At The Back

Bride of Frankenstein

2013-05-23T21:08:00.002+01:00

Bride of Frankenstein is the 1935 sequel to the definitive Frankenstein movie released four years earlier. The story is taken from a subplot of Mary Shelley’s novel though bares only a passing resemblance to the author’s work. The film picks up in the moments after the climax of the first movie in which the monster was seemingly killed in a raging fire. Spoiler alert – he wasn’t. In this movie the monster’s personality grows, he makes friends and becomes restless. As with any man, he wants female companionship and with the help of scientist Doctor Pretorius, he kidnaps his creator’s fiancé, forcing Doctor, now Baron Frankenstein to create for him a Bride.

I thought that 1931’s Frankenstein was a masterful piece of cinema and rightly held a place in the minds of horror cinema fans over eighty years on from its release. Bride of Frankenstein holds a similar place in cinema history but overall I was disappointed by it. I felt that the plot was slow and clunky and the dialogue and acting was much worse than that of the original film. For fifty minutes I was teetering on the edge of boredom but a final twenty minute flourish, reminiscent of the first movie, helped to save the day.

Several potential sequels to Frankenstein came and went in the follow up to the movie’s critical and commercial success in 1931. Eventually an amalgamation of a number of submitted treatments and scripts went into producing the sequel. To me the script feels a bit weak, lacks the excitement and shock of Shelley’s original story and takes far too long to move those fingers and show signs of life. A mistake in my eyes was to have the monster speak. One of the great strengths of the Frankenstein character was that it wasn’t a man but a monster. It was capable of experiencing emotion but not able to convey them. This made the monster much scarier to the other characters than to the audience and also gave it a sort of anti-hero status. In the first film I felt bad for the monster when it was misunderstood but in this film he can’t be misunderstood because he can vocalise his thoughts, feelings and fears. Frankenstein himself, Boris Karloff was of this exact same opinion.

Another problem I had with the film is that it just wasn’t exciting enough. There was very little suspense until the final act and in reality very little happens for most of the film. One character in particular seemed to crop up in every scene and I found her very annoying. Minnie (Una O’Connor) plays the Baron’s housekeeper and is in place to produce the shrieks and other assorted reactions to the monster’s appearance that typify the non speaking roles around her. The problem is that she pops up everywhere from the Baron’s home to the streets outside to the creepy moors. She is overused and underwritten. I did enjoy the opening bookending of the story which features Mary Shelley and Lord Byron discussing the author’s original story. It is this discussion and in particular the ending of her book which leads neatly into this story. I thought it was a well formed opening to the film.

The final few scenes are by far the highlight of the movie. Here the Bride is animated and introduced to the audience. She is only on screen for a disappointing few moments and isn’t given many character traits but he look is mesmerising. It helps that Elsa Lanchester is a very beautiful woman but the design of her dress and now iconic hair aid the look. These final scenes are also shot with the same frenetic style as in Frankenstein and contain an array of interesting camera angles, swoops and movements. They are some fantastically choreographed shots and really helped to end the film on a high. The self-nihilistic ending is also quite sweet and dramatic and helped the movie to go out with a bang.

Overall I felt let down by Bride of Frankenstein. I thought the script was too dull for too long but it certainly picked up towards the end. I think that there were missteps made with the arc of the central character and other characters featured far too heavily. There were undoubtedly some fine moments, including the miniature people scene, but generally I felt underwhelmed by a film I had expected to be much better.

6/10

Titbits

The body count in the original cut was 21. This was trimmed to 10 after pressure from code-era censors.
Director James Whale was reluctant to direct a sequel but after four years of badgering from the studio, he gave in when he found a script he thought worked. As part of the deal, the director demanded total artistic freedom.
Elsa Lanchester was only 5' 4" but stilts made her seem 7' tall.

The Hangover Part III

2013-05-23T15:51:00.003+01:00

I seem to be different to everyone else. Not just different like we’re all different but different, different. I don’t think that Peter Kay saying the words ‘garlic’ and ‘bread’ in close proximity is remotely funny yet he has sold more than ten million DVDs in the UK. The phrase ‘Am I bovered’ no matter how cockney’ed up also fails to draw a smile. When The Hangover was released in 2009 I didn’t see it in the cinema but months later I gave into the pressure of everyone telling me it was the best comedy since sliced film and I watched it at home with my girlfriend. I thought it was dreadful. About a year later we ventured to the cinema to see Part II with a large audience. This time it was even worse. I thought it was offensive and not at all funny but was surrounded on all sides by people having the time of their lives. It was with great trepidation then, and immediate regret, that I took a few hours on my day off to see The Hangover Part III and d’you know what? I think it’s the best of the series.

I use the phrase ‘best’ in the same way as one might describe Albert Speer as the best Nazi. Sure he was a Nazi but didn’t he design some lovely buildings? What I’m getting at is that The Hangover Part III is the best of a bad bunch. Once again I might find myself in the minority here and I’m sure the cinemas will be packed for weeks with guffawing humans, rocking back and forth in their seats and looking at each other with mutual recognition that they are part of a group. The third (and hopefully final) instalment of The Hangover series is neither as offensive nor as formulaic as the second film and about as funny as the first. I laughed once and smiled about four or five times.

Much of the opening five minutes will be familiar to you if you’ve seen the trailer. In this respect at least, the film does something good. Generally comedy trailers take all the big laughs from a film and squeeze them into one two minute trailer which makes the movie look like Citizen Kane covered in sugar. The film’s trailer at least attempts to leave some surprises for the actual film, even if those surprises are about as surprising as seeing a car on a road. The incredibly convoluted plot involves the ‘Wolfpack’ (Kill me. Kill me now) driving across hundreds of miles of desert because they are taking Allen (Zach Galifianakis) to some sort of retreat to help him with his obvious psychiatric problems. The foursome are jumped by gangsters headed up by Marshall (John Goodman) who orders the four guys to track down Part II’s baddie Mr Chow (Ken Jeong) who is responsible for stealing Marshall’s gold.

International gangster Marshall can’t find Mr Chow so he orders four hopeless losers to do it for him. That’s the level we’re at here. Luckily though, as collateral, Marshall takes the least interesting of the foursome with him in a repeat of the previous films. The plot then unravels like a particularly knotted ball of wool, following the men as they track down Chow across the South Western US and Mexico. The writers obviously took a lot from the second film and realised that they couldn’t get away with simply rehashing the same formula for a third time so give Mr Chow, who I believe was a popular character, much more screen time in this film. Allen, the obvious draw of the franchise also holds much of the focus and provides all of the laugh(s). The other two, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper are generally used to bounce off and in the most part react rather than act.

