Film Review - The Shallows

THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL. (1978) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THE CRITERION COLLECTION PRESENTS: L'AVVENTURA. (1960) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

Dead By Dawn 2016 Review - Astraea

MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS STARS IN ALICE WINOCOUR'S 'DISORDER.' (2015) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

DVD Review - Body (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

Dead by Dawn 2015 Review - Ava's Possessions (2015)

Genre:
Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller
Distributor: TBC
Screened:
2015 Dead By Dawn (UK)
Release Date: TBC
Rating: 15
Director:
Jordan Galland
Cast:
Carol Kane, Dan Fogler, Jemima Kirke, Lou Taylor Pucci

The exorcism sub-genre has successfully stood its ground time and time again in every mode of the horror genre, so it’s a tough place to make your voice heard. Even then, Jordan Galland’s Ava’s Possessions is an absolute treat, not least because there seems to be a lack of post-exorcism films. Ava (Louisa Krause) is a young and beautiful girl who’s just been exorcised after a month of demon-fuelled mayhem. Agreeing to sign on with a support group for other people like her, Ava sets about atoning for her digressions, coming to terms with her benign other half, and unravelling the mystery of what happened to her.

Once the film starts, Galland quickly gets us on board, mixing his demonic PTS with staunch referencing, vibrant colouring, and a wicked sense of humour. The result is a Day-Glo package of horror goodies that might be camp as Christmas, but still has the balls to bite. Krause makes a splendid lead keeping a tight rein on Ava’s fluctuating personality and dark dark turns. Imagine Linda Blair going full-Cage for a demonic Bad Lieutenant and you’re getting closer to Ava’s Possessions. It’s a truly remarkable experiment in horror.

As with any experiment in horror, there might not be enough spooks and shade to keep genre-racists at bay, Ava’s Possessions is its own beast and doesn’t take kindly to shoehorning. Galland is an obvious fan of horror films, but he has no interest in recreating the gloomy nihilism of classic possession stories. Instead he exploits every facet of his script visually to ensure it’s a magnificent spectacle for any audience: a piece of possession pop art dripping with colour and an awareness of what its audience has seen and wants to see.

Like any great story, the film starts with the pieces scattered and shattered, confusingly, ominously out of reach. Like 13 Sins last year, Dead by Dawn 2015 has its twisting adventure: a moral sink-hole where characters and audience swirl until liberated by the crushing tide of familial secrets and spiritual danger. But the facts of the plot aren’t the only nostalgic endeavours. A fantastic, varied, and magnetic cast of genre regulars, and outright watchables, (William Saddler and Deborah Rush) pins Ava to the board of credibility in a rabid attempt at ensuring our engagement.

Whether or not Galland is a horror fan is totally irrelevant since the genre will only survive in the hands of people who have the audacity to change it, rather than releasing films that, though void of originals, are still really just remakes. Ava’s Possessions is a fresh-faced triumph and one of the most vibrant genre experiences you’ll have this year.

★★★★
Scott Clark

Ava's Possessions (2015) Official Teaser Trailer from Jordan Galland on Vimeo.

Adam Driver Unravels The 'Dark Side' To Protect A Child In Hungry Hearts

Before he heads to a Galaxy far far away Adam Driver has a small matter of an indie Psychological Thriller Hungry Hearts where he'll explore a different 'dark side'. The film is set for a limited release next month IFC Films have released the official trailer reveals a father love to protect his child from his wife's paranoia.


Hungry Hearts tales the story of New York City newlyweds Jude (Adam Driver) and Mina (I Am Love's Alba Rohrwacher) have a seemingly perfect relationship. But things take an unsettling turn with the birth of their son. Convinced that the baby must be kept free of all contaminants, Mina develops fanatical obsessions with veganism, cleanliness, and purity that may kill the child unless Jude can stop her. With stunning performances from Driver and Rohrwacher, this intense psychological drama suggests that sometimes a parent’s love can be the scariest thing of all.

Since it's world premiere at Toronto Film Festival last year the film has been getting some good reviews that good luck followed it to London too. Whilst some are promoting this as a romantic drama however it's more a thriller with dark and sinister undertones, them been the mental health of Rohrwacher's character. It's good to see a film underline the awareness of first time mums and how sometimes under the joy of been a mother for first times we forget the question "how are you mum?".

Hungry Hearts gets an US 5th June limited/VOD release, co-starring Jake Weber, Roberta Maxwell, and David Aaron Baker.

