Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool - but they might win awards

I’ve always been slightly underwhelmed by Annette Bening as an actor. Her initial impact in The Grifters (1990) or Bugsy (1991) was incendiary. Here was an actor to capture the imagination; the eye went to whatever she was doing. Lately though, for me, she’s been coasting through a series of unaccountably well-regarded roles in films like The Kids are Alright (2010) or Twentieth Century Women (2016), where she is the very embodiment of first world problems.

However, in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, Bening gives what may be the best performance of her career in what may be her most challenging role to date. It is a nuanced, layered, heartfelt performance which is only matched in its ability by that of her co-star Jamie Bell.

The film is the strange but true story of the Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame who, her Hollywood career in decline, came to Britain to appear on stage cashing in on her reflected glory. While in London she met Peter Turner, a struggling young Liverpool actor, and they formed a brief but intense relationship which lasted until she eventually succumbed to illness. In between she spent her time with him and his family in his parents’ council house in Liverpool.

This is unfathomable in our age of instant celebrity but, in the pre-Google era, it is entirely convincing that Peter would have to tipped off by a movie buff barman about the status of his date.

It’s a remarkable story and all the more remarkable for the normality with which it is handled by director Paul McGuigan. Gloria does not lord it over everyone in fact, apart from a tendency to treat Peter as a personal assistant at times, she settles in quite well to this working-class lifestyle. It’s implied, through two monstrously effective cameos from Vanessa Redgrave and Frances Barber, that her own family life was something of a nightmare and by contrast the couthy charm of the Turners presents a Scouse paradise.

But at the heart of this film is a tender and touching love story underpinned by two glorious performances. Bening gives a subtlety textured performance in a demanding role. She has to play Gloria as a movie star coming to terms with her decline, she also has to play an ordinary woman coming to terms with her frailty, as well as playing a four-times married woman coming to terms with being in love for the first time in her life. It would be easy to give it the full Norma Desmond here but Bening’s performance is restrained and generous.

The generosity is reciprocated by director McGuigan who shows a real flair for this kind of material after a career dominated by action fare, albeit well-made. There is a moment at the start of the third act, without giving too much away, where Gloria’s fate is revealed, and an apparently inexplicable decision is explained. McGuigan gives Bening the space to flesh out this unreliable narrative with a performance of enormous tenderness which allows her to display the full intensity of her talent. It is a genuine star turn/.

Jamie Bell, reunited with his screen mum Julie Walters for the first time since Billy Elliott (2000), is not overshadowed. This is a rare opportunity for him to play someone roughly his own age in non-fantasy circumstances. He and Bening move together like a Swiss watch with a performance that complements hers completely without ever losing anything of himself.

While we are handing out compliments, a word of praise for the art department. The film tells its story in flash backs and flash forwards and Eve Stewart’s production design is key to allowing the story to unfold seamlessly despite its fragmented structure.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool has taken a long time to get to the screen. The book was written thirty years ago, and I remember conversations with a leading Scottish film maker twenty years ago about his plans to film it. That filmmaker is not quite so prominent now but there is a certain symmetry in McGuigan, another leading Scottish filmmaker, eventually bringing it to the screen.

It has been worth the wait and, with the right support, this film should be a serious contender in the end of year awards races.

The most Marvelous Marvel movie in the Marvel universe

There is no doubt that the man who more than most is responsible for the visual look of the Marvel Universe is Jack Kirby. His kinetic, dynamic, often bombastic, art was the perfect foil for Stan Lee's hyperbolic prose style.

That being said, it is fitting that on the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Marvel Universe provides the ultimate tribute to 'The King' in the shape of Thor: Ragnarok which is the Kirbyest movie there has ever been. Is it the best Marvel movie ever, as some have suggested, but I think - to borrow from Brian Clough on his abilities as a football manager - it's certainly in the top one!

The first two Thor movies took themselves a little too seriously; the first one was faux Shakespeare, the second made little sense. With director Taika Waititi they have someone who has judged the tone perfectly; this is a rollicking, boisterous romp with a great deal of charm and lots and lots of laughs.

For me the essence of the great days of Marvel were those wonderful issues of The Mighty Thor in the late Sixties where all the keynotes of Asgardian mythology were introduced. The combination of Stan Lee’s words, Jack Kirby’s pencils, and Vince Colletta’s inks created a world of grandeur and majesty and excitement. Thor:Ragnarok re-captures the mood of that golden era superbly.

The film draws on much of that Marvel mythology with the concept of Ragnarok, the twilight of the Gods and the Fall of Asgard which was an ever-present threat in that great Lee/Kirby run. Odin is missing, the fire demon Surtur has risen, and Hela, the Goddess of Death (Cate Blanchett) has escaped from her exile and set her sights on claiming her rightful heritage, Asgard.

Thor and Loki join forces to fight her but in their first battle they are separated in an accident on the Rainbow Bridge and hurled to a world on the far edge of the galaxy. This world is riled by The Collector (Jeff Goldblum) who runs a Contest of Champions in which Thor must face Hulk, who has also been diverted there at the end of the last Avengers movie. This gives Waititi the chance to interweave the Ragnarok storyline with the classic Planet Hulk saga and, in the process, give himself the best lines in the film as the rock-warrior Korg.

The story flits back and forward between these two plots until the finale in which Thor, Hulk and the others manage to escape and return to Asgard for a final battle against Hela.

