Last part of the Millenium Trilogy, and thus, in a way, immune to review; the decision whether or not to watch it is basically based on how you felt about The Girl Who Played With Fire.
Anyhow, FWIW, Hornet's Nest takes over where Played With Fire left off; Lisbeth is grievously wounded after confronting her father and half-brother. She, and her father, are taken off to hospital and patched back together, while her Frankenstein's-monster-like half brother lumbers off into the woods scaring the villagers.
We then get to the crux of the matter; her father, as we now know, is an Ex-KGB guy who a faction of the Swedish Secret Service (I guess they must have one, as unlikely as it sounds) has been keeping and pumping for info for years, in exchange for doing stuff for him which includes incarcerating his murderous daughter in a mental hospital.
Now Lisbeth's back in the clutches of the authorities again, there is to be a hearing once and for all to determine whether or not she is competent to be allowed out in public, or whether she is to be remanded to an institution. Since the SSS guys will probably kill her off if that happens, the matter is of even more paramount importance. Thus, there are two threads going on here; Lisbeth and Blomkvist's sister (who's a lawyer) fighting for Lisbeth's freedom in court, and Blomkvist himself resolving to publish an expose of the SSS guys, and blow their involvement in Lisbeth's previous treatment wide open. And of course, that means a lot of people are going to be threatened, shot at, and killed.
It's a fitting conclusion, in that it *is* a conclusion, which the last film left us gagging for. The whole thing feels more like a tv mini-series than ever before, albeit one which would have left you saying "Wow, did you see The Girl Who... last night?" the following day at work.
Ultimately, I enjoyed it very much. I understand, though, that there's an extended DVD boxed set in Sweden at least, which extends each film, and presents it as a six-part miniseries; I am left wondering if this isn't the series's natural, best format.
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Thursday 30 December 2010
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
So, Narnia. The basic principle appears to be that there's these kids who are terribly special for some reason, and whenever they need an important life lesson, they get dragged into a magical land where they will have an awfully big adventure which saves Narnia and teaches them something. This time, only Edmund and Lucy of the original four are conscripted, the other two now being too old, and presumably more interested in sex and alcopops. Joining them is their younger cousin Eustace. Edmund's problem is that he's too young to join the army and prove how brave he is. Lucy's problem is that she's noticed that her sister is the pretty one, whereas her Narnian title, "Lucy the Brave" is tantamount to "she's got a good personality". Eustace's problem is that he's a collosal arsehole. Edmund constantly rags him on this, apparently having conveniently forgotten that just two films ago he was selling out his own family to the bad guy in exchange for Turkish Delight. Hypocritical much, Edmund?
Anyway, they're pulled through a seascape painting and are rescued by the Dawn Treader (which is a ship), on which is Caspian (who is a king), who was apparently introduced in the last movie, which I didn't see. Caspian is mystified as to why our heroes have been summoned, as he believes everything in Narnia is peaceful and safe. It transpires, though, that he believes this because he sent seven lords with powerful magic swords to check everything was fine, and assumed that since none of them came back alive, that meant everything was fine. I can't quite decide whether this makes him a complete idiot, or excellent politician material. Or both. Cue a perilous quest to reclaim these seven swords, and use them to defeat the terrible evil that's been growing just off the edge of the map.
It's actually jolly good fun. The structure is that Jason and the Argonauts "go to island, defeat trial, find next destination, repeat until victory" plot, and that worked in Jason and the Argonauts, and works here too. It is specifically notable that you remember who all the ensemble cast are a lot better than in Clash of the Titans, so they're doing something right.
There's derring do, magical spells, deadly traps and fierce monsters. If that's not good enough for you, well, that's a failing in you, not the film. The three leads do a great job, particularly Will Poulter as Eustace, last seen as the amusingly scabby little kid in Son of Rambow, and has great fun here playing Eustace as such an amusingly stuck-up little tit that it's a great shame when his inevitable reform occurs.
It all wraps up with an overlong coda in which Aslan gets all mystical at them, heavily implies that he is in fact god, or at least Christ, and hey, who's going to argue with the fucking huge lion? That bit is one of the longest and most forced bits of cinema since the last twenty minutes of Return Of The King, where everybody laughs and gives each other big shiny hats, but everything up to that point is a blast. The children then emerge blinking into the real world, having grown as people, and we emerge blinking from the cinema reflecting that, having promised to take our nephews to the cinema as a Christmas treat, things could have gone a hell of a lot worse.
Anyway, they're pulled through a seascape painting and are rescued by the Dawn Treader (which is a ship), on which is Caspian (who is a king), who was apparently introduced in the last movie, which I didn't see. Caspian is mystified as to why our heroes have been summoned, as he believes everything in Narnia is peaceful and safe. It transpires, though, that he believes this because he sent seven lords with powerful magic swords to check everything was fine, and assumed that since none of them came back alive, that meant everything was fine. I can't quite decide whether this makes him a complete idiot, or excellent politician material. Or both. Cue a perilous quest to reclaim these seven swords, and use them to defeat the terrible evil that's been growing just off the edge of the map.
It's actually jolly good fun. The structure is that Jason and the Argonauts "go to island, defeat trial, find next destination, repeat until victory" plot, and that worked in Jason and the Argonauts, and works here too. It is specifically notable that you remember who all the ensemble cast are a lot better than in Clash of the Titans, so they're doing something right.
There's derring do, magical spells, deadly traps and fierce monsters. If that's not good enough for you, well, that's a failing in you, not the film. The three leads do a great job, particularly Will Poulter as Eustace, last seen as the amusingly scabby little kid in Son of Rambow, and has great fun here playing Eustace as such an amusingly stuck-up little tit that it's a great shame when his inevitable reform occurs.
It all wraps up with an overlong coda in which Aslan gets all mystical at them, heavily implies that he is in fact god, or at least Christ, and hey, who's going to argue with the fucking huge lion? That bit is one of the longest and most forced bits of cinema since the last twenty minutes of Return Of The King, where everybody laughs and gives each other big shiny hats, but everything up to that point is a blast. The children then emerge blinking into the real world, having grown as people, and we emerge blinking from the cinema reflecting that, having promised to take our nephews to the cinema as a Christmas treat, things could have gone a hell of a lot worse.
Sunday 5 December 2010
Another Year
Or, I'm afraid "Another Mike Leigh Film."
Mike Leigh makes films in a very odd way. He recruits a bunch of actors he trusts, and brings them in with a basic idea of the characters, and where he wants the plot to go, more or less, and the lot of them improv and workshop it out, until the actors live their characters, and the plot grows naturalistically and organically out of the actions the actors feel their characters should take.
This has two effects, it seems. First, you'll see some of the best acting and characterisation in cinema. Second, you've got a plot that doesn't necessarily go in an interesting direction, or indeed any direction at all.
Here's your setup. You have an old married couple called Tom and Gerri, played by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen. They have a moderately successful, cosy, and very happy life. They also have family and friends who are, by comparison, a collection of emotional basket cases. Most notably, a work friend of Gerri's called Mary, played by Lesley Mannville, who is an incredibly needy, twitchy, twittery woman, and Tom's friend Ken, who is an overeating, alcoholic ball of utter misery, bitterly disappointed with how his life basically failed to happen.
Now, in a scripted, plotted film, you might expect this to turn into a story of these two unhappy people finding each other and supporting each other. This film will have none of that. Mary's too shallow to see past Ken's rough exterior, rejects him, and then for some reason we don't hear from him again for the rest of the film. Mary then steals much of the focus making a fool of herself on a regular basis, to no great outcome other than to make herself more miserable.
I can see what's happened here in one sense. I feel like some strongwilled actors have fought to make their characters behave as realistically as possible, with the overall effect that the events of the film are all too believable; that is, people who are stuck in a rut fuck up a lot, and thus remain stuck in a rut. Hence, perhaps the title "Another Year" - the film is twelve months of people basically ending up precisely where they started, only a little older and sadder.
Now, I am old fashioned enough to think that if the events of a year are unremarkable, you don't point a camera at them. You film the moments of change, moments of crisis. I am reminded of that runaway train movie "Unstoppable" last month. In many ways, Tony Scott is no Mike Leigh. But one thing Tony Scott does know is that if Denzel Washington's character had a twenty-five year career shunting goods trains, and then one day had to chase down a runaway train, that's the day you film. And you don't film his mate who was off sick that day.
Obviously, this film is far from without value. There's not a performance in the piece that isn't brilliant. Lesley Manville steals the show by playing an utterly believable, incredibly irritating, clingy and neurotic woman. And if you can bear watching it, watching her fall apart at the seams, it's an incredible performance. But overall, I found myself wishing for a much more solid core of plot, to give us a reason to be watching this woman, without which it felt more like voyeurism.
Mike Leigh makes films in a very odd way. He recruits a bunch of actors he trusts, and brings them in with a basic idea of the characters, and where he wants the plot to go, more or less, and the lot of them improv and workshop it out, until the actors live their characters, and the plot grows naturalistically and organically out of the actions the actors feel their characters should take.
This has two effects, it seems. First, you'll see some of the best acting and characterisation in cinema. Second, you've got a plot that doesn't necessarily go in an interesting direction, or indeed any direction at all.
Here's your setup. You have an old married couple called Tom and Gerri, played by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen. They have a moderately successful, cosy, and very happy life. They also have family and friends who are, by comparison, a collection of emotional basket cases. Most notably, a work friend of Gerri's called Mary, played by Lesley Mannville, who is an incredibly needy, twitchy, twittery woman, and Tom's friend Ken, who is an overeating, alcoholic ball of utter misery, bitterly disappointed with how his life basically failed to happen.
Now, in a scripted, plotted film, you might expect this to turn into a story of these two unhappy people finding each other and supporting each other. This film will have none of that. Mary's too shallow to see past Ken's rough exterior, rejects him, and then for some reason we don't hear from him again for the rest of the film. Mary then steals much of the focus making a fool of herself on a regular basis, to no great outcome other than to make herself more miserable.
I can see what's happened here in one sense. I feel like some strongwilled actors have fought to make their characters behave as realistically as possible, with the overall effect that the events of the film are all too believable; that is, people who are stuck in a rut fuck up a lot, and thus remain stuck in a rut. Hence, perhaps the title "Another Year" - the film is twelve months of people basically ending up precisely where they started, only a little older and sadder.
Now, I am old fashioned enough to think that if the events of a year are unremarkable, you don't point a camera at them. You film the moments of change, moments of crisis. I am reminded of that runaway train movie "Unstoppable" last month. In many ways, Tony Scott is no Mike Leigh. But one thing Tony Scott does know is that if Denzel Washington's character had a twenty-five year career shunting goods trains, and then one day had to chase down a runaway train, that's the day you film. And you don't film his mate who was off sick that day.
Obviously, this film is far from without value. There's not a performance in the piece that isn't brilliant. Lesley Manville steals the show by playing an utterly believable, incredibly irritating, clingy and neurotic woman. And if you can bear watching it, watching her fall apart at the seams, it's an incredible performance. But overall, I found myself wishing for a much more solid core of plot, to give us a reason to be watching this woman, without which it felt more like voyeurism.
The Warrior's Way
Funny how films travel in groups. It sometimes seems like no matter how odd a film is, another one just like it will be right along. For example, just the other week we had Machete. Surely it must be years before we can expect another balls out insane movie involving ten decapitatations a minute with a Western theme? Turns out, no.
We start in Japan, with The Greatest Swordsman In The World, Ever. He's an assassin for the Sad Flutes Ninja Clan, and is tasked with hunting down and killing the clan's enemies. The last of this clan turns out to be a baby girl, and when it comes down to it, the assassin can't do it, and so takes the girl, and flees, becoming his clan's new public enemy number one. He flees overseas to America, where he has a friend, and ends up in a Western desert ghost town populated by circus folks. The town itself, of course, has its own problems with marauding raiders, and before long, the ninja clan tracks down the assassin. So by the end, we are genuinely, literally, looking at Cowboys vs Ninjas vs Clowns.
Obviously, we're going to need some good guys too. We've got our assassin played by Dong-gun Jan. Apparently, he's very big in South Korea, and to be honest, I can see why. He doesn't talk much, mind, but he's got a lot of style and charm. You've also got Kate Bosworth as, basically, a live action version of Jesse from Toy Story 2 and 3. Which is fine by me, plenty of room in my life for a rootin' tootin' cowgirl with a thirst for vengeance. Also helping out we have Geoffrey Rush, overacting as a ex-outlaw town drunk who's sworn to never touch a gun again, until things get really serious, and it's patently necessary. Danny Huston turns in a magnificently sleazy bit of overacting as the villainous Colonel commanding the marauders, playing it so unhinged, I found myself wondering if he was related to Michael Ironside for quite a bit.
The cinematography is fantastic, in the "fantasy" sense of the word. The whole thing has a fairytale, legendary feel which made me think of something like Stardust, or maybe a Terry Gilliam movie.
Anyway, the whole thing is utter, utter nonsense, but so long as you're prepared for that, and happy to watch something that's basically completely outrageous, the visuals are amazing, and the performances are as entertaining as they are over the top.
We start in Japan, with The Greatest Swordsman In The World, Ever. He's an assassin for the Sad Flutes Ninja Clan, and is tasked with hunting down and killing the clan's enemies. The last of this clan turns out to be a baby girl, and when it comes down to it, the assassin can't do it, and so takes the girl, and flees, becoming his clan's new public enemy number one. He flees overseas to America, where he has a friend, and ends up in a Western desert ghost town populated by circus folks. The town itself, of course, has its own problems with marauding raiders, and before long, the ninja clan tracks down the assassin. So by the end, we are genuinely, literally, looking at Cowboys vs Ninjas vs Clowns.
Obviously, we're going to need some good guys too. We've got our assassin played by Dong-gun Jan. Apparently, he's very big in South Korea, and to be honest, I can see why. He doesn't talk much, mind, but he's got a lot of style and charm. You've also got Kate Bosworth as, basically, a live action version of Jesse from Toy Story 2 and 3. Which is fine by me, plenty of room in my life for a rootin' tootin' cowgirl with a thirst for vengeance. Also helping out we have Geoffrey Rush, overacting as a ex-outlaw town drunk who's sworn to never touch a gun again, until things get really serious, and it's patently necessary. Danny Huston turns in a magnificently sleazy bit of overacting as the villainous Colonel commanding the marauders, playing it so unhinged, I found myself wondering if he was related to Michael Ironside for quite a bit.
The cinematography is fantastic, in the "fantasy" sense of the word. The whole thing has a fairytale, legendary feel which made me think of something like Stardust, or maybe a Terry Gilliam movie.
Anyway, the whole thing is utter, utter nonsense, but so long as you're prepared for that, and happy to watch something that's basically completely outrageous, the visuals are amazing, and the performances are as entertaining as they are over the top.
Monsters
Imagine a completely boring, bog standard monster movie. Space probe crash lands in Mexico, bringing with it a new life form, which quickly grows to incredible size and starts trashing the place. US Military steps in, shoots it a lot until the problem is contained. Blah blah. Cloverfield wrung the last out of that, and there haven't been any real advances in the genre since the 50s.
So it's a good job really, that's not the movie they made. All that standard BS I mentioned happened a few years ago. The monsters got contained in a region of Central America, and thrived. This is now an area called the Contaminated Zone, and the Mexican and US authorities vigorously defend the borders with military and airstrikes.
Cut to our protagonists, a photojournalist and the daughter of his boss. Things are getting scary down in Mexico where they are. The creatures (massive bioluminescent octopus/spider hybrids) are migrating and pushing at the borders and the father wants the journalist to get his daughter out of there. And so begins a journey through Infected Central America.
There's three things this film brings to mind for me. First, there's the obvious parallel to be drawn with the Iraq war. In that the situation is no longer remarkable for anyone involved, really. CNN are still showing wall to wall coverage of Monsters Vs Airstrikes, but nobody's paying attention, much as we'll get news reports about so many soldiers or civilians killed by IEDs in Iraq, and while we know it's not irrelevant, it doesn't grab our attention. The abnormal has become the norm, the remarkable is unremarkable.
The second thing is the existence of a well defended border between the USA and Mexico, and shady organisations of men dedicated to smuggling people across that border. Another pretty close allegory for the real world.
The final, and most interesting thing for me was that it was a little like a nature documentary, as in Last Chance To See, of late with Stephen Fry. Because as we get to see these alien creatures more, we begin to understand them more, and the nature of the problem being more similar to the introduction of European species into Australia, and the ensuing environmental impact, rather than that of some sinister alien invasion. The sense of these creatures being in some way like elephants, huge, and occasionally ornery and violent if you upset them, is very striking.
So overall, this is a film packed with the best kind of SF - a new idea which encourages you to think about things in the real world. And of course, this is just the scene in which the story is told, a road movie about two people thrown together in adversity, and making a connection, which would have been absolutely good enough to hold the movie together without the introduction of these intriguing creatures.
A warning though. When you see this film - and really, see this film - do your damnedest to see it at a time when it's unlikely that there will be any kids there. Because when I went to see it, there were a lot of young lads in there, lured in by the promise of a monster movie, and who got very fidgety with the growing realisation that all the action and explosions they thought they were going to get was all happening off camera, and what they were watching was a cross between a love story and a documentary about gorillas or rhinos.
So it's a good job really, that's not the movie they made. All that standard BS I mentioned happened a few years ago. The monsters got contained in a region of Central America, and thrived. This is now an area called the Contaminated Zone, and the Mexican and US authorities vigorously defend the borders with military and airstrikes.
Cut to our protagonists, a photojournalist and the daughter of his boss. Things are getting scary down in Mexico where they are. The creatures (massive bioluminescent octopus/spider hybrids) are migrating and pushing at the borders and the father wants the journalist to get his daughter out of there. And so begins a journey through Infected Central America.
