Drive It Like You Stole It
May 26, 2016
Sing Street (2016).
D/W: John Carney. D: Yaron Orbach. Starring: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo/Lucy Boyton/Jack Reynor/Maria Doyle Kennedy/Aidan Gillen/Mark McKenna/Conor Hamilton/Karl Rice/Ian Kenny/Percy Chamburuka/Ben Carolan/Don Wycherley/Kelly Thornton.
A Sundance Film Festival hit, John Carney’s new film Sing Street is here at last courtesy of the heavy hitters of the Weinstein Company. Carney writes and directs again and this time he might be at his best.
The 2007 film Once stole film goers hearts and took the Oscar for best original song. Carney’s Irish busker/hoover-fixer-sucker guy played by Glen Hansard wrote most of the songs and continue to make music with Marketa Irglova. This was followed by 2013’s Begin Again, which sported more star wattage with Keira Knightley as the songwriter girlfriend of a singer (Adam Levine) whose gotten his break. Her reluctant friendship with messy music producer Dan (Mark Ruffalo) leads her to make her own album all recorded in the outdoors of New York City. Sense a pattern yet?
With Sing Street Carney returns to his native Ireland in 1985 in certain tough economic times when young people were emigrating to London for a new start. As the poster claims the basic log-line is boy meets girl, girl is unimpressed, boy makes band. Our boy is new face Ferdia Walsh-Peelo whose parents are forced to switch him to a cheaper school to cut costs. Terrorized at this Christian Brothers academy he notices Raphina (Lucy Boynton) who hangs out across the street. He gets her digits when he asks her to appear in his music video for his band. Now he is tasked with building a band with his school mates and learning from his wiser stoner brother (Jack Reynor) how to write songs and win the girl.
Sing Street succeeds in contextualizing the band in a fun and varied music time period. The 1980s and the dawn of the music video are necessary influences on the look of the film. The homemade footage cut in not only encourages nostalgia and laughter, but is a strategic precursor to the more polished videos later. At first imitation grips the boys, but Walsh-Peelo’s Connor slowly brings his songwriting forward. Carney balances the band’s genesis with Connor’s school hazing and parents’ imminent to divorce. Their fighting is heard through walls so we only see the brilliant Maria Doyle Kennedy a few times as Connor’s mother, but the couple remain uninterested in their kids lives.
Like his previous films, Carney is clever to hide his musical numbers in realism for modern audiences. Unlike musical adaptations like Into the Woods, Sing Street works more like a musical biopic. Connor’s songwriting sessions and band rehearsals blend to create numbers that appear to move the plot along, when in fact they merely allow you to enjoy the music. The specific use of a dream sequence to illustrate Connor’s ideas for a music video is a clever excuse to play an entire song under a disguise. This song ‘Drive It Like You Stole It’ is the clear tent pole original song and is a clever catchy riff on one of Reynor’s lines. In modern musicals the stage continues to be a site for character expression that could not be said otherwise. Music allows Connor to share his feelings for Raphina, even in cassette tape form, and this works.
Sing Street is ultimate fun and it will be hard for anyone not to laugh or jam along. Carney hand picked his group of young band mates with rosy-cheeked Walsh-Peelo looking every bit the man-child he is. His awe struck looks at Boynton’s Raphina build a chemistry that is awkward yet deliciously believable. There is a whole kissing sequence that will make your heart burst and cringe at the same time. Each kid brings a fresh innocence to the story and builds such hope in the music and story it is absolutely infectious. Even Reynor, who I have only seen in a forgettable Transformers film, is effective. A common phrase heard about writing is to ‘write what you know.’ Well as an Irish child of the 1980s John Carney certainly does just that and I am ready to watch it again!
Be Our Guest
May 23, 2016
The first teaser trailer for the live action Disney version of Beauty and the Beast is here! Starring Emma Watson as Belle this new film will join Cinderella and The Jungle Book as Disney works through its animated catalogue including alternative stories like Maleficent. The cast is extensive and from this first look it seems mood and music are at the forefront of Beauty and the Beast. The film will include music from composer Alan Menken along with Menken’s original songs he wrote with lyricist Howard Ashman. Two more songs will be added, but the film down not release until March 17, 2017 so that could still change. Looks to be the first full musical for Disney so get ready!
