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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 January 2016

There’s a bit of fluff on either side but Sisters is centred on an epic party thrown by two middle-aged siblings.  Their motivations are a mix of nostalgia and self-interest.  It’s the last night they’ll spend in their childhood home which, having been held in the family for decades, is being sold by their parents to a smug young couple.  It’s also a chance to have a good time and forget about their deep-seeded troubles.

Writer Paula Pell (who has a background on Saturday Night Live) is trying to tap into the success of other great party movies such as Superbad, Project X, Animal House and Old School.  Most invitees are neurotic.  There’s a nonchalant dealer carrying every drug imaginable, a liquor store owner looking to get laid, a group of rebellious beauticians being employed as slave labour, a couple addicted to having sex in public, a nerd who thinks all his jokes are funny (they’re not), and a pretentious woman with a major grudge against the party’s hosts.

As you’d expect, it becomes increasingly outrageous with each passing scene.  For the most part, the characters are trying to win laughs through silly, immature dialogue.  They talk a lot but it’s not particularly profound or amusing.  That said, there are unexpected flashes of humour that do surprise.  A conversation shared between a flirting Tina Fey and a monotone John Cena is a major highlight.  A bedroom scene involving Amy Poehler and Ike Barinholtz also wins big points.

There’s a darker undertone to the story that is touched upon but not given the gravitas it requires.  Both of the party’s hosts, Kate (Fey) and Maura (Poehler), have got issues.  The self-centred Kate can’t hold down a job because she’s incapable of showing respect and consideration to others (evidenced in the film’s opening scene).  She’s about to be kicked out of her home, she cares little for her parents, and she has a strained relationship with her only daughter.  Maura’s problems aren’t as serious but her worrying, overly-cautious personality is clearly impeding her ability to find happiness in life.

Their issues come to the surface during the party but it’s hard to buy into the resolution given the film’s light nature.  It lacks the realism and complexity that we saw from Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, a superior comedy about an insecure woman getting her life on track.  Perhaps Pell should have ditched the characters’ troubled backgrounds and stuck with carefree, cringe-worthy material all the way through.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are two long-time friends who should work well off each other.  You only have to watch their opening monologues at the last three Golden Globe Awards to get a sense of that.  They’re giving it their best shot in Sisters but it feels like a missed opportunity to create something with a bigger heart.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 December 2015

Written and directed by David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), this is an underdog story of epic proportions.  Joy Mangano (Lawrence) is a young woman in desperate need of a good break.  She works as an airline ticket clerk and has just learned that her shifts are being cut.  She is divorced with two children and is struggling to pay the household bills.  She is concerned about her depressed mother (Madsen) who lies in bed watching soapies all day.  She is frustrated by her selfish father (DeNiro) and opinionated sister (Röhm) who question every choice she makes.

Joy wants to break away from the shackles of her family’s negativity.  Since she was a young child, she has always enjoyed investing and creating products that could change the world.  Her ideas have never been financially successful but it hasn’t stopped her from trying.  The only person offering support is her beloved grandmother (Ladd) who continually reassures Joy that she’s special and that things will work out in the long run.

Worried that end up like the rest of her family, Joy puts crayon to paper and comes up with a invention – an affordable, long-life, self-ringing mop that would make life much simpler for the user.  It’s an idea with potential but to get it off the ground she’ll need help from two key people – her father’s wealthy girlfriend (Rossellini) who will put up the finance and a television executive at the Home Shopping Network (Cooper) who will help with promotion.

Based on a true story, Joy is part fairy-tale, part reality.  In the same way that Cinderella was helped by the Fairy Godmother, it does feel like there’s a higher power guiding Joy.  The positive sentiments and Nostradamus-like predictions offered by grandmother are proof of that.  That doesn’t mean she can sit back and let it all happen magically.  There’s no handsome prince here.  Joy will have to take chances and fight with every ounce of energy she has to “make it” in a male-dominated business world.

The different style that Russell has brought to Joy doesn’t always work.  It’s too obvious as he lays the foundation for the now predictable subplots that will be explored in the later stages.  For example, there’s a moment when Joy ignores the suggestion of her ex-husband (Ramírez) that she get legal advice around the product patent.  There’s another scene where Bradley Cooper’s character asks that they remain friends if they ever become business adversaries.  All that’s missing is a wink between the two.

