The Magnificent Seven

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Magnificent Seven.  And Suicide Squad a bit)

I’m really confused by this film.  I’ve seen the trailer a few times in the cinema and it looked like wacky Western hijinks with wisecracking cowboys.  And it isn’t that.  That’s not the films fault, it’s an issue with the promotion, but as a result I’m still not sure what I think.  So let’s talk it out and see what conclusions we can round up.

The Magnificent Seven (2016) is a remake (The Magnificent Seven – 1960) of a remake (Seven Samurai – 1954), neither of which I have seen, so I’m not in a position to comment about how they all stack up against each other.  The basic premise is this:

Bad guy Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) wants to buy the land from the residents of Rose Creek so he can mine it for gold.  When they refuse, he kills a group of locals and tells those remaining that he will be back in three weeks where they can either leave, or he will kill them all.  Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), whose husband is one of the residents killed, sets about looking for someone who can help them (“I seek righteousness, as I should.  But I’ll take revenge.”) and happens upon Denzil Washington’s Sam Chisholm, a bounty hunter.  He is not particularly interested in her plight until she mentions Bogue’s name, and then he goes about assembling the eponymous Seven.

They come in the form of gambler Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt), sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), knife-thrower Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Comanche Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) and Mexican outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo).  The Seven try to train the town to defend themselves against Bogue’s imminent return.

Plus points:

The casting has rightly been noted as being remarkably diverse – a conscious decision on the part of director Antoine Fuqua, who noted that this was an attempt to more accurately depict historical reality ("There were a lot of black cowboys, a lot of Native Americans; Asians working on the railroads. The truth of the West is more modern than the movies have been.”)  It’s sad that this is a noteworthy point in 2016, but diversity in the media seems to be more like a tide moving in and out, rather than a fixed race to a fixed goal.  A discussion for another day.

Magnificent diversity

Diverse or not, they’re an intriguing bunch and I enjoyed spending time with them.  They’re introduced quickly and efficiently, without a lot of time being given over to heavy exposition (take note Suicide Squad) – we learn who these characters are by seeing it, rather than being told.  In fact, I’d go as far as to suggest that this is the film Suicide Squad could have been.  And by the end of the film, you know them all a little better.  But not loads.  Because you don’t need to. 

Notably, there are real consequences in this film.  There is real peril, from real guns.  Anyone can die, anyone can be harmed.  And the film doesn’t shy away from (warning: impending pun) pulling that trigger.  This fact offers a decent level of jeopardy and is very different from – for example – a superhero film, where people die because the plot says their time is up (despite the fact that they’ve just survived bombs, guns, falling off cliffs and being blasted into the sun).  It’s a Western.  Not everybody will make it out alive. 

Also, it’s a film that absolutely zips along.  A little over 2 hours, but feels like a much shorter amount of time, and crams a lot of efficient storytelling in.  Even as I type this, I’m aware of how easy it is to explain the plot.  It’s not overly complicated.  There’s something very pleasing about that, compared to, for example Batman vs Superman.  Explain me that plot in less than 200 words.  Dare you. 

Minus points:

Treatment of women.  For a cast so diverse, I half expected Haley Bennett to be one of the Seven.  She’s not.  She spends the entire film proving her worth, being as good as the men, driving the film.  She’s the reason that the Magnificent Seven are assembled, yet her role is muddled.  She actively asks to be counted amongst the men as someone who can shoot and fight, and is found in the midst of the action, yet is repeatedly and subtly told “no” – she is relegated to fetching food and drinks for the men when the plans are being discussed and drawn up, and after “Her Big Moment”, her gun (her gun.  Not one she’d borrowed or just randomly picked up.  The one we’ve seen her shooting with throughout) is firmly taken off her and given to an unnamed man for no reason that I understood.  She’s the only named woman in the entire film.

Emma - apparently not magnificent

And I’m confused by this because they seem to be such active choices by the filmmakers that I assumed that they were there for a reason and that the film was building to a point.  But it wasn’t.  So what was all that about?

