I'm freaking dope.

The Incredible Jessica James (2017)

Chosen by me as I use netflix a lot and Jessica Williams is amazing.

Jessica Williams really is amazing. 

And that is almost to this films detriment. Her Jessica James is so fully realised, so brilliantly present that it threatens to derail the whole endeavour. She's too good a character for something so slight. 

The plot is so low key that a any dramatic potential is rather undernourished.

But it is never less than watchable, Williams chemistry with O'Dowd is cute and even better is the relationship between her and a best friend played by Noel Wells. Lakeith Stanfield, so good in Atlanta, rounds out the cast nicely.

Oh yes, very undateable

Frances Ha (2012)

Chosen by Agathe technically as she supplied me the dvd but I'd been wanting to get around to it for ages. And I don't do the thing where people give introductions anymore. But she likes it and mentioned watching it every couple of months with a friend for a while.

Absolutely charming, even while you are being frustrated by the main character's nature.

That the frustration never hardens into resentment is down to a winning, personable performance from co-writer Greta Gerwig and the low key reality of all the little choices she makes to mess up her life (turning down a sensible job offer, putting a trip to Paris on a credit card).

Despite the film constantly throwing barriers both self inflicted and otherwise in front of Frances it's never a slog (indeed it's a brisk 80mins and change), never too dour and relentlessly upbeat. Finding a cool place to live for a short while may not be the most life changing event but it is rewarded with a delightful dance through the streets to Bowie's Modern Love.

It makes an interesting companion piece to the recently reviewed on these pages Jules et Jim in that it is a massive love letter to the nouvelle vague films. Filmed in black and white, using musical cues and references (though the Modern Love dance is riffing from a later French piece - 1986's Mauvais Sang) it is a film filled with character but little incident.

A delight.

It's our mission that doesn't make sense, sir.

Valerian 

and the city of a thousand planets (2017)

Chosen by me as i like to go to the cinema a lot.

In some ways a follow up to Besson's The Fifth Element, with many of that films weaknesses but few of it's strengths.

There is a wonderful sense of whimsy, one off gags (jet boots, a gun that fires energy platforms to stand on) are thrown at the screen a plenty. But none of them really resonate, partly because those images are dismissed as quickly as they appear but also due to the single most damaging aspect of the film.

The two main characters are just terrible.

Who really cares what cool thing they may be doing (a confusing but interesting heist across virtual reality dimensions?) when they are such dickheads.

The Star Wars knock-offs (yes, the comics pre-date 1977 and unfortunately have not been read by me) almost always get one major thing wrong. They focus on the arsehole aspects of Han Solo (and for sure he is an arsehole) and forget everything else that makes him work. Partly, of course, Ford's performance, but also good jokes and chemistry between characters.

This movie ups that to unbearable levels.

Valerian is a nothing wisp of a character defined by badgering his workmate into marrying him.

But Laureline is even worse. She kicks small lizards, like a serial killer in training. 

And after a bunch of colleagues are brutally killed in front of her (including one that has a flirty moment more dynamic than anything with Valerian) she doesnt show any acknowledgement of their passing except to moan her dress has been ripped.

Only Rihanna's character Bubble seems even half realised, her chameleon dance a clear high point of the film, and with a few lines even threatens to make Dane Dehaan look interesting before disappearing from the movie and our hearts.

Also every single joke is awful. Some, I'm not even sure were jokes, just random words said in a jokey cadence, like a placeholder waiting for a rewrite to happen.

Effects are decent but no visual lingers in the way, say, some of the GOTG stuff does.

And nature has been punishing us ever since

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Chosen by me as I like to go to the cinema a lot (since I abandoned the rules to this blog many years ago, not sure why I still do this bit)

A fine third to an interesting and varied trilogy. 

This hews much closer to the second instalment but manages to find it's place and adds value as an end-piece.

Filled with some big ideas (the Apes working for the human soldiers, human regressing to beasts, humans still fighting each other, the cost of vengeance) but never losing sight of the character beats is an impressive feat. Combine that with some extraordinary effects and acting work make for a thrilling, occasionally stunning couple of hours.

It skimps a little on the humans this time (the final conflict losing some emphasis by having no clearly defined characters on the human side, a crossbow sniper never becomes more interesting than his weapon) but you'd barely realise that as the apes are so compelling.

Pas celle-là, Jim

Jules et Jim (1962)

Chosen by me as I had the dvd sat on my shelf for a while and then saw the sad news of Jeanne Moreau's passing.

It's been a couple of years since I last put a review here, I'm lazy and just put quick posts on facebook mostly. But I have been looking back at some of the older entries here and it reminded of some of the fun I had doing them, so here we are again, perhaps just for one day, but we'll see. 

Her character (Catherine) may not get billing in the title but this is Jeanne Moreau's film through and through.

A powerful portrayal of a woman torn by competing flights of thought in her head, the other characters only see her as woman to possess or be possessed by and the film also seems, barring one hint towards her mental health in a bit of throwaway dialogue on a beach, to put it's sympathy with the men. 

