I, Daniel Blake - Danny's Review

It was a rare treat to catch the 18:20 showing of this film at the Grosvenor. It's the first time I've been to the cinema since a disastrous Watch with Baby experience in August, and I think I may be a little starved for entertainment. For example, the other day I found an old episode of Waterloo Road absolutely gripping.

I, Daniel Blake is Ken Loach's latest film, which he made after coming out of retirement because he was so upset with the re-election of the Conservative Government in 2014 (he's now 80). It's therefore a strongly political tale, of a Newcastle joiner who has a minor heart attack so is out of work. But the Healthcare Professional he meets doesn't like his attitude so deems him still fit to work, and he has to seek Jobseeker's Allowance even though he clearly can't work. He spirals towards poverty, meeting others along the way in a similar situation.

The film is thus a pretty blatant attack on the unfair benefits system, not unfair in the Daily Mail sense where Polish people steal all our money, but unfair in that hard-working people are constantly struggling against bureaucracy and silliness of an unfair system. Daniel is such a straight-forward and honest man and he is humiliated by a ridiculous system, so you're rooting for him all the way through.

What undermines the power of the film is that in order to create this sense of injustice, that motivates the entire film, there's the ridiculous premise that someone with a heart attack would be deemed fit to work. There are plenty of legitimate things to be upset about, without needing hyperbole. I only say this because the rest of the film seems so real, and almost feels like a documentary. There's no famous actors - the other main character is a displaced Londoner and her two children, played by Hayley Squires, who I was sure I'd seen before but think I must just have been thinking of Lily Allen.

Although it's set in Newcastle there's a bit of Glasgow humour, as a foul-mouthed Weegie befriends Daniel during his protest. A nod to Ken Loach's other films (my favourite is Sweet Sixteen).

It was a full house in the cinema I watched it in, and I think we were all quite moved by the end. On my way home I gave money to several beggars, and bought some sanitary towels for the first time in my life to donate to a food bank (in Waitrose).

Overall, a powerful and affecting film.

Finding Dory - Danny's Review

I saw this at a Watch with Baby screening at 1030 am. I would not recommend the experience. We were a bit late and when the cinema door swung open it revealed a madhouse of babies; screaming, feeding and rolling on the floor. By now it was too late to turn back. Our nine-month old doesn't like busy and loud places, so I spent much of the film holding her at the back and walking up and down the corridor. As a consequence I missed some sections of the film, and might have an unfairly dim view it.

I am confident though in saying that this is a much weaker effort than 2004's Finding Nemo, which I believe has become the biggest selling DVD of all time.

Finding Dory is a further underwater adventure, with some new characters but not a huge amount of charm. The main novelty is that the missing fish this time is ever-forgetful Dory, who tells everyone she has a short-term memory problem. It's a bold decision having a mentally deficient protagonist in an animated film, and is sometimes quite effective, as there is extra pathos when Dory gets lost and feels alienated, but mostly it's a bit annoying with the repetitive gag of her forgetting things and being reminded of them.

There is much madcap chasing, including through a marine centre. The extra scenes on land present a problem for the fish, so various devices are put in place. These include an octopus named Hank, a whale whose echolocation lets him see through walls, and numerous jars and buckets. I'm not a fan of chases in general, and found this a bit tiresome.

The first half of the film is better; the second half gets extremely bogged down with 'tags' and fish being in quarantine and not being in quarantine, and about half of the dialogue is clumsy explanation. The toddler behind me had no clue what was going on, and even her Grandmother's explanations weren't quite right (I read the plot summary on Wikipedia while holding the baby so knew what was going on).

The best thing in it is the grumpy octopus, who piqued my flagging interest. I also enjoyed the Londoner seals, who were voiced by British (but usually American) actors Idris Elba and Dominic West, putting aside their differences from The Wire. Of course the film looked good too, but after the first two minutes you get used to that.

Overall, unlike some other Pixar efforts, this one's just for the kids.

Money Monster - Danny's Review

I had to go into town to pick up some train tickets today, so to make it worthwhile went to the cinema too. Looking at the listings, this was the only that appealed to me. The rest were kids films, or adult films that are basically kids films. But this one looked like a meaty prospect, with George Clooney and a hostage situation. My main concern was Julia Roberts would be too lightweight, but she was actually good as the low-key director of Clooney's madcap money show.

Rather like films that are on a submarine or in space, you can't go wrong with a hostage film. And if that's combined with live TV in a studio setting it's even better. The actual TV segment called Money Monster was entertaining too, and I remember thinking ten minutes in that I would be quite happy just watching Clooney ham it up as a celebrity TV host. He is of course deliberately superficial, and that starts a theme of satire that runs through the film. There are twin targets modern culture of social media, and the obscure world of financial markets.

