Take a clever sci-fi idea; everyone gets genetically fixed to stop ageing at 25 (yay). They also get a fixed such that basically every second they live beyond that costs money, and if they run out of money on their wrist bank, they die (boo). If you like to think science-fictional thoughts, you probably think of some interesting ideas about that. All I can say is, maybe you should have written it, because all this really is, is a series of against the clock chase scenes with really high stakes.
Views, Reviews, and Inflammatory Comments on the subject of Cinema.
Thursday, 22 December 2011
The Adventures of Tin Tin
A jolly good digimation adventure romp, with really lovely use of special effect sequences. Only criticism: Sometimes the characters kind of look like grotesque puppets made of meat. Tin Tin has a perfectly spherical head. Seeing that with skin rather than cartoon skin-tone, that's a bit weird.
Justice, or Middle Of The Road Nic Cage Thriller.
So, Nic Cage's wife, January Jones is raped, and a shadowy organisation lead by Guy Pearce offers to deal with the culprit, and after umming and ahhing for a bit, Nic Cage agrees. He is then left with having to assist the shadowy organisation with their next revenge killing, which he has some problems with, motivationally. And then a really average thriller happens about this organisation's increasingly elaborate attempts to make him do it.
The Rum Diary
Take Withnail and I, transpose to Cuba, make it a little bit about Hunter S Thompson. It's entertaining like Withnail, and it's bitty and episodic like Withnail, but ultimately, it's at best about half as good as Withnail. Still, half as good as Withnail is a height a lot of films cannot hit.
The Help
Well meaning enough film about exploitation of black women as house maids in 50s-60s USA. Well meaning, but sort of over-cute. The major problem is that while the characters *are* portrayed as mistreated, it's nothing compared to the stories of what actually did happen, and you kind of feel that someone decided to forget about the institutionalised rape to make a cosier film, and I don't think you get to pick and choose to that degree. The other problem is that while Emma Stone is absolutely a lovely light comedy actor, there's a scene where she's required to bring her best acting game, and she fails, sadly.
Roundup
Ok, so I watched a few films, and didn't blog them. And so catching up became a task, so I avoided it.
Then I watched a few more, and didn't blog those either. And so catching up became a big task. And I avoided it some more.
Long story short, I'm way behind. So, I'll do short capsule reviews, just so that future archaeologists won't think I slacked.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Harrowing stuff, but, as Douglas Adams once said, sit back, relax, and be harrowed.
The film starts as a stream of consciousness, almost. Tilda Swinton is going about her business, living a pretty nasty seeming life. She's in a run down house, which someone has attacked with red paint; goes for an interview at a run-down travel agent, is confronted by people in the street who hit her and call her names, and virtually every second of this seems to trigger a flashback of some kind to her past, when she seemed much more affluent, is married, and has a child; this is Kevin. So from the outset we know two things; something has happened in her life which has resulted in her being broke, alone, and hated by the community, and that she has a son with whom she fails to bond with from the start, even before he's born.
At the start of the film, this is a very jumbled mess, and I have to say, half an hour in I was thinking "Well, someone needs to talk about Kevin... and soon please?" but as time passes, the vignettes become longer, and more coherent, as I suppose your recent memories are, and we are gradually clued in to what actually happened.
In a way, this flashback device is initially frustrating, with snippets of knowledge arriving in seemingly random order. However, this isn't an accident, and is part of the power of cinema; yes, it's frustrating, confusing, and disquieting, but that's no accident, and being glued to your seat for two hours, it forces you to take your medicine, and eventually this builds into an understanding of the situation that goes beyond the narrative.
It's a film of two key performances, and three actors; Tilda Swinton is pale, awkward and emotionally devastated in a way that I suspect only she can be; by contrast, Ezra Miller as Kevin the teenager (and you know, I really wish that phrase didn't constantly pop into my head) and even more impressively I thought, Jasper Newell as Kevin as a young child, possess a dead eyed confidence, indifference and malevolence, which I think will make them both a long remembered pair of screen psychos.
Ultimately, this is a horror film. A secular horror film. This is Rosemary's Baby meets The Omen, without the comforting fact that, as there isn't really an Antichrist, none of this unpleasantness could really happen. Because he's not the anti-messiah, he's just a very naughty boy. It's a portrait of a psychopath, without the showy theatrics of a Silence of the Lambs. It's just a kid, who we can see just isn't right, and the knowledge that one day he's going to do something appalling that will destroy the lives of everyone near him, and the film delivers a series of emotional punches to the gut which don't let up, right up until the very end.
The film starts as a stream of consciousness, almost. Tilda Swinton is going about her business, living a pretty nasty seeming life. She's in a run down house, which someone has attacked with red paint; goes for an interview at a run-down travel agent, is confronted by people in the street who hit her and call her names, and virtually every second of this seems to trigger a flashback of some kind to her past, when she seemed much more affluent, is married, and has a child; this is Kevin. So from the outset we know two things; something has happened in her life which has resulted in her being broke, alone, and hated by the community, and that she has a son with whom she fails to bond with from the start, even before he's born.
At the start of the film, this is a very jumbled mess, and I have to say, half an hour in I was thinking "Well, someone needs to talk about Kevin... and soon please?" but as time passes, the vignettes become longer, and more coherent, as I suppose your recent memories are, and we are gradually clued in to what actually happened.
In a way, this flashback device is initially frustrating, with snippets of knowledge arriving in seemingly random order. However, this isn't an accident, and is part of the power of cinema; yes, it's frustrating, confusing, and disquieting, but that's no accident, and being glued to your seat for two hours, it forces you to take your medicine, and eventually this builds into an understanding of the situation that goes beyond the narrative.
It's a film of two key performances, and three actors; Tilda Swinton is pale, awkward and emotionally devastated in a way that I suspect only she can be; by contrast, Ezra Miller as Kevin the teenager (and you know, I really wish that phrase didn't constantly pop into my head) and even more impressively I thought, Jasper Newell as Kevin as a young child, possess a dead eyed confidence, indifference and malevolence, which I think will make them both a long remembered pair of screen psychos.
Ultimately, this is a horror film. A secular horror film. This is Rosemary's Baby meets The Omen, without the comforting fact that, as there isn't really an Antichrist, none of this unpleasantness could really happen. Because he's not the anti-messiah, he's just a very naughty boy. It's a portrait of a psychopath, without the showy theatrics of a Silence of the Lambs. It's just a kid, who we can see just isn't right, and the knowledge that one day he's going to do something appalling that will destroy the lives of everyone near him, and the film delivers a series of emotional punches to the gut which don't let up, right up until the very end.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)