REVIEW: Whip It

Whip It (dir. Drew Barrymore, 2010) ***

reviewed by David Sugarman

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut isn’t particularly notable for her direction – though I have no complaints in that department – but rather for two of the performances, one of which is the director’s supporting turn as roller derby captain Smashley Simpson. Barrymore has very few lines in the film, but she is hilarious as the dopey, yet surprisingly violent, team leader.

Whip It follows dissatisfied teenage beauty, Bliss (Ellen Page), as she discovers a love for the baffling sport roller derby. I’ll be honest, having sat through Whip It, I’m non the wiser as to how on Earth the sport works, though several attempts are made to explain it. Thankfully, that doesn’t detract from the enjoyability of the film, and indeed the film’s most memorable scenes are on the track. There’s also some predictable teen angst as Bliss confronts her stuffy, beauty pageant obsessed mother (Marcia Gay Harden), and a boring and frankly unconvincing romance subplot with rock star wannabe Oliver (Landon Pigg). Juliette Lewis is in there too, as the bitchy captain of a rival team. Essentially, the film is neither as funny, nor as charming as it would like to be, but it tries very hard, and Page’s performance brings some extra gravitas to an otherwise unremarkable script. Enjoyable, fun, but very lightweight.

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Pretty sure every scene with Barrymore ends with her punching someone. True story. Worth seeing to find out if you understand roller derby or not by the time the film ends.

David

REVIEW: Shutter Island

Shutter Island (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2010) *****

reviewed by David Sugarman

There’s a twist towards the end of Shutter Island that I won’t spoil for you, but which seems to have spoiled the movie for some critics. To deride the twist as either nonsensical or predictable misses the point entirely; Shutter Island is a masterful film because it tells its story (twist and all) with such sureness, such aplomb, it’d be a shame to let something like that ruin one’s enjoyment and admiration of it.

Scorsese’s latest picture is a hybrid noir-horror B-movie homage that transcends its genre implications with a virtuosity of technique it is impossible not to enthuse over. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels, investigating the disappearance of a patient from the Ashecliff hospital for the criminally insane on the titular island, along with his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) in the early 1950s. It quickly becomes apparent that the disappearance is a set up – this isn’t the twist – but the reason for such a conspiracy is unclear. What is clear is that Teddy has issues. Big ones: he is constantly haunted by dreams of his murdered wife (Michelle Williams) and memories of his part in the liberation of Dachau.

The film is full of notable performances – not least from DiCaprio himself as the troubled protagonist – including those Ruffalo’s blank-faced newbie, and Sir Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow as the chief psychiatrists of Ashecliff, but the film is very nearly stolen from under Leo’s nose by an electric one-scene cameo by Jackie Earle Haley (having previously stolen Watchmen as the psychopathic Rorschach) as one of the patients at Ashecliff.

Shutter Island may not be to everybody’s taste, but its visual power is undeniable, and the more thought I give to it, the more confident I am in calling it my favourite film by Scorsese. The film’s dramatic construction is flawless, and if the twist is predictable, that is to your credit, rather than the film’s detriment: the clues are there from the very start, and it’s up to you – as it is with Teddy – to work out what the hell is happening on Shutter Island.

REVIEW: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass (dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2010) *****

reviewed by David Sugarman

All tabloid controversy over murderous, foul-mouthed children aside for a moment, I’ve been anticipating this film eagerly since I first saw the trailer a few months ago. Finally getting to see the murderous, foul-mouthed child in action, I was not disappointed.

Kick-Ass is a superhero movie without superheroes, but this is no Watchmen. Far from the humourless, foreboding darkness of Zack Snyder’s film, Kick-Ass‘s costumed figures are human, touching and most of all just downright hilarious. The title character is played with genuine pathos by Aaron Johnson, who some of you may have seen in the John Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy, around Christmas. Kick-Ass – or Dave Lizewski, to give him his real name – is an ordinary teenager who wants to know why nobody has ever tried to be superhero before. So he tries it out, even without a superpower. Soon, he’s in way over his head, bringing him to the attention of the aforementioned killer-child her father.

The child in question is 11-year old Mindy Macready, alias Hit Girl, trained by her father, Damon Macready/Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage at his comedic best) to stab, slice, shoot and fight with the prowess of a career assassin. Though it’s Johnson, as Dave, who brings the real humanity to the film, managing to seem not just vulnerable but extra-vulnerable, it’s Chloe Moretz’s Hit Girl who steals the show. If Kick-Ass is remembered even half as fondly as it should be in 10 years, it’ll be Hit Girl that people quote; she’s a cinematic idol waiting to be discovered, to be placed on a plinth alongside Jules Winnfield and Keyser Soze.

What Kick-Ass does best, though, is action. Really, really great action sequences – the best of which invariable feature Hit Girl wreaking carnage on the unsuspecting goons of mobster Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) and his son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Last year I went to see J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek and was surprised to find it was one of the most enjoyable films of the year. This year, that surprise film is Kick-Ass, which I think is even better than Star Trek. It’s about as much fun as you’re legally allowed to have in the cinema.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World gets release date

Edgar Wright’s upcoming adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s cult comic book series, Scott Pilgrim, now has an official UK release set for August 6th. According to Wright’s twitter, anyway.

Here are the first two still images released from the movie, which stars Michael Cera as the title character, battling his girlfriend Ramona’s (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) Seven Evil Ex-boyfriends, in order to continue dating her. Among the actors playing the Evil Exes are Chris Evans, Jason Schwartzman and Brandon fuckin’ Routh. Yeah, that’s right. They’ve got friggin’ Superman in a supporting role.

I cannot express how excited I am for this movie in words. So here’s an illustrative image of my anticipation.

David

Keeno Kino Warwick Student Film Festival

Hello everyone. Just a quick heads up that in week 5 we shall be teaming up with B-Side Empire and Tapfactory to bring you Warwick University’s new student short film festival, Keeno Kino. The festival will showcase the work of students at the university, and if you want to get your stuff shown then just get in contact with some of the organisers.

David