Straight Outta Compton review

The N.W.A stepped onto the late 80’s music scene with all the subtlety and grace of a stick of dynamite thrown in a Western. F. Gary Gray’s much-hyped biopic follows the group’s members – Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.) Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), MC Ren (Aldis Hodge), DJ Yella, (Neil Brown, Jr.) - from the success of their first single 'Boyz-n-the-Hood' and the release of their seminal album Straight Outta Compton to their vilification by the media and their eventual downfall.

Gray does well to put the group’s confrontational stance into context by showing us an L.A. seething with racial tensions. The group’s members are all subject to police harassment at some point. And the composition of their infamous song ‘Fuck tha Police’ is effectively dramatised with it coming straight after a scene where the group are accused of being gang members and forced to get onto the pavement by several police officers – this situation is only defused by the intervention of their white manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti).

The scenes of the group’s live performances do an excellent job of capturing the energy and attitude that cemented the group’s appeal yet also made them the subject of unwanted attention from law enforcement. A scene in which the group perform in Detroit after being warned by the city’s police not to play the song ‘F the police,’ as the officer addressing them puts it, is particularly riotous, and also cathartic, when the inevitable occurs and Ice Cube is asked to ‘take the stand.’

Noteworthy performances come from O’ Shea Jackson, Jr. as Ice Cube – perhaps unsurprisingly since Jackson is Ice Cube’s son – and from Paul Giamatti as the band’s manager Jerry Heller. Giamatti seems to excel when playing seedy characters and here, as in the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, he gets to sink his teeth into just such a role.

If the film has a weakness it’s its length. There's too much time between the breakup of the N.W.A and the end of the film. Also, without the group as a united force, the film’s second half lacks the energy that makes the first so exciting. If you’re an avid hip-hop historian you might find the scenes covering the feuds between the various characters interesting. For the more casual moviegoer, however, these parts may have the feel of a rubber duck floating aimlessly in a bathtub.

The sequences surrounding Eazy-E’s HIV diagnosis are treated with care, and the emotional punches fall hard as he is visited by his old friends. These, together with a very satisfying final scene involving Dr. Dre, keep the film from petering out.

Tributes from 50 Cent and Eminem during the credits drive home the N.W.A’s musical importance in a fitting, though not quite flawless, record of the hip-hop pioneers.

The Wolfpack review

For fourteen years the Angulo brothers were almost entirely confined to their family’s Manhattan apartment by their parents. Their main point of contact with the outside world was the films their father religiously collected, such as The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Pulp Fiction. As they grew up the boys began to make their own versions of these films with themselves playing every role.

Then in January 2010, Mukunda Angulo got up one morning and simply walked out of the apartment. This act soon encouraged the others to also rebel against their parent’s strict prohibitions. It was on one of their walks around the streets of New York that the brothers met filmmaker Crystal Moselle. With their sunglasses and suits, they looked exactly like the colour nicknamed killers from Reservoir Dogs. Fascinated by them, Moselle decided to make them the subject of a film.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, The Wolfpack provides a fascinating look into the Angulo brothers’ lives and their unusual upbringing. Candid interviews with the family members are interspersed with home video footage from the brothers’ earlier years, including footage from their DIY remakes of various Hollywood movies. These films provided the brothers with vital, albeit distorted, windows into the outside world; as one of them painfully states:  ‘It makes me feel like I’m living…sort of.’

Interviews with the brothers’ mother and father are also sources of valuable insight and show how damaging decisions can be made with the best of intentions.

There are several emotional scenes, including one where the boys are about to visit a cinema for the first time. As they embrace their mother one by one before leaving the apartment, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were about to fly to the moon, rather than doing something that many people do every day. When the boys come out of the cinema having just watched The Fighter, they are visibly abuzz and it’s difficult not to smile with them, especially when one of them declares: ‘I played that guy (Christian Bale) in The Dark Knight, Batman Begins.’

If there’s one problem with the film it’s the inclusion of more obviously staged sequences. Moments such as the one where the filmmakers ‘just happen’ to walk in on Mukunda while he’s sat on his bed typing up scripts, jar with the film’s more naturalistic parts and are liable to cause some eye rolling. Luckily these are few and far between.