There's three things this film brings to mind for me. First, there's the obvious parallel to be drawn with the Iraq war. In that the situation is no longer remarkable for anyone involved, really. CNN are still showing wall to wall coverage of Monsters Vs Airstrikes, but nobody's paying attention, much as we'll get news reports about so many soldiers or civilians killed by IEDs in Iraq, and while we know it's not irrelevant, it doesn't grab our attention. The abnormal has become the norm, the remarkable is unremarkable.
The second thing is the existence of a well defended border between the USA and Mexico, and shady organisations of men dedicated to smuggling people across that border. Another pretty close allegory for the real world.
The final, and most interesting thing for me was that it was a little like a nature documentary, as in Last Chance To See, of late with Stephen Fry. Because as we get to see these alien creatures more, we begin to understand them more, and the nature of the problem being more similar to the introduction of European species into Australia, and the ensuing environmental impact, rather than that of some sinister alien invasion. The sense of these creatures being in some way like elephants, huge, and occasionally ornery and violent if you upset them, is very striking.
So overall, this is a film packed with the best kind of SF - a new idea which encourages you to think about things in the real world. And of course, this is just the scene in which the story is told, a road movie about two people thrown together in adversity, and making a connection, which would have been absolutely good enough to hold the movie together without the introduction of these intriguing creatures.
A warning though. When you see this film - and really, see this film - do your damnedest to see it at a time when it's unlikely that there will be any kids there. Because when I went to see it, there were a lot of young lads in there, lured in by the promise of a monster movie, and who got very fidgety with the growing realisation that all the action and explosions they thought they were going to get was all happening off camera, and what they were watching was a cross between a love story and a documentary about gorillas or rhinos.
Sunday 28 November 2010
Machete
To paraphrase The Sound of Music, how do you review a problem like Machete? What are you going to do? Criticise it for being stupid and over the top?
Some background. When Tartan Quarantino and Robert Rodriguez did their Grindhouse project, their objective was to make pastiches of 70s exploitation flicks. As part of this, they and some other filmmakers made some spoof trailers of other kinds of 70s exploitation flicks, including one by Robert Rodriguez called "Machete". You can see this trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R10ljA0-sHs - go ahead and watch it, I'll wait.
Now, it would appear that a sufficiently large number of people drunkenly hung on Robert Rodriguez shoulder at parties, saying "dude, you should, like, totally make that as a full length film", until he either started to think it was a good idea himself, or else thought that it was probably the best way to stop people doing that.
In any case, that's what this is, this is an utterly over the top, nonsensical film that contains pretty much every scene in that trailer. Yes, including the ones at 1.40, and 2.25. And that's the plot, such that it is. Some guys hire Machete (Danny Trejo), an ex-Federale, to assassinate a senator, but he's really there to be the fall guy so that the senator's policies on tight border controls will gain some traction. Also somewhere in the plot is Steven Seagal as a Mexican Drug Lord who's basically there to be the big bad guy to have a machete vs sword fight in the final act.
Also drifting around the plot are Jessica Alba as a good-guy immigration cop and Michelle Rodriguez as the head of a good-guy illegal immigration network.
Not that it makes a lot of difference. It's mostly an excuse for Danny Trejo to slay as many people as possible with as many bladed objects as possible. Violence is basically Itchy and Scratchy style stuff with loads of blood and dismemberment (you'll see four men decapitated with one machete blow in the pre-credit sequence.) The dialogue's funny, mostly in the hands of the bad guys, handled with idiotic aplomb by Jeff Fahey, Robert DeNiro, Don Johnson and Steven Seagal.
I suppose, ultimately, this is a joke that doesn't quite warrant an hour and 45 minutes, and certainly doesn't manage to be coherent for that long. But a lot of it is bloody amusing, and amusingly bloody.
Some background. When Tartan Quarantino and Robert Rodriguez did their Grindhouse project, their objective was to make pastiches of 70s exploitation flicks. As part of this, they and some other filmmakers made some spoof trailers of other kinds of 70s exploitation flicks, including one by Robert Rodriguez called "Machete". You can see this trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R10ljA0-sHs - go ahead and watch it, I'll wait.
Now, it would appear that a sufficiently large number of people drunkenly hung on Robert Rodriguez shoulder at parties, saying "dude, you should, like, totally make that as a full length film", until he either started to think it was a good idea himself, or else thought that it was probably the best way to stop people doing that.
In any case, that's what this is, this is an utterly over the top, nonsensical film that contains pretty much every scene in that trailer. Yes, including the ones at 1.40, and 2.25. And that's the plot, such that it is. Some guys hire Machete (Danny Trejo), an ex-Federale, to assassinate a senator, but he's really there to be the fall guy so that the senator's policies on tight border controls will gain some traction. Also somewhere in the plot is Steven Seagal as a Mexican Drug Lord who's basically there to be the big bad guy to have a machete vs sword fight in the final act.
Also drifting around the plot are Jessica Alba as a good-guy immigration cop and Michelle Rodriguez as the head of a good-guy illegal immigration network.
Not that it makes a lot of difference. It's mostly an excuse for Danny Trejo to slay as many people as possible with as many bladed objects as possible. Violence is basically Itchy and Scratchy style stuff with loads of blood and dismemberment (you'll see four men decapitated with one machete blow in the pre-credit sequence.) The dialogue's funny, mostly in the hands of the bad guys, handled with idiotic aplomb by Jeff Fahey, Robert DeNiro, Don Johnson and Steven Seagal.
I suppose, ultimately, this is a joke that doesn't quite warrant an hour and 45 minutes, and certainly doesn't manage to be coherent for that long. But a lot of it is bloody amusing, and amusingly bloody.
The American
As the film opens, we find George Clooney in a nice chalet in Sweden, drinking whiskey with an attractive lady. The two of them go on a walk, and the pair of them are set upon by a pair of assassins, a situation which only George walks away from, having pulled a gun and shot back, much to his girlfriend's surprise. Cue the credits.
After the credits have done their thing, we find that George has travelled to Italy via Germany, by train, where he gets into contact with a shadowy boss/handler person. The boss tells him to go lay low in a town in rural Italy, where he is called upon to do a job. It would seem that George is a hitman, who also seems to specialise in crafting custom made assassin's weapons. He's asked to create such an item for a woman, who he meets, and gets the spec of the gun she wants.
So, he settles in to this quiet little town, begins work on building this nice little automatic carbine rifle with a suppressor which breaks down into a briefcase. While he's there, he gets to know the local priest, strikes up a relationship with a local hooker, and begins to question the whole life he leads.
Well, I say question. That would imply there would some kind of dialogue or monologue in which he does so. Oh no. Dialogue is very thin on the ground in this film, and when you get it, it's very oblique and off the point. If you were to fast forward to a random point of the film, you would almost certainly see one of the following: George silently working on the gun. George silently mooching around the town. George silently driving somewhere. George in his apartment silently trying to get some sleep.
Alright, maybe the film's at most half composed of such scenes, but I do reckon there's a good half in which we're watching George look troubled. That's the pace. George does a lot of thinking, and we think with him, and look at the scenery with him. Which is not to say that a film composed of such longueurs can't be rewarding, but there's times when they're pretty long longueurs.
Happily, the rest of the film is pretty gripping, as we see the portrait of the killer as an eroded, paranoid, spent individual develop. It also has a good go at puncturing the mystique of the hitman; combat, when it occurs is brutal, quick, and is about shooting the other guy first, and without hesitation. There's not a lot of glamour or finesse about it, which is all to the good. Definitely more of a character study than a thriller, but as such, quite a good one.
After the credits have done their thing, we find that George has travelled to Italy via Germany, by train, where he gets into contact with a shadowy boss/handler person. The boss tells him to go lay low in a town in rural Italy, where he is called upon to do a job. It would seem that George is a hitman, who also seems to specialise in crafting custom made assassin's weapons. He's asked to create such an item for a woman, who he meets, and gets the spec of the gun she wants.
So, he settles in to this quiet little town, begins work on building this nice little automatic carbine rifle with a suppressor which breaks down into a briefcase. While he's there, he gets to know the local priest, strikes up a relationship with a local hooker, and begins to question the whole life he leads.
Well, I say question. That would imply there would some kind of dialogue or monologue in which he does so. Oh no. Dialogue is very thin on the ground in this film, and when you get it, it's very oblique and off the point. If you were to fast forward to a random point of the film, you would almost certainly see one of the following: George silently working on the gun. George silently mooching around the town. George silently driving somewhere. George in his apartment silently trying to get some sleep.
Alright, maybe the film's at most half composed of such scenes, but I do reckon there's a good half in which we're watching George look troubled. That's the pace. George does a lot of thinking, and we think with him, and look at the scenery with him. Which is not to say that a film composed of such longueurs can't be rewarding, but there's times when they're pretty long longueurs.
Happily, the rest of the film is pretty gripping, as we see the portrait of the killer as an eroded, paranoid, spent individual develop. It also has a good go at puncturing the mystique of the hitman; combat, when it occurs is brutal, quick, and is about shooting the other guy first, and without hesitation. There's not a lot of glamour or finesse about it, which is all to the good. Definitely more of a character study than a thriller, but as such, quite a good one.
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Unstoppable
Tony Scott. Denzel Washington. A train. Motorcades of police cars, some of which flip over for no adequately explained reason. So, it's The Taking Of Pelham 123 again? Well, nearly, almost, sort of.
In this instance, it's The Taking of Pelham 123, but John Travolta has been tippexed out. In his place is... an empty railway cab. The threat, then is not that the train is stationary, and the hostage taker is going to kill everyone, but that the train is moving, and the train is going to kill everybody. Because it's got a few trucks of molten phenol in there, and that's pretty inflammable and toxic. When it crashes, it's going to kill everybody nearby, and it's going to crash because it's heading for a tight curve in a town in Pennsylvania where it's going to fall off the tracks, and onto a conveniently placed fuel depot.
Obviously, this isn't everybody's favoured outcome, including Denzel Washington and Chris "James T Kirk" Pine, who are the driver and conductor of another train on the runaway train's track. After a number of abortive attempts by the train company to stop or derail the train, it's up to them to catch up to the train, and stop it. All of which gives us plenty of excuses for standard Tony Scott crashes and explosions. Denzel Washington is that guy you know from Denzel Washington movies, the brave veteran who calmly does what it takes, and Chris Pine follows suit, as the rookie who'll bravely step up to the plate. Both of them turn in charming, likeable performances, which give the film a lot of warmth.
On the one side, this film is massively, massively predictable. Really, I say to you "Tony Scott film about a runaway train, starring Denzel Washington", and what your mind just sketched out as the likely outcome of that is exactly right. On the other hand, if your mind told you that it was going to be a thrilling rollercoaster ride of stunts and derring-do then it would be exactly right too. People are going to attempt to jump onto speeding cars from trains, and onto speeding trains from cars. People are going to attempt to couple and uncouple trains, and find themselves dangling precariously. Everything you expect will be there, everything you hope for will be there. It's pretty clear what's on offer from the start, and it delivers.
One thing I really do like is that there's no real bad guy here. There's a few murky bits of corporate types making decisions to save money rather than save lives, but ultimately, it's all caused not by the usual European terrorists in black polo necks with German made submachineguns, but by a frickin' idiot who works in the train yard, who accidentally does exactly what you shouldn't do while moving a train around a train yard. Blue collar idiot causes problem, blue collar heroes save the day. And apparently, this whole thing was inspired by real events, which I'm sure were way less dramatic, and far fewer police cars mysteriously flipped over while cornering, but it's nice to know that basically, it really does happen that occasionally, you have to chase a train full of dangerous chemicals with another train.
Highly entertaining nonsense, that you won't particularly remember in a week's time, but then if you find yourself needing to remember it, don't worry. Whatever your brain makes up to fill the gap will be mostly right.
In this instance, it's The Taking of Pelham 123, but John Travolta has been tippexed out. In his place is... an empty railway cab. The threat, then is not that the train is stationary, and the hostage taker is going to kill everyone, but that the train is moving, and the train is going to kill everybody. Because it's got a few trucks of molten phenol in there, and that's pretty inflammable and toxic. When it crashes, it's going to kill everybody nearby, and it's going to crash because it's heading for a tight curve in a town in Pennsylvania where it's going to fall off the tracks, and onto a conveniently placed fuel depot.
Obviously, this isn't everybody's favoured outcome, including Denzel Washington and Chris "James T Kirk" Pine, who are the driver and conductor of another train on the runaway train's track. After a number of abortive attempts by the train company to stop or derail the train, it's up to them to catch up to the train, and stop it. All of which gives us plenty of excuses for standard Tony Scott crashes and explosions. Denzel Washington is that guy you know from Denzel Washington movies, the brave veteran who calmly does what it takes, and Chris Pine follows suit, as the rookie who'll bravely step up to the plate. Both of them turn in charming, likeable performances, which give the film a lot of warmth.
On the one side, this film is massively, massively predictable. Really, I say to you "Tony Scott film about a runaway train, starring Denzel Washington", and what your mind just sketched out as the likely outcome of that is exactly right. On the other hand, if your mind told you that it was going to be a thrilling rollercoaster ride of stunts and derring-do then it would be exactly right too. People are going to attempt to jump onto speeding cars from trains, and onto speeding trains from cars. People are going to attempt to couple and uncouple trains, and find themselves dangling precariously. Everything you expect will be there, everything you hope for will be there. It's pretty clear what's on offer from the start, and it delivers.
One thing I really do like is that there's no real bad guy here. There's a few murky bits of corporate types making decisions to save money rather than save lives, but ultimately, it's all caused not by the usual European terrorists in black polo necks with German made submachineguns, but by a frickin' idiot who works in the train yard, who accidentally does exactly what you shouldn't do while moving a train around a train yard. Blue collar idiot causes problem, blue collar heroes save the day. And apparently, this whole thing was inspired by real events, which I'm sure were way less dramatic, and far fewer police cars mysteriously flipped over while cornering, but it's nice to know that basically, it really does happen that occasionally, you have to chase a train full of dangerous chemicals with another train.
Highly entertaining nonsense, that you won't particularly remember in a week's time, but then if you find yourself needing to remember it, don't worry. Whatever your brain makes up to fill the gap will be mostly right.
London Boulevard
Bit of a modern noir crime thriller, and the plot is a bit "stop me if you've heard this one before", frankly. Colin Farrell is an gangster, or would-be ex-gangster who's just been released from prison. He's not specifically got any plan for what he is going to do with his life, but on the other hand, he doesn't want to go back inside, so intends to make a change. On his first day out of prison, life presents him with two opportunities. His mate Billy wants to bring him in on a loan sharking operation, and a chance encounter rescuing a woman from a couple of muggers leads to a job offer as a minder for Kiera Knightley, a film star who's gone into seclusion, and needs help keeping the papparazzi out of her place.
Unfortunately, Billy's boss is a patently unhinged Ray Winstone, who's one of those crime bosses who's completely unreasonable, and won't take no for an answer, and what he wants is Colin Farrell working for him. It's never been completely clear to me why you occasionally get a crime boss dead set on having the protagonist work for them, way beyond the point where it seems likely that the protagonist will willingly agree, and thus be a reliable employee, but then I suppose that if you don't get to be a crime boss if you're reasonable and willing to compromise.
Also floating around the place is David Thewliss as Kiera Knightley's manager/friend/massively drug abusing person who hangs around her house, a washed up thespian, and far and away the best turn in the film. Whatever else, every moment he's on the screen is a gem.
So, anyway, there we have the seeds of a conflict, the growing relationship between Farrell and Knightley, and the spectre of Ray Winstone threatening to go nuts and destroy everything, if only by turning Farrell back into the man he doesn't want to be anymore in order to fight him.
If the film has a weakness, it's that it has pretty patchy direction. Which is not to say that it's pedestrian, far from it. It's shot in a pretty naturalistic style. Some scenes, it turns out great. Some scenes, well, Farrell and Winstone pretty much mumble at each other and it's not clear what's being said (though to be fair, regardless of the words, the intent is never in question.) Also patchy is the cutting; Sometimes there's a quick succession of short scenes, flitting between the various protagonists, and it sometimes feels a bit haphazard and randomly assembled. This is William Monahan's first go in the chair, having been a screenwriter prior to this. So I'd say that he's got a lot of raw talent, but he needs to hone the rough edges.
But overall, despite some shortcomings in assembly, this is a pretty stylishly made crime thriller.
Unfortunately, Billy's boss is a patently unhinged Ray Winstone, who's one of those crime bosses who's completely unreasonable, and won't take no for an answer, and what he wants is Colin Farrell working for him. It's never been completely clear to me why you occasionally get a crime boss dead set on having the protagonist work for them, way beyond the point where it seems likely that the protagonist will willingly agree, and thus be a reliable employee, but then I suppose that if you don't get to be a crime boss if you're reasonable and willing to compromise.
Also floating around the place is David Thewliss as Kiera Knightley's manager/friend/massively drug abusing person who hangs around her house, a washed up thespian, and far and away the best turn in the film. Whatever else, every moment he's on the screen is a gem.
So, anyway, there we have the seeds of a conflict, the growing relationship between Farrell and Knightley, and the spectre of Ray Winstone threatening to go nuts and destroy everything, if only by turning Farrell back into the man he doesn't want to be anymore in order to fight him.
If the film has a weakness, it's that it has pretty patchy direction. Which is not to say that it's pedestrian, far from it. It's shot in a pretty naturalistic style. Some scenes, it turns out great. Some scenes, well, Farrell and Winstone pretty much mumble at each other and it's not clear what's being said (though to be fair, regardless of the words, the intent is never in question.) Also patchy is the cutting; Sometimes there's a quick succession of short scenes, flitting between the various protagonists, and it sometimes feels a bit haphazard and randomly assembled. This is William Monahan's first go in the chair, having been a screenwriter prior to this. So I'd say that he's got a lot of raw talent, but he needs to hone the rough edges.