Thor: Ragnarok is a genuine spectacle. It is a tale told on a huge scale against an epic backdrop but it never loses sight of the reality of the characters. The script by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost is packed full of terrific dialogue and lovely character moments. It must help too that Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, and Mark Ruffalo as Thor, Loki, and Hulk are all sufficiently familiar with these characters to really inhabit them. The newcomers, Goldblum and Blanchett, and Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, do very well with roles which are a little two dimensional and Benedict Cumberbatch shows the value of an integrated cinematic universe in which Doctor Strange can appear essentially as a plot device.

Waititi made his directing breakthrough with the super Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). I remember wondering as I watched the chase sequence at the end of the movie what he might do if he was given a substantial budget. Thor:Ragnarok is the answer and it is a terrific piece of filmmaking; interestingly many of his antipodean mates from Wilderpeople and other places turn up to great effect in this movie.

The visuals are superb and, like Waititi, cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe responds to the challenge of a huge canvas and fills it with some breath-taking images. There is a huge Kirby influence, as you can see from the pictures above, but he goes beyond that to make the film his own.

I have some issues with Thor: Ragnarok in that a lot of well-established Marvel characters appear to be written out with some finality – the Warriors Three for example – but when you are dealing with myths and legends, and their modern equivalents in comic books and movies I suppose nothing is final.

For all that, Thor:Ragnarok is a hoot and a much needed respite from the doom and gloom of recent superhero movies.

 

Blade Runner 2049 is a futuristic future masterpiece

One of the most terrifying moments in a filmmaker’s career is when the film plays to an audience; that split-second before the film flickers on screen is weighted with expectation on both sides. The audience is demanding to be engaged and the filmmaker must live up to that anticipation. For just a few seconds the relationship becomes adversarial. And how much more febrile is that moment when the film in question is a sequel to a revered classic.

Watching Blade Runner (1982) for the first time on its initial release was, for reasons too tedious to explain here, one of the most purely cinematic moments of my life. The film is one of my favourites and I confess, 35 years later, when the lights dimmed and the metaphorical curtains parted on Blade Runner 2049, I held my breath for a moment.The opening shot of the original movie is iconic. One of the stumbling blocks for any sequel is how to match that. I can’t begin to imagine how director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins felt as they planned this shot.

Happily for me, the opening of the sequel is as satisfying as the original and in its execution provides a lot of clues to the way the new film will progress. It is, to some extent, a mirror of the original which reverses our perspective and this is a recurring theme throughout the sequel where the first film is referenced, but only obliquely.

The world of 2049 has not improved much since the first film. It is more toxic, murkier, wetter – though I never thought that possible – and everyone who is anyone has gone off world. There are some improvements, such as a new generation of replicants to do most of the significant jobs with extended life spans. There are fresh drawbacks too, such as a ten-day digital blackout which, in some respects, has rendered the world frustratingly incomplete.

Amid this backdrop we discover K (Ryan Gosling), a blade runner whose job is to track down rogue replicants. We encounter him in media res as he pursues one of his cases. The action is brief but inevitable and the replicant is terminated. However, in the best traditions of future noir, another body is discovered – or at least its remains are discovered – and this sets K off on a mystery whose resolution might change the very nature of the world of 2049.

There have been pleas by the film makers not to give away too much of the plot. To be honest I don’t think it matters; this film is so good that I can’t imagine anyone being upset by knowing what happens. The charms of Blade Runner 2049 are legion and the resolution of the plot is the least of them. However, let us agree to be spoiler-free

In truth this is a film which is light on plot, especially so for a film that runs for two and three-quarter hours. For me though the thin plot is only the framework for a story which is rich in imagination, provocation, and encourages a genuine spirit of enquiry. Blade Runner 2049 is a film which poses big questions without ever answering them, however days after the film ended I am still thinking about it which for me is a real sign of greatness.

There is a Kafkaesque quality to what we see here. It’s probably significant that Gosling’s character is initially called ‘K’ and then when he chooses a human name, it is Joe. The hero of Kafka’s The Trial, after all, was Joseph K. Like his namesake Gosling is pondering much about his relationship with the society he lives in throughout the film; Gosling’s blank canvas expression works perfectly here given the potentially artificial nature of his character.

There are many call-backs to the first film in Hampton Fancher’s screenplay , not least the appearance of Harrison Ford as Deckard, the original Blade Runner. It is almost two hours into the film before he makes an appearance but he does not disappoint. Other call-backs include Sylvia Hoeks as this film’s version of Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty, and Ana de Armas who takes on an updated version of Pris, the role played by Darryl Hannah first time round.

The film’s weak link is Jared Leto – who is seldom anything else for me. He plays Niander Wallace, the industrialist who has taken over the Tyrrel corporation. Leto is all style and no substance but his character does provide one crucial insight into a significant plot line from the first film which should make you look at both films in a new light.

The real star of this film is its execution. There are few mainstream directors currently working as thoughtful or intelligent as Dennis Villeneuve and his handling of the film is superb. The real star however is cinematographer Roger Deakins; the first film was a noir triumph and this time round Deakins gives us light, but not much. A maestro of murk he shoots the film in a toxic palette of greens and oranges and sulphurous yellows and adds so much to our appreciation of the film that his work is almost like an additional character.

Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner took a long time to be recognised for the magnificent film that it is. Its influence can be felt in so many of the scenes in this film which remind you of films such as A.I (2001) or Her (2013), until you remember that they are dealing in tropes laid down by Blade Runner. The reception for Blade Runner 2049 is much more adulatory but I feel certain that, just like its illustrious predecessor, the reputation of this most intelligent of epics will only be further burnished in decades to come.