Hunt For The Wilderpeople
2016 – New Zealand
Director: Taika Waititi
Starring: Julian Denninson, Sam Neill, Rachel House, Ocscar Kightley
Words: R. Topham
Taika Waititi’s latest frivolous endeavour stars new found gem Julian Dennison as problem child Ricky, whose difficult upbringing in the city forged a passion for hip-hop and aversion to the prospect of family life, whereas his foster ‘uncle’ Hec (Sam Neill) would pick sleeping on the cold hard ground of the forest over the luxuries of modern life all day, every day. Things go from circumstantially awkward to downright primal when Hec’s wife Bella dies suddenly, Ricky forges a master plan to fake his own death in a fire but instead just burns down a shed and flees into the surrounding woodland, causing Hec to follow him because, ‘heck’, why not abandon the comfort of your home to be a primitive nomad for a few months?
Much of the comedic value lies in Ricky and Hec’s hostile relationship, which is underpinned by their shared sense of loneliness, cynicism, and unwillingness to trust others, but the nutty social services rep (Rachel House) and her bumbling stooge Andy (Oscar Kightley) are live-action caricatures, and just the right amount of satirically deranged. And with a steady zoom into a dishevelled Hec stood stoically among the shrubbery, the death of an innocent dog, somewhat inept agents of the local authority chasing the missing pair, the dry humour, and the countryside setting itself, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the modern day, transgenerational, all-male version of Wes Anderson’s pre-teen love-fest, Moonrise Kingdom.
Waititi may have used up his best of serving of deadpan charm in What We Do in the Shadows, but saved some “magestical” treats for his Wilderpeople, and knows when to stop the buffoonery for ample tenderness. Largely due to Julian Dennison’s phenomenal comedic timing and wry delivery, this quietly hilarious backpacking bromance is a welcome change from the homogeneity of ‘comedies’ Hollywood churns out every year.
Must See Movies: October
At Reel Steel we want to make sure you’re getting the most of your cinematic enthusiasm, so each month we put together our short list of some of the best new releases, from popcorn munching explosion fests to the often weird and wonderful.
Take a look at the trailers below and see what you think to this month’s recommendations!
American Honey
released Friday October 14th, 2016
A young woman from a troubled background joins a traveling magazine sales crew as they journey across the American midwest.
Finding her place within this group and in society, this is a character driven film that’s part road movie and part coming-of-age drama like nothing you’ll have ever seen before.
I, Daniel Blake
released Friday October 21st, 2016
Daniel Blake has worked as a carpenter most of his life in the north of England – then following an illness he finds himself needing state welfare for the first time in his life.
It’s during this that he crosses paths with single mother Katie and her two young children, together they find themselves caught up in the welfare bureaucracy of modern-day Britain.
This new film from Ken Loach brings his unmistakable commentary of the state we live in today.
Dr Strange
released Friday October 28th, 2016
When an accident leaves a surgeon unable to perform operations, he finds himself on a journey where he learns that there’s not only more to this reality than he could have ever imagined, but that his destiny may be in protecting the planet from supernatural enemies.
Here we have Benedict Cumberbatch as one of the lesser known Marvel heroes, in the final comic book superhero movie of a year which has seen highs and lows in this ever expanding genre, from Deadpool to X-Men, Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad.
A special mention for two documentaries with screenings this month
My Scientology Movie
Louis Theroux takes on the Church of Scientology in this feature-length documentary
Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World
a look at the digital and connected world by documentary master Werner Herzog
Captain Fantastic
2016 – USA
Director: Matt Ross
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, George MacKay, Kathryn Hahn, Frank Langella
Words: R. Topham
Let’s not sugarcoat this – Captain Fantastic sounds like a coming-of-age comic book hero who’s still growing into his suit and hasn’t had his first kiss yet. Alas, Viggo Mortensen is no caped crusader in his latest drama, but he is an anti-establishment hero in this wonderfully weird gem that’s equal parts heartbreaking and silly.
Mortensen’s titular Captain is Ben Cash, who is raising his six children with wife Leslie in the idyllic tranquility of the forest. The kids have oddball names like Bodevan and Kielyr, can speak five languages, are all mad about Noam Chomsky, celebrating the philosopher’s birthday as if he were a member of the family, and were brought up reading the classics of Middlemarch around a campfire while their dad plays an acoustic guitar softly in the background. They’re kind of an extended, feral version of the Tenenbaums with an esoteric understanding of everything from quantum physics to the birds and the bees. Their rigorous fitness regime and survival training also means they have the cardiovascular systems of elite athletes, a credential Ben considers a remarkable accomplishment for his nonconformist brood.
