Posts Tagged ‘Isla Fisher’

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Rosamund Pike, Isla Fisher, Dominic Sessa, Justice Smith, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, Thabang Molaba, Ariana Goldblatt, Lizzy Caplan

Running Time: 1 hour 53 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Nine years after the sequel, Now You See Me 2 in 2016, Gangster Squad director Ruben Fleischer reunites the four horseman of magic in the third instalment aptly titled Now You See Me: Now You Don’t starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco.

In the new film some bright young characters emerge, ambitious magicians that are trying to emulate the four horseman. These are June played by Ariana Goldblatt, Bosco brilliantly played by Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) and Charlie played by Justice Smith.

J. Daniel Atlas eloquently played with enough charisma by Eisenberg recruits the young magicians to help him pull off a daring diamond heist in Antwerp, Belgium. Enter the villain.

Rosamund Pike is no stranger to playing the villain, after she played Miranda Frost in 2002’s James Bond film Die Another Day. This time the British Oscar nominee effortlessly takes on a strong South African accent to play diamond heiress Veronica Vanderberg who inherited her father’s South African diamond empire.

She has a sparkling very expensive diamond in which the magicians want to steal at a diamond auction in Antwerp. Many disappearing acts occur in which the diamond is snatched by the four horsemen and their young accomplices. They flee Belgium for a mysterious Chateau in France where they meet chief magician and illusionist Thaddeus Bradley played by Oscar winner Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby).

Things go south at the Chateau and soon Merritt McKinney played by Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson (The People vs Larry Flynt, The Messenger, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri) is kidnapped by the ruthless but vivacious Vanderberg.

Swiftly a fifth magician appears, Lizzy Caplan reprising her role as Luna and the entire gang head to Abu Dhabi to the Yas Marina Grand Prix circuit whereby Vanderberg Enterprises will be showcasing their new racing car. The magicians land up getting caught in a sandbox quickly filling with sand while Vanderberg seems to escape into the Arabian night.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t has great entertainment value judging by how fill the cinema was when I saw it. It is a sleek and visually impressive film with a great ensemble cast and sufficient tricky to wow the viewers into being captivated by every sleight of hand and misdirection.

With multiple screenwriters contributing to the screenplay, the narrative is outlandish and pure escapism but that is what magic is all about.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is pure entertainment with no violence, lots of action and loads of magic helped by a truly talented ensemble cast. Recommended viewing.

Nocturnal Animals

Director: Tom Ford

Cast: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Armie Hammer, Isla Fisher, Michael Shannon, Ellie Bamber, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen

Retrospective Film Review

Austin Wright’s beautifully written novel Nocturnal Animals originally published in 1993 about a young couple who break up and the ex-husband Edward Morrow writes a startling graphic revenge novel to prove to his ex-wife that he is a brilliant writer came to the big screen in 2016 by stylish director Tom Ford amidst little fanfare except for some adequate recognition by the Hollywood Foreign Press and a cursory glance by the Academy Awards.

It was perhaps Tom Ford’s unconventional approach to the retelling of such a bizarre novel into a hyper-stylized film noir crime drama set in a murky Los Angeles and in the outback of Texas.

Assembling an all-star cast including Oscar nominees Amy Adams (Doubt, Junebug) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) as the pivotal couple Susan and Edward along with two brilliant performances by Michael Shannon as the tough but persistent Sheriff Bobby Andes and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Anna Karenina) as the violent rapist Ray Marcus who assault and murder Laura and India Hastings played respectively by the gorgeous actresses Isla Fisher (The Great Gatsby) and Ellie Bamber, was the key to making an extravagant and captivating film noir thriller.

From the provocative title sequence featuring naked obese ladies dancing on pulpits at an avant-garde art exhibition in Los Angeles, to the dynamic costumes designed by Arianne Phillips who also worked on such films as A Single Man and received three Oscar nominations for Costume Design for films including Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, James Mangold’s Walk the Line and Madonna’s W. E.  

Director Tom Ford skilfully uses the semiotics of colours to guide the viewer through the breakup of Edward and Susan to the inner world of the novel aptly titled Nocturnal Animals which uses garish reds and scorched earth browns to reflect a harsh and dangerous world of men who kill women and psychologically manipulate other men especially when they are most vulnerable, driving on dark rural highways in Texas miles away from civilization.

The contrast of the dangerous world of the novel to the hyper-realized art world of Los Angeles populated by bright and gritty characters, signified by the brief appearances of Carlos and Alessia extravagantly played by character actors Andrea Riseborough and Michael Sheen is the environment that Susan Morrow has chosen to inhabit aided by her dashing young husband Hutton Morrow played by Armie Hammer.

Although Nocturnal Animals did not receive as much critical acclaim as A Single Man, for any cineaste it is a film worth watching for its diverse colour palette filled with opulence, horror and complexity. Tom Ford beautifully combines a stylish aesthetic with a superb mix of violence and mystery to create a cinematic film which is both fascinating and repulsive.

