TFR October 2013 by Trinity Film Review

BRUTALITY ON SCREEN ALSO INSIDE: MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY / NETFLIX GRAVEYARD/ HAYAO MIYAZAKI / REVIEW OF 1THE SUMMER

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it From Russia w

Robyn & David 3

feature p. 17

cover story p. 20

review p. 12

news............................... 6 reviews The To Do List.......................8 review of the summer.........9 Pain and Gain........................12 Hannah Arendt......................13

features hayao miyazki.........................14 ....................16 ................17 overrated................................18 underrated............................. 19 brutality on screen................20 sheenage dirtbags..................22 matthew mahogany.............. 24 vine & snapchat....................26 5 word reviews......................27

Cast & Crew Trinity Film Review (TFR) is a Trinity Publication. It is funded by a grant from DU Publications Committee. TFR claims no special rights or privileges and any serious complaints should be addressed to: The Editors, Trinity Film Review, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.

editors: David Cullinan Robyn Hamilton creative director: Clara Murray editorial staff: Bryan Masterson Jack O’Kennedy Donie O’Sé Carla Rogers Glenn Whelan

web editor: Vladimir Rakhmanin contributors: Hannah Boles Michael Lannigan Sarah Lennon Galavan Peter Mahaffey Justin Murphy David O’Neill bitter ex-editor: PJ Moloney

news Disney

have released a new trailer for their upcoming 3D aniFrozen. Based (Incredibly loosely) on the Hans Christian Anderson tale of The Snow Queen, (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Kristoff as they go on an epic journey to save the kingdom from the clutches of a misunderstood Ice Queen. While Disney’s recent string classics of old, we’re sure that we’re all in for at least one or two good laughs.

kurt russell joins After Justin Lin, director of the

last four instalments, vacated the director’s chair in early this year, Universal quickly named his replacement as James Wan, of Saw and The Conjuring success. Now comes the latest in the studio’s effort to revitalise the hugely Kurt Russell, star of 80s classics

The Thing and Escape from New York, has been added to the cast. Regulars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster and Dwayne Johnson are all returning in addition to new cast members Jason Statham and Djimon Hounsou. Shooting is currently underway in Atlanta, GA with no set release date.

Disney have announced that they will not be renewing their movie deal with Jerry Bruckheimer when it expires next year. Despite the ofwas prompted by the recent failure of The Lone Ranger, the word through the grapevine is that Disney felt they were holding back the veteran producer from returning to the glory days of Top Gun and Con Air and in a classic example of “it’s not you it’s me” have broken heartedly let him go. Jerry Bruckheimer’s personal brand of Disney ‘classics’ include four Pirates of the Caribbean National Treasures, Remember the Titans and G-Force but with his considerable presence in TV, this doesn’t look to greatly affect his work.

Joining the club of directors to

The Austrian actor of Inglourious Basterds & Django Unchained is in talks to appear opposite Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood, Battleship) in Warner Bros’ Tarzan live-action

off large structures, the AcademyAward winning Usual Suspects scribe Mission Impossible recent success of his Jack Reacher, McQuarrie’s street cred has been the fringes and largely forgotten. Valkyrie, which McQuarrie wrote, and has acted as a trusted script doctor to the heeled scientologist for quite some time, including work on next year’s Edge of Tomorrow. It will be a while before this comes to fruition but it’s worth keeping an eye out, for these talents have proven very compatible to date

Based on the Coen Brothers’ Oscar network FX is lining up a 10-epiBob Thornton with The Hobbit’s leading man. First known for his work in BBC’s Freeman has since become known for his Dr. Watson portrayal opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC’s Sherlock. Joel & Ethan Coen are both on hand as producers, with Bones producer Noal Hawley running the show. Expect its arrival in late 2014.

ject, to be helmed by Harry Potter director David Yates. Jamie Foxx and Jessica Chastain have come and gone, with as of yet no actress secured for the role of Jane. The studio, but heavy hitters like Waltz could no doubt move this swiftly into production should an agreement be made.

the to do list The classic structure of the teen sex comedy has become tired and overdone. The once consistent box to revamp the genre, director Maggie Carey presents The To Do List, which focuses on a female protagonist played by Aubrey Plaza, rather than the traditional male of the teen sex comedy. The To Do List concerns itself with gent, proactive (if socially awkward) young woman named Brandy Klark (Plaza). When preparing for college, she becomes anxious that her lack of sexual experience will, for some reason, be to the detriment of her education. The monotone voiced Plaza has Brandy complete a meticulously compiled list of sexual acts in the last summer before college scenes, rather than coming across as funny, are just uncomfortable to watch and make the audience uneasy as this young girl performs actions on screen that would make the Farrelly Brothers wince. Although its goal to subvert the formulated tropes of the teen sex comedy is an honourable one, The

Reviewed by David O’Neill

To Do List ultimately fails so spectacularly, undermining any possible sense of empowerment on the part of Brandy. By reducing her to tion or personality, she is never redeemed throughout the course of as you would expect, Brandy works ingly ticks off items from its own to do list of tropes and clichés. This predictability even carries on into all of the characters’ lines before comes across as if Maggie Carey is simply writing by numbers. While there are some funny mois often inconsistent and prevents itself from dependably providing laughs. It often jumps from the obviously improvised and often humorous one liners of Bill Hader or Donald Glover in one scene to fart and poo jokes in the next. Cameos from the likes of Andy Samberg time in a loose second act. Aubrey Plaza’s performance is also decidedly unfunny. Her robotic delivery of clunky jokes just further

of the female protagonist and she is simply used as a vessel to guide the audience from one cameo-laden vignette to another.

lackadaisical writing. Rather than actually taking the time to write funny jokes, Maggie Carey seems content to simply reference aspects of the nineties. What she clearly forgot in between watching old episodes of Saved by the Bell for research is that the target audience of The To Do List would have been in nappies or a mere twinkle in their fathers’ eyes such, many of the nostalgic references that Carey has inserted in lieu the heads of the audience like the Concorde over the Atlantic. Though at times appallingly unfunny this is merely a side effect of experiment. By eschewing the traditional gender roles of the teen sex comedy The To Do List teaches us one valuable lesson: no matter how much you try and mess with the formula, teen sex comedies will still be sexist, cliché ridden and lazily written tripe.

