Film Review - Howard (2020)

Howard is the new Disney Plus documentary written and directed by Don Hahn who also did the 2010 documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty and this one goes into the life and times of lyrist Howard Ashman who worked on Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin who sadly passed away from AIDS in 1991 and that struggle as well as the great success he enjoyed are covered here. 

I’ve been waiting to see this doco since 2018 when it first played at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, I adored Waking Sleeping Beauty and I’m also a kid of the 90s which means that Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin are instrumental in developing that love of film and/or musical theatre and this documentary does not disappoint. 

Firstly like Waking Sleeping Beauty the doco is done through the use of archival photos and videos with the interviews being audio only and you hear from Howards partner Bill, his sister Sarah, Alan Menken among others and they go into great depth about Howards desires/hopes/fears and it feels very intimate while also doing some great staging at the same time, at one point Howard and Alan are giving a lecture in a theatre and the crowd is really into it while intercut with that is Bill telling us about his HIV diagnosis and it makes you feel sad while watching that segment. 

Also I loved hearing all those songs again, tracks like the Mob Song (a hugely underrated song from Beauty and the Beast) and Prince Ali from Aladdin and Ellen Greene singing Somewhere That’s Green in Little Shop of Horrors and Howard and Alan their genius was that you would hear just a portion of one of their tracks and within a few moments you could sing either the whole thing from memory or enough of it where you can find your way through and I wanted to listen to them all again after this doco ended. 

And so that was Howard and it was well and truly worth the wait and is a great portrait of a man whose genius shown brightly in the all too brief time he was here and it made me very emotional at times while I was watching it, 4 out of 5.

A Champagne Helper in these Strange Times

Well its been a strange year 2020 has, it was really the year that the world went on hold and we stayed home as much as possible due to a certain virus wreaking havoc across the world and it is certainly taking its toll.

And it certainly has on me personally as save for getting food I’ve been pretty well stuck at home and some days have been better than others, one day I’ll feel pretty good while others make me want to shout out and scream at the world and wishing that things were back to normal again and I can find some of my friends who I have missed so much even though they won’t be for at least another year or two.

But there has been one thing above all else that has been the biggest help to me as I struggle my way through these borked times and its been some Champagne Comedy.

I am of course referring to the Late Show, the ABC comedy series created by the Working Dog team of Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Jane Kennedy and Tom Gleisner plus Tony Martin, Mick Molloy and Jason Stephens who did the first series in 1992 before they were joined by Judith Lucy for the second and final series in 1993.

The two series did terrific news spoofs as well as sketch segments like Shitscared where Rob and Mick try to do movie stunts only for it to go belly up with hilarious results as well as more general comedy sketches.

And all of it (well mainly the 3 Best Bits volumes as well as Bargearse and the Olden Days which have been released on disc) has been the biggest help to me while I’ve been stuck at home as its been bringing not only great laughs but also a big smile to my face and its practically been living in my DVD player ever since I put it on again a few weeks back.

Going back to some of my favorite moments from the Late Show well here is a brief list:

Shitscared: This has been my favorite segment to go back and revisit on the disc sets, Rob and Mick parody action stunts and Rob tries to do some of his own while Mick finds a way to stuff it up only for Rob to get cross with him and for their final segment they find themselves at Warner Brothers Movie World and its great to see not only the Park from back in 1993 but also Rob and Mick with Tom interviewing as he normally did in this segment and I would love to see what they would do with say the MCU today or any recent Tom Cruise film.

Glengarry Glenn Ridge: From the second series, Rob/Tony/Santo and Mick parody the language in Glengarry Glen Ross only for the famous Sale of the Century host Glenn Ridge to come in and steal the show.

Tommy G at the News Desk: Tom takes to a news desk doing a great parody of news bulletins while also doing interviews and doing a pretty good job of it as well, Rob would also come in with some priceless impressions notably Dr John Hewson, Desmond Tutu and Imran Khan being some of his best.

The Dinner Party: One of the best segments from the first series was the guide to hosting the annual Dinner Party and it is a lot of fun to see Tom highlight some of the various characteristics and Rob shows his skill for playing douche bag characters very well here.

Charlie the Wonderdog: This was in the second series and spoofed Australian kids show like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo to great results complete with the late Charles Bud Tingwell playing Gramps.

I could of course go on and name many other great segments but I’ll leave the list there and thinking about all of this makes me wish the 3 Best Bits Volumes (according to Mr Martin copyright issues prevent a full series release) as well as Bargearse and the Olden Days were available to stream on ABC iView as this series hasn’t aged at all, its still just as funny as it ever was and I wish it was there to help others like it has me during everything going on at the moment and the disruption that so many have experienced as a great laugh like this series can really make a difference.

