Filmdog Weekly #12 (Calvary, The Guard)

Welcome once again faithful Filmdoggers. Faith is once again at the forefront of this week's review as we unearth a modern classic in 'Calvary', the 2nd film in John Michael McDonagh's unfinished 'Suicide Trilogy'. We've also gone back to check out 'The Guard' from 2011 which opens the collection so look away now if you don't like Brendan Gleeson...

Calvary (Greenwich Picturehouse)

'There they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left'

What would you do if you knew you only had a week to live? That's the dilemma facing Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) in Calvary, a beautiful film about one priest's struggle to maintain his faith while his resilience is tested by his very own flock.

The opening scene sets the tone as Father James, while taking Sunday Confession, is told he's going to be murdered in 7 days time. The would-be-killer, his identity a mystery, revealing the pain and inner torture from years of sexual abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church. With his abusers already in the ground, he's decided to take revenge by killing a good priest, an 'innocent' one instead. "That'd be a shock."

What plays out is a very clever, blackly comic, reverse murder-mystery in which the audience is introduced to a variety of characters from this close-knit Sligo town, outwardly showing contempt and mockery for Father James and the outdated institution he represents, while inwardly dealing with the issues of their own faith, severely tested or lost altogether following years of scandal surrounding the Catholic Church. 

Our list of potential assassins includes a libidinous Ivorian mechanic, a local butcher in the middle of an emotional love triangle, a young man with murderous thoughts born out of sexual frustration, an antagonistic pub landlord, an atheist doctor, a mentally fragile rent-boy and a rich banker with a superiority complex. Intriguingly, Father James suspects he knows the identity of his would-be murderer yet carries on with his daily duties anyway, doing his earnest best to fulfil his spiritual calling and putting his faith to the ultimate test.

It's a wonderful film full of rich photography and showing the west coast of Ireland in its picturesque full glory despite the underlying grizzly theme. Religious imagery is put to good use to highlight the contrast between Father James and those he means to serve. He strikes a lone figure wearing the priest's soutane for much of the film, only changing into casual clothes at the point when his faith is most tested but the soutane serves as a uniform, reminding him of his duty. His room is sparsely decorated with a simple cross adorning a large white wall and you understand the integrity behind the man. He practises what he preaches and is fully committed to his servitude of God even if it means paying the ultimate price in the process.

Brendan Gleeson has never been better in my opinion and this is a real behemoth of a performance. He plays it serious but still manages to add a lot of humour to a film which is very sombre and sorrowful. The cast is excellent with noteworthy turns from comedy stars Chris O'Dowd, Dylan Moran and Pat Shortt, all of them convincing in serious roles, and I thought this was a pretty special film. It's very moving, powerful and full of great characters. Go and see it before it disappears from the cinemas.

* * * * *

(Calvary is showing at all Picturehouses and selected Odeon, Vue and Cineworld cinemas in the UK)

The Guard (Netflix Canada)

'Galway Confidential'

I recently downloaded a free Chrome extension called Hola Unblocker which allows my computer to access content from around the world that wouldn't ordinarily be available in my country. I've found it very useful, particularly for accessing a wider range of films that I can't watch on Netflix UK. The limitation is that I have to watch it on my laptop rather than through the Wii but I can live with that.

One film I wanted to watch after seeing Calvary was John Michael McDonagh's previous film The Guard which I accessed on Netflix Canada. Once again Brendan Gleeson plays the lead character Gerry Boyle, a maverick police officer from Galway whose work-life balance is firmly tilted towards the latter end of the scale. He supplements the everyday boredom of policing with drinking, recreational drugs and hookers, making no apologies for it.

Boyle is teamed up with Don Cheadle's FBI Agent Wendell Everett to track down a trio of drug traffickers (Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong and David Wilmot) who are responsible for the murder of Boyle's partner. Their relationship has traces of 48 Hours as Boyle's unintentional racism and laissez-faire attitude towards by-the-book law enforcement causes friction between the two of them, but they eventually bond, acclimatising to the other's habits. 

Integrity is a key theme in McDonagh's films and similarly to Father James in Calvary, Boyle is the lone wolf among a flock of bent cops who feels compelled to be true to himself and his own beliefs despite the potential risks. The ending of both films shares a lot of the same beats, both putting on their uniforms for the final showdown, symbolising their dedication to their team.

While it shares many of the same cast and themes as Calvary, it's tonally different, opting for more openly comic moments and more eccentricity in its characters, most obviously in the way the drug traffickers have been written. The villainous trio are heavily clichéd and comic bookish in their dialogue, having existential discussions among themselves before committing brutal murders. They could easily be Dr Evil's henchmen from the Austin Powers films, so far removed are they from reality and this grates with the rest of the action, which while not enshrined in realism, takes itself a just little more seriously. The final showdown feels rushed, blundering through a barrage of machine gun fire and daft one-liners and it left me just a little unsatisfied.

