Into The Woods & Foxcatcher – Richards Reckons Reviews

Woods and Foxes (sort of) are all in today’s post. It’s a bit like Centre Parcs really, except with less swimming pools and more wrestling.

Once upon a time, there was a musical made called Into The Woods. There is now a film adaptation of said musical. We’ll kick off with that.

Into The Woods does involve going into the woods it must be said, but it would be a criminal disservice to say that is simply all it is about; it follows the various scenarios of some famous fairytale characters, including Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Jack of “The Beanstalk” fame (Daniel Huttlestone) and Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford); however, it’s mainly framed by the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) trying to conceive a child but are thwarted by a witch’s (Meryl Streep) curse. To lift the curse, the Baker and his wife must collect four tremendously specific items (a cow as white as milk, hair as yellow as corn, a cape as red as blood and a slipper pure as gold) in 3 midnights time. They venture out to do so in the direction of, you guessed it, the woods.

I must admit that I knew literally nothing about this before I saw it. I knew that it was a musical, and that it seemed to be vaguely based on fairytales, but that was about it. Quick note that those that weren’t in the know like me – this ain’t your ordinary fairytale. The first 2/3rds of the film seem to be a quirky visitation through various fairytales, allowing us to crossover all of them through the Baker’s and Baker’s wife’s quest; we see them through to their happy endings at this stage. When we get to that stage, it feels like a natural progression to the end – but then it all changes. Through little things that have happened over the course of the narrative, all hell breaks loose after the natural ending, leading to a bizarre quasi-epilogue tacked onto the end. From my understanding, it’s roughly an Act 1/Act 2 split in the musical between the relatively normal and then weird, but here it’s completely uneven and so doesn’t quite sit as well.

But don’t get me wrong though, I quite liked the weirdness of it. It made it distinct and different; up until it’s fake climax, I regarded the film a fun but unmemorable jamboree through the fairytalehood. But it’s there where Into The Woods comes into its own, with fairytale chaos that involves a mismatch of the characters we’ve just been following. It is, however, even in this little strange epilogue, like a bag of revels (ie a mixed bag) – some things work and some things really don’t. I can’t go into specifics without going into a spoiler safari, but some parts in the final act feel rushed or there for the sake of it; even if it is in the musical, these components don’t feel natural, even if it is in the “weird chapter”.

The performances are mostly good, with a couple of standouts – one of course being the amazing Meryl Streep as the witch, bringing zaniness to the hag act and getting her mouth round some fairly complex bits (never thought I’d write that, especially in relation to Meryl Streep). Anna Kendrick too and Emily Blunt both bring gusto to their relatively one note characters. James Corden gets the job done but doesn’t seem to excel in the leading man role here. Johnny Depp is essentially just Johnny Depp in his 5 minute cameo as the Wolf, in which he sings an unbelievably paedophilic song about Red Riding Hood that makes everybody feel uncomfortable. Aside from the “into the woods, into the woods” song there aren’t really any truly memorable songs or earworms that make you think “FORGET GREETING MY FAMILY, I MUST DOWNLOAD THAT SOUNDTRACK AS SOON AS I GET IN!”.

All in all, Into The Woods is a strange case. I admire its dark and quirky approach to the fairytale but it comes a little too late in the story, and aside from Meryl Streep it lacks any truly memorable characters or songs. Good fun if you like a know your music/fairytales, but that’s about it.

Right, let’s catch some foxes with Foxcatcher.

This is not a light-hearted adventure about catching foxes or indeed Jamie Foxx, but instead it’s a true story that goes like this; Olympic gold-medal winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing all over your Tatum) is in a bit of a rut, with his life being relatively directionless post-win. That is until he gets a phonecall from the ever-so-strange John du Pont (Steve Carell), an heir to a chemical fortune who has a keen interest in wrestling and wants to make his compound, named Foxcatcher Farm (THAT’S THE NAME OF THE MOVIE!), the official training ground for the Olympic team. He’s keen on getting Mark and his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) on site and onboard. As du Pont and Mark grow closer in their relationship, cracks in his personality start to show, all leading to a horrible crescendo…

First thing to say about Foxcatcher is that the three main central performances are outstanding. It’s no wonder all involved are (or at least ruddy well should be) nominated for awards. The most obviously transformational is Steve Carell, who we’re all used to seeing being a jolly funny chap, turning into this dark and pompous figure of wealth – a quiet, grotesque megalomaniac. It’s genuinely hard to believe that this is Brick Tamland or Michael Scott we are seeing here – and that’s not because of prosthetics. Channing Tatum’s performance too is stunning – embracing the adonis figure that he has (which is unbelievably similar to my own) and using his physicality in contrast with Mark’s incredibly low self esteem and fragility. Ruffalo too brings a soft-spoken approach to the older brother/coach role and is amazing in his tenderness that you really feel like he has earned with Mark.

