Dave's Thoughts And That

Clash of the Titans

2010-04-02T22:24:00.003+01:00

Cards on the table early: Clash of the Titans is a bad film. It has very few redeeming features, and shows no aspirations toward being suspenseful, exciting or engaging.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at the plot. It’s very simple, as you may expect, but to lay it all out on these pages would double the size of our humble magazine. Basically, demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington) and his band of merry men decide to go on a quest to deny the gods the satisfaction of wiping out the population of Argos – the town, not the store.

Perhaps it was planned this way, but the extremely simple, linear nature of the plot lends itself very well to the videogame format (coming soon, game fans). It essentially consists of Perseus going from place to place, fighting baddies and solving simple puzzles, aided somewhat by his fellow demigod and stalker Io (Gemma Arterton), and once by his beardy dad, Zeus (Liam Neeson).

There are parts of this movie that have a lot of potential. The sequence in Medusa’s grimy quarter of the underworld could have been full of The Descent-esque tension, but falls flat and instead feels like you are watching scenes from the cutting room floor of Beowulf, and maybe the giant scorpion fight in the desert would have been good if we hadn’t already seen it in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Speaking of ripping parts from other movies, how many times have we seen the diminuitive (relatively) hero flying through various flailing appendages and limbs of a giant monster? Oh yes, here we have a classic case of “let’s have the camera move around and look like it might get hit by whatever our CGI team can rustle up”. Seriously, do we need to see this kind of thing again? It was cool when James Cameron traversed us through a helicopter in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but that was nineteen years ago now. Maybe Hollywood should come up with some fresh ideas.

And now to the less than stellar performances on show. Sam Worthington, an English-born actor educated in Australia, manages to deliver an accent that falls somewhere between the two, but with an American twang thrown in for good measure. When all the other actors on show have flawless English accents, it surely wouldn’t be expecting too much for him to do an English accent too. Or maybe for the casting team to find someone who could. Even without the bad accent, Worthington is not good. Too much of a meathead to play a sensitive hero, and too sensitive-looking to play a meathead, his character is extremely unconvincing. He shows no emotion other than stoic resolution which, let’s face it, even Arnie can pull off.

Aside from Worthington, two of the finest British actors of recent times do their best to tarnish their reputations. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes have been in some of the great films of the last two decades, and have delivered stunning performances, but this is not a showcase for good acting, and it shows. Fiennes’ performance as Hades is so bad that it comes off as an amateur dramatics performer trying to be Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings, and Neeson seems to think that speaking all his lines in either a gruff whisper or an angry bark equates to having range. It doesn’t.

As for the redeeming features, there are two. The first is Pete Postelthwaite, playing Perseus’ human ‘father’ Spyros. Postelthwaite is a character actor of the highest calibre. He’s never been a leading man, but he always brightens up the screen whenever he’s around. It’s a small role that he has, but he does well with it, or as well as anyone can do with a role that requires being kindly and then dying. The second small piece of quality is the destruction of a statue of Zeus in during the set-up to the main plot. There are several attempts at conveying epic scale of the film, but this is the only one that really works. Most of the others consist solely of wide-angle shots of very small people walking in very huge places. Not impressive. Neither of these two features are worth seeing the film for, but if you’re really looking for an excuse to see it then these are your best bet.

If family-orientated action blockbusters are your bag, then it’s advisable to hold out for the latest Disney/Bruckheimer juggernaut The Prince of Persia. Not only does it come from people with a good track record, but it also stars Jake Gyllenhaal – one of the finest Hollywood actors working today. Clash of the Titans is not worth your hard-earned cash, or your invaluable time. If you want to waste a couple of hours, try staring at a blank piece of paper or lying face down on a bed of nails. It will probably be more entertaining.

2/10

The Lovely Bones

2010-02-24T16:43:00.003Z

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon

Screenplay: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson, based on the novel by Alice Sebold

Certificate: 12A/PG-13

Runtime: 135 minutes

Synopsis
Pennsylvania, 1973. Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is raped and murdered by a man from her neighbourhood. As she tries to contact her family from the “in-between”, the grief is too much for her mother and father to cope with. Her mother leaves while her father and younger sister try to find who murdered Susie.

The Lovely Bones seems like an odd film for Peter Jackson to make, much like Heavenly Creatures was in 1994. Instead of being known for oddball splatter films as he was then, he is now known to be the man who made Lord of the Rings and King Kong – two of the more epicly scaled projects of the last decade or so. So where does The Lovely Bones fit into this? It doesn’t. It is really a very small, confined story about one family and one paedophile, and while it uses a lot of CG trickery and other-worldly landscapes, it cannot be compared to Jackson’s previous two films at all.

That is not to say that this film is a mis-step on his part; it is a very well constructed and engaging story, and contains some moments that would rank among the finest of Jackson’s distinguished, and in my opinion unblemished, career so far.
Let’s focus on the CGI landscapes of the “in-between” for a moment. King Kong and, to a lesser extent, the Lord of the Rings trilogy were both criticised for slightly ropey CGI in places, but there are no moments like this in The Lovely Bones. Even the water effects – notoriously difficult to construct – looked fantastic here.

However, as everybody knows, good CGI is far from a backbone to build a film around; a lesson that Roland Emmerich might want to learn from. Thankfully Peter Jackson knows what he is doing when it comes to film-making and there is barely a flaw in this film. Even the casting of Marky Mark is spot-on, and when it comes to finding actresses to lend some emotional weight to your film, you cannot go wrong with Rachel Weisz. I do feel that Saoirse Ronan may be a tad young to carry such a big film, and at times she does seem to over-egg this cake somewhat. Having said that, she certainly isn’t bad, but perhaps she suffers from a slight lack of experience. She does, however, outshine the fairly sidelined love interest, a young man by the name of Reece Ritchie who seems intent on becoming the Asian version of Orlando Bloom, given his ridiculous “I am acting now” voice.

The main attraction to this film, for me, is Stanley Tucci. This guy has been around a while, but this is easily his most impressive role as George Harvey. He underwent something of a physical transformation for this role, and while they do seem to have played up to a fairly stereotyped image of a loner/paedophile, his creepiness really is a winner. Some of the involuntary noises his character makes when interacting with Saoirse’s Susie Salmon are truly disturbing.

