25. Where The Wild Things Are
Directed by Spike Jonze
Written by Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers
Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfino, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker and Chris Cooper
Here's a film I was looking forward to purely because of Jonze's name, but the trailers and clips all looked naff, dull and like a sweet arts and crafts visual footage with no plot. The plot is, however, limited, but everything else I thought was wrong when I finally saw my first Jonze film in a cinema. Same amazing visuals as presented in his previous films and shorts & music vids, except Praise You which was very much the Jackass side of him.
A very dark, depressing film about a child's development problems and repression, bi-polar disorder and aggression, as he lives with massive creatures, all parts of his psyche, he finally understand what he puts his mother through as he becomes their king, and tells them what they should do, keeps them busy and holds the family together.
It's by no means a light kids film, but it's not a horrible film, it's daring to give children the chance to see something that's realistic in a fantasy environment, and much more subtle than some films this year. It's funny, interesting and the lead kid is actually a good actor.
24. Role Models
Directed by David Wain
Written by Paul Rudd & David Wain and Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling
Starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh and Ken Jeong.
Paul Rudd, now synonymous somehow with bromance films, honestly, I Love You, Man, that's all, and that's his worst film for ages. That and Monsters Vs Aliens, but it wasn't his fault there, he didn't have to hold the film together with Rush gags and pretending to be shit at improv. At the top of the year he was in my locket close to my heart, and you couldn't say a bad thing about the man. Add to that Chris Mintz-Plasse, who whilst always McLovin to everyone is a funny and intelligent guy, playing a geek, Stifler playing Stifler, Scott is epic at that, and Bobb'e J. as a foul mouthed kid constantly playing the race card, what could go wrong? Nothing.
A consistently funny, silly and entertaining film full of great lines, moments and an amazing 15 minute action sequence using plastic swords, a small wooded area in LA and lots of slow-mo. Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh, The lovely Liz Banks and Ken Jeong are just icing on the cake to showcase to idiots that these people are also hysterical, and it worked, see Community and Glee and The Hangover, recognisable now right.
23. Observe And Report
Written & Directed by Jody Hill
Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Ray Liotta and Aziz Ansari
He did it! Finally that twinkle of brilliance in a sadly disappointing on the re-watch Foot Fist Way, and an appallingly unfunny series of Eastbound & Down wherein the joke is the main character is uninteresting and annoying, and we suffer that for 3 hours, has sparked. Jody Hill, it seems, is the funny guy next to Danny McBride, who is a funny actor but not writing material, and Ben Best, again the same here.
Jody, in a year where America was overcome with Paul Blart in January, gave the gift of a more adult Mall Cop for us all, though Kevin James' charm won over more, there's no mistaking this very dark black comedy about a bi-polar testosterone build idiot who feels castrated when real cops enter into the equation of a flasher getting the girl of his dreams. With this Seth Rogen delivers a tour-de-force, both funny and frightening, he's serious and silly at different times, but it's always right for the character, and at points he manages to get Curb style cringe moments.
With some exceptional work from the likes of Michael Pena as a drug abusing mall cop and second in command, Anna Faris as a complete bitch (It's a good year for bitch acting) and Ray Liotta as a cop who hates Rogen's guts purely because he knows that he is better than Rogen, Observe and Report is not for everyone's tastes, but it's hella fun to watch, short and bitter and a must see for comedy of the year.
22. 9
Directed by Shane Acker
Written by Pamela Pettler
Starring Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly and Martin Landau.
It's not the most original tale, end of the world, key to existance, life and death, humanity destroyed by machines, but as it's told in a visually stunning, ever compelling, wonderfully acted, voice and animation-wise, 9 presents a dark tale of the future in a more adult animation than is normally in the mainstream consciousness, and for that it deserves props, unashamed of going for a more PG-13 area, it's interesting, entertaining and enjoyable, if not unpredictable it leaves you on the edge of your seat for a vast majority of the film's runtime. Well worth a viewing, despite negative reviews.
21. Gamer
Written & Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Starring Gerard Butler, Logan Lerman, Alison Lohman, Michael C. Hall, Chris Bridges, John Leguizamo, Kyra Sedgwick & Terry Crews
Again an unoriginal idea, my friend thought of this concept about 10 years ago and tried to write a novel on it, I remember it distinctly because I thought it sounded like a good idea, we were not conscious of the outside world at this point, clearly.
Butler is Kable, a prisoner who is controlled once a week by a kid playing a game, an FPS, Kable, whilst knowing he's being controlled, has no contact with the kid. As it unravels, Chris bridges' cyber terrorist tries to help free Kable and get to see his family once more, And during this plot there's like 70 action scenes, all amazing in comparison to the year's blockbusters, unsurprising given the directors, more on that later, and a wonderful music sequence with Michael C. Hall being all evil and what not.
Massively entertaining and a must-see soon, if you miss this, well, you're sad. Butler, gun, prisoners, boom headshot, nuff said.
20. The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Written & Directed by Terry Gilliam
Starring Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Verne Troyer, Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell.
When I was at Movie-Con, Mr. Gilliam came on stage, entertaining, funny and insightful. I had seen the trailer to Imaginarium and had no interest in seeing it. To me it looked like a poorly made, random kind of film full of weird images and no semblance of a plot. The subsequent clips, Empire claimed 'a massive amount of the movie' which was about 2 minutes in total, were poor, out of context and lacking content.
Cut to October and it's release, I'm bored, Up is out but saw it in May and June for free, what to do. I see Imaginarium. What a film it turns out to be, it's funny as hell, interesting, and although the last 20 minutes get a little too complex for it's own good, imaginative and visually arresting, compelling and well made. Imaginarium turns out to be a hidden gem, a Gilliam film which actually isn't as annoying as earlier works of this decade. Whilst Ledger's death looms over the film a bit, the changing face of the character through many actors is neither jarring or out of place, in fact it works better as it is than if, alas, it was Ledger all the way through, I'd guess the character's change would be more subtle, however...
19. Life During Wartime
Written & Directed by Todd Solondz
Starring Alison Janney, Paul Reubans, Ciaran Hinds, Chris Marquette, Shirley Henderson and Michael K. Williams.
Ok, so it's not been released yet, so probably next year people MAY put it on their lists of the year, however seeing it at the LFF this year the semi-sequel, more epilogue, to Happiness, the 1998 masterpiece from Todd Solondz that went through some dark areas of life, is a far lighter, easier piece, shorter too, surprisingly lean.
In place of a man's realisation of his sick fetishes and his relationship to his eldest son during the time, we see a few years later, the family still together, sans father pervert, and it's the youngest son's Bar Mitzvah coming up, as he learns to become a man he finds out what happened to his father. Recasting all the roles isn't as jarring as expected, though Philip Seymour Hoffman becoming Michael K. Williams is odd, I didn't understand they were the same person until I looked on imdb later that day. A hard film to really discuss, Wartime has elements from Happiness, the titular song is sung by the same character, who sees her past dead boyfriends all the time, having a mental breakdown, sisterly relationships, love, sex and that opening is very much made to welcome you in to a familiar world. It's a must see for a great wrap up to an 11 year old film, and it's very funny in itself.
18. Red Cliff
Directed by John Woo
Written by John Woo & Khan Chan & Cheng Kuo & Heyu Sheng
Starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang and Chen Chang
I was following the production of this film for at least 3 years and one day in June the UK cinemas were offered the film, not quite the 4 hour 45 minute epic two parter that was done in China but a condensed version. As of writing I have just viewed part one of the two part version on bluray, and the additional hour cut from our release adds the character development that was sorely needed in the condensed, intense but empty version we saw this year.
It says a lot for a film if, without any sign of interesting character development it was still able to climb this top 25 list, the action is epic, well done and different each time, making it far more enjoyable than, say, star Trek, and the style presented, Woo meets modern Chinese filmmaking, it's pure heaven. Whizzing around, slow-mo, long shots, CGI, well choreographed fighting, and more amazing visuals.
17. Up
Directed by Pete Docter (Bob Peterson co-directing)
Written by Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Starring Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer (Yes, again!), Delroy Lindo, Jordan Nagai and of course John Ratzenberger
It was too much to ask for Pixar to be able to one up last year's masterpiece WALL-E, a top 20 film of all time easily, and whilst you must lower expectations, it's no masterpiece, and unfortunately it's very much an action adventure with weak plotting and a change from wonderful to meh about half way through, it's still superior to many other films of the year. How many other films would have the balls to have a geriatric man lead the, hang on, Gran Torino, Harry Brown, erm.... Well, ok, but for a kids film, no vigilante-ism to focus on a man losing his wife, happy family film of course, and then fulfilling their dream with a kid who accidentally tags along, well, to be sure it's a heartbreaking, tearjerking beautiful 45 minutes that's hysterical beyond belief, it's just a shame that when they add a villain to the piece the film collapses, the greatest enemies in the opening half are gravity, time and annoying children.
16. Public Enemies
Directed by Michael Mann
Written by Michael Mann & Ronan Bennett
Starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, Christian Bale, Giovani Ribisi, Stephen Lang, Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum and Stephen Graham
Admittedly when I first saw this film I was devastated at how bland, empty and uninteresting it all was. However I credit this to the poor sound on the film, the fact that the earlier screening's surround was broken and we weren't warned though the cinema already knew and the factor of rushing back an hour after rushing home to catch a screening. And subtitles. Subtitles are wonderful creatures, you can understand the film even if you quiet it down because the dialogue is low but the gunshots are too fucking loud even fro Mann's standards, see Heat for a near well balanced sound system.
As muffled as it all is, the film is intense, interesting and, though slow, it lets you enter the period setting as we watch Dillinger in his last year, and Christian Bale as a panto villain FBI agent. It's not the masterpiece that Mann has offered time and time again, but it's certainly a well done little film.
15. Trick 'r Treat
Written & Directed by Michael Dougherty
Starring Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox
Another of them long to get here films, one I heard about way back when, like 2005-2006 and was excited then. Then the trailer appeared on the 300 US DVD, and some kind person put it on youtube. I was squealish in anticipation. October, october, come on Warner Brothers. Then they let it slide that year, build a marketing campaign and release it next February was the idea, which was then changed to October '08. The WB proved time and time again how to mishandle a film which had only garnered positive reviews in it's precious few screenings. Time flew by and the film had still not appeared, then, October 09, fuck it, they just threw it on DVD, Blu Ray in the US, and didn't give a fuck. WELL WE DID!
I imported that mofo like it was my own film, I was so excited, and yet I waited 3 weeks before I put it in and watched it, I had to, needed a Halloween spirit. And you know what? It was funny as hell, clever, full of great twists in each scene and great actors, the best obviously being the one and only Dylan Baker, but it was scary without being too much, violent without being gory and entertaining without needing to spoof, relying more on pastiche and ambience, it's a brilliant film abused by a terrible studio.
14. Anvil: The Story Of Anvil
Directed by Sacha Gervasi
How wonderful when you can say a documentary was good, so good in fact you'd WANT to watch it again, and not just that, it's an easy watch and it surpasses a majority of the films released this year. With all their budgets and CGI and big name actors. Yes, ok, the similarities to Spinal Tap aren't exactly unmanufactured, but it's allowable to fudge the facts for the sake of telling a great comedic tale of two men in a heavy metal band respected by their peers, ignored by the public majority. It's an underdog story told like a documentary, just with details changed, but fuck it, it's just such a great film, and I don't like Heavy Metal music, so it's well worth checking out.
13. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
Directed by Gareth Carrivick
Written by Jamie Mathieson
Starring Chris O'Dowd, Anna Faris, Marc Wooton & Dean Lennox Kelly
How wonderful when you can go to the cinema and see a small British piece of cinema that is insanely funny but best of all, a pure geek film. 3 Imagineers, or geeks like us, find the men's room of the pub makes them travel through time by accident, and in true form, they understand the rules of such travel from films, and know about the kinds of dangers and scrapes from films too. And it's just lots of clever, silly and funny sequences which works even better on DVD than the cinema counter-part, more an epic feature length comedy for the BBC than a big budget sci-fi film that demands the screen, but it demands you go find a copy and tell your friends.
12. The Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Written by Robert D. Siegel
Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood
Not the most shocking choice, a film that last year was garnering billions of pieces of praise for the film and Rourke's performance alike. Calling it his comeback was mean, however, his work with Robert Rodriguez, most famously in Sin City, was surely a performance he'll be remembered for years ahead, but it's no secret Rourke was amazing in The Wrestler, a simple and well told drama about washed out star rebuilding his career, fighting old age, finding love and losing family.
It's tragic, funny, superbly paced and tremendously acted, Evan Rachel Wood and Marissa Tomei are equally astonishing in their secondary roles, and yet Rourke is never a smug lead, he's charismatic, interesting, and best of all, true. Similar to seeing Jean Claude crying in JCVD, the warmth and reality of the film stems from Rourke's actual experiences, and that's what makes this film so damn good.
11. Punisher: War Zone
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Written by Nick Santora and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Starring Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Wayne Knight, Dash Mihok, Colin Salmon and Doug Hutchinson
An odd choice, yes, but just outside the top 10 and I present a film I laughed at, was constantly interested in and purely entertained in the most visceral of ways when watching it, and not just in the cinema, multiple home release re-watches and if anything it gets better. It's not a great film in the sense of writing, character development, strong morality, but it's fun, violent and got some hysterical little moments. the Punisher without the commercial mainstream issues that made Tom Jane's one a little too polite, quiet and shiny, this is down and dirty, full of mad limb tearing moments, and never afraid to utter the term "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers"
Awesome.
And so there we are.
2009 is officially over, and I'll be revealing my top 10 later today, hope you had a good year, and a better 2010, especially in cinema.
Thursday 31 December 2009
Thursday 10 December 2009
People of 2009 (Well, actors, not real people)
10. Eric Bana
The Time Traveler's Wife and Funny People were far and wide not GREAT movies, however both had great elements, TTW had an amazing visual style, couldn't say that for an Apatow film, a man who has completely ripped off Kevin Smith's career and made his latest bomb because of this, but they both had exceptionally grand performances from awesome man Eric Bana.
Bana was hysterical, and added some pep to a dying film suffering a wind an hour and 45 minutes into the 2 hour 20 minute runtime, he comes in, shouting, making jokes and swearing, he's Australian, that's the base gag, but he makes it so much more entertaining because he's, well, a genius.
In TTW thankfully the titular character, played by the terrible Rachel McAdams, isn't as important as this Terminator style nude man who pops up now and then, and is highly entertaining and charismatic as he appears through a non-linear timeline, never sure where he is, or when he'll go again.
And he's just so awesome, the kind of guy who oozes charisma, and even in weak films he proves himself to be a talent unhindered.
9. Jesse Eisenberg
I'll admit, I hated Adventureland, I knew it wasn't the loling on the floor comedy it was advertised as, I went in hoping for another masterful workplace comedy drama/coming of age comedy drama, like Dazed and Confused met Clerks and adopted Garden State, just not as good as any of those films of course, instead it was just pure depression and lots of hitting in the bollocks.
However it once again showed that Eisenberg is a loveable, not likeable, lead, he's funny, uncharismatic and awkward in the best way, and whilst he's done that schtick in the exquisite Roger Dodger and the masterpiece Squid And The Whale, he's great at it. But it wasn't that flop which proved him, t'was another.
Yes, Zombieland, where he, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Woody Harellson faced many of the undead with guns, jokes and geniusness. And once again Eisenberg was the top hitter in a group doing amazing work. And I just hope his star actually rises one day.
8. John Krasinski
From The Office to Leatherheads (If we ignore License To Wed, something I've managed to do so far) Krasinski has been funny and sweet consistantly, and whilst this year he only had the one film, it was an amazing film, and it just showed that even out of Jim Halpert he could be funny, sweet and, well, just so damn huggable. He continues to show his knack for great roles, great chemistry with co-stars, and, well, being great, there's nary a moment you don't buy into his relationship with Maya Rudolph, they just work perfectly together, and both can deliver lines snappy and funny adding more to what was written, as opposed to, say, Keanu Reeves, who might take what's written it, and revert the paper back to wood.
7. Amy Adams
I don't have to explain this decision do I? It's Amy Adams, the cute as a button, excellent in everything beauty who, even in films that seem bad, churns out brilliance, and lightens everything up. Sunshine Cleaning had a whiff of indie unsure what to do with this premise, but, Between Amy and Emily Blunt (2 beautiful sisters to enjoy) the aimless plot didn't bother me.
