DVD Review - High-Rise (2016)

Film Review - Mississippi Grind (2015)

DVD Review - Foxcatcher

Genre:
Drama, Sports |
Distributor:
Entertainment One |
DVD Release Date:
18th May 2015 (UK) |
Rating: 15 |
Director:
Bennett Miller |
Cast:
Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller
| Buy: [DVD]

I'm aware that it's just the timing of the new home media releases, but I've had a run of true story Oscar bait titles recently. The two I've previously reviewed, Unbroken and The Theory of Everything, both shared the problem of feeling like they were more interested in being Academy catered affairs than being stand alone proper takes on what actually happened. I've always found the approach to making Academy pandering prestige pics to be just as shallow and calculated as the way something like Transformers is tailor-made to appeal to young teenage boys. I explain this to qualify my trepidation in reviewing Foxcatcher, which even without the reviewing streak I've been on, seemed like it belonged with the other two in being a true story with tons of awards buzz about it. I'm happy to say I was wrong. Foxcatcher is easily my favourite of the three films and definitely deserved better, if only to recognise the great performances held within.

Foxcatcher is based on a real story of obsession and murder, directed by Bennett Miller. Channing Tatum plays Mark Schultz, an Olympic wrestling gold medal winner. He, along with his fellow gold medallist brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) are in training for the next big global competition. Mark is soon recruited by eccentric millionaire John Du Pont (Steve Carell) to have access to Du Pont's state-of-the-art gym and equipment in return for joining Du Pont's Team Foxcatcher. If you don't know the actual story, I won't spoil it for you, but suffice to say this is one bleak film. It's a dark and twisted little story that leaves you with more questions than when you started. The film certainly holds up its end of the bargain by making itself just as vague as to the actual motives behind what eventually transpired, but it certainly offers up some compelling theories.

Channing Tatum is really impressive as Mark. His character is not one to verbally express how he's feeling, so Tatum cranks up the physical storytelling. For one, Mark has a bit of a Neanderthal thing about him, with a furrowed brow and a stuck out chin. It's even down to the way he walks, kind of round-shouldered, like a Silverback gorilla. It's an intense performance and Tatum does really well. With this and Magic Mike can we stop calling the guy a bad actor now? He definitely isn't. Steve Carell's performance beneath a ridiculous prosthetic nose is a great one. Carell's roles normally require massively broad strokes and lots of yelling, but Du Pont is like an alien wearing a human suit. Everything from the way he shuffles around to the way he unconvincingly gives motivational speeches is straight from the uncanny. The performance does go comedic occasionally and it adds great depth to the character. At one point, Du Pont tells Mark that now they're friends, Mark doesn't have to call him “sir” any more. He then goes on to tell Mark, straight-faced and unironically, that his friends call him “Eagle” or “Golden Eagle”. Written down it looks like a joke from Step Brothers, but in practice, it's clear that Du Pont's got himself a bad case of arrested development, stuck in childish ways because he never had a proper childhood to grow out of .Overall, it's a great performance by Carell, I just wish the prosthetics had been toned down slightly. He looks more like a character in a comedy sketch than the real guy. Mark Ruffalo gives an incredibly naturalistic performance as Schultz Snr. Both Tatum and Carell are quite theatrical in their roles whearas Ruffalo plays an everyman dad and plays it straight down the line. He's a foil to the bigger acting and it works perfectly.

I didn't really enjoy Foxcatcher, but that's the point. It was never going to be a pizza and beer Friday night Netflix choice. It's a cold and bleak film that intentionally doesn't offer any easy answers when it comes to explaining what went down and why. It kept me glued to my seat. I was really taken in by the main three and no matter how uncomfortable I felt as things built up, I knew I had to finish it. Highly recommended, but not for date night.

★★★★
Ben Browne

Sundance 2015 Review - Mississippi Grind (2015)

The Girl DVD Review

The Girl is one of 2 Alfred Hitchcock biopics coming out in soon succession of each other, the other being the simply titled Hitchcock.Toby Jones stars as Hitch in The Girl, who has portrayed a famous dead
person before. He played Truman Capote in Infamous and like The Girl, which had a competing biopic as well Capote.

The Girl’s story is about Tippi Hedren (played by Sienna Miller). Tippi was a very successful model in the early 50s to 60s, Hitchcock was looking for a new Grace Kelly (who starred in a handful of Hitch’s earlier film, including the masterful Rear Window) and found Tippi. He cast her as the lead in his film The Birds. The Birds is often considered the last great Hitchcock film (even though this reviewer who put a case up for the later Frenzy) and was one of the most successful of his entire career. Tippi is tortured throughout The Birds by Hitchcock which climaxes with him lying they were gonna use artificial birds but in reality he choose to use real birds and made her shoot the bird attacking scene for 3 days.

Tippi becoming an overnight sensation because of The Birds. She was under contact to Hitch, who had already made sexual advances to her during the making of The Birds. Despite this due to the nature of the contract, she makes another film with Hitch called Marnie however isn’t as good as The Birds even though it’s certainly the more interesting film. It’s sorta like Hitchcock’s Masterpiece Vertigo’s little sister. It deals with a young woman who is a chronic liar and thief and has some serious psychological issues, which date back to her childhood. After the troubled filming of Marnie, she wants out of her contract from Hitchcock who continually made advances to her during the filming. However he made sure she couldn’t work again till
Charlie Chaplin’s last film and lost out a role for a François Truffaut film.

The Girl is a very mixed bag. It has 2 very fine performances by Sienna Miller and Toby Jones (which is the superior performance).However the film is very much a tv film and that’s fine but it barely cracks the surface level of their relationship and paints Hitch clearly as the villain (which he certainly was). You don’t get any
sort of emotion from Hitch or why he does such horrible things to Tippi. The film also suffers from a low budget film problem that a lot of film posters in Hitch’s room are mock posters for his great films and not the real ones, which probably do to copyright. The other film which is very annoying is Marnie starred Sean Connery and you never see Tippi or Hitchcock interact with Sean during the making of Marnie, there is stand in but you never see his face, this is very distracting. Overall it’s worth seeing on iplayer or renting for the performances but some things are very annoying. It also ends with the laughable appendix that claims “Marnie is now considered Hitchcock’s last masterpiece”.

Ian Schultz

★★★☆☆

Rating: 15
Release Date:26th December 2012 (UK BBC2 ) 7th January 2013 (UK,DVD)
Directed By: Julian Jarrold
Cast: Sienna Miller, Toby Jones and Penelope Wilton