Mild Concern

Summer is a bit of a minefield at cinema. This is the season when the studios feel the need to spend as much money as possible to tempt you out of the sunshine (or alleged sunshine) and into the dark cool of the multiplex. As such there is often a glut of flashy blockbusters with little of worth underneath their lens flare and glamour. As such I introduce you to our three-part guide to the Summer’s films; a tour of what you can watch without the need for 3D glasses or complete suspension of your disbelief. This is our (slightly behind schedule) Hipster Guide to Summer Cinema.

7th June 2013

Normally the names Matt Damon and Michael Douglas are associated with more mainstream films but here they are at their very best and in a film that wasn’t even destined for the cinema. In American, land of the free and the sexually repressed, this story of Liberace’s secret gay love affair was just far too gay to ever make it onto the big screen and aired on cable television instead. Subversive credibility aside this film is hilarious, touching, and not afraid to show you Damon in a thong. The perfect alternative to After Earth in which Will Smith drags his son kicking and screaming into the bland sci-fi genre.

14th June 2013

Hipsters love their pop culture with a retro twist and what is more retro than Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Shakespeare, that’s who! With Much Ado the two collide as Buffy creator brings his take on the bard complete with a cast of Whedon alumni, filmed at his own house, and in black and white. This film has hipster cred running all through it and allows you to be a fun on Joss Whedon without going too mainstream or dirtying your hands with anything superhero related.

On first seeing the trailer for this latest Superman reboot it looked like Zack Snyder might have made the first properly alternative superhero film. The trailer was filled with close-ups of grass, dilapidated buildings, and washing blowing on the line. It was grimy and it looked great; very Andrea Arnold. Sadly the reviews have revealed this to all be a ruse and what we actually have is an effects and set piece heavy juggernaut more reminiscent of 300 and Sucker Punch than Wuthering Heights. Why did I ever think it would be otherwise?

21st June 2013

Before Sunrise and Before Sunset get a much-anticipated sequel. I almost wish they had called this instalment Before Sunstroke but then that might have been a case of putting a naming convention ahead of respecting your film. The Before trilogy must be the most hipster trilogy there is. Each film focusses on the same couple as they talk, talk, kiss, and talk. It is endlessly romantic, a film that puts character first, and pretty much contains everything you won’t find in World War Z.

28th June 2013

Former indie darling Ellen Page teams up with up and coming indie darling Brit Marling for a film about a group of activists who attack major organisations. Down with the man! Throw in an official Sundance selection badge and we’re in hipsters’ paradise.

The end of the world is an important topic in cinema nowadays and with the rise of the HeKniSciFi sub-genre there is room for greater variety in the Hollywood disaster movie. In This is the End a boat load of familiar faces struggle to survive an alien invasion while partying at James Franco’s house. Everyone, including our very own Emma Watson, plays a parody of themselves and most seem to end up being brutally killed in the ensuing chaos. It is meta-humour at its most juvenile but looks incredibly funny. The fact that this may well be another time when James Franco mixes up his art with his mainstream makes this the disaster movie for the hipster community now that Another Earth and Melancholia have had their day in the cataclysmic sun.

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Once upon a time a father killed his wife and drove his car off the road with his two young daughters inside. The two young girls survive the crash, and a further attempt on their lives by their father, and live in the all too familiar cabin in the woods for five years before they are discovered by an incredibly inefficient search party. In the intervening years the girls have been cared for by a mysterious apparition they call Mama and have become feral in the manner that it more familiar in teenage boys than prepubescent girls. The girls move in with their uncle, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister to you and me), and his girlfriend, Jessica Chastain in unconvincing goth garb, and try to settle into regular life while Mama pays them visits and generally gets up in everyone’s business.

As a horror called “Bloody scary” by The Sun, “A superior supernatural shocker” by the Daily Express, and with Guillermo del Toro producing and “presenting” the film I was expecting the film leave me petrified. I am notoriously susceptible to horror films and have screamed my way through the weakest of scares but Mama did nothing for me. It elicits more yawns than screams and I was falling asleep towards the end. I realise I am prone to napping when films get too long but with a running time of just 100 minutes I should have been able to remain conscious throughout. I don’t mean to besmirch the good name of The Sun and the Daily Express but either their comments were taken out of context or they have a lower fear threshold than even me.

