The Death of Stalin

Official Australian release date: 29/3/18. Viewed: 2/4/18.

Director: Armando Iannucci

Actors: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Adrian McLoughlin, Jeffrey Tambor

Genre: Comedy / War

Rating: MA

  

‘The Death of Stalin’ is a satirical look at 1950’s USSR (from the director of ‘In The Loop’ a hilarious look at British politics, who’s also the creator of ‘Veep’). This is similar to ‘In The Loop’, if not quite as good, with mostly British actors playing Russians and not changing their accents, making for a refreshing and playful tone. Even though the majority are British – including Beria (Russell Beale), Molotov (Palin), Zhuov (Isaacs) & Stalin (McLoughlin) – two of the main actors are American: Krushchev (Buscemi) and Malenkov (Tambor).

The film is basically about Beria, head of NKVD (Internal Affairs) and Krushchev, First Secretary, scheming and plotting to run Russia after Stalin dies – even though it’s technically Malenkov, who’s basically a puppet. There’s plenty of fun digs at how inept the Soviets were, but also some commentary on how bad things were during the Cold War. Main problem with the film is the lack of backstory – obviously based somewhat on facts, but a lot of creative license taken – but things happen so fast that it takes a while to figure out who’s who, etc.

There’s a few laughs, but no real hilarious moments, expect maybe when Buscemi tries to swap places with Tambor. There’s plenty to like, and all the actors are good, especially Buscemi, Kurylenko and Russell Beale – and always good to see a Python on screen with Palin. However, I felt it lacked something to make it a truly great comedy.

Overall: Enjoyable historical/political satire.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.

Ready Player One

Official Australian release date: 29/3/18. Viewed: 29/3/18.

Director: Steven Spielberg

Actors: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: M

  

‘Ready Player One’ is based on the 2011 book by Ernest Cline (he co-writes the screenplay here), and as with all novel-to-film adaptions, the movie’s not quite as good. Ironically, it feels like there’s more action in the book! That being said, this is still a Spielberg sci-fi epic, with plenty to see and experience. It’s a conglomeration of ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Avatar’, with people in 2045 essentially living their lives in a virtual reality world (the “Oasis”), created by Halliday (Rylance) & Morrow (Pegg).

Wade (Sheridan) is the unlikely hero, trying to win the ‘game’, which is a mix of 80s/90s video games and other TV/film references/characters – you could spend the whole movie glimpsing/placing cool things: ‘Back To The Future’, Gundam, Halo, Ninja Turtles, Iron Giant, Tron, etc. This is fun, but often makes it feel like quantity over quality. Has some good songs, but I would’ve liked more. Helping Wade against the evil Sixers/IOI (led by Sorrento [Mendelsohn]) is Artemis (Cooke) and Aech (Waithe) – with Sho (Zhao) and Daito (Morisaki) thrown in near the end for good measure. There’s not much character development and it’s hard to care too much when they spend most of their time as cartoonish avatars in the Oasis.

Plenty can be inferred from this bleak future, where everyone is disconnected from reality and humanity, instead spending all their time online – pros and cons both ways. The ending is satisfactory, but I feel like we needed more time in the real world, especially with the secondary characters, especially Pegg and TJ Miller. It does differ from the book in a few areas, but it is great to see a lot of it realised on the big screen – the battle at the end is quite spectacular and the car races suitably chaotic. It’s good, without being exceptional.

Overall: Fun, but missing a bit of heart.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

Black Panther

Official Australian release date: 15/2/18. Viewed: 15/2/18.

Director: Ryan Coogler

Actors: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi

Rating: M

  

‘Black Panther’ is another solid Marvel film, but thankfully works as a standalone action film and family drama. T’Challa (Boseman) – first introduced in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ – becomes King of Wakanda (a fictional African country) and has to deal with the dual responsibilities of following traditions, keeping his family and country safe and being the Black Panther (basically Batman – rich guy who can fight good and has a good suit and gadgets).         

There’s a really great support cast – Killmonger (Jordon) as the long-lost cousin, Nakia (Nyong’o) as the ex-girlfriend/conscience, Okoye (Gurira) as his General, Ross (Freeman) as the CIA agent, Klaue (Serkis) as the mercenary, Zuri (Whitaker) as the shaman, Shuri (Wright) as his sister, Ramonda (Bassett) as his mum and W’Kabi (Kaluuya) as his best friend. However, Boseman really carries the film, with a lot of poise and calmness, but then extreme passion when needed. The plot’s not too complicated and has an obvious ending, but the 2 & a quarter hours are well worth it.

There’s plenty of stunning CGI (probably too much, since none of the film was actually shot in Africa, a big shame – feels like if they filmed in South Korea, they could go to Kenya or Zimbabwe for a few real-life shots), a good tribal-drum score, some great action scenes and plenty of hand-to-hand combat scenes too. However, at it’s heart is a good story of responsibility and doing what’s right over what’s easy or the usual way.

Overall: Great balance of action, drama and visuals.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

The Post

Official Australian release date: 11/1/18. Viewed: 21/1/18.

Director: Steven Spielberg

Actors: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Tracy Letts, Brad Whitford

Genre: Drama

Rating: M

  

‘The Post’ is Spielberg & Hanks’ fifth film together, and it’s another good one. Kay Graham (Streep) is the publisher/owner of The Washington Post newspaper, after inheriting it from her late husband in the 1950’s, and Ben Bradlee (Hanks) is the editor, making the day-to-day decisions on what gets published. When the New York Times breaks the US Government cover-up of their failings in the Vietnam war and are silenced by the Supreme Court, the Post seizes the opportunity to publish the leaked documents they have also obtained.           