The Guard is an enjoyable film but it feels more like a trial run for Calvary, in which writer-director McDonagh seems to have figured out what did and didn't work from this film, giving the characters to his follow-up more depth and it benefits from a better sense of pace. Don't be put off though, it's still a lot of fun and Gleeson is terrific as usual. Watch The Guard and Calvary in chronological order to maximise your enjoyment and you'll see how an exciting filmmaker improved over the course of 2 films.

* * * *

Filmdog Weekly - Matthew McConaughey Special

The Paperboy (Netflix) ***

Magic Mike (Netflix) **

Mud (Netflix US) ****

True Detective (Sky Atlantic) *****

'Alright, alright, alright...'

It's about time for a Matthew McConaughey retrospective in light of his brilliant role as Rust Cohle in Sky Atlantic's terrific series True Detective which reached it's climax on Saturday night.

He's been cropping up in a number of roles over the past few years in critically acclaimed films that you may or may not have seen, and his Oscar win for Dallas Buyers Club set tongues wagging about his recent 'comeback', but in truth he's not been anywhere. If he has, it's was a few years basking topless in mediocre rom-coms such as The Wedding Planner (2001), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Failure to Launch (2006) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009). 

Since then, however, I can only conclude that he had a light bulb moment and realised that typecasting himself as the go-to handsome guy for romantic comedies wasn't doing his career any favours. Either that or it was a brilliant piece of strategic planning, churning out forgettable film after forgettable film, knowing full-well that his resurgence in a number of serious, edgy roles would only compound his amazing transformation.

Anyone who's seen A Time to Kill (1996) will know that he's always been a fine actor, but maybe it's taken this long for him to grow into his face. His good looks may have until now stood in the way of him getting the kinds of meaty roles that his talent deserves and now in his 40's, McConaughey has developed an oaky, wizened complexion to toughen up those previously-soft features. Having a few creases in his skin and losing the surfer-blonde look has opened him up to a variety of roles and so I've gone back to watch a few a few films that initially slipped under my radar and which are available to view on Sky or Netflix.

The Paperboy

In 2012's The Paperboy McConaughey plays Ward Jansen, a Miami journalist who arrives back in his hometown to investigate the murder case of a death-row inmate Hillary van Wetter (John Cusack). 

Along with his writing assistant Yardley (David Oyelowo), his younger brother Jack (Zac Effron) and Charlotte (Nicole Kidman), a woman obsessed with the condemned man after an ongoing correspondence relationship with him, the quartet look into van Wetter's case and find that he may not be guilty of the crime after all.

It's shot through a filter, giving it a dated, hazy look and I quite enjoyed the way it made everything look humid and sweaty, providing a real sense of location. However the story is a little befuddled and it doesn't really know what kind of film it is. It's less intrigued in the actual murder mystery and more focused on the dynamic between these very different characters. There's no real tension despite touching on racism, homosexuality and murder, resulting in a pretty unsatisfactory climax.

Magic Mike

On first appearance, it would be quite easy to dismiss Magic Mike as a chick flick given that much of the screen time is filled with muscular dudes dancing naked on stage, however appearances can be deceiving. 

Director Steven Soderbergh is an interesting filmmaker, if not always consistent and this is one to add to that list of films that don't quite work for me. While it's not bad, it isn't particularly interesting despite providing an insightful and (from what I can tell) fairly accurate portrayal of life in the male stripping business.

Channing Tatum plays beefcake-with-a-heart Mike, a savvy stripper as well as an entrepreneur and businessman who takes young and dumb Adam (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing, introducing him to the world of male stripping and all the perks that come with it - women, money and good times. 

Matthew McConaughey is Dallas, head honcho and compere of the Tampa strip group. It's a brave choice, given the solo routine he has to perform halfway through but he throws himself into the role of the wily old-hand who's shrewd enough to realise he requires younger flesh than his own to display if he's going to fulfil his dream of taking his show to the big leagues in Miami. 

It's a dream come true for 19-year-old Alex who ends up living la vida loca just a little too ferociously and the film follows his journey from naive and shy pretty boy to debauched sex machine.

It's loosely based on Channing Tatum's real experience as a Tampa Bay stripper when he was 18 and there's real authenticity to the film, showing the professionalism and pride that these guys take in their work as well as the partying lifestyle that accompanies it. The problem is it's a little too life-like. Most of the action that happens away from the club, the beach barbecues, the house parties, the general everyday life stuff, is mundane. The dialogue is boringly realistic and by the end I found myself wanting these guys to shut their yaps and start dancing again as the stripping scenes are by far the most entertaining part of the film.

There are plans for a sequel to Magic Mike (Even Magic-er?) and with Steven Soderbergh no longer on the scene to direct (he's happily retired) perhaps we'll lose some of the mumblecore elements that turned Magic Mike to decidedly Average Joe.

Mud

Just when you thought this Matthew McConaughey special was turning into a bit of a damp squib, Mud happily comes along to give this review a well-timed boost as our star is once again given a leading role to get his crooked fake teeth into.