REVIEW

of the summer While you were all out work-

ing on your sunburns, many-ablockbuster may have passed you by. This summer marked a breaking point for colossal budgets and billboard assaults, with many studio tent pole releases coming out so close to each other, most failed to make a mark and go down as major write-offs. Disney’s The Lone Ranger, RIPD, White

House Down and many other ludicrously expensive movies left the summer cinema screens without a trace, forcing studios to reevaluate how they select their slate. Despite no shortage in the comic-book adaptation stall, with Man of Steel, The Wolverine, Red 2 and Kick Ass 2, large original (and I use that

endar. White House Down, We’re The Millers and The Heat all proved there is a space for nonsequels and adaptations, with two of these three deemed summer success. So here we’ve summarized the highlights of the season and what you may have missed.

MAN OF STEEL WHITE HOUSE DOWN

The Zach Snyder (300) & Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy) combination proves formida-

himself as the eponymous extraterrestrial leading a stellar supporting cast of Rusell Crowe, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon & Kevin Costner.. Snyder’s best directorial work yet in establishing a credible, grounded universe, until it realises it’s a super-

Channing Tatum & Jamie Foxx are a enjoyable on-screen team in this Washington-set siege epic. The action sequences are well choreographed and make the most of the concept, with an underused yet more than capable cast, but ultimately culminate in an unsatisfying end to such colossal carnage. DC

THE way way back Community’s Jim Rash makes his directorial debut with this charming coming-of-age caper. Duncan is a 14-year-old boy in the throes of awkward adolescence. Forced to spend the summer at his detestable step father’s summer cabin in Cape Cod, Duncan makes the best of it by escaping to the local water treading old ground, the awesome script, likeable characters and genuine heart will have you hooked. RH

overlong action sequences. DC

WORLD WAR Z Plagued with production troubles, very few people expected World War Z to be as good as it was. It’s and one of the few that manages to convey the scale of a global zombie pandemic well. The third on, but as a whole, it’s an entertaining watch. DS

PACIFIC RIM harder to hide the ineptitude of its actors, cannot be faulted for some of its narrative shortcomings. Not only does it contain some of the most wonderfully and sympathetically choreographed CGI in movie history, it maintains more realistic and equitable a relationship between its young protagonists than most any other blockbuster of its kind and admirably makes loving tribute to the manga tradition it so openly feeds off. BM

REVIEW OF THE SUMMER

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY After the disappointing Cars 2 and the underwhelming Brave, Pixar are back on track with a prequel to 2001’s Monster’s Inc. Being set in the same universe as the original, tious - despite this, Pixar’s trademark charm is still intact, and the visuals are as fanastic as always. VR

DESPICABLE ME 2 THIS IS THE END Despicable Me 2 retains much of the character and humour of its predewith jokes for an audience of any age, ranging from toilet humour, to more grown up psychological humour along the lines of “I eat my feelings, ok?” The voice cast is once again fantastic, with the addition of Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt and Steve Coogan to the already starstudded cast. Although it may be cliché, this one’s got something for the whole family. EC

A plethora of celebrities gather at James Franco’s house for a party on the same night of the Apocalypse in Seth Rogen’s co-directorial debut. Each celebrity cast member plays a version of themselves, and while the idea of this seemed a little conceited initially, it works in the with stellar cameo appearancesThis Is the End has more than it’s fair share of laugh-out-loud moments, and the cast alone makes it worth the watch. DS

BEFORE MIDNIGHT

GROWN UPS 2

KICKASS 2

In the third of this trilogy, Ethan Hawke & Julie Delphy’s Celine & Jesse lives continue nine years after Before Sunset with enough to please fans but also a noticeable departure from its predecessors. The charm

The follow up to 2010’s Adam musing persons endurance test was not something anyone in TFR put themselves through. So, honestly we have no idea what this is like. We’d guess fart jokes, old men refusing to grow up, and remnants of every rejected scene written in Hollywood circa 2011. Although, if the reviews didn’t already give you that hint, don’t say we didn’t warn you. DC

The OTT sequel to Matthew Vaughn’s hilariously violent 2010

and concerns of careers, parenthood and the modern world take prominence, bringing a maturing approach to this chapter, and to relationships in general. HB

the WORLD’S END

THE CONJURING

ment in The Cornetto Trilogy is the most poignant instalment in the series, chronicling a pub crawl reuniting an old gang. While the end felt a little too OTT, the rest of the

Superb, nail-biting horror from James Wan, starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as parapsychologists, Ed and follows the Perron family, who enlist the help of the going bump in the night. The plot is a little by numbers, but Wan tells the story in such a way that it all feels fresh, exciting, and truly terrifying. DS