The grey points in between:
The film is rated as a 12A.  And the trailer, as briefly mentioned, makes this film look as though it’s going to be a lot more fun, and a lot funnier.  It’s not.  There’s a lot of violence and a lot of death.  There’s a fair bit of blood.  I’m not sure about the 12A rating.  There seemed to be a lot of parents with kids in the screening I went to and I think they assumed the same thing I did.  But on the other hand, film ratings are handed out based on the frequency and strength of violence, language and sex, and this breaks down as such:

Sex: presence of prostitutes, rape alluded to and then directly mentioned.  Nothing sexual overtly seen.

Language: one use of the word “shit”.

Violence:  lots and lots.  But, in mitigation, they’re “clean” deaths (you get shot, you die pretty much) with no excessive or additional torture (by which I mean there’s no people being ripped apart by wild animals, or people having hot pokers being stuck in their eyes or suchlike).

So I kind of understand why it’s a 12A, but definitely an example of why parental discretion should be used in a 12A.  Parents take note.

Backstories and issues – there’s some “Issues” that come up in passing as the film progresses.  And the introduction of those issues feels natural, given that a bunch of strangers are all thrown together in a stressful situation.  However, some of those issues land well (for example, Robicheaux and PTSD) and others feel hackneyed and heavy handed (for example, Chisholm and revenge).  A bit mixed, which is a shame.

So, in conclusion, not exactly magnificent, and there’s not exactly seven of them.  But it’s enough that I intend to seek out the originals.

The Infiltrator

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Infiltrator)

There are roles that so consume an actor, that it is almost impossible to watch anything else they do without seeing the more defining character.  Examples include Anthony Hopkins (always Hannibal Lecter), Daniel Radcliffe (always Harry Potter, but is trying his damnedest to shake him), Tom Cruise (always Tom Cruise).  So too with Bryan Cranston – who is now so synonymous with Breaking Bad’s Walter White that it seems a little hypocritical when he turns up in The Infiltrator, as US undercover customs agent Robert Mazur, determined to take down the world’s largest drug cartel.  Really, Heisenberg?  Really?

Drugs are bad.  Or good.  Can't remember.

It’s an interesting enough premise for the based-on-a-true-story film.  Mazur has made a career out of infiltrating various criminal gangs, and taking them down, while surrounded by confidential informants (Joe Gilgun, John Leguizamo) who give him legitimacy in the underworld.  And as his last great hurrah, he decides to follow the money (rather than the drugs) and take down the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, who were instrumental in helping fund Pablo Escobar’s drug empire.  Along the way he is assigned a fiancé (Diane Kruger) to give his story of being a money laundering businessman further legitimacy.  Adventures ensue.

It’s a perfectly good film, with strong performances from all involved (including Benjamin Bratt as one of Escobar’s main agents).  But the script is a bit clunky, it lacks tension, and there’s a better story to be told.  In fact, it seems that there’s possibly a couple of different ways to make this a much better story.  For example:

1. Ratchet up the tension that there must have been in the real-life version (this should have been hugely exciting.  It’s not.)  Mazur doesn’t appear to ever be doubted. “Oh you’re a random stranger offering to launder all my illegitimate cash?  Sure, have it.  Cheers, helpful stranger.”
2. Explore the ramifications of the undercover life on an agent and his family (Mazur has real life wife and children, but is assigned an undercover fiancé.  There are obvious tensions, which is an interesting but abandoned storyline).
3. Consider the longer term implications of the undercover lifestyle – Mazur’s undercover fiancé becomes friends with the wives and girlfriends of the cartel, and struggles with the knowledge that soon her new friends will all be in prison because of her.  Another interesting but abandoned storyline.        
4. Look at the relationship between Mazur and his informants – he doesn’t particularly like them, and it’s unclear how they feel about him, but they both rely on each other.  Surely that’s worth having a look at?

