How I Live Now

No vampires or demon hunters in this one: Kevin Macdonald’s triumphant adaptation of the teen-fiction bestseller by Meg Rosoff deals with some very real issues without even a single appearance from a supernatural being (who’d have thought it was possible?).

 American girl Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) enters an entirely different world when her father sends her away to live with her cousins. Initially she plays the irritable goth chic who excludes herself from any sort of fun and spends her time moping around the country mansion trying to get phone signal, but after her aunt inexplicably flies off to Switzerland for work she develops a relationship with the eldest cousin Edmond and actually begins to enjoy herself. Frolicking around to the music of Nick Drake in the Hobbity-Narnia countryside either down by the waterfall, in

the woods nursing injured hawks or putting party hats on goats, everything’s very idyllic and feels almost too perfect. Which is why when the effects of war really hit hard and they find themselves split up and the girls evacuated to a suburban home, the film takes a darker turn and they begin to fear for their lives.

 World War III is how it’s described by the youngest cousin Piper, but nothing is ever explained in any greater detail; bombs fall on London and widespread evacuation and forced recruitments are the norm, yet it remains ambiguous as to who or what Britain is fighting. How I Live Now is a film that explores the effects of large-scale war from a teenage perspective rather than the conflict itself and does so with a much greater nerve than you’d expect. Of course it’s got that romantic edge to it that all films aimed at a teenage demographic are obliged to include, but that doesn’t stop it from punching you in the stomach every now and then. The rural settings are powerful contrasts to the cities and towns now transformed into factories of war so that from the second half onwards the atmosphere descends into a post-apocalyptic fight for survival.

Ronan demonstrates again that she’s more than capable of playing any role she sets her mind to, and both Tom Holland and George Mackay are equally watchable, though highest praise goes to ten year old Harley Bird (youngest BAFTA winner for voicing Pepper Pig) for a genuinely moving performance. Though a little unfocused at times, How I Live Now goes places where other films of this genre do not, confronting the terrors of isolation, war and even death in a narrative that never fails to carry itself forward. 


Original article published on: http://www.impactnottingham.com/2013/10/review-how-i-live-now/ 

The Conjuring

  The new film by modern master of horror James Wan is a strange concoction. On one hand it manages to reel off every single genre cliché of the last decade or so without pausing for breath, but on the other it’s one of the few genuinely terrifying experiences produced in recent years. Wan began his cinematic career with Saw, a film which, however formulaic its sequels have become, was a big step in the quest for originality, proving that you don’t need a shaky camcorder to make a low-budget horror. Now, after the relatively low-key Dead Silence, the hugely popular Insidious (with its sequel due mid-September) and the news that Wan is swapping ghosts for gearboxes and is now in the process of filming no. 7 in the Fast & Furious franchise, The Conjuring feels more like a conclusion: a summing up of what has come before.

  Set on Rhode Island in a farm house typical of any horror released in the ‘70s (Amityville being the obvious comparison, though Psycho must also be an inspiration), The Conjuring is based on real life paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren’s most infamous case. In 1971 Roger and Carolyn Perron move in with their five daughters and begin to experience the usual: doors slam, the clocks stop at 3.07am, a funky smell of rotting meat follows them around the house and one of the girls finds a music box that she uses to see her ‘new friend’. Reaching the end of their tether they seek out the Warrens, who come laden with night vision cameras, UV lights and a Bible, intent on destroying the sinister presence before it latches onto the family itself.

  Credit must be given to the writing partnership of Chris and Carey Hayes (the brothers behind House of Wax, The Reaping and Whiteout) whose characterisation of the Warrens is what gives The Conjuring that extra dimension. The two ghost hunters, played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, are themselves parents who are forced to leave a young daughter at home with her nanny while they travel the country relieving the possessed and putting minds to rest, but more importantly they fervently believe that what they’re doing is real (which is where the comparisons to Mystery Inc. end). Farmiga, already a horror veteran, having appeared in Orphan and more recently A&E’s Bates Motel as Norma Bates, is undeniably the star of the film as Lorraine Warren, a clairvoyant on the brink of a psychological breakdown. Her obvious care for the wellbeing of the Perrons while at the same time having to deal with her own inner-turmoil gives The Conjuring proper substance, making it more than just another horror flick.

   Here Wan does what he does best, creating a tight two hours of built-up suspense, slowly cranking up the tension until suddenly it snaps and everything comes crashing down. The director understands the needs of his audience; the scares are predictable, yet so persistent that even the flick of a light switch can set your heart racing. Yet perhaps this gathering-together of haunted house conventions is a sign that they’ve run their course, that maybe it’s time for mainstream horror to come up with something original rather than simply sticking the clichés together in different ways. It’s hard to say - more likely The Conjuring just proves that the old tricks are the best, and if that be the case, who better to perform them than James Wan?