How a King Emulated a Bond

In a very surprising move, 20th Century Fox (I know its called 20th Century Studios now but I will always call it 20th Century Fox) dropped a new trailer for its delayed Kingsman prequel simply titled The King’s Man which was due to come out back in February but will now hit cinemas on September 17th at least for now.

Firstly I want to say that I really liked this new trailer as well as the previous trailer put out for the film, they both promised a fun ride which Matthew Vaughn knows how to do and thankfully this prequel film feels much more in line with the tone and feel of the first film rather than the second film The Golden Circle which left a lot of fans disappointed.

And that point is one I want to expand on some more as when I look at those 2 films and the series that inspired it mainly the James Bond films they do have a lot in common with those perhaps more than expected.

The first film The Secret Service feels very much in line with the Sean Connery era of the Bond films with its over the top feel, a dashing hero in Colin Firth, lavish but not overly stylish sets in the vein of Dr. No and Goldfinger and Thunderball while also giving you a group of heroes that really could get into danger at very point and if they weren’t careful could easily be killed.

The second film The Golden Circle meanwhile feels much more like a Roger Moore era Bond film with its over reliance on Gadgets, a more cartoonish feel and messy storytelling now don’t get me wrong save for A View to a Kill and The Man with the Golden Gun I like Sir Roger’s films as Bond but the Golden Circle emulates the worst aspects of his time in the role instead of the best and Mr Vaughn couldn’t pull that off in a way that Lewis Gilbert could with the Spy who Loved Me and Moonraker.

And whenever the Bond films reached that point like You Only Live Twice and Moonraker that series knew it was time to go back down to Earth and go back to the roots of the character and his stories to stop it from getting too silly.

And if the 2 Kingsman movies emulated the Connery and Moore films for a new generation of audiences then any new film in the series I felt had to harken towards the Tim Dalton era of the series as short lived as that was which meant stripping away the excesses of the second film (the magic head healer really needs to go) and going back to the harder edge the first film had as did the Dalton era of Bond.

And from the sounds of it this new Kingsman prequel may very well deliver on that promise if the previews for it are anything to go by and we actually get a chance to see this movie on the big screen but for now I live in hope as I love this franchise and want to see it back on top again.

After all, Manners Maketh Man.

Film Review - Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Da 5 Bloods is both Spike Lee’s newest film and a Netflix film and concerns the story of 4 Black Vietnam Veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr and Norm Lewis) who return to the Nam to recover the remains of their commanding officer (Chadwick Boseman) who was killed during the War but there is a lost treasure of Gold to be found also but some scars of Vietnam never truly heal.

Da 5 Bloods is one of the better Spike Lee films I thought and firstly I have to talk about the great central performance by Mr Lindo who also appeared in Spike’s 1994 film Crooklyn which also starred Alfre Woodard and he is really good in this film as the grizzled old veteran who went home but never really truly recovered from the experience of the war much like many other veterans from that conflict and his chemistry with Mr Peters, Mr Whitlock Jr and Mr Lewis is great and I loved watching all 4 of these men sit around and talk as if the bond had never left.

The film also has some gorgeous cinematography courtesy of Tom Sigel which really shows off both the landscape of Vietnam (watching this film made me think of my co worker Deb who went there some years ago and told some great stories about the region and the history of the war left behind) as well as the use of the shifting aspect ratios which works very well and one nice thing about the film is that it uses film for the flashback scenes while the present day scenes are shot digitally.

But sadly the film began to lose me around the 2 hour mark and it went on a little too long for me as I felt that the story had reached a rather nice and natural end but instead we got what felt like a side adventure with the Flying Hellfish from the Simpsons and while watching this movie that episode did come to mind a fair few times and after a while I just wanted the film to end and everyone to go home after their journey.

And so that was Da 5 Bloods and for the most part I really like the film despite my issues with its running time, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Artemis Fowl (2020)

Artemis Fowl is directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh and is based off of the novel which tells the tale of young Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw) who is the son of Artemis Fowl Sr (Colin Farrell) who is taken prisoner by a mysterious being who demands a sacred Fairy artefact called the Acculus and young Mr Fowl is determined to find it to get his father back alive.

Artemis Fowl is sadly one of Disney’s not so good films and it is rare for them to stumble badly but when they do you know your watching one and given this went from a September 2019 Cinema Release to a release on its streaming service Disney Plus in June of 2020 its probably no surprise that they knew internally that this was a dud.

