Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

seen on 28 November 2016

J.K.Rowling's new venture into her magical world traces an episode in the life of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), who, by Harry Potter's time, is known as the author of a textbook with the same title as this film. At this stage of his life Scamander is a young maverick, earnest, bumbling, but with a mission to understand and protect fantastic beasts rather than destroy them. He arrives in New York in 1926 at the height of a conflict between magicians and ordinary people, and at a time when the wizarding world is reeling under the chaos caused by Grindelwald.

The situation allows for pointed tensions which parallel racial prejudice fuelled by paranoia or by religious-style bigotry, while following Newt and the mishaps caused by his escaping animals. He is aided by the two Goldstein sisters, the initially sceptical Tina (Katherine Waterston) and the heart-of-gold Queenie (Alison Sudol) and by a would-be baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a 'non-maj' or muggle who is inadvertently tangled into the story. The darker side of the story centres round a creepy setup headed by Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton) and her son Credence (Ezra Miller), while Colin Farrell provides the inevitable severe side of the wizarding world as Percival Graves, who is not all he seems to be.

It's all good fun, competently directed by David Yates (veteran of several of the Harry Potter films), but of course it lacks the sense of wonder generated by discovering for the first time the world Rowling has imagined. This means that the effects have to be bigger and the jokes a bit more diffuse. Indeed they are - but at one or two points the integration between effect and live actor looks decidedly amateurish. Furthermore, the restitution and repair of New York after the mayhem has to be somewhat perfunctory. It is always an easy get-out for fantasy situations when the wand is waived at the end to make everyone forget what they have seen. The device is more localised, and at the same time more integrated into the plots, of the Harry Potter books, but here seems too pat, while the partial exception implied for Jacob is a typical Hollywood feel-good moment that flies in the face of the severe logic that the magical world must remain hidden at all costs.

More films are projected but at this stage it is not clear that the world will be waiting for them as it did for the original Potter instalments.

Arrival

seen on 25 November 2016

The film, directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Eric Heisserer (based on a story by Ted Chiang), stars Amy Adams as Dr Louise Banks, a linguist co-opted to interpret the language of alien visitors to earth who arrive in twelve spaceships hovering over different parts of the planet. Technicians from various countries are attempting communication, initially in cooperation with one another; later, when the Chinese conclude that the aliens' intentions are hostile, they and some other teams sever communication and prepare to attack. Jeremy Renner plays Ian Donnelly, a physicist attached to the Montana team, and Forest Whitaker plays Colonel Weber in charge of the team.

Star Trek Beyond

seen on 28 July 2016

The third of the 'new' or 'rebooted' Star Trek franchise is directed by Justin Lin and stars Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Doctor Spock and Karl Urban as 'Bones' McCoy, with Idris Elba as Krall, Simon Pegg as Scottie, Sofia Boutella as Jaylah, and the late Anton Yelchin as Chekov (he receives a dedication in the credits, alongside Leonard Nimoy).

It's all very predictable but nonetheless enjoyable (nb this is the verdict of a non-trekkie). The sets are lit as if artificially, with no sense of any moisture in the atmosphere, and sometimes the backgrounds look far too obviously matte-painted, reminiscent of classic SF paperback covers. One or two of the special effects betray computer simulation in a way that can only be regarded as slapdash considering what is possible these days. Possibly they would look more convincing in 3D, but then it is a technical demerit if the results cannot stand up to 2D viewing as well.

The story is typical action adventure stuff with the brave captain and crew put in grave danger and rescued by Kirk's almost unflappable calm (fiely portrayed by Chris Pine) and the ingenuity of his officers. Luckily the Federation is extraordinarily naive in assessing distress calls from unknown and unexplained ships approaching their R&R planetoid 'Yorktown', or else there would be no story at all, or at least no 'when did you first suspect ... ?' subplot.

The sparring between Spock and McCoy provides the best humour - the Scottishness and nervy panicking style of Scottie (who nevertheless always delivers the technical goods) becomes a bit wearing. Perhaps a stronger editorial hand on Simon Pegg, who was a scriptwriter as well as the actor playing the part, would have been in order. The earnest appeals to the best side of humanity - peace, united action covering individual weakness, devotion to duty, etc, etc, are par for the course, but the evil Krall attacks these ideals with rather clumsy viciousness which is not really vindicated by the denouement of his back story. However, real depth and real moral turpitude were hardly the strengths of the Trek universe, so perhaps this is not at all surprising. Much better to dazzle the enemy and the audience with virtuoso and dimension-shifting motorcycle daredevilry.

Notes on Blindness

seen on 18 July 2016

This film, directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney, documents theologian John Hull's coming to terms with his encroaching blindness in the early 1980s. The directors have used the cassette tapes Professor Hull made at the time, together with recordings of his wife, children and parents, as the basis of all the speech in the film, with actors lip-synching both the conversations (mainly between husband and wife) and Hull's intense analysis of his predicament. Dan Skinner takes the part of John Hull, while Simone Kirby plays Marilyn Hull.

