If anyone's out there, the reason for no reviews has been due to a very busy and lowly funded December. Mainly without a train ticket. Anyway, this is just a wee post to say I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and that I look forward to pushing up and posting more views and reviews in the New Year. Have a good one, while I leave you with this:
Top 5 Best Cinema Releases of 2012 (Not seen nearly enough, apologies)
5. Ginger and Rosa - Very well put together, interesting character drama with some great central performances
4. To Rome With Love - As witty, charming and overall funny as you would expect after Midnight in Paris. This Woody Allen guy shows a wee bit of promise.
3. The Dark Knight Rises - Tom Hardy was great, Christian Bale was great, everyone did their job well, but it didn't have the interest or the structure of the previous two. Still a very well made movie, and one of the best of the year.
2. This Is Not A Film - A fantastic documentary about the need to film. When an Iranian film maker is banned from directing anything all he can do is sit in his house and allow a friend to film him. A really great and interesting movie.
1. Skyfall - Really, see below! It was a very well made apology for the crime that was Quantum of Solace. Worth seeing it, again and again and again.
Top 5 Worst Cinema Releases of 2012 (non of which are really worthy of comment)
5. Argo
4. The Possession
3. Men In Black 3D
2. The Watch
1. End of Watch
Top 5 Pleasant Cinematic Surprises of 2012 (to look out for on DVD)
5. Red Lights - Cillian Murphy gives a really good performance in this silly fun and "super rational" movie. Friday night in? Looking for a movie? You could do a hell of a lot worse.
4. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows - This film makes an appearance because the film for which it is a sequel. The original showed some great promise and as a sequel, Ritchie really delivered. Never thought I'd say that, but hey. In fact, get the two of them - watch 'em back to back.
3. The Expendables 2 - I'm not crazy, no. Hear me out... There's one film I would relate this too, and that is the horror classic Scream. This is a film which knows it's camp and silly and ridiculously violent, and it revels in it all. It knows exactly what makes an average action movies, and hits it up to eleven. Good, good fun.
2. Ruby Sparks - Although there are holes in it, and it's a fraction too long we have a creepy and interesting fairy tale. Half silly, teen rom-com, half freaky Grimm tale.
1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Great teen movie. Fun and right on the edge of being a little too quirky. The correct amount of quirk, in fact, to warm your heart. For all outsiders and wallflowers who wish to be taken in with a crowd of misfits - or have maybe already found one of their own - you'll love it.
Thanks for a good movie year, and for keeping up to date with the blog. Hope to see you back for more of the same in January.
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Friday, 7 December 2012
Alex Cross
Based on James Patterson's novel "Cross", we see Matthew Fox (Vantage Point) and Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman) playing the psychopathic sadist Picassso and the psychological profiler Alex Cross, respectively. Picasso is a hired hand assassin taking out high level banking executive, and Cross is tasked with stopping him, but after foiling one of the killer's hits and hurting his pride - it becomes far more personal for everyone involved.
My major thoughts when watching this film? It probably was a good genre book. Everything about it seemed like it was so faithful to an original text, that in places that made it a bit creeky. What works in a book in the way of dialogue and plot device can look and sound a little silly when it's seen on the screen. The same problem comes up in casting, mainly in the form of Richard Brookwell, the head of the Police Unit played by the majestic John C. McGinley (Point Break). Basically, Brookwell seems to be a well meaning, if a little naive police inspector. John C. McGinley, may be well meaning in most cases, but he's also a bad-ass. He should always be the badass.
To be fair, these are my few criticisms of the film. After the tirade of cool-psychopathy in End of Watch, I was very pleased to see some dumb, and silly action with no over pushing of crazy, horrifying agendas. This was just telling a basic police chase story, and that, for me at least, is good fun. Might have made an interesting TV series along the same vain as 24 or Lie to Me, that way we could know the characters a little more.
Finally, is this film worth seeing?
If you want to have a bit of a laugh at chunky dialogue, and genuinely quite tense action sequences - go for it. There are problems, and it's no where near a great film, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. If you like the look of the trailer, you wont waste your time going to see it.
My major thoughts when watching this film? It probably was a good genre book. Everything about it seemed like it was so faithful to an original text, that in places that made it a bit creeky. What works in a book in the way of dialogue and plot device can look and sound a little silly when it's seen on the screen. The same problem comes up in casting, mainly in the form of Richard Brookwell, the head of the Police Unit played by the majestic John C. McGinley (Point Break). Basically, Brookwell seems to be a well meaning, if a little naive police inspector. John C. McGinley, may be well meaning in most cases, but he's also a bad-ass. He should always be the badass.
