Our Brand is Crisis

For F*** Magazine

OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

Director : David Gordon Green
Cast : Sandra Bullock, Scoot McNairy, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Ann Dowd, Joaquim de Almeida, Zoe Kazan, Reynaldo Pacheco
Genre : Drama/Comedy
Run Time : 108 mins
Opens : 14 January 2016
Rating : NC-16 (Some Coarse Language)

On the electoral battlefield, only best-prepared campaign can emerge victorious. Political consultant Jane Bodine (Bullock) knows that the right campaign can turn even the unlikeliest candidate into a winner. Bodine is pulled out of retirement to manage the campaign of Pedro Castillo (de Almeida), an unpopular candidate running for the presidency of Bolivia. Together with her team Rich (McNairy), Ben (Mackie), Nell (Dowd) and LeBlanc (Kazan), Bodine has to yank Castillo’s polling numbers out of the abyss. Rivera (Louis Arcella), the candidate who is leading in the polls, has hired Pat Candy (Thornton) as his campaign manager. Candy and Bodine have a long, contentious professional rivalry and the desire to beat Candy spurs Bodine on as she rallies to get the Bolivian public on Castillo’s side. In the meantime, she befriends Eduardo (Pacheco), an idealistic young volunteer for Castillo’s campaign, endeavouring to better understand the situation on the ground.

            Our Brand is Crisis is an adaptation of the 2005 documentary of the same name. Directed by Rachel Boynton, the documentary recounted the role the Greenberg Carville Shrum political consultancy firm played in the 2002 Bolivian presidential elections. In the hands of director David Gordon Green and screenwriter Peter Straughan, the fictionalised account is a satirical comedy-drama.

This is an expectedly cynical work, built on the reality that political campaigns are basically branding exercises and that focus groups and demographic testing far outweigh the actual needs and concerns of the voting public. The humour is a way to make this more palatable, but it is hit and miss, resulting in a degree of tonal inconsistency. The out-and-out comedic set pieces, including stubborn llamas, a politician giving a speech from the back of a train and a bus chase that recalls Bullock’s Speed days, feel at odds with the bleakness of the entire political landscape. This approach sacrifices some depth, and Our Brand is Crisis is also guilty of deriving comedy from elements that are foreign to American audiences, which can be seen as insensitive. On top of all this, there’s a liberal sprinkling of pithy maxims, with Jane quoting from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

It’s a good thing then that star Bullock is there to hold it all together. The Jane Bodine character plays to all of Bullocks’ strength as a performer, with her dogged determination, suffer-no-fools attitude and the aspect of being a fish out of water. The character is an astute, aggressive go-getter and there are a number of shades for Bullock to play. The role was originally intended for a man, and then rewritten with Bullock in mind. The most intriguing parts of the film showcase the push and pull dynamic between strategist and candidate. De Almeida has mostly played villainous roles in American projects, and Castillo’s inherent unlikeability hammers home the point that Bodine is there to get a job done and not to ensure the “good guys” save the day.

The “bitter rivals” component with the comic one-upmanship that results from it feels like a largely superfluous attempt to make the story more engaging, with Thornton’s Candy coming off as little more than a moustache-twirling villain. McNairy, Mackie, Nell and LeBlanc do give the film some grounding as fairly believable members of the campaign team, conveying the idea that while “Calamity” Jane is their leader, she’s also a loose cannon who sometimes needs reining in. Pachecho delivers a vulnerable, sensitive performance as Eduardo and he is the representative of the common Bolivian citizen, though the character’s function in the narrative does sometimes lean on the manipulative side.

While not particularly insightful, there’s no denying that the subject matter of Our Brand is Crisis is fascinating. The film flopped at the U.S. box office, perhaps in part because it was sold as being “from the producers of Argo”. It’s a touch ironic that Our Brand Is Crisis had some issues with its own branding. The opportunity to explore grim, shady geopolitical realities in an impactful manner is eschewed in favour of petty revenge shenanigans and comedy that’s broader than it should be, but Bullock’s performance is just enough to string it all together.

