(Judd Apatow, 2015)
Extremely funny but more or less the same old romcom shit under the surface, Trainwreck is most notable for introducing Amy Schumer to the big screen. She should be a big star for years to come. Having written the screenplay, the lead role is obviously tailored beautifully to her personality. She plays Amy, a funny single girl in Manhattan, working as a writer for a laddish Mens Magazine (with stories like "You're Not Gay; She's Boring") and getting wasted as often as possible, she has a thing for casual sex. This is possibly based on the advice given to her as a young girl by her father (Colin Quinn) who informs her that monogamy is insane and can't work. When her aggressive editor (a brilliant Tilda Swinton) assigns her to write a story about a sports surgeon (Bill Hader) Amy and he fall in love, and Amy's equilibrium is destroyed. Can she change enough to enjoy a healthy relationship? The answer is obvious from the start, but the gags come thick and fast, many of them from Hader's relationship with client-turned-friend LeBron James, who gives him romantic advice and hilariously quibbles over who will pay for lunch. Most of them, however, come from Schumer's self-deprecating wit and her observations about male-female relationships, which are truthful and painful in equal measure. Apatow orchestrates it all with typical efficiency, although his tendency to glamorise is also typical.
Still, it is consistently funny, and never remotely boring.
Showing posts with label Tilda Swinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tilda Swinton. Show all posts
Sunday, 16 August 2015
Saturday, 29 March 2014
SNOWPIERCER
(Bong Joon-Ho, 2013)
This is the kind of action filmmaking that reminds you of just how good action filmmaking can be. Set onboard an immense high-tech train circling the planet after a man-made ice age kills all life on earth, Bong's adaptation of the French comic le Transperceneige is a darkly satirical epic, filled with ideas, beautiful spectacle, and awesome action scenes.
The train is an obviously allegorical creation. Travelling the world for seventeen years, it houses the wealthy in the front while the poor masses live in cramped misery at the back. They eat jellylike protein bars and bow down before the guns of the guards, and live with tales of failed revolts in the past. Curtis (Chris Evans) has different ideas. Supported by Edgar (Jamie Bell) and advised by Gilliam (John Hurt), he plots to storm the gates separating the tail of the train from the crucial middle sections, where he will release Namgoong Mimsu (Song Kang-ho) who designed the gates. After that the plan is to work their way through the many carriages until they can take the engine and overthrow the mysterious Wilford (Ed Harris). Standing in their way are dozens of armed and ruthless guards, led by Mason (Tilda Swinton).
Bong films this story using lots of tight closeups of grim, shadowed faces, and manages to communicate just how claustrophobic life on the train might be without it ever feeling overly confined. In fact, the action sequences - beautifully shot and brutally visceral - are expansive and even lyrical at times. There is an understanding of just what works in genre cinema on display here; in the dynamics of the conflicts, in the reversals and surprises in each action scene, in the cutting and compositional choices. The cast play characters who reveal themselves in short bursts of dialogue. Evans is growing as a lead and convinces absolutely here, and the mix of acting styles represented by his clash with Swinton and Song does a good job of expressing the mix of lifestyles aboard the train.
The issues it touches upon - global warming, sustainability, the class system, even civic responsibility - are implicit in the narrative, but despite a running time over two hours it never feels overlong. Instead it throws new ideas at the screen in more or less every scene, particularly once Evans and his dwindling band reach the forward sections of the train and the excess of the lifestyles of Wilford's followers is revealed.
In common with much Korean cinema, there is wild tonal variation here, with shifts from humour to melodrama to ultraviolence occurring within seconds, but it always works, partly because the setting is so consistently textured and the characters so emotionally grounded.
In its ambition and its confidence it is admirable. In the execution of its action scenes, it is exhilarating.
