Movie Muser

When Season 1 of Orange Is The New Black debuted on Netflix it proved that House Of Cards wasn’t a fluke and that the streaming service could compete with the US TV networks in terms of quality. However it was noticeable that while it was entertaining, it sometimes felt like its best characters were given short shrift, while the less interesting ones got all the screen time.

They seem to have realised that as with Season 2 the show manages to far better integrate the likes of the majestic Laverne Cox’s Sophia (although she’s still not in it enough), and Uzo Aduba’s ‘Crazy Eyes’. Indeed the show gives Uzo so much room to showcase her talents that she won an Emmy. It’s great that in a rare show that’s peopled almost completely by women, Orange Is The New Black has grown the confidence to realise that it has enough great characters that any of them can carry the story.

It’s a bit darker this time around, still mixing comedy and drama behind the bars of the Litchfield Prison, but shaking things up with the introduction of Vee, who causes ructions by attempting to build her fiefdom by testing loyalties, breaking down friendships and generally doing her Machiavellian best to put herself in the centre of things, no matter how much trouble it causes.

It’s a great way to introduce new sides to the likes of Piper and Red, which is particularly important for Piper, as while the series was initially built around her arrival in prison, in some respects she’s less interesting than nearly everyone else around her. To be honest, even with some stronger plots and increased complexity, she’s still not quite as fascinating as most of the other inmates. Again there is a realisation of this, as while Orange Is The New Black is still about Piper, in many respects she is more the key part of an ensemble look at power struggles and group dynamics, than the fish out of water main character she was in the first season.

It is the characters and tone that are Orange Is The New Black’s master-card. It would have been easy for the show to present these women purely as victims or villains – the good guys locked up for breaking the law while helping puppies (or something similar), while the bad guys were frothing fonts of pure evil. Instead it ensures these are more realistic prisoners, who have plenty of things you can empathise with, but who are also tough, have done some pretty bad things and with some of them you know they would do those things again – if not worse – if pushed.

Season 2 also keeps the show’s refreshing take on sexuality, where some characters are gay, some straight, some bisexual, some gay but only while in prison, but the series doesn’t really care, other than how it feeds in to who they are as people. In most prison shows/films, homosexuality is used as code for something else – power, desperation, survival, need, degradation – but here it’s something that purely is, only becoming something else at key moments.

The women of Litchfield will be returning soon with Season 3 on Netflix, but if you need to catch up it’s well worth getting hold of the Blu-ray release of Season 2, which offers great picture quality and some decent extras.

Overall Verdict: A great trip back into the women’s prison, with a season that allows some many of the characters to shine, while shaking things up enough to keep it fresh.

Special Features:
2 x Cast Commentaries
‘Back Before The Potato Sack’ Featurette
‘Orange Peeled’ Featurette
‘A Walk Around The Block’ Featurette
‘The VEE.I.P. Treatment’ Featurette

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

A Most Violent Year is one of those movies where, with stronger marketing, it could have gained traction during the awards season, perhaps not winning much but certainly getting more than just one Golden Globe nomination (a Supporting Actress nod for Jessica Chastain).

Director JC Chandor impressed many with his look at the start of the financial crash in Margin Call, and also with his almost dialogue-free Robert Redford alone-at-sea movie, All Is Lost. In many respects A Most Violent Year is a more tradition movie than either of those films, but it’s still extremely stylish and accomplished.

The movie is set in 1981, with the title coming from the fact that statistically that was one of the most violent years in the city’s history. Oscar Isaac is Abel Morales, an immigrant trying to make his way in a city where he never quite fits. He and his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) are in the domestic heating oil delivery business, which may not sound that exciting but which is actually a cutthroat and surprisingly dangerous trade.

Anna and Abel are doing a deal to buy a new loading dock. They’ve put down the deposit to purchase it but only have 30 days to pay the rest, something made more difficult due to the fact David Oyelowo’s district attorney is looking into the surprisingly murky world of heating oil and he has his eye of the Morales. Despite that Abel wants to keep within the bounds of the law – but only just as he isn’t against a bit of strong-arm manipulation – although in true Godfather fashion, as the movie goes on and with all those around him resorting to serious criminality to try and bring his growing business to the ground, this immigrant done good is increasingly faced with whether he will compromise his American dream ideals to get what he wants.

That’s particularly true as his wife is the daughter of a mobster, and doesn’t seem certain Abel’s way of doing this is going to work.

Despite the title, this is not a gruesome film full of bullets and blood. Instead the name is more about the world Abel is attempting to negotiate, which seems set up in a way where the only way to succeed is to get down into the dirt and be as scummy as everyone else. In fact in this respect it’s not too far from Margin Call, as that was also about people whose morality was tested by a world where doing the ‘wrong’ thing was part of the culture and seemed the only way to succeed.

Admittedly there are times when it becomes so impressed with itself that it slows down to a crawl and seems determined to test the audience’s patience, but even here the great performances from Chastain and Isaac shine through, ensuring you’re kept pulled in by this well made and sometimes quite tense drama.

Overall Verdict: Beautifully drawn and stylish with great performances from the leads, A Most Violent Year might disappoint those thinking the title means it will serve up a buffet of blood, but it certainly shows the Heating Oil business is more interesting and cutthroat than you might imagine.

Special Features:
8 x Featurettes
Conversations with Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain
Trailers / TV Spots

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

For a film supposedly about wrestling, there is not actually all that much wrestling in Foxcatcher. In fact, as is so often the way with these things, the real fight comes in the form of a power struggle away from the arena itself. For this is the true story of Mark Shultz (Channing Tatum) a wrestler and medal winner at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Three years later, he is invited to help form a wrestling team for the forthcoming Seoul Olympics by wealthy eccentric John du Pont (Steve Carell). Eager to escape the shadow of his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), who is another acclaimed wrestler and a likeable family man, Mark understandably leaps towards this lucrative opportunity.

However what should be a chance to live his dream becomes more complex, not least due to du Pont’s erratic behaviour.

Foxcatcher attracted a fair amount of Oscar buzz and it’s easy to see why. It’s a thoughtful, slow moving film, and most of the cast are on career best form. Tatum is a revelation to anyone who chiefly knows him for the 21 Jump Street comedies, while a bearded Mark Ruffalo is great as always as his well meaning older brother.

It is Steve Carell who steals the film, however, as the increasingly creepy scion of the du Pont family, John. True, he could hardly fail to in such an attention grabbing role. He has so much make up on that you almost wonder why they didn’t cast another actor entirely, particularly as, judging by photos, he still doesn’t look very much like the man himself anyway.

However, while this isn’t Carell’s first attempt to prove himself beyond his comedy origins (Little Miss Sunshine provides an earlier example of Carell stretching his dramatic wings), his gradual unveiling of du Pont as an apparently genuinely patriotic, socially maladjusted sports enthusiast into something increasingly more dangerous, probably represents his best performance to date.

Overall Verdict: A brooding, well made sports movie characterised by an underlying sense of impending disaster.

Special Features:
Deleted scenes
The Story of Foxcatcher Featurette

Reviewer: Chris Hallam