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Day: 14 January 2016

Review: Joy

Written by Elise Gallagher on . Posted in Film.

David O. Russell has created somewhat of a streak yielding varying results. With the proven winning cocktail of Lawrence and Cooper, Russell returns with his latest work—Joy.

Re-working an original script by Annie Mumolo, Joy tells the story of Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence)—divorced, the desperate head of a eccentric household, and the inventor of the Miracle Mop. Also living under her roof is her soap opera-obsessed mother (Virginia Madsen), her father (Robert De Niro), who begrudgingly lives in the basement with Joy’s ex-husband (Édgar Ramírez).

Joy is the third successive piece of work in collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence, who was a mere 22 when she took on her Oscar-winning role in Silver Linings Playbook. The beauty with Lawrence is that she has an ability to project experience beyond her years, yet I was left unimpressed with this latest venture. Admittedly I am a Jennifer Lawrence fan, yet I found her performance in this to be jaded. Whether that simply be because she is playing an overworked single mother of two, I just feel Lawrence could have invested a lot more feeling into her role. Her performance often veered onto satirical, and I still can’t decide whether this was a deliberate move or not.

The narrative of the film uses a combination of flashbacks and fantasy sequences allowing us to see Joy grow from a hopeful and bright young girl to a grim juxtaposition once she hits maturity. One feature I did particularly like was the use of her ‘Mimi’ as the narrator. “Time moves forward, time moves backward, time stands still,” she says as the spectator is thrown between a scene with Joy and her best friend, to the first night she meets her husband, their wedding, and then the downfall.

The relationships between Joy and her best friend Jackie (Dascha Polanco) and her relationship with Mimi (Diane Ladd) are by far the most real within the film. A moment in which involves one of the pairs gathers and holds the emotional response of the audience only to let it slip between its fingers, and continue with the same monotonic rhythm the film set its pace to.

With the heightened intensity and genuine quality of Oscar success Silver Linings Playbook, you’d think Russell would aim to create the same aesthetic within this piece work—sadly, Joy fails to meet the mark.

A modern yet typical rags-to-riches story, Joy explores leaps of faith, betrayal, disappointment, and success. One element which shouldn’t go without note is cinematographer Linus Sandgren’s work. He and Russell find the perfect balance between portraying Joy’s turbulent path whilst matching it with the warmth of opportunity and optimism—the sole concept to the film.

3/5

Live: The Aristocrats

Written by Shaun Carter on . Posted in Music.

Manchester Club Academy

Tuesday, 15th December 2015

Perhaps no better space exists for a musician to demonstrate their technical abilities than in the extant social underground of instrumental progressive rock. No gnarled restrictions upon composition or song length in order to fit into somebody’s radio show; no tight grip on the creative reins—perhaps with The Aristocrats above many instrumental rock bands, this could be a mantra.

Featuring guitarist Guthrie Govan (Asia, Steve Wilson), bassist Bryan Beller (Dethklok, Steve Vai, James LaBrie, and others), and drummer Marco Minnemann (Steve Wilson, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, and more), The Aristocrats took to the stage at 8pm sharp. No supporting act strode forward to excite the largely male, dark-clothed audience (indeed, Bryan Beller later self-deprecatingly asked the ladies of the audience if they were not there because their boyfriends were fans). Of course, this jest was taken in fair taste.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about the 30 minutes between doors opening and gig commencing was the incongruous presence of microphones at each player’s position. Fans waited, their breath bated.

The Aristocrats worked their intricate way through eleven songs, seven from latest album Tres Caballeros (2015), beginning the evening with ‘Stupid 7’. Despite the demands of demonstrating such instrumental prowess, their ability to create abstruse sounds seemed effortless, with Govan’s fingers spending the evening mimicking a spider, spinning a web of 10,000 beautiful sounds.

Before track two began, and before each song following, the band took to their enigmatic microphones, and exercised their eloquence in preluding every song with an anecdote, many of which were coated with humour, with punchlines hitting as tightly as the band’s instrumental cohesion. Govan addressed the audience with the grace of a lord befitting the band’s title, with Beller providing a band-leader sense of direction to the proceedings (including manufacturing an audience-voiced chorus of OHHHs on ‘Smuggler’s Corridor’); and Marco Minnemann teased the band, declaring that in one song he would maintain his drum kit with his right hand, while playing a keyboard interlude with his left—the crowd roared and clapped in awe as he kept his promise.

The track ‘Jack’s Back’ followed a kleptomaniac through quiet, darkly lit musical streets and sudden dashing raids across envisaged soundscapes of wealth, illustrating that lyrics aren’t always required in order to create a story in music. ‘Texas Crazypants’, a song inspired by a strange incident of Bryan Beller’s involving a large truck, an angry woman’s crushed car, and her myriad threatening sisters, thumped into the audience with a guttural bassline and a riff catchy enough to rattle through the listener’s mind; the only disappointment was that fans of the song might have wanted the band to be more self-indulgent, and pay homage to the ‘repeat the same awesome riff that we’ve discovered ten times’ thing, if only for the liberating, nerdgasmic headbanging sensation of recondite entertainment.

Demonstrating their knowledge of obscure history with the track ‘Kentucky Meat Shower’, and their interest in rubber animals joining them on their tour with ‘Pig’s Day Off’, there was no shortage of amusement in between songs. The preludes seemed effective. The crowd were patient and ready to be amused, and perhaps the three to four minutes of band-audience engagement offered a brief respite from the barrage of physical demands upon these three warriors of prog. With each tune, they appeared to grow stronger, sucking on the life of the audience. Marco Minnemann needed only his hands and feet to demonstrate why he has contributed to countless artists’ albums, featured on numerous Drummer Magazine covers, and came runner-up only to the mathematical wonder Mike Mangini in Dream Theater’s 2011 new drummer documentary.

Concluding the evening with ‘Get It Like That’ from their self-titled first album, the band chose to ditch the rigmarole of disappearing pre-encore, and had yet another energetic conversation with an audience desperate for the show to continue before nine final minutes of superhuman displays of fretting and drumming.

The Aristocrats finished, and faced the stage backwards in order to capture the audience in a many-person selfie, before thanking the attendees and departing.

With a quietly concerted resurgence underfoot, The Aristocrats illustrated that they are prepared to play small venues to packed crowds if the sake of the evening is creation and enjoyment—perhaps those two nouns are the real mantra of their rise.

9/10

Live: Superheroes of the Silver Screen

Written by Elise Gallagher on . Posted in Music.

The Hallé Orchestra gave the Bridgewater Hall an evening of cinematic magic with their performance, Superheroes of the Silver Screen.

With just two and a half hours of rehearsal that very morning, conductor Stephen Bell, along with the help of vocalist Dean Collinson, treated the audience to thirteen iconic film scores, making a welcome departure from the countless Christmas concerts which lace the festive season. An orchestra of 90 musicians recreated classics such as Danny Elfman’s Batman Suite, Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire, and my particular favourite, Steiner’s Tara’s Theme from Gone with the Wind.

It is important to note that this was the first ever experience I’ve had of live classical music, and I absolutely loved it. I feel the Hallé Orchestra have been branded with the unfair and highly believed stereotype of only being suitable for those who are educated in music or come from a higher class. Thankfully I was very wrong. I can think of many films which wouldn’t be anything without their scores—without the help of Hans Zimmer, Pirates of the Caribbean wouldn’t have made it to a sequel. Orchestral music is fully ingrained within pop culture in this regard and, by awakening the philistine’s unknown appreciation for it, this concert proved the perfect introduction for the uninitiated.

Joining the orchestra was vocalist Dean Collinson on his Hallé debut, who also performed during the set. A very animated performer, Collinson sang James Bond’s Thunderball and From Russia With Love, as well as ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ from Disney’s The Jungle Book.

It was the perfect concert for film lovers with all composer bases covered, whether that be John Williams, John Barry, or James Horner. Horner’s Apollo 13 added some slight surprise to the performance, with solo trumpeter Gareth Small situated at the very back of the auditorium, adding a spatial quality to the music. Conductor Bell added a few facts to the night’s entertainment, a particularly touching yet ironic note being that James Horner in fact died in a light aircraft crash earlier last year.

The orchestra then granted the audience to an encore. With The Incredibles being one of my favourite films you can imagine my sheer joy when the orchestra erupted the room with a medley of Giacchino’s score for the animated masterpiece. Adding to the excitement, apparently the composer himself was present in the audience.

Stemming from that evening’s entertainment the Hallé Orchestra were hosting an evening of ABBA complete with costumes and four soloists the next night. I only wish I’d got tickets to see that too.

8/10