OLD LEASE OF LIFE

 

MOVIE
Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Director Jason Reitman

Review Ray Chan

This sequel continues on from Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II (ignoring, of course, the 2016 all-female reboot) and is set three decades later.

    Original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis) has passed away, and his estranged and financially-strapped daughter Callie is forced to relocate to his derelict farmhouse, accompanied by her milksoppish son Trevor and headstrong daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace).

    There they soon discover a secret that Egon hid from them, and with assistance from science teacher Chad Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and some plucky local kids, they embark on a dangerous mission to remove a malevolent supernatural presence.

    Therein lies the basic premise of the film, in which the familial theme runs strong: not only does Phoebe follow in her grandfather’s exorcism exercises, but the film is directed by Jason Reitman, the son of the man who produced the first two instalments.

    Sadly though, it seems he tries too hard. Perhaps aiming to recapture the essence of what came before, the story is packed with so much Ghostbusters mythology that it’s hard to see what could be gleaned from this experience that wouldn’t be improved upon by simply watching the 1984 original.

    This reviewer sits in the group of people who didn’t think those movies were side-splittingly funny anyway. So re-using a template of cringe-inducing dialogue and dated gags is not going to impress.

    This is none more so exemplified than by the unexplained appearance of the Stay Puft marshmallows – a mainstay of the franchise. We see sentient marshmallows roast each other on a barbecue, presumably to raise a chuckle from the parents in the audience who enjoyed the original chapters when they came out.

    Indeed, this scenario represents a problem that Hollywood finds itself experiencing time and time again; how do you mine past successes for content without merely regurgitating a series of familiar images in pursuit of box office returns? Even Rudd serves little purpose here … recruited no doubt for his popularity in Ant-Man, just to pull in audiences. His character does nothing of note in the battle against the demons.

    The original troup of Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson reprise their roles, alongside a digital representation of Ramis, and it’s their inclusion that will delight many viewers old enough to remember what it was like when Ray Parker Jr first belted out the dynamic theme song.

    But that seems to be all this production is: a foray into nostalgia that will bring a smile to the emotionally-invested children of the 80s, but probably not the current crop of teenagers.

#ghostbustersafterlife  #sonypictures

 

A HIT .. AND RUNS

MOVIE
Licorice Pizza
Director Paul Thomas Anderson
Review Ray Chan


Graphic slang for a vinyl record, the term 'licorice pizza' is also the name of a long-gone chain of LA record shops founded by James Greenwood in 1969 … the era and place of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest foray into teenage angst and navigation of first love.
    The running time of the movie is two hours and 13 minutes, and indeed it seems that running is what most of the cast do. Protagonist Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is seen racing toward a gas station, past a line of idling vehicles, against a backdrop of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”. For her part, the heroine, Alana Kane (Alana Haim), sprints to a police station, after Gary has been wrongly arrested. Later on, Gary spurts away from his pinball arcade in anger. And, at the climax, they both scamper again — Alana from one direction and Gary in the other, to meet in the middle.
    Is there a reason? Perhaps it’s to symbolise the pursuit of happiness, which is essentially what the film is about.
    It’s set in the San Fernando Valley, in the early 70s, when cars are queueing for gas because of a global oil emergency, and Richard Nixon is beseeching Americans to trim their fuel consumption.
    The pair first meet up at high school where 15-year-old Gary is attracted to Alana, who is 10 years older and works for a photographer taking head shots for the yearbook.
    Displaying a maturity beyond his years, Gary chats up Alana and seeks a date, his well-meaning confidence borne out of a short career as a child star. His penchant for showmanship and eye for money-making ventures soon lead him to opening up a water bed store, and later the pinball business, with Alana lending moral support.
    There isn’t much of a plot to this movie. It’s more like a Seinfeld episode, where things just happen but nothing really happens.
    We get weird one-off episodes such as Bradley Cooper portraying Jon Peters, Barbra Streisand’s paramour, who dresses in angelic white and behaves like a dirty devil. Then Sean Penn appears as Jack Holden, a former Hollywood idol who flirts with Alana, and is friends with an aging director played superbly by the wonderful Tom Waits.
    Most humorous of all is Harriet Sansom Harris, who steals the show as a patronising casting agent, most of it spent on the phone (“love to Tatum”) and framed in so extreme a close-up by Anderson’s trademark roving camera that even her dentist will be impressed.
    Cooper, the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who himself was so long a stalwart of Anderson’s work, is never less than endearing, and allows us to soak in Gary’s belief in himself. Shining equally bright is Haim, whose Alana demonstrates a spiky self-doubt and sense of arrested development that dovetails perfectly with Gary’s own accelerated adulthood and restless urge to reinvent. Not bad going for two actors making their professional debuts.
    Busy and thronging, rammed with cameos and comic turns, and sewn together with a soundtrack of the times, Licorice Pizza works best when it’s focused on the pair. The movie basically hangs on the rapport between Gary and Alana — more than a friendship, less than a love story, and sometimes a power struggle.
    An entire Golden Age of on-screen romance teased viewers with “Will they or won’t they”; here, that question is bracketed not just by Alana and Gary’s age difference but by entrepenurial ambitions that converge and diverge with hit-and-miss unpredictability.

