2020 in Film Part 2: The Favourites

 Well we’ve cooked the Turkeys of the year and feasted on their meat and skin whilst sharing drinks and good times with those we care about well now its time to reveal my favourite films of 2020.

 

And this is a lean but strong list this year with 3 terrific contenders starting with:

 

Howard: This long promised but rarely seen documentary finally made its way to Disney Plus this year and it was a doco that I was very keen to see as it was about the life of lyricist Howard Ashman who was a Broadway icon and who helped steer Disney Studios into a new era of success only to die at a young age of AIDS in 1991.

 

And this documentary did great justice to this great man, we get to see a look into Howards early life as told by his Sister Sarah as she describes a play he put together with toy figures one day, we see his ups and downs on Broadway and how it and him clashed and finally his genius lyrics who paired with Alan Menken’s music burst forth a new era for Walt Disney Studios and how that very studio rallied to his aide as he was dying of AIDS yet still fighting on to the very end in a time when it was seen primarily as a “Gay Disease”

 

Also at one point you hear this lecture from him and Alan at the 92Y in New York in 1988 where this near complete oral history of Broadway Musicals as a medium is being told at the same time you hear the tale from his partner Bill about learning that he was HIV positive, how sad that such a horrible disease that was so dismissed because only a certain group caught it took so many bright and talented people from us before it was their time to go.

 

2. Little Women: This movie opened literally on New Years Day on Australia and it was  a movie I really wanted to watch mainly because Greta Gerwig was making this movie.

 

And I adored it, it was firstly just so beautifully written and directed by Ms Gerwig who took what is a 40 million dollar movie and made it look like a near 100 million dollar movie, every one involved under her command in terms of the music, editing, cinematography, production design and costumes is delivering terrific work the score by Alexandre Desplat in particular is my favourite movie score in many a long year.

 

Also Ms Gerwig’s script adaptation really finds a way to blend both the source material by Louisa May Alcott as well as details of her own life as a writer and it along with the fractured structure of this new film version really serves to help make it stand apart and be its own thing from the 1994 film by Gillian Armstrong and the earlier ones that came before that.

 

And performance wise everyone involved is fantastic, people like Emma Watson/Meryl Streep/Laura Dern who I have had love/hate relationships with in terms of their movie work are great here Ms Dern in particular is quite good as Marmie and her resemblance to Saoirse Ronan is very telling in some scenes, Eliza Scanlen, Ms Ronan, Ms Watson and Florence Pugh are all great together as the March Sisters while Timothee Chalamet and Chris Cooper deliver very solid backup work as the Laurence family.

 

Hopefully soon Columbia/Tristar will see fit to release this movie on a 4K Ultra HD disc one day as it would look and sound fantastic there.

 

But now we crown the number 1, my favorite film of 2020 which is:

 

Tenet: Yes after a long long wait I finally got to sit in a nice cinema and watch Christopher Nolan’s latest film Tenet a film I was keen to see but had heard mixed things about before getting to do so.

 

But I just had a absolute ball with this movie firstly I really love a lot of the cast here, John David Washington is every inch his father’s son and commands the screen with effortless cool and charisma to burn like a young Denzel did many years ago, Robert Pattinson is very good here and would make an excellent James Bond one day while Elizabeth Debicki does what she can with her role.

 

As always with Nolan’s work the scale of the filmmaking continues to amaze especially when you saw the movie on a big cinema screen with a great sound system which I was fortunate and grateful to do so and the music score by Ludwig Gorannson really adds to the movie while the action scenes look fantastic especially the beginning and ending scenes.

 

And lastly I really loved the time trick Christopher Nolan plays in this movie which is essentially the Backwards world from Red Dwarf and as someone who knows that episode well it helped to plug in the gaps the film sometimes has in explaining how it all works and at one point I was like “Well in the Backwards world your working towards the point where that happened and then the Second World War will start backwards and Nodol is in Bulgaria its known for Mineral Wealth just south of Bosnia” though that just makes me sound like the Smart Party.

 

And so that was 2020 in film or what was left of it given how many of the big films either couldn’t open at all or went virtual in the festival circuit and hopefully in 2021 we will begin to vaccinate the population and then we can finally see No Time to Die and Top Gun: Maverick and Dune where they belong, on the cinema screen in the link where we give ourselves to the movies and they give us something back in return.

 

That link is something that I have really really missed this year whether it be the friends I made in the cinema staff or seeing that film you’ve been looking forward to doing so or even thinking about how this whole different strand of your life opened up simply because you went to the movies and told people about them, I hope sincerely that for the rest of my life this link is never severed again.

2020 in Film Part 1: The Turkeys

 Well here we go again, another batch of lists of movies to end a year.

 

What year I say, it all started out so promising, so hopeful we had a new Wonder Woman film, the final James Bond film with Daniel Craig in the role, Top Gun: Maverick which had some spectacular trailers, the MCU now charting a post Endgame world beginning with Black Widow to look forward to among many many others.

 

But then we saw the biggest change to our lives outside of the last World War come in the form of COVID-19, a viral pandemic that turned the things that sustain us as people into a health hazard almost overnight and as a result entire industries had to be shut down and many many people lost their jobs and within days things we took for granted were shut down and slammed shut in front of our eyes.

 

That was certainly the case for me, seeing the cinemas closed and the movies constantly pushing their release dates back and the border to South Australia a border I have crossed my entire life was slammed shut like a roller door coming down with a keep out sign placed on the front and for two thirds of the year I was at home with no livelihood and no job, I was more fortunate than most but it was still a hard struggle at times with one thing really really helping me through the shutdown period I went through was reading about and researching details I could find on Timothy Dalton’s planned but never made 3^rd James Bond movie.

 

So, this year like this list 2020 was a real turkey that deserves to be thoroughly cooked for me but that was the year this is the list.

 

This will be a shorter list this year due to that long shutdown period I went through but I have 4 turkeys that I want to cook for letting me down and being bad films and this one number 4 is not one I put here lightly as it was a film, I really wanted to love but didn’t and it is:

 

Mank: Yes, David Fincher’s return to filmmaking since 2014’s Gone Girl which made my favourites list that year is one of my Turkeys of this year and I take no pleasure in saying this at all.

 

Fincher’s craftsmanship is second to none this is a beautiful film to look at in terms of its production design and to listen to in its musical score but the more I thought about the film the more I grew to resent Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Herman Mankiewicz who along with Orson Welles wrote the script for the classic film Citizen Kane.

 

The way Oldman plays this part was like that of a burbling drunk at a dinner party who goes on and on and on and on about everything, embarrassing all the other guests at that party and after a while you just want someone to stand up and say “WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!”

 

And I get that this was part of who Mr Mankiewicz was but Oldman’s portrayal doesn’t give us any reason to get behind this guy or even like him as that honest soul in a fundamentally dishonest and illusionary world and on top of that a big chunk of this movie is devoted to this election race in California that has really little to do with the main story of this movie and as a result I found myself caring less and less for the film as time goes on.

 

Also as nice as the Black and White cinematography is at times it is too dark to look at in terms of the blacks they become so murky in some scenes that it pulls you out of the experience of watching the film and admiring the period recreation and look I love Fincher I really do but this is this year’s equivalent of Jojo Rabbit a movie by a filmmaker I dearly love only for it to really grate with me in a bad way.

 

3. Scoob: Warner Brothers attempts to jumpstart a new animated franchise with Scoob based not only on the classic Scooby Doo cartoon but also the broader Hannah Barbera cartoon universe a universe I loved watching with characters like Top Cat, Dastardly and Muttley, Quick Draw McGraw, Dynomutt I mean if this had worked I would’ve been all in on a new Hannah Barbera film universe.

 

But I hated every moment of watching this movie as it just had no love and no respect and no passion for that source material and all it was was this hodge podged piffle full of modern day jokes that weren’t funny, cameos that felt pointless, a Scooby Doo origin story that barely gets any focus and iconic villains in Dastardly and Muttley who like the Mystery Machine gang are kept apart for a huge chunk of the movie.

 

To say I was disappointed after this one was watched was something of an understatement but Number 2 on this list tops that by some magnitude and it is:

 

Bombshell: A movie I was very keen for about a story that’s worth telling, a group of Fox News journalists who allege sexual harassment by their powerful boss Roger Ailes and the mounting allegations that later led to his termination as head of that network.

 

And it has a great cast in Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Charlize Theron, Kate McKinnon and John Lithgow among others plus its set in 2016 before the election of Donald Trump, boy did this have the makings of a great angry film.

 

But it was neither of those things, it wasn’t great, and I didn’t feel any anger watching this at all and during 2016 I got to know some wonderful journalists as I was still on the Radio during that time and if anything ANYTHING bad had happened to them I would’ve wanted the power of a Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball Z flowing through my veins so I could kick the shit out of those responsible so hard and fast they wouldn’t dare do it again.

 

Instead it was so flippant in its tone with the constant 4^th wall breaking and voiceover narration that it sapped this story of any serious impact and the only character that seemed to have any of that seriousness to it was Margot Robbie’s character and that’s because she was created just for this movie and in hindsight this movie should have been a fictional one based off these events then you could’ve gone as hard and as furious as you want and not dance around events which the film does to some extent because NDAs have been signed oh well I guess this is the way.

 

But now we come to the complete turkey of 2020 and it is:

 

Artemis Fowl: Oh boy, oh dear oh dear this movie thankfully there were no cinemas open at the time of its release on Disney Plus for it to let a fart off in.

 

I love Sir Kenneth Branagh I really do he’s a terrific talent in front of and behind the camera, but he really made it hard with this movie as it just doesn’t feel like either he or those in charge at Walt Disney Pictures had any clue what to do with this movie.

 

What story did they want to tell, how much of the book did they want to use, how far do they push that story so it feels of one piece and not the first of many that may never come well none of the above it would seem as it just felt like this desperate push by Branagh and/or Disney to make the next Harry Potter or the next Lord of the Rings or the next Young Adult film sensation and it succeeds at none of these tasks.

 

The characters are poorly developed, the storyline is too brief, the world they live in is poorly defined and the cast just don’t really seem to have any kind of clue what movie their meant to be in at one-point Artemis’s house turns into Nakatomi Tower from Die Hard and instead of Detonators they want some artefact and because this movie has no clear story or vision you just sit there bored with everything and as a result it is my biggest Turkey of 2020.

 

And now we can all sit around the Turkeys that have been cooked and share them with our friends and family along with salad and hot chips and roast potatoes and carrots and vegetables for in Part 2 I will reveal my favourite films of 2020.

Film Review - Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

 Wonder Woman 1984 is the second in the series and Patty Jenkins is back directing and Gal Gadot stars as Wonder Woman, this story takes place in 1984 and Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) wants his hands on what is known as a wishing stone to save his failing oil business and with the help of Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) he just might be able to have his wish granted but not if Wonder Woman and a returned Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) stop them first.

 

Wonder Woman 1984 was a movie I was very keen for, the trailers for the film looked fun, Ms Jenkins and Co made a great movie in the first film in 2017 and though questions remained on how Christopher Pyne-sorry-Pine returned I was keen to see how this sequel would play out.

 

And well this is not a bad movie not in the least but it is one that has a number of script problems that really weigh it down but before I delve into those I want to write about what does work.

 

And firstly the film has a great music score by Hans Zimmer that really adds a lot to the film and sounded great on the cinema speakers and also there are a number of fun action sequences such as a great opening on Themyiscera with a Gladiators style tournament and a fight in a Shopping Mall and then one in the White House later in the film and the big screen experience really adds a lot to those moments.

 

Also the film has some good performances, Ms Gadot continues to shine as Wonder Woman and has really grown into the role while Mr Pascal and Ms Wiig also do good work as the villains.

 

But this screenplay to quote another Christopher Pine desperately needed a fixer to come in and say “I’m the fixer and I’ll fix it” as it is a really really jumbled mess.

 

And it feels messy because of firstly three story points:

 

- Mr Pascal’s Maxwell Lord

- Ms Wiig’s Barbara

- The return of Steve Trevor

 

These 3 story elements don’t mesh well together at all and feel more like separate story ideas mashed together in a blender like M Night Shyamalan’s Glass in 2019 felt like and like that film they just do not go well together at all and the movie as your watching it feels like its grinding its way through those elements rather than feeling like a clearly defined well thought out cohesive whole like the first film was in terms of its storytelling.

 

The return of Steve is well the one that had to go, sorry but his scenes here are terrible and when I was watching them I kept thinking that it was a bad repeat of their dynamic in the first film and done nowhere near as well and that character was done, D-O-N-E DONE and there was no need to bring him back.

 

As for the villains again Mr Pascal and Ms Wiig do well but the way their storylines play out in this script is unfulfilling, Maxwell Lord’s arc suffers the most from this as it really reminded me a lot of Will Smith in Suicide Squad and not in a good way while Ms Wiig well that was very anti climatic and should have been saved for a future movie where she could have been front and centre and played by someone like Elizabeth Moss who would have crushed this role.

 

Next the 1984 setting should feel integral to the storyline but instead just feels like window dressing for some fun production design and costume design and there is a lot to work with from that 1980s setting for this movie:

 

- The rise of the Corporate Raider (Mr Alan Bond mate and that Bastard Christopher Skase come to mind)

- The dawn of Home Video

- The Cold War with the Soviet Union

- President Ronald Reagan

- The AIDS Epidemic

- TV Evangelists

 

Any combination of these elements could have served the basis for a great Wonder Woman sequel set in the 1980s that was worthy of the first film but instead very little of these are touched upon in any meaningful way and others are outright ignored.

 

And lastly the Wishing Stone itself really makes no sense, now I had heard about wishes being in this movie before I got to see it and I thought to myself “Are the Dragon Balls in this” because I know they can grant wishes when all 7 are gathered together but at least their power to grant said wishes makes sense and only certain wishes can be granted by the Eternal Dragon for example someone dying of Cancer can’t be brought back to life by the Dragon Balls because they died of a natural disease.

 

But here its just a plastic prop-sorry-a rock that also looks like a plastic prop and it can grant any wish your heart desires and while there are some limits to its power its not well handled or integrated into the films storytelling.

 

Well that was Wonder Woman 1984 and I wish this last review of 2020 was a better one but perhaps its fitting given how thoroughly shit this year has been that its movie year for me ends with a fizzle merged with a whimper, the first film was so good and so well done but this sequel despite some strong points really needed a fixer to fix this script as it’s a real mess and it’s a shame, 2 out of 5.