Review – Nightcrawler

Liam Kinkead
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Ethics and journalism may seem incongruous bedfellows in the 21st century. Names like Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate, Herr, Talese and Didion, Murrow and McCarthyism don’t stand for much these days; today more and more real journalists are being sidelined and sacked while websites filled with ‘citizen journalists’ distract readers with inane lists about celebrity body parts and commercial television news broadcasters continue to favour the quick and visceral over the in-depth and complex in a race to the bottom for ratings.

Into this landscape of sensationalism comes Nightcrawler, the darkly comic film debut from Hollywood screenwriter Dan Gilroy. Creepy, tense, engaging, and questioning, Nightcrawler lampoons the ethics of modern journalism while also providing the audience with a unique lens with which to perceive contemporary American society.

Nightcrawler follows Jake Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom in a performance that transforms Gyllenhaal from Hollywood leading man to sunken-cheeked, swollen eyed opportunist. If Tony Robbins and Hannibal Lecter had a love child it might look and sound something like Gyllenhaal’s Bloom; equal parts slimy used-car-salesman, neurotic Angeleno, self-help guru, and explosive Travis Bickle; Bloom has no empathy and little conscience as he bullies, cajoles, impresses, and even breaks the law, to get what he wants.

When we first meet Bloom he is selling stolen fencing wire and manhole covers for scrap, trying to make ends meet in the seedync3 underbelly of nighttime Los Angeles. Gilroy has some interesting things to say about the disenfranchisement and desperation faced by American youth, an issue he explores with some fantastic characters, foremost among them is Riz Ahmed’s Rick, homeless and directionless, he allows Bloom to inveigle him into his service as Bloom’s navigator and second camera unit. Theirs is a relationship that is fascinating to watch evolve as Rick gets swept away in Bloom’s escalating criminality by the promise of escalating rewards.

After failing to convince the scrapyard owner to give him a job Bloom passes a flaming car wreck on the side of the freeway and pulls over to investigate. Hot on his heels is ‘nightcrawler’ crime videographer Joe Loder, played by veteran actor Bill Paxton, who offers Bloom the sage advice that ‘if it bleeds it leads’, a warm welcome to the world of the nightcrawlers and their no-holds-barred attitude to so-called journalism. Nightcrawlers are bottom feeding parasites who film the nastiest accidents and incidences of violence for the pleasure of the modern Colosseum that is the morning news.

As James Joyce’s Ulysses had Leopold so too does Nightcrawler have Lou. Like Leo, Lou traverses a city, the city of Los Angeles, standing in here for Leo’s Dublin, not on foot but in a motorcar, frantically dissecting the police scanner for the best possible lead on a story upon which to build his nascent videography career. Bloom gets lucky with his cheap Sony camcorder capturing a carjacking gone wrong in lurid detail and with the help of fading producer Nina Romina, Rene Russo, gets his first piece of footage on the air.

What follows is Bloom’s ascent (or descent rather) into the world of shock-horror journalism, filming a string of homicides and car accidents for stories colourfully entitled; ‘Horror in Echo Park’, ‘Toddler Stabbed’, and ‘Nursing Home Nightmare’. Bloom is a character who has no scruples, no sense of ethics, journalistic or otherwise, he is not afraid to move a corpse in order to get the perfect shot, and worse. Russo’s Romina is the performance of her career and the chemistry she shares with Gyllenhaal is remarkably icky.

The L.A. of Nightcrawler is ripped straight out of a James Ellroy novel; dark strip malls and massive mansions, the only light coming from neon signs and the  flashing lights of emergency vehicles. The darkness is an accomplice in the film, allowing creatures of the night like Bloom and Loder to carry out their shifty work in the underworld so Los Angeles can wake up to bloodshed with their morning muesli.

Nightcrawler is an excellent look at the worst kind of journalism, darkly comic, smart and exceptionally well-written, the film builds from quieter beginnings to a truly intense finale that will have your palms sweaty with excitement and anticipation. If you want to take a ride through the dark side of contemporary L.A. then Nightcrawler is your ticket to the underworld.

