Author Archive for Thomas Flanagan

Battleship and the toy-to-film bandwagon

Thomas Flanagan | April 13, 2012 | 0 Comments

They’re making a movie about Lego. Quirky documentary this ain’t – Lego: The Movie will be a feature-length animated adventure. Set for release in 2014, the Danish toy company’s Hollywood debut is being made by the team behind 21 Jump Street. Director Phil Lord and scribe Christopher Miller are keeping the details quiet, but the film is rumoured to be set in a universe made entirely from Lego. As Lord says, “If there’s water or clouds or a big explosion, that will be made out of Lego.” It’s not your standard film set-up. So why is it being made?

Toy-based films are becoming common phenomena. Transformers and GI Joe are now massive global movie franchises, having experienced great box office success. The Transformers movies alone have grossed over $2.6 billion. A large part of this profit is probably attributable to the public’s hunger for extravagant special effects – Transformers has more explosions than Optimus Prime can shake a circuit board at. But  according to studio bigwigs, a large part of Transformers’ initial success was due to its familiarity. Many people had grown up with Transformers toys and television shows, and this meant that the original Transformers film had a large, eager audience ready and waiting. As a result, the studios now believe that if a toy is popular enough, it can be a viable basis for a movie.

Cue Battleship. Based on the classic board game, Battleship is a $200 million movie funded by United Artists. For those who missed out, the table-top Battleship is a two-player affair in which each person tries to guess the coordinates of the other’s navy and sink it. There are no characters beyond those conjured up in the player’s imagination, no figurines with names, identities or back stories. This places it in stark contrast to the character-driven worlds of Transformers and GI Joe. Can a movie adaptation of a protagonist-lacking board game really illicit a feverous box-office response? Perhaps. From the studios’ perspective, the important thing is that for many of us, “Battleship” is a familiar word. The game has been around since 1967 and has become a part of popular culture. We may not be passionate about it, but we understand it. We automatically think of the naval search-and-destroy concept and dramatic seaborne warfare. We’re taken back to our childhood living rooms and the fun we had (or not) trying to guess where sly sibling could be hiding aircraft carriers. It’s nostalgic, and the studios reckon we’ll be curious to see how it makes the transition to the silver screen.

So where does the toy-to-screen bandwagon go from here? If movies based on board games are successful at the box office, can we expect Jenga: Escape From Wobbly Tower any time soon? There’s no reason why not. Creative limitations can actually facilitate a slicker and more focussed plot. Just take a look at the wacky premise for Monopoly: The Movie, helmed by accomplished director Ridley Scott. Of course, there’s  a danger this kind of film will increasingly rely on the curiosity factor to draw the crowds, and in the process forgo good storytelling. Indeed, films like Transformers and Battleship do suffer from lazy scriptwriting and tired visuals. But toy-based films needn’t be dreadful. A film about Lego can go in many directions….imagine the comedic potential of swapped body parts, or painful plastic rain. I look to Lego: The Movie with hope.

FILM REVIEW: The Hunger Games, 12A, 142 mins

Thomas Flanagan | March 25, 2012 | 0 Comments

Yoshihiko Ueda is a Japanese photographer who takes pictures of the Quinault Rainforest in Washington. You can check out some of his work here. There’s something very comforting about seeing such an unspoiled forest – it’s a reminder that the western world still has its pockets of mystery. Forests like Quinault are places to go when life in the city gets a little too lairy, or – as in the case of Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of latest blockbuster The Hunger Games - when the reality of living in a coal-mining ghetto becomes a bit too much to bear. Beyond the perimeter fence and beneath the canopy, Katniss has space to think. And hunt. She’s a strong sixteen year old, and after she puts herself forward in place of her sister to fight in the annual Hunger Games – a televised battle to the death between twenty four children, two from each of the twelve ghetto districts – we suspect we could be onto a winner. But what makes The Hunger Games such a fascinating watch is the fact that for all her guile, Katniss is no killer.