But overall, despite some shortcomings in assembly, this is a pretty stylishly made crime thriller.
Sunday 21 November 2010
Harry Potter And The Next Installment
...because I'd feel like I was lying to you if I called this "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows", in that this really is less than half a film here. The first twenty or so minutes are pretty intense, and then the rest of it is pretty much in tents.
Anyway... plot. Hang on, I left it around here somewhere... *shuffles papers*. Ah. Here. Now. It seems that as we left our heroes at the end of Half Blood Prince (and actually, come to think of it, as we left them at the end of Order Of The Phoenix, plot runs slow in Potterland), Lord Voldermort has returned, and as with last time, pretty much the entire wizarding community is just too damned wussy to do anything about it. So our heroes are determined to do the job themselves, despite being pretty wussy themselves. I mean really guys, you're fighting a war here. You really need to start breaking out bigger guns than charms that disarm and paralyse. Really, if a murderous psychopath is intent on destroying your entire way of life, it's okay to shoot to kill. Man up, people.
So, having determined that a) Voldermort has once again dominated wizarding society and put it under a reign of terror and b) that Voldermort can only be killed by finding the however many bits of his soul he has hidden, and destroying them first, Harry, Ron and Hermione decide to b) track down the objects containing his soul, and a) Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge. And most assuredly, not necessarily in that order. So, we get to the last exciting bit for a while, where they break into the now-Nazi Ministry of Magic and nick one of the Plot Devices. They then run away, and hide in a tent in the middle of nowhere. And there the plot remains, until the end.
After that point, the plot is pretty much "How do we destroy this Plot Device?" "Dunno." "Where are the other plot devices?" "Dunno." "What shall we do next?" "Dunno."
Meanwhile, we get the odd snippet of what Big V is up to via Harry's "Being John Malkovich"-like connection to the inside of Voldermort's head, where he is clearly attempting to find *something* which will allow him to completely obliterate Harry. See guys? THIS IS HOW IT WORKS.
And so, unto the end of the film, where, what with H R and H having completely refused to come out of the bush they're hiding in, the plot sends some secondary characters in to flush them out, and the action starts up again, briefly.
So... complete waste of everyone's time? Well, not entirely. As per usual, the entire British Acting Community have turned up to do their bit, only on this occasion, there's a bit of a scarcity of lines, and so everyone's doing their best with the little they've been given. I was particularly impressed with Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), who has come a long way from the stage school brat he was in Philosopher's Stone. I'm not sure if he gets a line at all in this film, and if he does, it's nothing much. He does, however, come face to face with Harry, and his face shows that he finally understands why Harry is special, and how the thing that he envied and hated Harry for all this time may actually be the thing that can save him from the thing in the world which he now fears above all else. But he still hates Harry, and is disgusted with himself for being reliant on Harry to save all their asses. It's all in there, and for my money, Felton acts more in that one scene than Radcliffe, Grint and Watson do in the overlong hour and a half the camera spends focussed on them.
That's pretty much the problem then. This film more than any other film in the franchise relies on the three principals to act like actors who can act, and give us a three handed performance that demands our attention on a sparse set. And they can't. It's not wholly their fault; it's not like this is Waiting for Godot they're being asked to perform here. There's so little meat in the script, it'd be hard for great actors to give this stuff any real welly. But at the same time, it's pretty obvious that their acting skills are pretty weak sauce too, and without all the breathless running around they usually do, they've nothing much to bring to the table.
So, see it if you've seen the rest, if you must. But I said that about the last one too, and that means I've now said it about a quarter of the films in this series.
Anyway... plot. Hang on, I left it around here somewhere... *shuffles papers*. Ah. Here. Now. It seems that as we left our heroes at the end of Half Blood Prince (and actually, come to think of it, as we left them at the end of Order Of The Phoenix, plot runs slow in Potterland), Lord Voldermort has returned, and as with last time, pretty much the entire wizarding community is just too damned wussy to do anything about it. So our heroes are determined to do the job themselves, despite being pretty wussy themselves. I mean really guys, you're fighting a war here. You really need to start breaking out bigger guns than charms that disarm and paralyse. Really, if a murderous psychopath is intent on destroying your entire way of life, it's okay to shoot to kill. Man up, people.
So, having determined that a) Voldermort has once again dominated wizarding society and put it under a reign of terror and b) that Voldermort can only be killed by finding the however many bits of his soul he has hidden, and destroying them first, Harry, Ron and Hermione decide to b) track down the objects containing his soul, and a) Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge. And most assuredly, not necessarily in that order. So, we get to the last exciting bit for a while, where they break into the now-Nazi Ministry of Magic and nick one of the Plot Devices. They then run away, and hide in a tent in the middle of nowhere. And there the plot remains, until the end.
After that point, the plot is pretty much "How do we destroy this Plot Device?" "Dunno." "Where are the other plot devices?" "Dunno." "What shall we do next?" "Dunno."
Meanwhile, we get the odd snippet of what Big V is up to via Harry's "Being John Malkovich"-like connection to the inside of Voldermort's head, where he is clearly attempting to find *something* which will allow him to completely obliterate Harry. See guys? THIS IS HOW IT WORKS.
And so, unto the end of the film, where, what with H R and H having completely refused to come out of the bush they're hiding in, the plot sends some secondary characters in to flush them out, and the action starts up again, briefly.
So... complete waste of everyone's time? Well, not entirely. As per usual, the entire British Acting Community have turned up to do their bit, only on this occasion, there's a bit of a scarcity of lines, and so everyone's doing their best with the little they've been given. I was particularly impressed with Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), who has come a long way from the stage school brat he was in Philosopher's Stone. I'm not sure if he gets a line at all in this film, and if he does, it's nothing much. He does, however, come face to face with Harry, and his face shows that he finally understands why Harry is special, and how the thing that he envied and hated Harry for all this time may actually be the thing that can save him from the thing in the world which he now fears above all else. But he still hates Harry, and is disgusted with himself for being reliant on Harry to save all their asses. It's all in there, and for my money, Felton acts more in that one scene than Radcliffe, Grint and Watson do in the overlong hour and a half the camera spends focussed on them.
That's pretty much the problem then. This film more than any other film in the franchise relies on the three principals to act like actors who can act, and give us a three handed performance that demands our attention on a sparse set. And they can't. It's not wholly their fault; it's not like this is Waiting for Godot they're being asked to perform here. There's so little meat in the script, it'd be hard for great actors to give this stuff any real welly. But at the same time, it's pretty obvious that their acting skills are pretty weak sauce too, and without all the breathless running around they usually do, they've nothing much to bring to the table.
So, see it if you've seen the rest, if you must. But I said that about the last one too, and that means I've now said it about a quarter of the films in this series.
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Easy A
Going to be a bit arse about face with this review, and head for the flaw in the film first, before we go any further. This film takes place in a parallel universe, such as one might find on a show like Sliders, where the Earth is just the same as our own, except for one small difference which changes everything. In this case, that difference is that the school leaving age is 22. This is a teen comedy, a tribute to John Hughes, really, about the exploits of teenagers in high school, and the youngest of the five principal actors in a teenage role is 21. The oldest is 25. And they're not particularly young looking for their age either. So it's a bit weird, really. In some ways, the characters are school-kids, but in others they're clearly functioning as adults. So. Not a film high on the realism scale. So, what is it?
It's about a nice, well behaved schoolgirl called Olive, in her final year (I hope, unless we're being asked to believe that Emma Stone is *under* 17), who, after a lie to her friend about having slept with a guy from college, gets a certain reputation. Having got this reputation, the gossip begins to get out of control, and all kinds of tales are being passed around. Before long, a gay friend of hers comes to her with a proposition. He knows that all the stories about her are just that, stories, and so wonders if he could persuade her to go along with a story that she had sex with him, thus saving him from the daily bullying and humiliation he gets because people think he's gay. She goes along with it, and the two fake a sex scene at one of those teen parties that only happen in movies, and a legend is born.
This leads to her helping out a whole bunch of guys, all of whom feel that the misery that is their high school life could be improved by having a reputation of having scored with her, and she begins doing a lot of these favours, until eventually her reputation gets to such a level that the rest of the school turns against her, and she has to find some way of getting out of the situation she's put herself in.
Overall, this is a smart, funny comedy, which benefits in a strange way from being set in this strange parallel universe. Emma Stone plays Olive as a girl who's impossibly cute, smart, funny, and all around drop dead gorgeous even for a 22 year old. You'll never meet a *17* year old this self-possessed and devastatingly witty, it's just impossible. And so long as you're OK with realism being thrown out of the window, she's therefore a screen presence who can easily command your attention for the 90 minutes required. So unless you're going to get totally unreasonable and get all "OMG THIS COMEDY IS FAR TOO FUNNY AND WITTY", you just go with the unreality of it all, and enjoy it.
Overall, it's well worth a watch, and leaves you with a big smile.
It's about a nice, well behaved schoolgirl called Olive, in her final year (I hope, unless we're being asked to believe that Emma Stone is *under* 17), who, after a lie to her friend about having slept with a guy from college, gets a certain reputation. Having got this reputation, the gossip begins to get out of control, and all kinds of tales are being passed around. Before long, a gay friend of hers comes to her with a proposition. He knows that all the stories about her are just that, stories, and so wonders if he could persuade her to go along with a story that she had sex with him, thus saving him from the daily bullying and humiliation he gets because people think he's gay. She goes along with it, and the two fake a sex scene at one of those teen parties that only happen in movies, and a legend is born.
This leads to her helping out a whole bunch of guys, all of whom feel that the misery that is their high school life could be improved by having a reputation of having scored with her, and she begins doing a lot of these favours, until eventually her reputation gets to such a level that the rest of the school turns against her, and she has to find some way of getting out of the situation she's put herself in.
Overall, this is a smart, funny comedy, which benefits in a strange way from being set in this strange parallel universe. Emma Stone plays Olive as a girl who's impossibly cute, smart, funny, and all around drop dead gorgeous even for a 22 year old. You'll never meet a *17* year old this self-possessed and devastatingly witty, it's just impossible. And so long as you're OK with realism being thrown out of the window, she's therefore a screen presence who can easily command your attention for the 90 minutes required. So unless you're going to get totally unreasonable and get all "OMG THIS COMEDY IS FAR TOO FUNNY AND WITTY", you just go with the unreality of it all, and enjoy it.
Overall, it's well worth a watch, and leaves you with a big smile.
Monday 1 November 2010
The Kids Are All Right
Seen as the second half of a double bill with RED, this serves as an object reminder of how great cinema can be. Seen individually, both of these films are marvellous examples of their respective genres, put together, they are a reminder of why I love the cinema so much, because of the pure variety of what's available, and that a medium that occasionally inflicts Sex and the City 2 on us can still be relied upon to deliver.
But on with the show. In The Kids Are All Right, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are a long established couple with two teenage kids, a boy aged 15 and a girl aged 18. And since, obviously, the kids must have happened with outside assistance somewhere along the line, the kids are naturally curious to find out who their biological father is. So they contact the sperm donation agency, and are put in touch with Mark Ruffalo, their donor.
So, what we have is a very naturalistic comedy drama, in which the tensions and stresses in the established relationships are brought to light by the introduction of an interloper. Nic, played by Annette Bening, is the head of the household; she's a doctor, a bit fussy, a bit of a control freak. Jules, played by Julianne Moore, is more free and easy, sometimes resenting the control Nic exerts, but as often relying on it as the rock in her life. Mark Ruffalo is Paul, a charming, free, easygoing guy with no ties who's essentially given the shock of his life when presented with the family he'd have had if he'd had a family.
Gradually, Paul is slowly invited into ther lives, to Nic's increasing discomfort. To the kids, he's a curiosity, and a fresh perspective on life outside of the very politically correct united front their parents present them with. Jules, essentially sees in Paul the father of her kids, and there's a strange attraction there. Paul, meanwhile, sees in Jules the wife and mother he never looked for in his life before. And so tensions mount and things get complicated.
As always in a film where the story is quite small, the performances are everything. Annette Bening is brilliant, as she makes a potentially quite unlikeable and bitchy character into a flawed human being who tries hard to recognise her faults and bravely tries to accomodate changes she really doesn't watnt. Jules could be ditzy and flaky, but Julianne Moore potrays her as someone who feels before she thinks, and is very dependent on others for her own confidence. Mark Ruffalo brings an easy charm to a role which could have been quite shallow - all three of them essentially convey a depth to their characters well beyond the script, and I think there should be an Oscar in it for any one of them. More than one of them, if there's any justice.
Overall, what's really great about this film, though, is the pitfalls it avoids. Given the synopsis, this could be a really preachy, angsty, histrionic experience. Whereas it's not, it relaxed family drama, by turns funny, sad, dramatic, but never once sounding a false note. One to see even if you think it might not be your kind of thing.
But on with the show. In The Kids Are All Right, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are a long established couple with two teenage kids, a boy aged 15 and a girl aged 18. And since, obviously, the kids must have happened with outside assistance somewhere along the line, the kids are naturally curious to find out who their biological father is. So they contact the sperm donation agency, and are put in touch with Mark Ruffalo, their donor.
So, what we have is a very naturalistic comedy drama, in which the tensions and stresses in the established relationships are brought to light by the introduction of an interloper. Nic, played by Annette Bening, is the head of the household; she's a doctor, a bit fussy, a bit of a control freak. Jules, played by Julianne Moore, is more free and easy, sometimes resenting the control Nic exerts, but as often relying on it as the rock in her life. Mark Ruffalo is Paul, a charming, free, easygoing guy with no ties who's essentially given the shock of his life when presented with the family he'd have had if he'd had a family.
Gradually, Paul is slowly invited into ther lives, to Nic's increasing discomfort. To the kids, he's a curiosity, and a fresh perspective on life outside of the very politically correct united front their parents present them with. Jules, essentially sees in Paul the father of her kids, and there's a strange attraction there. Paul, meanwhile, sees in Jules the wife and mother he never looked for in his life before. And so tensions mount and things get complicated.
As always in a film where the story is quite small, the performances are everything. Annette Bening is brilliant, as she makes a potentially quite unlikeable and bitchy character into a flawed human being who tries hard to recognise her faults and bravely tries to accomodate changes she really doesn't watnt. Jules could be ditzy and flaky, but Julianne Moore potrays her as someone who feels before she thinks, and is very dependent on others for her own confidence. Mark Ruffalo brings an easy charm to a role which could have been quite shallow - all three of them essentially convey a depth to their characters well beyond the script, and I think there should be an Oscar in it for any one of them. More than one of them, if there's any justice.
Overall, what's really great about this film, though, is the pitfalls it avoids. Given the synopsis, this could be a really preachy, angsty, histrionic experience. Whereas it's not, it relaxed family drama, by turns funny, sad, dramatic, but never once sounding a false note. One to see even if you think it might not be your kind of thing.
RED
When Bruce Willis was asked to cameo in The Expendables, he must have had a hard time keeping a straight face. Because at that point he must have known that he was already involved in a movie that was doing everything So Very Right where Stallone was doing it So Very Wrong.
So, Bruce plays Paul Moses, CIA Blackops Badass (retired). He's retired to suburban Ohio, and basically lives out his days flirting over the phone with the girl who manages his pension (Mary Louise Parker). Unfortunately for him, something he did many years ago has suddenly become relevant again, and a hit squad is sent to his house to kill him. This does not go well for them.
Realising he is marked for death, and figuring that they may use his relationship with Mary Louise Parker against him, he rolls up to her place, and kidnaps her, and goes on the run. Eventually, she is convinced that he's not actually just a crazy stalker, and people are actually after her, so the two team up to work out who's doing this, and why. On the way they collect a band of ex-spooks who Bruce used to work with, including Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich as a comedy version of they guy he played in In The Line of Fire, and Helen Mirren as MI6's top sniper. (Many reviews have stated that Helen Mirren With A Sniper Rifle is reason enough to see this film. I cannot disagree.) Also in the mix are Brian Cox as a Russian Agent of Bruce's acquaintance, Richard Dreyfuss as a dodgy arms dealer and Karl Urban as the CIA's current best Blackops Badass, assigned to clean up the situation.
Now, if you look at the above list, you'll see they have one thing in common; actors who aren't necessarily primarily known for comedy, but who have great comic timing. And that's what the film's like. It's not primarily a comedy, it's an action movie, but while it's not dishing out the thrills, spills and explosions, there's plenty of highly amusing interplay. There's not a bit of it where there's not something happening to entertain you. I want to particularly namecheck Karl Urban on that, since it's a bit lower key for him. He basically spends the whole film, one misstep or misdirection behind Bruce, and there's a kind of quiet pained slapstick to him.
Downsides? Well, it's not Ibsen. If you've read the original graphic novel, you'll notice that the themes involving the morality of covert operations are completely absent. In the book, Paul Moses is a man tortured by the memory of the terrible, terrible things that he did for his country, and who has been targeted for death as much as anything because the newly appointed head of the CIA has learned what he did, and can't bear to let him live unpunished. And in adaptation, Moses has gone from being a horror of the cold war era who killed thousands, perhaps even both JFK and Martin Luther King, to being this sweet cuddly guy who killed terrorists, destabilised rogue states, and basically seemed to have done only Good Deeds. In fact, we're presented with four main characters who are blackops operatives with hardly a stain on their characters. So you know we're firmly in fantasy land here.
Still, with that said, and understanding that there is no objective in this film but to amuse and entertain, this is two hours of highly amusing entertainment.
So, Bruce plays Paul Moses, CIA Blackops Badass (retired). He's retired to suburban Ohio, and basically lives out his days flirting over the phone with the girl who manages his pension (Mary Louise Parker). Unfortunately for him, something he did many years ago has suddenly become relevant again, and a hit squad is sent to his house to kill him. This does not go well for them.
Realising he is marked for death, and figuring that they may use his relationship with Mary Louise Parker against him, he rolls up to her place, and kidnaps her, and goes on the run. Eventually, she is convinced that he's not actually just a crazy stalker, and people are actually after her, so the two team up to work out who's doing this, and why. On the way they collect a band of ex-spooks who Bruce used to work with, including Morgan Freeman as Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich as a comedy version of they guy he played in In The Line of Fire, and Helen Mirren as MI6's top sniper. (Many reviews have stated that Helen Mirren With A Sniper Rifle is reason enough to see this film. I cannot disagree.) Also in the mix are Brian Cox as a Russian Agent of Bruce's acquaintance, Richard Dreyfuss as a dodgy arms dealer and Karl Urban as the CIA's current best Blackops Badass, assigned to clean up the situation.
Now, if you look at the above list, you'll see they have one thing in common; actors who aren't necessarily primarily known for comedy, but who have great comic timing. And that's what the film's like. It's not primarily a comedy, it's an action movie, but while it's not dishing out the thrills, spills and explosions, there's plenty of highly amusing interplay. There's not a bit of it where there's not something happening to entertain you. I want to particularly namecheck Karl Urban on that, since it's a bit lower key for him. He basically spends the whole film, one misstep or misdirection behind Bruce, and there's a kind of quiet pained slapstick to him.
Downsides? Well, it's not Ibsen. If you've read the original graphic novel, you'll notice that the themes involving the morality of covert operations are completely absent. In the book, Paul Moses is a man tortured by the memory of the terrible, terrible things that he did for his country, and who has been targeted for death as much as anything because the newly appointed head of the CIA has learned what he did, and can't bear to let him live unpunished. And in adaptation, Moses has gone from being a horror of the cold war era who killed thousands, perhaps even both JFK and Martin Luther King, to being this sweet cuddly guy who killed terrorists, destabilised rogue states, and basically seemed to have done only Good Deeds. In fact, we're presented with four main characters who are blackops operatives with hardly a stain on their characters. So you know we're firmly in fantasy land here.
Still, with that said, and understanding that there is no objective in this film but to amuse and entertain, this is two hours of highly amusing entertainment.
Thursday 21 October 2010
The Social Network
Like most right-thinking individuals, I put this film on my "Do Not Need To See" list the moment I heard about it. A film about the origin of Facebook? Facebook isn't special. I'm from Mono, man, I was friending people and writing stuff on walls when Mark Zuckerberg was still pissing his bed. Assuming that Mark Zuckerberg was still pissing his bed when he was eight. Which I think probably he was.
But then some names start popping up. David "Fight Club" Fincher is directing? Aaron "The West Wing" Sorkin is writing the script? Then it becomes interesting. Particularly the Aaron Sorkin part. He wrote Studio 60; which means that he managed to write a series in which he made me care about a bunch of guys writing Saturday Night Live every week. Which means, I think, he could pretty much make me care about anything.
And that's what this is. It doesn't matter what this is about, this is a conflict in which the weapons are finely honed quips and retorts. Sorkin has created a dense payload of weapons-grade dialogue, which has been put in the hands of a first class general in David Fincher, who marshalls his crack troops to deliver it for maximum effect - led into battle by Capt. Jesse Eisenberg, who for my money is turning into a sure-bet. I've seen three of his films now; they've been great, and he's been a major part of what made them great.
So, even though it's actually not important exactly what this is about for it to be good, we may as well talk about that. Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed essentially as a classic nerd; very intelligent, socially dysfunctional, and angry about it. He doesn't come across as the sweet geeky type. At all. His goal is to do something that distinguishes him, shows him to be above the herd of garden-variety geniuses with whom he attends Harvard. After creating a site called Facemash, which was a HotOrNot type site using pictures of female students hoovered up from the university's online face books (which seem to be student directories), he gets in a bit of trouble. Which makes him somewhat notorious.
This leads a group of fellow undergrads, led by the Winklevoss twins (depicted as a pair of arrogant boat-rowing bluebloods), to do the programming on a website they're planning called harvardconnection.com. Zuckerberg agrees to work with them, but instead pursues a similar project of his own design, thefacebook.com, along with his best friend Eduardo Saverin, who runs the financial side of the business. The business grows, and comes to involve Sean Parker, founder of Napster and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. Zuckerberg and Saverin drift apart, which leads to Saverin leaving active involvement with Facebook, and Facebook's lawyers contriving to massively reduce the value of his shares.
Which leads us to the framing device of the story; everything we hear is told in flashbacks, as part of two deposition sessions, from two separate lawsuits against Zuckerberg; one from the Winklevoss twins about him stealing their idea, and one from Saverin about him screwing him out of the company. And we're mostly left to decide this for ourselves. Did Zuckerberg steal the idea, or did he just lose interest in the pretty lame and unoriginal Harvardconnection.com idea, and invent something better on his own? Did he screw Saverin, or did he just contrive to get rid of a guy whose contribution to Facebook had basically been to fund it in the early stages?
The film doesn't come down on either side, though it makes it clear that Zuckerberg has acted like a pretty shitty human being in his time. And as the lawsuits, in the real world, ultimately ended in negotiated settlements, none of this stuff was ever tested in court. But if you can take a film with an ambiguous ending, which doesn't offer any conclusions on the questions it asks, then you will very likely enjoy this film. I know that, for myself, I have pondered both of the cases, and want to read more about them before I would venture to have an opinion on either. And if a film is thought provoking, that's often far superior to presenting a concrete answer.
But then some names start popping up. David "Fight Club" Fincher is directing? Aaron "The West Wing" Sorkin is writing the script? Then it becomes interesting. Particularly the Aaron Sorkin part. He wrote Studio 60; which means that he managed to write a series in which he made me care about a bunch of guys writing Saturday Night Live every week. Which means, I think, he could pretty much make me care about anything.
And that's what this is. It doesn't matter what this is about, this is a conflict in which the weapons are finely honed quips and retorts. Sorkin has created a dense payload of weapons-grade dialogue, which has been put in the hands of a first class general in David Fincher, who marshalls his crack troops to deliver it for maximum effect - led into battle by Capt. Jesse Eisenberg, who for my money is turning into a sure-bet. I've seen three of his films now; they've been great, and he's been a major part of what made them great.
So, even though it's actually not important exactly what this is about for it to be good, we may as well talk about that. Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed essentially as a classic nerd; very intelligent, socially dysfunctional, and angry about it. He doesn't come across as the sweet geeky type. At all. His goal is to do something that distinguishes him, shows him to be above the herd of garden-variety geniuses with whom he attends Harvard. After creating a site called Facemash, which was a HotOrNot type site using pictures of female students hoovered up from the university's online face books (which seem to be student directories), he gets in a bit of trouble. Which makes him somewhat notorious.
This leads a group of fellow undergrads, led by the Winklevoss twins (depicted as a pair of arrogant boat-rowing bluebloods), to do the programming on a website they're planning called harvardconnection.com. Zuckerberg agrees to work with them, but instead pursues a similar project of his own design, thefacebook.com, along with his best friend Eduardo Saverin, who runs the financial side of the business. The business grows, and comes to involve Sean Parker, founder of Napster and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. Zuckerberg and Saverin drift apart, which leads to Saverin leaving active involvement with Facebook, and Facebook's lawyers contriving to massively reduce the value of his shares.
Which leads us to the framing device of the story; everything we hear is told in flashbacks, as part of two deposition sessions, from two separate lawsuits against Zuckerberg; one from the Winklevoss twins about him stealing their idea, and one from Saverin about him screwing him out of the company. And we're mostly left to decide this for ourselves. Did Zuckerberg steal the idea, or did he just lose interest in the pretty lame and unoriginal Harvardconnection.com idea, and invent something better on his own? Did he screw Saverin, or did he just contrive to get rid of a guy whose contribution to Facebook had basically been to fund it in the early stages?
The film doesn't come down on either side, though it makes it clear that Zuckerberg has acted like a pretty shitty human being in his time. And as the lawsuits, in the real world, ultimately ended in negotiated settlements, none of this stuff was ever tested in court. But if you can take a film with an ambiguous ending, which doesn't offer any conclusions on the questions it asks, then you will very likely enjoy this film. I know that, for myself, I have pondered both of the cases, and want to read more about them before I would venture to have an opinion on either. And if a film is thought provoking, that's often far superior to presenting a concrete answer.
Tuesday 19 October 2010
A Town Called Panic
Perhaps you remember the Cravendale milk adverts in which a set of farmyard toys are amusingly animated to display their allegiance to a particular brand of milk. These were made by animators Vincent Patar and Stephane Aubier, based on a series of short animations called A Town Called Panic, which were similarly mental. This is a feature length version of those animations.
The basic idea here seems to be to create the kinds of surreal adventures that kids of about age six have their toys go through. A cowboy (called Cowboy), an indian (called Indian) and a Horse (called Horse) live together and have a series of misadventures, mostly caused Cowboy and Indian doing ill-advised things while Horse (the brains of the operation) is otherwise occupied. It all starts when Cowboy and Indian attempt to order 50 bricks online, to build Horse a barbeque for his birthday, only they accidentally order 50 million bricks. This leads to their house getting crushed by 50 million bricks. They attempt to rebuild, but every time they do, the house gets nicked overnight. Which leads them to track down the culprits, which leads them on a subterranean chase after a bunch of weird fish-men.
It goes on from there and gets odder. If you've ever tried to tell a story to a young child, and asked them to contribute weird ideas to incorporate into the story, you'll have come up with something similar yourself. It's very inventive, in the sense that it's continually inventive. I wouldn't have said that it's frequently laugh out loud funny, but rather there's a constant stream of odd ideas, and amusing twist. The animation style is deliberately crude, and often there are great little moments where that is highlighted in amusing ways. I wouldn't say that it's exactly genius, but it's certainly above and beyond the norm, and you kind of stagger out at the end, blinking, wondering what just happened.
If the thing has a real weakness, it's the voice talent. In that the main characters all seem to shout at each other all the time. I imagine in a five minute cartoon, that's all highly amusing. Over 75 minutes, it's kind of wearing.
Overall, though, it's very entertaining to have someone basically be insane at you for 75 minutes. It doesn't let up, and there's never a dull moment. It's not going to make you think very hard, or leave you with a deep emotional message. On the other hand, it does have a giant robot penguin operated by three mad scientists, and for no readily explained reason. And what's not to like about that?
The basic idea here seems to be to create the kinds of surreal adventures that kids of about age six have their toys go through. A cowboy (called Cowboy), an indian (called Indian) and a Horse (called Horse) live together and have a series of misadventures, mostly caused Cowboy and Indian doing ill-advised things while Horse (the brains of the operation) is otherwise occupied. It all starts when Cowboy and Indian attempt to order 50 bricks online, to build Horse a barbeque for his birthday, only they accidentally order 50 million bricks. This leads to their house getting crushed by 50 million bricks. They attempt to rebuild, but every time they do, the house gets nicked overnight. Which leads them to track down the culprits, which leads them on a subterranean chase after a bunch of weird fish-men.
It goes on from there and gets odder. If you've ever tried to tell a story to a young child, and asked them to contribute weird ideas to incorporate into the story, you'll have come up with something similar yourself. It's very inventive, in the sense that it's continually inventive. I wouldn't have said that it's frequently laugh out loud funny, but rather there's a constant stream of odd ideas, and amusing twist. The animation style is deliberately crude, and often there are great little moments where that is highlighted in amusing ways. I wouldn't say that it's exactly genius, but it's certainly above and beyond the norm, and you kind of stagger out at the end, blinking, wondering what just happened.
If the thing has a real weakness, it's the voice talent. In that the main characters all seem to shout at each other all the time. I imagine in a five minute cartoon, that's all highly amusing. Over 75 minutes, it's kind of wearing.
Overall, though, it's very entertaining to have someone basically be insane at you for 75 minutes. It doesn't let up, and there's never a dull moment. It's not going to make you think very hard, or leave you with a deep emotional message. On the other hand, it does have a giant robot penguin operated by three mad scientists, and for no readily explained reason. And what's not to like about that?
Saturday 16 October 2010
Made In Dagenham
I feel a short but positive review coming on. Because really, this film can be summed up via this equation:
( Brassed Off + Calendar Girls)/2 = Made In Dagenham.
On the face of it then, I could give you an average score of those two movies, and knock off early.
Like Calendar Girls, we have a group of women who attempt to do something small, and in fighting the opposition they face, the small thing grows to be a much larger and important thing. In this case, the 187 sewing machine operators who assemble the seat covers and trims at Ford's Dagenham plant stage a 24 hour walkout because they're classed (and paid) as unskilled workers, whereas they feel they should be classed semi-skilled. Ford's management attempt to fob them off with a "well, you've brought this to our attention, we'll look at it in a few months, now off you go back to work." This leads them to widen the issue to equal pay for women, and widen the scope of the strike nationally.
This is the bit where it all goes a bit Brassed Off, as the strike soon brings Ford to a standstill in the UK, as without seat covers, they can't make cars. This forces the men working at Ford into a potential redundancy situation, and tensions begin to flare, as we see both the camaraderie and misery of those forced out of work. The mores of the time come to the fore, as it becomes clear that Ford as a company see no reason why they should offer equal pay, and the male dominated unions don't see it as an issue worth fighting, seeing women's wages as "a bit extra" and the main male breadwinners being the ones worth fighting for.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from being structured like an identikit "cause" movie. One character, for instance, bows out of the fight midway through the movie because the personal cost is too high. Will they be back for the final battle? I won't tell you, but only because I don't have to. Will the stuffy establishment be stirred by an impassioned speech by a neophyte to the world of labour relations, who reminds them what they've been fighting for all along? The battle causes stresses in the lead character's relationship. Will there be a reconciliation after the partner realises what a fool they've been, and makes a heroic journey to turn up and declare their support at the all-important speech? We've seen these scenes before, and we know how they all play out. And unfortunately, Made In Dagenham doesn't defy convention at all.
I understand the filmmakers intend this film to be something every young girl should see, and I agree with that. If only because there's an outside chance that they won't be achingly familiar with the film's well worn twists and turns that feel so familiar to cinematic old lags like myself. Because there's a great film here, that's really well done and really well performed by the main cast. Sally Hawkins is great as the plucky young protagonist, and she's ably supported by the likes of Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James, and a whole host of other faces from the British acting and comedy community. In isolation, this is a really good film, but when you place it within its genre, it doesn't really manage to distinguish itself, the genre being full of really very good films.
( Brassed Off + Calendar Girls)/2 = Made In Dagenham.
On the face of it then, I could give you an average score of those two movies, and knock off early.
Like Calendar Girls, we have a group of women who attempt to do something small, and in fighting the opposition they face, the small thing grows to be a much larger and important thing. In this case, the 187 sewing machine operators who assemble the seat covers and trims at Ford's Dagenham plant stage a 24 hour walkout because they're classed (and paid) as unskilled workers, whereas they feel they should be classed semi-skilled. Ford's management attempt to fob them off with a "well, you've brought this to our attention, we'll look at it in a few months, now off you go back to work." This leads them to widen the issue to equal pay for women, and widen the scope of the strike nationally.
This is the bit where it all goes a bit Brassed Off, as the strike soon brings Ford to a standstill in the UK, as without seat covers, they can't make cars. This forces the men working at Ford into a potential redundancy situation, and tensions begin to flare, as we see both the camaraderie and misery of those forced out of work. The mores of the time come to the fore, as it becomes clear that Ford as a company see no reason why they should offer equal pay, and the male dominated unions don't see it as an issue worth fighting, seeing women's wages as "a bit extra" and the main male breadwinners being the ones worth fighting for.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from being structured like an identikit "cause" movie. One character, for instance, bows out of the fight midway through the movie because the personal cost is too high. Will they be back for the final battle? I won't tell you, but only because I don't have to. Will the stuffy establishment be stirred by an impassioned speech by a neophyte to the world of labour relations, who reminds them what they've been fighting for all along? The battle causes stresses in the lead character's relationship. Will there be a reconciliation after the partner realises what a fool they've been, and makes a heroic journey to turn up and declare their support at the all-important speech? We've seen these scenes before, and we know how they all play out. And unfortunately, Made In Dagenham doesn't defy convention at all.
I understand the filmmakers intend this film to be something every young girl should see, and I agree with that. If only because there's an outside chance that they won't be achingly familiar with the film's well worn twists and turns that feel so familiar to cinematic old lags like myself. Because there's a great film here, that's really well done and really well performed by the main cast. Sally Hawkins is great as the plucky young protagonist, and she's ably supported by the likes of Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James, and a whole host of other faces from the British acting and comedy community. In isolation, this is a really good film, but when you place it within its genre, it doesn't really manage to distinguish itself, the genre being full of really very good films.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
Mr Nice
Howard Marks. Celebrity dope smuggler. Moved an awful lot of hashish from Afghanistan in his time, and eventually served a bit of time for doing so. Apparently went straight-ish after that, and instead made a bit of money writing a bestselling book about his exploits, and then, presumably, even more money by selling the film rights. Hence this.
Rhys Ifans plays Marks throughout his life, which is the first amusingly odd bit, since it starts with him aged about 15, getting bullied at school, and there's no sense in which he looks anything other than 6'2, and 42 years old. He's a clever lad, gets into Oxford, and ends up falling in with some guys who smoke a lot of pot, a pastime which he clearly finds quite diverting. There's a brief dalliance with a normal life after university, until he gets persuaded to move a large quantity of hashish resin which a mate of his has stashed in a car's innards in Germany, and which needs to get to London. The fact that his mate can't do it himself because he's in prison doesn't seem to daunt him any. One successful smuggling operation, and he's hooked, setting up front businesses, making contacts in the IRA to use their gun smuggling channels to move drugs, and so forth, until the inevitable point where the authorities catch up with him, and the multi-million selling book and screenplay tell us that crime doesn't pay.
It's a little bit of a flawed film, because it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a comedy or not. There's the odd bout of larks and hijinks, and some comedy turns from the likes of David Thewlis, as a pretty hapless IRA contact, but in the end, we're kind of being sold a bill of goods which says that Marks got himself into some unbelievable scrapes, but in the end, what Marks did was find a contact to supply him the stuff, and then arranged for it to be brought in through an Irish airport, and cunningly avoiding police attention by just not really touching the stuff himself. Hardly swaggering swashbuckling smuggler stuff. I think the meaning of the title pretty much sums up the general anticlimax of the plot. "Mr Nice", you think. "I wonder how an underworld figure gets the nickname 'Mr Nice.' I bet there's all kinds of stories of his benevolent robinhoodery behind that!" What happened was - he was on the run from the police, needed a new identity, so stole the identity of a bloke who happened to be called "Donald Nice". Oh. Is that it then? And there's an overall sense of "Is that it then?" that permeates the whole film.
Performance wise, Rhys Ifans is the only one really asked to put in a performance, with everyone else just being walk on extras in Marks' life. And he does a pretty sterling job. It hardly seems a stretch from his usual screen Welshman persona to what he presents as Marks, but it's when the wheels start coming off stuff, and he finally starts having to pay for his crimes, that there's a real pathos to him. The message of the film is that Marks really does feel that he didn't do anything wrong, even if it was illegal. To him, cannabis is a beneficial herb, and he's as much an enthusiastic consumer as anyone he ever sold it to. And we see him pay a hefty price for a crime that, in the estimation of the narrator and the film-makers, hurts no-one. I suspect your opinion on that will depend on your views on cannabis, and your views on obedience to laws you don't agree with.
The film looks pretty good; beyond the obvious problem that the film covers about 30 years of Marks' life, and Ifans pretty much looks as old as he does at the end of that time, throughout the whole movie. The timeline of the movie is shown through the film stock; we start off on old black and white film for his childhood, which bleeds into colour on his first experience with cannabis, and then stays in vintage grainy colour stock throughout the sixties and seventies, getting towards more modern film effects towards the end. It's a neat biographical trick.
Ultimately, though, by the end of the film, I felt that Marks' point had been put across, to which I sort of mentally nodded and thought "fair enough then" and went on with my day. I'd been mildly entertained, and slightly informed, but I didn't think that it had made any real connection.
Rhys Ifans plays Marks throughout his life, which is the first amusingly odd bit, since it starts with him aged about 15, getting bullied at school, and there's no sense in which he looks anything other than 6'2, and 42 years old. He's a clever lad, gets into Oxford, and ends up falling in with some guys who smoke a lot of pot, a pastime which he clearly finds quite diverting. There's a brief dalliance with a normal life after university, until he gets persuaded to move a large quantity of hashish resin which a mate of his has stashed in a car's innards in Germany, and which needs to get to London. The fact that his mate can't do it himself because he's in prison doesn't seem to daunt him any. One successful smuggling operation, and he's hooked, setting up front businesses, making contacts in the IRA to use their gun smuggling channels to move drugs, and so forth, until the inevitable point where the authorities catch up with him, and the multi-million selling book and screenplay tell us that crime doesn't pay.
It's a little bit of a flawed film, because it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a comedy or not. There's the odd bout of larks and hijinks, and some comedy turns from the likes of David Thewlis, as a pretty hapless IRA contact, but in the end, we're kind of being sold a bill of goods which says that Marks got himself into some unbelievable scrapes, but in the end, what Marks did was find a contact to supply him the stuff, and then arranged for it to be brought in through an Irish airport, and cunningly avoiding police attention by just not really touching the stuff himself. Hardly swaggering swashbuckling smuggler stuff. I think the meaning of the title pretty much sums up the general anticlimax of the plot. "Mr Nice", you think. "I wonder how an underworld figure gets the nickname 'Mr Nice.' I bet there's all kinds of stories of his benevolent robinhoodery behind that!" What happened was - he was on the run from the police, needed a new identity, so stole the identity of a bloke who happened to be called "Donald Nice". Oh. Is that it then? And there's an overall sense of "Is that it then?" that permeates the whole film.
Performance wise, Rhys Ifans is the only one really asked to put in a performance, with everyone else just being walk on extras in Marks' life. And he does a pretty sterling job. It hardly seems a stretch from his usual screen Welshman persona to what he presents as Marks, but it's when the wheels start coming off stuff, and he finally starts having to pay for his crimes, that there's a real pathos to him. The message of the film is that Marks really does feel that he didn't do anything wrong, even if it was illegal. To him, cannabis is a beneficial herb, and he's as much an enthusiastic consumer as anyone he ever sold it to. And we see him pay a hefty price for a crime that, in the estimation of the narrator and the film-makers, hurts no-one. I suspect your opinion on that will depend on your views on cannabis, and your views on obedience to laws you don't agree with.
The film looks pretty good; beyond the obvious problem that the film covers about 30 years of Marks' life, and Ifans pretty much looks as old as he does at the end of that time, throughout the whole movie. The timeline of the movie is shown through the film stock; we start off on old black and white film for his childhood, which bleeds into colour on his first experience with cannabis, and then stays in vintage grainy colour stock throughout the sixties and seventies, getting towards more modern film effects towards the end. It's a neat biographical trick.
Ultimately, though, by the end of the film, I felt that Marks' point had been put across, to which I sort of mentally nodded and thought "fair enough then" and went on with my day. I'd been mildly entertained, and slightly informed, but I didn't think that it had made any real connection.
Friday 8 October 2010
The Other Guys
The Other Guys is a comedy film based on the idea that in movies there's the big unstoppable action hero cops, and then there's "the other guys" - the average Joe workaday cops who don't do anything exciting. Two of these other guys are Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Ferrell is an unworldly forensic accountant, and Wahlberg is a would-be hero cop, demoted to being partnered with Ferrell due to a faux-pas accidental shooting of Derek Jeter.
The two of them get involved in a Lethal Weapon style investigation of Steve Coogan, a dodgy seeming investment banker, motivated by Wahlberg's desire to crack a big case to get his career out of the toilet, and Ferrell's conviction that Coogan's failed to get permits for scaffolding on some properties he's developing. Obviously, there's something much darker going on, but our heroes have no idea what it is.
Of course, this is by the by. The plot is an excuse to spoof the genre, but the whole film is more of a vehicle to showcase Ferrell's trademark surreal clowning. So this is really no more a cop buddy movie than Anchorman was about tv news journalism. And there's the rub. Because this film is far less funny, far less often than Anchorman. Which is not to say that it's never funny, but you can really only expect a good snort of laughter every fifteen minutes, and in-between, the plot's too weak to carry it through.
Overall, not a bad film, but on the other hand, you wouldn't be hard pressed finding a funnier two hours entertainment. Myself, I was listening to The Bugle podcast on my way over to the cinema, and on my way home, and was aware that I laughed more on the bus than I did in the cinema.
The two of them get involved in a Lethal Weapon style investigation of Steve Coogan, a dodgy seeming investment banker, motivated by Wahlberg's desire to crack a big case to get his career out of the toilet, and Ferrell's conviction that Coogan's failed to get permits for scaffolding on some properties he's developing. Obviously, there's something much darker going on, but our heroes have no idea what it is.
Of course, this is by the by. The plot is an excuse to spoof the genre, but the whole film is more of a vehicle to showcase Ferrell's trademark surreal clowning. So this is really no more a cop buddy movie than Anchorman was about tv news journalism. And there's the rub. Because this film is far less funny, far less often than Anchorman. Which is not to say that it's never funny, but you can really only expect a good snort of laughter every fifteen minutes, and in-between, the plot's too weak to carry it through.
Overall, not a bad film, but on the other hand, you wouldn't be hard pressed finding a funnier two hours entertainment. Myself, I was listening to The Bugle podcast on my way over to the cinema, and on my way home, and was aware that I laughed more on the bus than I did in the cinema.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Buried
A man wakes up, in pitch darkness. We hear him shuffle about, and we hear him banging against wood. He begins to panic and hyperventilate. Eventually, he finds he has a zippo lighter, which he lights. We see that the man, Ryan Reynolds, is in a rough wooden coffin sized crate, which, from the odd bit of sand falling through the cracks in the roof, has apparently been buried. At this point, he quite reasonably begins to totally freak out.
Once he regains some kind of composure, her begins to take stock, and eventually finds (after it begins ringing) that he's got a mobile in there with him. After a few panicky calls to people, and getting a lot of answering machines and unhelpful voice menus, he finally realises he should call back the person who called him; at which point he learns he's been buried buy Iraqi insurgents, and if he doesn't arrange for five million dollars to be paid by 9pm, he'd going to be left there to die. This is a problem, as he is but a simple truck driver, who nobody's ever going to break the "no negotiating with terrorists" thing over.
Eventually, he gets through to the authorities, who assure him they're doing everything they can to help, which he doubts. He also has to contend with such fun stuff as a snaked burrowing in there with him, the increasingly unreasonable demnads of his kidnappers, and of course his own dwindling ability to keep it together. It's frustrating, in that I'm sure you could think of a load of things that he could have done to maximise his chances, but realistically, it's quite reasonable that he'd be able to do very little of it, given his mental state, and the fact he's not that bright in the first place.
As a film, it's a very interesting experiment. It's in near real time, and is wholly set in the coffin. If you're worried that this might make it a bit samey and repetitious over two and a half hours, you wouldn't be far wrong. At 95 minutes, it's just too long for the content. But on the other hand, this is a film that's made the audacious move of setting an entire film in a 3ftx3ftx6ft box, and the fact that they did it at all is a technical marvel. It is, also, quite unbelievably tense by the end. If this were a 60 minute play, it would be pared down to its basics and better for it. But even without that, it's still one fo the most interesting and inventive films out this year. And as for Ryan Reynolds - this is a very different film to his usual sarky light comedy stuff, and he does well to hold our attention for an hour and a half. Very impressive dramatic turn for him, and I hope it goes on to net him more of this kind of role, and fewer weak romantic comedies.
Once he regains some kind of composure, her begins to take stock, and eventually finds (after it begins ringing) that he's got a mobile in there with him. After a few panicky calls to people, and getting a lot of answering machines and unhelpful voice menus, he finally realises he should call back the person who called him; at which point he learns he's been buried buy Iraqi insurgents, and if he doesn't arrange for five million dollars to be paid by 9pm, he'd going to be left there to die. This is a problem, as he is but a simple truck driver, who nobody's ever going to break the "no negotiating with terrorists" thing over.
Eventually, he gets through to the authorities, who assure him they're doing everything they can to help, which he doubts. He also has to contend with such fun stuff as a snaked burrowing in there with him, the increasingly unreasonable demnads of his kidnappers, and of course his own dwindling ability to keep it together. It's frustrating, in that I'm sure you could think of a load of things that he could have done to maximise his chances, but realistically, it's quite reasonable that he'd be able to do very little of it, given his mental state, and the fact he's not that bright in the first place.
As a film, it's a very interesting experiment. It's in near real time, and is wholly set in the coffin. If you're worried that this might make it a bit samey and repetitious over two and a half hours, you wouldn't be far wrong. At 95 minutes, it's just too long for the content. But on the other hand, this is a film that's made the audacious move of setting an entire film in a 3ftx3ftx6ft box, and the fact that they did it at all is a technical marvel. It is, also, quite unbelievably tense by the end. If this were a 60 minute play, it would be pared down to its basics and better for it. But even without that, it's still one fo the most interesting and inventive films out this year. And as for Ryan Reynolds - this is a very different film to his usual sarky light comedy stuff, and he does well to hold our attention for an hour and a half. Very impressive dramatic turn for him, and I hope it goes on to net him more of this kind of role, and fewer weak romantic comedies.
The Hole (In 3D)
It's Joe Dante! Hurrah! Back doing what Joe Dante does best, scaring little kids.
This particular bunch of kids that Joe Dante's scaring are a couple of brothers, Dane and Lucas, a teenager and a not-actually-that-irritating kid. They have moved to a new house in Smalltown USA, and find that in their basement, there's a big trap door, secured with a bundle of padlocks. Obviously, what happens next is that they open it up and take a look.
They are quickly joined by the girl next door, Julie, and together, they investigate it. They find that it apparently has no bottom, and if you lower stuff into it on a string, it gets pulled in and disappears, the string getting snapped off. This is bizarre and mysterious, but they can't immediately work out what to do about it. So they leave it, and get on with their daily business.
However, something lives in The Hole, and sends things out of the hole after the people who looked into it. The young lad is terrified of clowns (and hey, why wouldn't you be?) and so this weird clown doll starts stalking him. Meanwhile, the girl next door has something upsetting in her past, represented by a young girl, bleeding from her eyes, who stalks about the place in that weird jerky way the girl in The Ring did.
And so, the race is on to work out what the hell The Hole actually is, and how to defeat the apparitions it sends out before Very Bad Things happen.
The film, in general, follows the standard Joe Dante Horror Film For Kids format, in that it starts out really creepy and does a reasonable job of freaking adults out, before pulling a proper reveal in the third act - and as we know, once you get a good look at the monster in a horror film, it's nowhere near as scary. And this is a good thing; we're sent out of the film with a sense that the Bad Thing can be vanquished, and isn't so scary anymore, so hopefully the bedwetting and sleepless nights will be kept to a minimum. But I'll let you know how I go on that score.
So, really, it's a good little creepy, scary fantasy film for older kids, which pulls its punches just enough to not actually fuck kids up for life, but enough of a macabre edge to be enjoyable and memorable. I mean really, would you rather your kids grew up on a diet of Shrek sequels?
(I must just make mention of the 3D aspect. I don't like it. It's better than the appalling 3D of Clash of the Titans, which was basically just three flat planes in front of one another, and is shot in true 3D. However, it just looks wrong. There's a weird sparkly effect which is really distracting, and I worked out what it is. Let's say there's a shiny object in the room. Due to the lighting, the left camera picks it up as reflecting a lot of light. However, due to the different angle, the right camera picks it up as not reflecting much. So you get an argument between your eyes about whether the object is reflective or not, and that comes out as a distracting and unnatural seeming flickery sparkle. To be honest, if you can, you really should see this in 2D. I think it'd be a lot better.)
This particular bunch of kids that Joe Dante's scaring are a couple of brothers, Dane and Lucas, a teenager and a not-actually-that-irritating kid. They have moved to a new house in Smalltown USA, and find that in their basement, there's a big trap door, secured with a bundle of padlocks. Obviously, what happens next is that they open it up and take a look.
They are quickly joined by the girl next door, Julie, and together, they investigate it. They find that it apparently has no bottom, and if you lower stuff into it on a string, it gets pulled in and disappears, the string getting snapped off. This is bizarre and mysterious, but they can't immediately work out what to do about it. So they leave it, and get on with their daily business.
However, something lives in The Hole, and sends things out of the hole after the people who looked into it. The young lad is terrified of clowns (and hey, why wouldn't you be?) and so this weird clown doll starts stalking him. Meanwhile, the girl next door has something upsetting in her past, represented by a young girl, bleeding from her eyes, who stalks about the place in that weird jerky way the girl in The Ring did.
And so, the race is on to work out what the hell The Hole actually is, and how to defeat the apparitions it sends out before Very Bad Things happen.
The film, in general, follows the standard Joe Dante Horror Film For Kids format, in that it starts out really creepy and does a reasonable job of freaking adults out, before pulling a proper reveal in the third act - and as we know, once you get a good look at the monster in a horror film, it's nowhere near as scary. And this is a good thing; we're sent out of the film with a sense that the Bad Thing can be vanquished, and isn't so scary anymore, so hopefully the bedwetting and sleepless nights will be kept to a minimum. But I'll let you know how I go on that score.
So, really, it's a good little creepy, scary fantasy film for older kids, which pulls its punches just enough to not actually fuck kids up for life, but enough of a macabre edge to be enjoyable and memorable. I mean really, would you rather your kids grew up on a diet of Shrek sequels?
(I must just make mention of the 3D aspect. I don't like it. It's better than the appalling 3D of Clash of the Titans, which was basically just three flat planes in front of one another, and is shot in true 3D. However, it just looks wrong. There's a weird sparkly effect which is really distracting, and I worked out what it is. Let's say there's a shiny object in the room. Due to the lighting, the left camera picks it up as reflecting a lot of light. However, due to the different angle, the right camera picks it up as not reflecting much. So you get an argument between your eyes about whether the object is reflective or not, and that comes out as a distracting and unnatural seeming flickery sparkle. To be honest, if you can, you really should see this in 2D. I think it'd be a lot better.)
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Winter's Bone
As the film opens, up in the Ozarks, we have a family with a problem. Ree, a seventeen year old girl, has two younger siblings, a brother and a sister, a mentally ill mother, and a ne'er-do-well father who's currently missing. Worse, her father is out on bail and due to appear in court, and has put the house up as collateral to the bail bondsman. Hence, if her father doesn't turn up, and appear at his trial, the family is out on the street. And it doesn't look like he's turning up, so Ree has to go and find him.
And there her troubles increase, because there is a code up in the Ozarks, and that means you don't tell anybody anything; hence nobody's going to tell her anything about her daddy, and think that her proposing to turn her daddy into the cops is beyond the pale. But despite all the dire warnings, she hasn't got a choice, so she keeps digging, and eventually finds that there might be more to her dad's disappearance than the simple fact that he's a deadbeat.
It's interesting, I think, that your perspective on the clan of petty criminals she's investigating depends so much on the nature of the investigator. I couldn't help thinking that if this were a cop film, like (for instance), a Dirty Harry film, then these guys would be barely worth the toe of Clint Eastwood's boot. These are the kind of minor criminals your average movie detective kicks, beats and threatens on his way to more serious game. But we haven't got the services of Det. Harry Callaghan here, it's one young girl, on her own, which makes these guys a whole different kind of scary. Like almost Wes Craven Movie scary.