Ultimately if there’s any message in The Wolfpack it’s that human beings are capable of growing beyond the confines of their environment. Different things can be the catalyst for this growth. For the Angulo brothers, it was films that allowed them to reach beyond the walls they were trapped behind for so many years. Who would have thought that dressing up as Reservoir Dog’s Mr Blonde could provide both hope and a means of escape?

Four Great Late Night Movies on Netflix

You’ve got Netflix, right? If you haven’t what are you doing with your evenings? Going out, meeting new people, breathing the sweet diesel fumes of nature?

For those of us with more important things to do (like sitting inside with the blinds closed, drinking cheap wine, and eating a whole block of cheddar cheese) here’s a list of ‘late night movies’ for you to check out; the kind with sex, monsters, and important social commentary.

The Guest (Dir: Adam Wingard, 2014)

A family is visited by a mysterious man claiming to be a friend of their dead soldier son. Very bad things then begin to happen.

This is about as much as can be said about the plot without revealing spoilers. Dan Stevens (formerly of Downton Abbey) plays Adam, the mysterious stranger and titular guest. Did I mention Stevens was in Downton Abbey? Don’t let this put you off. As Adam, Stevens is easily one of the best parts of the film: equal parts charm, menace, and muscle, it’s difficult not be beguiled by him.

In addition, Maika Monroe (from It Follows) makes for a solid heroine while the film’s soundtrack is worthy of an entire article of its own: pounding, synth-heavy, instrumentals and haunting goth rock combine to give the film a very unique and dreamlike atmosphere.

Adam’s backstory is a little shaky, but this is one of the few negatives in an otherwise compelling thriller.

Obvious Child (Dir: Gillian Robespierre, 2014)

For stand-up comedian Donna (Jenny Slate) nothing seems to be going right. Her boyfriend’s just broken up with her, she’s lost her job, and now she’s pregnant after a one night stand. Comedy and unwanted pregnancy are not new bedfellows (see Juno) but rather than deciding to go to term as Ellen Page’s titular character does, Donna decides to go for the other option and get an abortion. 

In a world where most of the people vying to be next president of the United States have such a detached view of the issue it’s nice to see a film that approaches it through a very human perspective. 

Jenny Slate is likeable as Donna while Gaby Hoffman and Gabe Liedman both provide strong support as her friends.

A witty script keeps the film ticking along nicely and tracks familiar rom-com territory without falling into cliché. If you want something that’s both funny and has real substance be sure to give it a look in.

Spring Breakers (Dir: Harmony Korine, 2012)

Four college students want to go to Florida for spring break, but they don’t have the money. What would you do in their situation? Exactly…steal your professor’s car, rob a fast food restaurant, and use the money to make the trip. When the girls reach Florida they engage in rampant booze and drug-fuelled hedonism and become entangled with gangster rapper/drug dealer ‘Alien’ (James Franco.) 

Written off by some during its initial release as an exploitative beer and boobs-fest, Spring Breakers is, in fact, a genuinely interesting film that casts a stark light on a culture where the pursuit of pleasure is placed above all other values.

James Franco is fantastically memorable as ‘Alien’: his ‘look at my shit’ speech in which he shows off his horde of weaponry, his array of aftershave, and claims to have Scarface on repeat on his TV, is worth anyone’s time alone.

Throw in some beautiful cinematography courtesy of Benoit Debie (Enter the Void, Irreversible) and possibly the greatest use of a Brittney Spears song in a film sequence ever and you have a film you can really lose yourself in. 

The Babadook (Dir: Jennifer Kent, 2014)

Ever thought that insomnia might be your thing but haven’t yet had the courage to try it? Don’t worry, this film will help.

Jennifer Kent’s directorial debut tells the story of Amelia (Essie Davis), a woman who’s been forced to raise her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) alone since her husband died in a car crash while driving her to the hospital to give birth. As Samuel’s seventh birthday and the anniversary of the accident approaches, Samuel’s behaviour grows increasingly erratic. He becomes obsessed with a storybook monster called the Babadook, something which Amelia at first disregards as childish fantasy. Until she sees evidence of the Babadook’s presence herself that is.

With its bleak suburban setting, Kent finds the perfect locale for a film about the dark forces festering in the corners of everyday life. The Babadook itself makes for a very scary monster indeed and one that is made all the more terrifying by what it represents.

Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman are convincing as the imperilled mother and son in a film that’s sure to become a classic of the horror genre in years to come.

And remember before watching: you can’t get rid of the Babadook.

Mistress America review

Tracy Fishko (Lola Kirke) has just started college in New York but, like many who are parted from the family nest for the first time, she finds herself feeling lonely and awkward around her new peers. On top of this she has come to terms with her mother’s engagement to a man she’s met online. At her mother’s suggestion, Tracy gets in touch with her stepsister-to-be, Brooke Cardanis (Greta Gerwig.) Brooke is a glamorous socialite with a 

variety of interests (she runs a spinning class, tutors maths and is 'very into social media') but little direction in her life.

Tracy immediately finds herself enchanted by Brooke and, despite their twelve year age gap, the pair quickly become inseparable.  Not only does she become a friend but Brooke also becomes an unwitting muse to Tracy, who is a writing student, and it isn’t long before Tracy is writing a story whose central character is based upon her. Throw in Brooke’s plans to open a restaurant, despite having very little money, and you have all the ingredients for an excellent farce.

Mistress America is director Noah Baumbach’s third film with Greta Gerwig and it is the second they have co-written together, the first being Frances Ha (2012). With this film, however, we get the sense that the creative duo has really found their rhythm: its themes, friendship, becoming an adult, are more fully realised than those in Frances Ha and its characters more fully fleshed out.

As Brooke, Gerwig shines in a role that is ideally suited to her. The full breadth of her acting talents is displayed as she portrays a person who frequently shifts from being energetic and confident to desperately insecure and frustrated. It is the complexity that Gerwig brings to the role that ensures Brooke comes across as a fully rounded human being and not just a caricature of New York’s social elite.

Lola Kirke also turns in a strong performance as Tracy. She approaches the role with an earnestness that makes her character endearing even when she’s doing things that might otherwise force us to dislike her. Kirke is only 24 and if her performance in this is anything to go by she is certainly someone to watch out for in the future.

Baumbach and Gerwig’s script may meander a little but this seems to be the point in a film that is about friendship and finding your way in the world. It is funny, dramatic, touching, but never boring. 

The Man from U. N. C. L. E. review

Winston Churchill, mushroom clouds, a map of Germany being split down the middle: these are the images which begin The Man from 

U. N. C. L. E. and which lay the groundwork for the sleek tale of espionage to follow.

Henry Cavill plays Napoleon Solo, ex-con turned CIA agent, who is dispatched to bring Gabby Teller (Alicia Vikander), the daughter of a Nazi rocket scientist, from East to West Berlin. No easy task. And one that is nearly scuppered by Soviet super-agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer). The three of them are soon forced to work together, however, in order to track down Teller’s father who may or may not be working with Neo-Nazis intent on creating a nuclear weapon.

Guy Ritchie’s direction lends itself well to this re-imagining of the 60’s TV series and he imbues it with both style and playfulness. He also manages to find a happy medium between ensuring that the film doesn’t drag yet also that it doesn’t rush along frantically pummelling its audience into submission, as some similar films are wont to do.

Cavill, Hammer, and Vikander also make for great leads. The personality clash between Cavill’s arrogant, apparently nonchalant Solo and Hammer’s serious, no-nonsense Kuryakin is a delight to watch (their argument about matching belts and dresses being a particular highlight.) This game of one-upmanship is prevented from becoming too suffocatingly masculine by the presence of Vikander’s Teller, who thankfully doesn’t fall into Bond girl cliché and is an essential driving force in the film’s narrative; blunt speaking and rough around the edges, damsel in distress she is not.

If there’s one thing that weighs against the film it is the lack of a strong and compelling villain. Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) has some suitably menacing moments as does Uncle Rudi (Sylvester Groth) but they don’t quite have the colour to match the rest of the film’s retro stylings. Their master plan (like all good spy film villains they must presumably have one) is also never really fleshed out and thus the audience are never given a chance to shake their fists at the screen in indignation, or at least mutter ‘Jesus Christ’ into their popcorn bags.

All in all, though, The Man from U. N. C. L. E. is a pleasant throwback to the spy movies of yesteryear, think Roger Moore era Bond. It’s fun, stylish, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you want an undemanding popcorn flick that won’t drown you in CGI this summer, be sure to check it out.