An / Schneider v Bax / Victoria

For you lovers of subtitles, three foreign films here to seek out if you so wish. Having said that these were all Festival films and, unless they get picked up for distribution, you’ll probably have to look out for them on shiny discs further down the line. We start with An, Naomi Kawase’s charming and thought provoking film regarding age and disability in Japan. Sentaro (Masatoshi Nagse) owns a small diner which distributes dorayaki pancakes. People are hardly queuing round the block for his fare, but things take a turn for the better when he employs elderly lady Tokue (Kirin Kiki) to make the red-bean paste (the “An” of the title) for said pancakes. However Tokue’s recipe and Sentaro’s profits look to be under threat when Tokue’s (visual) disability begins to become common knowledge. I won’t say much more as Tokue’s disability is delicately and subtly revealed in the film and Kawase’s production deserves people to see it for highlighting what is a somewhat dark social issue in Japan (unless you’re a Japanophile it’s a topic you’ll unlikely to be aware of). On the negative side, whist the acting from the two main leads is top notch (they should have a picture of Nagse playing Sentaro in the dictionary under “unenthused”), the rest of the cast ranges from somewhat bland to over the top. This could also have done with losing 20 minutes or so in the editing suite. From Japan we make the long haul flight back to Europe for Alex van Warmerdam’s Schneider v Bax, in which Dutch hitman Schneider (Tom Dewispelaere) reluctantly takes on a job taking out Ramon Bax, a novelist who lives somewhat reclusively in the reed fields of the Netherlands. The title alone pretty much tells you that things don’t go to plan. We haven’t had a mash-up for a while so lets describe this as the Coen’s directing a Jo Nesbo script, but with 50% of the quality, fun and intensity removed. Warmerdam has a reputation for delivering films that are a little odd and this is no exception. How much you swallow some of the more bizarre moments will probably reflect your overall enjoyment. To wit: At one point a major plot development occurs when a character, alone, and for no reason whatsoever, does a comedy pratfall! Warmerdam tries to pitch the comedy aspect high, but it’s a thin line between farce and farcical. However, despite all the silliness, you’ll still want to know how it all works out. Though hopefully you won’t be too distracted by Dewispelaere, who must be the lovechild of Michael Ballack and Danny Dyer. Finally, it’s a short hop over to Germany for some filmic experimentation, with Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria. I love a tracking shot so when I heard about this (a whole film shot in one uninterrupted take), it sounded like manna from heaven. Set in the early hours of the city of Berlin, we follow young night clubber Victoria (Laia Costa) as she hooks up with a somewhat motley crew of chaps and then follow her adventures with them throughout the dark hours of the German night. The technical details first. Schipper tried three attempts to get this done, succeeding on the third attempt and this is the take that makes up the film, all 134 minutes of it. It can’t be denied that it’s a highly impressive achievement as the camera follows the protagonists through streets, stairs, lifts, rooftops, cars, bikes, shops etc. without a noticeable stumble. However, there’s a problem though. Even incorporating a bank raid into the bargain, Schippers film is just plain dull. At least an hour could have been cut from this, but it looks like the lure of a longer more impressive technical achievement won out over the actual quality of the final film. In addition it takes quite a bit of swallowing, especially with no background to the characters, that Victoria would spend five minutes with such a group of horrible drunk tossers, let along a couple of hours with them breaking law after law. Kudos to cast and director for a cracking achievement cinema-wise. It’s a shame it’s just not worth over two hours of people’s time to sit through the end result. An Rating: 7/10. Bax Rating: 6/10. Victoria Rating: 5/10.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

