I wasn't expecting much from Dr Who this year, what with Russell T Davies clearly running out of ideas and giving up the ghost after his bug eyed french spouting Doctor bites the dust next Christmas. It was also clear that the episode was going to involve his lame version of the Cybermen, who have sucked ass in every one of his stories, becoming nothing more than the Daleks, but a little dumber (complete with "Delete" scream, in place of "Exterminate")
Suffice to say, I was not surprised by the result.
Just as with the "will he regenerate?" white elephant at the end of the last series of the Doctor's travels through campspace, the cebtral gimmick of the "Next Doctor" was neither interesting nor exciting. I knew Tennant was around for three more specials, I knew David Morrissey was not going to be involved in them. The vain hope I had after five minutes (when it became clear that this Doctor had no recollection of Tennant's) was that this doctor would turn out to be not the next one, but the first one.
Think for a moment about how cool that would have been...
Apart from a couple of funny little moments (like the watch gag and being pulled around through the window of a warehouse) that occurred in the first ten minutes of the episode the whole thing felt like a sleepwalk through a basic baddies vs goodies plot with no depth and probably the laziest script written for Dr Who so far and probably even Torchwood - containing inexplicable unnatural plot explanations (as you know a personal hatred of mine) an obvious and stupid enemy, an even siller big giant robot thing that we combat using a Balloon which was introduced earlier in another wretched scene of setups for later.
Ack... being a Spurs fan I am used to disappointments, but the continued failure of the Christmas special format is particularly galling since it is crucial to the survival of the show that it remains as dear to the hearts of the watching public as ever.
Another christmas institution, though one more consistent, is the occasional visits of Wallace and his loyal dog, Gromit. Their escapades in dramatic contrast to those of the trenchcoated wand waver are never less than thoroughly enchanting and enthralling, and this year's instalment kept up the astonishing quality standards Aardman have set themselves.
It was a truly brilliant and frequently hilarious way to spend half an hour in the company of what must be the best double act around now that Vic and Bob, Eric and Ernie et al are now infrequent visitors at best to our living rooms.
Even better was the fact we got to see the feature length W&G adventure earlier in the day after our game of Shadows over Camelot had finished.
Ah yes, Shadows over Camelot. Well.... it's a game of cooperation mostly, in which the knights of the round table pit themselves against the forces of evil (read; a nasty black deck of cards) and try and create good in the world. The catch with Shadows is, one of the knights may well be a traitor and suspicion reigns supreme as everyone watches what everyone else is doing in an attempt to expose the turncoat. That's the theory anyway. What happened with our motley band of miscreants is that, quoting Monty Python along the way, King Arthur (me) was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy a siege engine aimed at Camelot's pristine walls and the poor remaining knights had to go on without him. Thing is, once I was gone they did a lot better without me and despite several dark moments when all seemed lost the forces of good emerged triumphant to find that there was never a traitor in this particular set of players.
Anyway.... good fun times had by all I hope.
I trust your Christmas (or Pine Tree Presents day) was as pleasant and that you enjoyed all you did.
Happy New Year to all and sundry.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Call me old fashioned...
But i am sure that a christmas number one should be a bit less odd than the inevitable Hallelujah will be.
it's a really weird record anyway, easily as strange a chrimbo present as that Gary Jules one was.
Only the x factor... er... Factor could get such a miserable and whiny version of anything reach the number one spot.
Also, i have this great image in my head of Simon Cowell reading all 80 odd verses to pick the most x factor friendly ones. Seems he failed in his search though.
Like all x factor winning records, the song is impossible to take seriously in a version with something as unsubtle as the full orchestra and gospel choir approach thrown at it. i've not heard the full version but i wouldn't be surprised if they've added a key change and a 'stand up' moment too. i'm not moaning about the song itself, which remains a morose classic, but the sheer stupidity of using the bombastic approach in its execution. Yuck.
It has an evil twin in purveyor of crap, Leona Lewis' version of Run, a lovely little break up song, quite likable indies style, turned into a horrific musical theatre piece with added vocal ad libs (which i always hate) over the cookie cutter gospel choir and full orchestra backgrounds. it's like hell on toast!
What happened to subtlety? Or at least, since it's christmas, a sense of self deprecating irony? A christmas number one should contain one or the other, you know, like that one by The Darkness...
The best christmas song remains, for me, The Fairytale of New York, which is so much better than the usual line up of novelty singles and x factor winners it made the top ten yet again last year. If only we could have it at number one every year.
To be fair, i expect an x factor winners version of it soon that will rival even Ronan Keating's version for missing the point entirely.
I am equally sure that this years inevitable victor has missed it by miles.
Ah well, it'll be another merry christmas at the Cowell household anyhow.
Have a lovely weekend readers!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The First Annual Wall Shadows Awards
Right then, the cut off date of the movie awards you least care about is now officially today, the 18th December.
It's also the only awards where you get an "antagonist" gong, since the most important person in the film is usually not the biggest part I thought I'd chuck one in.
This year has seen some great movie experiences and a couple of shockers, so I hope you enjoy the results below. The only qualifying criteria is that the awards go to films I saw for THE FIRST TIME in the year 2008 whether in the Cinema or on DvD so here we go:
BEST FILM:
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
(Nearly There: The Dark Knight, Metropolis)
BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE (MALE):
Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood
(Nearly There: Casey Affleck in TAOJJBTCRF)
BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE (FEMALE):
Laura Dern in INLAND EMPIRE
(Nearly There: Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, Anjelica Huston in The Grifters)
BEST LOOKING FILM:
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
(Nearly There: There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men)
BEST MOVIE ANTAGONIST:
The Joker in The Dark Knight
(Nearly There: Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood, Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men)
WORST FILM:
Alone in The Dark
(Nearly There: The Strangers, John Carpenter's Vampires)
Since these is all I really care about in films, I don't think I'm qualified to judge their relative technical merits in focus pulling and script doctoring detail, that's all the awards I'm good for this year. I hope you all saw some great movies and here's to another great movie year!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It's also the only awards where you get an "antagonist" gong, since the most important person in the film is usually not the biggest part I thought I'd chuck one in.
This year has seen some great movie experiences and a couple of shockers, so I hope you enjoy the results below. The only qualifying criteria is that the awards go to films I saw for THE FIRST TIME in the year 2008 whether in the Cinema or on DvD so here we go:
BEST FILM:
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
(Nearly There: The Dark Knight, Metropolis)
BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE (MALE):
Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood
(Nearly There: Casey Affleck in TAOJJBTCRF)
BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE (FEMALE):
Laura Dern in INLAND EMPIRE
(Nearly There: Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, Anjelica Huston in The Grifters)
BEST LOOKING FILM:
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
(Nearly There: There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men)
BEST MOVIE ANTAGONIST:
The Joker in The Dark Knight
(Nearly There: Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood, Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men)
WORST FILM:
Alone in The Dark
(Nearly There: The Strangers, John Carpenter's Vampires)
Since these is all I really care about in films, I don't think I'm qualified to judge their relative technical merits in focus pulling and script doctoring detail, that's all the awards I'm good for this year. I hope you all saw some great movies and here's to another great movie year!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Movie Review: Screamers
5/10
Philip K Dick has had a patchy posthumous relationship with Hollywood. There are several categories his stories have been adapted into;
The strength of the tale Dick told is probably Screamers' saving grace, as is the fact that they make the phrase "Can I come with you?" genuinely creepy.
This movie is probably the most faithful to the original short story of any of the adaptations that I have previously seen - Minority Report is basically LA Confidential in the future and Blade Runner bears very very little resemblence to the original tale (which is superb if you want to check it out).
This faithfulness may be a slight problem though - Dick's messages were never subtle or nuanced, preferring instead an obvious if likable cynicism and simple moralising. In a movie this seems ideally suited, but there is little of the ironic cynicism present here I gain from many of Dick's stories, including the original Second Variety. The main reasons for this are the decision to place the action on a different faceless planet instead of Earth, and to fudge the ending.
The decisions to fudge the story's original very downbeat ending are inexplicable, and create at least 5 extra plot holes as a result, putting aside the massive one caused by one (type 2) simulant seemingly sharing the memories of its face donor, which makes no sense whatsoever.
What tension there is in not knowing who the bad guys are is subdued by the sheer robotic nature of all the actors, so that they all look like they are fakes and if they're not you don;t really care.
It's not helped by its low budget and ham fisted performances from almost all involved (even a sleepwalking Peter Weller is lame). That hasn't prevented a sequel coming into being and it was an ok way to spend a short amount of time but I wouldn't call it anything more than a 5/10.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Philip K Dick has had a patchy posthumous relationship with Hollywood. There are several categories his stories have been adapted into;
- Movies based directly on his stories (Screamers fits in here)
- Movies with some of his ideas but using them as a springboard to other ideas (Bladerunner, minority report)
- Movies that rape his memory and his stories (Paycheck, Next)
The strength of the tale Dick told is probably Screamers' saving grace, as is the fact that they make the phrase "Can I come with you?" genuinely creepy.
This movie is probably the most faithful to the original short story of any of the adaptations that I have previously seen - Minority Report is basically LA Confidential in the future and Blade Runner bears very very little resemblence to the original tale (which is superb if you want to check it out).
This faithfulness may be a slight problem though - Dick's messages were never subtle or nuanced, preferring instead an obvious if likable cynicism and simple moralising. In a movie this seems ideally suited, but there is little of the ironic cynicism present here I gain from many of Dick's stories, including the original Second Variety. The main reasons for this are the decision to place the action on a different faceless planet instead of Earth, and to fudge the ending.
The decisions to fudge the story's original very downbeat ending are inexplicable, and create at least 5 extra plot holes as a result, putting aside the massive one caused by one (type 2) simulant seemingly sharing the memories of its face donor, which makes no sense whatsoever.
What tension there is in not knowing who the bad guys are is subdued by the sheer robotic nature of all the actors, so that they all look like they are fakes and if they're not you don;t really care.
It's not helped by its low budget and ham fisted performances from almost all involved (even a sleepwalking Peter Weller is lame). That hasn't prevented a sequel coming into being and it was an ok way to spend a short amount of time but I wouldn't call it anything more than a 5/10.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Monday, December 15, 2008
Little Rant: When Did Spitting Become Acceptable? And a dig at smokers,..
Walking to our little high street here, I picked my way amongst splat after splat of disgusting phlegm.
Maybe its the first example of me turning into an old man and seeing the past through a haze, but when the hell did it become OK to spit on the road? I don't mean in a legal sense, but in a social sense - anyone who spits openly in public should just be laughed out of town, surely?
What? Your own spit is unswallowable? Why do you think that might be?
I can't work it out. I expect to see tyhousands of tiny icy puddles when the weather gets REALLY cold. It's just horrible!
Similarly, I don't get why if I was to throw a sweet wrapper on the ground I would be littering and get all the hard times and mockery that goes with that, but people throw cigarette butts around like they're invisible - all over the street and sometimes, inadvertently, at passers by.
The film set I worked on recently gained a small carpet of butts as people just flicked them away when they were done, not looking at where they went, just flung away. You wouldn't do it with a burger wrapper or a lollystick and be so blazé so why is your cigarette not as bad?
Gah!
Rant done.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Maybe its the first example of me turning into an old man and seeing the past through a haze, but when the hell did it become OK to spit on the road? I don't mean in a legal sense, but in a social sense - anyone who spits openly in public should just be laughed out of town, surely?
What? Your own spit is unswallowable? Why do you think that might be?
I can't work it out. I expect to see tyhousands of tiny icy puddles when the weather gets REALLY cold. It's just horrible!
Similarly, I don't get why if I was to throw a sweet wrapper on the ground I would be littering and get all the hard times and mockery that goes with that, but people throw cigarette butts around like they're invisible - all over the street and sometimes, inadvertently, at passers by.
The film set I worked on recently gained a small carpet of butts as people just flicked them away when they were done, not looking at where they went, just flung away. You wouldn't do it with a burger wrapper or a lollystick and be so blazé so why is your cigarette not as bad?
Gah!
Rant done.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Quick Movie Review: One Fine Day
5/10
It's proper Meh!
Noone cares, I am sure, but this was watched since I was doing a big pile of shredding (my rock and roll lifestyle is clear) and it was wonderfully inoffensive, obvious and daft.
I mean, its got two stars in it in George Clooney (still on Batman & Robin payback at this stage) and Michelle Pfeiffer (what did she do to her career again?) but it never really takes off and I didn;t give a flying monkey's butt about either of the self satisfied, overachieving single parents they played.
Screw Em. Why can't they play something decent at three in the afternoon on a Sunday?
Oh, before this was the Parent Trap with two Lindsay Lohans.. It was even worse.
I got the shredding done, though.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It's proper Meh!
Noone cares, I am sure, but this was watched since I was doing a big pile of shredding (my rock and roll lifestyle is clear) and it was wonderfully inoffensive, obvious and daft.
I mean, its got two stars in it in George Clooney (still on Batman & Robin payback at this stage) and Michelle Pfeiffer (what did she do to her career again?) but it never really takes off and I didn;t give a flying monkey's butt about either of the self satisfied, overachieving single parents they played.
Screw Em. Why can't they play something decent at three in the afternoon on a Sunday?
Oh, before this was the Parent Trap with two Lindsay Lohans.
I got the shredding done, though.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Quick Movie Review: LA Confidential
8/10
It's a good old movie, this.
A tangled web of good cop/bad cop (without the good cops) and gangland underhandedness, it marked the launching point for the careers of Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe, who went on to Memento and Gladiator soon afterwards.
They are joined by ever reliable guys Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito as well as James Cromwell in a rare "dude, where's my accent?" mode.
There's only one femme fatale in this modern noir and its the classic beauty that is (ok, was) Kim Basinger. She's great too.
Despite Cromwell's blink and you missed it accent the performances are top notch, as is the setting and shooting, conjuring up a real sense of time and sleazy place. The twist is when it comes as obvious as the ending to The Parent Trap (and the exact scene, off-puttingly enough, was stolen wholesale for Minority Report, which I saw first) but this is a minor issue, we always know the good guys are getting gypped - so what else is new?
While the coldness of its characters and the lack of a simple "yay! bad guys dead!" ending may put some off, I am confident this is another modern noir which will live on.
Great to be back watching some good films!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It's a good old movie, this.
A tangled web of good cop/bad cop (without the good cops) and gangland underhandedness, it marked the launching point for the careers of Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe, who went on to Memento and Gladiator soon afterwards.
They are joined by ever reliable guys Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito as well as James Cromwell in a rare "dude, where's my accent?" mode.
There's only one femme fatale in this modern noir and its the classic beauty that is (ok, was) Kim Basinger. She's great too.
Despite Cromwell's blink and you missed it accent the performances are top notch, as is the setting and shooting, conjuring up a real sense of time and sleazy place. The twist is when it comes as obvious as the ending to The Parent Trap (and the exact scene, off-puttingly enough, was stolen wholesale for Minority Report, which I saw first) but this is a minor issue, we always know the good guys are getting gypped - so what else is new?
While the coldness of its characters and the lack of a simple "yay! bad guys dead!" ending may put some off, I am confident this is another modern noir which will live on.
Great to be back watching some good films!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Friday, December 12, 2008
We went on a journey through time and space....
Me and Mrs Algo went to see The Mighty Boosh tonight.
very little Naboo, no Old Greg but still very good fun.
Newsflash: Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) can really, really, really play guitar!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
very little Naboo, no Old Greg but still very good fun.
Newsflash: Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) can really, really, really play guitar!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Thursday, December 11, 2008
TV Musing: God is a character in Heroes. And he's crap.
I've been enjoying this series of heroes more than the woeful second series, but in Arthur Petrelli they have made a hideous error.
Be wary of plot spoilers as I explain exactly what I mean:
In the excellent (IMHO) first season of Heroes the only major downer was the fact that every time DR Suresh came on screen I fell asleep, but in creating the big baddie for season three we've reached a new nadir in lame duck scripting.
Arthur Petrelli is ridiculous - a character who is ten times more powerful than anyone else, can do virtually anything and is indestructible. Take this week's idiotic example - a character has shot back in time to obtain something crucial to the silly plot and succeeds, promising to protect it and finally believing in himself - only to lose the crucial thing literally three minutes later to, you guessed it, Arthur Petrelli. Arthur has not only shot back in time to the exact spot needed, but steals the magguffin, throws the character off a building after taking away his powers (a particularly tiresome impotence metaphor) and teleports another away. He then shoots back across time to gain his victory.
