1. 26
Film Editor: Kambole Campbell
film@theboar.org
W
e go to the movies in order to
see how the world manifests
itself on screen, and how we
articulate our acutest desires
and dreams. In this self-reflexive work, this
process circles back on the film industry
itself, giving us a day-in-the-life of profes-
sional film “fixer” Eddie Mannix. Here he
has the hard and sometimes unenviable task
of dealing with all the industries misfits - a
job made significantly harder when the lead
star (true movie legend George Clooney) of
his Roman epic suddenly goes missing. The
result is Hail Caesar!, the latest offering from
the Coen brothers where communism, capi-
talism and Catholicism majestically coincide.
Whilst not as cohesively convincing as the
dialectical processes the diabolical Marxists
explain midway through the film, there is
more than enough here to satisfy any movie
lover, making it an enjoyable, if lesser, ad-
dendum to classic films about films such as
Night and Day and The Player.
The film doesn’t have so much of a plot
as a madcap scenario upon which to hang
a bunch of amusing scenes on. As Man-
nix, Josh Brolin acts as the straight-shoot-
er amongst a motley gang of absurd types.
When communist intrigue threatens to de-
stroy the edifices of Hollywood, Mannix em-
ploys his unerring faith in order to preserve
what he believes in (conscious to get things
right, and in one of the films best scenes,
he gets advice on theological details from a
rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Protestant priest
and an orthodox priest). In the process, the
Coen’s have produced an elegy for the old
Studio pictures, which however absurd they
may seem to us now have a certain innocence
in their ideals. Things were never quite the
same after the Hollywood New Wave kicked
into gear, and people wanted violence and
murky morals as opposed to All-American
cowboys, classic charming gentleman, and
beautiful doe-eyed ladies. He is a comic an-
alogue to Oscar Isaac’s titular character in
Inside Llewyn Davis - both films having a
similarly recurrent structure in the face of a
changing world.
This structure is both to the films bene-
fit - giving us a true slice of life sense of the
industry at the time - and its detriment. By
not tying the screws of the plot tight enough,
the film lacks any true momentum.
Nevertheless, it is worth seeing for its film
pastiches alone - whether its to see Chan-
ning Tatum do his best Grace Kelly im-
personation in stand-out song “No Dames”
or to marvel at Scarlett Johannsson as she
effortlessly swims into the belly of a whale.
Additionally, Clooney is a joy to watch, play-
ing a star who seems not have every bulb
turned on in his head. The Coen brothers,
working with master cinematographer Roger
Deakins, are experts at aping the old camera
techniques and editing of studio films such
as the one take scenes of Academy Ratio
ballroom dramas or the misguided comic
timings of sentimental westerns. With so
many characters and scenarios to juggle, the
Coen’s have much more on their hands than
they can handle, so much it feels somewhat
overburdened. Mannix is an unerring, stoic,
brilliant figure - yet all around him the film
seems ultimately frivolous as opposed to tru-
ly nostalgic for a long-lost age.
First Look Review: Hail, Caesar!
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character reviews at:
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By not tying the screws of the plot
tight enough, the film lacks any
true momentum. Nevertheless, it
is worth seeing for its film pas-
tiches alone
The Coen Brothers’ latest screwball comedy, from Berlin Film Festival
» Images: UPI Media

2. I
’ve been skeptical of Deadpool for quite a
while. In the wrong hands, the character
is juvenile, unfunny, grating, obnoxious,
the adjectives go on. Repetitive jokes
about chimichangas, lack of emotional depth
and a tendency to lean hard on the 4th wall
breaking led me to keep my distance from
the character during Daniel Way’s long-
time and confusingly popular run on the
character. That said, I enjoyed him in a run
called Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remend-
er - Deadpool was now deeply disturbed,
flawed and self-aware, whose endless jokes
and shit-talking seemed like more of a de-
fensive shield than an annoying awareness
of the character’s audience demographic.
It surprises and pleases me to say that
Ryan Reynolds’ take on Deadpool takes in-
spiration from this, and is now one of the
two versions of the character I actually like.
From the trailers, the film appeared just as
juvenile and unfunny as Daniel Way’s ver-
sion of the character, and I approached my
viewing with caution. It really looked like
it was trying too hard. But, fortunately and
surprisingly, Deadpool is actually quite good.
The jokes are relentless (in a good way, most
of them land), the action is flashy and enter-
taining,and the plot,while somewhat simple,
is still satisfying. Deadpool the character is a
fair amount more than a 4th wall breaking
punchline machine, his personality in the
present strongly informed by a tragic back-
story told through intermittent flashbacks.
The film opens in the midst of an ac-
tion scene on a motorway, in a giant, CGI
spectacle freeze-frame that lampshades the
blockbuster hallmarks that the film partakes
in – starring ‘a hot chick’ and featuring ‘a
gratuitous cameo’. While the film simply
displays self awareness of these traits than
outright changing them, the (very) explicit
humour and surprisingly touching backsto-
ry make the film more than worth a watch.