The film ends with those information shots that tell you about what happened to all the people involved.  And they’re really interesting.  So much so, that it’s disappointing that the film hasn’t done more to make those conclusions feel like a worthy payoff.

Attempts to break good go bad.

Bridget Jones's Baby

Warning: contains spoilers for Bridget Jones’s Baby.

Every so often, I see a film at the cinema where the audience totally gets involved with whatever they’re watching.  More than just laughing along with the jokes, these are the films where there are audible gasps, cheers, applause and occasional heckles.  More often than not, the thing that seems to provoke this response is a particular character/set of characters, a familiarity and affinity with them.

Last night’s viewing – Bridget Jones’s Baby - was one of those films.

It’s been 15 years since the first Bridget Jones film, and 12 years since we saw her last in Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason.  A lot hasn’t changed – she’s still in the same flat, still with the same friends, still with some of the same work colleagues (but with the welcome addition of Sarah Solemani and Joanna Scanlon), still has no clear concept of grocery shopping (her fridge contains one mouldy lemon and a packet of thyme), still under the same passive pressure from her mother to get married and have babies.

Learn to shop, woman!

But a lot has changed too, for better and worse.  She’s now 43, a successful television producer, and a lot more comfortable in her own skin.  She’s happier with her weight – in fact, short of one brief mention of it at the start of the film, I can’t recall any further discussion of it.  No enormous pants or fighting with Spanx in this film.  Her friends have also grown up – the nights of downing shots and experimental cooking have been replaced by a series of last minute text messages bailing on plans (“the sitter’s cancelled”, “the baby’s sick”) – but there is a conscious effort to maintain those friendships.  Shazzer, Magda, Jude and Tom are still in touch on a regular basis for updates and advice, but the main meeting places are the important life events – births, christenings, weddings and funerals. 

Who are these people who have cupcakes on a plate?

Significantly, for Bridget, she is single again.  The relationship with Mark ended due to work pressures, and too many nights alone.  That said, Bridget in her 40s is not sitting at home pining for a man and a relationship.  She’s taking active control of her life and trying new things with Miranda (Solemani).  This leads to one pregnant Bridget, and two potential fathers – Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) or Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).  This becomes an interesting storyline – not the storyline of Bridget trying to hide the truth from both of them and hoping the other doesn’t find out, but Bridget laying all her cards on the table and dealing with the consequences, even if those consequences are that she brings the baby up herself.



Pretty much no other reference to giant pants in this film.

Well, that’s almost it.  For me, this is a weak spot, and a substantial one at that.  The film takes great pains to state that both men would love Bridget, and would be excellent fathers for the baby.  Both men proffer to raise the child (even if it transpires that the baby is not theirs).  Bridget cannot choose between them.  And in the end…she doesn’t.  And this is a shame because Bridget has been a stronger, more mature, decisive character in this film, but then allows the films conclusion to kind of passively happen to her.  There aren’t really many consequences as a result, and the film is poorer for it, especially as this character has such form for making active decisions – this is the same Bridget who actively rejects Daniel Cleaver because she knew she could do better, tracks Mark Darcy down to make public declarations of love, and tells her boss to stick his job.  Bridget has always spoken her mind (clumsily, unadvisedly, bluntly) – such impassiveness on her part seems sadly uncharacteristic.

A second bugbear is the storyline of Bridget’s mum running for parish council, but having to learn that that means she will have to accept gay couples, unwed mothers, immigrants and Italians.  This storyline was pointless, patronising and cack-handed.  But again, could have been something better.

However, all things considered, I still really enjoyed this film.  And so did the cinema audience I saw it with, who cheered, whooped and laughed in equal measures.  Rightly so – there’s a lot to like.  Emma Thompson shamelessly steals every scene she’s in, and as one of the co-writers steals a lot of the good lines (I feel that her character has a whole other back story going on – anyone else think that?).  Bridget’s friends and family are all back, and familiar versions of themselves.  There’s a lot of big laughs to be had – v. good.           

Welcome back Bridget.  I’ve missed you.

Additional bonus thought!