#licoricepizza  #universal

THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

 

MOVIE
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director  Jon Watts
Review Ray Chan

This blog has reviewed the first two movies in the Tom Holland Spider-Man franchise, so of course we have to wrap it up with a look at the conclusion of the story arc.
    And what a triumphant denouement it is. This discussion comes with a warning that some spoilers may lurk within, but then readers of such critiques will know that’s somewhat of an occupational hazard. In any case, many of the “surprises” had already been leaked on-line.
    There have been nine solo live action productions featuring the wondrous webslinger: three starring Tobey Maguire, two with Andrew Garfield, and then this current set of three. And an even 10 in total, if you include the TV series fronted by Nicholas Hammond.
    The magic of No Way Home is that it uses all of those previous episodes and experiences  ─ adversaries, allies, triumphs and tragedies ─ to its advantage, enriching the recipe and increasing its emotional depth and range. It even enhances the earlier chapters retroactively, adding new facets to characters we thought we'd seen the last of, and giving them the momentous send-offs they might not have had the last time around.
    It all starts with the unmasking of Spider-Man as nerdy teen Peter Parker, the cliffhanger thread that the last instalment teased viewers with.
    Faced with serious legal ramifications of the revelation, Peter,  sardonic girlfriend MJ and buddy Ned Leeds seek out “very good” lawyer Matt Murdock, played by Charlie Cox in a reprise of his TV Daredevil role, and raising the first squeals of delight from the Spidey-fans.
    Sadly, it is a blink of a cameo, and one can’t help but wonder how more interesting the movie would have been if the blind barrister had donned his red costume and teamed up with the main protagonist. But it’s just the first of many presents dropped in the audience’s laps and a harbinger of the stream of notable cameos to come.
    The criminal repercussions are given short shrift however, and before long, Peter is begging Marvel's resident wizard, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), to cast a spell that will erase his dual identity from the memories of everyone in the universe. But when Peter changes his mind at a crucial moment, the spell goes awry, and the Doctor accidentally summons various inhabitants of other universes instead.
    Anyone who has glimpsed the trailers or publicity interviews will know that those visitors include the crazed Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), the haughty Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), plus Electro (Jamie Foxx), all from the previous instalments.
    Strange immediately chooses to send the interlopers back to the alternate realities where they belong, but Peter finds out that in those timelines, the villains will be killed in fights with their versions of Spider-Man. Rather than sending them to their deaths in another dimension, he insists on attempting to reform them.
    Indeed, the youthful lens we first meet Peter through does not dissolve into darkness. Even when drowning in grief and worry, he finds the light, and this time, he selflessly shares that experience with the sordid characters who have suffered too long in the stifling shadows.
    And therein lies the premise on which No Way Home is based, and on which the original comics were defined: Peter’s noble naivete and the sacrifices, painful consequences and great responsibilities that come with great power. Holland embodies the best of this character even in his dimmest hour, and success here stems from his phenomenal portrayal of growing pains.
    The action sequences are fast and frenetic yet always fabulous, and the digital effects are spectacular. But the film's real superpowers are its endearing performances, not just by the principal cast, but also from the two previous Spideys pulled in by Strange’s conjurations.
    There’s Andrew Garfield in his super-suit with the witty dialogue and over-the-top movements that characterised his Spider-Man. Maguire, on the other hand, was always an exceptional Peter Parker, so he is portrayed as the kind and courageous man behind the mask.
    The standout emotional undertone of the union between the arachnid ensemble comes when MJ loses her footing and falls from the Statue of Liberty, provoking a powerful countenance of peril between Holland’s Peter and his girlfriend.
    The picture’s most significant parallel quickly follows as Garfield’s Spidey comes to the rescue. The power this moment of redemption holds for him in the wake of his girlfriend Gwen’s death in the first movie is defined by the tears welling in Garfield’s eyes as he lets us feel every inch of grief.
   Superhero sceptics probably won't be fully converted, nor presumably those who did not watch any of the previous chronicles. But for fans who have love for the genre, the constant shift between humour and pathos in No Way Home will not just put a joyful smile on their faces for two hours, but surely more than a few sobs and chokes in the throats as well. It is a perfect conclusion to the trilogy.