Beauty and the Beast
Giving Meryl an Edge
September 18, 2015
Ricki and The Flash (2015).
D: Jonathan Demme. DP: Declan Quinn. W: Diablo Cody. Starring: Meryl Streep/Kevin Kline/Mamie Gummer/Audra McDonald/Rick Springfield/Sebastian Stan/Nick Westrate/Hailey Gates/Ben Platt.
Steve Nicks has routinely denied any chatter about an impending musical biopic on her illustrious solo career and time with the band Fleetwood Mac. Ricki and the Flash immediately conjures her image to mind, but explores the failed star narrative over the successful one. A mixed bag of sorts, Ricki and the Flash ultimately proves Meryl Streep is fabulous to watch in just about everything. But didn’t we already know that?
The film finds Ricki (Streep), formerly named Linda, playing weekly gigs in the outskirts of Los Angeles. She gets a call from her ex husband Pete (Kevin Kline) who suggest she fly back to the Midwest to deal with her daughter, Julie (Mamie Gummer). Down and dumped, Julie’s situation forces Ricki to face the family she left behind and the impending wedding of her son. The real life mother/daughter duo of Streep and Gummer is fun to watch here with more vivaciousness now as Gummer is more seasoned. Their last pairing in the 2007 poor adaptation of Evening was more eerie as Gummer was hardly known. The chemistry all around is what saves the film from conventionality. Kline is great and such an underused actor right now and I just wanted more of Tony empress Audra McDonald. As the second wife and acting mother of Ricki’s kids, McDonald is a force. Where’s her primetime television show?
Director Jonathan Demme’s last feature was 2008’s Rachel Getting Married, another family impending wedding film. Demme is also active in the music world, directing music videos as well as concert films. He handles the live music portions with skill and cinematographer Declan Quinn balances close ups of performers with audience shots while establishing the onstage report between her band. The connection between Ricki and her music is palpable, but her dive bar Tarzana audience is never left out. Ricki’s story is one of star failure rather than success and her moments of rapture onstage confirm the film’s interpretation of musical performance as expression of true feeling. Ricki both expresses her love for boyfriend Greg (Rick Springfield) and for her son through song.
Ricki and the Flash is generically structured and Diablo Cody’s script adheres to a typical build up with the wedding. Cody’s last film, 2012’s Young Adult, was crispier and funnier but its protagonist was distinctly unlikable. Here Streep is continually humanized so the audience ultimately roots for her. You cannot help yourself and with musician Springfield, famous for the song ‘Jessie’s Girl,’ at her side you just might believe Streep’s gravely pipes could have made it. Not a bad film Ricki and the Flash ultimately is a vehicle for Streep to act a little bit bad, but still come out on top.
A Story in Song
April 24, 2015
The Last 5 Years (2015).
D/W: Richard LaGravenese. DP: Steve Meizler. Music & Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. Starring: Anna Kendrick & Jeremy Jordan.
Only in one cinema here in London, I sadly ventured into the most touristy area of the city to sit down for The Last 5 Years. Only for the musical enthusiast, the film is an adaptation of the 2002 Off-Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Tony winning Jason Robert Brown. Not a rock musical rather the film is a tour of the truly integrated musical number as there isn’t much else.
The Last 5 Years is essentially a story in song. With very minimal dialogue, mostly limited to phone calls and the like, the film seamlessly moves from one number to the next. Opening with Cathy (Anna Kendrick) sitting in her New York apartment looking at a letter her husband has left her saying he has taken a bag and left. Thus the film begins with a goodbye to a dead marriage and takes the audience through the last five years of the relationship.
The film is an impressive vocal two handler with the leads essentially alone or only performing to each other for the majority of the musical. In this world song is everything, it is the mundane, it is story-telling, it is romance, and it is also inner turmoil spilling into the frame. Kendrick’s Cathy is a believable wanna-be actress who doesn’t quite believe herself and feels caught in the wheels of life. Her range fits the songs with require a lot of breath control something she must have used to prep for her role in last year’s Into the Woods. Broadway actor, Jeremy Jordan jumps into the role of Jamie with a lot of swish and is able to move Jamie through many chapters of change as he sells a book to Random House. The couple have good chemistry which allows the music to sustain the emotional intensity of the lyrics and neither pulls focus from the other. I am sure a Disney animated franchise is in their futures.