The landscape and colour scheme of the movie immediately imprints in your mind that something terrible is going to happen, and it’s a sense of foreboding that is there throughout the whole movie; you always feel as though it’s leading to an awful climax. It’s a film that has sport as a framing device but it’s certainly not about sport; it’s about power, masculinity, megalomania and isolation. Because the film is populated with lots of masculine men, not a lot is verbally said about how people are feeling; it’s more with pats, touches and wrestles with one another where everything is brought into the open. This of course means that everything is open to all sorts of interpretation; once you see the scene for yourself about the “wrestle in the gallery”, you can decide for yourself what is going on. But it’s all part of the rich character study that makes this film so strong.

Admittedly, it can be slow and feel like it drags in some scenes – especially when they are in complete silence. There is a score but it’s so intermittent it may as well not be there; the silence adds impact to the various sounds that are made at times (such as hitting cheekbones and squeaking shoes), but on other occasions it makes a scene more mundane and less tense. The story does not give you much of a spelt out reason as to why the event in question happens, but rather leaves it open to your own interpretation; something that will inspire some but infuriate others.

It’s an at times slow film that has its problems but it is a fascinating character study into masculinity and power and maybe a little bit of wrestling, elevated by some transformational performances from its central stars.

Nightcrawler, Love Rosie & The Book of Life – Richards Reckons Review

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! No, I am not booing you, but rather I am booing AT you rather like a ghost would. For it is Halloween, and for Halloween, here are the reckonings for, er, one dark drama, a romcom and an animated family adventure. Scary times.

Let’s kick off by trawling through the underbelly of nighttime Los Angeles with Nightcrawler*.

There’s a plot here bleeding and therefore leading (if you’ve seen the trailer, that joke makes a lot of sense and you’re probably laughing literally right now) in this film, and here it is; Lou Bloom (a character not so much played by but inhabited by Jake Gyllenhaal) is an extremely driven, persuasive and somewhat odd young man who is desperate for employment, and isn’t afraid to break the law for money. When he witnesses the aftermath of a car accident on the highway, he notices Joe Loder (the mighty Bill Paxton. More films need more Paxton) filming the wreckage. Lou then becomes intrigued by the world of ‘nightcrawling’; filming ‘exciting’ news stories/crimes/accidents in LA and selling the footage to news outlets. He even takes on an assistant (Riz Ahmed) to help him to do so. But as he gets deeper and deeper, he gets more and more desperate for the big stories, and will go to any means to get them…

To find the heart and soul of this film, we must look to Lou Bloom himself. Lou Bloom (it’s such a fun name to type and say) is an unhinged man desperate for work; always willing to tell everybody who even walks past him his skill set, his passion for work, his flexibility in terms of working hours. In short, Lou Bloom is a twisted, dark reflection of the LinkedIn generation; a walking, talking, near grovelling, gaunt CV. He wants to belong and he wants to be the best at what he does, but he has no idea in what capacity yet. The world of nightcrawling meets his sensibilities for having a twisted eye and the ability to manipulate people to get an end goal. When he does get into a position of vague success and takes on his own “employee”, he spouts back all the stuff he’s heard already about work placements; replicating employment jargon as a power play and to swell his own chest up like a proud owl. The heart and soul of Lou Bloom is that of jealousy, darkness and psychopathy; as is the heart and soul of the film itself.

The weird thing, though, is that somehow I wanted him and the film to be nastier and more twisted. Don’t get me wrong, it deals with some harsh subject matter and events in a darkly, hilariously trivial way (the skewed reality that news shows is made shockingly apparent) but I felt there was a step beyond that they did not go to. Now, this may be because to make Lou any more actively deranged would be too far, but it’s a ledge-beyond-the-edge (not the U2 guitarist) I wouldn’t have minded the film going to. Nonetheless, the protagonist and his scheming is what makes Nightcrawler such a great watch; quite what he’s up to, what he’s going to do next and how he is going to react keeps you guessing the whole way through, dealing with everything with internally ice cold, calculating efficiency. Jake Gyllenhaal is magnetising in this role, and this is, quite rightly, his show. Expect his fashion sense, with camera and nasal speaking voice to be replicated at fancy dress parties for a few years to come.

Nightcrawler* looks magnificent, too; it has an almost Drive like sensibility, with the bright shining city lights illuminating the dark stories unfolding before them, echoing the studio lights in the newsroom. The action is frantic where it needs to be, and the dialogue heavily paid attention to and given its due. The tension really does build in some sequences too, especially in (avoiding a spoiler safari here) a certain scene in somebody’s house. There are some scenes in the movie which feel like they can deflate this growing tension throughout the whole movie, but it’s still there, bubbling under the surface like a small but menacing kettle.

