Criss Cross

One of the more underrated film noir movies is released by Eureka Entertainment as part of the Masters of Cinema series

Criss Cross was made in 1949 and marked the reunion of sorts of the creative team that had made the 1946 classic The Killers. This is also directed by Robert Siodmak, stars Burt Lancaster with music orchestration by Miklos Rosza.

Criss Cross tells the story of Steve (Lancaster) a man who has moved back to Los Angeles, hoping to move on from a disillusioned marriage to Anna (Yvonne De Carlo) and get back to normality. However, it does not take long for Steve to reconnect with Anna at a former hang out and upon realising she is now the partner of local hoodlum Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), Steve and Anna begun a torrid affair that may be the end of them.

To cover up the affair, Steve lays a bank heist pan on Dundee where they split the loot 50-50, but the hope being that Steve will double cross Dundee and take all the money and his woman for himself.

Siodmak paints Criss Cross in this familiar battle of light and dark, but also reality and dream like state; Lancaster's drawl of voiceover narration making the audience feel that what they are watching is not merely a tale but unreality - you are never far away from being reminded that this is a film you are watching.  The combative nature of dark trying to ingress upon the natural light spaces is perfectly captured by cinematographer Franz Planer.

Rosza's score is understated also, with dips and troughs of high emotion to subtle sweeps of romance where love can be deadly.

As always in film noir, there is a cynical edge to the narrative and a fatalistic streak to the action; nobody in a true noir can ever be happy and nobody gets away with it.  For all the glamourisation of violence and the appeal of crime, the come uppance is not far away for our protagonists.

Lancaster's screen charm, this coming just three years after his debut in The Killers, shows how quickly he became a star his natural charisma sitting perfectly within the mayhem around him, De Carlo does very well as the femme fatale and she is granted the key speech at the denouement and Duryea is key as the slimy Slim. 

This is such a gripping watch by the film's conclusion culminating in a tense stand-off helped by Siodmak's ability to cast the perfect face to fit the role required.

Criss Cross is out now from Eureka Video.

The Problem with...Toy Story 4

The Toys are back in town.

The gang return for a fourth installment of the most important animation franchise in motion picture history; it is quite hard now to fathom how much of a game changing production Toy Story was in 1995 and how much of an influence the work has had since that release.

When Pixar made the first full-length computer animation film about toys that came to life once the kids left the room was a stroke of genius in original storytelling coupled with ground breaking technological achievement.

Pixar followed up with a huge range of films from underwater to crawling ants, before returning to the play area with Toy Story 2 where Woody and Buzz left the bedroom and further into the wider world.

In Toy Story 3, the trilogy was completed with an ending of the page as the toys faced death in the face and survived to tell the story. These characters were survivors and we were with them all the way, the circle (to borrow from another Disney classic) of life had been lived. TS3 ended with the group being moved to a new child's bedroom and altering from a young boy owner to a new young girl and her active imagination.

So we come to 2019's Toy Story 4, when we re-meet the group Josie has usurped Woody as the Sheriff of the group being somewhat banished to the back of the closet while others are played with. Woody's fear is that he is gathering dust in his old age, so he hops into Bonnie's backpack on her first day of kindergarden where he witnesses Bonnie's imagination first hand culminating in her creating Forky (Tony Hale) from a spork, curtain wire and lollipop sticks.

Travelling back home, Forky comes to life which is perhaps my first issue of note with the film. Forky is a creation of a child, the rest of the toys are built as toys for the purposes of entertaining children by higher powers (adults), so is Forky a statement on children's power of imagination that anything can become animated if it is created such as a disposable utensil from the trash. Forky also provides the first scare of the film, the first and certainly not the last of which there are many.

The scares are numerous especially in Second Chance Antiques, a store Woody encounters on Bonnie's roadtrip in Main Street USA, a store where antiques are awaiting a second chance at life as do unwanted toys - especially Gabby Gabby a toy with a faulty voice box and Victor - a ventriloquist doll of which there is 4 of him.  Victor is from a by gone era and his scary nature as an ominous threat of torment is used to frightening effect but overdone to the point of providing too many jump scares for what is aimed at a child friendly audience.

Yet perhaps they get away with it because the audience of this film has grown up since the original Toy Story over 20 years ago, so the jump scare is while telegraphed not that scary to that media savvy group, yet for a new child audience this would be far too scary with the dark corridors in a dingy second-hand store.

