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La La Land

12/01/2017colchester101

(BBFC 12A)

Shivers running up and down your spine? Vision blurred by excessive tears in your eyes? Heart beating a little faster than usual? Face set in an almost painful, rictus grin? Don’t worry. You don’t need to see your GP or visit A&E. Don’t worry, you’re not ill, my diagnosis is that you’ve just been to see the wonderful La La Land, is all (unless you haven’t, in which case seek medical advice immediately) and the only thing you can do is turn around and go see it again. Straight away. You need this movie in your life as soon as possible.

It’s the story of two Los Angeles dreamers who have stalled out on ways to achieve their ambitions: Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress working as a barista on the Warner Bros. lot, attending endless, humiliating auditions and always an arm’s length from success; Sebastien (Ryan Gosling) is a wildly talented musician whose commitment to his art in its purest form keeps him from success and his ultimate goal of opening his own jazz club. As their paths begin to cross (in classic Golden-Age Hollywood fashion) they can’t stand one another, but slowly their antagonistic, spiky conversations become more playful and less snarky and infatuation begins to take root between the two. And infatuation, as we all know, is just a small step from love if only we are brave (or foolish) enough to take it.

I’m trying to stay as far as possible from the dreaded spoiler territory here (I genuinely think this is a story you need to experience for yourself) but La La Land goes somewhere with this story where few other movies are brave enough to tread. It’s a romance that exists to inspire the protagonists, definitely, but is it a romance that’s strong enough to endure? Mia and Sebastien share the kind of chemistry that has all the hallmarks of an all-timer romance… if only they can understand what destiny is trying desperately to tell them.

I hope that doesn’t make the film sound like a bummer because it isn’t. It might not be what you expect, sure, but that’s a part of its wondrous joy. Gosling and stone (in their third film together) have such a natural, likeable chemistry that they recall the great Hollywood partnerships (Bogey and Bacall, Hepburn and Tracy, Fred and Ginger), they’re full of charm, wit, fun and occasional melancholy. There’s great support from the likes of John Legend and J.K. Simmons, but, really, it’s the central duo you’ve come to see and the central romance is the one you’ll find hard to forget.

Director Damien Chazelle (who made such an impact with the brilliant Whiplash) seems to be one of those movie literate young guns, like Quentin Tarantino and Jeremy Saulnier, who have the ability to throw their influences up there on the screen but make them fresh and new and relevant. I’ve seen a lot of articles saying La La Land is the direct descendent of some of the great MGM musicals like Singin’ In The Rain, Top Hat, It’s Always Fair Weather and The Band Wagon and, yes, the DNA of these movies is very much in there, but it’s much closer in tone to the Jacques Demy and Michel LeGrand classics Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and – the criminally underseen – Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Ladies of Rochefort) and there’s more than a touch of Francis Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart in there as well. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen any of these movies, La La Land is strong enough to stand by itself and is entirely its own thing, I mention them only because after seeing it you’ll be wanting to scratch that “They don’t make them like that anymore” itch and these are the movies they don’t make them like anymore. (The more adventurous of you might want to track down the incredible Corki Dancingu (The Lure), a Polish musical horror about a pair of man eating mermaids who become cabaret stars. Really).

From the very first scene you’ll know that you’re watching a classic. And the second. And the third. And… Honestly, there are so many moments which are absolute movie magic that a whole Summer of blockbuster movies will watch La La Land green with envy, wishing they’d had just one of those bits.

Even if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool cynic (actually, especially if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool cynic) I’d urge you to go experience La La Land, not just for the music and colour and joyous bombast but, you might just find, it has something interesting and relevant, even profound, to say about life and love and loss that will affect you and your own story. It might be going a little far if I were to claim La La Land has the power to thaw a frozen heart of fix a broken one but it probably has. It’s not just a movie for fans of Strictly Come Dancing, it’s a movie for all of us.

Here’s to the dreamers.

Andy Oliver

2016. The Cinema Year in Review

02/01/201702/01/2017colchester101

2016. A year, let’s face it, that will mostly be remembered for the people and things we lost rather than the quality of cinematic outpourings… especially when it came to the product served up to visitors of our own local Odeon. Yeah, there were bright spots but, in general, it has been a rather weak year (quality-wise) for cinema and the best described as, “Passable, must try harder”.

And yet, in terms of box office receipts worldwide, this has been a record breaking year so, surely, Hollywood must be doing something right, right? Well, the aggressive marketing to emerging markets (primarily China, though we wait to see what the Trump effect will have there), as well as audience familiarity with known and trusted “Brands” (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel Studios and a new Disney “Princess” IP) have helped put bums back on seats. Also, a look at worldwide box office takings reveals that there are quite a few foreign movies doing rather well in their domestic markets (most notably Mei Ren Yu – or Your Name, if you prefer – hovering just outside the top ten and making the equivalent of just over $550 million in its native Japan).

It has been a year of “good enough”. Movies that are just good enough to attract audiences and make a small, but good enough, profit seem to have proliferated. Films that deliver on minimum expectation without ever reaching to be great have scattered the year and, as business models go, it seems to have worked. Movies like The Magnificent Seven, The Finest Hours, Don’t Breathe and Ghostbusters are all perfectly serviceable, good enough pieces of entertainment but lack “rewatch-ability”, once you’ve seen them there’s very little need to go back and watch them again. To a certain extent, good enough movies are critic-proof, they seem more than happy to be 3-star rated because that’s what they were designed to be, no more, no less. What this means for the future, only time will tell but, I suspect, with the continued rise of internet streaming and films released simultaneously in cinemas and on-demand what might be good for the studios may not be so great for cinemas themselves.