And it all boils down to the films screenplay which really reeks of a script written by a committee of people who have seen other films like Die Hard, Men in Black and Harry Potter and blended them together with elements of the source material and pasted it together in a script that has no real cohesion to it or any sense of being the product of a clear vision for this project that could excite anyone watching it as while your watching it you feel your watching a waste of great talent on your TV screen.

And Sir Ken Branagh is a good and capable director (I like his Henry V, Dead Again, Peters Friends, Thor and Cinderella movies quite fine) but it just feels like this time he’s trudging his way through this mudtrack of a screenplay that he can’t really seem to find a way to execute in a cohesive manner like he did with those other films I listed above and as for his actors well.

Dame Judi Dench sounds like she’s imitating a deep voice Irish woman who’s smoked one too many cigarettes in her day, Josh Gad comes across as a rip off of Hagrid from the Harry Potter films and his voice sounds like its imitating Robbie Coltrane from those films, Mr Farrell is clearly trying his best with his character while young Mr Shaw just comes across as a clone of Daniel Radcliffe.

As for the villain in this movie well there really isn’t one just some hooded nobody who has so little to do and has no real character or impact on this story you may as well as swap them out for Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget and frankly the movie would make more sense with him as the villain given how those scenes play out in the film.

And so that was Artemis Fowl and if this movie is any guide and has a lesson for Disney to learn (not that they have many to learn) its that they need their other live action divisions to learn from the success of the MCU where they have a clear and concise vision for what they want their films to be and they stick with it and see it through to the end not second guess themselves in a committee collective where so much is thrown into a script it never comes across as a cohesive film and given the capable talent in this movie its really disappointing, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - The Way Back (2020)

The Way Back reunites the Accountant director Gavin O’Connor with his star from that film and in this movie Ben plays Nick Cunningham an alcoholic who is separated from his wife and is asked by his old high school to take over as head coach of their Basketball team which is struggling big time but battles on the court are easier to fight than the battles inside a mans soul.

I’m a big Ben Affleck fan both as an actor but more so as a director (Argo, The Town and Live by Night are very handsomely mounted) and I really loved his and Mr O’Connor’s the Accountant from 2016 so I was keen to see them back together again and also this was the last movie I wanted to watch before the cinemas were ordered to close due to the current circumstances but now I’ve gotten to watch it.

And I have to say I liked this movie quite a bit and front and centre in this movie is Mr Affleck’s central performance and he really makes the most of every scene he’s in, watching him here feels like he is venting on film all of the public falls, struggles and frustrations that have happened to him in the past few years regarding his drinking, the breaking of his marriage and the fallout of his time as Batman in the DC Film Universe, there is very little vanity in this work nor is there the sense of watching a big time actor suffering for their art and their Oscar, this feels like a real and honest performance and it is never boring to watch.

I will also say however that the film works better as a character drama than as a Sports film, don’t get me wrong the sports moments and the basketball games are all perfectly fine but they don’t really feel like they blend naturally into the story they feel like something that’s there to give the lead something to latch onto in his life and the way those scenes are put together a clever enough screenwriter could have undone them for something or anything else and the film would have worked as well I feel.

And so that was the Way Back and its quite good with a great central performance at the centre of it and after watching this movie I wanted to see Ben and Gavin team up once again for their long rumoured Accountant sequel as I would love to see that maybe in the vein of Die Hard with a Vengeance perhaps, hey a man can dream, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Current War (2020)

The Current War stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison, the man who helped invent the light bulb and is now in a race against George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to now take that technology and apply it to general electricity generation, a race that could turn very bitter.

The Current War is a movie that got caught up in the Weinstein mess of 2017 and has now finally made its way to cinemas at the height of a global pandemic that has got everything going shut and everyone behind closed doors and the movie itself isn’t awful by any means but its also nothing special either.

Don’t get me wrong it’s always good to see Mr Cumberbatch and Mr Shannon go at it and they are very good in the film Cumberbatch in particular is always a pleasure to watch in a movie though his scenes with Tom Holland felt a bit strange given they are Spider-Man and Dr Strange in the Marvel movies respectively, Katherine Waterston is also pretty good here as Westinghouse’s wife and Nicholas Hoult is good as well as Nikola Telsa.

But for a movie that should be compelling to watch with 2 great talents anchoring it, the movie never feels like it gets to breathe and let it play out, so much goes by so quickly with lots of quick cuts and cutting to various years that it all feels like it goes by in a rush when you would prefer the film to take its time and let its audience get invested in the story and the production design and the performances which are pretty good but again everything goes by so quickly it feels like a film that was edited to bits before release and given the turmoil this movie went through I wouldn’t be surprised.

And that was the Current War and its fine perfectly fine but the film feels too fast and too heavily edited to let its story breathe, 2 out of 5.