David R. Walker

What’s Love Got to Do with it?

Director: Shekhar Kapur

Cast: Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Oliver Chris, Sajal Ali, Alice Orr-Ewing

Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Pakistani director Shekhar Kapur made some commercially successful films with the impressive Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) both starring Cate Blanchett, but his latest film with a title which is both unoriginal and boring, What’s Love Got to do with it? is a cross cultural romantic comedy fortunately saved by the performance of the two main leads Lily James (Yesterday, Baby Driver, Darkest Hour) as documentary film maker Zoe and Shazad Latif (The Man who Knew Infinity, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) as Kazim, a doctor in contemporary London.

Audiences should not get this film mixed up with the 1993 film of the same name starring an Oscar nominated Angela Bassett as Tina Turner opposite Laurence Fishburne.

The second title reincarnation of this film is a cross cultural love story which is both contrived and poorly written by screenwriter Jemima Khan. What’s Love Got to do with it? is billed as a romantic comedy although there is not much comedy in it besides a couple of goofy scenes by Zoe’s mother Cath awfully played by Oscar winner Emma Thompson (Howard’s End, Sense and Sensibility), who apart from Cruella has recently chosen some really dubious film roles. In actual fact, this was the worst I have seen Emma Thompson act in a film.

Fortunately Lily James is amazing as Zoe, a single documentary film maker who decides to take Kazim’s decision to embark on an arranged marriage with an unknown bride in Lahore, Pakistan as a fascinating subject matter for a documentary film. Except that this premise does fall flat as any documentary film maker should never fall in love with their subject matter?

The authenticity of Zoe as the film maker taking a peek into an essentially non-Western custom is questioned in terms of ethnographic film making. As Kazim says to Zoe in one of the better scenes of the film, that even though we are neighbours we are continents apart referring to the vast cultural differences between the British and the Pakistani’s.

Shazad Latif is easy on the eye and is dependable as the handsome male lead, completely dominated by his family.

As the action of the film moves from grey and dull London to bright and exotic Lahore in Pakistan, director Shekar Kapur’s handling of the issue of cross cultural relationships is muted without making a strong point except for a fabulous wedding scene, the rest of this near two hour film is not thrilling, but long winded and arduous.

By the time the two main romantic leads get together it is the end of the film. That being said, the onscreen chemistry between the gorgeous Lily James and the extremely handsome Shazad Latif holds this film together even when the supporting cast do not.

What’s Love Got to do with it? could have been so much better, a tale filled with wit and good humour but instead comes across rather surprisingly as a boring cross cultural love story which has been rehashed a thousand times since the Oscar winning Guess Who is Coming to Dinner (1967). Besides Emma Thompson should choose better film roles in the future.

What’s Love Got to do with it? gets a film rating of 6 out of 10, unoriginal and slow in parts but this romantic comedy will find a niche audience. Recommended viewing for those that enjoy an extremely lightweight and slightly exotic British romantic comedy set in London and Lahore.

95th Academy Awards took place on Sunday 12th March 2023 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

Best Picture: Everything, Everywhere all at Once

Best Director: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

Best Actor: Brendan Fraser – The Whale

Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Original Screenplay: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sarah Polley – Women Talking

Best Cinematography: All Quiet on The Western Front

Best Costume Design: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Best Make up & Hairstyling: The Whale

Best Visual Effects: Avatar – The Way of Water

Best Film Editing: Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Sound: Top Gun: Maverick

Best Production Design: All Quiet on The Western Front

Best Documentary Feature:  Navalny

Best Original Score: Volker Bertelmann – All Quiet on The Western Front

Best Original Song: Naatu Naatu – RRR

Best Animated Feature Film: Pinocchio – directed by Guillermo del Toro

Best Foreign Language Film: All Quiet on The Western Front (Germany) directed by Edward Berger

Tar

Director: Todd Field

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Julian Glover, Mark Strong, Noemie Merlant, Sophie Kauer

Running Time: 2 hours and 38 minutes

Film Rating: 9.5 out of 10

This film is in German and English

Director Todd Field came out of seclusion after making two excellent films in the early 2000’s In The Bedroom and Little Children, to make his masterpiece, a brilliant and vicious social commentary about celebrity, cancel culture and power dynamics in his new film Tar.