When the family are confronted with tragedy, and their only option is to leave the solace of their rural paradise and enter into the freakish realm of the ‘real world’, they are torn apart and brought closer at the same time. Mortensen executes the charisma of a compassionate yet concerned father who is also his children’s educator, confidante and friend, with particular dexterity for sticking it to the man. Kudos are also due to director Matt Ross for his flair for diplomacy in dealing with sensitive issues such as parental responsibility and mental health, which couldn’t be further from his role as Luis Carruthers in American Psycho.
Yes, Captain Fantastic is another emotional rollercoaster rooted in the philosophy of virtue, but its defining feature is in the multifaceted nature of child rearing, and the Cash children’s abhorrence of modern materialism. The eldest of the Cash clan, Bodevan, experiences possibly the most painfully cringey romantic endeavour of any film this century, but he continues to respect the decency of life nonetheless. And depending on your standpoint, the influence of Ben’s aversion to the toxicity of mainstream society on the meticulous control of his children’s every move is either a heroic defiance or a familial dictatorship.
Blair Witch
2016 – USA
Director: Adam Wingard
Starring: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry
Words: C. Abbott
Upon the release of The Blair Witch Project back in 1999, audiences were taken aback by the films unique film-making style and a grounded sense of terror. Looking back the film itself has become something of a self-parody, yet many forget just how terrifying and intriguing the original was. The so-called ‘found footage’ sub-genre is now a banal familiarity of Hollywood, but 15 years ago it was a real change of pace for a genre that had become all too stale. This combined with the truly inspired concept of using viral marketing to promote and deceive audiences into believing the events were actually real, made the original a horror icon, and an enduring milestone.
Just over a year later a sequel was produced which is without any form of merit, something the new Blair Witch seems to agree on. Cynically or realistically the ‘found footage’ concept of the first film was a mere gimmick, a gimmick which returns here. Yet as stated, it is nothing new or surprising to modern desensitised audiences, so the twist this time appears to have been the production itself. Shot in secret under the title ‘The Woods’, it was only revealed to be a true sequel merely months prior to release. Looking at the current box office may shine some light of how successful that idea has turned out to be. Yet, the excitement was real, directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, this is a duo with a proven track record of genre bending entertainment, namely The Guest and You’re Next. With this turbulent history in mind, the results had to be at least interesting.
There is an overwhelming feeling of familiarity from the very get-go, we’re introduced to the younger brother of Heather, the protagonist of the original, compelled to journey into the woods to understand what happened to her. He is joined by his student filmmaker friends and is led by a couple whose curiosity into the rumours surrounding the events of the first film seems questionable at best. Things are different this time; they enter prepared, all the tech and emergency equipment: walkie-talkies, flashlights, food and water, first aid and even a drone. The set up works, it may not be new ground, more like cementing itself into the old but the rationale and reasoning is sound. The characters are generic enough to pass and the acting is good enough for the screaming, it’s safe but fair.
And then it’s: Business. As. Usual.
The usual gut punch of pain and confusion sweeps over our guinea pigs and it’s jump scare after jump scare until migraine, followed promptly by death. If you’ve seen the events of the original you’ll be able to predict beat for beat what will happen here. Yet, despite it all, it works. The feeling of hopelessness and futility compounds the frame until you beg for the sweet mercy of the credits. This seems to derive from how the film has viewed the original. All the theories and explanations have been ignored for one, and to sum it up succinctly: Magic is real. This will no doubt annoy many of the fans whose true enjoyment comes from the rich lore of the film rather than the film itself, this is understandable, but in this case it worked here.
Blair Witch is riddled with crippling issues, characterisation is poor, originality is lacking and the knowledge that Wingard/Barrett can do better hurts what is otherwise a sequel that will scare and entertain. What can be taken away from this is that the original film was a lightning in a bottle success and attempts to emulate it are pointless. Despite it all this is worth the money for admission. What it adds to the mythos (or takes away depending on your viewpoint) is entertaining in its own right. It does what you’d expect and it does it well, sometimes that’s enough. But it will be a long time before we’ll be heading back into those woods…
The Magnificent Seven
2016 – USA
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett
Words: S. Nix
Southpaw director Antoine Fuqua was a bit apprehensive about taking on this job and rightly so; 1960’s The Magnificent Seven is widely regarded as one of the untouchable greats of its genre.
