Molly's Game

Molly’s Game is a true story based on the autobiography of Molly Bloom who ran high stakes poker games in Los Angeles and New York before finding herself subject to an FBI investigation, standing accused of illegal gambling and colluding with organised crime gangs.

The film opens with Bloom (Jessica Chastain) trying to convince a lawyer, Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba), to take on her case. We then see the rest of the story through flashbacks.

Bloom was a decent freestyle mogul skier, albeit pushed by her overbearing father (Kevin Costner), who didn’t quite make the Olympic team for Salt Lake City in 2002. She ends up severely injured which terminates her skiing career. However her competitive instinct serves her well in later life.

She skips law school to becomes a waitress at a club in Los Angeles where she meets Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong), a real estate developer and she becomes his personal assistant. He has a side-job running underground poker games and he soon involves her in that.

Molly quickly learns how to appeal to the players, whom include many famous and wealthy individuals including film stars, to gain tips. This include the terribly un-PC approach of the ever lowering of the necklines and lifting of the hemlines of her dresses, until you think they’re going to meet in middle. As a career move it works and she runs rings around all of the men but she is smart too.

Her boss feels threatened by her popularity with the players and fires her but Bloom is

now well known enough to strike out on her own, which she does and steal Dean Keith’s players from him.

It all goes well until a few of her players start to run up unmanageable debts and then when she falls out with her number one player, known as Player X (Michael Cera), she is sidelined. However, instead of giving up she moves to New York to set up a new game.

Despite more success, she is again unable to cope with the players who cannot pay and she starts illegally taking a percentage of the pot to cover her losses. The mafia kindly offer to ‘help out’ with the bad payers and after she declines she is beaten up in her home. Then when one of her players is charged with running a Ponzi scheme everything begins to collapses and Molly herself becomes under investigation. 

I do love a real story and this is a good one, entertaining and well told. It cracks along at a speedy pace and boasts a marvellous performance from Chastain. She is phenomenal and she owns this film as much as Bloom herself owned the poker game. Highly recommended.

The Greatest Showman

Today the Greatest Showman or rather PT Barnum reinvented. To cut a not very well explained story short, Barnum (Hugh Jackman) launches a museum of curiosities with the support of his wife and long time sweetheart Charity (Michelle Williams). This is just the latest in a long list of money making schemes he’s tried. It bombs and even their two daughters point out how dull it is.

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Hence he turns it in a circus of ‘freaks’ or rather not so elaborate hoaxes. In which he is aided by the financial clout of Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron) who invests in Barnum’s venture for reasons that aren’t made very clear.

Their circus causes an uproar but a popular one with it’s dwarves, giants, bearded ladies etc. Barnum though soon moves on as promoter to Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), a famous Swedish singer, whom he persuades to tour America.

His ‘freaks’ freak out when he sidelines them for Lind, as does his wife, but before long Lind has walked out on him too. At this point, in a decidedly modern day twist, the film turns things on it’s head and Barnum becomes a sort of social justice warrior giving jobs and a voice to the world’s minorities.

Carlyle meanwhile is falling in love with Anne (Zendaya) who is one half of a brother and sister trapeze act who happen, not very sensationally, to be black. For our sins they treat us to a dreadful duet.

Yes, the music isn’t great. It’s like being stuck inside a long pop video of an artist you (possibly) hate.

You do feel, as with most musicals, that there is a coherent plot in there somewhere trying to get out but I couldn’t find it. I do like having to google the facts behind a film after having seen it. Just to clarify a few points you know but to have to find out the whole story, that's stretching it a touch and there does appear to have been a cracking story about Barnum but this isn't it.

Sadly it seems the world has learnt little from the success of La La Land and musicals have returned to square one. So I’m with the films own critic (Paul Sparks), who didn’t like Barnum’s show either.

They do say that musicals are escapism and yes, I wanted to escape.

Battle Of The Sexes

The Battle of the Sexes is primarily about the exhibition tennis match in 1973 between possibly the best female tennis player at that time Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and three time Wimbledon men’s champion 55-year-old Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell).

However the film is much more than that, focusing on the off court drama as well. It tries to cover the formation of WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) and King also falling in love with another woman at the same time. In a way it’s a mini biography of her life but it has to shuffle the timeline and some facts to do so. 

King was indeed instrumental in the formation of the WTA after she became annoyed that the male players were receiving cash prizes up to eight times that of the women, despite the fact they attracted just as many spectators. So in 1970, King and seven other women started to set up their own breakaway tournaments which led eventually to the formation of the WTA in 1973. The WTA went on to be hugely successful and is still going strong today.