Which brings us to the prospect of not one, but two new cinemas opening in Colchester within the next year or two. Curzon is definitely going ahead, albeit slowly, in Queen Street on the site formerly owned by Keddies department store (ask your parents, kids) and Cineworld will be opening their doors to a 12 screen, 3083 seat multiplex (including an IMAX screen and a 4D theatre) though its location, due to legal wranglings and local government ineptitude red-tape (probably) has yet to be finalised. This would take Colchester back to being a three-cinema town, something not seen since the old Cameo Cinema closed its doors in late 1972, but, significantly, there were only three screens between all of them. Supporters of the Curzon project would hope that it will feature a more varied diet than that offered at the local Odeon, but a quick look on the internet at the fare being offered by Curzon’s other out-of-London theatre (Canterbury) shows their programme to be disappointingly familiar. Still, we live in hope. Curzon looks set to open late 2017 and Cineworld? Well, don’t go getting yourself an Unlimited card just yet, I’m thinking 2018 if we’re extremely lucky.

Back to 2016 and, I guess, in the time-honoured tradition of film critics everywhere, I owe you a list of my favourite movies of the year. Please bear in mind that this list is HUGELY subjective (I’m not trying to objectively countdown what was the BEST movies of the year here); these are all films that were on general release AND available to see at the Colchester Odeon; do not reflect the opinions of Simon or any of the other marvellous Colchester101 contributors.

10 The Hateful Eight – Quentin Tarantino’s epic who-will-do-what-and-to-whom? As much a polemic on contemporary America as it is a gloriously twisted, gory and goofy play on everything he has made before.

9 The Witch (or is that The VVitch?) – Definitely a horror movie (despite what some may say) and confirmed a life-long suspicion of goats. Wracks up the tension relentlessly with metaphysical angst and dread, left me glad to step out into the sunlight again (in a good way).

8 Hell or High Water – The Chris Pine/Ben Foster movie which wasn’t The Finest Hours and the film I wish Cormac McCarthy had made rather than The Counsellor. A contemporary Western in which all the hats are shades of grey rather than simply black or white. Also, Jeff Bridges best work in ages.

7 Room – What could have been a depressing wade through the darker recesses of human desire was, actually, one of the most hopeful and emotionally joyous movies of the year.

6 Hail, Caesar! – The Coen Brothers delivered with this tale of Golden Age Hollywood and reds-under-the-beds with typical Coen Brothers quirk, brio and laughter and I, for one, couldn’t have been happier. Still chuckling about the Ralph Fiennes/Alden Ehrenreich “Would that it were so simple” exchange.

5 Captain America: Civil War – Hands-down, not only the best superhero movie of the year but one of the best movies of the year. Solid story-telling backed with three-dimensional characters, moral complexity, stunning action sequences and respect for the intelligence of the audience.

4 Kubo and the Two Strings – It’s been a great year for family films, Zootropolis, The Jungle Book, Pete’s Dragon, Fantastic Beasts and The Secret Life of Pets could all have made my list, but I decided to plump for Laika Studios’ Kubo for its sheer technical brilliance and the importance of the message it carries. It’s a movie that no one seems to be talking about but deserves so much more attention. I’d urge everyone to seek it out.

3 The Nice Guys – A movie with a big heart, a dirty mind and everything you’d want from a Shane (Lethal Weapon) Black movie. And manages the seemingly impossible act of making Russell Crowe loveable. I loved every twisted, ridiculous minute of it.

1 = Arrival and Moana – I just couldn’t split these two for my favourite of the year. Arrival delivered one of the most intelligent and nuanced science-fiction movies in years and, like all the best sci-fi films, is so much more than the sum of its parts. In terms of pure entertainment Moana represented the most enjoyable 113 minutes of the year and the only movie I wanted to rush back into the cinema and see again.

Now, the bit I’ve been dreading, revisiting those movies that made me want to eat my own head: My most hated movies of 2016!

Yes, I disliked Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, hated Passengers and London Has Fallen and despised Bad Santa 2, but the bunny-currant on top of the dog-poop ice-cream has got to be the truly abysmal Dirty Grandpa. No other movie made me want to tear my own eyeballs out of their sockets and poke about at the squishy bits inside with a stick more than Dirty Grandpa. Hated hated hated it.

I won’t leave on that sour note. I’ve been fortunate enough to see a few of the movies coming in 2017 and I hope that they are representative of the year as a whole: terrific, intelligent and entertaining films like Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, The Autopsy of Jane Doe and, the sublime, La La Land.

I’ll continue to try and point you toward the best and steer you from the worst and I hope that 2017 is the one that, against the odds, turns out to be a great one for all of us.

Andy Oliver

Passengers

30/12/201630/12/2016colchester101

(BBFC 12A)

There’s one really important thing you need to know about Passengers: It’s not the movie the trailers and marketing would have you believe. If you were expecting some kind of Titanic-style love story of two (unfeasibly) attractive spirits thrown together in the face of adversity then, boy-howdy, are you ever out of luck.

What the trailers and tv spots would have you believe is that Passengers is all about two travellers into deep space woken from their hyper-sleep 30-years into their 120-year scheduled journey to a new home world; love blossoms between the two who have the run of their pristine, super-swanky spaceship; catastrophe comes-a-calling and the two must save not only their own lives but those of their five thousand fellow (sleeping) passengers. It all looked like a rather sweet (if a little thin) romantic spectacular with plenty of special effects, explosions, excitement and two of Hollywood’s most likeable (and, let’s face it, bankable) stars, didn’t it? So why do I feel so underwhelmed and angry by the movie I actually watched?