#nowayhome #spider-man #sonypictures

HIS NAME WAS BOND

 

MOVIE
No Time To Die
Director  Cary Joji Fukunaga
Review Ray Chan

The fifth and final instalment featuring Daniel Craig as James Bond wraps up a multi-film story arc that began with a young intern earning his elite status in Casino Royale, to the now-years-retired seasoned veteran who is drawn back into service.
    The movie picks up close to where the last chapter (Spectre) ended, with our hero still deeply in love with Madeleine (Léa Seydoux). But he soon discovers that he’s been betrayed, and he ends his time at MI6 unceremoniously.

    From there, the film jumps ahead five years, with Craig (and therefore Bond) looking suitably aged, still a fine specimen but a little shaken and a little stirred. He’s living in seclusion in Jamaica until an old friend from the CIA, Felix Leiter, comes to visit with a dodgy Pollyana of a peon to recruit Bond to do a little light espionage that they can’t do themselves.
    This is where the plot turns every which way, as the spy teams up with a dazzling young agent, Paloma, to kidnap a scientist who holds the key to finalising a germ warfare plan known only to a few, including Bond’s old boss M (Ralph Fiennes) and the film’s primary villain, the mysterious Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), who has use for Madeleine and her access to MI6. Safin indeed utters one of the movie’s best lines when he tells Bond: “We both eradicate people to make the world a better place.”
    Cue the spectacularly choreographed scenes of parkoured action, pretty ladies, gadget demonstrations, and social drinking. But as this is the conclusion to a grand adventure, the proceedings certainly go further than just more of the same.
    Not unlike great film sagas of these days (Avengers, Star Wars, Justice League), many of the recurring characters and actors feel like old friends: apart from Fiennes, it’s nice to see Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q (now confirmed gay), Rory Kinnear as M’s right-hand man Tanner and even Spectre’s villain Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).
    We are also introduced to the new 007, Nomi, who represents the next generation of double-0 agents. Yet despite her proficiency, one can’t help but wonder if bigger things are instead planned for the afore-mentioned Paloma.
    No Time To Die is to this Bond franchise what Logan was to the Wolverine mythos: ending things definitively for the titular character, highlighting Craig’s strengths in suffusing Bond with more personality than his predecessors, while reminding us why this collection of films is so different to the other versions.
    It’s less a traditional James Bond movie and more a victory lap, greatest hits package, and blaze of glory all in one. 
    Perhaps the only blip is the theme song, always a highlight of each Bond offering. Billie Elish's dreary tune may have won a Grammy but it's unmemorable and listless. Far more beautiful is the piece chosen for the end credits: Louis Armstrong's We Have All The Time in the World, reprised from 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which Aussie George Lazenby starred in the leading role.