A westernised take on Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 masterpiece Seven Samurai, Magnificent told the story of seven gunslingers hired to defend a town from bandits.
2016’s remake brings a suitably multi-ethnic posse to the big screen that have some similarities to their 1960 counterparts but are their own men, with their own stories and characters. The enemy this time around isn’t raiding bandits but a greedy, corrupt and bullying industrialist by the name of Bogue (Sarsgaard). After the people of Rose Creek are terrorised by Bogue, they turn to Sam Chisolm (Washington) for help in defending their land. Chisolm, in turn, recruits a merry band of badass misfits to lend their singularly deadly talents to his cause. Cue plenty of action of the rootinest, tootinest and shootinest variety.
It’s all here: the slick hammer-fanning, the Bible quotations, the oozing machismo and the borderline alcoholism. Yes, Magnificent Seven has all the hallmarks of a classic Western, folks. Its slightly ostentatious and cheesy aesthetic may make some members of the audience yawn, turn up their noses and wish they were at home cuddled up in front of their Revenant blu-ray but the rest of them will guzzle the hackneyed set pieces and corny one-liners like whiskey from a hipflask.
I unashamedly fell into the latter category – only because this film packs actual charm and good old-fashioned story-telling with modern effects. It avoids being kitsch through its not pretending that the Old West in 1879 was a utopia of multi-cultural acceptance and dialling the grit and gore up to safe 12A-rated levels, striking a nice balance for a remake of a much-loved classic. I think its message of standing up to bullying and acts of terrorism is one we can all get behind these days.
As the movie progresses you’ll be surprised how attached you get to the Seven, not just as a posse dispensing vengeance on bad guys (and in style,too) but as individual characters. It’s a fun 2 hours with a decent payoff at the end, albeit a bittersweet one. If you want to see a strong, talented cast saddle up and make a stand for the little guy this month, The Magnificent Seven is your huckleberry.
The Girl With All The Gifts
2016 – UK
Director – Colm McCarthy
Starring – Gemma Arterton, Sennia Nanua, Glenn Close, Paddy Considine, Fisayo Akinade
Words – Joe H.
This British zombie film is an adaptation of the book of the same name – written for the screen by its author and comic book writer, Mike Carey.
We open to a scene of a girl in a concrete cell, where after an alarm call she is restrained at gun point and taken by armed guards to a hall full of children treated in equal condition.
The children are being taught in a special class by teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton), where despite the warm feelings she shows towards her students, it is unclear why the children are taught in restraints – then a chilling moment of clarity with Sergeant Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine) makes it clear that these are no ordinary children, who as it turns are also being studied by scientist Dr Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close).
The young girl named Melanie (Sennia Nanua) sets herself apart from the others in her class, and it’s during her selection by Dr Caldwell where we find that they are not only within an army base, but that the base begins to fall when it’s overrun by “hungries”.
As this small group escape and embark on a course towards a safe haven, it emerges that Melanie may be the key to ending the struggle humanity faces, with their journey becoming more than just about their own survival.
On its passage the film uses each of its central characters to explore some moral and social themes – with Justineau as the teacher who sees Melanie as human, Caldwell the scientist who views her as a specimen, and Parks being the soldier who sees her as the enemy but has his opinion changed as Melanie experiences the outside world.
With a cast of Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close and Paddy Considine there wouldn’t be anything other than solid performances here, but it’s Sennia Nanua who shines through, as her part draws in the characters around her (and the audience) into a place where the reality of both the end of humanity and its survival around this child is blurred, being hidden behind the innocence of a young girl.
There’s some fantastic work on display in respect to the visually striking post-apocalyptic environment in the fallen city of London – emphasising the almost insurmountable odds our small group of characters face, fuelled only by hope, having to make their way through this devastated landscape.
A brilliant musical score fantastically accentuates scenes of tension, delivering a real sense of uneasiness in its pairing with such bleak moments.
This is a smart film that does something interesting and new with the perhaps well-worn Zombie genre.
Hell or High Water
2016 – USA
Director – David Mackenzie
Starring – Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges
Words – R. Topham
Two chalk and cheese brothers raised in the poverty-stricken suburbs of West Texas turn to robbing banks in pursuit of the idyll so many stories follow: a better life, but to summarise Hell or High Water like this would be downplaying the film’s tempestuous depth.