What those trailers don’t tell you is that Jim (Chris Pratt) is awoken by a malfunction of his sleeping pod a year before the emergence of Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), or that she isn’t the victim of another malfunction but of Jim’s sabotage. The first act finds Jim alone, wandering the pristine, mall-like decks and facilities of the Avalon (the ship, we are informed, was designed to wake its cargo four months from its destination hence the opulence), his only friend is bartender android Arthur (Michael Sheen) who listens to Jim’s woes and doles out only pre-programmed, clichéd advice. Jim soon sinks into depression as the knowledge that he will likely die alone long before another soul wakes begins to dawn on him. He begins to obsess over Aurora, laying there like his own personal Sleeping Beauty (hence her name, I guess), watching her pre-recorded video interview and reading her journal. So, he hatches a plan to revive her and tell her that both their pods must have malfunctioned at the same time.

The second act is the romantic bit as Jim woos the object of his affection and manipulates her to fall in love with him, all the while hiding his secret like a contestant on The Apprentice hides the truth about his CV. The truth eventually outs just in time for the all-action, explodey stuff of the final act as the two must come together to save the ship and its slumbering inhabitants.

There is very little that works in Passengers: Tonally the movie is all over the place, it just has no idea what it wants to be or where it is supposed to be going; as likeable as the two leads are individually, they have little to no chemistry between them; Jennifer Lawrence’s role in particular is hugely under written that one of the most talented actresses of her generation struggles to make Aurora believable (but, then again, she’s not a character, she’s a plot device or worse, a sex fantasy); it’s full of super-massive plot-holes that you could fly the Starship Enterprise through and still have enough room for a couple of Millennium Falcons.

But it’s the central conceit that troubles me the most. Jim is a liar, a cyber-stalker, a kidnapper but we’re supposed to forgive him because he’s lonely? He condemns Aurora to die alongside him because he’s horny? By his actions he rips away everything she ever hoped for and dreamt of and then manipulates her to fall in love with and sleep with him, but that’s okay because Chris Pratt(?). Imagine how you would feel if a film like the excellent Room asked you to side with the guy who kept Brie Larsen locked up as a sex slave?

Director Morten Tyldum (who it should never be forgotten managed to crowbar a heterosexual subplot into the story of Alan Turing in his last movie, The Imitation Game) and writer Jon Spaihts bungle the “promised” love story completely. What they have delivered is one of the most toxic pieces of misogyny outside of the dark side of the internet. If Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival was the shining ray of hope for the world in 2016, Passengers is the alt-right fantasy we should be railing against.

Passengers flubs the big questions it asks and worse, it doesn’t even acknowledge that it’s asking them.

Andy Oliver

Gilly Looks Back… When AC/DC came to Colchester

18/10/201618/10/2016colchester101

Can you imagine one of the world’s biggest rock bands playing at a cinema in Colchester? Colchester legend DJ Gilly looks back at the night he roadied for AC/DC when they came to town.

It may be hard to, but it actually did happen on Thursday 18th May 1978. The band that night was AC/DC and the venue was the old ABC Cinema on St John’s Street, now the Playhouse pub. This was to be the first of two visits to our town, the second coming in October when they returned for a gig at the University as part of the BBC’s Rock Goes To College series. On this occasion though John Hessenthaler, a local promoter, had booked the Aussie heavy rockers, and yours truly was asked to go along and work as a roadie helping the band’s own road crew unload, and later reload, their truck full of amps, guitars, drums and other gear.

It was an exciting afternoon mixing with the band’s own crew, and even meeting AC/DC themselves, including Angus Young and original vocalist Bon.

Scott who tragically died less than two years later in London after a night of heavy drinking.

By the time AC/DC took to the stage that evening I was now working in my dual role as part of the security team protecting the band. The show was everything you would expect from them, LOUD and full of energy, the highlights for me coming when Angus disappeared from the stage only to reappear a couple of minutes later in one of the boxes up on the circle playing a guitar solo. He disappeared a second time too with Bon Scott, reappearing together from the back of the auditorium with Angus playing away at his guitar, dry ice pouring from his satchel, whilst sitting on Bon’s shoulders as they made their way back to the stage.

It really was an amazing day which finally ended, once all the gear was safely back on the tour truck, with me eating pizza, which had been bought by the band, with the rest of the crew.

So next time you are in the Playhouse maybe stop for a moment, cast your eyes towards the stage, and imagine Malcolm, Phil, Bon, Angus and Cliff up there belting out Whole Lotta Rosie, Let There be Rock…

For those AC/DC aficionados amongst you 101 readers the set list that night consisted of:

Riff Raff
Problem Child
Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be
Rock ‘n’ Roll Damnation
Dog Eat Dog
Bad Boy Boogie
Down Payment Blues
The Jack
High Voltage
Whole Lotta Rosie
Let There Be Rock
Rocker

I couldn’t find a video of the ABC Cinema gig, but there are a few on YouTube of the university gig. So just to prove AC/DC really did come to town… Let There Be Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAnYqAoGKsQ

Gilly

Ghostbusters

12/07/2016colchester101

It’s been a busy summer at the town’s Odeon cinema for 101’s movie reviewer Andy Oliver who is freshly back with this review of the Ghostbusters remake for you.

It’s difficult to talk about the new Ghostbusters movie without first addressing the elephant in the room: that small but vocal group of misogynist internet dweebs who have taken it upon themselves to down-vote this movie on ratings sites; shout down anyone on social media who “dared” to defend the choice to switch the gender of the titular team; shout down anyone who rightly insisted that you cannot judge the quality of the film until you have seen it; they’ve even gone as far as to claim the original is an out and out horror movie with comedic elements and that turning it into an all-out comedy is somehow “Sacrilegious”, or that it is, in some bizarrely twisted-logic way, disrespectful to, and ruins, their childhoods.

