Poor Things review

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Kathryn Hunter, Jerrod Carmichael, Hanna Schygulla
Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Run Time: 141 min
Opens: 20 January 2024 (Limited screenings only at The Projector)
Rating: R21

It’s awards season again, and director Yorgos Lanthimos of Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster and The Favourite fame can always be counted on to make an awards contender movie that’s a bit of an odd duck. This might be his oddest duck yet – or a duck’s head sewn onto a dog’s body, if you will.

Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is a woman who leapt off a bridge and was brought back to life by surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Godwin raises Bella as his ward. Bella has a child-like demeanour but learns and evolves quickly. Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), whom Godwin takes on as his assistant, begins to fall for Bella. As Bella’s intelligence and curiousity develops, she yearns to experience the outside world. She runs away with the caddish lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), embarking on a journey of self-discovery and experiencing a sexual awakening. Bella’s journey takes her from London to Lisbon, then on a cruise to Alexandria, on to Marseilles and Paris. Bella begins to form her identity and learn more about the human condition, as her former life before she was found and resurrected by Godwin catches up with her.

Poor Things is adapted from the novel by Alasdair Gray. The surreal Victorian fantasy setting of Poor Things is immediately captivating. Production designers James Price and Shona Heath and costume designer Hannah Waddington contribute to an entirely fabricated reality. Inspired by the painted skies and miniature used to create the Himalayas in Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus, and the soundstage-bound look of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Poor Things is a carefully constructed bauble, a movie that lives in a snow globe. Director of Photography Robbie Ryan shoots the movie partially on Kodak’s 35mm Ektachrome colour reversal motion picture film stock, giving the movie a tactility despite its artificiality. The atmosphere of the movie is heightened, and Tony McNamara’s screenplay is often brazenly funny, but there is a subtlety beneath the surface and the movie’s mannered exterior belies its many complexities.

As can sometimes happen with movies like this, there is a barrier that can form between the movie and the audiences because Poor Things is so mannered and so deliberately constructed as to sometimes feel impenetrable. While we are drawn into Bella’s journey, the movie’s 142-minute-long runtime feels excessive, especially because the structure of the movie includes what can best be described as a surprise fourth act where one might think the movie would end. Poor Things is a very different movie from Barbie, but just like Barbie, Poor Things’ version of feminism will be subject to scrutiny, as it should be. Both movies are about women learning to exist in the outside world, and discovering their autonomy after an existence of being defined by others. Some have taken issue with how the movie presents exploitation as something that women should just accept and attempt to repurpose, and not everyone will agree with its depiction of bodily autonomy, given the spectrum on which opinions on that topic exist.

This is very much Emma Stone’s movie to carry, something she does with confidence and magnetism. Usually, if a performance is described as “fearless” or “brave”, it still denotes a certain degree of preciousness and connotes a blatant bid for awards. Stone’s turn as Bella is fearless and brave in a way befitting of a Lanthimos movie. Having worked with Lanthimos on The Favourite, Stone feels completely comfortable in a challenging role, unfazed by the sheer amount of nudity and fully embracing Bella’s evolution from blank slate to someone with an identity and agency. One of the most interesting aspects of the character is how she speaks: Bella starts off speaking in simplistic repeated phrases, but her vocabulary builds over time. During the middle stretch of the film, she speaks like she’s reading from a thesaurus, listing off synonyms, and we see how her increasingly complicated thought processes are reflected in her speech. This is a role that Stone commits fully too, but also one that she’s having a great deal of fun with.

Mark Ruffalo is hilarious as the lawyer who finds himself utterly obsessed with Bella, someone whom he initially thought he could take advantage of. Ruffalo’s delivery and comic timing, enhanced by a mid-Atlantic accent, are hilarious even when the character becomes increasingly unlikeable, and both Bella and the audience begin to chafe at him.

Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as the Victor Frankenstein-esque Baxter Godwin. He is paternal towards Bella but is something of a mad scientist himself. The movie’s black comedy manifests itself in moments like when Baxter recounts experiments his own father did on him. Baxter is very much a sympathetic monster, one who is driven to create other sympathetic monsters. His work, including chimerical animals like the aforementioned duck-dog hybrid, is ethically dubious, but it’s easy to feel affectionate towards him.

Ramy Youssef’s Max McCandles is the most decent person in the story, someone whose affection towards Bella keeps getting shunted aside as she goes on her adventures. Of all the men in the story, Max is arguably the one who views Bella the least as an object, but he still sees her as fulfilling a societal role.

The rest of the supporting cast is wonderful, including Kathryn Hunter as a wily madame and Christopher Abbott showing up late in the movie as a cruel and self-absorbed aristocratic general.

Summary: Poor Things is a deliberately weird, sometimes-unsettling and alienating but often funny movie about self-discovery. Director Yorgos Lanthimos embraces the movie’s surrealistic setting and its deliberately artificial design elements are captivating. Emma Stone’s performance as a Frankenstein’s Monster-like character experiencing a sexual awakening and gradually gaining agency and forming her identity is one that’s irresistible and richly layered. Mark Ruffalo is hilarious as an untrustworthy cad, while Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as the Victor Frankenstein-like father figure. Every awards season has the oddball kid, and Poor Things has firmly established itself as that this year.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars                        

Jedd Jong

Killers of the Flower Moon review

Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Cara Jade Meyers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, Jason Isbell, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi
Genre: Crime/Drama
Run Time: 206 min
Opens: 19 October 2023
Rating: PG13

“This is cinema” – if you’ve spent any time in internet spaces occupied by cinephiles, you’ll have seen this quote attributed to Martin Scorsese, often used ironically to describe movies like Morbius. Yes, Scorsese has taken on the role of saving cinema from the clutches of comic book movies and franchise filmmaking, sentiments which have seen him celebrated by some and derided by others. Any way you cut it, a new Scorsese movie is an event, and Killers of the Flower Moon, recounting a dark chapter in American history, arrives after a great deal of anticipation.