The film follows two 14-year-old boys named Ellis and Neckbone, who find a large boat stuck high up in a tree on an island in the middle of the Arkansas River. They claim it for themselves but soon find out that it's being lived in by a mysterious stranger called Mud (McConaghey), a charismatic loner who inspires a sense of adventure in the boys, gaining their trust and befriending them. It soon dawns on them that Mud is living on the island for a more pragmatic reason and they agree to help him fix up the boat so that he can sail off with his true love (Reece Witherspoon) and evade his pursuers.

Mud is a great little adventure film. It has the feel of a Mark Twain story and while the ending seems to switch genres entirely, turning from slow burning character tale into a shoot-em-up, it's an enjoyable romp with some great performances from Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland as the mischievous teen duo and from McConaughey, who's great as the worldly-yet-naive Mud. 

Jump in with both feet.

True Detective

I came late to True Detective which was something of a blessing as it allowed me to watch the first 3 episodes all at once (my preferred method of watching a series).

It's remarkably good. Completely different from any other investigative police show on tv in terms of mood and the sheer brilliance of the writing.

Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey play detectives Marty Hart and Rust Cohle. Marty is the senior officer. On the surface he's a regular family man, hardworking and very much a typical genre-cop. Rust is foisted upon him, transferred in from another state having worked for years undercover, and immediately his style of police work and psychological mutterings begin to test their relationship to the limit, only surviving because of Marty's admiration for his partner's abilities as a detective.

The pair are assigned the case of a murdered young girl, killed in ritualistic fashion, leading to their investigation into disappearance several people across a 20 year period, seemingly connected to something altogether more sinister.

Over 90 minutes this wouldn't work. Across 8 hour-long episodes however, the characters are given a chance to develop and the tension allowed to quietly simmer away. It's shot in such a way that the audience only picks up clues as they are being fed to us by Rust and Marty while being interrogated in the present day about events surrounding the original 1995 case. For the entire first half of the series we still don't know why they are being interrogated and it's a terrific plot device, revealing pieces of the puzzle in flashback, letting the audience play detective as we try to figure out what's going on. 

It's the best television series I've seen since Breaking Bad and although the ending is a little underwhelming (the final episode is unfortunately the weakest of them all) it's a thoroughly well-written, brilliantly-acted and engrossing drama, playing more like an 8-hour film than a typical tv series. Woody Harrelson is excellent as Marty but the series belongs to McConaughey's brooding, lone-wolf Rust.

True Detective completes McConaughey's return from critical obscurity (the McConaissance?), establishing him as the best actor on our screens at this moment in time.

Filmdog Weekly #11 (Noah, Muppets Most Wanted)

This week The Filmdog urges you to bring an umbrella as we get all biblical on your ass with Noah. Then it's another not-quite-as-great Muppet caper in Muppets Most Wanted...

Noah (Greenwich Picturehouse)
'You won't Adam and Eve it'

What is immediately evident on sitting down to watch Noah, Darren Aronofsky's take on the biblical story of God's genocide against humanity, is that the director is not particularly bothered about sticking rigidly to the source material. 

Unlike, say, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's telling of Jesus' torture, crucifixion and (SPOILER) eventual resurrection, which was as far as I could tell a fairly straight-up and accurate version of the events detailed in the Bible, Noah plays fast and loose with it's details in order to best serve the director's vision for his story.

I personally have no issues with that. A director should be able to deviate from the source material in order to tell a more entertaining story and in the case of the story of Noah and the ark, it's only a little over 2000 words long and so logic tells us that it needed to be fleshed out to fill 138 minutes of screen time, creating some fanciful characters and inventing some family drama to go along with all the rain and woodwork. 

Similarly to The Passion, this film received waves of criticism from various religious groups across the world prior to release, forcing the director and his leading man Russell Crowe to strongly defend the film throughout the promotional tour, suggesting people shouldn't criticise the movie before seeing it for themselves. He even gained a meeting with Pope Francis who gave the film his blessing.

The bad news for Aronofsky and Crowe, the latter of whom is one of my favourite actors (and a fellow Bristol City supporter), is that I have seen it, and dear God it is pretty awful.

My heart sank 2 minutes into the film after watching a terribly hashed montage sequence covering the genesis of the world involving a fluorescent stop-motion snake, a fairly unappealing apple and then the aftermath of Adam and Eve's ejection from paradise, leading to armies of bearded men wandering the world and being all kinds of evil. You'll know the evil ones. They are dressed in black.

However, that wasn't the worst of it. This came with the introduction of 'The Watchers', a race of fallen angels cast out of heaven due to their desire to help mankind, and now living on earth in the shape of huge rock-giants. It is from this that the film never recovers and became more of a fantasy-film than a biblical epic. These 'Watchers' would not look out of place in Tolkein's world, indeed they bare an alarming similarity in look and voice to Treebeard and the Ents from the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. If you want to fuck up a film, put some rock-giants in it.