You may have spotted the logic error here. Of course, there's no reason he couldn't have just jumped back to earlier and taken the thing from its original owner without any fuss at all but that would be too lacking in tension for the scriptwriters - they want to make the whole thing as wretched as possible, seemingly. The thing is, if you are going to have an all powerful psychic time traveller with super strength, invulnerability and telekenesis you have to explain why he doesn't just take everything he wants all at once rather than ponce about doing things only AFTER the "Heroes" think they've succeeded. I mean, what's the point of hanging about?
The problem with the decisions they made in designing this character is that since he is essentially immortal and all powerful it takes a plot crowbar method to dispatch him. Another irritating thing is that he is the king of the deus ex machina moment (a particular dislike of mine) - a wonderful method for lazy script writers to move the plot along is to just have him magically turn up whenever things are too enjoyable, or the "good guys" have the upper hand and mess it all up. Just crap.
Plus since anything involving the Petrelli family is rubbish by definition, the fact that we've jumped from three of them to four then five then back to four is just dopey. Especially since even an American Producer must realise that we tune in to watch Ando and Hiro or maybe the Bennets or even the nice Parkman/Daphne stuff. Does anyone really tune in for the sole purpose of watching the latest instalment of the soap opera surrounding the whiney loser family?
Their solution - split Ando and Hiro up! That'll have us watching! Gah!
I will watch til the end of the season anyhow, I just think its rubbish and now I have it off my chest.
Til next Time!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Be wary of plot spoilers as I explain exactly what I mean:
In the excellent (IMHO) first season of Heroes the only major downer was the fact that every time DR Suresh came on screen I fell asleep, but in creating the big baddie for season three we've reached a new nadir in lame duck scripting.
Arthur Petrelli is ridiculous - a character who is ten times more powerful than anyone else, can do virtually anything and is indestructible. Take this week's idiotic example - a character has shot back in time to obtain something crucial to the silly plot and succeeds, promising to protect it and finally believing in himself - only to lose the crucial thing literally three minutes later to, you guessed it, Arthur Petrelli. Arthur has not only shot back in time to the exact spot needed, but steals the magguffin, throws the character off a building after taking away his powers (a particularly tiresome impotence metaphor) and teleports another away. He then shoots back across time to gain his victory.
You may have spotted the logic error here. Of course, there's no reason he couldn't have just jumped back to earlier and taken the thing from its original owner without any fuss at all but that would be too lacking in tension for the scriptwriters - they want to make the whole thing as wretched as possible, seemingly. The thing is, if you are going to have an all powerful psychic time traveller with super strength, invulnerability and telekenesis you have to explain why he doesn't just take everything he wants all at once rather than ponce about doing things only AFTER the "Heroes" think they've succeeded. I mean, what's the point of hanging about?
The problem with the decisions they made in designing this character is that since he is essentially immortal and all powerful it takes a plot crowbar method to dispatch him. Another irritating thing is that he is the king of the deus ex machina moment (a particular dislike of mine) - a wonderful method for lazy script writers to move the plot along is to just have him magically turn up whenever things are too enjoyable, or the "good guys" have the upper hand and mess it all up. Just crap.
Plus since anything involving the Petrelli family is rubbish by definition, the fact that we've jumped from three of them to four then five then back to four is just dopey. Especially since even an American Producer must realise that we tune in to watch Ando and Hiro or maybe the Bennets or even the nice Parkman/Daphne stuff. Does anyone really tune in for the sole purpose of watching the latest instalment of the soap opera surrounding the whiney loser family?
Their solution - split Ando and Hiro up! That'll have us watching! Gah!
I will watch til the end of the season anyhow, I just think its rubbish and now I have it off my chest.
Til next Time!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Movie Review: There Will Be Blood
9/10
It's not much fun. It is, however, brilliant.
I recall earlier this year sitting down to watch The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford with my inestimable younger brother and he summed it up very well as "not really a film, more some sort of freaky Movie voodoo!" A pithy description of what is likely to be considered in future one of the true classics of recent years.
The same, gladly, is true of There Will Be Blood, a frankly staggering work that gets over a real level of passion and commitment on the part of every single actor, crew member and writer involved. There is really no way for me to praise the experience enough, but as a summary I think that will do. You may wonder about the 9/10 given the effusive comments I will make below - I will explain this now. I wanted more. For every minute up on screen I felt there was tonnes of backstory, depth and expansion to be inferred and I would have liked a few of the blanks to be filled in, but its a minor problem really and may well attest more to the film's greatness that I still hungered for more after a good two and a half hours.
Beware of minor spoilers below.
It is, of course, Daniel Day Lewis' movie. It is absolutely impossible to see anybody else pull this off - he balances the obvious charisma such a man would have needed against the toughness and guile required to compete in one of the most cutthroat and profitable businesses of all time. Daniel Plainview is a user - of people, of image - a true capitalist in the purest sense. When he talks of improvements to the town and giving back to the community, Day-Lewis somehow simultaneously projects trustworthiness while at the same time there is no question he will let the town burn if it makes financial sense.
He even sees the bright side in an early pit death, adopting a son which then gives him the gravitas of "a family man", a phrase he uses consistently despite preferring to watch a fire burn all night instead of checking up on his injured boy.
But the films strengths lie mainly in its three dimensional main characters - while on the face of it both Plainview and his uneasy ally, Eli Sunday seem initially to be all too one dimensional - Plainview all about power through money, Sunday all about control through religion. To avoid this simplification we are given little moments of light in the darkness - Plainview stops one little girl from being beaten by her father and goes through with most of his promises to the townsfolk, but tellingly never pays Eli Sunday his fee.
The two protagonists are obsessed by one thing above all - winning. We are told explicitly in Plainview's case but things are less clear with Sunday initially, but he soon succumbs to point scoring and humiliation of his foe in an attempt to control the "hearts and minds" of his people. Against Plainviews sheer tunnel vision power he stands little chance and in one of modern cinema's great duologues (see Heat or Unforgiven for others) the final scene is a masterclass in brutal finality.
Given the high bar for cinematography set by superstar of the field Roger Deakins in films like Jesse James and No Country For Old Men it is great to see that Robert Elswit easily matches his contemporary in this film. Every shot is gorgeous, full of detail and beauty even in the darkest moments, and that hideous cliché "cinematic poetry" is about the only useful way to describe the means by which a man can make a oil derrick fire look like the most gorgeous thing on the planet.
I can't recommend this film highly enough, I believe everyone should see it if not own a copy of it to be brought out whenever an older relative says something about them "not making films as good as in my day". Guess what mate, they freaking well do. There Will Be Blood can go twelve rounds with almost any film you set it against. You won't come out the other side with a burgeoning love for your fellow man, and it's certainly not one for all the family, but neither wass recent Empire poll winner, The Godfather, with which it shares a certain tone of inevitable malaise.
It came agonisingly close to a perfect score, but I just wanted it to have another half hour of story - it's not film spoilingly deficient by any means, I just found the last temporal jump a little big for my taste and it took me out of the moment a bit because of the sheer weight of years past and mental filling in required.
See it. Enjoy it. You shouldn't be disappointed.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It's not much fun. It is, however, brilliant.
I recall earlier this year sitting down to watch The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford with my inestimable younger brother and he summed it up very well as "not really a film, more some sort of freaky Movie voodoo!" A pithy description of what is likely to be considered in future one of the true classics of recent years.
The same, gladly, is true of There Will Be Blood, a frankly staggering work that gets over a real level of passion and commitment on the part of every single actor, crew member and writer involved. There is really no way for me to praise the experience enough, but as a summary I think that will do. You may wonder about the 9/10 given the effusive comments I will make below - I will explain this now. I wanted more. For every minute up on screen I felt there was tonnes of backstory, depth and expansion to be inferred and I would have liked a few of the blanks to be filled in, but its a minor problem really and may well attest more to the film's greatness that I still hungered for more after a good two and a half hours.
Beware of minor spoilers below.
It is, of course, Daniel Day Lewis' movie. It is absolutely impossible to see anybody else pull this off - he balances the obvious charisma such a man would have needed against the toughness and guile required to compete in one of the most cutthroat and profitable businesses of all time. Daniel Plainview is a user - of people, of image - a true capitalist in the purest sense. When he talks of improvements to the town and giving back to the community, Day-Lewis somehow simultaneously projects trustworthiness while at the same time there is no question he will let the town burn if it makes financial sense.
He even sees the bright side in an early pit death, adopting a son which then gives him the gravitas of "a family man", a phrase he uses consistently despite preferring to watch a fire burn all night instead of checking up on his injured boy.
But the films strengths lie mainly in its three dimensional main characters - while on the face of it both Plainview and his uneasy ally, Eli Sunday seem initially to be all too one dimensional - Plainview all about power through money, Sunday all about control through religion. To avoid this simplification we are given little moments of light in the darkness - Plainview stops one little girl from being beaten by her father and goes through with most of his promises to the townsfolk, but tellingly never pays Eli Sunday his fee.
The two protagonists are obsessed by one thing above all - winning. We are told explicitly in Plainview's case but things are less clear with Sunday initially, but he soon succumbs to point scoring and humiliation of his foe in an attempt to control the "hearts and minds" of his people. Against Plainviews sheer tunnel vision power he stands little chance and in one of modern cinema's great duologues (see Heat or Unforgiven for others) the final scene is a masterclass in brutal finality.
Given the high bar for cinematography set by superstar of the field Roger Deakins in films like Jesse James and No Country For Old Men it is great to see that Robert Elswit easily matches his contemporary in this film. Every shot is gorgeous, full of detail and beauty even in the darkest moments, and that hideous cliché "cinematic poetry" is about the only useful way to describe the means by which a man can make a oil derrick fire look like the most gorgeous thing on the planet.
I can't recommend this film highly enough, I believe everyone should see it if not own a copy of it to be brought out whenever an older relative says something about them "not making films as good as in my day". Guess what mate, they freaking well do. There Will Be Blood can go twelve rounds with almost any film you set it against. You won't come out the other side with a burgeoning love for your fellow man, and it's certainly not one for all the family, but neither wass recent Empire poll winner, The Godfather, with which it shares a certain tone of inevitable malaise.
It came agonisingly close to a perfect score, but I just wanted it to have another half hour of story - it's not film spoilingly deficient by any means, I just found the last temporal jump a little big for my taste and it took me out of the moment a bit because of the sheer weight of years past and mental filling in required.
See it. Enjoy it. You shouldn't be disappointed.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Movie Review: The Mist
6/10
Ah.. horror movies, how patchy I find ye!
The last horror movie I saw was the frankly risible John Carpenter's Vampires, so you may be forgiven for thinking that the choice to see one based on a Stephen King story that isn't The Shining smacks of madness.
After all, how many decent films are there based on the Proto-Marenghi's works? Er...
Well, I will now say "At least one - The Mist" (which, stupidly, I keep typing as The Moist).
It's a super low budget (the cgi suffers most) picture in which a random group of people get trapped in the supermarket while all hell breaks loose outside.
Interesting factoid a quick search revealed is that Frank Darabont, who adapts and directs, wanted the picture to be in black and white (available on the DvD), and I think that would have worked better taking into account the budgets than the colour version I saw.
It's impossible to talk about why the film is good without spoilers so just give it a chance. While it's nothing particularly original in concept or execution at the beginning, it goes on to raise a couple of very interesting points. It also boasts a rare truly bleak ending, although the following further twist is unnecessary and cheapens the immediately preceding events.
To quote a music reviewer when faced with Scott Walker's The Drift, "none more bleak".
There is a turning point when the film changes from the by the numbers Eight Legged Freaks remake it starts out as into something more, and it is the point at which, spared death for some unknown reason, one of the characters begins to see themselves as a messiah of sorts.
Point One: How fast does society break down? Clunky dialogue pointing the fact aside, the barrier between social sanity and social madness is very thin. In this case rather than descending quickly into tribalism (Lord Of The Flies), Science vs Military solutions (Day Of The Dead) or a sort of secular economic competition (Land Of The Dead) the inhabitants of our little small town supermarket become enraptured by a previously despised and mocked Bile bashing loony who sees the bug invasion variously as judgement day, a call for sacrifices and the payment for scientific sin. She's the one who thinks she's the second coming.
It's all too believable sadly, as she quickly gains weight in the light of supernatural events to become nothign short of an evil prophet, and like all such she first and foremost places herself as the sole messenger of God. A scary thought.
Point Two is the big one - the choice of ending director and writer Frank Darabont decided to include.
In one very moving moment much earlier, our main protagonist is made to promise (his extra special, best promise) by his son that he will never, ever let the monsters get him. The sad consequence of this is that eventually, when all hope is lost he is faced with living up to his promise and going through with the only option. That he does really is brave on the part of the filmmakers, and it's unfortunate that they deemed it necessary to then poop on the poor guy even more by having, at that moment, the immediate and very fast revelation coming that the bugs have been defeated and he didn't need to go through with it after all.
I mean, it deepens the tragedy, but why bother? Why not leave it open ended? This seemed a strange and gimmicky choice given the fact the film had the guts to follow its logic through up to that point. This decision has cost it the 7/10 I was going to give it and it now gets a 6.
Still a good film though.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Ah.. horror movies, how patchy I find ye!
The last horror movie I saw was the frankly risible John Carpenter's Vampires, so you may be forgiven for thinking that the choice to see one based on a Stephen King story that isn't The Shining smacks of madness.
After all, how many decent films are there based on the Proto-Marenghi's works? Er...
Well, I will now say "At least one - The Mist" (which, stupidly, I keep typing as The Moist).
It's a super low budget (the cgi suffers most) picture in which a random group of people get trapped in the supermarket while all hell breaks loose outside.
Interesting factoid a quick search revealed is that Frank Darabont, who adapts and directs, wanted the picture to be in black and white (available on the DvD), and I think that would have worked better taking into account the budgets than the colour version I saw.
It's impossible to talk about why the film is good without spoilers so just give it a chance. While it's nothing particularly original in concept or execution at the beginning, it goes on to raise a couple of very interesting points. It also boasts a rare truly bleak ending, although the following further twist is unnecessary and cheapens the immediately preceding events.
To quote a music reviewer when faced with Scott Walker's The Drift, "none more bleak".
There is a turning point when the film changes from the by the numbers Eight Legged Freaks remake it starts out as into something more, and it is the point at which, spared death for some unknown reason, one of the characters begins to see themselves as a messiah of sorts.
Point One: How fast does society break down? Clunky dialogue pointing the fact aside, the barrier between social sanity and social madness is very thin. In this case rather than descending quickly into tribalism (Lord Of The Flies), Science vs Military solutions (Day Of The Dead) or a sort of secular economic competition (Land Of The Dead) the inhabitants of our little small town supermarket become enraptured by a previously despised and mocked Bile bashing loony who sees the bug invasion variously as judgement day, a call for sacrifices and the payment for scientific sin. She's the one who thinks she's the second coming.
It's all too believable sadly, as she quickly gains weight in the light of supernatural events to become nothign short of an evil prophet, and like all such she first and foremost places herself as the sole messenger of God. A scary thought.
Point Two is the big one - the choice of ending director and writer Frank Darabont decided to include.
In one very moving moment much earlier, our main protagonist is made to promise (his extra special, best promise) by his son that he will never, ever let the monsters get him. The sad consequence of this is that eventually, when all hope is lost he is faced with living up to his promise and going through with the only option. That he does really is brave on the part of the filmmakers, and it's unfortunate that they deemed it necessary to then poop on the poor guy even more by having, at that moment, the immediate and very fast revelation coming that the bugs have been defeated and he didn't need to go through with it after all.
I mean, it deepens the tragedy, but why bother? Why not leave it open ended? This seemed a strange and gimmicky choice given the fact the film had the guts to follow its logic through up to that point. This decision has cost it the 7/10 I was going to give it and it now gets a 6.
Still a good film though.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Saturday, December 6, 2008
In case you didn't notice
Your good old Wall Shadows just passed its 200th post.
Thanks to all readers for your support and kind words of encouragement! Here's to 500!
Algo Fact: Like Will Proudfoot in Son Of Rambow, the first 18 rated movie I saw was First Blood. I thought it was rubbish at the time. Ah well.
See the full post by clicking here...
Thanks to all readers for your support and kind words of encouragement! Here's to 500!
Algo Fact: Like Will Proudfoot in Son Of Rambow, the first 18 rated movie I saw was First Blood. I thought it was rubbish at the time. Ah well.
See the full post by clicking here...
Friday, December 5, 2008
Movie Review: Son Of Rambow
8/10
It's a rare beast this.
A film about children that is absolutely not just for kids, it tells a, let's face it, fantastical tale of two very different boys meeting and bonding over a mutual love of First Blood.