I’m pretty averse to superhero movies at the best of times, unless a brilliant director takes them to a place that is over and above the standard. Unfortunately, Joss Whedon is no Chris Nolan and that means that Avengers: Age of Ultron is pretty thin stuff, even for the rehash and dispatch world of Marvel. Whedon has had many fingers in many successful pies over the years, but he’s still yet to prove his worth as a more than average film director. So what we have here is just fast food film making for the masses. Who cares if there’s virtually nothing new to say? Just put it out there and watch the money roll in. At least the fan boys will have fun, but the average film goer will be as bored as the cast looks going through the motions of treading through the same plot strands as previous films. Whedon’s over use of CGI does him little favours here as well and, much like the lesson that Michael Bay still hasn’t learnt, once you’ve seen one SFX dust up you’ve seen them all. As for the main players, Robert Downey Jr. is just plain annoying and Mark Ruffalo gives a master class in bad acting in any scene that requires any sort of emotion to be projected (though, frankly, who can blame him if he can’t be arsed to try). For some odd reason Chris Hemsworth appears to use his James Hunt voice for the whole film, but at least that provides an unintentionally amusing distraction. Any plus points? James Spader voices the villain of the piece (Ultron – keep up!) and despite only being a CGI rendered mass of lines and colours, actually provides the film with its one true piece of personality. There’s also a few throwaway gags to enjoy, but the whole Marvel world feels unbelievably tired now. Having said that, Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t in this one so small mercies, huh? Rating: 4/10.

Kingsman

Director Matthew Vaughan and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman have an unblemished record so far, but the quality level drops a bit here. Their latest collaboration isn't a bad film, but it more chugs along as opposed to being a solid watch all the way through. The set-up is fairly standard as we follow the recruitment of an, err, chav (Eggsy – played by Taron Egerton), into a secret spy organisation and then further into saving-the-world plot shenanigans. I can’t recall a film I’ve seen recently that’s as hit and miss as this one, almost to the point that it could depend when you see it during the week. If it’s on a Friday night, you’ll laugh heartily at a gag involving McDonalds. If you see it on a Monday, you won’t see a gag, just abysmal product placement. Vaughan and Goldman’s film is clearly a subversive take on Bond, but it doesn’t really work in that sense, unlike say, what Kick-Ass was to superhero films. Best just to enjoy this then for the daftness that it is. A nice meta conversation between Colin Firth (as Eggsy's handler / mentor) and Samuel L. Jackson (as the big bad) gives a wink to the audience that none of this should be taken seriously – indeed, when a key scene involves a lot of people’s heads exploding to the backdrop of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, you know you’re on Silly Street. On that note though, the tone of the film is unbalanced throughout, with exhibit A being the now infamous anal sex banter (which has been cut from subsequent versions). Vaughan is an accomplished director mind, and for the cineastes out there he employs a trick here of centrally framing the entire film (though the pan shots did remind me of a certain W. Anderson). That trick does go out of the window though (along with a number of bloody bodies) in an astonishing scene of violent carnage featuring Firth in a church, which is a head spinning mash up of John Woo’s Hard Boiled and Gareth Edwards The Raid. It’s unlikely you’ll see anything like it this year. On the acting front, the aforementioned Firth plays an English gentleman (quite a stretch, that), old Vaughan alumni Mark Strong appears, but for some reason has to act with a barely interminable Scottish accent, and the less said about Jackson’s lisping villain the better. Rating: 7/10.

Into The Woods

If you go down in the woods today you’re sure to find....a number of Hollywood stars in a somewhat mixed bag of musical mayhem. Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical Into The Woods gets the big screen treatment with Tinseltown's great and the good (and lots of others you’ll never have heard of) pitching in to the story of a crossover between a number of fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella etc.). The loose plot thread running through it all concerns a childless couple (James Corden and Emily Blunt) who have to collect a number of items for a hideous beast. A bit like one of those episodes of The Apprentice, then. The tone is all over the place at times (chopping off bits of feet!), no doubt as a result of trying to make the film more marketable (the play is significantly more violent), but without losing that Grimm-edge. The last time he picked up a megaphone (for the most recent installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series) director Rob Marshall sent everyone to sleep, but here the man behind Chicago and Nine is back on safer territory. The majority of the songs come alive thanks to his skill in moving the camera around, though some tread a thin line between enjoyment and endurance. The acting honours go to Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine (clearly having fun hamming it up as Cinderella’s Prince in waiting), especially as the rest of the cast is spread somewhat unevenly re lines and screen presence. Overall, a decent effort, but its confusion re what level of mood to pitch itself at means the whole things lacks heart. Rating: 6/10.