 #notimetodie #universal

TEPID TERROR

MOVIE
Halloween Kills
Director David Gordon Green
Review Ray Chan

The Halloween franchise was rebooted in 2018 with a very solid legacy sequel, directed by David Gordon Green, which showed that a revamped Michael Myers film really could bring forth some intelligent commentary to mix with the trademark gruesome kills.
    It looked at the generational trauma passed down from defiant protagonist Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) to her passive daughter Karen and fiesty granddaughter Allyson, as they came to grips with the terror inflicted by the unhinged serial killer.
    Now Green returns for Halloween Kills, which picks up immediately where that film left off, with Myers apparently burning to death in the firetrap set by three generations of Strode women, and Laurie getting hauled off to the emergency room with a knife wound in her stomach, screaming at passing fire trucks: “No, no, no! Let it burn!”
    Unfortunately, Laurie is unconscious in the hospital for quite a while after that, oblivious to the fact that firefighters did indeed rescue Myers from the inferno, at the expense of getting massacred in the process. It is admirable of Green and his co-writers Danny McBride and Scott Teems to commit to the reality of Laurie’s injury and not have her conveniently, immediately and miraculously recover, but it’s a testament to Curtis’ charisma that the vitality of the film dwindles to a very low ebb in her absence.
    Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle, the boy that teenage babysitter Laurie saved from Myers, comes to the fore plot-wise instead, and he does a lot of grandstanding and yelling “Evil dies tonight!” as the head of the local vigilante mob — but he’s merely a tedious gascon in the role and definitely no substitute for Curtis.
    Indeed, the formation of the lynch group in a small town appears to be a token effort by Green and Co to instill some sort of meaningful hook to replace the dynamic relationship between the Strodes, which entertainingly carried the first movie.
    The fear over Myers ultimately leads to the frenzied community hunting down an innocent man who they mistakenly believe is the maniac, forcing him to jump to his death from a hospital window.
    It’s a clumsy attempt at a tribe mentality metaphor, aimed at demonstrating how easily people’s opinions can be shaped by charismatic leaders. Here, the townspeople have been encouraged by Doyle to gather their baseball bats, knives, guns and probably pitchforks and torches, as they allow a single evil figure to make them so fuelled by hate, that they become just as heinous.
    And like much of the rest of the movie, it doesn’t really work. There is so much backstory unearthed without spotlighting any particular occurrence: the period flashbacks, with so many story lines involving people who encountered Myers back in the day and lived to tell the tale, weighs down the whole thing.
    The only really grisly parts of this offering are the different ways Myers continues to kill his victims, and indeed they raise more snickers than shock as we see yet another witless innocent – who’s gone on to think he can take on Myers alone – get stabbed, slashed, poked, shot or disfigured.
    It’s been revealed that this movie is part of a trilogy and the conclusion is expected to pit Strode against her immortal nemesis. In that sense, there is no real element of surprise as to how this instalment ends.
    Halloween Kills is less of a sequel than a half-baked interlude before the finale. It is a bloody, violent, chaotic and cynical mess, but if anything, it whets the appetite for the final closure, with viewers intent to see if evil really dies.

