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The Squid And The Whale - Blu-ray Review

'something this close to home comes with innate risk, but Baumbach is either unflinchingly honest or able to rustle up attractively daft fictions which put his young avatars in uncomfortable yet compelling situations'

Released by Criterion's UK arm in the same month that the label release Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Noah Baumbach's The Squid And The Whale makes for a very comfortable bedfellow with Anderson's offering. Indeed, it's little surprise to find Anderson's name amongst the credits, here in a producer capacity, Baumbach having co-written Anderson's film of the previous year, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.

If The Squid And The Whale doesn't quite go for the same level of distance from reality as Zissou, then you can still see Anderson-esque touches here and there that influence your take on the action, heavily influenced as it is by Baumbach's own early life. Several characters, most notably Bernard (Jeff Daniels), speak in such an emotionally detached way as to not entirely be aware of their surroundings and partners on the stage. It's a mixture of aesthetic frankness and belligerence and it is very reminiscent of Anderson and his fictional proteges.

Dealing with divorce in a measured and occasionally gripping way, Baumbach's film gives each side fair shrift. Bernard is the biggest candidate to be prime idiot and, indeed, in a later glimpse into his relationship with Lili (Anna Paquin) he may be more than that, but for the most part he's the main source of humour; a simultaneously bumbling and clever oaf, about to muddle through single parenthood. Joan (Laura Linney), seeking out new loves, is often a perfect picture of motherhood under stress, attempting to escape the shadow of her husband.

That shadow may not really be there, but is constantly re-enforced by eldest son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg), convinced of his father's genius. Walt and Frank's (Owen Kline) development forms the meat of much of the plot, as you might expect from something biographically related to the director's own formative years.

A decision to tackle something this close to home comes with innate risk, but Baumbach is either unflinchingly honest or able to rustle up attractively daft fictions which put his young avatars in uncomfortable yet compelling situations. Walt is expressly and hilariously awkward in his fledgling romances, in a way only Eisenberg could manage to embody. Frank's strange, erm... 'expressions' of rebellion amongst the library books and locker-packed hallways of his school are the things of parental nightmares.

The result is something which, similarly to the best Anderson productions, feels just about enough removed from reality to convince you of its own brand of authenticity. It's simultaneously human, real; absurdly hilarious and bizarrely unreal. Yet it still manages to be the kind of quiet Indie Drama that effortlessly leaves you with a picture of a struggle that could be happening just next door.

The Squid And The Whale is released on Criterion UK edition on Monday 5th December 2016.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Wes Anderson's 'aesthetic distance' in The Royal Tenenbaums - Blu-ray Review

'Anderson's tales, especially here in Tenenbaums, plumb deep corners of anxiety and upset and neuroticism, but they do so whilst convincing you that those things are not really of this world.'

The long held belief by Wes Anderson detractors is that he is a prime example of a director who favours style over substance. Even for those who hold the director in high regard, it is easy to follow that logic. This is, after all, a man whose devotion to pastel shades and clothes would surely have had the potential to make Degas think about painting in neon.

The Royal Tenenbaums, newly released on a UK Criterion edition, is no exception. The performances are mannered; restrained even when they are being flamboyant. The clothes are largely pastel; or at least heavily ironic primary. The plot is interspersed with diversions towards what may be considered unnecessary whimsy; yes, this is a film featuring Dalmatian-spotted mice.

But Anderson's aesthetic choices, even his choices to include somewhat frivolous 'filler' around his core story, are deliberate and deliberately played with. They create a distance from his action that allows audiences to experience what are, frankly, sometimes horrifying narratives, without necessarily exposing themselves to the full threat of what happens. Anderson's tales, especially here in Tenenbaums, plumb deep corners of anxiety and upset and neuroticism, but they do so whilst convincing you that those things are not really of this world.

And so, here, we have a character, Chas (Ben Stiller, the only one of the ensemble who does not escape and rise above his former poor performances), so depressed by the death of his wife that he sleeps in the same room as his children, lest he should lose them too. We have Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), a character in what looks suspiciously like a near-arranged marriage, loveless, depressed and unable to work. We have Royal (Gene Hackman), a father so broke and so terrible that he's willing to fake his own terminal illness in order to get back in with his family. Just imagine what Ken Loach would do with that last one.