With all hope gone for mankind in the film and all hope gone for me as a viewer, the next 2 hours dragged by as we watch Noah go from child to man, speaking with God (never name-checked, always referred to as 'the Creator') through visions while asleep and proceeding to build an ark in order to carry out his master's grand plan to wipe evil of the face of the earth. This evil is personified by a poorly cast Ray Winstone as Tubal-cain, leader of the baddies, akin to those same clad-in-black beard-faced fellows that we saw at the start of the film. We know they're still bad because they still wear black and eat animal flesh without using a knife or fork. They're none too happy when Noah tells them of their watery fate and so they plot to take the ark for themselves.

Some sub-plots involving Noah's children fill up the rest of the running-time. There's Shem (the handsome one), Ham (the horny one) and Japheth (the one who doesn't get a line in the film). There's also Emma Watson as Ila, a girl Noah saved and took in as his own daughter and Sir Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah, their hermit of a grandfather who possess magical powers that nobody cares to explain. 

Russell Crowe is generally good in these kind of films but the dialogue lets the whole cast down, making them only slightly less wooden than the ark they've built. Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson are wasted in secondary roles and ironically the only person who isn't guilty of ham-acting is Logan Lerman who gives a human performance as Noah's troubled middle-son. Everyone else is reduced to long stares, dramatic turning and earnest statements. It's very theatrical and doesn't quite convince on the big screen of being anything other than actors pretending to be characters.

Noah is grand in scale but I'm not sure it's really a film that needed to be made. Much like the Hobbit trilogy extending itself thinly across 3 films, this suffers from a lack of substance in terms of its source and so is forced to invent a new mythology, one which ultimately won't appeal to those who believe in the bible and which will also fail to excite the imagination of those who enjoy a good fantasy film. 

I've tried to stick clear of puns and cliche but I'm afraid Noah almost made some members of this audience walk out two by two. 

* *

Muppets Most Wanted
'Muppets least needed?'

Following a successful return for The Muppets in 2011, combining the much-loved characters with the Flight of the Conchords team of director James Bobin and songwriter Brett McKenzie, who together injected some much needed life into the ailing franchise, Muppets Most Wanted returns to cash in on their current popularity, and they're not the only ones.

The amount of cameos in this film is quite astounding with familiar faces popping up at every turn. Cynics will claim that the majority of them are simply trying to give their careers a little boost but it doesn't really matter. The Muppets has never worked without having a host of celebrities to make fun of and this film is no exception. Even when there are some odd cameo choices, it's all the better because the joke is really at their expense. Ray Liotta returns for another stint (he appears in Muppets in Space) but looks quite bewildered as a singing, dancing inmate of a Siberian prison.

The plot follows the similar shenanigans of all Muppet films as the gang naively sign up with nefarious music agent Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais) who takes them on a tour of Europe. Can he be trusted? Meanwhile, criminal mastermind Constantine the frog has escaped from prison and plots to steal the Crown Jewels of England by switching places with his doppelganger Kermit and performing a number of raids in Berlin, Madrid and Dublin before the climax at the Tower of London. Hot on their heels are Interpol agents Sam Eagle and Jean Pierre Napoleon (Modern Family's Ty Burrell) who get the movie's best song while conducting an interrogation, whilst in Siberia, Kermit tries to persuade prison warden Nadya (Tina Fey) that they've got the wrong frog.

While it's not as good as The Muppets it's still a lot of fun. The decision to sign up with Bobin and McKenzie for these last 2 films was the best thing the studio could have done as the humour and songs that made Flight of the Conchords so successful translates perfectly to the surreal, madcap stylings of the Muppet world. Ty Burrell is the real star for me as the Clouseau-like detective, directing some well-placed gags at the expense of us Europeans. Tina Fey is also very good (as usual) and Ricky Gervais once again plays himself under a different name. 

Picking 3 of the best comedy actors on television was a clever piece of casting and it's these periphery characters, human and Muppet alike, that provides us with the most fun. Sadly the real weakness of Muppets Most Wanted lay at the door of it's leading stars. Kermit and Piggy, while likeable enough, have little to do here except go through the usual romantic dilemma that occurs in every muppet outing. Frankly I'm just a bit bored of them. Give me more Pepe the King Prawn. Give me more Sam Eagle. Give me more of everyone else. It might not please traditionalists but give me a Muppet film where Kermit and Piggy take a nice long honeymoon for the duration and let everyone else have a bit more screen time.

* * *

Filmdog Weekly #10 (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Greenwich Picturehouse)
'Major Snoozefest...'

As a general rule of thumb I usually try not to read other critics' reviews before I have written my own in case it affects my opinion. It's very easy to think 'hmmm...I should have thought of that' and then pass it off as your own observation and that's not really the point. The good thing about movies and music, amongst other things, is that they are completely subjective. One man's masterpiece is another man's wallpaper. 

