THE PEANUTS MOVIE: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

It’s that classic tale of the little boy who’s the text-book walking-talking definition of a childhood neurotic who flicks between depressed and anxious whilst constantly becoming paralysed through his own over-analysis of any given situation. That’s right, it’s the perfect children’s movie about handling your thoughts, feelings and anxieties: it’s Inside Out oh wait, no it’s the other one: The Peanuts Movie, oh wait, they changed the name again for international audiences; it’s Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie!!

Yes, based on the classic ‘Peanuts’ tales that we all grew up on, the work of Charles M. Schulz has finally been realised on the big screen, providing you don’t include “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?”, “Charlie Brown’s All Stars!”, “A Charlie Brown Valentine”, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and every other made for TV movie that came before it. However, in the big screen debut, featuring cutting edge 3D animation, we find Charlie Brown looking for love, whilst Snoopy embarks on a mission to finally defeat “The Red Barron.”

Look, as far as a movie goes, The Peanuts Movie is not pushing the narrative up to cinematic levels so don’t expect any large domes to be dropped on top of Hennepin County or for the Devil and Saddam Hussein to be attacking James Street Elementary School. What you do get though is a simple story essentially wrapped in a series of Charlie Brown’s greatest hits. They’re not doing anything meta, they’re not throwing in lots of adult innuendo to keep the parents entertained, they’re not doing a gritty-reinterpretation of the characters (let’s face it, can you get any grittier than Pig Pen?), but what they are doing is relying heavily on nostalgia - and in this case, there’s nothing wrong with that. 

The animation itself is a good blend of 3D animation for the characters and the backdrops, whilst they use 2D sketches for the character’s mouths and some of their facial expressions which helps to keep the look and feel of Schulz original drawings. Occasionally they even bust out some of the original artwork to keep the visuals entertaining. But whilst staying true to the look of Charlie Brown, the characters remain true to who they have always been: Charlie Brown is still neurotic, Pig Pen is still filthy, Patty is still a tomboy, and Lucy is still expectant; at the end of the day these kids are all very complicated individuals but are still loveable and annoying in their own little ways. 

The film really does do what it says on the box: it gives you a fun, feel-good time with characters that you grew up with. The story is simplistic and this keeps it true to the original comic book strips, so that works from a nostalgic-perspective for the parents, whilst if you’re a kid who knows nothing about Peanuts, then this is the perfect entry-level way of getting them interested in Charlie Brown and his assortment of supporting characters. If you go in expecting a Peanuts story and not a movie then you should not leave disappointed. 

The Peanuts Movie, I mean, Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie gets Four out of Five feel-good Stars (so Snoopy’s name comes before Charlie Brown’s name even though it’s a Charlie Brown movie? Man this is Batman V Superman all over again!)   

FIREPLACE: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

From Netflix, the network that brought you House Of Cards, Orange Is The New Black and Daredevil comes a new short-run series that follows the perils of several blocks of wood as they fight against one of nature's oldest enemies: Fire. Fireplace 4K:Crackling Birchwood has astounded audiences so far with its unique depiction of fire versus wood but the big question on everybody's lips is, does Fireplace 4K burn up the small screen or is it failing to light a spark in audience's hearts.

The film itself is fairly simple, several pieces of wood gather together only to discover that they are part of a deadly and sadistic car and mouse game with one of their greatest mortal enemies, fire. Sure the narrative may be lacking in detail and specifics but watch in horror throughout the whole 1 hour and 4 minute runtime as the director, George Ford, the director behind Aquarium For Your Home and Mountain Stream, chooses to complete the entire film in one unflinching camera take. This approach harkens back to the work of Gasper Van Noe and his single unflinching take of Monica Bellucci's brutal rape scene in Irreversible. Another interesting aspect of the cinematography is the rich earthy lighting that gives off an amber glow that also echoes the lighting style of Gasper Van Noe's infamous rape scene. Was this the director's intention to film with such striking similarities, at this stage we're not entirely sure but you could be forgiven for making that assumption.

There is also the interesting choice of the soundtrack which seems to be exclusively Christmas music. It is certainly a bold choice and one can't help but wonder if director Shane Black had a hand in the scripting of the film considering the Christmas setting.