To be fair, these are my few criticisms of the film. After the tirade of cool-psychopathy in End of Watch, I was very pleased to see some dumb, and silly action with no over pushing of crazy, horrifying agendas. This was just telling a basic police chase story, and that, for me at least, is good fun. Might have made an interesting TV series along the same vain as 24 or Lie to Me, that way we could know the characters a little more.
Finally, is this film worth seeing?
If you want to have a bit of a laugh at chunky dialogue, and genuinely quite tense action sequences - go for it. There are problems, and it's no where near a great film, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. If you like the look of the trailer, you wont waste your time going to see it.
Thursday, 29 November 2012
End of Watch
Never has a film been more aptly named. I was checking my watch and begging for it to end.
Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal, Donnie Darko) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done) are LAPD's finest thugs. They run riot, breaking the rules and, as they boast, killing loads of people! That's about as much plot as you need. If you watch the trailer, in fact, you'll see the entire film.
Frankly, I was disgusted by this film. This was a cynical piece of advertisement for police brutality. The message of the film seems to be, "We would just kill everyone who broke the law, if it weren't for the damn paper work!" And it portrayed two thugs in Taylor and Zavala, who are supposed to look "cool" while basically advocating psychopathy. There was even a scene where Zavala takes off his badge and gun to fist fight a gangster, while Taylor looks on, films the fight and laughs manically. And we're supposed to watch this and say "God, wouldn't it be cool if police were actually like that." No. No it wouldn't. So, that's the major message you're supposed to take away.
Awk well, at least it looks good, right? Well, no. I think there's a lot to be said for found footage films and for hand held cameras. This film wanted to use the motif, but clearly decided one or two cameras weren't enough and so went through the totally useless plot of Taylor needing to film everything, while occasionally just using auxiliary camera. It's totally pointless and ridiculous, and probably entirely for advertising purposes, as it features heavily in the trailer.
Then there was the dialogue. I've heard it praised, from the point of view of Taylor and Zavala, but did these people who spoke so highly of it hear the other characters. There was one gangster in the film who I'm sure must never have learned a single line of his script, and was told, no bother, if you can't think of what to say, just punctuate your language with any old swear word you please. CONSTANT swearing. I'm sorry, no one speaks like that. Not realistic at all. Some may say, hang on, the cops talk like people, right. Just talking about life and family and such, and that's realistic, isn't it? Yup, it was. I'll give you that. It made me hate the characters even more because they were racist, homophobic and sexist, and I wouldn't want to spend a second in any of their company, but I'm sure some people speak like that.
I'm sorry, but this film genuinely made me angry. It was horrible. I wont say this often, but do not go and see this film. You're just encouraging this type of disgusting, lazy and cynical film making. Normally I would want other people's opinions on films, and welcome people to tell me I'm wrong, but PLEASE, do not fund this horror of cinema by paying money to see it.
Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal, Donnie Darko) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done) are LAPD's finest thugs. They run riot, breaking the rules and, as they boast, killing loads of people! That's about as much plot as you need. If you watch the trailer, in fact, you'll see the entire film.
Frankly, I was disgusted by this film. This was a cynical piece of advertisement for police brutality. The message of the film seems to be, "We would just kill everyone who broke the law, if it weren't for the damn paper work!" And it portrayed two thugs in Taylor and Zavala, who are supposed to look "cool" while basically advocating psychopathy. There was even a scene where Zavala takes off his badge and gun to fist fight a gangster, while Taylor looks on, films the fight and laughs manically. And we're supposed to watch this and say "God, wouldn't it be cool if police were actually like that." No. No it wouldn't. So, that's the major message you're supposed to take away.
Awk well, at least it looks good, right? Well, no. I think there's a lot to be said for found footage films and for hand held cameras. This film wanted to use the motif, but clearly decided one or two cameras weren't enough and so went through the totally useless plot of Taylor needing to film everything, while occasionally just using auxiliary camera. It's totally pointless and ridiculous, and probably entirely for advertising purposes, as it features heavily in the trailer.
Then there was the dialogue. I've heard it praised, from the point of view of Taylor and Zavala, but did these people who spoke so highly of it hear the other characters. There was one gangster in the film who I'm sure must never have learned a single line of his script, and was told, no bother, if you can't think of what to say, just punctuate your language with any old swear word you please. CONSTANT swearing. I'm sorry, no one speaks like that. Not realistic at all. Some may say, hang on, the cops talk like people, right. Just talking about life and family and such, and that's realistic, isn't it? Yup, it was. I'll give you that. It made me hate the characters even more because they were racist, homophobic and sexist, and I wouldn't want to spend a second in any of their company, but I'm sure some people speak like that.