And that's what's so great about this film. Ree isn't tough, dangerous, well armed, has no back up, and that's what makes her so heroic. No-one would blame her for giving up, and running away; she's in serious danger, and a kind of danger she's not equipped to handle. And so we see a kind of bravery that's not generally seen in detective films.
Overall, it's a really great, great looking film that has the power to make you feel physically sick with worry for the protagonist at times.
And there her troubles increase, because there is a code up in the Ozarks, and that means you don't tell anybody anything; hence nobody's going to tell her anything about her daddy, and think that her proposing to turn her daddy into the cops is beyond the pale. But despite all the dire warnings, she hasn't got a choice, so she keeps digging, and eventually finds that there might be more to her dad's disappearance than the simple fact that he's a deadbeat.
It's interesting, I think, that your perspective on the clan of petty criminals she's investigating depends so much on the nature of the investigator. I couldn't help thinking that if this were a cop film, like (for instance), a Dirty Harry film, then these guys would be barely worth the toe of Clint Eastwood's boot. These are the kind of minor criminals your average movie detective kicks, beats and threatens on his way to more serious game. But we haven't got the services of Det. Harry Callaghan here, it's one young girl, on her own, which makes these guys a whole different kind of scary. Like almost Wes Craven Movie scary.
And that's what's so great about this film. Ree isn't tough, dangerous, well armed, has no back up, and that's what makes her so heroic. No-one would blame her for giving up, and running away; she's in serious danger, and a kind of danger she's not equipped to handle. And so we see a kind of bravery that's not generally seen in detective films.
Overall, it's a really great, great looking film that has the power to make you feel physically sick with worry for the protagonist at times.
Monday 27 September 2010
The Town
I'll tell you what I think happened. I think Ben Affleck watched 'Heat', and thought he'd have a crack at remaking it. In fact, I think he played that bit of Grand Theft Auto 4 that's a bit like Heat, and thought he'd remake that.
The 'Town' in question is Boston's Charlestown, which seems to be one of those places populated by Americans labouring under the misapprehension that they are Irish. It seems that until the 80s, it was dominated by the Irish Mobs, and there's still a hard core of "irish" crims and ne'er-do-wells living there. And it would seem that it's with this community that Ben Affleck's continuing the love-hate relationship he started with Good Will Hunting.
Ben Affleck's the leader of a gang of bank robbers. There's four of them, including Ben, the leader, and Jeremy Renner, the near-obligatory pillock who's apparently only in it for the thrills and violence. During one of their heists, things go a bit pear shaped, and they end up taking the assistant manager, Rebecca Hall, hostage, only to release her once they've made their getaway. They're not sure, however, whether she would be able to ID them, so Ben decides to stalk her a bit, get to know her, and find out what she knows. Jeremy's more into the whole 'kill her' idea. Ben, perhaps inevitably, however, begins to fall in love with her, as much for the better life she represents as anything else.
Meanwhile, John Hamm (Don Draper out of Mad Men, nice to see him in a film role) is an FBI agent trying to work out who Ben and his gang are, and starts leaning on Rebecca to see what she knows.
So, crims are continuing their criminal behaviour, the FBI are closing in on them, Ben's pursuing a relationship that's only going to expedite that, and so obviously, something's going to give sooner or later, and it's all going to come to a head during one last heist which goes a *lot* pear shaped.
In a lot of ways, this is a pretty familiar movie. It's a lot like Heat, and that was hardly original in its day either. So it's not a question of "is this new and original?" so much as "what's Ben Affleck's take on this like?" Well, it's not at all bad. If I have a problem with it, it's that I didn't really feel that Ben Affleck's character had enough good points to redeem his bad points; i.e. that he robs banks. We're meant to feel that he's laudable in some sense because a) he wants out of this life having been born into it, and b) he doesn't personally beat the shit out of anyone, he just brings his mate along who does it for him.
In that sense, he's quite ambiguous, and it's far from clear that he deserves anything other than to serve a lot of time in prison. And in a strange way, it's that ambiguity that elevates it, as you're allowed to go at least some way towards deciding for yourself how you feel about the whole situation. So, overall, I'd say it's a pretty good film, if you're in the mood for it.
The 'Town' in question is Boston's Charlestown, which seems to be one of those places populated by Americans labouring under the misapprehension that they are Irish. It seems that until the 80s, it was dominated by the Irish Mobs, and there's still a hard core of "irish" crims and ne'er-do-wells living there. And it would seem that it's with this community that Ben Affleck's continuing the love-hate relationship he started with Good Will Hunting.
Ben Affleck's the leader of a gang of bank robbers. There's four of them, including Ben, the leader, and Jeremy Renner, the near-obligatory pillock who's apparently only in it for the thrills and violence. During one of their heists, things go a bit pear shaped, and they end up taking the assistant manager, Rebecca Hall, hostage, only to release her once they've made their getaway. They're not sure, however, whether she would be able to ID them, so Ben decides to stalk her a bit, get to know her, and find out what she knows. Jeremy's more into the whole 'kill her' idea. Ben, perhaps inevitably, however, begins to fall in love with her, as much for the better life she represents as anything else.
Meanwhile, John Hamm (Don Draper out of Mad Men, nice to see him in a film role) is an FBI agent trying to work out who Ben and his gang are, and starts leaning on Rebecca to see what she knows.
So, crims are continuing their criminal behaviour, the FBI are closing in on them, Ben's pursuing a relationship that's only going to expedite that, and so obviously, something's going to give sooner or later, and it's all going to come to a head during one last heist which goes a *lot* pear shaped.
In a lot of ways, this is a pretty familiar movie. It's a lot like Heat, and that was hardly original in its day either. So it's not a question of "is this new and original?" so much as "what's Ben Affleck's take on this like?" Well, it's not at all bad. If I have a problem with it, it's that I didn't really feel that Ben Affleck's character had enough good points to redeem his bad points; i.e. that he robs banks. We're meant to feel that he's laudable in some sense because a) he wants out of this life having been born into it, and b) he doesn't personally beat the shit out of anyone, he just brings his mate along who does it for him.
In that sense, he's quite ambiguous, and it's far from clear that he deserves anything other than to serve a lot of time in prison. And in a strange way, it's that ambiguity that elevates it, as you're allowed to go at least some way towards deciding for yourself how you feel about the whole situation. So, overall, I'd say it's a pretty good film, if you're in the mood for it.
Monday 6 September 2010
Five Easy Pieces
A Jack Nicholson film from 1970, which is on re-release at the moment.
Jack Nicholson, aged 33, predicts his current film persona as a charismatic grumpy old bastard, playing a younger grumpy, frustrated bastard. As the film opens, he's working a blue collar job on the oil rigs in California. He's got a girlfriend, a best mate with whom he drinks and goes bowling, and from the very outset, it seems that something's not exactly right. He clearly thinks he's better than the life he's leading, looks down on his friends, and seems set on sabotaging his relationships.
He goes to visit his sister, who it appears is a session pianist in Los Angeles, from whom he learns that his father is seriously ill with a stroke. So, he goes to visit his family up in Washington, reluctantly. When we get there, we find that he too is a talented pianist from a wealthy family with a musical heritage. And he's not happy there either, finding his family as pretentious as he finds his peers down in California superficial. Pretty soon it becomes obvious that he doesn't feel he fits in anywhere.
Overall, it's a character study, and this is an exercise in watching Nicholson rage against the banality of existence. Oddly, I became aware of this clip the other day, which serves as a great trailer for the film, and which is what prompted me to go see it when I noticed that it was on the cinema: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8
It's a great film, if a bit unstructured. Doesn't really explain what's going on, which can be a problem if you're sitting in front of a pair of idiots in the cinema constantly asking each other what's going on. And rustling their bloody sweet wrappers. But really, it's all about Nicholson's performance, and he's got a real knack of keeping the audience on edge; there's a simmering rage and violence just under the surface, and the joy of this film is that you never know which way he's going to go next. Definitely worth checking if it's on near you. (http://www.parkcircus.com/now-showing/)
Jack Nicholson, aged 33, predicts his current film persona as a charismatic grumpy old bastard, playing a younger grumpy, frustrated bastard. As the film opens, he's working a blue collar job on the oil rigs in California. He's got a girlfriend, a best mate with whom he drinks and goes bowling, and from the very outset, it seems that something's not exactly right. He clearly thinks he's better than the life he's leading, looks down on his friends, and seems set on sabotaging his relationships.
He goes to visit his sister, who it appears is a session pianist in Los Angeles, from whom he learns that his father is seriously ill with a stroke. So, he goes to visit his family up in Washington, reluctantly. When we get there, we find that he too is a talented pianist from a wealthy family with a musical heritage. And he's not happy there either, finding his family as pretentious as he finds his peers down in California superficial. Pretty soon it becomes obvious that he doesn't feel he fits in anywhere.
Overall, it's a character study, and this is an exercise in watching Nicholson rage against the banality of existence. Oddly, I became aware of this clip the other day, which serves as a great trailer for the film, and which is what prompted me to go see it when I noticed that it was on the cinema: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wtfNE4z6a8
It's a great film, if a bit unstructured. Doesn't really explain what's going on, which can be a problem if you're sitting in front of a pair of idiots in the cinema constantly asking each other what's going on. And rustling their bloody sweet wrappers. But really, it's all about Nicholson's performance, and he's got a real knack of keeping the audience on edge; there's a simmering rage and violence just under the surface, and the joy of this film is that you never know which way he's going to go next. Definitely worth checking if it's on near you. (http://www.parkcircus.com/now-showing/)
Thursday 2 September 2010
Empire Top 100: #96 - American Beauty
This was a lot of fun :)
Echoes a lot of feelings I have about having a tedious, humdrum life, and how it can all fall apart if you poke at the status quo even a little. Definitely my kind of nihilistic movie.
Echoes a lot of feelings I have about having a tedious, humdrum life, and how it can all fall apart if you poke at the status quo even a little. Definitely my kind of nihilistic movie.
The Girl Who Played With Fire
This is the sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, of which I have spoken earlier. In many ways, it's the continuation of that film, rather than a sequel proper. In the previous film, we were introduced to Lisbeth Salander, a deeply troubled, highly intelligent and often ruthless computer geek. In this film, we get to learn a bit more about her, and what makes her the way she is.
At the end of the last film, she'd escaped from her evil guardian, a court appointed lawyer appointed to manage her affairs because she has been ruled, for some reason, incompetent. She had done this by embezzling a huge amount of money from a bad man, gone on the lam with it, and blackmailing her guardian to send in glowing reports about her, on pain of exposing him as the rapist he is.
As we start the film, this status quo is changing, with Lisbeth deciding to end her exile overseas, and with Persons Unknown conspiring with the Evil Guardian to deal with the Salander situation permanently.
Meanwhile, Mikael Blomkvist's magazine, Millenium, is working with a couple of young journalists, to publish a story exposing the depths to which a human trafficking operation has corrupted Swedish officialdom. Inevitably, this leads to some deaths, and Lisbeth ends up framed for them.
Thus, Lisbeth is on the run again, attempting to track down who framed her and why, and god help anyone who gets in her way. Meanwhile, Blomkvist is attempting to track down the real murderer, convinced that Lisbeth is innocent.
Dramatically, it's not as good as the first film; there's less of a plot, less of a mystery. The mystery that there is - Who is Lisbeth Salander, and why is she so important? - is obviously something we're very interested in, but the trail of skeletons in the closet is less intriguing than in the first film. I'm led to believe that the intrigue gets into full swing again in the third film, so in the second, what we're really doing is getting to know Lisbeth a bit better.
And of course, that's a really good thing, because Lisbeth is a very interesting character, and played pretty magnetically by Noomi Rapace. She's got a really interesting look about her, and conveys the contradiction in her between her being a small, damaged, vulnerable girl, and an iron-hard willed badass who's determined not to let anyone hurt her again. She's simultaneously surly, incommunicative and unlikeable, and somehow deeply charming because of it. So for all that there's little else but her performance in this episode, it easily carries a two-and-a-bit hour film.
Overall, I don't suppose you can be recommended to see this film; if you didn't see the first film, then this one won't make a lot of sense, and if you did, you'll already have marked in your diary when you're going to see this one. So what I will say is, see the first one, and that the second one won't disappoint.
At the end of the last film, she'd escaped from her evil guardian, a court appointed lawyer appointed to manage her affairs because she has been ruled, for some reason, incompetent. She had done this by embezzling a huge amount of money from a bad man, gone on the lam with it, and blackmailing her guardian to send in glowing reports about her, on pain of exposing him as the rapist he is.
As we start the film, this status quo is changing, with Lisbeth deciding to end her exile overseas, and with Persons Unknown conspiring with the Evil Guardian to deal with the Salander situation permanently.
Meanwhile, Mikael Blomkvist's magazine, Millenium, is working with a couple of young journalists, to publish a story exposing the depths to which a human trafficking operation has corrupted Swedish officialdom. Inevitably, this leads to some deaths, and Lisbeth ends up framed for them.
Thus, Lisbeth is on the run again, attempting to track down who framed her and why, and god help anyone who gets in her way. Meanwhile, Blomkvist is attempting to track down the real murderer, convinced that Lisbeth is innocent.
Dramatically, it's not as good as the first film; there's less of a plot, less of a mystery. The mystery that there is - Who is Lisbeth Salander, and why is she so important? - is obviously something we're very interested in, but the trail of skeletons in the closet is less intriguing than in the first film. I'm led to believe that the intrigue gets into full swing again in the third film, so in the second, what we're really doing is getting to know Lisbeth a bit better.
And of course, that's a really good thing, because Lisbeth is a very interesting character, and played pretty magnetically by Noomi Rapace. She's got a really interesting look about her, and conveys the contradiction in her between her being a small, damaged, vulnerable girl, and an iron-hard willed badass who's determined not to let anyone hurt her again. She's simultaneously surly, incommunicative and unlikeable, and somehow deeply charming because of it. So for all that there's little else but her performance in this episode, it easily carries a two-and-a-bit hour film.
Overall, I don't suppose you can be recommended to see this film; if you didn't see the first film, then this one won't make a lot of sense, and if you did, you'll already have marked in your diary when you're going to see this one. So what I will say is, see the first one, and that the second one won't disappoint.
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
I'm going to split this review into two parts. The first part will be for people who have not read the original graphic novels, and will be very positive. The second part will be an addendum for people who have read the graphic novels, and will begin with the word "but."
Ok, part the first. Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a comedy about teen comedies. Essentially, Scott Pilgrim is a charming geeky slacker who basically thinks the world is a movie starring himself. He dates, he slacks, he plays in a band. Soon enough he meets a girl who he really likes called Ramona Flowers, who's a new girl in town, and the two attempt to form a relationship despite the fact that she's got a lot of baggage from old relationships, and he really needs to grow up and stop being self-centred. And, if written and directed by John Hughes, it'd probably be a lot like Pretty In Pink.
However, this is that story told through the psychotically pop-culture obsessed allegorical lens of a cartoonist called Bryan Lee O'Malley, and this means that when Scott is measured up to one of her exes, that really means that he has to fight a video game style boss battle against them, her seven exes forming The League of Evil Exes. And hence, rather than a drippy film with Molly Ringwald in it, it's awesome knockabout fun. And of course, this already pretty bananas story is then passed through the psychotically pop-culture obsessed allegorical lens of the director, Edgar Wright, co-creator of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, and hence, that lunacy is pretty much magnified. Right from the start when the movie is about to start, the Universal logo comes up, and is presented in 16 bit graphics style with accompanying 16 bit console style music.
...but. (Here comes part 2!) It's the same kind of problem I had with Sin City. When you adapt something, you have two choices essentially; get as close as you can to the original, or go your own way. And if you try to get close, anything not quite right can stick out. And what's not particularly right is the casting. Specifically, I'm afraid, Michael Sera. Now, I am no enemy of Michael Sera. I liked him in Juno, I loved him in Youth In Revolt. But he has a certain persona. He is the likeable, well meaning, nerd, meek and mild. He is the good guy. And that's how he plays Scott Pilgrim. And that's not who Scott Pilgrim is. Scott's an asshole. A likeable asshole who has been coasting on charm for too long, and needs to realise he's not a teenager anymore. That's his story, and I don't think it fits Michael Sera. So there's not really a point where I accepted him in the role.
The other thing that makes me less than thrilled is that the insanity and pop culture references are dialled down, way down. There's a bit in one of the books, for instance, where they break fourth wall, and suddenly one of the characters is talking us, the readers, through the recipe for the dinner the characters are all eating. That's gone, and no attempt is made to similarly play with the format. The original novels are meta-textually thick with references to anime, video games, pop culture, and a lot of that is cut out, which I found odd, since that's something that Edgar Wright did pretty fearlessly in Spaced (i.e. 'here's an episode that's a parody of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest throughout. Didn't see it? Tough.') To see all the obscure stuff dropped for a popular movie was strangely disappointing.
Overall, though, it shouldn't matter. It's still clever, funny, insane, just how it should be.
Ok, part the first. Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a comedy about teen comedies. Essentially, Scott Pilgrim is a charming geeky slacker who basically thinks the world is a movie starring himself. He dates, he slacks, he plays in a band. Soon enough he meets a girl who he really likes called Ramona Flowers, who's a new girl in town, and the two attempt to form a relationship despite the fact that she's got a lot of baggage from old relationships, and he really needs to grow up and stop being self-centred. And, if written and directed by John Hughes, it'd probably be a lot like Pretty In Pink.
However, this is that story told through the psychotically pop-culture obsessed allegorical lens of a cartoonist called Bryan Lee O'Malley, and this means that when Scott is measured up to one of her exes, that really means that he has to fight a video game style boss battle against them, her seven exes forming The League of Evil Exes. And hence, rather than a drippy film with Molly Ringwald in it, it's awesome knockabout fun. And of course, this already pretty bananas story is then passed through the psychotically pop-culture obsessed allegorical lens of the director, Edgar Wright, co-creator of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, and hence, that lunacy is pretty much magnified. Right from the start when the movie is about to start, the Universal logo comes up, and is presented in 16 bit graphics style with accompanying 16 bit console style music.