 

1973 was also the year that Riggs, a self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig who was clearly missing the limelight, challenged the then world number one Margaret Court to a match. In his eyes this would prove that men are better than women at tennis and well better, full stop. He easily beat a poorly prepared Court on what became known as the Mother’s Day Massacre.

When he subsequently challenged King she also accepted, despite previously saying that she wouldn’t but now feeling that she needed to fly the flag for womankind to make up for Court's failings. Riggs wasted no time in ramping up the acrimony by going on TV to proclaim that women only belong in the kitchen and the bedroom.

King seems to take the latter bit of advice on board, although not in a way that Riggs would have appreciated, when she takes her hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) back to her hotel room. It is also not greatly appreciated by King’s husband Larry (Austin Stowell). 

In reality Barnett was actually King’s secretary and the affair had already been going for two years but the film alters this point despite the reality being possibly even more fascinating. Along with the fact it was Barnett who outed her secret superstar girlfriend eight years later. 

Their relationship, as well as disrupting her marriage, doesn’t do a lot for her concentration on the tennis court but she bounces back to beat Riggs in rather exaggerated movie style in their game at the Houston Astrodome.

Despite my initial reservations the film is surprisingly entertaining, smart and well-acted. It also has the potential to educate, inspire and make you 'google', in a time when not enough films attempt to do so. 

Stone is once again excellent, among other things making her relationship with Riseborough very believable. If anything the film attempts to cover too much and spreads itself a bit thin to do so. It does actually make me want to see a full biopic of BJK.

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

This is the story of the final days of Hollywood actress Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) and also her relationship with Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), a young Liverpudlian actor half her age whom she met in the late 1970’s when they, incredibly, shared the same north London boarding house.

By this point, Oscar winner Grahame’s time in the limelight had seriously faded but she continued to work where she could and spent a lot of time performing on the stage in the UK. Turner and the hugely insecure Grahame, keen herself to feel young again, quickly became lovers. For a while at least, then she seemed to forget about him.

Until 1981 that is when, already ill, she collapsed one night and called him of the blue. She asked if she could stay over with him and his family in Liverpool. Where she hoped to spend time recuperating but, as it turns out, these were to be her final days.

Despite being exasperated that she won’t seek treatment, Turner along with his mother (Julie Walters) and father (Kenneth Cranham), looks after her. The film details his memories as he looks back on their brief transatlantic romance.

It does rather morosely becomes one long death scene but it is rather refreshing that her final decline happens outside of the public glare. This was a time when famous people could blend into every day life and not be recognised. It was a time before not only YouTube but before even DVDs. In fact VHS had only just been invented.

When the landlord of Turner's local pub does recognise his superstar girlfriend, it is a one off and nobody alerts the world via the yet to be invented Twitter. 

Finally her son, having been told about her illness, travels over to take her back home where she dies just a few hours after arriving in America aged just 57.

It's an excellent film for many reasons. Its story, its message, its time, its acting. Bening is brilliant and ably supported by Bell, with whom she shows great chemistry. There is also strong performances from his Cranham, Walters and Stephen Graham as Turner's brother.

Death of Stalin

Armando Iannucci’s ‘Death of Stalin’, adapted from a graphic novel, shows the aftershocks of Josef Stalin’s (Adrian Mcloughlin) death in 1953 through decidedly British and comedic eyes. Indeed the Central Committee of the Communist Party is portrayed as about as well run as the worst of the worst of British’s Councils back in the 1970s, only more violent.

The film opens before Stalin’s death with the authorities having to restage a piano concerto because Stalin has asked for a recording of it after the fact. So rather than tell Stalin it’s not possible, the producer (Paddy Considine) forces the orchestra and the audience to stay put while they do it all over again. This involves bribing the pianist (Olga Kurylenko) and finding a new conductor, who turns up in his dressing gown.

Then Stalin has the audacity to die which causes chaos. For a start they can’t summon a competent doctor to confirm his death or to ascertain the cause of it because Stalin has imprisoned or executed them all.

Meanwhile the jockeying to succeed him has already begun. Georgi Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) temporarily and controversially assumes control but he will have to battle to hold onto the leadership as Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) and Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin) state their cases. While Khrushchev is the semi-decent reformer and tries to take a more measured path to the top job, Molotov would remove anyone who got in his way. His approach is mild though compared with Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale), who is the head of the secret police, but he doesn’t have many supporters and is messily executed for treason. 

The only people to say anything good about Stalin, perhaps not surprisingly, are his daughter, Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough) and his hot-headed son, Vasily (Rupert Friend). Things then liven up further when Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) turns up. Nothing portrays this more as a British spoof that Zhukov who appears to be a Yorkshireman with a very broad accent.