There are several problems with the plot which need to be bought up at this point. The first problem is one I’ve already touched upon. A gangster would never get these men to track down an international criminal who has stolen his gold. I can let that go because after all, this is a comedy so the rules of what is and isn’t acceptable tend to get a little blurred. A huge error occurs in a break-in sequence in which Chow persuades the other three to help him steal the gold from his old house. Having knocked through a brick wall with a sledgehammer, they are then locked in a room, held against their will by an almighty, impregnable little wooden door. While they bang against the door and shout as loud as their lungs will allow, they all seem to forget that they have s sledgehammer beside them. In a later scene they also kick open a locked door which is twice as large. Once they lose Chow, Marshall re-enters the picture to tell them off. Instead of ending their lives and thankfully the franchise for good, he decides instead to give them a limo to try again. The whole thing is preposterous beyond belief. You’d think preposterous in a comedy would be a good thing but if the audience isn’t laughing then it just looks lame.

On a plus note, the cinematography isn’t bad at all and the film looks very good. There are some nice camera angles and design choices and it also doesn’t last too long. Zach Galifianakis is the best thing about the film and the series as a whole and has tailored the character perfectly to himself. I don’t know how much of his dialogue is scripted but the way he presents it, it feels very much off the cuff. It’s a shame though that what he says is rarely amusing. Ed Helms is given very little to do in this film and after a couple of films which made me think I might be wrong about him, Bradley Cooper is firmly back in familiar territory again. Ken Jeong is meant to be playing a hilarious character but is offensive and distasteful from start to finish. A major problem with the film as a whole is the amount of unnecessary animal death. At least three species are killed for laughs in various, detestable ways. I don’t understand what part of decapitating a giraffe or smothering a bird is meant to be funny, maybe it’s the bit when they take their final breath or perhaps it’s all the blood? Either way I didn’t like it at all. What’s worse is that the movie wasn’t brave enough to show one of the animal deaths for pet related reasons. It’s a massive cop out.

In the end then I think The Hangover Part III is a terrible film but what do I know. I’m sure it will make hundreds of millions of dollars and will be being typed into the ‘favourite movies’ column of thousands of Facebook profiles alongside its predecessors and various Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston vehicles. If you like films full of plot holes in which animals die or like laughing at people because they’re Chinese or have mental disabilities then this is the film for you.

3/10

Titbits

The three leads were reportedly paid $15 million each to return for a third film.
Fans of the series will want to stay until after the credits start rolling for an after credits scene.
Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr were considered for John Goodman's role.

Natural Born Killers

2013-05-23T09:54:00.001+01:00

I didn’t know anything about Natural Born Killers prior to watching it but saw that an angry looking Woody Harrelson was on the blu-ray cover and that was enough to sell it to me. During the frenzied pre credit sequence I thought to myself that it looked like the most Tarantino-esque film I’d ever seen. I didn’t realise at the time of course that the film was actually loosely based on a script written by Quentin Tarantino and that he received a ‘story by’ credit. The script though, was written by director Oliver Stone, Dale Veloz and Richard Rutowski and is set around a manic killing spree. Mickey Knox (Harrelson) and his wife Mallory (Juliette Lewis) travel around the South Western United States, randomly killing seemingly for the pleasure it brings. Both central characters suffered traumatic childhoods but enjoy the fame and notoriety that their actions bring.

The film is spliced together in a fairly linear structure but has the overarching look of a collage. A multitude of camera angles, effects and styles are used and the estimated 3,000 cuts necessary to piece everything together took around eleven months to edit. Camera angles and shooting styles will change from second to second in what feels like a psychedelic whirlwind. The effect is that Stone creates a movie that seems to surround you on all sides rather than emanate from the TV screen and it keeps you both off balance and highly entertained throughout.

Though nearly twenty years old, the themes raised by Natural Born Killers couldn’t be more pertinent today. The media circus which follows the crimes, lead principally by Robert Downey Jr’s Australian TV personality Wayne Gale mirrors what we see on TV every day. If anything the film’s themes strike more of a chord twenty years on with the advent of rolling 24 hour news channels and social media. Our fascination with the macabre as well as the idea of the celebrity leads millions of us to gawp blindly at our television sets for hours on end, watching the latest high speed chase, murder hunt or reality TV show. Just yesterday for instance I myself was glued to the screen for close to an hour, looking on at helicopter footage of an East London street covered in blood while ‘eyewitness’ testimony sprouted across the country from people who may or may not have seen anything. The mass hysteria and outpouring of xenophobia that followed was deeply upsetting but the media’s reaction reminded me very much of this film. Stone uses popular images from the time, such as those from the O.J Simpson trial, to intersect his own visuals and create an off kilter film which also features occasional advertisements and parodies various TV formats.

The film is a visual onslaught which never ceases to throw unexpected images at the viewer. In the space of twenty seconds you could go from a sitcom set up to a noir inspired close up to an 8mm shot with subtle frames of blood splattered characters and Coca-Cola polar bears thrown in to the mix. I was worried that I would find the technique grating after a while but fortunately I remained transfixed, much like those of us which the film is satirically mocking. The sheer array of visual and technical styles is impressive enough but the adept way they are used and timing of each cinematic method feels spot on. Considering there are around 3,000 cuts in the movie I couldn’t think of one style or image which felt out of place. I loved every minute of the visuals and feel as though I need to watch the movie again in an attempt to try and take them all in.

While the cinematography remains taught and frenetic all the way through, the story comes in two distinct burst of violent energy. The three act structure works against the two distinct halves in terms of violence and there is a lull early in the third act in which there is little or no violence. The gore itself is fairly graphic though tame by modern torture porn standards and it is more how it happens and to who, rather than the images themselves. The violence has a sort of comic book/cartoon quality to it, more reminiscent of Tarantino than Scorsese. Overall I found the story interesting, engaging and occasionally darkly comic and was excited to get to the end and see how it unravelled. I thought that the side characters added a lot to the film and helped to give the terrific principle characters some breathing space.

There are several brilliant acting performances but they are spearheaded by the leads Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. Harrelson is superb in the lead role, his crazed eyes and super cool demeanour perfectly suiting the part of a charismatic and dangerous killer. He shares terrific chemistry with Lewis and gets his tongue around some juicy lines with effortless ease. He sells the role brilliantly. Juliette Lewis is slightly more enigmatic than her co-star, changing her appearance and personality several times. She presents a more schizophrenic image with her portrayal but her slight frame and good looks work in her favour when she unexpectedly starts hacking at limbs or spraying bullets. Robert Downey Jr is very good as the investigative reporter and gets better and better towards the climax while Tommy Lee Jones is magnificent as the Prison Warden. He sometimes gives the impression that he should be in a Terry Gilliam film but his performance works well in the circus like ending. Rodney Dangerfield has a short but memorable cameo.

Overall I was enamoured with Oliver Stone’s film. He shoots it without fear of playing to convention and the altering style helps to ease the transition from love story to thriller to a climax which feels like and is shot in the style of a war film. The leads are terrific but special praise must go to Cinematographer Robert Richardson and Editor Brian Berdan who help Stone to form a controversial but highly entertaining film that remains in the memory because of the magnificent way in which it is put together.

