By Ashley Clark
Muppets, avengers, damsels and cabbies at the best cinema in South London.
I haven’t seen latest Marvel movie Avengers: Assemble yet, so I can’t write much about it other than to say: it’s out this week; it’s directed by Joss Whedon, who’s everywhere at the minute; it’s had very positive advance buzz; and it features a magnificently starry cast comprising the likes of Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, the bloke from Thor, Mark Ruffalo, and some others.
The best new film at the Ritzy this week (that I’ve seen) is Being Elmo, Constance Marks’ light, sweet documentary profile of the man behind the Muppets’ loveable, furry – and ever so slightly irritating – red creature. Kevin Clash, a warm and engaging presence throughout, grew up in a small Maryland town and followed his passion for puppetry with amateur zeal, until a fateful school trip to New York provided him with the springboard his career needed. Being Elmo is funny, moving and functions as an uplifting, universal rallying call for creative people to follow their dreams.
What can I possibly say about Whit Stillman’s Damsels In Distress that I haven’t already muttered to myself in anger on long, dark nights of the soul? The first film in 14 years from the “Urban Haute Bourgeosie” auteur is a wispy, near-plotless snapshot of a group of girls, headed by Greta Gerwig, floating aimlessly around an East Coast college. The distress, my dears, was all mine. I found the film witless, airless, pretentious, tonally redolent of Jane Austen’s Emma (the first book that I ever literally threw across the room), and unforgivably lacking in a sense of purpose or structure. It’s a lazy journalistic trope to describe a piece of art as Marmite-like (as in you either love it or you hate it) but – as with most cliches, it bears an element of truth, and as the polarized reactions to the film illustrate, it couldn’t be more apposite in this case. Who knows, you might just love it. Me? I had to watch Mean Girls twice in a row to get it out of my system.
The best repertory screening this week is Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver (the restored 35th anniversary print from last year), starring Robert De Niro as the psychotic cabbie/Vietnam vet Travis Bickle. The years haven’t diminished this excoriating character study of a mind in decline. The film, written by Paul Schrader, also functions as a masterclass in how to shape a cityscape according the psychology of the protagonist. New York has rarely looked so hellish. Don’t miss.
Films still screening this week include Kevin MacDonald’s documentary Marley about reggae legend Bob, Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre, and Karl Markovics’ brilliant drama Breathing, which I reviewed here last week.
All films showing at the Ritzy Cinema, Brixton Oval. Book tickets here.
Ashley Clark runs the film blog Permanent Plastic Helmet. You can follow it on Twitter @PPlasticHelmet and/or him @_ash_clark.
