...of Mars. There, I said it. Unaccountably, the distributors feel that the words 'of Mars' will put you off where, say, eight foot tall green dudes with four arms aren't going to. Also, apparently, they have scrawled over it with 3D crayons, and that version is best ignored. So, this is me reviewing John Carter OF MARS, in glorious 2D as nature intended.
In summary, John Carter, an American Civil War cavalryman is, accidentally and without realising what's happening to him, transported to the surface of Mars. Mars is a dying planet, with little water, thin air, and so little gravity that he is, in effect, Superman, having way more strength than he needs to get around.
Once there, he encounters a tribe of 8 foot green Martians from a civilisation that has descended into savagery due to the planet's dwindling resources. Respecting strength above all else, he is cautiously accepted among them, until the arrival a beautiful and human-looking red Martian princess, fleeing an arranged marriage, turns Carter's head, and he grudgingly begins to think about helping her cause rather than just worrying about getting home.
So, brief history lesson. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote A Princess Of Mars in 1912, as a serial, which was first published in 1917. So think on that before you scoff at the old fashioned ideas in display here; this is a story which was talking about aerial warfare and weapons of mass destruction before 1912. It is not Burroughs' fault we took his thoughts and made them part of our culture. So many things owe a debt to this story, as much as this one owes a debt to Wells and Verne. This, my friends is a sci-fi *period drama*.
Now you may ask yourself if you actually want to see one of those; it's a fair point. The film-maker has an interesting choice here, does he produce a film with deliberately cheesy dialogue and a plot that is literally one hundred years old, or does he jettison his source material? For my money, he's definitely done the former, and if you're not going to watch the film in that context, it's very much akin to watching an adaptation of Jane Eyre, and asking why they're talking in such old-fashioned language.
If you are minded to watch it as a ripping good yarn, and one which comes to you straight from the dawn of sci-fi itself, you should enjoy it immensely. I certainly did. I don't agree with everything done here; the film is actually a distillation of the first three Barsoom novels; A Princess of Mars, Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars. I didn't see any particular need for this. I think you could make a perfectly good adaptation of A Princess of Mars, and leave yourself the other two as sequels. So if you think perhaps there's just too many plot elements thrown in with a shovel, yes, you're right.
Ultimately, this film is pretty much eye candy; that's by design, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the novels, for all intents and purposes, as travelogues of this imaginary Mars he'd come up with, and that shines through to the film. Beautiful to look at, and viewed as the progenitor of every sci-fi action movie you've ever seen, rather than a rip off of them, full of delicious nostalgia.
Views, Reviews, and Inflammatory Comments on the subject of Cinema.
Saturday 17 March 2012
Sunday 4 March 2012
Melancholia
So, opening sequence, the world ends. A big massive planet crashes into the Earth, enveloping and destroying it. Boom, game over.
Cut to a couple of months before, and we're at a wedding reception. Kirsten Dunst is marrying Some Guy, and her brother in law, Kiefer Sutherland has thrown a lavish party. Kirsten Dunst is clearly suffering from depression, and so obviously her family reacts by hassling her, bullying her and cajoling her to bloody well cheer up and stop ruining the party for everyone. Despite it being obvious that they know she suffers from depression, and that it's *her* wedding for fuck's sake. So basically, everyone she knows is a catastrophically self-absorbed asshole; even her supposedly loving husband who looks initially like he might be the exception begins making demands on her that she just can't deal with, and eventually leaves in a huff.
Cut to months later, Kirsten Dunst is still depressed, quite seriously now, unable to get out of bed, and so her sister brings her to live with her and her aforementioned husband, Kiefer Sutherland. And now we're more focussed on the sister, who is terrified that this new planet astronomers have spotted is going to crash into the earth, but who her amateur astronomer husband says is just going to pass by quite close, and it's only crazy people who say otherwise.
So, part the first is an irritating, self indulgent piece of toss, made in a dreamlike (i.e. in Glorious Badly-Out-Of-Focus-Vision) style, by Lars Von Trier, a director whose own experiences with depression have clearly led him to aggrandise and glorify the condition.
