John Wick: Chapter 2

'The man. The Myth. The legend. John Wick, you're not very good at retiring'

 'I'm working on it'

John Wick: Chapter 2's is a silly assassin film in which Keanu Reeves shoots people impressively. It knows what it is and does a good job of riding the line between tongue in cheek and taking itself seriously most of the time. It manages to be funny not through joke jokes but through straight-faced ridiculousness.

It's one of those 'last job' movies which focuses on John Wick getting out of the assassin agency he works for - the hotel in the first movie where he gets guns and stuff. A lot of the story comes from the rules of the assassin club and leads to some amusing silliness. There's lots of assassin-on-assassin action taking place in busy New York which is great. The action is well shot; you feel the punches and the camera often lingers long enough for you to see that Keanu's gotten pretty good at the whole fighting thing, though sometimes it looks confusing and doesn't really read.

The only real problems are with the script; the first half drags a little and some plot points were too unrealistic for this movie, often being a case of 'this happens because the script says so', and it doesn't get away with it because it's knowingly B-movie material.

Minor criticisms aside it's a fun, well-filmed action movie that's worth seeing in the cinema.

Life, Animated

Life, Animated is a documentary which tells the story of Owen Suskind, who after being diagnosed with autism when he was three years old, became almost mute, verbalising only nonsense words. His family discovered he could connect emotionally and eventually communicate through Disney films, at first quoting them, and eventually developing a full vocabulary. At the time of filming he's 23, and about to graduate from a special needs school and move out from his parents house into his own accommodation.

If a documentary falls flat it's usually through a lack of story, something which I imagine wouldn't be obvious from the outset when embarking on a project like this. While there certainly are dramatic things happening in the movie there is no real story more than anybody's life is a story. It hits the beats it's supposed to; it's sad in the middle, and all hope is lost when his girlfriend dumps him towards the end of the movie, before he gets to go to France and deliver a speech at a big conference (I wondered when watching the movie how much of it was re-sequenced to make the narrative more uplifting), but these things just happen; there's no cause and effect, no change on the part of the main character and no real message. This isn't strange for a documentary, and to expect Hollywood movie style change and insight from someone with moderate autism might be asking too much, but in using the structure and techniques of an uplifting movie, the narrative is at odds with the form.

There are enjoyable parts - I liked the scenes where he's quoting Disney movies and acting them out, it's impressive how well he can mimic the voices. There's a great scene where Disney voice actors show up at his Disney club at school, and they play around reciting scenes and everyone is really happy. The Disney angle is really the hook here and the most interesting thing I got from the movie is how he relates to Disney movies because they express emotion so clearly, being both a Disney fan and someone who has worked with autistic children for years I can totally relate to this. But this hook also drags the film into nonsense. It would have been a great half hour documentary - the hook is really the first half an hour or so and after that it turns into a sequence of moderately interesting scenes pretending to be story, where the filmmakers should have let them be what they were.

There are lots of Disney clips and some original animated scenes  that tell stories that Owen has written, which have a kind of European look and scream 'worth' into your face - but these only attempt to serve an uplifting feeling and a deeper meaning I didn't see. I think the score was biggest contributor to this, it was so generically epic and uplifting it sounded like a corporate video or an American advert where a group of ethnically diverse people turn to the camera in their own close ups and say 'for me ' 'and me' and then in a wide shot they say 'for all of us' at the same time. It's not boring though, I quite enjoyed the movie - perhaps I am more predisposed than most to do so - but I just wished it had toned down the in-your-face upliftyness; the best parts of the movie were the parts that felt like a documentary and focused on the day to day lives of people with moderate autism (albeit in this case a person with autism who has very rich parents), but the desperate schmaltz stops it from being the unflinching slice of autistic life I would've like to have seen.

Sing

Hayao Miyazaki compares filmmaking to assembling a Christmas tree. You create a structure - a story - then decorate it with tinsel and baubles and lights - these are the jokes and set pieces and especially in this case songs. The problem with Sing isn't a lack of story - there's way too much - but it's so thin that it can't support the decoration, and so what you end up with is a pile of shiny shit on the floor.

In the trend of Hollywood choosing small time indie directors to bully into making movies by committee, Sing is directed by Brit Garth Jennings, who did Son of Rambow and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You can see some of his touches and the way it's edited is interesting and fun in lots of places. It's technically, visually pleasing in the way it's shot, despite sub-Disney character design. The committee must meddle, however.

It seems like instead of trying to make a good film, they tried to make a good trailer, with as many crazy animal characters and songs as possible to appeal to the widest audience. There are too many characters who share equal amounts of screen time for you to get to know and care about them, or laugh at their antics. For a film about singing and music there aren't any particularly stand out musical performances, and it's not really about any kind of music in the same way that something like School of Rock is. It would have been nice if they'd talked about music, how rock or jazz made them feel. But that's too specific and risks alienating children.