You know, most of Sly Stallone's movies are atrocious, as the slurring gasbag woodenly traipses through nonsense scenarios, but there is no question at all in my mind that First Blood is a mighty fine picture, depicting not only alienation and post traumatic stress but also the dangers of having your perfect killing machine turned on you for a change. That the legacy is tarred forever by the lame sequels says more about the 80s movie business than it does about John Rambo.
This film is also about more than it seems on the face of it. Will is a lad seeking identity - he has no male role models since his dad is very obviously dead, and the only male figure he comes into any real contact with is a total creep. Yes... religion plays a large part in this alienation from the outside world - his family are whatI am told is called "Exclusive Brethren" whose beliefs prevent Will from watching TV, spending much time with outsiders, acting like a child, breathing in the wrong manner etc etc.
Lee Carter also has no parental guidance, but his role model is his ghastly older brother and he will do anything for him, nicking stuff for a birthday present or pirating films like First Blood and the like. In fact very few of the characters in the film are happy - even fewer are balanced sane individuals.
Lee Carter is one of those kids that you believed existed when you were at school - the ones who had the guts to do whatever they wanted and not give a toss what the outcome was. He's a fictional character though (he'd have been expelled years before in real life) so the fact he reminds me of those dreams that never were real - of some legend of the playground who threw mud in your headmaster's face, before setting fire to the school nurse's underwear, you know the sort of thing - is excusable.
Will is persuaded under some dodgy pretext that he has to help Lee win Screentest (an 80s amateur filmmakers competition) and make his sequel to First Blood, eventually called Son Of Rambow due to them not knowing the spelling of Rambo's name (the first film is called First Blood, folks!).
Unlike some, I doubt this name change is entirely down to legal reasons , since a good minute of footage from the original film crops up on several occasions. The lads even cut it into their own picture.
And... er... that's the whole plot. Very little of earth shattering proportions goes on, except the obvious tensions arising from the religious cult's desire to keep Will on the straight and narrow path and his mother's suitor turning out to be even more of a jerk.
That's not really the point of the movie, and it conjured up for me lovely memories of a childhood I may be imagining, but that's just it - it was all about imagination and no bills or rent payments got in the way of these kids creativity as they come up with an outlandish story and just blooming run with it.
It's brought to life even more by the liberal use of fantasy sequences and Will's own drawings coming alive at points. It really captured the joy of being a young guy learning exciting new things and loving it.
As for the acting, well it's very good, the two children will get all the plaudits and fair play to them they deserve it, especially Will Poulter, who plays Lee Carter looking almost exactly like the young River Phoenix did - he may well be a similar talent. Hoorays also to Jessica (still) Stevenson (now Hynes) who is always "skills".
I'm not saying it is perfect - the (funny) French exchange student's entourage were more "Carry On" than "Hammer & Tongs" and Lee's older brother is so obnoxious as to distract from the tone of the piece, but for the most part it was simply good, clean, fun.
Hoorah!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It's a rare beast this.
A film about children that is absolutely not just for kids, it tells a, let's face it, fantastical tale of two very different boys meeting and bonding over a mutual love of First Blood.
You know, most of Sly Stallone's movies are atrocious, as the slurring gasbag woodenly traipses through nonsense scenarios, but there is no question at all in my mind that First Blood is a mighty fine picture, depicting not only alienation and post traumatic stress but also the dangers of having your perfect killing machine turned on you for a change. That the legacy is tarred forever by the lame sequels says more about the 80s movie business than it does about John Rambo.
This film is also about more than it seems on the face of it. Will is a lad seeking identity - he has no male role models since his dad is very obviously dead, and the only male figure he comes into any real contact with is a total creep. Yes... religion plays a large part in this alienation from the outside world - his family are whatI am told is called "Exclusive Brethren" whose beliefs prevent Will from watching TV, spending much time with outsiders, acting like a child, breathing in the wrong manner etc etc.
Lee Carter also has no parental guidance, but his role model is his ghastly older brother and he will do anything for him, nicking stuff for a birthday present or pirating films like First Blood and the like. In fact very few of the characters in the film are happy - even fewer are balanced sane individuals.
Lee Carter is one of those kids that you believed existed when you were at school - the ones who had the guts to do whatever they wanted and not give a toss what the outcome was. He's a fictional character though (he'd have been expelled years before in real life) so the fact he reminds me of those dreams that never were real - of some legend of the playground who threw mud in your headmaster's face, before setting fire to the school nurse's underwear, you know the sort of thing - is excusable.
Will is persuaded under some dodgy pretext that he has to help Lee win Screentest (an 80s amateur filmmakers competition) and make his sequel to First Blood, eventually called Son Of Rambow due to them not knowing the spelling of Rambo's name (the first film is called First Blood, folks!).
Unlike some, I doubt this name change is entirely down to legal reasons , since a good minute of footage from the original film crops up on several occasions. The lads even cut it into their own picture.
And... er... that's the whole plot. Very little of earth shattering proportions goes on, except the obvious tensions arising from the religious cult's desire to keep Will on the straight and narrow path and his mother's suitor turning out to be even more of a jerk.
That's not really the point of the movie, and it conjured up for me lovely memories of a childhood I may be imagining, but that's just it - it was all about imagination and no bills or rent payments got in the way of these kids creativity as they come up with an outlandish story and just blooming run with it.
It's brought to life even more by the liberal use of fantasy sequences and Will's own drawings coming alive at points. It really captured the joy of being a young guy learning exciting new things and loving it.
As for the acting, well it's very good, the two children will get all the plaudits and fair play to them they deserve it, especially Will Poulter, who plays Lee Carter looking almost exactly like the young River Phoenix did - he may well be a similar talent. Hoorays also to Jessica (still) Stevenson (now Hynes) who is always "skills".
I'm not saying it is perfect - the (funny) French exchange student's entourage were more "Carry On" than "Hammer & Tongs" and Lee's older brother is so obnoxious as to distract from the tone of the piece, but for the most part it was simply good, clean, fun.
Hoorah!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Quick Movie Review: Enemy Of The State
7/10
Ah.. lets overplay the prescience of this film - the act of congress they are discussing that starts the whole ball rolling is eerily reminiscent of the US Patriot Act but that's really giving the makers a bit too much credit, methinks.
The film is a rollercoaster ride of paranoia and technobabble - featuring one of the first Will Smith movie carrying experiences. That being said the film is utterly stolen by Gene Hackman, who to all intents and purposes is reprising his character from Francis Ford Coppola's classic movie The Conversation.
The whole thing is a classic 90s action movie with very little heart but a lot of bang for your buck. Enjoy
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Ah.. lets overplay the prescience of this film - the act of congress they are discussing that starts the whole ball rolling is eerily reminiscent of the US Patriot Act but that's really giving the makers a bit too much credit, methinks.
The film is a rollercoaster ride of paranoia and technobabble - featuring one of the first Will Smith movie carrying experiences. That being said the film is utterly stolen by Gene Hackman, who to all intents and purposes is reprising his character from Francis Ford Coppola's classic movie The Conversation.
The whole thing is a classic 90s action movie with very little heart but a lot of bang for your buck. Enjoy
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Movie Review: John Carpenter's Vampires
2/10
The Usual Suspects has a lot to answer for. Only with the presence of one of the (other) Baldwins in that classic piece of cinema could any of the others continue to get decent paying gigs, except for the by-these-standards-a-savant one. This outrageously tepid jaunt through bad goth make up and miscasting features the lamest duck in all of the Baldwin gene pool, Daniel.
Now, one piece of bad casting does not ruin a movie, but this film has so much more to offer. Tae, for example, the rock hard leader of the Vampire hunters, played by James Woods who, rather than looking like a modern day Van Helsing glowering at his immortal foes, resembles nothing so much as a dad's disdain upon meeting his daughter's prom date. To this tower of acting prowess anger strongly resembles a bad case of constipation.
Now, ok. The idea is not to make a classic motion picture - we want to have some fun with this silly tale, right? Well there isn't any. Any tongue in cheek moment (usually some overacting from the laughable "master" vampire) is undermined by the film's inflated sense of its own genius. The film flounders about for a couple of hours, never bothering with character development or pathos, pausing only to clunkily fill in back story - one character even does that crap screenwriters trick of summarising Wood's backstory in one sentence like that guy in Alone in The Dark did. Remember that "careful; she's the head curator of the museum and she's upset because her boyfriend's gone missing". That was a line!!!!
In Vampires they try and dress this up as some kind of "hello" between characters, but it is as clunky as the acting.
This never, ever works. Why on earth do people still think it will?
Add to this the dumbest set of plans and plot holes - one sequence has the hunters, pushed for time before sunset, nevertheless to decide to try and lure the Vampires outside one at a time. Into the light. Where they will die.
And they fall for it! Twice!
The lame twist at the end is also just an afterthought... ooh bad catholics! Who'd a thunk it?
This is lame. Avoid it if you can. It's not even fun enough for a Blue A.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
The Usual Suspects has a lot to answer for. Only with the presence of one of the (other) Baldwins in that classic piece of cinema could any of the others continue to get decent paying gigs, except for the by-these-standards-a-savant one. This outrageously tepid jaunt through bad goth make up and miscasting features the lamest duck in all of the Baldwin gene pool, Daniel.
Now, one piece of bad casting does not ruin a movie, but this film has so much more to offer. Tae, for example, the rock hard leader of the Vampire hunters, played by James Woods who, rather than looking like a modern day Van Helsing glowering at his immortal foes, resembles nothing so much as a dad's disdain upon meeting his daughter's prom date. To this tower of acting prowess anger strongly resembles a bad case of constipation.
Now, ok. The idea is not to make a classic motion picture - we want to have some fun with this silly tale, right? Well there isn't any. Any tongue in cheek moment (usually some overacting from the laughable "master" vampire) is undermined by the film's inflated sense of its own genius. The film flounders about for a couple of hours, never bothering with character development or pathos, pausing only to clunkily fill in back story - one character even does that crap screenwriters trick of summarising Wood's backstory in one sentence like that guy in Alone in The Dark did. Remember that "careful; she's the head curator of the museum and she's upset because her boyfriend's gone missing". That was a line!!!!
In Vampires they try and dress this up as some kind of "hello" between characters, but it is as clunky as the acting.
This never, ever works. Why on earth do people still think it will?
Add to this the dumbest set of plans and plot holes - one sequence has the hunters, pushed for time before sunset, nevertheless to decide to try and lure the Vampires outside one at a time. Into the light. Where they will die.
And they fall for it! Twice!
The lame twist at the end is also just an afterthought... ooh bad catholics! Who'd a thunk it?
This is lame. Avoid it if you can. It's not even fun enough for a Blue A.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Quick Movie Review: The Fly (Cronenberg)
5/10
A movie that doesn't outstay its welcome is David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly, clocking in at around 1hr 25 and telling its classic scientist-regrets-playing-God tale at a breakneck speed.
Indeed, such is the speed at which the movie wants to move we start in the middle of a scene and a burgeoning romance between Jeff Goldblums' Seth Brundle and Geena Davis' Ronnie is rushed to such an extent that there appears to be absolutely no reason for their sudden kiss and sex session.
In fact, it all seems to be sprinting past the plot in favour of classic body horror shenanigans, as a Gibbon is turned inside out and stuff like that.
It's in these sequences that the director really seems to be enjoying himself, pulling all the creepy gore and nasty close ups possible. If that's not your thing you will hate this movie.
As for myself, I think it's ok, if a little extreme in parts allowing the mank to override the story, but you probably don't care much about the story in this kind of movie. One thing it certainly is, is quite sad. You could see it as a metaphor for any degenerative disease if you like, and it's tempting for me to overplay this angle to appear clever and insightful. I actually think that's a side effect of the actual intention, which is to make a 50s style moral horror tale with modern techniques (even if the moral is "do everything in a sterile environment" since the experiment does actually work as planned!). In this sense it is perfectly successful, though there's probably not really enough depth to it to reach true classic status.
A fine way to spend such a short amount of time, but no more exciting or wonderful than two back to back episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
A movie that doesn't outstay its welcome is David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly, clocking in at around 1hr 25 and telling its classic scientist-regrets-playing-God tale at a breakneck speed.
Indeed, such is the speed at which the movie wants to move we start in the middle of a scene and a burgeoning romance between Jeff Goldblums' Seth Brundle and Geena Davis' Ronnie is rushed to such an extent that there appears to be absolutely no reason for their sudden kiss and sex session.
In fact, it all seems to be sprinting past the plot in favour of classic body horror shenanigans, as a Gibbon is turned inside out and stuff like that.
It's in these sequences that the director really seems to be enjoying himself, pulling all the creepy gore and nasty close ups possible. If that's not your thing you will hate this movie.
As for myself, I think it's ok, if a little extreme in parts allowing the mank to override the story, but you probably don't care much about the story in this kind of movie. One thing it certainly is, is quite sad. You could see it as a metaphor for any degenerative disease if you like, and it's tempting for me to overplay this angle to appear clever and insightful. I actually think that's a side effect of the actual intention, which is to make a 50s style moral horror tale with modern techniques (even if the moral is "do everything in a sterile environment" since the experiment does actually work as planned!). In this sense it is perfectly successful, though there's probably not really enough depth to it to reach true classic status.
A fine way to spend such a short amount of time, but no more exciting or wonderful than two back to back episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Monday, December 1, 2008
So, this movie's cursed then...
That's what many of you may have thought about the story that appeared in The Sun over the weekend (I forget exactly which day since I was so tired).
Actually, the website version is slightly nearer the truth than that which was printed in the paper, which claimed the fuel truck, which was parked right next to the bus full of us extras (included myself) went up in a "fireball" (there was a small amount of flames that were quickly extinguished), and also claimed that Downey Jr had needed 6 stitches (he'd needed two) and that he'd been knocked out for "minutes" when he'd been out for seconds.
Ah, well... it may well be publicity action on the part of the producers and director. Fair play to 'em.
The slightly galling thing was that us extras were not given any indication of a problem with the truck, which was parked right next to our bus and even after the event noone came to reassure us or to say it was all sorted. Meh, I know we're not important, but we are human beings!
As for my part in the movie (heh, as if it can be called a "part")? Well, this is one you'll definitely be able to spot me in, as in a major fight scene RDJ is chased by another character underneath a log I am carrying with one other fella. The big guy then knocks the log out of our hands and out of shot. We then back off towards the door, as Dr Watson enters and fires his pistol to get all the mob out of the way.
Funny story - the first take RDJ ran round the outside of the log and the other guy carrying the log joked it would look better if he ran underneath instead and the big guy threw it away. Sure enough, two minutes later this became the plan (pretty sure it was decided on independently of us, though).
So that guy is me, if you go and see it.
The rest of the week was slightly less exciting for me unfortunately since that and a couple of short shots are all I was involved in for six days in total - this led to a lot of stir craziness as me and 33 other blokes were cooped up in a bus for 3 days solid at one point, which tends to drive you round the bend a little. Luckily, in my capacity as "bringer of the fun" I supplied a big box of poker chips, a selection of 200 traditional games and my Go set so tried to keep everyone alive for a while at least. In the week I learned to play Halma, Backgammon and also bashed through about 8 games of Go, teaching four others to play.
The things you do to stay sane, eh?
Oh, and to anyone I appear to have ignored over the last week, please bear in mind I've been getting up at 4am and arriving home at 8pm, so it's not been possible to stay as in touch as I may like.
'Til Next Time!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Actually, the website version is slightly nearer the truth than that which was printed in the paper, which claimed the fuel truck, which was parked right next to the bus full of us extras (included myself) went up in a "fireball" (there was a small amount of flames that were quickly extinguished), and also claimed that Downey Jr had needed 6 stitches (he'd needed two) and that he'd been knocked out for "minutes" when he'd been out for seconds.
Ah, well... it may well be publicity action on the part of the producers and director. Fair play to 'em.
The slightly galling thing was that us extras were not given any indication of a problem with the truck, which was parked right next to our bus and even after the event noone came to reassure us or to say it was all sorted. Meh, I know we're not important, but we are human beings!
As for my part in the movie (heh, as if it can be called a "part")? Well, this is one you'll definitely be able to spot me in, as in a major fight scene RDJ is chased by another character underneath a log I am carrying with one other fella. The big guy then knocks the log out of our hands and out of shot. We then back off towards the door, as Dr Watson enters and fires his pistol to get all the mob out of the way.
Funny story - the first take RDJ ran round the outside of the log and the other guy carrying the log joked it would look better if he ran underneath instead and the big guy threw it away. Sure enough, two minutes later this became the plan (pretty sure it was decided on independently of us, though).
So that guy is me, if you go and see it.