9/10

Titbits

A total of 18 different film formats were used to create the finished movie.
Quentin Tarantino was paid $10,000 for his script though the final draft bears little resemblance to his original script.
Coca-Cola approved the use of their commercials in the film without really knowing what it was about. The company was said to be furious when they finally saw it.
Many of the prison extras were real prisoners and the large bald man seen attacking another prisoner was in jail for beating his wife and children to death.

The Idiots

2013-05-22T21:04:00.002+01:00

Lars von Trier’s The Idiots is my first encounter with a Dogme 95 film. Dogme 95 was an avant-garde filmmaking movement, begun in 1995 that saw a group of Danish directors release a manifesto of rules by which their films would be produced. The basis of the rules were to strip filmmaking back to its traditional values of story, acting and theme and forbade the likes of artificial lighting, music, additional props and special effects and had specific rules based around how and where a film was shot. The minimalist and realist films which were created saw their director go uncredited and often their cast and crew unpaid. The Idiots was von Trier’s first Dogme film and the second overall.

Perhaps somewhat predictably for Lars von Trier, The Idiots is a film that was marred in controversy. The controversy came from two aspects of the film. The first was the plot which revolves around a group of anti-bourgeois Danes who sometimes pretend to have mental disabilities in public. They refer to this as ‘spassing’ and are often both convincing and cruel in their depictions. The second controversial aspect of the movie is the graphic sex and nudity. For a director whose next film is to be called Nymphomaniac, this might not be surprising but The Idiots contains scenes of both male arousal and full vaginal intercourse, the likes of which I’ve never seen in a narrative film.

I was tempted to call The Idiots a brave film but to be perfectly honest I don’t think that von Trier really cares if he’s being brave or overly controversial. He is simply making a Lars von Trier film and if that film contains graphic nudity or politically incorrect themes then so be it. While I’d avoid the term brave, I’m happy to call the film bold. The central idea is quite frankly both interesting and upsetting. It makes for cringe worthy viewing but at the same time it’s difficult to take your eyes off the screen. Our brains are hardwired to know when something is wrong but we can’t help but look. (How many of you have seen Two Girls, One Cup or watched Saddam Hussein’s death for example). We have an innate curiosity and it is that same curiosity which forms part of the ‘spassing’. How far can they go? Where is the limit? Although I felt that the topic was of interest, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s also incredibly offensive. I was willing to give the film the benefit of the doubt, hoping that it would draw an inspired conclusion to the offensiveness but this failed to materialise and didn’t help to offset the uncomfortable and impertinent themes. Despite this, I don’t feel like the film was being offensive for the sake of it.

As I mentioned in my opening, this was the first Dogme film that I’ve seen. I’ve been aware of the idea for several years and was intrigued by its principles but was still shocked by the raw, amateurish nature of the production. Amateurish is a harsh word to use but that is exactly how the film comes off. While I respect the ideas behind the collective I personally see it as a waste of talent. When you see someone whose visuals can be as beautiful as von Trier’s, producing a film in which the camera is out of focus and the boom can be seen, you can’t help but feel sad. The reason I want to watch a Lars von Trier film is because he is capable of making beautiful and thought provoking cinema. Watching The Idiots, I couldn’t help feeling like I could have produced it. As I said, I like the idea and respect its principles but I want my filmmakers to make films using the best of their skills and knowledge, not holding back because of self imposed rules.

The acting is one of the highlights of The Idiots with the entire cast giving terrific, natural performances. Some of the acting, both when spassing and straight, is breathtaking and it looks so realistic that the film often feels like a documentary. The low rate visuals and hand held camera help to reinforce this image. The sexual content is fairly brief but very graphic. I found this much less offensive than the spassing but can understand why it caused a sensation fifteen years ago. The public just isn’t used to seeing erections and penetrative sex on screen and it’s a taboo which is still in place despite our relative sexual liberation. For me the sexual content wasn’t just there to shock but it served a purpose. Personally I found the lingerie scene in Star Trek into Darkness more distasteful as at least here there was a reason for it.

Overall I can’t say I enjoyed The Idiots. It’s a compelling and unabashed film about a topic which few other directors would touch but I found its brazen themes and Dogme style quite off-putting despite some fantastic acting and admittedly interesting concepts.

4/10

The Great Gatsby

2013-05-20T21:10:00.004+01:00

Sited by many as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a book that I have never read. As a result this review will be based purely on the Baz Lehrmann film and not informed in any way, shape or form by the source text. Lehrmann is a director who I generally have little time for. His in your face, ultra heightened fantasy style is not normally to my liking but a film set amongst the excess of post war, roaring 20s is the sort of project which may perfectly suit his visual eye. With The Great Gatsby, Lehrmann creates a film which is full of cinematic choices which are both at the same time wrong and fitting and while I don’t necessarily agree with all (or in fact most of his choices), he has created a film which sets itself apart from the competition and is both bold and exciting.

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is a graduate of Yale University who moves to New York’s Long Island, home of the rich and famous, with the hopes of making his fortune in the blossoming stock market on Wall Street, twenty miles to the west. Carraway’s neighbour is an enigmatic figure called Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), a man who few know or have even met, yet a man whose name and lavish parties are known by everyone from Senators to starlets to smugglers. Gatsby befriends his neighbour but remains somewhat aloof until one day when the rich inscrutable Gatsby requests help in setting up a meeting between himself and Carraway’s beautiful but married cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan), a woman not unknown to Gatsby.

I was in two minds as to whether to read the novel before seeing the movie adaptation as I wasn’t sure which version I wanted to encounter first. I generally find that having not read the book on which a film is based that I bring into the cinema less baggage and am able to enjoy the movie as a movie rather than comparing it to a book which will invariably be better. So it was with a clear and Gatsby free mind that I encountered Baz Lehrmann’s adaptation earlier today. It isn’t surprising to me that the novel is so highly prized and revered by its fans as the plot is superb. It’s full of complex meaning, simile, metaphor and a terrific love story. The film’s writing was excellent so I can only imagine how good it is to read Fitzgerald’s original text. (A friend is actually lending me the book tomorrow, so I’ll soon find out).

The plot takes in the sights and sounds of the art deco inspired 1920s, a period which I personally love. The costume and set design is fantastic and recreates a seemingly authentic feel. The hair, makeup, dresses, suits and jewellery are all wonderfully realised and look tremendous. The film as a whole is an assault on your senses, combining modern hip hop (which I’ll come to in more detail) with swooping cityscape CG effects and the close up, sweaty frolicking of the decade of excess. The physical sets and effects were memorable and effective but I was less enamoured with the CGI. Lehrmann’s CGI always seems to have a fairytale quality to it and appears to forgo realism in favour of the wow factor. As I mentioned, I’m a huge fan of the history and look of the era so to see my favourite city on Earth from cloud level at one of my favourite periods was a treat for my eyes. Swooping down like a hawk to ground level was also exhilarating and the overall level of lift and movement from the CG was a bold choice. I think that Lehrmann pulls off the idea in a satisfactorily way and although it might not have worked, he stuck with it and created from start to finish, a Baz Lehrmann Great Gatsby rather than A Great Gatsby, something which any number of directors could have produced.

