The Great Day is Upon Us

This is jinxing it for sure, but this evening, in nary a few hours, we're going to see Shutter Island - at long last! Goody good hooray hurrah, etc.


Image from thephoenix.com - ta!

Bourne in the Middle E-E-East

See what I did there?

Yep, you guessed it, we went to see Green Zone and it was Bourne in Iraq. Well, to backtrack, we WENT to see Shutter Island, but obviously it's not out til Friday. I seem to have experienced a genuine hallucination when checking the Cineworld website yesterday morning, which resulted in me strolling up to the counter and chirpily asking for "Two for Shutter Island please" only to be met with a confused-but-friendly face and "Oh, dat ain't out til Fri-dy, looks well good tho". So, I felt like a spoon, and we saw Green Zone instead.

So... I can't say I was disappointed, but I wasn't blown away either. Essentially, lots of wobbly camera, and guns, some slightly-confusing-conspiracies and Matt Damon (bless him) yelling "where are the WMDs?!?" over and over again. I enjoyed it, but the most interesting thing about it was how blatantly it waved it's conspiracy theories around... Now as a left-leaning liberal type person, I of course completely believe that the Bush administration (with a little lap-dogging from our side of the pond), fabricated the idea of WMDs in Iraq (or nuclear weapons, as they used to be called before we became the planet of the apes) in order to justify a war, the real motivations of which were probably regime-change, oil, arms-manufacture-based profiteering and a bit of 9/11 scape-goatery. We know this to be true. But to make a mainstream Hollywood film about it, and treat it like a regular conspiracy thriller (as if we're not still there, as if this still isn't going on), well, Greengrass, that's interesting. I'm not sure I can draw a conclusion on that actually, so will leave this paragraph hanging...

Unfortunately, no matter how much I might have enjoyed the film, I'm always left with the same slightly nauseous and confused feeling I get after watching any film that touches on Iraq (the considerably more masterful Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009) included)... the feeling that we nobody's a good guy, nobody's a bad guy and there's nothing anyone can bloody do about it. We've made a dirty great mess of the whole thing, and it just makes me want to cry. Apologies for being such a total girl about it, but it's just the way I feel. So, am I recommending this film? As usual, I'm sure you can't tell, and neither can I. I think probably yes. I'll say, 'not bad'. And 'I wasn't bored', but that's about it.

Image from filmofilia.com (with thanks)

Catch Up if You Can...

I have failed to write anything for this blog for a little while now, and the longer you put something off, the less appealing and chore-like it becomes. So, having watched at least 6 films and the BAFTA’s since I last managed to say anything about anything, the task of playing catch up seems nigh-on insurmountable. My solution is to get this all out of the way in one foul/fowl (?!) swoop/post, which will involve a significant reining in of my natural verbosity, but probably an excellent exercise in succinctness and brevity. So here goes…

Cinema trips:

Youth in Revolt (Miguel Arteta, 2010) – Ronseal. Meaning - does exactly what it says on the tin. A witty and slightly-too-eloquent comedy with plenty of sex, cringing and genuine LOL moments. Best line: “I want to tickle your belly button… from the inside”. More Cera please, we like it!

The Wolfman (Joe Johnston, 2010) – Tonally confused and funny for all the wrong reasons, most notably starring Anthony Hopkins' evil twin who can’t act for toffee, this was more than disappointing. I thankfully realised about 10 minutes in that this film was going to be total dross and so managed to enjoy myself by predicting the entire plot from one ridiculous set-piece to the next. Highlight being the Hulk-style Werewolf smackdown at the end. There are hints of what could have been a great film here, before it got mired in development hell. The lighting is spectacularly haunting and chiaroscuro, the ancestral home is spooky as hell and the transformed werewolves are a wonderful homage to the original’s B-movie prosthetics. Combine this however, with atrocious scripting, last minute spatters of unnecessary gore and jarring CGI transformations into afore-mentioned 50s werewolves, and the whole thing falls to bits. Overall – lame.