It’s all very pertinent with Trump’s America and “fake news” and while not exclusively about the press vs the government (there’s no long courtroom scenes), it definitely gets across the freedom of speech angle. It also shows what Kay went through – a widow trying to uphold her husband & father’s ideals, whilst being maligned as a woman in a man’s world – as well as the nostalgia of proper reporting, journalism and newspaper printing, which will sadly be lost to the world soon.

Great support cast – Bob Odenkirk, Carrie Coon & David Cross as senior reporters, Sarah Paulson as Hanks’ wife, Alison Brie as Streep’s daughter, Bruce Greenwood as the Secretary of Defence, Matthew Rhys as the source, Jesse Plemnos as the lawyer. It’s almost as good as ‘Spotlight’, as far as newspaper films go! Has a very strong beginning and end and it’s a pleasure to watch Hanks and Streep display their acting skills in between.

Overall: Well-made and well-acted true story.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

The Commuter

Official Australian release date: 18/1/18. Viewed: 15/1/18.

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Actors: Liam Neeson, Vera Famiga, Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill

Genre: Action/Drama

Rating: M

  

‘The Commuter’ is the 4^th film directed by Collet-Serra starring Liam Neeson – and it’s better than ‘Non-Stop’ (the one on a plane), but not quite as good as ‘Unknown’ (the amnesia one). Neeson is struggling to pull off looking even 60 (dyed hair doesn’t hide it), but luckily there isn’t as many stunts as ‘Taken’ here. Michael (Neeson) is an ex-cop who now sells life insurance – why’d he leave the force? Don’t know. He does, however, commute into New York City via train every day.

The first 30min is quite slow & scene setting (Wilson as his ex-partner, Neill as police captain, Banks as fellow train-buddy), before Joanna (Farmiga) sets a mystery in motion that slowly reveals itself. The film slowly picks up pace as more clues are revealed and the body count slowly, but almost plausibly rises (six in total, I think). There’s a stand-off at the end, but it’s still all over in 100min.

I think because my expectations were so low, I enjoyed this more than I might otherwise have. The tension is built quite well, the score’s good, the fight scenes are (mostly) realistic and the story, while far-fetched, is not totally unbelievable – some of the stunts are, but that’s to be expected. Certainly nothing new or revolutionary, but an enjoyable action/thriller that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

Overall: Better than I expected!

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.

The Shape of Water

Official Australian release date: 18/1/18. Viewed: 12/1/18.

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Actors: Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Richard Jenkins, Michael Shannon

Genre: Fantasy/Drama

Rating: MA

  

‘The Shape of Water’ is del Toro’s 10^th film, and one of his best – better than ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, in my books. It’s an interesting tale about a mute woman Elisa (Hawkins), who works as a cleaner at a military base with her friend, Zelda (Spencer). There they find that Strickland (Shannon) has brought something strange back to the base. Since he’s shown in the trailer & posters, it’s not really a spoiler to say that Doug Jones plays an Abe Sapien-like creature (man, I wish they’d make ‘Hellboy III’!) Elisa and “the asset” begin to connect and we’re off on a peculiar journey.

The film does well to integrate the fantastic with the real world, with everything looking like the 1960’s and the racism, sexism and prejudice is still on display. There’s also an interesting sub-plot of the Cold War, with Russian spies – and a bit of a sad ending there, but also slyly funny. All the actors are great – Jenkins as the helpful friend/neighbour, Spencer as the chatty/funny work friend, Stuhlbarg as the scientist, Shannon as the bad guy – always excellent – and Jones and Hawkins as the silent, but super-expressive leads.

The other main stars are colour and water – everything’s either a motif of green, blue or teal, and the use of water as a transition between scenes is great. The score’s good and the film never seems hurried – except for one scene – but isn’t too long either. There’s moments of violence and comedy between the question of how does he exist? But mostly, it’s a pleasant story about love and identity, with a solid ending and excellent cinematography.

Overall: Different and enjoyable love story.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (December 2017)

Official Australian release date: 1/1/18. Viewed: 29/12/17.

Director: Martin McDonagh

Actors: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Caleb Landry Jones

Genre: Mystery/Drama/Comedy

Rating: MA

  

‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ is the third film from writer/director McDonagh (of ‘In Bruges’ & ‘Seven Psychopaths’ fame), and continues his themes of taking something quite bleak/violent (in this case the murder of a woman’s daughter) and building situations with characters around it that can still be funny. Mildred (McDormand) is the focus here, and she rents three billboards from Red (Landry Jones) to call out the police for not finding her daughter’s murderer, so Chief Willoughby (Harrelson) is put in a tight spot.

Dixon (Rockwell) is one of his cops and has a great part as the dimwitted, slightly-bigoted younger cop. McDormand is exceptional as the ultra-focused and hard-nosed grieving mother, with a few layers. Harrelson is also good, but Cornish as his wife has the weirdest Australian/Southern accent mash-up I’ve ever heard! And the age-gap there is hard to comprehend… The only shame is Dinklage doesn’t get more screen time, but still good seeing him.

It’s odd that it was all filmed in North Carolina, not Missouri, as there’s some beautiful scenery shots that definitely don’t look like St Louis! Also worth noting that Ebbing’s not a real place. The mystery and investigation is handled quite well and realistically, but the attention here is on anger – misplaced or otherwise – and how it can consume people and create a destructive cycle.  Not the best use of music and not quite a perfect ending, but a very solid film.

Overall: Part funny, part bleak, all quite well done.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.