Part the second is somewhat better, as the three adults and a child tensely and testily wait for the end of the world, or not (but which, obviously, we, the viewers have been pre-spoilered that it is going to happen). What we're basically being told is that the depressive copes with Ultimate Doom better than everyone else, because they're used to it. Which is possibly true, but really not worth sitting through over two hours of Lars von Trier self indulgence to discover.
It's odd to review a film like this, because while, in some sense, yes, it's obviously better made, more thought provoking, better acted and so forth than trash like Man on a Ledge or Clash of the Titans, that only serves to give me a more substantial thing to hate.
Cut to a couple of months before, and we're at a wedding reception. Kirsten Dunst is marrying Some Guy, and her brother in law, Kiefer Sutherland has thrown a lavish party. Kirsten Dunst is clearly suffering from depression, and so obviously her family reacts by hassling her, bullying her and cajoling her to bloody well cheer up and stop ruining the party for everyone. Despite it being obvious that they know she suffers from depression, and that it's *her* wedding for fuck's sake. So basically, everyone she knows is a catastrophically self-absorbed asshole; even her supposedly loving husband who looks initially like he might be the exception begins making demands on her that she just can't deal with, and eventually leaves in a huff.
Cut to months later, Kirsten Dunst is still depressed, quite seriously now, unable to get out of bed, and so her sister brings her to live with her and her aforementioned husband, Kiefer Sutherland. And now we're more focussed on the sister, who is terrified that this new planet astronomers have spotted is going to crash into the earth, but who her amateur astronomer husband says is just going to pass by quite close, and it's only crazy people who say otherwise.
So, part the first is an irritating, self indulgent piece of toss, made in a dreamlike (i.e. in Glorious Badly-Out-Of-Focus-Vision) style, by Lars Von Trier, a director whose own experiences with depression have clearly led him to aggrandise and glorify the condition.
Part the second is somewhat better, as the three adults and a child tensely and testily wait for the end of the world, or not (but which, obviously, we, the viewers have been pre-spoilered that it is going to happen). What we're basically being told is that the depressive copes with Ultimate Doom better than everyone else, because they're used to it. Which is possibly true, but really not worth sitting through over two hours of Lars von Trier self indulgence to discover.
It's odd to review a film like this, because while, in some sense, yes, it's obviously better made, more thought provoking, better acted and so forth than trash like Man on a Ledge or Clash of the Titans, that only serves to give me a more substantial thing to hate.
Monday 27 February 2012
A Dangerous Method
So, we have Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) as a young doctor, who has become interested in Freud's "Talking Cure", which he intends to a new patient, Sabina Spielrein (Kiera Knightley), suffering from hysteria. This decision leads to great changes in his life, both a growing relationship with Spielrein, and a professional and personal friendship with Freud (Viggo Mortensen).
We then follow both of these relationships through to their eventual dissolution, as morals, ethics and professional differences take their toll.
As this is a David Cronenberg film, there's quite some emphasis on the visceral, with Kiera Knightley giving a surprisingly physical and unattractive performance as a hysterical, twitchy neurotic, and with her and Fassbender having some quite sweaty sex in grubby rooms, in sharp contrast to the starched clean linens of Jung's life with his wife.
Ultimately, though, the film does run aground near the end, since as, through no fault of the writer, director, or actors, all of the principal characters saw fit to conclude the final third of their relationships merely through the use of some quite terse and snotty letters. So unfortunately the thing really begins to drag towards the end, as there is a seemingly endless sequence of scenes where one actor reads out a letter in voiceover, while another reads it and frowns or raises their eyebrows at the appropriate moment. I don't know how you could have improved this without lying; yes, you could have recast Jung and Freud's final exchanges as snarled insults in between thrown punches in a fight to the death on the deck of a sinking ship, before the survivor takes the last lifeboat, but that would not actually be true. So, really, blame Freud and Jung for leading insufficiently cinematic lives.
Despite that reservation, even when the presentation is fighting hard to keep your interest, the content is fascinating enough to make you want to make the effort, although effort it indubitably is at times.
We then follow both of these relationships through to their eventual dissolution, as morals, ethics and professional differences take their toll.
