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.
Views, Reviews, and Inflammatory Comments on the subject of Cinema.
Monday 30 August 2010
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.
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