The silver-screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ hit book The Hunger Games has been hotly tipped as the successor to the Twilight and Harry Potter films. Katniss is the latest in a series of young protagonists dealing with issues of love and mortality before the backdrop of a forest. But Collins’ heroine marks a satisfying break from the doe-eyed romantic so pervasive in female teenage literature. Katniss does have a couple of love interests, but first and foremost she’s a figurehead of resistance, subverting the morbid wishes of the wealthy Capitol to which the twelve districts are subservient. There’s certainly a lot resting on the shoulders of Jennifer Lawrence, the actress selected to play her.

As it turns out, Lawrence is the force which makes The Hunger Games tick. Oscar-nominated for her role in Winter’s Bone, she continues to demonstrate a fierce capacity to temper strength with vulnerability. A good deal of The Hunger Games is spent watching Katniss silently slink through the forest battle-ground, and what could have been a dull fight sequence is made alive by Lawrence’s desperate resilience. We never feel detached from Katniss, which is quite something considering she spends a good portion of the film pandering to the inhabitants of the Capitol in an attempt to gain sponsors for the battle. Lawrence switches with ease between caring older sister, uneasy reality television star and hardy warrior, and – in the absence of the first person narrative present throughout the book – the consistency of character exuded from her bold black eyes is impressive indeed. What’s more, she has a fine supporting cast, with an excellent appearance from Woody Harrelson as Katniss’ drunken but well-meaning battle mentor, and a welcome return of American Beauty’s Wes Bentley as the sadistic games master.

As Lawrence points out in an interview, this isn’t just another popcorn movie. Director Gary Ross has a careful artistic eye and skillfully realises the various settings of Collins’ dystopian America. Katniss’ ghetto home is a realistic mixture of wood huts and telegraph poles; its grittiness is accentuated through shaky hand-held camera shots. The Capitol, meanwhile, is a joyous exercise is decadent production design: its inhabitants look like futuristic extras from Alice in Wonderland. And the forest battleground, much like Katniss’ local forest, is a cool blend of blue and green. The distinct locations are not only pleasing to look at – they imbue the film with energy; switching between them affords The Hunger Games a pace which sweeps us along at speed.

The Hunger Games is one of those rare commodities: a story which survives the transition from book to film. The ending is perhaps lacklustre, but it’s inevitable that much will be left hanging – The Hunger Games is the first chapter in a trilogy, after all. The 12A certificate is also something of a surprise, given the film’s dark premise. As it happens, much of the violence is hidden using careful cinematography – and this isn’t really a problem, because The Hunger Games was never supposed to be a gore-fest anyway. More than anything, it’s a timely tale about the repulsiveness of reality television. Yes, it has similarities with Battle Royale, another film in which children must fight to death, but The Hunger Games has a voice of its own, and gifts us with a well-realised world full of original and believable characters. I now have a guilty desire to read Catching Fire.

* * * *

FILM REVIEW: 21 Jump Street, 15, 109 mins

Thomas Flanagan | March 21, 2012 | 4 Comments

Jonah Hill has slimmed down. The tubby Superbad days are over. It’s almost a shock to see him looking so slender, yet closer inspection reveals a fair amount of girth still clinging to his person – he’s no athlete, and he’s certainly not the high-school sports superstar his cop character is forced to portray in 21 Jump Street. A new synthetic drug has hit the classrooms of Sagan High, and cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are ordered to take up false student identities, infiltrate the school, and find the supplier. But after a mix-up in the headmaster’s office, Schmidt is mistaken for a sporty drama student, whilst the muscular Jenko is sent to the chemistry lab. Seeing two grown men readjust to high-school life is funny enough; watching them squirm in their unnatural classroom roles is priceless.