If I were to have small little niggling criticisms, I would say that I had a love/hate, hot/cold Katy Perry style relationship with the score; sometimes its guitars and bombast feel like they work, other times they don’t. The ending was also partially troubling for me too; there are parts I liked about it, but also parts I didn’t. This on/off style relationship I have with these components of course do not mean it’s a bad movie at all; a bad movie would make me flat out hate them.

Overall, however, while I’m not as fanatical about the film as I thought it would be, it’s still a very, very good ride; it keeps you guessing and truly plunges you head first into the world of chasing sirens and getting your hands well and truly dirty. Director Dan Gilroy has a hell of a writer/director debut on his hands with this one, and is rightly getting all the attention it deserves. If you like dark drama (if you don’t you’re pretty screwed at the cinema right now if I’m honest…), then be sure to check Nightcrawler* out as soon as you can.

Now onto romantic fluff-fest which has a confusingly placed comma in its title, Love, Rosie.

 

Love, Rosie (ARGH THAT COMMA) is the story of two friends, one a boy (Alex, played by Sam Claflin) and one a lady (called Rosie, funnily enough, played by Lily Collins – daughter of Phil), who grow up together throughout primary and high school, always juuuust missing out on each other. When she becomes pregnant and he moves away to Boston for university, the two try to keep in touch throughout the various events in their lives, but will they eventually get together and admit their feelings for one another?

You’ll remember when I reviewed The Best of Me only last week, I said it was one of the worst films of the year by far. The key point in that review was that I did not like it not because I am not in its target demographic, but because it was so utterly ridiculous and shambolically written it was insulting towards its target demographic. Once again, I am not in the target demographic for this film; extremely masculine and manly men such as myself aren’t in mind when these films are made. However, Love, Rosie is considerably better for its target audience than The Best of Me in a number of ways.

For a start, it is actually quite funny. Towards the beginning, it has quite a liberal attitude to sex and the uncomfortable parts of it that reflects nicely on screen, making the characters seem genuine and down to earth, despite how ridiculously good looking (read in Zoolander voice) they are. I was actually worried that after his turn as the despicable Alistair in The Riot Club it would be impossible for me to ever like Sam Claflin ever again, but he is a suitably charming but bumbling Hugh Grant figure here. Lily Collins as our central character is, too, an extremely likeable screen presence; you root for her the whole way through. It also has genuine character growth and narrative beats that, while somewhat contrived, do actually logically work and don’t feel all that forced; though that does include several weddings and a funeral (golden events in the romcom rulebook), as well as a level of predictability that can make the audience feel like fortune tellers.

Somewhat bizarrely, the thing I admire about the film is also something that it falls over on quite a few times; the timeframe. This film isn’t set over a summer or a year; it’s actually over several years, spanning to a little over a decade. While I respect the narrative choice to cover this amount of time, the film doesn’t really show much physical or mental progression by either of these characters over these relatively formative years of their young adult lives. The fact that they are and always have been in love is of course the common denominator, but there are no real dramatic changes except in terms of marital status; barely a hair moves on them throughout these years.

So, while contrived and a bit formulaic, this is a perfectly fine British rom com that doesn’t change the romcom rulebook, but sticks by it to good but not amazing effect.Though it does have the best use of Lily Allen’s song “F**k You” I’ve seen in a while, if you’re a romantic comedy fan then you will really enjoy this film; if you don’t, then there’s little to find here that warrants seeing it. Though it does of course tell the lesson that you can’t hurry love, no you’ll just have to wait, she said love don’t come easy… (get it? Because Lily Collins is Phil Collins daughter? And he sang that so- never mind…)

And, finally, we have the Guillermo del Toro produced The Book of Life.

 

Books have plots, and The Book of Life, though it sounds like a vague and sweeping title, is no different. In it, we have the story of two best friends Manolo (Diego Luna) and Joaquin (Channing all over your Tatum), who are both in love with their friend Maria (Zoe Saldana). The rulers of the different underworlds, La Muerte (Kate del Castillo) and Xibalba (Ron Perlman), make a wager with one another as to who Maria will marry; with La Muerte betting on Manolo and Xibalba betting on Joaquin. The boys grow up, but Maria moves away. Upon her return, who will she marry, and which post-death landlord will win the bet?

