Tag: 2018 Reviews

Review: Bumblebee

The massive success of the Transformers film franchise has baffled some, delighted others, and earned a bucketload of cash for a handful. Yet for children of the 80s there’s always been something missing: a wistful nostalgia for the first time we watched the commercials masquerading as entertainment and thought to ourselves ‘I want that toy.‘ BUMBLEBEE is a pleasant return to those days.

On Cybertron, the Autobots are about to lose to the civil war to the Decepticons. Optimus Prime sends the young scout B-127 to Earth to help set up a base of operations. However, shortly after crash-landing in California during 1987, B-127’s vocal box is damaged and his memory damaged. Teenager Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) later finds a yellow Volkwagon Beetle and is surprised when it comes to life.

After the nostalgic joy of seeing old-school versions of Shockwave and Optimus Prime on screen briefly, BUMBLEBEE settles into a different kind of retro. Set in the 1980s, director Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) infuses the film with a soundtrack that includes a-ha, Duran Duran, and a lot of The Smiths. It’s like John Hughes produced a Transformers movie: indeed, there’s a few overt references to his films in there.

Yet BUMBLEBEE is less Hughes and more Steven Spielberg in its scope and vibe. The nearest 1980s comparison would be E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, another film with an orphan alien being hunted by government officials. In this vein, it’s on a much smaller scale to the rest of the Transformers series, although there’s still some impressively staged action. Yes, some of it is the kind of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots we’ve grown used to over the last few billion dollars worth of film. Yet other sequences (like a cop car chase) are infused with some Herbie/Love Bug comedy that’s simply refreshing.

After a series of men leading up the franchise, from Shia LaBeouf and Mark Wahlberg, Steinfeld is a more than welcome change. Christina Hodson’s (Unforgettable) screenplay merges Steinfeld’s character with her persona from Edge of Seventeen, making her a capable ex-diver with a penchant for car repair and pop music. This is what happens when the creative team cares about the human leads as much as the robotic ones.

With BUMBLEEBEE, director Knight gives the Transformers franchise a soft-reboot and a new outlook. Veering away from the heavy-handed action plots, the series gets as small-scale as it’s ever likely to be and reignites the simple joys of watching robots transform into cars – and vice versa.

2018 | US | DIR: Travis Knight | WRITERS: Christina Hodson| CAST: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr, John Ortiz, Jason Drucker, Pamela Adlon | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 20 December 2018 (AUS), 21 December 2018 (US)

December 20, 2018
Review: Mary Poppins Returns

The distance between sequels is growing. Blade Runner 2049 set the bar high with a 35 year gap. MARY POPPINS RETURNS, a follow-up to Disney’s 1954 musical classic, comes with an almost 55 year break between drinks. We guess Mary ignored Bert’s parting advice to not stay away too long.

The actual reason is that writer P.L. Travers had long refused further adaptations of her books following the Disney version. Yet in the two decades since since her death, Travers’ estate has allowed some flexibility with the property. Director Rob Marshall (Into the Woods) and writer David Magee (Finding Neverland) take inspiration from Travers’ later novels, as well as the Disney adaptation the author was notoriously less than pleased with.

Set in the 1930s, the now adult Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane Banks (Emily Mortimer) have explained the adventures of their youth as childhood fantasy. Reality really sets in when bank manager William “Weatherall” Wilkins (Colin Firth) threatens to repossess their house. With the Banks children (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, and Joel Dawson) in dire need, a windy day and a rediscovered kite is all it takes to bring Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) back to Cherry Tree Lane.

Disney hasn’t exactly let the property sit fallow in the last half-century. A stage musical saw the House of Mouse to revisit the world, while the Saving Mr. Banks (2013) biopic gave audiences an overview of the turbulent relationship between Travers and Walt’s vision for the film. MARY POPPINS RETURNS is the first direct sequel to the Disney adaptation, and it is almost slavish to the look and feel of that highly regarded film.

Case in point is Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), a cockney lamplighter who once apprenticed to Dick Van Dyke’s Bert. By the 1930s, the electric-powered London would have already seen the likes of Jack as a remnant of a dying industrial age. Here he serves as an avatar to the past, a deliberate anachronism that’s a bridge between classic and modern Disney.