I wouldn't say a film produced by Sony's Illumination would ever disappoint me but it's kinda sad to see a talented, small-time, British indie directer make such a nothingy film. Apart from the small directorial flourishes and a few laughs, it's too vague, light and unfocused to be enjoyable, favouring quantity over quality story.

Your Name

Your Name does everything it can to entice you. It’s a fantastic recipe; an animated body-swapping, love story disaster movie; everything’s there in the premise, and it sounds so fun and strange and it is.

It throws everything it can at you, flip-flopping between intensity and tenderness, crazy music video montages and very Japanese slow scenes where nothing much at all happens, and it almost goes without saying (it's anime) that it looks and sounds beautiful.

The first half draws you in with mystery, sweet and subtle characterisation and great boob jokes, and it’s an impressive storytelling feat to show a romantic relationship without having the lovers meet until late in the movie without you noticing.

When the stakes are raised it gets a lot tenser. There’s a disaster, and the relationship is at risk, not through romcom contrivance but the sadly realistic way that ‘shit happens’, even in a fantasy. There are twists and turbulence and you want to so much for everything to work out because you’re not convinced it will. And the film drags on, teasing you. Mitsuha falls off her bike not for plot but just to make your heart jump. It gets a little tiring and the emotional hits are less subtle. It feels long.

But the joy and excess are both the result of the obvious effort poured into every moment; why dislike a film for trying too hard when there’s so, so much to love?

 

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Gremlins with Zach Galligan Q&A at The Prince Charles, Leicester Square

I had this idea that it would be really cool to open a cinema in Coventry. It would be called The Flux because of A: the Flux Capacitor, B: it sounds fancy and C: X’s are cool. It would show old movies and foreign movies and do events and singalongs  - like an art-house cinema but with Ghostbusters. It would basically be The Prince Charles cinema, a place that encompasses everything I’ve been enjoying about London; looking at famous people from afar, hanging around Leicester square, and being amongst likeminded people while not having to talk to any of them.

I saw Gremlins there last Friday night. The movie’s star Zach Galligan was there to do a Q&A and gave us a lot of juicy behind the scenes details; it took 6 months for him and the puppeteers to practice their scenes, he actually improvised some stuff with Gizmo, the guy who designed Gizmo had a nervous breakdown basically inventing the technology as they were shooting and subsequently made 11 million dollars. Zach seemed like a really happy guy who was grateful and not bitter to be known as ‘the Gremlins man’; he posed for pictures with fans and seemed to loved talking about the movie, which is something he presumably does on a weekly basis (there’s not much on his I.M.D.B). Having been to lots of conventions I’ve seen a lot of surly actors who are famous for one part they’ve played sit there looking miserable and (presumably) lamenting their life decisions– I’m looking at you Soup Nazi.

I haven’t seen the movie in probably ten years and it was one I watched a lot as a kid. I could hardly remember any lines of dialogue or how specific scenes played out or even that Corey Feldman is in it, but it all came flooding back like a repressed memory. It’s amazing how little of Gizmo there is, I guess because he’s so much more expressive than the other gremlins and it took 14 puppeteers to work him, it’s just too much hard work. If they do a Gremlins 3 – Zach said it’s on the cards – I hope it’s a puppet and not a back-flipping cartoon.

The film is a lot funnier than I remember it, partly because everything is funnier in the cinema (especially with an audience who so clearly love the film – they paid £15 to see a movie they can probably watch on YouTube)  but also because the joke of the film is its absurdity, which is lost on stupid, stupid children. Like how you can watch a Simpsons episode now and laugh at jokes you missed when you were a kid.

In fact The Simpsons is a good comparison - the absurd humour of like Phoebe Cates remaining at her bar job and servings drinks to evil gremlins instead of just running away, for example. This whole scene is hilarious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6eLmOECcug It’s also kind of a play on ‘50s horror and sci-fi movies, and the craft that goes into aping the style of those movies and the resulting humour might be overlooked when you’re thinking about a kids’ monster movie.

The movie was a 70mm print which would normally trigger some kind of cynical anti-hipster radar in my head but instead just made the movie feel warm and real and special, plus it works with the content. All those times I watched Gremlins as a kid was probably on a crummy VHS so the lo-fi aesthetic fits.

As far as a night out alone in London  goes, The Prince Charles cinema is fantastic - it plays old movies that are impossible to see anywhere else on a big screen in a dark and cosy underground (literally) environment. Plus they serve beer and wine.  Gremlins isn’t playing there anymore but there’s a whole season of Christmas movies playing at the moment including Elf, Die Hard, and a Frozen singalong. Get on it.