The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, 2010) – intense and beautiful, perhaps a little too much of the former, my heart was thumping in nervous anticipation for too much of the running time! The visual imagination in this film was simply stupendous. The 'fantasy' scenes harken back to Jackson’s earlier Heavenly Creatures (1994), but with more maturity and a considerably higher budget. Aside from a slight drop in interest due to a bit of 2^nd act meandering (which I must admit mars almost all of Jackson’s directorial efforts for me), this film was astoundingly good. Justice done to a stunning piece of literature. In short, brilliant.

And a bit of home viewing:

Changeling (Clint Eastwood, 2008) – Crikey Jolie can act when she wants to. Still there’s something anachronistically modern about her face, which I always find distracting in a period drama. Minor face-quibbles aside, this is another directorial triumph from Eastwood (almost makes me want to see Invictus), the film is incredibly well-paced, beautifully shot and forms a wonderful portrait of a woman fighting for her child, and her rights, in a world that casts her as irrational before she’s even opened her mouth. With corrupt policemen, uncaring journalists and vicious mental nurses seeming greater villains than the perpetrator of the horrific child murders at the centre of the film, Eastwood asks uncomfortable questions throughout and leaves you with a feeling of grim determination to make the world a better place once it’s over. Nice one, Clint.

Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1998) – It’s a crime that I hadn’t seen this film prior to last week. Now rectified, I can carry on expounding the genius of Tarantino with confidence. Does anybody soundtrack better than QT?! As slick, smart and violent as you’d expect. Ace.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Nicholas Stoller, 2008) – watched this last night. Silly, but thoroughly enjoyable. As my boyfriend and I are the only people in the world not to have seen this film already, there’s no need to say anything else.

And finally…

The BAFTAs – made medium-entertaining viewing this year. Well, considerably better than the Brits anyway, which was ghastly. Herewith my observations:

- Very glad that Hurt Locker took best film and director, I mean, yes Avatar was very exciting and all, and it can have all the Oscars it likes, but the BAFTAs should award more worthy films than CGI tent pole pictures (in my humble opinion). So huzzah.

- Kristen Stewart is a bit of a div (or has had a late-onset awkward teenager phase), her posture is even worse than mine.

- Relatedly, Twilight fans should be exempt from all public voting systems. And the gene pool in general.

- Colin Firth is a funnier man than I anticipated.

- Even though I know Attenborough won’t live forever, Prince BLINKIN William should not be allowed within a spit of a position at BAFTA.

- Christopher Waltz seemed a very charming chap.

- I wanted Moon to win more awards, if you haven’t seen it – go. Go now.

- I’m still very much in love with Kate Winslet.

Right. That’ll do pig.

Image from dailymix.com

Lustful. Cautious-erm-ful

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2008)

I was going to title this review 'Me love you long time', but then I decided it was too rude. Much like this film. I am by no means a prude, but this DVD (extended from the original cinematic cut, so my friend from HK tells me) REALLY lingers on the sex scenes, all of which are intense and often violent. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but I wonder if it was strictly necessary to see quite that much bum in a non porn film.

Anyway, that aside (and I must stress, I wasn't offended, just a little surprised) this film was everything you'd expect from Ang Lee - absorbing, beautifully shot, and re-he-he-heally long. Like, close to 3 hours long, and it ends on a bit of a ppffhh, like a damp firework.

This is sounding like a bad review, when I really don't want it to. I was captivated by this breathless, suspenseful portrayal of our heroine and her compatriots entangled in a dangerous web of lies, played out against the stunning backdrop of the rain-washed streets of Japanese-occupied China. I loved the way that layers of detail in the background and incidental characters - extras even - spark your interest when you don't expect it. Wei Tang as the female lead is tremendous, and like the camera, and all the characters, you simply can't take your eyes off her.

I can't find a tangible way in which to fault this film, I just ought to have checked the back of the box first to know by just how much I was going to miss my bed time. And how glad I'd be that I watched it without anyone else in the room. I think it's warped my hamster's fragile little mind.

Image from Xinhuanet.com - thanks

Pixar vs. Dreamworks - smackdown

SO true...

http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/pixarvsdreamworks.jpg

Nice work guys.

Generation J. J.

