Film Review: Isle of Dogs

"I Used To Sleep On A Lamb's Wool Beanbag Next To An Electric Space Heater. That's My Territory, I'm An "Indoor" Dog..."

Whether you feel the back catalogue of Wes Anderson falls too heavily on the kooky spectrum at times, there is no doubting that the stylish cinematic sensibility which springs to mind whenever you think of the likes of The Grand Budapest Hotel or Moonrise Kingdom is undoubtedly one stamped with a seal which paints the American as a contemporary, modern example of someone willing to expand and explore the vast array of horizons possible on film. Following on from his use of stop-motion animation on 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson once again utilises the format on Isle of Dogs, a surreal, comedy caper set in a dystopian near-future city in Japan, one ruled by the tyrannical Mayor Kobayashi who resorts to signing an executive order which immediately orders the evacuation of the ever-expanding populous of dogs onto "Trash Island" due to an outbreak of "dog fever". With an extensive and highly impressive voice cast, Isle of Dogs is on the one hand an incredibly successful animated exercise, with the flawless and detailed approach to the creation of the movie plain to see from the outset, but with a one-card trick holding up its' central narrative, Anderson's latest is entertaining, but far from utterly captivating. 

Whilst accents and language utilised within the confines of successful comedic features isn't wholly original and has been used many times before, most predominantly in last year's The Death of Stalin which of course featured Jason Isaacs donning a Yorkshire accent for his depiction of Georgy Zhukov, Anderson's celebrity shopping list of a voice cast resorts to an entertaining game of "guess who" as the film progresses, with Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Edward Norton (Birdman) and Bill Murray (The Jungle Book) the immediate trio of recognisable dulcet tones as the leading pack of the movie who come across Koyu Rankin's Atari Kobayashi, the young Mayor's aid, who travels to Trash Island in order to locate his lost dog, "Spots". With most of the film laying focus on the superb animation, the movie does unfortunately suffer from a sense of being a joke strung out too long, and whilst the pace of the movie is nicely balanced, with the narrative moving back and forth in both time periods and locations in a Scorsese-esque edited fashion, Isle of Dogs does come the end of it, feel quite flat and all too focused on surface rather than depth, but with a cute, barking-mad feel to it and the fact that nobody can turn down a fluffy haired canine, Anderson's movie works to a solid, not spectacular, degree. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: Lady Bird

"I Want You To Be The Very Best Version Of Yourself That You Can Be..."

Arriving as the final Best Picture nomination from the upcoming Academy Awards to be released in the UK before the ceremony takes place on the first weekend of March, Greta Gerwig (Jackie) halts her acting career for her directorial debut, Lady Bird, a coming of age comedy drama formed around a screenplay written by Gerwig herself and starring Saoirse Ronan as the titular troublesome teen from Sacramento, California who in her transference from school to college faces difficulties within both her home-life and her widening taste of the adolescent outside world. Supported by the likes of Laurie Metcalf (Toy Story 3), Tracy Letts (The Post) and Beanie Feldstein (Neighbours 2), Gerwig's movie manages to break free from the cliches and pressures of coming-of-age dramas in which the film undeniably takes inspiration from, with the likes of particularly Ferris Bueller's Day Off and 2016's little seen The Edge of Seventeen obvious reference points in terms of storyline, thanks to a tightly wound script which manages to balance each of the film's leading characters with their own personal strengths, weaknesses and flaws, resulting in performances which not only feel perfectly rounded and entirely believable, but are so fundamentally humane and empathetic that the movie spins you around and grips you tightly from the opening scene in which we discover the roller-coaster nature of the relationship which is progressively examined between mother and daughter.  

After shining in a wide array of roles including The Grand Budapest Hotel and particularly John Crowley's magnificent 2015 romantic drama, Brooklyn, Ronan's portrayal of Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson is an absorbing and entirely empathetic performance, an awards courting triumph which perfectly captures the wildly inconsistent emotion of teenage angst, acne faced and all, one which is aided profusely by the magnificently resonant aura which the Irish star brings to a leading role bursting with flavourful personality and charisma, a character who although is proven to be riddled with human error and socially shocking flaws, manages to be much more interesting than the standardised Hollywood image of a cinematic on-screen teenager. Although the flashy editing and electrifying pace of the movie interweaves Lady Bird's in-school debacles and the choppy relationships with both the female and male sex, with Manchester By The Sea's Lucas Hedges and Call Me By Your Name's Timothée Chalamet the cameo love interests whose personal narrative endpoints both end in extravagant fashion, the cornerstone of the movie is entirely focused on the exhausting battle between the child and parent, with Laurie Metcalf's mother figure, Marion, a resoundingly commonplace thorn in the side of youthful curiosity of which many 21st century teenagers are more than accustomed to, with the performance of Metcalf equally as impressive as her younger counterpart, resulting in the many on-screen discussions between the two strong willed characters entirely captivating. With a deep level of care for the characters and precise direction from Gerwig who in her obvious admiration and pride for her screenplay manages to get the best out of even the most bit-part players of the piece, Lady Bird is flawless, a movie full with outstanding performances and a movie which manages to blend laugh out loud and perfectly pitched comic timing with elements of lachrymose inducing tenderness so effectively, you'll think you would have known each of the film's characters for years, and for a movie with a runtime with just over ninety minutes, it's suffice to say, I would have happily stayed for much, much longer. 

