Mubi Monday: Southland Tales (2006)

The second full feature from writer-director Richard Kelly (a talent who illustrates someone flying high and then crashing and burning hard more than any other 21st-century success I can think of), Southland Tales is a sprawling mess of a film, once again mixing some heady ideas and timey wimey trickery with some individual moments of greatness. A couple of scenes still stand out as favourites of mine, but they're often overlooked by film fans because of being contained within such an uneven feature.

I don't even know where to begin when it comes to describing the plot. It's set in America, but an America that has endured two nuclear attacks. There's a war on, both abroad and at home, a war against terror. A company named US-IDent tries to keep all citizens under surveillance, and various people want to strike against them. The main characters we end up keeping track of are an action film start with a case of amnesia (Boxer Santaros, played by Dwayne Johnson), an ex-porn star who believes that she can predict future events (Krysta Now, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), a scarred Iraq War veteran (Abilene, played by Justin Timberlake), and two identical characters named Roland and Ronald Taverner (played by Seann William Scott).

If you want something that seems to make complete sense, maintains a consistent tone throughout, and doesn't cast people in roles that are completely atypical for them then look elsewhere. Southland Tales is the film you stick on when you want something hugely, almost ridiculously, ambitious and self-indulgent. When you want to see Jon Lovitz as a blonde cop all too quick to reach for his gun and shoot people trying to protest against the current system, or see Kevin Smith give his best performance in a small, heavily made up, role, Southland Tales will scratch that itch.

As well as those already mentioned, who are all doing some of their best work (another reason to give this film a watch if you have yet to do so), the strong supporting cast includes wonderful performances from Nora Dunn, Wallace Shawn, John Larroquette, Bai Ling, Mandy Moore, Zelda Rubinstein, and Miranda Richardson. AND you get to see Eli Roth in a satisfying, and very brief, cameo for those who both like and dislike him.

There's also a superb soundtrack (with The Killers being the best choice for one particular sequence), a fine line in sly humour running through everything, and the general feeling that Kelly had been handed resources he never thought would be at his disposal, and decided to use everything offered to him. The third act may be even messier than everything that precedes it, as hard as that is to believe while you are watching the rest play out, but it's also hugely satisfying. Kelly probably remains very disappointed by the lukewarm, at best, reaction to this. Some will view it as a bad film. I view it as a noble, flawed, attempt to deliver an impressive piece of cinema.

8/10

I think there's a better release coming, but here's a DVD just now.
Americans can get a little bargain here. Or the blu.

The Darkest Minds (2018)

Another month goes by, another YA novel is unsuccessfully adapted into movie form. This time it's The Darkest Minds. There's something about these teen-friendly film (wannabe-)franchises that often appeals to me, perhaps due to many of them being created with so many fun genre tropes in the mix (all of the ones I can think of right now are either horror, sci-fi, or whirling through a landscape of magic and fantasy, of course). Or perhaps it's just the case that the older I get, the more I try to pretend I'm still energetic and young at heart.

This particular tale starts with a MAJOR EVENT. It's not given any explanation, it's just a sudden occurence that immediately kills of a lot of the children on our planet and imbues those left behind with special powers. Some become smarter, some can use and control the electricity around them, some have telekinetic powers, and the most dangerous have the ability to brainwash others, even to the point of them being led towards harming themselves. Amandla Stenberg is Ruby, a young woman who is now viewed as one of the most dangerous of the child population. Her power is discovered while being graded in an internment camp, which she then has to escape from with the assistance of an adult (Mandy Moore) who seems to be wanting to help her. Unsure of who to trust and what to do, Ruby ends up teaming up with three other youngsters: electricity-wrangler Zu (Miya Cech), supersmart Chubs (Skylan Brooks), and telekinetic Liam (Harris Dickinson). The quartet end up heading towards a rumoured place of safety, headed up by a mysterious figure who has set himself as a leader of a resistance movement.