#halloweenkills

MOURNING MONOLOGUES

MOVIE
Shiva Baby
Director Emma Seligman
Review Ray Chan

This movie is an extension of debut director Emma Seligman’s 2018 short film of the same name, enabling her to explore more of the themes surrounding the premise of a social encounter at a shiva: in Jewish faith, a seven-day period of formalised mourning by the immediate family of the deceased.
    Danielle (Rachel Sennott), a young woman with a humdrum life and who offers sexual favours to earn some extra income, attends a shiva with her parents, at which she has awkward encounters with her family friends and her ex-girlfriend, Maya (Molly Gordon). To make matters worse, her sugar daddy Max unexpectedly turns up at the gathering.
    Danielle already doesn’t want to be there: so feeling forced to attend, her growing discomfiture stems from a blend of embarrassment and the need to hide her personal life – notably, her side hustle – from her personable, talkative parents. Despite being openly bisexual, her overpowering mother and eccentric dad do not fully understand their daughter, failing to support her life choices amid a host of judgemental friends and relatives.
    She finds herself at the receiving end of somewhat intrusive and barbed comments about her weight, her relationships and her future prospects, particularly from older aunts and grandmothers who wish to share their wisdom. These slowly chip away at her emotional walls and, as we see the shiva unfold almost in real-time, it becomes a boiling pot of tension.
    The presence of Maya and Max are just other unpalatable ingredients tossed in the cauldron. Although she is the only one that truly connects with her, Maya is bitter about the break-up and doesn’t hesitate to attack Danielle with snide remarks. Max, who’s there with his wife Kim, tries to hide his involvement with Danielle, not to mention some indiscreet topless selfies on the phone.
    Reprising her role from the short film, Sonnett’s performance as Danielle is confident and shows a natural talent in front of the camera. There is also strong chemistry with Polly Draper and Fred Melamed, who smoothly combine awkwardness and comedy in their performances as Danielle’s parents. Dianna Agron’s subtle performance as the cold, quietly voiced Kim also provides a brilliant foil for the chaotic Danielle, and viewers are left to wonder if she suspects anything afoot.
    Throughout, the endless screaming of Max and Kim’s baby – hence the movie’s name – and Danielle’s growing anxiety produce a relatable feeling of claustrophobia within the closed environment. The escalating apprehension does undermine the humour though, making the film less funny as time goes on, which is a shame since Sennott has a deadpan humour to admire, and there are some moments of observational comedy that really hit home.
    In the end, the audience is forced to sit with bated breath and clenched palms as it awaits for the land mines of emotion and rebellion to blow up, but Shiva Baby ends on a surprising yet uplifting note, allowing us to breathe easier in the calmness after the storm.


#shivababy

BITTERSWEET CANDY

 

MOVIE
Candyman

Director Nia DaCosta

Review Ray Chan

It is arguably a sign of shoddy production values when a viewer struggles to comprehend what’s going on in a movie if he or she either hasn’t seen or has forgotten the original film it’s based on, and there’s no easy-to-follow recap.
    Such was the case with the much-touted, rebooted Candyman, with its progenitor released so long ago (three decades!) that even if you did manage to watch it in a theatre, you’d be forgiven for not remembering the premise.
    So here’s a quick rundown: for many years, the Cabrini-Green complex – a series of dilapidated, graffiti-riddled buildings sandwiched between Chicago's wealthiest neighbourhoods – had been showcased in the media as symbolising the horrors of public housing.
    The titular character was once, a couple of centuries ago, a talented Black painter named Daniel Robitaille, who was murdered for his love of a white woman, and in a gruesome fashion: his hand was hacked off by a lynch mob and a hook jammed into the stump, while his body was smeared with honey as a vengeful swarm of bees proceeded to sting him to death.
    His ashes were scattered across the ground upon which the public housing complex would be erected decades later, from which a legend grew. Say his name five times in front of a mirror and he'll appear – the return of the oppressed, as it were – before swiftly sinking his clasp into the summoner.
    And so the Candyman is a bogeyman born of racism, as indeed was Cabrini-Green, developed to house the under-privileged.
    But now in the present, things have changed. Set in the present day, Nia DaCosta's revival of the franchise returns to a newly-gentrified site, where the crumbling old high-rises have since been torn down and luxury developments gleam in their stead.
    The Black residents are part of the new normal: wealthy, yuppie millenials who enjoy lives of modest luxury. Among them are artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and curator Brianna Cartwright, the new owners of a sprawling apartment in the block.
    Unfortunately, Anthony is in a bit of a rut, his creative spark lost, leading him to feel he can’t fulfil his potential as "the great Black hope of the Chicago art scene of tomorrow".
    That is until he is initiated into the Candyman legend after an encounter with a former Cabrini-Green resident, which provides him with some much-needed artistic inspiration. He calls up the man to see if he can use him to help rejuvenate his mojo, and promptly gets stung by a bee. Slowly, surely, his right hand becomes increasingly infected. From there, you can predict what happens next.
    The movie certainly bears the distinctive imprimatur of Jordan Peele, who co-wrote the screenplay with up-and-comer DaCosta and Win Rosenfeld, and produced it under the banner of his own Monkeypaw Productions. It aligns almost too perfectly with the kind of satire-infused horror-as-racial allegory for which the Get Out director has been lauded.
    But the social critique in this Black-lensed, next gen Candyman lacks the clever metaphor-filled sequences of his previous films.
    Instead of trying to find cleverly concealed Easter eggs, the viewer gets them flung in the face at times: for example, when one of Anthony’s first Candyman-prompted art exhibits, a mirrored bathroom cabinet accompanied by a set of instructions for the conjuring, is entitled 'Say My Name' – boldly evoking the Say Their Names movement.