World War Z

Zombie films are flooding in so thick and fast these days it’s a wonder that there’s anything original out there; we’ve seen the classics, the sequels, the parodies, the zom-rom-coms – we’ve seen nazi zombies, cyborg zombies, voodoo zombies and even an Osama bin Laden zombie, so why did Brad Pitt and his production team ‘Plan B’ fight so hard to procure the rights for Max Brooks’ novel World War Z? Perhaps he wanted to trump Woody Harrelson at being the ultimate destroyer of the undead, or maybe he just needed somewhere to show off his new haircut? The more likely answer is that the story had the potential for director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace, etc.) to create something truly epic, on a scale that encompasses the entire planet (no wonder they had budget problems).

 It’s a global disaster movie where instead of the ocean, the world is subjected to wave upon wave of the undead, whose main objective (as with any zombie) is to kill and eat as many of the population as possible. Pitt plays Gerry Lane, an ex-investigator for the UN who has to protect his wife (Mireille Enos) and two daughters from the zombie virus while attempting to discover a cure at the same time. Accompanied by a scientist and a military squad he travels to East Asia where it is rumoured that the outbreak first began.

As an action thriller Forster delivers a relatively engaging contribution to the zombie genre. It’s incredibly fast paced (exactly like the zombie attacks: if you’re bitten, you turn within fifteen seconds) and any scenes that don’t involve running or shooting are usually full of breathy and sometimes incomprehensible exchanges of dialogue. Most of the time this works in carrying you along with the plot, but the sheer speed of the film is so limiting to the actors that for the audience, investing any kind of emotion proves difficult. Pitt never actually has time to give a performance – all he seems to do is demonstrate his sprinting skills. Same with Peter Capaldi, who spends his time strutting angrily down the corridors of a medical research centre in Cardiff.

The zombie genre has always been a perfect vehicle for reflecting the fears of the contemporary audience through metaphor: in White Zombie (1932) it was slavery, where the resurrected corpses were forced to work in the sugar cane mills; in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), the zombies attacking the mall represented mass-consumerism, and in more recent years films like 28 Days Later and [REC] dealt with incurable diseases and world-wide pandemics. What’s interesting about World War Z (and actually one of its strengths) is that it could come to resemble our declining economies and the steady rise of unemployment, or even (and the title gives it away) the fear of another world war. Lane’s journeying to the army bases of South Korea and Israel evokes the setting and atmosphere of many present day war films, especially Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, and serves as a reminder that the film is very much grounded in reality. Apart from a few scenes here and there, the film never shies away from depicting the brutality of the zombie attack and its effects: there are moments that are genuinely quite shocking – at least we’re not given another dumbed-down Die Hard 5.

Pitt made a gamble with World War Z, but it seems to have paid off. Forster’s directing and Damon Lindelof’s re-hashing of the script may have angered fans of the original novel, but the end result is not as terrible or as commercially-driven as it could have been.

Original source: http://www.impactnottingham.com/2013/06/review-world-war-z/

Mud

Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, whose last two features Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter thrust him blinking and shivering into the public eye, Mud is a deep-southern drama about loyalty and the consequences of love and sees Matthew McConaughey continue his ‘McConaissance’ as the enigmatic title character.

The story follows Ellis and Neckbone, two teenage boys living in Arkansas, who travel to an island on the Mississippi river where they find a boat wedged firmly in the branches of a tree. On climbing up they realise that someone has been living below deck and decide to leave, but when they return to their own boat they meet Mud, a man with a gun in his belt and a tattooed snake running up his arm. Distrustful at first, eventually they form a strong friendship with Mud, and bring food to him while attempting to help fix his boat. Out in the real world however, Ellis’ parents are on the verge of a divorce and Mud is wanted for murder.

As last year’s Killer Joe proves, McConaughey has shed his romantic-comedy skin and has now been reborn Christ-like into the world of dark indie dramas. Gone are the days of Failure to Launch and Fool’s Gold; just watch him eat a can of baked beans with his fingers to see that he’s a changed man. In the character of Mud he seems to have found a comfortable niche for himself, playing someone almost fantastical in how he lives – governed by superstition (the crosses in his boots, his lucky shirt to protect him from snake bites) and unwilling to confront his less than admirable past, he appears at first to be a father figure for the two boys, but as events unfold he becomes almost tragic, literally depending on them for survival.
 Tye Sheridan, who rose to fame as Brad Pitt’s son in The Tree of Life, plays Ellis with the sort of innocent determination that, along with his co-star Jacob Lofland, injects the film with the naivety of Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me; it’s because the story of Mud is told primarily from their perspectives that makes the film so engaging.

