2018 - November
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- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsTom CruiseNicole KidmanTodd FieldA Manhattan doctor embarks on a bizarre, night-long odyssey after his wife's admission of unfulfilled longing.01-11-2018
- DirectorMike LeighStarsRory KinnearMaxine PeakeNeil BellThe story of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in which British forces attacked a peaceful pro-democracy rally in Manchester.04-11-2018
On 16th August 1819, a peaceful demonstration at St. Peter's Field organised by the Manchester Patriotic Union (a proto-communist political party of much put-upon British workers) was charged at by the Yeomanry and a whole cavalry regiment on the orders of a local magistrate resulting in 15 fatalities and several hundred injured men, women, and children. The event was subsequently named the Peterloo Massacre in an ironic comparison to the Waterloo Battle which had been recently fought and won by many of those same workers now mercilessly slaughtered for daring to demand their rights. In these heavily politicised modern days when marches, protests, dirty political games, and police brutality are common occurrences, this sadly but perhaps unsurprisingly little-known historical tale could have proven to be really potent, but unfortunately Mike Leigh's "Peterloo" is a clumsy and often tedious retelling which managed to evoke less emotions from me than the Wikipedia article on the event. Less of a dramatisation and more a recreation on the level of a National Geographic documentary, "Peterloo" consists entirely out of long-winded political speeches and discussions which are rarely anything but informative. Scene after scene, weary-looking men in fairly bland period costumes and with questionable haircuts discuss such issues as suffrage, representation, and the exploitation of the working classes. All important topics granted but a feature film should attempt to dramatise them not simply talk about them. The experience of watching "Peterloo" is akin to watching a Halloween episode of "Question Time" in which everyone came dressed as "Blackadder the Third" characters for some reason. I am not being facetious when I say that every single line in this film is exposition. Admittedly, I can't state that 100% for sure but I genuinely can't remember a single one that isn't. Interested in the 1689 Bill of Rights? Well, here's Danny Kirrane to explain it to you. ("It guarantees basic civil rights!") Don't know what Habeas Corpus is?Don't worry, Nico Mirallegro has you covered. ("It is the cornerstone of our constitution!") You're just hearing that Manchester had no parliamentary representation in 1819? Philip Jackson's gonna tell you all about it. ("It's a scandal!") And just in case you missed any of these things, here's a 20-minute scene which feels curiously like an after-thought, in which the sisters of the Female Reformation Group are going to repeat all those facts again... slowly. All of these scenes play out without a shred of dramatisation as if the actors are reading their lines straight out of a history book, and this goes on for, I kid you not, 2 hours. Two excruciating hours which feel like a greatest hits compilation of 19th-century political broadcasts. And what is the result of all this talk? You may assume that a director of Mike Leigh's calibre is going somewhere with all this lecturing. Well, you would be wrong. The sole result of the film's first two hours is to bore the hell out of the audience. Not one attempt is made to flesh out any of the numerous characters introduced and then suddenly dropped throughout the film, not one attempt is made to parallel the events at Peterloo to today, and not one attempt is made to create any genuine drama from all these debates. "Peterloo" talks on and on and on without ever really saying anything. And what is more annoying is that at the end of the day I walked out of the theatre knowing about as much about Peterloo as I did when I walked in. All the endless chitter-chatter was so dry and unengaging that it went in one ear and out the other. The last half-hour does pick up some pace, I must admit, what with it covering the actual demonstration and the massacre but since the film never manages to establish a single likeable or even interesting character, it is hard to feel anything when you see them get killed. Especially since Leigh stages the massacre in such a boring manner. Shot largely in wide shots and without much blood, the massacre mainly consists either of chaotic crowd shots or ridiculously