Pools

Courtesy of KLA Media Group 

 On the verge of being kicked out of college, Kennedy decides that putting her head down and getting on with school work is not what she needs. Gathering together a group of random acquaintances also stuck at college over the long hot summer, she leads the group to go nighttime pool hopping throughout the lavish estates in her college town. But as she is still grieving the recent loss of her father, this spontaneous adventure becomes more of a journey of self discovery.

Full review over at Filmhounds.

The Last Showgirl

 

Long-time showgirl Shelly has performed at the Razzle Dazzle for 30 years, when the casino announces that the show will close, she is devastated. While her younger co-stars decide to audition for other shows, she is left in limbo. As the world she’s know for so long starts disappear around her, Shelly tries to reconnect with her estranged daughter and decide what she should do next.

The tone of director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl is a continued feeling of sadness. Beginning with the crushing news and the fallout from that. What’s interesting is that a story such as this is not focusing on the show that, within the world of the film, was seen as the last show of its kind and maybe once would have been described as iconic. The focus is nearly solely on Shelly as we watch her world fall apart. Having given up literally everything for her career and the show, she has little to show for such loyalty. She seems careful money unlike her best friend and ex-showgirl Annette who gambles away what she earns as a cocktail waitress. Shelly’s life appears empty outside of the show, her daughter doesn’t even feature in her life until she reaches out to see her. Shelly’s behaviour throughout the whole film is that of someone going through grief. The show was her life and she cannot fathom being without it. She lives in the past, still talking about the 80s when showgirls were seen as ambassadors and how the show emulated that of something similar seen in Paris. Shelly longs for the ‘old days’ of elegance, or at least what she views as elegance.

As we watch her breakdown slowly to her new reality, there is no better person to portray Shelly than Pamela Anderson. She is truly putting everything into this role and she nails Shelly’s vulnerability and delusional behaviour perfectly. Anderson emulates the frustration and sadness of Shelly, she makes us feel compassion for her. The supporting case also do an excellent job with the roles given, but Jamie Lee Curtis steals every scene she is in as Annette.

Writer Kate Gersten based the script off her own play, Body of Work which was in turn based on her visits to the now closed ‘iconic’ show Jubilee! which was one of the longest running show on the Las Vegas Strip. Though this film belongs to Shelly (and Anderson), it also serves as a bittersweet tribute to the old shows and the days of the typical Las Vegas showgirl while ushering in the new entertainers taking their place.

Fantastic performances from Anderson and Curtis are the key to The Last Showgirl but Gia Coppola does bring that feeling of loss throughout as well as a tiny glimmer of hope for the future.

Crossing Delancey

 

Isabelle enjoys working in a New York City bookstore and the carefree lifestyle she maintains outside of work. But on her weekly visits to her beloved grandmother on the Lower East Side, she met with desperate pleas for her to settle down with a nice Jewish man. Despite Isabelle’s instance on wanting to be single, she is forced to meet with a marriage broker and even an awkward date with local pickle seller, Sam. While Isabelle believes she can do better than the well-meaning Sam, she starts to entertain a crush on celebrated Dutch-American author Anton who frequents her bookstore. Through mishaps and misunderstandings Isabelle finds herself in a romantic bind of what to do.

Full review over at Filmhounds.

How to Have Sex

 

There really hasn’t been any ‘teen’ movie to come out of British cinema, this rites-of-passage genre is usually saved for TV shows. We’ve seen plenty of ‘Brits’ on holiday across all stories, but sometimes its takes one focused character’s journey and the genuine emotions splayed across a big screen to really capture the essence of being a teenager, who is both strong and vulnerable. 

To celebrate finishing exams, three teenage best friends, travel to party destination, Malia for what is set to be the best summer holiday ever. 

Full review over at Filmhounds.

Daliland

 
When a film centres around a specific time for a prolific person in history, there is a danger that the film will feel restrictive and have precious few areas to explore. With little over 90 minutes, we are given a look into the last years of world-famous Spanish surrealist artist, Salvador Dali, but not focusing on his final works, ailing health, or a closer look at his relationships with his wife or band of followers. This is a biopic but through the eyes of someone who knew him for a short while. Those biopics that want to delve deep but never quite go as far as you would hope. However, there is a great performance from Sir Ben Kingsley to revel in.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

Club Zero - Cannes Film Festival

 

At elite school, new teacher, Miss Novak, leads her class in an unconventional series of lessons and theory that we don’t need to eat. One by one, each of her students falls under her spell and beliefs. Even after there is resistance from the students’ parents, the bond created in the classroom is strong, resulting in an event no one would have predicted. 