Nichols’ main strength lies in his Malick-esque ability for capturing the atmosphere of a place, while also including an underlying layer of the supernatural; in this case the influence of Beasts of the Southern Wild is unmistakable: the river location, a tone that verges on the Southern Gothic, even the boat in the tree – the two films are not that dissimilar in terms of aesthetics or character. However Mud, like Take Shelter before it, suffers from an over-long running time; at just over two hours the film feels stretched and unable to support the fast-paced events of Nichols’ screenplay. The dialogue is masterfully concise but in the end it’s left with too much space to fill and the film would benefit from removing several scenes and even certain plot strands. A good example would be Reese Witherspoon’s character, for though she might be an important character, she is entirely uninteresting and forces Mud at times to lose its focus.

A modern American fairytale, Mud is perhaps more enjoyable than Nichols’ previous work, but you get the feeling that his best is still to come.

Evil Dead

A long, long time ago when CGI was a thing of wonder; a toy that only the most experienced filmmakers were allowed to play with, director Sam Raimi and his good friend Bruce Campbell created The Evil Dead, a low-budget horror film that shocked and amazed critics and fans alike. Now, just over 30 years later, Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez (with Raimi and Campbell as producers) has made what its poster describes as ‘the most terrifying film you will ever experience’: a remake of the original, simply titled Evil Dead. 

 The premise is simple: five friends are terrorised by the spirits of the dead in a cabin in the woods. Mia (played by Suburgatory’s Jane Levy) is the film’s focus, a girl who suffers from a serious drug addiction and has asked her brother David and three expendable friends (all you need to know is that the initials of their first names spell DEMON) to keep her company while she goes cold turkey. After a quick trip into the cellar on arrival they find the fabled Necronomicon: a book wrapped in barbed wire and bound in what looks like human skin, which, unsurprisingly, they read from.  

   As with most horror remakes, the charm of the original has completely vanished. Tongue is always in cheek when watching Raimi’s classic, but with Evil Dead nothing is ever particularly funny; the horror-comedy genre is left far behind and you get the feeling that Alvarez is seriously trying to create the scariest film ever made. Does he succeed? Not even close. The film just seems to be a succession of increasingly disgusting self-mutilations; something that isn’t entirely a bad thing, but it’s safe to say there’ll be more wincing in the cinemas than screaming. There are certainly a few moments of terror – and this is largely due to Jane Levy’s ability to pull the most disturbing faces imaginable – but it lacks the low-budget, paper-maché atmosphere that makes the original such a thrill to watch.

   What must be applauded though, is Alvarez’s complete disregard for CGI. Nowadays any old film can afford a few computer graphics, no matter the budget (watch Birdemic for proof), so to actually make a film that features double the amount of gore than in all the Saw movies combined without even a single green screen is actually very impressive – and there’s plenty of arm-slicing, cheek-gouging and nail guns in the face to be getting on with.    

 Also praiseworthy is that Evil Dead doesn't rely too heavily on the original; the references are there for fans to pick out, but they certainly don’t weigh the film down. The plot isn't even an exact copy - the inclusion of Mia’s drug problem is topical and also provides a legitimate reason for actually staying in the cabin in the first place; after she rushes in screaming and covered in blood, her friends simply attribute her behaviour to ‘crazy withdrawal symptoms’ and leave it at that (of course, they quickly change their minds when she starts slicing her tongue in half). If you take a step back Evil Dead is really not a bad film for its genre, especially when compared to the recent Texas Chainsaw 3Ds and Paranormal Activity clones we've been subjected to; it may not be as revolutionary as its predecessor but at least it’s not afraid to try.

Spring Breakers

For those who aren’t familiar with the films of director/hipster Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers will look just like another Project X, one of those coming-of-age, ‘finding yourself’ teen movies that seem to come around every summer, similar to a Playboy shoot by the sea perhaps, or an Instagrammed version of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents. It can’t be denied - that is basically what Spring Breakers is: beach parties, girls in fluorescent bikinis and excess of alcohol and cocaine, but there’s a whole lot more to be got from it if you’re willing to endure the initial blast of colour and dubstep.

 Korine began his career in film at the age of 18 by writing the script for Larry Clark’s Kids, a low-budget indie film about a gang of teenagers living in NYC, and went on to direct his near perfect debut Gummo two years later, the story a group of earthquake survivors in Ohio. Julien Donkey-Boy, Mr Lonely and Trash Humpers slowly followed, and now Spring Breakers, his most commercial feature yet. The attention is due, unsurprisingly, to the presence of James Franco and the two ex-Disney girls Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez. 

