Category: Directors Ah

Extra Ordinary (2019, Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman)

A few minutes into Extra Ordinary, after a stylized prologue and then opening sequence, I realized it was a low budget marvel. The film has under five locations and six characters. Directors Ahern and Loughman widen the proverbial lens to make it feel bigger with choice location shooting—being able to do the driving in the car stuff well does a lot—and, of course, the excellent special effects. Extra Ordinary is a ghost comedy, meaning there need to be a lot of ghost effects, and they’re able to execute all of them well, most of them comedically. The supernatural in the film is a combination of mundane and uncanny, with an understanding the latter is only possible with some filmmaking finesse, otherwise you get the former.

The film opens with hilarious (film in the film) eighties VHS series on the supernatural. It’s one of the only times it really feels low budget because the VHS filter they use still looks way better than actual VHS would. A very amusingly straight-faced Risteard Cooper hosts the show.

In the present, Cooper is long dead; something went wrong with the supernatural and now adult daughter Maeve Higgins still blames herself for it, even though sister Terri Chandler tries to assure her she’s not. Higgins is a driving instructor who used to do some other kind of work. Turns out she was a medium for hire, but has given up the trade. All she wants is driving instruction gigs, all anyone ever calls about is ghost busting.

So when she gets a message from Barry Ward for driving lessons, she thinks it’s a real gig. Only then it turns out Ward’s being haunted by his dead wife and daughter Emma Coleman told him he had to call Higgins or she was moving out.

Throw in American-rock-star-in-tax-exile Will Forte who’s trying to get his Satanic ritual together and needs a virgin, setting his sights on teen Coleman, and Extra Ordinary’s got the ingredients for a rather eclectic ghost comedy.

The make and break of the film turns out to be Higgins, who’s phenomenal from the first moment and for a while it’s not clear if the directors just really know how to direct her or if it’s Higgins. It seems to be Higgins, who’s able to keep character development going even when she’s got to be the most static one in the film. Not to knock the directors; they do an exceptional job—and it’d be impossible to image the film looking, sounding, or feeling any different—but Higgins is still the star.

Ward’s a fine sidekick for her; she’s got to introduce him to the supernatural around town. He’s always good, sometimes better. He just starts better than he ends up so it’s not as easy to be excited about his performance. He’s got a big swing and it’s a hit, but like just enough to get to first base. Nothing special. Not like Higgins being able to carry the film.

Then the other two main stars are Forte and Claudia O’Doherty as his wife. Forte’s awesome. The film’s got great timing, Forte’s got better timing. It’s incredible how well he sells the Satanic one hit wonder trying to get back on the charts with his terrible music.

O’Doherty’s always funny as the needling wife, though it’s definitely one of the film’s shallower parts.

Ahern and Loughman’s composition is almost always excellent. In the handful of shots where it goes a little wrong, it’s obviously something about the budget. Cinematographer James Mather works wonders and the film looks great, but there’s just something off every once in a while. Usually reaction over the shoulder shots actually.

Great editing from Gavin Buckley, great music from George Brennan. Again, it’s a low budget marvel.

And they’re able to do a big effects sequence.

Extra Ordinary is an extremely well-made comedy and a great showcase for Higgins.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e13 – The Parting of the Ways

This episode just ought to be called Deusest Ex Machina because it turns out everything this season has been building towards is a giant reset for the series. Which does make sense, given the Doctor gets reborn whenever they recast, but it completely dismisses the idea of Christopher Eccleston having a significant role. It invalidates him over and over, even before the angel saves the day; in other words, if you’re okay with this Parting of the Ways nonsense and you gripe about “Battlestar”’s finish… you’re lying.

Worse, Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri are back. There’s an awkward conversation between Rose Piper and Coduri about the father’s death because Coduri doesn’t remember meeting her daughter in the past because… “Doctor Who”’s time travel logic is utter nonsense.

Shouldn’t matter, obviously, and if it weren’t just more awkward badness from Coduri and Piper it’d be fine.

