The Season Begins in Earnest
3/5 - 3/5 - 5/5
Spoilers
It might seem like I am slightly obsessed by the Academy Awards. They are, after all, an exercise in populism with a somewhat dubious voting system. The Academy itself can feel shadowy and, aside from the more specialist categories, films generally have to have had a 'wide release' of some description to really stand a chance in the actual ceremony. Independent films can generally be shut out.
Yet, the allure of that night has captivated me since the Monday evenings as a child when we would sit watching the video-taped recordings captured by my Dad overnight of the ceremony. It was usually funny, it was star-studded, and it made the cinema seem thrilling. I do love the build up to the Oscars and it does provide a framing device to my cinematic year. By now, I am sure this is apparent for regular review readers, but I felt it was worth restating as the new season begins in earnest. And, to be honest, I make no apologies for my obsession.
Around this time of year, the big players start to be released with growing relentlessness. Films that strive for Oscars glory try to time their releases to be as close to the closing of voting as possible. Once we know the actual nominees, next week, cinemas will prioritise these pics over most others. It will get quite intense.
King Richard
3/5
The first stop this week is an almost re-release of a potential nominee. The Will Smith led biopic of the Williams sisters' father came out in December. Odeon put out a few token showings but none were at helpful times for us. Possibly due to the buzz surrounding the film, it made a sudden reappearance for a week. In all honesty, the premise of the film sounded fairly uninteresting, but Will Smith has been popping up in all sorts of awards short lists for best actor, so, rather begrudgingly, we trundled along.
The first point to make is that the film is fairly average. There is nothing majorly wrong with the film, but there is little notably good. It is clear that director Reinaldo Marcus Green must be a tennis fan, for there is quite a lot of tennis match re-creation. There are several matches played out, all of which have little tension to them but must have been enjoyable when originally played. I am no tennis aficionado, so these loving replica matches were, frankly, dull. There are many times a biopic can deliver tension even though the outcome is known - Green fails to find true dramatic purpose in these moments, bogged down in minutiae of blow-by-blow accounts.
At times the film struggled to find its central character. Nominally it was about the larger-than-life figure of Richard Williams. But his faults and full story were glossed over in favour of following the girls' careers. Even then, when Zach Baylin's script guides us to a film on Williams' impact on the girls, the film side-lines Serena in the second act, focusing on Venus' breakthrough instead. Throw away comments on Serena's potential serve only to highlight the forgotten sister.
Smith's performance is good, but the character is so blandly two dimensional that there is nothing worthy of note to work with. An actor of known greater depth would have struggled to find sufficient material in this script. The part, as written, could never have grown beyond Smith's portrayal. He shows some physical pain, quirky traits, and, through a couple of rather shoe-horned set pieces, is allowed emotional monologues. But they don't add up to much. This becomes all the more peculiar when you read up on the real Richard Williams, a man with more children that the current U.K. Prime Minister, with a penchant for abandonment, who founded and tanked a series of crackpot business enterprises. The real Williams is a complicated individual. Baylin's version is a driven father whose long line of abandoned children are mentioned in one forgettable sentence and his business failings in a second.
Will Smith has long been chasing down his Best Actor Oscar. Although he is fine in King Richard, and although the film was a perfectly competent if unchallenging biopic, nothing about the film screams of awarded merit. Any recognition, to me, speaks more of trying to find a project to give Smith an award for than rewarding an especial triumph.
King Richard, 2021
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Writer: Zach Baylin
Composer: Kris Bowers
Starring: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Tony Goldwyn, & Jon Bernthal
Scream
3/5
It's been just over 25 years since the original Scream premiered. The original was a clever pastiche of the slasher horror genre, managing to provide humour through self awareness whilst acting as an exciting whodunnit. The success of the first spawned an initial trilogy, each installment slightly losing something of the original's charm whilst at least maintaining aspects of self reference. The fourth, released a decade ago, felt more like a desperate cash grab, finding itself solely convinced by its successes in horror, forgetting the tongue in cheek aspects that had carried the original.
This 'requel', as the film puts it, has learn from that error only too well. The movie hinges on the premise of the recent Hollywood trend of carrying out a soft reboot of a franchise by introducing new characters who follow a plot modelled on the original before mixing with the 'legacy characters'. Here, the illegitimate daughter of original murderer Billy Loomis, is lured back to Westview where her friends are bumped off, causing her to seek out David Arquette's Dewey. His rather shocking demise pulls back Neve Campbell's Sidney and Courtney Cox's Gale for a final fight with the new Ghostface - two fans of the in-franchise film series based on the murders.