Review by Liam Kinkead

Review – Fury

Liam Kinkead
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fury1David Ayer’s latest film Fury wants to be important. This desire is made glaringly obvious through the many exchanges on religion and morality that bounce around the inside of the film’s eponymous tank in thesame manner as German artillery shells bounce off it’s nigh invulnerable metallic skin (god or God, depending on your persuasion, has a favourable eye on Fury’s fortuitous crew). But just like the German ballistics that pepper the tank’s exterior, these underdeveloped exchanges slide right off, not offering any kind of emotional impact or hook to draw you into the material; a statement that sums up the entirety of Fury quite well.

Set in the closing days of World War II, Fury follows the five crew members of the little-tank-that-could. Brad Pitt ably portrays First Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier, the chevron encrusted leader of a small tank battalion that has been tasked with taking the fight to the Germans on their home soil. After the inevitable loss of all the battalion’s tanks bar Fury, Wardaddy and his platoon must hold a crossroads against a horde of SS soldiers with a broken down tank and a couple of machine guns. Ayers uses Logan Lerman’s Norman ‘Machine’ Ellison as the audience’s ‘in’, and while some of the scenes showing Ellison’s transformation from clerk to killer are conceptually interesting, Lerman’s lack of gravitas and Ayer’s often cringe-worthy and maudlin dialogue detract from the experience, resulting in a character who is not entirely unlikable, but nonetheless not endearing enough to make us care about whether he ever leaves Germany in one piece.

Ayer favourite Michael Peña is back as machine-gunner Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia and John Bernthal gives a convincing portrayal of the hick-bully in his character of ‘Coon Ass’ Travis, but they are characters we have seen before cut from a two-dimensional mould. Rounding out the crew is the utterly underwhelming Shia LaBeouf who seems to think that the twinkle of moisture in his eye is enough to portray a flesh and blood character with real emotions bubbling just under the surface rather than a vacuous celebrity trying to piece his career back together. The complexity of the characters within the tank is one of the film’s intrigues, right up to the point you think Ayer will begin digging into their layers and doesn’t, leaving you instead with caricatures instead of characters.

The film begins in the mud, the perspective we have come to expect from writer/director David ‘Training Day‘ Ayers to take. f3Even more than World War II films like Saving Private Ryan or the infinitely more nuanced The Thin Red Line, Fury wallows in the dirt and filth of war. Ayer and his cinematographer Roman Vasayanov have crafted a beautifully shot film that evokes war-torn Europe with stunning verisimilitude. Bottle green forests give way to grey and white villages, their streets smeared smeared with the dark crimson of blood and the deep brown of mud, the dun of the protagonists uniforms encrusted with more of each as the film reaches its fiery denouement. Realism in war films has become the gold standard, and on the surface, Ayer’s film strictly adheres to this doctrine, bu as the film slowly tracks its way to its finale at the crossroads Ayer begins to lose touch with reality. What could have been an inspired film about tank warfare jettisons the real in favour of the fantastic and saccharine as Fury and her crew mow down what seems like every German soldier left in Europe in 1945. This wouldn’t be a problem in something like Tarantino’s cathartic ‘Once Upon aTime’ approach to the war in Inglorious Basterds, but Ayer’s insistence on authenticity during the films opening stanzas means that he can’t have his cake and eat it too. By bending the physics of his film’s world Ayer loses a lot of faith from his audience.

War films have a rich pedigree among genre films, so much so that when a film like Fury is released one must question what it brings to the field, on the surface David Ayer’s film about a tank platoon facing off against the might of the German Panzer and Tiger tanks seems like an interesting twist on the formula; unfortunately what we get is a play-by-play of films we have seen before in the hands of a much less capable auteur than the likes of Malick, Spielberg and Tarantino that have come before him.

Review by Liam Kinkead

Love Is Strange

Mark Halyday
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As part of Novastream’s coverage of the Sydney Film Festival, Mark takes a look at Love is Strange. 