In a world of endless movie remakes and sequels, it was perhaps inevitable the studios would eventually turn their heads towards the much-loved 1980s crime drama 21 Jump Street. But this is one remake which embraces its heritage without descending into pastiche. There are plenty of nods to the original Jump Street - there’s even a cameo from its original star – but our 2012 update never feels tired or overworked. What could have been a lacklustre homage turns out to be a strangely satisfying medley of the well-worn buddy-cop and action-comedy formulas.

This is largely due to some smart casting calls. Tatum is not well-known for comedy – if anything, he’s more of a romance guy. Yet many of the funniest scenes in 21 Jump Street stem from his particular brand of detached deadpan humour. As a previous jock, Jenko tries to exude a sense of effortless cool, but quickly finds that he’s no longer considered as such. The cool clique of Sagan High worry about the environment and Berkeley admissions. Jenko’s couldn’t-give-a-damn attitude no longer cuts it. He’s a fish out of water, and – in a slightly tragic kind of way – it’s funny to watch him flounder. Tatum lends Jenko a certain doltishness, and whether Jenko is coming to terms with his new status at the bottom rung of the high-school social ladder or desperately trying to avoid probing questions regarding his manly physique, Tatum’s dry, matter-of-fact responses are comedy gold.

But what really makes 21 Jump Street a worthwhile watch is the bromance. Jenko and Schmidt have a history: back when they were real students, Jenko was a bully and Schmidt a nerd. Having them return to school as undercover cops pretending to be brothers is fantastically stupid. This relationship could have been written as a dumb farce-fest (think Will Ferrel and John Reilly in Step Brothers) but writer Michael Bacall gives us something pleasingly multi-layered. It’s no character study, but there’s an interesting dynamic between the two cops: each lacks something (be it brains or brawn) and watching them attempt to duplicate the strengths of the other is endearing as well as humorous.

I’ve never seen the original Jump Street. I’m probably prime target audience, entering the cinema with no preconceptions as to how Jump Street should be. Although the film is at times a little predictable, and perhaps a little too self-knowing (one cop actually realises he is a cliché), the unlikely pairing between Hill and Tatum produces an unlikely chemistry, and this more than makes up for any shortcomings the plot may have. The future of remakes is a little less bleak.

* * * *

FILM REVIEW: Wanderlust, 15, 98 mins

Thomas Flanagan | March 4, 2012 | 0 Comments

Few reach Elysium. In ancient Greek mythology, it’s the place in  the underworld reserved for the righteous. And it’s supposed to be bliss. Those deemed worthy could expect an eternity of paradise, living with fruit aplenty and mind unfettered. The Greeks certainly wouldn’t refuse a ticket  to enter it. But flick forward two millennia and New Yorkers George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) seem a little hesitant. Of course, the Elysium offered to them isn’t the mythical ecstasy isle of yore, but a rural hippie commune just outside Atlanta. Having lost their jobs, our city-dwellers decide to go searching for a new way of life and stumble upon a welcoming New Age community named after the mythical idyll. The minds of its members seem relatively unfettered, and the fruit is certainly aplenty. But our urban couple is used to a different way of life, and so commit to a two-week stay only after much deliberation. Can this Elysium really offer salvation for the denizens of the city?

So begins Wanderlust, the latest comedy from director David Wain. The commuters-turning-hippies premise is certainly promising, and with casting like Aniston and Rudd, you’d think this ought to be a pretty funny film. The scriptwriters haven’t held back in the joke department – they bombard us right from the get-go with quip after quip. George falls over a cab. Linda pitches a documentary about penguins with testicular cancer. George falls asleep on top of Linda. Etcetera. Within ten minutes we’ve had the full tour of Manhattan life through the funny lens. Much like the sitcoms Aniston knows so well, Wanderlust taps the funny bone relentlessly.