As this is a David Cronenberg film, there's quite some emphasis on the visceral, with Kiera Knightley giving a surprisingly physical and unattractive performance as a hysterical, twitchy neurotic, and with her and Fassbender having some quite sweaty sex in grubby rooms, in sharp contrast to the starched clean linens of Jung's life with his wife.
Ultimately, though, the film does run aground near the end, since as, through no fault of the writer, director, or actors, all of the principal characters saw fit to conclude the final third of their relationships merely through the use of some quite terse and snotty letters. So unfortunately the thing really begins to drag towards the end, as there is a seemingly endless sequence of scenes where one actor reads out a letter in voiceover, while another reads it and frowns or raises their eyebrows at the appropriate moment. I don't know how you could have improved this without lying; yes, you could have recast Jung and Freud's final exchanges as snarled insults in between thrown punches in a fight to the death on the deck of a sinking ship, before the survivor takes the last lifeboat, but that would not actually be true. So, really, blame Freud and Jung for leading insufficiently cinematic lives.
Despite that reservation, even when the presentation is fighting hard to keep your interest, the content is fascinating enough to make you want to make the effort, although effort it indubitably is at times.
Sunday 26 February 2012
Rampart
Bit of an odd item this one. Unknown to me, apparently in the late nineties, there was a bit of a scandal as the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, which serves an area of West Downtown LA was implicated in a scandal which seemed to show systemic corruption and misconduct in the anti-gang taskforce. (I'm saying "seemed" here purely because I know almost nothing about this issue.) This film takes this situation as the background for a character study of a police officer living in, and personifying this culture.
The key point is that Woody Harrelson is playing a cop who considers himself to be one of the good guys, someone doing his job, an important job, keeping people safe. But, of course, this is far from the case. He has an embattled, adversarial view of criminals, and a disregard for the rules. This leads him to brutalise and murder suspects where he feels it necessary, and even go so far as to seize the proceeds of crime for his own use. So we have a portrait of a monster, who thinks that basically everything he does is perfectly justified, and the majority of what he does is even laudable.
Downsides? Other than a downward spiral, there's no direction to the film. He's a bad guy, doing bad things, which are gradually catching up with him, but where there's no particular path towards redemption, or an ultimate conclusion. We just look at the guy for a while, sift through his dirty laundry, then walk away, sort of saying "Well, that's what he's like, then." And I would agree that perhaps it's the correct decision to not look towards there even being a conclusion, but my overall impression is that if you're going to roll the credits without a conclusion, why there? Why not five minutes ago? Or in five minute's time?
So, it's like watching part of a film; it kind of begins in media res and expects you to catch up to speed, and ends in media res, and asks you to think what might happen now. And in the sense that life really never ends until it actually ends, that's actually the right decision; plenty of this guy's life before the start of the film is relevant to making him who he is, and where he will end up is also very up in the air. But still, I found myself wanting more structure. But appreciated for what it is, it's very, very good.
The key point is that Woody Harrelson is playing a cop who considers himself to be one of the good guys, someone doing his job, an important job, keeping people safe. But, of course, this is far from the case. He has an embattled, adversarial view of criminals, and a disregard for the rules. This leads him to brutalise and murder suspects where he feels it necessary, and even go so far as to seize the proceeds of crime for his own use. So we have a portrait of a monster, who thinks that basically everything he does is perfectly justified, and the majority of what he does is even laudable.
Downsides? Other than a downward spiral, there's no direction to the film. He's a bad guy, doing bad things, which are gradually catching up with him, but where there's no particular path towards redemption, or an ultimate conclusion. We just look at the guy for a while, sift through his dirty laundry, then walk away, sort of saying "Well, that's what he's like, then." And I would agree that perhaps it's the correct decision to not look towards there even being a conclusion, but my overall impression is that if you're going to roll the credits without a conclusion, why there? Why not five minutes ago? Or in five minute's time?
So, it's like watching part of a film; it kind of begins in media res and expects you to catch up to speed, and ends in media res, and asks you to think what might happen now. And in the sense that life really never ends until it actually ends, that's actually the right decision; plenty of this guy's life before the start of the film is relevant to making him who he is, and where he will end up is also very up in the air. But still, I found myself wanting more structure. But appreciated for what it is, it's very, very good.
