Film

Cruella – 3 Stars

An expensive looking, but bland enough, vehicle for star turns from two powerhouse Emma’s.

ESTELLA (Emma Stone) grew up without a mother, after a horrific accident she blames herself for. Left to fend for herself, she teams up with Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter-Hauser), and the subsequent band of pick-pockets / thieves robs myriad people blind. However, Estella doesn’t love the life, and instead dreams of being a fashion designer. After Jasper hooks her up with a gig in a fancy fashion department store, her work is noticed by the fabled Baroness (Emma Thompson)–London’s premiere fashion designer.

The Baroness takes Estella under her wing (as much as she does with anybody), but this leads to a horrifying discovery from Estella about the fate of her mother. She’s left with only one option; to transform into her alter ego Cruella, and challenge The Baroness for supremacy in London’s fashion world.

Cruella has a diff erent look to many of Disney’s recent live-action reimaginings. It’s a bit grittier, a bit grimier, aided no doubt by it’s period look. Frankly, it looks beautiful. But that indie-fi lm look isn’t a factor of its budget, because Cruella cost over $200 million to put on screen.

For anyone watching the movie without sound, it might be hard to imagine why that is the case. For those with functioning ears, however, the cost centres are evident immediately, and consistently throughout, because this fi lm has the most gratuitously expensive soundtrack imaginable.

Every 70’s banger is featured, undoubtedly blowing the soundtrack budget sky high. The shocking thing is that for the most part, this incessant hall-of-fame rollout adds little to the fi lm, other than dragging you kicking and screaming out of it.

The rest of the mammoth budget is likely spent on the things that actually make this fi lm standout–that being the costuming, set design, and lead actresses. The costumes and fashions are absolutely gorgeous, blending a mix of relatable period pieces with stunning new concoctions that help solidify Cruella’s supposed fashion bonafi des. The set decoration is similarly impressive, whimsical and grounded all at once. It brings a Disney sensibility to a British period piece.

Then there are the two Emmas. Emma Stone is incredible as Cruella, grounding this anti-hero while also showcasing her range–whether she’s faking innocence, streaming tears in emotional scenes, or just throwing lewks as she struts down that catwalk.

It’s even more impressive when you consider that the character, as written, gives her very little to work with. In this script, Cruella’s motivations turn on a dime with no rhyme or reason, and a lesser actress would have struggle to convincingly bring Jasper and Horace back to the fold after treating them like garbage for a third of the runtime. Only Stone could make us care again.

She is matched, if not exceeded, by the gloriously cruel Emma Thompson, who dives into her villainous turn with relish. Like a murderous version of Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada, Thompson is prone to gloriously sly one-liners, beautiful eyebrow raises, and a stunning fashion sense. She is a joy to watch, chewing this material up and spitting it out into what will surely become a series of not-to-be-missed GIFs.

In the end, Cruella is saved by these three elements, because outside of them all we have is a story that we have generally seen before, that retcons a truly villainous Disney character only by giving her someone even worse to go up against, and couches it all behind a disturbingly and distractingly expensive soundtrack that does more harm than good.

Reviews by Jacob Richardson Creative Director | Film Focus www.filmfocusau.com

A Quiet Place II – 4 Stars

John Kransinski follows up his stunning directorial debut with a worthy successor.

LARGELY set immediately after the events of the first film (excluding a prelude revisiting the day these sound-hating aliens landed on Earth), A Quiet Place II follows Evelyn (Emily Blunt) as she picks up the pieces of her life post the death of her husband Lee (John Krasinski). Determined to use the technological discovery from the end of the previous film to their advantage, she takes her daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and her son Marcus (Noah Jupe) to find allies.

They come across Emmett (Cillian Murphy)–an old friend of the family’s, who has lost hope these past few years. He reluctantly joins the cause, slowly coming to form a bond with Regan, and the crew splits up to solve a series of problems related to their predicament.

Regan and Emmett must trek to the ocean and cross it to fi nd a way to amplify the signal from her hearing aid, Evelyn must fi nd more oxygen and medicine from their old town without getting caught, and Marcus has to keep the new born baby quiet and alive, while discovering what secrets Emmett’s hiding place holds.

As with the fi rst fi lm, A Quiet Place II deals incredibly with sound, and the sound design on display here is top notch. When it’s loud, it’s overwhelming–most evident in the fi rst few scenes of normal life on Earth, which ring with a deafening vehemence now that we know how dangerous those noises can be. Similarly, when it’s quiet with only the soft padding of footsteps, or swishes of clothing, it becomes unbearably tense.

And then when it goes entirely silent, a bizarre feeling of safety and security washes over you. It’s a tremendous, award-worthy achievement.

The acting on display here is once again fantastic, and only bolstered by the infl ux of Cillian Murphy’s talents. Blunt and Murphy are two of the best actors in the game, and Simmonds keeps up, creating a cohesive and engaging performance tapestry that once again makes this engrossing.

Visually, there is lots to love about the fi lm as well, and Krasinski uses his extra time behind the camera to focus on motifs–frequently having our triptych of heroes face similar elements at the same time. The cutting between the three is eff ective, and only very rarely distracting.

The fi lm loses some of the fi rst’s shock value, because we’ve played with this concept before, and in some respects that is a shame. But Krasinski does an admirable job of building out the world, adding in new intriguing elements (and new horrifi c elements), while justifying the existence of this follow up. It’s a worthwhile and engaging sequel, even if it falls short of the original.

Reviews by Jacob Richardson Creative Director | Film Focus www.filmfocusau.com

BINARY

Each square in the puzzle may contain either 0 or 1 1. No more than two adjacent squares may contain the same digit, ie you cannot have three adjacent squares in a row or column of the same digit. 2. Each row and each column must contain the same number of 0s and 1s, eg for a 10x10 grid, each row and column will contain fi ve 0s and fi ve 1s. 3. No row may be the same as another row and no column may be the same as another column. However, a row may be the same as a column.

CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. Little jerks 5. Head downtown? 10. Help in a holdup 14. Balming target 15. Beyond partner 16. Screenplay direction 17. T-bone region 18. Medical research goals 19. Every family has one 20. Illuminated 23. Holiday follower? 24. Skiier’s challenge 25. Unlike a litterbug 27. Palindromic windmill part 30. End of two state names 33. Scratch, say 36. Better copy? 38. Bahrain bread 39. Passed with ease 41. Genetic info carrier 42. Arboreal abode 43. Things to rattle 45. Fishtail, e.g. 47. Daydreamer’s limit? 48. Fit to be fare 50. Killed, as a dragon 53. Tux accessory 54. Prepare for hanging 57. Wrestling area 59. Serving as a diplomat 64. Beer selections 66. Hindu grouping 67. Tat-tat intro 68. Folk facts 69. Pagoda roofi ng 70. Black cat, some think 71. It may come before “we forget” 72. Failed as a sentry 73. Bird’s perch, perhaps

DOWN

1. Chaucer bit 2. They may be clicked on 3. Flu symptom 4. Grad-to-be 5. Bushwhacker’s tool 6. Go to the edge of 7. The good olde days 8. Cooking place 9. Transmit anew 10. Back on a battleship 11. Crooners, often 12. Creation location 13. “High School Musical” extra 21. Main mail drop (abbr.) 22. Disconnected, as a phone line 26. Like siblings 28. Chances in Vegas 29. Roller Derby milieus 31. Checklist item 32. Pretentiously stylish 33. Attack deterrent 34. Military sch. 35. Enrolls 37. Barbary ape’s lack 40. The red 44. Inner city concern 46. Most absurd 49. Offi cial orders 51. Emotion of the miffed 52. Long and thin 55. Sight from Biscayne Bay 56. Gourmand 57. Shoppers’ site 58. Ubiquitous lily relative 60. Place for some polish 61. “Cast Away” setting 62. Manual component 63. A driver may change one 65. Firm or fi xed