With Night At The Museum 2 I actually, and finally, enjoyed one of those films, having hated the first, and it's thanks in no small part to Amy's portrayal of Amelia Earhart. She's got a great voice going on, and she's super chipper, the kind of pep you can't fake.
And even with the boring half of Julie & Julia it was nice to watch Amy try and portray a normal human, one who has bad, dark moments, which, of course Amy will never have due to her awesomeness. Right?
Well, there was Doubt of course, she played a nun who fears she may have seen the process of child molestation occurring, but doesn't have any proof, making Julia Childs shout at Truman Capote Mark 1 for an hour, but even then she's super chipper and looking on the bright side.
6. Chris O'Dowd
From telly to belly, as a voice over on The Day Today once said, Chris O'Dowd wasn't in BIG films, he wasn't in many films, but he was in films, and they were good, and, dare I say it, he was the best part of them. In March Richard Curtis made a less rom-com, more actual com The Boat That Rocked, wherein a series of characters had vignettes to befit a 2 odd hour run time, one of which was Chris O'Dowd getting engaged, married, then finding his wife in bed with the famous DJ. He's funny as hell in the film, but at the same time he gave more emotion and gravity to the role than you'd expect from such a light, breezy, overlong film.
Add in the equation of a film of the year, and better each time, in the form of Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, wherein he and two others play imagineers, nerds, and know far too much about Time Travel from films and television, though far too much is my way of saying "I concur with their statement having seen many of what they have and know all of it too. Once again he was hysterical, laugh out loud so, and made it thoroughly entertaining to watch these films.
5. Sharlto Copley
FOOKIN' PRAWNS MATE!
Who is this guy? Why is that 'tache swarming with icky? How would you actually find an orifice to insert oneself into a 'prawn'?
These are, almost, all good questions, and, well, I wouldn't have been able to tell you who he was without jumping to imdb, even after watching District 9. But, I made it my business to know his name, cos, whilst the film wasn't a masterpiece by any means, a no name carrying such a big film, well, and not making it dull and dry, instead being freaking hysterical, no easy task, but with limited effort, seemingly, he gets you interested, and makes him a hate-able racist AND a lovable character on the run in one fell swoop. Also he ad-libbed a lot of the stuff, making FOOKIN' PRAWNS MATE more awesome.
4. Michael Fassbender
Yes, he got lots of acclaim last year for playing Bobby Sands in Hunger, but, whilst that film was disappointing, he came into his own this year. A double header in the form of a brilliant job in Inglourious Basterds as a straight up English officer with a funky German accent, funny and interesting, and then playing a smooth, charismatic, yet darkly weird Irishman in Fish Tank, where he wooed a woman, then set his eyes on the 15 year old daughter, seemingly fatherly, sweet and innocent, but, of course, it being in Essex it can't last in innocence for too long, none of us do...
But he was a higherlight in both films, films swarming with highlights, and the more I watch Basterds, the more I enjoy his performance.
3. Sam Rockwell
What have you seen Mr. Rockwell in this year? If you didn't answer Moon you must now fin a copy and watch, it's one of the funniest, most constantly interesting, and brilliantly made for such a small budget, films of the year, and a testament to Zowie Bowie's work to manage to make a convincing Moon landscape for only £5million. Ok, yes, sound in space is annoying, but sod it, you get Kevin Spacey as a robot and many Rockwells, not just one, and each have a different attitude, and when two appear together and have conversations, boy is it endearing, entertaining, and you can tell which one is which with your eyes closed, the personalities sculpted are brilliant, subtle but entertaining, and showcase Rockwell's undeniable, and underused, talents.
Sam Rockwell for Best Actor Oscar '010!
('010 is a joke given that it doesn't reduce the characters)
2. Jackie Earle Haley
When he was nominated for an Oscar in 2007 I thought "Who the frak" then I finally saw Little Children. I didn't hate it like the trailer convinced me I would. No, if anything I loved it, and not just cos Patrick Wilson is mega awesome. (Although he seems desperate to prove he has an arse sometimes) But the film's most interesting, compelling, and dangerous character was Jackie Earle Haley's newly released paedophile, a man who, at the end of a date whacks off to a woman complaining about her love life.
Rorschach is a horse of a different colour. As the tests prove, he is pure black and white, right and wrong, there's no in between, and Haley, giving a Batman voice that works perfectly and is never painful to hear, it's a natural fit in every moment, offers up a vigilante who, whilst his methods can be cruel, is someone you root for because, unlike everyone els,e he sticks to his gun and can see the world for what it is, not the bull shit shrouding everything, and in this comic book character we get a £D human, two lives, one he likes, one he suffers until he can go back to what he does best, and the mix of solo and team work, how he reacts when working with others, just make everything even better.
If he doesn't get a nod this year I'll be miffed, if not shocked, it's a purer, better, more enjoyable performance than Heath Ledger by far.
1. Christopher Waltz
This time last year I'd have said "Who the frak are you talking about? Sounds weird, probably arthousey"
Well, Euro cinema. German cinema. But good ol' Tarantino, in his masterpiece Inglourious Basterds, created a perfect character, self assure, interesting, bad but not evil for evil's sake, and always has something to say, be it claiming he is the Jew Hunter because he's an excellent detective, or the faces he pulls, the subtle, and hysterical, foot on my lap please motion, the 'glass of milk' and pipe schtick, the Strudel (Oh lord that strudel) everything he does we are enthralled, and we don't care that it's not Brad Pitt in what is essentially the second lead behind Shoshanna, no, we're interested in what he's doing, is he gonna catch the good guys, is he there to shoot the Frenchman at the start? What's his game plan?
It's ambiguous, and well done, we fear him and his power, but also laugh at his events, they're funny and dark, and it's no mean feat that he has, in one film, proven himself to be an immense talent, where he goes from Basterds I don't know, I just hope he doesn't sell out and make "Hans Landa: P.I."
Actually, if any networks wanna make that, I'd watch it.
The Time Traveler's Wife and Funny People were far and wide not GREAT movies, however both had great elements, TTW had an amazing visual style, couldn't say that for an Apatow film, a man who has completely ripped off Kevin Smith's career and made his latest bomb because of this, but they both had exceptionally grand performances from awesome man Eric Bana.
Bana was hysterical, and added some pep to a dying film suffering a wind an hour and 45 minutes into the 2 hour 20 minute runtime, he comes in, shouting, making jokes and swearing, he's Australian, that's the base gag, but he makes it so much more entertaining because he's, well, a genius.
In TTW thankfully the titular character, played by the terrible Rachel McAdams, isn't as important as this Terminator style nude man who pops up now and then, and is highly entertaining and charismatic as he appears through a non-linear timeline, never sure where he is, or when he'll go again.
And he's just so awesome, the kind of guy who oozes charisma, and even in weak films he proves himself to be a talent unhindered.
9. Jesse Eisenberg
I'll admit, I hated Adventureland, I knew it wasn't the loling on the floor comedy it was advertised as, I went in hoping for another masterful workplace comedy drama/coming of age comedy drama, like Dazed and Confused met Clerks and adopted Garden State, just not as good as any of those films of course, instead it was just pure depression and lots of hitting in the bollocks.
However it once again showed that Eisenberg is a loveable, not likeable, lead, he's funny, uncharismatic and awkward in the best way, and whilst he's done that schtick in the exquisite Roger Dodger and the masterpiece Squid And The Whale, he's great at it. But it wasn't that flop which proved him, t'was another.
Yes, Zombieland, where he, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Woody Harellson faced many of the undead with guns, jokes and geniusness. And once again Eisenberg was the top hitter in a group doing amazing work. And I just hope his star actually rises one day.
8. John Krasinski
From The Office to Leatherheads (If we ignore License To Wed, something I've managed to do so far) Krasinski has been funny and sweet consistantly, and whilst this year he only had the one film, it was an amazing film, and it just showed that even out of Jim Halpert he could be funny, sweet and, well, just so damn huggable. He continues to show his knack for great roles, great chemistry with co-stars, and, well, being great, there's nary a moment you don't buy into his relationship with Maya Rudolph, they just work perfectly together, and both can deliver lines snappy and funny adding more to what was written, as opposed to, say, Keanu Reeves, who might take what's written it, and revert the paper back to wood.
7. Amy Adams
I don't have to explain this decision do I? It's Amy Adams, the cute as a button, excellent in everything beauty who, even in films that seem bad, churns out brilliance, and lightens everything up. Sunshine Cleaning had a whiff of indie unsure what to do with this premise, but, Between Amy and Emily Blunt (2 beautiful sisters to enjoy) the aimless plot didn't bother me.
With Night At The Museum 2 I actually, and finally, enjoyed one of those films, having hated the first, and it's thanks in no small part to Amy's portrayal of Amelia Earhart. She's got a great voice going on, and she's super chipper, the kind of pep you can't fake.
And even with the boring half of Julie & Julia it was nice to watch Amy try and portray a normal human, one who has bad, dark moments, which, of course Amy will never have due to her awesomeness. Right?
Well, there was Doubt of course, she played a nun who fears she may have seen the process of child molestation occurring, but doesn't have any proof, making Julia Childs shout at Truman Capote Mark 1 for an hour, but even then she's super chipper and looking on the bright side.
6. Chris O'Dowd
From telly to belly, as a voice over on The Day Today once said, Chris O'Dowd wasn't in BIG films, he wasn't in many films, but he was in films, and they were good, and, dare I say it, he was the best part of them. In March Richard Curtis made a less rom-com, more actual com The Boat That Rocked, wherein a series of characters had vignettes to befit a 2 odd hour run time, one of which was Chris O'Dowd getting engaged, married, then finding his wife in bed with the famous DJ. He's funny as hell in the film, but at the same time he gave more emotion and gravity to the role than you'd expect from such a light, breezy, overlong film.
Add in the equation of a film of the year, and better each time, in the form of Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, wherein he and two others play imagineers, nerds, and know far too much about Time Travel from films and television, though far too much is my way of saying "I concur with their statement having seen many of what they have and know all of it too. Once again he was hysterical, laugh out loud so, and made it thoroughly entertaining to watch these films.
5. Sharlto Copley
FOOKIN' PRAWNS MATE!
Who is this guy? Why is that 'tache swarming with icky? How would you actually find an orifice to insert oneself into a 'prawn'?
These are, almost, all good questions, and, well, I wouldn't have been able to tell you who he was without jumping to imdb, even after watching District 9. But, I made it my business to know his name, cos, whilst the film wasn't a masterpiece by any means, a no name carrying such a big film, well, and not making it dull and dry, instead being freaking hysterical, no easy task, but with limited effort, seemingly, he gets you interested, and makes him a hate-able racist AND a lovable character on the run in one fell swoop. Also he ad-libbed a lot of the stuff, making FOOKIN' PRAWNS MATE more awesome.
4. Michael Fassbender
Yes, he got lots of acclaim last year for playing Bobby Sands in Hunger, but, whilst that film was disappointing, he came into his own this year. A double header in the form of a brilliant job in Inglourious Basterds as a straight up English officer with a funky German accent, funny and interesting, and then playing a smooth, charismatic, yet darkly weird Irishman in Fish Tank, where he wooed a woman, then set his eyes on the 15 year old daughter, seemingly fatherly, sweet and innocent, but, of course, it being in Essex it can't last in innocence for too long, none of us do...
But he was a higherlight in both films, films swarming with highlights, and the more I watch Basterds, the more I enjoy his performance.
3. Sam Rockwell
What have you seen Mr. Rockwell in this year? If you didn't answer Moon you must now fin a copy and watch, it's one of the funniest, most constantly interesting, and brilliantly made for such a small budget, films of the year, and a testament to Zowie Bowie's work to manage to make a convincing Moon landscape for only £5million. Ok, yes, sound in space is annoying, but sod it, you get Kevin Spacey as a robot and many Rockwells, not just one, and each have a different attitude, and when two appear together and have conversations, boy is it endearing, entertaining, and you can tell which one is which with your eyes closed, the personalities sculpted are brilliant, subtle but entertaining, and showcase Rockwell's undeniable, and underused, talents.
Sam Rockwell for Best Actor Oscar '010!
('010 is a joke given that it doesn't reduce the characters)
2. Jackie Earle Haley
When he was nominated for an Oscar in 2007 I thought "Who the frak" then I finally saw Little Children. I didn't hate it like the trailer convinced me I would. No, if anything I loved it, and not just cos Patrick Wilson is mega awesome. (Although he seems desperate to prove he has an arse sometimes) But the film's most interesting, compelling, and dangerous character was Jackie Earle Haley's newly released paedophile, a man who, at the end of a date whacks off to a woman complaining about her love life.
Rorschach is a horse of a different colour. As the tests prove, he is pure black and white, right and wrong, there's no in between, and Haley, giving a Batman voice that works perfectly and is never painful to hear, it's a natural fit in every moment, offers up a vigilante who, whilst his methods can be cruel, is someone you root for because, unlike everyone els,e he sticks to his gun and can see the world for what it is, not the bull shit shrouding everything, and in this comic book character we get a £D human, two lives, one he likes, one he suffers until he can go back to what he does best, and the mix of solo and team work, how he reacts when working with others, just make everything even better.
If he doesn't get a nod this year I'll be miffed, if not shocked, it's a purer, better, more enjoyable performance than Heath Ledger by far.
1. Christopher Waltz
This time last year I'd have said "Who the frak are you talking about? Sounds weird, probably arthousey"
Well, Euro cinema. German cinema. But good ol' Tarantino, in his masterpiece Inglourious Basterds, created a perfect character, self assure, interesting, bad but not evil for evil's sake, and always has something to say, be it claiming he is the Jew Hunter because he's an excellent detective, or the faces he pulls, the subtle, and hysterical, foot on my lap please motion, the 'glass of milk' and pipe schtick, the Strudel (Oh lord that strudel) everything he does we are enthralled, and we don't care that it's not Brad Pitt in what is essentially the second lead behind Shoshanna, no, we're interested in what he's doing, is he gonna catch the good guys, is he there to shoot the Frenchman at the start? What's his game plan?
It's ambiguous, and well done, we fear him and his power, but also laugh at his events, they're funny and dark, and it's no mean feat that he has, in one film, proven himself to be an immense talent, where he goes from Basterds I don't know, I just hope he doesn't sell out and make "Hans Landa: P.I."
Actually, if any networks wanna make that, I'd watch it.
Monday 7 December 2009
The Bottom Rung Of 2009
10. Star Trek
Yes, ok, I know, it's a cliche, everyone and their Trek addled mothers loved Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in JJ's latest film, action packed, CGI heavy and more young stars than a Harry Potter vs Twilight battle royale, but you know what? You're all wrong. It's an appalling work of cinema. The plot? Near non-existant. The characters? Smug and annoying, like characters from the OC or Skins were aboard a spaceship. The graphics? Meh, too much shaky cam and lens flare, it's stylish in a shit way. The script? Appalling, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory set piece for Simon Pegg, science delivered in such a way that it's laughably bad and horrendously believed with intent by the young, and shitty, actors. Well, except Yelchin, Cho and Pegg.
What is Star Trek? It's a mess, a disgusting looking film which is neither original nor inventive, it's Iron Man syndrome, people love it, claim it's original when it's quite the opposite.
9. Couples Retreat
What's that? It's nearly August and no sign of a Vince Vaughn Christmas film still? Thank you Tarvu! Wait, what's this on apple trailers? "Couples Retreat"? Looks like lots of people doing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, load it up.
DAMN YOU VAUGHN!
Not a single laugh, no sausages, even from resident genius Peter Serafinowicz. And yet number one for weeks in America. Shoddy. Shoddy shoddy shoddy.
8. The Spirit
First film of the year. Seriously. 1/1/2009.
Why?
Frank Miller makes a horribly stupid aesthetic decision, with a talentless group of actors and a braindead script that jumps between serious and silly so often you want to jump between dead and dead but not in hell watching the film on a continuous loop. An appalling work of inhumanity. Please Amnesty International, sort this out.
7. Year One
Jack Black, Paul Rudd, David Cross, Hank Azaria, Harold Ramis. A massive piss-take on the bible and evolution in one fell swoop, with some comedy geniuses. What went so wrong? 2 things: Michael Cera, indie charmer, formerly George Michael Bluth, and sticking to that role in every film he's in. Number 2, hee hee number 2, it's immature, puerile and neither subtle nor clever to sustain any jokes, and the characters are all loud and annoying. Plus Jack Black has a literal shit eating grin.
6. GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra
The guy who gave us The Mummy said the trailer. The guy who gave us The Mummy died and was reincarnated by the man who offered up The Mummy Returns and Van frakking Helsing. CGI-less Sommers are something that were before Climate Change hit, now, well, if there's anything in GI Joe that hasn't been altered with computers, it's cut out before the final cut is confirmed. A shit storm of horrendously plasticy and overuse of CGI mixed with a cast that features Channing 'SlabO'Meat' Tatum and Marlon 'Funny Black Sidekick' Wayans. Yep, you read that right, Marlon Wayans is considered funny to some people. Fuck knows why, this film is proof that even Joeseph Gordon-Levitt needs to eat.
5. Seven Pounds
Will Smith - Good. He's funny, charismatic like only Clooney and few others are, and when he does drama he at least tries.
However... The Pursuit Of Happyness was shit, no bones about it, and here, same director, same star, the premise, he's giving away things, he did a bad thing, he wants to die and make peoples' lives better. It's dull, overly 'sentimental' without getting close to deserving any emotions. A bore and a terrible waste of time and money.
4. State Of Play
Tony Fu
3. Duplicity
cking Gilroy.
2. The Hangover
Todd Philips gave us Old School. He offered up Road Trip. There was Starsky and Hutch, an unappreciated silly little film that's just funny as hell at points. Well, he did School for Scoundrels, but that was fucked from Jump Street. This, a film in which 4 people forget the last night, and trace their steps, like Dude Where's My Car? succumbed to poorly written characters, over-explaining plot points and making the random events explained, thus destroying the inexplicability of it all. Add to that the two writing hackjobs did Four Christmases and, wait for it, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past before this one. They aren't funny, and neither is this film. A shame as Ed Helms has proved himself on The Office, and Zach Galifianakis has reassured he's talented with Bored To Death on HBO.
1. Paranormal Activity
Here we are. The bottom rung of 2009, a year in which films never regained quality from the funk that mid October 2008 began, we're looking at you Quantum of Solace. And with a film that has received the highest of ratings from critics and consumers alike. A film I'm relieved to say I saw for free and earlier than the UK, not earlier than most, Sundance 08 and the US release were before, but it beat Saw VI at the box office, and is insanely profitable because it was super cheap. And the problems are inherent to it's budget. A poorly written, uninteresting 80 minutes that lack tension or investment into the film, it's not real, and never feels close to real footage, the acting is appalling, the script painful, the special scare moments either too small and easy to explain or ridiculously dumb such as the final 10 minutes. It's an appalling film in every respect, and another blow to my attempts at understanding why people like camcorder films, it's like fake snuff movies. And they're as entertaining and well made as the real things.
Yes, ok, I know, it's a cliche, everyone and their Trek addled mothers loved Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in JJ's latest film, action packed, CGI heavy and more young stars than a Harry Potter vs Twilight battle royale, but you know what? You're all wrong. It's an appalling work of cinema. The plot? Near non-existant. The characters? Smug and annoying, like characters from the OC or Skins were aboard a spaceship. The graphics? Meh, too much shaky cam and lens flare, it's stylish in a shit way. The script? Appalling, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory set piece for Simon Pegg, science delivered in such a way that it's laughably bad and horrendously believed with intent by the young, and shitty, actors. Well, except Yelchin, Cho and Pegg.
What is Star Trek? It's a mess, a disgusting looking film which is neither original nor inventive, it's Iron Man syndrome, people love it, claim it's original when it's quite the opposite.
9. Couples Retreat
What's that? It's nearly August and no sign of a Vince Vaughn Christmas film still? Thank you Tarvu! Wait, what's this on apple trailers? "Couples Retreat"? Looks like lots of people doing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, load it up.
DAMN YOU VAUGHN!
Not a single laugh, no sausages, even from resident genius Peter Serafinowicz. And yet number one for weeks in America. Shoddy. Shoddy shoddy shoddy.
8. The Spirit
First film of the year. Seriously. 1/1/2009.
Why?
Frank Miller makes a horribly stupid aesthetic decision, with a talentless group of actors and a braindead script that jumps between serious and silly so often you want to jump between dead and dead but not in hell watching the film on a continuous loop. An appalling work of inhumanity. Please Amnesty International, sort this out.
7. Year One
Jack Black, Paul Rudd, David Cross, Hank Azaria, Harold Ramis. A massive piss-take on the bible and evolution in one fell swoop, with some comedy geniuses. What went so wrong? 2 things: Michael Cera, indie charmer, formerly George Michael Bluth, and sticking to that role in every film he's in. Number 2, hee hee number 2, it's immature, puerile and neither subtle nor clever to sustain any jokes, and the characters are all loud and annoying. Plus Jack Black has a literal shit eating grin.
6. GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra
The guy who gave us The Mummy said the trailer. The guy who gave us The Mummy died and was reincarnated by the man who offered up The Mummy Returns and Van frakking Helsing. CGI-less Sommers are something that were before Climate Change hit, now, well, if there's anything in GI Joe that hasn't been altered with computers, it's cut out before the final cut is confirmed. A shit storm of horrendously plasticy and overuse of CGI mixed with a cast that features Channing 'SlabO'Meat' Tatum and Marlon 'Funny Black Sidekick' Wayans. Yep, you read that right, Marlon Wayans is considered funny to some people. Fuck knows why, this film is proof that even Joeseph Gordon-Levitt needs to eat.
5. Seven Pounds
Will Smith - Good. He's funny, charismatic like only Clooney and few others are, and when he does drama he at least tries.
However... The Pursuit Of Happyness was shit, no bones about it, and here, same director, same star, the premise, he's giving away things, he did a bad thing, he wants to die and make peoples' lives better. It's dull, overly 'sentimental' without getting close to deserving any emotions. A bore and a terrible waste of time and money.
4. State Of Play
Tony Fu
3. Duplicity
cking Gilroy.
2. The Hangover
Todd Philips gave us Old School. He offered up Road Trip. There was Starsky and Hutch, an unappreciated silly little film that's just funny as hell at points. Well, he did School for Scoundrels, but that was fucked from Jump Street. This, a film in which 4 people forget the last night, and trace their steps, like Dude Where's My Car? succumbed to poorly written characters, over-explaining plot points and making the random events explained, thus destroying the inexplicability of it all. Add to that the two writing hackjobs did Four Christmases and, wait for it, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past before this one. They aren't funny, and neither is this film. A shame as Ed Helms has proved himself on The Office, and Zach Galifianakis has reassured he's talented with Bored To Death on HBO.
1. Paranormal Activity
Here we are. The bottom rung of 2009, a year in which films never regained quality from the funk that mid October 2008 began, we're looking at you Quantum of Solace. And with a film that has received the highest of ratings from critics and consumers alike. A film I'm relieved to say I saw for free and earlier than the UK, not earlier than most, Sundance 08 and the US release were before, but it beat Saw VI at the box office, and is insanely profitable because it was super cheap. And the problems are inherent to it's budget. A poorly written, uninteresting 80 minutes that lack tension or investment into the film, it's not real, and never feels close to real footage, the acting is appalling, the script painful, the special scare moments either too small and easy to explain or ridiculously dumb such as the final 10 minutes. It's an appalling film in every respect, and another blow to my attempts at understanding why people like camcorder films, it's like fake snuff movies. And they're as entertaining and well made as the real things.
Monday 30 November 2009
Bunny Boilers
Bunny And The Bull is a film I'd never heard of until Movie-Con in August, and when Simon Farnaby, the titular Bunny of the film, and writer director Paul King took stage for a Q&A after some clips, including a hysterical Richard Ayoade as a shoe museum tour guide, I was desperate to see the completed film. Finally I scored a ticket to the Genesis cinema's screening of the film for the London Film Festival, a screening so packed and devoid of quality sound I was going to await a second screening before I judged it, until the release became so limited it was impossible to do so, now over a month later I've decided to review it.
Sadly the funniest moments are all in the trailer, as are some of the most awkwardly annoyingly cliched humourless moments, of which the film has a lot. Paul King's work with the Mighty Boosh TV show have clearly made him stay in their frame of mind instead of developing his own ideas, of which can be clearly seen as the best parts by the end. So desperate to have the two Boosh leads in his film, a random meeting with a Russian dog lover who offers milk to Ed Hogg's Stephen, yet 'hysterically' he offers a beer to Bunny, Julian Barrett just gurns for the camera. In a separate vignette, Noel Fielding as a bullfighter does his usual, odd, random, then normal schtick, and it's just as grating, I enjoyed the pair's antics for two series, but by the time everyone loved them they got so smug and painful watching the best stuff is impossible.
Even with a budget of £1million Paul King sticks with the Boosh style, projected backgrounds of animations in South Park cut out ways for cheapness, and whilst it's visually amazing at points, the film's cliched characters, dull premise and painfully boring leads don't help the film, the best part is the emotional punch the film kicks into the audience an hour and twenty five minutes in when you realise what the title is referring to, and you suddenly know how it's going to end, yet you don't want it to.
It's just a shame that the opening hour and a half are so dull and made-for-tv that it never manages to hit the highs of a certain other gang of TV sitcom greats that transcended into cinema, Wright, Pegg anyone?
Still, it's not Lesbian Vampire Killers, so well done there.
6/10
Sadly the funniest moments are all in the trailer, as are some of the most awkwardly annoyingly cliched humourless moments, of which the film has a lot. Paul King's work with the Mighty Boosh TV show have clearly made him stay in their frame of mind instead of developing his own ideas, of which can be clearly seen as the best parts by the end. So desperate to have the two Boosh leads in his film, a random meeting with a Russian dog lover who offers milk to Ed Hogg's Stephen, yet 'hysterically' he offers a beer to Bunny, Julian Barrett just gurns for the camera. In a separate vignette, Noel Fielding as a bullfighter does his usual, odd, random, then normal schtick, and it's just as grating, I enjoyed the pair's antics for two series, but by the time everyone loved them they got so smug and painful watching the best stuff is impossible.
Even with a budget of £1million Paul King sticks with the Boosh style, projected backgrounds of animations in South Park cut out ways for cheapness, and whilst it's visually amazing at points, the film's cliched characters, dull premise and painfully boring leads don't help the film, the best part is the emotional punch the film kicks into the audience an hour and twenty five minutes in when you realise what the title is referring to, and you suddenly know how it's going to end, yet you don't want it to.
It's just a shame that the opening hour and a half are so dull and made-for-tv that it never manages to hit the highs of a certain other gang of TV sitcom greats that transcended into cinema, Wright, Pegg anyone?
Still, it's not Lesbian Vampire Killers, so well done there.
6/10
FYATTT MYAATT DAMON!
Steven Soderbergh began my movie year, kinda, with Che Part One, minutes after suffering The Spirit I nestled down in a chair and enjoyed a wonderful, if disappointingly unfulfilling look at Che Guevara and Cuba, so fittingly he almost ends the year, with one of the last 10 films on my radar, starring Matt Damon as an annoying person. Method as always, here Matt isn't hitting people in shaky cam with terrible Tony Gilroy scripts, in fact he's slowly lying to people in a script written unsure of comedy or drama as it's forte, Damon's voice overs drift randomly through his mind, whereas the topic is approached in a heavy handed manner, even though the 70's style music and fonts in the 90's set film suggest a more fun and free film, it's sadly dull, long and about corn.
The film gets going in a way that seems ok, a blackmail that leads to the FBI, lying inside the company, and finally Damon announces to the FBI that the company, and other, price fix corn prices.
And from there it's about him recording people, badly, and being an idiot, and that's it, he's stupid in a world of smart people, that's all.
The saddest elements of this film are that there's so much the talent could have done instead rather than wasting away in this limp, lifeless attempt at a 'caper' film, and the talent involved itself. 30 Rock's Scott Adsit, Community's Joel McHale, Arrested Development's Tony Hale, Tenacious D's Paul F. Tompkins and the awesomeness of Patton Oswalt are all in this film, and do fuck all, why? Who knows, but together they'd make an awesomely funny comedy, here, they're wasted and bored.
As was I, when I saw it in an empty cinema as the other patrons saw the first screening of, sigh, New Moon.
I ended up screaming AD references about Barry Zuckercorn as Baby Buster assumed his mantle.
3/10
The film gets going in a way that seems ok, a blackmail that leads to the FBI, lying inside the company, and finally Damon announces to the FBI that the company, and other, price fix corn prices.
And from there it's about him recording people, badly, and being an idiot, and that's it, he's stupid in a world of smart people, that's all.
The saddest elements of this film are that there's so much the talent could have done instead rather than wasting away in this limp, lifeless attempt at a 'caper' film, and the talent involved itself. 30 Rock's Scott Adsit, Community's Joel McHale, Arrested Development's Tony Hale, Tenacious D's Paul F. Tompkins and the awesomeness of Patton Oswalt are all in this film, and do fuck all, why? Who knows, but together they'd make an awesomely funny comedy, here, they're wasted and bored.
As was I, when I saw it in an empty cinema as the other patrons saw the first screening of, sigh, New Moon.
I ended up screaming AD references about Barry Zuckercorn as Baby Buster assumed his mantle.
3/10
The Men Who Stare At Light Projected On A Screen
Ok, so, The Men Who Stare At Goats.
A film based on a book based on true events that's presented in the most unfeasible way wherein the creators appear to have limited interest, sadly, in presenting facts in a believable manner, instead opting for going all out crazy and backing up a road trip with a poorly American accented Ewan McGregor and a mustached George Clooney in Iraq by using 'document's and narration to supply backstory in segments to the events that unfurl on film. The premise of a journalist slowly realising a local man, Stephen Root, wasn't crazy and actually spoke the truth about a military segment focussing on psychic powers, leading to his journey to find the truth, seemed great, lots of comedy, interesting revelations to the movie going public about what really happened, and backed up by what clearly is an amazing cast.
The first 10 minutes had so much hope, Root is only in the beginning, and he's always great, add to that a wonderful montage of events and credits set to Supergrass (Instant Win), but by the time we're knee-deep in the desert and realising that the film has limited interest in giving much in a story or informing us of the events, short of the comedic moments in the trailers dragged out more, ruining all elements of humour in them, it becomes a painfully slow hour and forty minutes.
Even in a film that brings Jeff Daniels in as The Dude under military command, drugs, long hair, crazy dancing, not giving a shit, all the Dudians that Jeffrey Lebowski offered up, and given an adversary in Kevin Spacey's villainous, smart officer joining the 'jedi' program, it all falls flat and, like the premise, goes nowhere, slowly.
Even poor ol' Robert Patrick and Stephen Lang are underused, they're too awesome, it's the equivalent of having R. Lee Ermy in a military film and having him be a worried grandfather concerned, caring and sweet natured, it's wrong.
Alas the film never really tried to get off the ground, it just goes along with it's star studded mess for it's runtime, near oblivious to all it's missgivings, even a raid of LSD in water at a base plot point is far too dulled down to be genuinely entertaining, the film proves it's a real shambles and what could have been is long gone by now.
5/10
A film based on a book based on true events that's presented in the most unfeasible way wherein the creators appear to have limited interest, sadly, in presenting facts in a believable manner, instead opting for going all out crazy and backing up a road trip with a poorly American accented Ewan McGregor and a mustached George Clooney in Iraq by using 'document's and narration to supply backstory in segments to the events that unfurl on film. The premise of a journalist slowly realising a local man, Stephen Root, wasn't crazy and actually spoke the truth about a military segment focussing on psychic powers, leading to his journey to find the truth, seemed great, lots of comedy, interesting revelations to the movie going public about what really happened, and backed up by what clearly is an amazing cast.
The first 10 minutes had so much hope, Root is only in the beginning, and he's always great, add to that a wonderful montage of events and credits set to Supergrass (Instant Win), but by the time we're knee-deep in the desert and realising that the film has limited interest in giving much in a story or informing us of the events, short of the comedic moments in the trailers dragged out more, ruining all elements of humour in them, it becomes a painfully slow hour and forty minutes.
Even in a film that brings Jeff Daniels in as The Dude under military command, drugs, long hair, crazy dancing, not giving a shit, all the Dudians that Jeffrey Lebowski offered up, and given an adversary in Kevin Spacey's villainous, smart officer joining the 'jedi' program, it all falls flat and, like the premise, goes nowhere, slowly.