Quite frankly, I have no time for these people or their hateful, whining rhetoric and empty threats. I’ve already had death threats on Twitter for not only defending the build up to this movie and accused of receiving cash for giving Batman vs. Superman a bad write-up (I wish). My response? The one that hurts them the most: I ignore them. They are the film fan equivalent of ISIS: hiding their identities behind false names and avatars; their hatred/ resentment of women in anything other than submissive roles; they want their “sacred” favourites to be the only ones that exist and think that their views are the only ones that should exist.

Now, for the sake of transparency I would just like to say that I in no way receive any payment or favours or special treatment for writing these reviews. I take every film I see on face value and never review a film without having seen it first. I try to give my honest opinion and am in no way biased in favour of any company. I just love movies and I love writing about them.

So, now that’s out of the way, the reason you’re reading this: Is Ghostbusters any good?

Actually, yeah, it’s pretty good. Not great, I’ll admit, but a perfectly good Summer movie that compares very favourably to the original. It’s funny in all the right places and scary in all the right places and makes for a very enjoyable evening at the cinema.

Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is about to receive a tenure as a professor of physics at prestigious, if snooty, Columbia University, when she discovers that a book about ghosts she co-wrote twenty years earlier has been re-issued by her co-author and former childhood friend, Abby Bates (Melissa McCarthy).

Abby is still working on paranormal research and technology with Jillian Holtzmann at a rinky-dink college that has, quite frankly, forgotten they are still there. Erin goes to persuade her friend to withdraw the offending book from sale but finds herself helping Bates and Holtzmann in an investigation in to the sighting of a ghost at a New York mansion/tourist destination. A few gallons of ectoplasmic goo later and it’s “a-ghost hunting we will go” for the three women as the investigate and battle spooky goings-on around the city. They pick up more help along the way in the form of street savvy subway worker Patty (Leslie Jones) and thick-as-excrement receptionist Kevin (played with comedic excellence by Chris Hemsworth).

The veil between the living and the dead, it turns out, is being scratched away by angry nerd (ahem) Rowan North (Neil Casey) who wants to bring about the apocalypse in revenge for a life of being bullied and overlooked.

Ghostbusters works really well for maybe its first three-quarters and there’s plenty of great laugh-out-loud moments and a couple of genuinely scary moments. It’s in the climax that it falls a little flat, the laughs and scares kind of fall flat and it lacks somewhat in excitement drifting off into the generic. It’s okay but it never really has you sitting on the edge of your seat or falling off it with laughter, which is a shame because the journey getting there is so much fun.

There’s some really great comedy performances, Wiig and McKinnon are especially good and Leslie Jones nails all her moments. Melissa McCarthy plays a much more subdued, almost straight, role which, although she’s good, fans of her usual foul-mouthed mania might find a little disappointing. Chris Hemsworth is terrific as the good looking, but dim, Kevin and Andy Garcia makes a welcome and very funny appearance as the mayor. There’s cameos from virtually all the original cast, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, even the late Harold Ramis is in there or, at least, his likeness is. Oh, and don’t worry, Slimer is in there too. The cameos are nice on the whole but nothing more, they add very little to the movie and an appearance by Ozzy Osbourne is downright embarrassing.

Those cameos are not the only things that hark back to the original, there are far too many nods and winks to it as well. These Easter-egg references, whilst entertaining enough for the more forgiving fans of the original, tend to hold Ghostbusters back from being its own film, they anchor it too closely and, as such, the remake never quite escapes the shadow of the Bill Murray et al classic.

Writer/director Paul Feig keeps the fun moving at a cracking pace but lacks the action credentials to hold the climactic battle together. Feig is a terrific comedy director and sets up a couple of truly unexpected jump-scares I just wish he’d got that third act nailed, then I might be watching a movie that really annoyed the Ghost Bros.

I hope Ghostbusters does well enough to demand a sequel, I enjoyed being in the company of this gang and look forward to an adventure unshackled from the chains of the original. It’s a movie made for a mainstream audience, not for a vociferous few who believe they are entitled to a movie just for them, it’s not a feminist movie as the Ghost Bros. would have you believe, it’s a movie where the main protagonists happen to be smart, brave and funny women.

How can that be a bad thing?

Andy Oliver

Captain America: Civil War

23/04/2016colchester101

It’s been a great week for Colchester 101’s movie critic Andy Oliver at Colchester’s Odeon cinema. Not only did he love The Jungle Book but Captain America: Civil War had exceeded all his expectations.

Captain America: Civil War (BBFC 12A)

Captain America: Civil War is stuffed.

Stuffed full of action, suspense, great characters, wit, surprises and intelligence. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Christmas dinner: A plate brimming with so many diverse and tasty ingredients that you’re not quite sure it will all fit in your stomach, but satisfyingly does and, a couple of hours of rest later, you’ll want to eat it all over again. It’s everything that Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice wasn’t, thankfully, and it might just be the best Marvel movie yet.

Civil War is the culmination of many of the major climactic moments of the Marvel cinematic universe, all those huge ships crashing into the Earth, cities destroyed and innocent lives lost (see Avengers Assemble, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron specifically, but the entire back catalogue – with the exception of Guardians of the Galaxy – in one way or another). The movie kicks off with The Avengers in conflict with bad guy Crossbones and his mercenary force who are attempting to steal a bio-weapon from a scientific facility, a conflict that ends with an explosion that kills dozens of innocents and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is indirectly responsible.

For the United Nations, this is the final straw, The Avengers may be saving the world but at what cost? The UN passes a framework motion, The Sokovia Accord, which will see the super team no longer be a private group but rather a UN sanctioned task force. Schisms start to appear in the team as ideological differences begin to appear, first with an argument, then a scuffle, a fight and then all-out war.