As I said way back towards the start of this review, this film contains some of what I would say is Jackson’s best work. A scene where Susie’s little sister Lindsey breaks into Harvey’s house, only for him to return home, is comparable to Hitchcock’s absolute mastery of suspense. The tension is tangible and excruciating, and the thrill of the ensuing chase is joyous. Equally, a scene immediately following Susie’s murder is one of the more horrific things youa re likely to see in a 12A movie. She enters a bathroom that is caked in blood and dirt, with a faceless body in the bathtub. There is little to say that won’t ruin the scene, but it evokes the same feelings as the Pale Man scene in Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.

For all this eulogising, you would be forgiven for thinking that this is a flawless movie. Rest assured, it is not. There is one moment that feels so out of place it could be easily mistaken for a different film. A montage of Susan Sarandon, playing Susie’s grandmother, struggling to get to grips with household chores, accompained by some fairly jaunty music is horrifically out of place in what is otherwise a sombre, serious film. If Jackson was aiming at some sort of tension relief or artful juxtaposition, he really missed the mark here.

Otherwise, The Lovely Bones is a very praiseworthy movie. It is no more than entertainment, but it is told so well that it needn’t be more than this. As long as Peter Jackson keeps making films, I will keep going to see them, because in the simplest terms, he is yet to make a bad one. Rest assured that this film could really be anybody’s cup of tea, and I would recommend to not judge it based on the trailer or the basic concept of it, as it is much more than either of them would suggest. Highly recommended.

8/10

The Wolfman

2010-02-20T02:38:00.001Z

The Wolfman is an update of 1941’s The Wolf Man, starring Lon Chaney. This version stars Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving, and is directed by Joe Johnston, best known for the classics Jurassic Park III, Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji, as well as being in line to direct the 2011 Captain America movie.

The story is a fairly basic plot of Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) returning to England as an actor, only to be informed of his brother’s horrific murder. He travels to his hometown of Blackmoor to meet Gwen Conliffe (Blunt), his would-be sister-in-law, and hid father, Sir John Talbot (Hopkins) in an effort to solve the murder.

He quickly finds out that some kind of man-beast was involved, and is subsequently attacked by said man-beast. As is obvious based on the folklore of lycanthropy, he inevitably becomes the titular Wolfman. This really isn’t a spoiler – it happens half an hour into the movie, and is also the title of the movie.

Of course he eventually murders some poor folk, and is carted off to an asylum in London where he is poked and prodded by an apparently German doctor who concludes that he definitely isn’t a werewolf. He presents his case to a room of lesser doctors, while Talbot transforms into the Wolfman behind him. Thus follows what I call An American Werewolf in Latter-19^th Century London – a ten minute segment where the final werewolf spree of John Landis’ classic is copied almost entirely, while a bearded Agent Smith tries to shoot him off the rooftops.

This particular pastiche could be seen as one of two things. Either you enjoy the referencing of a revered movie, or it doesn’t seem to be a pastiche, but more of a rip-off. Although it wasn’t intended, or at least I certianly hope it wasn’t, there is another such moment where two werewolves have a fight that looks a lot like some of the scenes from last year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The final nail in the coffin of “seeing-things-we’ve-seen-before-that-didn’t-need-to-be-seen-in-this-particular-movie” is a horrific final 20 seconds before the closing credits; a horribly clichéd moment where the revelation of a certain character’s lycanthropic future is revealed is cringe-inducingly bad, and threatened to ruin the preceding 100 minutes.

The film in itself isn’t all bad however, but something about it just doesn’t work. There is apparently no wish on the part of Johnston or writers Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self to give the film any sense of genre. Seeing the name Andrew Kevin Walker on the opening credits did inspire hope, but looking back at Self’s credits of The Haunting and Thirteen Days it seems that the respective talents of the two may have cancelled each other out. As I said, the film doesn’t fit any genre, and while this might not be necessary for every film it really should be necessary in a film called The Wolfman. Where it should be straightforward horror, this takes up a position of halfway house somewhere between horror, period piece, drama and half-hearted love story, and suffers for it.

Horror movies aren’t exactly in vogue right now, at least not the kind of horror movie that I hoped this would be, but that should be no reason for bypassing the true nature of what this movie should have been. A slasher version of The Wolf Man would have been preferable to this, as would a comic-booky, outlandish, olde-worlde Legend of Sleepy Hollow style thriller, but going for this style just didn’t work.

It’s a shame because this was a massively anticipated movie and had great potential, especially with the somewhat wolfish Benicio Del Toro in the lead. Joined by Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving, the cast was looking good, but Anthony Hopkins’ insistence on royally hamming it up in every scene possibly did some considerable damage to the film.

I’m rambling so I will conclude with this: The Wolfman is a decent movie, but it isn’t a horror movie. In fact, it isn’t any kind of movie apart from, as I said, a decent one. Del Toro is, as ever, fantastic and has done nothing here to harm his reputation. Don’t go in expecting a masterpiece and you’ll be satisfied, but if you expect scary, suspenseful or anything superb (excuse the poor third adjective, but I was going for alliteration) you will be entirely let down. Have fun with it.

6/10

Oscar Nominations: Bigelow vs Cameron

2010-02-11T15:43:00.002Z

I was going to go through the ten Oscar Best Picture nominations, or rather the five that I have seen, but it seemed a bit dry. Instead, I will talk about the two big ones - Best Director and Best Picture - and the other two big ones - Kathryn Bigelow and Jim Cameron.

The films are, of course, The Hurt Locker and Avatar. There isn't a lot to say about Avatar that hasn't been said before - it's the biggest grossing film of all time, it's epic on a scale that is fairly rare these days, and it is terrifically dull.

On the other hand, The Hurt Locker is tense, compact, and did relatively little business. Kathryn Bigelow, who is most known for the offbeat vampire flick Near Dark, and the Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze surfing thriller Point Break. The Hurt Locker compares well to Point Break in terms of the extreme levels of testosterone that it not only has, but also observes.