By the end, the jailbreak to rescue Forky from the hands of Gabby is saved by the great addition of Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves) an Evil Kenevel rip-off but his characterisation is brilliantly rendered, but there is a moment when Bonnie's backpack is left at the store. This is left there somehow as we do not see Bonnie leave it there and it is a matter of narrative convenience to help the gang escape the store.

Credit for the film is the use of female voice actors who come front and centre and outshine the stalwarts of Hanks and Allen, Annie Potts in particular as Bo Beep is exceptional getting her point across and bringing new life to a character that was one-dimensional in the first two films years ago.

In contrast to the tandem of Duck and Bunny (Peele and Kay), the use of a comedy duo helps the natural back and forth of their rapport yet too quickly it becomes familiar and long in the tooth in contrast to the quirkiness of Caboom.

All in all, the finale of the film was shooting for a grand goodbye to the group, instead it was handled somewhat slapdash and unfortunately does not make sense ultimately in the grandest scheme of things, this is a group who should be together no matter and the ending left this viewer a little cold.

There is even a suggestion perhaps of a further installment, personally that is not required, the toys are great but perhaps that idea would be best left on the shelf.

LFF 2016: Certain Women

In the last ten or so years of reviewing films and witnessing the beginning of genuine brilliant careers and attending film festivals around the country, you get to see films from all walks of life, that gestate somewhere and manifest into a whole project that appears in your home city. It is a privilege to witness them when they come to fruition.

And yet you sometimes search for the roses amongst the odour. You always miss the boat on certain auteurs or writer-directors who are swooned over by peers and critics of the current age, and yet you miss their coming out party. You try to second guess yourself and wonder maybe it is your point of view or background that is not doing justice to the film, and sometimes it just cannot be helped.

Certain Women, is that sort of film.  Kelly Reichardt, is rightly acclaimed as a light for female directors in the still male dominated world of popular cinema from her feminist western Meek's Cutoff to her fable Wendy and Lucy. Reichardt comes from a less heard voice of middle America, telling stories rarely seen and sometimes pushed to the boundaries of social documentary. 

Reichardt has also hit upon a budding relationship with Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain) as her muse of sorts. This film is based upon the short stories of Maile Meloy who herself is from Montana, where the film is set.

The palette of the film is stark and grey, the tone of the film is ponderous and plodding. From the start of the film with a long cargo, freight train coming from the east to the west - establishing the new settlers coming out west perhaps - the shot goes on for as long as the cast and early production members are listed. We then cut to a clandestine affair taking place between lawyer, Laura Wells (Laura Dern) and Ryan Lewis (James Le Gros). The set up looks clandestine due to the lack of discussion between the two and his abrupt departure.

We follow Laura as she deals with an injury lawsuit client Fuller (Jared Harris) who took an early pay-off and thus denied himself a big pay day in court. His own shortcomings come to a head when he takes a security guard hostage when seeking evidence of his being screwed by the system, this belief becomes fact when Laura recites to the illiterate Fuller her statement to the corporation she was meant to be fighting.

From his arrest, we cut to Gina Lewis (Williams) who is married to Ryan, the guy we saw having an affair earlier. Gina has aspirations of building a house with sandstone and attempts to take some from an elderly man who lives on his own, there is tension between Gina and Ryan which serves as reason
for his affair.

Then we cut to a horse handler, Jamie (Lily Gladstone) who on an evening drive goes into a night class where people are. There she meets the teacher Beth (Kristen Stewart) who gives the class as extra income despite the 8 hour round trip to Belfry from Livingstone.

Jamie seeks solace from her loneliness by listening to Beth's classes and their brief discussions in a diner before her long journey home.  Beth stops coming to the classes due to the arduous journeys prompting Jamie driving to Livingstone to see her one more time.

That is the synopsis as best I can describe, not a lot else happens throughout the film, with the ponderous framing and narrative taking shape as I describe it.  There is not a lot of incident and a lot of plot points are not resolved or concluded; Gina does not learn about Ryan's affair, Laura is forgiven by Fuller for her shortcomings and the film ends with Jamie back in the stables with her horses.

To be cruel you could call this film boring, having seen versions of slow cinema, it felt stale that with a cast of this much talent there was not a lot asked of them in terms of character development.  However, the film is an attempt to comment on the alienation and loneliness felt by people in the less populated states of America, where you work to live and live to work. Yet you hoped for more of an emotional impact, however, this perhaps Reichardt's modus operandi, she wants you to see how other people live in poverty.

The role of farm hand Jamie, is beautifully played by Lily Gladstone who does the most with what she is given, gaining the most emotional resonance when she departs Beth and Livingstone, welling up as she drives away from what she felt was a genuine connection with somebody else.