Here lies the primary problem with this fifth installment - it is super meta. In many ways, too meta. The references to the 'Stab' movies within the films begin humourously enough before becoming slightly ridiculous. The rules of horror, so well presented in the first, become mantras that the writers obsessively cling to. The revelation that 'the boyfriend and the the best friend both did it', amusingly called out by Dewey in his first scene, turns into something that feels more akin to an SNL sketch as they rant and rave about the lack of respect for super fans. You can almost see them line up the water-skis to join Fonzie as he approaches the shark.
The use of characters is also somewhat disappointing. Whilst trying to emulate the original, the focus is kept firmly on lead actress Melissa Barrerra's character as she negotiates ending up in a 'Stab' movie set up. Her gang of friends, the victims and reincarnations of the originals, are soon forgotten. They reappear as and when they are needed to be murdered. It is easy to initially suspect the best-friend culprit and then un-suspect her as she disappears for much of the film.
Likewise, the legacy characters barely get screen time. Arquette is given a reasonable role and a rather dramatic death, yet Campbell and Cox are left to enter fully in the third act. Their appearance is written as if their story is as vital Barrerra's but the dramatic pacing makes them seem like an afterthought. This in of itself would not have been a problem had either the plotting diminished their purpose or the friends have been given greater screen time.
Yet, despite all of that, I still kind of enjoyed it. The mystery, although workout-able, was still fun and kept me half-guessing. The in-universe references were amusing at times. Barrerra was an engaging lead. The gore was suitably gory whilst not being over the top. It was an improvement on Scream 4 and a nice bit of cinematic fluff as the worthy Oscar contenders rear their heads. I just hope it's the last.
Scream, 2022
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
Writer: James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick
Composer: Brian Tyler
Starring: Melissa Barrera, Jack Quaid, Jenna Ortega, Dylan Minnette, Mikey Madison, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sonia Ben Ammar, Marley Shelton, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, & Neve Campbell
Belfast
5/5
Have you every heard a complaint about a film being too short before? I hadn't. After watching Kenneth Branagh's passion project last week, I read some of the general reviews and found that issue cropping up. For many reviewers, it seemed to be the only complaint. There has been a recent trend of films trying to push their run time to 150 minutes. Spurred on by superhero films, enraged by the Warner Bros. directive to keep films at 90 minutes, or led by directors with weak willed editors, more and more films seem to wander from poignantly ponderous to aggressively engorged. And here, in the face of current trends, is a movie that tells its story at the pace it was meant to be told.
Belfast is an interesting film for many reasons, not least due to its plotting. To call it succinct would be to discredit - the plotting is perfectly paced, with no more or less than is needed to tell this story. Bare in mind, the narrative revolves around a nine year old boy's perspective of the beginning of The Troubles, life moves apace as memories would have you believe it did.
Branagh puts his personal recollections firmly at the heart of the film and it pays off. The Troubles are often characterised by sectarianism, hatred, and violence. Whilst he does not eschew such issues, he presents a very different Belfast from the one popular history remembers. Whilst violence opens the film, the upbeat soulfulness of Van Morrison perforates most scenes. As the tension cranks up, the core family find themselves dancing to the gloriously upbeat Everlasting Love at the grandfather's wake. Nostalgia for the sixties, showing references to Star Trek, One Million Years B.C., Thunderbirds merchandise, and Matchbox Cars, firmly remind you of the realness of a time period becoming more and more abstract.
Dealing with sectarianism can be a gruelling cinematic endeavour. The conflict between Protestants and Catholics has been captured on film before and often paints communities as blind to the humanity of their rivals. Here, Branagh gives us a street of mixed background and religion who coexist in peace. The main family are Protestant. The boy fancies a girl in class who is inconsequentially Catholic. Aside from crippling unemployment, presented as a root cause of civil unrest, the biggest threat the family face is from violence from fellow Protestants, demanding pay offs or loyalty. Nuance within a story told numerous times is paramount.
From a technical perspective, the film is beautiful. Branagh uses a brightly lit black and white for his view of the past. But moments of exciting colour (such as the Star Trek shot on the TV, the One Million Years B.C. cinema visit, and a live performance of A Christmas Carol on stage) add a sense of wonder to the child's perspective, of promise, and hope.
As noted above, the film is personal to Branagh, and the cinematography goes some way to driving this home. Many of the shots focus on the personal, close ups of faces, or static sections of dialogue taking in the nearness of family members. The intimacy of the film draws you into the sense of community, allowing you a greater understanding of the core dilemma: to stay in Belfast or to leave for perceived safety.
As a postscript, the film was dedicated to the late John Sessions, who makes his final screen appearance in the A Christmas Carol segment. It reminded me of what an enjoyably witty and clever actor he was.
Belfast, 2022
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Kenneth Branagh
Music: Songs mostly by Van Morrison
Starring: Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan, & Jude Hill
Scream & Belfast are currently showing in cinemas across the U.K. King Richard is available to rent on Amazon Prime
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