Overall Score: 10/10

90th Academy Awards: Best Director

Oscars 2018: Best Director

With a trio of veteran filmmakers and a duo of directorial newcomers, this year's Best Director category is undoubtedly the tightest one to call, and whilst Guillermo del Toro seems to be the named favourite after picking up awards at both the BAFTA's and the Golden Globes, any of the five nominees stand a more than plausible chance at walking away with the top prize. Whilst del Toro himself more than deserves at least the slightest of Academy Award recognition after failing to win the Best Foreign Language gong for Pan's Labyrinth back in 2007, no one can seriously question the remarkable directorial skills of Christopher Nolan on Dunkirk, and whilst many may see Nolan's wartime masterpiece as more of an technical exercise than that of a classical historic drama, the chance for Nolan to finally win an award after being royally snubbed previously for the likes of Inception and The Dark Knight is a mistake that may indeed come full circle. Elsewhere, Paul Thomas Anderson is a equally prestigious and remarkable filmmaker who has seemingly bypassed the Oscar award fever, and whilst Phantom Thread is an outstanding work of melancholic brilliance, the chance to succeed may indeed seep by once again, but for the likes of Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele for their work on Lady Bird and Get Out respectively, the Academy does deserve some form of applause for attempting to widen its' cinematic scope when it comes to choosing films worthy of such a prestigious award, and whilst snubs for the likes of Denis Villeneuve for Blade Runner 2049 and Darren Aronofsky for mother! prove that that they can't get it right all the time, at least the Academy are slowly catching up.

Winner - Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)

Personal Favourite - Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk)

Nomination Snub - Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049)

Catch-Up Film Review: Jackie

"I Never Wanted Fame, I Just Became A Kennedy..."

Of the many Oscar nominated movies this year, there are still are few which have managed to slip by my eager eyes even after the conclusion of the ceremony on Sunday, one which ended in a somewhat controversial yet wholly hilarious fashion of course and one which ended up with a final tally of zero wins for Pablo Larraín's first English speaking movie in the form of Jackie, a cinematic adaptation of the life of First Lady Jackie Kennedy, one which focuses primarily on events within her life directly after the infamous assassination of her husband John F. Kennedy in 1963. With critical success all around and a barnstorming level of hype regarding the performance of Natalie Portman in the leading role, Jackie is yet another case of a film this year which suffers from the remarkable amount of reputation which precedes it, and whilst films such as Moonlight, at least on second view, and La La Land are examples of movies which stood up and deserved the many plaudits propelling them forward, Jackie is indeed a solid body of work with some superb individual elements, but ultimately a movie which is not as memorable or exciting as many that have preceded its' release this year. 

Of the most impressive elements of Jackie, Natalie Portman in the leading role is of course as superb as you would expect, with her performance a strangely captivating depiction of one of the most famous faces of the mid 20th century and one which almost requires the audience to tune their ear in order to distinguish performer from performance, particularly in regards to an accent and tone of voice which is extremely peculiar to say the least and actually requires an immediate referral to YouTube in order to find out whether the real Jackie Kennedy actually spoke in such a manner. Alongside Portman, composer Mica Levi continues her supermassive success in Under the Skin with an equally eerie soundtrack, one which succinctly captures the sense of strangeness of a post-assassination life of Jackie Kennedy whilst also seeming entirely out of place, with it having a sense of belonging to a knuckle-biting horror flick instead in a surrealist Lynchian-esque conundrum. Whilst these individual elements are impressive, the winding narrative of the movie becomes mildly dwindling after a while where the second half of the movie doesn't carry the immediate captivation of the first, resulting in a very solid adaptation of one of the most respected First Lady's to ever grace the White House. 

Overall Score: 7/10