    His festering limb succumbs to rot, to be replaced by a makeshift grapnel, and becomes symbolic of how a once-healthy community in the beehive of apartment blocks has been replaced by a monster.
    Interestingly, the film posits the existence of multiple post-Daniel Robitaille Candymen, each a casualty of racially motivated violence – an attempt to expand and update the urban legend for possible future sequels, in which
perhaps they'll actually take the time to explain the mythos behind the madness.

#candyman #universal

ON THE GROUND

 

MOVIE
In The Heights
Director John M Chu
Review Ray Chan

West Side Story this ain’t.
    This overbearing adaptation of a screenplay by Lin-Manuel Miranda is a musical with a working-class New York setting, but that’s pretty much where the comparison with the Stephen Sondheim classic ends.
    The title refers to Washington Heights, a mainly Latino neighbourhood at the north tip of Manhattan, where the protagonist Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) runs the corner grocery shop while planning to take over his late father’s business back in the Dominican Republic.
    A framing device depicts a slightly older Usnavi on an idyllic beach, telling his story to an audience of children, who exhibit a commendable patience because In the Heights doesn’t really have a story – at least, not one that needs to be stretched over nearly two and a half hours.
    Basically, the movie revolves around two couples. Usnavi likes Vanessa, who works at the local beauty parlour, and Usnavi’s pal Benny likes Nina, who falls out with her father over her choice to quit university.
    As well, because it’s intended to be a musical, with wildly over-the-top choreographed sequences and flash mob scenes popping out at every major turn, it’s a weirdly sanitised picture of human existence in general: no sex, humour, violence, and only the minimum of bad language.
    Director John M Chu ensures that any drama that exists is never to the point where anything gets truly painful, while also failing to summon enough comedic forays to create a light-hearted balance.
    And then we come to the raison d'etre, the actual musical numbers. While intended to be extravagant, they are over-edited and visually cluttered, not helped by the songs and lyrics crafted but not mastered by that jack of all trades, Miranda himself.
    This reviewer is firmly in the group of those who do not put him on some lofty pedestal as a modern-day Sondheim, in whose league he definitely does not belong.
    Still basking in the afterglow of his Broadway smash hit Hamilton, the playwright is fortunate that he’s still revered as some wunderkind of the stage and musical.
    Yes, there are many other less talented craftsmen out there in the entertainment world. In his favour, Miranda can act, can write, can direct, looks good, and can carry a tune. But songwriting is far from his strongest attribute.
    He lacks the melodic nous of a Richard Rodgers, a Lionel Bart, a Lloyd-Webber, a Richard and Robert Sherman, and yes, a Stephen Sondheim, who graced us with unforgettable lilting masterpieces such as America, Maria, and Tonight, from the afore-mentioned West Side Story.
    On the other hand, see if you can remember any of the tunes from In The Heights, even if you’re game enough to go to multiple viewings.
 

#intheheights

INTERMINABLE MAEL-STORM

 

MOVIE
The Sparks Brothers
Director Edgar Wright
Review Ray Chan

As someone who spent his teens obsessed with the British glam rock era, this reviewer initially felt it would difficult to view this documentary without a touch of bias.
    After all, the US band Sparks – essentially the duo of brothers Ron and Russell Mael – was, while unheard of in their homeland, an absolute phenomenon in Pommieland and parts of Europe. 

    Among the group’s admirers have been a plethora of well-known musical artists and movie celebrities, including acclaimed director Edgar Wright, who loved the Maels so much that he devoted this feature to them. 

    The motives are honourable: you can't fault the the Englishman for trying stridently to correct the public perception that Sparks was not just a flash in the pan, but, in fact, an innovative, influential, respected pop duo that is still going strong. 

    Indeed, there's a clearly palpable excitement in the theatre room once the lights dim, with the audience settling itself for an enjoyable refresher course into the prolific output of a pioneering outfit which delved into electronic music well before the synthetic new wave movements of the 80s. 

