Loving Vincent (2017)

It isn't often you can stop during a film and still keep appreciating what you're seeing.

Loving Vincent follows Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), a young man who is tasked with delivering the last letter of Vincent van Gogh (Robert Gulaczyk), but upon arriving in Auvers-sur-Oise, Armand discovers a mystery surrounding Vincent's last days and decides to investigate how he really died.

The intention's of this film are to obviously showcase and pay homage to the abilities and life of Vincent van Gogh, but whilst perfectly achieving those goals, it goes above and beyond to create a fantastic piece of mystery drama that is enhanced by the medium. All the motion, the characters, the landscapes are all enhanced by Van Gogh's specific style, all the camera work that has been replicated is brilliantly reconstructed by the artists whilst also encapsulating the unmistakable feeling of movement that was captured in a lot of Van Gogh's work.

The stunning thing about Loving Vincent is that there aren't specific areas of the film that use this "gimmick", it's the entire way through, no expense spared and it's proven completely by pausing it. Any other film, you'd see an interesting frame or set piece, pause it and more than likely see motion-blur, a drop in quality or it suddenly become less enticing by ridding it of it's movement, it's life. Leaving the only option of enjoying it any further is to look behind the scenes and lose all immersion. You stop Loving Vincent, at any point, any given second and you're presented with a beautiful piece of art, lovingly created by someone who understood Van Gogh, who appreciated his work above all others and has spent hours, days, maybe even weeks crafting a single frame to pay homage to him and honour his memory.

As I mentioned before, this isn't just a basic story used to display the artwork, this really is a compelling film, an intriguing mystery that hasn't come to light in cinema before and compels the viewer to investigate into the life of Vincent van Gogh, if not simply inspired by the artwork. It delves deeper into the supposed "madness" that he's constantly tied to, it portrays it as a sickness, a pain that came from nowhere and was forever a hindrance for Van Gogh, thus painting a portrait of modern views on mental health and the struggle of anyone who experiences the many veins and avenues a broken mind can take.

All in all the key thing about Loving Vincent is depth; the depth of the craft, the depth of the themes and the depth of love and adoration that everyone involved in making it had for Van Gogh himself.

5/5 - Beautiful, in so many senses.

Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (2016)

The real heroes aren't robots, aliens or made in a lab, they're the ones who know exactly what to do to save everyone they can.

Directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood, Sully: Miracle on the Hudson tells the true story of Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger; an American airline pilot who landed flight 1549, full of 155 passengers, on the Hudson River after a devastating bird strike at 2,800ft and the legal investigation he faced following the event.

The story of Sully: Miracle on the Hudson touches on the familiar arc of "Hero VS The Law"; Yes, Sully saved all those people but was the landing necessary? And if not, did he endanger everyone's lives?
The strong moral angle on the side of Captain Sullenberger automatically puts the audience in support of him but rather than leave it at that basic conflict, Eastwood decides to show the inner turmoil of our hero, the early stages of Sully's PTSD and his constant questioning of himself as everyone seems to be against him, even computer simulations say he could've landed safely at two different airports. We're shown this crippling mental and emotional ordeal through visual representations of what Sully thinks would've happened if he'd turned back for the airports, all of which ended in fiery climaxes in the centre of New York City.
Having the audience know this, as well as his calm behaviour when being questioned, completely brings into reality how experienced Sully was at that point and that he doesn't see himself as a hero, just as a pilot following standard protocol, he just carried out his part in saving those people in a way he'd always practiced for, just never under such extreme circumstances.

Hanks delivers another astounding performance in the lead role, carrying such a heavily emotional performance under the subtlety and control of someone like Captain Sullenberger. By far the strongest scene in the entire movie is the so-called "Can we get serious now?" scene, in which Captain Sullenberger confronts the officials about the simulations being inhuman, unrealistic and incorrect, the calm tone Hanks keeps when performing this scene has more resonance that someone screaming in defiance about suspected wrong-doings, his stern confidence and intelligence destroys his opposition with well-worded questions and belief that no-one outside that plane could possibly comprehend what happened. The abilities of an actor like Tom Hanks have always impressed and considering he's still going strong into 2019, I'm looking forward to what he brings to the table next.

Of course with Sully being the base for the entire film, there aren't really any pivotal characters outside of him but there are a few key moments in which the supporting cast really shine. Moments like the midnight walk between Captain Sullenberger and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) in which they talk about how surreal their situation seems to be, how ridiculous "counselling" sounds and the fact that they're going to be interviewed by David Letterman. That scene once agian grounds these characters in reality, they're reacting to a situation not like heroes or movie-stars, they're real people.

With Heroic stories being swallowed up by the media everyday, buried underneath tabloid nonsense about celebrity diets, royal babies and the hottest new make-up trends, I can only hope that more awareness comes out in films like Sully: Miracle on the Hudson, so that we can celebrate the world's true inspirations instead of the tedious and undeserving ones.

5/5 - No cape and costume necessary.

The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)

You know when the CIA ruins your romantic life? Relatable right?!

The Spy Who Dumped Me follows Audrey (Mila Kunis), a young woman who's boyfriend, Drew (Justin Theroux), who is secretly a spy, has recently broken up with her with via text. Unfortunately for her and her best friend Morgan (Kate McKinnon), they are now being pursued across Europe by the CIA and the Russian Mafia.

There are many different examples of films that approach the Spy genre with a comedic twist, be them more British slapstick like Johnny English, or more action packed like Central Intelligence, there are plenty of different angles to approach spoofing Spy films, but The Spy Who Dumped Me takes the reoccurring "Not a spy so I don't know what I'm doing" character and doesn't pair them up with a professional, instead now there's two of them and it's even more hilarious because instead of being told a bunch of secret agent lingo when we don't know what's going on, we just have to stick with Audrey and Morgan, guess our way through and assume the calamity that ensues is just regular circumstance.

Kate McKinnon does a fantastic job of carrying the comedy. Morgan is a perfect example of a regular British television character; The quirky best friend. Which in most instances results in some near-insane person dressed in bright colours and dungarees. However, even with McKinnon's random outbursts hilariously making fun of the Spy genre, I think the comedy could've landed a lot more consistently if the jokes focused more on the background of these two "inseparable" friends, instead of trying to force some really confusing joke characters, like the Russian assassin/gymnast/model person. Some of the funniest moments of the film had Audrey and Morgan referencing their past and hyping each other up, this is supposed to be a buddy movie right? This film also uses some more Meta humour in how exposed the two girls are to all the danger, to which they then reference cliche's and tropes from the genre itself. A perfect example of this is when Audrey and Morgan first meet Wendy (Gillian Anderson), the supposed Head of the CIA and Morgan claims that she is "the boss and has not sacrificed one ounce of femininity", obviously referencing characters like M from the James Bond franchise.

There are some more apparent downfalls though. For all the comedy injected by McKinnon, the sub-plots and little romantic moments involving Kunis, Theroux and the new handsome Spy, Sebastian (Sam Heughan) all kill the momentum of the film and just revert a thrilling, hilarious action-comedy to an honestly boring romance story that didn't need to be there. If they wanted to push more drama into the story, which I think is completely unnecessary, they could've just tested the relationship between the protagonists, creating situations that attempt to jeopardise their friendship but only prove to strengthen it.

All-in-all, The Spy Who Dumped Me provides another chapter in the Spy-Spoof genre but it presents a lot more opportunities for growth within the genre, unfortunately without already perfecting those or even providing a consistently great example but they've definitely given the creative community an idea to work with.

3.5/5 - Kate McKinnon interrupts a romantic-comedy with "Antics".