Tar premiered at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival to much critical acclaim with the lead actress, Cate Blanchett taking the prize for Best actress. Since its illustrious reception, Blanchett has received awards and praise for her brittle and beautiful performance of legendary yet fictional musical conductor Lydia Tar who heads up the prestigious Berlin Symphony Orchestra.

Field sets his masterpiece in New York and Berlin and opens the film by building Lydia Tar up to be a master conductor defying convention by being one of the first female conductors in the contemporary orchestral music world.

In the opening scene, Tar is being interviewed by a reporter from the New Yorker magazine at a public event. Tar is praised and glorified. In New York at the Julliard school of music Tar tries to lecture on what it means to be a famous composer like Bach, Mahler or Elgar to a group of woke non-binary millennials who continue to challenge the pantheon of music conductors by questioning their relevance in the 2020’s. It’s a terrific scene, prophetic and scathing.

Tar, using private jets and personal assistants, is whisked off to Berlin to her resident orchestra and her plush apartment that she shares with her girlfriend and first violinist Sharon Goodnow wonderfully played by German actress Nina Hoss.

In Berlin everything seems perfect until Tar’s prestigious world and status starts unravelling. Tar takes risks, flirting with the new Russian soloist Olga Metkina played by Sophie Kauer while back in New York the unexplained suicide of Krista Taylor, an aspiring musician starts to haunt Tar and allegations are made. Allegations which are taken seriously by trust funds sponsoring major orchestras and corporate shareholders who demand answers from Lydia Tar who is the face of the orchestra, the arrogant leader which commands the symphonies.

In some really brilliant scenes with Tar and her mentor Andris Davis played by Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only), Tar offloads some of the professional and personal pressures onto Andris who has survived Berlin in her complex political phases as the German capital city.

What Tar is really about, and certainly director Todd Field’s main critique is the Western world’s ability to build someone up as a celebrity through social media and hype, a demi-god only to tear them done again when their expectations are not met or when that celebrity’s actions contradict their dazzling talent.

At the centre of Tar, is a truly mesmerizing performance by Cate Blanchett who is literally in every single frame of the film. Blanchett is a master class in acting, from speaking German to internalizing all the frailties and trauma of her character’s rapid descent into anonymity and her rebirth into a bizarre more exotic culture somewhere in South East Asia, possibly Laos or Cambodia, a location so far removed from affluent Germany or politically conscious New York.

Tar is a tour de force in social commentary of our contemporary age, a director whose vision is astute and specific, knocking down all the gods of high culture and reconfiguring them into a future world, in which the maestro is sacrificed and reborn.

Tar is a complex film which demands complete attention from the viewer and gets a film rating of 9.5 out of 10, a truly insightful and superb cinematic revelation.

Maybe I Do

Director: Michael Jacobs

Cast: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Luke Bracey, William H. Macy, Emma Roberts

Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

The tricky part about converting a theatrical play into a film, is whether the film adaptation will work and appeal to audiences. The acting has to be brilliant and the theatricality of the play has to be modified for a cinematic aesthetic.

Playwright turned screenwriter and director Michael Jacobs film Maybe I Do has a hugely talented cast including Oscar winners Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) and Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) along with Richard Gere whom Keaton reteams with after the 1977 film Looking for Mr Goodbar along with Oscar Nominee William H. Macy (Fargo) and the young lovers of the play, Michelle and Alan played respectively by Emma Roberts (Billionaire Boys Club) and Luke Bracey (Elvis, Point Break, Hacksaw Ridge).

Maybe I Do focuses on the budding relationship of Michelle and Alan as they decide whether to move onto the next phase of their lives: marriage.

However as they discuss the big leap forward, they decide that their parents should meet each other. Unbeknownst to the young lovers, their parents particularly Alan’s mother Monica, a vampish Susan Sarandon and Michelle’s father Howard played by Gere are having an affair. Simultaneously, quite by accident’s Alan’s father Sam wonderfully played by William H. Macy unknowingly meets Michelle’s mother Grace played by Diane Keaton in a movie theatre.

Unfortunately for Michael Jacobs his script is not brilliant and in a film which is primarily based on dialogue between characters, the actors are left adrift in an environment which is contrived and unconvincing and the actors are playing parts which they are not emotionally invested it. This play is set in New York, it should have been so much better.

