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"?

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?

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 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.

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?

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Ok, the basics.

David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's thriller, starring Daniel Craig as an investigative reporter tasked with looking into the decades old death of a millionaire industrialist's niece, and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, a pretty mentally damaged computer hacker/researcher who assists him/does all the heavy lifting for him because he's not really that bright.

These are pretty great performances, but overall, the film has a problem, which is best seen in comparison with the earlier Swedish film. It's too short. That might be an odd thing to say about a film that's two hours and forty minutes, and actually longer than the Swedish cinema version. The problem is, the Fincher version wastes quite a bit of time. I say wastes, that's not fair, you can look at snow all you like, I'm not going to criticise a filmmaker for that. But if two hours and forty is what you have to play with, I think more of that time was needed on the dialogue.

If I may trivialise the original book for a moment, what this is, is a story of a dark secret from the past that has remained secret because a collection of very private and reticent people are reluctant to talk about it, and the reporter investigating it isn't even that sure he wants to know either, at least initially. In the Swedish version, this led to a lot of conversations like:

"Tell me about the girl"
"Can I get you a drink Mr Blomquist?"
"No, thank you, now, about the girl..."
"Ah go on. I'm having one."
"I'm fine for whiskey thanks."
"Ah you will. You will, you will, you will."
"Oh alright then."

...before getting on and talking about the girl. In the Fincher version, that scene goes.

"Tell me about the girl"
"Can I get you a drink Mr Blomquist?"
"Yes please."

Which then leads to scenes like:
"Tell me about the girl then"
"I'm very reluctant to tell you about that."
"Please?"
"Oh, alright, seeing as its you, Mr Bond."

Ultimately, it feels like it was made by someone who thought that the book was fine and all, but it was a bit *talky*, it had too many *words* in it. And I'm not going to be so cheap as to say that it was *all* style and *no* substance, but having seen a version that very much erred on the side of substance, I can't say that moving towards the style was the best treatment for the story.