In fact, it never lets up. On the way to Atlanta, George and Linda try to find somewhere to rest for the night. They turn down the road to Elysium, thinking it’s a regular B&B, and are confronted by a nudist. There are no clever concealing camera angles to be found here - Wanderlust is an ‘R’ rated picture, after all. Nakedness abounds throughout, as does drug-taking and F-bomb dropping. In one memorable scene, George – having been given permission to engage in the commune’s free-love initiative – spews obscenities at himself  in front of a mirror in an attempt to lather  up a sexual frenzy. It’s all pretty crude. That’s not to say obscenity can’t be amusing – it undoubtedly can. But Wanderlust’s vulgar jokes too often fall the foul side of funny, sticking to a routine formula of awkward pause following profanity.

Wanderlust embodies a very particular kind of humour. Judd Apatow, the film’s producer, has a whole string of similar works to his name. He’s overseen pictures such as Get Him To The Greek and Pineapple Express -  pictures which, like Wanderlust, revel unabashedly in poor taste. But unlike in these films, Wanderlust’s central characters aren’t distinctive enough to grant the lewd humour a fresh edge. Vulgarity is funny, provided it’s not repeated incessantly, and provided those expressing the vulgarity be funny themselves. To be honest, it’s a little embarassing watching two dull city types spew profanities and swing their arms around in an attempt to find their inner chi. Which is a pity, because Wanderlust had a lot going for it.

* *

FILM REVIEW: The Woman In Black, 12A, 95 minutes

Thomas Flanagan | February 19, 2012 | 0 Comments

The children living in the vicinity of Eel Marsh House have a terrible habit. They keep on killing themselves. The gloomy climes have nothing to do with it. In fact, the youngsters are quite a fun-loving bunch, given their bleak surroundings. The girls play tea-party, the boys build sandcastles; from their perspective at least, everything appears well. But for some diabolical reason, our poor younglings are jumping out of windows and walking into the sea. The adults whisper to one another. They exchange nervous glances. They point to Eel Marsh House, and tell stories about the woman who used to live there. The Woman in Black. The crazy hag who lost her own child in a freak accident, and who – according to local legend – compels infant suicide whenever her ghost is sighted.

The Woman In Black marks Daniel Radcliffe’s first film since Harry Potter. He plays Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor sent from London to handle the estate of Eel Marsh House. The locals give him an icy welcome, and try to send him back south on the next available train. They don’t want him anywhere near Eel Marsh House. At this point, Kipps doesn’t know why, and besides – he doesn’t believe in the supernatural anyway. He’s considered it, following the death of his wife during childbirth, but deemed it nonsense. He finds solace in the village’s sole rational mind, the wealthy landowner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds). They sip whiskey together in front of the fire, Kipps nodding resolutely as Daily ponders the dangers of the fanciful mind. Daily himself has lost a child, but refuses to subscribe to the local jibber-jabber, for – as he astutely states – ‘If we open the door to superstition, where does that lead?’

Well, Kipps is about to find out. And here we enter Eel Marsh House. The haunted manor is the highlight of the film, a gothic nexus of Edwardian grandeur filled to its crumbly brim with all manner of dark secrets and spooky relics. At any rate, it’s a terrible place to sleep, permeated as it is with incessant banging and bumping. If you’re planning on bringing popcorn to this film, it’s probably best to eat as much as you can in the first twenty minutes: director James Watkins is certainly a master of jolts, and the cinema-goers sat nearby probably won’t appreciate having food flung in their faces.

Yet beyond The Woman In Black’s capacity to empty the popcorn bag, there isn’t a whole lot to applaud. Daniel Radcliffe does possess a certain charm, and it’s true that the Harry Potter star is the film’s biggest draw, but he continues to suffer from a lack of credibility. We never really feel as though we’re watching Arthur Kipps; we’re always watching an earnest Radcliffe, dressed in old-timey garb, trying desperately to muster some kind of gravitas. I wouldn’t go as far to say he’s been miscast, but it’s certainly a stretch to think him the father of a four-year old boy. As such, the parent-child relationship – which underpins the film’s climax – is hard to swallow. None of this would matter if the film were scary enough, but the shocks begin to wear thin. Rather than ramping up the fear factor, Watkins takes us down the Woman’s backstory, and unfortunately, this serves only to detract from the creepy mystery of our ghostly leading lady.

