Seize Them!, Back To Black and Civil War

 

Three completely different films starting with a historical comedy. Seize Them! is reasonably funny but far too much swearing. Is that supposed to make us laugh? Everything is all very silly. The cast at least look as if they are having fun. Aimee Lou Wood as Queen Dagan was fine and her stage acting credentials showed through, despite the uneven script by Andy Riley. Along for the ride are Nick Frost as Babik and Lolly Adefope (one of our favourites from Ghosts and also starring in Wicked Little Letters) as Shulmay. There are the odd familiar faces such as Jason Burnett as Thane Tostig (known in our house as DCI Wilkes in Agatha Raisin). Director Curtis Vowell has taken us on a road trip (or should that be cart track) along some lovely locations in Wales including Raglan Castle. So it did look good.

I did not find Back To Black an easy watch. Amy Winehouse is not a person you could warm to. Highly strung, over confident, fragile and at the same time quite naïve and childish. Wow! However, I was reminded about her love of jazz from Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington to Sarah Vaughn. The latter who I saw at The Odeon Hammersmith with Count Basie. Amy was not only a terrific singer but she wrote her songs from the heart. Not like those others who just sang standards. So Amy was definitely a one off. Fortunately the movie puts the music first. It's where Amy is at her happiest. So there are lots of songs and not all were Amy's. What she could have done when she matured is anyone's guess. 

She meets Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O'Connell) and their relationship is basically her downfall if not his fault. She was very much against drugs before they met. But he drags her in. And he is charismatic character as when he dances to The Shangri-La's  Leader of the Pack on the juke box in the pub when they first meet. But I found the story quite uneven. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson was, perhaps, not the best choice. We see too much of the paparazzi in the second half and the staging of when she won her Grammy was too much. The cinematography by Polly Morgan was excellent as were the costumes and design. Marisa Abela is fine as Amy, but head and shoulders above the rest of the cast are Eddie Marsan as Amy's father and Leslie Manville as her Nan. Both were excellent. 

Rebecca Harrison in Sight and Sound Magazine May 2024 - much to admire ..... reminding them (the audience) of Winehouse's extraordinary talent and era defining songs.

Oh Alex, what have you done? This is the writer for 28 Days Later, Sunshine, 28 Weeks Later and Never Let Me Go, and the writer and director for Ex Machina and Men. So what is he doing with this mess. A pretty stupid plot where we never learn one thing about what started the conflict. We are plunged right from the start into something very unpleasant. All to show this is a (story) about war photographers and correspondents. But they have nothing interesting to say, just there as excuse to watch the violence. So the dialogue is rubbish and the predictable road movie has the predictable set pieces. All with gratuitous violence and wooden characters. Garland was the only reason why I went to see this miserable excuse for a blockbuster movie which someone said "impressive acting and cinematography cannot make up for the lack of a compelling story beyond the words in the title". I guess this is what happens when a respected writer and director is given too high a budget to make an action film. Fortunately there was no extra cost for the IMAX screening as we were on an April freebie.  

Henry K Miller in Sight and Sound Magazine June 2024 - a thrilling tendency to throw the audience off balance.