The result is far more of a documentary than a biopic. There are no anguished consultations with doctors and no 'big scenes' of conflict and resolution. Instead, everything revolves around the measured tones of John Hull himself as he analyses and ruminates upon the onset of total blindness in his mid-forties (he had problems with his eyes since adolescence). A severe crisis of confidence one Christmas seems all the more acute amidst the general sense of calm, while a family trip to Australia to visit his parents reveals a poignant inability to connect with the childhood he had left behind. The conversations with his eldest son and second child Thomas are artless and utterly unsentimental, and yet quietly probing as the young child becomes aware of his father's blindness.

The film is constructed almost entirely from John's perspective, often with very subdued lighting in the foreground and a subtle but powerful emphasis on the tactile and aural world which must replace his reliance on the visual. (The mechanics of creating cassette recordings are a great boon here as the clicking of the buttons and the sounds of a tape spooling are often prominent.) There are marvellous scenes in which the hissing of wind or the falling of rain assume a central importance. 

The two main actors give beautifully understated performances; Dan Skinner's face is usually still and its expression hard to read, forcing us to pay attention to the words even more closely than usual, while Simone Kirby exudes a sense of fortitude and deep love. The final scene in which John tells Marilyn about a sense of God's grace is compelling both because John relates it in the slightly hesitant but always precise tones that we have become used to, and also because the couple can laugh affectionately at the telling. This provides a deeply moving conclusion to a remarkable film.

Hail, Caesar!

seen on 4 March 2016

The film is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and features George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Alden Ehrenreich and Ralph Fiennes, with Michael Gambon as the narrator.

Ed Mannix (Brolin), based on the real character, is a 'fixer' for Capitol Pictures, the man whose job it is to keep studio stars out of the glare of unwelcome publicity - and perhaps to help them gain desirable publicity as well. He faces several concurrent problems: Baird Whitlock (Clooney), the lead actor in the Roman epic which gives the film its name, is kidnapped while in costume as a centurion; DeeAnna Morgan the singing swimming star (Johansson) is pregnant out of wedlock; Hobey Doyle the young singer in Westerns (Ehrenreich) is hopelessly miscast in a screwball comedy (or is it a 'women's picture' melodrama?) directed by the temperamental Laurence Lorentz (Fiennes); and in all this he has to fend off two gossip columnists, twin sisters played by Swinton, who are eager to pry into any story that might be in the air. The kidnappers turn out to be a Communist cell of disaffected screenplay writers, and the studio is also making a musical somewhat like 'On the Town' in which the lead is taken by Channing Tatum.

These storylines are merely the hooks on which to hang a gloriously affectionate pastiche of studio Hollywood scenarios and productions. The Busby Berkeley style synchronised swimming, the exuberant tap-dancing routines of the sailors, the corny home truths of the Western, the glitter of the drawing room, and the banal stodginess of a biblical epic, are all on display as the film takes in various shooting schedules on the studio lot. In the meantime, the kidnap plot allows for the absurd spectacle of a Roman centurion learning about the evils of capitalism in a luxurious Malibu house.

It is all a delightful entertainment, with the cast acting in all seriousness with no knowing winks to the audience (which would have been fatal to the whole enterprise). The lightly ironic tone of the narrator is the only signal that we need not take matters too seriously, even though in the years immediately after the supposed time of the action (1951) Hollywood nearly destroyed itself in the unedifying spectacle of the HUAC interrogations.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

seen on 5 January 2016

The film is directed by J. J. Abrams and features Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, and, from the original films, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew and Anthony Daniels. It is the seventh in the sequence, and takes up the story a generation after the end of 'Return of the Jedi'.

Shrouded in secrecy, and subject to intense anticipation, the film had to satisfy old fans, interest newcomers, build on the franchise without betraying it, and avoid the pitfalls into which the three 'prequel' films so spectacularly fell. It has certainly proved a money-spinner, and the critics responded favourably.

It is an accomplished action film, with a storyline plausibly related to the original three movies. The idea that the original three heroes should be semi-mythical to a new generation is clever, and allows them to be present without attempting the heroics of their youth. The field is clear for the newcomers to do all the the most strenuous running and fighting, and to begin to find their own way into the mysteries of 'the Force'. 

That said, many of the situations repeat those already familiar from the earlier films. A new Death Star. A new weak spot for a superb Resistance fighter pilot to aim for. New innocent bystanders to suffer. A new despot, but still a large projection not entirely there. New but familiar generational conflicts, though with a surprising resolution - still played out on a gantry over a deep manmade chasm. Whether this is seen as a clever echoing device, or just a reliance on the tried and true, depends perhaps on the indulgence of the viewer; to me it tends rather to the latter. It would be too much to say that these repetitions signify a deep view of family dynamics or the playing out of the inevitable patterns of the Force.

Good action entertainment, but no exception to the fact that the whole idea is enjoyably overblown.