It is the 1920s and the Osage Nation has become wealthy because of the oil deposits on their land in northeastern Oklahoma. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns home from serving as a cook in the military overseas. His uncle is William Hale (Robert De Niro), a political boss and cattle rancher who has extensive business dealings with the Osage Nation. Ernest works as a driver and gets to know one of his passengers, Mollie (Lily Gladstone). Encouraged by his uncle, Ernest falls in love with Mollie and marries her.

In the meantime, there is a spate of 60 or more murders of Osage people, which the authorities do nothing about. Mollie’s sister Anna (Cara Jade Meyers) is among the people who are brutally murdered. After a delegation of Osage people, including Mollie, brings this to the attention of President Calvin Coolidge in Washington, D.C., the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI) sends special agent Tom White (Jesse Plemons) to investigate. A criminal conspiracy involving the headrights to oil-rich land unravels, with Ernest caught in the middle of it.

Adapted from the non-fiction book of the same name by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon is a cinematic event. There’s no denying Scorsese’s mastery of the medium and the movie is handsomely shot by Rodrigo Prieto, with Scorsese’s regular editor Thelma Schoonmaker returning. The movie combines the vast sweep of an old-fashioned western and the backroom scheming and machinations of a crime saga, something Scorsese is no stranger to.

There is a specificity to the time and place in which the movie is set, and the filmmakers are clearly taking great pains to do justice to this important story. The movie succeeds in part because its elements are so recognisable – it’s a story about greed. The manipulation and exploitation depicted in the film continue to happen in different forms, in different contexts around the world. The story has many moving parts but is straightforward. As drawn in the screenplay by Eric Roth and Scorsese, the characters are sometimes larger than life, but always feel like real people.

Much has been made of the movie’s epic 207-minute runtime. Yes, Killers of the Flower Moon feels long. It’s certainly not as much as an endurance test of the torture-heavy Silence, but it feels long. Could it have worked as a TV miniseries instead? Possibly, but watching it in one sitting does lend the movie a certain power that it might not have in another format. The movie is often absorbing, but stops short of being completely riveting, in part because there is no mystery – we don’t start out knowing all the details of the murders, but we know who is masterminding them from the beginning, so it isn’t suspenseful, but also doesn’t seem intended to be. An earlier draft of the script apparently had the Tom White character as the protagonist and that’s who DiCaprio had signed on to play, but it was rewritten to centre Ernest Burkhart instead and function more as a psychological drama than a detective thriller.

Killers of the Flower Moon features two of Scorsese’s frequent collaborators, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, both doing excellent work. DiCaprio plays a character who seems a little dopey and is unabashed about how much he loves money, which motivates him to act in unsavoury ways. There are times when DiCaprio puts on his “I’m acting!” face (you know the one), but other times when he convincingly inhabits the character.

This is one of De Niro’s best performances in recent memory. There is an admirable restraint here, such that he isn’t doing too much, and indeed doesn’t need to. William Hale is a glad-handing local politician who will stab you in the back while smiling at you, and De Niro plays this well. De Niro has said the movie depicts “the banality of evil,” and he effectively essays someone who acts in monstrous ways but goes about it routinely.

Lily Gladstone’s performance is a highlight of the movie. Many Hollywood movies about Native American history have sidelined their Native American characters, and while DiCaprio and De Niro are top-billed, Gladstone is as much a dynamo of the movie as they are. Her Mollie is outwardly frail, suffering from diabetes, but has a steadfastness and inner strength to her. Gladstone is quietly commanding as a woman who is surrounded by tragedy but never stops fighting. The relationship between Ernest and Mollie, and the question of if Ernest has ever truly loved his wife, is one that runs throughout the movie and is something that both DiCaprio and Gladstone play brilliantly.

Summary: Killers of the Flower Moon is another excellent movie by Martin Scorsese, who continues to demonstrate a mastery of the form. The period crime drama sees Scorsese reunite with frequent collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, who are both excellent, but it is Lily Gladstone whose quietly commanding performance is the highlight. The story of greed driving people to do terrible things is one that’s been told many times before, but the historical context makes this story worth telling. Over its gargantuan runtime, the movie is sometimes less-than-gripping, especially since it isn’t structured as a mystery. But it is a movie that compels the audience to follow along to see where all the terrible, cruel decisions the characters make eventually lead them.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars                      

Jedd Jong

Meg 2: The Trench review

Director: Ben Wheatley
Cast: Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Sophia Cai, Page Kennedy, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Skyler Samuels, Cliff Curtis, Sienna Guillory
Genre: Action/Thriller
Run Time: 116 min
Opens: 3 August 2023
Rating: PG13

One bite is never enough – at least, that’s the philosophy giant prehistoric sharks espouse. 2018’s The Meg was based on the first novel in Steve Alten’s Meg series – Alten has written seven Meg books, with an eighth on the way, so there’s potential for many more Meg movies yet. In this sequel, Jason Statham is back to face off against more Megalodon sharks and other beasties.