Even poor ol' Robert Patrick and Stephen Lang are underused, they're too awesome, it's the equivalent of having R. Lee Ermy in a military film and having him be a worried grandfather concerned, caring and sweet natured, it's wrong.
Alas the film never really tried to get off the ground, it just goes along with it's star studded mess for it's runtime, near oblivious to all it's missgivings, even a raid of LSD in water at a base plot point is far too dulled down to be genuinely entertaining, the film proves it's a real shambles and what could have been is long gone by now.
5/10
Tuesday 17 November 2009
How much wood would a woodstocker stock if a woodstocker woodstock wood?
I've tried and failed consistently to really enjoy and sink my teeth into Ang Lee's repertoire, there's no doubt the man makes great looking films, and most of the time elements are amazing, be it acting, score, style, plot, tone, but the one thing he never can work with is pace. Hulk was too long and drawn out, Brokeback needed 25 minutes shaved off, Crouching Tiger spent a lot of time just going over things that never really felt that necessary.
With Taking Woodstock a laid back approach isn't just a good idea, it's mandatory, for a story of a young Jewish man (at least it's not half Yiddish like the Coen's film) who manages to secure the Woodstock concert for his town, helping his family out of debt problems at their motel, and giving new life to their town, but with the hippy movement in full swing, not everyone is happy. However the pace is laidback like most of the characters, even in dire situations they are all 'groovy' and 'far out', in accordance with Ang Lee's work, it's also too long at different stages, and then misses the best bits for more long nothingness.
A cast of actors such as Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Emile Hirsch, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber & Dan Fogler in lead roles, cameo appearances, transvestite characters and straight laced anti-Semitic townsfolk among others, it's impossible to criticise the acting, and the film does look exceptional, utilising split screen for some scenes, archive footage feeling for others and natural, one image film for the majority, it's got it's own use of ideas presented in many films before it, and it certainly works for the piece.
Add to that the film is rather funny at points, and the drama is well done, even though none of the characters really care, as the hardest stuff to cope with is given a brush off and a hippy catchphrase and never looked back upon, it's a light film, but it's also an odd film, the first hour deal with monetary issues and the setting up of the concert, the next 45 minutes are about the trickling of people to the fields and the lead character trying, but failing, to reach the venue, instead hanging on a hill with friends, old and newly acquired. The film also has a look at the free love regime, a small moment in a bar the lead is grabbed and kissed by a woman, he turns round, a man he hung out with earlier is there, they kiss, but there's never any talk about the lead's actual love life, or who he really is, short of being an artist, mentioned from time to time but briefly.
Overall the film does try to present issue, ideas and not be conventional 'here is the music you love and here's a story about the music with the music' but ultimately it does seem rather pointless, yes it's a fun watch, but you get nothing out of it, and in the end this film could really have been something amazing if it tried harder.
7/10
With Taking Woodstock a laid back approach isn't just a good idea, it's mandatory, for a story of a young Jewish man (at least it's not half Yiddish like the Coen's film) who manages to secure the Woodstock concert for his town, helping his family out of debt problems at their motel, and giving new life to their town, but with the hippy movement in full swing, not everyone is happy. However the pace is laidback like most of the characters, even in dire situations they are all 'groovy' and 'far out', in accordance with Ang Lee's work, it's also too long at different stages, and then misses the best bits for more long nothingness.
A cast of actors such as Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Emile Hirsch, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber & Dan Fogler in lead roles, cameo appearances, transvestite characters and straight laced anti-Semitic townsfolk among others, it's impossible to criticise the acting, and the film does look exceptional, utilising split screen for some scenes, archive footage feeling for others and natural, one image film for the majority, it's got it's own use of ideas presented in many films before it, and it certainly works for the piece.
Add to that the film is rather funny at points, and the drama is well done, even though none of the characters really care, as the hardest stuff to cope with is given a brush off and a hippy catchphrase and never looked back upon, it's a light film, but it's also an odd film, the first hour deal with monetary issues and the setting up of the concert, the next 45 minutes are about the trickling of people to the fields and the lead character trying, but failing, to reach the venue, instead hanging on a hill with friends, old and newly acquired. The film also has a look at the free love regime, a small moment in a bar the lead is grabbed and kissed by a woman, he turns round, a man he hung out with earlier is there, they kiss, but there's never any talk about the lead's actual love life, or who he really is, short of being an artist, mentioned from time to time but briefly.
Overall the film does try to present issue, ideas and not be conventional 'here is the music you love and here's a story about the music with the music' but ultimately it does seem rather pointless, yes it's a fun watch, but you get nothing out of it, and in the end this film could really have been something amazing if it tried harder.
7/10
Monday 16 November 2009
A Disappointed Man
I love the Coen brothers. No, I adore The Coen Brothers, yes they don't always knock it out of the park, but their bunts are better than at least 50% of films made, and their small hits to get bases loaded can be better than 90% of films made, of course the home runs are the masterstroke, films such as No Country, O' Brother, Hudsucker and Lebowski for instance, so it's no surprise that A Serious Man is on the higher end of the 1-10 score spectrum.
Sadly it's barely there.
A Serious Man opens with a 5 minute vignette in a foreign snowy land, a man returns home happy, tells his wife his carriage broke and a man helped, she says that the man had been dead for years, the man enters, is stabbed for being some spirit thing, then walks out, bleeding. It has no relevance to the rest of the piece, maybe that's the point, but it's the level of almost smug cleverness that makes The Coen's forget the human factor and really making characters and situations you care about in place of such showing off in a filmic and linguistic manner, especially in the use of some yiddish, not Collinwood amounts, thankfully, and all rather easy to understand.
We meet the man we follow for the next 2 hours in a doctor's office, going through a medical, before he goes about his job as a professor at a university, and is bribed by a failing Korean student, then gets home to find his son wants the aerial fixed, his daughter needs to wash her hair, his brother is in the bathroom working on his cyst, and his wife wants a divorce.
A sudden storm begins to emerge without warning. And for the duration we see the divorce process in Jewish fashion, going through Rabbi's for help on his life, lawyers for the divorce, his brother's police issues, land issues, faith issues come about, family issues go mental, but through it all, there's limited engagement with the lead, he's going about doing things as you'd expect, the normal person in a quirky Coen world, but ultimately you know that like they always do, they'll pull that piss stained rug from under you and it'll all be meaningless, sudden and there'd just be wasted time to connect with the leads.
Even if you desperately try it's damn near an inaccessible film, it's funny, very funny don't get me wrong, but it's by no means a masterpiece, or even that good. The script isn't up to much, though the acting is superb all round, especially from Richard Kind as the brother and Micahel Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, our hero, and it looks especially beautiful, Roger Deakins back behind the camera for the duo, if only he was around for Burn too, but still. The score by Carter isn't as impressive as others he's done recently, then again it's overshadowed by a lorra lorra Jefferson Airplane anyway.
Overall, though A Serious Man is a very funny film, it's a middling, pointless and annoyingly dull film which might be better on the re-watch, but sitting down of an evening to see it, I was left cold and annoyed, not even asking questions like the dentist story Rabbi 2 gives halfway through, which is the film's key, it's just a step down from 2 10/10 films of late.
6/10
Sadly it's barely there.
A Serious Man opens with a 5 minute vignette in a foreign snowy land, a man returns home happy, tells his wife his carriage broke and a man helped, she says that the man had been dead for years, the man enters, is stabbed for being some spirit thing, then walks out, bleeding. It has no relevance to the rest of the piece, maybe that's the point, but it's the level of almost smug cleverness that makes The Coen's forget the human factor and really making characters and situations you care about in place of such showing off in a filmic and linguistic manner, especially in the use of some yiddish, not Collinwood amounts, thankfully, and all rather easy to understand.
We meet the man we follow for the next 2 hours in a doctor's office, going through a medical, before he goes about his job as a professor at a university, and is bribed by a failing Korean student, then gets home to find his son wants the aerial fixed, his daughter needs to wash her hair, his brother is in the bathroom working on his cyst, and his wife wants a divorce.
A sudden storm begins to emerge without warning. And for the duration we see the divorce process in Jewish fashion, going through Rabbi's for help on his life, lawyers for the divorce, his brother's police issues, land issues, faith issues come about, family issues go mental, but through it all, there's limited engagement with the lead, he's going about doing things as you'd expect, the normal person in a quirky Coen world, but ultimately you know that like they always do, they'll pull that piss stained rug from under you and it'll all be meaningless, sudden and there'd just be wasted time to connect with the leads.
Even if you desperately try it's damn near an inaccessible film, it's funny, very funny don't get me wrong, but it's by no means a masterpiece, or even that good. The script isn't up to much, though the acting is superb all round, especially from Richard Kind as the brother and Micahel Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, our hero, and it looks especially beautiful, Roger Deakins back behind the camera for the duo, if only he was around for Burn too, but still. The score by Carter isn't as impressive as others he's done recently, then again it's overshadowed by a lorra lorra Jefferson Airplane anyway.
Overall, though A Serious Man is a very funny film, it's a middling, pointless and annoyingly dull film which might be better on the re-watch, but sitting down of an evening to see it, I was left cold and annoyed, not even asking questions like the dentist story Rabbi 2 gives halfway through, which is the film's key, it's just a step down from 2 10/10 films of late.
6/10
Friday 13 November 2009
The Day After The Day After The Day After The Year Or So After Tomorrow.
Mr. Roland Emmerich has had a rather interesting Hollywood career, Stargate, cack, Independance Day, awesome. Godzilla, cack, The Day After Tomorrow, awesome. 10,000 B.C., cack. So in essence 2012, seeing as his last film was more than the standard cack, should be a masterpiece right?
I mean, the basic set up, John Cusack as divorced dad rushes to save kids, Amanda Peet and her new boyfriend as the world collapses, with lots of CGI and loud noises, should be a focussed, simple exercise in unmittigated disaster movies, right?
Well, to be fair, the film opens with a 15 minute set up, including Chiwetel Ejiofer, in another masterful performance where only a standard one is ever needed, meets his pal Jimi Mistry, again great, in India and discovers things are starting to happen in the Earth's core along with solar flares taking physical damage on the planet. Then Oliver Platt, who has a real bad agent after Year One, understands the danger and helps him, but, shock horror, he has his own plans cos he's part of the government.
Add to that Thandie Newton, Danny Glover's daughter, he's the president, works for a company who replaces art in time for the worldwide crisis, finds out the details as her friend explodes in the same, shameless, tunnel as a certain 'peoples princess' like that matters.
Oh, yeah, and everytime Danny Glover says something he doesn't look outside as the disaster hits and say "I'm gettin' too old for this shit" so he fails.
But, yeah, the basic premise is shit is happening all around the World in increasingly ridiculous manners and some people gave a billion euros for a seat on an ark, so they head over there, Cusack and co. know where to find it cos crazy hillbilly Woody Harrelson presents a radio show about conspiracies like that...
Cue many moments of "We're gonna die" then they don't, miraculously, for 2 hours and change. It's ridiculously long and painfully contrived, and worst of all, unengaging. It's the end of the World and the characters are so bland we can't connect with any of them, and this is the film's problem. We can sit through a long film if the characters are right, Jesse James, Dark Knight, Watchmen, Lord Of The Rings, the characters are set up, reacting to the situations in a way only they could, and we follow them, here it's about as inventive as GI Joe.
The acting of the big names is mostly great, Harrelson, Ejiofer, Mistry, Platt, Glover, Cusack, Peet, Newton, all as expected, Cusack's kids aren't bad either, though a Russian billionaire's family are awful, twin russian kids who sound more American than anything else, and an annoying, boring trophy girlfriend help make the middle section painfully dull before the body count reaches new heights. The whole ark idea was better done in Sky Captain too, but I guess you can't expect miracles.
And to be honest the film doesn't try too hard, it just throws situations out on the screen to see what happens, be it the Sistine chapel's God and Adam image cracking in the middle, or Amanda Peet and her boyfriend in a supermarket, he says "I'll never leave you" or something then a crack separates them without making any of them fall down the gap, miraculously.
It's all stupid, and maybe in a more vocal, entertaining crowd it works, but in an English, soggy, mid-day crowd the film fails on a lot of levels, especially entertainment, some scenes are better on youtube.
5/10
I mean, the basic set up, John Cusack as divorced dad rushes to save kids, Amanda Peet and her new boyfriend as the world collapses, with lots of CGI and loud noises, should be a focussed, simple exercise in unmittigated disaster movies, right?
Well, to be fair, the film opens with a 15 minute set up, including Chiwetel Ejiofer, in another masterful performance where only a standard one is ever needed, meets his pal Jimi Mistry, again great, in India and discovers things are starting to happen in the Earth's core along with solar flares taking physical damage on the planet. Then Oliver Platt, who has a real bad agent after Year One, understands the danger and helps him, but, shock horror, he has his own plans cos he's part of the government.
Add to that Thandie Newton, Danny Glover's daughter, he's the president, works for a company who replaces art in time for the worldwide crisis, finds out the details as her friend explodes in the same, shameless, tunnel as a certain 'peoples princess' like that matters.
Oh, yeah, and everytime Danny Glover says something he doesn't look outside as the disaster hits and say "I'm gettin' too old for this shit" so he fails.
But, yeah, the basic premise is shit is happening all around the World in increasingly ridiculous manners and some people gave a billion euros for a seat on an ark, so they head over there, Cusack and co. know where to find it cos crazy hillbilly Woody Harrelson presents a radio show about conspiracies like that...
Cue many moments of "We're gonna die" then they don't, miraculously, for 2 hours and change. It's ridiculously long and painfully contrived, and worst of all, unengaging. It's the end of the World and the characters are so bland we can't connect with any of them, and this is the film's problem. We can sit through a long film if the characters are right, Jesse James, Dark Knight, Watchmen, Lord Of The Rings, the characters are set up, reacting to the situations in a way only they could, and we follow them, here it's about as inventive as GI Joe.
The acting of the big names is mostly great, Harrelson, Ejiofer, Mistry, Platt, Glover, Cusack, Peet, Newton, all as expected, Cusack's kids aren't bad either, though a Russian billionaire's family are awful, twin russian kids who sound more American than anything else, and an annoying, boring trophy girlfriend help make the middle section painfully dull before the body count reaches new heights. The whole ark idea was better done in Sky Captain too, but I guess you can't expect miracles.
And to be honest the film doesn't try too hard, it just throws situations out on the screen to see what happens, be it the Sistine chapel's God and Adam image cracking in the middle, or Amanda Peet and her boyfriend in a supermarket, he says "I'll never leave you" or something then a crack separates them without making any of them fall down the gap, miraculously.
It's all stupid, and maybe in a more vocal, entertaining crowd it works, but in an English, soggy, mid-day crowd the film fails on a lot of levels, especially entertainment, some scenes are better on youtube.
5/10
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Rosebud! I Am Law Abiding Citizen Kane!
F. Gary Gray has brought us such titles as The Italian Job with Mark Wahlberg and A Man Apart with Vin Diesel, now he teams up with Kurt Wimmer, the man who gave us Ultraviolet and Equilibrium, to bring us Law Abiding Citizen, a film where Jamie Foxx plays a cunt and Gerard Butler is an innocent man who gets revenge on the people who unnecessarily murdered his family.
From the outset it's clear that Butler is our hero, he's the man that got screwed over by the system to keep Foxx's record in perfect order, so 10 years later when Foxx has a family and Butler goes about delivering a lethal injection that's rather painful. Given it's less than 24 hours since the Washington Sniper was executed, the scene was rather brutal and interesting to watch, like the opening where a fat man stabs Butler and his wife in a shockingly frank manner reminiscent of Zodiac.
Sadly when Butler gets to torturing the fat man, paralysed but not numbed, filming as he severs limbs and such, we see a deranged build up deliciously evil, but no pay off. Even when the daughter of Foxx watches it, it's all sound effects, no images, and the man's head lying on a worktop without any signs of it being a human head. Come the last hour all the build up from Butler becomes a series of gunshots, similar to Harry Brown, it's same old same old, nothing new, and then, annoying of all, it turns out we're meant to be on the side of Jamie Foxx, I'm rarely on his side, ever.
The acting is superb from Butler, he's fun and dark, and he has more funny moments here than the whole of The Ugly Truth, Foxx is annoyingly shit, everyone else gets nothing to do, and the whole film seems to be an exercise in build-up and futility, which is a real shame, as it could have been a violent but fun vigilante revenge justice flick.