It is also superior to Avatar, unquestionably. Like I said, the pure tension in the film makes it a truly gripping encounter, and one that can't be forgotten. Avatar, on the other hand, looks very nice, but doesn't do a lot for the 148 mins that you are expected to sit still and enjoy it.

As for the direction involved in the two, I'd say they are fairly equal. Bigelow did an outstanding job of creating tension in something we had already seen, but Cameron's achievement was to create a whole new world. So maybe he did a better job, but he certainly didn't make a better film.

To be honest though, this whole ramble is entirely redundant; it is a foregone conclusion that Avatar will run away with the Best Picture award, and probably Best Director too. It is a sad state of affairs when films like Rachel Getting Married don't even get a look in at the Academy Awards, but that is the world we live in. Maybe all will be different when we take over Pandora.

Review of My 2009

2010-01-04T09:47:00.003Z

So 2009 has finished, and I am going to do a quick Academy-esque awards review of the year. Please note that I haven't seen everything that came out this year, so cut me some slack. I've watched 42 films that were released in 2009, which I was quite pleased with, but only one was in a foreign language, so there will be no foreign language category.

So here we go:

Best Screenplay: I'm going to give this to Sam Mendes' Away We Go, written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. I really enjoyed the dialogue in this. It managed to be funny and sweet, which is a combination I usually go for. And the opening dialogue was about the taste of vaginal juices.

Best Soundtrack/Score: I don't even need to think about this. It goes to Watchmen, for the score. Songs by Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel and Nena were enough to make this my favourite soundtrack of the year by a mile.

Best On-Screen Chemistry: Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson as Oskar and Eli in Let The Right One In. A beautiful film, and the relationship was played perfectly. The fact that the two actors are 14 is just incredible, they played it way beyond their years.

Best Villain: This goes to Eric Bana's Nero in Star Trek. I'd watch Bana in anything, and this was no exception. A performance so good that I forgot it was him.

Best Horror: Drag Me To Hell. Although it is arguably not really a horror, it is head and shoulders above anything else claiming to be horror from last year. And that includes Paranormal Activity. Funny, jumpy in places, and has a talking goat. Blood brilliant.

Best Sci-Fi: This is going to Duncan Jones' Moon. Just gave something different to the genre, and it really worked. Almost perfect.

Best Comedy: (500) Days of Summer. Like Away We Go, this film was so sweet it almost hurt. It isn't a laugh out loud comedy, not for the majority anyway, but the Han Solo moment is worthy of even the greatest comedies.

Best Supporting Actress: I'll give this to Ahney Her, who played Sue in Gran Torino. I thought she was fantastic in this, and really made the film for me. A perfect contrast to Clint, and yeah, just good.

Best Supporting Actor: Justin Long. No question, he really made Drag Me To Hell what it was for me. I love this guy, and he really pulled it out of the bag on this one.

Best Actress: Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married. One of my favourite films of the year, and it was all down to this lady. A really fantastic performance in a really fantastic film.

Best Actor: I know he was just being Clint, but Clint Eastwood for Gran Torino was my favourite performance of the year. Just brilliant. Clint is the man.

Best Director: I say Zack Snyder for Watchmen. I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I thought it was great, and the direction was superb.

Best Film: I think Let The Right One In just edges it over Rachel Getting Married here. A really incredible film. Loved it from start to finish, and I can't wait to see it again.

And, just to end on a downer:

Worst Film: The Uninvited. Plain fucking awful.

There are a few films I really liked that haven't had a mention on here, so some special mentions go to the following:

The Wrestler - Mickey Rourke was second in line to the best actor throne.
A Perfect Getaway - Really surprised me with how bad it wasn't.
Inglourious Basterds - He shot Hitler in the face.
Milk - Entertaining, moving and true. What more could you ask?
District 9 - Entertaining, but I was still let down.
Monsters vs Aliens - The best non-Disney/Pixar animated film I've ever seen.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - Funny and sweet.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona - Sorry? Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and Penelope Cruz in the same film? Yes please.

And some crappy, crappy films:

My Bloody Valentine - Just cheap, and we've seen it all before.
The International - Made literally no sense.
Bruno - Offensive and unfunny.
Saw VI - Horrible. I felt repulsed.
The Boat That Rocked - Too boring for words.
Observe and Report - Again, borderline offensive and not particularly funny.
Paranormal Activity - A horror film that forgot to be scary.
2012 - Just shit. Long, dull, bad acting, bad effects...

The Boat That Rocked - A One Line Review.

2009-12-07T23:12:00.001Z

Duller than dried arse.

**

Films I like

2009-12-01T23:13:00.002Z

I've decided that I like happy films. Just thinking of films we have watched in lectures recently:

Blow-Up: I hated this. It wasn't necessarily unhappy, but it was quite glum. And very "take me seriously, for I am a film".

Veronica Guerin: She dies. Enough said. Miserable. And boring.

The Third Man: Funny and clever. Not a happy ending, but bouncy enough to enjoy.

To Die For: Again, not a happy ending, but a sunshiney film.

The Devil Wears Prada: What's not to like? Funny AND a happy ending.

I do not like miserable, dour films. Even if it is very offbeat comedy that is really just poking fun at how crap life is, that's good enough for me.

So, no more Haneke for me. I will be filling my life with the remaining Disney films I have yet to see. Not quite, but I feel like I would be a much happier person if I didn't immerse myself in desperately miserable, serious films.

I was going to watch Grave of the Fireflies, but I don't want to cry for the next two hours, I want to enjoy something. That is what films should do. Fuck misery, bring on the smiles!

Paranormal Inactivity

2009-11-28T13:52:00.004Z

Last night I watched "the scariest movie of the decade" - Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity.

Quick plot summary - Katie thinks she is haunted. Her boyfriend Micah is skeptical. He buys a camera to film everything. Turns out she is haunted, just not in a very interesting way.

To clear up one major point: this is not the scariest movie of any decade, let alone one that has produced films such as El Orfanato, Rec and The Others. This film is tedious beyond belief. Episodic night-time scenes are not enough to maintain a narrative where the only other points of interest are Katie (Katie Featherstone) screaming "I don't fucking care! I want that fucking camera out of my house!" and Micah (Micah Sloat) taking the piss out of a psychic investigator.

