Coco

(Warning: contains spoilers for Coco)

How many feature films do you think Pixar have made?  About 10, right?  Nope - Coco is the 19th film from the creative team behind the films that made you weep as an adult, and is arguably the strongest film in Pixar's canon since 2015's Inside Out.

Set in Mexico, Coco is the story of 12 year old Miguel, who is the latest in a long line of shoemakers in a family that has banned music.  Miguels' great-great-grandfather was a musician who left Migel's great-great grandmother to go and pursue fame and fortune as a musician, and as such all music is forbidden.  Miguel doesn't want to be a shoemaker.  Miguel wants to be a famous musician.  Due to some vague magic (which may or may not be related to Día de Muertos - the Day of the Dead), Miguel finds himself in the Land of the Dead with his now deceased relatives, and must find a way back before morning, or he will become one of the dead too.  Las aventuras sobrevienen!

Hey cool - even the guitar is a skeleton!

It is worth noting that Coco is the first ever film with a nine figure budget to feature an all Latino cast (including Anthony Gonzalez, Benjamin Bratt, Gael García Bernal, Alanna Ubach and Edward James Olmos amongst others) .  Coco does for Mexican culture what Moana did for Polynesian culture, perhaps more successfully.  I feel I understand more about Día de Muertos and its importance in the Mexican community.  The film does a lot of work early on to help the uninformed viewer (i.e. me) understand the traditions surrounding this festival, and what happens if those traditions are not adhered to (specifically, that we have two deaths.  The first is the one that takes us from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead.  We remain in the Land of the Dead until the last person forgets us, and then we disappear completely.) That said, most of the films themes are more universal - family, life, assumptions, death and memories.
It doesn't sounds like it's going to be a cheery film - a boy spends his time sucked into the land of the dead, and in the land of the living the only person that he talks to is his grandmother who suffers from dementia...but Coco is nothing if not relentlessly positive in the face of significant adversity, which is typical of Pixar films.  The story is remarkably similar to Back To The Future (both are stories featuring young men who find themselves in impossible places, play guitar, solve issues with their families, have significant photos and risk vanishing if they get it wrong - writer and director Lee Unkrich has since said that although they didn't set out to borrow from it, the film was an influence on a lot of the people working on Coco), with nods towards It's A Wonderful Life.  Unkrich has also said that two important films that the crew referred back to were Billy Elliott and Whale Rider - stories of children torn between their own aspirations, and the wishes of their families.  Fans of those films will be better placed to make comparisons

Your kids are gonna love it...

The film looks stunning, with the Land of the Dead being portrayed as a series of interconnected neon districts, loosely based on Guanajuato in Central Mexico.  Each of the characters looks distinctive (which is no mean feat, given that they're all skeletons), and the alebrijes (animal spirit guides) are beautifully blacklit (black lighted? Whatever the word is for "done with black light").  A lot of time and love has gone into creating and realising this expression of the Land of the Dead, and it really pays off.  The first shots of Land of the Dead and the golden bridge are breathtakingly rich in design and detail and the overall effect is glorious.

This doesn't even do it justice.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez return as songwriters following the success of 2013's Frozen, and although there isn't anything as earwormy as Let It Go on the soundtrack, Remember Me is a lovely recurring song that has earned the pair a further Oscar nomination for Best Song.

My main criticism is that 1 hour 49 minutes, Coco is one of the longest Pixar films, and needlessly so.  While it doesn't drag it takes a while in getting set up, both in the Land of the Living, and in the Land of the Dead.  A lot of the initial back story is told quickly through the paper cuttings in the first five minutes, and is then repeated as the film goes on.  Considering how much Pixar has historically proved they can pack into a 90 minute film (and has proved that they can tell an entire lifetime in under 5 minutes and not lack for emotional response in Up), tighter storytelling could have made for a much leaner film.  That said, it has a very strong third act which pulls everything together well and hits it's emotional beats well in a way that was missing from Finding Dory and The Good Dinosaur.

Miguel begins the film stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Should he follow his dream and play music, or listen to his family and ban it from his life?  The decision at the start is two really contrasting ideas.  By the end of the film, the choice is a small and easy one, both for Miguel and his family (living and dead).  It also involves realistic shifts in attitudes from everybody (living and dead).  The main takeaway messages for viewers to chew on are these: what sort of legacy actually matters, how do you want to be remembered, and whose responsibility is it to remember you?  And, arguably, if you are remembered do you ever really die?