Love is Strange is a romantic dramedy starring John Lithgow (Terms of Endearment, Shrek) and Alfred Molina (Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spider-Man 2) as Ben and George, lovers of nearly forty years that are temporarily forced to live in the homes of separate different extended family. It debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and capitalises on its plot points with stops at the Toronto InsideOut Festival on its progressive trip around the world.

The plot’s authenticity is a strong point. After tying the knot George is promptly fired from his position at Catholic school and unable to make do, the pair resolves to sell their apartment only to discover they cannot reap the profits for up to six months. As such the homeless couple are forced to crash with their relatives – George with a boisterous same sex couple and Ben with his workaholic nephew Elliot (Darren Burrows), Elliot’s stay-at-home author wife Kate (Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei) and their teenage son Joey (Charlie Tahan). Their close proximity creates the film’s conflict, with Ben generally getting in the way of Kate and Joey’s normal life and in particular Joey’s new relationship with Vlad (Eric Trabach).

The execution is fragmented with the majority of focus on Ben and very little on George. The script attempts to follow both stories but all the interesting characters are in Ben’s apartment so it feels very forced to switch back to George.

This is dragged down further by the worst score I have ever endured. A pretentious extended violin or piano sequence would be shoved in between two scenes that would have been better without. In the opening scenes it was boorish but by the end, after the fifth example, it was like nails down a chalkboard. There was rarely visual stimulation to distract the audience either. The movie was shaky to begin with but that score transformed it into a less than enjoyable experience.

The performances were all solid but it felt as if everybody was going through the motions rather than committing to exceptional film, except Tomei, who implied a deal of depth to a flimsy character. Molina does well with what he is given but is ushered away most of the time in favour of awkward moments in the other apartment while Trabach continually peaked my attention. By the time the credits have rolled Lithgow and Tahan have embraced their roles but it’s a long time coming considering they are the relationship given the most screen time.

The films continues to give off the aura it is more than it is by choosing odd but not abstract shots and lingering the lens to add misplaced gravity. There’s some bright sparks in this method with an extended conversation between Ben and George as they move further away from the camera over two minutes standing out. There are also seriously flawed moments where Joey breaks down in grief, a character catharsis, placed in an extended shot that feels very unintentionally uncomfortable.

Love Is Strange is an okay film puffing out its chest to look bigger than it is. If you can endure the terrible musical pieces throughout and attach with any of the characters there is a decent story to be told. Maybe take some ear plugs?

EB Games Expo 2014 LIVE

Leithal
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Review – Serena

Liam Kinkead
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serenaThe Wall Street Crash of 1929 caused ripples that were felt across the world, sending Western industrialised countries into a freefall that marked the beginning of the Great Depression. The tale of Serena is set against the backdrop of the Crash, not among the bodies on the Wall Street pavements but in another environment where the rich and the poor lived side by side, one trying to eke out a living, the other preying on the desperate; the timber rich forests of North Carolina.

Serena is the story of George Pemberton, Bradley Cooper, a bachelor and timber tycoon who is struggling to grow his lumber empire after the Crash. One of the better executed scenes of the film occurs early on when George attends a meeting with campaigners for a new national park planned to protect the forests that Pemberton is felling to line his already fattened pockets. Hiding behind the shield of the workers’ right to an honest day’s work, Pemberton is openly sneering of the government and anybody else who thinks they can stymie his greatness. The local sheriff dissects Pemberton’s claim of magnanimity for what it is, self-interest, this moment galvanises the fact that Pemberton is not a character to be cheered for but, presumably, pitied.

His soon to be wife Serena, Jennifer Lawrence, is another story altogether. Rather than pity the only thing that can be felt for Serena is scorn. Cold, as fake as her platinum blond hair, and utterly contemptible of anything and everything outside of her relationship with George, Serena is a vacuous and unbelievable character that is the result of a poorly written script and some truly awful directing choices.