Besides a couple of great moments between Gere and Sarandon, the rest of Maybe I Do fails partially due to the bad title and also the plot which is both unconvincing and unsophisticated. The story needed some naughty siblings to spice it up.

Unlike such brilliant films as Mike Nicol’s Closer or more recently Florian Zeller’s The Father, Maybe I Do is definitely not in that league. This is a very light romantic comedy, with some serious moments that fall flat.

For those that enjoy light but unchallenging adult comedy which tightly fits into a 90 minute running time, then catch Maybe I Do in cinemas. Maybe I Do gets a film rating of 6 out of 10, it’s fun but could have been so much better considering the calibre of talent involved.

The 76th British Academy Film Awards, also known as the BAFAs, were held on 19^th February 2023 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2022

Best Film: All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Director: Edward Berger – All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Actor: Austin Butler – Elvis

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett – TAR 

Best Supporting Actor: Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Supporting Actress: Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best British Film: The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Adapted Screenplay: All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Costume Design: Elvis

Best Foreign Language Film: All Quiet on the Western Front

Rising Star Award: Emma Mackey

The Banshees of Inisherin

Director: Martin McDonagh

Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Pat Shortt, Aaron Monaghan

Running Time: 1 hour 54 minutes

Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10

From the acclaimed writer and director of In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Edding, Missouri, Martin McDonagh reunites his In Bruges cast, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a slightly dark comedy about friendship gone south, isolation and gossip in the brilliantly titled The Banshees of Inisherin.

Set exactly 100 years ago in 1923 in a small desolate island Inisherin off the coast of Ireland at the time just after the Irish War of Independence in 1922, this superbly scripted film focuses on the friendship between two men: Padriag Sulleabhain expertly played by Colin Farrell in a career best performance and the lonesome fiddler Colm Doherty played by Brendan Gleeson (Hampstead, Live by Night, Assassin’s Creed). Colin Farrell won the Best Actor Prize at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.

On this beautiful but bleak island in this desolate place, Colm wakes up one morning and decides that the slightly simple Padraig is boring and decides not to talk to him anymore, foregoing any more afternoons at the local pub discussing the world’s problems over a pint of Guinness to while away the hours into the early evening. Naturally, Colm’s sudden snubbing of Padraig leaves the poor man devastated, but initially he thinks Colm is playing an April Fool’s Joke on him, but as the days drag on he realizes that Colm is deadly serious. 

Padraig tries to make sense of the situation while discussing things with his brighter sibling sister Siobhan excellently played by Kerry Condon (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). Siobhan has been looking after her brother for years but she yearns for a brighter literary career on the mainland to get away from all the mental and bitter people on Inisherin. Kerry Condon is absolutely superb as the no-nonsense Siobhan who realizes that what she really needs is to escape the island.

Meanwhile the sudden feud between Padriag and Colm escalates unexpectedly providing all the villagers something to gossip about. Padriag finds friendship with a simple young guy Dominic Kearney expertly played in an exceptional performance by rising actor Barry Keoghan (American Animals, The Batman) as a browbeaten tragic man trying to escape his brutal father.

What writer director Martin McDonagh does so expertly is peel back the layers of each of the four main characters and the motivations that drive them from spite to compassion, from a desire for freedom to the ideal of being left alone in artistic contemplation. What absolutely makes this film work although quite bizarre but equally plausible considering how tricky human relationships can be, is the brilliant acting by all four main actors set to haunting Irish music courtesy of Carter Burwell.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a top class film, a dark and brittle comedy about friendships that sour and superstition that becomes reality superbly played by four actors completely in tune with their characters and this fascinating narrative.

The Banshees of Inisherin gets a film rating of 8.5 out of 10 and is slow moving in parts but worth the wait in gold and Irish luck. Highly recommended viewing for those that enjoy an inventive character driven story, which is funny, sad and thought provoking.

Babylon

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Jovan Adepo, Lukas Haas, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, Katherine Waterston, Eric Roberts, Max Minghella, Li Jun Li

Running Time: 3 hours and 9 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Warning: This film is extremely explicit featuring graphic violence, nudity, drug use and scenes that will upset sensitive viewers.

