"Somewhere in Northern Italy..."

August 12, 2019 by Rosalie Leonard in mini-dissertations, fiona underhill

Two portraits of transformative summers in Unrelated and Call Me by Your Name

by Fiona Underhill

The notion of wealthy Brits and Americans summering in Europe or ‘finding themselves’ in a summer abroad is by no means a new one. The Grand Tour and later the Cook’s Tour were established features of 17th to 19th century British life and were a rite-of-passage for those on the cusp of adulthood. Films based on the works of Henry James (Wings of the Dove, Portrait of a Lady) and EM Forster (A Room with a View) have captured this tradition and are usually ripe with scandalous affairs set amongst the jaw-dropping architecture and art-work of Florence and Venice. The 1950s had the summer romance films Roman Holiday (Wyler, 1953) and Summertime (Lean, 1955). The 90s were positively bursting with films depicting expats in Italy including Anthony Minghella’s period films The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (1993), as well as Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty (1996).

Sword of Trust

July 17, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill, reviews

Written by Lynn Shelton and Michael Patrick O’Brien
Directed by Lynn Shelton
Starring Marc Maron, Jon Bass and Michaela Watkins
MPAA rating: R for language throughout
Running time: 1 hour and 28 minutes

by Fiona Underhill

Director Lynn Shelton is known for her collaborations with the Duplass Brothers (Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, Outside In), as well as her film Laggies which stars Keira Knightley, Sam Rockwell and Chloë Grace Moretz and is beloved by many. Comedy and improvisation have also been through-lines of Shelton’s work, with her directing numerous TV shows including Marc Maron’s TV series Maron, his Netflix special Too Real and four episodes of GLOW. Now at the age of 55, Shelton has given Maron his first starring role in Sword of Trust, as Mel, the owner of a pawn shop. He works there with his hopeless assistant Nathaniel (Jon Bass) and has regular visits from his friend Jimmy (Al Elliott) and his ex-girlfriend Dierdre (Lynn Shelton). One day, couple Cynthia (Jillian Bell, known for 22 Jump Street and Rough Night) and Mary (Michaela Watkins) come in with a sword inherited from Cynthia’s grandfather. This sparks a chain of events which leads to adventure, peril and self-discovery.

Wild Rose

July 03, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill, reviews

Written by Nicole Taylor
Directed by Tom Harper
Starring Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters and Sophie Okenedo
MPAA rating: R for language throughout, some sexuality and brief drug material
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

by Fiona Underhill

After starring in one of 2017’s best films, Beast (for which she should have received more awards-recognition), Irish actress Jessie Buckley returns in a central role as Rose-Lynn Harlan – an ex-convict from Glasgow who has ambitions of being a country (NOT country and western) singer. Both Buckley and her Beast co-star Johnny Flynn are singer-songwriters, but that film focused on their acting rather than singing talents. In Wild Rose, Buckley finally gets to stretch her vocal cords, in what is surely a passion-project for her.

Hey, Rewind That!: The Production Design of Lucky Number Slevin (McGuigan, 2006)

June 10, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill, hey rewind that

by Fiona Underhill

Lucky Number Slevin is twisty-turny comedy thriller with a fantastic cast, sharp and witty dialogue and even some romance. However, I would not love it anywhere near as much as I do if it didn’t LOOK so amazing. The set decoration, costume design, as well as the use of color and lighting elevate this film from just something enjoyable to something truly memorable. Production design is an under-valued aspect of filmmaking (as well as costumes, hair and makeup) which can really make-or-break a film for me. From the work of Powell & Pressburger, to Asian masters including Wong Kar-Wai, Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-Wook, through to Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Baz Luhrmann, Guillermo Del Toro, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet – films which are feasts for the eyes have true staying power. While you might expect fantasy films to give thorough consideration to world-building, I appreciate it when films in other genres put time, care and attention into making them look good. Some excellent recent examples of 60s/70s looks would be Bad Times at the El Royale, The Nice Guys, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – which have quite a lot in common with the aesthetic of Lucky Number Slevin. However; while the former are period pieces, Slevin is set in the modern day, but with a retro feel.

Starfish

May 31, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill, reviews

Written and directed by AT White
Starring Virginia Gardner, Christina Masterson, and Eric Beecroft
Running time: 1 hour and 39 minutes

by Fiona Underhill

AT White is a musician who has infused his first film as a director with music, as well as composing the score himself. The music is definitely one of this Starfish’s biggest strengths and it has one of the best scores of the year. Combining sci-fi and an apocalyptic event with themes of grief and guilt, Starfish is an unusual film with a strange tone and atmosphere. It is quite reminiscent of Annihilation, in as much as that was a sci-fi film which was actually about depression, similarly this also has a seemingly fantastical backdrop whilst dealing with universal themes.