See, once Eccleston resolves the previous episode’s cliffhanger in the cold open (or close to it), he sends Piper to the past so she’ll be safe from the alien invasion. Eccleston and John Barrowman have to try to save the day, which gets less and less likely as they fend off alien invaders. There’s some really weird stuff, like Barrowman apparently lying to a bunch of volunteers about how to fight the aliens. Then again there’s also the “Bad Wolf” resolve and it’s really, really bad. It’d be even worse if it wasn’t what drags Piper away from Clarke, who’s trying to wiggle his way back in when she thinks she doesn’t get to be a time traveller anymore.

There’s a little bit more with Jo Joyner as Eccleston’s lady friend of the week and Nisha Nayer and Jo Stone-Fewings have more to do as future humans. They’re all right. I mean, Joyner’s great, the others are all right.

It’s a Joe Ahearne directed episode so it could be a lot worse. And the vast bad CGI shots are… fine. I guess. They’re proofs of concept.

Russell T. Davies’s script has to do a whole bunch—send off Eccleston and resurrect the character, resolve the “Bad Wolf” thing, deal with the alien invasion, deal with the Piper arc. It’s a lousy send-off for Eccleston. Inglorious to the extremest.

It’s probably an impossible group of things to make run well but… Davies still manages to fumble it.

I wonder what next season’ll be like.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e12 – Bad Wolf

At least it’s got Joe Ahearne directing. I mean, it’s not terrible. Guest star Jo Joyner is a nice “romantic” interest for Christopher Eccleston, which is this standard thing where Eccleston and Rose Piper go to some time period and don’t spend any time together and Eccleston has this chaste but sincere connection with some lady. In this episode, they’re split by reality television and Joyner’s in Eccleston’s “Big Brother” house.

The episode opens with a flashback to the Simon Pegg episode and that White kid Piper replaced her brown boyfriend-in-name-only with for two episodes—and I spent the thirty seconds terrified White guy would be back.

He’s not. It’s a setup to this game show future—Eccleston, Piper, and John Barrowman all wake up in game shows not understanding what’s going on. Though Eccleston’s got a watch telling him what time he’s in and he doesn’t check it until after he’s been there for a while, because it turns out they’re in the Simon Pegg future, just later on.

Eccleston’s on “Big Brother,” where you get vaporized if you get thrown out, Piper’s on “Weakest Link,” where losing contestants get vaporized, and Barrowman is on an extreme makeover show with horny robots. Turns out whatever Eccleston and Piper did in the Pegg episode somehow made the future worse.

The episode’s Eccleston, Piper, and Barrowman all contending with their shows’ dangers—Piper’s got to contend with playing to win competitor Paterson Joseph, Eccleston’s got to escape (with housemate Joyner), and Barrowman’s got to… keep his head. Literally. Extreme makeover.

It’s all fairly compelling, though future humans Jo Stone-Fewings and Nisha Nayar go from unlikable “just following orders” characters—Eccleston’s got a great response to that line—to sympathetic a little fast.

There’s a big finale reveal—though not too big of a reveal because it was in the previous episode’s “Next Episode” teaser—also the “Bad Wolf” thing gets a lot more play again. The future TV company brainwashing the planet Earth is called “Badwolf.”

The cliffhanger’s rather effective, giving Eccleston a nicer “star” moment than he usually gets.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e11 – Boom Town

This episode is easily writer Russell T. Davies’s best so far. Maybe it helps he’s got Joe Ahearne directing, who’s even able to weather the Noel Clarke storm.

Though it’s a new Noel Clarke. A moody one who’s not hanging on Billie Piper’s every word hoping for a kiss. In fact, they suggest a physical intimacy foreign to their relationship.

But it’s not about Clarke and Piper, it’s about surviving Raxacoricofallapatorian villain (Annette Badland) from a two-parter about five episodes ago. Badland survived Christopher Eccleston taking out her fellow villains and set herself up as Cardiff mayor. Cardiff, once again getting crap from the show….

Anyway, she’s trying to get a nuclear power plant built for some reason and local reporter Mali Harries is suspicious. Well, more Harries notices anyone who opposes Badland ends up decapitated. Because Badland’s still doing her giant baby doll head alien monster eating the human thing. Cardiff’s not super busy apparently.