It is those sort of connections that were lacking throughout the film that was reaching for contemplation but left this reviewer frustrated.  Overall a shame as it does not do justice to the beautiful landscape photography captured by Christopher Blauvelt (The Bling Ring).

Certain Women will be released in the USA by IFC Films on October 14th.

Roger Ebert celebrated in Life, Itself

Steve James, renowned documentarian of the bonafide classic Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters, returns with a paean to one of the great film critics of the 20th century and who morphed into a technological visionary for the 21st century, Pulitizer Prize winning author and Chicago Sun Times journalist, Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert was akin to a giant in film writing circles, widely respected and more beloved than his contemporaries Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris.  Ebert garnered nationwide celebrity in America thanks to his television show partnership with Gene Siskel (of the Chicago Tribune) on At the Movies, where they were famous for the 'Two Thumbs Up' endorsement.

Ebert's legendary grasp of film knowledge and history along with his appraisal of up and coming American filmmakers led to him cementing the careers of many first time filmmakers - among them this film's executive producer, Martin Scorsese.  Others who have been embraced by Ebert's praise in his writings include Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani and Selma director Ava DuVernay. All are featured in the documentary telling them how his positive influence of their work has directly influenced their output.

Following his diagnosis of cancer in his lower jaw, leading to multiple surgeries and operations, Ebert decided to have his lower jaw removed from his mouth and therefore leaving him unable to speak.  However this did not deter Ebert's work, he remained a force of nature in terms of copy, becoming a scion for the internet and a visionary in the power of social media. Without having a voice, he maintained the necessity to have one.  His writing which had become more fan friendly to the actors he adored in the 1990s had rediscovered his verve and produced some of the finest writing of his career in his later years before his passing in 2013.

 

James' documentary is part celebration and tribute piece from the directors whose career owe Ebert's input, his friends from the paper and his family.  Most notably his soulmate, Chaz Ebert, who like Roger was a recovering alcoholic when they met.  This bond they had helped galvanise him and stay focused on his work, sometimes all you need is a good woman.

To this reviewer it is ironic that in the same week I viewed Life, Itself I also had the pleasure of viewing The Theory of Everything; another film about another genius trapped in a wheelchair for the majority of the movie and yet helped by the love of a good woman, sometimes that is all we as men need.

Whilst not holding back punches in depicting the end of Ebert's life, James nevertheless serves Ebert with the dignity of not showing him at his worst, instead we see the final exchange of emails between Ebert and James - these are not only a fan and his idol reminiscing, but a conversation between two friends who have grown close over the production. 

One moment that sticks with you is the admission by Ebert using his voice command on his computer, that he will more than likely have passed by the time the film itself is released. The shock of this realisation is not lost on Chaz and the testimonies of his step-grandchildren who reflect on the films they have enjoyed watching together all the more heartbreaking and tear-jerking.

This is a film not just about a writer and his legacy, but a film about a man fighting the deadly cancer within him and still fighting to combat the debilitating effect it has on you, the film does more than enough to cement the legitimacy of Roger Ebert as one of the finest cinephile minds of this or any era.  His memory rightly lives on and this documentary serves as the warmest of tributes to it.  Two thumbs way up.

Life, Itself is released on DVD from Dogwoof on Monday 23rd February
You can find Roger Ebert's vast work of film criticism at his website http://www.rogerebert.com/

God Bless America

Bobcat Goldthwait, returns with the third film in his darker side of America trilogy after Sleeping Dogs (2006) and The World's Greatest Dad (2009)

The first film dealt with the subject of bestiality (a typical taboo subject), the latter film starring Robin Williams had him as a would be author who is having to suffer a job in a high school.  After his son's death, he writes his son's suicide note and the beauty of the words allows him to be the celebrated writer he always wanted to be.  At the conclusion, the writer gets a change of heart and comes clean.  Goldthwait may write dark but at least he has the conscience.

In his new film, he explores the polluting influence of television and celebrity, and how it is destabilising American society.  Goldthwait uses a surrogate in the form of Frank (Joel Murray), a man who has a humdrum office job and spends his evenings watching awful television whilst his child lives with his ex-wife and new husband.  Frank believes in honesty, integrity and good manners in life will get you rewards, in contrast to the mean-spirited individuals who are celebrated for being nothing more than being good to look at - 'Its a type of freak show that appears when a civilisation is collapsing'.