This is the kind of action filmmaking that reminds you of just how good action filmmaking can be. Set onboard an immense high-tech train circling the planet after a man-made ice age kills all life on earth, Bong's adaptation of the French comic le Transperceneige is a darkly satirical epic, filled with ideas, beautiful spectacle, and awesome action scenes.
The train is an obviously allegorical creation. Travelling the world for seventeen years, it houses the wealthy in the front while the poor masses live in cramped misery at the back. They eat jellylike protein bars and bow down before the guns of the guards, and live with tales of failed revolts in the past. Curtis (Chris Evans) has different ideas. Supported by Edgar (Jamie Bell) and advised by Gilliam (John Hurt), he plots to storm the gates separating the tail of the train from the crucial middle sections, where he will release Namgoong Mimsu (Song Kang-ho) who designed the gates. After that the plan is to work their way through the many carriages until they can take the engine and overthrow the mysterious Wilford (Ed Harris). Standing in their way are dozens of armed and ruthless guards, led by Mason (Tilda Swinton).
Bong films this story using lots of tight closeups of grim, shadowed faces, and manages to communicate just how claustrophobic life on the train might be without it ever feeling overly confined. In fact, the action sequences - beautifully shot and brutally visceral - are expansive and even lyrical at times. There is an understanding of just what works in genre cinema on display here; in the dynamics of the conflicts, in the reversals and surprises in each action scene, in the cutting and compositional choices. The cast play characters who reveal themselves in short bursts of dialogue. Evans is growing as a lead and convinces absolutely here, and the mix of acting styles represented by his clash with Swinton and Song does a good job of expressing the mix of lifestyles aboard the train.
The issues it touches upon - global warming, sustainability, the class system, even civic responsibility - are implicit in the narrative, but despite a running time over two hours it never feels overlong. Instead it throws new ideas at the screen in more or less every scene, particularly once Evans and his dwindling band reach the forward sections of the train and the excess of the lifestyles of Wilford's followers is revealed.
In common with much Korean cinema, there is wild tonal variation here, with shifts from humour to melodrama to ultraviolence occurring within seconds, but it always works, partly because the setting is so consistently textured and the characters so emotionally grounded.
In its ambition and its confidence it is admirable. In the execution of its action scenes, it is exhilarating.
Thursday, 13 March 2014
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
(Wes Anderson, 2014)
With every film, no matter where or when they're set, Wes Anderson only gets more...Wes Anderson.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fantasia of old Europe, set in the fictional Central European country of Zubrowka in the early 20th Century. Only that story is a story within a story within a story, of course. That story is told in flashback by the elderly owner of the titular hotel, Mr Mustafa (F Murray Abraham) to a writer (Jude Law) in the 1980s, when the establishment is fading and somewhat chintzy. The key character in this tale is Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel's celebrated, eccentric concierge during its glory years. He sleeps with a series of wealthy elderly women guests, guaranteeing their continued custom, and the death of one Madame D (Tilda Swinton) kicks off the plot.
She leaves Gustave a priceless painting, her son (Adrian Brody) objects, and with his lapdog (Willem Dafoe) up to no good, Gustave is imprisoned for the murder of the old lady. This leaves his lobby boy protege Zero (Tony Revolori), Mr Mustafa's younger self to help with his escape, while he tries to keep the immense hotel running and enjoy his new relationship with lovely baker Agatha (Saoirse Ronan).
This allows a rambling, often hilarious story which includes prison break elements, chases, love scenes, gunfights, and loads of character comedy.
As usual with Anderson, the visuals here are impeccable; beautiful, exceptionally detailed, fabulously composed and textured. The whole thing looks like it was shot inside a faberge egg, such is its lushness and depth of colour. Anderson plays with aspect ratios depending on time period, and Alexadre Desplaat's score buoys the whole thing enjoyably along.
It is perhaps Anderson's funniest film. Fiennes is hilarious as the camp, knowingly suave Gustave, but Anderson is unafraid of giving him jokes based upon this plummy-voiced symbol of civilisation swearing suddenly, and there are some brilliant sight gags alongside the usual deadpan drollery. The likes of Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Murray take small roles, giving the film a rich, layered feeling.