The ambiguity of the film certainly will leave the viewer with many questions: will the log to the left of screen survive considering its inability to control its current circumstances? Were the rumours of Don Cheadle's scenes being cut due to a dispute with the director true? Could we expect another shocking twist ending such as the Red Wedding scene from Game Of Thrones or is Netflix above that kind of sensationalist filmmaking? Does this fit with the Marvel Cinematic Universe already established by Daredevil and Jessica Jones and if so, will the fire come back as one of the major villains in The Defenders mini-series?

Of course Fireplace 4K hasn't been out even a week and the film already has its' imitators. Netflix applied the same template to another new show titled Oscillating Fan 4K that also using the single camera take approach and natural lighting. The one key artistic difference here is that the film works exclusively with ambient noise recorded on set. This is certainly a bold choice on the directors part to choose to push the narrative forward with only ambient noise and this should be celebrated but this doesn't make up for the fact that Oscillating Fan 4K is just a pale imitation by comparison.

Ultimately Fireplace 4K may not be to everybody's taste due to the fact that the lot is about as thin as Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, however sources do say that the script was originally completed during the writer's strike of 2007. If that is true then considering the film's high production values some of that money could have gone towards polishing some of the finer elements of the script. However only see this if you have a burning desire to watch art-house fire-porn. Will it be remembered like other great TV series such as The Wire and Breaking Bad? Only time will tell.

Fireplace 4K: Crackling Birchwood gets Three out of Five stars (or Three out of Five missed opportunities for a Don Cheadle cameo...)

THE GOOD DINOSAUR: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

It’s a harrowing tale of survival in one of the most dangerous and vicious terrains known to man, as a scared and callow young boy, having only recently witnessed the death of his father during a brutal flood, must find his way home with the aid of a feral and wild child of the forest. Oh yeah, and before I go any further, I should admit that this is a kids movie, made by Pixar.  

The Good Dinosaur is set in an alternate universe where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs missed the Earth and now dinosaurs have become farmers that live off the land. When young Arlo, a frightened and weak-willed Brachiosaurus, is separated from his family when he is washed away down the river, he must find his way home with the help of a young neanderthal boy. Along the way he meets an assortment of other colourful dinosaurs (which all seem to have weird Nebraska accents) and learns to face his fears as he bonds with an unlikely friend.

This is the second Pixar movie this year, and if that seems unusually frequent for the animation studio then that’s because this was originally supposed to be released back in the middle of 2014. However Pixar decided to scrap the release in favour of redoing the film from scratch, this meant firing the whole production team and starting again. Did this bold move pay off? For the most part, yes. 

Firstly, the animation is beautiful. The backgrounds and settings are truly amazing, it’s gorgeous to see water running off leaves or a swarm of birds taking off as young Arlo runs through them. The landscapes are photo-realistic, yet almost more beautiful than anything that we can see in nature, this is then mixed with colourful animated dinosaurs to make a unique looking animation that is different from previous Pixar efforts. The two main characters play off each other very well, however Arlo does become annoying from time to time. Spot, the silent part of the pairing, does well at articulating emotions in ways that only Pixar can.

The film’s storyline is fairly simple: little lost boy, or little lost Brachiosaurus, must find his way home and learn how to be brave. It’s easy enough to follow for kids, however it may be too simple for adults, which is unusual for a Pixar movie. This one seems to lack a lot of the nuances and clever catering to adults that we have in normal Pixar movies. The two main characters just seem to float in to other characters stories ever so briefly and then move on, there is no clear “big bad” nor are there any characters that really stick with you after they have left the screen. The narrative itself is very scattered and often lacks a sense of purpose. All of this could be because of the rewrites, but the animation certainly makes up for a lot of the films short comings.  

Overall, this is not the best of the Pixar movies and you can’t help but wonder what the original version of this film could have been like, however, even the weakest Pixar movie is better than most movies released today. 

The Good Dinosaur gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five eye-wateringly beautiful shots of rain running of prehistoric leaves)

THE NIGHT BEFORE: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

Christmas movies; what monotonous, repetitive, cliched pieces of shit that, nine out of ten times is cynically churned out by studios to capitalise on the small portion of people who want to be reminded of the Christmas spirit that is already attacking them from every angle from November first through until Christmas Day itself.  It almost makes you want to get drunk and take drugs instead of watching Christmas movies, thankfully man-child stoner Seth Rogen has at least produced a movie that doesn’t require you to drink and take drugs because it’s already up there on screen.