Two random thoughts that occurred:

1. It was refreshing to see characters who have aged.  Bridget and her contemporaries are now in their 40s and they look like they are.  There’s grey hair, wrinkles, age spots and paunches.  Bridget looks pretty authentically scruffy  when she’s slobbing about her flat in her PJs.  Even the younger cast (by which I mean Sarah Solemani again) acknowledge that in order to be the presentable face of youth, it comes with effort, primping, and having your upper lip waxed – the way people look on screen is not “real life”.
2. Has the rom-com died?  I wondered this last year when I watched Man Up, which felt like it belonged firmly in the 90s.  Bridget Jones’s Baby feels contemporary (probably because it’s drawing on the progress of pre-established characters), but there haven’t been many rom-coms on at cinemas lately.  Where did the rom-com go?

Kill Bill Volume 1

I didn’t expect to enjoy this movie much but it was surprisingly entertaining. Despite the lack of both plot and characters and the absence of good dialogue the visual style, pacing and athleticism kept me watching. Usually endless fighting sends me to sleep but the vein of utter ridiculousness here piqued my interest – just what were they going to do next?  The absurd fountains of blood that somehow sprayed forth from bodies took me back to the Monty Python ‘Salad Days’ sketch where the gore effects of Peckinpah were satirised.  Then the fake blood only dribbled and squirted out feebly by comparison. (If you haven’t seen the sketch think of the arm severing of the Black Knight  in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) Technical note: this crazy looking effect is said to have been created originally by using fire extinguishers what maniac thought that up?

There are many points and questions of unreality throughout. For example I have to ask why, O-Ren, criminal mastermind of Tokyo, do you fight your nemesis in an impossibly hobbling, if immaculate and glamorous, kimono?

And what about the likelihood that only the lower half of the Bride’s body has been affected by her long stay in bed and her arms etc work just fine.  And the fact that she is in the dead guy’s car practising her walking all that time when his body is lying about in the hospital ready to be discovered. I don’t think Tarantino cared at all, as so many subsequent film makers do not care for any semblance of reality. As long as the audience is engaged by the imagery, who cares?

Part of this movie is an animated sequence, disposable in story terms, depicting the back story of O-Ren. In a way this almost seems more realistic than the live action scenes.  To add to the mix there are some black and white scenes that for me detracted from the visual experience.

I’ve been slow to write this review because I felt I needed to do some research to try to explain the strange salad before me. I know now where Tarantino was getting his ideas. I even watched a bit of Death Rides a Horse on Youtube.

What Tarantino does is a mix of parody and homage and lacks original creativity in so many ways while being brilliant in one or two ways. But I liked the fact that Kill Bill has so much front. I like that Tarantino tried something so different from Pulp Fiction though  he limits himself in the only other Tarantino movie I have seen, Django Unchained, to a further homage to the spaghetti western and a simple (if different) revenge story. Seems he decided writing a good script was too much trouble and people only really wanted to see not hear.

I’m just going to drop in that I think the lost-baby-sparking-female-revenge idea has been reused in a small way by the Preacher TV show which I don’t think could exist without Tarantino and spaghetti westerns.

Naturally I will be watching Kill Bill part 2 – it didn’t seem to be downloadable from Netflix last time I looked although they had it up a short while ago.

Zoe Bell who actually does all the cool fighting stuff. She's been in her own movie but it looks absolute shite.






She does a  good mean face and looks very scary to me even when she isn't trying Don't cross her

Lucy Liu plays O-Ren who just isn't practical, but looks immaculate as she dies

Uma Thurman poses about a lot and does some B movie acting as required. Job done.

Creed

(Warning:  Spoilers - oh so many spoilers - for Creed)

I confess, I have never seen a Rocky film, but I am aware of the references that have seeped into public consciousness – Rocky running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which are now publically just referred to as “the Rocky Steps”), “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti (just referred to as “Rocky’s Theme”).  I reckon that if you were to stop 100 random people on the street, and asked them to tell you something – anything - about Rocky, the majority would be able to tell you something about those films, such is its cultural impact.  So it was with this vague notion that I watched Creed (2015), the half spin-off, half sequel which is to the Rocky franchise what The Force Awakens is to Star Wars.