Statham plays Jonas Taylor, a former rescue diver-turned environmental activist. Jonas works alongside Jiuming (Wu Jing), an oceanographer and head of the Zhang Institute. Jiuming is the uncle of Meiying (Sophia Cai), who is something of a surrogate daughter to Jonas. Jiuming’s facility in Hainan, China, keeps a Megalodon shark named Haiqi in captivity, captured when she was a pup. Haiqi begins acting erratically. When a routine dive to the depths of the Mariana Trench goes awry, Jonas, Jiuming and their crew become stranded. They discover an illegal undersea mining operation, and an explosion disrupts the thermocline, a cloud of hydrogen sulphide sealing off a hidden undersea world. This creates a hole through which several Megalodon escape. When the giant sharks and other monsters that were previously trapped below the thermocline swim to the surface, Jonas, Jiuming, Mac (Cliff Curtis) and DJ (Page Kennedy) must prevent the creatures from attacking a beach resort.

Ben Wheatley replaces Jon Turteltaub in the director’s chair, and he is a curious choice: the British filmmaker has an eclectic filmography spanning everything from crime thriller comedy Down Terrace to dystopian thriller High-Rise to a remake of Rebecca. He’s far from an obvious choice for a movie like this but does a fine job on what is far and away his biggest movie. Meg 2: The Trench is silly, and it knows it. Still, there are a few moments of genuine tension, especially in the first half of the film. The action is generally more visceral than in the first movie, and the sequence of our heroes attempting to traverse the deep ocean floor in dive suits is atmospheric and suspenseful.

Jason Statham is in fine action hero form, complemented here by Wu Jing of Wolf Warrior fame. There are moments when both actors’ characters seem to practically have superpowers, but there are also moments of goofiness, including a scene in which Wu whacks prehistoric lizards called Snappers with a shovel, accidentally hitting himself in the face. The Trench is a B-movie with an A-movie budget, which happens to be a subgenre this reviewer adores.

Unfortunately, The Trench is often too silly for its own good, especially in the second half. The movie attempts to one-up its predecessor, but also brazenly includes a climactic set-piece that is almost a replica of the Sanya sequence in the first movie. The Trench is much more expensive than the giant shark movies that are The Asylum’s stock in trade (think Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and its sequels), but sometimes comes dangerously close to feeling like them. The Megalodon sharks are digital creations, and the visual effects work is uneven – in some sequences, including the walk across the trench floor, it is technically excellent and even beautiful, but other times, the creatures look patently cartoony. There is an attempt at intrigue with the human villains’ plot, but they’re almost as cartoony as the prehistoric monsters.

The first movie was a result of that somewhat awkward era of US-China co-productions, when several huge Hollywood movies would be co-financed by Chinese entities and as such need to cater to Chinese audiences. That era of Hollywood filmmaking is over, at least for now, due to various factors including the Covid-19 pandemic and strained diplomatic relations between both countries. Meg 2 is an indication that we might be seeing more movies like that again, especially given that Wu Jing is arguably China’s biggest action star currently working. Li Bingbing was set to reprise her role from the first film, but dropped out for undisclosed reasons, and the story was rewritten to have her character’s brother be the co-lead instead.

Summary: Meg 2: The Trench is very much a “you know what you’re getting” movie, just as its predecessor was. Ben Wheatley has an eclectic filmography and is an unusual choice of director for a big commercial movie like this, but he handles things relatively well. There are moments of genuine atmospheric tension and at other times, the movie is goofily enjoyable. Unfortunately, it seems to recycle a major set-piece from the first Meg movie almost wholesale. The visual effects work is also uneven, and the prehistoric monsters are often unconvincing rather than scary. Still, there is a joy to be had with this B-movie in an A-movie’s clothes.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars                      

Jedd Jong

Oppenheimer review

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Dylan Arnold, Jack Quaid, Gustaf Skarsgård, Josh Peck, Dane DeHaan, Olivia Thirlby
Genre: Biography/Thriller
Run Time: 180 min
Opens: 20 June 2023
Rating: M18

A three-hour-long biopic about a scientist released during summer movie season amidst tentpole franchise entries, instead of in the usual awards season bracket? If anyone could make something like that into a must-see-in-the-theatre event, it would be Christopher Nolan, who has become a brand name himself. The writer-director tackles the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is a physicist who is appointed by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to head up the Los Alamos laboratory of the Manhattan Project: a research and development program backed by the US military to develop atomic weapons. The team of scientists working on the project includes Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), Richard Feynman (Jack Quaid), Kenneth Bainbridge (Josh Peck), Luis Walter Alvarez (Alex Wolff) and Edward Teller (Benny Safdie). Despite his contributions to ending the Second World War, doubt is cast on Oppenheimer’s true allegiance, with chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) launching a security hearing to probe Oppenheimer’s actions and background. The film also covers Oppenheimer’s relationship with his brother Frank (Dylan Arnold), with his wife Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt), and his affair with psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).

Oppenheimer is, in many ways, a masterclass in the biopic genre. It’s a movie that doesn’t want to settle for easy answers and a black-and-white interpretation of historical events (though part of it is shot in black-and-white). The movie’s formidable ensemble is led by Cillian Murphy in a career-best performance. Murphy skilfully essays Oppenheimer’s intelligence, his idiosyncrasies and flaws, and how he reckons with his role in the deaths of thousands. This is Murphy’s sixth collaboration with Nolan, and the trust that the director and star have formed plays a part in creating a soul-baring, affecting portrayal that is far from the uncritical hagiography some feared it might be. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema uses the IMAX camera not just to capture sweeping vistas of Los Alamos, but also to capture haunting close-ups in which Murphy’s eyes do all the work.