The film’s strengths are derived from the performances.  Jennifer Lawrence is terrific as the determined yet vulnerable heroine.  She keeps getting knocked down and she keeps getting back up.  It’s inspiring if nothing else.  You’ll grow to hate many of the supporting characters but that’s also a good thing.  Those who believe in karma will enjoy seeing them get what they deserve.

It’s not David O. Russell’s best feature (that would be The Fighter) but at least it makes more sense that his most recent outing, American Hustle.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 January 2016

Two of my favourite animates features of 2015 were The Good Dinosaur and Shaun the Sheep Movie.  A distinguishing feature is that both relied on minimal dialogue.  They used facial expressions and other visual triggers to tell their stories and generate an emotional response.  An added bonus is that they could be screened in non-English language countries with minimal subtitles.

The Revenant feels like the adult equivalent.  Set in the early 19^th century, the film opens with a team of American explorers trekking through a remote forest and hunting animals for their fur.  They are forced to flee after being attacked by a well-armed group of Native-Americans.  It’s a brutal sequence and the body count is high.

The survivors embark on a long journey home and are guided by Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), an experienced frontiersman.  That is until Glass is savaged by a bear while scouting ahead.  It’s all over in the space of a minute but it’s an intense scene that is tough to watch.  The special effects are seamless and it’s hard to believe that DiCaprio is still alive by the end of it.

His fellow explorers try to stretcher the comatose Glass back to their base but the terrain is too mountainous and his wounds are too severe.  Team leader Andrew Henry (Gleeson) offers extra cash to those willing to stay behind and monitor Glass while the others forge ahead in search of help.  Those selected are John Fitzgerald (Hardy), a man with a shady past, and Jim Bridger (Poulter), a naïve hunter on one of his first expeditions.  Also staying back is Glass’s teenage son.

It’s at this moment when Fitzgerald shows his true colours.  While Bridger goes in search of food and water, Fitzgerald kills the son and leaves Glass for dead.  He fabricates a story about another Native-American attack to throw Bridger off the scent and the two start heading home.

Beware the man with nothing to lose.  It’s a theme that has been explored in numerous films.  Liam Neeson and the Taken action franchise springs to mind.  Glass miraculously survives his wounds and slowly gets back his strength and ability to walk.  He is motivated by one of life’s most common desires – revenge.  His only thought is to hunt Fitzgerald and make him pay.

After winning the Academy Award last year for Birdman, The Revenant marks the next achievement for Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams, Babel).  It’s a hugely ambitious project that cost roughly $135 million (twice the initial budget) and took almost a year to shoot.  A contributing factor was the insistence of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity) to only use natural light during the production.  That meant that, on average, only a two-hour window with ideal light was available each day.

Leonardo DiCaprio is currently the frontrunner to take home the best actor prize at the Academy Awards next month.  One reason is because of his terrific performance.  Another reason is because he’s overdue having been nominated 4 times previously without success in the acting categories.  He hardly says a word during the film but you get a clear sense of his character’s pain and determination.  From swimming in frozen rivers to eating a raw bison liver, DiCaprio has described it as “the hardest film he’s ever done.” 

The Revenant is a beautiful film.  There’s no argument about that.  Lubezki’s cinematography is gorgeous and the sound team have done an amazing job capturing the noises from such an isolated location.  The howling winds will stick in your head.

I was hoping for more from the story though.  It’s scant on background information when it comes to the characters.  It also struggles when it moves away from the main narrative.  For example, the leader of a Native-American tribe is trying to track down his kidnapped daughter.  Only a small amount of time is devoted to this key subplot which makes it difficult to follow and appreciate.

More likely to be remembered for DiCaprio’s performance than its slow-paced, grim narrative, The Revenant is an endurance test for both its leading character and the audience.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 December 2015

Time has a way of making past generations look very foolish.  Women were once burned at the stake in Europe after being found guilty of “witchcraft”.  Africans were once shipped to the United States and made to work as slaves on plantations.  Jews were once persecuted and sent to gas chambers by the German Government.  I often wonder how our current generation will be viewed with the benefit of hindsight.

Set in London 1912, Suffragette is centred on a group of British women pushing for the right to vote in national elections.  They had been denied the opportunity to elect their country’s leaders since the passing of key legislation in the 1830s.

