AT THE MOVIES: AN AUTUMN ALMANAC

My recent cinema attendance: good, mad and animated.

Oliver! Where it all began for me (as far as movies) at the Pt Chev cinema, Auckland.

As regular Yak readers are now aware, London Jazz Festival begins this week so unleashing a tsunami of live music (which will leave me suitably soaked and breathless). Prior to this things have been quieter here re gigs. I’ve been to a couple but have chosen to take it easy – too much live music can be akin to too much of any pleasure (food, drink, travel – sex?) all of which leaves one feeling stuffed, constipated, hungover, in need of a stringent diet or even a detox. This doesn’t mean I’ve spent my evenings indoors, no, instead I’ve been going to the movies.

I’ve loved a trip to the cinema ever since infancy. I vividly recall my first ever experience of taking a seat and the lights going down when dad took mini-me to see cartoons at a fleapit in Avondale -yes, the Auckland suburb where Kiwi jazz-rappers Avantdale Bowling Club hail from. A couple of years later my mum took my brother and I to see Lionel Bart’s Oliver! and that fab’ film’s characters (from poor, desperate Oliver through the wily Artful Dodger to the manipulative Fagin and the terrifying Bill Sykes) made a huge impact, especially as it provided me with my first taste of London – a taste I’ve never lost… While, when our family went to see Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, I recall the entire cinema having to stand and sing God Save The Queen before the film screened. Can you believe it? Prior to watching a very American Western full of violence and sadism we all had to sing the national anthem! Weird, I know. New Zealand was then governed by politicians who retained a cringey, forelock tugging, colonial mindset and it invaded even our commercial entertainment.

My folks stood – as they always had – and sang and my brother and I, being munchkins and not knowing the words, likely made sounds. Back then I took it for granted that everyone in the cinema stood but my pal Nick Bollinger later recalled how, when his father refused to stand for the anthem as their family attended the cinema in Wellington, an old lady in the row behind them began bashing Nick’s dad over the head with her umbrella – disrespecting our wonderful Queen! Take that!!

As my folks had little interest in music or art, it was trips to the cinema that were our family outings. And, by the age of 9 or 10, I was allowed to go with my school pals to matinees – my first taste of independence. This enthusiasm is one I’ve never lost and, each week, I study reviews of new releases, look to see what might be one at art house cinemas, small film festivals etc. I love the movies – as we called them when kids – and still enjoy the experience far more than sitting on the sofa flicking through the myriad offerings on TV. I don’t know about you but the ritual of taking a seat in the cinema finds me far more focused than watching telly from the sofa: dim lights, phone switched off, big screen… I vanish into viewing for the next 90 to 150 minutes.

Actually, so much of what is made for TV streaming is far too long – I don’t have ten hours to watch an overcooked remake of Day Of The Jackal. While plenty of docs (and podcasts) now drag out their premise over multiple episodes with padded interviews: on the occasions that I engage with such my editorial brain thinks “cut-cut-cut”.

Anyway, all this is to say that I’ve seen a bunch of films over the past few weeks and I thought I’d share my thoughts on them with y’all. If you’ve also seen any of these then please do comment - whether in agreement/dis’. Thx!

KNEECAP

Kneecap, for anyone reading the Yak and living beyond the UK, are a Northern Irish rap trio who have been treading the boards since 2017. I first heard of them a few years back when their mix of rapping in the Irish language and provocative political stance caused outrage from certain reactionary Unionist politicians. “Hilarious!” I thought, but paid no further attention until noise about this biopic started rising – when wretched Tory nutter Suella Braverman denounced the band this demonstrated they were hitting their targets full on and deserved further attention. And so it proves: Kneecap is a bio-pic that stars the trio, seemingly acting out a plot loosely based on their rise to (in)fame(y).

I’ve seen plenty of music biopics and most aren’t very good. The first rap biopic I caught was Krush Groove, back in the 80s, chronicling the rise of Run DMC/Def Jam Records. It was a standard B-film but enjoyable for the rappers’ performances. Eminem’s 8 Mile, about his hard scrabble life in Detroit prior to getting a record deal (and subsequent superstardom), is really strong, its only real weakness being his ex-girlfriend’s role is underdeveloped. Kneecap’s director Rich Peppiatt has obviously used 8 Mile as his model – urban poverty, disenfranchised youths, rap offering a means of expression – but he’s developed his film into a broader, more challenging (and offbeat), much funnier feature.

That Northern Ireland remains sectarian and extremely dysfunctional is evident here while a trio of disruptive, drug addled/dealing scallies can both upset the establishment and entertain people is reminiscent of the Sex Pistols’ impact almost a half-century ago. I entered Peckhamplex not expecting a great deal from Kneecap and left wearing a huge smile: this is a film that’s engaging and inspiring and genuinely off-the-wall. The two youthful rappers are feral – the kind of gobby, druggy, disrespectful, tracksuit wearing yobs most adults loathe – and the film has no desire to give them a patina of respectability (which works in its favour). Instead, the sheer rush, the satiric humour and desire to outwit dim authority types, kept me chuckling throughout.