Nolan is a filmmaker who has actors lining up to work with him, with Downey, Blunt and Damon reportedly taking pay cuts to be in the movie. There’s a deep bench here, and more than in some of Nolan’s other movies, the dynamic among the cast and the way the characters play off each other is what keeps the movie going, and what lends it a humanity beneath its sombre, heavy exterior. Each character is complicated and their personal, professional and political lives collide in various messy ways, and Oppenheimer is a movie that’s interested in the breadth of that impact.

Like any big-name director, Nolan has his detractors, and they’re unlikely to be won over by Oppenheimer. The movie is ultimately three hours of mostly dialogue – it’s rendered as exciting as it can be, but sometimes the stylistic flourishes feel like they’re there to add excitement when there isn’t a lot to be found. We get several sequences that are visualisations of Oppenheimer’s conception of the quantum world and energy waves, which might be atmospheric for some and distracting for others. Nolan has drawn a lot of criticism for the way he writes women characters, and while both Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh are fully engaging with the material, the movie doesn’t give either actress a great deal to do. Oppenheimer’s branding as a Big Important Movie could also turn off some audiences, but for others, it’s canny counterprogramming to intellectual property-driven summer blockbusters.

The movie’s major set-piece – maybe its only set-piece – is a depiction of the Trinity nuclear test. Nolan often boasts of using as little computer-generated imagery as possible, and the Trinity test sequence was executed with gasoline, propane, aluminium powder, and magnesium pyrotechnics and large-scale miniature models. It is a spectacular moment and the lead-up to it is pulse-pounding even though we know what’s going to happen.

Summary: Oppenheimer is a three-hour-long biopic about a theoretical physicist that is, somehow, a blockbuster. Writer-director Christopher Nolan is usually feted as a technical craftsman, but here, he reminds us how much of an actor’s director he is too. Cillian Murphy gives a career-best performance in the title role, illuminating Oppenheimer’s brilliance, flaws and idiosyncrasies. The ensemble cast is uniformly solid, and Nolan gives them room to imbue their characters with plenty of personality. Nolan’s critics, who often maintain that his movies are too self-important, are unlikely to be converted by Oppenheimer, but as a biopic in the guise of a blockbuster thriller, Oppenheimer is startlingly effective.  

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

The Good Liar review

For F*** Magazine

THE GOOD LIAR

Director: Bill Condon
Cast : Ian McKellen, Helen Mirren, Russell Tovey, Jim Carter, Mark Lewis Jones, Céline Buckens, Laurie Davidson
Genre : Drama/Thriller
Run Time : 1 h 49 mins
Opens : 21 November 2019
Rating : NC16

Weirdly enough, respected English thespians Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren have never made a movie together, even though they have shared the Broadway stage in 2003. This thriller, based on a novel by Nicholas Searle, rectifies this decades-long oversight, giving both stars roles they easily make a meal of.

Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) is a wealthy woman in her 70s who is hoping to make a romantic connection with someone again and gives online dating a try. She meets and quickly falls for Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen), a man in his 80s. Roy, a lifelong con artist, has seemingly found the perfect mark and plots to rob Betty of her millions as Betty’s grandson Steven (Russell Tovey) smells a rat and tries to save his grandmother from Roy’s devious clutches. Both Betty and Roy are forced to confront long-hidden secrets as their relationship grows increasingly complex.

With decades of experience on the stage and screen, Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren are both aware of the kind of movie they’re making and finely calibrate their performances to fit the material. The Good Liar starts out seeming quite silly and predictable, and perhaps it does remain a bit silly, but director Bill Condon knows that his stars will do everything to invest the story with emotion and drama. It is so satisfying to watch McKellen and Mirren play off each other that we get drawn further and further into the plot, no matter how outlandish it becomes.

It seems that smaller-scale thrillers, especially ones with older audiences in mind, are an increasing rarity at the cinema. This is a movie that doesn’t have explosions and shootouts, but one that is still thrilling and exciting. Condon pulls no punches and the movie can be surprisingly brutal at times. The score by Carter Burwell with its undulating strings heightens how delightfully melodramatic this all is. It’s as if someone turned the frantic whisper of “there’s a conspiracy afoot” into music. While a healthy degree of suspension of disbelief is required of audiences, the screenplay by veteran playwright and screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher is brought to largely convincing life by the film’s leads.

The movie begins feeling like a version of those Lifetime Channel movies – the ones about Craiglist serial killers and psychotic stepdaughters – for the retiree set. As such, even with two distinguished actors front and centre, it can be hard to take things seriously. As the story gets progressively darker and the shocking revelations pile up, it becomes slightly harder to enjoy the movie as a deliberately arch, mannered confection. It is nowhere near as sophisticated as it would like to be, but is directed and acted well enough to make up for this. Despite the film’s best efforts, not everything about the plot lines up in retrospect, but it is enjoyable despite this.

The movie is set in 2009, which seems like an insignificant detail at first. Roy and Betty go on a movie date to watch a certain Quentin Tarantino-directed movie, and while it would have been fine if that were the only reason to set the story in 2009, it isn’t. The film is the most interesting when it explores both Roy and Betty’s personal histories, but in those sequences, it also means we are spending time away from McKellen and Mirren, which is a trade-off director Condon had to make.

This is a modest thriller fronted by two ever-watchable, extremely skilful actors that differs enough from many entries in this genre partially because it is about two older characters, their age being a key element to the story and not an extraneous detail.