5/10
From the outset it's clear that Butler is our hero, he's the man that got screwed over by the system to keep Foxx's record in perfect order, so 10 years later when Foxx has a family and Butler goes about delivering a lethal injection that's rather painful. Given it's less than 24 hours since the Washington Sniper was executed, the scene was rather brutal and interesting to watch, like the opening where a fat man stabs Butler and his wife in a shockingly frank manner reminiscent of Zodiac.
Sadly when Butler gets to torturing the fat man, paralysed but not numbed, filming as he severs limbs and such, we see a deranged build up deliciously evil, but no pay off. Even when the daughter of Foxx watches it, it's all sound effects, no images, and the man's head lying on a worktop without any signs of it being a human head. Come the last hour all the build up from Butler becomes a series of gunshots, similar to Harry Brown, it's same old same old, nothing new, and then, annoying of all, it turns out we're meant to be on the side of Jamie Foxx, I'm rarely on his side, ever.
The acting is superb from Butler, he's fun and dark, and he has more funny moments here than the whole of The Ugly Truth, Foxx is annoyingly shit, everyone else gets nothing to do, and the whole film seems to be an exercise in build-up and futility, which is a real shame, as it could have been a violent but fun vigilante revenge justice flick.
5/10
Monday 9 November 2009
My Name Is Harry Brown, And I'm A Nosy, Violent Neighbour!
Michael Caine has had his arm in many a violent little English film through his illustrious career, but none more so than with Harry Brown, a true 18 rated grimy, gritty, bleak and unsettling vigilante tale set in an estate around Elephant & Castle, where yoofs have guns and swear and do drugs everywhere, like most places, and they're violent little pricks.
With Harry Brown the first hour begins with a 5 minute camera shot sequence of events with a youngster embraced by a yoof gang, given a gun, shooting a woman and getting run over, all it needs is a 'Think: Don't shoot people then make an exit without overlooking the possibility that your idiot body might be crushed' text and it'd be a complete advert, instead we then get the outline of the day to day for Harry Brown, Harry not Harold, not even the police when formally addressing him say Harold, well written as always, he wakes up, tea and jam, walks to the hospital, sees his wife, grabs a pint, talks to his pal Leonard then gets home before the yoofs come out and make noise, general discomfort and cause some ultra-violence, if they had milk instead of booze we'd have already seen this film...
One day the yoofs shove dog leavings through 'Arry's pal's letterbox and he snaps, running out with a bayonet and attacking the kids, who use it against him and violently kill him, whilst filming the attack of course. Soon enough the police investigation, led by the wonderful Emily Mortimer and a stilted partner dishing out lines so bland and devoid of human emotions they'd be out of place in a Bill episode, peters out and 'Arry can't have that, scoring a few guns from local black market drug runners he soon runs rampant around the estate, causing the police to get mobile on the yoofs and dealers, thinking they are behind it all instead.
The first hour of the film delivers some really harrowing, unsettling moments and has a bleak and realistic world view, offering up no easy answers, just lots of poorly scripted moments dealt with by professional actors. The second hour, however, the film loses all quality, becoming something of a facist fantasy, an old man with a gun reigning terror on idiot yoofs and hoodies, with no interest on moral dilemmas if there's a chance for a stupid, overblown action sequence that adds nothing to the characters, instead saying that the only thing that needs to be done is shoot all kids and crime rates drop tenfold. A subsequent riot sequence with kids acting like French students and a pub finale where a random, stupid twist is added to try to create an effect on the 'who is the bad guy, is the good guy even worse' without looking at Harry Brown as anything but a saint with a pistol.
It's a shame that the film delves into ridiculous male fantasy after some amazing reality grounding work first up, and Daniel Barber's visual eye is clear here, the lighting, the shots, it's wonderfully done, if only the script had been given a once over by someone who didn't say "Oh, shooting would be cool here, what's normal people speak sound like?"
6/10
With Harry Brown the first hour begins with a 5 minute camera shot sequence of events with a youngster embraced by a yoof gang, given a gun, shooting a woman and getting run over, all it needs is a 'Think: Don't shoot people then make an exit without overlooking the possibility that your idiot body might be crushed' text and it'd be a complete advert, instead we then get the outline of the day to day for Harry Brown, Harry not Harold, not even the police when formally addressing him say Harold, well written as always, he wakes up, tea and jam, walks to the hospital, sees his wife, grabs a pint, talks to his pal Leonard then gets home before the yoofs come out and make noise, general discomfort and cause some ultra-violence, if they had milk instead of booze we'd have already seen this film...
One day the yoofs shove dog leavings through 'Arry's pal's letterbox and he snaps, running out with a bayonet and attacking the kids, who use it against him and violently kill him, whilst filming the attack of course. Soon enough the police investigation, led by the wonderful Emily Mortimer and a stilted partner dishing out lines so bland and devoid of human emotions they'd be out of place in a Bill episode, peters out and 'Arry can't have that, scoring a few guns from local black market drug runners he soon runs rampant around the estate, causing the police to get mobile on the yoofs and dealers, thinking they are behind it all instead.
The first hour of the film delivers some really harrowing, unsettling moments and has a bleak and realistic world view, offering up no easy answers, just lots of poorly scripted moments dealt with by professional actors. The second hour, however, the film loses all quality, becoming something of a facist fantasy, an old man with a gun reigning terror on idiot yoofs and hoodies, with no interest on moral dilemmas if there's a chance for a stupid, overblown action sequence that adds nothing to the characters, instead saying that the only thing that needs to be done is shoot all kids and crime rates drop tenfold. A subsequent riot sequence with kids acting like French students and a pub finale where a random, stupid twist is added to try to create an effect on the 'who is the bad guy, is the good guy even worse' without looking at Harry Brown as anything but a saint with a pistol.
It's a shame that the film delves into ridiculous male fantasy after some amazing reality grounding work first up, and Daniel Barber's visual eye is clear here, the lighting, the shots, it's wonderfully done, if only the script had been given a once over by someone who didn't say "Oh, shooting would be cool here, what's normal people speak sound like?"
6/10
Friday 6 November 2009
Five, Six, Seven, Eight!
Shane Acker's 9 has been given very middle of the road reviews since it's US release in September, mainly that the animation is great, no question, but the story and dialogue is cliched and contrived. Given that the main pulling power is that under producoral capacities are Timur Bekmambetov and Tim Burton.
9, which resembles a dark version of LittleBigPlanet the movie, is about 9 sacks with skeletal metal given life by a professor as humanity is wiped out by machines the professor invented with AI, that slowly became hostile to humanity. The 9 slowly appear as #9 awakens and is born into the wastelands of the Earth. 2, Martin Landau, is a smart old man who is abused by number 1, Christopher Plummer as a cult head leader. 5 is a partial medic, sweet-natured man, played by the epic John C. Reilly, 7 is femme fatale, even though they have no genders, played by the faceless, bland Jennifer Connelly, 6 is an introverted psychotic drawing images of an odd shape that 9 awakens to find, played by Crispin Glover. The cast is topped off by 9, Elijah Wood, as an innocent but brave and foolish kid in the world, new to everything, for better and most definitely worse.
The film most definitely looks astonishing at times and is stylistically amazing, but to be fair, whilst the script and story are simple and been done before, it's not to say that it fails on these accounts, quite the contrary, the cast give life to the characters, vibrancy in dialogue, even contrived dialogue, and the story can be tense and exciting, not knowing when it will end as well, it's a cracking little underrated gem that whilst imperfect, like the film's lead, is also a great film and deserves a lot more attention than it received on release, a must see especially next to more kiddie attempts at animation, it's a solid PG-13 action adventure, scary, dark and brilliant, and because it's not perfect I get to give it a...
9/10
9, which resembles a dark version of LittleBigPlanet the movie, is about 9 sacks with skeletal metal given life by a professor as humanity is wiped out by machines the professor invented with AI, that slowly became hostile to humanity. The 9 slowly appear as #9 awakens and is born into the wastelands of the Earth. 2, Martin Landau, is a smart old man who is abused by number 1, Christopher Plummer as a cult head leader. 5 is a partial medic, sweet-natured man, played by the epic John C. Reilly, 7 is femme fatale, even though they have no genders, played by the faceless, bland Jennifer Connelly, 6 is an introverted psychotic drawing images of an odd shape that 9 awakens to find, played by Crispin Glover. The cast is topped off by 9, Elijah Wood, as an innocent but brave and foolish kid in the world, new to everything, for better and most definitely worse.
The film most definitely looks astonishing at times and is stylistically amazing, but to be fair, whilst the script and story are simple and been done before, it's not to say that it fails on these accounts, quite the contrary, the cast give life to the characters, vibrancy in dialogue, even contrived dialogue, and the story can be tense and exciting, not knowing when it will end as well, it's a cracking little underrated gem that whilst imperfect, like the film's lead, is also a great film and deserves a lot more attention than it received on release, a must see especially next to more kiddie attempts at animation, it's a solid PG-13 action adventure, scary, dark and brilliant, and because it's not perfect I get to give it a...
9/10
Wednesday 4 November 2009
The weather outside's not frightful, yet Christmas is coming to multiplexes?
Robert Zemeckis returns once more for the third of his mo-cap films, first was the rather brilliantly sweet and simple Polar Express, second was the dry but exciting Beowulf, now he's employed Jim Carrery to play about 1000 characters who all don't sound English by any means, so fit in perfectly with the shoddy accents from the people of London, specifically the children. Think Chev Chelios as a kid in Crank 2, THAT level of painful accents.
Again the film looks stunning, and Zemeckis pretty much throws virtual cameras around like they cost nothing. Probably because they cost nothing. But he clearly wants to show off the worlds that have been built for the film so much by giving us every angle in less time than we can monitor, in IMAX 3D the film will not be for those who suffer from extreme vertigo, Liza Minelli, nor anyone with severe motion sickness, you pretty much whizz around London at the start, after an opening segment.
The film kindly opens with the book being turned to the opening, and we, from there, see Jacob Marley's corpse and Scrooge with the undertakers. From there we begin the story as traditionally as possible, sneering, bah humbug, the same dialogue as it once was, rather authentic.
As we meet Marley's ghost we start to see where Zemeckis' version has it's own ideas, rather dry and traditional in Victorian London, when the spirits come in, the humour is being attempted to rise, in the case of Marley his jaw detaches and he smacks it up and down to talk for a bit. It's as funny as it sounds, maybe less so if I described it well enough. The Christmas Past spirit is a candle with a flame the face of Jim Carrey, sporting a soft Irish accent, that sometimes sounds a tad too Canadian, just before the two go oot and aboot the 'shadows of the past'.
Christmas Present is Jim Carrey as Brian Blessed, he laughs a lot, is very beardy and booming, and clearly needed the presents of someone with a voice like Blessed, as Carrey cannot sustain the bass to really excel in the vocal department here, however the final scenes are perhaps the most disturbing in a kids film this side of Jar Jar.
Christmas Future is the point I mark on the map wherein the film goes downhill. Before the spirits went into the flashback moments rather quickly, a little introduction and conversation, then BLAM, Scrooge is shown things, here Scrooge is chased down streets by the shadow spirit on a shadow horse and cart and shrunk until he fits through pipes, and for no reason smashes against 10 icicles as he falls off a roof, THEN gets to a flashback, that's 5 minutes of runtime that could have been cut and the film would feel better, especially since it's duties to be as traditional in the dialogue as possible make such an extended action sequence seem rather hysterical, like a parody in itself of an American remake.
Of course the tale of Tiny Tim is well done, if a little heavy handed at points, but Gary Oldman as the face of Tim and the face and voice of Bob Cratchit is great, he doesn't overplay, he just delivers a simple character who is always in the background until the final 15 minutes. Colin Firth, though high in the credits, has about 3 scenes, all are adequate, but there's nothing for him here. Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig underplays the Cockney, and during a dance sequence looks far too cartoony, then again he never looked all that real in Roger Rabbit either.
Whilst the detail is great on some textures and Scrooge's face, many Londoners look rather bland and quickly rendered, which is disconcerting when many kids with limited expressions play on the roads. The music is rather festive without being too overbearing.
It's a nice happy film, with some good moments and sequences, but the final act kills off some of the quality from the previous two.
7/10
Again the film looks stunning, and Zemeckis pretty much throws virtual cameras around like they cost nothing. Probably because they cost nothing. But he clearly wants to show off the worlds that have been built for the film so much by giving us every angle in less time than we can monitor, in IMAX 3D the film will not be for those who suffer from extreme vertigo, Liza Minelli, nor anyone with severe motion sickness, you pretty much whizz around London at the start, after an opening segment.
The film kindly opens with the book being turned to the opening, and we, from there, see Jacob Marley's corpse and Scrooge with the undertakers. From there we begin the story as traditionally as possible, sneering, bah humbug, the same dialogue as it once was, rather authentic.
As we meet Marley's ghost we start to see where Zemeckis' version has it's own ideas, rather dry and traditional in Victorian London, when the spirits come in, the humour is being attempted to rise, in the case of Marley his jaw detaches and he smacks it up and down to talk for a bit. It's as funny as it sounds, maybe less so if I described it well enough. The Christmas Past spirit is a candle with a flame the face of Jim Carrey, sporting a soft Irish accent, that sometimes sounds a tad too Canadian, just before the two go oot and aboot the 'shadows of the past'.
Christmas Present is Jim Carrey as Brian Blessed, he laughs a lot, is very beardy and booming, and clearly needed the presents of someone with a voice like Blessed, as Carrey cannot sustain the bass to really excel in the vocal department here, however the final scenes are perhaps the most disturbing in a kids film this side of Jar Jar.
Christmas Future is the point I mark on the map wherein the film goes downhill. Before the spirits went into the flashback moments rather quickly, a little introduction and conversation, then BLAM, Scrooge is shown things, here Scrooge is chased down streets by the shadow spirit on a shadow horse and cart and shrunk until he fits through pipes, and for no reason smashes against 10 icicles as he falls off a roof, THEN gets to a flashback, that's 5 minutes of runtime that could have been cut and the film would feel better, especially since it's duties to be as traditional in the dialogue as possible make such an extended action sequence seem rather hysterical, like a parody in itself of an American remake.
Of course the tale of Tiny Tim is well done, if a little heavy handed at points, but Gary Oldman as the face of Tim and the face and voice of Bob Cratchit is great, he doesn't overplay, he just delivers a simple character who is always in the background until the final 15 minutes. Colin Firth, though high in the credits, has about 3 scenes, all are adequate, but there's nothing for him here. Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig underplays the Cockney, and during a dance sequence looks far too cartoony, then again he never looked all that real in Roger Rabbit either.
Whilst the detail is great on some textures and Scrooge's face, many Londoners look rather bland and quickly rendered, which is disconcerting when many kids with limited expressions play on the roads. The music is rather festive without being too overbearing.
It's a nice happy film, with some good moments and sequences, but the final act kills off some of the quality from the previous two.
7/10
Monday 2 November 2009
It's late October, that must mean shitty comedy throwaway release date!
The Goods was horrendously marketed using Adam McKay and Will Ferrell's names shamelessly and focussing mostly on Jeremy Piven's speech on a plane about smoking, and then some alligators running around and lots of random moments, that's exactly what this film is, completely. It's like the film took the basic template of middle noughties comedies, Vince Vaughn/Will Ferrell vehicles, and didn't try to be funny, just as random as possible to survive. That's not to say it doesn't work sometimes, it has moments of rather funny, but ultimately it's a generic one man stops being selfish, learns to work with others and learns to love. That's it.
The premise is Piven, David Koechner, Ving Rhames and the cheating wife from Step Brothers are a mercenary team of sellers that are assigned to help a struggling car lot to sell more over the July Fourth weekend, come the second day Piven decides to challenge rival car lot company chief and son, portrayed by Ed Helms, that if he can sell EVERY CAR on the lot, they won't be taken over. For no frakking reason!
Cue montages of 'funny ways to make a sale' that are overlong, tedious and predictable, lots of famous faces, Ken Jeong, Tony Hale, James Brolin, Craig Robinson, Alan Thicke, Kristen Schaal, Matt Walsh and Will Ferrell pop in to do some gags and stuff for no reason, and hey, they say the f-word a lot, and make lots of sexual jokes, that means it's funny right?
Well, no, it's kinda disappointing to see such a talented group of people stuck in a film that has no interest in trying to be good, instead settling for bland deja vu feeling of comedy, comedy is best when fresh, come on people.