Frank would wish he had the cajones to do something about society and change it for the better, and his initial dream sequences of shooting people he hates in his office are quite entertaining - then he is hit by the news that he has an inoperable brain tumour he decides to go out on a vigilante rampage of revenge against all the social cyphers he despises.

Frank comes into contact with 16 year old Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) and together they embark on this road trip culminating in the shootout on American Superstars; a Pop Idol/X-Factor show that is the main target.

Part of the problem with the film is the mixture of tone; whilst the start has Frank giving off monologues and dialogue that is quite explicit in his beliefs  - 'I live next door to a couple of neanderthals, who instead of giving birth to a baby gave birth to a nocturnal civil defense air raid siren'.  However, once the violent streak begins with Roxy in tow, the targets become all too easy - Twitter, gossiping, lack of original thoughts - and whilst the targets are mentioned by real name to give a sense of reality, the non-stop violence and obvious buckets of blood are quite unnecessary.

It is quite hypocritical to suggest that Frank hates all the television shows, when he is watching them in the first place, although maybe this is Goldthwait's point; there is nothing but constant crap on television.  This is a shame as at times Murray, clearly a surrogate for Goldthwait in the lead role, is quite believable as the hound dog Frank.

Murray has been appearing on American TV for years most notably Dharma and Greg and Mad Men; yet it is the role of Roxy that is quite disconcerting - a role that is unfortunately too zany for the film and too off the rails in comparison to Frank.  Frank is beyond medical help, Roxy is beyond any perhaps.

The film might have worked better if Frank was a lone crusader, a distant cousin of Michael Douglas' D-Fens in Falling Down (1993), one man who is just simply having a bad time of things and wants to make the world a little bit more polite and gracious.

The problem with tone is a common problem with Goldthwait who never goes all the way with his satire, and has to come round to normality; a shame as some of the ideas Frank speaks for him in the first 20 minutes had laid the foundation for something more memorable.

God Bless America is out from StudioCanal on Wednesday 4th July (Independence Day) and is available on DVD on Monday 9th July

Public Enemies

Originally broadcast in January of this year on BBC One, the three part series which was transmitted on consecutive evenings was created by Tony Marchant, and starred Anna Friel (back from Hollywood) and the underrated Daniel Mays.

The story revolves around two people who are off the rails who are attempting to get back on track.  Probation officer, Paula Radnor (Friel) has an assailant under her supervision but who on release murders a young woman.  Under great scrutiny, Paula is suspended and pleads, 'as much as you want to, you can't hold their hand 24 hours a day.'

Three months later, she is given the case of Eddie Mottram (Mays) who is out 10 years after strangling his girlfriend , 'I am out, but I'm not free'.

The writer Marchant, has a penchant for writing gritty, hard-edged material that does make you realise you have not got it as bad as you might think.

The episodes have a real zip to them, conveying a lot of information without succumbing to needless histrionics. This is thanks in part to the formidable acting display by Mays, who is slowly coming to national prominence after being under the radar for so long.  Friel does what she can with a role that could have been unlikeable, and one written where she should not garner such sympathies, yet Friel is adept at being strong when her character is weak or put upon.

A really gripping and sustainable piece of British drama that is a competent mixture of acting, writing and befitting of the current social climate.

Public Enemies is released by BBC Films on DVD on Monday 30th April, and distributed by Arrow Films

The Story of Film

When I first began to really take notice of film as a cultural phenomenon and an artform, there were few good cinema shows on television.  This in a time when there were still just four terrestrial channels and little form on the satellite channels, beyond the cringing red carpet interviews and fawning behind-the-scenes footage.

There was however two esteemable men; the quintessential Barry Norman on BBC One's Film whatever the year was and the other was much younger, but just as knowledgable, Mark Cousins.  Cousins, a young man with a hypnotic Scottish voice, presented BBC Two's Moviedrome - a late night showing of a rarely screened film either Robert Siodmak's The Killers or something from Japan or Iran.  It opened my eyes to the work of Akira Kurosawa and Abbas Kiarostomi.  I also remember his ability to interview legends and get some great material, the best being his going to Paris to inteview Roman Polanski which touched upon his career and personal background.

Cousins has continued to be a writer, essayist and curator of many film programmes and festivals.  Now he has embarked upon his largest work to date and his own personal love letter to the art of cinema.  The Story of Film is Cousins' epic journey around the world encompassing the art form from all cultures, the evolution from silent cinema to sound to the most popular of cultural formats today.  Filled with passion and researched to the hilt, the documentary is produced by Hopscotch Films.