The choice of music for the film is a little more controversial than the use of computer generated effects. The director had at his disposal a decade full of terrific ragtime and jazz music to choose from but instead opted for a mixture of hip hop, R ‘n’ B and pop songs. Going in to the film I was extremely sceptical about how this would work but in the end, much like the visuals, Lehrmann pulls off his decision. The use of modern music works well with the beat of the film and the wealth inspired rap lyrics fit with the themes of the story. Lehrmann and musical director Craig Armstrong also splice in music from the period to create a sort of mash-up of styles which although isn’t what I would liked to have seen, works well with this particular film. I would still have preferred a full jazz soundtrack but at least what we get instead is interesting.

A problem that I have with Lehrmann’s stylistic choices is that although they may feel edgy and cool now, in ten years time when Jay-Z, Beyonce and the like are outdated and when the CGI starts to lose its freshness, the film will date horrendously. Had the director opted for a more traditional approach then perhaps it might have helped the film to age gracefully but what I expect is that the film will end up taking the James Dean, live fast and die young approach and suffer in the future. Despite this, there’s no taking away from the director’s vision which is overstated, outlandish and bold. A major problem I personally had with The Great Gatsby was with its use of 3D. I had absolutely no intention of seeing the film in 3D but due to a scheduling conflict (i.e. me working during the day and my girlfriend on night shifts); we were inflicted with the silly glasses and loss of light accompanied by worse than usual blur. The 3D is some of the worst I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something). It’s blurry throughout and adds absolutely nothing to the film. It is totally without merit and I actually took the glasses off, something which I’ve never done before.

Something which I enjoyed greatly about The Great Gatsby was its story and the meanings behind the characters and plot. The film’s themes touch upon the effects of excess and the long-standing battle between old and new money. I found the differences between the Gatsby and Buchannan characters fascinating. The idea of The American Dream is at the centre of the story with the Gatsby character epitomising the role of The All-American Hero, a man who is rich, handsome, and successful in business and war. The recklessness of youth is something which also stands out and the truth behind the idea that the party never stops is also explored toward the end. The conflict of class and love is something which forms the beating heart of the story and something which I’m really looking forward to uncovering more of when I read the novel later this week.

Overall I was impressed with my introduction to The Great Gatsby. There are some missteps along the way and I wasn’t always at ease with the stylistic decisions but at the same time I appreciate the efforts of a director who wants to put his own spin on something which is known to so many. The performances are great with DiCaprio shining and Maguire not annoying me but it is Carey Mulligan who steals the film with a performance of a character which I can’t even begin to imagine another actor inhabiting. The film might not strike a chord with hardcore Gatsby fans but as a neutral observer I thought that the plot was conveyed clearly and was surrounded by the colour, noise and razzle-dazzle which matched the era of fun, excess and the care free attitude as well as the passion, trauma and downward spiral of the third act.

7/10

GFR 9/10

Man on Fire

2013-05-20T19:25:00.000+01:00

Midway through watching Man on Fire last night I wanted to look something up about it so paused it and put a search into Google. One of the top results was its IMDb score which was a very impressive 7.7/10. Now the IMDb is a great resource but its rating system is susceptible to the whims of the masses and as a result, many films which don’t deserve them get high scores. On a related note, Star Trek into Darkness just yesterday crept into the IMDb Top 250, perfectly illustrating my point. For me Man on Fire is another example of this sort of overly hyped mass critical reception. While at its heart there is a great revenge story, it is surrounded my poor musical choices and cinematography which is so ill judged that it made concentrating on and enjoying the movie close to impossible.

Mexico City is one of the kidnapping capitals of the world and to protect his daughter (Dakota Fanning), businessman Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony) hires a bodyguard to protect her when she’s out of their home. The bodyguard is former Marine and covert-ops officer John Creasy (Denzel Washington), a man with a drink problem and issues connecting with other people. Unsurprisingly the child is kidnapped and in the ensuing fire fight, Creasy is seriously wounded. When on the mend, though still critically ill, Creasy takes it on himself to track down the girl’s kidnappers and on a revenge/killing spree gets closer and closer to ‘the voice’ a master kidnapper, responsible for the taking and murder of several children.

I’d heard a lot of good things about Man on Fire and was eagerly anticipating the movie. Within seconds my heart sank as it became apparent that the quite awful cinematography wasn’t merely just an interesting opening credits gimmick but was here to stay. It’s difficult to exactly describe the look and effects of the cinematography but it reminded me a little of being in a loud, sticky nightclub after about 20 shots. Imagine turning your head quickly in that environment and the room would become a blur as your dilated pupils pick up on various images. You might even see three of people or feel as though time is slowing, speeding up or repeating itself. That’s what Man on Fire is like for over two hours. The visuals detract massively from the above average story and created a film which I couldn’t wait to be over. It felt cheap and unnecessary and almost as though it was a way of making intellectually stunted people feel as though they were watching something more exciting than they actually were.

The problem is of course that the film would have been exciting without all the cuts, double/triple exposure and constant juddering of the camera. The story is strong enough to stand up on its own. The central relationship is really sweet and heart warming and seeing the lengths to which Creasy goes to, to exact his revenge shows how much he cared for the girl, despite trying his hardest not to show it in the early stages. The revenge aspect was also well written, grisly and unflinching, all things that are needed from a good revenge thriller. One of the problems I had was that I found it very difficult to separate the story and the visuals and in my overall enjoyment of the piece, the visuals outweighed the story. Denzel Washington is fine as Creasy but he’s been much better, many times. He appears to be sailing through slightly, avoiding any choppy waters. Despite this he is good in both the dramatic and action scenes. Dakota Fanning is excellent as the young kidnapped girl in a role that was crucial to cast right. It was also nice to see Christopher Walken pop up although his role is a nothing role.

Of the many problems I had with Man on Fire, one of them was with the depiction of the Mexican characters. Almost without exception they appeared to be horrid. Even aside from the kidnappers and murderers, the good guys often slept with people for favours or were philanderers or otherwise grubby and unkempt. The fact that all the good guys were American and that there were so many Americans in a Mexican set thriller also annoyed me. Dakota Fanning, as good as she was, also looks nothing like she’s half Mexican, even taking into consideration her Aryan looking mother. Other things that bugged me were the way that the subtitles were written, done in such a way as to fool people who would usually avoid a subtitled film into thinking they weren’t reading them and the soundtrack which was terrible. Overall then I was massively disappointed with Man on Fire. Story and great ending aside, it had little going for it and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

5/10

GFR 4/10

Six of the Best... Films I Should Like More But Don't

2013-05-19T10:30:00.000+01:00

How many times have you faced someone whose mouth is agape before the words “You don’t like…?” are shot from their mouth, roaring towards your opinions like a bullet to the side of a large barn door. You attempt to justify your opinion but you get a shake of the head in return. After a while you begin to make concessions. You stutter that “It’s not as bad as…” or “I didn’t hate it.” But it’s no good. That person now looks at you like you are something brown and stinky on the bottom of their shoe. I get this look often and not just because of my personality. Just as there are films which you may be embarrassed to like, there are others which you are embarrassed that you don’t like. While I don’t dislike any of the films below, I don’t like them as much as ‘society’ tells me I should. I expect ‘society’ will now also hate me for the opinions I’m about to express below, but anyway here are Six of the Best Films I Should Like More But Don’t.