...but. (Here comes part 2!) It's the same kind of problem I had with Sin City. When you adapt something, you have two choices essentially; get as close as you can to the original, or go your own way. And if you try to get close, anything not quite right can stick out. And what's not particularly right is the casting. Specifically, I'm afraid, Michael Sera. Now, I am no enemy of Michael Sera. I liked him in Juno, I loved him in Youth In Revolt. But he has a certain persona. He is the likeable, well meaning, nerd, meek and mild. He is the good guy. And that's how he plays Scott Pilgrim. And that's not who Scott Pilgrim is. Scott's an asshole. A likeable asshole who has been coasting on charm for too long, and needs to realise he's not a teenager anymore. That's his story, and I don't think it fits Michael Sera. So there's not really a point where I accepted him in the role.
The other thing that makes me less than thrilled is that the insanity and pop culture references are dialled down, way down. There's a bit in one of the books, for instance, where they break fourth wall, and suddenly one of the characters is talking us, the readers, through the recipe for the dinner the characters are all eating. That's gone, and no attempt is made to similarly play with the format. The original novels are meta-textually thick with references to anime, video games, pop culture, and a lot of that is cut out, which I found odd, since that's something that Edgar Wright did pretty fearlessly in Spaced (i.e. 'here's an episode that's a parody of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest throughout. Didn't see it? Tough.') To see all the obscure stuff dropped for a popular movie was strangely disappointing.
Overall, though, it shouldn't matter. It's still clever, funny, insane, just how it should be.
Monday 30 August 2010
Empire Top 100: #100 - Network
Empire Magazine has a top 500 movies of all time list. Looking at this list, I find that I've not seen a majority of the top 50. This seems a bit wrong to me. I watched The Expendables the other week, and yet I've never got round to watching Raging Bull. Is that a sane situation? No.
So, I'm going to watch the ones I've not seen from the top 100, starting conveniently with the #100 film, Sidney Lumet's Network. Hold on a minute, I'll just go and do that.
...
Back! Well, I'm not going to do a full review on that. The very fact it's in the Top 100 movies means that it's stood the test of time, and my 2p isn't going to tip the scales either way. But I will say I greatly enjoyed it. It was quite uncinematic, compared to a similar modern film, and the passage of time has made the whole thing seem far less outrageous. Surely Glenn Beck is only weeks away from actually declaring to the world that he's mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore. Most enjoyable though, all the same, with an ending that's still a bit outrageous, while seeming all too prophetic.
I will be claiming Empire 100 films on my annual tally, even though I'm not technically seeing them in the cinema. I have a pretty big telly.
So, I'm going to watch the ones I've not seen from the top 100, starting conveniently with the #100 film, Sidney Lumet's Network. Hold on a minute, I'll just go and do that.
...
Back! Well, I'm not going to do a full review on that. The very fact it's in the Top 100 movies means that it's stood the test of time, and my 2p isn't going to tip the scales either way. But I will say I greatly enjoyed it. It was quite uncinematic, compared to a similar modern film, and the passage of time has made the whole thing seem far less outrageous. Surely Glenn Beck is only weeks away from actually declaring to the world that he's mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore. Most enjoyable though, all the same, with an ending that's still a bit outrageous, while seeming all too prophetic.
I will be claiming Empire 100 films on my annual tally, even though I'm not technically seeing them in the cinema. I have a pretty big telly.
Thursday 19 August 2010
Salt*
There's some oddly similar films out at the moment. The A Team and The Expendables are military team movies. Knight and Day and Salt are spy movies. In The A Team, Knight and Day and Salt, the protagonists are on the run for a crime they didn't commit. The A Team and Knight and Day are played for laughs. The only thing you can't see at the moment is a Team Military movie in which the protagonists aren't on the run for a crime they didn't commit, but which is played for laughs.
Anyhoo, Salt is Spy, Serius, Running Away. Evelyn Salt is a CIA officer who is outed as a Soviet Mole, by a defecting Soviet spymaster who claims that there was a programme of training kids from childhood to be moles in the US, which was so extensive that it's not so much a espionage plot as an immigration policy. I mean, sod activating them and having them kill important figures, it sounds like these moles practically run the US. In fact, it looks very much like they could get a Russian picked President into the White House just by voting him in, there's that many of them.
Anyway, Salt protests her innocence, insists that she's off to protect her husband, then essentially goes radio silent. From that point on in the film, she barely speaks at all, and all we, the viewer have got to go on is her actions, which from the outset don't entirely seem to be those of an innocent woman. This leads up to a point about halfway through the movie which is a genuine "Wha...? Bu...? Huh?" moment. From that point on things get a little bit chaotic, as Salt's actions don't entirely seem to satisfy any explanation, until you work out what's really going on. This leads us nicely to the finale, which you should see coming if you're awake, but if you're either not too bright or suffering from a cold (like I am), it might catch you unawares. Cut to the post-finale wrap-up, we set ourselves up for a sequel, job done.
It's a workmanlike bit of plotting, an ambitious storyline, couched in fairly pedestrian dialogue. In terms of how it looks and moves, it's like a Jason Bourne sequel (i.e. not as good as The Bourne Identity, but the same idea). The ethos is "this is the real world, but the fighting and stunts are bordering on superhuman." Salt is very competent, quite ruthless, and her motives aren't entirely easy to guess. As such, it's a clever enough "Hollywood Blockbuster", but it's a four piece jigsaw compared the the Rubik's Cube that is Inception.
* - sadly, not a revisionist Veruca Salt biopic.
Anyhoo, Salt is Spy, Serius, Running Away. Evelyn Salt is a CIA officer who is outed as a Soviet Mole, by a defecting Soviet spymaster who claims that there was a programme of training kids from childhood to be moles in the US, which was so extensive that it's not so much a espionage plot as an immigration policy. I mean, sod activating them and having them kill important figures, it sounds like these moles practically run the US. In fact, it looks very much like they could get a Russian picked President into the White House just by voting him in, there's that many of them.
Anyway, Salt protests her innocence, insists that she's off to protect her husband, then essentially goes radio silent. From that point on in the film, she barely speaks at all, and all we, the viewer have got to go on is her actions, which from the outset don't entirely seem to be those of an innocent woman. This leads up to a point about halfway through the movie which is a genuine "Wha...? Bu...? Huh?" moment. From that point on things get a little bit chaotic, as Salt's actions don't entirely seem to satisfy any explanation, until you work out what's really going on. This leads us nicely to the finale, which you should see coming if you're awake, but if you're either not too bright or suffering from a cold (like I am), it might catch you unawares. Cut to the post-finale wrap-up, we set ourselves up for a sequel, job done.
It's a workmanlike bit of plotting, an ambitious storyline, couched in fairly pedestrian dialogue. In terms of how it looks and moves, it's like a Jason Bourne sequel (i.e. not as good as The Bourne Identity, but the same idea). The ethos is "this is the real world, but the fighting and stunts are bordering on superhuman." Salt is very competent, quite ruthless, and her motives aren't entirely easy to guess. As such, it's a clever enough "Hollywood Blockbuster", but it's a four piece jigsaw compared the the Rubik's Cube that is Inception.
* - sadly, not a revisionist Veruca Salt biopic.
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Knight and Day
This film serves as an interesting contrast to The Expendables. Neither film, really, was conceived with much (if any) artistic integrity. Both of these films were written and shot as a job of work. But while neither has much art, what Knight and Day has, and The Expendables lacks, is craft.
The basis of this film is pretty standard; Hero has the Plot Device, Bad Guys want the Plot Device, Girl gets caught up in it all, chasing ensues until Bad Guy is defeated and Plot Device is resolved in some way. It's North By Northwest, and probably a hundred other films. Now, this film is no North By Northwest by any means, but it is a reasonably slick romantic comedy thriller, which makes some pretty modest promises, and delivers on them. Tom Cruise is very amusing as an ultra-competent spy, so unflappable that he's able to be polite and reassuring at all times to his hapless charge, which plays out as a pretty understated running joke that keeps the film spinning along nicely. Cameron Diaz does her textbook ditzy girl thing, panicking and freaking out, but slowly getting the hang of it at a pretty reasonable pace. There's a great sequence where they're apparently on the run, but he keeps slipping her knockout drops because it's easier to carry her unconscious. Hence, she keeps briefly waking up in increasingly ludicrous and dangerous situations, like being in a dank prison cell with him suspended from the ceiling by his ankles, having to bail out of a crashing plane, etc, each time with him being all "don't worry, I know this looks bad, but it's all under control..." They've basically taken the standard spy plot, but highlighted how silly it all is, and it works.
I'd like to say that it keeps the momentum up throughout the film, but alas, that's not the case. About half an hour from the end, there's a bit of a lull, where they've lost their way and don't really know what to do, and it doesn't really get back on track before the last ten minutes.
Action and stunts wise, there's some imaginative setpiece work. None of the stunts really seem to have any purpose other than to say "wouldn't it be cool to see Tom Cruise do this", but, in fairness, they are pretty cool stunts.
Overall, though, this is a quite enjoyable summer blockbuster. A light frothy milkshake of a movie. It's more a framework to justify some fun scenes than a coherent narrative, but on the other hand, never forgets that this sort of film is supposed to be fun.
The basis of this film is pretty standard; Hero has the Plot Device, Bad Guys want the Plot Device, Girl gets caught up in it all, chasing ensues until Bad Guy is defeated and Plot Device is resolved in some way. It's North By Northwest, and probably a hundred other films. Now, this film is no North By Northwest by any means, but it is a reasonably slick romantic comedy thriller, which makes some pretty modest promises, and delivers on them. Tom Cruise is very amusing as an ultra-competent spy, so unflappable that he's able to be polite and reassuring at all times to his hapless charge, which plays out as a pretty understated running joke that keeps the film spinning along nicely. Cameron Diaz does her textbook ditzy girl thing, panicking and freaking out, but slowly getting the hang of it at a pretty reasonable pace. There's a great sequence where they're apparently on the run, but he keeps slipping her knockout drops because it's easier to carry her unconscious. Hence, she keeps briefly waking up in increasingly ludicrous and dangerous situations, like being in a dank prison cell with him suspended from the ceiling by his ankles, having to bail out of a crashing plane, etc, each time with him being all "don't worry, I know this looks bad, but it's all under control..." They've basically taken the standard spy plot, but highlighted how silly it all is, and it works.
I'd like to say that it keeps the momentum up throughout the film, but alas, that's not the case. About half an hour from the end, there's a bit of a lull, where they've lost their way and don't really know what to do, and it doesn't really get back on track before the last ten minutes.
Action and stunts wise, there's some imaginative setpiece work. None of the stunts really seem to have any purpose other than to say "wouldn't it be cool to see Tom Cruise do this", but, in fairness, they are pretty cool stunts.
Overall, though, this is a quite enjoyable summer blockbuster. A light frothy milkshake of a movie. It's more a framework to justify some fun scenes than a coherent narrative, but on the other hand, never forgets that this sort of film is supposed to be fun.
The Expendables
I have this idea that at some point, the following meeting took place between Stallone and a studio exec somewhere. "It'll be great," says Stallone."I'm in it, I've got Jason Statham, I've got Jet Li. Bruce Willis has agreed to appear, so's Arnold, so's Dolph, I've got people like Stone Cold Steve Austin, all kinds of people. It'll be epic. The greatest action movie cast ever assembled." "Great!" says the exec. "What's it about?"
Stallone stops, and a looks as if he hasn't understood the question. He pauses, and thinks about it for a long time, and finally says "Does it matter?"
Basically, it's the most generic action movie possible. A group of tough guys are hired to go kill the leader of a fictional South American banana republic, which is under the control of a military dictator and a shadowy ex-CIA spook. They initially botch the job, but go back in to finish the job and rescue the Generalissimo's daughter who was helping them, and left in harm's way. This is all by the by, though. The whole thing is just an excuse for the various tough guys involved to punch, stab, shoot, strangle and blow each other up. I'm somehow put in mind of a sandbox video game like Grand Theft Auto, where there's a mission, and a storyline, but the guy who's currently playing it is more interested in dicking around with guns and explosives.
Ultimately, the plot's paper thin, there's no performances worthy of the word, no dialogue to speak of, and pyrotechnic special effects which are more interested in quantity than quality. There were a couple of very big explosions in there somewhere, but for all the noise and attention seeking, you'll often find yourself having missed ten minutes of it or so, because your attention was elsewhere, considering whether there really were more toffees in your bag of Revels, or whether it just seems that way because you don't like them as much, and they're more of a chore to deal with. Your attention might be brought back by the occasional sudden stabbing or kneecapping, but you'll just think "ugh, that was unpleasant", before going back to wondering why your seat is so uncomfortable, and whether the position of the drink holder at the end of the arm is particularly ideal.
Nobody is a bigger fan of the mindless action film than me. I look forward to Vin Diesel movies. But this, it's got no flair, no elan, no audacity, no sense of theatre. Statham looks bored. Jet Li looks embarassed. Stallone looks like he's got Alzheimers, and everyone else is humouring him. Dolph just looks happy to be working again. You can occasionally see him grifting the extras for spare change in the long shots.
This thing is tragic. Because everyone on the big list of stars that they're so proud of having assembled can be confident that this is the worst film they ever made. And I'm including Stone Cold Steve Austin in that.
Stallone stops, and a looks as if he hasn't understood the question. He pauses, and thinks about it for a long time, and finally says "Does it matter?"
Basically, it's the most generic action movie possible. A group of tough guys are hired to go kill the leader of a fictional South American banana republic, which is under the control of a military dictator and a shadowy ex-CIA spook. They initially botch the job, but go back in to finish the job and rescue the Generalissimo's daughter who was helping them, and left in harm's way. This is all by the by, though. The whole thing is just an excuse for the various tough guys involved to punch, stab, shoot, strangle and blow each other up. I'm somehow put in mind of a sandbox video game like Grand Theft Auto, where there's a mission, and a storyline, but the guy who's currently playing it is more interested in dicking around with guns and explosives.
Ultimately, the plot's paper thin, there's no performances worthy of the word, no dialogue to speak of, and pyrotechnic special effects which are more interested in quantity than quality. There were a couple of very big explosions in there somewhere, but for all the noise and attention seeking, you'll often find yourself having missed ten minutes of it or so, because your attention was elsewhere, considering whether there really were more toffees in your bag of Revels, or whether it just seems that way because you don't like them as much, and they're more of a chore to deal with. Your attention might be brought back by the occasional sudden stabbing or kneecapping, but you'll just think "ugh, that was unpleasant", before going back to wondering why your seat is so uncomfortable, and whether the position of the drink holder at the end of the arm is particularly ideal.
Nobody is a bigger fan of the mindless action film than me. I look forward to Vin Diesel movies. But this, it's got no flair, no elan, no audacity, no sense of theatre. Statham looks bored. Jet Li looks embarassed. Stallone looks like he's got Alzheimers, and everyone else is humouring him. Dolph just looks happy to be working again. You can occasionally see him grifting the extras for spare change in the long shots.
This thing is tragic. Because everyone on the big list of stars that they're so proud of having assembled can be confident that this is the worst film they ever made. And I'm including Stone Cold Steve Austin in that.
Skeletons
Ooh, look at me. I went to see an independent film that won the best film at the Edinburgh Film Festival. See my black polo neck.
Only, no, because this is a great, surreal comedy that deserves a much wider audience than its arthouse distribution will get it. (It played one showing in Liverpool, to a half empty cinema. Whereas you can probably still go and see Sex in the City 2, if some fever takes you.)
Davis and Bennett are a couple of blokes who work for a firm who provide an unusual service. They go into houses, and perform a sort of psychometry, using a range of odd looking detectors and meters, which allows them to discover where all the secrets in the house are, and then go in and find them, then report back to the customer. These secrets seem to reside in cupboards, hence Skeletons.
After a couple of little jobs revealing minor indiscretions to couples, their sinister boss, The Colonel (hello Jason Isaacs!) assigns them something more meaty, helping a woman work out why her husband disappeared eight years ago. There are complications, however, and things swiftly go awry.
The whole thing is surreal and hilarious. Davis and Bennett are an odd pair; one short, pencil moustache, jobsworth, the other huge, ginger and emotionally uncomfortable with just delivering the emotional bombshells and leaving. They bicker and fight like a pair of work colleagues who've been forced together by circumstance, and argue about trivia as they travel from job to job (there's an extended argument about who's better, Gandhi or Rasputin, which is worth the price of admission in and of itself.) The film pulls of the very difficult and impressive feat of having not a minute of it that's not in some way amusing, and yet also being a very poignant tale of loss, guilt, loneliness, isolation, all those marvellous emotions that make us British.
I can't recommend this film highly enough, I suggest you do your best to track it down. You can find a list of the screenings that are yet to come here: http://www.skeletonsthemovie.com/screenings/. That you have to go to so much trouble to track down a film this good is a sad indictment of the state of cinema today.
Tuesday 17 August 2010
Le Concert
Having had a bit of blockbuster overload of late, time to cleanse the palate with a whimsical little piece, half in French, half in Russian.
The story revolves around a man called Andrei Filipov, who was once an eminent conductor of the Russian Bolshoi orchestra, but who was branded an enemy of the people and sacked in disgrace for refusing Breshnev's instructions to remove all the Jewish members of his orchestra. Thirty years later sees he and his orchestra working menial jobs in Moscow, with him working as a cleaner. While there he intercepts a fax from a Parisian concert hall inviting the Bolshoi to perform. A scheme is hatched to supplant the official orchestra with one of his own, composed of the disavowed musicians of his old orchestra, a bunch of eccentrics if ever there was one.
