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Reviews8
littlewritingmachine's rating
Anyone who has studied history, and that's just about everyone, will find something to enjoy in Bill, a big screen leap for the popular TV team that expands the scope of the show without letting go of the good humour and wit beloved by millions.
Taking a cue from Shakespeare in Love, but playing the idea of the Bard's formative years in a very different way, Bill features Mathew Bayton as the young playwright, seeking his fortune in London and falling under the wing of Christopher Marlowe (Jim Howick). The historical aspect is brought to the fore as King Phillip II (Ben Willbond) concocts a scheme to eliminate Queen Elizabeth I (Helen McCrory) by gunpowder, with Bill's first play giving him a pretext to carry out his plan. Bill's excitement about seeing his work brought to the stage is tempered by a dawning realisation that he's only a pawn in a bigger political game.
Bill might well work for worldwide audiences as a cheerful parody of Shakespeare in Love, but has its own sense of comic invention. It's refreshing to see a British film with such spirited performances, with Willbond sporting several moustaches at once and his co-writer Laurence Rickard superbly deadpan as the violently anti-Catholic Walsingham. Bill never dumbs down history, but reflects it through amusingly modern updates; the castle security go to Code Woad when the believe there's a high risk of attack, and Phillip's men are subject to a search by a decidedly modern customs officer. Damien Lewis has a brief but amusing cameo, and all the performers are on point; you can tell that they've got confidence in the material, and they wring every possible laugh from it. Sneaking into cinemas with barely a breath of publicity, Bill should find a wide and appreciative audience once it finds a home on the small screen; carefully plotted and with genuine wit behind the gags, it's the best British comedy of the year. That may not be saying much, given that big-screen comedy is seemingly a lost art, but Bill is just the thing to put a rare smile on the faces of adults and children alike.
Taking a cue from Shakespeare in Love, but playing the idea of the Bard's formative years in a very different way, Bill features Mathew Bayton as the young playwright, seeking his fortune in London and falling under the wing of Christopher Marlowe (Jim Howick). The historical aspect is brought to the fore as King Phillip II (Ben Willbond) concocts a scheme to eliminate Queen Elizabeth I (Helen McCrory) by gunpowder, with Bill's first play giving him a pretext to carry out his plan. Bill's excitement about seeing his work brought to the stage is tempered by a dawning realisation that he's only a pawn in a bigger political game.
Bill might well work for worldwide audiences as a cheerful parody of Shakespeare in Love, but has its own sense of comic invention. It's refreshing to see a British film with such spirited performances, with Willbond sporting several moustaches at once and his co-writer Laurence Rickard superbly deadpan as the violently anti-Catholic Walsingham. Bill never dumbs down history, but reflects it through amusingly modern updates; the castle security go to Code Woad when the believe there's a high risk of attack, and Phillip's men are subject to a search by a decidedly modern customs officer. Damien Lewis has a brief but amusing cameo, and all the performers are on point; you can tell that they've got confidence in the material, and they wring every possible laugh from it. Sneaking into cinemas with barely a breath of publicity, Bill should find a wide and appreciative audience once it finds a home on the small screen; carefully plotted and with genuine wit behind the gags, it's the best British comedy of the year. That may not be saying much, given that big-screen comedy is seemingly a lost art, but Bill is just the thing to put a rare smile on the faces of adults and children alike.
Aviation has always been a key element of the Studio Ghibli films; from the flying broomstick in Kiki's Delivery Service to the airborne armies in Howl's Moving Castle. So for Hayao Miyazaki's reported swan-song to focus on the development of aeroplane design is no surprise. A fictionalised biopic of designer Jiro Horikoshi, The Wind Rises is a stunning achievement, an animated film that uses the medium to tell a compelling, highly emotional story that has appeal for children and adults alike. Horikoshi's designs were used during World War 2, and that detail may make The Wind Rises unpalatable to some. But Miyazaki's films have never focused on battle-lines, but on the personal stories involved, and The Wind Rises gains power from the balancing of the beauty of the designs against the knowledge that the purpose for which the designs will be used leads to death and unhappiness. It's a bitter-sweet paradox, and one that many directors would sweep under the carpet. Instead, Miyazaki puts Horikoshi's dilemma centre-stage, and depicts the designer's angst as he finds himself immersed in industrial and international intrigue while he attempts to keep his own thinking pure. A subplot, invented for the film, relates how Horikoshi's work life is informed by his chaste romance with Naoko, a woman with tuberculosis who won't marry until she recovers. Horikoshi's dreams take flight while his day-to-day reality struggles to leave the ground behind. The Wind Rises stirs up sensational aerial dream sequences, but also captures the bleakness of life on the ground, as Tokyo recovers from a devastating earthquake. Horikoshi and Naoko journey to the Magic Mountain resort in an effort to address her physical malaise, and their interaction with a mysterious German spy, beautifully voiced by Werner Herzog, sketches out the sinister world of warmongering that forms the backdrop to their romance. Studio Ghibli films have always been beautiful to watch, and The Wind Rises excels in every frame. But the overriding message, about the role of a gifted individual to overcome the constraints of society, is just as beautifully wrought; The Wind Rises is required viewing for anyone who wants to have their spirits lifted and soar like the wind for two blissful hours.