Chris Pine plays younger brother Toby, a divorcee tortured by a lack of access to his two kids, is the town’s answer to Bruce Banner, a timid but wise soul who can switch into beast mode in an instant. His older brother Tanner (Ben Foster) has already served time behind bars and seems comfortable enough with his inherent corruption to spontaneously rob banks in broad daylight with nothing but a ski mask to hide his identity.
Be it the quietly lawless, sleepy setting, or the pugnacious encounters between the central characters, writer Taylor Sheridan’s (scribe of last year’s Sicario) influence is subtle but crucial nonetheless. The dialogue doesn’t sound like it’s been botched together by writers who’ve never lived nor understood the culture they’re supposed to be portraying, as some scripts do for movies with an essential location. Yet it’s the intertwining of drama and wit that Sicario missed which contributes to Hell or High Water’s success; interactions between Marcus (Jeff Bridges), the Texas Ranger tasked with the brothers’s robbery case, and his partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) almost always pander to the infamously strained relationship between traditionalist white Americans of the Wild West and migrants of Comanche heritage.
As a Western/heist thriller/drama, Hell or High Water is a breath of fresh air. It knows exactly what it’s about from start to finish, doesn’t stray into unknown territory, and actually has a pool of characters strong enough to emotionally invest in. Bridges, in particular, is exceptional. He does so much by exerting so little, delivering his curt comebacks with the kind of audaciousness professional comedians spend years perfecting, and excellent comedic timing to boot. Pine also manages to finally free himself from the shackles of Captain Kirk, hinting a quiet flush of unhinged bitterness in Toby that fuels his motivation to carry out, and mastermind, these robberies with such meticulous stealth.
Kubo and The Two Strings
2016 – USA
Director: Travis Knight
Starring: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes
Words: N. Scatcherd
From Laika Entertainment – the stop-motion animation studio behind films such as Coraline and ParaNorman – comes the charming Kubo and the Two Strings. The film has rightly been drawing praise for its technical beauty and delicately told story, and is destined for cult adoration, if not the widespread mainstream acclaim it perhaps deserves.
The story is appealingly simple; Kubo, a young boy in feudal Japan, lives with his mother in hiding from their sinister extended family; Kubo’s wizard grandfather (Ralph Fiennes) and twin aunts (Rooney Mara) have killed Kubo’s father – a great samurai – and plucked out one of Kubo’s eyes, and now attempt to track the boy down to take his remaining peeper in order to “make him blind to humanity” (the film’s over-riding message, in classic animated family film tradition, is one of the importance of friendship, family and human connection. The metaphoric danger of being “blind” to kindness and love is here made literal in a way which recalls the kind of ancient folkloric tales the film draws from).
After Kubo and his mother are found and attacked by their evil estranged relations, Kubo is cast adrift and left in the care of ‘Monkey’; a magical monkey charm Kubo carries with him, suddenly brought to life as a full-size ape voiced by Charlize Theron. This is all before they meet a beetle samurai voiced by Matthew McConaughey (similarly just called ‘Beetle’), and they get into fights with giant floating eyeballs and a rock/skeleton creature with a load of swords stuck in its head. You know what, maybe the actual details of the story are a little weirder than I was letting on.
Basically though, it’s your classic ‘magical item quest’ narrative, as our trio of heroes search for Kubo’s father’s sword, helm and armour in order to defeat his grandfather and aunts. The plot has a couple of shaky moments, although to go into detail would be to spoil a few things; suffice to say there are some ‘big reveals’ which many viewers will likely have figured out well in advance, so the emotional heft of such moments is slightly undercut by how obvious they feel. That said, it’s very easy to forgive. The film is given terrific life and warmth by excellent voice acting all round and truly stunning animation.
Special mention must be made of the latter – every frame of Kubo is absolutely gorgeous and Laika bring their usual craft and eye for intricate detail, from individual strands of hair to golden sunlit forests; magically sentient origami figures to gigantic demons; it’s all amazing to look at and is a prime example of stop-motion animation at its most painstaking and enrapturing.
The film’s greatest strength in terms of storytelling may actually be just how mature it is in its sensibilities. This is a ‘family film’ in the best, truest sense; something which is appropriate for kids without talking down to them, while remaining emotionally engaging and affecting for adults. It doesn’t sugarcoat some occasionally intense moments, both visceral – such as in a couple of fight scenes between Monkey and the evil sisters – and emotional (there’s some fairly heavy, matter of fact stuff about dealing with loss here, and I don’t mind admitting that an absolutely beautiful scene towards the end had me tearing up).