Having done no film viewing whatsoever this weekend (shock! horror!), I have only a random thought to contribute. Isn't it about time somebody made a filmic adaptation of a Douglas Coupland novel? And how amazing would it be if that somebody was fellow zeitgeist-er J.J. Abrams? There's a combo I could get excited about.

Such a film would need someone at the helm who was as unafraid of playing with accepted medium conventions as Coupland is with his novels. And I reckon Abrams is the man. The only other director that has the same 'now'-defining power, to my mind, is old QT, but there just isn't enough violence in Coupland's material to satisfy him. Plus, he's not really an adaptation guy. So I'm voting Abrams. I don't even particularly care which novel it is, though my personal favourites are Generation X and Girlfriend in a Coma.

If only more than 3 people read this blog, we could start a petition or something. Oh well.

I had a little look on imdb.com, just to make sure there isn't already a Coupland film and I'm just talking arse, and it looks, tantilisingly, that All Families Are Psychotic is in some sort of development, but with no further details. AND there's a TV version of jpod. Who knew? Christ, I might have to start watching TV.

Image from bartsbookshelf.co.uk - thanks

Strictly Luhrmann

Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992)

I borrowed Strictly Ballroom from a friend recently and then found myself rather reluctant to watch it. I don't like dancing films, I don't like romantic films, and I especially don't like anything that might inadvertently, however tangentially, remind me of (small voice) Dirty Dancing (Emilio Ardolino, 1987). Ugh. All in all, I've no idea why I borrowed it in the first place...

So, with some trepidation, and the boyfriend pointedly leaving the room after napping on my lap for the first half hour, I sat down to watch. My nervousness was somewhat abated by the fact that Luhrmann has, in the past, proved capable of making me like films that had any other director made them, I almost certainly wouldn't have. Nor even deigned to watch them most likely. Finding in favour of Mr. Luhrmann here, see exhibit A - William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1996) and exhibit B - Moulin Rouge(2001). And struth! He's only gone and done it again!

Despite being about dancing, despite being about guy meets girl, about guy and girl fall in love through the magic medium of montage, about girl goes through a miraculous transformation from absolute munter to smoking hottie in less than 3 weeks, about how all the other main characters realise, through guy and girl, the overarching importance of love 'and dancing your own steps', and bad guy gets comedy comeuppance including losing his wig... you get the idea. Despite all of this, I loved it! I loved it. Luhrmann imbues the whole thing with such a wonderful sense of irony, one eyebrow raised and tongue firmly in cheek.

Well-scripted, neatly shot, gorgeously costumed/made-up, with a great soundtrack and not too long (this is becoming more important to me by the day!), Strictly Ballroom is a great great film. If you haven't seen it, do. You might surprise yourself. It even got a bit dusty at the end.

Image pinched from someone else's blog: http://coffeewithamee.wordpress.com/ (thanks)

Films I am Looking Forward to for 2010

Films coming out in 2010 that I'm excited about (sub-set - those that are on the Empire website so far)... in vague order of release...

• Youth in Revolt (more witty awkward late-teen comedy with Michael Cera - hurrah!)
• The Wolfman (old school B-movie horror with A-list cast and budget - more hurrah!)
• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (will probably be crap but I do love my young adult fantasy adaptations)
• Ponyo (more Miyazaki! I love it! I'm hoping for an underwater Kiki...)
• The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson is the king! [apart from Kong, that was a shame], hopefully a Heavenly Creatures with LOTR experience under his belt, will Ronan be the Winslet of her generation?! I reckon yes)
  
• Micmacs (Will anything be as good as Amelie ever again? We can but hope...)
  
• Capitalism: A Love Story (His methods are appalling, but Moore is always good for a bit of righteous left-wing rage)
  
• Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton/Lewis Carroll - a match made in heaven)
  
• Iron Man 2 (Most unexpectedly ace film of 2008, now with Mickey Rourke!)
  
• Robin Hood (gotta be better than Costner...)
  
• Toy Story 3 (Pixar can do no wrong in my eyes, in any dimension. Can't wait!)
  

And films I'm not...

