I have always wanted to see A Letter To Three Wives, but I’m almost ashamed to say I’d never watched it before. The reason I was keen to see it is that All About Eve is one of my favourite movies ever, and this is the other film for which Joseph L. Mankiewicz won both a Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscar.

I’m glad to say I wasn’t completely disappointed by the film, although I can see why the movie has fallen out of favour compared to much of Mankiewicz’s other work, such as Cleopatra and The Barefoot Contessa. While not that many younger people have seen the 1949 Oscar winner, they may find the plot oddly familiar, as more recently it served as the basis for an episode of The Simpsons.

Deborah (Jeanne Crain), Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) and Rita (Ann Sothern) are heading off on a boat for the day to look after a group of children, when they receive a letter from their ‘friend’, Addie Ross, who says she has abruptly left town and has taken one of their husbands with her.

Initially the women brush it off as one of Addie’s games, but as the day goes on they all start to wonder whether their hubby may have left them and they each reminisce about their lives and relationships. Deborah loves the idea of living a posh, middle-class, Country Club life, but feels that she will never quite fit in due to her farm girl background. Lora Mae grew up poor and knew exactly what she was doing when trying to reel in older, divorced Porter, but after genuinely falling for him she fears they will never escape the almost transactional nature of their early relationship. Rita meanwhile is a successful radio writer, who has a tendency to put the needs of her boss over those of her husband (played by a young Kirk Douglas), which leaves him feeling rather emasculated.

All the husbands like Addie (who we never actually see, although she provides the narration) and see her as a kind of perfect woman, but has any of them actually run off with her?

Fairly early on it becomes apparent why A Letter To Three Wives has not stayed the well-loved classic it might have been, and that’s to do with its rather old-fashioned attitude towards women. Deborah seems almost desperate to feel like she’s given up her individuality and become an adjunct to her husband, while Rita must learn that the man is in charge and that if she’s going to be a career woman, she can’t expect to be an independent one. But that’s the problem with women – they will insist on thinking they’re people in their own right!

It is incredibly old-fashioned in its attitudes, but it’s also one of the many older films which is now seen as sexist, but which was actually thought as being quite progressive at the time, in this case particularly how it dealt with the issues left behind after World War II, when women had been allowed out of the house but were suddenly meant to go back inside again when the men returned home. Things have moved on massively since the 1940s though (thank goodness), leaving A Letter To Three Wives far behind and with a view on sexual politics that would be actively offensive if anyone made the same movie today.

If you look past that though it is a very entertaining film. It’s smartly written (attitudes aside), and cleverly plotted as it looks into the lives of the three women and the situation they now find themselves in, all with a great hook of the audience waiting to discover who may have run off with Addie. Even the sexist side is worth watching, as it’s an interesting document on women’s position at the time and what was seen as the way to be happy.

The movie looks extremely good on Blu-ray. In fact it’s looking better than any film from 1949 has a right to, helped by the great classic Hollywood visuals and a restoration that’s done an excellent job of removing grain and other problems. You also get a choice of 5.1 sound or the original mono audio and a couple of decent special features, including radio versions of A Letter To Three Wives and newsreel footage of the Academy Awards where Mankiewicz won his Oscar for the film.

Overall Verdict: This is the sort of film – of which there are quite a few – which would be classed as a bona fide classic if it weren’t for the fact times have moved on and its attitudes, in this case about women’s place in society, are positively prehistoric. Outside its ‘little women should stop having thoughts of their own’ views it is an extremely well made and entertaining film, but it certainly gets no points for modern feminism values.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Something has gone terribly wrong at a nuclear reactor in Hong Kong, with the disaster being caused by a hacker breaking into the computer systems and shutting down the pumps. With fear rising that someone means to do serious harm around the world without ever leaving their computer terminal, the Chinese agree to team up with the FBI to take down the threat.

They also know part of the code that affected the reactor was written by a genius ‘blackhat’ (bad guy) hacker called Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), who’s currently locked up for his computer crimes. He’s offered the chance of freedom if he helps track down the new threat. He agrees, which ends up re-teaming his with his old Chinese roommate. However, the further down the rabbit hole they go, the more dangerous things get.

Director Michael Mann has always had a rather operatic take on whatever material he’s handling, which has worked well with the likes of Heat and The Insider, but at other times has come across as completely overblown. While not a disaster, Blackhat is unfortunately more of the latter.

As with all Mann movies, it looks amazing, with a tremendous visual style and plenty of panache, but the amount of effort that’s gone into the style tends to highlight how little logic or drive there is to the plot. What should be a tense race to catch the bad guys often feels like a slow plod.

