Film Review: Interstellar (2014)

When Eames (Tom Hardy) said "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling" in Christopher Nolan's Inception, it may have seemed like little more than a throwaway quip, but that no longer seems to be the case. Nolan seems to have adopted it as a personal credo, since that sentiment is all over his latest project, Interstellar. Nolan returns to science fiction with a story that leaves dreams, Gotham and the Earth itself behind for the far reaches of space. It sends a small group of scientists, and audiences, on a journey that involves intergalactic travel, wormholes and a crisis that threatens to destroy all of humanity. It's epic filmmaking on a galactic scale, full of wonder and ambition, but the bigger canvas brings Nolan's flaws into sharper relief.

Film Review: Get on Up (2014)

The problem with most music biopics is that they try to condense the lives of complex, often troubled people into easily digestible narratives. Some great films have been made using that approach, but for the most part they result in some of the most formulaic stories imaginable. In telling the story of James Brown, Get on Up runs as far and fast away from that style as it can. Much like Olivier Dahan's La Vie en Rose, director Tate Taylor cuts between all the different eras of Brown's life and career, seemingly at random, and tries to capture as many different facets of his persona as it possibly can. And, much like Dahan's film, Taylor's relies on a singular, galvanizing central performance to keep the whole thing from completely falling apart.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 74 - Interstellar

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar has been one of the most divisive mainstream films of recent memory (probably since The Dark Knight Rises, appropriately enough) and that has proven to be the case within  the Shot/Reverse Shot offices. I didn't particularly care for the film, though I did admire it, while Joe thought it was pretty decent. Using that divergence of opinion as a jumping off point, Joe and I talk about Nolan's work in general, his strengths and weaknesses as a filmmaker, and how even Interstellar's failings demonstrate how Nolan has been able to reach the upper echelons of Hollywood filmmaking.

Film Review: The Babadook (2014)

Amelia (Essie Davis) is a nurse trying her best to juggle work and raising her young son Samuel (Noah Wiseman). Their relationship has always been strained, largely because Amelia's husband died while driving her to the hospital so that Samuel could be born, but also because Samuel has a number of behavioural problems which repeatedly get him in trouble at school. One day, Samuel brings Amelia a book for her to read to him. It's a book she has never seen before, and it contains a nursery rhyme about a creature called The Babadook, who takes the form of an impossibly tall man in a black coat, top hat, and who comes complete with distressingly long fingernails. As they read, the story becomes more and more violent, ultimately ending with the monster menacing a young boy who looks suspiciously similar to Samuel. Thus begins the first of many sleepless nights for Amelia, as her house and its occupants are menaced by a being they can't see, who communicates solely through saying its own name in a raspy, bloodcurdling moan.

Film Review: John Wick (2014)

This does not last long.

If you want to know what kind of movie John Wick is, the following description should give you a good idea. Having been beaten up by Iosef (Alfie Allen, muscling in on Tom Felton's monopoly on playing reprehensible twerps), the snotty son of Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), a Russian gangster, and having watched as Iosef and his men stole his '69 Mustang and killed his dog - a beyond adorable beagle puppy that happened to be a gift from his dead wife - the titular former hit man and assassin (Keanu Reeves) decides to get even. He leaves his New Jersey home - but not before dispatching a dozen of Nyqvist's henchmen - and heads to New York where he checks into a hotel. Not just any hotel, though: The Continental Hotel, a hotel that caters solely to the city's society of trained killers, all of whom obey a strict code of honour put in place by its owner (Ian McShane) and enforced by his concierge (Lance Reddick). It's like the Cheers bar, except everybody knows your name because you might represent a potentially huge payday.

Film Review: Nightcrawler (2014)

Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a scumbag in search of a calling. He spends his days educating himself via the Internet and his nights stealing copper wire. After a semi-successful evening - he sells his haul but is rebuffed when he applies for a job with the very people he just sold clearly stolen goods to - he spots a flaming car by the side of the road and stops to look. He sees some cameramen filming the aftermath, and learns that they sell the footage to local news stations. Inspired, he buys a camera and a police scanner (funded by stealing a high performance mountain bike) and starts his own freelance business filming crime scenes in order to sell the footage to an L.A. station run by Nina Romina (Rene Russo). Unsurprisingly given his other work, Lou goes to extreme lengths in order to get the best footage possible.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 73 - Days of Fear and Wonder

The BFI are currently running a series called "Days of Fear and Wonder" which celebrates some of the greatest works of science fiction cinema. In that spirit, this episode of Shot/Reverse Shot is dedicated to the genre. Joe and I discuss why science fiction is afforded more respect from critics than other popular genres, talk about the ways in which the genre allows filmmakers with big ideas but no money to make an impact, and offer our thoughts on some of our favourite science fiction films. To top it all off, we've swapped out our usual end credits music for a more apropos ditty.

