Bugonia, The Choral and Now You See Me, Now You Don't

 

Well that was weird. It all started to feel that way when the screen size opened in it's 1:50:1 aspect ratio. More of a square box so that took some getting used to. The film seemed to me more of a black comedy than a horror. Director Yorgos Lanthimos and writer Will Tracy have remade the Korean movie Save the Green Planet. In Bugonia, Teddy Gatz played by Jesse Plemons is convinced that the corporate queen Michelle Fuller, played by Emma Stone, is actually an alien. When she is captured and held prisoner, it's hard to be convinced when Teddy is just full of conspiracy theories. Especially when we discover that Michelle's company was responsible for experimenting on his ill mother.  

This first half of the film is actually hard work. As someone said "it's a very very long run up to the finale". Where it goes completely bonkers. Sight and Sound magazine had a double page review by Travis Jeppeson where he says it "adheres dangerously close to the cliches of horror schlock without quite managing to subvert them". Hmm, not sure. But "the depth brought by the performances" is spot on but is "everyone gets what they deserve" not going too far? 

Mark Kermode found the film "profoundly odd" and "hard to warm to it", but "it picks up speed" in a race to the conclusion. I thought it was a very black satire. 

The Choral could not be anymore different. Alan Bennet and Nicholas Hytner are reunited after their previous successes of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van. We are in a small town in the north of England (obviously) at the start of the first world war. The young men are beginning to be called up. They go off to a fanfare from a brass band, unlike the somber partings later. The older men still want to put on a concert. Roger Allam and Mark Addy (supported by vicar Alun Armstrong) are stuck for a choir master and as a last resort turn to Dr Guthrie. A superb performance by Ralph Fiennes. I also liked Robert Emms as the quiet pianist. 

We see a lot of the young men not quite old enough to be called up, but help swell the numbers. Tom Shone in the Sunday Times was spot on when he said "the script spends too much time with pursuing the romantic subplots of his teenage choristers". There is a very late cameo from Simon Russell Beale as Elgar. It's his "The Dream of Gerontius" that will be performed, against all the odds. Tom Shone ends his review with the director having "frittered away his drama in pleasing vignettes".

I thought Now You See Me, Now You Don't was badly let down by an awful script. Director Ruben Fleisher (Zombieland (good), Unchartered (OK) and Venom (not for me) does his best to make it a fast production. And he does have a pleasing cast in this, the third in the series. All the characters from those earlier two movies are back, including a smaller role for Lizzie Caplan (Cloverfield). Morgan Freeman pops up but we never know if he survives or not. I'm not sure who had the idea of casting Rosamond Pike as the villain with a strange South African accent. She has come a long way from seeing her in Hitchcock Blonde at The Royal Court in 2003. I will not trouble this review with the plot/story as already it's forgotten. But it does have that attractive cast, some expensive sets, costumes and hardware. Shame about script. That's what you get when five writers are involved. I thought I had only seen the original film, but realise I did see the second with Daniel Radcliffe as the villain. What is it about Hollywood casting Brits in these roles.