I'm sorry, but this film genuinely made me angry. It was horrible. I wont say this often, but do not go and see this film. You're just encouraging this type of disgusting, lazy and cynical film making. Normally I would want other people's opinions on films, and welcome people to tell me I'm wrong, but PLEASE, do not fund this horror of cinema by paying money to see it.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Gambit
A tale of three performances.
Harry Deane (Colin Firth, Love Actually) wants to get one over on his foul-mouthed, soul-destroying boss Lionel Shabandar (Alan Rickman, Die Hard) and to retire early - as the Coen Brothers write. Deane intends to con the billionaire using his love of fine art, a crafty forger and the grand-daughter of a historical figure (Cameron Diaz, There's Something About Mary). Turns out, it's not as simple as all that. Hilarity ensues.
Harry Deane (Colin Firth, Love Actually) wants to get one over on his foul-mouthed, soul-destroying boss Lionel Shabandar (Alan Rickman, Die Hard) and to retire early - as the Coen Brothers write. Deane intends to con the billionaire using his love of fine art, a crafty forger and the grand-daughter of a historical figure (Cameron Diaz, There's Something About Mary). Turns out, it's not as simple as all that. Hilarity ensues.
And boy, do I mean it. One of the funniest new films I've seen a while. The film goes through phases of smiles and chuckles and then you end up almost on the sticky floors of the cinema, laughing like hell. Colin Firth's fantastic physical acting and Alan Rickman's fantastic voice just knocked me down. The two of them make a great pair, and the Coen's seem to have written the parts with them in mind.
If you want a good fun cinema going experience, this is for you. Not get many like this, very few and far between.
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Argo
One film this year I've managed to go into without any prior knowledge. I had no idea what to expect, and the first ten minutes had me very interested.
Ben Affleck directs as we start off with a thirty second tour of the history of Iranian politics and then move on to 1979 where we see the beginning of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Sparking a revolution in Tehran the US Embassy is taken over and the 52 workers therein became hostages. But six escaped and as the action kicks off when they find themselves holed up in the house of the Canadian diplomat. Back in America, Tony Mendez (Affleck, Dogma) decides that the only way (the ONLY way) to get the hostages (well, six of them) out is to put together a fake film that will, at the height of the international tension, be shot in Iran.
Maybe you can tell, I'm not convinced.
As I say, Iranian politics of which I know less than nothing about, seems like an interesting premise for a film. I was looking forward to learning some new things, finding out the American perspective on these events, and maybe being given something to think about. I learned three important things; a) The writers of this film love the 70's and stressed even more is the fact that b) the writers of this film love movies and finally, and what impacted on me most about this film c) the writers of this film love films from the 70's. I mean, c'mon! Such a wide range of things that could be discussed and explored surrounding this event, but no. Nothing.
This would be acceptable, if and only if, the film was about something else. I think that may have been the intent of those involved, but god did it go down in flames. This "character" drama was filled with one dimensional people that even if you knew, you wouldn't care about. You have a main man who is difficult to care about at all, 'cause he's just pretty dull. The other six have no back stories and actually rarely feature except to occasionally remind you that they exist.
Basically, it was so promising that - even though it looked quite good, was occasionally humorous and the performances weren't awful - it ended as a crushing disappointment. It was dull, and with such a broad range of large themes, it seems almost impossible to have missed every single one so spectacularly.
Also, the joke around which they titled the film was funny the first time. To hear it then repeated over one hundred times just made me think that at one point the entire script was just funny situations where that joke could be made.
Maybe you can tell, I'm not convinced.
As I say, Iranian politics of which I know less than nothing about, seems like an interesting premise for a film. I was looking forward to learning some new things, finding out the American perspective on these events, and maybe being given something to think about. I learned three important things; a) The writers of this film love the 70's and stressed even more is the fact that b) the writers of this film love movies and finally, and what impacted on me most about this film c) the writers of this film love films from the 70's. I mean, c'mon! Such a wide range of things that could be discussed and explored surrounding this event, but no. Nothing.
This would be acceptable, if and only if, the film was about something else. I think that may have been the intent of those involved, but god did it go down in flames. This "character" drama was filled with one dimensional people that even if you knew, you wouldn't care about. You have a main man who is difficult to care about at all, 'cause he's just pretty dull. The other six have no back stories and actually rarely feature except to occasionally remind you that they exist.
Basically, it was so promising that - even though it looked quite good, was occasionally humorous and the performances weren't awful - it ended as a crushing disappointment. It was dull, and with such a broad range of large themes, it seems almost impossible to have missed every single one so spectacularly.
Also, the joke around which they titled the film was funny the first time. To hear it then repeated over one hundred times just made me think that at one point the entire script was just funny situations where that joke could be made.