There are a few good creepy moments: The girls do some good creepy crawling and scuttling before they regain their ability to walk on two feet and there is a scene in which a flashbulb is used as a form of self-defence which reminded me of the only good moment in Apollo 18 which should otherwise be avoided at all costs. Mama herself is not an inherently scary figure. Her long reaching arms reminded me in a distraction fashion of an old Dead Ringers impression of Andrew Marr and a lot of the time the family seemed to be haunted more by persistent damp than a benevolent spirit.

The ending was briefly a pleasant surprise before becoming slightly ridiculous; a brief glimmer of hope amongst a dark and dreary mess. I didn’t care about any of the characters so even if the film had managed to properly scare me I wouldn’t have actually been worried for their safety. Coster-Waldau came across as an ignorant fool while Chastain seemingly forgot how to act and it was hard to believe that she is currently at the peak of her Oscar nominated career. As for Guillermo del Toro… I once saw his name as a mark of quality but now it is as redundant as a foreword by Stephen Fry – every book has one and the quality is far from consistent.

Mama is available to buy on both DVD and Blu-ray from today. The DVD version of the film has no extras to speak of whereas the Blu-ray features a commentary, various featurettes, and the original short film. I’d say this would be a reason to go for the Blu-ray but honestly you’d be better off buying Pan’s Labyrinth instead as it is both better and cheaper.

One best left as a last resort watch. Writer/director Andrés Muschietti has a lot to learn.

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Man of Steel
Zack Snyder has a varied collection of films in his past but it can never be denied that he approaches each film with a unique approach and uncompromising vision. Today we get his vision of Superman and he’s taken Kal-El in a decidedly gritty direction.

Summer in February
English period drama in which Dan Stevens, he of golden locks and steely blue eyes from Downton, and Dominic Cooper, he of… Mamma Mia, vie for the affections of Emily Browning, she of “brave” nudity in Sleeping Beauty.

Stuck in Love
This is a comedy drama about an author and his family as they have various romantic plots over the course of a year. The synopsis ends with the line “There are no rewrites in life, only second chances.” Cringe.

Admission
Tina Fey is an admissions officer who has trouble letting anyone in. DEEP! Also the son she secretly put up for adoption applies to her college and she falls in love with Paul Rudd. The acoustic guitar playing throughout the trailer tells me this will be a heart-warming comedy.

Much Ado About Nothing (limited release)
Joss Whedon takes a break from all that assembling of Avengers and makes the low budget black and white Shakespeare film we know he’s always wanted to. With his own home as the set and his bezzie mates as the cast this is Whedon’s most personal work to date.

Paradise: Love (limited release)
A 50-year-old Austrian mother goes looking for love amongst the beach boys of Kenya who sell their bodies for money. The first part of a trilogy of Paradise films.

Fukrey (limited release)
Punjabi version of the typical teen comedy.

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Need I say more?*

*I hope not…

Next up, for those of you who are watching these films in order, is Kiki and her black magic delivery service. In some ways this is the most ‘Western’ of the Miyazaki films so far, in that it is a story about witches and talking cats instead of tree spirits and planetary energy.

We are first introduced to Kiki (Kirsten Dunst) who is a young witch living with her family in a rural house. It is nearing her 13th birthday and she is excited about spending the traditional year away from home that witches undertake as a rite-of-passage. She hasn’t found her special skill yet but is eager to learn so leaves with her talking cat (an amazing Phil Hartman) to find herself in the local city, as is tradition.

When she gets arrives she finds it hard to fit in and ends up making friends only through delivering something as a favour. This leads to her living with the pregnant baker Osono who allows her to set up a delivery service, which allows her to perfect her special witchcraft skill: flying a broom. She meets a young boy who is obsessed with flying and therefore finds her fascinating and develops a crush on her. She also meets a free-spirit painter named Ursula (Janeane Garofalo) who teaches her about painting and allows her to stay.

One night Kiki is delivering something to a rich spoilt girl and has to fly through the rain, which makes her ill. She then begins to lose her witch powers – referred to as “artist’s block” by Ursula. The rest of the film is about how she gets her powers back. The narrative is a classic teenage-girl coming-of-age story with plenty of puberty / teen angst / menstruation metaphors thrown in. The film also has some nice feminist-y moments, mostly involving Janeane Garofalo.

The animation is amazing throughout the film (as usual) and although there are no bizarre creatures to marvel, Jiji the talking cat fulfills the Miyazaki obligatory cute thing quota. What I really like about this film though is the insight it gives into Japanese relations between generations. All of the Ghibli films have a lovely elderly character in, but this film seems to show the naturalness that Japanese people have in speaking across generations. I know that this is only a cartoon – but try to imagine the same story happening in a British or American narrative and it simply wouldn’t work.

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