But the strength of Moreau's performance never allows that to happen, she is never played as empty headed, and only towards the end does her indifference to the men around her seem more callous. Perhaps in a more modern age Catherine would have received the help she needed rather than the romantic reverence given her which leads, inevitably, to tragedy. 

The film itself is premier nouvelle vague. It's rhythms still modern and exciting. 

There is a sense of rich playfulness and discovery of film to it all, a sort of punk intellectualism whose effects can still be felt in cinema today.  Freeze frames, inserted newsreel footage, staccato edits, all combine to create something fresh and interesting even 55 years later.

Very happy I got around to watching this finally.

It's appalling. Still, if you abandon your moral judgment, it can be fun.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Chosen because someone told me "I'm going to stop being friends with you until you watch all the HG films."

And I promised them i would review any I watched. 

A film almost entirely stuck in the 'Refusal of the Call' act of The Hero's Journey. Katniss is a curiously passive lead who is constantly told what to do by everyone around her and does nothing to drive the plot or action herself. She is a mere pawn in a game we dont even get to see played. Though viewers paying attention to the "moves and counter moves" should figure it out early enough (a bunch of the plot makes little sense unless you realize a character twist) which just furthers the feeling of Katniss being kind of dull in not appreciating why people are sacrificing themselves left and right around her.

The film follows the structure of the first quite closely to diminished effect once again spending a long time before getting to the Games (which are promised to be completely different but that, like many things in the movie, never really follows through). It has many of the same flaws - little idea of who the other tributes for the games are, a world that doesn't really make sense, but has none of the small touches of interest the first managed to feed in. The relationships dont feel as lived in and the dour grimness is not lightened by any warmth of character. 

An exception to this starts to half arse itself around Elizabeth Banks seemingly one note act of camp. She seems genuinely put out by the plot turns at what seems at first a break to her status quo and annoyance at her job being disrupted but threatens to mean something more interesting as she shows perhaps a concern for the two leads but also the subtlest hint of rebellion in wanting to have a connection between them. Unfortunately this proves to be (for this movie at least) just a plot point to serve up a reason for a character to do something later entirely unconnected to Bank's eccentric.

A game and talented cast of supporting actors help fill some of the void left by a lead that doesnt want to do anything (though Lawrence herself is fine). I'd much rather watch the Hunger games where Jeffrey Wright electrocutes six people to win or follow Amanda Plummer's weirdo to her victory and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is always worth watching.

The reluctant hero trope and the refusal of the call exist for a reason. Not least we dont want our heroes to be vain egomaniacs but Catching Fire goes to far in the other direction though the movie closes on a shot of Lawrence squinting in steely determination that suggest she's crossed the threshold for the next film and will hopefully have a lot more agency.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

*this isn't on general release yet and I will be talking about some plot points so cheese it if you don't want to know about specific details

Having got the introductions and assembling out of the way in the first one this sequel is able to start straight into the action with a fun assault on a Hydra base that's lets each of the team highlight an exciting bit of business and bounce off of each other in interesting ways. #

The movie is pretty pacy, crammed full of incident but tries to slow down enough to let the characters breathe. It is more successful on this for some than for others. Hawkeye (perhaps as apology for shoddy treatment last movie) fares best, given a sweet backstory that at first threatens to put crosshairs over him, though the more they push that button the more it seems it will be a reversal of the kind Whedon is very fond of. He becomes the key figure of the film, the glue uniting and inspiring the team. Which is great, but shouldn't that be Captain America's job? 

Both Cap and Thor get a little short changed in this busy film, but as they have their own franchises I guess it balances out a touch.

Also lost in the noise is a new relationship built seemingly from the pleasing chemistry Widow and Banner had at the start of the last film. But there's no time to really feel the connection here, we have some other characters telling us how much they like each other but plot gets in the way of us seeing them ever really doing anything.

The new characters make a great impression, their powers and looks contrasting nicely with everything else. Scarlet Witch in particular, despite a nebulous power set, is able to spark off some interesting 'dream' sequences letting Whedon have some fun with oddball visuals and seemingly baffling non sequiturs. 

However the Twin's back story never feels resolved (a sideways glance at Tony Stark saving people seems enough for this movie to wrap up his part in the siblings misery) and The Vision (who gains his comic look cape in a lovely moment of gratitude to Thor) is brought in on a confused rush of information that doesn't quite gel into a character but he gets some good gags and a splendid capper to a running joke about Thor's Hammer.

The action is strong, much like the climax of the previous film building good jokes into the way these heroes fight and through features a lot of one of my bugbears - slow motion, mostly well utilizes it to accentuate and punctuate choerographed beats.

Ultron himself is gleefully brought to life by James Spader's voice, a dark mirrored version of both Stark (something all of the Iron Man movies have done, so not exactly fresh, though this one is perhaps more literally an Iron Man) and JARVIS. 

Basically this is pretty much exactly what I want from an Avengers movie. It's big, brash, grounded in a sense of talking these characters seriously whilst letting loose enough to be ever so silly. Heroism is again focused on, saving lives a primary concern despite the carnage. It get's a little lost in signal to noise, (Thor's diversion seems primarily to set up sequel fodder) but is fun, fun, fun.