Because I spent so much time writing about Oscars, I forgot to do my round up of films in February. It’s probably a bit repetitive with the Oscar posts as most films were related to awards, but for completeness I thought I’d better still make the post.

NEW RELEASES
Green Book
I’m a bit unsure about this film. On one hand, it’s a nice film about the development of an unlikely relationship with a lot of laughs and smiles along the way and I really quite enjoyed it. The central performances are all big and the characters are complex and interesting. However, I was also uncomfortable that this was a film about racism, bigotry and systematised hatred and oppression; and if that film is ‘nice’ it’s probably missing something. Not every film has to be hard hitting and challenging, but this one just made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because it’s being award nominated and is another of those films that if it had been released in May or October, I wouldn’t be so critical towards.

The Wife
I never quite made it to the cinema to see this film, so rented it from Amazon as part of an award nominations blitz. I’d been intrigued from early on about the ‘mystery’ of the film, but was slightly disappointed to realise that it was fundamentally exactly what you think it is. The overall plot and writing was in fact a bit clunky throughout, I think the flashbacks rather over-egged the pudding and I wonder if there was a more elegant solution to those. However, for all the lack of subtlety in the overall structure of the film, Glenn Close’s performance is absolutely mesmerizing. She sold the emotions, conflicts and contentedness of her character in ways that were beyond the script (somehow) and brought an otherwise middling film to life.

NEW TO ME
BlacKkKlansman
I struggle with this film. At it’s heart is a story that is completely ridiculous, and yet is apparently true. In the 1970’s the first black cop in Colorado Springs, persuades his department to launch an extensive investigation into the KKK. He does this by joining the KKK, with himself playing the member on the phone, and a white (Jewish) colleague playing the member in person. I mean, why does the white cop not just talk on the phone too? That central question bugged me the whole way through the film. It also bugged me that it seemed to be presenting itself as a dark comedy, but wasn’t really funny enough, and I’m not entirely sure it was dark enough either – the ineptness of this branch of the KKK seemed to undermine the horrors they committed. And then, the film ends with news footage of horrible events in present day America which just didn’t feel appropriate with the light tone the film ended on. It felt like finger wagging, when the rest of the film had done very little to actually educate or elevate the discussion.

REWATCHES
Roma – I’ve watched this film twice now. On first watch I was incredibly unimpressed with it, but the amount of critical praise and number of awards it was getting made me think I may have missed something. On second watch, looking for the things that people had praised, I could see that I had been overly harsh on the film. I could see the beauty in the cinematography, and I was certainly more appreciative of the acting, particularly from absolute new comer Yalitza Aparicio. However, I still feel, there is just not enough meat in the film. All the characters and relationships are quite straightforward and there’s very little attempt to develop them. Everything feels very surface, no attempt to share the backstory of either characters or history, it’s just a sequence of things that happen. On first watch I was completely bored, on second watch I was a bit more engaged, but already, less than 10 minutes after finishing watching, it’s fading from my memory. I’ll raise my review from “awful” to “fine”, but it’s nothing more than that.

X-Men: Days of Future Past – After the disappointment of X-Men First Class, I was happy to see the original cast back for this installment, even if they were accompanied by the younger generation who I’d felt just didn’t have the heft that the Sirs Stewart and McKellan and the Mighty Jackman brought to the franchise. As it turns out, either the older generation’s support, or the much improved supporting cast raised everyone’s game a notch and the whole gigantic cast all came together to form a rather glorious whole. The time travel plot was a little of a bodge, but hung together pretty well, with just enough bouncing back and forth and interweaving that I never found myself frustrated to be in one time or the other.
It did what superhero films at their best have always done, partner the brutality of the metaphor with a sense of fun and awareness. The characters acknowledge their ridiculous situations and the fact that (for the most part) their powers don’t actually help them know what they should do, they just provide additional, spectacular, options. The film mixed character, action and plot very neatly, and I was never once bored. In fact my only complaint would be that I wanted even more – more characters, more interactions, more action and more jokes. After the disappointments of First Class and The Wolverine, the series is back on track, I’m sure the fact that it’s Bryan Singer back writing and directing is absolutely no coincidence.

The Secret Life of Pets – From the studio that brought you Despicable Me… and it’s just not that good I’m afraid. It has some really great observational bits about pets, really capturing dogs and cats as animals while still anthropomorphising them for the story. The attitudes and actions are perfectly captured. Unfortunately the story just isn’t anything special. Actually, it was something special when it was done in Toy Story, but fundamentally the whole pitch of Secret Life of Pets is to retell Toy Story with pets not toys. It just wasn’t original enough to hold the attention. BUT the pet stuff did make me laugh the whole way through, so it’s still fun to watch.

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House – I don’t think this is the best of Cary Grant’s films, he seems to be a little on auto-pilot at times, playing the tired, down-trodden city man with a dream a little too tired. It’s missing the aspect of barely controlled mania that he brings to some other roles, I kept waiting for the explosion. The dryness of his best friend and wife make up for it though, the snide background remarks are wonderful. I also loved the opening scene, watching the busy family try to live in the tiny space on top of each other, it’s comfortably familiar and hilariously well observed. I do still prefer the re-imagined version in The Money Pit though.

East is East – Another great film from Film Four looking at a subject that really wouldn’t make the cut in Hollywood. It’s great fun, but also really challenging in its subject matter, a challenging but charming look at family life across cultures.