1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

MGM’s classic fantasy musical is still much loved, over seventy years after its theatrical release. Of all the films on this list, Oz is the film I like the least and the one that has bought about the most distain and shaking of heads from others. The film looks bright in its shimmering Technicolor and the story is epic in its scale but personally I think people give it an easy ride because they think they have to like it. I find the film incredibly annoying and full of plot holes. The Munchkin characters are just about the more irritating in all cinema history but are luckily at a good height to kick in the face. The Wicked Witch of the West is one of the weakest baddies in cinema and is a character who on one occasion throws a fireball at our heroes. The fireball misses so she leaves. In almost every scene she simply arrives, cackles and leaves. There is no peril. The plot itself is set around the ‘it was only a dream’ premise, something which you’d get told to re-write in English class, aged 10. Other plot holes include the Good Witch failing to mention to Dorothy that she could have got home all along and a bad guy who is destroyed by water. All in all, this is a film which is given far too much credit by people who are partially blinded by its unquestionable visual beauty.

2. The Gold Rush (1925)

Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while will be well aware that Charlie Chaplin is pretty much my favourite film maker. I’m currently working my way through his filmography and have so far reviewed around forty of his films. I’m yet to get to one of his most popular films, The Gold Rush, but I have seen it once before. Produced at the height of his popularity, The Gold Rush was the film that Chaplin himself wanted to be remembered for. To me it is neither as funny, sweet or satirical as the films by which it is sandwiched and feels poor in comparison to the likes of The Kid and The Circus, two films which are much less widely known but much funnier. While I wouldn’t begrudge anyone liking Chaplin, this film’s popularity when compared to the rest of his movies is bewildering to me.

3. Blade Runner (1982)

The popular science fiction noir, Blade Runner is one of the best regarded science fiction movies of all time and is certainly a good film. My problem with Blade Runner is that if it is such a great film then why has the director gone back to alter it so many times. By my counting, there are seven different versions of Blade Runner and why does a near perfect film require seven versions? Other problems for me include the pacing which I found far too slow and a plot which while undoubtedly interesting for a time, soon bored me. The movie generally looks great but the strobe lighting effects created by light entering sets from the outside is very off-putting. There is still a lot that I do like about Blade Runner but I certainly don’t like it as much as most people do.

4. The Lion King (1994)

I didn’t see The Lion King when I was a child, something which I’m told is the reason I don’t really rate the film. The plot is plodding, predictable and dull and the songs drive me up the wall. The characters are broadly drawn and mostly annoying and it still bugs me that members of the same family have accents which are separated by oceans. You could say “But lions don’t really talk” but here they do, so why do they have different accents? The film has an interesting idea at its heart and I look forward to showing it to my children in the same way that my vegetarianism won’t stop me from offering them meat but personally this is a film I don’t understand the love for.

5. North by Northwest (1959)

I adore Alfred Hitchcock and some of my favourite moments in the last couple of years have been discovering his films for the first time. From firm favourites like Psycho to hidden gems like Rope, his films have never failed to excite me. I’ve found a pattern emerging which began with Vertigo and came to a head with North by Northwest. Quite often, the better known the film, the less I’ve enjoyed it. I’m certain that this has something to do with heightened expectations and while I wasn’t particularly keen on The Birds, I felt that this point was best exemplified by North by Northwest. When I reviewed the movie last September I gave it 6/10. I was honest and took some flack for it but stuck to my guns and presented my reasons which are thus. The film bored me. Despite some great action sequences, it was a film which lacked mystery and intrigue and for a thriller I was never thrilled. Like a couple of films on this list though I will go back to this one when I get a chance, in the hope that I am swayed towards the opinions of the masses.

6. The Godfather (1972)

If you were pissed at me before, you’re going to hate me now. That’s right; I don’t think The Godfather is one of the greatest films ever made. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic and a game changer as far as film making is concerned but I don’t rate it as one of the best ever and much prefer The Godfather Part II. For me The Godfather contains some of the most boring scenes in any good film I’ve ever seen. The wedding sequence feels like it lasts for months and I got little enjoyment out of it. Other long, hushed discussions did nothing for me either. I’ve seen this movie twice but each time felt as though I was missing something as I usually enjoy the genre, like the director and love the sequel but The Godfather leaves me cold. Having said that, it’s on my list for a third watch soon so maybe I’ll be third time lucky.

So there it is, my honest opinion. Six films I should probably like more but don’t. What do you think about the list? (Don’t be too mean). Are there any films that you don’t love but everyone else does? Let me know.

Searching for Sugar Man

2013-05-16T20:51:00.003+01:00

A couple of times a year, a documentary feature will break through from the restraints of modern, multiplex, big budget cinema and find a way onto our screens. Generally though, because of availability, documentaries find a home on DVD and this is the medium in which I saw Searching for Sugar Man, the latest documentary to win an Oscar. It was precisely lack of availability which meant I had to wait so long to see the film but now I have, I can join in with the many who rate it so highly. Directed by first timer Malik Bendjelloul and produced by Simon Chinn, the producer of the heart-pounding Man on Wire, Searching for Sugar Man is a seemingly implausible tale of the search for a forgotten musician.

Sixto Rodriguez was a man who released two folk-rock albums in the early 1970s and then disappeared. The albums bombed in the US and Rodriguez’s label estimated, somewhat mean spiritedly, that his records sold around six copies. The rumour was that the singer had committed suicide on stage after the failure of his music career but what he could have never known was that he was huge in Apartheid era South Africa. Although the South Africans knew little to nothing about the singer, to them he was as popular as Elvis or The Beatles and a South African journalist set out in the mid 1990s to discover what exactly did happen to the mysterious singer.

I want to try and avoid spoilers here but still recommend that if you haven’t seen the movie; you do so before you read this or any other review. Unfortunately because I read so many reviews and listen to as many podcasts as I do; I already had a reasonable understanding of the story before seeing the film. Despite this I was still swept away with the tale and found it increasingly unbelievable the more I saw. The film reminded me a little of Catfish in that I was never sure if I was being ‘had’. I just couldn’t believe that a man who was so popular in South Africa could have just disappeared without a trace. In addition to this, Rodriguez’s music is extraordinary and I just didn’t buy the fact that he wasn’t known outside South Africa. How could he not be? The film uses tracks from Rodriguez’s two albums for its soundtrack and I loved every single song I heard. The story is remarkable and sadly it’s the sort of story we’ll get less and less of in an ever more connected world. It’s no coincidence that the stories from two of last year’s standout documentaries (Sugar Man and The Imposter) would be much more unlikely to have happened in the twenty-first century.

