Hysteria

And the best thing about it all, it’s all true! Believe it or not “Manual genital massage” of women had been a medical remedy since ancient times, and hysteria was a real and “recognised” illness until 1952. Joseph Mortimer Granville filed the first patent for an electromechanical vibrator termed Granville’s Hammer in about 1883.But he did not apply his invention in the treatment of hysteria (in real life) instead he used it to treat muscular disorders. However other physicians started to apply the vibrator for the treatment of hysteria…so I’ll forgive the film that one.

Hysteria weaves a fictitious story around a historically accurate context. Victorian Women were indeed dismissed as “hysterical” something that allegedly afflicted half of London’s women, before being treated to a ‘vulva massage’ as a treatment, a side effect of which being it gave them a “release” that doctors considered impossible outside of good old fashioned penetration. Frustration seems to be the true mother of all invention.
The film talks the “facts” and gives them a full steam comic spin. Hysteria stars Rupert Everett as Granville’s ‘bachelor’ pal, who invents the precursor to the rampant rabbit ™, the he intends as an electronic feather duster (no sniggering at the back). Livening things up but distracting from the issue is Maggie (Secretary) Gyllenhaal as a proto-feminist, womens’ libber Charlotte Dalrymple (contracted to her submissive sister (Felicity Jones)). Gyllenhaal is (naturally) fantastic but her love-hate romance with Granville feels like it belongs in rom-com, rather than a vibe-run invention film.

In the meantime, an assortment of stereotypical Victorian ladies undergo the sexy shock therapy with appropriate squeals of (pre 50 Shades) delight. Hysteria happily ticks along, and if you like this sort of thing, you’ll like it lots. The origins of the vibrator (out selling washing machines in the UK at present) is played broadly for big laughs, as if it’s all terribly tittersome to talk about “thingy” in such a straightforward way. Sadly this prudish approach trivialises everything about the story, the problem with misdiagnosis and the device itself. Hysteria (the film) isn’t helped by a the script never gives any of these characters more than one or two personality traits, with the hinting at the serious themes underneath overshadowing and distracting from the drama (comedy) trying to get out.

Hysteria Trailer

Tower Block

The characters in Tower Bock may be predictable and the identity of the “mystery” triggerman isn’t too hard to work out, but the tension, action, acting and angst are all believable, while the violence remains shocking and sudden. Special praise must go to the cast (a roll call of familiar Brit TV faces) that includes Sheridan Smith, Jack O’Connell, Ralph Brown & Russell Tovey. Especially good is Smith as Eastend Sarah Connor and Jack O’Connell as a wrong ‘un who comes good.

Tower Block is the story of the inhabitants of a soon to be levelled tower block (of flats) where, a year after witnessing a murder, the last tenants must band together to stay alive when a murderer with a sniper rifle starts picking them off…in their flats. The first selling point of Tower Block is the location, a new twist on the “cut off” in familiar surroundings, genre”, left living on the top floor with nobody in the surrounding area. Whoops, there is a little bit of politics there, but Tower Block is clearly NOT a political kitchen sink drama.

Tower Block heralds the arrival of some fresh British filmmaking meat, with James Nunn & Ronnie Thompson behind the lens, while the screenplay was written by James Moran, who has also been credited on Halloween: H33 and the other UK schlock horror comedy Cockneys vs Zombies. The script in Tower Block keeps things moving at a decent speed and guarantees a decent shock or suspense scene at regular intervals. It also makes the most of the group (of disparate stereotypes) and the dialogue is sharply written, without being a wannabe Tarantino.

When the bullets of the murderous sniper suddenly start coming through the windows. The questions and theories fly as fast as the ballistics; why is he shooting? What’s he got against the residents? And how on earth can they get out? This is a two edged ploy and the downside is that the ending, feels like the weediest part of the film. While it works great as a dark action-thriller with the way the film is set up, the explanation-climax isn’t quite as interesting as the main premise.

Tower Block Trailer

Savages

Savages sees hippy surfer drug dealers (good guys) Ben the super talented botanist Buddhist (Aaron Taylor-Johnson seen most recently as the tomcat Count Vronsky in Anna Karenina) and “the muscle” in the form of former Navy Seal and ex-mercenary Chon (Taylor Kitsch most recently ignore in John Carter and Battleship) who have built a mini empire growing and supplying prime marijuana. They share their hearts and a luxury cliff top pad (and loins) with blonde babe O, short for Ophelia (Blake Lively).