Set in present day Philadephia, Adonis (“Donnie”) Johnson is the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, and is creating havoc in foster homes and LA youth detention facilities before he is taken in by Creed’s widow, Mary Anne (played fiercely and beautifully by Phylicia Rashad, a woman who doesn’t appear to have aged since she played Clair Huxtable) who tells him of his father, and that she won’t stand to watch him pursue his ambition of being a professional boxer.  Undeterred, Donnie traipses off to find Rocky, his father’s long-time adversary/friend and ask him to become his trainer.  Along the way he meets Bianca, a singer-songwriter with progressive hearing loss, and the two begin a relationship where the thing they have in common is their goals which will only ever be short term, but that they feel compelled to follow anyway because it is the thing that “makes [them] feel alive”.

Donnie and Bianca, the new Rocky and Adrian?

Notably, all the main characters make very active choices – Donnie chooses boxing rather than the financial career he seems to be excelling in, Mary Anne chooses to parent the one living symbol of her husband’s infidelity, Rocky chooses to return to training, Bianca chooses to pursue her musical goals despite knowing that there’s every possibility that they won’t be long lasting.  Things do not just happen to these characters – life deals them some bad hands, and they choose to play them anyways rather than fold and bow out of the game.  There’s unspoken strength which isn’t just about how hard you can hit something.  This plays out in the film’s final act where those characters again make active and redemptive choices which are counterintuitive to them but ultimately lead to their success – Donnie chooses to acknowledge that he is his father’s son and takes his father’s name in the boxing ring and wins public affection, Mary Anne chooses to accept Donnie’s boxing and they are reconciled, Rocky chooses to live and accept treatment for the cancer that would otherwise kill him.

But alongside this, it is also a film of ghosts.  Adrian is long dead, immortalised by being the name of the Italian restaurant that Rocky now owns and spends his days in.  The walls are lined with the photos and articles of the glory days – when Rocky and Apollo reigned supreme.  Paulie is dead and Rocky frequents both graves on a regular basis in order to talk and read them the newspapers.  Apollo is dead but his legacy looms large in the film footage that Donnie watches, and in Donnie himself.  The cornermen who train Donnie in the Front Street Gym (trainer Mickey Goldmill is also dead but his silhouette is plastered all over the walls and the kit) are the longtime friends of Rocky who train him well, but constantly remind him of the person his father was.  Mary Anne rejects Donnie’s plans of professional boxing because of the ghost of Apollo who was killed in the ring.  Rocky’s Theme still plays, but it is slow piano, rather than the boisterous fanfare of almost 40 years ago.  Rocky still climbs the steps of the Philadelphia Museum, but is slower, older and frailer.

Rocky's training regime of rock, paper, scissors left a lot to be desired

It is a tremendous film in which a lot is implied, but not directly said.  I think that if that is what I perceive from one viewing, I assume there is an even richer story for those who know the Rocky films well.  The fights are well choreographed, visceral and genuinely exciting to watch.  There are strong, nuanced performances throughout and while I was initially delighted this year that Mark Rylance won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Bridge of Spies), I would now go out on a limb and say I think that Sylvester Stallone was more deserving of the accolade (he was previously nominated for Best Actor in the original Rocky film, but lost out to Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver).  That said, he did receive six other awards for his part in this film, so it’s not as if his awards shelves remain empty.  Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad (and to a lesser extent, Anthony Bellew) all turn in excellent performances, but even as a supporting character it is Stallone that is the prizefighter. 

I’m off to run up some stairs.

Creed  is currently available on Netflix.