The film is put together in an assured and tantalising way. It introduces the man and his music and goes back and forth from Detroit to Cape Town to hear from those who knew and/or were influenced by the singer. The movie builds to a crescendo which I found incredibly tense, even though I knew what it was building to. Following the reveal the movie changes tact a little and goes from mystery and discovery to recognition and I felt this change was justified. The film makes use of what little archive footage there is but also creates footage through super 8mm style cinematography and some absolutely wonderful animated sequences. These were spliced into modern footage of Detroit to create some very visually appealing scenes. The animation itself was reminiscent of a modern graphic novel and had shades of Gorillaz about it.

Despite my overall enjoyment, I have just a couple of problems with the film. The first is that I felt that the record label people got off easily when confronted about what happened to the money. With estimates of 500,000 records sold in South Africa, the movie rightly brings up the question of what happened to the royalties but after a couple of interviews and tough questions, this thread is left with an unsatisfactory conclusion. A second problem is something that I only encountered after watching the film and that is that Rodriguez was also big in Australia, something which isn’t even mentioned in the film. Not only was he aware of this but he actually performed there. I understand why this fact was ignored but it feels a little as though the film makers are making a fairy tale out of a story which in reality isn’t one.

Despite this sizable problem I really enjoyed Searching for Sugar Man. Its story is compelling and engrossing and it made me want to find out more about the man and his music. It’s also done something similar to what Anvil: The Story of Anvil did and that is to shine light on a forgotten musician whose talents deserve to be recognised, whether he is alive or dead.

8/10

500 reviews, the story so far

2013-05-15T22:52:00.002+01:00

I wrote my first ever film review on January 25th 2012 and 477 days later I've just written my 500th. I thought I'd celebrate my little benchmark with a look back at my first 500 reviews through some stats and graphs. I was interested to see a breakdown of the films I've seen in the last year and four months and chose three areas to look at. You can find all 500 film reviews so far on my A-Z page.

The first area I looked at was the number of films I've watched per decade. My tag line is 'Reviewing 100 Years of Film' and this graph shows that is the case and more. The earliest movie I've reviewed so far was A Trip to the Moon from 1902 and as of mid April 2013, I've reviewed 31 from the current year. Although the vast majority of films I've reviewed have been new or recent releases, there's a nice spread throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first century.

The second area I looked at was film by genre. I've always said that I have no favourite genre and go for a film based on how good it is, rather than what genre it falls into. Many of the films I've reviewed can be classed as being in multiple genres but so far the most popular by far are drama and comedy. I try to watch films from as many genres as possible though and again here there is a good spread from differing genres. To simplify the graph slightly I put a lot of genres such as biopic, gangster and musical into the 'other' category.

The final thing I looked it was my grading. I give films a mark out of ten based on my enjoyment, the film making craft, acting, writing etc and despite the ongoing joke at work that I give every film 6/10, my most frequent grading is 7-8/10. The reason this is above average is because I generally choose a film based on whether I think I'll like it. Because of this I'm invariably going to watch more 10/10 than 1/10 films. Although I think I can sometimes be a bit easy on poor films, I've still watched my fair share of stinkers as well as some of the best movies ever made.

So that's my first 500 reviews in very geeky graph form. Here's to the next 500...

The Maltese Falcon

2013-05-15T20:44:00.002+01:00

Generally regarded as the first example of film noir, The Maltese Falcon is a slick and engaging thriller set in San Fransisco. The low key lighting and interesting camera angles add to a thrilling story which focuses on the search for a 16^th Century statue. The valuable gold statue was stolen long ago and has been hunted for years. Its location has finally been tracked to California where several people are working to discover its exact location. Private Detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) becomes entangled in the search along with three unscrupulous hunters, each of whom is out to outsmart and outwit the others. With several murders on the books and a number of motives and suspects, Spade is tasked with not only helping to solve the mysteries but also clearing his own name.

I’d been looking forward to watching The Maltese Falcon for a long time and had long heard about how good it was. I’m sad to report then that the movie failed to live up to my raised expectations despite some genuinely inventive story and film making craft. Although I wasn’t as disappointed as when I watched a couple of other classics (Vertigo), I failed to be entranced by the movie and wavered between gripped astonishment, dull boredom and everywhere in between.

To begin with the positives, of which there are many, The Maltese Falcon is designed to near inch perfect precision. Director John Huston planned the movie so meticulously that he didn’t have to cut a single line of dialogue in the edit. Precise story boards and script notes were made with exact camera positions and lighting arrangements before shooting even began. This not only helped to keep costs down but also got the cast and crew on the same page, springing no last minute surprises on them. The result is a very assured directorial debut from a man who would go on to claim two Academy Award wins from a whopping fifteen nominations during his lifetime.

The attention to detail allowed the director and cinematographer Arthur Edeson to create some truly delightful shots. The use of light and shadow is very important here and very low camera angles is something which was reminiscent of Citizen Kane, a film released just four months earlier. Edeson who had been working in Hollywood for close to thirty years by 1941 obviously knew what he was doing and is responsible for some of the film’s best moments. The scene in which Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr) wakes up, surrounded by those in search of the Falcon is a fantastic an almost chilling shot. Costume and set design help to heighten the dramatic cinematography with certain characters seemingly imprisoned in sets with stripped furniture and the shadows of venetian blinds radiating across the room.

The story itself is generally tense and engaging and I was attentive throughout but every now and then I began to lose track of what was happening or why. On the whole though the film is very adept at explaining the who, what, when and whys through its lead character. Bogart plays the archetypal noir lead, a lone figure, solving a mystery, surrounded by danger on all sides. With Mary Astor’s femme fetale at his side, dramatic lighting and moody plot The Maltese Falcon has all the ingredients of a classic film noir and is one of the first recognised examples of the film noir genre.

Bogart is very good in the lead. I believed in his character but was always half expecting a twist. The way in which the movie set up the first murder was very effective in hiding the truth until the very end. Some of Bogarts’s lines, such as “When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it” and “He’s dead, now don’t get excited” sound a little dated and there are moments when his actions seem dated too but on the whole he is great. Mary Astor plays a great femme fetale although her character’s traits and desires are a little too obvious. Nevertheless she carries off the sweet and innocent with the vicious and was great in a little scrap in the second act. Alongside the two central characters there are several really well cast character actors who add a lot to the proceedings. Peter Lorre (M) is fantastic as Cairo and although in his typecast role as the creepy foreign villain, he is terrific. I also thought that Elisha Cook Jr. was brilliant as a small time crook for hire. Sydney Greenstreet, Gladys George and Lee Patrick all also deliver notably accomplished performances.

When I really think about it, there isn’t an awful lot that I disliked about The Maltese Falcon. Had I never heard of the film before, I expect I would be writing pages and pages about how great it was but unfortunately it comes with the ‘classic’ moniker and as such you come to expect a lot from it. Overall I’d have to say that the film delivered. It was well made and the story was good but it just didn’t grab me from start to finish as I hoped it would. The romance feels a little bit forced but there’s no doubting that the film deserves its place as a classic.

