Star Trek

Ooh. Eh. Hmmm.

The first thing we have to do is decide what this is. Then we have to work out
how good a one it is.

Is it a sci-fi movie? Is this a story about a starship in an interstellar
peacekeeping federation? No. No it's not. It's an unashamed 124 minute fangasm.
This is a film made for people who like the original series. The intent seems
clear, to roll back the years, and remake the ludicrosity of the Shatner era.
We are having no truck with the TNG and subsequent series, where the
inhabitants of an interstellar cruise liner go places and be diplomatic at
people. This is phasers and fistfights.

As it goes, it's pretty successful. In that without the Star Trek marque on it,
this would all be pretty lame-ass stuff, but somehow, since it *is* Star Trek,
cheesy stupidity is part of the franchise, and they do a reasonable job of
capturing the formula - in a way that, for instance, 'Enterprise' really
didn't.

The plot is pretty standard Trek stuff; a bunch of Romulans from the future
have come back in time in order to trash the Vulcans and the Federation in
general, using their Way Superior Technology to cream the opposition. The only
notable thing about this is that in doing so they change Trek history, their
actions altering the characters at pretty formative points of their history,
thus ensuring that they can take a fresh take, rather than feel like they have
to copy.

It's also a superhero origins movie, in that it details how Kirk comes to
command the Enterprise, and assemble the classic crew. I don't think it'll come
as any great surprise to anyone that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I have one real issue with the film, and that's that they don't give Kirk a
whole lot of manly heroics. He gets beat up a lot. His primary ability seems to
be to soak up a beating until someone else arrives to save his ass. He's Kirk.
He ought to be able to beat up any five guys in a fistfight, with a trademark
overhead double hand blow. Everyone else, I like. I actually *like* Chris Pine
as Kirk. I just wish they'd managed to write him succeeding by more than basic
blind luck.

Encounters At The End Of The World

Filmmaker Werner Herzog went to Antarctica, and he filmed the people there.

That much, was a really good idea. In that Antarctica is a really weird and
amazing place, and the people who live there are really weird and amazing
people. There's a lot of cool science going on down there, hippy dropout
travellers seem to wash up there, it's a whole other world.

Unfortunately, Herzog also felt that he needed to narrate and score this film.
So a lot of the time, all you hear is Herzog's frankly droning and insight-free
reflections on the place and the people. There are times when there are
actually really interesting people talking, and Herzog dubs over them, drowning
them out, telling us what they are saying. The ego required for that is
*astounding*. And irritating.

The rest of the time, there is a really, *really* loud music soundtrack, which
comes in two flavours - tuneless ethereal choral music, and tuneless spiritual
string ensemble that sounds like a building creaking in the wind. I'd like to
emphasise how *really* loud it was. Loud and *constant*. So (while Herzog isn't
talking over them) you have all these residents of Antarctica telling us how
really silent Antarctica is, and then when we're actually trying to look at
antarctica, and experience that, there's this intrusive and inappropriate
racket going on. I genuinely nearly walked out near the end because I was sick
of it.

I'd love to see a documentary on this subject. I'd love to see Attenborough do
it. I'd love to see Louis Theroux do it. I'd like to see *this* one with the
music and director's commentary stripped off. This, however, was rendered and
irritating and frustrating mess.

State Of Play

I was listening to the Radio 4 film programme the other day. On it, Kevin
McDonald, the director of State of Play was being interviewed. One of the
questions he was asked was why Brad Pitt had quit the film, and been replaced
by Russell Crowe. McDonald claimed that his intention of the film was to make a
film that seemed to be quite complicated but was actually quite simple. Brad
Pitt wanted it to actually be complicated, so he walked.

Put it another way. This is a film that is too simplistic for Brad Pitt, and
Brad Pitt was in Mr and Mrs Smith.

It's not that bad, really, I just can't see the point of it. There's a
Washington sex scandal tangled up with a congressional investigation into
something or other, and the murder of some people. And so Russell Crowe pokes
it with a stick for a while until it makes some kind of sense. But not much.
The whole thing turns out to be rather less interesting or shocking than you
might initially think.

I'd give it 7/10. In that it's a competent enough thriller, but it doesn't hang
together, and you don't end up giving a fuck what happened anyway.

Good

My, films about Nazi Germany are in fashion now, aren't they?

This one features Viggo Mortensen as John Halder, a German university professor
who inadvertently attracts the attention of the Nazis, who like his novel
concerning euthanasia. They co-opt him to write a paper on the subject, and
soon enough, bit by bit, small degree by small degree, they own him.

This is a somewhat bleaker film than the like of The Pianist or Schindler's
List (if that can be believed), in that while there isn't the appalling
depiction of the treatment of the Jews that those films had, neither is there
that one all important brave, compassionate soul who makes a difference, or
even *tries* to make a difference. Rather, this is the story of a man who may
mean no harm, but becomes complicit by his inaction, principally his inability
to save his Jewish friend, played by Jason Isaacs.

Ultimately, that's what's really unsettling about the film. We'd all like to
think we'd be an Oscar Schindler, even in some small way, in the same
situation. But in truth, it'd be all too easy to be like John Halder. Not
actively complicit in what was going on, but neither willing to take risks to
do what is right.

As a film, it's maybe not that great. There's only two real performances in it,
Mortensen and Isaacs, and Mortensen's a bit flat, sadly. Having said that, it's
well shot, the script's good, and Mortensen's nowhere near as rubbish as Tom
Cruise was in Valkyrie.

Let The Right One In

It's an interesting film, a vampire movie from a country with almost no
tradition of vampire movies (Sweden), and so presents the topic with an
originality, a far cry from the sexualised nature of the concept present in
many films, notably Twilight.

The film centres about Oskar, a weird kid who gets bullied at school, and Eli,
a young girl who moves in next door. Who turns out to be not so much an young
girl as a 200 year old vampire. Initially Eli is helped by an older man who
initially appears to be her father, who hunts people for her, but soon, she's
left on her own, and turns to Oskar for help.

The whole thing is shot in that stilted, almost amateurish style that European
films use to convey realism, sort of the style of no style. Not exactly
Dogme 95, bit certainly observes some of those rules, I think. It's quite slow
moving and quiet, and not a little creepy, even when there's not a vampire near
the scene.

In many ways, the film's greatest strength is that it presents the events as a document for you to consider; there's little directorial sleight of hand to tell you how to feel about what you've seen. And as such, the film stays with you for a long time, and gives you a lot to think about.

Duplicity

The basic premise. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are espionage agents with a bit
of a past (she CIA, he MI6) who have retired and are now working in corporate
espionage. At the beginning of the film, it would seem that she's a corporate
mole, and he's a guy hired to handle her. Sexual tension. Sparks fly. Only not
that much, as Owen and Roberts have about as much chemistry as Argon.

It's a teeny bit more convoluted than that, as there are wheels within wheels
aplenty, and the whole thing is just a little bit like The Sting, only not
anywhere near as good.

The saving grace, really, is that it's actually quite funny. Paul Giamatti is
swiftly becoming one of those guys who you can count on to bring a bit of class
to an otherwise pretty average movie. Clive Owen also seems to be having a lot
of fun. Julia Roberts, on the other hand just looks bored.

The Damned United

We all know Brian Clough, right? This film is a fictionalised account of the 44
days he spent as manager of Leeds United in 1974, and the history that lead
Clough to take the job. The film is based on David Peace's novel, which has
been criticised as being inaccurate, not least by the Leeds United player
Johnny Giles who took some court action on the matter. It also implies that
Brian Clough passed over a job at Brighton in favour of Leeds United, when in
fact he managed Brighton for a year before then.

So, watching with that in mind, that a lot of what you see probably never
happened, it's still an entertaining story. Michael Sheen does a very difficult
job, in that he makes Brian Clough a likeable character, whilst still
portraying him as the egotisical prick that he certainly always seemed to be in
public. I worry for Michael Sheen; Tony Blair, David Frost, now Brian Clough.
Are these really the kinds of people you'd want to be typecast as?

The plot itself concentrates on the reasons for Clough's rivalry with the Leeds
United manager he was taking over from, Don Revie, and his pretty hubristic
intentions to eclipse Revie.

It's a well made film, keeps you interested right to the end, which for a
football film, for me, is some achievement.