The Spy Behind Home Plate

May 28, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill, reviews

Directed by Aviva Kempner
Edited by Barbara Ballow
Running time: 1 hour and 41 minutes

by Fiona Underhill

Like the recent Merce Cunningham documentary If the Dancer Dances, The Spy Behind Home Plate is directed, produced and edited by women. Female documentary-makers taking on male subject matters is a fascinating perspective and one we will hopefully see more of. This documentary doesn’t particularly break new ground in terms of format, as it is a mixture of talking heads and mostly still images from the archives. The problem with making a documentary about a historical figure in the pre-television age is that there are hardly any moving images of them, making it harder for the subject to come ‘alive’ for an audience. Moe Berg is someone who lived five lifetimes within one. He had his academic and law careers, his baseball career, and then his ‘spy’ career. Due to this, the documentary is absolutely packed full of information and it is slightly overwhelming, trying to keep up with the pace of it all. Editor Barbara Ballow must have had to sift through an unbelievable amount of material in piecing this together and mostly does a good job, but it is a barrage of facts which requires concentration.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

April 19, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill, reviews

Written by Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Starring Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Joana Ribeiro
Running time: 2 hours and 12 minutes

by Fiona Underhill

With one of the most infamous gestation periods of any film in movie history, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote couldn't possibly live up to its almost mythical status, right? Well, director Terry Gilliam has achieved something which is almost worth the wait. Gilliam first got the urge to adapt the novel by Miguel de Cervantes in the 1980s, but it wasn't until 1998 that he secured the funding for the project. The production was plagued by natural disasters and illness, went massively over-budget and was never finished. Instead, Gilliam (with Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe) made a documentary called Lost in La Mancha about his quest to finish what seemed like a cursed project. Gilliam made multiple attempts to get the film going (in the twenty years since) with various different lead actors, but it is only now that he has managed to complete his magnum opus. Even now, it is not so simple or cut-and-dried - there has still been a legal dispute over the film's release and its debut at Cannes in 2018 was almost cancelled. On April 10th 2019, the film received a special one-night only engagement in US theatres and it will receive a patchy limited release later in April. If this movie had been given a proper, wide release in the fall or winter, it could have become an awards contender. At the very least, the costumes and production design are spectacular (and Oscar-worthy) and Adam Driver gives one of the best performances this year. If you are lucky enough to live where you get to see this film in a movie theater, please do so - the stunning locations are meant to be seen on a big screen.

Black Book

March 15, 2019 by Guest User in fiona underhill

by Fiona Underhill

Paul Verhoeven is best known for his schlocky and shockingly violent sci-films (Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers) and his sex-and-nudity-filled 90s thrillers (Basic Instinct and Showgirls). Two central themes of his career have been fascism (depicted via graphic violence) and fetishism (depicted via graphic sex) and these two themes continue into his World War Two drama Black Book. Zwartboek (to give it its Dutch title) was a return to Verhoeven’s homeland. He had made many Dutch-language films in the 1970s, regularly collaborating with Rutger Hauer and his 1973 film Turkish Delight (aka The Sensualist) was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. But Black Book was a return to Dutch-language films after a 23 year gap and to themes closer to home.

Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1939) and Notorious (1946)

June 13, 2018 by Guest User in fiona underhill

by Fiona Underhill

If there is one name you associate with the word thriller, it has to be Hitchcock. Of course, his psychological technicolor masterpieces from the 50s and 60s are his best-known works, but his earlier black-and-white films have at least as much to offer the genre. The provincial and parochial Great Britain of Jamaica Inn (1939) and the train journeys of The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Strangers on a Train (1951) all had themes foreshadowed by The 39 Steps (1935), with its long train journey to rural Scotland. Made in the pre-war period when the rise of fascism and communism was threatening Europe, The 39 Steps deals with a non-specific foreign power trying to obtain military secrets from the UK. The spy genre was popular in the 30s because of the rapid rise in arrests and trials of Soviet spies in Europe. The 39 Steps fulfills many tropes of the genre; such as an ordinary man being under suspicion, falsely accused, on the run and desperate to clear his name (later used by Hitch in North by Northwest, of course).