    And yet. And yet. Unfortunately, it seems Wright has allowed his predeliction with the siblings and their work to get in the way of making a better, shorter film. 

    With unlimited access to the Sparks archives, Wright makes his case to the point of tedium, often going into way too much detail, even as we hear a formidable list of testimonials from the likes of Giorgio Moroder, Todd Rundgren, John Taylor and Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Beck, Flea, Patton Oswalt, Weird Al and Mike Myers. 

    At two hours and 20 minutes, the film starts to drag on at the halfway mark. The album-by-album retrospective (25 in all) is quite tiresome; by the time we get to the early 199Os, one really begins to feel the inordinate amount of time this is taking. 

    For a telling comparison, consider how in The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, director Frank Marshall was able to comprehensively cover a mammoth musical biography in a tight 107 minutes. 

    To make matters worse, Wright’s fawning ensures The Sparks Brothers lacks any critical perspective. 

    Not everything released was brilliant and, like everything anyone produces, there was certainly some garbage among the gold. But here, the absence of a dissenting voice or two – which would break up the monotony of the adulation – is conspicuous. 

    There are so many gems: Tips for Teens, No 1 In Heaven, This Town Ain't Big Enough, for example .... while the controversially-named Dick Around involves grand choral refrains that eclipse anything Freddie Mercury could dream up. But sadly, many of the songs are only played in snippets. New ears to the music would have little opportunity to work out whether they appreciate the melodies. 

    It seems The Sparks Brothers is a well-made prolonged love letter that is aimed more at existing fans than potential converts, and viewers who are not familiar with the band’s works may well not be awed by the sales pitch.

    It is likely to find more converts when it inevitably hits the streaming channels, where it can be comfortably consumed in two parts. 

#sparksbrothers #universal

QUIET ACHIEVER

 

MOVIE
A Quiet Place Pt II
Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds
Director John Krasinski
Review Ray Chan

A Quiet Place Part II is quite literally a sequel, picking up directly where its preceding chapter left off.
    Unlike many offerings where the follow-ups do not necessarily occur immediately after the initial episode, Part II is set mere hours later, extrapolating on the first instalment’s cliffhanger ending, which had resilient  mother Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) killing off inhuman attackers who were threatening her and her kids: hearing-impaired Regan and introverted Marcus (Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe).
    But there’s a prelude before the story continues, in which the viewer is taken back to the very moment the Abbott clan witnessed first-hand the horrific experience that would forever disrupt and change their lives.
    Via the flashback, we see how the Abbotts reacted to Earth’s new apex predator – blind, emaciated beings with chitinous armour and an acute sense of hearing – and provides an inkling of where they came from.
    Flash forward 474 days, and the surviving members — including Evelyn’s newborn baby whose crying could cost them all their lives — must leave their farm and seek shelter at one of the other post-apocalyptic encampments, marked by bonfires on the horizon. 
    Still living by a code of silence lest they give their presence away, the Abbotts are lucky that the first person they meet is an old friend, Emmett (Cillian Murphy), who’s been hiding out in an abandoned steel mill. It takes some convincing to guilt him into helping them, but he soon turns out to be a de facto father figure, much like self-sacrificing family patriarch Lee (played by director Krasinski) from the first movie.
    The two leading ladies again take on prominent roles — especially fan favorite Regan, whose cochlear implant already provided an almost-too-convenient defense against the aliens.
     It’s Regan’s idea to find the nearest radio station and use her hearing aid to broadcast a signal that could defeat the beasts once and for all. For one so young, Simmonds sparkles with her ability to demonstrate focus and ferocity, intelligence and composure. 
    Getting there is doubly dangerous though, as she and Emmett encounter horrors both human and alien along the way.
    Indeed, this is just one part of an overly complex, three-pronged arc that breaks up the family unit and relegates Blunt to the background.
    One story features Emmett and Regan in the woods, off on their own odyssey, another Evelyn heading back to town for medical supplies, while adjacent to that one, Marcus has to tend to the baby, while also fending off one of the multi-toothed critters.
    It’s perhaps an attempt at a cross-cutting editing technique that appears too ambitious – but kudos for the effort.