over-the-top scenes. Mothers with babes in arms get mowed down by grinning soldiers, old men are stabbed through the heart, and a brave activist is killed while crying on the makeshift stage in the arms of his beloved wife. The whole thing is so melodramatic I started wondering if Leigh was playing a Lars von Trier-like joke on us by making a spoof historical film which everyone was taking at face-value. Further supporting this theory is the fact that every single character in the film is either a cypher or a caricature. All of the workers are poor, desolate goodies with broad northern accents and huge hearts and all of the upper-classers are moustache twirling villains, corrupt, and incapable of compassion. The workers are represented by a desolate nuclear family spearheaded by a goofy dad (Pearce Quigley) and a wise mum (Maxine Peake), while the upper-classers are represented by a group of sly and cunning magistrates who seem to compete in who hates the great unwashed more. The film begins with them dishing out draconian sentences (including hanging) to quirky and relatable poor people badly in need of food. While it all may be true, it is hard to find a more manipulative opening sequence than that one. This ludicrously shallow characterisation climaxes in the finale when we actually get a shot of one of the magistrates joyfully laughing like Vincent Price in one of his more hammier moments at the sight of a woman being slaughtered during the massacre. The sole character who posses any kind of complexity in the film is Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear), the orator from London who is giving a speech when the massacre occurs. He is painted as self-serving and narcissistic but whose skilful public appearances are more useful than his disingenuous persona is harmful. However, this seems less like a thoughtful character study and more like an after-thought easter egg perhaps even improvised by Kinnear himself. I have long held Mike Leigh in high regard but he is the true problem of "Peterloo". The master of improvised character dramas, he is well know for his detatched, analytical style through which allows us to observe the characters without ever seeming to manipulate or interfere in their actions. This worked wonderfully in such classics as "Secrets and Lies" or "Abigail's Party" however, his approach makes "Peterloo" feel curiously cold and detached. Filming mostly in long, wide-angle shots, Leigh manages to make us feel like observers of the event when in fact the film would have worked far better if he'd made us feel as if we were a part of it all. In one of the film's biggest scenes, he has a crowd of dozens of men shouting "liberty or death" in the middle of a breathtaking British vista but Leigh's at-a-distance directorial style even makes that scene seem boring and mundane. What this material needed was a more firebrand director such as Ken Loach or the late Alan Clarke to give it some bite and guts. Someone who wouldn't be afraid to really go for the juggular and bring out the emotions in the piece. Also, it badly needed a good writer to make us genuinely care for the victims and to bring some complexity into the story. Jimmy McGovern would have been my pick as his masterful 1996 TV play "Hillsborough" is the best example I can think of of what "Peterloo" should have been like. Instead, Leigh seems content to merely film recreations of various party meetings and paint the characters entirely black and white. "Peterloo" has some good things to its credit such as the cinematography by Leigh's long-time DP Dick Pope. Also, it is hard to fault the actors for being handed such two-dimensional characters. They all do their best with them. Some (Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake) manage to supplant their roles with some real depth, a few (Philip Jackson, John-Paul Hurley, Neil Bell) manage to make their long-winded speeches if not entertaining than at least lively, while others (Vincent Franklin, Jeff Rawle, David Bamber, and especially Tim McInnerny as the metrosexual prince regent somewhat reminiscent of Louis XIII in Ken Russell's "The Devils") manage to run away with the film by playing their villainous roles with such sadistic glee they're obviously having much more fun than the audience. Sadly, the whole thing is tripped up by an awfuly taxative and lacklustre script and Mike Leigh's cold and distanced direction. Upon leaving the theatre, I remarked to the usher that I probably would have enjoyed Peterloo more had I actually been there. I think nothing more needs be said.