Film Review: Whiplash (2014)

At the heart of Damien Chazelle's Whiplash is a deceptively simple question: What does it take to be great? Not very good, not better than most, but truly great. That question is explored through the story of Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), a 19-year-old drummer who has enrolled at the prestigious Schaffer Conservatory. Andrew believes that he has it in him to become one of the greatest jazz drummers who has ever lived, and that the best way to achieve that is by landing a place on the Schaffer Studio band, under the guidance of its conductor, Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons). Once he makes it into the band as an alternate, Andrew discovers that Fletcher is not like other teachers; he employs verbal and physical abuse, mind games and a fascistic approach to discipline to get the most out of his musicians. Faced with such hostility, Andrew tries to rise to the occasion, even if it leaves him exhausted with blood pouring from his hands.

Film Review: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

While some might point to Christopher Nolan's Interstellar as this year's Gravity, largely due to their shared genre and similar release date, that title truly belongs to Alejandro González Iñárritu's odd dark comedy Birdman. Or, to give it its full, grammatically baffling title, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). There are some personal connections between the two films - Iñárritu and Gravity's director, Alfonso Cuarón, are longtime friends, while the films share a cinematographer in Emmanuel Lubezki. The more substantial connection lies in a shared formal daring, and a willingness to approach relatively straightforward stories in ways which are stylistically adventurous. It's easy to imagine the films as a game of oneupmanship between two friends at the height of their respective powers.

Doctor Who - Death in Heaven (S08E12)

Last time, I wrote about how the problem with a lot of Doctor Who two-parters is that the first halves tend to be much better than the second halves. It's not hard to see why: the first episode has the advantage of getting to escalate a crisis for The Doctor without the burden of having to resolve anything, while the second has to deal with the immediate fallout of its predecessor before leaping into its own story. In drama, raising questions is fun and easy, but providing satisfactory answers is frustrating and difficult.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 72 - The Alternate 100 Part 8

After a brief break, Joe and I return to the Alternate 100 with part 8. In this one, we try to make "fetch" happen, talk about Vietnam a surprisingly large amount, and discuss how a 35-minute horror film that barely got made fits into the Independent Film Boom of the 1990s.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 71 - High School

Back in June of this year, Joe and I watched the great documentary/film essay Beyond Clueless. Written and directed by film critic Charlie Lyne (Ultra Culture, The Guardian), the film is a deeply personal and idiosyncratic look at the vast and varied array of teen movies release between 1995 and 2004. We use the film as a jumping off point to discuss that period in teen film history, where we think teen movies are going, and why they seem to be such a uniquely American genre. Also, you can hear Joe's interview with Mr. Lyne about the film at Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Doctor Who - Dark Water (S08E11)

"Work it harder make it better do it faster makes us stronger more than ever hour after our work is never over."

After a largely great season with relatively few missteps, one that has seen the show revitalised by a new face in the TARDIS and a more subtle approach to long-form storytelling, Doctor Who is faced with the daunting task of trying to end things on a good note. That's something the show has struggled with a lot in the past, particularly when it comes to two-part finales. The typical pattern (which could actually be applied to all two-parters) is that the first half builds to a series of reveals, and in so doing manages to be hugely fun and intriguing, then the second half has to resolve all of them, and winds up being a bit of a disappointment. Based on past form, I'm now really worried for the final episode of the run, because this first half was a blast.

Doctor Who - In The Forest of the Night (S08E10)

I've been watching a lot of The X-Files lately. I've been slowly working my way through the show over the last year or so, but I've been a little more diligent recently because I've been listening to Kumail Nanjiani's very entertaining podcast The X-Files Files, in which he and a guest watch and talk about different episodes every week. One of the more common criticisms Nanjiani has of The X-Files is its tendency to produce episodes in which Mulder and Scully function as little more than witnesses to a strange occurrence which resolves itself by the end of the episode. Those stories can still be good thanks to the dialogue and the performances, but they're not terribly dynamic because they turn the heroes into passive figures, rather than active participants in their own story. I couldn't help but be reminded of that while watching "In The Forest of the Night," an episode in which something crazy happens, The Doctor does almost nothing to solve the problem, and then the credits roll.

Film Review: The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014)

In documentary filmmaking, passion and conviction can go a long way to making up for a lack of technical ability or a clear vision. This is best illustrated by something like Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, a film which is haphazardly assembled but still manages to make its devastating point. Brian Knappenberger's The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz also fits the bill. In covering the all too brief life of the eponymous writer, programmer and activist, from his childhood to his death in 2013, the film is impassioned and righteously angry about the events and institutions that led Swartz to take his own life, but it also lacks any focus as it pinballs from subject to subject.

Film Review: Saturday Night (2010)

One of the reasons why behind the scenes documentaries tend to be a bit bland is that they so often focus on works that take a long time to produce. If people are working on a movie or a TV show or an album that is going to take months to complete, then their answers about it will probably be a lot more controlled, deliberate and PR friendly. There are exceptions, such as Lost in La Mancha or I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, where the documentary makers happen to be in the right place to capture a moment of artistic implosion, but, generally speaking, the longer it takes to make something, the less likely it is that a documentary about it will be particularly candid.