Set between 1926 and 1932, as Hollywood was transitioning between the silent film era into talkies or films with sound, Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle makes his boldest, bravest film yet: Babylon.

The lavish Babylon is a Feliniesque epic set in Hollywood in the early days during this fascinating transition whereby Chazelle chooses to shock his audience with the absolutely debauched and decadent party scene in the opening sequence, introducing his three main characters, silent screen stars Jack Conrad, Nellie LaRoy and producer Manny Torres played respectively by Oscar winner Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Oscar nominee Margot Robbie (I, Tonya, Bombshell) and the impressive newcomer Mexican actor Diego Calva amidst a drunken orgy featuring elephants, dead starlets and absolute chaos.

The eye-catching opening of Babylon is followed by some amazing set pieces of directors and actors trying to make silent films including an expansive medieval battle sequence which goes horribly wrong. Massive crowd sequences are cleverly orchestrated to the brilliant jazzy musical score of Oscar winner and frequent collaborator Justin Hurwitz (La La Land) who should win again for his inventive score.

Behind the lavish parties and the crazy antics involving rattlesnakes in the desert is Damien Chazelle’s love and hate relationship with Hollywood in which he does not hold back in showing the extremely dark and violent underbelly of the City of Angels in a very bizarre scene featuring Tobey Maguire involving a dungeon, an alligator and some SM dwarves.

Despite all the debauchery, there are some superb scenes particularly between the frenetic, tough as nails Nellie LaRoy and the passionate Manny Torres and between the suave Jack Conrad and Hollywood gossip columnist Elinor St John played by Jean Smart.

There are repeated scenes of the main characters buying movie tickets and going into a packed cinema which is an allegory of how scriptwriter and director Chazelle feels about the next seismic shift in film entertainment, streaming which is threatening the viability of cinemas as a palace of enjoyment, as a collective experience of an audience watching their favourite stars onscreen.

Damien Chazelle wants the cinema ritual to continue even though he repels and delights his audience simultaneously in this shocking and brave allegorical epic about the changes in the entertainment industry brought about recently by streaming services.

Set almost 100 years ago, Babylon is a cinephile’s film, a tribute to cinema goers and film enthusiasts but unlike Steven Spielberg’s glossy The Fabelmans, Babylon is a Ken Russell inspired orgy of a film featuring brilliant performances by Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt and Diego Calva. There are lots of cinematic gems in this film, which you can look for in between the chaos, the predators and the debauchery.

The production and costume design is stunning and Babylon despite its length should get acknowledged for this effort.

This epic 1920’s film is a sensuous simulacrum of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Love it or loathe it, Babylon is an exceptionally daring homage to cinema and gets a film rating of 8 out of 10. See it for the visual spectacle.

Took Place on Tuesday 10th January 2023 in Los Angeles and hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at the Beverly Hilton Hotel – Here are the 2023 Golden Globe Winners in the Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: The Fabelmans

Best Film Musical or Comedy: The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Director: Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans

Best Actress Drama: Cate Blanchett – Tar

Best Actor Drama: Austin Butler – Elvis

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Supporting Actress: Angela Bassett – Wakanda Forever

Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Foreign Language Film – Argentina 1985 directed by Santiago Mitre

Shotgun Wedding

Director: Jason Moore

Cast: Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Lopez, Lenny Kravitz, Jennifer Coolidge, Sonia Braga, Cheech Marin, Steve Coulter, Callie Hernandez, Desmin Borges

Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

This film is now showing in cinemas in South Africa and will be on Amazon Prime from 27th January 2023.

Pitch Perfect director Jason Moore returns to the big screen an action comedy with Shotgun Wedding, an appropriate title for a film about a wedding that gets attacked by pirates. Fortunately the two stars of Shotgun Wedding, Jennifer Lopez (Out of Sight, Marry Me, Hustlers) and Josh Duhamel (Transformers, Bandit) make this crazy and bizarre film work through their sizzling onscreen chemistry.