The handheld camera gimmick is now beyong the point of getting old. Blair Witch did it well; Rec and Cloverfield did it fairly well, even if it didn't really feel necessary, Diary of the Dead was poor, mainly because of the arsehole holding the camera, and now Paranormal Activity, which is the worst of all. I don't know if this is my interpretation or if it is intentional on the part of the directors of these films, but it seems to me that they believe this technique puts the audience into the action, therefore upping the intensity levels. Not so, Mr Peli.

To me, the use of handheld camera, especially in a film as dull as Paranormal Activity, gives the same effect as watching your boring friend's boring home video, where he films his girlfriend all day, trying to get her to have sex in front of the camera. It's not something we need to watch.

I'm not saying that a film has to be full of gore and screaming to interest me - I do think that this was better than Saw VI - but it has to be full of something. Reading Peter Bradshaw's review in The Guardian I was struck by his opening gambit: "It has been some time since I physically jumped at a scary movie. Horror has become a predictable genre - these days maggoty skulls can leap out of wardrobes all they want and we merely yawn. But in this film, all it took was one bedroom door to move 12 inches, unaided - just that, nothing else - and I felt like leaping into the arms of the person next to me." Yes, horror is a very subjective genre, but I am yet to read a negative review of this film. I cannot be the only one who was not scared by this. And for the record, ghosts/supernatural beings are generally what gets me the post - The Blair Witch Project, El Orfanato and The Haunting are the three movies that have shit me up the most, and they are all about similar subject matter, and similar ways of scaring the audience.

Unfortunately, there is a sequel to Paranormal Activity, due in 2012, and it is safe to say that I will not be first in line.

The Uninvited

2009-11-15T02:33:00.001Z

The Uninvited is a remake of the Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters. It is, somewhat a tale of two sisters. It is also the story of a crazy bitch whose craziness is apparently enough to explain every single flaw in the film.

The crazy bitch in question is young Anna, played fairly ably by Emily Browning (of Lemony Snicket ‘fame’). Anna is in a mental institute following an attempted suicide after the ‘accidental’ death of her ill mother. At the start of the film she is released back to her family, including new step-mother Rachel Summers (Elizabeth Banks – another example of a more than competent actor lowering themselves to a very poor standard), father Steven (David Straitharn), and her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel).

The plot centres on Anna’s suspicion that Rachel had something to do with the death of her mother, as Rachel was nurse to the mother at the time of her death. She manages to get Alex on the side of her theory, but Rachel manages to get in the way every time Anna tries to communicate this to her father, or to (brief) love interest Matthew.

Given that this film runs at a very short 83 minutes, you may be forgiven for thinking that something would have happened by around the 50 minute mark. Not so. There have been a few scenes of tension between Anna and Rachel, as well as a fairly standard “Dad, I know you won’t believe me, but your new girlfriend killed our mum” “Don’t be crazy. You need to learn to love your new mum, because I love her, and you should be happy that I’m happy” type scene, but nothing else of any note.

All the supposed drama occurs in the last few minutes, and given how straightforward the plot has been up until this point, it seems fairly academic to point out that there is a twist at the end. It isn’t a great twist. Or even a good one. To reveal it, while doing you the favour of not making you watch this atrocity, would still be slightly amiss. However, it is safe to say that this is not a new twist. In fact, imagine a cross between the twist in Shrooms and the twist in the remake of My Bloody Valentine, and you are pretty much there.

The Uninvited is directed by The Guard Brothers – Thomas and Charles – a British pair who have only existed in the medium of short film before this, and while it may be slightly harsh, it would make sense for them to stay away from feature film for a while longer. The immaturity in their direction – somehow succeeding in creating a horror film devoid of tension, dread or indeed horror only adds to the failings of the script, written by Craig Rosenberg, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard.

This is a terrible film. There is no disputing that fact. Like most films, this has a redeeming factor, in that the four main performances (Browning, Kebbel, Banks, Straitharn) were all more than competent. Good performances do not a good film make, however, and this has to go down as the worst film of 2009 to this point.

*

Year One

2009-11-10T00:40:00.002Z

Harold Ramis. Jack Black. Michael Cera. Hank Azaria. Paul Rudd. Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Just some of the names that star in/direct one of the biggest comedies of 2009, written by Gene Stupnitsky (The Office) and Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and Animal House to name but a few). Somehow, despite the stellar names and a fairly watertight premise, Year One doesn't quite deliver.

Perhaps the episodic nature of Zed and Oh's quest through the early days of man is to blame for the failings of Year One. The almost sketch-like quality of some scenes makes this play out as a cheap imitation of Monty Python more than an original comedy operating of its own will.

The joke writing is, as expected, fantastic. As are the deliveries from both Michael Cera and Jack Black, with it looking like the film was written specifically for the pair (a more than possible suggestion). Cera's naive awkwardness combined with Black's extroverted showmanship makes for an excellent comedic combination, and some of their exchanges deserve to have been put in a better film.

It is always slightly saddening to see TV stars toiling away in bit parts in movies that aren’t fit to wipe the shoes of the shows that comprise their day job. Here we have Olivia Wilde (Thirteen from House) and Xander Berkeley (George Mason of 24) in roles that are far beneath them. Berkeley spends his time on screen gurning like a fool, while Wilde’s input is apparently to look sultry and put on a fairly poor English accent, or at least I think that’s what she was doing.

Year One is by no means a bad film. In a year that has seen the likes of Bruno and Lesbian Vampire Killers, at least this manages to stay on the side of good taste. Having said that, it does seem to be stuck in the past. Cera’s other major feature of the year, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, symbolises a new wave of comedic films, supported ably by Sam Mendes’ Away We Go and (500) Days of Summer, from Marc Webb. These are comedies based around believable, likeable characters. Year One is a series of events that doesn’t lend itself well to the feature film format.

This is certainly not the worst film of the year, nor is it even close, but coming from the range of names that it does, Year One can only be seen as a disappointment. Jack Black will always keep people amused, but this film smacks of a lazy vehicle created solely for his improvisational comedy to take centre stage.