Summary: While suffering from tonal issues and a lack of biting revelation into the seedy underbelly of the political campaign business, Our Brand is Crisis manages to entertain and smartly utilises the talents of its leading lady.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Minions

For F*** Magazine

MINIONS

Director : Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin

Cast : Sandra Bullock, Michael Keaton, Jon Hamm, Steve Coogan, Hiroyuki Sanada, Allison Janney, Katy Mixon, Dave Rosenbaum, Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud

Genre : Animation

Run Time : 91 mins

Opens : 18 June 2015

Rating : PG

Clad in blue overalls with thick goggles over their eye(s), preoccupied with bananas and spouting gibberish, the small yellow creatures known as Minions have scuttled their way into the collective popular culture consciousness. In this prequel/spin-off to the Despicable Me movies, we discover the origins of the Minions, who have been on earth since the dawn of time, drawn to evil masters whom they loyally but often ineffectively serve. It is 1968 and after a long period of unemployment, Kevin, Stuart and Bob set out to seek a new villainous employer for their clan. The stylish, dastardly Scarlet Overkill (Bullock) seems to be just the new boss the Minions seek. Her husband, inventor Herb (Hamm), outfits Kevin, Stuart and Bob with nifty gadgets and they are tasked to steal the Queen’s crown from the Tower of London for Scarlet, who dreams of ruling over the British Empire. Naturally, things go awry for our tiny yellow protagonists. Uh oh.

            It is very easy to be cynical about the existence of this spin-off film. A “minion” serves an evil overlord, who in the context of the Despicable Me series, is Steve Carell’s Gru. Here, the Minions, side characters by design, are given their own show to carry. There is an industry term for something with kid-targeted merchandising potential – “toyetic”. The Minions are as toyetic as they come, designed to be slapped on everything and anything that exasperated parents can fork over the cash for, with a new wave of Minion mania set to strike with the release of this movie. When McDonalds offered Minion Happy Meal toys here in Singapore, lines snaked around the block, rivalling those for Hello Kitty merchandise. It was a goofy, likeable idea to start with, but now it can’t help but feel all market tested and focus grouped out. A story focusing solely on the Minions would have worked fine as a short film or as a theme park attraction – actually, those already exist, but that doesn’t diminish the shiny, lucrative appeal of a feature-length summer release.

            That’s essentially a roundabout way of saying that Minions has no real need to exist, which sounds like a very curmudgeon-y statement indeed now that we’ve read it out loud. For what it is, the film is harmless, often quite amusing and very competently animated. Pierre Coffin co-directed both Despicable Me films and Kyle Balda helmed three Minion-centric short films included on the Despicable Me home release. Coffin and Chris Renaud, co-director of the Despicable Me movies, voice all the Minions themselves. There are several eye-catching sequences and plenty of fun period details for the parents in the audience to grab onto – Kevin, Stuart and Bob walking beneath a giant Nixon campaign poster is a delightfully surreal image. There are perhaps one too many pop culture references – for example, the Minions bumble into the Beatle’s famous Abbey Road crossing. The expected slapstick is not in short supply, but this reviewer’s favourite gag, featuring time-travelling mad scientist Dr. Flux, didn’t involve the Minions at all.

            It was assumed that the Minions were the genetically-engineered creations of Gru – the short film “Orientation Day” follows a bunch of freshly-cloned Minions around Gru’s lab. The Minions’ new back-story raises very many questions. Is this one tribe the only group of Minions in existence? What implications are there in these creatures’ nature to be drawn to only the most unsavoury beings currently alive? Would they have leapt at the chance to serve, say, Adolf Hitler? It makes sense if their lives have no meaning apart from indentured servitude if they were grown that way in a lab, but these creatures are naturally occurring. We’re definitely expending too much thought on it, but these notions did prove very distracting throughout the film’s duration.

            Sandra Bullock is the marquee-name star chosen to headline the film as Scarlet Overkill, the super-villainess kitted out in an array of dresses that also serve as booster rockets and who’s out to prove being a flashy career criminal isn’t just a guy’s game. She’s fine, but nowhere near as charismatic and entertaining as Steve Carell before her, and it is evident that she’s not a seasoned voice actress. Playing Scarlet’s laconic husband, Jon Hamm puts more effort into transforming his voice, but it’s not an especially memorable performance. Michael Keaton and Allison Janney voice a couple who let Kevin, Stuart and Bob hitch a car ride to the villain convention; it’s little more than a cameo.

            It’s an animated film containing popular, easily-marketable critters and it’s being released during the summer holidays, so of course Minions is going to do well at the box office. It’s mostly pleasant enough, sometimes annoying but never outright cringe-inducing and it moves along at a decent clip. Because of the inherent simplicity of the Minions as characters and the fact that they have to carry this movie on their little yellow shoulders, this lacks the crucial emotional backbone present in the first Despicable Me film. Kevin, Stuart and Bob may be designed to be analogues for Margo, Edith and Agnes, but they just can’t replace the heart that the three girls and their emotional connection to their adoptive dad bring to the franchise.

