Sunday 28 September 2014

Maps to the Stars - Review

Director: David Cronenberg Writer: Bruce Wagner Studios: Entertainment One, Prospero Pictures, SBS Productions Cast: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams, John Cusack, Sarah Gadon, Robert Pattinson, Evan Bird Release Date (UK): 26 September, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 112 min

“Maps to the Stars” is a bleakly funny Hollywood satire from director David Cronenberg, a man who, throughout his whole career, could not be further from Hollywood. From his early body horror in “Shivers” right up to the stubborn impenetrability of “Cosmopolis,” Cronenberg has always been something of an outsider. As such, he’s the perfect man to give Tinseltown an autopsy, to peel off its flesh and expose the dark heart that throbs underneath -- and as we can always expect from him, he does so with a surgical finesse, as well as a delightfully macabre sense of humour.

The film’s setting is the showbiz scene of LA, right under the shadow of the Hollywood sign. It’s a world self-absorbed and cut off from the rest of society, with incessant talk of agents and movie roles and PR tactics. Leading the cast is Julianne Moore as Havana Segrand, an aging actress whose star is fading. In some sort of Freudian nightmare, Havana is desperate to play the role of her dead mother, herself a beloved Hollywood icon, in a remake of one of her mother’s old movies -- all the while the memory of her mother is driving her to madness. Havana is a complete diva, in one scene barking orders from the toilet. In another scene, she sings and dances with glee upon hearing of the death of a five-year-old boy (a death which could give her a significant career boost). She’s the kind of character you just love to hate, a nasty, selfish backstabber, and a completely unapologetic one. And Moore’s performance is a powerhouse, bursting with tears and spitting with venom.

And yet, Mia Wasikowska threatens to steal the show right from under Moore's feet. Wasikowska plays Agatha, a young woman who, soon after arriving in LA by bus, is hired as Havana’s personal assistant. Agatha is intriguingly mysterious, with a vague backstory, burn marks covering half her face, and her arms forever hidden behind long leather gloves. Wasikowska plays her with a bouncy excitement and a subtle craziness, and in a moment in which she performs a bizarre little dance routine in her hotel room, she completely owns the screen. Also among the cast are Robert Pattinson as a limousine driver and struggling actor/screenwriter, whom Agatha befriends; John Cusack as a pretentious TV psychologist; and Olivia Williams as Cusack’s wife, with whom he shares a long-buried secret. Evan Bird also does very good as Cusack and Williams’ son, a bratty, potty mouthed teen superstar with nothing but burning contempt for his adoring fans. Basically, he’s Justin Bieber, but worse.

Cronenberg is known for getting the best out of his actors: he did so with Pattinson in his last movie, “Cosmopolis,” squeezing a terrific lead performance from the “Twilight” star. And he does so with the cast of “Maps to the Stars,” who play up the grotesqueness to thoroughly entertaining, if repulsive, effect. Cronenberg is also known for his emotional detachment, for watching his characters like a biologist observing microbes through a microscope. Here, that detachment is a perfect fit. These are, after all, horrible, vacuous people, about whom there is precious little to like, nor care. Looking through the microscope certainly helps us to stomach them, and allows us to observe them with a clinical mixture of fascination and disgust.

Just as the film exposes Hollywood’s twisted underbelly, there are hints that there’s something going on underneath the film’s Hollywood satire surface: characters are curiously linked through fire and water, mental illness is a recurring theme, a famous movie monologue is repeated throughout, and there’s even some supernatural goings-on, with several characters haunted by ghostly visions. With so many weird and wonderful elements at play, the film is thrillingly unpredictable. And while the ending is not entirely satisfying, there are so many dark delights along the way that that doesn’t really matter. Those delights are pretty damn dark, it should be said: there’s murder, suicide, incest, dead children, pyromania and schizophrenia. But I guess that’s Hollywood for you.

Rating: 8/10

Sunday 14 September 2014

The Guest - Review

Director: Adam Wingard Writer: Simon Barrett Studios: Picturehouse, HanWay Films, Snoot Entertainment Cast: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Lance Reddick Release Date (UK): 5 May, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 99 min

In “The Guest,” Dan Stevens is tasked with playing a mysterious stranger, a super-cool action hero, a charming gentleman, a psychopathic serial killer, a smoldering hunk, and a terrifying boogeyman. He absolutely nails all six, and plays them all with a smoothly charismatic southern twang and a twinkle in his eye (a twinkle that becomes increasingly menacing the more we get to know him). He plays David Collins, a recently discharged US soldier who one day rings the doorbell of the Peterson family. Claiming to be a good friend of the oldest son Caleb, who died on duty in Afghanistan, David becomes the Petersons’ welcome houseguest, sleeping in Caleb’s old bedroom, helping out around the house and fixing family problems. Most of the family fall head over heels for him, but eldest daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) begins to suspect that he’s not who he claims to be.

As David, Stevens boasts serious star quality and astonishing versatility: with a steely charisma, a sexy swagger and a creeping intensity, he’s in full command, and given how many clashing layers he has to play -- badass, friendly, funny, scary -- he manages to create a surprisingly coherent, and captivating, character. And just as Stevens’ performance is one of clashing layers, “The Guest” is a film of clashing styles. I can imagine many going into the film expecting a straight-forward action movie, based on the rather generic-looking trailers -- I know I did. But like their table-turning horror-comedy “You’re Next,” director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett’s film is full of juicy surprises. Part action movie, part psychological thriller, part black comedy and part horror movie, the film is a delightfully experimental genre mishmash, with Wingard and Barrett playing around with genre conventions along with audience expectations to thoroughly entertaining effect.

You can tell something odd’s going on right from the opening shot, a close-up of a spooky scarecrow with a pumpkin head and a witch's hat. This isn’t the opening shot of an action movie: this is straight out of a horror movie. Combine that with the alarmingly ominous title reveal as David jogs towards the Peterson home, and the film’s off to an unexpectedly chilling start. From there, the film becomes a darkly comic thriller (and a genuinely funny and thrilling one), as David begins solving all the family’s problems in his own special way, coincidentally -- or perhaps not so coincidentally -- while bodies start popping up all over the place. Then there’s the action scenes, most notably a bar fight between David and some school bullies, and a shootout at the Peterson house between David and some men who come looking for him. Both fun set-pieces with style and energy to spare. And then, in the final genre turn, the film goes all-out slasher horror, with a spookhouse finale where David basically becomes a sexy Michael Myers.

Speaking of which, all throughout the film there’s a seriously neat ‘70s/’80s vibe straight out of an old John Carpenter movie. It’s a vibe only enhanced by Steve Moore’s old-school synth score -- a catchy, pulsing joy -- and the raw suspense, the dark humour and the strong heroine in Monroe’s Anna. Not to mention the grinning jack-o’-lanterns scattered all over the place (in another nod to Carpenter, the setting is Halloween). But crucially, it has a firm understanding of genre, something Carpenter excelled at back in his heyday -- the film is four genres in one, and not only is each handled brilliantly, they’re also blended together almost seamlessly. And in Stevens’ David, the film has a fascinating anti-hero/villain. With Sharni Vinson’s badass Aussie heroine Erin in “You’re Next,” Wingard and Barrett created one of the great characters of genre cinema; with David Collins, they’ve created another.

Rating: 8/10

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Sex Tape - Review

Director: Jake Kasdan Writers: Kate Angelo, Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller Studios: Sony Pictures Releasing, Media Rights Capital, Lstar Capital, Escape Artists Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper, Rob Lowe Release Date (UK): 3 September, 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 94 min

Well, this is timely. So timely, in fact, that one wonders if all the nude celebrity pictures currently leaking online are actually part of some crazy marketing tactic for “Sex Tape”’s UK release this week. I mean, I'm sure Sony would never do such a heinous thing, but the film does need all the help it can get: for starters, it flopped in the US, failing to make back its reported $40 million budget. And though this doesn’t tend to have much of an effect on box office figures, it is, it must be said, absolute rubbish. Not unlike the ongoing hacking scandal, director Jake Kasdan’s comedy sees a couple who shoot a sex tape falling victim to the perils of the iCloud. Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz star as husband and wife Jay and Annie, who, in an attempt to reignite their fizzling sexual passion, decide to film themselves doing the dirty using their brand new iPad. Unfortunately, the video ends up synced to several other devices owned by friends, family, Annie’s new boss and the mailman. In a desperate scramble to save their dignity, Jay and Annie run all over town to get the iPads back before it’s too late and everyone sees their three-hour love session.

This should be comedy gold: here we have a smutty, screwball premise with the potential for all sorts of hilarious hijinks, and a talented cast of comedy stars, among them Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper and Rob Lowe. Sadly, with only two or three gags worthy of a chuckle, “Sex Tape” is almost completely unfunny, and its mawkish sincerity in regards to Jay and Annie's dwindling sex life clashes awkwardly with its outrageous plot and goofy slapstick, i.e. Segel fighting off a guard dog with an 11-inch, double-ended dildo and a treadmill (a set-piece which is more sad than funny), and Lowe’s ostensibly conservative boss snorting lines of cocaine and rocking out to Slayer (the highlight). It’s a clash it might’ve gotten away with if it had any kind of charm. But like Kasdan’s “Bad Teacher,” it’s cripplingly bland. It’s a faceless studio product, with no vision, no style, no charm, and pretty much nothing going for it outside of its game cast.

It doesn’t even have the courtesy of being sexy. For a supposedly raunchy, R-rated sex farce, its sex scenes are firmly of the PG-13 variety, with its swearwords naughtier than its nudity: every unclothed private part is hidden behind an intricate arrangement of elbows, bed sheets and coffee tables a la “Austin Powers,” but not played for laughs. And both the opening sequence, where we witness Jay and Annie's early bedroom (and park and library) antics, and the closing sequence, where we finally see the contents of the sex tape, are nothing but cartoonish. Segel and Diaz are at least somewhat likable, but what chemistry they have can’t quite overcome the film’s palpable blandness. The film just kind of sits there, and as its plot becomes more and more unbelievable -- the scene at the YouPorn headquarters is all kinds of stupid -- the only logical response is to let out a long, frustrated sigh. And I haven’t even mentioned the film’s gravest error: Rob Lowe’s in a film called “Sex Tape” and the film doesn’t even make a joke about it. How do you mess that up?

Rating: 3/10