Paradise is lost when crazed villains from an (evil) Mexican drugs cartel (led by Salma Hayek and her enforcer Benicio Del Toro, both joyously over the top) decide to merge / take over the pretty boys’ business. To show they mean business, they kidnap O, and corrupt DEA agent Dennis (John WIG Travolta) thickens the plot, playing both sides and having no truck with the law he supposedly represents.
And things quickly escalate

The script of Savages spices up the back-stabbing and betrayal with breathless TV-lite sex scenes between the good-looking leads, but it feels that Stone has had enough of making films for grown-ups and has gone back to “crowd pleasing” instead. Savages is directed with typical gusto by Stone, but he turns out to be his own worst enemy as if he can’t stand the lowbrow audience he is serving. This was not a problem with the other off-reservation Stone film, U-Turn, in which he set out to make a film for him, and while it wasn’t a perfect movie it was consistent. For instance Savages should have trimmed back (dare I say lost) the voiceover narration that errs towards unintentional comedy, such as when the heroine compares her two lovers to cold metal and warm…wood. Don’t believe the depths that it can drop to (Stone has won Oscars for scripts in the past remember) choice quotes include “I had orgasms, Chon had WARgasms” and “Ben was the Buddhist, but Chon was the baddest.” Razzie alert!

Savages is constantly in real danger of all going a bit Spinal Tap.

Savages has its moments and is worth seeing for entertaining supporting turns from Hayek, in a perfect audition for a bond villain and Del Toro playing a twenty year older version of the cartel soldier from License to Kill. The film never holds the audience as the dialogue is (so) consistently bad, the principal acts never quite gel and in the end the flashy direction of the Savages just masks a poor film.

For all its bluster and Oliver Stone, Savages ends up like a really expensive episode of CSI: dirty Orange County.

Savages Trailer

Now Is Good

Now we get a watchable, engaging weepie with excellent performances from a truly talented cast, although the script occasionally cops out and often loses sight of its core premise.

Now is Good covers similar ground, but goes straight for the heart as the terminal impatient patient is a young (sob) girl. Now is Good started life (under the title of Before I Die) as a Jenny Downham bestseller, about a 17-year-old girl dying of leukaemia, if that is likely to send you running from the cinema, think again because Now is Good, directed by Ol Parker is really well…good. Source novelist Jenny Downham has a knack for some serious weepie moments and the script duly goes through the motions, blending illness and ill-fated romance to the desired effect.

Now Is Good stars Dakota (you’ve seen her in so many things) Fanning as Tessa, a 17 year old Brighton girl who has decided to opt out of continued treatment for her terminal disease, (understandably) much to the distress of her over-protective father (the ever reliable Paddy Considine), her younger brother (up and coming talent Edgar Canham) and her separated mother (Olivia Williams in another fine performance). A bona-fida star of the future (and present) Fanning is excellent as Tessa, nailing the British accent and bouncing well off both Irvine and Considine while keeping the right side of cutesy or annoying. The supporting performances, however, are even better; particularly Considine and Williams, but whose characters (and themselves) deserve a better written relationship.

Now is Good focuses not on the early (“oh no I’m going to lose my hair”) stages of the “disease” but instead of the back end (“I’m actually going to die”) of the illness, and the knowledge that there really is no time like the present for the movie’s lead. Young Tessa wants nothing more to do with tubes and drugs, she plans to live out the remainder of her life full throttle, so she writes a secret (bucket) list of things she wants to do before / achieve before she pops her clogs (this list includes (quite understandably) losing virginity, taking drugs, shoplifting, etc) and she enlists her best friend Zoey (Kaya Scodelario) to help her tick them off. The list goes a little off kilter when Tessa meets, sensitive new neighbour Adam (Jeremy Irvine, from War Horse), and the pair find themselves (genuinely) falling for each other, which is something that wasn’t on the list.

However the main problem with Now is Good is that, having set up the significance of Tessa’s life list (in big letters on her bedroom wall, behind a poster), the film then totally backs away from actually showing her really achieving anything on the quota. The druggie scene is particularly guilty on that score (possibly bottling it in order to get a 12A rating), while the sex scene is varnished in such a way that you’re never actually sure whether it’s off the list or not. Tessa is a character with real balls, but the film hasn’t quite grown a pair of its own.

Now Is Good Trailer

Killing Them Softly

Killing them Softly kicks off when two doofus lowlifes rob a mob-protected card game, and an enigmatic enforcer (Brad Pitt) hired by mob middle manager (Richard Jenkins) is set on their case, along with an out of towner, freelance killer (James Gandolfini).

The performances in Killing them Softly are uniformly excellent, not least Brad Bitt as Cogan, bringing a slightly tougher edge to his usual laid-back persona and there is strong support from Ray Liotta and the ever-excellent Jenkins as a mafia middleman, while Gandolfini as a boozy sub- contracted hitman, as good as steals the entire film with a terrific supporting turn that should be a shoe in come oscar season. Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn play the minimum wage, low IQ, low-lifes Frankie and Russell, who rob a card game organised by local gangster Markie (Liotta), thinking that Markie himself will be held responsible as he’d pulled a similar trick in the past.

The script is packed with gritty and smart dialogue that brings out the associations between the onscreen action and the state of America in 2008 (TVs and radios are constantly blaring election reports, discussion about the financial crisis). Killing them Softly sets the gangsters’ economic crisis as a microcosm of US capitalism and Dominik confidently updates George V Higgins’s 1970s novel (known as Cogan’s Trade in book form) to 2008, as a recession-era satire.

Greig Fraser’s murky cinematography giving the film a subtle 1970s feel that works really well combined with a stylish soundtrack that also gives extra kick to some powerful shock moments and big scenes. Killing Them Softly is a pleasingly literate, impressively directed and superbly written film, with terrific performances from a pitch-perfect cast.

Highly recommended.

Killing Them Softly Trailer

To Rome With Love

To Rome With Love is a foursome of tales that make up Woody’s latest addition to a sloppy and lengthy foreign CV, it must be nice to put holiday’s down as a working expense on your tax return. The plot strands look to be lifted from the folder marked “Not Good Enough For a Full Film, OK for a Sketch”. As Allen flits between these stories, I was left wondering why (a man clearly in his 70’s) was bothering to churn out such mediocrity, and why I was bothering with something a million miles (rather than just 35 years) away from Annie Hall.

The four strands of To Rome With Love are a ramble of unnecessary and unrelated skits, and none have a specific connection to Rome. But hey, the Eternal City looks nice, every street is cobbled and festooned with ivy. But if you thought the scenery in To Rome With Love was picture postcard, that’s nothing compared to the Italian characters, who look to have walked off a misguided BBC ‘Allo ‘Allo spin off.

Here’s a quick blast of what you will (almost certainly be missing when you don’t go and see To Rome With Love).

1) Neurotic New York couple, Jerry and Phyllis (Allen and Judy Davis) arrive in Rome to meet their daughter’s fiancé, a dashing Italian lawyer called Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti). Jerry, hears Michelangelo’s father (Genovese tenor Fabio Armiliato) singing in the shower and tries to get him on the stage only to realises that the man’s talent disappear outside of the shower cubicle.

2) Penelope Cruz is a whore with a heart of gold, who triggers a facial mix-up when she stumbles into the wrong man’s room, a young newlywed has to persuade Cruz’s call girl to impersonate his new bride. It’s the sort of set up that might just pass with an amateur dramatics director. Still, I’d be a happy 77 year old if I could make Cruz (a woman almost old enough to be his daughter / wife) paint on a red dress and purr (in Italian) “I am here to fulfil your dreams” as Allen does.

3) Roberto Benigni is an ordinary Roman clerk, Leopoldo who becomes inexplicably famous (even having a reporter cover his morning shave “live from the first to the last stroke”), in a satire on the transitory nature of fame celebrity. Hardly a little bit contemporary, just 13 years “hot” on the heels of EdTV.
Finally, thankfully 4) The (ever excellent and always watchable) Ellen Page plays Monica, a devious, duplicitous and oversexual spanner thrown in to the relationship between Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) and her (alleged) best friend, Sally (Greta Gerwig), while Alec Baldwin continues his transformation into comedy silver panther, as Jack’s dad.

It’s testament to the golden age of Woody Allen that he can still enlist such an impressive cast, but he’s trying the audience’s patience, and the line “Woody Allen’s best film in ages” is becoming more meaningless with each outing. We’ve seen all of the above before, often from Allen himself.

To Rome With Love Trailer

Shut Up and Play the Hits

LCD was formed by Murphy (already in his late thirties) but despite success, it didn’t last and like all great oddities the band agreeably self-destructed after only six years, burning out before they had the chance to fade away, when Murphy decided it was the right time (after nine years and three highly acclaimed albums) to call it a day. The band decided to end it all in style on the 2 April 2011, with an epic four-hour spectacular, at New York’s legendary Madison Square Garden It is refreshing in the world of Pop where nobody quit; instead they reform, repackage, reissue, remix and keep on, keeping on, not LCD.

The film Shut Up and Play the Hits is a cool music doco that charts that final implosion. It is by far, at its best when in the astonishing concert movie, featuring substantial portions of Murphy and co.’s final (death of glory, made it Ma top of the world type of thing) concert at Madison Square Garden. Intercut with the performance to end all LCD performances, we are treated to a very fabricated and slightly irritating interview (with James Murphy), mixed up with footage of a post-gig Murphy slouching around his too-cool apartment, like a millionaire teenager, wandering around in his pants and petting the dog.

There is also a lot of comedy mileage in the appearances of Keith Wood, LCD Sound System’s foul-mouthed British manager, which calls to mind some of the best parts of This Is Spinal Tap. Overall Shut Up and Play the Hits is an intermittently touching, but somewhat (and often) precocious, portrait of Murphy the muso as a middle-aged man. This is actually the problem with the film as Murphy isn’t sufficiently dude to thrill the audience and his fallings from grace (for what it is) isn’t wow enough. This sidelining of the rest of the band means we get no insight into their relationship or shared history.

Filmmakers Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s documentary of that momentous concert is, at the end of the day a bittersweet experience, all gorgeously shot concert footage, shots of crowd members lost in music (one boy spends the whole night in tears), mixed up with the desperate abandon of the show, but leaves the emotion “ow” to Murphy’s post gig comedown. It seems that Murphy considers it a wake, rather than just the end of a chapter. Shut Up and Play the Hits is overall a film that really shows the potentially devastating power of music, on fans and on the perpetrators of it.

Shut Up and Play the Hits Trailer

Premium Rush

Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee (as in the Wile E Coyote), a law student (why not?) with amazing skills on two wheels, who makes money as a daredevil bike messenger swishing through red lights and hopping the pavement to make his next drop-off in time. How much you empathize with him depends just how “cool” you think these dispatch riders are. By that I mean do you consider them A) one who dedicates their life and money to their fixed gear bike so that they look cooler than anyone else, while hanging out at bars and or bike shops or B) hard working life risking knights of the road or C) that wazzock that hit me when I was crossing the road and then acted like he had right of way despite the red light, as he had an envelope that was “too desperate and urgent” to go through the post and he was a real dude because he was paid more than the price of a stamp to play postman.

Back to Premium Rush, the plot has bad cop Bobby Monday (Michael “I’m the guy you don’t mess with!” Shannon) attempting to take a package from our hero, but Wilee refuses as that would defeat their “mail must get through” code and slaloms off through traffic, heading for lower Manhattan and the “important” delivery deadline. The contents of the envelope are a ticket worth $50,000 dollars to guarantee the safe passage of a child from China, but all you need to know is that it is a Manila Maguffin.

Levitt delivers a solid performance and is a very watchable lead Michael Shannon is a heavy slice of gammon as the dirty cop, while the rest of the cast is bulked up with Dania Ramirez as Wilee’s on-off girlfriend, Wolé Parks as Manny; Wilee’s would be biking nemesis and Aasif Mandvi as Raj who deals out the jobs to the dispatchers and starts the whole plot rolling.

Admittedly the film if is fun for the opening 35 minutes but soon becomes repetitive, becomes repetitive, the central scenario and overall execution of Premium Rush are both a little clunky and overall it’s underwhelming; especially the “spokes before hoes” assertions about camaraderie among the bike messenger tribe.

Premium Rush Trailer

ParaNorman

ParaNorman was written and co-directed by Chris Butler, a former story supervisor on the excellent movie Coraline. And much like Coraline, ParaNorman is a likably scary story, about a lonely kid called Norman Babcock (played / voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) who can see ghosts wandering around his sleepy little town of Blithe Hollow (however ParaNorman is no Sixth Sense for kids and Norman has the theme from Halloween (a favourite horror movie) on his mobile). The voice cast is rounded out with a decent nice mix of stars, Anna Kendrick (plays Courtney), Casey Affleck (as Mitch), Tucker Albrizzi (Neil) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (as Alvin), plus and old guard of John Goodman (Mr Prenderghast), Leslie Mann (Sandra) and best of all Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin (Perry).

Norman finds that his gift makes him the only person who can save the town from an infestation of zombies after a 16th century witch laid down a curse (at this point ParaNorman walks all over Tim Burton’s latest self-pleasing, audience frustrating film Dark Shadows). Co-directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell are obviously enormous horror fans, and like all the best mockeries, you have to feel strongly about the subject to parody it. ParaNorman serves up genre staples like “angry mob”, “re-animated severed limbs” and “wandering zombies” with real affection and relish. Outside of the horror, the other prevailing theme in ParaNorman is a fear of what’s different, an oft visited refrain.

It’s unclear what children will make of ParaNorman’s battle with corpses, or a teddy bear used as a firebomb or a character commenting that a situation has a “total slasher movie feel”, but I for one will happily forgive the filmmakers for not talking down to the audience, although Mumsnet might find it a bit downbeat for the average rug rat, although there is plenty of kiddy-friendly content to admire, not least the relationship between Norman and fellow student Neil.

It’s worth mentioning that The animating stage of ParaNorman lasted almost two years at Laika (the stop-motion studio known for 2009’s Coraline) as the work was worth the overtime time as the stop motion animation is of a grand, old-fashioned type standard, with every odd-shaped characters adding to ParaNorman’s dark, kooky and offbeat world, in a way that (boring!) 3D just wouldn’t.

ParaNorman is not on a level with Burton’s standard-bearer The Nightmare Before Christmas and the forthcoming Frankenweenie, but it is a nice animated homage to the horror genre.

ParaNorman Trailer

Hope Springs

Kay has had enough of not having anything and signs them up for an intense week long marriage counselling session with a Dr Feld, on a course of couples’ therapy at the seaside town of Great Hope Springs, hence the title. Grumpy Arnold begrudgingly agrees to go on the excursion. Dr. Feld is played by Steve Carell without any of the gurning shtick that his low brow fans might expect. His performance is considerably more subtle and it has to be, because Arnold flips out at the mere mention of “y’know” thingy. The tension between the unhappily married couple is a constant source of amusement and the wife’s reactions in their sessions, from weary to quietly desperate, is both humorous yet tear-jerking.

Arguably, the analysis doesn’t lead to any great revelations for Kay and Arnold and, in the end the husband is kicked into action more by fear than any newfound sense of self-awareness. Kay is a meek character, but the performance from Streep never leads her down a road of self-pity. Craggy faced Jones is more than a match for Streep, in both the acting and the comedy stakes.

Hope Springs manages to be a non-saccharine experience for the viewers as we see the couple begin to understand how they have drifted apart and what they need to do to reignite their passion and save their marriage. Even with the DR Feld’s advice, Kay and Arnold find that reigniting their marital fire is a daunting challenge for both of them.

This film pushes the boundaries when it comes to showing the sexual desires (and shortcomings) of an older couple, the biggest fault with the film is that it won’t get a wider audience as the under thirty demographic are unlikely to flock to see a film that reminds them that their parents might be having sex, the Yummy Mummy 50 Shades brigade will be too busy getting worked up about thoughts of bespoke BDSM, and the type of husband that Jones portrays will be off playing a round (of golf).

What you get with Hope Springs is a unexpectedly saucy comedy drama and big credit has to go to director David Frankel (who cast Streep in The Devil Wears Prada) and handles the tittersome subject matter like a grown up, as is befitting for the content. Frankel doesn’t make his leading lady stoop too low for laughs, instead paints an intriguing picture of married life and middle age.

Hope Springs Trailer