One of the biggest shortfalls of the film is the half-baked relationship of the Pembertons. For a coupling required to shoulder the emotional weight of the film the Pembertons’ romance is built upon matchsticks; after glimpsing Serena showserrr riding George is so enthralled that he rides after her, his second words to her; ‘I think we should be married’. From this utterly fantastical union comes some very bad sex scenes and the arrival of Serena to the timber towns of North Carolina. Early on we learn that George has fathered a child with a young woman in his employ, a truth to which the newly arrived Serena gives no feminine or maternal sympathy, not even jealousy, she simply chooses to ignore the screaming baby and impoverished mother in the pursuit of her own well-being.

Serena and George begin their lives together in the fashion of young aristocrats, looking down their noses at the ‘hired help’ and ignoring all sounds of dissent or reason in favour of their own mewling. So sure are they of their right to live and prosper as they please that they are willing to kill for it.

It is clear what the filmmakers were trying to do; a Shakespearean tragedy with hints of Othello and Romeo and Juliet mixed with the historical backdrop of The Great Depression, transform strong and steely feminist Serena into a vicious femme fatale, and George from hunter to hunted. Unfortunately a tragedy requires the characters to have some redeeming qualities, something for which the audience can root for and Serena’s cast of misfits lack the requisite charm to affect any emotional response when things turn bad.

The hype that the filmmakers are hoping will fill seats is the reunion of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence after their critical and commercial success with 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook. For that performance Lawrence grabbed herself an Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performance in Serena she is more deserving of a Golden Raspberry; it is remarkable just how bad Lawrence is in Serena. Equally confounding is the lack of chemistry between the leads, a chemistry that has been proven in the past now comes across about as sexy as geriatric siblings rolling around on white sheets in the crepuscular light, their moans of passion accompanied by a stirring score of strings.

The soundtrack is equally reprehensible, sounding like it was put together by a high school student studying music 101; all the right notes are there but the score as a whole feels jarring in its blandness. Like the film’s script the score can be predicted note for note.

The main protagonists of Serena are ripped straight out of a bad Ayn Rand novel (is that a tautology?). Selfish adherents to the doctrine of their personal happiness at any cost, the only joy that can be had from this dull and utterly unlikeable film is the inevitable chaos that ensues when things don’t go as planned for the spoiled and horrid pair who leave nothing but death and destruction in the path of their own vanity, and even that is far too small a reward for the hundred and ten minutes the audience is forced to endure with this pair.

Review by Liam Kinkead

Review – The Giver

Mark Halyday
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The Giver is the latest novel plucked from the young-adult section of the bookshop and rushed through a studio system to result in a healthy return on investment. Recently The Hunger Games series and the standalone The Fault In Our Stars have done a tremendous job in transforming the loved novels into fitting entertainment and mountains of cash while Divergent and If I Stay have fallen flat, perceived as gimmicky and formulaic in a crowded genre.

Starring Brenton Thwaites, an Australian Home and Away alum making waves stateside, it certainly appears to be lingering into familiar territory. A terrific supporting cast thankfully circumvent cliché. Jeff Bridges, passionate advocate for the film’s creation, initially envisaged his father as the titular Giver before taking the role himself, repenting himself for the abhorrent R.I.P.D. Meryl Streep’s regular slamdunk performance injects the necessary seriousness to graduate from an everyday flick into more. Her presence is noteworthy. Unlike Divergent’s Kate Winslet or Guardians of the Galaxy’s Glenn Close, Streep’s character moves organically inside the story and impacts the plot. True Blood’s Alexander Skasgard and Batman Begins Katie Holmes round out the adult cast to minimal effect, wasting potential.

The young cast are just that – young. Thwaites is a wildcard choice and handles his scenes with veteran actors formidably. The dynamic between himself and Bridges create some touching moments. His lovesick moments were also on par, luring his flame out of the widely accepted clinical and institutionalised regime. The actress behind her, Odeya Rush, did a less thrilling but still passable job. The performance bagged her a Teen Choice Award, and although the contest is wildly criticised for being rigged, it’s still a sweet notch on her belt before she costars alongside Jack Black for Goosebumps.