1/4 - DirectorDavid Gordon GreenStarsJamie Lee CurtisJudy GreerAndi MatichakLaurie Strode confronts her long-time foe, Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.05-11-2018
Ever since I was a child, I've been a huge fan of the original "Halloween" film. Even though I couldn't have articulated it at the time, its deliberate atmosphere building and meticulously executed pay-offs are probably second to none. It is a masterpiece of tension and minimalism both perfectly encapsulated in the shape of its main villain, the mysterious and endlessly intimidating Michael Myers whose expressionless face and downright mechanical movements make him the perfect embodiment of pure evil. Of course, Hollywood can't leave mastery alone and a slew of subpar sequels were made, but even though none of them were exactly good, the sheer effectiveness of the Michael Myers character and the sometimes downright comical seriousness with which they were executed made them always, in the least, enjoyable on a rainy afternoon. Consequently, I've always had a tinge of nostalgia when thinking about or rewatching one of the "Halloween" films and they rarely fail to amuse me. The latest installment in the evergrowing franchise, entitled simply "Halloween" does not offer even such perfunctory pleasures. It nails the nostalgia alright. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as on command when I heard the familiar notes of John Carpenter's "Halloween Theme" and the familiar Akkad family name showed up in even more familiar yellow tinted letters, but this is all a matter of conditioning rather than true quality and when it came to the film itself I found it to be a thundering disappointment. Why? Well, it's so terribly modern, you see. Not, of course, in the meaning an old, toothless man might attribute to the word, but rather in the meaning that it belongs to the modern school of filmmaking popularised (among others) by Tarantino and Wes Craven's "Scream" which can't ever seem to be content in simply giving the audience what it wants which should be a slasher films primary (and perhaps sole) concern. The two main characteristics of these kinds of films are incessant self-referentiality and endless amounts of irony. Now, I'm not saying that these characteristics can't work in a film. On the contrary! I am a fan of both Mr Craven's and Mr Tarantino's works, but more often than not, in the hands of lesser directors, self-referentiality turns into self-parody and irony into sneering cynicism which is exactly what happens here. But let us start from the beginning. "Halloween 2018" (as I shall call it from now on) starts a new timeline (the third after "Season of the Witch" and "H20") in the "Halloween" franchise. Ignoring all the subsequent sequels "Halloween 2018" continues on directly from the 1978 classic and in the very beginning it is established that Michael Myers was arrested and incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally insane. The film begins 40 years later, as two British podcasters (Rhian Rees and Jefferson Hall) arrive to visit Michael before he is transferred to another, much more enclosed asylum. They are introduced to Michael's new doctor, a Dr Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) who is several times throughout the film referred to as "the new Loomis". After some helpful exposition, the pair is lead to a rec-yard where Michael stands chained to the floor inside a marked-off space. "Don't cross the yellow line" warns Dr Sartain menacingly. The male podcaster then approaches Michael, removes his iconic white-faced mask from his pocket (we're never told how exactly he got it), and begins taunting the seemingly still Michael as the other patients on the yard produce a crescendoing cacophony of screams, laughs, and unidentifiable grunts. It's a scene so over-the-top and laughably naive that it immediately sets "Halloween 2018" on a path to certain failure. Then the film jarringly shifts gears and suddenly turns into a family drama following some soap-opera-ish quibbles I shan't go into between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her estranged daughter (Judy Greer). Yes, Jamie Lee Curtis is back and her performance is one of the few good things about this film, but here she is (much as she was in "H20") reduced to a paranoid, nervous wreck. A sort of a Burt Gummer-style survivalist who lives in a fortified house in the woods equipped with trap doors and an arsenal that would make a Trump supporter blush. How exactly she's paid for all this we're never told. Either way, more attention is paid to Laurie's granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matchiak) who has some uninteresting issues with her boyfriend. This whole section is one long, tedious drag as director David Gordon Green subjects us to family drama after family drama none of which actually lead anywhere. The characters are shallow, their dilemmas uninteresting, and the dialogue without wit or sparkle and yet Green drags this out for nigh on 30 minutes as the audience, restless in their seats, shouts at the screen: "Start the killing!". Then the expected happens and Michael manages to escape during the transfer. How does he do that? Well the bus crashes and all the patients are released to wander aimlessly through the foggy