For all of its technical brilliance – and I think I’ve made it clear that it has that in spades – the best thing about Kubo and the Two Strings is that it proves how vital animated films can be if done right. In presenting their moral lessons and emotional stakes in terms of magical worlds, outlandish characters and fundamental visual ‘unreality’, they can circumvent many of the usual critical faculties and somehow illuminate great beauty and joy in the world, in a way live action films – in all their recognisable ‘reality’ – sometime struggle to match. Potentially stuffy film theory waffle aside, it’s a rare and genuine pleasure to join Kubo on his adventure.
The Childhood Of A Leader
2015 – UK, France, Hungary
Director: Brady Corbet
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Stacy Martin, Liam Cunningham
Words: R. Topham
On paper, the origin story of a fictitious fascist leader loosely inspired by Mussolini sounds very straight-to-DVD, and, as a (kind of) adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s story of the same name, there was a real danger it could’ve been an uninspiring calamity of chauvinism. But, thankfully, it grips you in all the right places and its retrospect saves you from growing attached to the eponymous demon child.
The film opens with a tremendously ominous tone, in part due to the powerfully disturbing music provided by Scott Walker, a score which carries the volatile aura of the film beautifully and compliments the vexed performances from Bérénice Bejo as the solemn Mother and newcomer Tom Sweet as face-of-an-angel but mind-of-a-sociopath Prescott, aka the future Leader.
Like a messed up episode of Frasier, the film is split into acts, otherwise known as Prescott’s most notable ‘tantrums’, as the case may be. Prescott’s escalating hostility towards his mother is exacerbated (bit of an understatement) when she parts ways with Mona, their family maid and the boy’s only friend. This, mixed with an underlying sexual confusion and infatuation with his French teacher, ripens a cathartic savagery that’s been steadily brewing throughout the film. The results are reasonably predictable considering the context of the film is something of a fait accompli, but are tragic and quite startling nonetheless.
Considering The Childhood of a Leader is Corbet’s directorial debut, his consummate eye for detail and talent for tension is an exciting glimmer of things to come. In what is a truly astonishing stylistic creation, Corbet utilises some elegant light trickery as good as Carol Reed’s seminal noir The Third Man and masterful framing for optimum antipathy – not to mention the disorienting final scene that cuts to black so abruptly you’re almost paralysed in your seat waiting for more, like a dog that’s waiting to be handed a treat after a walk.
Neither shy nor overtly offensive, subtle nor brutal, The Childhood of a Leader is probably the most intriguing and unusual cinematic experience of the year, and has all of the morose qualities theatrical dramas have been missing lately.
Must See Movies: September
At Reel Steel we want to make sure you’re getting the most of your cinematic enthusiasm, so each month we put together our short list of some of the best new releases, from popcorn munching explosion fests to the often weird and wonderful.
Take a look at the trailers below and see what you think to this month’s recommendations!
Captain Fantastic
released Friday September 9th, 2016
Viggo Mortensen plays a husband and father who lives an alternative lifestyle in the wilderness with his wife and children.
A tragic event disrupts this life and they are forced to go back into society, with the children experiencing the outside world for the very first time.
An original and character driven film with something to say about the world we live in.
Hell or High Water
released Friday September 9th, 2016
Two brothers come together to carry out a series of robberies against the bank that is foreclosing on their family land.
Jeff Bridges plays the Texas Ranger determined to stop them, in this tense heist thriller from the writer of last years Oscar-nominated Sicario.
The Girl With All The Gifts
released Friday September 23rd, 2016
In a dystopian future, humanity has been all but wiped out by a disease that turns its victims into flesh-eating Zombies.
At an army base in rural England, hope for the future may lie in the DNA of a small group of children, but when the base falls, a scientist, a teacher and two soldiers embark on a journey of survival with a special young girl named Melanie (Sennia Nanua).
Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close star in this adaptation of M. R. Carey’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel.
SPECIAL EVENT
Wednesday September 21st, 2016
AKIRA returns to the big screen to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Manga Entertainment.
Widely regarded as the greatest Japanese anime of all time, the iconic and game-changing cyberpunk classic obliterated the boundaries of animation, forcing the world to change traditional thinking, and creating space for movies like The Matrix to be dreamed into reality.
A rare chance for fans to see this feature on the big screen, and a perfect way for those unfamiliar to introduce themselves to this influential masterpiece.
click the link below to find a screening near you –
REEL STEEL 
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