Films to See 3# Led Zeppelin's Celebration Day

Celebration day is the concert film of Led Zeppelin’s two hour set at the 02 back in 2007. The Gods of Rock have so little footage of them in their 70s prime that they don’t release films, unlike the Rolling Stones who seem to release a new documentary every year these days.  Zeppelin’s reputation was built on their live performance. Their songs would sound different every night and to call them the greatest live act is no stretch once you’ve heard the live album, How The West Was Won. They toured more than anyone and so it’s only fair we get another concert film from them after the brilliant The Song Remains the Same.

 Though named after one of their least inventive tracks, though it features a great Jimmy Page solo, it is a triumph. They play a set featuring many of their most well-known tracks though there is no acoustic section like there was in the mid-70s when their set would stretch well into its third hour. The playing is consistent particularly Jason Bonham and Page whose guitar playing became sloppier in the late 70s due to a heroin addiction.  Good Times Bad Times is a little flat, though the opening chord strikes are a brilliant introduction to those unfamiliar with the Hammer of the Gods. Ramble On really gets things going, its hypnotic rhythm demonstrating the light and shade of their music showcasing Plant. His voice as iconic as the riffs, bringing conviction to Black Dog’s lyrics which would be fake and verge on parody in any other vocalist’s hands. Plant’s best is in Since I’ve Been Loving You.

There is a heavy version of Trampled Underfoot that is by far the best performance of that song. They nailed For Your Life from the Presence album, one of many underrated Zep tunes that they never played live. There are too many songs to name that they could have played; Over the Hills, Ten Years Gone, Communication Breakdown, Tangerine, Immigrant Song etc. The song everyone expected, Stairway to Heaven, is actually the worst one of the night; the guitar is too heavy with feedback running through it.

 Kashmir is the perfect closer with all four giving everything, which finalises why they are better than the Stones (who arrogantly refer to themselves as “the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band”); because there music transcends all genres. And still they reward us with a couple encores; a brutal rendition of Whole Lotta Love a song they seem to never get wrong and the best of the night. Rock and Roll which has very relevant lyrics as the screen behind displays shots from their 70’s heyday; a time of real music and not random electronic beats or when the fashion of the artist is more important than the songs, when songs could be longer than four minutes.

 Dick Carruthers’ cinematography is fine; there are some cheap tricks such as images going in and out of focus during quieter sections. His finest contribution is at the start where a TV report of them from the 70s plays to the hush of the crowd as the credits roll like the calm before the storm. There are memorable shots such as a low angle shot of Page silhouetted by a stage light, close ups of Plant, or the dolly shots revolving around Jones on keyboard during Trampled. There are occasionally grainy, letterboxed shots; shot from the audiences’ POV they make you feel like you’re there.

Celebration Day is a rare glimpse of Led Zeppelin’s legendary shows and probably the last. It is also an advertisement to other generations to see how great they were and still are. You can see the range of their music from delta blues to stomping funk to Arab march through country and psychedelia.  Forget Crossfire Hurricane, we all know who really is the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band.

*****

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Films not to see# Drive

 Drive clearly has a taken its aesthetic from the Grand Theft Auto games (not to mention Scarface), particularly noticeable in the 80s synth soundtrack and slick, pink font of the opening credits recalling GTA Vice City. With its near mute, criminal protagonist who harbours a strong violent streak and its gory displays of arterial violence it owes a lot of its style to the popular video game series. It features a lightweight romantic subplot that relies heavily on the facial acting of its two leads; Ryan Gosling and an unexceptional Carey Mulligan. Perhaps though there is no real issue with the actors but the script or the director. The film has its own style particularly in the long passages without any dialogue from the stoic leading man. However this is where the film collapses in this very heavy style in which Gosling’s brooding silence becomes forced and Gosling can’t carry it off, lacking the natural conviction of a ‘Clint Eastwood’ glint. These strange exchanges with the professional getaway driver and part time stunt man are a glaring stilt to the many non- Driving moments; in fact there are just two car chases in this film and both occur in the first act. Both are impressive and Refn’s habit of shooting from the car interior gives the film a very Bullitt feel. But Refn’s film descends into a bloody gangland tale full of Tarantino-esque cartoon violence as the CGI blood begins to splatter left, right and centre the film’s gritty atmosphere is very quickly lost before the halfway mark. It’s a case of being too long, too little drive, too much stylization and too many attempts to give the film a unique style; basically this ain’t no Fight Club, no Matrix and it certainly is not Bullitt!