Additional comments, questions and concerns:

• There is no Pixar short.  The one that was planned - Olaf's Frozen Adventure - was scrapped after poor audience reception.  At 21 minutes long, it would have made the total running time well over 2 hours long (and maybe less appealing to younger Pixar fans).  A 21 minute short seems like a terrible idea - that's pretty much the average length of an episode of Friends.  If it's the length of an actual television programme, it's not a short.

• A113 can be found in the office of the Bureau of Family Grievances.

• If someone's memory is disgraced, aren't they still remembered?

• Dante looks a lot like Ed from The Lion King

• 

  Ed

Dante

• Remember: the film is called Coco. (*small tear*)

• Coco arrives at an interesting time.  While Donald Trump continues to sow seeds of discord about Mexico and its inhabitants, Coco quietly and sympathetically shows a nondescript family in a nondescript town, and shows that they're just like everyone else in their family love and squabbles.  Well played, Pixar.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

(Warning: contains spoilers for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.  Also has racially offensive terms)

Yaaaay!  Oscars time, where I move into the cinema and watch as many of these films as possible.  Even though, admittedly, they're often excessively long, over-hyped, and about Serious Issues.  Feeling happy seems to be actively discouraged.

So imagine my surprise to discover that one of the main contenders for this years awards is less than 2 hours long, and funny (albeit in a really dark way...)

Three Billboards.  Count 'em

It's not a cheery subject matter, admittedly.  Frances McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, a woman whose teenage daughter has been raped, set on fire and murdered.  Seven months on, the police have pretty much stopped investigating.  Incensed by this, she hires the eponymous three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri and has the following messages posted. RAPED WHILE DYING.  AND STILL NO ARRESTS.  HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?  Unsurprisingly, Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) isn't delighted by this, and neither are a lot of the Ebbing townsfolk who have sympathies for Mildred's loss, but are close friends with Willoughby and are keen to make their displeasure at Mildred known.  Paths to redemption ensue.

There's a lot of factors that make this film great, and most of them are found in the acting.  Frances McDormand seems likely to add another Oscar to her wins this year for her portrayal of Mildred Hayes.  Instantly iconic in her blue boilersuit (notably similar to the one she wore in 1984's Blood Simple.), she is quickly a character to root for.  Seven months after a major trauma is an interesting place to start the drama.  We see flashes of Haye's life with her children, and the family arguments that ensue.  We see life after Angela's murder, and what is left once all the immediate furore has died down.  We do not see Angela's murder, nor Mildred's discovery of it.  The closest we get to that is the charred body-shaped patch of grass under the billboards that Mildred returns to in order to plant flowerbeds by.  Some of her best scenes, however, come with Chief Willoughby, who tries every trick he has to get her to take the billboards down.  There is a respect between the two, and it feels a lot like the two are verbally sparring (and enjoying it), but know the boundaries not to cross (compared to Sam Rockwell's Jason Dixon who lashes out with the deliberate intention of hurting people).  When Willoughby plays his trump card ("I have cancer"), Hayes counters unsentimentally with "yeah, I know.  Everybody knows." and needles him into getting on with solving Angela's murder before he dies too.  Mildred is entirely unsentimental, as seen in the meeting with the deer ("You're pretty, but you ain't her"), her meeting with the local pastor ("You're all culpable"), her meeting with the man who claimed to have murdered Angela ("Did you?  Were you?").  She refuses to play nice, because playing nice has got her nowhere, long before Angela's death.  Her abusive ex-husband now has a significantly younger girlfriend, her son hates her, she won't countenance the man who loves her (Peter Dinklage).  That is not to say she doesn't care.  When Willoughby unexpectedly sneezes blood on her during one of their verbal spats, he is quick to apologise and she is quick to forgive ("I didn't mean to...", "I know, baby, I know").

Everyone online should learn to argue like these two.