8/10

Titbits

This is the third film version of the novel The Maltese Falcon. Movies based on the same story were also released in 1931 and 1936. This version is the closest to the source novel.
Henry Warner disliked smoking on screen so Bogart and Lorre decided to smoke as much as possible as a joke. Other actors also joined in on the joke and Warner evetually threatened to fire the director because of it.
John Huston asked Mary Astor to run around the set before takes to give her a breathless and nervous quality to her performance.

Dead Ringers

2013-05-13T09:58:00.003+01:00

I watch David Cronenberg films for one reason and that is to have my eyes opened. Whether it is through the gore of an early film like Scanners or the beauty of a more recent movie like A Dangerous Method, his visuals are always striking and his themes, challenging. Few film makers can claim to have been as influential as Cronenberg while also avoiding the trappings of mainstream Hollywood and whatever he turns his attention to, something weird and unique will invariably be formed. Dead Ringers is his 1988 film which looks at the connection that twins share; biologically, mentally and physically. It straddles the gap between body horror and beautiful cinematography but was made firmly during his body horror era. For the director it is a somewhat restrained film but one which runs deep with ideas although doesn’t boil over into all out gore.

Elliot and Beverly Mantle (Jeremy Irons) are brilliant gynaecologists and identical twins. Working out of their Toronto office, the two men specialise in fertility and their methods are both effective but daring. The twin’s lives are blurred by their frequent interchanging. The two impersonate each other at dinners, awards ceremonies and even with women. Early on in the film, the brothers begin to share the life of an actress called Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold) and when the quieter Beverly begins to fall for her, his more aggressive brother Elliot suspects that her presence is harming their relationship.

Like much of Cronenberg’s work, Dead Ringers is interesting and creepy. The way in which the two leads swap lives at the drop of a hat is inherently disturbing and when sex is involved it’s even more unsettling. While the central idea has a lot going for it, I began to lose interest around half way through and the strange and well thought out climax failed to bring me back in. Jeremy Irons is excellent as both men, altering his performance noticeably in order to convey the very different personalities but occasionally blurring the lines, just as the characters themselves do. His performance is a highlight of the movie. Geneviève Bujold was fine but didn’t really convince me but there was a nice cameo from Cronenberg regular Stephen Lack.

The film’s cinematography is great and while not as awe inspiring as the director’s latest work, it’s assured and very clever. The director has to create the illusion of two separate characters while using only one actor and this is achieved via reverse shots using doubles and a surprising number of computer-controlled, moving-matte shots. These look fantastic and nothing like the sort of split screen cinematography which would have been used just years before. There is no obvious outline around one of the characters to indicate they were super imposed and the effect still looks great after twenty-five years.

The themes which run through Dead Ringers are eerie and well written but there was something about the film which just failed to grab me. Perhaps it was that I missed the blood and guts, of which there was some but not much, or maybe I was just tired. Either way Dead Ringers sits towards the bottom of Cronenberg’s splendid filmography for me but nonetheless features an interesting and well executed idea as well as a superb central performance.

6/10

GFR 5/10

Titbits

The central parts were first offered to Robert De Niro and then William Hurt before Jeremy Irons took the role(s).
Irons initially used two separate dressing rooms to help separate the characters but reverted to one when he realised that the blurring of the characters was part of the film.
The movie is based on two real life twins, Stuart and Cyril Marcus, whose lives shared many similar aspects to the characters in this movie, including its conclusion.

Six of the Best... Actors Who Died Too Young

2013-05-12T10:30:00.000+01:00

Highlander, Dorian Gray, Interview with a Vampire… There are plenty of movies that feature themes of eternal youth or everlasting life but unfortunately they’re fantasy. People are born, they live and then they die. Although we can extend the middle part of that previous sentence through medicine, we can’t remove the final part altogether. While many of us will live to reach a ripe old age, grumpily hating the world that has left us behind, sadly some people die in their prime. In this week’s Six of the Best I’m looking at six of the best actors who died too young. Although these actors died in their heyday or at the peak of their careers, their death has in many cases bought them an almost everlasting, close to immortal status which their names may have lacked had they lived to grow old, thus granting eternal youth. So here are Six of the Best… Actors Who Died Too Young. Let me know who you would have included.

1. Rudolph Vantentino. (Died in 1926 – aged 31)

The world has largely forgotten cinema’s first male sex symbol. The Italian born actor appeared in close to forty films between 1914 and 1926 including The Sheik and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in 1921. His death at the age of thirty-one caused mass hysteria among his female fans to whom he was affectionately known as the ‘Latin Lover’. Valentino’s life has been the subject of several films but his popularity has been overshadowed by those whose careers continued on into the late 20s and early sound era.

2. Jean Harlow. (Died 1937 – aged 26)

Harlow’s striking platinum blonde hair and sex appeal helped her to become a leading sex symbol of the 1930s. Her acting talents are now somewhat overshadowed by her looks but she was voted amongst the greatest movie stars of all time by the AFI in 1999. In 1931 Harlow stared alongside James Cagney in The Public Enemy and later became a superstar under contract with MGM. During the Great Depression, Harlow’s movies helped MGM avoid ruin and her comic talents were utilised in films such as Red-Headed Woman (1932). Harlow died at just twenty-six from kidney failure.

3. Bruce Lee. (Died 1973 – aged 37)

There are few movie stars who are more easily recognisable worldwide than Bruce Lee. Lee began his acting career as a child but came to worldwide attention in the early 1970s thanks to films such as Fists of Fury and his final film, Enter the Dragon. Like others on this list he is a pop culture icon and he also helped to change that way that Asians were viewed in the west. Forty years after his death he is still the most celebrated martial artist of all time and is featured in new documentaries and video games on an almost yearly basis.

4. John Cazale (Died 1978 – aged 42)

Cazale was the oldest actor on this list and the only one who you can’t really call a star or leading man but Cazale has a filmography which would make any actor jealous. Cazale appeared in just six films, five between 1972-78 and one posthumously in 1990. All six films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and include classics such as The Godfather trilogy, The Conversation and Dog Day Afternoon. Cazale didn’t simply just act in these films though, he excelled in them and who knows how many more great performances he could have produced had he not died of cancer during the shooting of The Deer Hunter in 1978.

5. James Dean (Died 1955 – aged 24)

No one optimises the idea of rebellious youth and teenage disillusionment quite like James Dean. The defining image of the post war young, Dean starred in just three films and his continued status as a cultural icon is testament to his iconic looks, demeanour and screen presence. In 1955 he became the first actor to be posthumously nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in East of Eden and followed that with a second posthumous nomination the year later with Giant. Like many pop culture icons of the last century, James Dean died young and on his way up but in a cruel twist of fate, his death sealed his fame.

6. Marilyn Munroe (Died 1962 – aged 36)

This list contains several pop culture icons but none are as recognisable or revered today as Marilyn Munroe. The epitome of sex on screen, Munroe began her screen career in the late 1940s but came to the public’s attention in the early 50s in films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monkey Business and All About Eve, the multi award winning drama in which her beauty dazzled alongside the established stars Bette Davis and Anne Baxter. Munroe was and is as famous for her love affairs as she is for her acting but was a movie star in the truest sense of the word. Her untimely death in 1962 is still the subject of debate and conspiracy theory over fifty years on.