Originally screened on More4 last year, it is garnering a huge DVD release on 23rd April in a five disc, steel case limited edition for £49.99.

Whereas other critics who are more egotistical and arrogant (Kermode maybe) would be front and centre to any documentary, cutting back to him in front of a global landmark talking about that countries milestone moment.  Cousins takes the approach as an omnipresent narrator guiding us with little nuggets of information and research to back up the classic footage, as if it is the ultimate directors commentary on the history of film.

The roll call of people interviewed is a who's who of cinema - Robert Towne, Jane Campion, Stanley Donen, Lars Von Trier, Claire Denis, Buck Henry, Kiarostami, Paul Schneider - again there is no sight of Cousins but like any auteur his voice is all over the work.

The best insight is reserved for the moment when Cousins reflects on the two paths taken by Hollywood cinema in 1939 from John Ford's Stagecoach to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane how these two filmed are unified by the deep focus cinematography of Gregg Toland; and the new film language of Italian neorealism and the work of Rosselini, De Sica et al.

That is but my favourite piece, yet Cousins has so much to talk about thanks to the richness and uniqueness in the 100 plus years of film history.

The old adage of there is something for everyone has never been truer said than in this.  Whilst bound to be consumed en masse by film students and scholars up and down the country, it can also be treated as a cheats guide to all those films you haven't got to see yet.

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY is released from Network Releasing on 23rd April 2012 in a five disc format, 15 hours running time with a £49.99 RRP

www.networkreleasing.com
www.hopscotchfilms.co.uk/story-of-film

Absent

Marco Berger is one of those rare beings, a voice in queer cinema, who wants to be heard upon the conscientious and stereotypical musings of homosexual cinema.

His latest work, Absent, inverts the teacher and pupil dynamic of seduction.  In this case it is the pupil, Martin (Javier de Pietro) acts upon or teases the reactions of his swimming teacher, Sebastian (Carlos Echevarria).

Martin is much like a femme fatale, a person who will not stop at anything until he has crossed the unholy line - and once that line is crossed there is not turning back.  As the twists and turns occur, so the expectation of desire and lust is lost, as regret and loneliness takes hold.  Martin can still grow into a man, whilst for Sebastian a career and reputation can lay in tatters.

The real-time first half of the film is shot quite brilliantly, using the naturalism and testosterone filled air of a male changing room to good effect; however, the effect is somewhat lost once the changing room is left for the outside world, so to speak.

Whilst the professional Echevarria delivers a soulful performance as the emotionally fraught teacher, the newcomer de Pietro, shows himself to be a novice and does not quite convince on the basis of this performance.

However, there is a smoothness about Tomas Perez Silva's cinematography - yet for me the film was not as definely told as a German counterpart, Sasha another piece of queer cinema which dealt with the proceedings with a bit more tongue in cheek and had an all around better resolution.

Yet, Berger (who also edited and wrote the screenplay) remains a distinct Argentinian auteur to watch out for in the coming years and works.

Absent is released by Network Releasing on DVD and is out now.

Wild Bill

Dexter Fletcher has been a staple of British acting for the past 30 years starring in Grange Hill and reaching a zenith in terms of exposure when starring in Guy Ritchie's seminal Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  Fletcher has always given the impression of an articulate and intelligent man, and therefore one for whom will not be put off by the director's chair.

Fletcher makes his directorial debut with Wild Bill, a film set in the East End of London in the shadow of the Olympic Village sprouting up around its characters.  It tells the story of Bill (Charlie Creed-Miles), a convict just out of prison who returns home on parole after an 8 year sentence, who returns home to find his two boys Dean (Will Poulter) and Jimmy (Sammy Williams) alone after being abandoned by their Mother and fending for themselves.

Dean is the 15 year old who has had to grow up fast, working on the Olympic site to earn some money ('Go on then, go build me a velodrome!') whilst Jimmy is easily distracted from school.  Bill learns that Social Services are on to the boys, so he acts up as the caring parent to make sure the boys are not kicked out of their home.

Bill's return leads to heads turning as drug dealers new in town get wind of him being back, the head of the gang Glen is played by Andy Serkis.  A lot of the characters tell Bill things have changed, but so has Bill from the tearaway lunatic who would knock a man out sparko for even looking at him the wrong way - he seems a reformed character who yearns for the stability of a nuclear family and domestic household.

Fletcher should be applauded for getting the tone right on this movie.  When you hear that an actor from gangster movies is doing a movie set in the East End of London, you fear for a kinetic, visceral spectacle.  Far from it, here Fletcher has created a movie that has a lead character that grows in front of your eyes, the casting of Creed-Miles is key as his lack of pre-conceived notions means the audience can warm to him easier than say a Jason Statham/Nick Moran sole.