The rest of the week was slightly less exciting for me unfortunately since that and a couple of short shots are all I was involved in for six days in total - this led to a lot of stir craziness as me and 33 other blokes were cooped up in a bus for 3 days solid at one point, which tends to drive you round the bend a little. Luckily, in my capacity as "bringer of the fun" I supplied a big box of poker chips, a selection of 200 traditional games and my Go set so tried to keep everyone alive for a while at least. In the week I learned to play Halma, Backgammon and also bashed through about 8 games of Go, teaching four others to play.
The things you do to stay sane, eh?
Oh, and to anyone I appear to have ignored over the last week, please bear in mind I've been getting up at 4am and arriving home at 8pm, so it's not been possible to stay as in touch as I may like.
'Til Next Time!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Monday, November 24, 2008
This Week and This Weekend
This weekend I have been up in Essex in the Studio recording so my apologies for the glut of reviews I have dumped on you all - three, for Disturbia, Snakes On A Plane and Annie Hall.
It also raised an interesting question. What on earth does "Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?" mean? I've looked at it from several angles but I can't make sense of it. To be honest for ages I thought the line was "chasing payments", which may well have been a function of the battle with the council I was having at the time.
This is also the time of year when the band wheels out the traditional Wizzard and Slade for our Christmas show next week. It's irritating to learn a song for one show, but since it's one you hear all the time and people sing along no matter what anyway I don't think we'll have much trouble.
As ffor the week ahead I'll be spending it on the set with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law (hope none of my readers are there) and also Guy Richie to do some dock scenes for the new Sherlock Holmes. I'm pretty sure the luck of getting five days on this project is linked to guilt on my agent's part for the Boris Johnson fiasco so I'm not knocking it. It's rare for five days work come along at once.
This does mean that since I have to get all the way to Chatham and back every day (I'm hoping some nice guy will agree to drive for petrol money) your movie blog goodness may suffer.
My apologies and I'm sure we'll be back on track this time next week.
Until then, good reader.Until then...
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It also raised an interesting question. What on earth does "Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?" mean? I've looked at it from several angles but I can't make sense of it. To be honest for ages I thought the line was "chasing payments", which may well have been a function of the battle with the council I was having at the time.
This is also the time of year when the band wheels out the traditional Wizzard and Slade for our Christmas show next week. It's irritating to learn a song for one show, but since it's one you hear all the time and people sing along no matter what anyway I don't think we'll have much trouble.
As ffor the week ahead I'll be spending it on the set with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law (hope none of my readers are there) and also Guy Richie to do some dock scenes for the new Sherlock Holmes. I'm pretty sure the luck of getting five days on this project is linked to guilt on my agent's part for the Boris Johnson fiasco so I'm not knocking it. It's rare for five days work come along at once.
This does mean that since I have to get all the way to Chatham and back every day (I'm hoping some nice guy will agree to drive for petrol money) your movie blog goodness may suffer.
My apologies and I'm sure we'll be back on track this time next week.
Until then, good reader.Until then...
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Quick Movie Review: Annie Hall
7/10
One of the atypical things about my particular movie watching history is that I have reached my age (27, if you're interested) having never ever seen a Woody Allen movie. I just never felt keen to watch his self written and self starring oeuvre. Well, as part of my ongoing education in all films I decided to give him a go.
So if one wants to remedy the situation where does one start? Well, in my case I decided to go with Annie Hall, frequently cited as his most accessible, and sometimes his best, film.
And I really enjoyed it for the time I spent with the two characters as they go through their little relationship and get into all sorts of dumb situations on account of neither of them being very good at this whole life and maturity thing.
The film-making is inventive as it is scatter-shot with all kinds of techniques, from the subtitling of internal monologue to actually full fledged animation, used in a mish mash of self absorbed and neurotic personal exploration. I don't necessarily mean that's a bad thing, by the way. The worlds of Manhattan and California are depicted in hardly the most complimentary lights, but I feel there's genuine affection for New York on Allen's part, probably more so than for his characters.
My major problem with Annie Hall, since you may be looking at the 7/10 and wondering about it, was that I didn't actually like either of the lead characters. Both of them were totally self obsessed, selfish and, in their own ways, extremely elitist. Alvy is a jackass - a total intellectual elitist with a sense of his own self importance feeding into his neuroses - there's all this trouble in the world and poor old Alvy can't cope boo hoo! Sure, it's played for laughs, but the fact that he knows he's a total knob doesn't stop him being one. Annie is even less sympathetic, incapable of sex without drugs, totally unable to cope with the real world and totally vacuous. Suffice to say I wasn't keen.
I did laugh quite a lot, though, at many of the moments in the film, and it is best described as a collection of moments. They're all quite low key and not really worth explaining out of the film's context, since a lot of the humour comes from the context. So I would say that I liked the film and found it funny, but didn't like the characters and so couldn't really go nuts for it.
And I would say that others may find this film as funny and perhaps the main characters more agreeable than I did. But in summary, there's always a problem for me with a film if my response to the leading man is an intense desire to punch him repeatedly in the face... especially since the (admit it!) arrogance of Woody directing, writing and starring is hovering in the background contradicting the attempted facade of lovable putz.
Just my opinion, and Allen lovers would proably crucify me (funny image for me to choose, in the circumstances), but there it is.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
One of the atypical things about my particular movie watching history is that I have reached my age (27, if you're interested) having never ever seen a Woody Allen movie. I just never felt keen to watch his self written and self starring oeuvre. Well, as part of my ongoing education in all films I decided to give him a go.
So if one wants to remedy the situation where does one start? Well, in my case I decided to go with Annie Hall, frequently cited as his most accessible, and sometimes his best, film.
And I really enjoyed it for the time I spent with the two characters as they go through their little relationship and get into all sorts of dumb situations on account of neither of them being very good at this whole life and maturity thing.
The film-making is inventive as it is scatter-shot with all kinds of techniques, from the subtitling of internal monologue to actually full fledged animation, used in a mish mash of self absorbed and neurotic personal exploration. I don't necessarily mean that's a bad thing, by the way. The worlds of Manhattan and California are depicted in hardly the most complimentary lights, but I feel there's genuine affection for New York on Allen's part, probably more so than for his characters.
My major problem with Annie Hall, since you may be looking at the 7/10 and wondering about it, was that I didn't actually like either of the lead characters. Both of them were totally self obsessed, selfish and, in their own ways, extremely elitist. Alvy is a jackass - a total intellectual elitist with a sense of his own self importance feeding into his neuroses - there's all this trouble in the world and poor old Alvy can't cope boo hoo! Sure, it's played for laughs, but the fact that he knows he's a total knob doesn't stop him being one. Annie is even less sympathetic, incapable of sex without drugs, totally unable to cope with the real world and totally vacuous. Suffice to say I wasn't keen.
I did laugh quite a lot, though, at many of the moments in the film, and it is best described as a collection of moments. They're all quite low key and not really worth explaining out of the film's context, since a lot of the humour comes from the context. So I would say that I liked the film and found it funny, but didn't like the characters and so couldn't really go nuts for it.
And I would say that others may find this film as funny and perhaps the main characters more agreeable than I did. But in summary, there's always a problem for me with a film if my response to the leading man is an intense desire to punch him repeatedly in the face... especially since the (admit it!) arrogance of Woody directing, writing and starring is hovering in the background contradicting the attempted facade of lovable putz.
Just my opinion, and Allen lovers would proably crucify me (funny image for me to choose, in the circumstances), but there it is.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Movie Review: Snakes On A Plane
3/10A
Was there ever a movie so suited for the blue "A" as Snakes On A Plane?
Quick - the plot! Er... a baddie wants a witness to a murder killed, so out of all the options available to him decides to do it with snakes. On a plane. That's it.
On the face of it it's classic made-in-Poland-with-JCVD-or-Seagal-starring nonsense, the sort of film that you see in some badly thrown together cover featuring no less than five spelling and grammatical errors in your local Costcutter. I've always thought those covers were made by the same people who do takeaway menus, since these also adhere to the no less than 5 errors rule. (see food curry? really?)
So why is it that Snakes On A Plane got lots of attention and Kill Switch or Renegade Justice didn't? Two words and an initial people; Samuel L Jackson. He's so cool even this cinematic dogturd gets pulled up to ice-coolness thanks to his ever reliable presence and he looks just as comfortable fighting CGI snakes with broken bottles attached to the ends of poles as anyone could. Seagal and Van Damme would just freeze to death next to this guys coolness.
Face it. He's cool.
I mean, I didn't even know Heather Graham was in it until she turns up, tiny dog in hand and starts flirting with the ocd rap star.
There's plenty to laugh at, not least the CGI snakes, but nothing is as funny as that premise.
Look matey, if you're able to illegally smuggle a whole bunch of illegal snakes from LA to Hawaii and then onto a Plane headed back to the states (which, by the way, was a late switcheroo by the FBI so well done for your speed) surely you could just have shot the guy? Or put a bomb on the plane? Or sabotaged it in any of the 4000 different ways you can sabotage a plane?
Blimey, you believe in doing things the hard way. In fact, when your lackey said "are you sure about this?" you were quick to reply "accidents happen". What kind of accident do you think this is supposed to be? Those snakes "accidentally" got set free by an explosive device? Those crazy making pheremones were sprayed all over everything by "accident?". You must live your life in perpetual fear of being killed by a flying tea cosy if that's the sort of thing you think is an accident.
Needless to say chum, the FBI take roughly two seconds to realise it's you that's responsible and you're eventually arrested for this crime and not the one the witness was trying to testify about. Mental!
But you don't come to Snakes On A Plane expecting sense. You'd be an idiot.
You came expecting dumb fun, and that is exactly what you'll get. A couple who really want to die and know the horror movie rules decide to have sex while smoking pot -the two guaranteed ways to get killed covered there. Good job! Another man, an obnoxious Englishman (aren't we all?) is so clearly inventive-ironic-death fodder we actually cheer when he meets his fate.
In fact, it's all so funny I kept expecting Leslie Nielsen to appear and do the old "The Hospital? What is it?" routine. Especially when the pilots buy it and a new guy has to be found to land the plane - it's ok folks - he plays computer games! Although, anyone who thinks the experience of playing on a PS2 gets you the skills needed to fly a modern jet is sadly mistaken, unless they have released a 452 button controller I don't know about.
Actually, I remember one for the XBOX... here's a picture of the daft thing.
Sad, huh? I think we sold a lot of them though when I worked at GAME so what the hell, good luck to them. If any geeks are drooling right now, the game was called Steel Battalion, and I'm not sure it was much cop. The controller was awesome though.
Well, back to the point.
I think Snakes On A Plane gets definite kudos for being the ideal film to sit down and drink beer in front of with your mates. I hope you do see it since anything that brings a bit of laughter into the world is alright by me.
A
P.S. I should state for the record I know this film isn't meant to be a true comedy, but by any meaningful standard it fails to be anything else.
See the full post by clicking here...
Was there ever a movie so suited for the blue "A" as Snakes On A Plane?
Quick - the plot! Er... a baddie wants a witness to a murder killed, so out of all the options available to him decides to do it with snakes. On a plane. That's it.
On the face of it it's classic made-in-Poland-with-JCVD-or-Seagal-starring nonsense, the sort of film that you see in some badly thrown together cover featuring no less than five spelling and grammatical errors in your local Costcutter. I've always thought those covers were made by the same people who do takeaway menus, since these also adhere to the no less than 5 errors rule. (see food curry? really?)
So why is it that Snakes On A Plane got lots of attention and Kill Switch or Renegade Justice didn't? Two words and an initial people; Samuel L Jackson. He's so cool even this cinematic dogturd gets pulled up to ice-coolness thanks to his ever reliable presence and he looks just as comfortable fighting CGI snakes with broken bottles attached to the ends of poles as anyone could. Seagal and Van Damme would just freeze to death next to this guys coolness.
Face it. He's cool.
I mean, I didn't even know Heather Graham was in it until she turns up, tiny dog in hand and starts flirting with the ocd rap star.
There's plenty to laugh at, not least the CGI snakes, but nothing is as funny as that premise.
Look matey, if you're able to illegally smuggle a whole bunch of illegal snakes from LA to Hawaii and then onto a Plane headed back to the states (which, by the way, was a late switcheroo by the FBI so well done for your speed) surely you could just have shot the guy? Or put a bomb on the plane? Or sabotaged it in any of the 4000 different ways you can sabotage a plane?
Blimey, you believe in doing things the hard way. In fact, when your lackey said "are you sure about this?" you were quick to reply "accidents happen". What kind of accident do you think this is supposed to be? Those snakes "accidentally" got set free by an explosive device? Those crazy making pheremones were sprayed all over everything by "accident?". You must live your life in perpetual fear of being killed by a flying tea cosy if that's the sort of thing you think is an accident.
Needless to say chum, the FBI take roughly two seconds to realise it's you that's responsible and you're eventually arrested for this crime and not the one the witness was trying to testify about. Mental!
But you don't come to Snakes On A Plane expecting sense. You'd be an idiot.
You came expecting dumb fun, and that is exactly what you'll get. A couple who really want to die and know the horror movie rules decide to have sex while smoking pot -the two guaranteed ways to get killed covered there. Good job! Another man, an obnoxious Englishman (aren't we all?) is so clearly inventive-ironic-death fodder we actually cheer when he meets his fate.
In fact, it's all so funny I kept expecting Leslie Nielsen to appear and do the old "The Hospital? What is it?" routine. Especially when the pilots buy it and a new guy has to be found to land the plane - it's ok folks - he plays computer games! Although, anyone who thinks the experience of playing on a PS2 gets you the skills needed to fly a modern jet is sadly mistaken, unless they have released a 452 button controller I don't know about.
Actually, I remember one for the XBOX... here's a picture of the daft thing.
Sad, huh? I think we sold a lot of them though when I worked at GAME so what the hell, good luck to them. If any geeks are drooling right now, the game was called Steel Battalion, and I'm not sure it was much cop. The controller was awesome though.
Well, back to the point.
I think Snakes On A Plane gets definite kudos for being the ideal film to sit down and drink beer in front of with your mates. I hope you do see it since anything that brings a bit of laughter into the world is alright by me.
A
P.S. I should state for the record I know this film isn't meant to be a true comedy, but by any meaningful standard it fails to be anything else.
See the full post by clicking here...
Friday, November 21, 2008
Movie Review: Disturbia
6/10
As always... beware of spoilers folks.
It is notable that a remake as blatant as this DJ Caruso version of Rear Window at no stage recognises or acknowledges the immense debt it owes to Hitchcock's classic tale of boredom and its resultant petty obsessions.
The task then, of Caruso's retread through this story, is to live up to and hopefully surpass the original in the hope of justifying its audacious existence.
In short, despite game turns from the leads and a suitably creepy performance from David Morse (seemingly the go to guy for creepy), it just doesn't succeed.
SPOILERS START NOW. YOU HAE BEEN WARNED.
Its good points are, ironically most apparent where it differs from the Hitchcock standard and heads off on its own. Whereas Jimmy Stewart was wheelchair bound following a dumb photography decision (in the middle of a race track if I remember right) Shia LeBeouf's "Kale" is housebound due to being under house arrest. This solves the problem of Shia only being able to see out of one window since the suburban setting does not serve this aesthetic.
When the differences appear, the lead is also allowed to shine in the acting department - the character of Kale (while having a distinctly silly name - isn't it a salad leaf?) is likable, if damaged and capable of eliciting a genuine affection from the audience. His co-stars are totally average. The dorky yet "zany" antics of his friend Ron, and the lame love interest (thought she does have Grace Kelly to live up to) are frequently annoying instead of entertaining, and unlike the love between Jimmy and Grace you never really buy into this teen fling in the same way.
It's also sad that the exploratory missions that Kelly's Lisa Fremont goes on in Hitchcock's classic are the province of Ron the best friend rather than the girlfriend, who incidentally as a clichéd "mom & dad keep fighting so I'm a rebel" type would be better suited that Fremont to do the dirty work. Rubbish. By doing this you lose that great sense of "oh god, that's the love of my life over there!"
The film also makes a major error in actually showing you, for certain, the crime that Kale and his friends suspect. This means that there is absolutely no suspense or ambiguity whatsoever in the plot, and my initial hopes that they were going to go down a different story route were dashed all too quickly.
What is slightly more impressive is the design of Mr Turner's creepy home, the sort of facade that is always half-suspected to be hiding behind your neighbours' nice family photos. The fact that this guy is a multiple serial killer - I counted at least four bodies in this house alone, and the film states he has moved before - just doesn't sit in the credibility scale like the crime of passion in Rear Window did. Surely the police would have some suspicion?
