"Royalty. Nobility. Gentry. How quaint. Even the rabble."

Hello :-)

With the success of 2010’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and a touch of bandwagon jumping following ‘Mirror Mirror’, ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ and the Theatre success of ‘Wicked’, the House of Mouse has decided to come at one of their classics from a different, live action, angle and tell the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the antagonist in ‘Maleficent’.

I’m not going to insult your intelligence because we all know the story; Evil fairy curses baby to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die on her 16th birthday… or does she? What ‘Maleficent’ tries to do is give you a bit of backstory around our titular fairy and show the ‘true’ version of events.

From what I can see this film has polarised people; I have friends who love it with a passion but I know others that wouldn’t give it the time of day. Maybe it was because it was Saturday morning or maybe it was because there was a group of teenagers in my screening who literally talked from start to finish (and I mean LITERALLY), but I just didn’t get it.

It would be remiss of me (a dyed in the wool feminist) to totally dismiss a fantasy-adventure film with a female lead. I realise this is a step forward in terms of female-led cinema and Angelina  Jolie is on top form; if you are looking for a reason to go see ‘Maleficent’ she is it. The fact that this exists is a big deal for gender equality but creatively... not so much.

The trouble is this film is a massive pin in the balloon of Maleficent’s wrath. One of the reasons she works so well in ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is because she arrives ex nihilo. No real motive for what she does and then BOOM… cursed baby. If you wanted to compare her to anyone she’d be Disney’s ‘Joker’; doing stuff for the hell of it “to watch the world burn”.

What ‘Maleficent’ does is take the spiky horn hat adorning the posters and cover it in bubble wrap. Every hard edge the character has had been buffed into nothing. They’ve reinvented the character, that much is true, but to what end? To make her an example of how to get revenge on your ex-boyfriend? That’s like taking a Direwolf and teaching it to dance so you can enter Britain’s Got Talent’. We all know that If there was ever a character in this fairy-tale that needed a revamp it’s the Princess herself but sadly that hasn’t happened.

Speaking of the Princess, aside from Jolie, the cast is a bit flat. I suspect a lot of the other character’s development was lost to the cutting room floor but you really struggle to care when ‘Maleficent’ has no foil for the titular character. Instead there’s the tragically two dimensional, friend-to-the-animals Princess, histrionic Sharlto Copley (WEIRDEST. ACCENT. EVER) as King Stefan and the utterly useless Prince Phillip (Brenton Thwaites). Add to that the über irritating three pixies and there really isn’t anyone else to care about.

Technically it passes muster, I quite like how it looked. The animals and such all had a super cartoonish, candy-floss sweet look to them, which, in a world of tree giants and fairies, works fine for me. The Pixies, however, are a different matter. Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville are poorly served both in writing and visuals. The character design for the pixies is vomit inducing and all the while I wanted a giant something-or-other to come in and squish them.

‘Maleficent’ is not for me. I recognise it’s a big deal in the context of female representation in cinema but, as a film fan, that isn’t enough to recommend it. It’s like the producers have a tent but unfortunately only one, Angelina Jolie shaped, pole with which to prop it up.

‘Maleficent’ is still in cinemas if you want to catch it.

Now let’s have some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1. I know I’m a bit obsessed but OMG GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY! Here’s another TV spot and I love it. I just love it :-)

2. Just released yesterday it’s the first teaser trailer from ‘Mockingjay Part 1’. Deeply sinister and then OMFG!!!!!!!! Just watch it and you’ll see what I mean…

3. Louise Brealey joins Ripper Street series 3! YAY!!! God I love Molly Hooper. This is excellent news. As much as I love MyAnna Buring as Susan and Leanne Best as Jane Cobden the show needs some more awesome girls! I’m very excited about Ripper Street series 3!

That’s all for now!

Good bye till next time :-)

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“Some infinities are bigger than other infinities”

Hello :-)

‘The Fault In Our Stars’ is the only book I’ve ever recommended to people on the basis that “it will kick your heart in the arse… in a good way”.