It’s not helped by Chris Hemsworth, who can be a very good actor but here presents Hathaway as such a dour, humourless presence he gets more than a little tiring. He can’t be entirely blamed though, as you can almost hear Mann screaming in his ear, ‘Be more taciturn!’ It is however a good audition for Hemsworth to show Christopher Nolan that he can be glum enough to be in one of his movies.

And while some of the action is good, it also feels over the top, despite not being that extreme by movie standards. I think the problem is that they were so worried a film about computers was going to be boring, they decided the way to remedy that was to have random Asian people popping up every so often and shooting everything in sight. However, it seems a bit daft, unnecessary and actually lessens the menace of a plot where the real fear is that someone can destroy lives from half a world away, just by clicking buttons.

As mentioned it does have a lot of style – which is certainly brought out in the Blu-ray – and that does help to paper over the fact that its substance is a pretty dull and standard thriller which often seems a bit silly and is far too serious for its own good.

Overall Verdict: Blackhat is essentially a straight-to-DVD style procedural thriller dressed up in more grandiose clothes. It’s passable, but it’s difficult not to feel that with a bit more heft and thought, this could have been brilliant rather than just about ok.

Special Features:
The Cyber Threat
On Location Around The World
Creating Reality

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Anyone who knows me will be aware that there aren’t many occasions when I don’t know what to say, but as the credits rolled on Fifty Shades Of Grey, I really had no idea what to make of it.

It should come as no surprise by now to hear that Fifty Shades Of Grey is about young, naïve virgin Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), who is sent to interview the handsome billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) after her journalist roommate gets ill. Christian is drawn to Anastasia and begins to court her in his own singular style – where he is very adamant that he doesn’t do the girlfriend thing, or romance, or indeed typical human emotions.

Anastasia is certainly intrigued by a man who has all the wealth in the world, but understandably has pause when she discovers what Christian really wants. He is a dominant, who wishes Anastasia to sign a contract that will allow him to use her as his S&M sexual plaything, and essentially control nearly every aspect of her life for his own pleasure. While Ana likes Christian, she isn’t sure she wants to submit in this way.

Like I said, at the end of Fifty Shades I really wasn’t sure what I’d just seen. For about the first 30 minutes I seriously wondered whether the film was secretly a comedy. I genuinely giggled a few times as it got so close to parody that it felt as if everyone from Jamie Dornan to director Sam Taylor Wood was doing the whole thing with a wink and nod, while keeping things level enough that Fifty Shades author EL James wouldn’t notice.

However, then it lost that edge of absurdity it became rather disturbing. In the special features, EL James says she tried to write the novels while being non-judgemental and showing that the world is many shades of grey, but when you’re romanticising a sociopath you need to be a bit more careful and multifaceted. Now I know a lot of you will say Christian isn’t a sociopath and that he’s just complex and interesting, but that’s not really how he’s presented in the movie.

Indeed, it’s much like the people who pine for Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights under the presumption that because he’s damaged and occasionally sweet, that makes up for the fact he is a violent, nasty brute. In Fifty Shades, for much of the time it’s presented that the only thing Christian has to offer Ana is money and looking gorgeous, and that she has to essentially give up her freedom and be miserable most of the time to get that. There’s a disturbing edge within the film that despite it being written and directed by women, 50 years of feminism have been wrong and that underneath all the talk of equality women really would quite like to be possessions, and that they would be more than happy with that as long as they’re given enough shiny baubles to play with.

Even at the end when Fifty Shades attempts to bring a little more depth, there’s still an edge that women would quite like to be ‘things’, as long as their partner wished to possess them but not hurt them. Even then it seems to get totally confused between inflicting pain and inflicting emotional hurt, despite talking a lot about that beforehand in the context of the pain and pleasure of S&M.

It’s also odd that for a film sold so much as being about female sexuality, it presents a vision of sex where everything is about the man, and the woman’s pleasure is purely in relation to how she makes the man feel. There’s little here about the submissive in a S&M relationship doing it because they get their own pleasure and satisfaction.

At times it’s almost as if the film is asking how much of her humanity Anastasia is willing to bargain away, in return for money and a hot guy. Unfortunately, it’s not done in a smart way, where it could essentially be asking whether this relationship is at the extreme end of the bargain many have to make, between freedom and security, and between love and happiness. Instead it’s done in a far dumber, more materialistic way, where many will be wondering why Ana would be so besotted with a man who doesn’t exactly hide what a manipulative, controlling dick he is, and why she would spend so much time negotiating a contract to do something she blatantly doesn’t want to do, just because he thinks he’s hot.

After all, it’s not like she’s trapped in an abusive relationship like many people in real life, she’s genuinely making the choice to value helicopter rides and new cars over being with a decent person and being genuinely happy. Sure Ana is young and naïve, but the film doesn’t really explore that in any logical way. Perhaps I’m too idealistic thinking that most women would prefer not to be abused and controlled either physically or emotionally, even if there were a fully negotiated contract in place.

