The Interview: How many movies can claim to be a major
player in an international conflict? That’s the infamy that comes with The
Interview, where James Franco plays a TV presenter signed up to interview and assassinate
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un (Randall Park) with the aid of his producer
played by co-director Seth Rogen. The result is a lame duck of a low-brow
comedy that despite some decent production values, is mired in tasteless racist
and sexist “humour”. Doubtlessly inferior to Team America: World Police (that
had its finger much more on the satirical “button”), The Interview’s notoriety
is giving the film way too much credit as it’s pretty toothless. **
Selma: Oscar-bait may not be a term that comes with much
assurance, but just because something seems custom-made to tick the boxes of
the Academy at award season (politicised story, biopic, the financial losing
end of a box-office battle, in this case against American Sniper), doesn’t mean
it isn’t any good. Selma is, for the most part, an engrossing account of a very
well-documented part of modern American history. An account of the marches
around Selma, Alabama that brought attention to the Civil Rights movement for
African-Americans. Despite the somewhat risky nature of a significantly British
cast (David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Tom Wilkinson as President
Lyndon Johnson, Tim Roth as Governor George Wallace), the film covers the
unfolding events with gravitas but also a fairly detailed approach. The ending
is perhaps over-simplified (there are some important occurrences that happened
to the involved people after the events depicted that are pretty significant)
and falls dangerously towards schmaltz, but mostly the film packs a lot of
power. ****
Shaun The Sheep Movie
Aardman have an enviable track record to
maintain with their movies and Shaun The Sheep comes up to scratch. Barely. Or
should that be “baaaaaaarely”? (sorry). Shaun (Justin Fletcher) and his fellow wooly
buddies are off to Big City to find their farmer (John Sparkes) after an
attempt to have fun goes awry. Mostly devoid of dialogue, the Shaun The Sheep
Movie mostly relies on slapstick and silliness for its laughs, but that’s not
exactly a bad thing. Catering to slightly younger kids than most of Aardman’s
work (considering that Aardman have always made things with a young demographic
in mind) but with frequent enough jokes thrown in for mum and dad, it’s an
agreeable ninety minutes and surprisingly effective, even though some of it
seems lifted from Chicken Run. ***
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