 It begins with Skrillex (you know the one) and a full-on hyper-sexual montage of dancing and beer bathing on a beach in Florida. Then, after robbing a restaurant with balaclavas and hammers to get coach money, the four girls (Hudgens, Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Korine’s own wife Rachel) arrive but are immediately arrested following a drug bust in a stranger’s apartment. Enter James Franco as Alien (‘I’m from a different planet, y’all!’), a ‘gangsta’ rapper with gold teeth and shoulder-length braids who bails them out of prison and brings them to his house overlooking the sea where he shows them his AK47 collection. He becomes a sort of mentor to the girls, providing them with food, money and guns; Franco plays him with a sinister arrogance, a man who has fully embraced his criminal lifestyle but still yearns for something deeper. His piano cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Everytime’ is the best scene of the film.
 Out of the four girls, Gomez’s character is perhaps the most interesting and surprisingly well-acted; she’s the only one who believes something to be deeply wrong about their situation and is the first to leave. The ominous click of a loaded gun and Franco’s repeated ‘Spring Break forever…’ leaves the audience with no doubt that the rapper’s intentions are not entirely respectable. 

These are just the bare bones of Spring Breakers. Korine’s style is not to write scenes chronologically, but to create sketches – stories within themselves that may or may not relate to the main narrative. This cut-and-paste technique might not sit well with some people, but it’s certainly interesting to watch – you get a sense of how the film’s going to play out even before the girls get to Miami: the flash of a bloody hand, a muffled scream – it’s addictive cinema.

 But what’s the point of Spring Breakers? Is it just pornography disguised? Is it a social commentary on today’s youth culture? It’s difficult to say, but it seems to be more an exploration of its darker side; the desire to be free, to have fun and ‘live life to the fullest, y’all!’ is so strong in these characters that it leads to them becoming full-blown criminals just to be a part of this unattainable lifestyle. Of course, the usual controversy surrounding a Harmony Korine film is present (see the exploitative nature of Kids, the drowning of cats in Gummo) and it’s hard to ignore – some of those camera angles must be illegal - but the film is actually very enjoyable. If anything, go and see it for James Franco.

original article: http://www.impactnottingham.com/2013/04/review-spring-breakers/ 

Mama

The amount of films that Guillermo Del Toro has leant his name to over the past few years makes him seem like an eccentric collector, or perhaps a nurturing father trying to keep his children close; they’re all in the same vein as his widely acclaimed masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth, usually combining elements of Spanish fairytale and European horror with a dysfunctional household setting (it’s hard not to generalise, but this is essentially what happens in each film). The Orphanage was the first, and probably the most well-known of the group – a well-constructed twisting of the missing-child genre. There then followed such films as Julia’s Eyes and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, both individual and both excellent examples of Del Toro’s influence. Mama, the debut from Spanish director Andrés Muschietti, is a welcome contribution to this already rich genre.

 A man drives home after shooting his ex-wife in the head and kidnaps his two young daughters, Victoria and Lilly. While speeding down a remote snow-covered road in the mountains, the car skids and goes over the cliff, and, unhurt, they stumble to a deserted cabin where the father is taken by a tall, dark figure and never seen again. When the girls are found five years later by their uncle Lucas they have become feral: thin, unwashed and snarling – when under observation they seem to talk to an invisible being they call Mama, who seems to act as a maternal substitute for the children. Only Victoria, who has retained parts of her vocabulary, is willing to re-enter the human world; Lilly, on the other hand, remains unresponsive and sits in the corner eating moths. Lucas and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain) decide to raise the girls themselves, but they soon come to realise that Mama is not just a product of over-active imaginations.

Credit must be given to the child actors in Mama. As in most horror films of the ‘pedophobic’ genre (The Exorcist, The Omen, Village of the Damned etc.) it’s hard to imagine how directors get their actors to give such unnerving, and sometimes terrifying, performances, particularly when surrounded by older, more experienced professionals, but these girls are very, very good. Their roles demand a certain seriousness – unhinged yet innocent, hardened by their experiences in the wild and uncertain about their new guardians. Jessica Chastain is also enjoyable as the black haired, bass-playing girlfriend - the rock-chick attitude is authentic and very watchable as we see her struggle to adapt to family life and is certainly a different change of pace from her character in this year’s Zero Dark Thirty.

 What raises Mama above the steady flow of mediocre horror is not just Del Toro’s influence, but also the way in which the director is unafraid to take risks. The standard horror tropes are still very much present (creepy crayon drawings, loud noises in the night, camera flashes in a dark room etc.) but there are countless other ways in which Mama surprises its audience. There’s a dream sequence, for example, that feels as if it shouldn’t belong in the main narrative at all, so different is it in style and tone that it could easily pass as a surreal little short film of its own. Similarly, the glimpses we get of ‘Mama’ herself are brilliant; so fleeting, fantastical and unexpected that you want to see more of her, yet at the same time you really don’t.

A satisfying combination of fantasy and horror, if you yearn for more of what Pan’s Labyrinth offered, Mama might not be able to fill the gap, but it undoubtedly tries hard.

Original source: http://www.impactnottingham.com/2013/03/review-mama/