Jessica Hausner has a knack for creating an uncomfortable and foreboding atmosphere. It has been present in her previous films, especially in her last film, Little Joe. From the very start of Club Zero, we are introduced to Miss Novak (played to unnerving perfection by Mia Wasikowska) who comes across as someone to be vary of. Her demeanour and very soon after, her open attitude to eating and consuming food gives the impression that we are to expect unconventional and somewhat persistent behaviour from her. The slow and sinister affect she has on her students does not come as a shock but more like an eventual horror. Hausner is able to convey this sinister feeling throughout without being too overt in her intentions. We know something will happen to these students; we just don’t know what. 

Hausner clearly has a distinct style of filmmaking and particular aesthetic that compliments her storytelling. There is no indication where the film is set, the clothes all feel like a mixture of genres and the art direction is carefully curated to make one feel that this is not a story from the world we know. Within the story itself there are science fiction elements that creep in ever so slightly and its mirrored in the styles of the film. But at the root of the story is more like a cult; an enigmatic mysterious character appears and convinces a group to follow them in their beliefs, cutting them off from family and friends and eventually to giving up everything for them. 

Although the style and sinister atmosphere is intriguing to start with, the film does descend into an incoherent and somewhat frustrating narrative. There is no clear end and there is no clear or satisfying direction. Though if you are a fan of Hausner’s work, this will be a fascinating film but for anyone not familiar with her previous films may find this, overall, a tedious watch.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

 

After receiving a letter from an old colleague who has moved into a hospice, Harold Fry, in his late 60s, spontaneously decides to walk from his home in South Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed to visit his friend. This is the start of a both an eye-opening journey full of heart-warming moments and a reflective walk through Harold’s memories and personal losses. Either way you look at it, Harold Fry is a sentimental and somewhat uplifting tearjerker that feels oh so very British.

Full review can be read HERE on Filmhounds.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

 

Best friends Xochitl and Theo, having grown up together next to an oil refinery, have each suffered pain and loss; Xochitl’s mum dying in a heatwave and Theo being diagnosed with leukaemia. Disillusioned with the lack of action taken towards oil companies, Xochitl proposes a more radical and disruptive move. Bringing together a group of strangers, all with their own reasons for taking part, the group plan to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas. But it isn’t long before one the members in the group is compromised.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

She Is Love

 

Just like his previous films, director Jamie Adams uses an improvisational style in his story about Patricia (Haley Bennett) who goes to stay in a hotel, unknowingly run by her ex-husband, Idris (Sam Riley) and his girlfriend Louise (Marisa Abela). Having not seen each other in 10 years, there is a lot to reminisce about as well as a reflection of what their lives are like now.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

It's Not a Wonderful Life

Looking over past posts, particularly Christmas themed ones, I came across something I wrote about the Christmas favourite, It’s a Wonderful Life. For some reason I waited years to watch it and when I needed films for my blindspot list, I decided now (then) was the time. But this was not the film I thought it was going to be.

From the minute George is introduced, he has ambition, he wants more from life and definitely more from the town of Bedford Falls. Each time George agrees to stay behind and stay chained to the town his eyes grow dimmer and by the time George has a family and business to cope with and he’s literally lost the will to live, the fight has left him. You can see the flicker of hope disappear from his face. All his life George just wanted to leave the town and when everyone stopped him, he wanted to leave this mortal coil but he wasn’t even allowed to do that! This isn’t the heart-warming story it’s been portrayed as. It’s a nightmare.

As someone who really does love Christmas but I may have lost a bit of spark on some years due to loss, I still find joy in the season (not the holiday). I have my own traditions I like to keep to, which usually involves decorating on 1st December, making biscuits, watching my list of Christmas films, buy presents in November, that sort of thing, as well as my family and friends’ traditions. I do love Christmas but, I cannot bear the thought of It’s a Wonderful Life as it fills me with sadness. I’d much rather watch the Moonlighting episode ‘It’s a Wonderful Job’.