On Thursday, however, I found myself drawn to a review on The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw titled 'Marvel's dullest superhero' and couldn't help but sneak a peak. Having seen the film on Wednesday (at mid-day alongside several other lone males of a similar age) at my local Greenwich Picturehouse, my thoughts on the film had already been formed and so I was interested to see what Bradshaw thought of it. Unsurprisingly his views were not wildly dissimilar from mine.

In this second instalment of the super-soldier franchise, his third overall after his run out with The Avengers, our hero's character is firmly established. Steve Rogers, a man genetically modified to combat the Nazis in WWII, frozen in ice and time after battling the evil Red Skull, revived in modern day USA, enlisted as an agent of SHIELD and now resuming his duties as the all-American protector of his homeland and the wider world.

The first Captain America film, 'The First Avenger', was an enjoyable twist on the genre, which had until then been mostly set in the present day, giving us a retro superhero who despite possessing awesome strength and speed, still uses a gun to kill his enemies. He was the ultimate do-gooder and this was made fun of in Avengers Assemble where he was a fish-out-of-water, struggling to adapt to the generational changes in attitude and technology that took place during his 70-year freeze. The reason why that film works so well (and is ultimately the best Marvel film so far) is the badinage between Cap, Thor, Hulk and Iron Man, deftly guided by writer and director Joss Whedon.

In 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier', the fish is well and truly back in the water. No longer troubled by the gulf in his personal timeline, he's happy again. He's at home using the internet ("very useful"), he's making a small catch-up list of pop culture (which bizarrely included the 1966 World Cup final for UK audiences) and he's even managed to hook up with 100-year-old Agent Peggy Carter (Haley Atwell) to reminisce about the old days by her bedside.

He goes about his duty, leading missions alongside Avengers' Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson as former KGB agent Natasha Romanov), shoehorned into this film to give it some star quality and who's primary concern is trying to hook up Cap with a girlfriend.

So there's not much wrong really apart from a little internal conflict about whether he wants to continue being a soldier. Step up Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, with the ingenious idea of putting 3 super-bastard-sized-spaceships in the sky that can each target and wipe out a million people at the same time. Why? For our own protection of course. Cap's not happy with this idea, suspecting it might infringe on the peoples liberty just a little bit and uses his superhuman powers of perception to figure out that this might not be a Dragons Den-winning idea after all.

The rest is pretty formulaic. A host of new characters, including Robert Redford as scheming SHIELD executive Alexander Pierce, Anthony Mackie as Cap's new sidekick Falcon and mysterious new bad guy The Winter Soldier (who could he be? You've failed if you can't figure it out after 20 minutes), join established faces Nick Fury and Black Widow to make this as much as an ensemble as Avengers Assemble and unfortunately that's a damning indictment of Captain America's (and Chris Evans') power to pull an audience.

It's quite an enjoyable film despite the endless bursts of 'TAKATAKATAKATAK' machine gun fire that crops up throughout, and the sooner they get rid of those boring super-spaceships the better. A scene in which Cap takes an eventful ride down an elevator is a standout in terms of action, while Anthony Mackie gives some much needed camaraderie as fellow soldier Sam Wilson. 

However, the real fault of the film lies at its heart. What made Captain America fun in the first place was seeing a man struggling to adapt to his new surroundings and keeping hold of his morality while still reluctantly fulfilling his fighting duties, much like the Wolverine does. That's all gone now. Here, he's happy to chat with Agent Romanov about girls while letting a man (albeit a bad guy) fall to his death from the top of a tower block, the scene deliberately pointing to the fact that he's become more morally flexible. In trying to modernise him, the filmmakers have shed much of the pathos that made him appealing in the first place. An attempt to re-conjure those feelings of self-conflict, whereby he spends much of the film moping about because his best buddy died in The First Avenger, feels phoney, serving only as a plot device for the climax. And try as they might, there is no sexual chemistry between Scarlett Johansson and the impressively muscular Chris Evans, somewhat of a real-life Hulk.

Evans has said he may quit acting and move into directing after his six-film contract with Marvel is finished. That leaves another three outings at least for Captain America and you have to wonder if the man in the red, the white and the blue will come through after all. 

Captain Charisma he most certainly is not and I can't help but agree with Peter Bradshaw. He is Marvel's dullest character and Chris Evans struggles to impart any charm upon him, which is possibly the reason to include several other big stars to prop up the poster boy in this. Sadly it seems he's such a dull character that he can't even be trusted with the lead role in his own film.

* * *

Filmdog Weekly #9 (Under the Skin, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World)

Welcome again to Filmdog Weekly. In this edition we're taking a look at Jonathan Glazer's eerie science-fiction flick Under the Skin and reviewing Peter Weir's 2003 classic Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which played at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on Thursday...

Under the Skin (Greenwich Picturehouse)
'Hopefully it won't be under your radar...'

Scratchy violins picking short, stabbing notes out of the air. A human voice in the distance practising vowels. Black tar-like fluids rising up from a sheer white background. Cylindrical objects floating towards each other. 

Yes, this is the opening scene of Under the Skin and it's beautifully abstract and alien, setting the tone for the next 108 minutes of this wonderfully Kubrickian sci-fi.

Based on Michel Faber's 2000 novel, the film follows a nameless alien, inhabiting the body of a young, beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson) as she drives around Glasgow and the west coast of Scotland looking for suitable young men to seduce.

After picking up young suitors in her van, she drives them back to her flat and it's only once they're inside that we begin to understand the terrifying purpose behind her predatory man-hunt.

We never truly find out the reasons behind this need for men, though it's alluded to in one horrifying scene and anyone who's read the book beforehand will know exactly why. Luckily I was unaware of the existence of the novel and I think this helped add to the tension. It's simultaneously erotic and terrifying as you watch Scarlett lead these young men through the door of her squalid flat into a pitch black, other-worldly landscape, clothes teasingly dropping to floor, and you wonder what will happen to these unfortunate guys walking towards their doom in full state of arousal.

The film benefits tremendously from having a Hollywood star playing the lead role and Scarlett Johansson is mesmerising in this. The stark contrast of seeing someone more accustomed to the red carpets of Los Angeles now driving through urban Glasgow, slowly navigating through the throng of Celtic supporters, allows the audience to tap into that foreignness, literally a world away from her comfort zone. Her English accent only serves to make her more convincing too, giving us the real sense that she's an impostor.

It's a very intelligent sci-fi film and I think it's probably one of the best I've seen. There are no lasers or space ships and only at the very end do we get a glimpse into the true nature of the aliens. She is seemingly the only female but there are others in the form of mute, obedient men who whizz around the country on motorcycles cleaning up her dirty work. There is an insect-style relationship it seems, like ants or bees with a solitary queen and an army of male soldiers to attend to her.

Like any foreigner living among a different culture for an extended amount of time, she begins to develop an understanding of the people and an emotional bond. There's a slow transformation from the woman we see at the beginning of the film, from a calculated and emotionless being intent on carrying out her duty, to a fragile and more sympathetic character. 

For most of the film she watches people going about their everyday lives and several scenes show the subtle shift in her thinking pattern. At first she focuses on single men, identifying suitable candidates, but then later on she turns her attention to women, as she starts to feel more at home in the skin she's in. Then she begins to understand the decency and kindness that humans can have for each other. One montage shows a dad giving his child a piggy-back and a young girl on a bench moving her legs out of the way for an elderly woman to pass by; small little acts of everyday kindness that give away exactly what it is to be human and this has a lasting effect on our alien protagonist.

The final third of the film shows a quiet rebellion against her own kind in favour of her adopted species and the end of the film is actually quite heartbreaking as she finds out that humans are also capable of evil as well as kindness. Unlike most movie-aliens, this species has a fragility about it. They don't possess super-human strength and the only supernatural ability seems to be for hypnosis and a little telepathy.

Under the Skin is beautiful, tense, erotic and very intelligent. Hopefully it won't slip under your radar. Go and see it.

* * * * *

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Royal Naval Museum)

'There's not a moment to lose...'

On Thursday night I went to the Royal Naval Museum by Greenwich Park for a viewing of one of my favourite films. Before the film we were given a 20 minute talk around the true events behind the film and were lucky enough to handle a few historical artifacts, the most notable of which was the signal log from the USS Chesapeake , captured by the HMS Shannon in an 11-minute action in the battle of Boston Bay. The signal book is a key piece of coding for the entire US fleet and it was very heavy, weighted with lead shot so that it can be tossed overboard in the event of capture, however in this case it was taken by the Shannon's Captain Philip Broke. We also managed to look at Broke's diary and the ship's log. Very interesting stuff if you like naval history.

The film itself is based around a real-life action, only with the US frigate replaced by the French Acheron to give it a more Napoleonic feel. It's a mash-up of several book by Patrick O'Brian (very fine reading they are too) and follows Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin on their quest aboard HMS Surprise to intercept the Acheron, sink her or take her as a prize.

It's a brilliant chase, a cat and mouse hunt across the South Atlantic and South Pacific oceans, giving an accurate depiction of life on board a man of war during the Napoleonic battles. Russell Crowe gives a very heroic portrayal of 'Lucky Jack', not quite so buffoonish as he is in the books but excellent all the same. Paul Bettany is also outstanding as Maturin, surgeon and spy, the latter of which is only hinted at in the film.

I could spend a lot more time writing about this film but it's one you really must see for yourself. If you haven't already done so...there's not a moment to lose!

* * * * *

Filmdog Weekly #8 (The Great Beauty, The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Welcome once again to Filmdog Weekly. Hopefully you had a chance to read our Oscars Special in which we tipped up all the winners for Best Film and Best Acting categories. We also predicted a win for this week's feature The Great Beauty, which won Best Film in a Foreign Language. Here's why...

The Great Beauty (Prince Charles Cinema)

'When in Rome...'