The Woman In Black is rather like a ghost train. Radcliffe is our impassive carriage, taking us on a ride down its thrill-laden tracks. Children crawl from the marsh, music boxes tinkle down dark corridors, and rocking chairs go through severe bouts of enthusiastic self-swinging. The villagers shriek and sob. It’s a little unnerving, but nothing more.

* *

FILM REVIEW: Chronicle, 12A, 83 mins

Thomas Flanagan | February 12, 2012 | 0 Comments

It’s tempting to agree with Chronicle’s protagonist Andrew. Sitting cross-legged and staring moodily at the camera, he tells us he’s mankind’s next evolutionary step. His abilities are certainly impressive. He can crush cars. He can stop baseballs mid-flight. He can even propel himself through the air. But his most magnificent trait by far has to be his ability to keep his camcorder steady. Chronicle is a film composed entirely of ‘found’ footage, the majority of which comes from Andrew’s movie machine. After mysteriously becoming telekinetic, he lets go of the camera and with a flick of thought transforms the film from choppy Blair Witch-esque roll to smooth cinematic ride. It’s a neat trick, giving us the intimacy of a home video with none of the nauseating side-effects.

A high-school rave in a barn leaves Andrew with nothing but scorn. It could, perhaps, have something to do with his insistence on lugging his video camera along with him. This isn’t your average pocket-sized gizmo; we’re talking shoulder-mounted heavyweight. Andrew is patently a loser; he hasn’t any friends, and the only kid to see beyond his washed-out scowl is cousin Matt. Then out of nowhere, Matt’s friend Steve shows up and tells a teary Andrew they’ve found something in the woods. He insists Andrew film it, and Andrew obliges. We’re taken down an ominous black pit and come face-to-face with some kind of crashed object. We don’t know what it is, but it responds to the trio’s presence and mysteriously imbues them with the ability to move objects with their minds.

Thankfully, our intrepid school-goers have a sense of humour, and exert their powers with a certain glee. The first half of the film is a healthy serving of sundry psychic slapstick: shoppers hurrying after runaway trolleys, little girls screaming at dancing bears, guys having chewing gum yanked from their teeth. It’s unlikely that Andrew’s later assertion that he’s an ‘apex predator’ has anything to do with going around with his mates and pulling up the skirts of high-school girls, but there’s certainly something creepy about the fellow. The young actor Dane DeHaan lends Andrew a peculiar menace, and even at the best of times we suspect we’re watching the preface to something sinister. It was a brave decision to make Andrew the film’s central subject, unlikeable as he is. He’s no Peter Parker, but that’s no bad thing – in fact, his bitterness energizes the film. Andrew is a bomb who inevitably will explode, and it’s tantalizing stuff to watch him tick down to zero.

But entertaining as Chronicle is, there’s a nagging suspicion we’ve been here before. It’s doubtful that many of us have watched three high-school seniors telekinetically juggle Lego bricks, but the story of vulnerable bully-victim turned violent lasher-outer is a little familiar. Think the film adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie (another telekinetic gone haywire) or Falling Down. Chronicle very nearly becomes a preachy treat-people-badly-and-they’ll-come-back-to-get-you tale, and it’s a wise choice by screenwriter Max Landis to mould the film’s climax into something a little more understated.

This is a fresh picture. Director Josh Trank knows what he’s doing. Chronicle entertains; it’s not a film of grandiose insight and lofty musing, and it doesn’t try to be. I was left thinking of 2006’s Children of Men, another film with a fairly conventional story which was nonetheless engaging. As with that film, Chronicle gives us enough cinematic tricks and little idiosyncratic details to make us feel as though we’re watching something new. We’re not really, but the trickery is top-notch.