I don’t want to give away any more of the plot than that. Part of the joy of Civil War is watching the plot develop logically and organically. Everything has its place and every character is serviced by and, in turn, services the story in satisfyingly intelligent fashion. Something you’d be hard-pushed to claim about Zack Snyder’s hero versus hero smack-down, Batman V Superman, you’ll be pleased to know that there are no Jolly Rancher sweeties or jars of pee on show here.

Civil War skilfully demonstrates the long game Marvel has been playing throughout their movies, this is long-form storytelling not only in plotlines but in character arcs, also. Characters make decisions which are not based solely on the situations they are presented with in this movie but in all their previous appearances. Marvel is not resetting these characters at the beginning of each new movie, what went before really matters.

Before you begin to think this is just another Avengers movie snuck under a Captain America banner, this is absolutely a Captain America movie. Everything that happens in Civil War revolves around the emotional, intellectual and philosophical hub that is Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), it is his relationship with Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) that provides the heart of the movie. Cap has always seen the world in black and white, but now shades of grey enter his world and he finds himself taking actions that are maybe not right, that are maybe selfish(?). It’s an interesting shade for Chris Evans to play, a new level of self-doubt, a Captain America who allows his emotions to obscure his moral compass.

With his revelation, way back in 2008, that he was Iron Man, it is obvious which side of the ideological argument Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) comes down on and this is what brings him into conflict with Cap. Iron Man made Downey Jr. a bona fide movie star, but in Civil War he reminds us that before that he was a respected, if troubled, actor and turns in one of the most genuinely nuanced and raw performances of his career. There are new levels of guilt and grief to Tony Stark and Downey Jr. sinks his teeth into the role with zeal and gusto rarely seen in any movie, let alone in a genre viewed by many as throwaway.

One of the great triumphs of Civil War is that all of the characters involved are given the time and space to explore their decisions on which side of the divide they will fall. Not only that, but they actually grow. We get to understand more about them and find that they are more than just two-dimensional cut-outs in colourful costumes. From The Vision’s (Paul Bettany) attempts to understand humanity and his part in it to Scarlet Witch exploring her guilt and trying to find a place to belong. The remarkable thing is that not a single character feels superfluous.

Which brings me to the geeky bit: The new introductions to the Marvel Universe, Black Panther and Spider-Man. Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) is T’Challa, ruler of the African kingdom of Wakanda, location of Iron Man and The Hulk’s battle in Age of Ultron, raised to don the Panther mask as protector of his people. Boseman plays him with not only the innate regal dignity of royalty but with all the grace and poise of the predatory big cat he bears the name of. It’s a great introduction and leaves you eagerly awaiting director Ryan (Creed, Fruitvale Station) Coogler’s Black Panther solo movie next year. Black Panther is a character you’ll definitely want to see more of.

Technically, although being a Marvel Comics mainstay and titular character of five movies so far this century, this is Spider-Man’s first appearance in the MCU. Previous iterations of the character (played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) were produced under license by Sony Films and you may feel you know what to expect from him. This is an all new Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland), he’s a lot younger than you have seen so far, he’s a kid finding his way in a very grown up world. By the time he shows up you may worry that he’ll be one character too many, but Holland plays Spidey/Peter Parker to perfection and you’ll be glad he’s there, he’s a lot of fun and provides some great moments.

In other hands Civil War could easily fall apart due to the always impending risk of bloat, but in the hands of directors the Russo brothers and writers Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeeley moves along at perfect pace and without an ounce of unwanted fat. Some feat that, even at a running time close to two and a half hours, you’ll not feel it has outstayed its welcome (there was no after credits scene in the press screening I attended, Marvel saves these moments for the fans. I know. I sat there for ages waiting for one). Civil War is a spectacle that takes the time to ponder the meaning of responsibility, loyalty, honour, the cost of revenge and the subtle betrayal of opposing ideologies. The action is exhilarating, from the awesome opening that sees the Avengers as a lean, co-operative fighting machine to the grandly operatic airport conflict, which pitches the heroes against one another in a battle-royale that is the closest you’ll come to one of those incredible double page spreads that coloured your childhood.

Captain America: Civil War is a triumph, a truly great action movie that raises the bar for everything that follows and actually manages to make everything that came before even better.

Andy Oliver

The Jungle Book

17/04/2016colchester101

Colchester 101’s very own movie critic Andy Oliver has taken himself along to the town’s Odeon cinema to see Jon Favreau’s live-action/computer-animated fantasy adventure The Jungle Book to bring you this review. We suspect he rather liked it!

The Jungle Book (BBFC PG)

For myself and many people of my generation – post-baby boomer/pre-generation X – Disney’s animated classic, The Jungle Book, holds a very special place in our hearts. For many of us it would have been one of our first visits to the cinema and the continually played soundtrack (the Frozen of its day) would have driven many a parent to distraction. With the advent of home video and streaming media The Jungle Book has become an all-timer, one of the most enduring and beloved movies for children of all ages and many will know the songs (written by Richard and Robert Sherman with the exception of the Oscar nominated The Bare Necessities, written by Terry Gilkyson) without ever having seen the movie. The voices of Phil Harris (Baloo), Sebastian Cabot (Bagheera), jazz man Louie Prima (King Louie) and menacingly bass upper-class of George Sanders (Shere Khan) are as familiar to us as many of our own family. It is a movie that has not only stood the test of time but straddled decades; is passed on to subsequent generations like some cherished and beloved heirloom and lights the faces of all who see it (I defy anyone to watch it and still feel morose or miserable after its enchanting 89 minutes are over); and holds a special place in the history of Disney (it was the last project Walt Disney took charge of). So why, one wonders, would that same studio risk millions of dollars on a flashy new version of Rudyard Kipling’s famous story when it is so much more cost effective just to live off the back of one of its classics? And is it possible to create something new and wondrous from a tale everyone knows and loves?

It is almost impossible to take your seat for director John Favreau’s new adaptation of The Jungle Book without some feelings of trepidation, the feeling that, somehow, this new version will sully your memories and muddy the reputation of one of your first loves. Let me put your fears to rest straight away: The Jungle Book is an absolute joy, a theatrical experience that adds to, rather than subtracts from, your love of the animated classic. It’s like discovering a new perspective of an old friend that makes you realise how deep and rich that person is in ways you’d never thought about before. And, believe me, no one is happier than myself to report this.

In case you didn’t know the story (unlikely), The Jungle Book tells of the adventures of a young boy, Mowgli (played with genuine charm and boyish intelligence by newcomer Neel Sethi) abandoned in the jungles of India, rescued by the avuncular panther, Bagheera (voiced by Sir Ben Kingsley) and raised by a wolf pack led by Akela (Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito) and his mate, Raksha (12 Years A Slave Oscar winner, Lupita Nyong’o). When the safety of the pack is threatened by the arrival of the damaged and vengeful tiger, Shere Khan (Idris Elba), it is decided that Mowgli should be returned to his own kind. So begins a journey in which the man-cub will meet such diverse and occasionally dangerous characters as the snake, Kaa (voiced here as exotically seductive by Scarlett Johansson rather than the comically sibilant Sterling Holloway), the power hungry King Louie (a giant Orangutan, or rather Gigantopithecus(?), played with Goodfella guile by Christopher Walken) and the blissfully mellow Sloth Bear, Baloo (a perfectly cast Bill Murray). There’s also a wonderful voice cameo by the recently deceased and much missed comedian, Garry Shandling as a porcupine with obvious obsessive compulsive desires.

Jon Favreau brings fun, wonder, thrills and joy to the table and it’s easy to see why the director of Elf and Iron Man was hired, there are the best elements of both in The Jungle Book. Favreau understands not only that this should be a cinematic event but, also, a children’s tale that even the oldest child will find touches their heart. This could have been a horrible mis-step by trying to bring the movie up to date with darker, more adult themes and action (I’m looking at you, Batman V Superman), but The Jungle Book understands the difference between adventure and action. The set pieces are incredible, such as Mowgli’s escape from Shere Khan during a water buffalo stampede and the climactic forest fire showdown, but there are quiet moments and sequences full of fun and warm humour that stick in the mind just as well.

The script (by Justin Marks) is deceptively simple, what appears to be a straightforward adventure story contains deep and complex themes and motivations especially when it comes to the villains. Railing against those story beats and characters that are dropped from the animated version, such as the “Scouser” vultures, would be petty when there is so much great stuff added such as the Water Truce and the primal, almost force-of-nature significance of the elephants. The Jungle Book breaks the constraints of being a word-for-word remake which allows it to breath freely and this is one of its many strengths.

Yes, there are a few scary and intense scenes that may not be suitable for pre-school children but that’s a judgement call parents should make, obviously many parents will know better than I what upsets their kids, just a nudge in case your little ones are a touch sensitive.

At times it is hard to believe that the entire film was shot in a warehouse somewhere in Los Angeles and that those aren’t real and really dangerous animals, such is the craftsmanship and technical know-how on show. It’s a beautiful, beautiful film and everything on show is a feast for the eyes and ears. The animals are most definitely animals, rather than anthropomorphised caricatures, they move and behave exactly as animals (despite the fact that they talk, obviously) and take the photo-realism of Life of Pi to the next level. Every one of them is there to move the story forward rather than to dryly showcase the technical know-how of the animators.

The Jungle Book is a theatrical experience writ large and you’ll want to see it on the largest and best screen available, you don’t want to be watching on your telly in six month’s-time wishing you’d gone to the cinema (I also wonder if the downscaling of the experience will reveal the film’s episodic nature to its detriment). Also, if you choose to watch in 3-D (a tricksy, gimmicky format I’m usually opposed to except for, maybe, Gravity) you’ll experience an incredible depth of field and beauty to the digitally created landscapes rather than the usual stick-poking gags and things flying out of the screen. You’re not looking at a jungle, you’re in a jungle.

If you only visit the cinema once this year, make sure you spend your hard-earned sheckles wisely and go see The Jungle Book. Forget about your worries and your strife.

Andy Oliver

Colchester Classics – Classical Music Picks for March

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OUR CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMNIST LIZ LEATHERDALE, FOUNDER AND OWNER OF COLCHESTER CLASSICS, BRINGS YOU HER PICK OF MARCH’S CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENTS IN, AND AROUND, COLCHESTER.

Roman River Music Festival 2016

On March 5, one of the UK’s best-loved violinists Tasmin Little and eminent pianist and collaborator Piers Lane launch the Roman River Music Festival 2016 in a programme of Beethoven, Franck and Szymanowski. Young violinist Melinda Blackman, who was last heard in Colchester on 21 November in St Botolph’s Church, Colchester will open the concert.

Tickets: £8 – 24. Saturday 5 March, 7.30pm, Mercury Theatre, Colchester. Box Office (01206 573948).

Sam Moffit accompanied by Colin Baldy

On the same evening there is a chance to hear young trumpeter Sam Moffit accompanied by Colin Baldy at the new Hey Orgelbau organ in St Mary’s, Maldon. Sam was a Brass Finalist in BBC Young Musician of the Year finalist 2010.

Tickets: £10 – £12 (01621 856503)

Kingfisher Ensemble

Last Saturday (27 February) evening oboist Rob Rogers was one of the wind-powered soloists in the Puffin Ensemble accompanied by the Colchester Symphony Orchestra. This Sunday afternoon Rob joins the Kingfisher Ensemble in a concert including music by Gordon Jacob’s and Paul Carr. Sunday 6 March at 2.45pm in the Lion Walk United Reformed Church, Colchester.