The Great Beauty is a visual attack on the senses, a display of Rome in its various modern guises; Tranquil city of art, beauty and architecture by day; Hedonistic playground for the rich and famous by night.

It is in the latter of these landscapes, a rooftop birthday party that's more reminiscent of an Ibiza rave, that we meet Jeb Gambardella (Toni Servillo), a writer and social vampire who spends his nights drinking with Rome's elite and his days catching up on sleep. The film follows Jeb on a journey of soul-searching after learning of a former lover's death, contemplating the merits of his semi-chaotic lifestyle, along the way exploring the nooks of Rome and the many eccentrics and grotesques that inhabit the city.

It's a very beautiful film, full of colour and movement. The camera rarely stays still, gliding across the screen in vast, sweeping panning shots and it gives the film a fluid style, reflecting how Jeb is always on the move (his apartment is the only location that we pay repeated visits) in his search for life's 'great beauty'.

It's also a film full of melancholy. Every character seems to be flawed, using wealth to mask a deep fragility, desperate to keep up appearances. As Jeb passes his 65th birthday, the death of his childhood sweetheart brings his own mortality home to roost and the film is more of a study to the true meaning of life, underneath all the trivialities of everyday living, examining the things that matter most - love, beauty and family. 

The Great Beauty one of the most difficult films I've reviewed so far. There's no real story here, just a study of events surrounding one man during a period in his life. The 150 minute-long running time can be very testing too but ultimately I enjoyed this film. It's a piece of art rather than a form of entertainment and I found it quite inspiring, albeit in a very sombre kind of way. It's interesting and certainly worth a watch if you like art films.

* * * 

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Greenwich Picturehouse)

'Fantastic Mr Fiennes...'

Wes Anderson is one of those Marmite directors. I love the style of his films and he's definitely one of the most original filmmakers of my generation, but despite wanting to love every film he's made, I just can't seem to do it. I want to, but I just can't.

I'm a big fan of Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Fantastic Mr Fox is one of my favourite films, however, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom left me a bit cold, so on sitting down to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel I really didn't know what to expect.

The true answer is that I can't quite make up my mind. It's a stunningly visual film, fantastically realised, giving life and colour to the fictional country of Zubrowska. I really enjoy the photography in Anderson's films with lots of still shots framing the scenes, a kind of 2D quality, almost like a comic-book, that works really well for me and this film is no exception. The way the hotel is shot gives it a magnificent scale, 'grand' in every sense of the word.

Ralph Fiennes is brilliant as the film's hero, Mr Gustav H, concierge of the Grand Budapest. He's completely charming, witty and often foul-mouthed, using his slippery charm to get him out of all sorts of trouble. He's accompanied by his lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) as they navigate their way through multiple perilous episodes, all plotted around the death of Madame D (Tilda Swinton) who has left a priceless masterpiece to Mr Gustav in her will, much to the ire of her villainous son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and his henchman Jopling (Willem Defoe).

Like most of Wes Anderson films it will take a few viewings for me to ultimately decide whether I like it or not. Until then, let me just say this. It's definitely worth going to watch, based on Ralph Fiennes hilarious performance alone. Whether the story is good enough to entice you into repeat viewings is another matter. To quote another fantastic fox, 'It's different...but it's not a hen '.

* * *

The Filmdog Oscars Special

The Oscars circus rolls into Los Angeles for their annual schmooze-fest. Let's skip all the guff, trim away the fat about pretty clothes and cut straight to the bone of this corpulent beast...

Best Picture

American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

Here's what should happen...

12 Years a Slave should rightfully win Best Picture, though from what I've read in the press over recent weeks, the Academy members seem to have no appetite for this gritty slavery epic, which is a shame because it's hands-down the best film on this list (from those that I have seen. Apologies to Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street).

The main challenges will come from Dallas Buyers Club and Gravity, both of which are very good but not quite up there with Slave in terms of story and cinematic gravitas. Matthew McConaughey's AIDS drama is surely going to get some recognition for it's acting performances, while Alfonso Cuaron's Sci-Fi is a masterpiece in terms of groundbreaking technological effects and direction but the story suffers from the restraints of being set in space. It did very well at the BAFTA's so it may well go home with its pockets stuffed with statuettes.

Her is a bit of a wet blanket. It's a nice premise but it's not going to be anyones favourite film of the past 12 months. Captain Phillips was very disappointing for me. Having caught it on Sky last week I'm shocked that Barkhad Abdi managed to stroll off with Best Supporting Actor award in London a few weeks ago. Maybe he held a room full of BAFTA fellows hostage while they cast their votes but he certainly pulled some wool over a few peoples eyes. He won't be winning a thing tonight I'm afraid.

American Hustle is my big grumble of this year. Christian Bale is excellent in it but I cannot for the life of me fathom what makes people rate this film so highly. It's just not very good and it seems to have won people over on the strength of it's A-list cast alone. Take away the big names and the outlandish costumes and what you're left with is a very poor heist (minus the heist) drama. I'll be annoyed if this wins anything outside of the costume/hair/makeup categories.