Cameron Monoghan didn’t act particularly awfully however his character Asher was unmemorable, confusingly zigzagging the frenemy line to an uninspiring and anticlimactic plot moment. At times he was a best friend, a concerned neighbour, a larrikin or a military man. Days later it’s not certain whether the three formed a really terrible love triangle or not. It would have been a kinder to take a leaf out of The Fault In Our Stars and their character Kaitlyn who was an important beat of the novel but unmissed omission from the film.
lot of these faults can be attributed to a hamfisted script.

The plot, painstakingly determined twenty years ago and printed in black and white, is a gradual realisation of the dubious societal environment that encompasses the world around the protagonist and the slow-burning resistance and eventual outright confrontation. There are some distinctive parallels that inspire empathy and highlight two completely different but ultimately distressing issues in the world today in the mass collection of information from massive corporations such as Facebook, Google and Apple, and the new sickening ways that terrorist organisations are operating inside the film. The Giver sees the human side of things and makes it easy to empathise with both sides, before ultimately dictating that Meryl Streep and her cronies are severely misguided. The way the story moves and shifts is always deliberate and concise which is odd for a movie released in September.

It’s the details of the script that irk me. The phrasing and language indicate the carelessness of an overnight romantic comedy or low-budget frat piece. It’s brash, abrasive and the key weakness of the film. To remedy the woeful dialogue would raise this to a movie worthy of a June release.

On the other hand the aesthetic is phenomenal. The film begins in monotone and adds saturation and colour splashes as the protagonist becomes more educated, then cuts to black and white to depict a scene without the hero. As the film progresses the separation becomes more and more apparent, most so in the climax, where the protagonist is surrounded by elaborate panorama and the supporting cast are in abstract claustrophobic scenes reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest.

It’s a neat trick to keep the audience engaged.

The set pieces also look a million dollars, particularly the Giver’s home and study area. As is unfortunately not the case with so many book adaptations, the film innovated specific pieces of furniture to make it as close to a novel’s illustration. It is another of the film’s core strengths and raises it from a home release popcorn flick to something worth a journey to the theatres.

The Giver is not your generic young-adult adaptation. It’s a faithful representation with cool styling, a solid lead in Brenton Thwaites and some top notch supporting moments from Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep. The script is careless and detracts from the enjoyment of the entire film however the plot is solid and there are far worse things on at the local cinema.

Review by Mark Halyday

Review – Black Coal Thin Ice

Liam Kinkead
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6b8c6e04632dc5792287197a679ffa54One of the greatest achievements of Black Coal Thin Ice is the way in which director Diao Yinan makes his audience feel the cold of northern China; whether it is the frosting of warm breath on the frigid air, the sound of sharpened skates on the dull ice, or the imagery of cracked sheets of ice caked onto a car’s windscreen, the effect of the cold assaults the senses to the point that it becomes a character in the film, as fleshed out and real as the protagonists.

Black Coal Thin Ice is a detective story. In 1999 Zhang Zili (Liao Fan) is a recently divorced police detective who catches a grisly murder case after the body parts of a coal worker are found scattered across the country. While following the trail of the killer Zhang is shot and two of his partners are gunned down in a fantastically dark shootout in a neon lit hair salon. After the shooting a traumatised Zhang begins a descent into alcoholism that costs him his job and leaves him a husk of a man. Five years later, now a security guard and barely functioning alcoholic, Zhang stumbles upon his former partner on a stakeout that has connections with the murder case from 1999. It is a chance encounter that will lead Zhang into a dark labyrinth of sex and violence that is as treacherous and dangerous as the title implies.

One of the great things about Black Coal Thin Ice is the different perspective it offers to the film noir and crime genre. While the novels of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy and the work of David Lynch and The Coen Brothers are evoked by the film, it is a thoroughly Chinese interpretation, giving us a film noir with an eastern eye for detail and aesthetic style, and a unique voice to familiar crime tropes. Even the pacing and cadence of the film is remarkably different with Diao opting to break dark moments with surprising humour and, even more effectively, breaking humorous moments with shocking violence. These rhythmic choices all add up to create a film of surprising tension and dark comedic tones.