What follows is a lunatic scramble to put the orchestra together, get them to Paris, and keep them together for their date with destiny.
The film scores highly on a number of levels. As a comedy, it's very amusing. As a drama, it reflects on such themes as redemption, second chances, and music as a means for oppressed people to free themselves. And as a piece of musical theatre, it's shot through with classical performances, with the final act played out over Tchaikovsky's concerto for violin and strings.
Ultimately, it's a charming film which is implausible and silly at times because it refuses to take itself too seriously, and which at other times skirts the border between emotion and sentimentality. Had it not been a) in French and Russian throughout and b) been about classical music, which will put some audiences off, it'd have "feelgood film of the summer" written all over it. My advice is, don't let either of those facts put you off.
The story revolves around a man called Andrei Filipov, who was once an eminent conductor of the Russian Bolshoi orchestra, but who was branded an enemy of the people and sacked in disgrace for refusing Breshnev's instructions to remove all the Jewish members of his orchestra. Thirty years later sees he and his orchestra working menial jobs in Moscow, with him working as a cleaner. While there he intercepts a fax from a Parisian concert hall inviting the Bolshoi to perform. A scheme is hatched to supplant the official orchestra with one of his own, composed of the disavowed musicians of his old orchestra, a bunch of eccentrics if ever there was one.
What follows is a lunatic scramble to put the orchestra together, get them to Paris, and keep them together for their date with destiny.
The film scores highly on a number of levels. As a comedy, it's very amusing. As a drama, it reflects on such themes as redemption, second chances, and music as a means for oppressed people to free themselves. And as a piece of musical theatre, it's shot through with classical performances, with the final act played out over Tchaikovsky's concerto for violin and strings.
Ultimately, it's a charming film which is implausible and silly at times because it refuses to take itself too seriously, and which at other times skirts the border between emotion and sentimentality. Had it not been a) in French and Russian throughout and b) been about classical music, which will put some audiences off, it'd have "feelgood film of the summer" written all over it. My advice is, don't let either of those facts put you off.
Friday 13 August 2010
The A Team
"...a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime
they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground..."
Aaaand cut. Because that's all you get. This is an origin movie, soldier, and that means we need to spend nearly two hours explaining and showing something that the original series explained perfectly adequately in a 23 second voiceover. I swear, they're going to make a Magnum PI movie next, and he'll grow a moustache in the last ten minutes, and get given a Ferrari during the closing credits. Fucking origin movies.
Still, this isn't as bad as the likes of Spider-Man where he don't even get bit by a radioactive spider until we're half an hour in, and doesn't put his costume on until well after the halfway mark. We have to sit through what The A Team used to do before they became the A Team, but since that appears to have been Pull Outrageous Shit With A Range Of Improvised Equipment And Even More Improvised Plans, that's kind of ok.
So, anyway, this is a series of crazy sequences, each of which advances the A Team agenda somewhat, each of which is basically more explosilicious than the last. The sequences are quite fun, and give the distinct impression that the team survive as much on dumb luck as good planning. This worried me initially, until I remembered that was pretty much how the series went.
The talent's a mixed bag. I liked Liam Neeson, but didn't feel that he was baiting sleazeballs anywhere near as gleefully as George Peppard used to. Bradley Cooper's pretty good as Face, though he's more Hannibal's reckless protege than the team's conman. Quinton Jackson's quite likable, but I don't really feel that I pity the fool* who messes with him. Sharlto Copley - well, he's ok, but he's not Dwight Schultz. The bad guys are quite fun; it'd be easy to give the heroes all the good lines and make the bad guys straight faced boobs who are only there to have custard pies thrown in their faces, but these guys bicker, banter and wisecrack their way through it, so in that way, the film's nicely balanced. Oh, and Jessica Biel's in it, but she's too pretty to have a sense of humour.
Overall... Well, I guess it feels like a classic car from the 80s, rebuilt, with almost every important part replaced with Unipart spares. Looks right, doesn't really sound or feel right. You can claim you're driving an '82 Pontiac Firebird, but in your heart, you know you're not. So, having said that they failed to recapture the magic - and to be fair, the original series pretty much failed to recapture the magic after season 3 - the question is, does it stand up as a film if you remove the brand name logos?
Well, it's not bad, in fact it's pretty good. For me the standout bit was Brian Bloom as the CIA badass killer, Pike. And a formidable bad guy is really what you need in a film like this. Overall, though, I stand by my prediction that The Losers got in quick, and stole the thunder of this movie out from under them before they even got started.
* oh yes, and someone tell them that "I Pity The Fool" is Rocky III.
Saturday 31 July 2010
The Karate Kid
Mad Science Time! Come with me, as we descend into my secret underground
laboratory. There, we will perform a an experiment of hideous evil upon Mr Will
Smith. Using the Anti-Charisma Ray, we will strip Mr Smith of all his charm and
style. Obviously, as Mr Smith is a pretty charming guy, this will reduce his
size significantly, leaving him a four foot tall irritating smartarse. I shall
call my creation "Jaden Smith" and unleash him on the world, as revenge for all
the shit the world has given me over the years.
Seriously, this kid is the fucking pits.
So, this kid, who goes by the name "Dre" in the movie, for fuck's sake, has to move to China with his mum, for no adequately explained reason. His mum allegedly works for a Detroit car company, who have relocated her to Beijing for no adequately explained reason.
So, having just arrived, Dre goes out into the park, tries to act like a big man, tries to chat up a local girl who's playing a violin, and is set upon by a gang of lads led by a kid called Cheng who has the cold, dead eyes of a killer. Cheng proceeds to beat the living shit out of Dre. I like him already.
Anyway, this is otherwise just like the original Karate Kid, so these dudes continue to make Dre's life a misery, and Dre continues to whine about it. Eventually, a local handyman steps in to sort it all out. Fortunately, the local handyman is Jackie Chan, which leads to the only halfway good bit of the movie. Though actually, there's nothing all that fun about watching Jackie Chan beat up six teenagers. They're horribly outclassed, and but for the fact that they won't learn and back down, it's practically child abuse.
So, anyway, to rescue Dre from their revenge, they visit the dojo these kids train at, and the challenge is laid down, Dre vs all of them in a tournament in a month, so long as they leave him alone while he trains.
Cue training montage. Much of which takes place on a suspiciously deserted section of The Great Wall of China. This is the bit where you would hope that Dre would cease to be a self-important little snot, learn some humility along the way, but, no, he doesn't. And then onto the tournament where the evil No Mercy Dojo try and cheat their way to the win, with the intention of permanently crippling the kid on the way. Again, I can't really fault them on this.
So... no, I hate this film. Jackie Chan's real strength is in physical comedy, and we get none of that here. Jaden Smith is dreadful, and they only way he could make a film better would be by dying just prior to filming starting. The rest of it is terrible, terrible cliche and stereotype. Chinese Girl With Disapproving Father. Evil No Mercy Dojo Who Hate Western Devils. Training Montage. Random, Pointless Cameo From Local Landmarks. School With No Ability Whatsoever To Prevent Bullying Of The Most Open And Violent Kind. Bleah. There are only two things to enjoy in this film. First, some of the cinematography is nice. Second, Jaden Smith gets brutally beaten up a few times. Only not really.
The thing is, annoying as he is, nobody could (or at least should) gain any satisfaction from watching bullies beat up a smaller kid. Imagine you're back at school, and you see a bunch of vindictive little thugs beating up the annoying kid in your class. And you don't help. You tell yourself that you're afraid to, that you'll get beaten up yourself, and so you couldn't help anyway. But really, you know that it's because you don't want to help. And you feel sick with yourself, because that makes you just as bad as them. That's how this film makes me feel.
In reposting these reviews, I noticed my review for The Day The Keanu Stood Silently Staring At People, and am pleased to see that I've been consistent in my derision of Jaden Smith.
Seriously, this kid is the fucking pits.
So, this kid, who goes by the name "Dre" in the movie, for fuck's sake, has to move to China with his mum, for no adequately explained reason. His mum allegedly works for a Detroit car company, who have relocated her to Beijing for no adequately explained reason.
So, having just arrived, Dre goes out into the park, tries to act like a big man, tries to chat up a local girl who's playing a violin, and is set upon by a gang of lads led by a kid called Cheng who has the cold, dead eyes of a killer. Cheng proceeds to beat the living shit out of Dre. I like him already.
Anyway, this is otherwise just like the original Karate Kid, so these dudes continue to make Dre's life a misery, and Dre continues to whine about it. Eventually, a local handyman steps in to sort it all out. Fortunately, the local handyman is Jackie Chan, which leads to the only halfway good bit of the movie. Though actually, there's nothing all that fun about watching Jackie Chan beat up six teenagers. They're horribly outclassed, and but for the fact that they won't learn and back down, it's practically child abuse.
So, anyway, to rescue Dre from their revenge, they visit the dojo these kids train at, and the challenge is laid down, Dre vs all of them in a tournament in a month, so long as they leave him alone while he trains.
Cue training montage. Much of which takes place on a suspiciously deserted section of The Great Wall of China. This is the bit where you would hope that Dre would cease to be a self-important little snot, learn some humility along the way, but, no, he doesn't. And then onto the tournament where the evil No Mercy Dojo try and cheat their way to the win, with the intention of permanently crippling the kid on the way. Again, I can't really fault them on this.
So... no, I hate this film. Jackie Chan's real strength is in physical comedy, and we get none of that here. Jaden Smith is dreadful, and they only way he could make a film better would be by dying just prior to filming starting. The rest of it is terrible, terrible cliche and stereotype. Chinese Girl With Disapproving Father. Evil No Mercy Dojo Who Hate Western Devils. Training Montage. Random, Pointless Cameo From Local Landmarks. School With No Ability Whatsoever To Prevent Bullying Of The Most Open And Violent Kind. Bleah. There are only two things to enjoy in this film. First, some of the cinematography is nice. Second, Jaden Smith gets brutally beaten up a few times. Only not really.
The thing is, annoying as he is, nobody could (or at least should) gain any satisfaction from watching bullies beat up a smaller kid. Imagine you're back at school, and you see a bunch of vindictive little thugs beating up the annoying kid in your class. And you don't help. You tell yourself that you're afraid to, that you'll get beaten up yourself, and so you couldn't help anyway. But really, you know that it's because you don't want to help. And you feel sick with yourself, because that makes you just as bad as them. That's how this film makes me feel.
In reposting these reviews, I noticed my review for The Day The Keanu Stood Silently Staring At People, and am pleased to see that I've been consistent in my derision of Jaden Smith.
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Toy Story 3
Really, remarkably good. Everyone knows Toy Story, so no real recap is
necessary. In this installment, Andy, their owner, has grown out of his toys,
but is keeping them out of sentimental attachment. He's going off to college,
and has no real idea what to do with them. He's going to stuff them up in the
attic, but by a series of misunderstandings, they end up donated to a
playgroup. Life isn't a bed of roses there, and so they resolve to escape, and
make their way home.
This setup makes it three kinds of film, and it's a great example of each. Firstly, it's funny, it's a really good comedy. This isn't your animated film for the kids that has a few gags for the adults to stop them gnawing their own arms off in boredom, it's a snappy, intelligent script full of laughs from start to finish. Second, it's a great action film, full of death defying stunts. Finally, it's a surprisingly poignant drama about abandonment, moving on with your life, and those you leave behind. I hear that quite a lot of grown men cry at the ending. I didn't, of course. Those 3D glasses were just making my eyes water.
The 3D deserves a mention, I think, because this is the first film I've seen that I think uses it intelligently. "Up" was quite good, but the only time you really noticed it was when they were going "look, look, this thing's flying right at you!" which is the only thing 3D has really had going for it since they invented it. Here, we're seeing scenes such as when our heroes are trapped, apparently without hope of escape, in the incinerator of a rubbish dump. The scene has a presence to it that I'm sure is because of the immersive nature of 3D, and it's a more nailbiting, edge of the seat moment than you'll find in any film of recent years. It's a subtle use of 3D that I think conveys suspense in the same kind of way Hitchcock used music, to draw you in. There's some really, really clever filmmaking going on here.
Overall, I don't see that Toy Story is a series of kids films anymore. There's a (possibly pretentious) argument that these films are magical realism fantasies, like Michel Gondry makes. Sure, kids can enjoy them, but if you're willing to accept that these films are about a bunch of toys, then there's really nothing purely for kids about them.
Excellent film, go see it.
This setup makes it three kinds of film, and it's a great example of each. Firstly, it's funny, it's a really good comedy. This isn't your animated film for the kids that has a few gags for the adults to stop them gnawing their own arms off in boredom, it's a snappy, intelligent script full of laughs from start to finish. Second, it's a great action film, full of death defying stunts. Finally, it's a surprisingly poignant drama about abandonment, moving on with your life, and those you leave behind. I hear that quite a lot of grown men cry at the ending. I didn't, of course. Those 3D glasses were just making my eyes water.
The 3D deserves a mention, I think, because this is the first film I've seen that I think uses it intelligently. "Up" was quite good, but the only time you really noticed it was when they were going "look, look, this thing's flying right at you!" which is the only thing 3D has really had going for it since they invented it. Here, we're seeing scenes such as when our heroes are trapped, apparently without hope of escape, in the incinerator of a rubbish dump. The scene has a presence to it that I'm sure is because of the immersive nature of 3D, and it's a more nailbiting, edge of the seat moment than you'll find in any film of recent years. It's a subtle use of 3D that I think conveys suspense in the same kind of way Hitchcock used music, to draw you in. There's some really, really clever filmmaking going on here.
Overall, I don't see that Toy Story is a series of kids films anymore. There's a (possibly pretentious) argument that these films are magical realism fantasies, like Michel Gondry makes. Sure, kids can enjoy them, but if you're willing to accept that these films are about a bunch of toys, then there's really nothing purely for kids about them.
Excellent film, go see it.
Saturday 17 July 2010
Inception
Here's a thing. This is one of those films that it's maybe best not to know too
much about before you go in. So, in a way, I don't want to review it, I just
want to tell you to go and see it. If that's good enough for you, z out of here
now, and go see it.
If you're still with me, I'll have a crack at recommending it without going
into too much detail.
It is the near future, much like our own era, but for the fact that among other
techs, there is a tech which allows people to share dreams. Leonardo DiCaprio
is a thief who is the acknowledged master in the field of stealing information
from people's heads by using this tech to enter into a dream with them. He is
hired by Ken Watanbe, a powerful corporate type to perform an inception. An
inception is a difficult process whereby you introduce an idea into someone's
head, thinking that it's their own. Cillian Murphy is a guy whose dad controls
a company that's on the verge of a world energy monopoly, and who stands to
inherit. They want him to break up the business empire when he does. The
problem is, inceptions are thought to be impossible. Only DiCaprio reckons it
can be done, and for the price on offer, is willing to try.
For this purpose he recruits an Ocean's Eleven style band of master
dreamthieves, including a young girl prodigy new to the whole experience, to
break into Cillian Murphy's mind and convince him that he's decided to do this.
Complicating the matter is the fact that DiCaprio is Fucked Up, With Issues,
and these Issues bleed into the dreams sabotaging stuff.
So, on the one hand, this is a sort of cross between a crime caper movie and
eXistenZ, and on the other, its a bit Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
It's directed by Memento director Christopher Nolan. Which is technically the
same guy as The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, but it's the former guy
we're mostly discussing here. In that it's got all that good, chinstroky "what
the hell is going on here" stuff, alongside a pretty taut action thriller.
Talent wise, you've got all the support you need, with Joseph Gorden-Levitt,
Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite, and so forth, all
doing what they do best, with all the material they need to do it with.
If I have one criticism for the film, and really, I *don't*, it's that it makes
up some rules for itself about how dreams work which a) I'm not sure make any
sense, and b) they then maybe don't actually obey. On the other hand, maybe
they do, and it's me that needs to see it a couple more times.
I will be seeing it a couple more times.
much about before you go in. So, in a way, I don't want to review it, I just
want to tell you to go and see it. If that's good enough for you, z out of here
now, and go see it.
If you're still with me, I'll have a crack at recommending it without going
into too much detail.
It is the near future, much like our own era, but for the fact that among other
techs, there is a tech which allows people to share dreams. Leonardo DiCaprio
is a thief who is the acknowledged master in the field of stealing information
from people's heads by using this tech to enter into a dream with them. He is
hired by Ken Watanbe, a powerful corporate type to perform an inception. An
inception is a difficult process whereby you introduce an idea into someone's
head, thinking that it's their own. Cillian Murphy is a guy whose dad controls
a company that's on the verge of a world energy monopoly, and who stands to
inherit. They want him to break up the business empire when he does. The
problem is, inceptions are thought to be impossible. Only DiCaprio reckons it
can be done, and for the price on offer, is willing to try.
For this purpose he recruits an Ocean's Eleven style band of master
dreamthieves, including a young girl prodigy new to the whole experience, to
break into Cillian Murphy's mind and convince him that he's decided to do this.
Complicating the matter is the fact that DiCaprio is Fucked Up, With Issues,
and these Issues bleed into the dreams sabotaging stuff.
So, on the one hand, this is a sort of cross between a crime caper movie and
eXistenZ, and on the other, its a bit Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
It's directed by Memento director Christopher Nolan. Which is technically the
same guy as The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, but it's the former guy
we're mostly discussing here. In that it's got all that good, chinstroky "what
the hell is going on here" stuff, alongside a pretty taut action thriller.
Talent wise, you've got all the support you need, with Joseph Gorden-Levitt,
Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite, and so forth, all
doing what they do best, with all the material they need to do it with.
If I have one criticism for the film, and really, I *don't*, it's that it makes
up some rules for itself about how dreams work which a) I'm not sure make any
sense, and b) they then maybe don't actually obey. On the other hand, maybe
they do, and it's me that needs to see it a couple more times.
I will be seeing it a couple more times.
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