Nebraska is our token art film that almost nobody has seen. It's very good but it's incredibly slow, acting as a vehicle for some great performances without having a compelling enough story to make it a truly great film.

So there we have it. If 12 Years a Slave doesn't win Best Picture then it's a fucking travesty but I wouldn't rule out Gravity opening up it's airlock and sucking away Slave's chances into oblivion.

Best Actor

Christian Bale
Bruce Dern
Leonardo DiCaprio
Matthew McConaughey
Chiwetel Ejiofor

The Best Actor category is very strong this year. Once again, apologies to Leo for not watching his film but from the others, I'll be majorly surprised if Matthew McConaughey doesn't walk away with this, not just because of his brilliant performance in Dallas Buyers Club, but because he's probably due an award for the films he's made in the past couple of years. His turn here is no better than that of Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is also remarkable as Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave, but I reckon a black, British luvvie won't carry as much popularity as Southern charm-machine MaConaughey.

Bruce Dern is fantastic in Nebraska and I've had a small bet on him at 40/1. I don't think he'll win because of the film's low profile, but he gives a very nuanced performance as a senile alcoholic and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he might receive a few outside votes from those who can't pick between the category's two big guns. That's also a bit unfair on Christian Bale who is by far and away the best thing in American Hustle.

The winner? I'm going to say McConaughey but I'll be rooting for Ejiofor.


Best Actress

Amy Adams
Cate Blanchett
Sandra Bullock
Judi Dench
Meryl Streep

This dull list is made up of the usual suspects. These ladies have 37 nominations and 6 statuettes between them and the strong favourite is Cate Blanchett who seems guaranteed to walk off with this. Again, I haven't seen Judi Dench or Meryl Streep, the latter's film isn't even out yet, suggesting she's thrown in here for old time's sake rather than for any great work she's done. Sandra Bullock did a really good job in Gravity considering she was in a huge space suit for the majority of it. As long as Amy Adams doesn't win I'll be happy. She's the true imposter here, utterly terrible in American Hustle, with her fake English accent, which she's required to do throughout the entire film, buckling like a giraffe giving a piggy back to an elephant.

Cate Blanchett will win.

Best Supporting Actor

Jared Leto
Michael Fassbender
Jonah Hill
Barhad Abdi
Bradley Cooper

I'll keep it brief. Jared Leto will probably win for his portrayal of transgender Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. However, Michael Fassbender is the true diamond here. His turn as a tormented slave owner in 12 Years a Slave is chilling, brutal and awesome. Forget the others, they are simple cannon fodder, but I think Fassbender can pull off a surprise here by beating the well-fancied Leto to the Oscar. 

Best Supporting Actress

Jennifer Lawrence
Sally Hawkins
Lupita Nyong'o
June Squibb
Julia Roberts

I've had a bet on June Squibb at 33/1. Once again, she's very unlikely to win but I backed her on the strength that the rest of the runners in this field are not very strong. J-Law is the hot favourite, and she's quite good in American Hustle, but I can't help but think she's included because she's flavour of the month. Everyone's in love with her but that doesn't mean she'll win here. Squibb gives a subtle turn in Nebraska, providing most of the humour and is very watchable alongside Bruce Dern, injecting the film with plenty of heart and realism. Julia Roberts and Sally Hawkins may well have done some good work but the odds are against them.

Lupita Nyong'o was overlooked at the BAFTA's and I'd be surprised if the same happens here. She's got to win for her role in 12 Years a Slave. If she doesn't, expect a Twitter meltdown.


Filmdog Predictions

Here's who I think will win but not necessarily who I want to win...

Best Picture - 12 Years a Slave

Best Director - Steve Mcqueen 

Best Actor in a Leading Role - Matthew McConaughey

Best Actress in a Leading Role - Cate Blanchett

Best Supporting Actor - Michael Fassbender

Best Supporting Actress - Lupita Nyong'o

Best Original Screenplay - American Hustle

Best Adapted Screenplay - Philomena

Best Animated Feature - Frozen

Best Foreign Language Film - The Great Beauty

Best Cinematography - Gravity

Best Film Editing - Gravity

Best Production Design - The Great Gatsby

Best Costume Design - The Great Gatsby

Best Makeup and Hairstlying - Dallas Buyers Club

Best Original Score - Gravity

Best Original Song - Let It Go (Frozen)

Best Sound Editing - Gravity

Best Sound Mixing - Gravity

Best Visual Effects - Gravity

Best Documentary Feature - The Act of Killing

Best Documentary Short - The Lady in Number 6

Best Animated Short - Get a Horse!

Best Live Action Short - The Voorman Problem

Oscars Drinking Game 

If you are planning to stay up tonight, you may as well get drunk. Here's a game to get you through 3 hours of Ellen Degeneres.


Filmdog out.