* * * *

FILM REVIEW: Shame, 18, 101 minutes

Thomas Flanagan | January 29, 2012 | 0 Comments

Calvin Harris’ happy pop hit Bounce is an unlikely song to get the tear ducts salty. But underpin it with the rousing orchestral score of Steve McQueen’s latest film Shame, and you’re getting somewhere. A night of sexual misadventure culminates in our protagonist, the sex-addict Brandon (Michael Fassbender), entering a gay bar. For a few moments the club’s jaunty soundtrack collides with McQueen’s melancholic strings and we’re left with a terrible sense of jaded joy; a joy which Brandon perhaps once possessed himself, but certainly no longer. He doesn’t really want to be here, but at this point, two-thirds of the way into the picture, circumstances have left him something of a sexual kamikaze. He needs gratification, and although deep down he does care about the manner in which he receives it, his demons demand it be quick and seedy.

And that’s the inherent struggle at the heart of Shame. Fassbender’s Brandon is a well-off thirty-something New Yorker who, on the surface, appears relatively normal. But as we follow his daily routine, it becomes obvious that this is a man with a problem. His home is frequented by prostitutes; his computer is littered with pornography; his regular toilet trips culminate in neither numbers one nor two. Then, out of the blue, Brandon’s sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shows up, throwing his methodical gratification routine into disarray, forcing him to reconsider his vulgar lifestyle.

In contrast to other elements of Shame, the relationship between Brandon and Sissy is never made explicit. Their first meeting takes place in Brandon’s bathroom – Brandon bursts in, thinking he has an intruder, but it’s only Sissy taking a shower. Sissy is not embarrassed by her nakedness, and neither is Brandon. They hold a conversation and after a minute or so he hands her a towel. These people have a past; whether or not it is incestuous, we never really know. But Sissy has a hold on Brandon, and it’s this relationship which drives the film. Mulligan’s bubbly Sissy antagonizes and teases Brandon in equal measure; the bond is electric and ambiguous and we’re left to figure it out ourselves.

Fassbender is terrific as Brandon. His sex scenes are fearless and sufficiently awash with angst to make the character’s plight their main focus. Fassbender is a good-looking chap, and it’s testament to his ability as an actor that his looks don’t render the film an exercise in eroticism. And, even though we’re repulsed by Brandon, we’re given cause to sympathize with him. He’s polite, charming, at times even humorous. Fassbender really makes us care for this empty shell of a man. In one notable scene, Brandon watches Sissy sing in a bar. We linger on her face for several minutes, and it becomes clear that, for reasons never explored, she is as hurt as he. The song ends and we switch to Brandon. Fassbender grants us a single tear. Of the many bodily fluids released throughout the film, this hits us the hardest. It’s understated and completely tragic.

McQueen paces the film superbly; we’re constantly wondering whether Brandon will manage to get out of his rut. And this rut is brilliantly realized: McQueen’s insistence on using long tracking shots adds to the overall sense of entrapment. In a single shot lasting several minutes, we follow Brandon as he jogs through night-time New York city. In another lengthy shot, we watch him date a colleague in a desperate attempt to forge some kind of meaningful relationship. Indeed, the very first shot we get of Brandon is a minute-long overview of his body. We’re held long enough to feel stifled, but thanks to McQueen’s artful eye for composition, we’re not bored: the images resonate and give us plenty of food for thought.

Shame marks McQueen and Fassbender’s second feature together (the first being Hunger, the story of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands) and confirms a formidable partnership. This is bold filmmaking. We never find out why Brandon became a sex addict, and we never know where he stands in relation to Sissy. But we’re given a stalwart and realistic ending: a climax which stands tall as the film’s most satisfying. It’s a damn shame Fassbender never got the Oscar nomination.

* * * * *

Who is Lizzy Grant?

Thomas Flanagan | January 22, 2012 | 0 Comments

2012 was set to be her year. Lizzy Grant, the slow indie burn gaining momentum with last summer’s Video Games, brands herself as a ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’. Underscored by orchestral swells and hip-hop beats, her poignant lamentations seemed primed for the mainstream. But recently, the tide has begun to turn.