Willoughby and Dixon have earned both Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell Best Supporting Actor nods, and it is difficult to choose between them.  Willoughby is the more temperate of the two, and Harrelson definitely holds his own in his scenes with McDormand.  His influence is clearly felt even when Harrelson is not on screen, and his actions guide and define both Mildred and Jason.  But it's Dixon who changes the most during the film, and it's Dixon who has the longer "journey".  In some ways, he's very much still the child - living subserviently with his horrible mother, reading comic books at work instead of doing any work, and essentially throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his own way.  But he begins to move past that as the film progresses until you actually find yourself rooting for him.  The problem with his story arc is this: Jason Dixon is a violent racist who has made a reputation for himself by actually torturing black people.  He arrests and detains a black woman for days because she is friends with Mildred.  He is vile to every non-white person he sees.  The film does little to address that.  He does, however, go through a lot of pain. In film land, that can equal some form of redemption.  The problem in this instance, is that we find ourselves rooting for this reformed character who has at no stage even vaguely acknowledged that his racist outlook was wrong, or even vaguely problematic.  Admittedly, this is a film in which redemption is started but not completed - but I would argue that the racism of Jason Dixon has to be, at the very least, acknowledged.

He's got problems with white folks too...

Outside of the main three, the supporting cast also feel very well fleshed out.  Peter Dinklage lends real pathos to James - a character who could have easily been a throwaway 2-dimensional plot contrivance.  Lucas Hedges is compelling and complicated as Robbie - Mildred's son who is grieving the death of his sister, angry with his mother about billboards, protective of her when it comes to his father (the speed and fluidity of movement when he pulls a knife on his abusive dad is all it takes to show that this is a well-practised move).  Kathryn Newton has one scene as Angela, but immediately sells the dynamic of teenage daughter, saying throwaway vile things to her mother because families always known the short cuts to hurt each other.  Momma Dixon, Charlie, Red, Abercrombie, Denise, Penelope - all characters that feel like they got significant screen time because I feel that I know them, but actually maybe got three or four lines each.

I can't understand why Martin McDonagh (writer and director) hasn't been shortlisted for the Best Director Oscar, but has been nominated for Best Original Screenplay.  Ebbing feels like such a well-realised powderkeg of a town, and it feels like everything is at stake all the way through.  There's Tarantino-esque levels of tension, and a couple of solid gut-punches in terms of plot twists and emotional beats.  It's a real shame that the racial tensions aren't better explored (for a film that explores racism in modern America, Get Out is your go-to).  But there's so much crammed in to a sub-2-hour film (without it feeling hurried) - that is down to skilled writing and skilled direction. 

I have no desire to return to Ebbing, Missouri, but I wouldn't mind spending a lot more time with those characters.  But from a distance.  They're scary.

Additional comments, thoughts and concerns:

• PC progress in Ebbing - Mildred: "how's the nigger-torturing business?" Jason: "You can't say that - it's people-of-colour-torturing" 

• Warning: There are about three things that will have you watching from between your fingers: the dentist, the diner, the bathroom.

• I look forward to a Mildred Hayes action figure.

  

  It'll look a bit like this...

Paddington 2

(Warning: contains spoilers for Paddington 2)

I'll be honest, I didn't intend to go and see this.  A friend recommended it and I promised to go and see it before we next met up, so it was a sense of duty more than anything else that made me go.  I don't know why this was the case - Paddington (2014) was a great film and I really enjoyed it.  I guess I was excited to get on with the "Oscars films", and also keen not to be disappointed by a rubbish sequel trying to capitalise on the success of the first film.

Does marmalade count as one of your 5 a day?

Well, what a surprise.  Paddington 2 is that rare gem - a sequel that is better than the original.  Written by Paul King and Simon Farnaby (whose previous works include The Mighty Boosh and Bunny and the Bull) it doesn't seem like a natural progression for either to be working in the family friendly genre.  Paul King directed and co-wrote the first film so there is some link, but Simon Farnaby's only film-writing credit (as far as I can tell) is Mindhorn.  But here we are.

The film opens with the story of how Paddington came to be in the care of Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) and Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon), and cuts to his life with the Browns in London.  Paddington is now an integral part of the community, and is trying to save up enough money to get a pop-up book of London for Aunt Lucy's 100th birthday.  When the book is stolen, Paddington is wrongfully convicted and jailed for the theft.  Mar-maladies ensue.

Hardened criminal gang

Where Paddington had provided an allegory for the benefits that immigrants can provide to their communities, Paddington 2 expounds on this a little but also just goes all out to emphasise how one little person doing lots of little kind things can change and shape a community for the better.  From helping a friend study for a test, to cleaning someone's windows to let the sunshine in, Paddington throws positivity in the world with no ulterior motives other than helping people be happy.  On a slightly different bent, however, it also has a surprising amount to say about prison reform.  Who knew?