• Sex and the City 2 (I'd rather die in a car crash)

Image from moviesmedia.ign.com

Finally Airborne

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2010)

So last week, the gods of Cineworld finally bestowed upon us a screening of Up in the Air, after a previous failed attempt, and the demons of Londonovercrowding must have been having a day off, which I can't say they haven't earned.

Of course, I loved this film. Reitman is the current crowned king of the smart, bittersweet comedy, (which is my favourite kind), his previous work as we know includes Juno (2007) and Thank You for Smoking (2005). On the subject of kings, Clooney is the monarch of choice for any role requiring a silvering male lead to be effortlessly likeable whilst pretending to be a heartless bastard. And didn't he do well?! It's an interesting dichotomy that surfaces frequently in film, specifically in Reitman's films, that characters who actively propound a philosophy of heartlessness, of absenting oneself from the game of caring, of 'emptying ones backpack', are always the most caring, empathetic, selfless, 'good' characters in the whole film. And of course, they always reach their big "everyone-needs-someone, a-life-alone-is-a-life-wasted etc..." epiphany by the end of the film whilst everyone else is buggering off to be considerably-more-selfish bastards than our lead was character ever was to begin with! Anyway...

I laughed, I cried, I sang along... I shamelessly enjoyed this film. All the main actors performed with aplomb, making their characters' surprisingly-real faults endearing rather than grating. I recognised a little too much of myself in the young Natalie; in her desperation to prove herself, in her youthful inconsideration and selfishness, in her academic competence twinned with real-life hopelessness. And always a joy to be hold, the 10-minute snippet (or not even) of J.K. Simmons was the out-and-out highlight for me. Brilliant!

My one criticism though, is a biggie, that for the first time at the end of a Reitman film, or anything else of this ilk (think Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton, 2006) or anything directed by Wes Anderson...) my bittersweet feeling was a little too bitter, not enough sweet. Now don't get me wrong, I do NOT like feel good films, I do not watch RomComs that are more Rom than Com, and I like my happy Com-roms with a heavy dose of irony and plenty of black humour, but Up in the Air, on this particular Wednesday, left me feeling genuinely sad as we stepped out into the rain. Again, I stress, I did NOT want anyone to live happily ever after, I did NOT want the whole film to 360 and schmaltz to a close, no sir, but I just felt like Reitman closed the piece on the wrong chord, a little minor-key that should not have been there and for me, it jarred.

I don't want this to feel like a negative review. Up until the credits rolled, I was having a delightful time; an enjoyable and well-rounded cinematic experience, getting thoroughly engaged and forgetting all about the minutiae of my day (and after all, isn't that the point?). I will be buying the DVD, I may well buy the soundtrack. I do recommend this film. But there is a 'but...', a little listless 'but...' of disappointment at the end of this otherwise glowing piece of cinema.

Hunting for Hunter

Gonzo: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson (Alex Gibney, 2008)

Watched this on DVD last night and really enjoyed it. A little meandering, a little long, but excellent fun overall. Narrated by Johnny Depp (who is just brilliant in everything is he not?!), this documentary does a wonderful job of immersing you in the word of Thompson, the revolutionary 60s, the cynical 70s, and the sparky, druggy, visceral word of Gonzo journalism. Gibley manages to balance an interesting mix of talking heads and buckets of insightful library footage, intercut with loopy hallucinogenic scenes that evoke a real sense of mood.

The soundtrack was fabulous and again, very evocative. The most interesting contributors were the editor of Rolling Stone and the artist and long-term Thompson collaborator, Ralph Steadman. I had previously only know Steadman from Withnail and I promotional material, and he proved a rather fascinating chap. Seeing the editor of Rolling Stone breakdown in tears whilst trying to talk about the contribution Hunter could make (to the dreaded politics of now) had he not taken himself out in 2005, was particularly moving. A disturbing yet delightful closing sequence montages a piece to camera where Hunter describes exactly how he wants his funeral to go off, with the actual event itself (spot on to his wishes of course). Haunting, but uplifting at the same time.

