The Revenant (2015) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 15th, 2016*

"Back from the Dead"

Alejandro G. Iñárritu (That's a name I won't be typing again) won the Oscar for last years wonderful Birdman. So expectations were high for the next vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio allusive Oscar. I'm pretty pleased to say that The Revenant is a brutal, bleak and unflinching masterpiece.

DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a frontiersman on a expedition who is left for dead by his crew after a bear attack leaves him in a near death state, his son is also killed by Tom Hardy's Fitzgerald so he goes on a quest for revenge through the hard wilderness once he gets his strength back. 

It was a remarkable film. You feel every moment of DiCaprio's pain from the get go. His performance is truly committed, I don't know what the hell else he needs to do to win an Oscar after this. Honestly, he might need to die on camera for a posthumous award if he doesn't get it this year. I like to think of DiCaprio's journey of revenge in this as a metaphor for his ambitions of that Oscar, just going through so much, only to get knocked down, again and again. 

Even with his Oscar nomination for this, I don't feel a lot is being said about Tom Hardy's performance as the villain of the piece. He was fantastic. Even though he's the bad guy, his motivations still make sense, so it made for a complex villain that there is not a lot of today. 

Much like Birdman, I was left a little cold by the some of the more symbolic aspects of The Revenant. There was quite a few trippy dream sequences that come out of nowhere and honestly did not feel needed. They just come off as a bit pretentious. I'm sure there was a deep meaning behind a lot of it, but I didn't get it.

I did appreciate how straight forward the story was, despite the odd abstract moment. I did feel the 160 minute run-time a couple times throughout, this could of easily been trimmed a bit. This film is draining, you feel every minute of DiCaprio's journey. That said, every minute of the film absolutely gorgeous and there was so much craft and excellent film making was put into this. The opening shot was stunning and looked like one long shot. Every moment of cinematography was beautiful, even after just seeing a film set in the same time in the snowy frontier with The Hateful Eight, every shot looked fresh and unique here. Props to the sound and production design too, they may as well filmed this in the 1820's. Everything looked and sounded perfect.

The bear scene was something of a technical achievement to say the least. It had to be done with CGI for obvious reasons, but that took nothing away from such a thrilling and amazing sequence. Seriously, probably the most intense scene we're gonna get from a film all year. Every action scene struck and left me in awe, from the opening battle to the brutal and vicious showdown between DiCaprio and Hardy, it was all top notch. There was no compromise with the violence on display here either, everything felt real and raw, nothing felt fake or Hollywood. 

Loved the man vs man/man vs nature aspect of the film too. There was a lot of pure survival stuff which I adored during the journey and then it all wraps up powerfully with a touching and emotional end. There was a bit of ambiguity of the ending, but that didn't bother me at all. I will urge you not to look up anything about Hugh Glass before seeing The Revenant though. Oh, yeah, this was all based on a true story and this was surprisingly true to the actual events, which only made me love it more.


The Revenant might be a little long, but it's a bleak, intense, perfectly shot, uncompromisingly brutal and beautiful film that packs an emotional punch and features a truly powerhouse performance from DiCaprio that more than deserves his fabled Oscar.

9/10 Dans

The Revenant is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Hidden Figures (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 9th, 2017*

"Oscar bait garbage"

This really wasn't for me. Crowd-pleasing Oscar bait with a ton of cringe. It told an interesting story of NASA's unsung heroes in the form of the black female workers who no one really talks about. So it's awesome they got a film that's dedicated to them. It's just a shame that it's this...

A deeply generic and cliched biopic that rarely does anything interesting with its premise. It's the sort of film your mum will love, so that's an indication of what to expect. It's a blandly shot, like a bigger budget lifetime movie and furiously overlong. None of the characters are really explored for a film of this length either, and while despite being friends, the 3 main leads rarely spent any screen-time together, which was strange.

The three leads give alright performances that barely elevate the awful script full of so many cringe-worthy moments that just made me wanna kill myself. Most of that was due to the horrific music choices which were some of the most on the nose and hamfisted music cues I have experienced in a long time. Lots of slow-motion shots of women walking in unison while some overbearing music with lyrics like "I'm not gonna take it anymore" booms in the background. Painful.

The stuff I liked was when they explored some of the more horrible issues of race in the 1960's. White people really were fucking pricks in the '60s. Being disgusted to drink from the same coffee pot, different section for black people in the library. You know what happened. I felt they handled all that stuff pretty well. It was also nice to see Jim Parsons play an obnoxious racist as opposed to an obnoxious geek with Aspergers. I was a little surprised by the cast. Kevin Costner is here as the closest thing there is to a likeable white man, while Kirsten Dunst has a small and thankless role as well... a racist.