 With its near mute, criminal protagonist who harbours a strong violent streak and its gory displays of arterial violence it owes a lot of its style to the popular video game series. It features a lightweight romantic subplot that relies heavily on an unexceptional Carey Mulligan. The film collapses in this very heavy style in which Gosling’s brooding silence becomes forced and Gosling can’t carry it off, lacking the natural conviction of a ‘Clint Eastwood’ glint. These strange exchanges are a glaring stilt to the many non- Driving moments; in fact there are just two car chases in this film and both occur in the first act. Refn’s film descends into a bloody gangland tale full of Tarantino-esque cartoon violence as the CGI blood begins to splatter left, right and centre the film’s gritty atmosphere is very quickly lost before the halfway mark. It’s a case of being too long, too little drive, too much stylization and too many attempts to give the film a unique style; basically this ain’t no Fight Club, no Matrix and it certainly is not Bullitt!

**

Films to See #2 Take Shelter

Jeff Nichols has created an enthralling and surreal drama as we follow Michael Shannon’s drill operator and family man who begins to experience lucid dreams of an incoming storm. As his visions grow more disturbing with rabid dogs, a car crash and zero gravity furniture he becomes more distant from his wife and everyone around him. It is a film about the unpredictable and the innate safety of contemporary society and general assumption that the unexpected does not ever happen. The film shares many qualities with Nichol’s debut feature, Shotgun Stories, in that it revolves around family turmoil in a rural town with bouts of violence and also starred Michael Shannon.

A major theme is the breakdown of communication as Michael Shannon increasingly becomes more closed off, interacting less and less with his wife who already does not have many people she can talk to as she balances with her deaf daughter. As her husband becomes more erratic every time she leaves the house to attend a morning yard sale; digging up a large hole in the back garden to place a large shipping container inside and constructing a dog house with barbed wire for their house trained dog.

The journey of Shannon’s Curtis as he becomes more emotionally and mentally detached from his wife and his fellow workers is executed with subtlety as he becomes more irrational; which is credit to Nichol’s superb script as his behaviour. While some will find it slow moving, I found the pace to be even with Curtis’ isolation from his wife even though his intentions are noble and he has a family history of mental disorder. We are guided through his slow decline as the people around him begin to take notice of his detachment; such as his boss, his brother Kyle, his work friend, Dewart and his wife who he shuts out the most.

 Jessica Chastain’s Samantha, Curtis’ wife, is the second most important role in the film. As we follow Curtis through his visually arresting nightmares, we watch how Samantha is forced to come to terms with her husbands’ strange behaviour; and we are left feeling sympathy for both Curtis and Samantha. A strong motif is the strength of the household and importance of family. The loyalty and patience of Samantha are tested as Curtis changes their priorities and spends their savings in preparation for a supposedly apocalyptic event in which no one is safe.

A strong dramatic piece, which includes a brilliant monologue scene at a company dinner, Shannon’s family man begins to crack up under the hallucinations of an inbound cloud of tornados or maybe just an inevitable, genetically related mental breakdown; his mother is living in a home after her own breakdown around Curtis’s age.  The effects are stunning and a stark contrast to the summery, bustling tree lined driveways of a small Ohio town.  Shots of a swarm of swirling birds, clusters of lighting arterially scorching a black sky and the looming storm cloud itself are all very biblical and grand imagery in this fatalistic tale.

It soon becomes difficult to discern what is actually happening and what Curtis is envisioning. However you begin to wonder as the film goes on whether Curtis’ prediction is correct. It is a thrilling narrative device as we wonder whether it is the onset of a mental illness or really a Nostradamus-esque gift that will result in a devastating mega storm. Secretly wishing it’s the latter for the climax and so Curtis can finally prove everyone wrong; the film will keep you guessing until the very end though.

This is worth watching for Michael Shannon’s captivating performance but has also revealed a promising talent in writer- director Jeff Nichols for his stunning, supernatural storytelling as well as keeping the film away from the melodrama that it could quite easily become.  It is the gradual breakdown as Curtis goes behind his wife and his over pre-caution rather than any overt display that makes this a brilliant character study. It is also this subtle character arc that keeps the tension and mystery of the film going with a question; is he suffering a mental breakdown or is there really going to be a storm?