My only experience of Hunter S. Thompson prior to watching this documentary was having read the book/seen the film (not got a t-shirt) of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, both of which I loved. Post-Gonzo, I find Hunter infinitely more fascinating, and rather less likeable, as is often the case with the getting to know the personna behind a fiction (though it's barely fiction in Thompson's case). Seeing Thompson for the first time as a polemic political journalist was a real eye-opener and taught me a lot I didn't know about recent US history (albeit a left-leaning presentation of the facts - so of course I sympathised!)

The film tries a little too hard to psychoanalyse a man whom I think deserves to remain an enigma, but otherwise a very fitting obituary to one of the great voices of the 20th century. So, I want to be a gonzo journalist. Apart from the drugs, and being born 30-40 years too late, of course... oh well.

Image from wordpress.com

I Heart HP

A brief aside here, and my first non-film related post. I have just finished reading all of J.K. Rowling's 7 Harry Potter books back to back (of course, as a former children's bookseller, not the first time I have read them) and it strikes me again, I just absolutely bloody LOVE them. I can't get enough of it! I mean yes, Harry himself can be a bit of a twit sometimes, always yelling at everybody in capital letters and yes, some of her ideas are derivative, and yes, to all the other criticisms you can throw at them, but reading these books is the most genuine escapism I have ever found. They make me happy. And that is no mean feat. So, thanks Rowling - nice one.

The Last... Thing I'd Ever Want to Watch Again

The Last Castle (Rod Lurie, 2002)

Is there anything more excruciating than being lent a film by a friend, which they expound as a great love of theirs, and finding it to be complete and utter bilge? Well, yes there is, and that is watching The Last Castle, though this is guilty of the aforementioned crime as well. Not just crap. Recommended crap.
It was so lame, I can't really be bothered to go into it. It is something of a poor-man's Shawshank crossed with the Dead Poet's Society, but with utterly no heart. To my mind, an unacceptable film in a world where such classics of their respective sub-genres (1. the prison drama in which the real criminals are not those condemed, and 2. the inspirational leader-cum-hero 'brings out the best' in those from whom society expects least) which this film woefully attempts to combine, already exist.
I will say this for it, it wasn't so mind-numbingly awful that I didn't see it through to the end, though I think forcing myself through this hardship was mainly out of loyalty to my friend, and the hope that he did not rate such tripe, that it simply had to get better! I hoped in vain.
I think it is possible, that part of my dislike for it was because I am a girl, and specifically a girl who is unimpressed by macho behaviour, pointless hero worship, anything to do with the military, one-liners scripted to be quotable that simply aren't, and gloating acts of violence juxtaposed with try-hard rousing speeches that seem to miss the mark every time. So, this film was simply full of my pet hates. Another of which includes people being miraculously pulled from the flaming wreckage of a helicopter with narry a scratch on them, save a few artfully attractive grazes to the cheekbones. I was in more pain than they were just watching it!
I'm meandering into gibberish through frustration, so will stop. Don't watch this film. Unless you've been bad and need to be punished.

A Stab at a Top Ten

I have always been a bit of a compulsive list maker, but my Top 10 films has always been something I've struggled to pin down. What was it Meg Ryan said? It's like trying to choose your favourite child?! Ok, I'm not quite that mental, but it is always harder than I expect. Now, as a disclaimer, there is of course a huge difference between the "best" films of all time, and one's "favourite" films of all time. This list is very much of the latter persuasion, so you'll find no Godfathers, Shawshanks or Citizen Kanes here - not to do them any disservice, but if I was only allowed to watch 10 films again on rotation for the rest of my life (god forbid!), in no specific order, these would be they...

• Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
• Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
• An Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Brad Silberling, 2004)
• The Emperor’s New Groove (Mark Dindal, 2000)
• Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)
• The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001–2003; I reserve the right to treat the trilogy as one entry!)
• Finding Neverland (Marc Forster, 2004)
• The Mummy (Stephen Sommers, 1999)
• The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

Still Up in the Air

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2010)...

Tried and failed to see this film tonight. Arrived at Cineworld Haymarket (with trusty Cineworld card in hand) to find a monstrous sight - a queue of approx. 7,000 people, there for no obvious reason other than to ruin my evening. So - mission aborted, went to Pizza Express instead.
Thoughts on the film to follow soon if Cineworld can get their act together, and some people move out of this city. Pesky Golden Globes...