Ben Wishaw returns to voice the eponymous bear, and is rejoined by the cast from the original film.  As well as Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon, there is also a plethora of British actors lining up for bit parts - Richard Ayeoade, Meera Syal, Peter Capaldi, Ben Miller, Jessica Hynes (amongst others) all pop up momentarily, but their cameos are warmly and richly written and a lot is quickly derived from very brief scenes.  Brendan Gleeson is also in surprisingly family friendly territory as Knuckles McGinty, the hardened criminal in charge of the kitchens who becomes Paddington's boss.  However, the absolute scene stealer is Hugh Grant as Phoenix Buchanan - a faded "luvvy" actor who is now famous for dog food adverts.  Grant chews up all the scenery possible as he talks to the mannequins wearing his old costumes (I'm sure I didn't catch all the film references - that's one for the film buffs), devises dastardly schemes, and dons disguises to achieve his goals (He makes a surprisingly good nun).

You see?

The film looks beautiful.  It's set in modern-day London, but there is a timelessness to that London.  There are an absence of mobile phones and computers.  The pop-up book that the plot hangs off is a nice nod to the artwork from the 1989 Paddington TV series.

This book is beautiful

But for me, one of the reasons that the film works so well is because it is so tightly plotted.  Every joke is well seeded in advance.  From Mr Brown's newfound interest in yoga, to Mrs Bird's fury that Phoenix never remembers her name, each payoff lands brilliantly because of its set up.  None of the jokes feel forced or laboured.  I can't remember the film I last laughed as much at.  It also means that the emotional beats pack more of a punch, because the audience knows exactly what is at stake.  This film is pretty much pawfect (groan).  Watch it, and then watch it again.

And remember that kindness is what makes the world a little more bear-able (last one, I'm done, I promise).

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:

• I wasn't entirely convinced by Jonathan Brown's attempts to hide his love of steam trains in an attempt to be cool.  That seemed a little weak and too easily thrown away.
  
• Sadly, Michael Bond - creator of Paddington - died on the day that principal photography on the film finished.  Sharp eyes will have spotted him in the first Paddington film.  Paddington 2 is dedicated to him.
  
• Stay for the post-credit scenes.  It's worth it.

The Greatest Showman

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Greatest Showman)

Happy new year, blog-readers.  Here’s hoping for a year full of excellent films that I can rave about, or suitably dire ones that I can rant about.  I’m ready to move into my local cinema in preparation for watching all films possible so that I can be knowledgeable for no reason come awards time.

I started my film-year with The Greatest Showman.  I saw the trailer in November, and it looked like it was setting up to be the La La Land of 2018.  The trailer promised a lot – a happy Hugh Jackman in full ringmaster regalia, doing the full razzle-dazzle and singing about how this was “the greatest show”. 

I wish I loved this film because the posters look great. Musicals are divisive creatures, I grant you.  You either love ‘em or you hate ‘em (although, weirdly, I find that even those who are the most dismissive about musicals are prepared to accept one or two).  Personally I love ‘em, so I was fully prepared to be fully immersed in some post-Christmas feel-good sing-a-long.

Jackman plays P.T. Barnum, the son of a tailor who falls in love with Charity (Michelle Williams), the daughter of a rich family.  Despite being told to know his place, and Charity being sent to finishing school, the two remain in touch, get married and have two children.  Barnum tries to provide for them but is laid off from his job, and through some deception secures a bank loan which enables him to buy a waxwork museum.  His children suggest that he needs something living to promote interest, which gives him the idea of employing various “freaks” and starting a circus.  Circus adventures ensue.  It has a lot to recommend it.  It looks good, and it sounds good (indeed, the songs are written by La La Land’s composers – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, fresh from their Oscars win, and already scooping up awards for this soundtrack).  Unfortunately, the thing that lets it down is the story.  And it turns out that’s a pretty big deal.

Agreed.