The film’s early sequences highlight the “culture” that was engrained at the time.  A woman’s role was to find a husband, have children, and maintain a home.  Those that worked found themselves in factory or domestic service jobs that offered long hours and low pay.  There’s a scene where a Member of Parliament laments that “if we allow women to vote, it will be the loss of social structure.”  It sounds like an outlandish statement but it was a view shared by many.

The drive for women’s voting rights encompassed several decades but screenwriter Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Shame) has focused her attention on a specific point along the timeline – the period just prior to World War I where the protests were becoming more violent and the issue was reaching a tipping point.  Director Sarah Gavron believes it to be an important piece of history that isn’t taught it schools and is quickly being forgotten.

Morgan and Gavron have created a number of fictional characters that offer differing perspectives on the protests.  The central figure is Maud Watts (Mulligan), a married woman with a young child.  She’s reluctant to get involved but her passion and confidence grows after being introduced to other protestors including Edith (Carter), Violet (Duff), Alice (Garai), and union leader Emmeline Pankhurst (Streep).

It’s a little hard to buy into Maud’s transformation from unwilling nobody to a highly-regarded heavyweight but the film does a great job illustrating her emotional pain throughout the process.  She spends time in prison, is ostracised by her husband, and loses custody of her child.  It’s a big price to pay and there are several moments where she questions her own judgement.

The film’s other thought-provoking theme is the way it explores the methods adopted by the protestors.  Realising that peaceful marches were not making an impact, several of the women took more radical action by cutting telephone wires and bombing letter boxes.  Some saw it as a chance to increase media attention about their plight.  Others were worried that these destructive actions might push supporters away.  As one of the film’s best characters, Brendan Gleeson (The Guard) plays a police officer torn between upholding the law while also being sympathetic to the views of the protestors.

Suffragette highlights how much the world has changed for the better over the past century.  However, it also highlights there is still much room for improvement.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 26 December 2015

Much has been said and written about Star Wars over the past few weeks.  Disney purchased the rights to the franchise in 2012 (by acquiring Lucasfilm) for just over $4 billion USD.  It may sound like an obscene sum of money but given the box-office success of The Force Awakens, it shouldn’t take long for that investment to be recouped.

It wasn’t as widely publicised but the Iconix Brand Group took a similar path with Peanuts.  They purchased the rights to Charles Schulz’s famed comic strip in 2010 for $175 million USD.  The Peanuts characters can be found in television ads, greeting cards, and toy stores but their popularity has waned in recent years.  Iconix wanted to make more from their investment and so a new Peanuts movie was put into production – the first to be played in cinemas for 35 years.

They should be happy with the finished product.  Snoopy & Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie has made $127 million at the U.S. box-office thus far and is touted as a likely Oscar nominee in the best animated feature category.  Just as pleased will be Craig and Brian Schulz, the son and grandson of the late Charles Schulz (who passed away in 2000).  They spent several years writing the screenplay, along with Cornelius Uliano, and ensured the film remained faithful to the comic strip adored by readers for half a century.

Packaged into a nicely-paced 88 minutes, The Peanuts Movie has two storylines running concurrently.  The more prominent narrative sees Charlie Brown on a quest to win the affections of the Little Red-Haired Girl.  It’s not easy given his shy, insecure disposition and his uncanny knack for causing mayhem.  The other subplot is more “action packed” and chronicles Snoopy’s attempts to rescue his beloved Fifi who has been kidnapped by the Red Baron.

Those new to the Peanuts may battle with the abundance of characters (it’d be like watching a Simpsons episode for the first time) but the film is still easy to like.  Kids will be able to follow the simple storyline and will enjoy the misadventures of the good-natured, well-intentioned Charlie Brown.  It’s also nice to see an animated feature without a crazy, over-the-top villain.

Older audiences will chuckle at some of the film’s finer details.  There are a few adult references as well as throwbacks to Schulz’s black and white comic strips.  The animation is superb with director Steve Martino (Ice Age: Continental Drift) creating 3D computer animation that still looks like it’s been hand drawn.  It’s another tribute to the comics and you’ll notice the characters don’t move as fluidly as in other animated films.  Martino has also used the iconic jazz piano composition “Linus & Lucy” numerous times as part of the soundtrack.

Snoopy & Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie is the pick of the family fare over the Christmas school holidays.