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS Director J.J. Abrams has toned to the incredible 2009 reboot. Into Darkness is the least Trek movie nonetheless, helped by its stunning visuals and a cracking script. Benedict Cumberbatch and Zachary Quinto are the stand out performers in this one, and the former does a great job reinventing one of the most iconic Trek villains. DS

that’s lost in its lesser sequel. Director Jeff Wadlow opts for gross-out humour all too often, and the spirit ticular cafeteria-based scene involving a “sick stick”. With new additions like Jim Carrey chipping in, decent watch, but not a patch on DS

The cast is fantastic, and the script is bound to make you crack a smile, or shed a tear. An ideal end to one of the DS

WE’RE THE MILLERS Dodgeball, comes a decidedly lacklustre directorial comedy follow up. It concerns a low level drug dealer who has to get a shipment of weed over the Mexican border. He employs a way and a lonely teen) as accomplices to his disguise- a wholesome family on holiday in a massive RV. There are a few decent laughs to be found but overall the terrible script, woeful acting and annoying characters will leave you cringing. RH

THE HEAT The Heat, at times, will make you laugh out loud. Melissa McCarthy truly is a force on screen, and when she is given space to exercise her comedic chops the the juxtaposition of her grimy offensive cop against Bullock’s tightly wound ‘narc’ agent should work, but the writing isn’t strong enough and Feig doesn’t get the same level of comic frequency as he did in Bridesmaids. An opportunity missed. BM

All pain, no gain Before one begins the Bay-bashing that inevitably follows his view by proudly stating, I have ing a soft spot for The Rock and

the next. Here, at around the half-

all its cash-grabbing vulgarity, I didn’t expect subtext, nuance, or even reasonable decibel levels as the studio logos lit up the screen for Pain & Gain. Michael, however, has really fallen to new lows with this latest ‘low budget caper’.

Aside from the amusing sequenc-

Set in South Beach, Florida, Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie play bodybuilders who, in search of what they believe to be the American Dream, take to kidnapping a wealthy client of berg) and extorting his money & possessions. However to say things go wrong would be as much of an understatement as saying Ben AfBatman casting. Having abducted a sleazy, millionaire gym client, played by Tony Shaloub, and taken possession of his millions, they proexistence, each more woeful than

misjudged schlock of unwarranted gore, just as retired cop Ed Harris, with his creaky back to boot, gets a whiff of their monkey business.

and very permanent, ineptitude doesn’t know what it wants to do and ends up being a perfect example of the vacuous excess that the American way of life can create. Wahlberg and The Rock do well with their airheads of characters, but they are absorbed in the steroid-infused-everything of Bay’s vision, including a saturated colour palette fresh from an LSD trip. Having racked up two unwanted corpses in their attempts to continue on the money making train, the world’s worst operating room scenario emerges as they dismember the corpses to scatter the remains. This sequence, way too long already, adds a scene featuring Johnson’s born-again idiot barbecuing the hands and feet of the former business partner and his wife, while waving at the neighbours. One

David Cullinan reviews Pain & Gain

‘this is still a true story’ title at this juncture cements the laddish ambiwhere the vulgar, crude, and really in your face disgusting, is embraced with Bay almost standing in the cinema corner, hand in air still a true story’ title at this juncture cements the laddish ambience the vulgar, crude, and really in your face disgusting, is embraced with Bay almost standing in the cinema corner, hand in air expecting a high These misguided individuals’ skewed ways of thinking joint with the ADHD camerawork and a chronic lack of humour makes this predict what was happening because its tone swings so wildly between a gymmed-up Dumb & Dumber and a Saw with idiots that it’s truly nauseating. There is little to ideology it attempts to depict, and even satirize, that it can’t even see through its own intentions. However the truth behind this mess is what should worry us more.

ho is the main perpetrator of evil? Is it the man committing the acts of terror, or is it the man who ordered him to do so? Margarethe Von Trotta explores the human mind and the nature of evil in Hannah Arendt. The Eichmann from Hannah Arendt’s perspective, as well as including her philosophical conclusions derived from the trial, which proved controversial yet spot on in regards to humanity and to the Holocaust. Adolf Eichmann, who would become the symbol of the banality of evil, was a normal man. He showed an average intelligence and a non-

in relation to the Western world in her 1951 work On the Origins of Totalitarianism, The New Yorker, after some debate, gives her the job and Arendt promptly travels to Jerusalem to examine the trial. During the trial, the utter mediocrity of the man that is Adolf Eichmann strikes Arendt. Eichmann is not a monster, but merely a loyal servant to an evil machine. The fact that a pencil-pusher is a monster in action but not in personality prompts Arendt to form the phrase “the banality of evil,” a concept that Von Trotta exThis concept has been explored

disjointed due to the use of archive footage. Last year, No showed that downscaling the quality of the imfootage actually has a pleasing effect, keeping the suspension of disbelief unbroken, which is what Hannah Arendt should have done. That, or scrap the archive footage altogether. Another interesting aspect of Arendt is that it touches on the backlash Arendt received when she suggested Jewish collaboration with the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto, with critics accusing her of accusing the Jews of aiding the Nazis with the Holocaust. Von Trotta presents a strong Arendt: an intelligent

hannah arendt Reviewed by Peter Mahaffey

aggressive nature. However, he organised the logistics of the Holocaust, and so held (at least partial) responsibility for the deaths of mil1961 with Eichmann’s capture and the announcement of his trial in Jerusalem. Arendt, played by Barbara Sukowa, seizes the opportunity to apply to cover the trial for the New

frequently in twentieth century Heart of Darkness, A Clockwork Orange, and Dr. Strangelove all coming immediately to mind. The trick with this theme is to show the evil. Hannah Arendt often feels sluggish and too dependent on dialogue, with many scenes of people sitting around in parlours or other meeting rooms

to write about the Third Reich

Some of the scenes are also a bit

woman providing a voice for a postWorld War II society. Sukowa’s acting is top-notch, giving complexion out character. Overall, Hannah Arendt is an interidea of the banality of evil in the best way, but it provides a glimpse into the trials and tribulations of the woman who coined the phrase.