Grant, who performs under the stage name ‘Lana Del Rey’, has become divisive. Some downright hate her. They call her inauthentic; they point to her millionaire father and (what appear to be) lip injections. She’s not the Coney-Island trailer-park warbler she makes out to be. Lana is a construct, they say, a response to Grant’s inability to break into the music industry after years of touring the New York circuit and getting nowhere. And it’s true – Grant couldn’t break in. She managed to sign a record deal, but an album was never released and she faded away. So – we are told – the board was wiped clean, the lips were inflated, the songs were augmented by industry professionals, and Lana was born.

Some criticize the construct. Lana is a throwback to the 1950s housewife, they say, engineered to appeal to a dumb male market. In the song Blue Jeans, she sings about boyfriends who ‘go out every night’, leaving her alone. But she’s fine with it. ‘Baby that’s alright’, she sings. And in You Can Be The Boss, we’re told about the ‘liquor on his lips’ which apparently she ‘just can’t resist’. And then in Diet Mtn Dew, she tells us repeatedly that ‘baby you’re no good for me but baby I want you’. And this, combined with the long flowing gowns and frayed denim shorts, seems to infuse sexist Americana with a happy nostalgia.

But Grant’s message needn’t be something to get angry about. Video Games is a ballad about love mishaps and broken relationships, a lament for simpler times when watching skateboarding friends was the most important thing in the world. Watch some interviews and you’ll see that she talks about this kind of thing a lot. Back in the day, life was simpler and she was a happier woman; carelessness, floatiness, wandering from one day to the next without particular aim and feeling content. As people grow up, they tend to worry about what they should be doing, where they should be going. But youngsters tend not to do this, and it seems that when Grant was younger, she didn’t either. And the talk of men running circles around her? A throwback to that young, innocent Lizzy, perhaps.

So it isn’t Grant’s lyrics per se which have caused the media backlash. It’s her alleged lack of authenticity. It’s her insistence on projecting her message through the sultry Hollywood Havisham that is Lana Del Rey. Then again, stage personas are nothing new in the music business. Lady Gaga wasn’t – ahem – born that way. Rhianna talks about herself in the third person, for heaven’s sake. Even Justin Vernon, the man who spent a winter in a cold Wisconsin shack recording a heart-felt break-up album, the man now held up as the epitome of authenticity, gets up on stage and calls himself Bon Iver. So why is Grant’s creation deemed any less authentic? Is it really just a matter of lip enhancement and Daddy’s bank balance?

Grant has a performance problem. Her performance last week on Saturday Night Live has been widely described as one of the worst in the show’s history. She readily confesses that she finds performing on live TV ‘weird’. And it’s true. At times, Grant can be an awkward performer. So is this the problem? Perhaps. When a stage actor fluffs his lines, we deem him a lesser actor. Similarly, when we watch the Lana construct crumble on stage, we doubt Grant’s prowess as a performer. But musicians also exist on another level – in the studio. Studio musicians resemble film actors, in that they spend many hours labouring for a few precious moments of perfection. A film actor may go through dozens of takes before he gets it right. And we judge him not on his bloopers, but on the finished product – the film.

Lizzy Grant is an accomplished studio musician. Here, on the record, we really do believe in her character. She’s the Hollywood songstress dressing up the past through a cinematic lens. Her voice wrestles on the edge of every note, teasing us with atonality. It’s melancholic, it’s deep and we really believe it. But she’s yet to become an accomplished performance musician. Her live gigs lack verve and consistency. And it’s only when a musician becomes accomplished both behind the decks and before a crowd that we really begin to believe in their character. That’s when the musician becomes truly authentic.

At some point, every musician has decided to become a musician. Even the most accomplished guitarist once could never play. As they progress, performance and recording converge, the distance between construct and creator lessens, and the person they once were begins to fade. This entails transformation – and yes, Grant is in a period of transformation. She’s gone from relative unknown to several million Youtube hits in a matter of months. She’s worked the NY circuit. She’s had songwriting help. Maybe she did have those collagen injections. Like it or lump it, they are all stepping stones towards the realization of her particular artistic vision. One day, perhaps, Lizzy will become fully Lana.