So that was Hidden Figures painfully cringe-worthy Oscar bait that really was not my thing at all. The first film of 2017 that I've really hated.

3/10 Dans

Hidden Figures is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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La La Land (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 12th, 2017*

I'll put it out there, I'm not a fan of musicals or even jazz music, but I did love Damien Chazelle's previous film 'Whiplash'. I also love Ryan Golsing and Emma Stone, so I was looking forward to this, and it exceeded those expectations by an insane amount. La La Land is one of the most beautiful, electric and emotional experiences I've ever had from a film. I don't want to hyperbole, but this might be one of the greatest films I've ever seen. I know it's only January 12th, but I really can't see much else topping this as my film of the year of 2017.

This was clearly made by someone who loves his craft, Chazelle really has a love for jazz and all things nostalgic, which shows. The music is great, the set design is wonderful. It creates this feeling of a classic film set in the '50s, despite being set in the modern day. It's a strange combo that works. Remove smartphones and the internet from La La Land, apply a black and white filter and this could easily be made in the '50s. That's not a knock.

A Lovely Night

Everything in this film is so beautiful. The direction is pure precision. Chazelle creates an electric film packed full of emotion and heart. It's a film aimed at people to follow their dreams and it was perfect. It made me want to pursue and be passionate about what I love and never give up. This is the sort of film that makes me want to be a filmmaker, if I wasn't so damn lazy.

At the centre this is a love story between a jazz pianist and an actress trying to achieve their dreams in LA. Both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are seriously amazing, my favourite film of all-time is Drive, but I think Gosling gives the best performance of his career. Much to my surprise though, despite both being amazing, I found Stone to outmatch Gosling most of the time, especially in the musical numbers. Stone has a much better singing voice than Gosling, which isn't a problem considering most of his stuff is based on his amazing piano skills.

Despite looking like a bright and colourful film, the film does take some really emotional turns that lead to a heartbreaking and bittersweet ending that hit all the right notes. We see Gosling and Stone's relationship start to fracture as they realize the compromises they have have to make in order to achieve their dreams or whether or not you should even follow your dream.

City of Stars

As a musical, aside from the opening scene which had me a little worried, everything after that was memorable and made me want to listen to it all day long. There was an insane amount of talent that came to making some of the music here, especially 'City of Stars' and 'The Fools Who Dream' which were easily my highlights. There's also a great scene of some '80s music that I didn't expect, but I loved it.

La La Land was pure magic, a sense of wonder and passion that I've not seen from a film in a long time. Beautifully directed, powerful and endlessy memorable. One of the greatest films of all-time.

10/10 Dans

La La Land is out May 15th on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD now in the UK
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Crash (2004) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written May 4th, 2017*

This feels like one of Will Smith's disgusting vanity projects along with Collateral Beauty and Seven Pounds. Horrific on every level. But somehow, William Smith was nowhere to be seen.

If this was made today, it would have been critically panned, but somehow, in 2004 it managed to be a best picture winner at the Oscars. Dear, fucking Christ. There is nothing okay about this film. Offensive to anyone of any race anywhere with such a farcical, surface level portrayal of race.

This feels like an incomplete film too. Most these characters don't have a completed arc or anything close to that. It reminded me of Love Actually. Holy shit, that is actually perfect. Crash feels like Richard Curtis trying to make a "serious" film about race, but equally as horrifying and vomit inducing. Every scene is heavy-handed and misguided. The characters arcs range from not racist to racist, or vice-versa, with no real explanation or reason.

Matt Dillon not being racist for 5 minutes and saving Thandie Newton

I, at the very least burst out laughing at times with some deeply unintentionally funny moments. If you've seen it, then the scene with Michael Pena's daughter in the front garden is incredible. Despite watching this on my own, I did verbally proclaim "Fuck off!" several times due to the outrageously coincidental nature of some of the scenes that involved random members of the ensemble cast meeting.

I'd say the weirdest part of this whole ordeal was Ludacris Bridges playing what was essentially his character from the Fast and Furious films, but played straight. It was bizarre and impossible to take him seriously. It was also strange to see Brendan Fraser on screen again, seeing as his career is more or less dead now.

I'd heard nothing but bad things about Crash, but wow, it shook me to the core at just how disgusting and misguided this vile mess of a film was with its heavy handed, after school special treatment of race problems in L.A. By far the worst film I have ever seen to win Best Picture. Good god.

2/10 Dans

Crash is out now on Blu-ray and DVD now in the UK
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