Hayao Miyazaki PJ Moloney

2004: the year I saw Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirit-

ed Away seen such a vivid symphony of colours, imagination and skill brought to family television. With the characters popping and the scenery bursting with the stink spirit and fresh aroma of Sen’s Bouquet, I knew I had stumbled onto something life changing. From then on I began to gobble up as Princess Mononoke; Porco Rosso and the unforgettable My Neighbour Totoro to name but a few. And now, with the release The Wind Rises, Miyazaki has announced his retirement. Never to direct again. is better than Miyazaki. His depth of emotion and ly relatable structure which forces the viewer to critically engage with their own surroundings. The problem is…Takahata is not a master. He has not had the same divine effect that Miyazaki has had on people. Art is often conceived as being a method of relaying a message or feeling. Miyazaki sees animation as a way of relaying humanity. While Takahata comments on the world we live in, Miyazaki embraces humanity’s capability for escapism. We are captivated by the works of Miyazaki because he is not condescending, he is not elitist and he allows us to be human. He embraces our greatest strength and our greatest weakness: Hope.

We could discuss how upsetting this will be to the landscape of anime. Certainly there do not seem to be any prime candidates to be worthy of taking his place. Disney was never the same after the death of Walt and neither will Studio Ghibli be the same without its No.1 master to keep it on the same course. This is inevitable. Change is inevitable, and so paying homage to Miyazaki by saying how terrible everything will be without him is pointless. Instead let’s discuss why we love Miyazaki. I know that I have always had an issue with actually understanding my love for Miyazaki. When I look back at Kiki’s Delivery Service self thinking “it’s good, no doubt, but it’s not that good”. I say this knowing full well that next time I see it I will be spirited away once more into that seaside world where little witches don’t do much else but deliver bread and Salem’s long lost cousin Jiji’s sense of humour will always spark a smile. The en-

We’ve now entered into an era where animation is more than a way of distracting children. Animation is as legitimate a form of expression as any other medium, perhaps even more so. In a world where technology’s spectre is slowly devouring all, inspiring animators such as Pendelton Ward and Makoto Shinkai are taking up the torch to keep the light shining bright. There are three places in that castle in the sky for master animators. Two of those plac-

I like to compare him to his long time business Grave of the Fireand Pom Poko, among others are so delightfully emotional that even thinking about them can bring a tear to your eye. In many regards perhaps Takahata

Miyazaki, I hope that the next is on their way.

netflix graveyard W scrape the bottom of the popular media streaming service’s surprisingly shallow barrel to uncover some of the worst crimes committed against celluloid. You’ve all been here before, that murky place that exists only a few downward scrolls of the click wheel in each and every land where dreadful Bollywood nestled alongside such wonderfully titled gems as Nude Nuns with Big Guns and Lust in the Dust. To be frank, we’re going in to this assuming the worst and therefore will not be doing a traditional review, instead focusing on a number of lower your expectations as we toast the terrible brilliance of Ghost Cat.

title:

What’s this? The long awaited follow up to Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai starring Forest Whisker-er….sorry, I’ll stop now. Seriously though, it’s not particularly evocative is it? I mean how scary is the idea of a ghost cat really? What’s that you say, well ghosts knock things over, make terrible noises and stalk the house in the dead of night. As a cat owner I already. Surely being haunted by a ghost cat which you don’t have to feed is more convenient than owning a live one?

cover art:

Now this is more like it. Ominous Clouds? Check. Ramshackle house? You got it.

You’ve got the makings of a classic horror sleeve here. However, these tried and tested elements are undermined by a poorly photoshopped and enormo-foreheaded Ellen Page. Her blandly quizzical expression contains about as much human emotion as the titular cats does. It’s droopily whiskered visage highlights its species’ general contempt for humanity more than it instills fear in the prospect of a phantom feline. Still, that font is pretty terrifying eh?

pedigree:

When an actor “breaks” and suddenly becomes famous you’ll often see earlier work of theirs rebranded with their (now recognizable) name emblazoned over the title. (See Robert Pattinson’s Little Ashes, released in the same year Twilight proof of this phenomenon) This 2003 made-for-TV Animal Planet year away from her breakout role in the notoriously brilliant Hard Candy. She’s since gone on to achieve comedy immortality in Juno and scale the dizzying heights of intelligent Inception. The rest of the cast makes for less interesting reading, unless you count Gemini Award winner (me neither) Nigel Bennett as dastardly property developer James Riker. According to his Wikipedia page he is “best known for playing the vampire patriarch Lucien LaCroix in the TV series Forever Knight. Ghost Cat’s director Dan McBrearty went on to Sex and the Single Mom and its (very necessary) sequel More Sex and the Single Mom.

what we wanted: A chill-

ing tale of death and revenge in which a wealthy widow, murdered by her greedy family for the inheritance, inhabits the body of a feral cat and takes revenge on her twisted offspring in increasingly brutal fashion.

what we got: The heartwarming story of a young girl who comes to terms with her mother’s death whilst helping a local animal shelter win its battle against evil property developers with the help of a benevolent spirit. liked this? you might like: Watching a nature documentary whilst your elderly grandmother periodically turns the lights on and off and throws the odd cushion at you without warning.

Jack O’Kennedy

netflix hidden gem But where to start? How do you begin to sift through all the detriis where TFR swoops in to save the day. I’ll make the assumption that most people will have heard of the wonderful Joseph Gordon Levitt but have we heard of Mysterious Skin? Probably not (at least the ten or so people I talked to before writing this article havn’t).

obody ever said watching movies online legally was going to be easy. As most of us who have bothered to shell out the 7 euro a access will know, it can more often than not be a place where the reever reason) come to die. So you’ve watched all of Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black and Dexter. You’ve seen just about every decent Hollywood blockbuster on offer and the only conclusion you can come

Made in 2004, Mysterious Skin follows the stories of two young, small town, but wholly different men. A young JGL plays Neil, a reckless and sexually adventurous teenager who tries to avoid the humdrum day to day of his little town by having sex with an assortment of middle aged men. Brady Corbet plays Brian, a reclusive, socially awkward and almost asexual seeming young man who is troubled by an incident that happened in his childhood. Having woken up with a bloody nose hours after he was meant to be picked up from baseball practice and haunted by strange dreams ever since, Brian comes to believe that he was

for this? Before you cancel your subscription, consider this. Contrary to popular belief there are actually quite a few wonderful hidden gems on ora of awful low budget B movies and questionable rom-coms. A lot didn’t have enough money to make a big splash but are nonetheless

abducted by aliens as a child. As cover that something seriously sinister in these boys’ pasts links them, something that has shaped their entire lives henceforth...

Roger Ebert gave Mysterious Skin a 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars, describing it as “at once the most har rowing and, strangely, the most rowing and, strangely, the most touching This reviewer however, implores that if you are going to watch this JGL’s absolutely stunning and harrowing performance. Though the the two boys, JGL completely steals the show and renders it hard to believe for the viewer that he has only been considered to truly have come into his own in the last few years. If you doubted his acting ability up until now, I guarantee you won’t afthough the acting may be phenomenal, keep in mind that you will cheery...

Robyn Hamilton

who thinks nothing of casually grinding a man’s skull into powder in the corner of a lift. I understand the motivations of the character during these scenes, but the ridiculous excess of the event lessens its impact. It’s completely out of character, as well – and before people start complaining that ‘this is what gives the scene impact’, it’s so entirely out of character that it may as well have been a different person. This is not good storytelling – shock factor must not be put before reasonable character development.

OVERRATED: DRIVE

This lack of coherence in vision is present throughout the rest of ber mask feels out of place, the driving section at the beginning

the human love story at the centre of the plot is completely at odds with the violence of the rest of the narrative. Some might say that this is the point – taking paradoxical genres and weaving them in to the same story. For me, this attempt didn’t work and simply put, Refn’s ambitions did not pay off.

rive was released in 2011, to much critical acclaim. It seemed to have everything going for it – the talented Ryan Gosling in the lead role, sophisticated direction from Nicholas Winding Refn and a pulsating synth-based soundtrack. It is terrible, then, how all of these elements, while brilliant on a technical level, manage to clash in a way that makes the whole production feel pretentious and altogether unsatisfying.

Drive represents in itself the failure of modern cinplete lack of coherence in vision stops the entire production from becoming the masterpiece it so clearly wants to be. What hurts the most is that the

For a start, let’s talk about the unnamed protagonist. It’s clear that Refn is attempting to give Gosling’s character a sense of mystery, much like other unnamed characters of cinema past (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly comes to mind). However, much

soundtrack is absolutely wonderful, the direction is perfect, and some of the visuals are breathtaking. The problem with it is that all of these elements Drive is a beautiful trainwreck – brilliantly made, but ultimately, and, perhaps, crucially, lacking soul.

a ridiculous extreme that it becomes a self-parody. Brooding, ten second pauses and blank stares don’t make a character seem mysterious and intriguing – they make him seem too distant to be able to relate to. By severing this link with the audience, Refn fails to make us care about the motivations of the leading man. At some points, the silences get so out of hand that one begins to wonder if Gosling’s character was suffering from some sort of mental disability, something that, I’m sure, wasn’t the director’s intention.

Vladimir Rakhmanin

with its protagonist – it lies with the outrageous, almost spastic, changes in tone, the most obvious examples being the scenes of extreme violence. We see Gosling’s character change from being a calm, sedated young man, to a violent, sociopathic killer,

UNDERRATED: THE LOOKOUT ‘W

befriending our protagonist was to gain access to the bank in which Chris works as a night porter. A bank Spargo intends to rob. Playing on Chris’s dependence on his cold-hearted father’s money, Gary successfully sells Chris the fallacy that because of his accident he’s owed a better life, one only possible with vast amounts of money. What follows is

hoever has the money has the power. Whoever has the money has the power. Whoever has the money has the power”. If you’re inclined to agree with Chris Pratt’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) oft-repeated maxim then you’d have to admit that when it comes to money and power, 2007’s neo noir thriller The Lookout isn’t exactly blessed with an overabundance of either. Grossing only $5.3 million on a $16 million dollar budget and somewhat dismissed as in inferior Memento-esque heist movie upon release, Scott Frank’s directorial debut is in fact a masterful exercise in characterization and tension with impeccable performances throughout.

twists, turns and double crosses. Looking every inch the archetypal American bad boy, Goode is a revelation as Gary. The dangerous powers of persuasion and the dark heart he exhibits here are put to arguably even greater use as Uncle Charles in Park Chan-wook’s Stoker. Credit is also due to the eclectic bunch of weirdos that make up his crew with particular mention going to Greg Dunham for his terrifying and almost dialogue free performance as Bone. Comedy isn’t in short supply either with Jeff Daniels aforementioned Lewis, ably assisted by the bumbling Deputy Ted, providing laughter amidst the drama.

Starring the now ubiquitous Levitt as a twenty two year old dealing with the aftermath of a terrible accident, JGL brings great pathos to the role of Chris, a man whose severe head injury makes it difryday tasks. A former ice hockey star and all round memory and overall cognitive limitations are palpable. Though he has support in the form of his blind roommate Lewis (played by a wisecracking Jeff Daniels) his troubled relationship with his family, in particular his distant father, (Bruce McGill) leaves Chris emotionally isolated. So its unsurprising that when the older, charming and slightly dangerous Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode) comes into Chris’s dent, charismatic and carefree person he was before the accident and the family he has so desperately needed since.

Joseph Gordon Levitt & Matthew Goode in The Lookout (2007)

The real star of the show however, is writer and director Scott Frank. His script is incredibly tight, not one line of dialogue is wasted and the use of Chris’s memory exercises to tie up the plot with an extremely satisfying ending make The Lookout a hugely rewarding viewing experience. His stylistic choices as a director combine moody, shadow ate, alongside Brick, one of the best modern noir James Newton Howard’s perfect score grabs you moments. After such an assured debut it’s disappointing that Frank has been absent from the director’s chair for so long. However, the seven year gap between this feature and his next (2014’s Liam Neeson fronted thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones diverse as The Wolverine and Marley & Me. So do him

Gary seduces Chris with the promise of companionship, women and respect. He’s one of the only people who doesn’t walk on eggshells around Chris or speak to him like a child. This makes it all the more painful when it’s revealed that his sole reason for

last ten years. Sure it may not have the money, but

Jack O’Kennedy 19

brutality ON SCREEN

Michael Lannigan on The Act of Killing & Only God Forgives

his summer gone, the world of cinema saw a game changer in terms of the portrayal of violence onscreen. Rather than in the past, when Tarantino appalled the mainstream media with a hybrid of artery slicing comedic cruelty, or when A Clockwork Orange’s allure threatened to spin Britain’s moral compass out of control, this new form of brutality lacks that seductively subversive quality. The shock generated however, has pushed violence into new artistic territories, with an updated set standard in terms of style and emotion, whilst arguably avoiding gratuitous body counts. By completely tearing apart the basic elements of good and evil, yet still emphasising morality, the experience for cinemagoers is both enthralling and alienating. This breath of fresh air explores the weakness of humankind and its piteous monsters. At last, somebody has cauterised by the torture porn genre. The two cases in this major pivot are Joshua Oppenheimer’s dreamlike part documentary, part surrealist epic The Act of Killing and Nicolas Winding Refn’s already infamously polarising Only God Forgives. Whereas Oppenheimer’s vision has received universal acclaim,

Refn’s stylised, erotic take on sibling revenge has garnered one of the most mixed sets of reviews since David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. A note of familiarity resonates through Refn’s work when you hear that Lynches vision disturbed audiences the world over due to the opaque storyline and deranged psychosexual overtones. Praise and Blue Velvet even went as far as to earn thumbs down from the late-great Roger Ebert due to the degradation demanded of Isabella Rosselini’s character. In fact, one of the few to herald it was the writer JG Ballard. A man more than acquainted with a disdainful audience, Ballard authored the equally controversial novel Crash, later adapted by Dabanned by Westminster Council to this day, for its vividly sexual depictions of mutilation and themes of symphorophilia. These three men share the trait of provoking initial disgust, but acclaim in the aftermath of the media frenzy. Whether Only God Forgives will become another darling of longevity however is subject to debate. Although, hindsight has led many to forget how even Drive infuriated audiences in 2011. It appears that as

long as half the audience at Cannes are on their feet applauding, then the legacy will stand up strong. Only God Forgives’ ilk is that the characters a subtext and deem it vacant. The hence, an initial view makes the script seem trivial and once again, further e emphasises the characters as non-entities. Misdirection further adds to this confusion, as the antagonist Julian (Ryan Gosling’s garrulous role) disorients the audience’s empathy and we end up rooting for him, despite his being a puppet of his psychotic mother. The actual protagonist, Lieutenant Chang, otherwise known as God, comes across as an enemy, yet Refn’s conceit is no right, or wrong, just greater egos. However simple it may seem, this is a card seldom deployed in scripts and can hit a nerve, before managing to clarify itself after several viewings. Oppenheimer, on the other hand, presented his story to impact the viewer straight away. The logic in such an appeal is clear, but at the same time The Act of Killing

demons to slip out in some of the most extraordinary scenes of footage captured. It is an endurance test to watch psychological torment and there is no sense of justice, or victory, only further destruction.