At times the film is very funny; there is a brilliant running joke with the boys fear of cleaning the toilet in the house and Fletcher is helped by the impressive ensemble cast which is what you would expect from an actor in the director's chair.

The title may allude to the notion of a western, and Fletcher does lend a certain few generic conventions of the the Western film - the stand off, the whore Roxy (Liz White) with a heart of gold, the boys who need a permanent father.  Films that he doths his cap to are Unforgiven, Pale Rider and Shane.

The film ends somewhat ambivalently, yet it has such a great final shot which fixates on Creed-Miles who does nothing but look ahead at the horizon and his eyes tell the story.

The pleasure sustained from this film is that it is an amazing surprise which far exceeds any of the low expectations there may have been - people going to see a gangster film, will be surprised by seeing a very human piece told with great clarity and accuracy.

Wild Bill is released on Friday 23rd March nationwide and hopefully will receive a huge wealth of acclaim and box office fortune.

The Interrupters

From the acclaimed director Steve James of the seminal 1990s basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, comes another tale of small people with big ambitions as we follow them on their day to day life.

Steve James takes his obtrusive and investigative camera onto the streets of Chicago as we follow in the footsteps of three interrupters - from the Ceasefire organisation who work intimately in their local areas to avoid political incidents becoming violent episodes on the streets, over the summer of 2009 to the early spring of 2010.

Alex Kotlowitz, whose original article is the basis for the film, wrote the script as he knows these people and their whereabouts and how they do their work. Kotlowitz's article focused on the groups founder Gary Slutkin, who equates violence with an infectious disease, insisting that its spread can be combated the way one would contain an outbreak of cholera or TB: by going after, as Kotlowitz (who serves as producer and also collaborated on interviews and sound) explains in his article, the most infected areas and stopping the sickness at its source.

James has a keen eye as a filmmaker and is a strong non-fiction director giving a voice to those rarely if never heard on such a vast platform, he follows the three mainstays of the group - Amena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra - all have criminal pasts, like most of the organization's outreach employees; their histories give them not just street cred but an understanding of how to defuse volatile disputes between family members, neighbors, and schools. CeaseFire, as The Interrupters points out more than once, isn't a substitute for the police, or even a partner; indeed, the group operates at times within a gray area. The focus, as one worker explains, "isn't trying to dismantle gangs but to save a life"—in other words, to stop a trigger from being pulled.

Following on from the seminal success of The Wire - this is equally gritty, full-on, graphic at times in its too close to the bone content but still this is a gripping, important and most significantly, hopeful document of good souls who do exist in this unique urban milieu such as Chicago suburbs depicted here.  Good sometimes will out.

The Interrupters is released from Dogwoof Pictures on DVD from Monday 5th December.

Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place

In 1964, Ken Kesey, the famed author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” set off on a legendary, LSD-fuelled cross-country road trip to the New York World’s Fair. He was joined by “The Merry Band of Pranksters,” a renegade group of counterculture truth-seekers, including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac’s “On the Road,” and the driver and painter of the psychedelic Magic Bus. Kesey and the Pranksters intended to make a documentary about their trip, shooting footage on 16MM, but the film was never finished and the footage has remained virtually unseen.

Alex Gibney is most famous for his Oscar winning documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Client 9, his take on the end of Eliot Spitzer's governorship of New Jersey.  Gibney is at times prolific yet his ability to be almost Winterbottom-esque to his output does not mean the quality of the material is diminished.  Gibney is versatile - overtly political most of the time, he is not an angry documentarian like Michael Moore, nor attempts to be front and centre like his fellow American.  Gibney remains firmly away from the camera, he chooses to use generic documentary conventions like voiceovers and interviews to tell the story.

For Magic Trip, all the material to tell the story has been assembled for some time.  The problem has been one of synchronisation between the visuals and the audio track.  For years, the tapes of film were put into a vault for decades until Gibney and his colleague, Alison Ellwood come to restore pride to the work, they were given unprecedented access to this raw footage by the Kesey family. They worked with the Film Foundation, HISTORY and the UCLA Film Archives to restore over 100 hours of film and audiotape, and have shaped an invaluable document of this extraordinary piece of American history.