Depending on how good your knowledge of Russian history is it can be difficult to follow everything as the film is more focussed on it’s comedic angle than about walking you through the history. Although it is still informative in this way and appears to be highly accurate. You just might have to hit Wikipedia to fill in the gaps.

Although very well acted, I’m not sure the film is actually that funny and, for me, the history of it is easily the most fascinating aspect. An out and out drama might have been more effective but then would anybody else have watched it.

The Snowman

Jo Nesbø’s book ‘The Snowman’ made for a weirdly complicated read, so how will it transfer to the big screen? Unless they’re simplified it probably badly, if they’ve made it even more complicated then very badly.

Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) is the man chasing the Snowman, a serial killer who has the time to make an actual snowman at the scene of all his crimes. As a detective, Hole is a loose-cannon and an alcoholic who probably wouldn’t have had a hope of detecting anything had the killer not chosen to send clues personally addressed to him.

The Snowman has issues from childhood when his mother drove intentionally into a frozen lake and drowned while he escaped. Hole has issues too, his drunken behaviour has broken up his relationship with Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) but they remain 'friends' largely because Harry gets on so well with her teenage son Oleg (Michael Yates) not that effective childcare seems to be a particular forte of his either.

Hole’s newbie detective partner Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson) has issues too (of course) centring around her father, another unconventional boozed up cop (Val Kilmer), who we see in flashbacks.

Her big moment is springing a honey trap for publishing mogul editor Arve Støp (JK Simmons). A man who has a disturbing habit of photographing women he’s only just met. Yet while the film contains the contractual obligation of a full frontal Michael Fassbender topless scene, the female topless scene photographed by Støp seems to have been cut during the editing. Which is disgracefully unPC. 

Needless to say the crime eventually gets solved, only after considerably bloodshed and with no great thanks to a fascinating piece of police kit known as the EviSync, which seems to do everything for the police bar actually solve the case. The only problem is it's about as portable as a tumble drier.

It’s a watchable thriller, if a largely nonsensical one where it’s difficult to keep track of who’s chasing who and why. To be fair to Fassbender, he makes a good drunk but the real stars of the film are the wintery landscapes of Oslo and Bergen.

The Beguiled

Sofia Coppola's new film ‘The Beguiled’ is either a second adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s novel or a remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood film of the same name, which ever you prefer.

It’s the late 19^th Century in Virginia during the American Civil War. Waiting out the war in their girl’s school are the proprietor of this ‘Seminary for Young Ladies’, one teacher and five students. Everyone else has left.

One day while out in the woods, one of the students, comes across Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) of the Union Army who has been wounded in action. She brings him back with her where they lock him in one of the rooms (for his own safety presumably) while the school’s proprietor Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) tends to his wounds.

Oddly Miss Martha decides, in the name of Christian charity, that they should let his injuries heal before they hand him over to the opposition. This, obviously, has nothing to do with the fact that Martha, along with the rest of the all female household, have become immediately smitten with by their hunky find.

The room is unlocked and McBurney's presence starts to disrupt the previous calm as they all compete for his attention, giving him presents, cook meals for him and generally dress to impress. 

He repays their affection with affection, although it is mainly focussed on Martha and the school’s only other ‘adult’ teacher Edwina Morrow (Kirsten Dunst). Being younger than Martha, Edwina clearly believes that she is the most appropriate recipient of the Corporal’s attention. Although she doesn’t take into account Alicia (Elle Fanning), the oldest pupil, who is also determined to be in the running. The school quickly descends into a mini civil war of its own.

When he is fit enough to leave, he tries to stay on as their gardener but Martha, evidently sensing she is losing the war, vetoes that idea. So instead he declares undying love for Edwina. That could have worked but didn’t, when she caught him in bed with Alicia. So she pushes him down the stairs, breaking his leg which Martha then swiftly amputates.

He doesn’t take this well, as you would expect, so they again lock him in one of the rooms (for their own safety presumably) but he sweet talks Alicia into letting him out. A seemingly repentant Edwina pursues him to his room where she throws herself at him.

Martha and the others are cleared hacked off at these developments and therefore decide to murder him with poisonous mushrooms.

It all sounds quite exciting on paper but believe me, it wasn’t. It’s such a slow burn, full of  pensive ambiguous scenes, there's absolutely no chance of anything catching fire. It is far too inoffensive for its own good. Airbrushing war and sex out of a film that should seemingly be about war and sex. Not to mention racism. A 19^th Century house without coloured staff?

Coppola won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for this. Really?