4/10
The premise is Piven, David Koechner, Ving Rhames and the cheating wife from Step Brothers are a mercenary team of sellers that are assigned to help a struggling car lot to sell more over the July Fourth weekend, come the second day Piven decides to challenge rival car lot company chief and son, portrayed by Ed Helms, that if he can sell EVERY CAR on the lot, they won't be taken over. For no frakking reason!
Cue montages of 'funny ways to make a sale' that are overlong, tedious and predictable, lots of famous faces, Ken Jeong, Tony Hale, James Brolin, Craig Robinson, Alan Thicke, Kristen Schaal, Matt Walsh and Will Ferrell pop in to do some gags and stuff for no reason, and hey, they say the f-word a lot, and make lots of sexual jokes, that means it's funny right?
Well, no, it's kinda disappointing to see such a talented group of people stuck in a film that has no interest in trying to be good, instead settling for bland deja vu feeling of comedy, comedy is best when fresh, come on people.
4/10
16 year old boy becomes a vampire, girls DON'T scream?
The Darren Shan vampire books have been a source of contempt for me as a teenager in school, friends would sit and read the series in between Alex Ryder books, and say how amazing they all are. I took a look at the opening chapters of both series' and boy howdy did they stink to high heaven. With Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, Hollywood tries to bring back some elements of classic vampires following last year's vampire fuck ups, True Blood, which at least kept them violent, and Twilight, which is something we'll only discuss as we move all copies of the series into an incinerator.
With this film, Universal are clearly trying to launch a franchise, with a starry cast, lots left hanging for future editions and a style reminiscent of A Series Of Unfortunate Events and a majority of 80's and 90's kids adventure flicks, light hearted, silly but with serious elements as well. It's a shame that the lead character is painfully bland, his best friend, that kid from Firehouse Dog and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, is boring at being brash, coming across like a spoilt kid trying to be street, and it's a shame that the good cast get limited time. Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock is always good, here she's a woman in the freak show that can regenerate her limbs, Ken Watanabe is an 8 foot tall head of the traveling show, and is far too underused in the film, not only for his calibre, but for what the role should call for.
Salma Hayek has about 3 scenes, and gets so little to do it's just not right, Punisher himself Ray Stevenson is sadly stuck pulling a mix of American, English, Scottish and Eastern European as some zombie thing, Patrick Fugit is some hip young lizard boy, he's rather good for someone who actually has screentime in comparison to the majority. The only actor who is of any quality that gets enough time is Mr. John C. Reilly, he's also the film's best asset, Reilly is almost always amazing, and here is no exception, playing a vampire who has had eternal life for well over 150 years, and is slowly showing signs of aging, he's not the young man he was when he first got the curse. Reilly is hysterical and interesting, you care for the character, and laugh at the antics, a sequence where he has to pretend the young hero has died so his family won't worry about his disappearance, he injects a numbing agent, then a minute later breaks his neck and kicks him off the roof, brilliant.
It's a shame the writing is bland and uninspired, the CGI is rather repulsive, and the action sequences near the end near incomprehensible, Batman Begins confusing at times. A fight scene involving Reilly and Stevenson on some chairs off a stage involves lots of CGI fast blurring and Bourne style camera shots, and if you can tell me who hit who where without an audio, I will salute you, and say you have no frakking life.
The music was soli, similar score to most teen based action adventure flicks, editing was fine, pacing was a bit too slow, and what you'll notice I've barely talked about, the plot, was dead on arrival, film only began 40 minutes into it's 1 hour 40 minute runtime.
4/10
With this film, Universal are clearly trying to launch a franchise, with a starry cast, lots left hanging for future editions and a style reminiscent of A Series Of Unfortunate Events and a majority of 80's and 90's kids adventure flicks, light hearted, silly but with serious elements as well. It's a shame that the lead character is painfully bland, his best friend, that kid from Firehouse Dog and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, is boring at being brash, coming across like a spoilt kid trying to be street, and it's a shame that the good cast get limited time. Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock is always good, here she's a woman in the freak show that can regenerate her limbs, Ken Watanabe is an 8 foot tall head of the traveling show, and is far too underused in the film, not only for his calibre, but for what the role should call for.
Salma Hayek has about 3 scenes, and gets so little to do it's just not right, Punisher himself Ray Stevenson is sadly stuck pulling a mix of American, English, Scottish and Eastern European as some zombie thing, Patrick Fugit is some hip young lizard boy, he's rather good for someone who actually has screentime in comparison to the majority. The only actor who is of any quality that gets enough time is Mr. John C. Reilly, he's also the film's best asset, Reilly is almost always amazing, and here is no exception, playing a vampire who has had eternal life for well over 150 years, and is slowly showing signs of aging, he's not the young man he was when he first got the curse. Reilly is hysterical and interesting, you care for the character, and laugh at the antics, a sequence where he has to pretend the young hero has died so his family won't worry about his disappearance, he injects a numbing agent, then a minute later breaks his neck and kicks him off the roof, brilliant.
It's a shame the writing is bland and uninspired, the CGI is rather repulsive, and the action sequences near the end near incomprehensible, Batman Begins confusing at times. A fight scene involving Reilly and Stevenson on some chairs off a stage involves lots of CGI fast blurring and Bourne style camera shots, and if you can tell me who hit who where without an audio, I will salute you, and say you have no frakking life.
The music was soli, similar score to most teen based action adventure flicks, editing was fine, pacing was a bit too slow, and what you'll notice I've barely talked about, the plot, was dead on arrival, film only began 40 minutes into it's 1 hour 40 minute runtime.
4/10
Monday 26 October 2009
My name is Michael Moore, and I'm a nosy neighbour.
Going in to the BFI's LFF Surprise Film knowing the film from the night prior's paid for screenings people saw, I was prepared to witness another Michael Moore documentary, a man I've been a fan of since I started really getting into cinema, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko and Roger & Me are truly amazing and re-watchable documentaries, however Fahrenheit 9/11 was easily his worst, a multi-tonged approach to a subject the public was already more on Moore's side than ambivalent to and unfocussed so much that it jumped around on ideas that led nowhere to prove points that had limited impact.
Alas Capitalism, a film which was worked on as Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2 is like the original, a multi-tonged unfocussed approach to the banking crash that we're all anti-banks with already, and sadly whilst it's hysterical at times, it's also rather dull, overlong by at least 40 minutes and gives no resolution or attempts to break through to important people like Charlton Heston in Columbine. Instead Moore has times where he's recognised, and criticised for his films, and gets no where, slowly.
Do we care about people being thrown out of the house when only tears and religion are used to go into peoples' psyche, and how many American flags do you need to see in one film?
Sadly Moore's latest is exactly like this review, half-hearted and uninterested in it's subject matter, in fact distracted by everything else, and boring like fuck.
5/10
Alas Capitalism, a film which was worked on as Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2 is like the original, a multi-tonged unfocussed approach to the banking crash that we're all anti-banks with already, and sadly whilst it's hysterical at times, it's also rather dull, overlong by at least 40 minutes and gives no resolution or attempts to break through to important people like Charlton Heston in Columbine. Instead Moore has times where he's recognised, and criticised for his films, and gets no where, slowly.
Do we care about people being thrown out of the house when only tears and religion are used to go into peoples' psyche, and how many American flags do you need to see in one film?
Sadly Moore's latest is exactly like this review, half-hearted and uninterested in it's subject matter, in fact distracted by everything else, and boring like fuck.
5/10
Friday 23 October 2009
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, I saw it, it's alive, it's boring!
Blair Witch rocked the movie scene a decade ago, no budget camcorder horror about the power of suggestion that got everyone riled up. Then it subsided until 2007's [Rec] and subsequent, and shameless, English language remake Quarantine, add to that Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead, and forthcoming [Rec 2] (Quarantine 2: Quarantiner is out next year) and the also forthcoming The Fourth Kind and camcorder/true life horror is having another renaissance.
With this a no budget film form Sundance has been building buzz in recent months, about a couple who have a haunting in the house, using a camera to view it. Starting off normally, man turns on camera, abuses the camera by forcing it into conversation, awkwardly throws expositionary dialogue down and has two bad actors with no chemistry failing to make the one dimensional characters real like the film suggests, or even make the humour or scares work, it's a tired formula that you've seen time and time again, and here it's no different, it's painful, dull and slow.
Unlike the subtle trailer, the film goes for loud noises as jump scares to suggest forces of evil in the house, or if you're like me, loud noises outside that you just ignore. Or door movement that's clearly oh so freaking sinister.
I don't believe in the mumbo jumbo about ghosts 'n ghouls, demons and psychics, so maybe that's why the film didn't freak me out, send shivers down my spine or engage me at any point. Hell, from the beginning I knew which character I wanted to die, and which one was going to, they were not one and the same.
Horror is tough to do right, I recently caught Saw, a film people claimed to have revolutionised the horror genre. They don't notice it's purely a thriler, and the same is the case here, with it's tone it's slightly creepy, well, supposedly, but it's not about a horror stance, it's a thrill based film.
Alas it didn't work for me, but maybe you'll enjoy it. Anyway, horror still sucks as a whole, with only ambassador Raimi firing on all cylinders this year.
1/10
With this a no budget film form Sundance has been building buzz in recent months, about a couple who have a haunting in the house, using a camera to view it. Starting off normally, man turns on camera, abuses the camera by forcing it into conversation, awkwardly throws expositionary dialogue down and has two bad actors with no chemistry failing to make the one dimensional characters real like the film suggests, or even make the humour or scares work, it's a tired formula that you've seen time and time again, and here it's no different, it's painful, dull and slow.
Unlike the subtle trailer, the film goes for loud noises as jump scares to suggest forces of evil in the house, or if you're like me, loud noises outside that you just ignore. Or door movement that's clearly oh so freaking sinister.
I don't believe in the mumbo jumbo about ghosts 'n ghouls, demons and psychics, so maybe that's why the film didn't freak me out, send shivers down my spine or engage me at any point. Hell, from the beginning I knew which character I wanted to die, and which one was going to, they were not one and the same.
Horror is tough to do right, I recently caught Saw, a film people claimed to have revolutionised the horror genre. They don't notice it's purely a thriler, and the same is the case here, with it's tone it's slightly creepy, well, supposedly, but it's not about a horror stance, it's a thrill based film.
Alas it didn't work for me, but maybe you'll enjoy it. Anyway, horror still sucks as a whole, with only ambassador Raimi firing on all cylinders this year.
1/10
Wes Anderson, you know, for kids!
So here it is.
After years of work, and since Wes mentioned about Life Aquatic's stop motion fish that he wanted to work on a full feature in the style, he made it.
Filmed in the heart of the story, England, and featuring actual British actors as the humans, and Americans/Canadians for animals, we have Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, as written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Now, to comprehend this film through my terms you need to understand where I'm coming from.
I've grown up from 10 to 19 on Anderson's portfolio, Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling, Bottle Rocket, and as such have become one with his quirky, smart witty style of comedy, alongside Noah Baumbach, who I first became familiar with through Life Aquatic during a second viewing at 3 am, where the film really becomes pertinent. And subsequently second viewing of The Squid and The Whale made me adore that film, you can watch it again and again and each time focus one one character/team, brilliant. Margot at the Wedding was not the disaster everyone proclaimed, it was just even darker and leftfield than Squid.
So I'm up to snuff on these most awesome of indie movie makers, so imagine my surprise when I read the end credits and find it's not Anderson alone, ala Darjeeling, but with Baumbach that he co-wrote Mr. Fox, a film that is odd in all the wrong ways.
Yes the film looks great, has a homely charm indeed, but the characters are completely hollow and soulless, and with George Clooney and Meryl Streep's voices clearly too slick and American for the image, the film doesn't work on the vocal level. What about in humour? It's gonna be surreal, odd and yet human, right? No. No, instead of funny but true family problems we get 'cuss' as a running gag to replace fuck, shit and hell. To be fair it offers one of the film's two gags, in clustercuss.
But the only other gag is that Badger, Bill Murray in a very small role, has a mac behind him with post-its on it. That's it.
Who the film is made for is confusing as it's too wordy and complex for younger kids, not enough action and adventure for older kids, nothing vulgar for the teens and not smart enough for adults, they take their gags that aren't funny and instead of being patronising with them, run them into the ground or spell them out. It's not right, it's not what solid filmmaking and humour is about.
And the worst part about this film? It's 87 minutes and the film starts off feeling like it's going to have a lot of goings on, then about 2 reels in the main plot has been underway for ages, and the main plot is Mr. Fox wants to eat more chickens and feel rich, then he pisses off the farmers and puts all animals in the shit. And that's it, there's some unfunny, odd grenade and shooting sequences, but that's all the action, and the scope is so narrow it's almost no need to be animated, coulda just used real animals and got the same lack of emotions out of it.
I say this as an aficionado, the film is awful, truly awful, and it's sad that this is the case.
Avoid.
2/10
After years of work, and since Wes mentioned about Life Aquatic's stop motion fish that he wanted to work on a full feature in the style, he made it.
Filmed in the heart of the story, England, and featuring actual British actors as the humans, and Americans/Canadians for animals, we have Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, as written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Now, to comprehend this film through my terms you need to understand where I'm coming from.
I've grown up from 10 to 19 on Anderson's portfolio, Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling, Bottle Rocket, and as such have become one with his quirky, smart witty style of comedy, alongside Noah Baumbach, who I first became familiar with through Life Aquatic during a second viewing at 3 am, where the film really becomes pertinent. And subsequently second viewing of The Squid and The Whale made me adore that film, you can watch it again and again and each time focus one one character/team, brilliant. Margot at the Wedding was not the disaster everyone proclaimed, it was just even darker and leftfield than Squid.
So I'm up to snuff on these most awesome of indie movie makers, so imagine my surprise when I read the end credits and find it's not Anderson alone, ala Darjeeling, but with Baumbach that he co-wrote Mr. Fox, a film that is odd in all the wrong ways.
Yes the film looks great, has a homely charm indeed, but the characters are completely hollow and soulless, and with George Clooney and Meryl Streep's voices clearly too slick and American for the image, the film doesn't work on the vocal level. What about in humour? It's gonna be surreal, odd and yet human, right? No. No, instead of funny but true family problems we get 'cuss' as a running gag to replace fuck, shit and hell. To be fair it offers one of the film's two gags, in clustercuss.
But the only other gag is that Badger, Bill Murray in a very small role, has a mac behind him with post-its on it. That's it.
Who the film is made for is confusing as it's too wordy and complex for younger kids, not enough action and adventure for older kids, nothing vulgar for the teens and not smart enough for adults, they take their gags that aren't funny and instead of being patronising with them, run them into the ground or spell them out. It's not right, it's not what solid filmmaking and humour is about.
And the worst part about this film? It's 87 minutes and the film starts off feeling like it's going to have a lot of goings on, then about 2 reels in the main plot has been underway for ages, and the main plot is Mr. Fox wants to eat more chickens and feel rich, then he pisses off the farmers and puts all animals in the shit. And that's it, there's some unfunny, odd grenade and shooting sequences, but that's all the action, and the scope is so narrow it's almost no need to be animated, coulda just used real animals and got the same lack of emotions out of it.
I say this as an aficionado, the film is awful, truly awful, and it's sad that this is the case.
Avoid.
2/10
Tuesday 20 October 2009
The Contrabulous Fabtraption Of Professor Horatio Huffnagel
Terry Gilliam returns with a ridiculously entitled film of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, wherein Christopher Plummer is a man made immortal by Tom Waits' devil, and beaten in a bet must give any 16 year old child to the Devil. He runs a small sideshow with friend Percy (Verne Troyer, also immortal it seems), his 15 year old daughter, Lily Cole, looking beautiful, and odd teenager Anton, Andrew Garfield. In the sideshow they offer people the chance to go through a mirror and into Parnassus' imagination, a weird brightly coloured CGI cartoon world that has all the delights you want, and the temptations placed by The Devil as well.
One day they see a man hanging under a bridge and bring him up, the man, Heath Ledger, has amnesia and is given the name George, until the papers fly by revealing he's front page news.
He works with the sideshow and rakes in money, but breaks rules, and ends up having a crush on Parnassus' daughter, who Anton has loved for ages, and it's a big ol' love triangle, as Parnassus is offered the chance to save his daughter by taking 5 souls before the Devil does. And so the film plays out.