The story is actually more convoluted than that, bookended by a narrative framing device and also involving a town invaded by bandits, bullfighting, a love of music and a magical macguffin (just like my life, really). There is a LOT going on in this film in terms of story, as well as being based on Mexican beliefs about the afterlife; both concepts that very young children may find hard to grasp. Indeed, it can be quite confusing in some instances. But there is still a lot of fun to be had here once you get past the heavy exposition.

The locations, such as the magical fiesta world of the Land of the Remembered, are wonderfully vibrant and beautifully presented, and there are some fun voice performances (Ice Cube has a surprisingly funny turn) and dynamic dialogue for both kids and adults alike. The spirit of fun runs very deep within the Book of Life, presenting grand ideas such as what happens after we die and the nature of death in a jovial and colourful way rather than a heartbreakingly bleak way; indeed, one character at one point groans of the story “What is it with Mexicans and death?!”. Its look is also surprisingly original too, in a cinematic landscape filled to the brim with different character designs; the Book of Life has its own look and style that separates it from the rest.

In all, The Book of Life is perfect half term fodder; a colourful if exposition heavy and flawed family adventure with vibrant characters, a memorable look and fun dialogue.

*NOT the X-Men mutant

22 Jump Street – Richards Reckons Review

Sticking to this form I’ve recently developed of kicking reviews off with screenshots of stars in films with great moustaches, here’s the wonderful Nick Offerman and his infamous lip decoration.

Beautiful.

22 Jump Street is the sequel, funnily enough, to 21 Jump Street, the reboot/sequel to the 80s TV series about cops going undercover and infiltrating a high school to bust drug dealers – think Waterloo Road meets The Sweeney, but American and less bad. Jenko (played by Channing “All Over Your” Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah “The Goldfish Eater” Hill) do a dreadful job of trying to foil a shady dealing at the docks, allowing ne’er-do-well Ghost to escape. Nick Offerman’s ultra-meta Captain and Ice Cube then decide that they need to do exactly the same thing again, except this time with a bigger budget (“double the budget, double the success, right?”) and in college because, and I believe this is verbatim, “yo’ ass look like you about fiddy”.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, helmers of the beloved Lego Movie and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, direct this sequel and are fast becoming one of my favourite directorial teams (in fact, I was rooting for them to take over directing Ant-Man in Edgar Wright’s absence, but that’s a different story). They bring a charm and gleeful self-awareness to their work which adds another layer of fun to the film, like a comedy cake. In areas, scenes move incredibly quickly on near cartoonish levels (not surprising given their background in animation), and while 22 Jump Street isn’t as absolutely bursting to the seams with gags and jokes as its younger brother, there are still solid laughs aplenty.

Hill and Tatum’s chemistry is a key ingredient of this cake (this metaphor is making me hungry…). The two characters are a Yin and Yang (the starting image of the film almost spells this out for you) but have a relationship that freely dances over the line between brotherly and homoerotic – a la Hot Fuzz, or any other buddy cop movie ever. And you really feel for their relationship too – even though you know that everything will be fine, you get a real pang of gloom when they are apart and when they fight it’s like watching two of your best buds fighting.

22 Jump Street is at its best when it is making self-aware jibes at itself, the industry and its stars – and there are a lot of these jibes too. I absolutely love a good meta-joke (it’s why Deadpool is one of my favourite characters in anything ever), and there are lots of these in 22JS – including winks at the careers of Channing Tatum (a cheeky poke at one man defending the White House alone) and Ice Cube (there’s a reference to a certain album title that seemingly only I laughed at – perhaps for the first time in my life I was the most “G” person in the room…). Ice Cube is a force-of-nature style highlight too, stealing almost every scene he’s in and chewing the scenery right up (I’ve never understood that phrase, but there is one scene in which he does an awful lot of angry chewing, so I’ll use it).

The action sequences are pretty paint-by-numbers, but it’s not really the action you’re looking for – it’s the gags that are peppered over them. Some may complain that it almost exactly the same as the first one, but they make so many references to the fact that the know it’s exactly the same that it shouldn’t appear accidental – it riffs on this near constantly. If I was to have a problem with it, I would say that we see more of Schmidt than Jenko, and it would be nice for Channing Tatum to have more of a chance to prove how surprisingly capable he is with comedy. Jonah Hill contributed to the script so it is natural he would give himself a lot, but more Channing (the name rather than the verb) would’ve probably made the scales a bit more equal. I don’t think I laughed perhaps as much as I did when seeing 21 Jump Street, but it’s still consistently funny and surprising, with, on the whole, jokes that are more hits than misses. It also has one of the greatest credits sequences I have seen in a long time, which I do not want to spoil as it will puncture and deflate the surprise a tad. But if you want an enjoyable, entertaining enough couple of hours, jump at the chance (sorry) to see 22 Jump Street.