Movie Review: The Proposition

8/10

I'm a western fan. Not all of them leave a good taste in the mouth but many are epic and majestic in scale while being very focussed on the message they want to put over and the characters in them.

This particular film is not a Western in the literal sense but in the stylistic sense there is nothing else it could be. It's actually set in Australia, during the period in which the land was being settled and "civilised" by the British and turned into a viable colony.

We are introduced to all our main protagonists immediately, Guy Pearce plays a hardened criminal, Charlie Burns, who left his brothers gang after a recent atrocity, taking their youngest brother with him. Problem is they've been caught by the local law, in the guise of Ray Winstone's troubled cop, Captain Stanley. He offers them a "proposition", namely that he won't hang the youngest brother if Guy Pearce is prepared to go kill his older brother, who is responsible for the atrocity we hear of at the start.

We basically go on from there, as Winstone tries to hold down the fort at home, while Pearce heads off to find his brohter, who is hiding in the outback with the remaining gang.

I really enjoyed this film in fact, though I was concerned as its scriptwriter is Nick Cave of all people - and some of his harsher, blackly comic outlook has clearly made it through the filmmaking process to affect the final result.

Acting is all excellent, though the real standout performances are those of Winstone as Stanley and that of his wife, Martha, played by Emily Watson. Their relationship is a rare one, in that it is solid as a rock from start to finish - even when they have the major set to their arcs requires, you always feel that love remains strong between them.

It's not perfect, naturally, while the concentration of a larger part of the movie than usual on the Winstone character is refreshing it does mean that Charlie Burns and his journey feels absurdly quick. With one short altercation with Joh Hurt (who clearly relishes his part) his trek is over, and we are at that point just waiting for him to come to a decision.

But really, this is a complaint for the purists to have. This story is far more concerned with the other part - back at the town - and how the township's desire for vengeance turns them into monsters, perhaps momentarily but undeniably.

The soundtrack is a bit odd too, occasionally so strange that the mood is quite defined by how you reconcile the music with the action. This may be annoying for some people, I thought it was innovative and quite refreshing.

I liked this film considerably, you may not, but its in the television merry-go-round now, so won't cost you anything to see next time. Check it out.

A
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Wall-Shadows review score distribution

I must admit, good old Gary got me thinking, so here is the distribution of scores so far.

Unfortunately, me and OpenOffice are having a little domestic so I couldn;t get the X-Axis labelling right.

To get the score then, subtract 2 from the row name underneath the bar.

Scores start at "Row 2" with 0 and end at "row 12" with 10.

As I expected it displays a skewed distribution (since the selection of movies to watch is not random) but it still shows the classic shape just peaking at 7 instead of 5.

With this in mind I find that I am happy with the first 10 months reviewage and will continue on the path I tread now.

A
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Thin ice, but you'll get my point.

Over the Christmas period myself and my lovely wife watched a film of Richard Pryor's standup.

It was very funny.

A portion of his show is dedicated to the differences between black people and white people, along the lines of White people being a bit uptight and black people being not so uptight.

Now, this is all fine (and very, very funny) but how many white performers would get away with similar humour? Someone like Jimmy Carr is happy to have bash at jokes about religion, politics or taboos like incest but how many does he really tell about race?

It has its roots in something very "white". SHAME.

Classic Shame material is The Black And White Minstrel Show - here's something shameful:

Look at this! A guy colouring himself as a different race and performing demeaning and pathetic stereotyped behaviours of that race in order to get cheap laughs. Sick and wrong.










But look at this:


How is this any different? This film grossed more than 8o million dollars and is JUST as racist as the Black And White Minstrel Show. Was that even an issue? Nah.

It's also total arse as movie go, but even if it was genius on Blazing Saddles or Airplane! levels it would still be just as racist.

But why don't we moan about it?

Oh yeah - SHAME!

We "white folk" did things that were as bad once, true. That doesn't mean other races have the right to be annoyed about them AND THEN DO THE SAME THINGS!

If you do the same thing then you lose any moral high ground you had on the issue!

I mean, if someone I love is killed in a car accident, that doesn't give me the right to come and run over the son of the other driver because they did it first!

Sigh. Rant over.

A
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Would you say that I had a PLETHORA of reviews?

Oh yes.... you have a plethora!

I promised you'd be seeing reviews appear and golly here they are!

I'm still a little behind but I'm back on track and should be right up to date in the next couple of days.

To explain the shortness of many of them; I originally wrote one post and wrote them all in it, but thought I may as well separate them out for linking purposes. I hope you enjoy them. the only one that has content you need to click through to read is that for Fear City.

You may also notice (especially Gary over at musings cafe, who hates me doing this) that I have already awarded the first 10/10 of 2009. Simply put we have saved some real all time classics from our LoveFilm list for after the Christmas period (tomorrows movie is Kurosawa's Seven Samurai) and I have little hesitation in saying that The Apartment (which I have never seen before) truly deserves such lofty praise.

Full review to follow.

A
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Quick Movie Review: Battle Royale II

5/10

I really liked the first one. This one is stylish and exciting, but makes no sense. The characters are no longer desperate and believable, they are absurd in contrast to the schoolteacher played with such genius by Takeshi Kitano in the original, we have another who just left the panto stage by the looks of it. The plot is simple, the references obvious (The Alamo/Butch and Sundance much?) but its message is unclear - are we, in this day and age, really meant to be siding with terrorists? I mean, things aren't always blacka nd white, but this seems distasteful especially since the shot which opens the movie is these terrorists levelling 7 or 8 city skyscrapers full of people.

I am undecided as yet as to whether this weird message is hateful or not, but at the moment it gets a "meh".
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Movie Review: Fear City

2/10

It's harsh to bash a film you know is going to be awful, but this was my Christmas present from my old buddy Chris (who I incidentally bought Tobe Hooper's Crocodile for his birthday, so I deserved this). We are connoisseurs of the crap film, having especial love for the triumvurate of Tom Berenger, Billy Zane, and Arnold Vosloo. Of these three, this film only featured Tom Berenger but gave us the bonus rubbishness of Melanie Griffith and Billy Dee Williams.

It is gloriously terrible, though not in the fun way many of our movie choices are, and about halfway in I found the comedy gave way to a seeping depression. What's the movie about? Wel, some freak is killing strippers and other "scum" on the streets of the city. Our heroes run a talent agency for strippers and Tom himself is a retired boxer (he killed a guy in the ring, btw) and they eventually decide to try and stop the killer themselves.

It makes many horrific and hilarious movie errors, one is that it allows a whole sentence of dialogue to be slowed down in the boxing flashback ("yoooooooouuuuu! whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy diiiiiiiiidn'tttt yoooooooouuuuuu stooooooooop theeeeeeeee fiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhht?), the bad guy is played by a martial artist who can't act so his dialogue is limited to a voiceover that seems to have been written by a teenager and it equates hand waving with character development.

But what of our stars? You may well ask, Berenger is not known for his range, and even this role is too much for him. Melanie Griffith gets her tits out a lot but is not prepared to kiss her (female) lover since that would be distasteful (!) and Billy Dee WIlliams clearly doesn;t want to be there. I mean that literally, his dialogue is delivered in a style only describable as "early finish". It is the most phoned in performance I've seen for ages.

And there are a lot of breasts. It's as if the director just shot a load of footage of the strippers (poor choice of words there, for which I apologise) and then had to justify it to his wife by including as much of it as possible. Like all seedy little movies of its kind, the women's strips don't come over as sexy, more grotesque and depressing.

These films survive to be watched due to a form of ridiculousness that renders them sort of "cult" - surely noone looks at the box for this, or for that matter Crocodile and thinks they are going to be good? Especially when you consider that for the price of three of these bad movies I got a copy of 2001: A Space Oddessy (at least, when I bought it that was the price).

Nevertheless even for connoisseurs such as myself and Chris, you're better off with something else.
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Very Quick Movie Review: Carry On Screaming

6/10

The best Carry On for me barring Cleo. Dated as hell, but worth watching just for the joy of spending time with Fenella Fielding, who is literally smoking hot in this movie. And that's a correct use of "literally" by the way. For trivia fans, I looked up the guy who sang the theme song and it turns out he's a famous poet too (actually, it's Ray Pilgrim singing it).
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Quick Movie Review: Airplane!

9/10

Simply put the best of its kind, if a joke doesn't make you laugh never mind, there'll be five along in the next two minutes. Solely responsible for the comedy career of Leslie Nielsen, it makes a genius move of mainly casting people who were "serious" actors up to that point, which gives them the ability to deliver lines as silly as the old...

"They've got to get to a hospital as soon as possible"
"To the Hospital? What is it?"
"It's a big building full of sick people, but that's not important right now"

...with a straight face, rendering them a lot sillier. Everytime I watch it I experience something new or forgotten, like listening to the tannoy announcers have a domestic at the beginning, or the pilot who has to talk the plane down stepping through his mirror.

Genius.
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Quick Movie Review: Lucky Number Slevin

6/10

Not half as clever as it thinks it is, this is a fairly enjoyable post usual suspects romp in whcih a man is mistaken for an indebted mob crony. All ridiculous from start to finish but studded with a fine if limited performance from Bruce Willis (didn't know he was capable!) and a good one from Lucy Liu. The baddies are silly, the plot is obvious, the twists inevitable. Nevertheless, I at no stage felt particularly bored.
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TV Review: The Box Of Delights

7/10

Strictly it's a TV serial, but we watched it as a three hour movie, and it's ok in this format. It's traditional to watch it every year (Mrs Algo gets the shakes if we don't) so its score, like that of Three Amigos! is a little questionable, but it retains its magic despite some of the most dated effects I saw all year (and I'm a Blakes 7 fan!). The cast is great, as ever the lead is irritating and nowhere near as talented as half the reast of the kids. Robert Stephens shines as the villain,a nd Patrick Troughton who I love in everything is pure fantasy genius. The last episode is a bit of a letdown though, especially the "and it was all a dream" finale.
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Quick Movie Review: Sinbad

5/10

Dreamworks. Poor old Dreamworks. You try and try but no matter what you do people can't stop talking about that Pixar bunch. Well, maybe you need to take a leaf out of their book and invest in better scripts since this obvious moral message movie has little of the charm of Toy Story, or even Cars. It's well animated, and the voice cast is more than game, but it's nothing special. And come on! If you're doing Sinbad you need stop motion. It's the law.
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Quick Movie Review: Scrooged

7/10

Bill Murray has always been one talented guy, and here he makes a fairly silly retread of the old Christmas Carol story rise above the pitfalls of bad fashions, mullets and general 80s evil money grabbing scum. Karen Allen is perky and lovable as his lost love and the Ghost Of Christmas Present gains a lot from her reimagining as a borderline psychotic with a penchant for punching. In the age of greed it was probably an ideal time to tell this story again, and cheesy as it is it's one of the better movies made for the Christmas market.
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Movie Review: The Golden Compass

3/10

Oh bloody hell.

If you like the books by Philip Pullman much of this movie's runtime will have been spent in incredulous dismay, wondering where on earth the plot, place and excitement went.

Possibly it was squeezed out of the movie in the process of emasculating its atheist, or at least anti church, message.

If you are entirely unacquainted with the very reasonably sized and priced set of books that is the omniously titled "His Dark Materials" trilogy I will attempt to explain the central problems I have with Hollywood's wholesale rape of these without ruining the books for any yet to experience the genius of the first two (and a fair portion of the third).

Do read them though. They are very good. This film, however, is not.

The pretext and context is an acceptance of the "many universes" theory in modern physics, that is to say that there is a potentially infinite number of potential universes, differing in anything from giant amounts to very little. In this particular universe the population are accompanied at all times by animal "familiars" called for whatever reason, Daemons.

Other than that this reality is also a sort of "steampunk" alternate Britain and Europe where enormous zeppelins travel from city to city, and a Cowboy rides a Balloon, rather than a horse.

In the book these are all described in detail and in effervescent realism - so why it was impossible to capture any of Pullman's magic world in the cinema is beyond me. All the technology, while pretty, feels as solid as the CGI that makes it up.

The actors, big names and otherwise, are all trying very hard to tread a fine line between throwing themselves into things wholeheartedly and retaining just enough aloofness to distance themselves from any actual emotion or involvement. The main culprits are of course Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, both playing their stock characters (aloof brit, aloof brit) with about as much conviction as cardboard plays bricks. The child actors do their best, of course, with some success but our leading young lady is clearly a posh lass doing her best "common" voice and this gets in the way of her performance like all bad accent work does. I don't want to get on the poor lady's back though, since this is the beginning of what may be a fine career - so long as she is allowed to play to her strengths in future.

With a movie based on as complex source material as this is made, there is a danger lurking in the background.

There are a lot of characters and a lot going on at any one time.

Lord Of The Rings, in order to manage its movie makeover, cut swathes of events from the story and remains focussed on a central journey in order to avoid a load of disparate events just sitting next to each other like unconnected scenes from different films. The actors spent ages together building up real bonds of friendship, of fellowhip, that really come across on the screen.

The original book here (Northern Lights, or the Golden Compass depending on editions) is nowhere near this level of complexity and yet still the movie fails to avoid this major pitfall. Scenes come and go at a furious pace, many of which serve little purpose - most obvious in the Magisterium (more on them later) scenes, we gain no feeling (as we did in TLOTR) that any of the characters have any idea who the others are. At no time do we believe Derek Jacobi even knows Nicole Kidman is cast as Mrs Coulter in the movie, so little do his scenes flow from the prior ones. Christopher Lee's two second cameo as a nameless, faceless cardboard cut out is virtually worthless; responding to dialogue he probably only read two minutes before he was filmed speaking it.

And this is a good time to assess our evil enemy, The Magisterium. In the book, this is obviously the Catholic Church in parallel world format. In the movie, it's some weird evil government - the equivalent of the faceless paranoia feeding governments in, say the ghastly Fortress or Running Man.

The decision to remove the overt religion from The Golden Compass' villains destroys the sense of the story's central conflict; between the religious conception of what innocence and freedom should be and genuine innocence and freedom.

Of course, they haven't taken all the references out, since the story really wouldn't hold together at all, but is expressed in such a watered down form (someone did something bad and dust came into the world) that the actions of the Magisterium make absolutely no sense at all. Only something as insidiously self righteous as religion can explain the willingness of anyone to carry out this inexcusable plan to "cure" the children of the world of sin.

Only one character comes through the lemon squeezer safe - that of Sam Elliot's Lee Scorseby, though I reckon this is only because the character is basically Sam Elliot in the first place.

There is no character development, replaced with a series of setpiece fights and effects laden sequences that owe little to Pullman and more to Hollywood marketing. The giant fighting bears are well imagined and executed, for sure but they are not convincing as characters, the whole background of their honour system seems to have been distilled into little more than the guidance notes they asked the casting director to follow with the voice actors. Ian McKellen brings, however, much needed gravitas to the role of a giant drunk bear - a character which voiced by, say, Ben Stiller would be a joke in Ice Age 4.

Add to the panoply of dreadful errors of judgement the decision to cut the story short of its hideous conclusion, when a perceived hero shows their true colours and muddies the moral waters considerably, and this film begins to feel like a real stinker.

It did not do well at the box office, people either avoiding it because they are offended by the books controversial reputation or, if not, seeing through its hollow shell. Needless to say the series that would probably have arisen out of this movie if sucessful is not being made, so if you did really enjoy the film (I'm sure many did), in order to get the real story you'll need to read the books anyway.

Unlike the movies of Lord Of The Rings, which felt like a worthy companion to and retelling of the highlights of what is one of the 20th century's greatest works of fiction, The Golden Compass is an object lesson in exactly how to mess the same thing up. Devoid of any of the books depth, either in feeling or character it is impossible to recommend unless you really are bored.

The books (at least the first two) are superb. Read them instead.

Til next time folks, I am as ever...

A
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Very Very Quick Movie Review: Wallace And Gromit: Curse Of The Were Rabbit

9/10

A near faultless tale with everything you could possibly want, from references to famous horror films (I was particularly impressed with the reimagined scene from Frankenstein with the police inspector) to a blossoming romantic love all with Aardman's usual wit and attention to detail.

Love it! Love it! Love it!

A

P.S. Told you it was quick
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Quick Movie Review: Three Amigos!

7/10

When I was young this was the film we watched on birthdays every single year.

We watched it this year as part of a highly enjoyable evening of Mexican fun, with a large buffet and margherita selection on offer, and as a result Three Amigos is seen through a haze somewhat of chilli and tequila, but still bears up.

It marked the end of the credible (imho of course) careers of three giants of 80s comedy, namely Martin Short, Steve Martin and Chevy Chase.

It features a frequently told tale of ordinary guys becoming heroes and the like, but also throws in some dumb slapstick too.

It's no classic for sure, but it will always have a special place in my heart, from the singing bush, the invisible swordsman and all to the outrageously attractive leading lady. From the ridiculous outfits worn by the amigos to the unexpected solution to their troubles ("sewing!").

I won't go into huge detail since the love of this film is pretty much a personal matter, and maybe if I saw it for the first time now I'd find it trite and predictable - I hope you saw it when you could still find it funny.

A
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Movie Review: Beowulf

4/10

There aren't many films where your review reading will be associated almost entirely with the technical side of things, since I don't usually care much, but since this film is all technique and little heart I am forced to mention some of the things I'd usually avoid.

As you may well know, the film is made using a motion capture technique similar to the one used to such great effect with Smeagol/Gollum in the Lord Of The Rings films. This renders the movement of each of the characters more realistic than traditional animation and presumably a bit quicker to animate (since the actors do that for you) so more time can be spent on the process of rendering and wireframes etc meaning that the look of the film is fantastic - lush colours and vast wildernesses are created and remain totally in the control of the filmmakers.

Now, I'll be positive first and say that in many ways this technique is sucessful - the film looks great for the most part, and certainly the digital nature of the "camera" means that impossible tracking shots and action photography are possible, with none of the green screening or bad mapping that can characterise such sequences in composite work.

Much advantage is gained from this, so that the fights that bookend the film are some of the most impressive you will see and have a massive scope.

Unfortunately as with so much digital stuff it is the emotion of people's performances that just doesn't come through the process. While the classic "dead eyes" problem that has dogged most computer games (which this resembles more than anything else) is for the most part avoided with dancing firlight and reflections the participants don't resemble much more than animatronic puppets, and there is less emotion or range in their performances in my opinion than we get from Aardman's Gromit - and he doesn't even speak!

Also, the slight changes to people's appearance, noticable in the face of Anthony Hopkin's Hrothgar but most of all in Ray Winstone's Beowulf; rather than being clever is just distracting - they look very similar to their real life counterparts but just differ enough to really distract you. Add to this the bizarre fact that Grendel's mother appears to have high heeled FEET and the character design is just plain odd.

Ah yes, Grendel needs some respect, for two reasons - first he is truly grotesque and the art direction is fantastic for his twisted form plus he is performed brilliantly by the always reliable Crispin Glover (Marty McFly's dad!!!) so its a shame that the story requires his removal so early on. Other performances are fine, particularly Hopkin's jaded king Hrothgar but none are really exceptional, being buried under so many gigabytes of information - plus I still question how good a performance can really be in a blue room with no set props or art design to work with.

The certificate of this film also leads to a strange emasculation of the tale's violence, which while still present is not particularly bloody or convincing - and the sequence where he fights Grendel in the Great Hall resembles nothing so much as the old Austin Powers sequence (when he walks around naked and various things cover his wedding tackle "hilariously") so it raised too many laughs from me to affect in the way it was attempting.

The other problem I have is with foley.

In case, like Mrs Algo, you didn't know what foley is, it's the recording of sound effects you wouldn't normally notice, such as the rustle of clothes, the jangle of jewellery or swords etc or maybe someones footsteps crunching through the snow. Almost universally these effects are absent, as is the wind frequently noticable by its abscence, this may not be a big issue for some of you, but for me it drew me right out of the idea that this was some kind of "realistic" CGI and put the film right back into the cartoon pigeonhole. The absolute apeothesis of this is the scene with the queen and the young woman on the battlements... no wind, no rustling clothes, no nothing. Just dialogue. For me it's a big problem.

It's a shame since maybe with a 15 certificate (or even better an 18) and some foley work I'd probably like this film even more, but maybe I've penalised it based on missed opportunities.

Nevertheless, it gets a lowly 4/10 for its crimes.

Til Next Time!

A
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Quick Movie Review: Annie

7/10

Ah children's movies. How on Earth is one supposed to rate them and by what criteria?

I watched this one in the highly enjoyable company of my wife and niece (it turned out the wife knows all of the words to the songs) and it shows the broad appeal of this silly little tale.

Sure it's got Albert Finney in it, and that's all very impressive, but the real star turn is from Annie herself; Aileen Quinn who somehow I didn;t want to punch at any stage despite being in my preconceptions one of those irritating little musical theatre moppets who I tend to despise.

Well done young lady... well not young any more, since shes now 37, but you get the point.

There she is... on the left.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty good as these films go, and the others enjoyed it, so lets be nice and give it a seven, but I'm not going to try and read some deep messages into it, about the importance of optimism to happiness, since you can get such stuff from inside fortune cookies.

Plus the film's choreography comes from none other than weird faced queen of Strictly Come Dancing, Arlene Phillips, plus you get another addition to the grotesques collection for Tim Curry.

All I'm saying is, that you need not run away when a young relative wants to watch it. It's perfectly enjoyable.

A
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Movie Review: Outland

6/10

Sean Connery was, at the point in history when he worked on Outland, hardly the most convincing action hero. He sported a noticable paunch and the beard of a man content to leave behind the heartthrob status he had enjoyed in the heady days playing Fleming's ruthless killer.

Outland is a space western, which immediately requires me to mention its distant relative, Firefly, a show so good they had to cancel it since that's what US TV execs are like. In both we have characters who just aren't that good at what they do, are hardly heroes and are even less likely to help you cross the road without relieving you of your wallet in the process.

That's not to say Outland is the Wagon Train type story that Firefly and Serenity tell, it's the classic good lawman in a bad town scenario, as Connery's tired Marshal (read: Sherriff) is faced with corruption and drug running on the mining colony of Io. Seems some bad drugs are causing people to commit suicide in various space-specific ways.

Naturally, one good cop finds it hard to gain support for bringing down the status quo and he has to prepare for a set of hired killers to arrive and take him out.

While being atmospheric and committed, I never really feel that Outland achieves its presumable target of being a genuinely powerful battle between a good minority over an evil majority. It is admirable that it remains focused on telling its story rather than moralising or even taking a stand on drug taking, instead focussing on the personal battle of Connery's Marshal O'Neil who is not only seeking a sort of justice but also seeks to prove to his wife that he is more than just a burden to her.

Naturally, being of its time some of the accoutrements and technology seems a it ropy these days, and aside from the inspired turn by Frances Sternhagen (last seen by me in The Mist) as Dr Lazarus the supporting cast leave much to be desired. Connery too is far from convincing at anything other than dejected rage.

Still, I'd say it's a worthwhile way to spend some time, and its displacement of the high noon story to space is intriguing, if not perfectly executed.

Til next Time, and it's good to be back in the saddle!

A
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A Short Apology.... I took a break but I'm back, baby!

Just a quick note mentioning that I realise a lot of the films on the list to the right are review-less at the moment. It is the mere fact of a busy week and being out of practice (coupled with a sick wife) that have conspired to destroy my review rhythm.

That and the enormous quantity of movies needing reviews (17!) puts me off a bit.

Expect to see them over the next few days since now I am back and raring to go! Yay!

A
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Go Examples

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