Monica Baccarin is more or less pi-
geon-holed as the Love Interest, but she is
given plenty to work with – firing off repar-
tee with Reynolds and more than holding her
own, bringing fun to what could be a fairly
run-of-the-mill movie relationship.The sup-
porting cast of Deadpool also helps to ground
the insane character – Colossus (Yorick Van
Wageningen) and Negasonic Teenage War-
head (Brianna Hildebrand) acting as good
straight-men to the Merc with a Mouth, and
TJ Miller’s Weasel and Leslie Uggam’s Blind
Al serving as a great comedic foil to Reynolds.
The villains are fairly uninteresting, but
solid. Ed Skrien’s Ajax (or ‘Francis’) is a
bland British punching bag, who is more
an object of revenge than an actual charac-
ter that requires audience attention; while
his henchwoman ‘Angel’ (Gina Carano) is
basically a scowl and some fists. At the very
least, they allow for some fun action se-
quences and do an adequate job of seeming
at least a little bit imposing. The main prob-
lem with Deadpool is that his primary power
is basically immortality and invulnerability,
so the stakes never really feel all that high.
However, this seems almost beside the
point of the film.The final act is very deliber-
atelyalowerstakesaffairthanothersuperhero
films of late,the main character blatantly un-
interested in saving the world. It’s not out to
change everything, it’s not even out to bring
down the superhero film as we know it. The
film is more invested in giving the audience a
good time, and finally undoing the foul taste
that X-Men Origins: Wolverine left in our
mouths.In that respect,Deadpool is a success.
In other
news...
theboar.org/Film | @BoarFilm | FILM 27
‘Deadpool is actually quite good’
T
o say that the Academy of Mo-
tion Picture Arts and Sciences
sometimes miss the mark in their
selection of Oscar nominations
would be a laughable understatement. They
so frequently make questionable choices that
arguing over who got snubbed is as cen-
tral to the Oscars as the awards themselves
at this point. Having said that, every year
they make one or two criminal oversights
that make me vow (momentarily) that this
will be my last year watching them, wheth-
er it be the omission of Jake Gyllenhaal for
Nightcrawler or the lack of major nomina-
tions for Inside Llewyn Davis. The film to
take the biscuit this year is easily Beasts of
No Nation, Cary Fukanaga’s haunting and
brutal depiction of child soldiers in Africa.
Beasts of No Nation is by no means an
easy or enjoyable experience. It is a visceral
nightmare of a film that constantly assaults
you with scenes of such unimaginable cruelty
and violence that you are left emotionally ex-
hausted afterwards.Many attribute its lack of
nominations to this unflinching look at such a
dark subject matter.After all,Academy voters
are notoriously conservative in their taste and
are considerably less likely to nominate a film
if deemed too violent or consistently bleak.
This here lies my deepest frustration with
the Oscars. Whether we like it or not, the
Academy Awards are and will continue to be
seen as the highest marker of achievement in
the film industry. However, they are picked
year in and year out by a group of mem-
bers that consistently refuse to acknowledge
achievements deemed not accessible enough
or on the other side of the spectrum, too
genre focused. Yes, one could point to recent
best winner 12 Years A Slave, a film of similar
brutality, as contradictory to this point. This
was more an exception to the rule than any-
thing however and doesn’t make up for the
countless films like Beasts of No Nation that
fail to reap the praise they deserve because
they don’t fit in specifically enough with
the tastes of those who select these awards.
As I sat there after watching Beasts of No
Nation attempting to grapple with the trau-
ma I had just experienced, one faint simmer
of reconciliation was that Idris Elba would
surely not only get nominated but win Best
Supporting Actor for his towering perfor-
mance as the Commandant of a child army.
He is simply magnetic as a warmongering
troop leader and his terrifying yet oddly like-
able portrayal is one of the major reasons why
the film strikes such an unnerving and unique
emotional chord. 2016’s Oscars have come to
be defined by its worrying lack of diversity,
with the four acting categories comprising
all white actors for the second year in a row.
While some are quick to argue that the Os-
cars are about achievement rather than filling
some sort of diversity quota, the omission of
Idris Elba and the equally excellent newcom-
er Abraham Attah is evidence enough for me
that sceptics of Oscar diversity complaints
are way off mark.Just like with David Oyelo-
wa last year in a performance that I still con-
sider to be superior to all of the Best Actor
nominees, the Academy continues to ignore
the exceptional work of non-white actors, af-
firming once more how out of touch they are.
Matthew Kent
Beasts of No Nation:
the biggest snub of the Oscars?
The Revenant wins 5
BAFTAs, including
Best Picture, Actor and
Director
Stephen Fry called
BAFTA winner Jenny
Beavan a ‘bag lady’.
It was a joke, and she
didn’t care
Episode 8 has begun
production. Time to
start the countdown!
» Image: Twentieth Century Fox
» Image: Netflix
Kambole Campbell is pleasantly surprised by Ryan Reynolds’latest superhero flick
The jokes are relentless, the action is
flashy and entertaining, and the plot,
while somewhat simple, is still satisfying