I read it 18 months ago, after catching on characteristically late to how awesome the Vlogbrothers are. This led me to John Green’s books, all of which I love, but ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ (TFIOS) has a particular place in my heart. As I’m an unashamed fan I went to a preview ‘Fan Screening’ on 12th June a week before the film’s general UK release on 19th June.

‘The Fault In Our Stars’ is the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old coping with long-term thyroid cancer. At her mother’s request she begins to attend a cancer support group and meets Augustus Waters, an boy who had osteosarcoma which is in remission but has led to the amputation of his leg. The two bond over the book ‘An Imperial Affliction’ and, as they get closer, try to seek out the Author to find out what happens after the story ends.

Just a disclaimer, I am a massive fan of this book. I’m going to try my best to be objective but, if a little bit of fangirl sneaks in, you’ve been warned.

On the surface (and definitely on the posters) ‘TFIOS’ looks like it’s going to be a Nick Sparks film. Factor in the cancer element and to all the world it might look as though you have ‘Dear John’ meets ‘My Sisters Keeper’. This could not be further from the truth.

‘TFIOS’ is smart, witty, romantic and never somber. I won’t lie, there is a level of melancholy to the film but it doesn’t come off as depressing, I think it’s dealt with beautifully. Crucially this is not a film ‘about cancer’ it’s a film about people with cancer, falling in love. I love that illness isn’t what defines this story and it is ultimately hopeful.

‘TFIOS’ has stayed remarkably close to the source material. A few characters are left out and some events aren’t realised at all, but the tone of the book is still there, as are all the essential plot points. Aside from the fact that if they had mucked the story around, thousands of TFIOS book fans would storm the headquarters of 20th Century Fox like Gaston and the villagers in Beauty and the Beast, the story doesn’t need any embellishment. The book always struck me as very cinematic and it’s translated to screen with the greatest of ease thanks to the writing of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. It borrows some key dialogue directly from the source but for the most part the script is new and appropriately clever and lovely. 

As much as I loved the film, it isn’t without it’s missteps. One scene where Hazel and Augustus visit the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam is a little jarring. Hazel has difficulty breathing and has to wear a nasal cannula to give her oxygen, unfortunately the Anne Frank museum doesn’t have a lift so she has to climb the stairs to get to the famous attic. This is a huge struggle for her and she has to keep pausing for breath, over the top of these moments the director plays in audio of a girl reading extracts from Anne Frank’s diary about struggle and hope and how it sucks that sometimes young people have to go through some really awful situations. This did feel a little like the film was jumping up and down shouting,

“HEY! HAZEL AND ANNE FRANK BOTH HAD TO GO THROUGH SOME SHIT BUT THEY REMAINED POSITIVE PEOPLE!”

Thankfully this is the only point where the film tries to ram any kind of message down your throat. The movie ponders the question of what it means to love someone when you know you have restricted time and the futility of trying to limit your part in the emotional suffering of those around you. As you may well have heard, the story doesn’t so much tug on your heartstrings as punch them repeatedly in the face (word to the wise, don't forget the tissues), but this really is balanced out by the humour laced throughout. It has a dry wit and a darkly comic undertone, meaning that, despite the bountiful tears shed, the characters are by no means self-pitying.

John Green’s creations are perfectly cast. Nat Wolff has a small but very funny role as Augustus’s friend Isaac, a testament to the fact you can lose your sight but you don’t have to lose your sense of humour. Laura Dern and Sam Trammell are the caring, understanding, funny parents we would all like to have (Dern especially is a delight) and Willem Dafoe is perfectly miserable in his supporting role as Hazel’s favourite Author.

 Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort head up the roster as Hazel and Augustus and I really couldn’t think of anyone better to do the job. Elgort brings to life everything that I adore about Augustus; his charm, his wit but also the innate goofiness that’s captured so perfectly in a scene where he goes on his first flight in an aeroplane.

Hazel is a character I really love and she’s the key to this whole story. She’s perfectly realised in a gorgeous performance from Shailene Woodley. There’s a quote about Hazel in the book, “She walks lightly upon the earth” and Woodley nails that. Hazel is funny, smart and never mean and tries so desperately to minimise the impact she leaves on the world. I love her and Woodley is note perfect.