The Night Before is the latest Seth Rogen vehicle where he, Anthony Mackie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are life-long friends who are having one last hoorah during their annual evening of debauchery on Christmas Eve as they make their way to the clandestine Nutcracka Ball, the Christmas party to end all Christmas parties. Like any Seth Rogen fare, the story is about bros learning to grow up and adjust to being adults while taking copious amounts of drugs and referencing that fact that he’s Jewish as often as possible.

The film itself has a lot going for it: it’s incredibly funny, the key cast have great chemistry and there are lots of references to things you loved from the early 90’s including Micro Machines, Nintendo 64’s Goldeneye and Home Alone. As a man in his mid-30’s Rogen certainly knows how to appeal to my inner-child. Another great strength, like all of Rogen’s films,is that he really has a knack for creating genuine and authentic feeling relationships and concerns for his key characters. The characters are always able to articulate thoughts and feelings we’ve all had at one point or another, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Another great addition to the film is the inclusion of Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Shannon as Mr. Green, a super-creepy drug dealer and spiritual mentor to the trio in a weed-dealing version of the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future. 

However, for all the positives, it’s hard to deny that there is nothing surprising or new in this latest adventure. Sure it is funny, it’s filled with lots of dirty and guilty jokes, but almost all of the story elements are predictable and repetitive due to the film being so reliant on the “Rogen Template.” You know the template I’m talking about: drugs, bros do stupid stuff,  Rogen’s buddy cameos, butt-stuff, more drugs, bros fight, and of course the random cameo of a musician or sports star who is referenced earlier in the film during a throwaway line only to appear in the third act to offer sage-like advice to our heroes. As I said, it is funny, but you pretty much see every story beat coming before it happens, so it kind of takes the impact out of the comedy. 

When you look back at Rogen’s career, he’s been doing the whole man-child attempting to grow up and take adult responsibilities for the last ten years. The Night Before is certainly an improvement on last year’s The Interview, but some of the same complaints are still there, his routine is starting to become too routine. One can’t help but wonder how many movies he has left in him doing this schtick before he hits Adam Sandler level of repetition.          

At the end of the day, there’s only a small handful of good Christmas movies: It’s A Wonderful Life, Die Hard and Bad Santa; the rest are just awful. Now we have another Christmas movie that fits in that small handful, it’s certainly not as good as Die Hard but it doesn’t fit in the awful pile. 

The Night Before gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five weed-dealing creepy dudes giving you advice you don’t need - and just for the record: that’s not me)

STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

Jar Jar Binks, Jake Lloyd and Midichlorians. These are all things that ruined many fully grown men’s childhood memories of a film series about incest, genocide and a super dysfunctional father-son relationship that’s actually not Game Of Thrones. Star Wars The Force Awakens is arguably the most anticipated movie of the last 30 years and when the driving force behind the series revival is nostalgia for the original trilogy, will this new film live up to the astronomical expectations that many people have built up in their heads?

Ok, look, the honest truth is I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan. I was born two years after A New Hope and I was too young to remember seeing Return Of The Jedi in the cinema.  So I didn’t really get the chance to fully digest the original trilogy properly until my early teens. In hindsight, I think they only ever made two good Star Wars films, Jedi was the start of everything getting silly and slap-sticky, whilst the prequels only appear to get better because they are only slight improvements on the cinematic definition for disappointment that is The Phantom Menace.   

Of course, when reviewing the Star Wars Saga there are two approaches: 1) Overlook the things you would normally criticise other films for because it’s Star Wars, or 2) Over-criticise elements of the film you would normally overlook in other movies because it’s Star Wars. So for full-disclosure, I’m not going in to reviewing The Force Awakens with rose-tinted nostalgia glasses that many fans do. So let’s get to it: how does J.J. Abrams journey into a galaxy far far away hold up to the original trilogy and the prequels?

Everything that is old is new again. Abrams has found a way to keep the core elements of Star Wars, that were missing from the prequels, there for everyone to enjoy, but has added new characters that fit perfectly in this world. As a matter of fact, it’s the new characters of the franchise that are probably the most exciting, sure it’s great to see Han and Chewy and Liea and eventually Luke, but it’s the new cast member that really keep your attention once you get past the nostalgia-factor. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega bounce effortlessly off one another, whilst some other characters screen time may be short lived, such as Oscar Isaac and Andy Serkis, they are clearly being set up for bigger roles in future films. But it is Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren who really does steal the show in my opinion, he has all the markings of a villain like Darth Vader, but there’s an emotional range to his character that we haven’t seen in other Star Wars movies, as a matter of fact, that’s one of this film’s strongest points: all characters, old and new have an emotional core that isn’t cringe-worthy like in the prequels or for the most part missing from the original trilogy.