I always saw Frank Capra's classic as a beacon of hope and Christmas cheer and that's how it was sold to me. Of course, as I got older, still never having seen it, I read that George, our hero, goes through a 'Christmas Carol' type deal but just with the future part, where he sees what lives would be like if he hadn't been born. The fact that George was about to kill himself by jumping off a bridge only having to jump in any way to save an old man, his guardian angel, puts a downer on the whole story. George is pushed to his limit when he steps up to that bridge, having had to miss out on countless chances to escape his hometown, where I'm sure he would be far happier. He is always making sacrifices and always 'doing the right thing' for everyone else, it's no surprise he ends up on that bridge. He's meant to be saving his town, friends and family from the evil Mr Potter but how has it come to be George's problem? The visit to 'Pottersville' just mounts more pressure on George than ever. Seeing that yes, he may have saved people, or changed people's lives, but I still can't shake the fact that it is all at the expense of George's real happiness. What I would have liked to see is what if George HAD got to live his dream, what would have his life been like?

Maybe there is an alternate universe where George escaped Bedford Falls, left his brother and uncle to take over the business and he ran off into the sunset. Maybe even with Mary. But if he had done that, there wouldn’t have been a film.

LOLA - Edinburgh Film Festival

 
LOLA is a science fiction fuelled wartime film that feels like a capsule moment in time but in fact impacts the whole world. With a love story and family bond broken, the film’s human elements surround this marvellous machine and its pained creator who seems to both hate and love what they have done. LOLA isn’t an easy film to define, nor is its story one that has quite been made before but not everything is perfect with this unusual film.

Full review - Filmhounds HERE.

Incredible But True - Fantasia Film Festival

 
The simplest of ideas can become the most complex stories. Delving deeper into an idea that on the surface seems bizarre and too ridiculous to comprehend, along comes Quentin Dupleux with another strange tale that literally no one thought of making. Dupleux’s films are that of fantasy and other genres mixed in bottle and sprayed out to its’ audiences that they are a perfect fit for Fantasia Film Festival. Incredible But True is another success in this writer and director’s catalogue of the strange an unusual.

Middle aged couple, Alain and Marie’s lives are completely altered when they buy a house in a quiet suburban neighbourhood after discovering the powers of a hatch in the basement. Warned upon moving in, the hatch allows you to travel 12 hours into the future and also makes you 3 days younger. While Marie becomes obsessed with the hatch, Alain tries to live a normal life. Alongside this issue with the house, Alain’s friend and boss Gerard, has problems of his own, specifically with his technology enhanced genitals.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

Death of a Ladies' Man

 

Looking back at your life and realising all the mistakes you’ve made, the people you’ve hurt and thinking about the way things could have been is often seen in cinema as a way to start the end of a journey. Samuel O’Shea’s (played by Gabriel Byrne) journey is coming to an end and instead of embracing changes and excepting the inevitable, he tries to ignore his fate and finds ways to numb the pain. With a charismatic actor such Byrne at the helm of the story, there is a shining light but it is just flicker as the film is over crowded with notions of regret and nostalgia that ultimately brings this story to a depressing low point throughout.

Full review over at Filmhound HERE.

Swan Song

 

Having once been the stylist extraordinaire to the high society members in Sandusky, Ohio, Pat, now spends his days in a dull lifeless nursing home. But opportunity for escape comes in the form of a dying wish from a former client who wants him to style her hair one last time. The journey takes Pat down memory lane, remembering ghosts from the past, his once thriving business, his loves and his greatest losses, all while gathering together the items he needs to perform his duty.

Full review on Filmhounds HERE

Nico - BFI Flare

 

Understated stories where the plot is minimal, the characters are few but the message and heart of the film speaks volumes don’t tend to get as much attention. A story like Nico is one that has probably happened to many people and to see it on screen portrayed in such a way is heart-breaking but it is a story that needs to be told. 

 

Nico is a free-spirited geriatric nurse living in Berlin. She spends her free time drinking and partying with her best friend Rosa. One night, after attending a party in the park, Nico is victim to a brutal xenophobic attack, leaving her unconscious and later hospitalised. Once back on her feet she is determined to not be left in that position again so she takes up karate lessons. But as she becomes more involved with learning this new art, she distances herself from Rosa and even her clients notice she is not the same happy and cheerful as woman anymore.

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE. 