It’s really hard for me to gauge what non-book-reading audiences are going to think. The screening I was in was a preview screening for book fans so we all laughed and cried and whooped and cheered in appreciation of the film and remembrance of the book. A really positive thing I took away from our screening was that it was almost entirely made up of girls. Obviously girls like all kinds of films, but having lots of girls turn out for a film like this with a fully developed, witty, three dimensional female lead such as Hazel is an encouraging thing to see in a medium thats been male-audience orientated for so long.

I thought ‘TFIOS’ was wonderful. Emotional but never depressing, sweet but never cloying and with a gorgeous hint of gallows humour.  This film? It’s more than okay.

'The Fault in our Stars' goes on general UK release on 19^th June. 

Now I need some…

Reasons to be cheerful :-)

1. New, sexy ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ posters! I’m SO excited for this film! The only annoying thing is that I’m on holiday when it opens! I really love the advertising campaign on this, it’s cheeky and fun and looks like it's going to be a colourful departure for Marvel.

2. So Jurassic World is a thing that's happening. Some photos have come out which is always nice (Yay! Chris Pratt's continued employment!) but the thing that interests me the most is the Director Colin Trevorrow has been talking about the plot. It's a really interesting premise and I can't wait to see it materialise next year.

That's everything I've got for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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“Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn't mean they can't be saved”

Hello :-)

X-men stands alone in the Superhero movie arena as a bit of an oddity. The franchise has been going continuously since its debut film 14 years ago (oh god… that makes me feel so OLD) where it can be credited with kicking off the genre’s renaissance. They’ve managed to simultaneously prequel, spin-off and continue the series without completely dispensing of the core cast. Where Spider-man, Superman and Batman have all been recast over the last decade and a half, Huge Action is still there, wielding his adamantium claws. The latest from the franchise is the trickily titled ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ (I can’t be arsed with that so lets just say DOFP) and I was there on release day.

This review contains SPOILERS for ‘X-Men: Last Stand’ and ‘The Wolverine’.

‘DOFP’ endeavours to bring together the original X-cast and the more recent X-men Babies cast. We begin in a Matrix-like future where mutants and humans alike are rounded up and killed by nigh on indestructible machines called sentinels. A last bastion of hope comes in the form of some of our favourites Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Storm (Halle Berry), Shadowcat (Ellen Page), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) amongst some less familiar faces. The team decide the only way to survive is to go back in time, change events and prevent the sentinels ever coming to fruition. Through some Shadowcat related jiggery pokery Wolverine heads back to the 70’s to try and reconcile young Xavier (James McAvoy) and young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to bring down the sentinels before they take hold.

Firstly, there is no way you could go into this film without existing knowledge of the X-universe and fully understand it. In a similar way to the latter films in the Harry Potter franchise, I think you could go in as an outsider and enjoy it, but when you have a well-established world such as this it’s just impossible to bring everyone up to speed. Not that I think that’s a problem; I think when you’ve reached the 7^th instalment of your franchise you’ve earned the right to do away with recaps.

‘DOFP’ is an impressive feat and I think that bears a direct correlation to the return of Bryan Singer. If I was in charge of 20^th Century Fox I would be crawling on my belly, giving that man every penny he wanted to make him stay. He just ‘gets’ it. There is a lot more to the plot that what I’ve ham-fistedly described above and it’s to Singer’s credit that he manages to hold it all down and channel it into a cohesive story.

The key to ‘DOFP’ is marrying together the ‘future’ and ‘past’ of the ridiculous title which I think is done well. The opening scenes set up the future aspects nicely and as we’re plunged back into the world of ‘X-men: First Class’ we begin to see how events are going to come full circle.

The downside of this labyrinthine plot is that some of the characters (mainly the unestablished ‘future’ characters) fall by the wayside. Aside from his Michael Stipe eye stripe I’m not really sure what Warpath (real name Booboo Stewart… WHAT. A. NAME.) was all about. Blink (again, real name Fan Bingbing… AMAZING!) is a mutant who can create portals, which pays off beautifully in the fight scenes but other than that she merely acts as another barrier between the bad guys and our original X-cast, the ones we actually care about.