One really surprising thing about the film is how funny it is. You are going to laugh, like a lot in this film, there are so many funny moments that are natural and don’t feel forced that all the humour really hits their marks effortlessly. There is probably only one unintentionally funny scene in the film when one of the villains makes a speech which is so over the top that you can see the tears forming in his eyes as he overacts his way to laughing-gold.

We have all the traditional Star Wars wipes, musical cues and opening crawl to help keep things familiar but one of the great things that Abrams has done is the camera work: we get nice long takes where the camera moves in and out of these practical environments as they follow characters and there’s also an incredible amount of depth in every shot that doesn’t look like two dudes walking around in front of a green screen. The mixture of practical effects and CGI blends in a way where one never over powers the other and it reminds you where Lucas’ prequels went wrong.

As great as the film is there are some elements that don’t always work. We have plot holes all over the shop, whilst there are story threads that are introduced and then kind of forgotten about. Characters, both new and old, constantly seem to be talking in expositional foreshadowing to the point that you can pretty much predict where a characters storyline is going within their first two scenes. Some interesting cast member are introduced and then underused, if not used at all, seriously if you were holding your breath to see the cast of The Raid in action, I’d maybe lower your expectations with respects to that.

Honestly, I think it is really really good. It’s not perfect, but it is really good. Fans of the original trilogy will feel more than satisfied with the way J.J. Abrams has littered the film with references and Easter eggs to Episodes 4 - 6, however if you’re a fan and you’re looking for something more, you are going to have to be reliant on the new characters of the series because ultimately, The Force Awakens trends too much familiar ground from A New Hope to feel completely fresh. If I had one criticism, it would be that Abrams was too much of a slave to the original series.

Star Wars The Force Awakens gets Four out of Five Stars (or Four out of Five middle-age men sobbing uncontrollably in the aisle) 

BY THE SEA: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

 
It’s Brad Pitt! It’s Angelina Jolie! It’s... f*cking boring! Yes, that’s right: Brad Pitt, one of the most versatile and coolest actors of the last two decades and Angelina Jolie, who... is I guess just famous for being Angelina Jolie, team up for the first time since Mr & Mrs Smith for this naval-gazing pretentious piece of sh*t also known as By The Sea.

Set in the 1970’s, we find Brad Pitt playing a struggling writer who travels with his wife, Angelina Jolie, to a sleepy sea-side town in France where he hopes to find inspiration. However one of the biggest issues for Pitt is that whilst bereft of inspiration, he is also struggling to keep his marriage together as he and Jolie stare silently at one another for the majority of the 2 hour and 12 minute run-time.

Written and directed by Jolie, it seems that she herself struggles with Brad Pitt’s characters problem of trying to write something good or worthwhile. The dialogue is some of the most shocking I’ve heard in a long time and if dialogue is not your thing then you’re in luck because we have lots of scenes where the characters brush their teeth, sit on a bed and do nothing, stare at the beach and say nothing, or just stare out a window and look at the ocean.

The film itself is trying to capture the look and feel of the New Wave French Cinema from the 60’s and with it’s muted colours and beautiful backdrops that’s almost enough. Except it’s not. The film lives almost exclusively in a single hotel room, with the exception of the occasional moment on the beach or at the bar, and you know what, many films have managed to pull off a single location narrative before very well, this film does not.

Now look, if you are going to have two of the biggest actors in the world sit in a hotel room for over two hours then you need to have a compelling reason for the audience to sit there in the cinema and watch this. And this is one of the key things this film has completely forgotten to do. I saw two separate people get up and walk out of the screening I was in within the first 40 minutes of the film, and there were only four people in the cinema! You know your film is poorly planned if you can’t engage with over half your audience in the first 40 minutes, so in the future, Jolie should seriously consider getting someone else to write her scripts.

Overly long with no pay off, this return of the Hollywood power couple will only interest the most dedicated voyeurs who get off on watching Brad Pitt brush his teeth and Angelina Jolie sit in a bath for two hours. I know people joke that they would gladly watch Angelina Jolie in the bath or Brad Pitt brush his teeth for two hours, but the reality is really, really f*cking boring.

By The Sea gets no stars (just a really long list of all the venereal diseases I would rather have than watch this movie again)