One For The Money
Based on Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels, in which a woman becomes a novice bounty hunter, and tracks down criminals and scumbags in New Jersey. Haven't read them myself, though, so I come to the movie fresh.
And entertaining it is too. Katherine Heigl is entertainingly clueless but enthusiastic to begin with, and gets the hang of things quickly enough that you don't feel like she's an idiot, she just hasn't got the faintest clue what she's doing, which is the best way to do anything. Against her is Jason O'Mara as a cop who's on the run because he's shot a suspect who was apparently unarmed, but who he swears was armed before he was knocked out by someone else. So the whole thing turns into an investigation into the business surrounding the shooting, in that if they can find the evidence that clears him, she can take him in and get the money and everyone's happy.
It doesn't feel much like a movie, to be honest. What it does feel like is a TV show that you really enjoy. So in that case, even though it doesn't have much of a widescreen, blockbuster feel, I'll roll up and see this and any sequels they want to make (and there's eighteen novels) any time they like.
And entertaining it is too. Katherine Heigl is entertainingly clueless but enthusiastic to begin with, and gets the hang of things quickly enough that you don't feel like she's an idiot, she just hasn't got the faintest clue what she's doing, which is the best way to do anything. Against her is Jason O'Mara as a cop who's on the run because he's shot a suspect who was apparently unarmed, but who he swears was armed before he was knocked out by someone else. So the whole thing turns into an investigation into the business surrounding the shooting, in that if they can find the evidence that clears him, she can take him in and get the money and everyone's happy.
It doesn't feel much like a movie, to be honest. What it does feel like is a TV show that you really enjoy. So in that case, even though it doesn't have much of a widescreen, blockbuster feel, I'll roll up and see this and any sequels they want to make (and there's eighteen novels) any time they like.
The Muppets
Well, it's Muppets. A once popular variety troupe of puppets have waned in stardom, and gone their separate ways, and it's up to a guy who's a super fan of theirs (because he too is bizarrely made of felt despite the rest of his family not being so, like it's a recessive gene or something) to remind them of what the Muppets meant to us, and get the show back together to save the theatre from an evil oil tycoon developer.
So, fine, it's a wafer thin plot which I'm pretty much sure they used in an earlier Muppet Movie, but if not, well, it's The Blues Brothers and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. They're getting the band back together. Other than that, it's Muppets as you remember the Muppets being.
In a way, that's kind of my problem with it. I wasn't even that keen on the Muppets as a kid. It always used to be on, and I used to kind of sit through it dutifully on a Saturday; in retrospect, I doubt it'd have been on the TV at all if my parents realised how little of a fuck I gave about it. And what I think was my problem with it as a child is still the problem now. In all children's TV there's like a little slider which runs from Wholesome Caring Fluffiness at one end to Outright Physical Violence at the other. Or the Disney-Warner continuum, as I like to think of it. As a kid, I had no truck with the Disney end of things, with everybody being so fucking friendly all the time. When I was a kid, it wasn't a proper cartoon unless someone got an anvil dropped on them. Or fed dynamite. Or fell off a cliff a ridiculous distance, hitting the ground with an exquisitely timed cloud of dust. The Muppets, however, didn't really respect this, in that they spent most of their time being all kind and fluffy and sharing, with just isolated moments of bonecrushing smashes and psychos with dynamite. So I used to basically glaze over through the dumb little songs, I had no time whatsoever for Kermit, or Fozzy, and would wake up momentarily when it seemed like Gonzo was going to hurt himself. For the most part, I loved Statler and Waldorf most of all, because they echoed my own thoughts. Why am I stuck watching this crap every week?
So, here we have a film in which people who loved the Muppets *way* more than I did attempt to resurrect the phenomenon, trying to be true to it, while making it the best that it's ever been. And I think they do succeed at that, but at the same time, I don't think it's made me like it any better. So those isolated bits of nonsense I used to like are still there, and there were plenty of bits that made me giggle. Like the fact Fozzy Bear is now performing in a low-rent Muppet tribute act called The Moopets, and the Moopets version of Animal is played by Dave Grohl. But while there are quite a number of inspired bits of nonsense, in between them there's a very saccarine Disneyesque message which makes my eyes roll.
Anyway, I think this is probably a marvellous film if you weren't born cynical. But I was. Pity me.
So, fine, it's a wafer thin plot which I'm pretty much sure they used in an earlier Muppet Movie, but if not, well, it's The Blues Brothers and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. They're getting the band back together. Other than that, it's Muppets as you remember the Muppets being.
In a way, that's kind of my problem with it. I wasn't even that keen on the Muppets as a kid. It always used to be on, and I used to kind of sit through it dutifully on a Saturday; in retrospect, I doubt it'd have been on the TV at all if my parents realised how little of a fuck I gave about it. And what I think was my problem with it as a child is still the problem now. In all children's TV there's like a little slider which runs from Wholesome Caring Fluffiness at one end to Outright Physical Violence at the other. Or the Disney-Warner continuum, as I like to think of it. As a kid, I had no truck with the Disney end of things, with everybody being so fucking friendly all the time. When I was a kid, it wasn't a proper cartoon unless someone got an anvil dropped on them. Or fed dynamite. Or fell off a cliff a ridiculous distance, hitting the ground with an exquisitely timed cloud of dust. The Muppets, however, didn't really respect this, in that they spent most of their time being all kind and fluffy and sharing, with just isolated moments of bonecrushing smashes and psychos with dynamite. So I used to basically glaze over through the dumb little songs, I had no time whatsoever for Kermit, or Fozzy, and would wake up momentarily when it seemed like Gonzo was going to hurt himself. For the most part, I loved Statler and Waldorf most of all, because they echoed my own thoughts. Why am I stuck watching this crap every week?
So, here we have a film in which people who loved the Muppets *way* more than I did attempt to resurrect the phenomenon, trying to be true to it, while making it the best that it's ever been. And I think they do succeed at that, but at the same time, I don't think it's made me like it any better. So those isolated bits of nonsense I used to like are still there, and there were plenty of bits that made me giggle. Like the fact Fozzy Bear is now performing in a low-rent Muppet tribute act called The Moopets, and the Moopets version of Animal is played by Dave Grohl. But while there are quite a number of inspired bits of nonsense, in between them there's a very saccarine Disneyesque message which makes my eyes roll.
Anyway, I think this is probably a marvellous film if you weren't born cynical. But I was. Pity me.
Safe House
So, Ryan Reynolds runs a CIA Safe House in Cape Town. Which is a secure installation which is there as some kind of emergency bolt hole and base, so if you ever need a place to interrogate a prisoner, or get patched up, or get some more guns or whatnot, it's there for you. Ryan Reynolds' job is to be the housekeeper, let people in, answer the phones, make sure the fridge has milk, etc. And since these bases aren't needed all the time, for the past year his job has been to basically sit in this place and wait. I bet he gets through an epic number of DVD box sets.
However, it comes to pass, rogue CIA operative Denzel Washington has given himself up at the local US Consulate. He is in possession of Teh Sekrit Filez, which are in a subcutaneous memory chip. Faction A of the CIA want to know why he's suddenly just given himself up after nine years of being the world's most elusive and wanted man, and Faction B knows way more about stuff than they ought to, including the fact that he has Teh Sekrit Filez, and how screwed they are if the contents of Teh Sekrit Filez become Unsekrit.
So, the Safe House is raided by well armed men, killing everyone except Ryan and Denzel, and the pair of them are now on the run; Denzel wants to be properly on the run, Ryan wants to keep hold of Denzel until his bosses tell him where Denzel is supposed to be. And of course, you can't trust anyone, as everyone thinks everyone else has turned traitor or something.
Anyway, it's a fun enough concept, the locations are interesting and gritty, and Ryan and Denzel do their job. However, after half an hour, Safe House is no longer set in a Safe House, and there's precious little dialogue in between the running, driving and shooting. So, by the end, has become a little tiresome, especially with the constant "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" moments.
However, it comes to pass, rogue CIA operative Denzel Washington has given himself up at the local US Consulate. He is in possession of Teh Sekrit Filez, which are in a subcutaneous memory chip. Faction A of the CIA want to know why he's suddenly just given himself up after nine years of being the world's most elusive and wanted man, and Faction B knows way more about stuff than they ought to, including the fact that he has Teh Sekrit Filez, and how screwed they are if the contents of Teh Sekrit Filez become Unsekrit.
So, the Safe House is raided by well armed men, killing everyone except Ryan and Denzel, and the pair of them are now on the run; Denzel wants to be properly on the run, Ryan wants to keep hold of Denzel until his bosses tell him where Denzel is supposed to be. And of course, you can't trust anyone, as everyone thinks everyone else has turned traitor or something.
Anyway, it's a fun enough concept, the locations are interesting and gritty, and Ryan and Denzel do their job. However, after half an hour, Safe House is no longer set in a Safe House, and there's precious little dialogue in between the running, driving and shooting. So, by the end, has become a little tiresome, especially with the constant "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" moments.
Chronicle
Well, I suppose the one line description is "Blair Witch Meets X-Men".
There's a angry loner kid in high school, who's a weird outsider, and who has recently decided to carry a film camera everywhere and document his life. This leads to his cousin and his cousin's friend to call on him to come film a weird hole in the ground they discover, which they investigate and find a weird glowing rock that grants them telekinetic powers.
This leads the three of them to bond, as they decide to keep their powers secret as they investigate what they can do with them, which turns out to be increasingly powerful feats of telekinesis, including shielding themselves from harm, and flying. And the question becomes, what are 17 year-olds really going to start doing when they get these powers? Especially if one of them is an angry frustrated loner?
The answer, refreshingly, at no point becomes "fight crime", and so the film that I feel it's eventually thematically closer to is Carrie. Sadly, for a film that's been quite inventive for the first three quarters, the finale feels kind of a let down, as if the ideas ran out before the film did. Even so, that's three-quarters of a film of really neat stuff, and a finale that'd be absolutely fine in a more run of the mill film. I mean, has there *ever* been a superhero movie where the final act hasn't been "everyone beats fuck out of each other until only one side is left standing"?
There's a angry loner kid in high school, who's a weird outsider, and who has recently decided to carry a film camera everywhere and document his life. This leads to his cousin and his cousin's friend to call on him to come film a weird hole in the ground they discover, which they investigate and find a weird glowing rock that grants them telekinetic powers.
This leads the three of them to bond, as they decide to keep their powers secret as they investigate what they can do with them, which turns out to be increasingly powerful feats of telekinesis, including shielding themselves from harm, and flying. And the question becomes, what are 17 year-olds really going to start doing when they get these powers? Especially if one of them is an angry frustrated loner?
The answer, refreshingly, at no point becomes "fight crime", and so the film that I feel it's eventually thematically closer to is Carrie. Sadly, for a film that's been quite inventive for the first three quarters, the finale feels kind of a let down, as if the ideas ran out before the film did. Even so, that's three-quarters of a film of really neat stuff, and a finale that'd be absolutely fine in a more run of the mill film. I mean, has there *ever* been a superhero movie where the final act hasn't been "everyone beats fuck out of each other until only one side is left standing"?
Man On A Ledge
There's nothing more saddening than a film that clearly wants to be so much cleverer than it is. It wants to be Phone Booth, or Inside Man (it *really* wants to be Inside Man), but the whole thing of "something weird is going on, and you won't know what until the end, and when you put the pieces together you'll marvel at our cleverness" is telegraphed and promised from the start, but that promise very much fails to be delivered on.
So, we have an escaped criminal and possibly innocent man standing on a ledge, threatening to jump, and having got the attention of the police department, this is being used as a misdirection for a heist that's going on nearby. And that's alright as far as it goes, but things rapidly go wrong, and the heisters are quickly falling back on Plan B, which as far as I can see is "wing it." Which leads us with the sad realisation that in the end, the antagonist is defeated only because he did something pretty silly, which the plotters couldn't have predicted he'd do. So really, where's the clever in that?
So, we have an escaped criminal and possibly innocent man standing on a ledge, threatening to jump, and having got the attention of the police department, this is being used as a misdirection for a heist that's going on nearby. And that's alright as far as it goes, but things rapidly go wrong, and the heisters are quickly falling back on Plan B, which as far as I can see is "wing it." Which leads us with the sad realisation that in the end, the antagonist is defeated only because he did something pretty silly, which the plotters couldn't have predicted he'd do. So really, where's the clever in that?
The Descendents
A practically note perfect film about a family coming to terms with the death of the family's wife and mother, a death which is all the more difficult for the husband, George Clooney, to deal with, because all was not right between him and his wife, and in fact, as he discovers, worse than he realised.
The film conveys very well the sense that when someone dies, there isn't an ending or a closure, in a literary or cinematic sense, but rather an abrupt curtailment of every ongoing thread of their lives, and those involved in those threads have to find a way to live without them.
I also love that the characterisation is very human. The dying woman's father initially seems to be an asshole, and you know what, he *remains* an asshole. But he's an asshole whose daughter is dead and whose wife has dementia, so you just have to give him some space and realise that assholes are humans who grieve like the rest of us. And likewise, the older daughter's friend initially seems like a thoughtless idiot - and he *is* a thoughtless idiot. But the way he is properly *there* for the family in their darkest hour shows that there's worse things in the world to be than a thoughtless idiot. And these are just two examples among many. George Clooney's received absolutely deserved plaudits for his performance, but to single him out for praise almost seems to do injustice to the wall-to-wall quality on display here.
The film conveys very well the sense that when someone dies, there isn't an ending or a closure, in a literary or cinematic sense, but rather an abrupt curtailment of every ongoing thread of their lives, and those involved in those threads have to find a way to live without them.
I also love that the characterisation is very human. The dying woman's father initially seems to be an asshole, and you know what, he *remains* an asshole. But he's an asshole whose daughter is dead and whose wife has dementia, so you just have to give him some space and realise that assholes are humans who grieve like the rest of us. And likewise, the older daughter's friend initially seems like a thoughtless idiot - and he *is* a thoughtless idiot. But the way he is properly *there* for the family in their darkest hour shows that there's worse things in the world to be than a thoughtless idiot. And these are just two examples among many. George Clooney's received absolutely deserved plaudits for his performance, but to single him out for praise almost seems to do injustice to the wall-to-wall quality on display here.
Friday 27 January 2012
The Artist
On the face of it, this is basically an oddity. Someone has decided to, in this day and age, make a black and white, 4:3 ratio, silent movie. Which immediately sets of the pretentiousness alarm. Looking at it a little deeper, that is, actually watching it, what we get is essentially a pretty accurate homage to the silent movie genre, very much in the style, about a silent movie actor who is rapidly eclipsed when talking pictures come along. And also a cute little love story about a famous actor and struggling bit-part actress, whose roles are reversed when she becomes the next big thing, and he becomes yesterday's man.
Looking deeper still, though, this film, at least for me, is an examination of how cinema, of all art forms, is obsessed with progress. Once there is sound, there are no more silent movies. Once there is colour, there are no more black and white movies. Once there is wide screen, there are no more narrow movies. And this goes for direction, acting, cinematography, and so forth. With only the odd deliberately atavistic exception, cinema once it moves on, can never go back. Contrasting that with painting and drawing, where charcoal is still an intrinsically accepted medium, even in the days of Photoshop. This film examines cinema's relationship with its own past, and in doing so with the tools of the 1930s, shows us that the newest CGI, the most realistic sets and the most naturalistic acting styles aren't necessarily the correct way of doing things.
Sunday 8 January 2012
Arthur Christmas
Came to this one late, almost in protest. Started showing sometime mid-November, so I resolved not to see it until after Christmas. Glad I did though, because it's quite fun.
The basic setup is that we're getting to see behind the scenes of how Santa does his annual delivery. Due to the massive up-scaling that's gone on because Christmas is now a global phenomenon, and Santa promises to deliver one appropriate toy to every child in the world, the delivery is now a massive industrial scale operation, where Santa (Jim Broadbent) arrives in a camouflaged, city-sized UFO of a sleigh, and a legion of hyperactive elves deliver the presents with the speed and precision of highly trained special forces operatives, while Santa bumbles around putting in a symbolic appearance.
Meanwhile, at the North Pole, the whole operation is masterminded by Santa's older son Steve Christmas (Hugh Laurie), who has designed this high tech operation. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, works Arthur Christmas (James McAvoy), Santa's bumbling but well meaning younger son, who answers Christmas letters.
In all the confusion of the night, one present gets missed, and a child is going to go without their special present. Santa and Steve don't seem to think this is too much of a problem; they'll deliver it later, within the week, and meanwhile Christmas has been a 99.9999991% success. Only Arthur thinks this is a terrible state of affairs, and so seeks the aid of his grandfather, Grandsanta, who reveals that he still has the old reindeer driven sleigh, and agrees to help Arthur deliver the last present before sunup.
It's a pretty great film. It's Aardman Animations, and it should go down as one of those "Well, it's not Wallace and Gromitt, but it's pretty good" outings. It's full of pretty good sight gags, and all the performances are spot on. And of course, core to it all is the very familiar to all of us concept, that when you start doing something for a living, you quickly lose enthusiasm for that thing, and focus on the job in hand. The Christmas family clearly don't have much time for their own family Christmas, like Christmas is for the general public. They all have their particular ideas how the job ought to be done, and the whole thing is one colossal Christmas Family Argument, with only Arthur actually having any enthusiasm for the idea of Christmas, because he's a colossal naive idiot. And so, while his elders in-fight amongst themselves, the task of upholding the family honour and reputation falls on his pretty inadequate shoulders.
I think it scores pretty highly, because it's clearly entertaining to kids (I saw it in a cinema full of them, and they all seemed wowed), but has enough actual plot underlying it to be of interest to adults, and the jokes are funny for everyone. Rather than the usual rubbish of throwing jokes that kids won't understand in as a sop to the poor adults. I believe this to be a film that kids and adults can enjoy together, and on pretty much the same level, which is a rare trick indeed.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
This is a reboot that nearly works.
The long and the short of it is this: There's a dude who's a nuclear scientist, nuclear strategist, and ex Swedish special forces. He's played by Michael Nyqvist, who's clearly responding to Daniel Craig nicking the role he played in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by turning it about and appearing in a preposterous spy thriller. This guy believes that what the human race needs is a good nuclear war, in order to sort itself out, and thus goes about nicking the various bits and bobs necessary for starting one.
Meanwhile, Tom Cruise is in a Russian prison, and IM Force agents Simon Pegg (hacker tech guy) and Paula Patton (pretty) bust him out in order that he replace agent Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) who's carelessly got himself killed during the pre-credits sequence. And they all go chasing all over Russia, Dubai and India, picking up IM Force analyst Jeremy Renner, and managing to get the entire IM Force shut down, along the way. So, they are all working on their own and without support of their government, and are the only people who can save the world. (Not sure why this was necessary, since the IM Force always works on its own, and gets disavowed if caught anyway.)
Right, so there's one major problem with this film, and yes, it's Tom Fucking Cruise again. Seriously, this film could have been made a *million* times better by the simple move of not killing Josh Holloway in the opening sequence, and letting him be the sexy hunky main agent. And when I say a million times better, I mean it, even though Cruise is the only real flaw in the film. Just like one small flaw in a tyre can make the whole thing a useless saggy mess rather than something you can drive on, Tom Cruise has that effect on the film.
Looking at the things that are not Tom Cruise, there's a lot to like. I could watch an action film starring Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner All Fucking Day, and on the occasions where they're able to get a scene together without Tom Cruise stuffing the whole thing up, they've got a good screen chemistry. I can't say that Paula Patton really achieves much more than being eye candy, but, well, sorry to be a sexist pig, but she does that well. And the whole thing is directed by Pixar supremo Brad Bird, who pulls of the same comic book hijinx as he did in The Incredibles. If they'd put Josh Holloway at the wheel of this thing, I think it'd have been absolutely great. As it is, this is rebooting a franchise without removing the thing that was wrong with the franchise in the first place. I mean, seriously, go look at the cast list of MI3 - does anyone really think that it was Ving Rhames or Philip Seymour Hoffman that was the steaming turd in the middle of that movie?
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