Anyway. There is little to recommend this film except LeBeouf and the story, which was better told in Rear Window. Don't believe anyone who says it's different enough to not require a credit to the earlier film because they are wrong.
Hey, I'm not saying it's terrible - but it may well be as pointless an exercise as Gus Van Sant's Psycho or the American remake of [REC].
A disappointment.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
As always... beware of spoilers folks.
It is notable that a remake as blatant as this DJ Caruso version of Rear Window at no stage recognises or acknowledges the immense debt it owes to Hitchcock's classic tale of boredom and its resultant petty obsessions.
The task then, of Caruso's retread through this story, is to live up to and hopefully surpass the original in the hope of justifying its audacious existence.
In short, despite game turns from the leads and a suitably creepy performance from David Morse (seemingly the go to guy for creepy), it just doesn't succeed.
SPOILERS START NOW. YOU HAE BEEN WARNED.
Its good points are, ironically most apparent where it differs from the Hitchcock standard and heads off on its own. Whereas Jimmy Stewart was wheelchair bound following a dumb photography decision (in the middle of a race track if I remember right) Shia LeBeouf's "Kale" is housebound due to being under house arrest. This solves the problem of Shia only being able to see out of one window since the suburban setting does not serve this aesthetic.
When the differences appear, the lead is also allowed to shine in the acting department - the character of Kale (while having a distinctly silly name - isn't it a salad leaf?) is likable, if damaged and capable of eliciting a genuine affection from the audience. His co-stars are totally average. The dorky yet "zany" antics of his friend Ron, and the lame love interest (thought she does have Grace Kelly to live up to) are frequently annoying instead of entertaining, and unlike the love between Jimmy and Grace you never really buy into this teen fling in the same way.
It's also sad that the exploratory missions that Kelly's Lisa Fremont goes on in Hitchcock's classic are the province of Ron the best friend rather than the girlfriend, who incidentally as a clichéd "mom & dad keep fighting so I'm a rebel" type would be better suited that Fremont to do the dirty work. Rubbish. By doing this you lose that great sense of "oh god, that's the love of my life over there!"
The film also makes a major error in actually showing you, for certain, the crime that Kale and his friends suspect. This means that there is absolutely no suspense or ambiguity whatsoever in the plot, and my initial hopes that they were going to go down a different story route were dashed all too quickly.
What is slightly more impressive is the design of Mr Turner's creepy home, the sort of facade that is always half-suspected to be hiding behind your neighbours' nice family photos. The fact that this guy is a multiple serial killer - I counted at least four bodies in this house alone, and the film states he has moved before - just doesn't sit in the credibility scale like the crime of passion in Rear Window did. Surely the police would have some suspicion?
Anyway. There is little to recommend this film except LeBeouf and the story, which was better told in Rear Window. Don't believe anyone who says it's different enough to not require a credit to the earlier film because they are wrong.
Hey, I'm not saying it's terrible - but it may well be as pointless an exercise as Gus Van Sant's Psycho or the American remake of [REC].
A disappointment.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Movie Review: Krull
3/10A
Ah, childhood. There are great things about it and you tend to forget the rubbish. Take, for example, The Neverending Story. That was pigeon poop and luckily I have forgotten it entirely except for his horse dying, probably because it was sad that the best actor was no longer in it.
Sad moments aplenty occur when you rewatch something you always used to love, like Thundercats, which looks utterly atrocious now, though the Dungeons & Dragons series has held up better.
So what of my childhood memories of Krull? Well, I never thought it was a classic in the first place. I can tell you with little surprise or regret that I was pretty much right on the money.
It's not all bad really. It suffers, and at the time suffered even worse, from comparison to the contemporary "epic to beat" and since that was Star Wars it didn't really stand a marshmallow in hell's chance. There are many parallels between this and the first Star Wars - an attempt at grand epic visions, excellent scenery, creepy villains, and a blink-and-you'll-miss-his-career leading man in Ken Marshall (DS9 fans would have a hard time recognising the balding older version)
There's plenty to enjoy - the Glaive, a sort of twisty throwing star thing, is definitely one of cinema's coolest hero gadgets, even more so when you can control it with your mind. There's a fine turn from Bernard Bresslaw as a doomed cyclops, several really neat ideas (the widow of the web - awesome) and one particular moment with a character being replaced with a doppelganger so creepy it stayed with me for years.
You can also have a fun(ish) time spotting all the not yet stars in the crooked gang including that kid from Grange Hill, Alun Armstrong, Liam Neeson (!) and a dubbed Robbie Coltrane (voice by Michael Elphick, fact-fans!).
Dubbing can of course be awful and this case is no exception. Take the female lead, Lysette Anthony (waddya mean, "who?") - she was dubbed by an unknown American actress putting on an English accent. What's up with that? Unless there was some serious casting couch action going on with the voice casting folks I can't think of a sensible reason to do so. It merely makes a fairly poor performance a truly awful one.
Oh and my my there is a lot more about this film that's bad, though in a cheap and cheerful way. The fight scenes conjures up nothing so much as a pillow fight in a posh young ladies finishing school - as the poor extras playing the bad guys, who clearly can't see out of their future-s&m garb wave their gun/swords around and generally look lost. They shouldn't be concerned since the good guys can't really fight either - a whole castle full of guards wearing what appear to be motorcycle helmets gets wiped out in minutes and our hero just wimps around a lot, though he does find the time to indulge in the ultimate swordfight cliché - the swing from the chandelier! Yes!
Now... he's met by his mentor, Obi... oh I forget his name - anyway, he goes and gets the glaive after doing some very impressive (and I think real) rock climbing in what is admittedly a beautiful landscape. Wherever the movie was shot is truly gorgeous, we get our shabby, undertalented cast riding through some amazing and occasionally heart stopping sets and vistas. In fact, you're often left cursing the plot because it keeps getting in the way.
Next we meet our bunch of ex bbc cronies and head off to the evil castle to fight for our princess' return - you know the sort of thing. The final monster (imaginatively called "the beast") is one with such a lame outfit they have to shoot him thorugh a vaseline'd lens to try and hide the fact you've seen more impressive Boglins (remember them?)
And this is pretty much it. It sticks so closely to the old story formulas we grew up with that nothing, no self-sacrifice and certainly no fight surprises us with its outcome. This is the film's great crime - if it is going to be as hackneyed as this it needs that spark, that zing - something new to put in the pot. It needs a Han Solo in fact. Without any innovation or excitement on offer, this two hour sword and sorcery romp never gets out of second gear.
Oh, in fact one thing did surprise me. Towards the end, our hero finds a trail of blood. He looks at it for a moment and then identifies who left it. Wow - he really is a hero.
Ot's this sort of manic denial of the laws of nature and cohesive plotting that gain this lame duck a special blue "A". I had a good time watching it, but not really for the reasons the makers intended. They must be so proud.
In short then; oh dear.
Oh well, til next time.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Ah, childhood. There are great things about it and you tend to forget the rubbish. Take, for example, The Neverending Story. That was pigeon poop and luckily I have forgotten it entirely except for his horse dying, probably because it was sad that the best actor was no longer in it.
Sad moments aplenty occur when you rewatch something you always used to love, like Thundercats, which looks utterly atrocious now, though the Dungeons & Dragons series has held up better.
So what of my childhood memories of Krull? Well, I never thought it was a classic in the first place. I can tell you with little surprise or regret that I was pretty much right on the money.
It's not all bad really. It suffers, and at the time suffered even worse, from comparison to the contemporary "epic to beat" and since that was Star Wars it didn't really stand a marshmallow in hell's chance. There are many parallels between this and the first Star Wars - an attempt at grand epic visions, excellent scenery, creepy villains, and a blink-and-you'll-miss-his-career leading man in Ken Marshall (DS9 fans would have a hard time recognising the balding older version)
There's plenty to enjoy - the Glaive, a sort of twisty throwing star thing, is definitely one of cinema's coolest hero gadgets, even more so when you can control it with your mind. There's a fine turn from Bernard Bresslaw as a doomed cyclops, several really neat ideas (the widow of the web - awesome) and one particular moment with a character being replaced with a doppelganger so creepy it stayed with me for years.
You can also have a fun(ish) time spotting all the not yet stars in the crooked gang including that kid from Grange Hill, Alun Armstrong, Liam Neeson (!) and a dubbed Robbie Coltrane (voice by Michael Elphick, fact-fans!).
Dubbing can of course be awful and this case is no exception. Take the female lead, Lysette Anthony (waddya mean, "who?") - she was dubbed by an unknown American actress putting on an English accent. What's up with that? Unless there was some serious casting couch action going on with the voice casting folks I can't think of a sensible reason to do so. It merely makes a fairly poor performance a truly awful one.
Oh and my my there is a lot more about this film that's bad, though in a cheap and cheerful way. The fight scenes conjures up nothing so much as a pillow fight in a posh young ladies finishing school - as the poor extras playing the bad guys, who clearly can't see out of their future-s&m garb wave their gun/swords around and generally look lost. They shouldn't be concerned since the good guys can't really fight either - a whole castle full of guards wearing what appear to be motorcycle helmets gets wiped out in minutes and our hero just wimps around a lot, though he does find the time to indulge in the ultimate swordfight cliché - the swing from the chandelier! Yes!
Now... he's met by his mentor, Obi... oh I forget his name - anyway, he goes and gets the glaive after doing some very impressive (and I think real) rock climbing in what is admittedly a beautiful landscape. Wherever the movie was shot is truly gorgeous, we get our shabby, undertalented cast riding through some amazing and occasionally heart stopping sets and vistas. In fact, you're often left cursing the plot because it keeps getting in the way.
Next we meet our bunch of ex bbc cronies and head off to the evil castle to fight for our princess' return - you know the sort of thing. The final monster (imaginatively called "the beast") is one with such a lame outfit they have to shoot him thorugh a vaseline'd lens to try and hide the fact you've seen more impressive Boglins (remember them?)
And this is pretty much it. It sticks so closely to the old story formulas we grew up with that nothing, no self-sacrifice and certainly no fight surprises us with its outcome. This is the film's great crime - if it is going to be as hackneyed as this it needs that spark, that zing - something new to put in the pot. It needs a Han Solo in fact. Without any innovation or excitement on offer, this two hour sword and sorcery romp never gets out of second gear.
Oh, in fact one thing did surprise me. Towards the end, our hero finds a trail of blood. He looks at it for a moment and then identifies who left it. Wow - he really is a hero.
Ot's this sort of manic denial of the laws of nature and cohesive plotting that gain this lame duck a special blue "A". I had a good time watching it, but not really for the reasons the makers intended. They must be so proud.
In short then; oh dear.
Oh well, til next time.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Whoops!
I have just discovered that there is an "ezine" on the web called "Shadows On The Wall" which unfortunately is also a film reviews and opinion site.
I have no affiliation with them and didn't know they existed when I picked the name.
I'm a lot less advertising heavy too (no advertising at all in fact)
Just thought I'd bring it up before someone else does.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
I have no affiliation with them and didn't know they existed when I picked the name.
I'm a lot less advertising heavy too (no advertising at all in fact)
Just thought I'd bring it up before someone else does.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Movie Review The Grifters
7/10
There's lots to talk about regarding this movie, but most of it is a spoiler so I'll keep it quick. There will be some spoilage so read on at your peril!
There's been a lot of hoo hah about this marmite movie in internet circles, like QoS it seems to have divided opinion over the years quite significantly.
I'll summarise opinion quickly so let's look at the "good" first;
I was, as many people have been, very impressed by the acting and being a John Cusack fan I am very happy that this was a launchpad from his teen romcom past into the actor we have today. I don't think Annette Bening, even in her recentish hits like American Beauty bested this twisted and amoral performance. As for Huston, she is simply a powerhouse. Utterly unmatchable.
BUT...
Sure it's all very downbeat and gritty, the sequence of events feels realistic and believable and the acting is definitely excellent. This doesn't avoid the major pitfall it is victim to - it's a little empty. When you have fairly unsympathetic characters in unsympathetic situations being fairly nasty to each other I would hope for perhaps a little black comedy to lighten the load, or some ray of light... or something! As it is the film's bleakish message is just a little one dimensional perhaps, a little too focussed... a little too judgemental.
Also, maybe it's the experience I have with movies, but I felt no suspense at all after the supposedly crucial "motel sequence" as to the victim's identity purely because of the way the editing and cuts were done. I knew exactly who wasn't coming out alive simply because of the point at which we move on from that. I'd have been more impressed if Stephen Frears had made it slightly more ambiguous.
Sigh... I just can't really get up much enthusiasm for it. Overall I was disappointed, it's good but not great as I was expecting.
I have given it 7/10 though, because it's quite a ride while its on, despite not realy giving me anything to take away.
In the world of controversial downbeat thrillers though... I er... (can;t believe I'm going to say this)...
I preferred The Long Goodbye. Ok? I know that's not the fashionable view but there you go.
Please be gentle....
A
See the full post by clicking here...
There's lots to talk about regarding this movie, but most of it is a spoiler so I'll keep it quick. There will be some spoilage so read on at your peril!
There's been a lot of hoo hah about this marmite movie in internet circles, like QoS it seems to have divided opinion over the years quite significantly.
I'll summarise opinion quickly so let's look at the "good" first;
- It features one of the strongest line ups possible at the time in John Cusack, Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening. All the acting is powerful and strong with even relative bit parts like that of 90s utility player J.T. Walsh are worked on with aplomb.
- The direction, editing and pacing with a couple of exceptions are excellent
- The script is sharp and well written, with many passages coming straight out of the book and showing real wit and invention in the situations the characters find themselves in.
- It doesn't sugar coat anything, from the characters themselves, their motives and the consequences of their actions (Huston's confrontation wiht her empoyer is a particular highlight in this regard)
- Well, as a movie about con artists you spend the whole movie expecting a twist, or some exciting machination to be revealed in which the characters are conning each other. It just doesn't happen.
- Without that there is very little in the way of story - while things happen and developments take place which challenge and threaten our protagonists there is little in the way of traditional plotting or pacing.
- The ending is a source of considerable ridicule elsewhere - it requires a certain acceptace of the conceit and if you're not playing ball it seems dumb and contrived.
I was, as many people have been, very impressed by the acting and being a John Cusack fan I am very happy that this was a launchpad from his teen romcom past into the actor we have today. I don't think Annette Bening, even in her recentish hits like American Beauty bested this twisted and amoral performance. As for Huston, she is simply a powerhouse. Utterly unmatchable.
BUT...
Sure it's all very downbeat and gritty, the sequence of events feels realistic and believable and the acting is definitely excellent. This doesn't avoid the major pitfall it is victim to - it's a little empty. When you have fairly unsympathetic characters in unsympathetic situations being fairly nasty to each other I would hope for perhaps a little black comedy to lighten the load, or some ray of light... or something! As it is the film's bleakish message is just a little one dimensional perhaps, a little too focussed... a little too judgemental.
Also, maybe it's the experience I have with movies, but I felt no suspense at all after the supposedly crucial "motel sequence" as to the victim's identity purely because of the way the editing and cuts were done. I knew exactly who wasn't coming out alive simply because of the point at which we move on from that. I'd have been more impressed if Stephen Frears had made it slightly more ambiguous.
Sigh... I just can't really get up much enthusiasm for it. Overall I was disappointed, it's good but not great as I was expecting.
I have given it 7/10 though, because it's quite a ride while its on, despite not realy giving me anything to take away.
In the world of controversial downbeat thrillers though... I er... (can;t believe I'm going to say this)...
I preferred The Long Goodbye. Ok? I know that's not the fashionable view but there you go.
Please be gentle....
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Monday, November 17, 2008
By Request: Mulholland Drive
Gary's asked for my thoughts on Mulholland drive after suffering your typical Mid-Lynch mindmelt. I've not seen it for a while but below are my thoughts.
I also apologise to anyone who is waiting (as if!) for the second part of my INLAND EMPIRE musing - I simply haven't had a chance to watch it with others yet and I'm not sure if watching it again on my own will get me where I want to go for the blog I want to write.
It's an interesting thing, this movie. As a courtesy to the folks who have yet to see it and for others who may not want to read another raft of pretentious guesswork (or Movie Opinion if you prefer) I have spoilers (in so far as that applies to Lynch) and plot thoughts after the warning below.
Readers of my blog online, as opposed to those who recieve by email, must click on the link below before I ruin anything too much.
The world of David Lynch's movies is one of strangeness, stream-of-consciousness and dream logic.
What do I mean by those three things? Well, strangeness is fairly self explanatory and is utterly pervasive in his movies where characters, shots and events just do not sit well with our centuries old preconceptions - he is a very very odd man indeed, with what we will generously call a "singular" mind.