It even resonates in a way not always true of Anderson's work. The ending is melancholic but fitting.
If that ending and resonance doesn't linger long afterwards, other elements do: that beautiful palette, some of the performances, and that unique Anderson tone.
With every film, no matter where or when they're set, Wes Anderson only gets more...Wes Anderson.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fantasia of old Europe, set in the fictional Central European country of Zubrowka in the early 20th Century. Only that story is a story within a story within a story, of course. That story is told in flashback by the elderly owner of the titular hotel, Mr Mustafa (F Murray Abraham) to a writer (Jude Law) in the 1980s, when the establishment is fading and somewhat chintzy. The key character in this tale is Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel's celebrated, eccentric concierge during its glory years. He sleeps with a series of wealthy elderly women guests, guaranteeing their continued custom, and the death of one Madame D (Tilda Swinton) kicks off the plot.
She leaves Gustave a priceless painting, her son (Adrian Brody) objects, and with his lapdog (Willem Dafoe) up to no good, Gustave is imprisoned for the murder of the old lady. This leaves his lobby boy protege Zero (Tony Revolori), Mr Mustafa's younger self to help with his escape, while he tries to keep the immense hotel running and enjoy his new relationship with lovely baker Agatha (Saoirse Ronan).
This allows a rambling, often hilarious story which includes prison break elements, chases, love scenes, gunfights, and loads of character comedy.
As usual with Anderson, the visuals here are impeccable; beautiful, exceptionally detailed, fabulously composed and textured. The whole thing looks like it was shot inside a faberge egg, such is its lushness and depth of colour. Anderson plays with aspect ratios depending on time period, and Alexadre Desplaat's score buoys the whole thing enjoyably along.
It is perhaps Anderson's funniest film. Fiennes is hilarious as the camp, knowingly suave Gustave, but Anderson is unafraid of giving him jokes based upon this plummy-voiced symbol of civilisation swearing suddenly, and there are some brilliant sight gags alongside the usual deadpan drollery. The likes of Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and Bill Murray take small roles, giving the film a rich, layered feeling.
It even resonates in a way not always true of Anderson's work. The ending is melancholic but fitting.
If that ending and resonance doesn't linger long afterwards, other elements do: that beautiful palette, some of the performances, and that unique Anderson tone.
Monday, 31 October 2011
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
(Lynne Ramsay, 2011)
Bathed in the red of blood from its very first scenes, which segue into a really extraordinary first act of non-linear emotional and tonal free association, told loosely from the point of view of Tilda Swinton's character. She is struggling with grief and regret and trying desperately to drag herself through a "normal" life while continuously assailed by memories of her past life; a transcendent moment at a surreal tomato festival in Spain, the glow of passion from the early days with her husband, the bright bubbliness of her daughter. And Kevin.
Kevin is a near-Satanic presence in that first act, a screaming infant, a scowling toddler, a brattish boy and finally a knowing, sarcastic teen. The relationship between mother and son is central to the film, and both Swinton and Ezra Miller rise to it in their scenes together, a delicate duel between two combatants locked in a love/hate dynamic.
That is over-simplistic, which Ramsay's film never is. Rather it is ambiguous in the right places and elliptical throughout, refusing exposition and doling out backstory piecemeal so that when the extent of Kevin's act is revealed - though we already know what he has done - still it carries a huge emotional shock. The fractured sequence when Swinton arrives at Kevin's high-school and we see hysteria and bodies on gurneys, lit by the red light of emergency vehicles, is purgatorial, for we know that for all her anxiety worrying about her son and his safety, her situation is about to get much worse. Her numb shock in the aftermath - a state that pulses through the film in scenes of her echoed responses to the world and it's distant banality. She finds a job, a house, shops, feeds herself, tries to avoid the parents of Kevin's victims, all of it without feeling, Swinton's face frozen with shock.