Summary: Yes, the tykes will love it and the accompanying adults might find some tidbits hidden in the 60s setting, but Minions can’t transcend its function as a cash grab vehicle.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong  

Gravity

For F*** Magazine

GRAVITY

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Space,
Run Time: 91 mins
Opens: 10 October 2013
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language And Some Disturbing Images)

Have you ever been to a museum and watched an IMAX 3D documentary such as Space Station 3D or Hubble 3D and wondered “gee, what would happen if something went horribly wrong on one of these missions?” There’s no reason to feel guilty, since an environment as treacherous and as unfamiliar as outer space does lend itself to some rather macabre fascinations. This film is, very thankfully, probably the closest most of us will get to being first-hand witnesses to a catastrophe in orbit.

Medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is on her first space shuttle mission, STS-157, supervising the installation of technology that she has developed into the Hubble Space Telescope. The mission is commanded by seasoned astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney), who is on his last shuttle expedition. While on a spacewalk and working on the telescope, a wave of debris from a destroyed satellite hits the shuttle, leaving Stone and Kowalski stranded. With no way to contact mission control and with oxygen quickly running out of their spacesuits, the scientist and the astronaut must figure out a method of survival, floating in the vast, silent vacuum of space.



Gravity is very much a technical marvel. The film was four years in the making and is Alfonso Cuarón’s first directorial credit since 2006’s Children of Men. The film opens with a dazzling, 17 minute-long unbroken shot, cementing its place as a Best Visual Effects Oscar frontrunner within those few beginning minutes. Gravity seduces the audience with gorgeous, jaw-dropping vistas, before setting them on a thrill ride; this method making it comparable to Jurassic Park. It plays on simultaneous feelings of claustrophobia and agoraphobia; the characters almost trapped within their spacesuits while drifting through the expanse of outer space. We’ve often pointed out certain films that aren’t worth seeing in 3D; this definitely isn’t one of them. The stereoscopy contributes tremendously to that feeling of all-encompassing immersion. We’d also recommend seeing this on as big a screen as possible.

The term “visionary” is used a lot in movie marketing to describe directors – Cuarón once again proves that he is wholly worthy of the adjective. This was a labour of love for the Mexican helmer and the grandiloquent technical aptitude put on display is staggering. Credit must also go to multiple Oscar-nominated cinematographer and Cuarón’s oft-collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, who makes use of the revolutionary Bot & Dolly IRIS motion-control camera rig to accomplish some breathtaking shots. Cuarón, who co-edited the film with Mark Sanger, has crafted a motion picture packed with suspense and peril without relying on frenetic hyper-editing or shaky cam.



While Gravity may be considered a film that “stars visual effects”, we do need to care for the human beings caught in the predicament, and that’s where Sandra Bullock and George Clooney come in. He’s the veteran and she’s the rookie; Clooney playing Kowalski as a charming, cool-headed consummate professional. He coaches and coaxes Stone along, gently guiding her through a very alarming, sudden situation. He regales mission control with funny stories and describes himself as just “the bus driver”. He has to put Stone at ease and, by extension, the audience too.

This is very much Sandra Bullock’s movie to carry though, and talk is already swirling of a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her turn as the mission specialist. The character is a fantastic female protagonist; we don’t get a whole lot of those in science fiction and shades of the Alien franchise’s Ellen Ripley are indeed evident. Bullock gives the part her all, though this reviewer couldn’t help but wonder if any of the actresses considered before she got the part (Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Marion Cotillard among them) might have been a better fit. In addition to traipsing across space station exteriors, Dr. Ryan Stone has vulnerable moments where it seems she’s given up all hope, and while Bullock appears to struggle with portraying that raw, desperate emotion, her performance is still very commendable. Sci-fi is often seen as clinical, but Dr. Ryan Stone’s quest to simply find her way home is told with a deft, personal touch, even as it unfolds against the majestic, high production value backdrop.



“Atmospheric” is a pretty apt way to describe Gravity, even though it takes place outside of our atmosphere. The film is a masterful exercise in contrasts, with calm, peaceful moments juxtaposed against white-knuckle ones and silence immediately following frantic sections of Steven Price’s score. Even though it’s high-gloss, the film doesn’t feel artificial or inauthentic and is without that pesky “phony green screen” feel these pictures sometimes have. There aren’t any mind-bending plot complexities, but Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonás’ screenplay forms the ideal blueprint for a lean (at just 90 minutes), well-paced and visually sumptuous journey.

SUMMARY: Alfonso Cuarón delivers a science fiction thriller that is at once sweeping and intimate and showcases the catalogue of filmmaking skills the director possesses, in addition to good performances from its cast of two.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong