At times dark and at other times comic... and very often a mixture of both... the film impresses technically while retaining a huge entertainment factor. It’s definitely worth a watch for any fan of the medium of film and it attacks and challenges a fair few things (like film criticism) along the way, in a very cool and knowledgable manner. One of my top twenty for the year, no doubt and definitely a strong recommendation from me. Miss this one at your peril.