Right there is about the first 45 minutes of the film, it takes time to understand what the hell is going on, so there it is, but surprisingly it doesn't annoy you, it's a wonder to enjoy the film play out, for a film where the trailers looked like abstract garbage it's a true delight to say the film in completion is absolutely hysterical, sometimes rather tense and almost consistently interesting, the film's final 15 minutes go on for a bit too long, but it's really interesting, especially when Heath Ledger goes through the mirror and becomes a new actor, a different face in his imagination.
The film is annoyingly good actually, it held my attention and appreciation throughout, though the CGI was off putting, the acting was hit and miss but the actors made the characters interesting and not simply one note, the direction is masterful and some of the designs are disturbingly surreal.
Overall Imaginarium is a real treat, a funny, smart and imaginative film that you should catch when possible.
9/10
One day they see a man hanging under a bridge and bring him up, the man, Heath Ledger, has amnesia and is given the name George, until the papers fly by revealing he's front page news.
He works with the sideshow and rakes in money, but breaks rules, and ends up having a crush on Parnassus' daughter, who Anton has loved for ages, and it's a big ol' love triangle, as Parnassus is offered the chance to save his daughter by taking 5 souls before the Devil does. And so the film plays out.
Right there is about the first 45 minutes of the film, it takes time to understand what the hell is going on, so there it is, but surprisingly it doesn't annoy you, it's a wonder to enjoy the film play out, for a film where the trailers looked like abstract garbage it's a true delight to say the film in completion is absolutely hysterical, sometimes rather tense and almost consistently interesting, the film's final 15 minutes go on for a bit too long, but it's really interesting, especially when Heath Ledger goes through the mirror and becomes a new actor, a different face in his imagination.
The film is annoyingly good actually, it held my attention and appreciation throughout, though the CGI was off putting, the acting was hit and miss but the actors made the characters interesting and not simply one note, the direction is masterful and some of the designs are disturbingly surreal.
Overall Imaginarium is a real treat, a funny, smart and imaginative film that you should catch when possible.
9/10
Ow My Bak 2!
Tony Jaa returns to his breakthrough performance in Ong Bak by making the sequel, entitled Ong Bak: The Beginning...
In this film we see Tony Jaa as a kid learning to fight so that he can kill the people who killed his parents, and learn about life along the way. From the same people who did the first they return with a lush looking sequel which has absolutely 0 originality in the plot and dialogue, subtitles badly coloured with white sometimes impossible to see because of the image behind it, fight sequences that are for the most part slow and uninviting and worst of all, there looks to be a lot more CGI in use this time, ruining the whole point of the original's gritty, simple, cheap style.
The sequel tries too hard to be a serious drama with action, involving a kid fighting a fucking crocodile, and it's ultimately a very boring, mundane, plain action drama with no elegance or interest, a complete and utter disappointment from Tony Jaa, who should do more modern day based action films, get away from the misplaced period settings most action titles abuse nowadays.
3/10
In this film we see Tony Jaa as a kid learning to fight so that he can kill the people who killed his parents, and learn about life along the way. From the same people who did the first they return with a lush looking sequel which has absolutely 0 originality in the plot and dialogue, subtitles badly coloured with white sometimes impossible to see because of the image behind it, fight sequences that are for the most part slow and uninviting and worst of all, there looks to be a lot more CGI in use this time, ruining the whole point of the original's gritty, simple, cheap style.
The sequel tries too hard to be a serious drama with action, involving a kid fighting a fucking crocodile, and it's ultimately a very boring, mundane, plain action drama with no elegance or interest, a complete and utter disappointment from Tony Jaa, who should do more modern day based action films, get away from the misplaced period settings most action titles abuse nowadays.
3/10
Friday 16 October 2009
Happiness 2: Happinesser?
How does one summarise Life During Wartime for the uninitiated and sustain the shock of the original film's dark, twisted nature and taboo breaking subjects?
Todd Solondz has consistently made awkward, dark films that had amazingly funny moments that change tone to the dramatic, pushing melodramatic, so perfectly, and with Happiness he went all out, a child's attempts to masturbate all the way to the climax, his father's horrible fetish and how he goes about getting what he wants, a bright young woman who searches for happiness and ends up in a string of bad relationships, a poet who can't write as she's never been raped and a woman who murdered then cut up a doorman who raped her.
For a comedy drama it's particularly in depth and at times graphic, with many dark moments.
Fortunately this follow up doesn't go down those roads. The closest to a young boy and his dad talking about topics in a frank manner that is close to the bone if not past it is exchanged for a small conversation between Trish, now played by the wonderful Allison Janney, telling her young son Timmy, who was young in the first, now almost 13, about her date with a man getting her wet.
The film opens in a rather genius mode, almost shot for shot like the original, the opening titles with the white frames, the new Joy, a 40 year old married to an ex-con who reveals he still phones up random girls to get himself off, after giving Joy the same ashtray Jon Lovitz hands her in Happiness' opening sequence.
Hell, Lovitz's character offs himself in the first one but returns as a ghost, in the form of the magnificent Paul Reubans, to talk to Joy and try to convince her they are the perfect couple.
Ultimately though, Joy, who had a lot of the last film, is only handed a small segment of the 96 minute runtime, instead it's focussed on Trish moving on from Bill, now portrayed by Ciaran Hinds as a believable prison serving change from Dylan Baker's daring performance. Bill is out of prison and stalking the family to see what he is left to do, whilst Trish has found a new man, a sweet, kind but slightly older gentleman.
Timmy is gearing up for his Bar Mitzvah and suddenly learns his dad isn't dead like his mother told him, but actually still in prison, or he thinks he is even when he's just outside, and finds out what Bill did in the first film.
The film boils down to simple conversations, some very dark moments as always, and some out and out hysterical stuff, but given it's brief runtime in comparison to the 135 minute original the film seems slight, we go to places but it's more a Before Sunset glimpse than a Clerks II. full on here they are, and they are going on another journey. The acting is universally solid, never perfect, but never awful, the re-casting is odd but adds to the freedom Solondz gives the characters to change their lives instead of sticking in the rut of the original. Whilst the choice of Timmy looking oddly like Billy's friend Johnny, the first victim in the original, is rather distracting, to the point that a talk between College aged Billy, played by Linus from Fanboys, about Bonobos and incest seems rather, well, horrible.
For a film I was interested in from the get go but apprehensive about the approach, the tone and if Solondz would Crank 2 it and go for more taboos to break instead of character, I was relieved when it was all about real life people in situations, be it real or surreal, using humour and drama to perfection, it's a perfectly imperfect film that won't go down well in the mainstream, you need to see Happiness before seeing this film, and as there's still no distributor (A blank slate at the start of the film where it'd be) it'll be great to see the film get out to people.
And the HD will looks great, shot using Red cameras the depth and definition is remarkable, made me appreciate Solondz as a visual as well as witty writer/director.
If you can, I recommend seeing this film, it's funny, well made and rather brilliant in it's own way, just too darn short.
8/10
Todd Solondz has consistently made awkward, dark films that had amazingly funny moments that change tone to the dramatic, pushing melodramatic, so perfectly, and with Happiness he went all out, a child's attempts to masturbate all the way to the climax, his father's horrible fetish and how he goes about getting what he wants, a bright young woman who searches for happiness and ends up in a string of bad relationships, a poet who can't write as she's never been raped and a woman who murdered then cut up a doorman who raped her.
For a comedy drama it's particularly in depth and at times graphic, with many dark moments.
Fortunately this follow up doesn't go down those roads. The closest to a young boy and his dad talking about topics in a frank manner that is close to the bone if not past it is exchanged for a small conversation between Trish, now played by the wonderful Allison Janney, telling her young son Timmy, who was young in the first, now almost 13, about her date with a man getting her wet.
The film opens in a rather genius mode, almost shot for shot like the original, the opening titles with the white frames, the new Joy, a 40 year old married to an ex-con who reveals he still phones up random girls to get himself off, after giving Joy the same ashtray Jon Lovitz hands her in Happiness' opening sequence.
Hell, Lovitz's character offs himself in the first one but returns as a ghost, in the form of the magnificent Paul Reubans, to talk to Joy and try to convince her they are the perfect couple.
Ultimately though, Joy, who had a lot of the last film, is only handed a small segment of the 96 minute runtime, instead it's focussed on Trish moving on from Bill, now portrayed by Ciaran Hinds as a believable prison serving change from Dylan Baker's daring performance. Bill is out of prison and stalking the family to see what he is left to do, whilst Trish has found a new man, a sweet, kind but slightly older gentleman.
Timmy is gearing up for his Bar Mitzvah and suddenly learns his dad isn't dead like his mother told him, but actually still in prison, or he thinks he is even when he's just outside, and finds out what Bill did in the first film.
The film boils down to simple conversations, some very dark moments as always, and some out and out hysterical stuff, but given it's brief runtime in comparison to the 135 minute original the film seems slight, we go to places but it's more a Before Sunset glimpse than a Clerks II. full on here they are, and they are going on another journey. The acting is universally solid, never perfect, but never awful, the re-casting is odd but adds to the freedom Solondz gives the characters to change their lives instead of sticking in the rut of the original. Whilst the choice of Timmy looking oddly like Billy's friend Johnny, the first victim in the original, is rather distracting, to the point that a talk between College aged Billy, played by Linus from Fanboys, about Bonobos and incest seems rather, well, horrible.
For a film I was interested in from the get go but apprehensive about the approach, the tone and if Solondz would Crank 2 it and go for more taboos to break instead of character, I was relieved when it was all about real life people in situations, be it real or surreal, using humour and drama to perfection, it's a perfectly imperfect film that won't go down well in the mainstream, you need to see Happiness before seeing this film, and as there's still no distributor (A blank slate at the start of the film where it'd be) it'll be great to see the film get out to people.
And the HD will looks great, shot using Red cameras the depth and definition is remarkable, made me appreciate Solondz as a visual as well as witty writer/director.
If you can, I recommend seeing this film, it's funny, well made and rather brilliant in it's own way, just too darn short.
8/10
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Hey, I'm Vince Vaughn, and I'm gonna bang your mom, chim chim cherroo.
Another year and another Vince Vaughn pic is released, subsequent classics include Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up,Fred Claus and Four Christmases. This year he's avoided going for another festive cheer comedy, and by festive cheer I mean lacking any warmth or humanity, and by comedy I mean Vince Vaughn spluttering American pop-culture quotes and fast food joints that only are in America to no avail.
Instead he's brought in heavyweights in the shape of Jason Bateman, Jon Faverau, Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman, Jean Reno, John Michael Higgins, Ken Jeong and the ever awesome Peter Serafinowictz (Serowikz to the BBC announcer who fucked his name up the other day)
Couples Retreat sees four couples go to paradise to have relationship counseling even though only one couple want to do it, and they all find, shock horror, they might not be where they should in their relationships. So Faverau and his wife go cheating, Faizon Love and his 2 week 20 year old girlfriend split up, Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman contemplate what they are doing wrong and Kristen Bell and Jason Bateman argue and act like uptight twits.
Being that it's Hollywood the 4 relationships all have happy endings, Faizon gets back together with his wife, Bell and Bateman get back together even after Bell willingly leaps out of a boat to swim away from Bateman, marking the end of their relationship, even Faverau and his wife, who always cheat on each other, love each other.
Why? Because that makes everyone happy right?
Well, when a film offers not one but two scenes where a kid defecates in a bathroom showroom toilet, and has said kid and his brother do the 'go and have this holiday' speech for the parents, you question why you are sitting in this shitty cinema watching a horrible film like this.
Even Jean Reno, Ken Jeong, John Michael Higgins and Sir Peter Serafinowicz can't save this film solid heavy hitters and funny people, well, Jean Reno is more awesome than funny, but still.
The film reeks of desperation, and once again it's all about Vince Vaughn mugging for screentime to get 'laughs' which, you'll be glad to hear, weren't embraced by the audience.
This truly is as painful an experience as Vaughn's Christmas themed films, if you find anything funny in this film then you, sir, are an idiot.
1/10
Instead he's brought in heavyweights in the shape of Jason Bateman, Jon Faverau, Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman, Jean Reno, John Michael Higgins, Ken Jeong and the ever awesome Peter Serafinowictz (Serowikz to the BBC announcer who fucked his name up the other day)
Couples Retreat sees four couples go to paradise to have relationship counseling even though only one couple want to do it, and they all find, shock horror, they might not be where they should in their relationships. So Faverau and his wife go cheating, Faizon Love and his 2 week 20 year old girlfriend split up, Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman contemplate what they are doing wrong and Kristen Bell and Jason Bateman argue and act like uptight twits.
Being that it's Hollywood the 4 relationships all have happy endings, Faizon gets back together with his wife, Bell and Bateman get back together even after Bell willingly leaps out of a boat to swim away from Bateman, marking the end of their relationship, even Faverau and his wife, who always cheat on each other, love each other.
Why? Because that makes everyone happy right?
Well, when a film offers not one but two scenes where a kid defecates in a bathroom showroom toilet, and has said kid and his brother do the 'go and have this holiday' speech for the parents, you question why you are sitting in this shitty cinema watching a horrible film like this.
Even Jean Reno, Ken Jeong, John Michael Higgins and Sir Peter Serafinowicz can't save this film solid heavy hitters and funny people, well, Jean Reno is more awesome than funny, but still.
The film reeks of desperation, and once again it's all about Vince Vaughn mugging for screentime to get 'laughs' which, you'll be glad to hear, weren't embraced by the audience.
This truly is as painful an experience as Vaughn's Christmas themed films, if you find anything funny in this film then you, sir, are an idiot.
1/10
Monday 12 October 2009
Thoughts on cinema of 2009
Whilst the year is certainly not over, we still have hopeful masterpieces from The Coen Brothers, Richard Kelly, Guy Ritchie and Roland Emmerich, I can, however, comment on the year so far, from January 1st's screening of The Spirit, where I was so bloody tempted to walk out but I wanted a clean record, to Last Thursday's Zombieland screening, where me and two other people sat laughing and clapping as the rest of the audience were in silence, probably wondering why the Jewish kid was talking so much, and why none of the characters were unlikeable and thus killed off in increasingly tired ways.
January did start shitly, I mean, Frank Miller fucked up didn't he. But it had high points, David Wain's Role Models is a dry, witty comedy that shows why Paul Rudd should be a leading man, soon cancelled out by the low-brow I Love You, Man, which should have worked given Jason Segal is pure man. January slipped in some Oscar bait, in the much loved Mamma Mia od the Oscar season, Slumdog Millionaire, and Kate Winslet's double bill, The Reader and Revolutionary Road. All three were depressing, mostly because they were so well received despite being complete bollocks,more so than the usual Oscar fare, which I have found is not too bad sometimes. Last King Of Scotland wasn't as good on DVD but had an impact in the cinema, yet these films got such a critical glistening it's hard to believe critics anymore, which leads on to one of the most shameful films of the year, and the first complete let down of 2009.
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. I love David Fincher, Zodiac is a complete masterpiece and unfairly overlooked by the Academy, Button had a 5 star review from Empire, Doubt only got 3 for goodness sake, and what was Button? A 2 hour 40 minute film about an un-extraordinary life lived by a man who grows young instead of old, besides the one quirk it's as mundane as could be comprehended, why is this deemed a masterpiece? I will never know, but it stands to reason that the writer also did the abysmal Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks mugs it for an Oscar like he's Jamie Foxx.
February did, however, offer up a film that I thought would probably be shit, but turned out to be THE best comic book adaptation of the year, in Ray Stevenson's Punisher: War Zone. Colin Salmon calls cops "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers" nuff said. On top of that two unfortunate films that slipped under the radar or weren't appreciated like they could have been, Cadillac Records and Push, came out, Push was solid fun, and whilst rather plot heavy, was good fun, and Cadillac Records was a solid, by-the-numbers musical bio that at least gave the feeling of the era.
March was geek heaven though, Watchmen finally came to cinemas, and yes, it was good, great in fact, but it's pacing issues and the last hour being slightly too plot heavy after the hour and a half flashbacks, squishing too many chapters together in the end and changing the ending affected the film, the Director's Cut didn't do a bad job of just calming the film down and adding more. Hollis Mason's death scene in particular was always missed in the cinema, twice on opening day I got up from my seat and felt it needed that added emotion for Dan.
March offered up a new English film in Bronson, a dark experimental comedy drama horror bio of a violent prisoner, played by Tom Hardy, who in his groundbreaking role got fat, naked and called everyone a cunt before punching them, that's all the film was, 100 minutes of a vulgar, violent twat with nothing interesting to say.