Yet, when you watch and think back to The Royal Tenenbaums, it is not an unhappy film. Like all of Anderson, it is smartly scripted, featuring a forked tongue when it needs it, good timing and great, playful, visual gags which often fulfil a story purpose as well as a humorous one; the final tracking shot, featuring Raleigh (Bill Murray) and a dog, and the detective on the roof are both cases in point.

Anderson's aesthetics, far from being style over substance, are the very thing that allow him to tell serious stories without bludgeoning his audience over the head with throes of social realism and depression-era levels of, well, depression.

There is though a problem with this approach. Tenenbaums, most watchers would admit, relies on the success or failure of a single scene involving Richie (Luke Wilson). It is the emotional apex of the film and; if you buy it and go with it, this is a five-star masterpiece for many.

That scene though is steeped still in the aesthetic distance of Anderson. For one, though we probably care more about Ritchie than for the rest of the family, do we care enough about him to make this scene hit? For another, the scene retains, despite the primary colours, a sense that it is happening in this minor bubble; this aesthete's dream of New York.

Anderson's aesthetic distance in The Royal Tenenbaums creates brilliance and inclusion; it welcomes you in, like a practised and familiar psychiatrist, ready to help you explore problematic areas of the psyche with relaxed genius. But it also prevents you, on occasion, from truly connecting with the moments that matter, the moments that could lift you, and the film, above the strengths that are already here.

The Royal Tenenbaums is released on Criterion UK on Monday 5th December 2016.

The Criterion Collection - Overlord - Blu-ray Review

'Cooper makes all the right choices about where to use archive material, but he expertly lets the images speak for themselves'.

When a film opens with the phrase "The Imperial War Museum presents" as Overlord does, you know that what you're about to watch intends to offer as authentic an interpretation of 20th Century warfare as possible. Combining archive footage of the Second World War with the fictional narrative of Tom Beddows (Brian Stirner), director Stuart Cooper achieves just that in harrowing, captivating fashion.

As we witness Beddows saying goodbye to his parents and cocker spaniel Tina early on as he leaves home to begin his army training, the decision to combine real and staged footage initially feels as though it might jar somewhat. It's a worry soon alleviated as Beddows' train journey, interrupted by an air raid, is intercut simply but effectively with footage of firemen tackling buildings set ablaze by bombs. Paralleling the noise of the train on the tracks with the machine gun fire of fighter planes is an additional master stroke by Cooper, just one example of the director's superb use of sound throughout. The handful of moments in which Cooper presents the noises of war against a black screen are some of the simplest within Overlord, but also some of the most impactful.

Beddows feels an ill fit for a soldier, his views on his service in the army becoming ever more nihilistic and punctuated with visions of his own death. His slight romance with Julie Neesam's character - credited only as "the girl" - offers a brief moment of optimism amongst Cooper's bleak depiction of the war, sweetly developed by Stirner and Neesam and shot by Cooper in the style of a Golden Age romantic drama. But it too is snuffed out before it can blossom, left only to develop in Beddows' mind as fantasies of what could have been. As the film edges nearer to its conclusion during the D-Day landings, the sense of tragic inevitability builds, and yet Cooper still manages to make Overlord's climax both shocking and unexpected.

Overlord's relative flaws are all found within its fictional sections, and stem largely from both its running time of under ninety minutes and the fact that far less than that is devoted to the narrative thanks to the considerable amount of archive footage used. Aside from Beddows, none of the characters are developed beyond the basic, with most remaining anonymous background figures throughout. A few of the conversations depicted also end up feeling a little too theatrical to ring true. What cannot be faulted, however, is Cooper's use of the wartime footage available to him. More than seventy years after the end of the Second World War, the pictures the conflict has given to us continue to be hauntingly, heart-rendingly fascinating. Cooper makes all the right choices about where to use archive material, but he expertly lets the images speak for themselves.

The Criterion Collection edition of Overlord is available on UK Blu-ray from Monday 6th June 2016.