Eccleston, Piper, and John Barrowman are in town to “gas up” on Cardiff’s inter-dimensional rift (discovered in another episode this season) and Piper calls Clarke, then Eccleston notices Badland in a local paper and tracks her down. So it goes from a very odd—Clarke’s dynamic with Eccleston and Piper plus Barrowman—vacation day in Cardiff to something of a psychological showdown between Eccleston and Badland. Because long portions of the episode are the two facing off about morality and whatnot.

Badland was a farty joke in the previous episodes, so it’s a big surprise she’s absolutely phenomenal this time. There aren’t as many fart jokes this episode—there might not even be any (there are a few gassy jokes). But Badland’s awesome. Makes the episode.

Meanwhile, Clarke’s pissy about being Piper’s booty call or something.

Eccleston and Piper also discover the words “Bad Wolf” have been following them through the season, which is some hammer to the skull foreshadowing.

The ending’s a little too deus ex machina but it’s also at least thoughtfully resolved. And the show promises, once again, Clarke is gone for good this time. I’d say good riddance but I don’t believe he won’t be back next episode.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e08 – Father’s Day

I went into Father’s Day with high hopes; Joe Ahearne directing, Paul Cornell writing. I remember hearing about the episode (albeit vaguely) when it first aired because I knew Cornell’s comic book writing. So I went into the episode full of goodwill.

It’s all about the obvious kid going and saving their dead parent thing the show somehow pretends isn’t obvious. The episode opens with a flashback to Camille Coduri telling a young version of Billie Piper, played by Julia Joyce, about how her dad died when she was a baby. Then it cuts to this truncated cold open with Piper now asking Christopher Eccleston to take her to her parents’ wedding. Or something. To at least see her dad, played by Shaun Dingwall.

Once Piper’s seen the wedding, she wants to go hold Dingwall’s hand after he’s been hit by a car and is dying. Coduri’s already established Dingwall dies alone and it’s something Coduri’s really sad about her entire life apparently.

Except Piper’s not going there to comfort dying Dingwall, she’s going there to save him, which eventually results in time demons attacking London. The show hasn’t done the “don’t un-kill people” warnings, which has been kind of nice, but the pseudo-rift Piper’s action causes between her and Eccleston is one of the episode’s many fails. There’s a lot of crisis stuff with the cast, as Eccleston and Piper help the eighties folks barricade themselves into a church while Dingwall slowly comes to understand what’s going on.

But there’s also… Eccleston getting to needle Coduri in the past, which doesn’t play, Eccleston being nice to new bride and groom Natalie Jones and Frank Rozelaar-Green, which does play for some reason, in addition to Eccleston being mad at Piper, Piper being weird around Coduri (and Coduri hating Piper), and then the obvious Dingwall and Piper stuff.

It’s packed.

And none of the important threads connect.

The time demon sequence is intense and Dingwall’s excellent, but whatever they thought they were doing, they don’t. It should be a singular and instead it’s pedestrian.

Doctor Who (2005) s01e06 – Dalek

Okay, this one requires some disclaimers. First, when I watched the last episode and saw the preview of this one, I thought it looked terrible. Like, rolling my eyes terrible. Second, I was visually familiar with the Daleks from growing up in the eighties and whatever. I thought they were silly and decidedly not cool.

Having now seen Dalek, I can confirm they are decidedly not silly as well as not cool. They’re also a terrifying, phenomenal alien villain race. And astonishingly bad-ass. The episode’s great—going into Christopher Eccleston’s hatred of the Daleks when unexpectedly confronted by one while Billie Piper’s got sympathy for the alien, so there’s a lot of great character development and so on—but it’s also got a series of amazing action sequences with the Dalek. Even on the reduced budget (director Joe Ahearne does a fantastic job, with the same director of photography, Ernest Vincze, who’s light the worst episodes now doing fine), the Dalek attacking soldier after soldier and person after person… it’s also horrifying. So good.

The entire episode. So good. Robert Shearman’s script is outstanding, finding just the right balances with the Dalek stuff–including humor—and stays strong all the way to the finish.