The very look and feel of the picture is a loving tribute to the past. An extended sequence set inside a porcelain bowl recreates the vibes of the “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” section of the original. Animation by Ken Duncan and James Baxter, a Disney veteran since the 1980s, is superb. Capped by songs “The Royal Doulton Music Hall” and “A Cover Is Not the Book,” with music and lurics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, its as charming as it is gorgeously crafted – even if it goes on a bit too long.

While Julie Andrews left a mighty big hat to fill, Emily Blunt seamlessly steps into the role, throwing shade and not having any of it from the children and adults alike. Miranda’s cockney is on par with Dick Van Dyke’s (*cough*), and there’s a cameo from a certain Academy Award-winning actress that solidifies her descent into caricature.

The selection of songs aren’t anywhere near as memorable as the original Sherman Brothers works, even though Richard M. Sherman served as a musical consultant on the film. Nevertheless, they serve the story well and maintain the retro charm. “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” is a lovely successor to the award-winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and comes complete with its own riff-raff dance number.

Mary Poppins has grown well beyond the confines of the original books and films to become embedded in popular culture. The harder-edges of Nanny McPhee or the parody of the 1997 episode of The Simpsons (“Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious”) have ensured we will never view Mary Poppins with the same gleeful innocence we once did. Sitting somewhere between fan-fiction and follow-up, MARY POPPINS RETURNS is as much a jaunt down memory lane as it is a sequel – and for many that will mean it’s practically perfect in every way.

2018 | US | DIR: Rob Marshall | WRITERS: David Magee| CAST: Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Dick Van Dyke, Angela Lansbury, Colin Firth, Meryl Streep | RUNNING TIME: 130 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 19 December 2018 (US), 1 January 2019 (AUS)

December 13, 2018
Review: Once Upon a Deadpool

As the titular character is fond of reminding us, Deadpool was one of the most successful R-rated films of all time. Its modest budget led to a massive success and an inevitable sequel, revitalising Fox’s Marvel properties with a healthy sense of self-awareness. So the PG-13 reworking of Deadpool 2 is something of an oddity: a bloodless edit where the “only F-bomb is Fred Savage.”

In a newly shot series of interludes, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has kidnapped Savage (playing himself) and has trapped him in an almost perfect recreation of his bedroom set from The Princess Bride. Deadpool proceeds to tell Savage a familiar bedtime story.

After that, the film is simply an edited version of Deadpool 2. In fact, IMDB and Letterboxd don’t even distinguish them as separate entities. In the spirit of ONCE UPON A DEADPOOL, let’s flash back to the review of the original cut now. Go on. We’ll wait here. It’s cool.

READ: Review – Deadpool 2

Now wasn’t that a fun trip down memory lane? “It’s possible,” we commented in the review you just revisited (unless you cheated),”[that] once the initial shock value wears off there’s a certain repetition to the whole thing.” It’s like ONCE UPON A DEADPOOL read this and asked us to hold its beer.

In the new segments, we get some more meta commentary on lazy writing, fridging female characters, and on Deadpool’s place in pop culture. Savage geeks out about Cable, giving us a potted summary of his complex history at Marvel while acknowledging his superficial screen transition. There’s even a visual tribute to the late Stan Lee, digitally inserted as a wall mural. At its most timely, Savage and Deadpool debate the merits of the various ownership arrangements of Marvel properties. “You’re Marvel licensed by Fox,” argues Savage. “It’s like if The Beatles were produced by Nickelback.”

ONCE UPON A DEADPOOL has fun with its own censorship, bleeping sentences to make them sound far filthier than they actually are. As much of the blood was originally digitally inserted, here Fox have literally just turned the splatter button off. Yet it’s still incredibly violent, filled with the same amount of gunplay and decent serving of ‘S-bombs.’ Younger audiences need not apply, so the target audience remains as elusive as a successful DC Extended Universe film. (They’ve also left in T.J. Miller, despite some rather public controversy of late).

Devoid of any specific Christmas content, this seasonal release mostly leaves us wondering what the point of this outing actually was. Was it proof of concept that a Disney-owned Deadpool could still be ‘edgy’? Deadpool breaking through more fourth walls to comment on his own commentary? Or merely a cash-grab ? In the words of Fred Savage, it’s as “if Rocky Dennis had a baby with lava.”