By Ben Broadribb. Ben is a regular contributor to Film Intel, having previously written at Some Like It Hot Fuzz. He is normally seen in the wild wearing t-shirts containing obscure film references. He is a geek, often unashamedly so. He's also on Google+ and Twitter.

The Criterion Collection - In A Lonely Place - Blu-ray Review

'Within the narrative and outside of it, as witnessed by us, Ray's film is a beautiful examination and deconstruction of the fiction of death.'

Hollywood's obsession with itself continues to provide the potential for distance between the narratives studios create and their audiences. Appropriately enough, In A Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray's revered 1950 Noir, has at its core a playfulness around the creation of narratives, which for many will be enough to secure its place as a Classic.

Everything about Ray's narrative revolves around a self-awareness regarding story creation. His 'hero' (or at least central character), Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a screenwriter in need of a hit, glumly disenfranchised with his assignment to turn a trashy novel into a workable script. Steele gives us glimpses into his creative process throughout the film, most famously in a scene where he reconstructs the murder of Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart) in a style which makes us question his supposed innocence.

The scene is a fantastic bit of performance by Bogart (and lighting by Burnett Guffey) but, more so, it is immensely clever by Ray in deconstructing the sometimes thankless art of storytelling. Steele here is at the height of his powers, creating something real and meaty, but what does he get for it? Doubt and suspicion, from us and the other characters within the scene. Such is the way of Noir and Steele's life to that point. He is likable, sharp and funny, but he is also fallible, dangerous and, in another film (or maybe even, elsewhere in this one), an abusive murderer. By the time he is sitting in his car, with his arm around the neck of Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), no-one can help but fear for her safety.

The sophistication (grown-up-ness, if you will) of In A Lonely Place is that it has the ability, gumption and desire to allow this sort of question against its leading characters. You genuinely doubt that Steele is innocent. Laurel, meanwhile, also attracts our suspicions, right until the final third. Her flight from a past lover seems steeped in uncertainty, flames only fanned by the mysteriously matronly Martha (Ruth Gillette). Within the narrative and outside of it, as witnessed by us, Ray's film is a beautiful examination and deconstruction of the fiction of death.

It is, however, also a film which wobbles around genres, which presents few, if any, characters whom you wish to root for and one which has an overly keen ear for the sharp dialogue of Andrew Solt's script.

Genre first. In Ebert's Great Movies review, he places In A Lonely Place around Noir, but in Romance. I'd argue that it skirts both but finally, especially within the final third, makes it to the unattractive side of Melodrama. There are too many unrestrained histrionics in the break down, too many leered sighs and frank weepy apologies, and it hurts the film's ostensibly heartless, dry core.

That dryness, embodied by Steele's repartee, is also clinical enough to cut your suspension of disbelief. The character rarely misses the chance for a one-line retort and Laurel rarely misses the chance to set him up for one. It is a film constructed of zinger after zinger; all payoffs and no substance. People only talk like this in Hollywood.

Which, of course, brings us back around to the setting and Hollywood's love of its own slightly grubby visage. To sell that properly - to me at least - there has to be something to love; some golden age, rose-tinted Romance or some genuine undercutting of the glamour. Steele and Laurel offer neither of those things and because of that, long parts of In A Lonely Place felt too cold, too 'Hollywood clean' and, well, too lonely to love.

The Criterion Collection edition of In A Lonely Place is available on UK Blu-ray from Monday 16th May 2016.

The Criterion Collection - Easy Rider - Blu-ray Review

'it is clearly not evangelically sold on any of the lifestyles it presents as valid. Hopper's film is not an argument for the 'long-hairs', the hippies or the hillbillies; it is an argument for letting them be and allowing them to exist'

Easy Rider is often referred to as a film about America. It speaks to its still universal pull however that contemporary readings of Dennis Hopper's 1969 fuck you to 'civilised' society can and have drawn parallels wider afield. Easy Rider talks of intolerance. You can find intolerance anywhere. The scene featuring stars Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in a cafe, whilst the inhabitants of said cafe carry out a whispering campaign against them is uncomfortably terrifying, but only because you can imagine a similar scene happening over beers with an acquaintance who casually says something which outs him as a racist.