Friday, 26 October 2012
Skyfall
What Nolan has done for Batman,
Mendes has done for Bond, James Bond.
I would love to give a synopsis of the plot, but I do feel the less you know the better in this case. Go and see it if you want to know.
There are two main comparisons I feel I'd be remiss to leave out of a review - the work of Nolan, as mentioned above, but also that of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss in TV's Sherlock. What I think we are seeing is, in the wake of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, film makers with big budgets insisting on plot, character development and not treating their audience like total morons. Mendes decided on a base-line theme, a point of convergence for the film to fit around - in a very Nolan-esque manner - and in my opinion something Nolan has glossed over in his Batman Trilogy. We see the effects of age hitting Bond and M together. We see the new, technology driven generation stepping in and asking why do we need such old fashioned ideas like espionage. It provokes genuine, plot driven interest outside explosions and chases - which you care about far more with realistic characters. And are especially awesomely done, I think. Then there is the Britishness, the everyday people getting in the way, the shots on the moors, even just the lighting comes almost straight off the fantastically directed Sherlock.
I guess one thing I should do is quickly defend the opening remark about "best film of the year." I will stand by this. The Dark Knight Rises was top contender for such praise - and I'm taking nothing away from it at all. I came out of that film perfectly happy that the trilogy had a fitting and thoroughly enjoyable ending. Skyfall was just one better. It dealt with the re-building of a broken man in a far more convincing, more feelings driven way than Rises, and its final act was magnificent in a measure that was lacking in the showdown in Gotham.
Apart from being beautifully thought out and shot, the acting is top notch. Bond, himself is believable (unlike Quantum of Solace - less said about that film the better), Judi Dench played her more central role very convincingly and a range of supporting cast were all put together nicely. Now to the important casting decision - the Bond Villain. Javier Bardem does not disappoint, manically and camply brilliant in his malevolence - a kin to (again) Andrew Scott as Moriarty crossed with Heath Ledger's (othersideofBatman) Joker.
All these similarities are not to say the film is unoriginal - by no means. It's a pity it is released post these two other works, as it was in production at the same time, so it was merely due to the post-production schedule that it is being seen later in the year.
I loved it. It really was a FILM worth watching, not just a good Bond film. I don't have the time or the space to mention everything worthwhile seeing in this film. Long may it last, and Happy 50th Birthday to the old man.
Friday, 19 October 2012
Ginger and Rosa
Sally Potter brings us the story of two girls. They were born together, and grew up together. Set in 1960's Britain, the film centers around the Cuban Missile Crisis and how these two inseparable girls became young woman. Ginger, (Elle Fanning, Super 8) the poet, wants to protest, wants to stop the war and Rosa, (Alice Englert, 8) a romantic, wants to live life and find a man she can love. Ginger has to fight her fight while her family life crumbles around her and Rosa just falls for the wrong guy. The friendship starts to split while priorities change.
I really liked this film. It had something that you don't see often enough in films - the central concern of the main female character is not to meet a man. Ginger is our heroine. She's not totally disinterested in men, we see her with a couple at different times, but that wasn't in any way important to the plot. We have a young woman with thoughts, ideas, a future, and an incredible sense of autonomy.
One thing annoyed me about this film - it was a change. I don't feel comfortable having to make special mention of the fact that a film isn't subscribing to gender roles, but the truth is, a well-rounded female character is hard to find in modern movies. At this point, it's probably relevant to say I've found my tip for a nomination, if not a winner of this years BAFTA for Leading Actress. Elle Fanning was fantastic in her role, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a wee supporting nomination for her mother Christina Hendricks.
On a broader level, we have a strong plot, some great characters, and interesting writing. The directing is iffy, really. Nothing too wrong with it, it's just forgettable.
What I will say is, go see it. No doubt be in my top ten of the year.
I really liked this film. It had something that you don't see often enough in films - the central concern of the main female character is not to meet a man. Ginger is our heroine. She's not totally disinterested in men, we see her with a couple at different times, but that wasn't in any way important to the plot. We have a young woman with thoughts, ideas, a future, and an incredible sense of autonomy.
One thing annoyed me about this film - it was a change. I don't feel comfortable having to make special mention of the fact that a film isn't subscribing to gender roles, but the truth is, a well-rounded female character is hard to find in modern movies. At this point, it's probably relevant to say I've found my tip for a nomination, if not a winner of this years BAFTA for Leading Actress. Elle Fanning was fantastic in her role, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a wee supporting nomination for her mother Christina Hendricks.
On a broader level, we have a strong plot, some great characters, and interesting writing. The directing is iffy, really. Nothing too wrong with it, it's just forgettable.
What I will say is, go see it. No doubt be in my top ten of the year.
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