The film begins in an opaque mode, but as it moves forward small details and clues begin to drop and the mystery comes maxresdefault (1)together with surprising lucidity. This is not a film that will hold your hand, it is instead an intelligent and well-crafted crime story, one that will leave you satisfied with its conclusion.

Part of the reason Black Coal Thin Ice works so well is the level of detail and authenticity displayed by the filmmakers. Diao apparently spent years writing the screenplay for the film, honing the script to a fine edge after spending time observing real Chinese policemen in the city of Harbin. Given this information it is fair to assume that the ineptitude and misogyny depicted in the film hit close to the mark.

The blatant misogyny and sexual harassment faced by the women in the film is appalling, even the film’s ‘hero’ Zhang is not above forcing himself on his ex-wife, colleagues and even suspects linked to his murder investigation. The women in Black Coal Thin Iceare depicted as victims upon which the lecherous and predatory men of the film prey, and it seems as if contemporary provincial China is still very much a boys club where women are treated as nothing  more than sexual chattel.

While the soundtrack is brilliantly used to evoke the chill of provincial China, it is the cinematography that is the film’s true strength. Northern China looks bleak, the whites and greys and muted blues of the exterior landscapes stand in stark contrast to the colourful, neon lit interiors of the dance halls, dry cleaners and hairdressers that occupy the city. Everything from the buildings, cars, and buses looks utilitarian and cheap; there is no room for luxury in this part of the world and the beautiful cinematography captures the world of northern China in an impressive and emotive fashion.

Black Coal Thin Ice won the Golden Bear award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival so you know that it is a film worthy of your attention and it is a strong candidate for this year’s Sydney Film Festival. If you’re a fan of film noir or detective fiction then this film is one you cannot miss.

By Liam Kinkead

Review – PreDestination

Liam Kinkead
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pd2Australian cinema, as a whole, can be a bit paint-by-numbers. With films that focus on heavy themes such as disillusionment, family/relationship breakdowns, racism/oppression, etc. it can feel like you’re watching the same movie just with slightly different characters. This alone would make the Spierig Brothers’ new time travelling film stand out. But Predestination does more than stand out. It demands attention, deservedly so.

Based on All You Zombies, a Robert A. Heinlein 1958 six-page short story, Predestination follows a Temporal Agent (The Bartender played by Ethan Hawke) on a mission to finally catch a serial bomber who has eluded him throughout his career. He must also recruit an intersex man, The Unmarried Mother brilliantly played by Sarah Snook, to join the agency.

This is a film that’s difficult to summarise without explaining an awful lot of things. It’s as complicated as time travelling movies can be but this is part of its appeal. It doesn’t try to be historically accurate but rather captures a 1950s version of what the 1960s (and beyond) could be like. It keeps the wonder and naivety of what space travel entailed when such a feat was still in its infancy.

At the core of the story, however, are the characters. The Bartender is a man obsessed, unable to give up on his mission despite the increasing toll the time jumps take on him. Ethan Hawke, as always, gives a solid performance. Though it is Sarah Snook’s performance that makes the film.

Recently seen in the romantic comedy Not Suitable For Children and the end-of-the-world flick These Final Hours, the role of pd3Jane (and later The Unmarried Mother) is so far her best. Both roles are entirely different and Snook nails them. It took a while to even register she was The Unmarried Mother underneath the make up and personality shift. A male actor was considered for the part but Snook brought such humanity and empathy to the roles that there was no need to hire anyone else. The film could have easily become gimmicky and overly complex for its own good but the characters really do ground the story and give us something more to care about.

Not only is it refreshing to see Australian cinema tackling genre films, it’s even more satisfying to see an intersex character in a role that doesn’t revolve completely around being intersex. The transition from female to male, although very important, doesn’t make up the character’s entire personality. It is the type of representation that is necessary in the media because it doesn’t single out a particular group, points a finger, and shouts DIFFERENT at them. They just are who they are and live as best they can like everyone else.

Ethan Hawke in PredestinationIt’s interesting to note how ahead of its time Heinlein’s story is. Even today it is rare to see a similar story and characters portrayed in this way. It’s also remarkable how the film remains true to the short story. Obviously certain plot points have been changed and expanded on, but the events and even dialogue and passages are faithful to the text.

Overall Predestination is fantastic Sci-Fi film that offers more than technology far ahead of its time and special effects. It has a real and powerful human story at its heart. It also proves Australian cinema can explore important themes in a way that doesn’t feel like a carbon copy of all that have come before it.

Review by J. Alberto Vasquez Sanchez

Review – Boyhood

Mark Halyday
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Sometimes movies are bland, boring, rushed and nonsensical. They are made to turn an investment into profit. Other times a story is so rich that is carves a small place in your heart, nudged fondly beside the classics. And in truth, with no exaggeration, Boyhood is a modern classic. Three months have passed since my first screening as part of NovaStream’s coverage of the Sydney Film Festival. Before the film a scruffy teen walked in front of a theatre of thousands and waved awkwardly.

The star of the film, Ellar Coltrane, was on another leg of his world tour after widespread acclaim at the Sundance International Film Festival. He didn’t appear to be a rockstar or a bigwig actor. He just seemed like an extremely genuine and humble person. The lights dimmed and he shuffled offstage and did not return. The acclaim is universal. Rotten Tomatoes awards Boyhood 99%, the same rate as the Wizard of Oz and one step down from Citizen Kane and Toy Story 2 and one above Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It has won multiple awards at Sundance, SXSW, Berlin, Seattle and San Francisco International Film Festivals. A previous cover photo on the film’s Facebook page lists reviewers quotes beginning with “the best film of the…”. USA Today said the summer, Rolling Stone gave it a year, The Guardian believed a decade and The New York Times stated the century. At the end of the century they may be correct. Filming occurred usually four days a year over twelve years, wit

h Ellar Coltrane originally portraying a six year old child and gradually growing into an adult on screen. This allows the scope of the film to be far greater and the narrative to flow more authentically, save casting a different actor for the schoolyard scenes and the college scenes. The aesthetic of the film also shifts almost glacially, from fashion to furniture to language to politics. One thing that stood out for me was the technology, progressing from a Gameboy to a PlayStation 3 to an XBOX One seamlessly. Not even the set designers of Downton Abbey could replicate this level of detail. Many elements of Coltrane’s real-life slipped into the film too, including his first car, his piercings and a bad string of acne he chose not to cover up. Director Richard Linklater (School of Rock) stated he never asked Coltrane to do something he knew the actor hadn’t previously experienced. The four primary characters are Mason Jr (Ellar Coltrane), his mother Olivia (Medium’s Patricia Arquette), his sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, daughter of director Richard Linklater) and Mason Sr (Ethan Hawke, Predestination).

Their plot is simple – make it through as best you can with the hand you’ve been dealt. For Olivia in particular this is heartbreaking as a string of unhealthy and outright dangerous relationships culminates in a confronting scene between herself and Mason. The film is not a depressant though. There are comedy bites here and there and the tone is generally upward, especially in scenes with Mason Sr. Ethan Hawke is a fiercely talented actor and his secondary plot gives his a nice avenue, transforming the musician father with a muscle car into a worker with a minivan. At the beginning of Boyhood the adults are only slightly older than the children at the film’s conclusion. There is definitely a full circle trope going on. There is an intangible warmth to the film that cannot be assigned to the everyday blockbuster.

Each shot looks like a painting and there is an obtuse or inventive shot to enhance the story. The edit is smoother and kinder. A great deal of care went into every detail of this film. Due to the original filming method the financiers were limited and contracts were zilch. It was the cast’s prerogative each and every year to return and each of the primary cast have called this their ‘cool summer camp’ despite having other films and television shows in progress.

While I would easily rank this inside by top five films of all time, there is one beat that struck me foul. A conversation between Mason and a high school photographer teacher about the difference between potential and actuality was immensely irritating. It felt redundant and shoehorned.

Aside from that, the scope, commitment of all involved, acting talent and direction all make for a compelling adventure. The international releases are still rolling out with Paramount International acquiring the rights to a hopefully broader home release.

Review by Mark Halyday

Retro Tuesday – Persona 3

Leithal
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Persona, the most weird and wonderful of the Shin Megami Tensei series..or spin off from. However you want to look at it. No better game has come from the series than Person 3. Persona 4 was the reason I fell in love with the games but Persona 3 to this day remains my favourite. I did briefly think that the game wasn’t old enough to be considered retro as it came out in 2008 and then I remembered its 2014 and I’m getting on a bit. Persona 3 thrusts you into a deep and dark world, set in Japan. Where apparently its normal for a teenager to be monumentally suicidal and shoot themselves in the head with a loaded gun.

Doing so releases the characters ‘Persona’ the kind of virtual demon monsters that the series is titled on. Having arrived in a new city you join your ‘dorm’ and start wandering the school making some new friends who also like to shoot themselves in the head with guns and even encourage you to do so. Sounds like a pretty awesome school right? Moving away from story progression because I don’t want to ruin any of the plot for those of you crazy enough to have never experienced the game in all of its glory. (and it’s long..the FEZ edition…is really long) persona3_fes Persona is a turn by turn RPG which boasts many of the familiar aspects of one where by your monster (persona) takes it in turn with the opponent to unleash some strange and often nuts powers. Think Pokemon but for suicidal teenagers trapped in a dream world. Different types affect one another as in traditional RPG’s and special attacks are limited by PP. The other aspects of the game promote that of storytelling and exploration. I have already touched on the darker elements and the shooting yourself square in the face but that isn’t where it ends. The main puzzle you are trying to unravel is that of the ‘dark hour’ a time of night created by experiments that took place some years ago.

This in itself is why I prefer 3 over 4. 4 is very chipper and light hearted when you aren’t in the ‘TV’ but the dark and ominous tones follow you through Persona 3 like a bad smell from start to finish. The main character is a silent protagonist (You) who was left orphaned as a kid, joins a new school and subsequently the SEES who’s members (the support cast) are one of my favourite in a game to date. Each mysterious with dark pasts of there own to contend with. The plot thickens in the FEZ edition of the game as new areas and characters open up with Aigis being many followers of the series favourite character to date. 24-Persona3-27-068 The game looks beautiful and having been released at the end of the PS2’s console cycle it was missed by a lot of people. The art style and the cut scene matched that of first iteration PS3 games and it’s a shame that other than the cult following Persona has, it went under the radar in it’s western release. images I’d usually concentrate a small part of my review on sound, which is brilliant and voice acting is as ever fantastic for Persona again in my Personal opinion, matching if not surpassing that of Persona 4.

But something that needs addressing is Text. The game is for the most part scripted and most games that follow this pattern get tedious really quickly but not Persona. All of the games in this franchise get this particular function right but Persona 3 is a particular stand out for me. The game not only looks and sounds great but the Music Soundtrack is also phenomenal.

Who can forget ‘the velvet room.’ Seriously in Japan they love the soundtracks to these games so much, they have a live stage show. Persona 3 received two live concerts and the music from the game was later featured in an even larger production along with the soundtrack from Persona 4.

Some good news now, if you didn’t play it on the PS2 it came out on PSP in the form of Perosna 3: Portable. And if you don’t own a PSP buy a vita and play it on there where it has been re-optimised for use with dual analogue sticks. Seriously it’s that good. If you don’t believe me its combined metacritic score across all three releases has over a 90/100 rating. Persona-3-shin-megami-tensei-16599038-1900-1200 Persona 5 and Persona Q are coming later this year and Q will contain characters from Persona 3 and be the first time the franchise has been released on a Nintendo console. Persona 5 is a PS3 exclusive but I can’t see past a ‘complete’ edition making its way to PS4.

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