The power within the film stems from Hoppers casual portrayal of situations that at once seem extraordinary (the bikes he and Fonda ride could be something out of a Science Fiction flick), which are reacted to by the cast with careless abandon. An actor-led project (Fonda produces), it's surprising just how low key Easy Rider is at times, and how well this approach works. The straight man to Hopper's slightly wilder Billy, Fonda barely gets above a whisper, even in situations of high drama. During a stay in prison, Hopper even tells a fellow inmate (Jack Nicholson), to quiet down, so as not to wake his partner.

If there is an element that may undercut the film's freewheeling, hippie-innocent message, then it can be found during the prologue to the two rider's American road trip. Whist the film appears to preach tolerance for outsiders, 'long-haired' or otherwise, the latter parts fail to make mention or reference to the fact that Billy and Wyatt (Fonda) are drug dealers, seen peddling their supply off to Phil Spector (yes, that one) in the shadow of an airport runway. Whilst we are asked to sympathise with and support the duo, we're really not far off from a very different film where we follow the cop pursuing them and are asked to demonize them.

Easy Rider does get away with the juxtaposition, mainly because it is clearly not evangelically sold on any of the lifestyles it presents as valid. Hopper's film is not an argument for the 'long-hairs', the hippies or the hillbillies; it is an argument for letting them be and allowing them to exist. A detour Wyatt and Billy take to a hippie commune is particularly telling. By the end of it, Billy is uncomfortable enough to be ready to run from its inhabitants. Wyatt's pursuer sits with him and tries to pick his star sign, claiming 'I guessed right' despite incorrect guesses before the apparently correct one (Wyatt doesn't confirm her choice is accurate). There's something sad about the whole affair and Wyatt and Billy can smell it, but that doesn't extend to them criticising it. Like the duo themselves, there is something wrong in the commune to voyeuristic eyes, but the film is not here to pass judgement on that basis.

The finale, as Billy and Wyatt eventually reach their destination, the Holy Grail of mardi gras, inevitably echoes some of the pair's previous let downs, before Hopper delivers the tragic coup de gras. Though both - Billy in particular - want the occasion to be something special, it is shot through with melancholy and emptiness; a sense that there is something more somewhere, if only the world the characters inhabited was a little less imperfect. Hopper during this segment too lets his more overt directorial ticks get the better of him, creating a 'trip' which whiffs of student film. The rest of the production though is impressive. It's a cliche but this remains a true 'outsider' classic, where the outsiders in this case preach only judgement-free inclusion.

The Criterion Collection edition of Easy Rider is available on UK Blu-ray now.

The Criterion Collection - Macbeth (1971) - Blu-ray Review

'Experiencing Macbeth via the Criterion Collection's newly restored Blu-ray edition showcases two of its strongest assets: the locations and cinematography'.

If, like me, you studied Macbeth whilst at school during the 1990s, the chances are Roman Polanski's adaptation of Shakespeare's play was the version you were shown in whole or in part, probably via a well-worn VHS cassette played on a bulky TV and VCR wheeled into the classroom on a sturdy metal trolley. For many of my generation, Polanski's film may have been their first experience of Shakespearean cinema; revisiting the film in its 35th anniversary year, it's clear that we could have done a great deal worse.

Experiencing Macbeth via the Criterion Collection's newly restored Blu-ray edition (as opposed to the fuzzy video tape of the '90s or the vanilla DVD release the film received in 2002) showcases two of its strongest assets: the locations and cinematography. Polanski and cinematographer Gil Taylor provide both sweeping landscapes and credible castle interiors for their version of the tragedy to unfold within. The director also relishes several of the story's supernatural elements, infusing a number of sequences with both chilling horror style and unsettlingly surreal execution.

These fantastical parts notwithstanding, Polanski's Macbeth largely opts for a realistic portrayal of medieval Scotland. True, there's barely a Scottish accent to be heard, and the director's choice to put across most of Shakespeare's soliloquies as internal monologues through voiceover becomes a little tiresome at times; but Polanski's efforts to have the film take place in a believably gritty historical setting on the whole works very well. Macbeth is regularly at its best when at its most brutal, with the opening scenes set in the bleak aftermath of battle setting the tone superbly. The director isn't afraid to let the blood flow whenever the story calls for it, with several claret-soaked deaths on offer throughout.