Tickets: £2 – £12

Red Priest

Stour Valley Arts & Music have a real coup with the red-hot early music quartet Red Priest visiting on Sunday March 13. It is the only early music group in the world to have been compared in the press to the Rolling Stones. Red Priest is led by Piers Adams, the world’s greatest recorder player and is renowned for being highly imaginative and presenting memorable concerts. St Mary’s Church, East Bergholt on Sunday 13 March at 4pm.

Tickets: £8 – £16 www.svam.org.uk (01206 298426)

Colchester Choral Society

Requiems, or Masses for the Dead, come in many shapes, sizes and styles including Fauré’s serene setting, Mozart’s most famous emotional setting but it is Verdi’s Requiem which is the ‘block buster’ choral masterpiece and is often labelled an opera in all but name. One of the most memorable, powerful parts of the work is ‘Dies Irae’ (Day of Wrath) and has been used of late to dramatic effect in TV and films.

On Saturday 12 March the Colchester Choral Society, under its conductor Ian Ray, will perform this remarkable work with soloists Sarah Fox, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones, Daniel Joy and Simon Wallfisch accompanied by an enlarged Colchester Sinfonia. The society has raised a substantial amount of money in special donations to help fund the cost of the large orchestra required for this performance on at 7.30pm in St Botolph’s Church, Colchester.

Tickets: £12 – £15 from Manns Music, Colchester or www.colchesterchoralsociety.co.uk

A Celebration of Women Composers

In contrast with the Verdi’s Requiem, Julia Usher and Jenni Pinnock will feature in a concert celebrating women composers, also including pieces by Judith Weir, Charlotte Bray, Cheryl Frances Hoad, Anna Boyd, Amy Beach, Clara Schumann and others. Soprano Corrina Dolso will be performing along with her new Equinox Voices pop-up choir, joined by Guest Soprano Naomi Scott de Moncloa and pianist Thérèse Miller, at Castle Methodist Church, Maidenburgh Street, Colchester CO1 1TT. The concert runs from 3-4pm.

Tickets (£5 or free for students) will be available on the door, or can be reserved by e-mailing equinoxvoices@gmail.com

Choral Society Concerts

Here are just two of the many choral society concerts taking place on 19 March. Following its exciting and sell-out concert of two Rachamaninov Piano Concertos, St Botolph’s Music continues its fiftieth year celebration with a performance of Haydn’s masterpiece, The Creation. Tickets £12 on the door.Saturday 19 March, St Botolph’s Church, Colchester. Tiptree Choral Society presents its concert including John Rutter’s Requiem and a selection of Easter . St Luke’s Church, Tiptre.

Tickets £10 (01206 734625)

Bach’s St John Passion

The annual liturgical performance of Bach’s St John Passion in Maldon takes place on Good Friday 25 March at 7.30pm with a homily by the Bishop of Chelmsford. The Choir of St Mary’s Church and the Pegasus Baroque Orchestra with John Grave as the Evangelist and Gabriel Finn as Christus takes place at St Mary’s Church, Hythe Quay, Maldon.

Free entry with a retiring collection

If you have a forthcoming concert of classical music, you would like previewed, contact Liz Leatherdale on 0800 999 6994.

Start your love affair with Classical Music at www.colchesterclassics.co.uk and take a minute to watch their company video:

Liz Leatherdale

Simply the Best – Totally TINA

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She’s 76 now, so if you haven’t already, you may never get a chance to see the real Queen of Rock & Roll, Tina Turner, in the flesh. But you can see the next best thing, Totally TINA at Colchester’s Mercury Theatre in April.

Having headlined the 2015 Glastonbudget Festival last year (the biggest tribute festival of the year), Totally TINA comes to Colchester – Mercury Theatre on Monday 25^th April!

Totally TINA is an award-winning tribute to the Queen of Rock and Roll, Tina Turner, being given the “Official UK number one” honour by the Agents Association of Great Britain.

Currently touring the UK theatres in a full production version with live band, dancers and our leading lady Justine Riddoch.

Rather than being a biography, this show focuses on Tina’s live concert career, replicating scenes from various tours over the last 50 years with custom twists and turns created by Justine and her cast.

Justine has been singing professionally for over 22 years now and has worked extensively in theatres and on national TV, she is also a much sought after session vocalist for some of the biggest record labels in the UK.

In her early career she could be seen treading the familiar cabaret scene as a dynamic vocalist and could boast knowing over 5000 songs, becoming a human jukebox at venues.

But it was in 2002 that her career would change direction. After winning ITV’s “Stars in their Eyes” as Anastacia, her tribute show “Justine is Anastacia” was in great demand and she spent the next 6 years performing as her around the world, enlisting a live band to create more of a show feel. When Anastacia stopped releasing albums and her popularity waned, it was time to change direction again.

Having been told on many occasions she really sounded like Tina Turner, Justine set herself the challenge to become the closest copy she could be. But this was going to take some transformation. After hours of scrutinising video footage, watching mannerisms and movements, hand making the all important wig, deciding which costumes to copy, listening to patter and hundreds of versions of the same songs from different decades, the band and Justine created Totally TINA.

The boys in the band were informed that girls would have to be a big big part of this and surprisingly no one complained! A troupe of professional dancers were hand-picked, choreography based on Tina’s live shows and our own unique creations were created and the whole production was rehearsed, tweaked and rehearsed again.

So get ready to Shake your Tailfeathers, with the Queen of Rock and Soul, Live from Nutbush and Simply the Best!

Monday 25^th April

Time: 7.30pm

Tickets are available from the Mercury Theatre box office.

Box Office No: 01206 573948

Book online

For more information on Totally TINA:

Official Website

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2016 Video Promo Trailer

A Thoroughly Modern English

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I met up with Robbie Grey late last year for a coffee and a catch up just before he returned to his home in Thailand for the winter, but I’ve been keeping this interview under wraps until now because the band, on the surface at least, seemed to be enjoying a something of a break at the time, playing only a handful of dates in Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany and France that year. But were they really? No. Plans were already afoot for a very busy time indeed in 2016. Perhaps one of the busiest yet in their career that has spanned four decades.

Born out of the UK’s punk scene, and originally named The Lepers, Colchester’s post punk legends Modern English found fame in the USA in the early 80’s with their single I Melt With You from their Hugh Jones produced 1982 album After the Snow. The song became a favourite on the newly launched MTV music television station, and reached a very impressive number 7 on America’s Billboard Top Tracks chart in 1983. They also found further fame when it was also used in the ending titles of Nicholas Cage’s breakthrough movie Valley Girl that same year as well as numerous television commercials.

After several line-up changes over the years, four of the original members, Robbie Grey, Mick Conroy, Gary McDowell and Steve Walker have now been back together for the past few years and are as busy, if not busier, than they were all those years ago when it all first began.

“There’s a lot of work going on for a bunch of blokes from the 80’s,” Robbie jokes.

It certainly is, and it’s great to see them still going strong, still enjoying what they do, and giving so many of us, especially those of us from Colchester, a link back to own our teens and 20’s.

After a brief respite to settle into the year the band are off to Florida where, on February 28^th, they set sail from Fort Lauderdale on The 80’s Cruise, a themed cruise where will they be joined by drummer Roy Martin and will be starring alongside other beloved artists of that decade including Kool and the Gang, Huey Lewis and The News, Tiffany, A Flock of Seagulls and many others.

The full line-up can be seen here, and if you fancy a bit of winter sun combined with some 80’s tunes there are still cabins left to book.

Robbie tells me more about it: “The 80’s Cruise is going to be hilarious. I don’t know if we just going to be stuck in our quarters and not allowed to go anywhere because I know there’s one part of the ship just for the artists. It must be a bloody big ship, that’s all I can say! There seems to be a lot of does and don’t in the contract too, including about getting drunk, so a few of us will have to watch that one!”

I tell him I have visions of Gary riding up and down the ship’s corridors on his Harley Davidson, “That might still happen!”

In May they are back across the Atlantic again, this time for the Mesh and Lace tour, a marathon coast to coast North American tour comprising over 20 dates (at time of publication) taking in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Dallas and Los Angeles to name but a few, and also heading up into America’s northern neighbours Canada for dates in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.

You can see all the tour dates on Modern English’s official website.

Robbie explains: “There’s some songs from Mesh and Lace like Grief and The Token Man that I don’t think we’ve ever played live, so it’s going to be great to play some of the old stuff, and the early singles like Swans on Glass, and possibly even earlier stuff than that.”

We chat about how the band are mainly known in the US for I Melt With You, “Over here they don’t know it, they want Gathering Dust and Sixteen Days. It’s a really split audience. When we play in Europe they don’t want to hear it. They want Sixteen Days and Swans on Glass, not the pop stuff, which is fair enough.”

Moving on to the current music scene I mention my surprise that I Melt With You has recently been covered by Australian singer, and ex Neighbours Star, Natalie Imbruglia on her Male album on which she covers tracks made famous by male-led acts. “There’s definitely been a resurgence, Robbie tells me. “People are just bored with all this modern music, so even the kids are looking for something a bit edgy or different that they can listen to. Back in the day Alison Moyet was going to cover it. Nouvelle Vague covered it.”

I mention the version by Mest used at the end of Not Another Teen Movie: “A lot of American pop rock bands have done versions, there’s been three or four of them over the years. Fred Durst did it. Loads and loads of people do it.”

I ask Robbie what it feels like to be having another crack at what they were doing 30 or so years ago: “We never thought we’d get to feel like that again. It’s amazing. We did a few gigs in Europe over the summer, in Paris, trendy Berlin, and all these other cities, Brussels, Frankfurt, Hamburg. We were kind of going back to our early stuff. We’d decided to give America a rest for a while as we’d played so much there over the years and to go back to our roots in England and Europe. It’s been great for Modern English to play in cities we haven’t been to in for over 30 years. It’s been really good fun.”

Meanwhile, in the background, the band have quietly been recording an as yet unnamed new album, produced by Martyn Young from Colourbox and MARRS: “It’s a varied sound on there because a lot of it was Mick writing bits of music and sending them to me in Thailand, me putting vocals on and Gary adding guitars, and Steve adding keyboards. So it’s a different flavour to us all standing in a room together, it’s got a different feel to it, but there’s some really good songs on there, some good music, some exciting music. It’ll be interesting to see what people make of it. I can imagine it being played on Radio 6, let’s put it that way, it’s got that flavour to it. Quite a lot of it is a bit leftfield, which is what we were always about.”

“It’s been brilliant over the last few years,” Robbie continues, “we’ve just finished recording the new album, we’ve got some really good songs and we’ve started writing new songs for the next album. So we’re busy, we’re not shirking, we’re doing lots and lots of stuff”

Fans pre-ordering the new album, will get behind the scenes access including footage from the studio, and sneak peeks of the new songs along with the stories behind them. To order, head over to Pledge Music, where you will also find other exclusive offers including a guitar lesson with Gary or a bass lesson with Mick, limited edition band merchandise, and signed CDs and lyric sheets. Fans can even book the band to come and play a gig in their front room for their family and friends. Yes really!

You can find out more at Pledge Music.

Could another Colchester gig be on the cards? “It would be nice to play in Colchester again, so who knows?”

With a band that’s been around as long as Modern English it seems that anything is possible.

www.modernenglish.me

Official Modern English Facebook

Official Modern English Twitter

Simon Crow