Summary: Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren play a game of cat and mouse that is sometimes far-fetched, sometimes devastating and always enjoyable.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark review

For inSing

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK

Director: André Øvredal
Cast : Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows
Genre : Horror
Run Time : 1 h 48 mins
Opens : 15 August 2019
Rating : NC16

            We’ve heard the expressions that stories can be powerful, but it’s a figure of speech. In this horror movie, stories have literal, dark power, as a group of friends find their lives upended by a cursed book of spooky tales.

It is 1968, and in the town of Mill Valley, there is a local legend: a mansion on the outskirts of town is haunted by the spirit of a young girl who killed herself there almost a hundred years ago. On the night of Halloween, friends Stella (Zoe Colletti), August (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur) meet stranger Ramon (Michael Garza) at a drive-in movie. They are pursued by the bully Tommy (Austin Abrams), and they all find themselves in the mansion.

There, Stella comes across a book in which Sarah Bellows, the young girl in the myth, wrote horror stories. New stories appear to be written by themselves, as Stella and her friends are targeted by the otherworldly monsters that feature in said stories. Stella, August, Chuck and Ramon must unravel the mystery behind who Sarah Bellows was to save themselves from her deadly stories.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is based on the series of children’s books by Alvin Schwartz. The first volume was published in 1981, and they are akin to the Goosebumps books but for slightly older readers. The books were known for their haunting, nightmarish illustrations by Stephen Gammell, which were replaced with new illustrations by Brett Helquist in the 2011 edition.

When it was announced that Guillermo del Toro would produce and possibly direct an adaptation of the books, it seemed like a good fit because of the director’s imaginative take on the horror genre.

Del Toro is credited with co-writing the screen story and as a producer, with André Øvredal directing. The Norwegian Øvredal directed Trollhunters and The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark follows in the current resurgence of live-action horror-tinged adventure stories starring kids, like Stranger Things and It: Chapter One – this can arguably be traced back to 2011’s Super 8, which was itself patterned after films E.T. and The Goonies. Unlike those other films and TV shows, the setting is the 60s rather than the 80s, complete with Nixon references.

While Scary Stories is a largely well-made movie that isn’t as cheesy or goofy as it could’ve been, it faces the conundrum of how scary a horror movie that is aimed at kids should be. Scary Stories often finds itself stuck in the awkward position of being too scary for kids and not scary enough for adults. The film is rated NC16 in Singapore but is rated PG13 in the US. This is of course considering that ‘scariness’ is subjective. The movie has more on its mind than the typical teen-aimed jump scare fest but struggles a bit with being consistently thrilling and entertaining.

Scary Stories does get a lot right – structurally, framing the individual stories with the device of a cursed book and the mystery of that book’s author prevents the film from feeling as episodic and disjointed as it could have. However, because the movie draws on multiple stories, some are noticeably stronger than others.

The film’s creature design is a mixed bag – a few of the monsters seem generic, but a few are ingenious and inspired, with one that both stays close to the original Gammell illustration and bears the hallmarks of a del Toro-influenced design. A lot of the practical makeup effects work is great, but the more obviously computer-generated monsters lose a bit of their scariness, even if the visual effects used to create them are technically competent.

Zoe Colletti’s Stella is a sympathetic and sensitive lead character. As a girl who’s a horror fan and aspiring writer in the 1960s, Stella is an outcast who finds solace in horror movies and novels. Having a writer as the protagonist in a movie about stories is one demonstrate of the film’s thematic awareness.

Michael Garza is handsome, but ultimately comes off as too innately decent to be convincing as the mysterious bad boy from out of town.

Gabriel Rush’s August is the voice of reason, while Austin Zajur’s Chuck is the deliberately annoying prankster character. There are attempts to make them more than the archetypes they stand in for, but the slasher movie mentality of the characters just being there to get picked off does creep in.

Austin Abrams’ Tommy does some despicable things, but Abrams himself is not sufficiently intimidating as the jock bully.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has just enough of a del Toro touch to it to set it apart from the typical horror movie aimed at the younger set and it is driven by an affection for and appreciation of the book. While it is doubtful than any adults will find it truly frightening, it is wont to give kids a nightmare or two.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Blinded by the Light review

For inSing

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

Director: Gurinder Chadha
Cast : Viveik Kalra, Hayley Atwell, Rob Brydon, Kulvinder Ghir, Nell Williams, Dean-Charles Chapman, Aaron Phagura, Meera Ganatra, Nikita Mehta, Tara Divina, David Hayman
Genre : Biography/Comedy/Drama
Run Time : 1 h 58 mins
Opens : 15 August 2019
Rating : PG

            From the director of Bend It Like Beckham comes ‘Sing It Like Springsteen’, a coming-of-age tale about a boy whose life is changed by an encounter with the music and lyrics of the Boss.

It is 1987 and Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) is a 16-year-old kid growing up in Luton, a town in the east of England. Javed is British-Pakistani and feels trapped by his strict father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir). Javed has a secret passion for writing but knows that his father will never abide it. When Malik is laid off from his car factory job, Javed’s seamstress mother Noor (Meera Ganatra) must work twice as hard to provide for the family. Javed’s sister Yasmeen (Tara Divina) is about to get married, and Javed feels like in his family, only his other sister Shazia (Nikita Mehta) understands him.