The most notable issues within Polanski's film are those which haven't aged all that well. Whilst John Finch and Francesca Annis provide a satisfying Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, some of the other performances now come across as a little overripe. Keep an eye out for none other than a young Keith Chegwin as Fleance delivering a delightfully old-fashioned musical number during an early scene too.

The armour-clad fight scenes during the climactic final battle also suffer a little from coming across as almost comedic in their execution. It's a fact surely not helped by Monty Python And The Holy Grail being released only four years after Polanski's film, but the director deserves to shoulder some of the blame for this nonetheless. But, whilst there may be minor elements that come across a little dated, they don't prevent Macbeth from being a largely successful and impressive adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy.

The Criterion Collection edition of Macbeth is available on UK Blu-ray now.

The Criterion Collection: It Happened One Night - Blu-ray Review

'the man with a moustache even good moustaches dream of becoming, Clark Gable twinkles beautifully as down-on-his-luck (though that hardly registers with him at all) reporter Peter'

One of the launch titles for Criterion's arrival on UK shores, Frank Capra's multi-Oscar winner, It Happened One Night, presents charmingly enough still, even if its premise and much of the story work now painfully operates on a gender politics code which is, at best, hopelessly outdated, at worst, offensive.

The man with a moustache even good moustaches dream of becoming, Clark Gable twinkles beautifully as down-on-his-luck (though that hardly registers with him at all) reporter Peter, who just happens across runaway heiress Ellie (Claudette Colbert), out on a limb with no clue, apparently, of how to budget for or even complete her trip from Florida to New York.

Their relationship is occasionally sweet but from the off also occasionally misjudged. Peter seems one part surrogate father to Ellie, one part abusive partner (she's threatened by him more than once during the journey) and one part the Romantic Comedy lead the character should be. Peter takes it upon himself to tell Ellie where she's going wrong, school her in the 'right' ways of making a fist of it on your own and, along the way, pushing her towards a decision on the men in her life which naturally leads back round towards Peter. Ellie's reward for this schooling? Well, of course, she gets to go to bed with the dashing leading man, come the end of the film.

The odd relationship works only sporadically and century-specific gender values can only be held up as half of an excuse. In 21st century cinema we would talk of Ellie having no agency and that is still true here, whatever the values of the society in which she operates. Her daring escape from her father's boat aside, right at the start of the film, she is consistently led whichever way the shepherd of the story takes her.

Gable's twinkling may tempt to you into forgiving Peter for his rough lecturing of Ellie throughout the trip, but bear in mind that his values too seem more askew than gender imbalance. Peter is a journalist, out to cash a big check on the story of Ellie, hopelessly dashing from her father to the man she eloped to marry. In order to get the story, Peter facilitates Ellie's flight, keeping her on the run so that his column inches can grow as her tachometer does. Of course, given her opulently foul father, introduced to us in the setup, you might say that Peter is doing Ellie a favour, but at the beginning at least his motivation is to manipulate the narrative he will serve to his readers for personal gain.

On an aesthetic level, Capra is twelve years off here from making It's A Wonderful Life, five years away from Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and it can show. He's too happy to sit in interiors, often the cramped confines of the bus Peter and Ellie use to escape, when, actually the exteriors boast the best shots of the film. A tracking shot of Ellie walking to find the showers in the motel the couple hole up in is sublime, and reminiscent of It's A Wonderful Life's running scene. Similarly, Gable and Colbert, shot from behind, figuratively making their escape walking up the middle of a road hums with the notions the film wants to throw across to us; escape, freedom, the romance of a road trip. By contrast, the scene of singing on the bus is the only time the film achieves the same level of simple wonder whilst resting in an interior.

The judgements on It Happened One Night then are resolutely fixed in a contextual battle between values now and values in the 1930s, but they also show through with missives on 'what might have been'. If only Ellie had a bit more oomph and agency, if only Capra went outside with his camera a little more, if only the one-liners had more zing. It's charming for a time, but the nearly moments come too frequently.

The Criterion Collection edition of It Happened One Night is available in the UK now.