stefan_mitchell-72273 Reviews

The Face of an Angel (2014)

Like 'The Trip' but not funny

[8/10 · 3 March 2017]

I like Michael Winterbottom. It's probably cheap to call this pretentious but it is about a filmmaker hanging around and sometimes sleeping with very beautiful women, writing a film about the Murder of the girl in the film, who has lots of interviews which producers and financiers in which he talks about what he's trying to say in the film and the structure of the film with is based on Dante's Inferno (one of Dante's books at least). I'll call it self reflexive

I don't know but I'm gonna say it's about Michael Winterbottooms life and divorce (it can't be another film about Steve Coogans life). The film director (Bruhl) makes reference to him needing a hit after his last film flopped... I wondered which film that was (in real life), because I didn't think any of Winterbottoms films made money. I've always wondered how he got films funded. I like his films a lot, but I just thought it was like funding Derek Jarman, you're always gonna lose money but you'd feel good about it. Like you've done something worthwhile, but not as gay maybe. I mean I didn't think he felt pressure to make money.....

I don't think this deserved to be as derided as it was. i was impressed with the accuracy to the real life case. The insanely dislikable daily mail columnist is Nick Pisa, who is insanely dislikable..The Police chief really reminded me of the actual chief and so did a lot of the cast. A lot of the seemingly small events are based on real events and are accurately portrayed. And despite me calling it pretentious I do like the self reflexive nature of this film. I think it worked and I enjoyed it more afterwards thinking about the three act structure (they talk about it in the movie) and its resolution and Cara being a sort or adopted daughter.

This would be a great film to talk about over a meal, because it has depth and because it will so obviously polarise opinion, getting under some people's skin and feeling painfully obvious and other people clicking with it.

I think with a semi autobiographical film like this, you're more likely to get away with a Woody Allen style approach (I.e. Comedy) and not be called pretentious and Winterbottom has done this before with 'The Trip' and 'A Cock and blah blah' and people found it easier to stomach. When you go later Woody Allen's serious stuff, you upset people. This is 'Interiors' but about a real life murder. So I can see it's pretty difficult for people to separate the art from the fact.

I clicked though!

Blackhat (2015)

Reminded me of Thief

[3 March 2017]

I really enjoyed this film.

I have little to no idea about hacking, but I was able to keep up with the plot and really enjoyed it throughout. Michael Mann is definitely a serious director with loads of slomo sequences of people looking very stern and then having sex very intensely, it could be so stupid but he treads a thin line really well. This film is certainly of a piece with the rest of his work (I haven't seem Ali,), there are some familiar characters and tropes at work here, if you're a fan (I am) it's definitely not a bad thing.

Some of the camera-work during the action sequences was really engrossing, he really got right in there and made It feel appropriately brutal and frenetic. I especially love the mixing of wide angle shots and what felt more conventional coverage, really cool, really crafted an atmosphere, And his music is always great, from Tangerine Dream onwards it's been cool!

I think Mann is a director who still tries to push things forward, from experimenting with the audio perspective on Public Enemy to Hi-Def cameras on Collateral, I think he tries stuff out and commits which is commendable with so much money behind you, it's easy to not try anything new and then call putting up a Greenscreen the future. For all his experimenting he definitely has got a style which I think I would describe as being the good side of 80's. He reminds me a little of Friedkin, they both used Tangerine Dream!

Viola Davis was really cool in this, she has some great delivery of very cutting lines.

I never want to like Chris Hemsworth, he's too ripped to be a computer nerd and way too handsome. But I actually didn't question any of that once it got going, despite my want for him to be annoying he's a really likable actor and although at first I thought the accent was gonna be a bit dodgy, once again I went with it (on second thought this could be because he doesn't really say a lot and has a good line in looking moody).

I liked the plot. I liked the bad guys! I like that they were awfully nasty but then turned around and seemed to care about their mate who was gonna die. Nice touch!

I missed this at the cinema and assumed it was gonna be rubbish because it had a tiny release over here, but it was great! My girlfriend really enjoyed it too, although she couldn't keep up with the hacking stuff and nearly ruined the film asking me questions. That's not a criticism of this film though that's definitely on her.

Apparently this isn't for everyone but I don't know why, I thought it was great and sadly overlooked.