Kneecap is a visual blast – like a hit of ketamine or cocaine – and there’s a hallucinated feel to it: Peppiatt is a first time director and (perhaps) his lack of experience is a strength as he gleefully conveys an environment (violent, sectarian, overwhelmed with myths and mental health issues) the rappers exist in. Where the superb BBC crime series Blue Lines dramatises Northern Ireland’s criminal classes and their sectarian divisions, Kneecap looks at policing from the side of the youths who take and sell drugs and treats it as a mad game. I’m sure if I watched again I’d find flaws but the energy and exuberance on display makes Kneecap a winner (possibly even an Oscar winner – Ireland has nominated it for the Best Foreign Film category at the 2025 Academy Awards).

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR

Sometimes I think Pedro Almodovar is Europe’s finest director, his lush, baroque, female focused vision creates films that are striking to watch and linger in the mind. Then I see an effort like The Skin I’m In and think “boy, Pedro, did your obsessions come a cropper here...” What’s fascinating about Almodovar’s career trajectory is how he’s developed from a very camp, very funny, often outrageous maker of knockabout comic soap operas to a director whose films are solemn and quite often polemical – his early films had a lot in common with Kneecap (just lower budget and more overtly gay focus: like the Belfast crew, his characters liked drugs, sex and knockabout chaos).

I enjoyed Pedro’s last effort Parallel Lives, but that was largely due to the pleasure I took in watching Penelope Cruz in a role that utilises both her beauty and acting ability. Almodovar’s messages here – about the struggles of single mothers, date rape and opening the mass graves of Spain’s Civil War victims – all felt a bit tacked on. Not horribly so, but only the emphasis on the challenge of raising a child alone truly resonated with the film’s focus on Cruz as a solo mother. And the tidy “happy ending” was limp.

So to Pedro’s first feature film in English, and one set in New York with leading Anglo female actors. Here we find Julianne Moore’s character – a successful author – reconnecting with her old friend, a NYT war reporter played by Tilda Swinton, who has terminal cervical cancer and wants Moore to be in the room next door for when she takes a pill (secured on the dark web) that will end her life. As always with Almodovar, the film is a palette of gorgeous colours and the lead actors are given full reign to act out their intense friendship. Swinton has the easier role, playing an ice queen isn’t a stretch, while Moore’s character struggles with the conflicting emotions involved in being anointed aide to a friend’s impending suicide.

TRND reminded me of the films Woody Allen began releasing in the 1980s where he wanted to make “serious” films – also largely focused on women – that his fanbase, wanting laughs, refuted. Almodovar’s audience has grown up with him (he’s not done a comedy since the misfiring I’m So Excited!), but everything here reflects those difficult Woody dramas – the desire to discuss high art, the sheer bougie bliss the main characters all inhabit, the static solemnity of it all – along with Pedro’s tackled on moralising: a belligerent Catholic cop interrogates Moore so spelling out “this redneck brute is the type of reactionary who impedes progress/decency in our society”. Well, quite.

As with Parallel Lives, Almodovar hasn’t yet worked out how to effectively incorporate his messages into his films (beyond a polemic). More problematic is the fact that TRND is a very flat viewing experience, one that lacks the spark and imagination of Pedro’s best films. Perhaps stepping outside Spain has overwhelmed him? Or perhaps his concerns about the decline of Western society has blunted his once very vivid, mirthful imagination? Anyway, TRND is solemn and grim – leaving the cinema I felt like going on the dark web and securing a pill to ease the deadening effect that static, stuffy art movies involve.

EMELIA PEREZ

Another Spanish language feature, this time from garlanded French director Jacques Audiard, Emelia Pérez is likely the most outrageous film to be picking up awards in 2024. Indeed, so bizarre is its premise I began to think this was an old Almodovar script that had been rebooted: it starts with a young female lawyer in Mexico City having just won her client’s case (problem is, she knows he murdered his wife so her skills have ensured a misogynist murderer walks free) and very stressed re her low salary/concerns for her mother etc. Then her phone rings and a raspy voiced caller, who appears to know not just where she is (in the toilets) but everything about her life, makes an offer that, he indicates, if she accepts will change her life. Of course she accepts and is scooped off the street into a vehicle, her head covered with a hood, and whisked away to a meeting with raspy voice: he being the leader of a drugs cartel. Raspy wants to employ her to find him a clinic – not in Mexico or the US – where he can have a full sex change. Then he will vanish into his new identity. He’s not changing his gender so to hide from the authorities, this is made clear, he always has wanted to be a woman. And so he becomes one. Wild, eh? Even more so as the characters break into full song-and-dance routines at times so to narrate where we are.

Audiard certainly knows how to make striking films – The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet, Rust & Bone, Dheepan, Paris, 13^th District – although they are often criticised for both being outlandish in their intense dramatics and for using minorities/working class communities as emblems for stereotypical ghettoisation. With Emelia Pérez he indulges in both – the main characters all being totally operatic (and the film’s premise of the ruthless cartel boss who wants to be a woman and lead a glossy life but still loves/misses her kids is crazy) and trading on the long held libel of Mexico overflowing with murderous criminals. This noted, Emelia Pérez is an entertaining feature – its so OTT that I sat in my seat and shook my head (what next?) - and well carried off by all involved. Yet, even with all the high camp song and dance numbers, Audiard plays the film as a serious drama. Which doesn’t really work.

Essentially, Emelia Pérez is an overblown telenovela (the Latin American soap operas that often deal with women in desperate situations) and its pathos held me for around 90 minutes. After that I began to lag: at 132 minutes its far too long – the character of trans woman Emelia Pérez is well played by Spanish trans actor Zoe Saldana but the narrative journey is simply not that interesting (a murderous cartel boss hiding in plain sight as a wealthy woman is very Almodovar – just without the laughs). If there is an award for oddest film of the year then Emelia Pérez should surely scoop it.

ANORA

Wham bam, thank you, mam! Anora is a helluva film, one of those movies that you absorb in the cinema as if in a trance – is this really happening? - and, once the film is over, you need a few quiet minutes to collect your thoughts. Its fast and funny and furious and smart and exists in a wild rush that captures the freedom and foolishness of youth like few other films. And at 139 minutes its longer than Emelia Pérez is but, unlike Audiard’s overblown female-led feature, this one doesn’t have a dull minute, instead its pretty much note perfect - that rarest of things!

Anora (who prefers to be called Ani) is a 23 year old New Yorker who, we ascertain, is sharp and funny and likeable. She works in a lap dancing club and, one evening, a client requests a dancer who speaks Russian. Her boss is aware she does (her granny, she explains, only spoke Russian) and Ivan (the youthful Russian client) is so smitten he hires Ani to service his sexual desires ($15,000 a week she charges) at his family mansion. Yes, he’s the spoilt child of oligarchs. They do young folk stuff – lots of sex and drugs and techno – and, this being America, he flies her and his pals to Las Vegas to stay in the most exclusive suite. Where he announces they should get married. “Four carets” replies Ani of the kind of ring she will accept – she’s enjoying herself while still maintaining the entire fling as a business transaction. Yet, once married, she finds herself falling for the brat, thinking that they will settle down as a couple. Then his father’s goons – three inept, harassed Armenians – turn up and demand the couple divorce (on mama’s orders: her boy isn’t marrying a prostitute!) and things get funny in the way Jonathan Demme movies used to get funny, near slapstick while still dramatic.

Mikey Maddison plays Ani and she sizzles – her energy and ferocity and charm and naivety and rudeness and vulnerability – makes for one of the most remarkable female leads in contemporary cinema. Writer-director Sean Baker attracted my attention with Tangerine and The Florida Project, both low budget films looking at US women living on society’s margins (and sex workers in Tangerine). I missed his next film, Red Rocket (but must now track it down), so it is fascinating to see his talent so fully developed. Anora is a comedy and a morality play and a drama about how young people live – the fantasy life Ivan introduces Ani to, one she’s only ever seen in rap videos or reality TV shows, is a blast but a hollow one. And the humanity shown her by the Armenian henchmen suggests the little people who have to scuffle along are far more agreeable than the soulless, spineless super wealthy. A gem of a movie.

THE WILD ROBOT

My ex asked me to take her twins to this, the latest animation effort from DreamWorks. They’re seven and as excited about going to the movies as I was at that age. Which means it was a buzz to accompany them. They now demand popcorn with their movie – Kiwi cinemas back then didn’t offer such, instead it was frozen ice cream cones (you licked them for ages, so solid and icy were they), Jaffas (a chocolate filling encased in a sugary orange coating) and Minties (chewy mint flavoured sweets): during school holidays, when cinemas were packed with urchins, food fights would break out with kids throwing their lollies (and the occasional ice cream) at the screen and one another.... Anyway, I digress: I’ve only ever seen a handful of contemporary animation films – even though I hear good things about Despicable Me and others I rarely feel the need to go and see them.

That said, on the strength of reviews I went to see Robot Dreams earlier this year, and a fine film it was. Finer than The Wild Robot? Well, they come from different places – Robot Dreams is a lo-fi Spanish-French co-production based on a comic and is set in 1984 New York; The Wild Robot is based on a series of children’s books and involves state-of-the-art animation from a huge Hollywood studio and is aimed at being a holiday blockbuster. The story here involves a box containing a home robot being washed ashore on an island free of human habitation. The robot gets activated and tries to be of service to the animals. Much clumsiness ensures until a wily fox teaches the robot how to engage with the wild things. But the tech firm who built the robot track it down and want to take it back and study its data – evil tech corporation alert!

This is a charming film, very much aimed at children – it contains the kind of folksy moralising Disney used to specialise in (emphasising kindness/compassion and respect for nature: these are conveyed more effectively than Pedro’s tub thumping) – and very attractive to watch, so fine is the animation. Personally, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Robot Dreams but I do wonder if children would relate to Robot Dreams in the way adults do? The latter film is an elegy for a now disappeared New York City and many of us middle aged types mourn its passing. As for the twins, the boy enjoyed The Wild Robot while the girl didn’t. Both loved the popcorn.

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