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Following Inside Out was always going to be tough for Pixar. It is arguably one of their best, which is no short order in a filmography as strong as theirs. The decision to release another film in the same year was just asking for comparisons to be made.
Oscar season tends to see us being served up a lot of crap. Overly emotional films stuffed with showy performances designed to catch the eye of the Academy. For every work of art, there is ten that just outright stink. However, every now and then one comes along that blows everything else out the water. A film that nails real emotion on the big screen. Carol is one of those rare breeds.
The Dressmaker is a mess of a film. It wildly dives from comedy to melodrama back to comedy (but this time with a darker tinge) and perches all of that on top of a classic Western revenge story. Yes, it as mental as that sounds. So why the hell do I love it?
Making a film about the recently deceased can be difficult. It can easily descend into a cynical cash grab, taking advantage of people’s sudden need to honour a dead person they didn’t care about much when they were alive. These biopics are often long, dull and sentimental as they desperately spread their legs towards the Oscars in an attempt to gain critical acclaim. Steve Jobs somehow manages to dodge this problem. Directed by Danny Boyle and scripted by Aaron Sorkin it avoids the clichés of the biopic genre and creates something genuinely interesting.
The Hunger Games franchise has been a revelation for young-adult cinema. Dark and intelligent, it has taken issues like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and propaganda and put them on-screen for millions of teenagers around the world. It’s also proven for any idiots out there that still believe otherwise, that a female character can lead an action series and still make shitloads of money. With The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, that all comes to an end, as we find out whether Francis Lawrence can overcome the weakest book in the series to give us a satisfying conclusion.
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Putting two people in a cabin, dropping them into the woods and then turning it into a film worth seeing in 2015 is a hard job. The cabin in the wood genre has been done to death and unless you are offering up a comic or intelligent alternative, the odds are any attempt to get it out there will end up dropping straight onto DVD. The Hallow is far too good for such a fate. Directed by first-time director and horror fanatic Corin Hardy, it is a creepy monster film that points towards one hell of future.
The Lady in the Van is an unusual film. On one hand, it’s a warm, funny and very British film that will make you laugh and leave you with a smile on your face. On the other, it’s a slightly darker affair. Stuffed with self-reflection and an annoying central character. Sadly, director Nicholas Hytner struggles to have the two co-exist.
Brooklyn’s trailer would have you believe it was a po-faced drama. The kind of weepy period piece that we see come in and out of cinemas several times a year and are perfectly acceptable to people that are into that kind of thing, but to most are something that can be safely ignored. Sadly, that depiction has probably robbed a lot of people from seeing a wonderful piece of cinema.
It all starts so well. Spectre‘s opening set piece, set in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead had been much hyped before its release and there is a reason for that. The long tracking shot that kicks things off, followed by a brief fire-fight and a chase through the crowded streets. Finally, Bond and his enemy battle it out in a tumbling helicopter high above the screaming crowds below. It’s gorgeously realised and seems to set Spectre up for one hell of a showing. Sadly, that doesn’t prove to be the case.
Beauty and horror, in theory, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. And yet Guillermo Del Toro has made a career out of weaving these unlikely bedfellows together. Crimson Peak is him indulging his own whims and if nothing else can be said of it, this is a stunning looking film.
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