Captain Fantastic, Kubo and The Two Strings, Hell or High Water The Film Review


Captain Fantastic, Kubo and The Two Strings, Hell or High Water

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Brook on the eve of his world title fight in London. That is all at

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6:30pm. Now on BBC News, it is time for The Film Review.

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Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.

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To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

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It is a really good week. We have Captain Fantastic, tell about a

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family living off the grid. Kubo and the two strings, a new animation.

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And Hell Or High Water, a throwback nostalgic fest. Captain Fantastic is

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not a marvel comics superhero. And nor is it an Elton John album.

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Although the director said he must have heard the title from Elton

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John. Viggo Mortensen is a family father, bringing on six children, by

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D-Day hunt and they climb and they discuss Marxism and Noam Chomsky.

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They have been brought up completely off the grid. Now, the mother is

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absent, she has been in hospital, and the family have to hit the road,

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which means for the first time, these kids who have grown up in

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little planet of world are going to come into contact with the real

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world. Here is a clip. We have to do what we are told. Some fights you

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can't win. The powerful control the lives of the powerless. That is the

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way the world works. It is unjust and it is unfair. But that is just

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too bad. We have to shut up and accented. Access it. -- we have to

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accept it. BAGPIPES PLAY.. So they know we're

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coming! One of the things that is interesting is there is a discussion

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about which is the real world, their resistance in the woods all the land

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of diners and supermarkets and mauls and polite family suppers. One of

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the things I like about the film is the writer directors said he wanted

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to raise the question of whether the Viggo Mortensen character is the

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best or worst dad in the world. He might be either. He is somebody who

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has a dream for his children but also it may well be that the raid in

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which he has raised them can be seen as abuse. There is a Manson like

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clamp. People living out in the wild with hunting knives led by this

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bearded charismatic. What I really like about it is the film doesn't

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settle simply for one answer or the other. It is very funny, very

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moving, there are moments of genuine tragedy, moments of real comedy,

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every character gets given a proper three dimensionality. Even

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characters who you expect to be slightly caricatured. I really liked

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the way in which he told the story, asking you to make your own

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decisions about how these characters lives panned out. Every good use of

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song in the movie itself. People singing songs and making music

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within the movie. I really liked it, I was really charmed and moved by

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it. More than once, I had a table to my eye. Even in that little clip,

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Viggo Mortensen is talking about having to follow other people's

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rules, in a way he is dictating it. Exactly. A balance between being a

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monster and the greatest dad in the world. There is a fantastic sequence

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where there is a question about whether he is being sanctimonious

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and difficult or visionary and idealistic. I think the film is much

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more open-minded about that than some critics have given it credit

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for. The crazy or charismatic thing is part of it, you have to decide.

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Is what he is doing loving or abusive? It is an open-ended

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question. This is a new film about Kubo, I junk boy who has a gift for

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storytelling. He uses origami and his world comes to life. He ends up

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going on a quest which involves a beetle to discover the strange

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history of his family. What I really like about this is the torrid

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telling is complex, it imagines the audience are intelligent. It is

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properly scary when it needs to be. There is a moment towards the end of

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it, mild scary scenes, I'm 54, and there was one scene that was more

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than mildly scary and I like that. It is a film that was made... You

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can feel the care and attention to detail. Much more in the spirit of

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the studio Jubilee films. I think work for an audience of all ages.

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For younger viewers who may be scared by certain things and good

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that they are. It does sound like a non-formal

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children's film. Not where you lose a parent and you go on an adventure

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and you are redeemed, well worn track. It has some classic

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storytelling elements in it but there is nothing in it that makes

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you see -- think I have seen this before. The story is so well done,

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stories within stories, narratives within narratives, you always feel

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you are incompetent hands. Hell Or High Water. A nostalgic western in

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the style of Arthur Penn or Sam Peckinpah. Jeff Bridges is West

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Texas range. He says maybe he will go out on a blaze of Rory. He is

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hunting two bank robbers who are knocking over small-town banks the

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film has a nostalgia for an age that has gone. Cowboys and bank robbers

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are something of a different age. It has darkness, moments of action, and

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it also has, as we will see in this clip, a really nice, edgy humour.

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Audi, man. How are you doing today? So, what don't you want? What don't

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you want? Oh, well, I think I would just... I have been working here for

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44 years, ain't nobody ever ordered nothing but T-bone steak. Except for

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one person from New York who tried to order trot back in 1987. T-bone

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steaks. So, either you don't want the corn on the cob or you don't

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want the green beans, so what don't you want? I don't want green beans.

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I don't want green beans either. Steaks cooked medium rare. Can I get

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my steaks... That wasn't a question. The mumble vision is great. It is

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able to go from that from -- the scenes which are dark. It is about

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characters who are out of time. The real bad guys are the banks. There

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is a way of life, the law to the plains is no longer there. It is

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about people being run off their lands and run off their homes. It

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has that kind of epic feel to it. When you look at it visually, long,

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flat landscapes, big, empty skies. It is a film about a world which has

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disappeared. It has that melancholy and that wonderful score. It really

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has a melancholic edge to it. Some people have compared it to the Coen

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brothers. I think it is a slightly lazy comparison. I think what it

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has, as I said, it is closer in my mind to the 1970s cinema of Sam

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Peckinpah. It is not scared to be open-ended and leave threads not

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tied up. I really, really liked it. This is a good week. Three films

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which are all solid. The reason I want to see this is the concept of

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where is the moral heart of this film? Is it the bank robbers or the

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banks the robbers? And it plays that in a world in which that kind of

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corporate corruption is the background to everything. People

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losing their lands and their homes as a story which is on the back of

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all of this. I thought it was good. You're best of the week? Isabel who

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pay is superb as a philosophy teacher who discovers an ill of her

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life that love is more constant than politics. It is inspired from her

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own mother. It is one of the most commanding screen presence is, she

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does not put a foot wrong. It is to do with small gestures, to do with

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understatement, not to do with overstatement, she is brilliant, and

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I really encourage anybody to see this, it is a really, really smart

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film. There is also a big metaphor there which is the black cat. The

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thing with this is this access can make anything seen simultaneously

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really important but also slightly frivolous. One of the things I like

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about this film is it is funny, it does have a really dark sense of

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humour about it, there is lots of discussion about it being an old

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lefty, her husband says, UR a communist, and she says, yes for

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about three weeks, everybody was. DVD? Embrace of the serpent. This is

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Columbia's first nomination for Best foreign language film. It is a

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superb story which is intended to blend Amazonian myths and western

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storytelling. Imagine if you can fix Crowther and Apocalypse now but

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inverted. Black-and-white cinematography, superb and sparse

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use of music. A film which works on an absolutely cinematic level.

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Sometimes it Israeli hard to describe the movie -- sometimes, it

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is really hard to describe a movie because it is a piece of cinema. One

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of the best films I have seen this year. It is fabulous. Even on the

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smaller screen, it is really worth watching. You will love it. And

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Colombian cinema, something we haven't talked about? They have had

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a lot of problems in Colombia. They have. They have had a

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foreign-language category and the foreign-language category has been

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so strong this year is so great to be nominated. There is not one film

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that was Oscar-nominated that I wouldn't recommend you rush out and

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see immediately in the foreign-language category. More news

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and reviews at the website. You can catch up on our previous programmes

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on the BBC iPlayer. That is it for this week. Enjoy the movies and

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goodbye.

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