terms of what it reveals about both evil and heroism. Whereas Only God Forgives is a masterful exploration of family and one idea is something Oppenheimer utilizes with sheer ingenuity. A recurring theme in The Act of Killing is the inability to discern between the movies and reality. For this reason, morality is subjective, and ‘heroes’ are those who can do as they wish, provided they have the gravitas of a star. One can forgive oneself for empathising with Julian in Only God Forgives, however when the Indonesian fascistic executioner, Anwar Congo, appears vaguely human, one almost feels repulsed for enjoying his amicability. By the end, Congo despises himself and the viewer troubles over whether to forgive a remorseful old man for personally killing over one thousand Communists. While Hollywood often feels the urge to omit that a monstrous killer is nothing but a frail and pitiful human, Oppenheimer cherishes its serendipi-

In refusing to play the game of

“

“In refusing to

play the game of absolute answers,

undeniably raised the bar for violence in cinema”

”

have undeniably raised the bar for violence in cinema. This does not translate as trying to up the ante of gore by bringing about a sea of blood, although the Splat Pack, of Leigh Whannell and Eli Roth, might believe otherwise. After watching The Act of Killing, there can be litthe value of the horror genre to a worthless heap of paper. On the other hand, Only God Forgives has made the ‘ultraviolent’ thriller genre potentially created the next ‘Lynchian’, or ‘Ballardian’ term. As opposed to the usual clichéd statement that ‘this is the last great’ these two men have paved fresh new paths for further audacious cinema, but a new set of rules to drive the genre forward and at last, into more exciting territories.

murderers who seek wider recognition, the latter half allows personal

sheenage

dirtbags

Sarah Lennon Galavan explores the somehow persistent trend of adapting female-led novel series in the hope of spawning franchises poster has become ubiquitous: a beautiful young girl stares out dethe weight of what we are to assume is an unspeakable and possibly supernatural burden. More often than tive young men in varying stages of shirtlessness. The Hunger Games and Twilight of female-centric adventure stories. What they’ve spawned is a string of

Saoirse Ronan and Diane Kruger. The relatively obscure Beautiful Creatures managed to swing Emma Thompson, Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis. Pad the rest of the cast with unknowns, garnish with midrange CGI and watch the returns roll in. Hypothetically. big thing have delivered the box The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Studios have taken what can only be described as a paint by numbers approach to cashing in on this burgeoning sub-genre. Buy the rights to a successful ‘Young Adult’ novel, cast an up and coming actress and dangle a big enough paycheque to entice a cash strapped veteran to lend some name recognition to the project. The Host, based upon

Although it would be easy to dismiss these movies as forgettable popcorn fare, the cultural weight they carry as narratives featuring female protagonists make their conignore. Only 11% of protagonists

ful.

unobservant movie goers could mistake it for the next instalment of the Jennifer Lawrence franchise.

on paper - A dystopian paranormal romance containing elements allegedly plagiarised from proven crowd-pleasers such as Harry Potter. However, It just about managed to recoup its modest $60 million budget. 2014’s Divergent, staring Shailene Woodley and Kate Winstations that elusive hit it yearns, yet resembles The Hunger Games that

women. A female character being part of a “chosen one” narrative, the common structural underpinning of such diverse works as Star Wars and The New Testament, is still surprisingly rare. With the contriover all number of female heroes, better storytelling is desperately needed. So should we wait for the Hunger Games this trend to the DVD bargain bin? or can one of these movies make

Jemima West in These Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

actual money? How I Live Now, from Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland), seems set to subvert the dominant paradigm by moving away from an intensively serious tone while still dealing with a high stakes subject matter. Saoirse Ronan is the typical girl who must save the world from apocalypse yarn but the marketing seems anxious to drive home that this is something different. The dramatic trailer music has been replaced by jangly acoustic guitars while the Ronanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nonchalant expression on the poster, more readily evokes coming of age dramas than earlier forays in this territory. While early reviews have been mixed, it will be interesting to see if formula can be found. With studios continuing to rely on the pre-existing fan bases, audiences will continue express their dissatisfaction by staying away.

mahogany Bryan Masterson looks at Matthew McConaughey’s recent transition from wooden eye-candy to credible actor.

hasn’t always been this way. Not only did he start off as an off-kilter ‘degenerate’ in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, he went on to star in a wide array of genre pieces throughout the nineties, ranging from sweaty courtroom race dramas like A Time to Kill (ok, admittedly he was shirtless

hen an actor is perceived to have stooped so low as to remove items of clothing in a role, for the sole purpose of titillation of course, in many cases they are professionally labelled and pigeonholed beyond repair. Truthfully, a lot of the time this labelling is merited and the heinous perpetrators are reduced to the artistically questionable, yet highly lucrative and relatively

Reign of Fire (and this). He Contact, yep, shirtless) and comedy (EdTV, shirtless) as well as a big historical epic for good measure (Amistad, well versed in the limited generic diversity of mainstream cinema. And can he be blamed for the fact that he has been told to remove his shirt in otherwise more serious fare?

pulsating, hard-bodied action romps. This stuff doesn’t take much apart from the ubiquitous pecs and an ability to read, I would guess. One of the most recognisable faces of recent rom-com history, Matthew McConaughey, had, by the end of the last decade, carved out a very

The reason for the apparent shock which people in Entertainment Weekly and the Daily Mail have experienced is not that he isn’t doing softcore romances anymore, and not even that he’s doing more varied work, it’s that this same guy is now raping women in the face with chicken bones. Certainly this must seem a far cry, at least in terms of performance style. McConaughey has decided, whether on his own or at the of some kind souled director or writer who saw his potential, to go within himself and pull out his darkest demons. Many would place his renaissance at the release of The Lincoln Lawyer in 2011, but he’s been involved in that kind of thing before. His real breakout came in 2012. It was his

In starring alongside the likes of Kate Hudson (twice), Sarah Jessica Parker, and Jennifers Garner and Lopez, he was arguably the premier hunk at their disposal. He unquestionably undressed tion sequence with his rippling torso and winning smile. And so there are some who ask how and why he has been allowed all of a sudden to ply his trade in so called serious fare? Why hasn’t he been permanently relegated like Taylor Lautner or, I don’t know, that idiot Orlando Bloom? Why should we care, though? First of all, he

year, undoubtedly: he starred in the critically acclaimed, if rather gentle Bernie, another Lin-

could say of a number of his shirtless romcom characters. He just didn’t give them any thought. The place of the male lead in generic features rarely moves beyond the realm of control at some level. Through the spectacle of a fetishized male body, symbolic in its performance, whether draped in the iconography of Westerns, oiled up and overtly sexualized or doing it all more subtly and implicitly, McConaughey has always played in the same territories.

Nichol’s excellent Mud, enjoying playing with his own charismatic yet somehow inherently Daniels’ Florida set The Paperboy. These were all good turns, but the two which stand out, and I in romantic comedies, must be Stephen Soderbergh’s Magic Mike and William Friedkin’s Killer Joe. In both, to varying degrees, McConaughey perfectly synthesises the implicit violence and sexuality that exists within the socalled American Dream. His Joe and Dallas respectively operate as entrepreneurs of sorts: one a corrupt cop who offers his services and skills to paying customers, and one who isn’t afraid of a little child barter,

notoriously his role in Dallas Buyers Club, in which he shed around 50 lbs of weight to play a HIV sufferer who smuggles medicine, he doesn’t look like someone who will fall back into the complacency of easy romantic roles. He is also due to star in The Wolf of Wall Street, the new Scorsese Interstellar. He himself has been quoted as saying he was never offered a role that scared him until last year. As long as he keeps get-

the other, a greed driven male stripper who has almost imperial ideas of grandeur. They are both dangerous in their own way, but linked entirely to America’s capitalist ideologies. Something you

vine and snapchat: throw-away culture?

obile applications such as

glance the apotheosis of a disposable ‘throw-away culture’. Both apps allow users to send and receive video that is disposable in so far as it is delimited by time. Vine allows videos of only around seven seconds and Snap Chat restricts video received by smart phones to frame. Through these restrictions both apps thus attempt to translate the concision associated with social

Both apps live up to their premise. Communication is instantaneous like never before, occurring literally in the space of an instant with Snap Chat. But the value of such communication remains moot. As a mode of information sharing it is functional and almost intrinsically playful. Indeed, most seven second vines are jokes exploiting the humorous juxtapositions that montage can create. The videos have an air of the improvised like face-toface conversation but like such conversation suggest themselves as

insubstantial, necessarily socially and only so. To attribute the work transmitted with these apps to a ‘throw-away culture’ of consumerist fads is in one sense logical, then, but not without prejudice. Their popularity, spurred as with most technologized mediums by their novelty, of course suggests this. However equally implicit in criticism of formal constraints as counterproductive to the dissemination of anything of value is a disregard for comedy, for creative expression which is constrained to only ones peer group, and disdain for the idea that anything of value can be conveyed or underIn the explication of these biases which are really all the same prejudice against a social or socialised art, the value of these short little videos becomes most apparent. edy with the trivial is as pervasive as it is absurd and at root an objection to art with a social or prepreferential to industry produced work as opposed to community

against an art that has no pretension to permanence, is resolutely invested in the cult of the artist and art object. That creative production strive to oppose such biases is surely a point in favour of these apps. In English literature, Hemingway’s story about baby’s shoes and Pound’s ‘In a station of the metro’ resolve once and for all the problem of brevity as compromise. For vines perhaps such resolution is possible as they proliferate on Youtube, although it would necessitate an attitudinal shift regarding comedy. Snapchat however still seems entirely doomed. Everything literally disappears. But the association with ‘throw-away culture’ is perhaps over-zealous. Although the photos and videos disseminated on the app actually disappear, the app itself is fundamentally motivated by an opa world of inexhaustible technologized communication the app offers nostalgia for methods of communication that are exhaustible, restrictive, and physically impermanent.

Justin Murphy

word 5reviews

White House Down Tutorial in blowing up buildings.

Olympus Has Fallen

Diana She dies at the end The Host

Million Dollar Baby

Saoirse Ronan in Stephanie MNoooooooooooooooooo

Shame World War Z Brad Pitt thinks he’s Jesus

Man of Steel Man of steal my money

The Act of Killing

Evangelion called, they are pissed.

Blue Jasmine Rich woman loses her shit

Elysium Jodie Foster shouldn’t do accents

Big Penis in Little City

Bling Ring 1D This Is Us Your worst nightmare...in 3D

Planes Disney: “we are creatively bankrupt”

Hermione uses alohomora for evil

Turbo Radioactive snail races cars... Yeah. 1) The Don’t To watch Dome...ever. List 1) Don’t watch me... ever.

Crash Only God Forgives

The Place Beyond the Pines

Gosling broods, things happen, AMBIGUITY

Like Hamlet, but they’re Hillbillies.

Inception

A Good Day to Die Hard That day was long ago.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Did we review this before?

Oblivion Killer Joe

I’d rather watch Moon, Tom.

The Great Gatsby Jack Dawson never really drowned?

Misogyny in its artiest form

The Lone Ranger Now You See Me

Jack Sparrow got really lost.

Wolverine Hugh no likey da sushi

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Life is a winking light in the darkness

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