Titane - The F Word

 

Julia Ducournau’s latest film is hybrid of a story, meshed together with blood, sweat and oil. Dragging you into the depths of a truly disturbed mind and making you watch as everything descends into chaos around her. And what an experience it is. Shrouded in mystery before being revealed at Cannes, the entire plot has been a well-kept secret and for good reason. It’s very rare to not know and be able to find out exactly what happens in a film these days so when the opportunity to disguise the actual plot, even in the trailers, that is sign that this film needs to be seen how it was meant to, on the big screen.

Full review over at The F Word HERE.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

 

Apart from the very explicit beginning which is surprising for a second until you realise it is there for context, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, doesn’t set out to shock the audience. This is writer and director Radu Jude’s interpretation of how society on the whole behaves and thinks. Although set in Romania, it feels as if this could have been anywhere. 

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.

The French Dispatch

 

As Wes Anderson is a director with one of the most distinctive style of filmmaking, there is always that possibility that he may just end up imitating himself. But instead, with The French Dispatch, its as if he’s taken a step back and decided to go in a very different direction. Granted the framing is still the same, the use of cross section is still very in use and the deadpan acting is all there. But instead of one linear story, the film is split into sections, like the title itself, like a magazine. Each story is indeed rife with Wes Anderson-isms but there is something quite different about the entire film. It feels like a last hurrah.

 

Following the death of the editor-in-chief of The French Dispatch, of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, Arthur Howitzer Jr expressed in his will that the newpaper seize publication. Along with an obituary and a column from the cycling journalist, three articles are included about the arts and artists, politics and culinary arts, tastes and smells.

 

The film plays out as a visual companion to the final issue of the newspaper/magazine complete with intro and obituary. As a homage to the printed word its wonderful. But the main three stories written feel as if they should have been given more time. This might have worked as a mini-series but I suppose the quick cuts and deadpan acting might not have sustained over 3-4 hours.

Focusing on the three main articles, all the writers are able to bask in the limelight in various ways, no medium left unexplored, whether it is through a talk with slides or through an interview on a talk show, the image of each writer is portrayed differently. A story about a disturbed artist being discovered in prison is joyfully bizarre with the best cast and would probably be a favourite among fans. A story about the student protests as seen through the students and their different encampments as well as the older journalist is thought provoking as well as full of nostalgia for the 60s but is the final story, about a chef who poisons kidnappers that is surprisingly heart-breaking. Jeffery Wright as the journalist Roebuck Wright brings all the emotion in a matter of minutes to the front. All three stories have greater depth to them than you see in trailers and marketing for the film, but this final story has the edge and the more dramatic scenes, complete with animated parts. All these stories are beautifully written coupled with the most amazing production design, as usual. It is a very different experience than Anderson’s other films but one that can be cherished.

 

Anderson has said that this film is a love letter to journalists with many of the characters inspired by real people. The passion comes across in waves from the intimate close-up moments that have to stop and reflect to the use fantastic use of miniatures and the crosscut scenery and the grand large scale set pieces that really are magnificent. This is the ultimate stand out over the top film that includes 4 stories not 1, as if he wanted to makes sure that everyone had a chance to shine. At times the film does feel overstuffed with ‘names’ but no less enjoyable. The amount of detail that is included is staggering. But this is one of the reasons why Anderson’s films stand out among the rest of Hollywood and the Indie slates. He has a distinct style and casts A list international actors but his writing is NOT what Hollywood wants which is why he keeps his work interesting a fresh, through his writing. It would be great to see Anderson return to his roots of writing, after such a great streak with his last two films, something on a smaller scale would be exciting and of course would be feel less of a farewell.

 

Money Has Four Legs - BFI London Film Festival

 

In this story of a filmmaker who is literally at breaking point in every aspect of his life, there is still humour to be found in this rather deadpan comedy from writer- director Maung Sun.

 

Full review is over at Filmhounds HERE.

The Souvenir Part II - BFI London Film Festival

 

When Joanna Hogg’s very personal and semi-autobiographical The Souvenir was released in 2019 the critics were split. Not quite as dramatic as some of the blockbuster films that were released around the same time but there was a definite split of opinion. Where the first part explored a toxic and strangely passionate relationship as well as glimpses into film school, The Souvenir Part II has a very different vibe and energy, a sense of anguish and despair with bursts of creativity that are far more captivating than the first part of this story. 

 

Full review over at Filmhounds HERE.