As I write this, I am aware that a sequel is on its way. One can only hope that a little more effort is put into it than there was first time round, and that there are less gaps in the script where it says “Roll camera on JB for five minutes, see if anything good comes up.”

**½

Dry River Road

2009-10-27T14:24:00.001Z

Leo Whitlock, the main character of Rory Haines’ short Dry River Road, is clearly a very troubled man.

He is living out of his car, shaving in the bathroom at a highway petrol station, and lying to his estranged wife about his (un)employment status. The reason for this, we don’t know. He is a veteran of the Iraq war, this much we do know, but after that it all becomes a bit muddy.

Is he a violent man? His constant badgering of Akeem for a job at said petrol station is pushy enough that it borders on the “one more rejection and he might just lamp you” side of things, but his absolute horror at what later happens might equally suggest otherwise.

He certainly isn’t the smartest man around; stealing money from a dead man, smearing blood on himself and tucking the murder weapon into his jeans doesn’t suggest that all his bulbs are burning at their brightest, but maybe he is really just that desperate.

Perhaps Leo has been dishonourably discharged from the US Army. This could explain his apparent lack of self-discipline (and vice-versa). It would also go some way to explaining why he is having such a hard time finding a job.

A dishonourable discharge may even account for the lack of contact with his wife and son, and why his wife has no interest in entertaining him at all.

Of course, what it all comes down to is whether or not Leo could ever make anything of himself. There is absolutely nothing here to suggest that he is comfortable with meeting the standards that society expects of him.

The case in point: his attire. He has gone to Akeem to ask for a job, but has completely neglected to spruce himself up in any effort to impress his prospective employer.

His absolute lack of respect for Akeem is symptomatic of something altogether more sinister. While we aren’t told of Akeem’s heritage, it is safe to assume that he is of Middle Eastern origin, and the underlying menace of the interaction between the two comes from Leo’s instinct to play with a small American flag while talking to Akeem.

Leo may not consider himself a racist, but his actions in the scene convey a sense of racial tension that could explain everything about Leo and his character.

The thirteen minutes that we see here are the thirteen minutes that change the life of Leo. The lack of any sort of “crash bang wallop” force-feeding of dramatic impact is one of the film’s major strengths.

Through both the way it is shot – conventional, trendy handheld style – and the lack of dictatorial music, the film manages to achieve both a subtlety and a harrowing bleakness that takes it to a higher level, particularly impressive given it is a first time effort from Haines, as well as a first time effort for writer Sohrab Noshirvani.

***½

Nick, Norah and Dave's Infinite Playlist

2009-10-14T00:07:00.002+01:00

I love Nick and Norah. Do you know who else I love? Tom and Summer. Juno and Bleeker. I love Burt and Verona. I even love Jim and Pam. Why? Because they are all me and us and everybody we know. Everybody everywhere sees themselves as the slightly off-centre person that no-one quite gets but is really the best person in the world, and we all deserve to have our happiness.

There are some differences in the way the five above relationships evolve.

Nick and Norah: they fall in love in one night and miss catching their own white whale just to be with each other.

Tom and Summer: absolutely right for each other, but destined to be apart.

Juno and Bleeker: two friends who are forced to realise how much they love each other by a mistake.

Burt and Verona: a perfect couple in an imperfect world.

Jim and Pam: absolutely right for each other, but manage to miss each other several times before it works.

Of course, it could be because I love Michael Cera, John Krasinski, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kat Dennings, Zooey Deschanel, Ellen Page, Maya Rudolph, and (most of all) Jenna Fischer that I want to be these people, but I think there is more to it. I think there is something in misery that attracts me to these people.

The most effective couples here, for me, are Tom and Summer, and Jim and Pam. Not pregnant Jim and Pam, engaged Jim and Pam, or happy Jim and Pam. Jim and Pam when it's Jim (and Karen) and Pam, or Jim and Pam (and Roy). I love misery.

I loved wallowing in the misery of watching Tom waste his time with Summer, and thinking "Yep, that's right" when he eventually lost her. I loved the misery of Jim having to watch Pam and Roy set a date for their wedding. I've come to realise that (as Motorhead so succinctly put it) the chase is better than the catch.

Of course, when Nick and Norah finally got the chance to watch Where's Fluffy? they left to spend time with each other. They didn't need to see this band, they just needed to see that they could see this band if they wanted to.

Why should Nick and Norah watch this band now? At least a small part of the attraction was the mysticism that went along with them. When (presumably) a few normal guys walks out on the stage...where's the fun in that? When Dorothy finally meets the wizard and he's one small man surrounded by smoke and mirrors, where's the magic in that? When Willard finally meets Kurtz and he's one fat guy surrounded by a horde of drug-addled children, where's the awe in that? When Tom finally gets to be with Summer and she doesn't want to be with him forever, and doesn't want to grow old with him, and doesn't want everything he wants, where's the true love in that?

For me, I can take this in one of two ways. Number one:

When man finally figures out who Jesus/God/Allah/whoever is/was and he's just one guy with a beard who did some good in the world, we will destroy our idols. The chase is much better than the catch. It doesn't matter if there is a god or not. Some guy does believe it, I don't. We both enjoy our sides of the argument, until the day one of us is right or wrong, and then nobody cares anymore.

Version two goes like this:

Who needs to have everything they want? There comes a point when you get a better TV and it's just a slightly sharper image. You get to be with the person of your dreams and they aren't the same person as was in your dreams. They share the same body, but this person doesn't care about whether you want to go out or stay in. It doesn't matter to them. Again, the chase is better than the catch. For all the promise something might hold in mind, it will never fulfil it.

There is no point to dreaming. I suppose there is no real harm in dreaming either, but one has to be realistic. As for the misery I mentioned earlier, I just enjoy misery. I am a miserable person. It works for me. I have friends who manage to counterbalance the way I am and that works for me too.

That's why I love all those people. They, for me, are the chase. Their chase is my chase. I don't know what the catch will be for me. Maybe one day it will happen and it will be just as good as the chase. Maybe one day something will happen to me and I will catch the bug of optimism. Or religion. Or love. But I hope not, because I like the chase. I like to be miserable, to wallow, and to wait. And that is why I love Nick and Norah. They know the chase is better than the catch.