Dead by Dawn 2015 - Amnesia

Genre:
Thriller
Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015
Rating:15
Director:
Nini Bull Robsahm
Cast:
Pia Tjelta, Christian Rubeck
Amnesia, the second directing credit from Norwegian filmmaker Nini Bull Robsahm, is a slow but often jolting consideration of domestic abuse. A couple travel to their beautiful remote island getaway for a week of writing and romance. Both are authors, but Kathrine (Pia Tjelta) is perfecting her first novel in the hope she can become as successful as her domineering partner, Thomas (Christian Rubeck). After a fight leaves Thomas with serious memory loss, Katherine jumps on the opportunity to live with the man she really loves.

It’s a great idea for a horror film, but Robsahm seems ultra-cautious of letting her film become just that. Placid colouring and wide shots take a dark seedy story and try to pull its trousers up. If this had been grimier, it could have been a Nordic exploitation film, instead, its an emotionally troubling but visually dull attempt at reconciling with the aggressive male superego. Even with a run time of 80 minutes, Amnesia feels tired and somewhat irritating by its finale: a lack of drive in any real direction keeps the film from ever really impressing or- worse- finishing comfortably. But then that is, perhaps, the point: dreamy fatigued visuals project the purgatory of Kathrine’s constant struggle, whilst the lack of catharsis seems oddly fitting in a film plagued by disastrous moments of aggression.

Though brutally realistic and unrelenting in its studied portrait of abuse, Amnesia seems content to show us high-tension confrontations, but skimps on much of the between-space. Considering the film covers a week, and it’s a pretty interesting week, Amnesia can be identified by its long stretches of nothing before its few staunch moments of anguish. Though, Rubeck makes a terrifying psychopath, an amalgam of nightmarish men; controlling, cold, fierce, and, arguably worst, entitled. His performance consistently punches out from the drabness to keep the film on course.

Sadly, Amnesia is rarely gripping and infuriatingly anti-cathartic. It is however, a sincere look at what people really are and what we would like them to be.

★★
Scott Clark

GFF 2015 Review - 88 (2014)

Genre:
Thriller
Screened:
2015 Glasgow Film Festival
Film 4 Frightfest Glasgow
Rating: 18
Director:
April Mullen
Cast:
Katharine Isabelle, Christopher Lloyd, Tim Doiron, Michael Ironside
A young woman (Katharine Isabelle) wakes up in a diner with no idea who or where she is and after finding a gun in her backpack, she staggers from hint to hint in order to track down and kill the man who killed her lover. It’s a great idea and it looks fresh too, but April Mullen’s 88 is a complicated feature.

Unlike Stuart Simpson’s garage femsploitation trip Monstro!, 88 doesn’t give itself fully to silly ideas and pulpy lineage. Mullen appears wary of what outright camp can do to audience involvement in a solid story, but isn’t sure how far to push it. The story starts off pretty perfectly, nuanced and intriguing, Isabelle props the film up on her startlingly honest performance before switching to badass and hooking us in for a good time. Only, as the film starts to bend over backwards to accommodate its convoluted path, it becomes increasingly confusing.

88 isn’t interested in telling us its story in a linear way, but it’s also not that bothered about keeping us involved in the intricacies of its plot. Instead we’re emotionally hijacked by a superficial relationship and quietly asked to care for a typically handsome and dull love. Think of 88 as Romeo and Juliet meets Momento on the highway of bad taste. The fetishisation of milk, Isabelle’s often insane dialogue, and that red dress aren’t problems until the film starts taking itself too seriously. There’s fun to be had but some of the really heart-breaking scenes with Isabelle are boisterously undermined by how blasé and ridiculous the script demands her to be. Mullen herself pops up as an eccentric arms dealer, but it comes across as far too try-hard. When the film wastes time on dumb details, but can’t put together a convincing shoot-out, there needs to be a readdress of focus.

Isabelle grabs our attention and wrestles it into a firm headlock, her slinky femme fatale pissing a path through supermarkets, shooting her way through bowling alleys, and generally giving us more bang for our buck than we could ever have asked for. Christopher Lloyd seems somewhat out of place as possessive pimp Cyrus, never going for hammy, instead meeting Isabelle halfway for oddly touching character drama. 88 scribe Tim Doiron pops up as sidekick Ty but his zany dialogue and irritating performance are a surplus woe, adding unrequired childishness to an already silly film. Michael Ironside appears up for a fantastic wee turn as a sympathetic cop and one can’t help but feel his storyline, and potential further involvement, could have been more interesting than the chosen path.

88 has frankly mad use of flashback that won’t be for everyone, but at its heart there’s a fun tale of revenge and memory loss fronted by an impressive scream queen. There’s something being held back in the punch, something that could have made things a little more solid, but Mullen’s road movie is still a blast.

★★★
Scott Clark