Damn those feminists for making me think women were independent creatures. But then I suppose even if most women are independent and smart, there will be some – just as there are some men – who are frigging stupid. However, I’d prefer not to watch a movie about them, especially one that doesn’t even seem to realise it’s heroine is a shallow, materialistic moron.

Admittedly Ana does question Christian’s contract and ask for ‘normal’ relationship things, but even these are presented in the context of her not understanding why these things don’t please him, rather than why they would please her. There’s also the S&M contract negotiations, which are supposed to show this is an equal thing, where both parties have fully agreed to everything, but quite frankly it’s still about him, as it’s still all about what she will do for him, most of which it doesn’t appear she genuinely wants to, with her only getting crumbs in return (which even then are presented as if he’s doing her a favour). But hey, perhaps she’s is a great negotiator after all, as she got anal fisting off the table!

I know I am massively overthinking this, but I couldn’t help feeling that a lot of Fifty Shades is rather disturbing. Then I realised that the real problem is Christian himself, and that the film can swing from comedy to drama to disturbing, unconscious anti-feminism because he doesn’t make any sense as a human being/sociopath. The movie does try to get round this by suggesting he may genuinely be psycho and that S&M is the way he stops himself going full Patrick Bateman, but when you add him together there is very little that makes any sense.

Even if you go by the logic that he is an unapologetic asshole but due to his feelings for Ana he is trying to be a better man, it doesn’t add up, which is partly due to the fact that while much of the movie is essentially a contract negotiation, neither Ana nor Christian really get to grips with any of the issues of either a relationship or an S&M partnership. Everything is given such a hugely romantic gloss that it’s only when you realise what it’s not dealing with and what it’s not saying, quite how ugly the whole thing is at times. There’s the makings here of what could have been a fascinating dissection of consent, changing gender roles, sexism, sex itself and power, but all that gets subsumed under a lot of romance with little logic.

And let’s get to the sex, as let’s not kid ourselves, the book became a sensation more due to the graphic humping than the story, but the film is so vanilla it’s ridiculous. The sex scenes are pretty tame even when it enters Christian’s infamous S&M red room (in fact one of the reasons I was giggling early on was due to the movie’s almost Austin Powers-style way of nearly showing genitals while never quite flashing the goods). And when it gets to the end and Christian shows Ana what he’d really like to do – something it feels like the film has been teasing for hours – my reaction was simply, ‘Is that it?’.

Now I am far from an S&M aficionado, but quite frankly if Ana hadn’t been expecting that from the moment Christian first said he was a dominant and then showed her a room full of ropes, whips and handcuffs, she is a moron – and no, she is not naïve, she is stupid. So basically you end up with a movie about a romance between an asshole who makes no sense and a materialistic moron. And that is what passes for a phenomenon these days.

Plus, it adds to the edge of misogyny that lingers round the movie that while Anastasia spends a decent chunk of the movie naked, the movie is far coyer with Jamie Dornan (he had a ‘no cock’ clause in his contract, in fact). I’m sure the makers rationalised this both as to how it fitted with Christian’s character and how commercially in the US, the ratings system makes it far harder to get away with showing penis than vagina, but the fact is it reinforces the idea that female sexuality is there for the eyes of men.

But hey, maybe I’m jaded because I’ve seen Nymphomaniac, and after watching Jamie Bell’s genuinely full-on dominant in that, Christian Grey seems utterly pathetic, and both his and Ana’s motivations are weak beyond belief.

All that said, there are a lot of people out there for whom this rather tame, confused and philosophically disturbing movie would seem the height of naughtiness. So as long as they don’t actually think about it too much, who am I to disabuse them of that mild thrill?

Oh, and while this home entertainment release sells itself as the ‘Unseen Version’, the changes are minor, with the most notable difference being a slightly longer ending which, if you ask me, is actually worse than the one they settled on for the theatrical cut.

Overall Verdict: I know it’s just a silly little romance with an S&M edge to add to the sense of naughtiness, but it’s also a mess – a pretty mess to be sure – which is reductive, and has worryingly old-fashioned ideas about men and women which are never properly looked at. The first 30 minutes are pretty camply funny though.

Special Features:
The World Of Fifty Shades Of Grey – Discover the artistry involved in creating everything FIFTY SHADES OF GREY.
CHRISTIAN GREY – Inside the world of Christian Grey and what makes him so magnetic and mysterious
ANA – Discovering Ana and what makes her so compelling and relatable
Friends And Family – Cast Profiles
Behind The Shades
EL JAMES AND FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
Fifty Shades: The Pleasure Of Pain – A discussion with the BDSM consultant, and a show-and-tell with property master
Music Videos
360 Set Explorer Of Christian Grey’s Apartment With Hot Spots

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

There’s certainly a great cast of British and Irish actors brought together for Stonehearst Asylum – virtually everyone in it you’ll recognise from something – so it’s a bit of a shame that they’ve gathered in service of a movie isn’t bad, but which never really takes off.

