Heart of a Dog

(Laurie Anderson/2015/USA)

Avant garde urban folktaler Laurie Anderson verbally riffs over a montage of visuals and sounds in elegiac mode for her rat terrier Lolabelle. During its hour and a quarter she touches on the nature of dreaming, her relationship with her mother which was redefined after her passing, the changes in society after 9/11 and a general rumination on death brought on by Lolabelle’s passing. It is a wonderful, meandering meditation that is somewhat dreamlike. Without being overly melancholic or dark, although some of the descriptions from her childhood are unsettling, it manages a quiet, gentle humour and by the end has bound its disparate threads into a peaceful and a very personal acceptance of loss. Like the quote from her Buddhist instructor it is an attempt to “feel sad without being sad” and it does a fine job. To my mind there is a parallel drawn between the voracious data gathering on civilians after 9/11 and the impetus to recount, remember and somehow solidify the dead in stories of the past. There is one fleeting glimpse of Lou Reed, her partner who died in 2013, sitting on a beach while she plays with a camera and the earlier line, “It’s more about you than the person who died.”, hits home as his shadow seems to silently hang over the entire piece. She works over her grief and lets us in on it and this is a very good thing.

(4/5)

Volcano

(Mick Jackson/1997/USA)

Disaster movies are by their nature farfetched, depicting scenarios that are extreme and highly unlikely so as to maximise drama, tension and the opportunity for thrilling special effects. Volcano runs into this category and then keeps running until it finds itself in the ludicrously funny section. In fact I’d go so far as to say Volcano is a comedy film. It’s also a confused mess with characters appearing early on to never be seen again, dialogue that runs over itself and is unfocused and in a constant state of panic and a plot that throws its hand down too early leaving itself with a good half of the remaining film where the major concern is a slow moving lava flow. It made me laugh out loud but in incredulity at how bad it was. “We are dealing with determined stuff here.” Indeed.

(1/5)

Broken

(Rufus Norris/2012/UK)

Eleven year old, diabetic Emily, nicknamed Skunk, lives in a close on a London estate with her dad, brother and au pair. One of her neighbours Rick is mentally fragile and the neighbours on the other side are three girls who have lost their mum and whose dad is struggling to cope and keep them on the straight and narrow. Broken succeeds in setting up a cross section of modern estate life and capturing the little goings on of daily life therein. Where it falls down is squeezing an extravaganza of dramatic events into that frame to get to the climax of the film. It could have been a well observed coming of age film but ends up feeling like an episode of Brookside. Decent performances from all involved and the excellent cinematography of Rob Hardy don’t save it from being overly melodramatic.

(2/5)

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

(David Soren/2017/USA)

A beautifully hip movie that pushes poop humour safe in the knowledge that it will get everyone giggling eventually, I found Captain Underpants to be endearing and feel good. George and Harold are best buds and make comics for kicks, then they discover a magic ability to hypnotize their arch nemesis, Principal Krupp, into thinking he’s one of their creations, the hero of the title. It’s rapid fire gas cracks, school kids and growing up and friendship and adventure and laughs and kicks and poops and farts and TRA LA LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. So much fun.

(3.5/5)

Fear Eats The Soul

(Rainer Werner Fassbender/1974/Germany)

An aul wan gets the horn for a black lad and the fabric of 1970’s German society threatens to unravel. Or at least you’d think so given the reaction of their friends and family to their new found love. Fassbender unflinchingly portrays the racism and intolerance bubbling underneath in people that vents when confronted with a situation that challenges their world view, a situation they cannot or will not try to understand. It is striking that the only character to accept the relationship between 60 odd year old Emmi and 40 odd year old Ali is the landlord, the acceptance being predicated by a financial concern. He lashed this movie out in a fortnight which is amazing given how precisely he captures the swell of prejudice which then erodes the love at the heart of the film. The fear of the title is the fear of being unaccepted and left outside of society or your community. It is an excellent, perceptive and uncompromising film like most of his work and despite all his acidity the depiction of love at the core of it is genuinely endearing. It is also a film that still resonates today in the context of growing nationalism and debates about immigration globally.

(4/5)

The Little Vampire

(Uli Edel/2000/USA)

This is a dated kids flick that sucks the horror out of vampires by making them cute, domestic and friendly. It’s one those ludicrously weird mash ups of American sensibility with British spoof. It works in places but falls short in a lot of stilted scenes between the adults and the main kid (the young fella from the “Show me the money!” film) and some overlong plotting. What is good though is the casting of Richard E Grant as the dad vamp and Jim Carter as the chimney sweep come biker styled vampire hunter, both perfect picks. In the context of today’s kids movies it struggles to engage but I’m certain it probably struggled at the time too.

(1.5/5)

The Little Prince

(Mark Osborne/2015/France)

A modern retelling of Antoine de Saint Exupérys charming book that focuses on a young girl’s distractions from her mother’s pressure to do well. That distraction being the tales told by her old aviator neighbour, the books original narrator. The animation is brilliant cutting from CGI to stop animation for the tales and while twisting and expanding the plot of the original it stays wholly faithful to the spirit of wonder and adventure of the book. It’s a delight in short and very much to be enjoyed by young and old in equal measure.

(3.5/5)

The Scarecrow

(Buster Keaton/1920/USA)

These 20 minutes of slapstick, farce and chase are a well spring for so much that comes after in cinema - Laurel and Hardy, The Odd Couple, Wallace and Gromit to name a few obvious ones. With a simple premise of two chaps living together in a house of contraptions and time saving inventions who fall for the same girl, the daughter of a farmer, and the battle for her heart that ensues, it packs a steady flow of punches into its short run time and keeps you laughing right to the very end. It’s wonderfully simple and funny after all these years.

(5/5)