****

Films to See 1# Miss Bala Review

A cross between Miss Congeniality and City of God, Miss Bala is a Mexican film about a young woman trying to become a beauty contest queen of her state whilst being used by a dangerous Mexican drug gang called La Estrella. However the connection to the 2002 Brazillian classic is that they are both set in South America and revolve around the drug trade and the brutal gang wars that surround that business.  Miss Bala has its own style, effectively the film is a series of long takes, perhaps the complete opposite of City of God’s quick cutting style. Gerardo Naranjo’s camera lingers on our central character, Laura Guerrero, as she goes deeper into the dangerous day to day missions of a trigger happy gang of Mexican drug smugglers who disturbingly operate similar to the police with their walkie talkies and standard procedures for losing the cops. They are even armed in similar weaponry and body armour of the police who come across in the film like soldiers fighting a war

 The long takes will begin to test your patience after a while but they do provide some taut sequences as Laura gets caught in the middle of gun battles with rival gang bosses and even members of the army. One of the best elements of director Gerardo Naranjo’s long takes is in the sound; the noise of a car revving up, gang foot soldiers handing out orders, rapping at a door make you almost jolt particularly when the shootings begin and Laura is forced to duck and cover while bullets decimate the objects around her; these are the moments when the extended shots are used best.

 The lack of characterization means we don’t follow Laura as deeply as we could do, while the leering and unpredictable gang lord Lino is also a bit underwritten as his intentions for Laura aren’t ever quite clear. Laura’s futile quest to discover what happened to her friend who she can’t find after a terrifying nightclub massacre is also a bit unconvincing.

 As Laura progresses through the beauty pageant and in drug trafficking as a ‘mule’ we see the stark contrasts of one world of lavish, glitz and glamour as Laura is bathed in bright white lights at her catwalk ceremonies while the other is one of living in and out of hum Vs, being held hostage by the heavily armed gang; even in her own home.

 On the whole the film is a suspenseful thriller as Laura is given random instructions, constantly wondering what is next in store for her. The long takes help us empathise with Laura’s mental and physical state, as over the course of a few days she is dragged deeper into the gang’s issues. We feel her exhaustion as she balances a schedule from being under intense fire from police convoys to getting glammed up and shoved onto a catwalk. In one of the film’s best moments, Laura is unable to smile and breaks down during her crucial question and answer stage of the contest as only an hour before she was surrounded by flying bullet, burning cars and dying gang members.

 Probably not the strongest candidate for the Best Foreign Language Oscar entry, but it is worthy of nomination for its audacious plot, taut sequences and a general air of dread, unsure of what cruel and disturbing form of violence might occur next.

First Blog- review of the Scary Shorts @ Mayhem Horror Film festival

In my first post here is a review for Impact magazine about the Scary Shorts showcase of new horror talents at Mayhem Horror festival.

 Considered the highlight of the Mayhem Horror Film Festival, Scary Shorts exhibits some of the most creative and inventive horror talents around. The one that sticks in the mind is the last one; Cargols! (Snails in Spanish). A comic horror short about a bunch of Spanish adolescents who are attacked one night by a giant snail and a boy must save his ex from the slime attack in Scott Pilgrim style heroics. Funny and charming was also O Risco, a short film about a line drawn in chalk on the street that if you cross blows your head up. Short and sweet at 2 minutes and very funny it was my favourite. Him Indoors is also funny horror where The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith plays a loner with a penchant for murder and going outdoors.

 The longest short, Familiar has a good concept about alter-egos and a subtle cancer metaphor, but once again proves why length is an issue and the ending is anti-climactic. The horror shorts I saw were good at keeping a good length and all had engrossing plot and characters. When I watched some short film showcase for London Film Schools in the BFi London Film Festival a month ago, they all looked good but weren’t as original in story as these shorts and tended to be too long. The scariest however is The Captured Bird which while not having the best child actor, did build tremendous atmosphere and scary creations towards the end.  The best effects are in Loom where the incredible FX bring to life a visceral battle between a spider and it’s prey.  While the worst was Ethereal Chrysalis which was so bad it was almost becoming good; it’s a ten minute tale of guy in a badly green screened hell. The climax is a face off between a flying disembodied head and a crab that has emerged from a painting. Strange.

 The showcase was an enjoyable and entertaining experience and I can clearly see why it’s the highlight of Mayhem.