The main problems (as I see them) are these:

1. The film can’t quite decide what it wants to be.       In the first five minutes, it sets up like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge with an old title card and a very loose sense of time and place.  Soon after, it scraps that idea and decided time and place are important and that it wants to be a Broadway/West-end musical (and succeeds admirably – there’s a lot of set-pieces which could work to great effect on stage).  Halfway through the film, it changes to be more Disneyfied (notably, this is when Zac Efron shows up, so it might be a High School Musical nod), and then the last act flits between a few different film styles without necessarily committing to any.  As a result, it’s difficult to understand the world and what’s of consequence in it.
2. The film can’t quite decide what it wants Barnum to be.      
   Now, this is understandable.  The real-life P.T Barnum was a politician, businessman, celebrity and showman, and a master of publicity, scandal and self-promotion.    He was involved in lots of projects and schemes, and the main pull seemed to be whatever would bring him money and fame.  By that description, he was an earlier version of Donald Trump (in the film, Barnum also has a difficult relationship with the press.  Hmm.).  The Greatest Showman wants to focus more on Barnum as a family man and dreamer, welcoming the outsiders of society into the family of his circus.  But it is hesitant to commit to that, and the film suffers as a result.  I found myself wondering: what was the Barnum of the film trying to achieve?  Was he trying to make good on his family name?  Was he trying to be a good husband and father?  Was he trying to be the most famous person he could be?  Was he trying to make money?  Was he trying to prove himself to the classes above him?  This Barnum had no clear raison d’etre and no clear goal, so I was never entirely sure if he had succeeded.  It also means that the Barnum that we meet at the start of the film is exactly the same as the one that we see at the end of the film (just older).
   For a film called The Greatest Showman, I'm not entirely sure how the Barnum of the film justifies the moniker.
3. The film can’t quite decide what it wants to be about.The Greatest Showman sets itself up to be about a lot of things, but explores none of them satisfactorily (partially because of the above two points).  On the face of it, it looks like it is supposed to be a film about challenging the expectations and prejudices held against people who were “other” in any way.  However, it gives no voice to the circus people (and in a lot of instances, barely gives them a name) and blobs them all together as one amorphous group (Who are they?  What are their stories?  Even Barnum rejects the circus people in favour of touring with Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), but there’s no confrontation, conflict or resolution in this).  There are people who are protesting about the circus, but no mention of what they’re actually protesting (so it can’t be challenged).  Which means that songs like “This Is Me” which is an emotionally moving protest song loses much of its clout and becomes an amorphous song that could be generically applied to anything.

 Name 5 of these characters.  Or tell me anything about them. Anyone...?  But equally there’s the potential for this film to be about many different things.  For example:  this could have been a film about the tension between wanting to be popular (which life with the circus provided) versus wanting to be critically acclaimed (which touring with Jenny Lind provided).  This could have been a film about transcending your social class (which was hinted at with the bullying of Barnum’s daughter, or the tensions with Charity’s family).  This could have been a film about work life versus family life.  This could have been a film about choosing your own family.  The framework for all of those stories is evident in The Greatest Showman, but there’s no exploration or development of any of it.  In trying to be about everything, it ends up being about nothing. This is further compounded by the absolute lack of consequence to anything.  We learn that Barnum takes out loans, loses money, takes huge financial risks.  The entire circus burns down.  But we don’t see any cracks in relationships, any wavering in confidence, any querying in decisions.  This should all have played as a daring high wire act.  It’s not.

This is a real shame because there’s a greater show in there.  Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron are both hugely likeable characters (although they should have been two contrasting characters, which would have given more resonance when Barnum symbolically hands over his top hat), and they bring a lot to their screen time together.  “The Other Side” is a hugely enjoyable set piece that displays their strengths well.  Likewise the choreography of “Rewrite the Stars” is impressive.  The songs are great, but the story doesn’t swing well between them.  As such, the audience is told a lot in big monologue heavy chunks.  Which would be fine if it was called The Greatest Tell. 

Additional thoughts, comments, questions:

1. Barnum has two children.  One wishes to have ballet slippers and one wishes to marry Santa.  Barnum goes out of his way to make sure the ballet shoes happen, and the other child gets to be a tree in a play.  I’m not suggesting that there be a Santa storyline, but why give such credence to one and not the other?  Or, for the purposes of the film, just have one child?
2. What did Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron) actually do?  I liked him, but I wasn’t sure what his role was. 
3. Everyone else I know seems to love this film.  The person I saw it with agrees with everything I’ve said in this review and still says “yeah, I don’t care though, I love it”.  Can someone explain it to me?