Robin Hood

Disney’s Robin Hood is a childhood favourite of mine. Combining that with being a Disney fan in general I’m predisposed to like it. It’s such a well-made film and completely underrated. The plot is nothing special, very simple and child friendly. The good guys win pretty easily without much trouble. Robin Hood is just a badass with a bow and a blade and it’s never really explained why he’s so good, he’s just Robin Hood. He’s the coolest guy in the world, like James Bond or Indiana Jones. So with a mediocre story, why is it so good? Firstly the songs are so catchy and fun. I’ve been singing ‘Whistle Stop’ for days now (you know, the intro song). The animation is nearly impossible to beat, thanks to Milt Kahl, who was one of Disney’s lead animators for decades and one of the most insanely talented filmmakers ever to have lived. I’ll let this guy tell you how good he is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-wwmBlH4YE

The scenes between Prince John and Hiss are hilarious, wonderful voice acting and animation. Mid-era Disney films have a certain quality to their voice actors that I can’t pin down; vaguely warm and comforting. So like nearly all Disney it’s nearly formally perfect. It’s not as emotional as many Disney movies and the end isn’t particularly rewarding but it’s so well-crafted and every scene has something really cool happen in it. There are a few missteps like Lady Kluck, a Scottish chicken who is really cringey, a kick-ass old lady! Apart from that it’s one of my favourite movies of all time, an absolute classic.

The Jungle Book

Sometimes it’s hard to tell why animated films get live-action remakes. Off the top of my head I can't think of one that I like. I guess with the Jungle Book, the reason was simple; it hasn’t been done and it has a broad appeal based on the fandom of the original, besides being a four quadrant movie. The 2016 live action Jungle Book currently has a 94% and Rotten Tomatoes, and 8.1 on IMDB, whereas the original Disney animation has 86% and 7.6 respectively. This is an overrating, and I think an example of the taking for granted of how good Disney’s animated (especially 2D) work is. This is due to Disney being pretty much the only western studio to produce animated features for 60 years or so, with no competition or point of comparison. People are used to having seen Disney films when they were too young to appreciate how well-crafted they are, and not having the inclination to reassess them, continue to see them as cartoons or kids films without much more thought. Studio Gibli on the other hand is more often praised for its animation quality because people generaly come to these films as adults, with the ability to really see and differentiate quality. Most people have never tried to be animators, and so don't appreciate how hard it is, which is why snooker is so boring if you've never played it; animators and snooker players are arguably among the most talented people in the world (making snooker players the most boring people in the world, not having time for a personality. I don't know about animators but they seem a bit goofier, I think the the acting component that comes into animation - bringing emotion to characters that don't exist - may actually give them a heightened personality). So most people just don’t understand how hard it is, including critics. You could argue CGI is more objectively impressive than 2D animation; rendering a photo-realistic tiger from nothing is basically a magic trick, drawing a tiger is easy, right? Literally anyone can draw a tiger. It might be a 3 year old's scribble but if they say it's a tiger it's a tiger. Only a handful of people have the access to and the ability to use 3D modelling software. But is this

really more beautiful and impressive than this?

Or is it more technology, manpower and money? To be fair, it's certainly scarier, which is one thing The Jungle Book 2016 does really well. Shere Khan is really scary in every scene and totally not in it enough, Idris Elba really nails it. The action scenes are really good too, they read well and don't get confusing and incoherent the way many CGI action scenes do, they're the best bits in the film. As well as Idris Elba, Bill Murray is fantastic, not being restricted by his old man's face reverting to classic Murray, confident and lazy and funny. There are a few missteps though. In following the episodic nature of the original, there were a few scenes which felt out of place; the scene with Kaa (the snake) was quite cool but was unnecessary, and the King Louie scene felt weird. In the original they worked because it was a musical which is episodic by nature, here it just felt unnatural and sectioned. There are two songs, which felt shoehorned in. Keeping with some sort of realism you don't have the dancing, so the animals kinda just stand there and sing at Mowgli, which looks awkward. They do help to lighten the tone though, which may be too dark without them. 

Mowgli was a problem for me; he was whiny and without agency. He just let others tell him what to do which makes him less sympathetic. The child actor Neel Sethi actually did well with what he had to work with and did a convincing job of talking to a tennis ball on the end of a stick in a green room, which must be hard for even adult actors. I get the feeling he'd be really charming in other films. I'm picking holes with the film not because I think it's a bad movie - it's pretty good, Bill Murray and Idris Elba are great and the animals are perfectly rendered and the action scenes are scary and exciting, and most importantly it's not too long - but I think it is overrated, and critics are praising the spectacle as if photo-realism is the high point of art, not a technological inevitability, and it still doesn't look as good as Jurassic Park which is now TWENTY THREE years old (use real trees for fuck sake it's not hard. Go to a jungle or something they have loads). It's a good film but photo-realistic tigers don't make it a great one.