2018 | US | DIR: David Leitch | WRITERS:Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Ryan Reynolds | CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Fred Savage, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, Jack Kesy | DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 May 2018 (AUS)

December 12, 2018
Review: Ralph Breaks the Internet

We have often wondered what the ultimate Disney mashup movie would look like. Disney’s House of Mouse series gave us some idea, but the abandoned feature crossover The Search For Mickey Mouse never eventuated. RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET, the sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph, teaches us to be careful what we wish for.

Picking up a few years after their previous adventure, Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) have been best buddies ever since. yet Vanellope dreams of more, and Ralph’s attempts to change her game break the machine. Working against the clock, Ralph and Vanellope must find a spare part on eBay before her game is sold for parts and Vanellope is left permanently homeless. So they enter the new Wi-Fi hub and enter the mysterious world of…The Internet.

If it all sounds a bit familiar it’s because this is basically the plot of the lacklustre The Emoji Movie, itself a poor imitation of Pixar’s Inside Out and countless others. Yet formula isn’t the only issue with this latest Disney sequel. Writers Phil Johnston and Pamela Ribon (Moana), the latter reusing elements of her Smurfs: The Lost Village plotting, have some questionable internal consistency. Indeed, the structure is more episodic than overarching, as the primary goal is completely and supplanted twice before the film is done.

It might just be that these characters had already experienced their complete arcs. Wreck-It Ralph seemed like an unlikely candidate for sequeldom, after all, at least until you realise he’s the perfect vehicle for shoehorning in every IP the rapidly expanding Disney has in their roster. Just like The Emoji Movie, which this film shares a basic plot with, the audience is assaulted with corporate logos and the most obvious corporate insertion of a brand into a plot since Mac and Me.

As was the case with The Emoji Movie, RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET is not driven by story so much as brand recognition. Instead of parodying Internet pop culture, directors Rich Moore and Johnston follow them by the nose. eBay is a central totem because it is recognisable to all audience members. Yet it’s also an example of seamless brand insertion in a way that most wouldn’t blink twice at.

At times, watching Ralph break the intertubes is like walking through a virtual Times Square: banners, tiles, and buildings for Google, Amazon, Fandango, and IMDb dominate the landscape. Of course, the social media family of Snapchat, Spotify, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook make their presence known. Ralph’s get rich quick scheme involves being in every meme imaginable, from screaming goats to Bob Ross.

The sequence destined to be the most iconic actually has very little to do with the titular character. The dynamic duo visit the Oh My Disney website, in reality a legitimate Buzzfeed-style fan portal run by Disney. Vanellope encounters virtually every Disney princess from Disney cinematic history, encouraging them to embrace their inner leisurewear enthusiast. It’s genuinely funny, filled with sight gags, and lampoons Princess tropes. (“We can’t understand her,” they say of Brave‘s Merida. “She’s from the other studio.”) It’s also a showcase for Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and every other Disney imprint.

All of which is disappointing given the sheer technical achievements of the film. A major subplot involves Vanellope falling in love with the online gaming environment of Slaughter Race, a GTA style game with some Mad Max realness. The slick but gritty animation style for these sequences, especially the hyperreal and badass Shank (Gal Gadot), is something we haven’t seen from the House of Mouse before. If you look beyond the advertising, the visualisation of the Internet is teeming with details and Easter Eggs.

There’s also a musical number from legitimate Disney Legend Alan Menkin (“A Place Called Slaughter Race”) that’s part classic Disney tune with a few dashes of La La Land for good measure. It’s completely incongruous too, sandwiched as it is between at least two separate arcs in which Ralph is being an entitled jerk.

Ultimately RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET is a film that comes at least 6 years too late. The retro charm of the original is replaced with cynical mashups of a web culture that has already done a pretty good job of lampooning itself. At the very least, it raises one important question: does Street Fighter‘s Zangief wax his body?

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: Rich Moore, Phil Johnston | WRITERS: Phil Johnston, Pamela Ribon | CAST: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina, Ed O’Neill | RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 26 December 2018 (AUS)[/stextbox]

December 11, 2018
Review: Mortal Engines

Peter Jackson may not have directed MORTAL ENGINES but his fingerprints are all over it. It has been on the cards at his WingNut Films since 2009, but the planned production of The Dambusters and The Hobbit trilogy pushed it back on the agenda. Having worked with Jackson since 1992’s Braindead, director Christian Rivers steps out of the second unit to deliver something that’s on par with the scale of his mentor’s work.