Richard LaGravenese’s last directorial effort was the Southern and lavish young adult adaption Beautiful Creatures. A consistent working writer as well he does not seem to have any specific connection to the Broadway world except through some off-off Broadway experience as an actor when he was younger. That being said The Last 5 Years could not have been tackled by someone not in love with capturing the essence of song as emotional expression. The use of long takes is used many times to capture Kendrick and Jordan who sang most of the songs live. This is clear from the film and adds an intimate layer to the performances despite the cinematic crippling of visceral live performance. Here it is not a gimmick (um, Les Miserables) rather the film is one long stream of breath and sound of emotion.
My only slight gripe is that you never truly see the couple fall in love. There is the song “Shiksa Goddess” where Jamie exudes his happiness at finding Cathy or “I Can Do Better Than That” about Cathy’s dreams not being of the suburbs and with child. However, Cathy sort of appears into Jamie’s life and maybe the rom-com cinematic conditioning I have is asking me, where did they meet? Where’s our getting to know you number? But in the end it doesn’t really matter. The Last 5 Years is right for the right fan in so many other ways.
Singing Sondheim with Success
January 11, 2015
Into the Woods (2014).
D: Rob Marshall. W: James Lapine. DP: Dion Beebe. Starring: Meryl Streep/Emily Blunt/James Corden/Johnny Depp/Anna Kendrick/Chris Pine/Lilla Crawford/Tracey Ullman/Daniel Huttlestone/Christine Baranski/Billy Magnussen/Mackenzie Mauzy/Lucy Punch/Tammy Blanchard. (Based on Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical of the same name)
The musical genre has been struggling for a comeback for the last decade. Since 2002’s Oscar winning Chicago, filmmakers and studios have been chasing that same success. Yes 2008’s Mamma Mia made the big bucks, but 2012’s Les Miserables dragged us through three hours of labor and drama. Into the Woods joins a difficult cannon, but I am happy to say it does its Broadway mother justice.
Director Rob Marshall, responsible for both 2009’s Nine and Chicago, is clearly in his element here. Cinematographer Dion Beebe (Edge of Tomorrow) is at his aid again, they worked on both previous musicals together. The pair give space to their actors and thankfully, do not let the camera linger on reaction shots. The entire film has a fantastic sense of space and gives magic to its story without abandoning all realism.
There is definitely a bit of Disney gloss happening here. With a PG rating it is implied that the darker elements of the musical would be toned down, especially with the implications of the Wolf’s song, ‘Hello Little Girl.’ However, Johnny Depp is delicious as The Wolf and the Rat Pack vibe the song is given is simply pure fun. The deaths are also moved off screen and certain story lines are nipped and tucked to clearly fit this ratings margin. By no means is Into the Woods a disappointment for it, but it does change the overall palette of the project, especially the humor. Mostly this is aggravating as regardless, the film to me, is still for adults.
There is also some merging of characters, omissions of songs, and the on stage narrator now is serviced through the Baker’s (James Corden) voiceover. Luckily this voiceover does not inhibit the pacing of the film, though one or two times it feels repetitive. Despite all that Into the Woods pulls stellar performances out of the entire ensemble. The standouts are of course Meryl Streep’s Witch whose costumes (supremely done by Colleen Atwood) and make up merely enhance a fun, dynamic delivery. Chris Pine as Cinderella’s Prince oozes glorious giggle inducing charm with his duet with Rapuzel’s Prince (Billy Magnussen) a highlight, as it is in the show. I am very sad the reprise was cut. The youngsters Lilla Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone are excellent and hold their own with big solos. Emily Blunt’s Baker’s wife is great opposite Corden and Anna Kendrick does well as Cinderella, singing in a very difficult key. Lucy Punch steals a huge laugh as one of Cinderella’s step sisters, still waiting for someone to give her a bigger shot.
Into the Woods is overall an enjoyable addition to the musical genre. The first half is definitely stronger than the second, as it is in the show, but James Lapine adapts his work well. Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics actually works well on screen as his walk and sings balance the big numbers with character development. And what happens after ‘ever after’ is so on trend right now its ridiculous. But as a musical lover I couldn’t stop smiling and that is a beautiful thing.