Nocturnal Animals gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is worth seeing for its extraordinary use of semiotics by a talented film director.

The Great Gatsby

Director:  Baz Luhrmann

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke, Amitabh Bachchan

The much anticipated glitzy remake of the 1974 film, The Great Gatsby by Australian director, Baz Luhrmann is spectacular to watch, wonderful to marvel at, yet ultimately flawed much like its central character, Jay Gatsby.  Based upon the American classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby published in 1925, chronicling America and specifically New York’s Jazz Age, Prohibition and the excesses of wealth prior to the Great Depression in 1929, Luhrmann expertly captures the era with gorgeous costumes designed by Catherine Martin and supplied by the Italian Luxury Fashion House Prada along with suits by Brooks Brothers, the 21^st century film version of Gatsby is brash, excessively long and gorgeous to look at, with fabulous over the top parties, superb music and lots of creative divergence as expected from the director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet.

At the centre of the 21^st century version of The Great Gatsby are three fine performances and that is the ménage trio of Jay Gatsby, played with a slightly Howard Hawks neurosis by Leonardo di Caprio, (The Aviator, Django Unchained, Romeo and Juliet), the Louisville heiress Daisy Buchanan played with a slight childish melancholy by the ever charming Carey Mulligan (Wall Street 2, Money Never Sleeps) and then her brutish, polo playing husband Tom Buchanan, an outstanding performance by screen newcomer Joel Edgerton (Warrior, Animal Kingdom).

Luhrmann and costume designer Martin do a superb job of luring the audience into a decadent world of the bootlegging roaring 1920’s New York with the lavish excessive parties, the ensuing deviance that prohibition encouraged and naturally the modern jazz age. The film is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin and neighbour to the initially enigmatic Gatsby, played with the usual awe and wonder of Tobey Maguire, of the original Spiderman Trilogy, who facilitates a meeting between Daisy and Gatsby over tea in one of the film’s more memorable scenes with flowers and decadent cakes at his Long Island cottage.

The Long Island-Manhattan social scene becomes more intricate as Tom’s mistress Myrtle wonderfully played by Isla Fisher and first introduced at in a raucous party at a Manhattan apartment hinting at the excesses which the sexually ambivalent Nick Carraway is seduced by both in terms of drugs, alcohol and loose morals, yet it is really Carraway’s enchantment with Gatsby himself which really plays into the subtext of such a fascinating portrait of lust and decadence, that eventually leads him to later write the story of the huge influence Gatsby had on his now destroyed life. As Carraway is drawn into the opulent world of the super-rich and of the myriad possibilities, betrayals and affairs that this affluent society leads him to witness, it is Gatsby himself who leaves Carraway with an impressionable dream of “You can do anything if you set your mind to it”.

Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is flawed and uneven, especially noticeable in the second half of the film as he goes beyond the spectacle of the age and grapples with the deceit and lies that his main characters are capable of. The infamous scene at the Plaza Hotel, where all is revealed is really expertly played by Joel Edgerton as the jilted yet scheming playboy husband, who treats all his possessions including his lovely wife with a sort of contemptible jealousy. Luhrmann’s directorial trademarks are evident in The Great Gatsby, but not nearly as tightly pulled together as his brilliant Moulin Rouge which saw stunning performances by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, yet he still manages to recreate The Great Gatsby in a style any other film director could not have imagined.

The Great Gatsby is recommended for the fantastic costumes and sumptuous production design, but not where literary traditionalists are concerned, the film is clearly aiming at a much younger glitzier and more diverse audience, notably succeeding in its lavish portrayal of excess. The only criticism is that more editing was required to cut The Great Gatsby into a perfect diamond and not as a sparkling flawed gem.  The film is a celebrated depiction and inventive homage to the Jazz Age, without much substance, but loads of style. Personally I would like to see Luhrmann tackle the rather more brilliant novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night, but that would see the director venturing too deeply into the complexity of human relationships without the added glamour.

Recommended for lovers of Gershwin music and for an aesthetic appreciation, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is sure to divide and impress audiences simultaneously, much like he did with revisionist adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in 1997. Also starring Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfsheim.

If viewers loved the Devil wears Prada then with a more muted less robust story, go and watch Confessions of a Shopaholic – its like Muriel’s Wedding on acid with costumes by Patricia Field the costume designer for the hit TV series Ugly Betty.

Best Line: You speak Prada?

Best scenes:  The bridesmaid dress and the baglady & the Credit card in the freezer!!!

Confessions of a Shopaholic is an irreverent comedy about one girl’s ability to shop up a storm and also try and deal with climbing the corporate ladder of New York’s publishing industry. Featuring a wonderful performance by Isla Fisher along with Hugh Dancy, John Goodman and Joan Cusack, this film is a light and fun romp about the pleasures associated with retail therapy. Recommended for some light entertainment and loads of fun.