On his first day of Sixth Form college, Javed bumps into Roops (Aaron Phagura), a Sikh classmate who introduces him to “the Boss”. Javed becomes enraptured by the music of Bruce Springsteen, feeling like the New Jersey singer somehow understands all his struggles. In the meantime, Javed finds his relationship with his childhood best friend Matt (Dean-Charles Chapman) affected by their differing musical tastes, while he attempts to woo student activist Eliza (Nell Williams).

Javed’s English teacher Ms Clay (Hayley Atwell) encourages his writing and his enthusiasm for Springsteen, while his father becomes enraged that Javed wants to write for a living. In the meantime, racial tensions in Thatcherite England mount, as Javed and his family find themselves the target of National Front extremists. It’s a lot for a boy to deal with, but he finds the Boss leading the way.

Blinded by the Light is based on journalist and documentarian Sarfraz Manzoor’s autobiography Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll. This film’s themes will be familiar to anyone who has watched a coming-of-age movie or two, but its specificity to the context of growing up in 1987 Luton gives it a meaningful point of view.

Movies like this can be insufferably rote or feel manufactured as they try to be inspirational. Blinded by the Light is sometimes cheesy and corny, but it is powered by the sheer force of its earnestness. This is a movie that whole-heartedly believes in the transporting power that resonant art can have, and that as overly dramatic as it might sound, art can change one’s life.

Every stage musical heroine and by extension, every Disney Princess, has an “I Want” song, in which they sing wistfully about their dreams and desires. One of cinema’s most beautiful, poignant scenes is of Luke Skywalker gazing out over the Tatooine Dune Sea as the twin suns set behind him in Star Wars, yearning to be part of something greater.

           Blinded by the Light is a distillation of that energy, of the desire to be something more and find something better, a desire articulated by the songs of Bruce Springsteen. Through his music, Springsteen voiced his frustrations, a feeling of being trapped and needing to escape, a vital desperation and rebellion. “Born to Run” is the most obvious example of this, with “Born in the USA” being a song about the plight of Vietnam War veterans who had been forsaken by their country, dressed in the appearance of a typical patriotic song.

While there are similarities with Bend It Like Beckham in that both films are about a South Asian teenager in the UK who is inspired by a prolific celebrity to pursue their dreams while facing opposition from their family, Blinded by the Light is less broadly comedic. It feels like an evolution of Bend It Like Beckham, a little more nuanced and with more pain lying beneath its feel-good movie exterior.

Newcomer Viveik Kalra is an appropriately shy, endearing lead, his eyebrows constantly knitted in a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. Watching Javed blossom and gain confidence as he learns to express himself and is empowered by Springsteen’s music is gratifying and even thrilling.

The film deals with all Javed’s different relationships surprisingly well – his relationship with his parents, especially with his father, and his siblings is well-defined. His falling out with his long-time friend Matt and his newfound friendship with Roops play out in believable ways. The role his teacher Ms Clay plays in nurturing his interest in writing is heart-warming. The way the conflicts are resolved also feels earned, rather than all tied up neatly in a bow. Javed’s romance with Eliza is probably the part of the film where it gets the most conventional, but Nell Williams delivers a charming performance.

Blinded by the Light is strongly acted and has a good tonal balance of comedy and drama, confronting heavy issues without ever becoming bleak. Its good-heartedness is its strongest asset and it overcomes the more conventional aspects of its coming-of-age narrative with a clear-eyed realness and irresistible sincerity.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Kitchen review

For inSing

THE KITCHEN

Director: Andrea Berloff
Cast : Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Camp, Margo Martindale, Common, Brian d’Arcy James, James Badge Dale, Jeremy Bobb
Genre : Action/Adventure
Run Time : 1 h 43 mins
Opens : 8 August 2019
Rating : NC16

It is 1978, and the New York underworld will come to know and fear three women.

Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby O’Caroll (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire Walsh (Elisabeth Moss) are the wives of three Irish mobsters who get caught by the FBI and are shipped off to prison. Seeing an opening and left with little choice, they decide to step in, running their own protection racket. This causes them to run afoul of their husbands’ compatriots like Little Jackie (Myk Watford) and Ruby’s mother-in-law, the mob matriarch Helen O’Caroll (Margo Martindale).

Further complicating matters is the return of Gabriel O’Malley (Domhnall Gleeson), an enforcer who escaped to lie low and is now back in town. Claire finds herself falling for Gabriel, while Kathy and Ruby butt heads over how the business is to be run. The ladies eventually find themselves dealing with powerful Italian mafia don Alfonso Coretti (Bill Camp), based out of Brooklyn. While they find success with their burgeoning criminal empire, the bodies start piling up and the women realise they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

The Kitchen is based on the DC/Vertigo graphic novel of the same name, written by Ollie Masters and illustrated by Ming Doyle. The film marks the directorial debut of Andrea Berloff, who was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing Straight Outta Compton. The Kitchen is a brash, stylish film that plays on audiences’ familiarity with gritty gangster movies. The 70s New York portrayed in The Kitchen looks authentically grimy at first but leans into the “I’m walking here!” stereotypes and the movie is beholden to expectations of mob-centric media.

The film lulls viewers into a false sense of security in knowing where everything’s headed, before a final act packed with explosive twists. This is an appropriately bloody, violent movie, but there is some levity sprinkled throughout. The Kitchen seems to face the dilemma of wanting to give us three-dimensional characters while delivering as many recognisable mafia movie elements as possible.

Another dilemma is that the film is presented as being empowering and is fronted by three women, but at the end of the day, they are committing crimes and it can be a bit uncomfortable to find oneself cheering as bodies get sawn up.  It is possible to say “it was a different time” and go along with that, to a point. Perhaps it is a way of reclaiming how movies like The Godfather, Scarface or Goodfellas seemed to model masculinity, but The Kitchen does not dig into its moral greyness as deeply as it could’ve.

A big part of what makes this work as well as it does is the cast, led by Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy’s Kathy is likeable, non-violent and innately decent, but is also ambitious and resourceful. Even though the characters are engaging in criminal activity, McCarthy’s sympathetic performance is often just enough to keep audiences in the protagonists’ corner. She knows there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed, but the women keep barrelling towards – and past – said line.

One of the major changes from the source material is the Ruby O’Carroll character, who is depicted here as a black woman who has married into an Irish mob family and resents her status as an outsider. Haddish brings a fire to the role but can’t quite evince the same depths that McCarthy can and seems ever so slightly more limited as a performer.

Elisabeth Moss’ Claire has the arc of going from the victim of domestic abuse to revelling in practicing violence on anyone who stands in her way. Moss is entertaining when Claire is unhinged, but the character is overall less interesting than the other two, who also have more control of the narrative.

Domhnall Gleeson’s quietly, disconcertingly detached Vietnam veteran hitman character provides some of the film’s more memorable moments, but Gabriel’s romance with Claire seems played more for laughs than for drama.

The film’s supporting cast includes excellent character actors like Margo Martindale and Bill Camp doing fine work, with Common getting not a lot to do as an FBI agent who watches things go down from afar.

If you don’t watch many mob movies, there’s enough to like about The Kitchen, with director Berloff showing plenty of panache. The cast seem to enjoy making the film, and McCarthy is especially outstanding. However, the film doesn’t attain the level of complexity it seems to be shooting for and is sometimes torn between serving up visceral thrills and shocks and being a compelling character study. Still, it is a good change of pace from the typically male-driven 70s mob movie.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

First Man review

FIRST MAN

Director : Damien Chazelle
Cast : Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Pablo Schreiber, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, Lukas Haas, Shea Whigham, Brian D’Arcy James, Cory Michael Smith, Ciarán Hinds
Genre : Drama/Biography
Run Time : 143 mins
Opens : 18 October 2018
Rating : PG13

Call it ‘La La Moon Landing’: Damien Chazelle, the youngest winner of the Best Director Oscar, trains his sights on NASA’s quest to put the first man on the moon in this biopic.

It is 1961 and civillian test pilot Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) is accepted into NASA Astronaut Group 2. Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler), NASA’s first Chief of the Astronaut Office, emphasises how the Soviet Union has beaten the US to every major milestone in the Space Race. This batch of astronauts, which also includes Ed White (Jason Clarke), David Scott (Christopher Abbott), Elliott See (Patrick Fugit), Michael Collins (Lukas Haas) and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (Corey Stoll), among others, will take part in the Gemini Program. Gemini is NASA’s second human spaceflight program, and the tests conducted during the Gemini missions will lead to the Apollo Program, which aims to put a man on the moon.

The training is physically and mentally demanding, and the risk is high – several of the astronauts whom Neil becomes close to die in failed missions. This takes a toll on Neil’s wife Janet (Claire Foy), who fears that their children Rick (Gavin Warren and Luke Winters at different ages) and Mark (Paul Haney and Connor Blodgett at different ages) will be left without a father. NASA faces scrutiny and pressure in the aftermath of their high-profile failures, as many across the nation question the cost of the Space Race in dollars and in lives. This culminates in Neil, Buzz and Michael forming the crew of Apollo 11, with Neil becoming the first man to step foot on the lunar surface.

Following in the grand tradition of historical dramas about the Space Program like The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, First Man is an awards contender that hopes to also thrill audiences. Chazelle works from a script by Spotlight and The Post co-writer Josh Singer, who adapted history professor James R. Hansen’s book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. First Man combines a documentary-like feel marked by lots of grainy verité handheld shots with grand cinematic spectacle, and it’s a balance that mostly works.

There are bits of First Man that do feel a bit dry, but the film does a fine job of covering the history and an even better job of putting audiences inside the spacecraft alongside the astronauts. Before the Gemini 8 mission takes off, we get close-up shots of all the rivets and bolts inside the capsule as it creaks on the launchpad – if just one tiny thing fails, it all goes up in smoke. First Man contains some of the most realistic depictions of spaceflight ever put on screen, and endeavours to shed light on the people who made the achievements of the Space Program possible.

Chazelle reunites with several collaborators from La La Land, including cinematographer Linus Sandgren and composer Justin Hurwitz, who also scored Whiplash. The 16 mm and 35 mm film stock give the film an authentic period feel, while the moon landing sequence is presented in all its 70 mm IMAX glory. There is careful attention to detail in capturing the specifics of the ‘60s NASA setting, and production designer Nathan Crowley’s reproductions of the spacecraft and facilities is entirely convincing.

The backlash against the film for omitting the moment in which the American flag is planted on the moon seems like a mountain out of a lunar molehill. The decision to leave this well-known part of the moon landing out seems to stem from a desire to pare back the iconography of this historical moment and focus the story into something personal, giving the movie an honesty and a rawness.

Gosling anchors the film with a quiet, well-considered performance. The film characterises Neil Armstrong as someone who’s intelligent and earnest, but who is not especially well-equipped to process the grief that befalls him and those he cares about all too often. He is consumed by his work and driven to succeed, while it looks like everything around him is in danger of crumbling away. There’s an earnestness and intensity that Gosling dials to just the right level.