Eccleston and Piper get thrown off course at the start, finding themselves six years in the future—2012—and in a sort of museum of alien objects. American businessman Corey Johnson—imagine a macho version of Mark Zuckerberg, but filtered through 2006 Steve Ballmer–it’s not entirely successful but it’s interesting while it’s not successful and then once Johnson’s working against his own survival, it’s awesome so it’s all fine.

The “it’s all fine” elements include Anna-Louise Plowman not being able to keep her American accent—new Piper love interest Bruno Langley gets to play a Brit even though it’s set in Utah. The show doesn’t seem to have Piper’s romantic life figured—she’s got zero chemistry with Langley and roll her eyes whenever Eccleston jokes with her about it. But it doesn’t matter because once Piper runs into the Dalek, it just gets great.

There are optics to Piper replacing brown-skinned former boyfriend with nerdy White guy Langley but Piper was so chemistry-free with the last one and even more so with Langley… if it was intentional, it was a fail.

Anyway. So good. Eccleston’s amazing, Piper’s great… Nicholas Briggs is awesome as the Dalek.

Dalek aims high and succeeds over and over. Just fantastic stuff.

Writer Shearman, director Ahearne, Eccleston, Piper, Briggs, they do some superior work here.

Doin’ Time in Times Square (1991, Charlie Ahearn)

Doin’ Time in Times Square is forty minutes of footage Ahearn shot out of his Times Square apartment building’s window. Shot over three years, Ahearn cuts the street scenes with home movie footage. Life inside the apartment. Ahearn’s adorable family growing, holidays, parties, sitcoms. Meanwhile, outside is urban blight.

Except it can’t all be urban blight. It’s not all urban blight when it starts. Before Ahearn establishes his editing pattern–adorable White family imprisoned in their apartment building, violent Black criminals outside–he’s got some great shots of just how people coexist in large numbers. Walking commuters flooding the sidewalks as they cross streets, spilling over. It’s amazing.

And then Ahearn starts cutting from his adorable son and lovely wife to Black people fighting. Then he cuts to adorable son and lovely wife and… Black people fighting. Maybe getting arrested. All Ahearn sees outside the window–until he gets to a municipal project and New Year’s Eve–is apparently scary Black people committing crimes.

Though he does catch footage of two cops harassing (and hitting) a Black teen while letting his two white friends off. There’s occasionally sound from the street, but it’s distant and muffled. There’s also occasionally sound from Ahearn as he watches, gasps and sighs. And telling his kid to stay away from the window.

But what Ahearn never shows is people like him. People like his family. There are no white families out on the street, even though someone in Ahearn’s household must have left at some point. I don’t think the second child was born inside the apartment, for example.

Ahearn never sees people. Sure, Doin’ Time is partially objective. What occurs is outside Ahearn’s creative control, but where he points the camera (and he does a great job shooting out his window) and especially how he edits is his control. Three years of footage and no interest in the mundane, only the “terrifying.”

Thousands of people appear in Doin’ Time and Ahearn manages to dehumanize every single one of them who isn’t inside his apartment.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Charlie Ahearn.

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Mission Sex Control (2006, Ahn Jin-woo)

Mission Sex Control opens as an almost farcical comedy. The Korean President (circa 1972) meets with his cabinet to discuss family planning and its effect on the GDP. The meeting devolves into a screaming match between two cabinet members, then the opening titles splash across the screen. It all seems very comic, even as the film proper gets going. After that prologue, the leads are immediately established–Kim Jeong-eun as the family planning counselor taking the message to a rural village, Lee Beom-su as the villager who helps her.

Kim and Lee play very well with each other from their first scene, which is important, since she immediately starts relying on him for help. The film’s still very funny as the two eventually convince the villagers to listen. It’s hard to see Lee as anything but a comic actor and the first half of Mission Sex Control does nothing to suggest he’s going to be doing something else. Eventually, however, he does. Some time after the halfway mark, the film takes a drastic, unexpected turn toward the dramatic and personal.