    Interestingly, while Part II finished production well over a year ago, some observers might feel there is a deliberate allegorical attempt to link the creatures with the pandemic, which ironically kept the feature’s release in check.
    Indeed, a world where everyone has to stay inside, not talking to strangers, mistrusting all the rest of “those people” out there, feels all too familiar. Hell, even the monsters’ heads look like enlarged COVID molecules.
    Symbolically, the metaphor of familial strength and the “terror” of parenthood (whether offspring can truly be kept safe, no matter what) still come to the fore, but this film also floats the notion of survival and salvation for those who may not be worthy of it.
    However, before audiences can catch their breath and even start to ponder about the themes, it ends on such an abrupt note that they might not find true emotional closure … at least, not until the next inevitable part of the franchise .

#AQuietPlace  #nrcagency

FATALITY ATTRACTION

MOVIE
Mortal Kombat
Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson
Director Simon McQuoid
Review Ray Chan

You’d be surprised to learn that for every person who has played Mortal Kombat – considered one of the best fighting video games of all time – there’s an equal number, or indeed more, who’ve never even heard of it.
    So let’s briefly recap for the uninitiated. At the heart of the game is the tussle between the player and an opponent of his choice in a one-on-one match, involving various combat moves and attacks. The  trademark feature is the Fatality, a finishing move executed against a defeated rival to kill them in a gruesome fashion, some of which have become almost iconic. Indeed, it is often the prime reward for many victorious players, who take macabre pleasure in seeing what form the Fatalities take.
    In the single-player game, the player faces each of the seven playable characters in a series of battles, after which he must then fight in three endurance matches, each of which involves two opponents. After the third endurance match, the player fights the four-armed Goro, followed by a final match against Shang Tsung, the main villain of the piece.
    The challenge for any moviemaker then is to take the simplicity of this fighting platform, and build any sort of storyline around it, incorporating all the various characters, elements, and yes, even the Fatalities. Especially the Fatalities, in fact.
    This 2021 cinematic version of Mortal Kombat follows on from two previous efforts, the second of which was universally panned for its low budget effects, poor plot and endless fight scenes. So this time round, screenwriters Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, director Simon McQuoid and producer James Wan have been careful to learn from previous misjudgments,  pulling out all the stops with the aim of making it the necessary reboot this title required. 
    Here, the lore of the series is brought to a grand and epic scale, showing off the crowded roster of individuals.
    Backed up by some beautiful cinematography, stellar fight choreography and physical stunts that defy logic and gravity, the impressive action sequences brim with energy and excitement, with many based on those found in the video game, such as bicycle kicks and juggling maneouvres.
    It’s replete with lashings of gore, violence, and blood to echo everything that’s a staple of the enduring legacy of this brutal series. There are enough scenes of exploding heads, severed limbs, people split in two, gored bodies and entrail displacements to warrant the extreme R rating, but really, these days the shock effect is minimal because almost everyone has been accustomed to the wizardry that special effects creators can generate.  
    There’s a stronger attempt than in the previous movies to tie up the settings into a cohesive story, although as might be expected, personal development is light and the premise slightly stilted.
    But there’s one definite character improvement which stands out, which truly sets this apart from other video game adaptations where the cast consists of humdrum individuals.
    The scoundrel Kano, played brilliantly by Josh Lawson, has been transformed into a dinky-di Ocker with wisecracking one-liners and a foul mouth that would make a sailor blush.
    The interpretation completely steals the show, bringing pure, unadulterated joy and injecting some much-needed levity at every turn, so much so that when Kano is not on screen, he is genuinely missed. 
    Essentially though, Mortal Kombat is a film crafted almost exclusively for diehard fans, but this time arguably done correctly.
    Despite McQuoid’s claim of taking one step at a time, this movie is clearly planned as a new franchise for Warner Bros, with many Easter egg references and enough bait to set up a sequel should this entry perform well at the box office. 
    And if the wait for a follow-up is too long, surely an interim one-off featuring Lawson as Kano would be worth considering.

*The Australian force is strong in this production. Lawson, McQuoid and Wan all hail from the big country, with most of the movie also shot in South Australia.*

#mortalkombat #universal