Secondly, he is working, in my opinion, on a stream of consciousness basis, this is particularly ture of INLAND EMPIRE, in that film, unlike the normal feel of making movies with a set script and each shot laid out very precisely and logically (while this may be his real process on the other films he has made) the films appear to follow their own internal logic often at the expense of common sense, or indeed any sense at all. What I mean is that whatever his process is, the end result feels like very little else, with the ideas flowing not fromthe real world, but from what just happened in the film. There is no way to watch INLAND EMPIRE without this understanding - that is, while the scene makes sense with regard to that one before it and the one after it, it does not necessarily have to fit with the one four scenes ago.
This links into the idea of "Dream Logic", which is very much as great a contradiction in terms as it appears. The whole state of the movie's world is in flux, and characters, events and even actors playing those characters can change dramatically over the course of the movie. In INLAND EMPIRE we lose sight of who is who and what is what for at least the middle third of the movie.
Coming onto Mulholland Drive itself, the sudden jolt and "right turn" the movie takes midway through is the result of the above and one more crucial factor. It was originally conceived as an open ended pilot for a TV series which was rejected ultimately after a bad pilot response (unsurprising, really).
The result is that long after a lot of the work was done, there was a whole resolution, including the romance between the two leads and the blue box opening, written and shot as new. Now, this may be the explanation for the break in tone and character, but bearing in mind the above we can see it's probably not that simple.
Once the blue box is opened events change and even characters' names and histories do.
Why? My response is "Hey, why not?" but I'm sure that's not going to be acceptable to most people. I favour the experience above the plot, but I'll go on.
Well, there's two major "real life" explanations, as opposed to "it's a movie" or "it's ALL a dream" explanations. The first is that the films first section, where the leads are working together on a movie and become involved, is the dream of the character of Diane (who dreams of being Betty) - this is lent credence by the character who literally says "wake up" around the change.
The second "real world" explanation is that we are shown two alternate realities, that we are shown, to use the memorable image, both legs of the trousers of time. You can either interpret the change as Betty shifting between worlds and being unable to accept her new position, or the two parts as totally separate stories. I don;t buy this though, since you'd have the same name in both realities probably, but whatever gets you to sleep.
As I say, I favour the dream-logic approach to the movie, as the moods and characters shift as the dream becomes a nightmare - it could also been seen as a critique of Hollywood, a contrast of the facade and the reality of that most false of American areas.
All in all, though, since Lynch isn't about to explain it for you, in my opinion because he did it just because that was the idea that came to him it may be pointless trying to decode it. In the extra's for INLAND EMPIRE, he repeatedly states it's about "the idea". And that seems to be it.
I really liked this movie, so I hope you've got something out of my thoughts. I will say if you found the device of change irritating, you will positively despise INLAND EMPIRE. I hope you will give it a try though.
Til Next Time!
A
As an aside, here is the DVD insert "advice" from Lynch. I think he's having a laugh at our expense with these, though. (copied from Wikipedia, that fountain of misinformation and supposition.
Contained within the original DVD release is a card titled "David Lynch's 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller". The clues are:
See the full post by clicking here...
I also apologise to anyone who is waiting (as if!) for the second part of my INLAND EMPIRE musing - I simply haven't had a chance to watch it with others yet and I'm not sure if watching it again on my own will get me where I want to go for the blog I want to write.
It's an interesting thing, this movie. As a courtesy to the folks who have yet to see it and for others who may not want to read another raft of pretentious guesswork (or Movie Opinion if you prefer) I have spoilers (in so far as that applies to Lynch) and plot thoughts after the warning below.
Readers of my blog online, as opposed to those who recieve by email, must click on the link below before I ruin anything too much.
The world of David Lynch's movies is one of strangeness, stream-of-consciousness and dream logic.
What do I mean by those three things? Well, strangeness is fairly self explanatory and is utterly pervasive in his movies where characters, shots and events just do not sit well with our centuries old preconceptions - he is a very very odd man indeed, with what we will generously call a "singular" mind.
Secondly, he is working, in my opinion, on a stream of consciousness basis, this is particularly ture of INLAND EMPIRE, in that film, unlike the normal feel of making movies with a set script and each shot laid out very precisely and logically (while this may be his real process on the other films he has made) the films appear to follow their own internal logic often at the expense of common sense, or indeed any sense at all. What I mean is that whatever his process is, the end result feels like very little else, with the ideas flowing not fromthe real world, but from what just happened in the film. There is no way to watch INLAND EMPIRE without this understanding - that is, while the scene makes sense with regard to that one before it and the one after it, it does not necessarily have to fit with the one four scenes ago.
This links into the idea of "Dream Logic", which is very much as great a contradiction in terms as it appears. The whole state of the movie's world is in flux, and characters, events and even actors playing those characters can change dramatically over the course of the movie. In INLAND EMPIRE we lose sight of who is who and what is what for at least the middle third of the movie.
Coming onto Mulholland Drive itself, the sudden jolt and "right turn" the movie takes midway through is the result of the above and one more crucial factor. It was originally conceived as an open ended pilot for a TV series which was rejected ultimately after a bad pilot response (unsurprising, really).
The result is that long after a lot of the work was done, there was a whole resolution, including the romance between the two leads and the blue box opening, written and shot as new. Now, this may be the explanation for the break in tone and character, but bearing in mind the above we can see it's probably not that simple.
Once the blue box is opened events change and even characters' names and histories do.
Why? My response is "Hey, why not?" but I'm sure that's not going to be acceptable to most people. I favour the experience above the plot, but I'll go on.
Well, there's two major "real life" explanations, as opposed to "it's a movie" or "it's ALL a dream" explanations. The first is that the films first section, where the leads are working together on a movie and become involved, is the dream of the character of Diane (who dreams of being Betty) - this is lent credence by the character who literally says "wake up" around the change.
The second "real world" explanation is that we are shown two alternate realities, that we are shown, to use the memorable image, both legs of the trousers of time. You can either interpret the change as Betty shifting between worlds and being unable to accept her new position, or the two parts as totally separate stories. I don;t buy this though, since you'd have the same name in both realities probably, but whatever gets you to sleep.
As I say, I favour the dream-logic approach to the movie, as the moods and characters shift as the dream becomes a nightmare - it could also been seen as a critique of Hollywood, a contrast of the facade and the reality of that most false of American areas.
All in all, though, since Lynch isn't about to explain it for you, in my opinion because he did it just because that was the idea that came to him it may be pointless trying to decode it. In the extra's for INLAND EMPIRE, he repeatedly states it's about "the idea". And that seems to be it.
I really liked this movie, so I hope you've got something out of my thoughts. I will say if you found the device of change irritating, you will positively despise INLAND EMPIRE. I hope you will give it a try though.
Til Next Time!
A
As an aside, here is the DVD insert "advice" from Lynch. I think he's having a laugh at our expense with these, though. (copied from Wikipedia, that fountain of misinformation and supposition.
Contained within the original DVD release is a card titled "David Lynch's 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller". The clues are:
- Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: At least two clues are revealed before the credits.
- Notice appearances of the red lampshade.
- Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?
- An accident is a terrible event — notice the location of the accident.
- Who gives a key, and why?
- Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
- What is felt, realized, and gathered at the Club Silencio?
- Did talent alone help Camilla?
- Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie's.
- Where is Aunt Ruth?
See the full post by clicking here...
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Quick Movie Review: Congo
3/10
Oh dear oh dear. Michael Crichton time in honour of the late king of your basic science fear movies.
Ernie Hudson aside (and maybe Laura Linney, though a solid performance from her is not very surprising), this is turd on a stick. A dumb concept and totally pointless.
It is worth looking at though, if only to marvel at one of the greatest hammy performances of all time in Tim Curry's bizarre "Romanian".
While its refreshing that the two leads are at no point romantically involved, there's just no depth to the characters, no particularly grey moral areas like there were in Jurassic Park, it's just a mess.
Avoid unless you're really bored and/or generous of spirit. I may watch Jurassic Park again just to see a fitting memorial to the fella.
Oh, The Andromeda Strain is pretty good too. This is not.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Oh dear oh dear. Michael Crichton time in honour of the late king of your basic science fear movies.
Ernie Hudson aside (and maybe Laura Linney, though a solid performance from her is not very surprising), this is turd on a stick. A dumb concept and totally pointless.
It is worth looking at though, if only to marvel at one of the greatest hammy performances of all time in Tim Curry's bizarre "Romanian".
While its refreshing that the two leads are at no point romantically involved, there's just no depth to the characters, no particularly grey moral areas like there were in Jurassic Park, it's just a mess.
Avoid unless you're really bored and/or generous of spirit. I may watch Jurassic Park again just to see a fitting memorial to the fella.
Oh, The Andromeda Strain is pretty good too. This is not.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Quick Movie Review: The Long Goodbye
7/10
In 1973 Robert Altman, of all people, made this version of the classic Raymond Chandler story with Elliot Gould as the classic anti-hero, Philip Marlowe.
It's fantastic casting as Gould's Marlowe is suitably scruffy, likable and crucially out of his time (the film is set in 1973, rather than the 1953 of the book). His starngely antiquated moral centre gets him into all kinds of trouble as he banters his way through a fairly standard thriller plot as double crossings and violated confidences pile up and ruin his day.
This particular case begins when Terry Lennox, an old pal of Marlowe's, turns up on his doorstep and asks for a lift to Tijuana, Mexico since he has had a (physical) fight with his wife and wants to get out of town. As you may appreciate it is not that simple - old Terry failed to mention that his wife is considerably worse off than he implies, and he has managed to hack off a bunch of police and gangsters in the process.
Marlowe is also retained by the strangely loving wife of a drunken author who asks the PI to find her husband, who has vanished into rehab.
What with all this intrigue going on it's not hard to anticipate poor old Philip is going to have a hard few days and boy, he really does. Altman's typically not the most rushed of filmmakers, and there are no instances of Bond-like hyper editing here, the framing is odd, sometimes wilfully so, with the main action taking place behind extras, drowned out by traffic or in one corner of the screen. This serves to heighten our sense of being "in" the California of the movie, sharing in the squlour and the false glamour with Marlowe as he gets sucked deeper into the machinations of those around him.
I don't normally mention the score because the best ones don't jump out at you since that's not their job. In this case I will though, since the score (aside fromt eh intro and credits tune "Hooray For Hollywood") is a hundred minor variations on a song written specially for the movie by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. It appears everywhere, from thew muzak in Marlowe's lift to the funeral march in Tijuana. Oh, and it's first bar or two are the doorbell for the writers house. It's a very clever move, and at no point does the movie make the mistake of drawing attention to it through dialogue ("hey haven't I heard that tune before?") but instead relies on a little suspension of disbelief on the audience's part.
Gould's Marlowe may well be very different to Bogart's, but what of that? It's just another take on the character and one I think is successful on many levels. The sheer obviousness of the films twists as well as its odd pace and timing may put others off but I came away with significant enjoyment heightened considerably by what must be one of the shock endings in this genre of movies.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
In 1973 Robert Altman, of all people, made this version of the classic Raymond Chandler story with Elliot Gould as the classic anti-hero, Philip Marlowe.
It's fantastic casting as Gould's Marlowe is suitably scruffy, likable and crucially out of his time (the film is set in 1973, rather than the 1953 of the book). His starngely antiquated moral centre gets him into all kinds of trouble as he banters his way through a fairly standard thriller plot as double crossings and violated confidences pile up and ruin his day.
This particular case begins when Terry Lennox, an old pal of Marlowe's, turns up on his doorstep and asks for a lift to Tijuana, Mexico since he has had a (physical) fight with his wife and wants to get out of town. As you may appreciate it is not that simple - old Terry failed to mention that his wife is considerably worse off than he implies, and he has managed to hack off a bunch of police and gangsters in the process.
Marlowe is also retained by the strangely loving wife of a drunken author who asks the PI to find her husband, who has vanished into rehab.
What with all this intrigue going on it's not hard to anticipate poor old Philip is going to have a hard few days and boy, he really does. Altman's typically not the most rushed of filmmakers, and there are no instances of Bond-like hyper editing here, the framing is odd, sometimes wilfully so, with the main action taking place behind extras, drowned out by traffic or in one corner of the screen. This serves to heighten our sense of being "in" the California of the movie, sharing in the squlour and the false glamour with Marlowe as he gets sucked deeper into the machinations of those around him.
I don't normally mention the score because the best ones don't jump out at you since that's not their job. In this case I will though, since the score (aside fromt eh intro and credits tune "Hooray For Hollywood") is a hundred minor variations on a song written specially for the movie by John Williams and Johnny Mercer. It appears everywhere, from thew muzak in Marlowe's lift to the funeral march in Tijuana. Oh, and it's first bar or two are the doorbell for the writers house. It's a very clever move, and at no point does the movie make the mistake of drawing attention to it through dialogue ("hey haven't I heard that tune before?") but instead relies on a little suspension of disbelief on the audience's part.
Gould's Marlowe may well be very different to Bogart's, but what of that? It's just another take on the character and one I think is successful on many levels. The sheer obviousness of the films twists as well as its odd pace and timing may put others off but I came away with significant enjoyment heightened considerably by what must be one of the shock endings in this genre of movies.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
When in doubt, do an interview!
The following is an "interview" first published on the capslock GABSTAR blog. Yay!
01. Name a TV show series in which you have seen every episode at least twice:
Firefly. Futurama. Band Of Brothers. Twin Peaks Season One (Only because I can't get my greasy mitts on a copy of season two). Sopranos. X-Files (even season 7... I know I know...) Babylon 5. Battlestar Galactica. This is usually because I watched them then watched them with Mrs Algo. Oh, and QI.
02. Name a show you can't miss:
House, Heroes (series 3 is turning out to be quite good), The Daily Show With John Stewart, Dr Who, QI, I can;t miss them because of BT Vision's season record feature. Yay!
03. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to watch a show:
Hugh Laurie, Nathan Fillion, Bradley Whitford
04. Name an actor who would make you less likely to watch a show:
- David Schwimmer oh dear god, how does that guy get work. I have hatreds of most of the lame unfunnies from sitcoms. David Spade gets a big dog turd on his doorstep from me.
05. Name a show you can and do quote from:
- Futurama why not? Family Guy!
06. Name a show you like that no one else enjoys:
- Noone seems to like Heroes any more. It's clearly not cool these days. Terminifitator as well.
07. Name a TV show which you've been known to sing the theme song:
The Buffy one! Neow! Neow Neow Neow! By Nerf Herder, who even have a geeky name. Genius.
Firefly's which is lovely
It's a contractural obligation to sing the song to Red Dwarf.
(I should point out I now skip the tedious intro to TNG - YUCK!)
08. Name a show you would recommend everyone to watch:
- Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. Scribbles is in my head!
- Twin Peaks. Too many of my generation never saw it. Amazing stuff.
- Band of Brother is what Saving Private Ryan should be.
- The Wire - yes everyone says it's good but thats because it's really good. It's rare that hype is justified but here it really is.
-Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - failed in my opinion because it features the least likable leading lady in history and she's supposed to be a comedy actress but isn't even slightly funny. Everything else in this show is great.
09. Name a TV series you own on DVD:
- I own so blooming many. So I'll say lots, though I am proudest of my complete DVD sets of the X Files, Captain Scarlet, Babylon 5 and The West Wing
10. Name an actor who launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops in television:
-It's got to be Hugh Laurie. It's inhuman what he's done.
11. What is your favorite episode of your favorite series?
- Favourite series? Nah. Not going to get into that.
Favourite TV moments?
- In The Sopranos where Tony takes his friend on the boat but has to kill him since he's a traitor.
- In the X Files when they find the tunnels and tunnels full of filing cabinets with medical records and Fox's name was taped over with his sister's.
- In Futurama when we first meet Zapp Brannigan - Love's Labour's Lost in Space
- The first episode of Captain Scarlet is one ofthe best things you will ever see.
- Millions more
12. Name a show you keep meaning to watch but you just haven’t gotten around to yet:
- Spooks. Never had time what with all the other shows. Nice that the front covers of the box sets show you who dies though, eh?
13. Ever quit watching a show because it was so bad?
- Oh yes. Stand up, ST:Voyager!
14. Name a show that's made you cry multiple times:
- Sadly I am not one of nature's cryers. Sorry about that.
15. What do you eat when you watch TV?
- It is shaming to admit but we usually eat our main meal of the day in front of the TV. I know, how very lower class....