It’s 1899 and Young doctor Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess) arrives at the remote and isolated Stonehearst Asylum, a place where Europe’s finest families hide their relative who have issues that they feel mean they aren’t suitable for polite society. Newgate wishes to study the methods of the head of the institution, Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley), who is apparently trying to create a utopian mental health facility, where instead of the harsh, tortuous methods of the past, the patients are treated with dignity and as much normality as they possible.

However, it soon becomes clear Edward has ulterior motives and he may be at Stonehearst because of one patient in particular, the beautiful ‘hysteric’ Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale). He’s not the only one who isn’t quite telling the truth either, and it may well be that the lunatics have quite literally taken over the asylum.

While that last sentence may sound like a spoiler, the possibility is raised and resolves itself fairly very early on, and indeed anyone who’s ever watched films like this before will be wondering whether that’s what’s going on from the opening few minutes.

While far from a new premise – and the final twist is less a twist than exactly what a lot of people will have assumed was coming – it does have a few interesting ideas. For example, while there’s the distinct possibility that Kingsley’s Silas Lamb is genuinely nuts, he may also be running the asylum in a far better way than the previous administration – to an extent, at least.

It may not be original, but this Hammer horror style tale could still have been an awful lot of fun. The actors – from Michael Caine to David Thewlis – certainly give it their all, hamming it up and bringing a healthy dose of gothic melodrama to the proceedings. However, things fall down with Brad Anderson’s direction, which lacks purpose and drive, with the result that a film which needed brooding tension doesn’t really have a lot. It’s kind of fun but when it needs menace it doesn’t have it, and its revelations/explanations are sometimes so over the top they feel like parody.

I know I’m making it sounds awful but it isn’t, it just has far more promise than what it actually delivers. What you do get is decent enough though. It may not be particularly memorable, but it is kind of fun while you’re watching it and has a few extremely good moments.

Overall Verdict: This gothic thriller has plenty of talented actors and a story with lots of promise, but uninspired direction results in a movie that looks pretty but never rises above being decently watchable.

Special Features:
Making Of Featurette

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Young programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a competition to meet the legendary but very reclusive Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the owner of the company Caleb works for, on his secluded, private estate. Once there Caleb discovers this isn’t just a holiday, but that he’s expected to take part in an experiment to see whether Nathan has broken through the barrier to create an artificial intelligence that can truly think for itself, and which is indistinguishable from human behaviour.

Caleb is introduced to Ava (Alicia Vikander), an AI housed in a very human looking body. Soon Caleb is thrown into a quandary. He is extremely taken by Ava, but knows there’s always the possibility that rather than truly thinking, Ava is simply using her programming to ‘fool’ him into thinking she’s more ‘real’ than she is. With Nathan possibly switching Ava off if she fails – something Ava seems to be afraid of – and Caleb increasingly wondering how he knows whether anything is real, the situation starts to grow dangerous.

If you like a bit of thought provoking, intelligent sci-fi, Ex_Machina is the movie for you. While many of the concepts it deals with have been seen on film before, the movie finds a simple yet extremely effective way of presenting it. The setup allows you to get invested in the three main characters and also permits them to have complex discussions about the philosophy behind the experiment without it feeling contrived or unnatural.

Alex Garland’s script is also pretty smart, as it knows its sci-fi tropes and so leads your brain on a journey where engaged viewers will inevitably start wondering whether everything is as it appears. However, the movie is doing it on purpose and eventually the characters begin to start wondering the same things. Even the ending leaves things wonderfully open, as while it is definitely a fitting conclusion, the whole thing will leave you pondering just how you would know if an artificial intelligence was ‘conscious’ or not, and whether Ava fits that or is a deception that even her creator may have underestimated.

The film features some wonderful special effects to create Ava, which for most of the running time make her both incredibly human and yet very artificial all at once. Coupled with some great visuals and a smart use of putting humans in an environment that is a man-made stronghold amidst the wild and natural, it is an extremely well put together movie, and one that manages to entertain and make you think at the same time.

Overall Verdict: If you’re a fan of intelligent sci-fi, Ex_Machina is one to seek out. A simple set-up allows it to reach far greater depths than you might expect.

Special Features:
Ex_Machina: The Story (2m 15s)
Ex_Machina: The Cast (3m 3s)
Ex_Machina: The Design (2m 46s)
Ex_Machina: Creating Ava (3m 12s)
Ex_Machina: The Turing Test (1m 49s)

Reviewer: Tim Isaac