surroundings until a car comes across them. Michael then hijacks the car and drives all the way to town. If you think this sounds familiar, you're right. It is the first of many direct steals (oops, homages) Green makes to the original "Halloween" and its disinherited sequels. The scene in question plays out almost identically (and I mean shot-for-shot) as its original "Halloween" cousin meaning that it comes across as both derivative and disappointingly predictable because not only does Green not manage to do anything new with it, but he also manages to do it in a manner which makes it considerably worse. This in itself would have been problematic enough but the continuation of Michael's rampage is also "homage" after "homage". His first on-screen kill in a gas-station toilet is taken directly from "H20" and the sequence in which he kills an old woman in her suburban home from "Halloween II". My problem with this is that Green is now not only stealing scenes from the original film but also from the sequels which he has supposedly separated himself from. Add disingenuousness to the list of this film's crimes. The plot, from that point onwards, proceeds exactly as you'd expect. Michael starts his rampage around Haddonfield pursued by Dr Sartain and the local sheriff (Will Patton). His victims? Horny local teenagers prancing around in their Halloween get-ups. Now, you'd think this part of the film, at least, would be fun. Well, you'd be wrong. Even I, a self-confessed massive fan of trashy slasher films, couldn't find much to enjoy here. There is a staggering lack of characterisation among the teenagers even compared to the basic levels of other slasher films, they thus become undistinguishable and their deaths unimportant. The kill scenes are also surprisingly blandly executed, especially since some of the set-pieces are well thought-up. One scene has a teenager trapped in the front yard of some mansion house surrounded by a gothic-looking spiky fence. Meanwhile, as the security lights go on and off we can see Michael mercilessly approaching him. The tension is well built, the pay-off imminent, and then Green cuts away at the key moment. We never see the kill and thus the scene remains without climax to limply dangle in the autumn wind. But what of Laurie, I hear you ask? Well... not much. Instead of the gutsy action hero we got in "H20", Laurie is here diminished to a neurotic, paranoid wreck who wanders the streets of Haddonfield, gun in hand, seemingly entirely unable to run into an interesting scene. She has one confrontation with Michael in the entire film, at the climax, and even that sequence is a complete failure. In it, Green attempts to evoke a Carpenterian sense of suspense by tickling the audience's expectations but the whole thing comes across as hopelessly dragged out and boring. Thus, the film ends on a dull, cliched whimper. But "Halloween 2018"'s biggest sin is not the fact that it steals shamelessly from other films, nor that its characters are bland cyphers, no. It's biggest sin is that it is never, even remotely scary or even creepy. It is a complete bore, a film which continually undercuts every potentially good scene by snidely and cynically "commenting on it" and mocking the very genre it belongs to. David Gordon Green is not a horror director and it shows. He fails to evoke tension, he fails to give us satisfying kills, and most of all, he fails to entertain us. And make no mistake, it is his fault this film does not work. On the technical side, "Halloween 2018" is excellent. The neon-heavy cinematography by Michael Simmonds is atmospheric and crisp, the sound design flawless, and the cast, god bless them, try their best. Jamie Lee Curtis is still as excellent and likeable an actress as ever she was and so is Will Patton, but none of them have anything to work with. When you reduce what is supposed to be your main character to a ranting wreck you can't expect an Oscar-winning performance, after all. Judy Greer and Andi Matichak are also, obviously, competent actresses, but their scenes, full of constant bickering, are ear-grating. I do have to say, I really enjoyed the performance given by Haluk Bilginer as Dr Sartain who, in a far better or cheesier slasher film, could have been a real bullseye. He overacts with just the right amount of campiness to just about match (but never surpass) the manic energy brought to the later sequels by Donald Pleasence. The completely baffling but exciting twist which his character is a part of in the latter half of the film could have saved it, but it is pointlessly undone very quickly afterwards and rendered pointless. Finally, is "Halloween 2018" a complete failure. Almost. It has one saving grace, a saving grace which nearly makes the film worth the price of admission. The soundtrack. Written by Cody Carpenter, Daniel A. Davies, and the maestro himself, John Carpenter, it is everything this film is not. It's a pumping, creepy, modern take on what Carpenter did in the 70s. Listening to the soundtrack on its own will give you far more pleasure and chills than watching the film along with it. "Halloween 2018" is yet another disappointing follow-up to the original "Halloween" which reigns supreme above not only its sequels and remakes, but also above all other slasher films.
1.5/4