Based on the first novel by Philip Reeve, the Lord of the Rings screenwriting team of Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson do their thing by taking the solid bones of its structure expanding the world and placing it all in context. Eons after the 60-Minute War, the Earth is a wasteland. Massive traction cities roam the globe, literally ingesting smaller cities for survival in a philosophy called ‘Municipal Darwinism.’

Young Tom (Robert Sheehan) is low-class apprentice historian who has only ever lived in the travelling city of London. A burgeoning friendship with elite citizen Katherine Valentine (Lila George) is cut short when an assassination attempt is made on her father Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving). Tom and assassin Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) soon find themselves on the run in the remnants of the Earth searching for a McGuffin.

Fans of Reeve’s original quartet and prequel series will find a fair bit of joy in seeing the author’s creative vision come to life in such an impressive way, and there will be times when you’re swept away with the spectacle of it all. It’s just that it’s also such a mish-mash of ideas and references to other films and tropes that you are always conscious that you are watching a movie. An early appearance of Universal’s ubiquitous Minions leaves a taste in our mouths as bad as the millennia-old Twinkies that show up sometime later.

Which isn’t to say there’s no fun to be had: it’s visually stunning, and Rivers/Jackson know how to stage a film in a grand arena. An early chase through a town as it’s being dissected by London is as inventive as it is thrilling. The bright-red resistance airship flown by fan-favourite Anna Fang (Jihae) is the Millennium Falcon of the picture, and becomes a character in itself. It all builds to a massive battle sequence that looks like a high-tech version of something out of The Two Towers or The Battle of the Five Armies.

It’s a shame then that the principal leads of Hilmar and Sheehan have virtually no chemistry. It would have been far more interesting to follow the sub-plot about Katherine and the completely undeveloped Bevis Pod (Ronan Raftery), who were the true stars of this vehicle. The appearance of Shrike (Stephen Lang), an undead cyborg hunting Hester, feels like one plot line too many, although the writing team at least manage to imbue him with a modicum of empathy. Hugo Weaving doesn’t encounter a piece of scenery he doesn’t find delicious, and even gets his own Darth Vader moment in the climax.

So if Municipal Darwinism is the act of cities eating other cities, then MORTAL ENGINES has swallowed other films whole and recycled them for parts. At the same time, it also feels like a final package: and if there are to be sequels, the film doesn’t necessarily point the way there. There’s a solid adventure story at the centre of this adaptation, but it spends so much time swirling around its own gutsy innards that it’s sometimes hard to digest.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: Christian Rivers | WRITERS: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson | CAST: Hugo Weaving, Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Jihae, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 6 December 2018 (AUS), 14 December 2018 (US)[/stextbox]

December 8, 2018
Review: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

It’s been a massive year already for comic book movies, with Avengers: Infinity War sucking most of the air of the room. Yet it turns out it wasn’t the final word on cinematic superheroics. The 2014-2015 Spider-Verse comic book event claimed to have “Every Spider-Man ever” in print, even including the 1960s animated version, the India-based Pavitr Prabhakar, and Japanese Spider-Man’s Leopardon in the line-up. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is a loose adaptation that has waltzed out of our dreams and onto our screens with a psychadelic swirl of Ben-Day dots.

From the energetic opening sequence, Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman’s screenplay acknowledges the webslinger’s storied past. With visual references to Sam Raimi’s trilogy and the Amazing Spider-Man films, it’s a tip of the hat to just how comics literate audiences have become in the last decade or so. We immediately take a left turn into the world of Ultimate Spider-Man and get introduced to Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), a teenager dealing with high-school until he is bitten by a radioactive spider. His newfound abilities coincide with Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) cracking open a rift in space-time, and Peter Parker/Spider-Man being killed in the attempt to stop him.

Miles is left as the sole inheritor to the Spider-Man mantle, at least until it’s revealed that several other enhanced spider-people have entered his reality from across the Multiverse: Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), the Gwen Stacey of her Earth who survived in Peter’s place; the cartoony Spider-Ham (John Mulaney); the James Cagney-esque Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage); and Peni Parker (aka SP//dr, voiced by Kimiko Glenn). Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson in some inspired casting) is an older Spider-Man who is having a major mid-life moment and serves as a reluctant mentor to Miles.