The whole essence for the cross-country trip stems from a post-1963 funk that the author Ken Kesey has gotten himself into following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of that year.  The story goes that Kesey was in New York with friends to visit the forthcoming site of the World Fair in 1964 (archive footage of JFK phoning/dialling '1-9-6-4' is particularly poignant), and he hit upon the idea when driving in his Station Wagon and listening to news from Dallas of the President's death, Kesey fell upon an idea to drive cross country in a bus with friends and aim for the World Fair.

The film uses archive interviews with now older travellers reflecting upon their trip as they reminisce and view the footage for the first time in years.  So instead of a narrator, Gibney uses the actual passengers to tell the story and paint the picture along with the masses of visual evidence.  This is an engaging type of direction for this type of picture - instead of talking head interviews with people sat in a dark room, you have this alternative type of director's commentary going on that places you right in the action, making you feel a part of this alternative voyage of personal discovery across America.

Unlike other road trips that have characters who become crazy on the trip, a lot of them admit that they are not all there and are not helped by the doses of LSD they ingest on the journey.

The film apart from a solid documentary about the craziest bus ride it is also a potted history of the use of recreational drug use.  The document also notes about how America is slowly changing and when they arrive in New Orleans, they note how music changes there, how the feminist movement began and how the Civil Rights movement was slowly beginning to rumble as Dr. Martin Luther King made his speech in Selma.

At times the comedy can be a little forced as the group having lived, driven and slept together for so long do struggle for entertainment purposes, Neal Cassady becomes the entertainment chair of the group and at times the joke falls on deaf ears.

Yet that criticism is itself a minor one, as the film is cleverly about more than the trip but about the creation of friendships and life-long bonds between people who may not ordinarily have been grouped together during a monumental change of the American landscape as music, society and politics were changing forever - with the spirit of Kerouac and the first people who headed out west in search of new frontiers as wind in their sails, or petrol in the bus perhaps.

This group decided to go and see the America they thought they knew, their document stands up as a vital part of the counter-culture Sixties.

The film is in cinemas from 18th November and will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray from 28th November and is distributed by Organic Marketing.

An African Election

Jarreth Merz's documentary is an eye-opening account of the 2008 democratic election in Ghana between Attila Mills of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party.

While the film at the start is complicit in making clear that both parties are offering the same thing in a clever use of the world of agriculture.  Although many admit that if the distribution of wealth is not occuring, if people are still without work and do not know when the next meal is coming from then democracy is meaningless.

Once the voting starts on election Sunday, the film does really kick into gear.  Long lines begin to form and people are queueing for up to and beyond 10 hours to cast their vote.  Whilst this delays the declaration of victory for the eventual victorious party, with a run-off being declared by the electoral commission; you do get a sense of the importance of this democratic decision being taken by the country. 

Ghana was the first country in Africa to gain independence from the Commonwealth in 1957, but the continued troubles of politics especially during the military coup of Jerry Rawlings in 1979 led to an uprising of violence yet Rawlings remains as an ideological icon in Ghana (his presence here reminds you of Orson Welles in his formidable ability to control you with his grasp of the English language), he his allowed to indulge in a monologue about the influence of foreign terrorist in Ghana (namely American CIA operatives before and during the Cold War) and liking them as fighting a war on terror long before 9/11.

The run-off and this fly-on-the-wall document of the hustings does become exhilarating as both parties accuse the other of political shenanigans and chicanery, this is presented by the playful banter between party agents Rojo Mettle and Kwabena Agyepong, who seem more approachable than the party leaders.

Merz spent his childhood in Ghana, and the film is like a return home for him to understand his country better.  The honest assessments by everyday people are balanced with the talking head deliveries by politicians, analysts and journalists offering objective and subjective viewpoints and opinions.

It is rare to see a documentary that starts off as an educational platform to display an alternative election descend into a gripping and intense account of a country at war with itself to gain political integrity on a world scale, critics may say that he fails to show precisely at stake when really that is the failure of the candidates inability to distinguish themselves as individual when they are really wanting the same thing.  Politics it seems is the same wherever in the world.

An African Election is released on November 25th from Dogwoof Pictures and will be playing at the Empire, Leicester Square (to the 1st December) and Edinburgh Filmhouse (2nd-4th December)

http://www.anafricanelection.com/
http://www.dogwoof.com/

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Oslo, August 31st

A gripping, stylish film from Joachim Trier revolving around 24 hours in the life of Anders, a recovering drug addict who has been given special leave from the rehabilitation centre for a job interview in the city of Oslo.  On his day out, he re-visits old friends who he knew before he went into rehab and whose prejudices towards him still exist.