Ahn Jin-woo’s direction–and the film’s full and vivid Panavision frame–really suggests a comedy. With the transition to the tragic, Ahn introduces all the consequences the comedy in the first half disguised. It’s not a deceptive move; Kim and the viewer experiencing these repercussions in unison. There’s a good surprise at the end, maybe one I should have been expecting, but Ahn does a great job presenting it. He keeps the comedic sensibilities well into the dramatic portion of the film, only supplanting it in the very end for some key scenes. It’s in these scenes too where the characters, who have been mild caricatures, fully form.

The film’s got a lot of complexities. Lee’s character is probably the fullest, even though Kim is the protagonist. But Kim’s there to accompany the viewer on the journey (the modern viewer, the film’s only a couple years old). Kim’s got a character, but she’s also got a real narrative purpose. Ahn has a bit of trouble establishing her, using a lot of subtle moves to get it done in the end. They’re really nice moves too and he applies similar ones to other characters as well. The film has a large cast of characters and Ahn can’t give all of them the treatment, but he gives it to enough the film reveals itself to be a lot bigger than it seems throughout.

Both the film’s length–a lot happens as the plot develops–and the composition complement that unperceived depth. Something about the widescreen allows for there to be more room. It’s a strange, but natural relationship and the film might be the finest example of the genre fluidity of Korean cinema.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Ahn Jin-woo; director of photography, Kim Yun-su; edited by Park Gok-ji; music by Park Ho-jun; production designer, Chen Ihn-han; produced by Tony M. Kim; released by Lotte Entertainment.

Starring Lee Beom-su (Suk-gu), Kim Jeong-eun (Miss Park), Byeon Hie-bong (Village Chief Kang), Jeon Mi-seon (Soo-ni), Ahn Nae-sang (Chang-su) and Woo Hyeon (Chang-hyuk).

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Over the Rainbow (2002, Ahn Jin-woo)

Lee Jung-Jae starred in the first Korean film I watched, Il Mare, and I’ve seen another one with him in it. Some bad one that was half-gritty cop movie and half English Patient. I probably did I write up, I remember typing that slight before.

Over the Rainbow is, therefore, his first good film. You can’t followed many actors anymore–even Meryl Streep throws you a curve these days–but it also gave me a nice introduction to Korean cinema. I go on and on about Korean films right after I watched one, then I say nothing about them for months, watch another and then go on and on for a while again. This film has a lot of problems. A lot of third act problems. It’s a cutesy mystery with a lot of flashbacks.

And some of the film doesn’t make sense. The flashbacks are to college, but it’s never specified how much time has elapsed since then to the story’s present period. It’s also predictable, but reminds me a great deal of the back of my old Sabrina (the remake) laserdisc. The conclusion is inevitable–you know what’s going to happen going in the door–but watching the film, seeing the people and their relationships develop–is what makes the experience rewarding.

Another review, somewhere I saw online because IMDb didn’t list writing credits, pointed out that, though Lee is good, the female lead, Jang Jin-Young, sort of walks off with the film. She’s excellent but the film coddles her for the first half or so, before you realize what’s going on. There’s nothing like watching a film and having no idea what you’re going to get in terms of a story. The last time I felt like that with an American film was Liberty Heights. And even though I had a rough idea what Over the Rainbow was about, I still got to experience it fresh. The only other way–besides foreign films–to get this feeling tends to be the “forgotten classic.” Wild River being my perfect example of that experience.

Warren Ellis, a decent comic book writer, said that he wasn’t all that impressed with Korean films because they were like Hollywood films, only not made by committee. Or something to that effect. I agree to a point, but Korean films seem to still love cinematic storytelling. They’re still excited about it. When Judy Garland sings “Over the Rainbow” and you lay it over some action, there’s power to it. Same with “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” which the film does in another scene. Both these songs, if they appeared in an American film, would likely be redone by Madonna or Jennifer Lopez or something. They’d be jokes. Ha ha, look at these sentimental fools. The sentimental has an important place in cinema. The most sentimental moment in American cinema in last–what, ten years?–came in Magnolia of all films. Certainly not regularly recognized for its sentimentality.

Over the Rainbow is a good example of exuberant, rewarding filmmaking. With one exception (the shitty cop/English Patient movie), all the Korean films I’ve seen are exuberantly made, in love with medium. So, I can’t say if you see one Korean film, see Over the Rainbow. But if you see three….