Foy’s Janet Armstrong is stern but caring, and her take on the role is a lot more than “worried wife back home”. Her relationship with Neil underscores how the astronauts are people with their own lives, and that serving the higher call of the Space Program comes at the expense of those lives.

The film’s supporting cast, including Clarke, Chandler and Ciarán Hinds, all give serious, unassuming ‘character actor’-type performances. Stoll’s Buzz Aldrin is characterised as someone who’s not exactly likeable, and this is something Stoll visibly enjoys playing.

First Man is a finely crafted serious awards season drama, but watching it still feels a little bit like homework. The attempts to juxtapose the US’ involvement in the Space Race against the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights struggle are commendable but a little clumsy. In taking a matter-of-fact approach, the film loses some of the wonderment and awe associated with mankind “slipping the surly bonds of earth”. However, Chazelle and co. largely succeed in crafting a credible account of Neil Armstrong’s journey from the earth to the moon.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

A Simple Favour movie review

A SIMPLE FAVOUR

Director : Paul Feig
Cast : Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Ian Ho, Joshua Satine, Linda Cardellini, Jean Smart, Rupert Friend, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin
Genre : Drama/Mystery/Comedy
Run Time : 117 mins
Opens : 13 September 2018
Rating : M18

Big secrets hide in a small town in this mystery thriller. Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is a single mum who lives in the suburb of Warfield, Connecticut with her son Miles (Joshua Satine). She produces a mum-centric vlog, giving tutorials on cooking and craft projects. Her uncomplicated existence is upended when she befriends Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), whose son Nicky (Ian Ho) goes to school with Miles.

It seems like Emily has it all: a high-flying job as a PR executive for fashion mogul Dennis Nylon (Rupert Friend), an adorable son, and a dashing husband in the form of writer and lecturer Sean Townsend (Henry Golding). Emily asks a simple favour from Stephanie: to pick Nicky up after school and look after him. Two days go by without Stephanie hearing anything from Emily. Questions surrounding her disappearance begin to pile up, as Sean grows attracted to Emily and Emily is drawn into a web of sordid secrets and lies. What’s a regular mum vlogger to do?

A Simple Favour is based on the novel of the same name by Darcey Bell and is billed as a “stylish post-modern film noir”. The film rights to the book were snapped up even before its publishing. The film has been described as Gone Girl-esque, but there are many instances when it’s not quite clear what director Paul Feig was going for. Feig has helmed comedies like Bridesmaids, Spy and Ghostbusters (2016), so it’s natural to worry that his comedic instincts might intrude on the mystery thriller elements of the story. They do, and as a result, A Simple Favour is tonally quite weird.

The film’s weirdness does make it interesting – this reviewer spent most of the movie puzzling over how much of said weirdness was intentional, and how much was accidental. There are moments when the film obviously wants to be dark and dramatic, but it also comes dangerously close to a parody of the domestic mystery thriller subgenre. Theodore Shapiro’s score plays a big part in this: someone will utter a revelation, then there’ll be obvious low trembling strings to go with it.

To Feig and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer’s credit, the mystery is engaging, but we want to keep watching to find out what happens the same way clickbait works – “I shouldn’t click on this, but I do want to find out why Hollywood stop casting Brendan Fraser”. By the time we’re invested, the story goes all-out, full-on ridiculous, trucking out the most melodramatic of ‘deep dark family secret’ plot twists. It’s hard to say if this would’ve worked any better played dead straight.

Both Kendrick and Lively play exactly to type. Kendrick is endearing and silly as an over-eager, over-earnest mum who finds herself way in over her head. The character is renamed ‘Stephanie Smothers’ when her surname was ‘Ward’ in the book – Stephanie Smothers sounds so much sillier, so much more on-the-nose, conjuring up an image of cloying sweetness. It’s mainly a comedic performance, and that seems to lead where the rest of the film goes tonally. She brings much of her signature ‘adorkable-ness’ to bear, and it seems like it is by design that the character is out of place in a dark, lurid mystery thriller.

Lively’s Emily is an aggressive, confident, icy go-getter, decked out in ensembles that might make even Serena van der Woodsen envious. The dynamic between Emily and Stephanie, with the former completely dominating the latter, is what the plot turns on. Emily and her husband seem like the picture-perfect couple, but of course there’s trouble in paradise. There are times when like Kendrick’s performance, Lively’s veers too close to caricature.

Henry Golding’s casting in this is a pretty big deal – the film went into production before the release of Crazy Rich Asians, meaning there was buzz about him in Hollywood before that film became the hot-button movie it is now. In movies like this, the husband character in movies like this is either in on it, or just really stupid. This might only be Golding’s second movie, but it seems he already has a type he’ll be cast in – namely, handsome, charming and a little bit aloof. He’s not entirely convincing in some of the more dramatic scenes, but he does fit alongside the attractive leads.

The supporting characters all feel like they walked out of a comedy – Andrew Rannells plays one of the ‘mums’ who makes catty comments at Stephanie from the side-lines, while Rupert Friend plays Emily’s boss, a flamboyant style maven. Linda Cardellini shows up as a goth-punk artist who wears a Slayer t-shirt as she wields and paints knives.

A Simple Favour might not work on the level it was intended to, but while its extremely uneasy mix of comedy and sex-and-secrets-soaked mystery thriller results in it being silly, it also prevents the movie from being bland. Perhaps this would’ve worked better in the hands of someone who’s sensibilities were a bit more British, who could have brought more wicked brand of acid-dipped wit to the proceedings. As it stands, A Simple Favour is a curiousity that audiences might not love but should find interesting.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong