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Day: 13 June 2017

The Top Films on Netflix – Spring 2017

Written by Jamie McEvoy on . Posted in Film.

These are a pick of current Netflix gems which are perfect for settling the nerves of University or at least escaping from them for an hour or two.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)    4/5

Created by Kiwi film-maker Taika Waititi – director of 2016’s critically acclaimed Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Disney’s Moana – What We Do in the Shadows is a hilarious yet dark comedy-mockumentary about four vampires living together in Wellington, New Zealand.

Co-directed and written by Flight of the Conchords star Jermaine Clement, the film was billed by The Guardian as ‘funniest comedy of the year’ in 2014, and puts previous attempts to tackle the vampire-comedy genre such as Fright Night (2011) and Dark Shadows (2011) to shame, Waititi perfectly judging the balance between the dark and the funny.

Encounters with a gang of socially insecure werewolves and a brilliant gag regarding vampires not having reflections are but two wickedly funny moments in the film that, despite its sinister subject matter, is a surprisingly uplifting and warm comedy which is perfect for lifting those exam period blues.

Sicario (2015)               5/5

From the director of 2016 hit Arrival and the much-anticipated, upcoming Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-winning Sicario is an adrenaline-fuelled foray into the war on drugs and the Mexican cartel.

Anyone who has watched a film from the French-Canadian auteur will know that Villeneuve pulls no punches in his works, and Sicario is his most brutal and shocking film to date.  Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow, The Girl on the Train) plays a former FBI agent who is assigned to a CIA task-force, with the objective of finding a Mexican drug baron, accompanied by a grizzly CIA officer played by Josh Brolin (There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men) and Benicio Del Toro’s (Che, Guardians of the Galaxy) mysterious Alejandro.

Visually stunning and ingeniously written, the city of Juarez and the surrounding desert are shot so ominously that the on-screen locations truly feel alien, akin to the representation of the middle-east in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

Equally impressive is Blunt’s brilliant performance as the protagonist, mirroring exquisitely the paranoia and dread the film induces in the audience.  Arguably the best thriller currently on Netflix, if you need a film to help you forget those pre-exam butterflies for a couple of hours, Sicario will definitely do the job.

The Nice Guys (2016)       4/5

A slightly different tone of film from Sicario, The Nice Guys is an upbeat crime-comedy thriller starring Ryan Gosling (Drive, La La Land) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator, Les Misérables).  Set in 1977, Gosling’s Holland March is a private detective who unwittingly crosses paths with Crowe’s glorified thug-for-hire Jackson Healy, who then both proceed to investigate the disappearance of a young girl.

Not to be confused with Will Ferrell’s much sillier and more brainless The Other Guys (2010), The Nice Guys is a colourful, comic caper which juggles tactfully the laugh-out-loud funny and the neo-noir thriller.  The two main characters are flawed yet loveable, with the chemistry between Gosling and Crowe the driving force behind the success of the film’s gags and narrative.

Director and writer Shane Black is no stranger to the crime genre, having written the Lethal Weapon film series, but after the distinctly average Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and the latest Iron Man sequel, The Nice Guys is a return to form, and is one of the funniest films on Netflix at the moment.

Honourable Mention:  The Lobster (2015)        3/5

An acquired taste and definitely not everybody’s cup of tea, despite the glum, deadpan nature of the film, The Lobster is undoubtedly one of a kind.  Colin Farrell stars as the recently dumped David who is sent to a countryside hotel in a dystopia where single-life is forbidden, and all partner-less residents must find a spouse within 45 days, failure in doing so resulting in being turned into an animal of their choice.

With supporting performances from Ben Whishaw (Cloud Atlas, Skyfall) and John C. Reilly (Wreck-It Ralph, Kong: Skull Island), Farrell is unrecognisable with a beer belly and a pair of dorky spectacles, worlds apart from his roles in Hollywood juggernauts such as Total Recall (2012) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016).

Ultimately a scathing attack on the concept of love, The Lobster is gloomy yet ‘hideously funny’, the morbid, satirical and dystopian nature of which making it a must-watch particularly for fans of recent Netflix addition Black Mirror.

Review: Mindhorn

Written by Jamie McEvoy on . Posted in Film.

Fans of the BBC cult-comedy The Mighty Boosh will be delighted to see Julian Barratt (Nathan Barley, A Field in England) finally land a lead role on the big screen.

Written by himself and occasional fellow-Boosher Simon Farnaby (Bunny and the Bull, Burke and Hare), the film follows Richard Thorncroft (Barratt), the washed-up star of an 80s TV crime show named ‘Mindhorn’, where he played the titular bionic detective who, with the use of a robotic eye, could literally ‘see the truth’.

Thorncroft’s career is well and truly down the drain, until a suspected serial murderer tells the police that he will only speak to Detective Mindhorn.  Consequently, Thorncroft is drafted in to the negotiations with the criminal, and the actor does everything he can to utilise the situation to reignite his dwindling career.

Despite the slight similarities with 2013’s Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Mindhorn really does feel like a breath of fresh air.  The laughs are relentless right from the get go, and is a welcome break from the constant churning out of film adaptations of British TV comedies.

It proves British TV comedy actors do not have to resort to rehashing their shows on the big screen in order to achieve cinematic success, as did Jack Whitehall in the dire The Bad Education Movie (2015) and Ricky Gervais in the plain David Brent: Life on the Road (2016).

It is also a unique chance to see the Isle of Man finally having a chance to play itself in a film, after being passed off as locations such as New York (Me And Orson Welles), Cornwall (Stormbreaker) or various other places in the majority of its appearances in film.

The jokes which Mindhorn delivers are genuinely hilarious, and offer as much ‘quoteability’ as comedies such as Hot Fuzz (2007) and the Monty Python films.  However, for those who have not seen the trailers, my advice would be to stay away from them before watching the film, because, as is the case with the majority of comedy trailers, they do show many of the best gags.

A cameo from Kenneth Brannagh is one scene which is almost shown in its entirety in the trailer, and will undoubtedly deliver more laughs if avoided before viewing.

It has to be said that Barratt and Farnaby have done a superb job in creating the fictional show of ‘Mindhorn’, with such zest and authenticity that you could not be blamed for believing that the 80s show genuinely did exist.

It is the backdrop of the fictional show which helps give a certain degree of credibility to Barratt’s ridiculous yet sympathetic Thorncroft, and it is exciting to hear the writers on the BBC Breakfast Show recently speaking about the possibilities of making a TV series of the fictional drama.

As with Alpha Papa, the film does begin to feel slightly stretched towards the end, the gags and humour becoming slightly usurped by action and hurried narrative resolution.  There is the slight suspicion that it would have perhaps worked better in a shorter and more succinct TV feature.  However, it is lovely to see Julian Barratt finally getting the limelight on the big screen, and in time to come, Mindhorn will possibly come to be mentioned along with recent greats such as Shaun of the Dead (2004) and In the Loop (2009) when people speak of great modern British comedies.

4/5

 

Review: Girl on Girl

Written by Liv Clarke on . Posted in Arts.

Photographs of women taken by women are nothing new in a time when most people have access to a camera and women are no longer chained to the kitchen sink. But the “female gaze” is currently having a moment in the artworld and female photographers are breaking boundaries both in terms of creativity and relating to gender.

Girl on Girl is a photobook curated by Charlotte Jansen and it features the works of 40 contemporary female photographers. The images are as diverse as the women who took them; the photographers come from different countries and cultures, and the images vary in style, yet are united through the concept of the female gaze.

Each artist has their own story to tell, resulting in photographs that succeed in both aesthetics and meaning. Lebohang Kganye layers images of herself over old photos of her mother, wearing the same clothes and recreating her mother’s pose, resulting in ghostlike apparitions that hover in the original image and explore the similarities that appear across the generations. Her images have a beautiful ephemeral quality, yet there is a sad nostalgia to them as they reflect how brief a relationship between mother and daughter can be.

Contrastingly Mihaela Noroc photographs women of today, with the aim of capturing a woman in every single country. She celebrates the diversity of female beauty, her work perfectly illustrates that it shouldn’t be limited to a Westernised ideal. Noroc has photographed women, so far, from a variety of places, including India, the Amazon Rainforest and China. Each woman is unique and of equal importance in every image.

The female gaze can transform the way that women are viewed, challenging old fashioned opinions. Tonje Bøe Birkeland does just that by championing the idea of the female explorer, a figure who is often overlooked by history. Birkeland stands alone in barren, hostile landscapes that seem to be never ending, yet her figure is a point of gravity within the image, secure in itself and in its surroundings. She portrays a woman who is brave and daring, one who is not afraid of adventure.

Yvonne Todd also seeks to transform stereotypes; she takes the idea of the traditional, glamourous housewife and turns it around to reveal a more disturbing side. A woman with shiny hair and perfect make up stands in a quilted dressing gown, staring frightenedly at the lens with red-rimmed eyes which don’t quite match the rest of her appearance.

Another image captures a necklace entwined in the delicate fingers of a manicured hand, but the acrylic nails are so long they become claw-like and threatening. Todd’s women challenge the Hollywood housewife ideal and her photographs convey a sense of eeriness and of unease.

Every page of Girl on Girl is different. Some of the photographs are easy to look at, with colours and compositions that please the eye; others are more shocking and are even grotesque. But they all celebrate femininity and the creativity of women today.