On Moonlight

A most beguiling and seductive Oscar winner is Moonlight. A fragmented tripartite, beautifully shot and wonderfully acted and it is these latter skills that made this an enticing watch. We are presented with only one point of view here. That of Chiron as a boy, an adolescent and a young man. What happens in-between these ages and what happens to figures from his life is left to our imagination. This very limited point of view is what makes Moonlight so unusual. There is nothing wrong with unusual and there is nothing wrong with strange and there is an ethereal feel to Moonlight, which is anchored in reality by some hard-hitting doses of struggle; the homophobia, the drug abuse, the loss, the yearning and the potential, ever so slightly, of hope. This balance of beauty and pain is the outstanding feature of director and writer Barry Jenkins’ film.

On Kong: Skull Island

What could go wrong? A film about King Kong set during the Vietnam War. It’s a match made in heaven and amazing that no one has tried this before. And, Kong: Skull Island is replete with Vietnam and 70s iconography, from the tape deck to the slow-mo shots of helicopters dropping bombs. It is hard to dislike. Yet, Skull Island is a film you should dislike, for despite the attention to detail, someone forgot to create characters or direct the actors. Aside from John C Reilly, the characters here are paper-thin: the crazy one, the photographer, the quiet tough guy, the young kid. All plucked from countless war films. All instantly forgettable. In an interview, the director said he considered opening with a little mockery at Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) remake and could never understand why it took so long for them to reveal Kong. That remake may have been flawed, but this is a failed piece of work. A great idea, wasted and a bad sign of things to come if it is meant to signal the birth of a monster movie franchise. 

Kong looks great though.

On Jackie

Tales of the Kennedy family are infectious. That much is clear. America has been unable to move beyond the conspiracies surrounding the doomed family name for decades. JFK’s tale is one so well told that people born years later know his fate and can describe the infamous Dallas images as if they were there. In short, the man and his death are iconic. Sewn into and defining aspects of American culture. What could the country have been had the man they imagined he was been allowed to have lived and preside? It is hard to ignore or forget a man who holds such power posthumously, who continues to invite comparison and investigation over 50 years later.

It is hard too, for the filmmaker to take the Kennedy story and tell it again so that we see it with fresh eyes. Yet, Jackie achieves this and becomes an intoxicating tale of the family. It is stunningly layered and captivating performance from Natalie Portman, one deserving of all the recognition, but one perhaps too difficult to really love. Here, Jackie is more than a grieving widow, she is a woman obsessed with legacy, aware of infidelities, but unable to let her husband as anything other than great. This really is one of the more fascinating explorations of grief on screen. Pablo Larraín’s camera lingers closely, allowing us intimate access to the parts of Kennedy’s death that are not familiar, although it should be mentioned that this representation of the assassination is as realistic, intimate and artistic as any seen before. Portman sheds any signs of vanity and produces a performance of similar intensity to Black Swan (2010).

Write Noah Oppenheim smartly cushions this narrative within the one-week timeframe, from the death to the burial, with flashbacks to flesh out certain aspects. This means we never feel lost in the maze that is Kennedy conspiracy, nor do we ever feel unsure about where this story is going. A fate that can befall many a biography. The Kennedy family has been showing up in film, in one form or another, for decades. Jackie is one of the better insights into this beguiling family.

On the Maturity of Marvel with Logan

The Marvel behemoth produces many pieces of work that follow a familiar template in narrative, look and content. They are all family friendly and never too challenging. In the last month or so this model has been challenged itself by two texts that have separated themselves from the cinematic universe Marvel are creating while remaining under the Marvel umbrella, enjoying the budget freedoms that offers.

Legion on TV was eight episodes of pure joy. Created by Noah Hawley of Fargo (always the best thing on TV when it’s on), Legion was stylish and baffling and always enjoyable. The second is Logan, Hugh Jackman’s last time playing the X-Men hero Wolverine and the completion of the stand-alone Wolverine trilogy that has, unusually improved each time. Logan is a film bathed in a golden yellow, appropriate as it finds Wolverine in his autumn years; old, broken and tired of living.

Gone are the huge green screen action set pieces, replaced by America’s west. More than an action film, Logan borrows heavily from Western and road movie genre conventions, with Shane (1953) becoming an intertextual reference of Logan’s fate. It is a beautiful film to look at with the special effects it does use, being employed with subtlety rather than the usual overkill to disguise the lack of character. Instead, Logan is a character study and Jackman here pulls up the same kind of dilemmas we saw him capable of in Prisoners (2013).

The violence is questionable. Yes, this is the most accurate representation of the hurt that would be unleashed by a man with indestructible metal claws, but in certain moments it feels too much. Just because they have been allowed to be violent, does it mean they should push it as far as they can? It’s uncertain and the approach to violence walks a fine line. Either way, it makes this the most adult superhero film, or at least parallel with Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). And honestly, it makes it refreshing too. Too often Marvel films placate adult audiences in favour of box office.

In a moment that must be a first for a superhero film death is handled with incredible gentleness and is both saddening and joyful as we feel Logan’s wish to be released from it all. As he whispers, “so this is what it feels like”, decades of pain disappear. There is a slightly more conventional final third, but by the time his death comes around, we are so invested in his character that we can forgive the more clichéd aspects, such as the mutant kids combining their powers, or the young Logan appearing. Fortunately, both are used sparingly.

Logan is a dark and adult film. One that is even perhaps too adult for its 15 rating. It does after all deal with the abuse and death of children and the redemption of a man who has committed questionable acts for many years. Despite stepping away from the Marvel connectivity, Logan is still held back by the name and one feels that were this a film that had appeared from nowhere, with a character we did not know, it could have been an even more special piece of cinema.