Richard Curtis brought out a new film too, with The Boat That Rocked, which is now coming out in America under the title Pirate Radio. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Chris O'Dowd save what could have been a painfully shit music loving film with some good comedy and drama, and even at 2 hours 15 minutes it still had lots of good moments, though the stiff upper lip English sequences involving a character called 'Twatt' were just awful stuff.
Fortunately Paul Blart was on it's way out, and whilst it was by no means perfect, it did well and secured the brilliant Kevin James a lead role from now on. And it was rather funny, Die Hard in a Mall was simple enough, and Blart was a well crafted character a sweet man who is overweight but knows it as a problem, I can understand.
April appeared with the second big CGI film, after the disaster that was Bolt, with Dreamworks' Monsters Vs Aliens, a film so painfully unfunny, padded with weak pop culture jokes that kill humour and with characters so devastatingly dull there's no point in seeing if they complete the film's 'plot', a true waste after last year's Kung Fu Panda showed that Dreamworks COULD make smart, funny films without resorting to pop culture riffs.
Again it was England's chance to save the day, Jason Statham appeared in hilarity inducing insanity sequel Crank 2, which one upped every single scene in the original, sometimes it was too much and became annoying, but it has the homemade charm that adds to the style.
Even with Jody Hill proving that it was Danny McBride and Ben Best that did the worst stuff in Foot Fist Way and Eastbound and Down, Observe and Report unfortunately flopped, it's a cult film to be sure, dark, vulgar but hilarious.
But the best comedy was almost completely home-grown, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is a hysterical 80 minute film about 3 geeks who know too much about sci-fi rules that when they accidentally find themselves going between 30 minutes ago and 5000 years in the future, they know exactly how to go about business without destroying the universe, once again it's all about Chris O'Dowd and his comic genius.
In The Loop, though, really shot out. The Thick Of It spin-off and feature debut for comedic master Armando Iannucci, In The Loop had everything we loved from the show, sweary Malcolm Tucker and his bloodhound Jamie, nerdy but sharply funny Chris Addison, but it added the dynamics of the US government in the lead up to the Iraq war, and all the lies and bullshit from both sides. Genius.
May arrived with the first group of summer blockbusters. The leaked-a-month-before-release Wolverine wasn't anywhere near as fun with the, ahem, 'completed' CGI, though the claws, Wolverine's one main weapon, were hilariously bad, the whole film was too serious, too dull and painfully slow. Star Trek got a lorra lorra love, but it really was bad, Star Wars with Kirk and Spock, not a reinvention as much as stealing from better films and clunking them together in an appalling way. The villain was dull, the characters were one dimensional, the humour was painful and the film was one of the worst experiences of the year.
Angels and Demons, however, diverted shit summer to good stuff, with a larger, faster paced, well done thriller, instead of a drama, where Tom Hanks almost died, and Ewan McGregor was a priest who jumps out of exploding helicopters. Good shit, and the Blu Ray certainly adds with it's extended cut, more violence is always welcome.
Drag Me To Hell proved Raimi still has the horror gene, Up was a let down after WALL-E but the best CGI film of the year and Synecdoche, New York, well, it was not as good as at the LFF.
June opened with the completely humourless The Hangover, from the pens of the writers of Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and Four Christmases. McG's Terminator 4 bored it's way through the summer, a dull, loud film that added nothing to the universe, the film's or our universe, your choice.
John Woo's Red Cliff finally came out, condensed into 2 hours 33, but still a cracker, visually beautiful, tense and full of great action, it lost a lot of character development, I'm guessing the additional 1 hour 45 minutes adds that stuff. Transformers was the same runtime and had EVEN LESS Character development, the film was painfully stupid beyond the realms of most Michael Bay films, no more Baytardation, it was full retard.
And Year One gave Harold Ramis' career the cyanide pill it needed for a long time now.
Ice Age 3 was a rather silly but entertaining hour and a half, some awful stuff mixed with good gems, but following that, Michael Mann's latest, Public Enemies, was a loud empty shell of a film, everything was there except any character depth or heart.
Moon brought Duncan Jones to the forefront with an amazingly and deceptively simple film that was hilarious, dark, tragic and constantly interesting, Sam Rockwell has always been and will continue to be an actor who deserves recognition.
In the opposite spectrum, Sacha Baron Cohen used his last remaining character for mock doc Bruno, which spent 40 minutes of the 80 minute runtime to set up a plot for no reason that it was all staged and uninteresting.
Even Will Ferrel's latest, Land Of The Lost, was a loud, stupid and painful hour and a half, comedy failed this summer.
Thankfully Tony Scott's Pelham 123 remake was a solid job, nicely stylised and entertaining, he is back to Man On fire quality.
August opening with GI Joe, a massive piece of cunt that had no humour, plot, CGI or idea of what quality is. District 9 also came out early on, a well received film that sadly is far too cliched and feels off by the time the mockumentary style is abandoned.
Judd Apatow's Funny People finally made it's way to cinemas, a 2 hour 25 minute comedy drama that had no interesting or funny characters at all, a waste of time. Unlike Tarantino's latest, a self-indulgent but rather entertaining version of what might have happened to the Nazis if Quentin was in charge of it all.
The Hurt Locker snuck out with critical love and limited PR, and showed that even at 57 Katherine Bigelow is an amazing director, very tense stuff for a 2 odd hour film.
David R. Ellis returned to finish The Final Destination series in 3-D with lots of shitty CGI but undeniable fun in it's stupidity. On the other hand, (500) Days Of Summer was a witty, quirky and brilliant comedy about romance, and how shit it all is. Amazing soundtrack too.
In the opposite corner from that is Away We Go, a film about the best couple in the world, purely sweet and calm, with an exceptional soundtrack, Away We Go was the best Mendes film of the year, take that Revolutionary Road, or indeed ever.
Dorian Gray was a massive failure of a film from Ealing Studios, a slow horror with no tension or a sex drama with no eroticism or character depth. Fish Tank, however, had lots of character depth and development, and whilst losing itself in the last 45 minutes was still a well made drama.
Julie & Julia proved that Meryl Streep is awesome, as is Jane Lynch, and whilst her Doubt co-star Amy Adams had a good year, with Night At The Museum 2 as well earlier, she couldn't make a mundane plot interesting.
The Crank team were back with Gamer, a silly, dark violent action film tarring Scottish man Gerard Butler, and whilst it didn't light up the box office it was entertaining enough. Sony Animation's next release post-masterpiece Surf's Up, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, was harmless fun, and had funny moments, but wasn't perfect, still, it made lots of money, sequel set for next August.
Surrogates showed that Jonathon Mostow and the Terminator 3/4 and Catwoman writers must be shot, and Bruce Willis likes paychecks, the same is said for Invention of Lying, a painfully dull, unfunny film that needed 5 re-writes and no Jennifer Garner.
But the highlight of October has been Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg forgives the awful Adventreland with this, and if you still haven't seen it, why are you reading this, CATCH IT!
To be honest, the rest of the year looks shit, so we'll see how it goes, but so far it's been a large mess.
January did start shitly, I mean, Frank Miller fucked up didn't he. But it had high points, David Wain's Role Models is a dry, witty comedy that shows why Paul Rudd should be a leading man, soon cancelled out by the low-brow I Love You, Man, which should have worked given Jason Segal is pure man. January slipped in some Oscar bait, in the much loved Mamma Mia od the Oscar season, Slumdog Millionaire, and Kate Winslet's double bill, The Reader and Revolutionary Road. All three were depressing, mostly because they were so well received despite being complete bollocks,more so than the usual Oscar fare, which I have found is not too bad sometimes. Last King Of Scotland wasn't as good on DVD but had an impact in the cinema, yet these films got such a critical glistening it's hard to believe critics anymore, which leads on to one of the most shameful films of the year, and the first complete let down of 2009.
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. I love David Fincher, Zodiac is a complete masterpiece and unfairly overlooked by the Academy, Button had a 5 star review from Empire, Doubt only got 3 for goodness sake, and what was Button? A 2 hour 40 minute film about an un-extraordinary life lived by a man who grows young instead of old, besides the one quirk it's as mundane as could be comprehended, why is this deemed a masterpiece? I will never know, but it stands to reason that the writer also did the abysmal Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks mugs it for an Oscar like he's Jamie Foxx.
February did, however, offer up a film that I thought would probably be shit, but turned out to be THE best comic book adaptation of the year, in Ray Stevenson's Punisher: War Zone. Colin Salmon calls cops "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers" nuff said. On top of that two unfortunate films that slipped under the radar or weren't appreciated like they could have been, Cadillac Records and Push, came out, Push was solid fun, and whilst rather plot heavy, was good fun, and Cadillac Records was a solid, by-the-numbers musical bio that at least gave the feeling of the era.
March was geek heaven though, Watchmen finally came to cinemas, and yes, it was good, great in fact, but it's pacing issues and the last hour being slightly too plot heavy after the hour and a half flashbacks, squishing too many chapters together in the end and changing the ending affected the film, the Director's Cut didn't do a bad job of just calming the film down and adding more. Hollis Mason's death scene in particular was always missed in the cinema, twice on opening day I got up from my seat and felt it needed that added emotion for Dan.
March offered up a new English film in Bronson, a dark experimental comedy drama horror bio of a violent prisoner, played by Tom Hardy, who in his groundbreaking role got fat, naked and called everyone a cunt before punching them, that's all the film was, 100 minutes of a vulgar, violent twat with nothing interesting to say.
Richard Curtis brought out a new film too, with The Boat That Rocked, which is now coming out in America under the title Pirate Radio. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Chris O'Dowd save what could have been a painfully shit music loving film with some good comedy and drama, and even at 2 hours 15 minutes it still had lots of good moments, though the stiff upper lip English sequences involving a character called 'Twatt' were just awful stuff.
Fortunately Paul Blart was on it's way out, and whilst it was by no means perfect, it did well and secured the brilliant Kevin James a lead role from now on. And it was rather funny, Die Hard in a Mall was simple enough, and Blart was a well crafted character a sweet man who is overweight but knows it as a problem, I can understand.
April appeared with the second big CGI film, after the disaster that was Bolt, with Dreamworks' Monsters Vs Aliens, a film so painfully unfunny, padded with weak pop culture jokes that kill humour and with characters so devastatingly dull there's no point in seeing if they complete the film's 'plot', a true waste after last year's Kung Fu Panda showed that Dreamworks COULD make smart, funny films without resorting to pop culture riffs.
Again it was England's chance to save the day, Jason Statham appeared in hilarity inducing insanity sequel Crank 2, which one upped every single scene in the original, sometimes it was too much and became annoying, but it has the homemade charm that adds to the style.
Even with Jody Hill proving that it was Danny McBride and Ben Best that did the worst stuff in Foot Fist Way and Eastbound and Down, Observe and Report unfortunately flopped, it's a cult film to be sure, dark, vulgar but hilarious.
But the best comedy was almost completely home-grown, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is a hysterical 80 minute film about 3 geeks who know too much about sci-fi rules that when they accidentally find themselves going between 30 minutes ago and 5000 years in the future, they know exactly how to go about business without destroying the universe, once again it's all about Chris O'Dowd and his comic genius.
In The Loop, though, really shot out. The Thick Of It spin-off and feature debut for comedic master Armando Iannucci, In The Loop had everything we loved from the show, sweary Malcolm Tucker and his bloodhound Jamie, nerdy but sharply funny Chris Addison, but it added the dynamics of the US government in the lead up to the Iraq war, and all the lies and bullshit from both sides. Genius.
May arrived with the first group of summer blockbusters. The leaked-a-month-before-release Wolverine wasn't anywhere near as fun with the, ahem, 'completed' CGI, though the claws, Wolverine's one main weapon, were hilariously bad, the whole film was too serious, too dull and painfully slow. Star Trek got a lorra lorra love, but it really was bad, Star Wars with Kirk and Spock, not a reinvention as much as stealing from better films and clunking them together in an appalling way. The villain was dull, the characters were one dimensional, the humour was painful and the film was one of the worst experiences of the year.
Angels and Demons, however, diverted shit summer to good stuff, with a larger, faster paced, well done thriller, instead of a drama, where Tom Hanks almost died, and Ewan McGregor was a priest who jumps out of exploding helicopters. Good shit, and the Blu Ray certainly adds with it's extended cut, more violence is always welcome.
Drag Me To Hell proved Raimi still has the horror gene, Up was a let down after WALL-E but the best CGI film of the year and Synecdoche, New York, well, it was not as good as at the LFF.
June opened with the completely humourless The Hangover, from the pens of the writers of Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and Four Christmases. McG's Terminator 4 bored it's way through the summer, a dull, loud film that added nothing to the universe, the film's or our universe, your choice.
John Woo's Red Cliff finally came out, condensed into 2 hours 33, but still a cracker, visually beautiful, tense and full of great action, it lost a lot of character development, I'm guessing the additional 1 hour 45 minutes adds that stuff. Transformers was the same runtime and had EVEN LESS Character development, the film was painfully stupid beyond the realms of most Michael Bay films, no more Baytardation, it was full retard.
And Year One gave Harold Ramis' career the cyanide pill it needed for a long time now.
Ice Age 3 was a rather silly but entertaining hour and a half, some awful stuff mixed with good gems, but following that, Michael Mann's latest, Public Enemies, was a loud empty shell of a film, everything was there except any character depth or heart.
Moon brought Duncan Jones to the forefront with an amazingly and deceptively simple film that was hilarious, dark, tragic and constantly interesting, Sam Rockwell has always been and will continue to be an actor who deserves recognition.
In the opposite spectrum, Sacha Baron Cohen used his last remaining character for mock doc Bruno, which spent 40 minutes of the 80 minute runtime to set up a plot for no reason that it was all staged and uninteresting.
Even Will Ferrel's latest, Land Of The Lost, was a loud, stupid and painful hour and a half, comedy failed this summer.
Thankfully Tony Scott's Pelham 123 remake was a solid job, nicely stylised and entertaining, he is back to Man On fire quality.
August opening with GI Joe, a massive piece of cunt that had no humour, plot, CGI or idea of what quality is. District 9 also came out early on, a well received film that sadly is far too cliched and feels off by the time the mockumentary style is abandoned.
Judd Apatow's Funny People finally made it's way to cinemas, a 2 hour 25 minute comedy drama that had no interesting or funny characters at all, a waste of time. Unlike Tarantino's latest, a self-indulgent but rather entertaining version of what might have happened to the Nazis if Quentin was in charge of it all.
The Hurt Locker snuck out with critical love and limited PR, and showed that even at 57 Katherine Bigelow is an amazing director, very tense stuff for a 2 odd hour film.
David R. Ellis returned to finish The Final Destination series in 3-D with lots of shitty CGI but undeniable fun in it's stupidity. On the other hand, (500) Days Of Summer was a witty, quirky and brilliant comedy about romance, and how shit it all is. Amazing soundtrack too.
In the opposite corner from that is Away We Go, a film about the best couple in the world, purely sweet and calm, with an exceptional soundtrack, Away We Go was the best Mendes film of the year, take that Revolutionary Road, or indeed ever.
Dorian Gray was a massive failure of a film from Ealing Studios, a slow horror with no tension or a sex drama with no eroticism or character depth. Fish Tank, however, had lots of character depth and development, and whilst losing itself in the last 45 minutes was still a well made drama.
Julie & Julia proved that Meryl Streep is awesome, as is Jane Lynch, and whilst her Doubt co-star Amy Adams had a good year, with Night At The Museum 2 as well earlier, she couldn't make a mundane plot interesting.
The Crank team were back with Gamer, a silly, dark violent action film tarring Scottish man Gerard Butler, and whilst it didn't light up the box office it was entertaining enough. Sony Animation's next release post-masterpiece Surf's Up, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, was harmless fun, and had funny moments, but wasn't perfect, still, it made lots of money, sequel set for next August.
Surrogates showed that Jonathon Mostow and the Terminator 3/4 and Catwoman writers must be shot, and Bruce Willis likes paychecks, the same is said for Invention of Lying, a painfully dull, unfunny film that needed 5 re-writes and no Jennifer Garner.
But the highlight of October has been Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg forgives the awful Adventreland with this, and if you still haven't seen it, why are you reading this, CATCH IT!
To be honest, the rest of the year looks shit, so we'll see how it goes, but so far it's been a large mess.
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