My favourite part was at the denouement when the classic bar-scene of ordinary people following the action on the bar TV are all transfixed, then after a decent pause, they go back to playing table football. It was a nice point quite subtly made, and I'm sure lost on the women next to me who were giggling and trying to stop a mobile phone from ringing, until she got another call and actually answered it, and I angrily whispered for her to put the phone away.

Back to the film - this was the first time I've been to the cinema in months and I enjoyed it. Clooney is magnetic, Roberts isn't annoying and it's a very well-paced plot. Every time the tension sags it immediately builds back up again. My only gripe was that in order to create a neat story it turned out that the evil CEO (Dominic West) really was hatching a meddling plan, whereas the film might have made a greater impact in the long term if they simply accepted that the financial world is murky and intractable. I also didn't feel any sympathy for the everyman kidnapper.

Hail Caesar - Danny's Review

This was my first trip to the cinema in a few months and I left a little disappointed. I know that Coen Brothers films are normally made up different stories and characters but Hail Caesar! has too many unconnected parts, and too many pointless celebrity cameos. Scarlett Johannsen added nothing except a pretty face for the trailer. The main story involving George Clooney is the best one, and I would have been happy with just that. I wanted a bit of escapism, but the constant switches and irritating narration by Michael Gambon. Ralph Fiennes was of course excellent too, and I'd allow him to stay.

There is an attempt to create a mood of Hollywood's Golden Era, mixed with some film noir, as Josh Brolin acts exactly like he's in Sin City, but it's all a bit tongue in cheek and half hearted. The only scene I found funny was when the studio boss interviews the four religious leaders. In general the humour is very low key and I was surprised to hear the three other people in the cinema laughing out loud.

There are several extended scenes that take place on film sets, with lengthy musical numbers from different genres. While these are all quite entertaining they do nothing to move the story forward. In fact there isn't much story at all, which would be fine if there was a more consistent attempt to create an atmosphere. Instead I felt like it was jumping around with nothing building up. The denouement when Josh Brolin decides that actually he's going to stay in the crazy movie business is also rather flat. Frankly, I'd rather have watched Star Wars again.

Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens - Danny's Review

This is the second most eagerly awaited film of my lifetime, behind The Phantom Menace. Although I'd say that one isn't as bad as you remember, it was still a disappointment. The Force Awakens however was enjoyable even on the first watch.

Despite waiting an embarrassing month since the release date until watching it I'd heard surprisingly few spoilers. All I knew that there were many references to the previous films. What I didn't realise in fact was that it's actually quite close to a remake of A New Hope. Both films begin with a droid containing a map being launched out on to a desert planet, and the plots continue to run in parallel. There's the surprise father-son combo, a hologram evil-lord and so on. There's even a new even-bigger Death Star, which is so obviously the same that Han Solo (he's back) makes a joke about it. Virtually every vehicle from the original trilogy reappears here, along with all the old cast members too.

So in that sense The Phantom Menace is a much more original film, and adds to the Star Wars mythology, rather than simply repeating it with a woman in Luke Skywalker's role. Daisy Ridley does play the role well though, and is a stand-out, alongside the decent John Bodega as a Stormtrooper turned good. His story arc reflects the major theme of the movie(s), rejecting or accepting your destiny. There's really no fighting it, and it seems you might as well accept what's coming to you and get on with it. Indeed when the rather weak sub-villain Kylo Ren is reminded that he's not all bad "You know I'm right" is almost a convincing enough argument.

This film is light on light-sabre battles, and that's no bad thing. The main battle at the end is more about establishing that Rey has got some skills, rather than just an out and out fight of the Darth Maul kind. In general the special effects are fairly toned down, which is a relief. The low point are the rubbish CGI monsters set loose on the Millenium Falcon. Comparing their colourful wavy tentacles with the excellent pet Rancor in Return of the Jedi makes me long for models.

There is quite a lot of humour, inevitably involving the comedy sidekick droids and Chewbacca. In general it's pretty good though, and so you can tell it wasn't written by George Lucas.

The whole appeal of a fantasy epic like this is to hint at a whole intricate universe, and there are certainly a few interesting unresolved issues for the next two films. Are there other Jedi's that have survived? Who is Rey's family that she was waiting for? Who is the 20 foot tall hologram man? Is the Star Wars Universe controlled by The Architect from the Matrix sequels and destined to loop round forever with repeated Death Stars, evil empires and Resistances?