It’s difficult to quantify exactly what this film means to us comic book fans. Over the last few decades we have watched various studios make soaring successes and massive misfires based on comic properties, and even the best of them didn’t get it quite right. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is an unabashed love letter to every era of comic books. While it sticks primarily to the main 6 heroes, there are references to so many comic book moments, classic film scenes, and retro cartoons that this tribute may elicit a few tears of joy. (The inevitable Stan Lee cameo will also lead to some gentle sobs, the appearance serving a tribute to his entire legacy in the wake of his recent passing).

Yet having Miles Morales as the lead is a long overdue move for Sony. If you’ve been paying attention to the angry and violent voices of Comicsgate, the harassment movement has often claimed that minority characters in comics is the equivalent to pushing diversity into “their” comics. Well d’uh. The half-black, half-Hispanic Miles Morales was first introduced back in 2011, and commentators such as Chris Huntington of The New York Times reminded us why it was important that children of all backgrounds needed heroes that represented them. Despite starting as a fledgling teenage with powers, his heroism in this film is ultimately defined by how his individual strength and differences make him unique in a pantheon of Spider-Men.

The film stylistically immerses viewers in the trappings of sequential art without being tied to it. Directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman – along with producers Lord and Christopher Miller – aimed to make the film look like a comic book. Where some films misunderstood the way panels and onomatopoeia work (See: Ang Lee’s Hulk), here it’s a celebration of the form. Backgrounds look like unfocused 3D and give depth to the primary character animation. Selected voice-overs appear in text boxes, while “THWIP!” appears on screen during action sequences. The stunning autumnal forest escape, one that introduces Spider-Gwen, is a masterclass in action animation.

It’s rare that a film is so unapologetically made for the True Believers but at the same time manages a universal appeal. Not only is SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE one of the best adaptations since the 1990s Spider-Man series, but one of the best comic adaptations of the last few years in any medium. Be sure to stay through the credits for some more references to classic Spidey and a post-credit sequence that rewards fans without taking itself seriously in the slightest.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIR: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman | WRITERS: Phil Lord, Rodney Rothman | CAST: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Jake Johnson, Liev Schreiber, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Lily Tomlin | RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 13 December 2018 (AUS), 14 December 2018 (US)[/stextbox]

December 4, 2018
Review: The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine

Veteran filmmaker Takahisa Zeze is no stranger to stories of epic proportions. The former purveyor of erotic pinku films gained critical acclaim with Heaven’s Story (2010), a 278 minute film based on a true story. He’s also adapted 64, based on the Hideo Yokoyama novel, as a 2-part film that totals over 4 hours as well. THE CHRYSANTHEMUM AND THE GUILLOTINE (アントキノイノチ) might only clock in at a little over 3 hours, but it packs a hell of a lot of story into that frame.

Beginning with the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the film is broadly about the social and political ramifications of the natural disaster and the rise of nationalism in its wake. More specifically, it follows a troupe of female sumo wrestlers whose number includes Kiku (Mai Kiryu) and Tamae (Hanae Kan), two women who are trying to escape the abuses of their past. Meanwhile, poet Tetsu (Masahiro Higashide) and Daijiro (Kanichiro) are members of the Guillotine Society, an anarchist group who are trying to stab, shoot, and explode their way to a better Japan. The storylines intersect when the Guillotine members start to watch the women’s wrestling matches.

Zeze’s third film in the last 12 months – following The 8-Year Engagement and My Friend ‘A’* – is perhaps one of his most ambitious. Yet it’s also a very packed film. Before the titles even drop, there’s a good 20 minutes of exposition just setting the scene in September 1923. Lots of characters are introduced rapidly, initially making it difficult to maintain a firm sense of place and character. Yet this is a sweeping summary of an era, and in that sense we do get a picture of the various factions, veterans, nationalists and rebels who changed Japan’s future.

The story is at its strongest when it is focusing on the sumo wrestlers, and the women who surround them. It’s unfortunate that Zeze is stylistically all over the place, rarely focusing on any one aspect for long. A violent stabbing encounter with the authorities is quickly followed by the Guillotine boys discussing venereal diseases and testicle hygiene. A variety of brutality is used by the veteran nationalists, including an incredibly tense forest scene in which several anarchists are forced to pledge their allegiance to the Emperor.