16. How often do you watch TV?
- All the time, when not watching movies. Do you all know I write a movie Blog? It's over at wall-shadows.blogspot.com
17. What's the last TV show you watched?
- We watched two episodes of Buffy tonight. We're in the middle of season two. One was the one where Ms Calendar finally runs out of luck and the other was the weird creepy demon who kills kids in the hospital. We then watched Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye.
18. What's your favorite/preferred genre of TV?
- There are only two types of TV, Good and Bad. I prefer good.
19. What was the first TV show you were obsessed with?
- Ulysses 31. I was an early bloomer. It was the first show me and my brothers actually watched all the way through. It looks toss now.
20. What TV show do you wish you never watched?
- I wish I'd never seen an episode of Lost. I was initially intrigued, but pretty much immediately bored. then everyone was going on about how great it was. I don't have the inclination to go back. Sorry Lost fans.
21. What is the weirdest show you enjoy?
- Easy. Twin Peaks.
22. What TV show scared you the most?
- Plus when I was very small I was terrified of Grotbags.
It was Zelda out of Terrahawks for me. Bloody terrifying!
23. What is the funniest TV show you have ever watched?
- Easily Futurama.
24. Do you prefer TV to films?
- No. TV series always have the chance to tell huger, more deep stories but ALWAYS mess it up. The closest we came was with Babylon 5(imho) but then the 5th season destroyed everything. They're very good but I think Films will always have the edge for me.
25. Name 3 TV relationships that you love.
Ooooh! Ooooh! A girly question!
- Dr Greg House and Dr James Wilson is the best written unequal friendship ever, I think.
- Josh and Donna from The West Wing
- Tim and Daisy in Spaced
A
See the full post by clicking here...
01. Name a TV show series in which you have seen every episode at least twice:
Firefly. Futurama. Band Of Brothers. Twin Peaks Season One (Only because I can't get my greasy mitts on a copy of season two). Sopranos. X-Files (even season 7... I know I know...) Babylon 5. Battlestar Galactica. This is usually because I watched them then watched them with Mrs Algo. Oh, and QI.
02. Name a show you can't miss:
House, Heroes (series 3 is turning out to be quite good), The Daily Show With John Stewart, Dr Who, QI, I can;t miss them because of BT Vision's season record feature. Yay!
03. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to watch a show:
Hugh Laurie, Nathan Fillion, Bradley Whitford
04. Name an actor who would make you less likely to watch a show:
- David Schwimmer oh dear god, how does that guy get work. I have hatreds of most of the lame unfunnies from sitcoms. David Spade gets a big dog turd on his doorstep from me.
05. Name a show you can and do quote from:
- Futurama why not? Family Guy!
06. Name a show you like that no one else enjoys:
- Noone seems to like Heroes any more. It's clearly not cool these days. Terminifitator as well.
07. Name a TV show which you've been known to sing the theme song:
The Buffy one! Neow! Neow Neow Neow! By Nerf Herder, who even have a geeky name. Genius.
Firefly's which is lovely
It's a contractural obligation to sing the song to Red Dwarf.
(I should point out I now skip the tedious intro to TNG - YUCK!)
08. Name a show you would recommend everyone to watch:
- Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. Scribbles is in my head!
- Twin Peaks. Too many of my generation never saw it. Amazing stuff.
- Band of Brother is what Saving Private Ryan should be.
- The Wire - yes everyone says it's good but thats because it's really good. It's rare that hype is justified but here it really is.
-Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - failed in my opinion because it features the least likable leading lady in history and she's supposed to be a comedy actress but isn't even slightly funny. Everything else in this show is great.
09. Name a TV series you own on DVD:
- I own so blooming many. So I'll say lots, though I am proudest of my complete DVD sets of the X Files, Captain Scarlet, Babylon 5 and The West Wing
10. Name an actor who launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops in television:
-It's got to be Hugh Laurie. It's inhuman what he's done.
11. What is your favorite episode of your favorite series?
- Favourite series? Nah. Not going to get into that.
Favourite TV moments?
- In The Sopranos where Tony takes his friend on the boat but has to kill him since he's a traitor.
- In the X Files when they find the tunnels and tunnels full of filing cabinets with medical records and Fox's name was taped over with his sister's.
- In Futurama when we first meet Zapp Brannigan - Love's Labour's Lost in Space
- The first episode of Captain Scarlet is one ofthe best things you will ever see.
- Millions more
12. Name a show you keep meaning to watch but you just haven’t gotten around to yet:
- Spooks. Never had time what with all the other shows. Nice that the front covers of the box sets show you who dies though, eh?
13. Ever quit watching a show because it was so bad?
- Oh yes. Stand up, ST:Voyager!
14. Name a show that's made you cry multiple times:
- Sadly I am not one of nature's cryers. Sorry about that.
15. What do you eat when you watch TV?
- It is shaming to admit but we usually eat our main meal of the day in front of the TV. I know, how very lower class....
16. How often do you watch TV?
- All the time, when not watching movies. Do you all know I write a movie Blog? It's over at wall-shadows.blogspot.com
17. What's the last TV show you watched?
- We watched two episodes of Buffy tonight. We're in the middle of season two. One was the one where Ms Calendar finally runs out of luck and the other was the weird creepy demon who kills kids in the hospital. We then watched Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye.
18. What's your favorite/preferred genre of TV?
- There are only two types of TV, Good and Bad. I prefer good.
19. What was the first TV show you were obsessed with?
- Ulysses 31. I was an early bloomer. It was the first show me and my brothers actually watched all the way through. It looks toss now.
20. What TV show do you wish you never watched?
- I wish I'd never seen an episode of Lost. I was initially intrigued, but pretty much immediately bored. then everyone was going on about how great it was. I don't have the inclination to go back. Sorry Lost fans.
21. What is the weirdest show you enjoy?
- Easy. Twin Peaks.
22. What TV show scared you the most?
- Plus when I was very small I was terrified of Grotbags.
It was Zelda out of Terrahawks for me. Bloody terrifying!
23. What is the funniest TV show you have ever watched?
- Easily Futurama.
24. Do you prefer TV to films?
- No. TV series always have the chance to tell huger, more deep stories but ALWAYS mess it up. The closest we came was with Babylon 5(imho) but then the 5th season destroyed everything. They're very good but I think Films will always have the edge for me.
25. Name 3 TV relationships that you love.
Ooooh! Ooooh! A girly question!
- Dr Greg House and Dr James Wilson is the best written unequal friendship ever, I think.
- Josh and Donna from The West Wing
- Tim and Daisy in Spaced
A
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Bond Again - A parallel I didn't mention
Hi folks... regular readers will no doubt have read the review of Quantum Of Solace in which I described a potted history of Bond being unoriginal and repeating the same plots.
Well, it would be truly blind of me not to post this little thought-provoker for y'all.
By necessity it is majorly spoilerific so....
DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN QUANTUM OF SOLACE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Right... still here?
So, it's regarding For Your Eyes Only.
Remember Melina Havelock?
Her character is first met on the cusp of exacting murderous revenge for the assassination of her family. Bond, who is investigating her target, inadvertently prevents her from doing so. She is upset and he agrees to help her out, taking her with him to the set-piece finale and they achieve revenge and resolution together.
Sound familiar, Camille? The only real differences between the characters of Melina and Camille is that Melina is persuaded not to actually go through with the act of murder, whereas things are different for Camille. Kristatos, who is the Havelock nemesis (played by a frankly rubbish Julian Glover), meets his end at the hands of Topol instead, so isn't spared. The other crucial difference is that Bond and Camille do not sleep together. If only Roger Moore had been able to restrain himself too.
So damn it, even this Bond is a recycler of old plots. Bugger it.
I still think it's worth an 8/10, but my conscience is now clear.
As an aside, that purveyor of made up rumour and rubbish, The Metro's Neal Sean quoted Daniel Craig as being keen on remaking iconic Bond movie, Goldfinger. I am really hoping this is just hot air from the doofus, keep in mind for the future that I am absolutely against remakes of earlier movies in the series. Yuck!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Well, it would be truly blind of me not to post this little thought-provoker for y'all.
By necessity it is majorly spoilerific so....
DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN QUANTUM OF SOLACE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Right... still here?
So, it's regarding For Your Eyes Only.
Remember Melina Havelock?
Her character is first met on the cusp of exacting murderous revenge for the assassination of her family. Bond, who is investigating her target, inadvertently prevents her from doing so. She is upset and he agrees to help her out, taking her with him to the set-piece finale and they achieve revenge and resolution together.
Sound familiar, Camille? The only real differences between the characters of Melina and Camille is that Melina is persuaded not to actually go through with the act of murder, whereas things are different for Camille. Kristatos, who is the Havelock nemesis (played by a frankly rubbish Julian Glover), meets his end at the hands of Topol instead, so isn't spared. The other crucial difference is that Bond and Camille do not sleep together. If only Roger Moore had been able to restrain himself too.
So damn it, even this Bond is a recycler of old plots. Bugger it.
I still think it's worth an 8/10, but my conscience is now clear.
As an aside, that purveyor of made up rumour and rubbish, The Metro's Neal Sean quoted Daniel Craig as being keen on remaking iconic Bond movie, Goldfinger. I am really hoping this is just hot air from the doofus, keep in mind for the future that I am absolutely against remakes of earlier movies in the series. Yuck!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Monday, November 10, 2008
Quick Movie Review: Scream Of Fear
5/10
1961 black and white hammer for you today folks.
You know, these days it's very common for movies to be overcomplicated, either with too many characters or a desire for some sort of post sixth sense ironic twisty plot or comeuppances galore.
So it's nice occasionally to have an enjoyable experience on a small scale, and while this particular offering is hardly an all time classic I found it a fun way to spend an hour and a half and the twists, while contrived, are not crowbarred in but a necessary and important part of the structure.
The plot is as follows - we are in the south of France as long-estranged Penny returns to her family home after 9 years to find her father has remarried and is strangely away from the house despite being the one who contacted her.
She's picked up at the airport by your typical square jawed hero type, the family's chaffeur who helps her out and is the only one she trusts since her step mother is clearly up to something and the family doctor is Christopher Lee with a french accent, and who would trust Christopher Lee? No matter what his accent is.
Thing get a lot more interesting as despite all the evidence that he is still alive, Penny begins to see the corpse of her father around the house, but it mysteriously vanishes whenever she tries to get anyone to look for it.
So far so obvious... mother is bad and in league with Dracula (sorry, Christopher Lee's Dr Gerard) to drive the girl mad and steal her inheritance, but the twist that does eventually come is cleverer than you'd think as it the fate of the nefarious persons in question. Damn them!
It's far from perfect, it has plot holes down to a fine art (the chief one being - why not just kill her as soon as she arrives?) but its a fair crack at something a little different.
As I say, it's not one to invest £20 in a special edition DVD of, but it's nice to be surprised by something in a good way for a change. It's a small scale thriller rather than the scary horror its title implies, and gets a workaday 5 out of 10.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
1961 black and white hammer for you today folks.
You know, these days it's very common for movies to be overcomplicated, either with too many characters or a desire for some sort of post sixth sense ironic twisty plot or comeuppances galore.
So it's nice occasionally to have an enjoyable experience on a small scale, and while this particular offering is hardly an all time classic I found it a fun way to spend an hour and a half and the twists, while contrived, are not crowbarred in but a necessary and important part of the structure.
The plot is as follows - we are in the south of France as long-estranged Penny returns to her family home after 9 years to find her father has remarried and is strangely away from the house despite being the one who contacted her.
She's picked up at the airport by your typical square jawed hero type, the family's chaffeur who helps her out and is the only one she trusts since her step mother is clearly up to something and the family doctor is Christopher Lee with a french accent, and who would trust Christopher Lee? No matter what his accent is.
Thing get a lot more interesting as despite all the evidence that he is still alive, Penny begins to see the corpse of her father around the house, but it mysteriously vanishes whenever she tries to get anyone to look for it.
So far so obvious... mother is bad and in league with Dracula (sorry, Christopher Lee's Dr Gerard) to drive the girl mad and steal her inheritance, but the twist that does eventually come is cleverer than you'd think as it the fate of the nefarious persons in question. Damn them!
It's far from perfect, it has plot holes down to a fine art (the chief one being - why not just kill her as soon as she arrives?) but its a fair crack at something a little different.
As I say, it's not one to invest £20 in a special edition DVD of, but it's nice to be surprised by something in a good way for a change. It's a small scale thriller rather than the scary horror its title implies, and gets a workaday 5 out of 10.
A
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Sunday, November 9, 2008
Movie Review: The Fisher King
9/10
It's exceptional. I laughed, I almost cried , I was enthralled and I was entertained.
It's just damn brilliant I tell you!
So what is it about The Fisher King that means Terry Gilliam should be allowed to make as many losses as he can (and frequently does)?
It stars the fabulous Jeff Bridges and the hot and cold Robin Williams (sometimes very very good, sometimes a lot like Rob Schneider) as two people who have lost everything are are on a long downward slope to destruction.
Together they take a typically obtuse route to mutual redemption and, ultimately, to mutual forgiveness. There isn't a huge amount of story to spoil, but I won't do it here.
The character of Parry is perfect for Williams, channelling his usual gurning into something more real and affecting than usual, and yet not losing his charm completely as he did in such performances as Insomnia and One Hour Photo.
Jeff Bridges is his usual likable self initially and we would be forgiven for being surprised when having made one misjdged remark to a caller on air he is utterly destroyed mentally by its repercussions. His performance in the first half hour especially is nothing short of breathtaking.
Gilliam's usual talent for finding beauty from adverse conditions (as in the ridiculously expensive looking yet cheap forest shots in Holy Grail) is at its peak here, in one standout sequence turning Grand Central Station into one of the most heart rendingly beautiful sequences I have seen in years. It's a pretty famous sequence but I won't explain it in detail, suffice to say it is perfect.
We also get this films version of the Gilliam "evil" vision (The japanese warrior in Brazil and the scary face of God in Time Bandits spring to mind as his other uses of this device) in the form of the Red Knight, a potent visual and psychological symbol of Parry's inner guilt and trauma. He is wonderfully terrifying and brilliantly realised with even his headdress representing clearly the exact moment Parry was traumatised.
Bridge's Jack's girlfriend got the best supporting actress oscar for her performance and that's all well and good, since she's very good but all of the performances were superb and I highly recommend this film to everybody. Go see it!
SPOILER ALERT!
I love this film and it came very close to a Gary-baiting 10, but the ending was a little too neat to match the tone for the rest of the film. It wasn't a problem for me, but a little bravery wouldn't have hurt it, so it gets a very high 9.
A
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It's exceptional. I laughed, I almost cried , I was enthralled and I was entertained.
It's just damn brilliant I tell you!
So what is it about The Fisher King that means Terry Gilliam should be allowed to make as many losses as he can (and frequently does)?
It stars the fabulous Jeff Bridges and the hot and cold Robin Williams (sometimes very very good, sometimes a lot like Rob Schneider) as two people who have lost everything are are on a long downward slope to destruction.
Together they take a typically obtuse route to mutual redemption and, ultimately, to mutual forgiveness. There isn't a huge amount of story to spoil, but I won't do it here.
The character of Parry is perfect for Williams, channelling his usual gurning into something more real and affecting than usual, and yet not losing his charm completely as he did in such performances as Insomnia and One Hour Photo.
Jeff Bridges is his usual likable self initially and we would be forgiven for being surprised when having made one misjdged remark to a caller on air he is utterly destroyed mentally by its repercussions. His performance in the first half hour especially is nothing short of breathtaking.
Gilliam's usual talent for finding beauty from adverse conditions (as in the ridiculously expensive looking yet cheap forest shots in Holy Grail) is at its peak here, in one standout sequence turning Grand Central Station into one of the most heart rendingly beautiful sequences I have seen in years. It's a pretty famous sequence but I won't explain it in detail, suffice to say it is perfect.
We also get this films version of the Gilliam "evil" vision (The japanese warrior in Brazil and the scary face of God in Time Bandits spring to mind as his other uses of this device) in the form of the Red Knight, a potent visual and psychological symbol of Parry's inner guilt and trauma. He is wonderfully terrifying and brilliantly realised with even his headdress representing clearly the exact moment Parry was traumatised.
Bridge's Jack's girlfriend got the best supporting actress oscar for her performance and that's all well and good, since she's very good but all of the performances were superb and I highly recommend this film to everybody. Go see it!
SPOILER ALERT!
I love this film and it came very close to a Gary-baiting 10, but the ending was a little too neat to match the tone for the rest of the film. It wasn't a problem for me, but a little bravery wouldn't have hurt it, so it gets a very high 9.
A
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Friday, November 7, 2008
Yes... thats a Haiku
I love Haikus. I am rubbish at writing them. For the time being why not enjoy the one at the top of the main page. Go on. Look at it. I'm sure you can do better.