One new member of the cast that doesn’t let us forget him is Evan Peters as Quicksilver, a mutant with the ability to move and think at super-speed; he’s basically Dash from ‘The Incredibles’ but with kleptomania. I loved him :-) His ‘Time in a Bottle’ sequence was a personal highlight and I think it’s a shame he isn’t in it longer. You may be aware that this isn’t the only incarnation of Quicksilver hitting our screens. As teased in the mid-credits of ‘Captain America 2’ Peters’ ‘Kick Ass’ co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson will be playing the character in ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and he’s going to have to go some to out-do Peters.

Being typically awesome is Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask. It’s super fun to see Dinklage play such an out and out bad guy and getting his teeth into some serious fear mongering.

 Aside from that the core cast of ‘future’ and ‘past’ are back and firing on all cylinders. There’s reduced screen time for Michael Fassbender but what he does with the time he’s given is great (I love his explanation as to why he’s being held captive under the pentagon). Also, James McAvoy is such a charismatic screen presence, every moment with him is a joy. I really like how he humanises the previously beyond reproach X-Patriarch.

However, if ‘X-men: First Class’ was a Magneto origins story, ‘DOFP’ belongs to Mystique. Adding to the ever-mounting pile of fantastic things about her, Jennifer Lawrence nails it as Mystique. Having distanced herself from Xavier and Magneto, Mystique goes off on her own to protect mutants and seek retribution for the wrongs done to her own kind. It’s great to see her getting some amazing fight scenes and I’m intrigued to see where the character goes next.

Much like Singer’s first two X-films, the action scenes in ‘DOFP’ are really balanced and don’t overpower the narrative. Don’t get me wrong there are some stunning set pieces; the opening scene is a fight between the ‘Future’ characters and a gang of sentinels and it had me bouncing up and down in my seat with excitement. The sparing use of these scenes however, is refreshing and acts as a way to keep the story our primary focus.

There are a few plot problems, namely the fact that this movie tries to ignore some elements of the previous films. ‘DOFP’ seems perfectly happy to remind us that in ‘X-Men: Last Stand’ Wolverine killed the woman he loved but it doesn’t want to explain how the hell Professor X un-vaporised himself following the events of the same film. It would be a lie to say that this spoilt my enjoyment of the film and there is a certain element of ‘well the continuity’s shot to shit whatever we do so fuck it!’, still, a touch of explanation wouldn’t have gone amiss.

The boldest move the movie makes is its final twist. I won’t spoil anything but it’s a hugely gutsy move that makes an impact on the entire X-universe. Bryan Singer’s willingness to make massive changes to this world is encouraging and it’s one of the reasons I’m so pleased he’s back in the X-driving seat.

‘DOFP’ is an undeniably impressive, adventurous, slightly flawed Superhero blockbuster. Although it’s blighted by a couple of continuity errors you can’t stay mad at it because it’s great fun. It’s lovely to see Bryan Singer holding the reins again and I hope that’s where he stays.

So, how about some…

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. All the fun stuff happens in London which annoys me no end but I must admit this is pretty cool. The entire town of Hill Valley looks like it’s going to be recreated by the wizards over at Secret Cinema for a screening of ‘Back to the Future’. The wonderful Shiznit have covered a couple of their events before and by all accounts it seems like an excellent idea albeit with a few problems and a slightly pretentious mission statement.

2. Fancy being written into a Game of Thrones book and having your fictional self killed off in a typically grim Westerosi fashion? Then you’re in luck! The wonderful George RR Martin is helping to raise money for The Food Depot and Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary charities in New Mexico by offering the chance to appear in his ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ series. Unfortunately you do have to donate the hefty sum of $20,000 to have the chance to appear in the books but if you donate any money via Martin’s prizeo page you could be in with a chance of winning a trip to New Mexico where you can meet the author and ask him anything you like!

That’s all for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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