The primary story concludes around 1924 with the introduction of the US Immigration Act. The characters mark it as the point in which “the world began excluding the Japanese,” with Zeze’s film arguing that it was a significant cornerstone in the groundwork being laid for the Imperialism that followed. Title cards tell us the fate of the real-life counterparts of these characters, hammering home the very tangible end of an era represented here. Some have noted a similar current of nationalism spreading throughout the island nation in the wake of more recent natural disasters in Japan. Perhaps filmmakers of the year 2113 will have a 3-hour film showcasing that.

*Both are also playing at the Japanese Film Festival in 2018.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | Japan | DIR: Takahisa Zeze | WRITERS: Toranosuke Aizawa, Takahisa Zeze | CAST: Mai Kiryu, Hanae Kan, Masahiro Higashide, Kanichiro, Kanako Mochida | DISTRIBUTOR: Japanese Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 189 minutes | RELEASE DATE: October – December 2017 (JFF) [/stextbox]

November 19, 2018
Review: Summer Blooms

After spending August in Tokyo (2014) and watching a Tokyo Sunrise (2015), writer/director Ryutaro Nakagawa slides into a different season with SUMMER BLOOMS (四月の永い夢). Winner of the FIPRESCI award at the 39th Moscow International Film Festival, it is produced by the Tokyo New Cinema collective of indie filmmakers and emblematic of a contemporary wave emerging in Japan.

Nakagawa’s screenplay focuses on Hatsumi Takimoto (Aki Asakura, whose voice you may recognise from The Tale of Princess Kaguya), a women in her late 20s working as a waitress in a suburban Tokyo restaurant. Her listless existence is marked by mourning the suicide death of her boyfriend 3 years earlier, when she gave up her career as a teacher. Hatsumi is forced back into the world through a series of events.

Energetic former student Kaede (Yuriko Kawasaki) enters her life, and latches onto Hatsumi while trying to escape her abusive boyfriend. When the restaurant Hatsumi works at closes down, regular customer Totaro (Takahiro Miura) declares his feelings for her.

The film takes a while to unfold, seemingly going from scene to scene without any genuine sense of direction. This is, of course, emblematic of where Hatsumi is as a character: she’s unmoored, perhaps feeling that she isn’t worthy of being part of a world due to something hitherto undisclosed in her past. For the most part, this is the kind of ‘slice of life’ film that Japanese cinema has excelled at over the last few decades.

Yet as Hatsumi finds her way back into the world, returning home to face some of the past she is running from, Nakagawa peppers his film with some laser-focused scenes exposing her inner thoughts. In the closest thing we get to an overtly romantic scene, Hatsumi and Totaro walk through long strips of fabric. They function as art for art’s sake, literally hanging there to be observed until Totaro casually rips a piece off and hands it to her. “These hand towels are made to be used,” he remarks, and he could just as easily be talking about her emotionally cloistered existence.

The sequence is shortly followed by a long tracking shot of Hatsumi running to the tune of Akaikutsu’s ‘Sho Wo Mochi Bokuha Tabi Ni Deru,’ which is sort of the unofficial anthem for SUMMER BLOOMS, allowing her a moment to break free before abruptly stopping and reflecting on it.

SUMMER BLOOMS is ultimately an understated emotional piece about choosing what feelings we choose to hang onto, and what metrics we use to place value on our societal belonging. As Hatsumi reaches a modicum of catharsis in the final scenes, ‘confessing’ the mistakes of the past in the form of a letter, there’s a sense that she has completed some kind of loop. Now the challenge is to to get that Akaikutsu tune out of your head.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | Japan | DIR: Ryutaro Nakagawa | WRITERS: Ryutaro Nakagawa | CAST: Aki Asakura, Yuriko Kawasaki, Takahiro Miura | DISTRIBUTOR: Tokyo New Cinema (JPN), Japanese Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes | RELEASE DATE: October – December 2017 (JFF) [/stextbox]

November 15, 2018
Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

The least interesting thing about J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World is Harry Potter. Please don’t send me any letters. Unless they are by owl post. Rowling’s books, and subsequent film adaptations, enchant readers because they create a world we want to spend time in. Rowling hints at so much beyond the walls of Hogwarts, and FANTASTIC BEASTS offered a opportunity to explore the history and fringes of that world. It just never takes that chance. Or any chances at all.

Picking up some time after the events of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has been banned from international travel while Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) has been imprisoned by the Ministry of Magic. Following the latter’s escape, a young Professor Dumbledore (Jude Law) convinces Newt to go to Paris where he’s reunited with Tina (Katherine Waterston) and Queenie (Alison Sudol) and No-Mag Jacob (Dan Fogler). Together they try and solve the identity of the potentially powerful Creedence (Ezra Miller).

At least that’s what seems to happen. The leisurely narrative spends what feels like more than half the film getting the band back together, and the rest chasing a McGuffin around the Parisian equivalent of Diagon Alley. Frequently nonsensical, most of the film is one long piece of exposition punctuated by referential winks at the audience. Indeed, unless you’re a PhD in Potter, a barrage of names, locations and references will sail by quicker than you can say “Accio Wikipedia!”

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some (wait for it) magical moments. Newt’s vast ‘underground’ menagerie is an amazing showcase for the titular beasts. Yet it’s also emblematic of the deepest flaw in the film. The location introduces us to new character Bunty (Victoria Yeates), Newt’s apparently faithful assistant, before promptly forgetting she exists. Similarly, Newt’s handsome brother Theseus (Callum Turner), Grindelwald’s offsider Vinda Rosier (Poppy Corby-Tuech), and even Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) are never developed beyond their use as simplistic plot devices.

Where the first Fantastic Beasts was unique for its distance from Hogwarts, this sequel is weighed down by that connection. Like an invisible dragon blundering through downtown Europa, Rowling’s script bulldozes its way through the city streets, throwing bits of canon about haphazardly as it goes. Far from being a self-contained entity, we’re left with a head-scratching cliffhanger and the sense that this movie was never intended to serve as anything but a trailer for Part 3.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | UK, US | DIR: David Yates | WRITERS: J.K. Rowling | CAST: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Zoë Kravitz, Callum Turner, Jude Law, Johnny Depp| RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 15 November 2018[/stextbox]

November 13, 2018
Review: Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura

Kamakura. Beaches. Temples. Giant Buddha. Mythical creatures living alongside humanity. That last one may not be found on japan-guide.com or in your Wallpaper handbook, but it’s the basis of director Takashi Yamakazi’s DESTINY: THE TALE OF KAMAKURA (鎌倉ものがたり).

Based on the manga Ryohei Saigan, the basic setup sees the recently married Akiko (Mitsuki Takahata) join her much older husband Masakazu Isshiki (Masato Sakai) in the titular Kamakura. As a writer, Masakazu is frequently called upon as a consulting detective in local spectral cases. When a mystery presents itself, he is on the case and Akiko is drawn deep into the mystical surrounds.

Yamazaki has previously adapted Saigan’s manga into the Always: Sunset on Third Street series, and there’s a similarly carefree charm to to this entry. Trading nostalgia for a more overt magical sheen, DESTINY is in no particular hurry to get where it is going. Indeed, much of the first two acts of the film merely introduce us to the local colour and set up the rules of the alternate Kamakura.

In one scene, Akiko is cooking up mushrooms purchased from a local shop, only to find her husband’s spirit trying to leave his body. Masakazu’s troubled relationship with his parents serves up a separate mystery to be solved. Another extended subplot sees a jinx god haunting their home and bringing bad luck. Similarly, the always wonderful Sakura Ando plays it up as the Grim Reaper in yet another running thread. In this sense, this adaptation might have worked better as a television series, but it’s a testament to Yamazaki’s adapted screenplay that it all still feels cohesive.

The special effects are on par with most ‘big’ budget Japanese productions. They might never be as large-scale as a Hollywood equivalent, but there’s always something going on to remind you this is not the Kamakura you know. Nevertheless, the lion’s share of the CG work is used in the final act and it’s seriously pretty. The Afterworld backgrounds are often breathtaking and a climactic train chase across a disappearing foundation is still a thrill.

Yet planet-shaking moments were never the goal here, and this climax merely acts to tie up the many stories presented in the first half. More than anything, DESTINY is a charming love story set inside a storybook version of Japan. If that sends you back in search of the source material, or leaves you with a smile on your face, then it has more than successfully done its job.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | Japan | DIR: Takashi Yamakazi | WRITERS:Takashi Yamakazi, Ryohei Saigan (manga) | CAST: Mitsuki Takahata, Masato Sakai, Sakura Ando | DISTRIBUTOR: Toho (JPN), Japanese Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 129 minutes | RELEASE DATE: October – December 2017 (JFF) [/stextbox]

November 12, 2018