Add your summation of this blog in Haiku form below. Or don't.
A
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Add your summation of this blog in Haiku form below. Or don't.
A
See the full post by clicking here...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Movie Review: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
6/10
Howdy, y'all.
Remember my review of The Day the Earth Stood Still? I'm gonna quote from it in a really self obsessed way:
Now, this version we saw was the original. Not the Donald Sutherland, no.
And not the Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman one. What do you mean you've never heard of that version? It came out this year. After being on the shelf for a year and a half. It got reedited about fifty times. Then they reshot bits because it made no sense. Can you tell it sucks yet?
Anyway, as in the remakes there's a small US town which is seeing changes in people's personalities caused (not to our knowledge until later) by weird seed pods from outerspace which copy you and, in the manner of Windows Media ripping your CDs, get the superficial details right but lose something in the transfer. The resulting facsimiles are no longer human.
The "pod people" are emotionless, loveless and content through ignorance of discontent - this being a fairly searing commentary on what the Cold War and red fear was doing to America at the time the film was made. People's humanity was getting sucked out by fear and hate, and the seeming inevitability of a bad outcome to the conflict between the USA and USSR. This is the movies moral, in the fight against communism (or other evil) it is important to remain true to who you are and to retain your humanity in the face of adversity.
Hey, it's still a hokey concept, and the remake with Donald Sutherland is considerably more successful at capturing a certain malaise after the love era of the late 60s than this is at picturing McCarthyist era America, but still worth a watch in any circumstance.
It is hard in these days of naturalistic acting and realism to judge a movie fairly, contending with a hard boiled voice over narration and square jawed leading man Kevin McCarthy being hyper serious in that "Honest Joe" character that sci fi always kicks out. Sarah Palin would love this guy.
The acting is all fine for the time, though the differentiation between them acting woodenly as humans and then acting slightly more woodenly as pod people is sometimes hard to be certain of.
The film makes a hideous plotholetastic (a new word!) error late on, when a major character's transformation does not follow the film's internal logic (no pod is nearby and the character's original body is not destroyed) and its a shame that the original ending (as bleak as the 70s version's) was compromised and a more optimistic (though not conclusively so) prologue and epilogue were added, but they did things differently back then.
You can always go back to The Third Man if it's moral ambiguity you want.
So overall it's an inoffensive and pretty good 50s sci fi movie with a well thought out and ingenious premise. I recommend the 70s version over this one any day but there's no reason to avoid this one like the plague. Decent showing.
A
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Howdy, y'all.
Remember my review of The Day the Earth Stood Still? I'm gonna quote from it in a really self obsessed way:
The cold war angle is much more sensitively handled (in this film) than in the vast majority of "sci fi as red paranoia" films of this eraAnd rather than get a good example of the other side of the coin, the very next sci-fi film from this era we watch is actually an anti-McCarthy movie rather than the "reds under the bed" story it superficially resembles. I hope to see a real "communists as aliens" movie so I can show you what I meant soon, sorry about that.
Now, this version we saw was the original. Not the Donald Sutherland, no.
And not the Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman one. What do you mean you've never heard of that version? It came out this year. After being on the shelf for a year and a half. It got reedited about fifty times. Then they reshot bits because it made no sense. Can you tell it sucks yet?
Anyway, as in the remakes there's a small US town which is seeing changes in people's personalities caused (not to our knowledge until later) by weird seed pods from outerspace which copy you and, in the manner of Windows Media ripping your CDs, get the superficial details right but lose something in the transfer. The resulting facsimiles are no longer human.
The "pod people" are emotionless, loveless and content through ignorance of discontent - this being a fairly searing commentary on what the Cold War and red fear was doing to America at the time the film was made. People's humanity was getting sucked out by fear and hate, and the seeming inevitability of a bad outcome to the conflict between the USA and USSR. This is the movies moral, in the fight against communism (or other evil) it is important to remain true to who you are and to retain your humanity in the face of adversity.
Hey, it's still a hokey concept, and the remake with Donald Sutherland is considerably more successful at capturing a certain malaise after the love era of the late 60s than this is at picturing McCarthyist era America, but still worth a watch in any circumstance.
It is hard in these days of naturalistic acting and realism to judge a movie fairly, contending with a hard boiled voice over narration and square jawed leading man Kevin McCarthy being hyper serious in that "Honest Joe" character that sci fi always kicks out. Sarah Palin would love this guy.
The acting is all fine for the time, though the differentiation between them acting woodenly as humans and then acting slightly more woodenly as pod people is sometimes hard to be certain of.
The film makes a hideous plotholetastic (a new word!) error late on, when a major character's transformation does not follow the film's internal logic (no pod is nearby and the character's original body is not destroyed) and its a shame that the original ending (as bleak as the 70s version's) was compromised and a more optimistic (though not conclusively so) prologue and epilogue were added, but they did things differently back then.
You can always go back to The Third Man if it's moral ambiguity you want.
So overall it's an inoffensive and pretty good 50s sci fi movie with a well thought out and ingenious premise. I recommend the 70s version over this one any day but there's no reason to avoid this one like the plague. Decent showing.
A
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obligatory Obama Hooray Post (TM)
So Obama. Hooray.
I've never had a problem with John McCain per se, he seems a really nice guy, a great servant to his country and his concession speech will go down as one of the most magnanimous and mature concessions ever.
I will never forgive him, however, for putting the crazed god botherer from Wasilla, Sarah Palin, in a position where she could be the most powerful person in the world. The concept that someone so out of touch with reality and in league with groups who believe in witchcraft amongst other things could control our futures (and don't deny The US President is far more than one country's leader) filled me with horror and disgust.
So while you celebrate (and you should) the first Black president and the victory for human and civil rights that represents we should also cheer a nightmare averted, a horrific mistep by the electorate caused by one man's bad choice of running mate avoided. So hooray for that.
Ah well, we are all lucky.
But let me also add: Obama YAY!
A
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I've never had a problem with John McCain per se, he seems a really nice guy, a great servant to his country and his concession speech will go down as one of the most magnanimous and mature concessions ever.
I will never forgive him, however, for putting the crazed god botherer from Wasilla, Sarah Palin, in a position where she could be the most powerful person in the world. The concept that someone so out of touch with reality and in league with groups who believe in witchcraft amongst other things could control our futures (and don't deny The US President is far more than one country's leader) filled me with horror and disgust.
So while you celebrate (and you should) the first Black president and the victory for human and civil rights that represents we should also cheer a nightmare averted, a horrific mistep by the electorate caused by one man's bad choice of running mate avoided. So hooray for that.
Ah well, we are all lucky.
But let me also add: Obama YAY!
A
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Movie Review: The Incredibles
8/10
It's common knowledge that Pixar have yet to make anything less than a great movie.
So there's no question that The Incredibles is brilliant. But where in the pantheon of Pixar's greatest hits does it come? Well, for those of you that read the review I wrote some time ago, Cars is by far and away the least awesome of their work, suffering from a strange "inanimate objects as people" aesthetic that didn't work as well as Toy Story beause in the end a car with a face is still just a car. A toy has a major connection with childhood and all of them are lovable. I just couldn't work out what a Car has in the way of a sympathetic connection with the audience.
The weakest link in Toy Story were the real humans, just much worse in terms of animation and characterisation than their "inanimate" counterparts. The Incredibles benefits greatly from the jump in technology. As a result, the facial and body animation, while cartoon in nature are a lot better than the early CGI of Toy Story.
What Pixar always excel at is a great story with a message that isn't quite as obviously thrust down the audience's throat as most Disneyfied fare. Our tale here is about a superhero who had to give it up and go into hiding following a damages suit that costs the government millions in compensation. We find Mr Incredible far from saving the world stuck in an insurance firm.
This is, for the adults, by far and away the best part of the movie as genuine pathos and sadness is communicated by the family's actions and most importantly their computerised "performances" are pitch perfect.
It's genuinely funny, too. In the first section when Mr Incredible's temper gets the better of him and he takes it out on his car it's hard to resist laughing out loud and why the hell should you anyway? Sure it's a kids film in theory, but my goodness there's more to it than that. Plus it has Holly Hunter in it. How many kids films has she been in. It's ok to laugh.. go on.
For me the film loses a bit when the characters decide to don their suits and fight evil for real, but its never dull and actually never anything less than great fun.
I don't need to tell you this again, but Pixar may well be the most consistent studio out there in terms of the sheer quality of its output - I suppose its easier to double check your work when your film takes years rather than weeks to shoot - so give anything with the brand on it a go.
So I said I'd explain where it places in the Pixar "oeuvre"... it's better than Cars and probably better than Monsters Inc too. It's slightly less wonderful than Ratatouille and Toy Story 1 & 2 though. I have to say I anticipate WALL:E stealing Toy Story 2's place at the top of the pile. It's on my rental list though, so keep an Eye out for the review once I've seen it.
Yay for Pixar!
A
See the full post by clicking here...
It's common knowledge that Pixar have yet to make anything less than a great movie.
So there's no question that The Incredibles is brilliant. But where in the pantheon of Pixar's greatest hits does it come? Well, for those of you that read the review I wrote some time ago, Cars is by far and away the least awesome of their work, suffering from a strange "inanimate objects as people" aesthetic that didn't work as well as Toy Story beause in the end a car with a face is still just a car. A toy has a major connection with childhood and all of them are lovable. I just couldn't work out what a Car has in the way of a sympathetic connection with the audience.
The weakest link in Toy Story were the real humans, just much worse in terms of animation and characterisation than their "inanimate" counterparts. The Incredibles benefits greatly from the jump in technology. As a result, the facial and body animation, while cartoon in nature are a lot better than the early CGI of Toy Story.
What Pixar always excel at is a great story with a message that isn't quite as obviously thrust down the audience's throat as most Disneyfied fare. Our tale here is about a superhero who had to give it up and go into hiding following a damages suit that costs the government millions in compensation. We find Mr Incredible far from saving the world stuck in an insurance firm.
This is, for the adults, by far and away the best part of the movie as genuine pathos and sadness is communicated by the family's actions and most importantly their computerised "performances" are pitch perfect.
It's genuinely funny, too. In the first section when Mr Incredible's temper gets the better of him and he takes it out on his car it's hard to resist laughing out loud and why the hell should you anyway? Sure it's a kids film in theory, but my goodness there's more to it than that. Plus it has Holly Hunter in it. How many kids films has she been in. It's ok to laugh.. go on.
For me the film loses a bit when the characters decide to don their suits and fight evil for real, but its never dull and actually never anything less than great fun.
I don't need to tell you this again, but Pixar may well be the most consistent studio out there in terms of the sheer quality of its output - I suppose its easier to double check your work when your film takes years rather than weeks to shoot - so give anything with the brand on it a go.
So I said I'd explain where it places in the Pixar "oeuvre"... it's better than Cars and probably better than Monsters Inc too. It's slightly less wonderful than Ratatouille and Toy Story 1 & 2 though. I have to say I anticipate WALL:E stealing Toy Story 2's place at the top of the pile. It's on my rental list though, so keep an Eye out for the review once I've seen it.
Yay for Pixar!
A
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Movie Review: Wanted
3/10
There are good action films, there are great action films and there are superb action films.
Wanted is none of these.
The best action movies show heart, sophistication and originality. All three of these are sorely lacking in Wanted's strange Gun-Pornography based worldview.
This is a story which has a moral of "My life was crap till I started killing people" and even as a tongue in cheek condemnation of America's obsession with shooting white hot pieces of metal around it has been done before - remember that at the beginning of the Matrix, when Neo was stuck in a dead end office job in a cubicle? It's basically Xeroxed for the start of this movie.
Many movies require some form of suspension of disbelief to function, but this is just plain daft. This boring weedy loser is the son of a famous assassin who was part of the "fraternity", a society of Weavers (!) who can bend bullets round corners (!!) and get their targets from "the loom of fate" (!!!). He is brought in to catch his fathers killer and trained (in a montage, for god's sake!) to be rock hard and gun happy. Woo hoo!!! U S A! U S A!
Silly premise aside, is the film fun? Well, only in a truly braindead sort of way, there's lots of bangs and some fairly cool gadgets like a bullet that fires itself over miles and has "stages" like a moonrocket being the daft highlight. Thing is, it's utterly morally bankrupt - at one stage to catch this one target the protagonists cause a train crash which clealy kills hundreds of people with no remorse or even acknowledgement from the main characters who are too caught up in the hilariously obvious "twist" to care, and the script has no condemnation for such behaviour.
Add the woeful performance of Angelina (pouting is not always acting) Jolie to a completely miscast Morgan Freeman (who sounds like a friendly narrator even when using the F word) and James McAvoys vain attempts to find some depth in the plot or character and you really have a colossal waste of money on your hands. All of these actors are talented, and certainly can do better than this and should hang their heads in shame.
I didn't pay a penny to see this (my dear brother had rented it) and I am really grateful for that. I like the director, Timur Bekmambitov's earlier films, the impossible-to-follow-if-you-haven't-read-the-books Night Watch and Day Watch, The fantastic frazzled shining star of which, Konstanin Khabensky is wasted in a role that says nothing but "this creepy russian, isn't he funny?" Both of these films had tonnes of style, but they also had oodles of substance from their deep and fascinating source material to back them up.
Wanted has no substance. Aside from the side effects of an absurd budget there is no film here. Every action scene is far less interesting than the Matrix series it owes its inspiration to and the most spectactular set pieces are hilariously drawn out in super slo mo, kind of the opposite problem that Bond's latest outing has.
However, whereas Bond in Quantum of Solace is a character you care about and want to share a journey with, none of the characters in Wanted are sympathetic and none should be allowed to live on in any but their hideous memory forms.
I hope noone thinks this is a franchise. You could have five small scale Guillermo Del Toro horror films for this budget. Seriously. Spend the money on Chocolate or something. You'll have a better time.
A
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There are good action films, there are great action films and there are superb action films.
Wanted is none of these.
The best action movies show heart, sophistication and originality. All three of these are sorely lacking in Wanted's strange Gun-Pornography based worldview.
This is a story which has a moral of "My life was crap till I started killing people" and even as a tongue in cheek condemnation of America's obsession with shooting white hot pieces of metal around it has been done before - remember that at the beginning of the Matrix, when Neo was stuck in a dead end office job in a cubicle? It's basically Xeroxed for the start of this movie.
Many movies require some form of suspension of disbelief to function, but this is just plain daft. This boring weedy loser is the son of a famous assassin who was part of the "fraternity", a society of Weavers (!) who can bend bullets round corners (!!) and get their targets from "the loom of fate" (!!!). He is brought in to catch his fathers killer and trained (in a montage, for god's sake!) to be rock hard and gun happy. Woo hoo!!! U S A! U S A!
Silly premise aside, is the film fun? Well, only in a truly braindead sort of way, there's lots of bangs and some fairly cool gadgets like a bullet that fires itself over miles and has "stages" like a moonrocket being the daft highlight. Thing is, it's utterly morally bankrupt - at one stage to catch this one target the protagonists cause a train crash which clealy kills hundreds of people with no remorse or even acknowledgement from the main characters who are too caught up in the hilariously obvious "twist" to care, and the script has no condemnation for such behaviour.
Add the woeful performance of Angelina (pouting is not always acting) Jolie to a completely miscast Morgan Freeman (who sounds like a friendly narrator even when using the F word) and James McAvoys vain attempts to find some depth in the plot or character and you really have a colossal waste of money on your hands. All of these actors are talented, and certainly can do better than this and should hang their heads in shame.
I didn't pay a penny to see this (my dear brother had rented it) and I am really grateful for that. I like the director, Timur Bekmambitov's earlier films, the impossible-to-follow-if-you-haven't-read-the-books Night Watch and Day Watch, The fantastic frazzled shining star of which, Konstanin Khabensky is wasted in a role that says nothing but "this creepy russian, isn't he funny?" Both of these films had tonnes of style, but they also had oodles of substance from their deep and fascinating source material to back them up.
Wanted has no substance. Aside from the side effects of an absurd budget there is no film here. Every action scene is far less interesting than the Matrix series it owes its inspiration to and the most spectactular set pieces are hilariously drawn out in super slo mo, kind of the opposite problem that Bond's latest outing has.
However, whereas Bond in Quantum of Solace is a character you care about and want to share a journey with, none of the characters in Wanted are sympathetic and none should be allowed to live on in any but their hideous memory forms.
I hope noone thinks this is a franchise. You could have five small scale Guillermo Del Toro horror films for this budget. Seriously. Spend the money on Chocolate or something. You'll have a better time.
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