 

Lana Del Rey’s debut album ‘Born To Die’ is released on 30 January

FILM REVIEW: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, 18 ,158 minutes

Thomas Flanagan | January 15, 2012 | 0 Comments
As far as opening credits go, David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo hits the spot. A couple of minutes in and we’re treated to a sequence of pure Swedish cyberpunk gothica. A sticky black ooze dribbles around the screen, building itself into human form before collapsing back down into computer cables, all perfectly set to the heavy pulsing drums of Trent Reznor’s Immigrant Song. Maybe Fincher thought Daniel Craig (who plays one of the film’s two central protagonists, the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist) would feel upset with anything less than a Bond-esque display of title-sequence wizardry. Or maybe Fincher, now one of the most respected and successful directors working in Hollywood, is eager to indicate that he’s doing something more than simply reproducing the much-acclaimed Swedish version of The Girl for a subtitle-averse audience.
The plot begins with Blomkvist (Craig) getting sued after publishing a truthful but unsubstantiated attack on a billionaire industrialist in the magazine Millennium. He’s publicly disgraced and before he knows it he’s receiving an invitation to take a break from the magazine to help with a forty-year old murder investigation in Sweden’s wintry far north. Here we meet his employer, Henrik Vanger (a delightful Christopher Plummer), who introduces Blomkvist to his family, a wealthy but wily assortment of Nazis, misogynists and other undesirables. One of them, we are told, is responsible for the murder of Vagner’s niece forty years earlier. It’s up to Blomkvist to succeed where four decades of police investigation has failed, and join up the dots.
Of course, this is supposed to be a film all about female empowerment – the late Stieg Larsson, writer of the novel upon which the film is based, was an ardent feminist. And it’s not long before we meet our female anti-hero, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), an introverted hacker genius deemed psychologically unfit by the state and forced to undergo regular mental assessment. A lot of respect has to go to Mara for taking this role, such was the praise showered upon Noomi Rapace in the Swedish Girl. And rather than imitate Rapace’s quiet feral aggression, Mara genuinely does bring something new and interesting to the role. Mara’s Lisbeth is sleeker, wispier, almost ethereal. She’s drafted in to help Blomkvist with the investigation: a steely ghost sat behind the computer solving the crime.
But ghosts are tricky to see in the snow. And that’s Fincher’s problem. As is customary with his films, everything is lit in the shady golden glow of a Renaissance painting (à la The Social Network and Zodiac), and this, combined with the achingly cool icy minimalism transported and exaggerated from the Swedish original, gives the spectral Lisbeth nothing to stand out against. This isn’t helped by the casting of Craig as Blomkvist. Although Craig pulls off the humble intelligence of the rough-around-the-edges reporter with conviction, his large physical presence undermines the gravitas demanded by Lisbeth. I think it’s intentional – the last ten minutes of the film have an emphasis at complete odds with the message of the Swedish Girl and seem to solidify the idea of Lisbeth as victim. It’s subtle, but we’re left with an ending quite different from the proud feminist punch-in-the-face that made the Swedish version such a treat.
But this isn’t a bad film. As Craig says himself, this is a ‘proper grown-up thriller’. The murder investigation is entertaining and has a nice twist at the end, and the suspects are intelligently played by a stellar cast. So why, Mr Fincher, do we finish with a Lisbeth subservient to the whims of men? In a particularly graphic scene, Lisbeth is chained to a bed and raped by her state mentor. To have her embark on an odyssey of violent revenge, only to then become dependent on the romantic whims of Blomkvist, is a bizarre choice indeed. Fincher has succeeded in granting us a re-imagining of Girl. It’s a shame his fingerprint has come at the expense of a Lisbeth we’ll remember.
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