I suspect the biggest weakness here lies with the source material, by Alexandra Bracken, or the changes that have been made by Chad Hodge to adapt it into his screenplay. Although the main premise seems like a decent one, it's far too derivative and predictable once it gets past the opening act. It also feels a bit too haphazard, without enough scenes showing the ripple effect of the deadly initial incident, instead just giving us a couple of scenes to set up some main characters that will figure during important plot points. Although this is a film about a global crisis, you never get the feeling of that. I had, in fact, forgotten quite quickly that most of the other children around the world had been killed off in the opening moments.

Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson doesn't help. Everything is in place, but it's all assembled in a perfunctory way. The characters never feel well-rounded, they're just reduced to the tags given to them after the MAJOR EVENT, and none of the potential surprises in the plot are surrounded by enough distractions to make them work. There are a couple of good sequences that tease the horror genre ideas at the core, and a satisfying battle in the grand finale, but not enough to make up for the rest of the movie being so disappointingly generic.

Despite the weak direction and script, things could have been lifted a little bit more by the cast. Sadly, that doesn't happen. Stenberg tries, she just isn't quite good enough (although she's not bad). Brooks fares the best from the younger cast members, Patrick Gibson does well as the young leader assembling the young fugitives, while Cech and Dickinson fare the worst. The adults all do a bit better, with decent performances from Moore, Gwendoline Christie, and one of my favourite "big meanie" actors, Wade Williams, here portraying a . . . big meanie.

While not working with a huge budget, the money and people involved here ensure that it's far from unwatchable. It's just not surprising to find out that it underperformed, and probably won't be getting any of the intended sequels. But if it does end up getting them then I'll still end up watching them.

5/10

You can buy the DVD here.
Americans can get the Blu here.

Ani-MAY-tion Month: Tangled (2010)

For their 50th animated feature, Disney decided to turn to the classic tale of Rapunzel, shaking it up a bit to create a beautiful, funny adventure that ranks up there with some of their best work.

Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) is resigned to her life in the tower. Whenever she pleads to go out and see the big, wide world her "mother" (Donna Murphy) manages to convince her that it's no good. But opportunity comes her way when a charming rogue named Flynn (Zachary Levi) seeks temporary safety in the tower. Flynn is forced into agreeing to take Rapunzel out into the world, letting her see the lights that fly in the sky, every year on her birthday. Little does she know that the floating lanterns, for that is what they are, get released every year by her real mother and father, who are royalty, as well as the subjects that they rule over.

Perfectly mixing the traditional with the modern, in terms of both animation and also the characters, Tangled is yet another in a recent run of near-perfect Disney hits. All of the expected elements are in place - the anthropomorphic animal (a scene-stealing horse named Maximus, in this instance, but there's also a very cute chameleon raising smiles), the beautiful princess, the wicked crone, the moral lessons - but they somehow manage to avoid feeling stale. I think that's due, in some small part, to the way in which everything is portrayed in a fairytale age gone by, while also being injected with some modern sensibilities. Disney isn't reinventing the wheel here, but in recent years they've managed to embrace a sense of fun again, a real exuberance that has been elevating their work.

Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard have a great script, by Dan Fogelman, to work from, and they keep a nice balance between the sweet, more Disney-esque, moments and the sequences that embrace an enjoyable irreverence. The musical moments, by Alan Menken, also help a lot in this regard, with "Mother Knows Best" and "I've Got A Dream" being the two highlights.

While the vocal cast isn't exactly full of people who are immediately identifiable from their speech, everyone does well in their respective role. Moore, Murphy and Levi are all a pretty perfect match for their characters, while Ron Perlman, M. C. Gainey, Jeffrey Tambor, Brad Garrett and Richard "Jaws" Kiel also lend their talents to the mix.

It's maybe not quite as good as absolute classic Disney fare (although keep an eye out for both Pinocchio and Pumbaa in sneaky, fleeting cameos), but it's pretty great nonetheless. Let your hair down and give it a go. Yes, I just ended with that pun.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tangled-Blu-ray-DVD-Mandy-Moore/dp/B004E10JD4/ref=sr_1_4?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1397497711&sr=1-4&keywords=tangled