Hancock

2009-07-09T11:31:00.002+01:00

So after five months without so much as a peep, I have finally decided to get my arse in gear. I am participating in the Movie of the Week thing on the Simply Syndicated forums, and as such I am going to review each film we watch. First up (second actually, but I couldn't be bothered to review Bladerunner) is Peter Berg's Hancock. Here we go...

In amongst a spate of “serious” and “dark” superhero movies of late - The Dark Knight and Watchmen come to mind as primary examples – Hancock must have seemed like a breath of fresh air when the original trailers began showing; a comedy, not a spoof, about a pissed-off superhero who doesn’t care about the public he protects. However, after the initial 40 minutes of comedy antics and stunning set-pieces, the film takes a sharp left-turn that can only be described as inexplicable.

I’m sure that I’m not the only person who was enjoying the entertaining, if simple, plot of Jason Bateman’s PR guru Ray trying to turn Will Smith’s Travis-Bickle-with-superpowers into your friendly neighbourhood superhero. While it wasn’t groundbreaking, the premise certainly had 90 minutes of entertaining material in it, and would have kept the laughs coming, which, let’s face it, is the reason why people went to see this film.

The turn it takes for the final act – introducing another superhero, and thereby completing ruining the original premise of the film – could have worked if this other superhero was a villain, but unfortunately between the three of them, Vincent Ngo, Vince Gilligan, and Peter Berg could not decide whether Charlize Theron was a supervillain or a superhero, and left her to rot as a cutaway character during the final “battle”. Not that it was much of a battle – a few guys with guns against a man who has pretty much every power in the superhero book is only going to go one way.

As much as the conclusion of this film was a disappointment, the preceding minutes were full of promise. The story was somewhat illogical (why did Hancock bother to be a superhero if he cared as little as he clearly did?), but entertaining nonetheless. The opening set-piece, involving Hancock flying around with a car in his hand, and, later, a bank robbery that Hancock foils in the midst of a hail of gunfire, were both stunningly put together by a director who certainly knows how to shoot action sequences, even if his dedication to anything much more meaningful is less than lacklustre, as anyone who has seen The Kingdom will attest to, I’m sure.

As well as these triumphs of CGI, the interplay and chemistry between Bateman and Smith is almost perfect. These are two of the finest comic actors working today - throw Paul Rudd into the mix and this film would instantly boast the greatest comedy line-up of any recent film – and their interactions are certainly no let-down. Smith on his own delivers some excellent one-liners (“I'll break my foot off in your ass, woman” to a gawping woman in a bar and “Okay. Well, you should sue McDonald's, 'cause they fucked you up.” To an overweight naysayer are my personal favourites), but it is when the two of them come together that they really shine. There isn’t much point listing them for two reasons. One, there are too many to list. And two, it is all about reactions and timing, something which doesn’t easily translate to a written medium.

Not only does Smith handle the comedy well, he also does well with the serious stuff. Although it is somewhat ham-fistedly written, Smith’s ability to control and display emotion brings out the best in some fairly poor dialogue later on in the film, such as the not-quite-classic “I gotta wonder what a kind of a bastard I must have been, that nobody was there to claim me. I mean, I am not the most charming guy in the world, so I've been told, but... nobody?” We knew from his performances in Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness, and the equally film-of-two-halves I Am Legend that he was capable of busting some serious acting chops, but I always find it surprising to see the Fresh Prince breaking out the emotion.

Unfortunately, this film should not have been about emotion. Instead, it should have been about a pissed-off superhero being a pissed-off superhero and pissing off everyone else. If the script had stuck to its initial promise and delivered the redemption story that I, and I assume many others, was hoping for, this could have been a very good film. Instead it is a mediocre film, and will always be remembered, if at all, for how much of a letdown it was after the buzz that originally surrounded it. A massive disappointment, but still, somehow, a decent movie. Short enough to hold the attention of the youngest or oldest viewer, but long enough that you aren’t left wanting more (quite a feat at 88 minutes), this is worth a watch, but don’t get your hopes up too much.

6/10

Spider-Man 3

2009-01-27T00:24:00.002Z

OK, I've given up on listing the films I've watched because it was boring. Instead, I'm going to talk about this latest film I've seen, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3.

So I'm a big fan of the first two Spider-Man movies. Apart from the first two X-Men movies and Chris Nolan's two Batman films, I consider Spider-Man 1 and 2 to be the bets comic book movies of the 21st century. Obviously, they are only up against DareDevil, Elektra and Fantastic 4 in this category, but still, my point stands. However, Spider-Man 3 is barely on a par with Fantastic 4 in my eyes, due to a lack of it being good.

First of all, this film starts out with a weedy, poor monologue from Toby Maguire. Now this guy is not a great orator. He's no Morgan Freeman, that's for sure. So anyway, it starts off with this poor monologue, and leading into Peter Parker dicking about with Mary-Jane and being sad because he's not friends with Harry anymore. Not great.

We see Mary-Jane singing (badly) in her Broadway show and then get introduced a the guy from Sideways, who is now a massive beefcake in a stripey top. He then gets turned into a really bad CG-guy by some sand. Meanwhile, Spidey and the Goblin have a fight and Harry gets concussion, allowing them to be friends again.

After this, Peter gets taken over the mystical and unexplained Venom, turning him into a super-confident and weirdly sexual emo guy. Now this is where it gets really shit. By my count, there are four weird musical sections in this film; MJ's Broadway show (relatively acceptable and relevant), Peter dancing down the street pointing at lots of ladies (insanely ridiculous and one of the worst things ever conceived), Harry and MJ dancing in Harry's kitchen (pointless and irritating), and Peter and Gwen dancing to make MJ jealous (reminiscent of Anchorman. Not really necessary in an action film, right?) This adds up to plenty of fat on a not-too-skinny film, and if Sam Raimi had spent a little more time reading his Shit Watchers pamphlets, he might've cut out these sections and made this film a lot better.

And those aren't the only bad bits. The final fight scene is awful. It is very much part of the structure of comic book movies that the film should finish with a fight scene. This particular fight scene is a tag-team match up between the weedy Spider-Man and the powerless yet scientifically-aided Goblin, versus the massive, ridiculously strong, shape-shifting Sandman and the crazy evil, very underdeveloped character of the Venom-ised Eddie Brock.

Call me old-fashioned, but this is not a fair fight. I don't quite know what Venom's powers are, but he seems to be a ruthless, evil version of Spider-Man. The essence of the unfairness of this fight is displayed just before Goblin shows up, when Venom ties Spidey down, allowing Sandman to pummel him with one massive, arachno-man sized fist.

When the Goblin shows up, he helps out a fair amount; he blows up part of Sandman's head, allowing Spidey to get back to his feet, and then gets his arse kicked by Venom for long enough for Spidey to figure out how to defeat the alien goo-man. Now, herein lies the problem of this final fight (as if the total imbalance of the two 'teams' wasn't enough); the final defeat of the villains. In Spider-Man, Green Goblin got impaled by his own glider - pretty cool; in Spider-Man 2, Doc Ock gets drowned and blown up. In Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man lets one go and kills the other with music. Yep. He forgives Sandman/Flint for killing his uncle and lets him fuck off in his inimitable sandy fashion, and then plays music to defeat Venom. Granted, he then blows him (and Eddie Brock) up, but it's a shit explosion. Meanwhile, Harry is dying.

So all in all, Spider-Man 3 is not a particularly good film, with the negatives far outweighing the positives. Here it goes in a pros and cons sort of breakdown:

Pros:

It's Spider-Man
James Franco is excellent as Harry Osborn
Decent fight scene between Spider-Man and the Goblin
JK Simmons

Cons

Tobey Maguire is not a superhero, even a weedy little bitch like Spider-Man
Kirsten Dunst and Bryce Dallas Howard, while being fairly easy on the eye, are two of the dullest actresses about
Crap villains
Crap CG - it looks like early PS2-standard graphics
Crap final fight
Stupid musical sequences
Far too long (2 hours 13 minutes)

Quite frankly, I really hope they don't make a fourth one. And by they, I mean Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire. In an ideal world, after Chris Nolan has done Batman 3, he will reinvent another messed-up-by-too-many-villains-and-not-enough-good-ideas superhero franchise. I would suggest Bryan Singer doing it, but after the atrocity that was Superman Returns, and the apparent snoozefest of Valkyrie, I'm not sure I trust him anymore.

I read an interview with James Franco the other day, where he was saying that although he auditioned for the part of Peter Parker, he was glad that they chose Maguire and that he was a perfect cast for Spider-Man. Now I know that Parker is supposed to be a geeky little bitch with no backbone, but Tobey Maguire is quite simply not a good actor. Franco would have been a far better choice. Admittedly it wouldn't affect the quality of this latest instalment, where the problems should have been apparent from the scripting stage, but it might've made it ever so slightly more watchable.

Anyway, I feel compelled to give films a rating, and I give it 6/10. This may seem high, given the fairly voluminous criticism I have just levelled at the film, so I feel the need to justify this. Firstly, JK Simmons is immense as J Jonah Jameson, editor of the Daily Bugle. He is an excellent character actor, and should be in more things. Secondly, the subplot of Harry Osborn getting Peter and MJ to break is excellent, despite being carried solely on the shoulders of James Franco, who hits some superb comedic beats in the process. Next, there is an excellent comedy sequence, involving Bruce Campbell as a French maitre d' with excellent comic mistiming. Sadly, this is the best scene in the entire film. Also, it's hopefully going to be the last, seeing as how the trilogy seems to be the 'in' thing to do in films. At least until around 2020, when it will be brought back, with the same guy as the main hero, having had a fairly poor career since, and creating a film that everyone will be excited about, until it comes out and sucks, because Spider-Man used a car to kill a helicopter, or something along those lines.

So there you go, my review of Spider-Man 3. Only a year late, but whatever. Don't waste your time.

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

2008-12-08T23:24:00.002Z

Not a good film. Maybe one of the worst I've seen. Question: Why did Reiko Aylesworth (Michelle from 24) feel the need to be in this film? She is better than this.

In fact, most people are better than this. It is distinctly poor. I don't know who thought it was a good idea. I'm listening to part of the director's commentary now while I finish this off, and I'm shocked that they wanted to associate themselves with this film any more than they already have. It's awful. I can't say anything good about it.

Apparently there were a lot of things they couldn't do due to budget. Like the Predator's arm being melted off by acid. That would be cool. These guys sound like 12-year-olds. They're fucking idiots. The subtext of this film is that the humans are even more lethal than the monsters, because they nuke the town.

I don't get what is good about this. I actually quite enjoyed AvP, but this is ridiculously poor. I don't know how write anything even remotely cerebral about it, because I seem to have one of those stream of consciousness type things going.

Oh, they wanted a different ending where the Special Forces mow down the survivors (for no reason; not even as logical as NotLD or Cabin Fever). How awesome that would be! Now it's gone all very military and setting up AvP3. Woo!

People should stop making these films. It's unnecessary. I have an idea. Give Dario Argento some money. Give Wes Craven some money. Give John Carpenter some money. Give George A. Romero some money. Just give good horror directors money, and let them make films that they want to make. If a film is clearly a horror, kids are going to go see it, and if it is a good horror, as we would expect from any of the guys I mentioned, then people could enjoy them.

AvP:R has an IMDb score of 5.0. I gave it a 3. I just don't see anything good about it. It isn't shocking, because there are a couple of decent moments. However, a couple of decent moments do not a good movie make. For one thing, what happened to lighting? Do these guys know what it is? I watched the majority of this in a pitch black room, and I struggled to see what was going on. Is that water or blood? Is that an Alien or a Predator? A Predalien or a Predator? A man or an Alien? Man or Predalien? Dog or Facehugger? Wall or tree? Horse or mouse? House or Morse? Really guys, sort it out. Set it in somewhere white, like in AvP. Or even better, get the National Guard to set up floodlights.