The dominant emotion for a long stretch is dread. Much of this film feels like Horror, partly because we know what Kevin will do.
Ramsay never tries to explain his actions; his final "explanation" in the surprisingly cathartic last scene, feels authentically random and true. He doesn't know. Though obviously a psychopath, the "adult" Kevin is complex and resists easy labelling, self-aware enough to have a nice, quotable rationale ready for media consumption. Miller is charismatic and beautiful but there is a darkness to his presence which works beautifully with the character. Swinton is even better, making a difficult character sympathetic and explicable throughout, her pain and confusion always evident.
But this is a directors film, and Ramsay, one of the most distinctive talents in modern cinema, is always in control, displaying her great eye and compositional sense (ably abetted by cinematographer Seamus McGarvey), drawing good work from her cast, precisely controlling the tempo and pacing of her narrative and editing, and, as she's done in each of her films, working a terrific soundtrack against her story and imagery. There are a couple of slight missteps - Swinton scrubbing the red paint from her house is a little too obvious a metaphor for my liking - but for the most part, We Need To Talk About Kevin is a gruelling, acute, hugely impressive piece of work from a truly exciting filmmaker.
Bathed in the red of blood from its very first scenes, which segue into a really extraordinary first act of non-linear emotional and tonal free association, told loosely from the point of view of Tilda Swinton's character. She is struggling with grief and regret and trying desperately to drag herself through a "normal" life while continuously assailed by memories of her past life; a transcendent moment at a surreal tomato festival in Spain, the glow of passion from the early days with her husband, the bright bubbliness of her daughter. And Kevin.
Kevin is a near-Satanic presence in that first act, a screaming infant, a scowling toddler, a brattish boy and finally a knowing, sarcastic teen. The relationship between mother and son is central to the film, and both Swinton and Ezra Miller rise to it in their scenes together, a delicate duel between two combatants locked in a love/hate dynamic.
That is over-simplistic, which Ramsay's film never is. Rather it is ambiguous in the right places and elliptical throughout, refusing exposition and doling out backstory piecemeal so that when the extent of Kevin's act is revealed - though we already know what he has done - still it carries a huge emotional shock. The fractured sequence when Swinton arrives at Kevin's high-school and we see hysteria and bodies on gurneys, lit by the red light of emergency vehicles, is purgatorial, for we know that for all her anxiety worrying about her son and his safety, her situation is about to get much worse. Her numb shock in the aftermath - a state that pulses through the film in scenes of her echoed responses to the world and it's distant banality. She finds a job, a house, shops, feeds herself, tries to avoid the parents of Kevin's victims, all of it without feeling, Swinton's face frozen with shock.
The dominant emotion for a long stretch is dread. Much of this film feels like Horror, partly because we know what Kevin will do.
Ramsay never tries to explain his actions; his final "explanation" in the surprisingly cathartic last scene, feels authentically random and true. He doesn't know. Though obviously a psychopath, the "adult" Kevin is complex and resists easy labelling, self-aware enough to have a nice, quotable rationale ready for media consumption. Miller is charismatic and beautiful but there is a darkness to his presence which works beautifully with the character. Swinton is even better, making a difficult character sympathetic and explicable throughout, her pain and confusion always evident.
But this is a directors film, and Ramsay, one of the most distinctive talents in modern cinema, is always in control, displaying her great eye and compositional sense (ably abetted by cinematographer Seamus McGarvey), drawing good work from her cast, precisely controlling the tempo and pacing of her narrative and editing, and, as she's done in each of her films, working a terrific soundtrack against her story and imagery. There are a couple of slight missteps - Swinton scrubbing the red paint from her house is a little too obvious a metaphor for my liking - but for the most part, We Need To Talk About Kevin is a gruelling, acute, hugely impressive piece of work from a truly exciting filmmaker.
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