Need for Speed
The death of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker casts an eerie light over Dreamworks racing movie Need for Speed: early on, when one of his friends is burned to death in a high-powered sports car, high-flying street-racer Tobey (Aaron Paul) is brought back down to earth, but only for a few moments. In Need For Speed, road traffic fatalities are just plot- points, quickly glossed over before the next set of brightly colored obstacles come into view. It's a formula that worked well in the Fast and Furious films, but after the genuine shock of Walker's tragic death in a car accident, such jollity in the face of death may sit uneasily with the public.
Now that the Fast and Furious films have shifted gears from street racing to international heists, there's clearly a gap left in the market for a street racing film: Need for Speed attempts to have it both ways by having Tobey get out of jail and leave the police far behind as he takes part in an illegal cross-country race to get to an illegal cross-country race. 'A race before the race, I love it,' exclaims organizer Monarch (Michael Keaton), but audiences may feel differently; the stakes for each race are just the same, and the action is so similar that one race blends into another.
Scott Waugh's film borrows the high-seriousness and epic tone on the Fast and Furious films as Tobey and his posh girlfriend Julia attempt to get to Monarch's race. Tobey knows that Dino (Dominic Cooper) was responsible for his friend's death through dangerous driving, and has charged himself to teach Dino a lesson by driving even more dangerously. This numbskull quest is devoid of any real point: finger-pointing Tobey accuses Dino of being irresponsible, but no-one in the film ever questions whether taking part in illegal street-racing such is a good idea in the first place.
It's just one of a series of idiocies, not the deftly enjoyable ones featured in the Fast and Furious ones, but ones that leave you wondering what's going on. If Tobey's car is twice as fast as the police, why can't he outrun them easily ? If he's such a good driver, why does he need rescued by helicopter? Why does Tobey plan to refuel his car from an airborne pump, but need Julia to climb outside the car to plug the nozzle in? And if he's in such a rush that he simply cannot stop, why does the next scene see him pulling into a gas station?
The laws of physics have also taken a battering in the Fast and Furious Films, but Need for Speed doesn't have the same testosterone charm: when a sports car drives directly at a humvee and the humvee swerves to avoid the crash, then any credibility has gone out the window. Like Keaton's obnoxious commentator, Need For Speed is far too full of itself: aside from a few well-staged crashed, the weak plotting and clichéd characters mean that there's nothing much to see here. Grand Theft Zero.
The death of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker casts an eerie light over Dreamworks racing movie Need for Speed: early on, when one of his friends is burned to death in a high-powered sports car, high-flying street-racer Tobey (Aaron Paul) is brought back down to earth, but only for a few moments. In Need For Speed, road traffic fatalities are just plot- points, quickly glossed over before the next set of brightly colored obstacles come into view. It's a formula that worked well in the Fast and Furious films, but after the genuine shock of Walker's tragic death in a car accident, such jollity in the face of death may sit uneasily with the public.
Now that the Fast and Furious films have shifted gears from street racing to international heists, there's clearly a gap left in the market for a street racing film: Need for Speed attempts to have it both ways by having Tobey get out of jail and leave the police far behind as he takes part in an illegal cross-country race to get to an illegal cross-country race. 'A race before the race, I love it,' exclaims organizer Monarch (Michael Keaton), but audiences may feel differently; the stakes for each race are just the same, and the action is so similar that one race blends into another.
Scott Waugh's film borrows the high-seriousness and epic tone on the Fast and Furious films as Tobey and his posh girlfriend Julia attempt to get to Monarch's race. Tobey knows that Dino (Dominic Cooper) was responsible for his friend's death through dangerous driving, and has charged himself to teach Dino a lesson by driving even more dangerously. This numbskull quest is devoid of any real point: finger-pointing Tobey accuses Dino of being irresponsible, but no-one in the film ever questions whether taking part in illegal street-racing such is a good idea in the first place.
It's just one of a series of idiocies, not the deftly enjoyable ones featured in the Fast and Furious ones, but ones that leave you wondering what's going on. If Tobey's car is twice as fast as the police, why can't he outrun them easily ? If he's such a good driver, why does he need rescued by helicopter? Why does Tobey plan to refuel his car from an airborne pump, but need Julia to climb outside the car to plug the nozzle in? And if he's in such a rush that he simply cannot stop, why does the next scene see him pulling into a gas station?
The laws of physics have also taken a battering in the Fast and Furious Films, but Need for Speed doesn't have the same testosterone charm: when a sports car drives directly at a humvee and the humvee swerves to avoid the crash, then any credibility has gone out the window. Like Keaton's obnoxious commentator, Need For Speed is far too full of itself: aside from a few well-staged crashed, the weak plotting and clichéd characters mean that there's nothing much to see here. Grand Theft Zero.