Shotgun Wedding is about Darcy Rivera played by Lopez and Tom Fowler played by Duhamel who have a destination wedding on a tropical island in the Philippines. Both the couple’s crazy parents are there: Renata and Robert Rivera played respectively by Brazilian actress Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spiderwoman) and Cheech Marin (From Dusk till Dawn, Machete) as are Tom’s parents Carol Fowler wonderfully played by Jennifer Coolidge (Promising Young Woman, Legally Blonde, American Pie) and Larry Fowler played by Steve Coulter.  

Naturally with a destination wedding set in Paradise, everything is expected to go according to plan down to the last batch of glitteringly decorated pineapples. Except for Darcy and Tom’s wedding, despite the pre-wedding drama, a group of heavily armed Balinese pirates attack the wedding ceremony and put all the guests in the resort swimming pool demanding a multi-million dollar ransom otherwise they will start killing the guests.

Unfortunately for the pirates complete with crazy headgear, the bride and groom are nowhere to be found. Slowly despite their differences, Darcy and Tom work together to try and save themselves, their parents and friends from these pirates while trying to figure out who the real villain is.

Audiences should look out for singer and actor Lenny Kravitz (The Butler, The Hunger Games, Precious) as Darcy’s showy and jealous ex-boyfriend Sean Hawkins who arrives at the wedding via helicopter.

Director Jason Moore’s Shotgun Wedding is not serious entertainment but it is funny and enjoyable. Josh Duhamel and superstar singer turned actress Jennifer Lopez do brilliantly as the butt kicking couple ready to save their wedding. The best actors in the film are those playing the couple’s parents with a particular mention of the hilarious Jennifer Coolidge as mother of the groom. Coolidge kills the part, like literally.

If audiences enjoy some crazy entertainment, a film about paradise but with bullets then Shotgun Wedding is for you, complete with a tropical location, unbelievable stunts and a fantastic ensemble cast. Shotgun Wedding gets a film rating of 6 out of 10 and is recommended viewing for pure escapism.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Director: Edward Berger

Cast: Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Daniel Bruhl, Devid Striesow, Edin Hasanovic, Michael Witterborn, Sebastian Hulk, Anton von Lucke, Aaron Hilmer

Running time: 2 hours and 28 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

This film is only available on Netflix

Every year on the 11^th November at 11h00, England and some European countries mark Armistice Day which is when World War 1 ended but the significance of such an hour on such a day is clearly and brutally illustrated in director Edward Berger’s brilliant German anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front, a 2022 remake of the 1930 film which won a Best Picture Oscar then.

This film is based on the famous German novel of the same name written by German soldier and World War I survivor Erich Maria Remarque published in 1929. The 2022 version has been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

If viewers love a really brilliant war film, then All Quiet on the Western Front is highly recommended viewing, an epic film masterfully directed by Edward Berger and featuring an entirely German and Austrian cast including Felix Kammerer as the main character Paul Baumer, a young and idealistic German teenager who like his compatriots at school get pulled into the blind patriotism of German war fever as the German army is battling the French in the incredibly brutal trench warfare on the Western Front, the border between Germany and France. For complete authenticity watch this film in German with English subtitles.

To counterpoint all the violence, horror and utter bloodshed, the narrative also focuses on the diplomatic mission led by Germany to sue for peace with the French, a task given to diplomat Matthias Erzberger wonderfully played by Golden Globe nominee Daniel Bruhl (Rush). The more famous Daniel Bruhl (Inglourious Basterds, 7 Days in Entebbe, Woman in Gold) also served as executive producer of All Quiet on the Western Front and was instrumental on getting this 21^st century version of the film made and premiered at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022.

As the hours approach for the ceasefire, a bloodthirsty general is determined to continue fighting the French right up until the last minute before the armistice takes effect, much to the detriment of the 78^th Infantry Reserve Regiment in which Paul Baumer is part of along with his fellow soldiers Kat played by Albrecht Schuch, Kropp played by Aaron Hilmer and Tjaden played by Bosnian actor Edin Hasanovic. Collectively they represent the Iron Youth of Germany.

All Quiet on the Western Front, like similar war films including Sam Mendes’s brilliant 1917 and Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is a gritty, stark and bloody war film about the meaninglessness of trench warfare and the unnecessary deaths of over 3 million people, many of them young men.

Beautifully shot and extremely captivating, All Quiet on The Western Front gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing. It’s a fascinating anti-war film about the brutalities of close combat.