Also, this isn't directed solely at this film, but it certainly applies here. What is with the stupid editing? When I see a fight scene, I want to see a fight scene, not close-ups of faces, hands, bodies, weapons, blood, faces, quick long shot, wound, weapon, et cetera. Get your camera, put it in your hand, tell the actors to act, stand near them and zoom in and out as you please, keep them in focus, make sure they are well lit, and let the scene play out. I don't want to see any more of this shoddy editing which only serves to keep the film at a PG13 rating because we don't really see any fucking violence. Incidentally, I don't know if this was PG13 or R, but I don't care because it was shite.

I'm quite angry now.

Ratatouille

2008-11-01T12:59:00.002Z

This is the 2007 Disney Pixar film, directed by Brad Bird. For those of you under a rock with wi-fi, it is about a rat named Remy, who has dreams of being a top chef, inspired by Chef Gusteau's book "Anyone Can Cook".

When Remy arrives in Paris, he discovers that he is living directly opposite Gusteau's restaurant, which is now run by the sinister Chef Skinner. He ends up in the kitchen, trying to fix a dish that the garbage-boy, Linguini, has ruined, and is chased out by the kitchen staff. When the dish is tasted, everyone loves it, and lavishes the praise on Linguini.

So the story unfolds with Linguini housing Remy under his chef hat, telling him how to cook, and Linguini quickly rises to the top of the culinary game.

To go any further is unnecessary, and could sort of ruin the movie.

Essentially, this is a fantastic film. I was very sceptical going in to it, because of the fact that it's one of those that everyone says is a kids film that's for adults and all that shit, which I generally dislike. I always get the impression that grown up people say they like these films to be a bit off-centre and kooky. But, I hold my hands up and say I was wrong. This is probably the best film I've watched since The Dark Knight, and I probably enjoyed it more.

I'd recommend this to anyone, it's great. It'll leave a huge smile on your face, and you'll want to watch it again and again.

Genius.

Quantum of Solace

2008-10-23T14:34:00.002+01:00

OK, for whatever reason I am failing to embed the trailer from YouTube on here, but that doesn't really matter. Basically, it looks like a return to the Brosnan Bonds. There is a quote on the front of this month's Empire from Daniel Craig, saying "Bond has been ripped apart..." Now, I'm not entirely sure in which context this is. Either he means the franchise has been ripped apart, or the character has, following the death of Vesper at the end of Casino Royale. Either way, it's no excuse for what looks like a shameless Bond film. The trailer shows Bond using the following forms of transport: speedboat, car, free-running, dirtbike, plane and helicopter (I think). True, there is no tank chase through Moscow (or whatever it was), but it is a clear case of jumping the shark.

I think Casino Royale was ridiculously overrated. Yes, it was the best Bond since The Living Daylights, but it was overlong, poorly scripted, and just a bit dull. However, it was as good as it was because it wasn't what we were expecting. Maybe that's the genius of Quantum Of Solace; we were expecting Casino Royale 2, and instead we're getting Die Another Day 2.

Of course, I'll go see it, because it might be great. And I hope it is, because we are due a great Bond film.

My other major beef is the title of the piece. If you're a bit stupid and need it explaining, it means "The Amount Of Comfort". This does not make sense. I get what they are trying to do; it's all about revenge and blah blah blah, but no. It doesn't work.

Also, Daniel Craig is not a good looking man. I consider myself a straight guy, but I can look at another man and see that he's good looking. Daniel Craig is no such guy. He looks weird. End of.

Nochnoi Dozor, AKA Nightwatch (2004)

2008-10-06T11:29:00.002+01:00

Like before, I'm not going to outline the plot blah blah blah too much, at least not in exposition-stylee, I'm just going to talk about the film.

Basically, this was marketed as the biggest Russian film ever, despite having a budget of just $4.2million, compared to the $63million budget for what must be considered it's American counterpart, The Matrix (1999). I have to say that it lives up it's billing. This film feels epic. Not just the century-spanning story, but the wealth of characters and the intricate nature of the plot.

The acting here is fairly good, but like I mentioned in an earlier entry, I don't really know if they are acting well, because they're not talking English, so it is very difficult, maybe impossible, to judge how believable their delivery is.

There's not a lot to say. However, if you saw Wanted (2008), this is by the same director, There is a sequel, Dnevnoy Dozor, AKA Daywatch (2006), and another is due in 2009, called Sumerechnyy Dozor, AKA Twilight Watch.

Basically, if you like sci-fi/action, and don't mind reading subtitles, this will be a winner for you. It's fantastic.

Carrie (1976)

2008-10-05T17:43:00.002+01:00

OK, so first off: Brian De Palma and Stephen King are correct; this is NOT a horror film, it is a supernatural thriller. My reasons for saying this are very simple, and are as follows

This film is not scary.
The sympathy and empathy are all for Carrie, who is essentially both monster and victim, therefore we do not fear her.
The two creators say it isn't.

So, anyway, this is a fairly good film. Sissy Spacek as Carrie is possibly one of the best examples of casting I can think of; she is so spooky, sad, and vulnerable at the same time, that you can't help but to sit back and admire the performance. The other performances are fairly good; John Travolta plays a sweary version of Danny Zuko. Although I've just realised that Grease was after Carrie, the point still stands; John Travolta plays John Travolta, and can't do much else. Not a criticism; a lot of actors play versions of themselves - think De Niro, Washington, Pacino, Eastwood et al, who are all undisputedly great actors. Apart from Spacek and Travolta, I don't the names of anyone in this film. I recognise the girl from Halloween who gets strangled with a phone cord, but apart from that, I had no idea who the actors were.

Now, I am slightly embarrassed to say that I had never seen this all the way through up until today, but I'm also unsure as to what the fuss is about. To me, this is by no means a 'classic'. It is fairly good, but nothing special. I was expecting to be shocked by something, anything, but nothing really got me. I guess, given that the film is 32 years old, some of the shocking moments have been tamed by time. In particular, the period scene, the crucifixion scene, and the dream sequence at the end had that feeling of "This is really shocking and out there" about them, but just failed to make the grade.

I don't expect I need to outline the plot, so I won't bother, but there is a link at the top of this entry to the relevant IMDb page, which I will, from now on, be doing on every entry I make.

So, in summary, give Carrie a watch, but don't expect too much. It's good, just not great.