Instead of the more cinematic favoured roadtrip, this is more of a walking tour of Oslo, as we follow Anders as he meets Thomas - an old friend who used to party with him, in his family abode with wife and two children - where they have an extensive discussion of life and remaining ambitions and Battlefied on Playstation.  As he meets more friends, we see him attempt to resist the urge and temptation to fall off the wagon.

His job interview is virtually a non-existing part of the plot and the least memorable dialogue scene, as Anders own prejudice to being a junkie haunts him.

Throughout the film, there is a wonderful use of sound as a marker of place and goings-on; the scene where Anders just sits in a cafe listening and ear-wigging to other patrons conversations is exhiliarating and technically marvellous, it harks back to the credit sequence of invisible narrators talking about memories of Oslo.

Anders Danielsen Lie, plays Anders, and is a leading performance of sheer naturalism - part rebel, part loner - a whirling dervish of nauseas and trauma.  We make quite a connection with Anders, who insistently states he does not want pity, which is all the more remarkable considering his shocking final act of the film that leaves you feeling both reflective and angry.

The Scandanavian way of film-making seems to be a permanent model of restraint and purpose, Trier (in his second feature following Reprise) here is quite deliberate in his direction allowing the character of Anders to be both leader and navigator; giving him the responsibility to lead the narrative and not let events force their hand.  This keeping of the cards close to his chest is methodial and the lead performance is ptiched perfectly for this outcome. 

Another clever stroke is Trier framing Anders in doorways and archways - an attempt to contain him yet also heighten his isolation from society as a lone figure and individual, tellingly the last shocking act of Anders is done in long shot as we look on from the end of a corridor through a doorway, a voyeuristic viewing for us and considering we have been so up close and personal throughout why are refused one last look?

However, this is a professional polished film shot superbly and with an excellent soundtrack reflecting the isolated youth of Norway - that was so shockingly exposed and disturbed for real in August of this year.

Oslo, August 31st will be distributed by Soda Pictures on November 11th nationwide.

Natural Selection

The film starts with a prison escape, a literal rebirth for the prisoner as he removes himself from a lawnmower bag - his raw show of emotion and elation at his escape is not audible but the passion is evident.

Natural Selection is the debut featue from Robbie Pickering and swept the board at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. It tells the story of Lynda White (Rachael Harris) who is happily married to Abe but unable to have children owing to an abortion in her youth, and Abe not believing in intercourse if it does not lead to procreation - they are a happily married bible-bashing couple from Texas.

Abe suffers a stroke whilst donating sperm at his weekly visit, unbeknown to Lynda. 'How often has he been coming?' 'I'm not sure, I only started in '88'. One night Abe mumbles something and Lynda believes that Abe wants her to find the first child of his sperm, and so after finding out the name she drives to Tampa to find the man she believes is Raymond (Matt O'Leary), Abe's son, the same man we have seen just escaping from prison.

The film is clever, in that after she convinces Raymond to come with her back to Texas the film has fun mimicking the road-trip conventions of the genre; two mismatched people thrown together by reasons out of their control, both need each other more than they realise, elements of farce and screwball comedy ensue.
The best American comedy always work when the characters are dumber than they actually think they are (Dumb and Dumber; Some Like It Hot). 

In Natural Selection, though the characters know they have been stupid in their lives at particular moments and it is their slight dumbness that leads to the farcial elements of the film but they always find the ability to make up for their errors.

Another clever element is that Raymond (after he is beaten up by some hicks) becomes a surrogate child for Lynda to look after - feeding him soup, washing him in the bath - and although he resists at times he cannot help to refer to Lynda as an angel.

The script is at times ingenious dropping deliberate keywords in the film which when they are said again, perhaps by a different character, you cannot help to raise a smile at a word like 'potent.

Featuring two standout lead turns by Harris and O'Leary plus an excellent supporting role by as Peter (Jon Gries - Rico from Napoleon Dynamite) as the poor sap in love with Lynda, her sister-in-law, he delivers a nice speech about a car when really he is talking about Lynda.

The ending of the film uses another visual metaphor to bookend along with the birthing sequence at the start of the film, this time Lynda stands at an opening to a beach, on film it looks like Lynda is standing at the doorway to her version of heaven.

Pickering shows great maturity to treat the film and characters with a quiet tenderness allowing the dramatic moments to not slow down the film and avoid it descending into complete farce, instead punctuating it with pathos and laughs; this healthy balance bodes well and marks Pickering as a talent to watch in the future.

Natural Selection is on at the London Film Festival this weekend, and still requires UK and European distribution