The BFG

I like Roald Dahl.  He has a fantastic way of using made up words which are more expressive and explanatory than the “proper” ones.  He has a way of appealing to the imaginations of kids (and big kids) in a way that means his stories and suggestions stick with you throughout life.  In “Boy”, he writes about how he used to believe that liquorice was made by boiling and steamrollering the rats that would be caught in factories.  In “The Witches”, he describes the telltale signs of how to spot a witch (they have unfeasibly pointy shoes because they have no toes, they’re always scratching their heads because they’re bald and wear wigs, they wear long gloves because their fingernails are long and pointy and grow very fast), meaning that readers start looking with suspicion at shoes, at gloves, at hats.  Steven Moffatt is a master of this – his episodes of Doctor Who mean that viewers now have a very different relationship with shadows, statues and the dust in sunbeams.

Don't blink...

The opening scenes of Steven Spielberg’s The BFG are like this.  We see Mark Rylance’s eponymous giant move around late night London completely unseen, hopping onto the back of a parked truck to look like a pile of masonry, pulling his cloak across the gap between buildings to look like the entrance to a building site.  Does it look like there’s an extra lamppost in your street?  Might be the BFG.  Are the trees rustling?  Or is it the BFG.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Sophie is a sad and neglected orphan who happens upon a Big Friendly Giant (BFG) one night and he whisks her away to Giant Country, where she learns that he is the only non-cannibalistic giant there is.  He protects her from the other giants (with typically Dahllian names as Fleshlumpeater and Bone Cruncher) and teaches her the secrets of catching dreams and blowing them through the bedroom windows of sleeping children. 



In 1989, The BFG was made into an animated film 

I found  a dream in London...(part of the BFG Dream Trail)

by Cosgrove Hall (their only animated film) and it balanced whimsy and horror brilliantly.  For every flash of Fleshlumpeater’s long, sharpened fingernail poking in through a sleeping child’s window, there was a sequence in Dream Country where Sophie and the BFG tried to catch squirming dreams, or drank fizzy Frobscottle and flew on their explosive farts (Dahl really knew how to appeal to kids!).  The most chilling part of that film, for me, was the Queen reading the headlines: “Tragic horror as children slain.  Bones found beneath dormitory windows“.  The film has rightly become a cult classic.  Bizarrely, you can watch the entire thing on YouTube.



"This is Dream Country.  This is where all dreams is beginning"

In 2016, we have the Spielberg version.  Spielberg has a brilliant mind for appealing to kids, and Dahl and Spielberg should be a match made in heaven.  And it almost is.  Dream Country is there and looks beautiful – the dreams are colourful, tangible things that dash around the screen like Tinkerbell.  Snozzcumbers are revolting, warty, maggoty looking vegetables (the BFG’s only food, but necessary for making Frobscottle).  The fart jokes are there in abundance (*snigger*).  John Williams’ score is magnificent, and (as always) captures the chaos, mischief and wonder (it’s reminiscent of Maggie’s song from Hook) that seems to be specific to the children’s films he works on (see also: Harry Potter, ET).  And Mark Rylance is an excellent Big Friendly Giant, childish and lonely with sad eyes, wanting to make the world a little better with beautiful dreams.  For me, what this film lacks is a little bit of horror.  It all feels very safe.  There’s hints towards it, but it’s adult horror – the BFG has had a child living with him before and Sophie finds his clothes – a little red jacket – and his drawings, but doesn’t particularly question it.  The assumption is that this child met with a chewy end at the hands of the “canningball giants”.  The nightmare set upon those giants is an adult one: “Looks at what you has done – there is no forgiveness”.  Dahl appealed directly to children – the humour is for children, the horror is for children.  Spielberg has captured one, but shied away from the other.

Fleshlumpeater...

This begs an interesting question, and I throw it open because I’m interested.  Is there room for horror for children?  Should children be scared?  I’m not saying to throw them in a cellar full of rats, or chase them with knives, or make them watch endless loops of Thomas and the Magic Railroad.  If we want children to use their imaginations (we still want that, don’t we?), can we limit that imagination to only the good things, and protect from the bad?

Over to you…