Star Trek Into Darkness

2013-05-11T00:46:00.003+01:00

After the success of 2009’s Star Trek and with a large and loyal fan base waiting eagerly, there was no doubt that another Star Trek film would follow the recent reboot. The film picks off pretty much where the first one left off, thematically and cast wise at least and finds the crew of the USS Enterprise on a previously unexplored planet, attempting to save a primitive civilisation. Several set pieces and un-followed directives later and Captain J.T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is stripped of his captaincy while his first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) is reassigned. When a rogue officer attacks Starfleet in London, Kirk is given command once more and tasked with tracking the extremely dangerous Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) to the Klingon home planet and ordered by his superiors to set phasers to kill.

For about an hour I was really enjoying this second updated Star Trek movie and had few complaints but into the second hour the plot begins to sag and then fall away completely. There is a set piece, which is also in the trailer, and shows the Enterprise hurtling to Earth in an uncontrollable spin. For me this was an apt metaphor for the film as a whole following a second act reveal. Up until that point I was engaged and intrigued but once the torpedo truth was made known, the film hit a brick wall and relied on admittedly excellent special effects and action set pieces to see it to its soppy conclusion.

I don’t want to give the impression that Into Darkness is a bad film because it isn’t. But it isn’t a great film either. The movie blends traditional Trek with modern twists to create some exciting scenes and there are knowing nods to the original series littered throughout which will please Trekkies. I have to wonder though whether the hard core fans will really go for this movie as aside from the character outlines and occasional references, it’s far removed from the 1960s television series. Because the story isn’t strong enough, the film relies too often on running around, battles and explosions. While I’m no huge Star Trek fan, my memories of the TV series were of philosophical and theoretical discussions on strange worlds with Spock’s logic and Kirk’s heart driving them towards worthy conclusions and decisive moral victories. Of course there was action too and fighting both in space and on terra ferma. Here though there is far more of the fighting, explosions and shaking camera, holding onto chairs, rocking from side to side stuff. For me that fails to separate the movie from any other Hollywood blockbuster whereas the TV show’s intellectual side separated itself from everything else on TV at the time.

Although I got a bit fed up with all the fighting and running about, it at least looked very good. The special effects were absolutely fantastic and both in space, on Earth or on foreign worlds, the landscapes, beings and ships looked wonderful. There’s some very nice set design, especially in some of the Enterprise’s engine rooms and London and San Fransisco looked realistically futuristic. J.J. Abrams’ direction is recognisable in both its quick zooms, lens flare (I know, I shouldn’t mention it, but its everywhere) and general assured quality. The screen pops with interesting and exciting visuals and I have no complaints in any aspect of the film’s design. The 3D isn’t terrible either. It is particularly effective early on but becomes gradually worse and some scenes are a little fuzzy. Overall though it didn’t impact massively on my experience either way.

The returning cast is mostly solid and in a couple of the actors I saw flashes which I failed to notice in the first film. Karl Urban has grown into the role of Bones, seeming both more like DeForest Kelley than before but also bringing his own take on the character at times. Chris Pine lacks some of the charisma of William Shatner but holds his own as the focal point. Zachary Quinto once again impresses as Spock, bringing depth and humour to the role and John Cho is also very watchable. I have a problem with Simon Pegg though and feel as though he is miscast. I think (and hope) that his terrible accent is a loving nod to James Doohan’s Scotty but overall his acting style and portrayal of the character just doesn’t work for me. Zoe Saldana is an actress who I like but in this film her character is reduced to a pastiche of a girlfriend with the hump. New to the series is Alice Eve who added nothing of note bar an unnecessary lingerie scene and Benedict Cumberbatch who shines brightly as the film’s villain. Cumberbatch has immense screen presence and brings a brooding darkness to the role and the film as a whole. He is wonderful when spitting out complex and often skull crushing dialogue and shows that he is no slouch in the action scenes too. He’s a highlight of the movie.

One of the problems with the film for me is that because the story was so thin, I was more attune to picking up little inconsistencies and plot holes. Little things that wouldn’t have bothered me had I been more engaged also became more problematic. In addition to this, the plot was often so predictable that I was able to second guess much of it, thus taking away a lot of the fun and excitement of its discovery. I want to avoid spoilers so won’t be too specific but Peter Weller’s character development was painfully obvious from the start and as soon a someone takes over from Kirk as Captain, you know their days in that role are numbered. A daughter’s English accent also jarred when her father spoke broadly in an American one and Spock’s refusal to break directives (rescue) while breaking others (interfering already) should have been spotted by the writers. Something else that bothered me was the availability of transporting which flickers between working and broken with annoying regularity and for no other reason than to stop the script from taking the simple, non action orientated way out.

Overall for all the effects and fire and crashes, Star Trek Into Darkness is a bit underwhelming. It looks brilliant and the direction is very good but the story comes off as rushed and ill thought out. The writers are well known to movie fans and have penned some very popular movies but with the likes of Cowboys & Aliens, Transformers 2, Prometheus and The Island amongst their screen credits, a pattern emerges of films that are attractive, big in scope, often big on ideas but ultimately flimsy and full of holes. Star Trek Into Darkness continues in that vein and although starts out promisingly it eventually boldly goes into the incidental, also ran category.

6/10

GFR 6/10

Titbits

Nods to the original include the appearance of a tribble and a small cameo from a farmiliar face.
Director J.J. Abrams didn't want to shoot in 3D and preferred to use IMAX cameras. A compromise was made with the studio and the film was shot in the IMAX format and converted into 3D in post production, a world first.
Benedict Cumberbatch was recommended to Abrams by Steven Spielberg.
Michael Dorn, known for playing the Kingon Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation was contacted about appearing in the film but in the end the film makers decided against his inclusion.

The Conversation

2013-05-09T18:40:00.000+01:00

In between making two of the most heralded films of all time in 1972 and 1974, writer/director Francis Ford Coppola made another film. That film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture. That film was The Conversation. A taught psychological thriller, The Conversation isn’t as grand in scale or as epic in scope at The Godfather movies by which it is sandwiched but it’s a deeply intriguing look inside the world of audio espionage and the consequences of it. Gene Hackman leads a terrific cast as Harry Caul, a surveillance expert who has second thoughts about handing in his latest recordings for fear that those he has recorded will be killed, a repeat of a previous job which still haunts him years later.

The film opens onto a magnificent scene which forms the basis of the whole movie. Initially shot from high up on a rooftop the camera details a large plaza in which hundreds of people are milling about, talking and eating lunch, people watching or simply passing through. The shot is alive with detail and beautifully constructed but as the camera slowly zooms in you begin to focus your attention on a mime. Eventually the mime starts to copy a man drinking a cup of coffee. That man is Harry Caul (Hackman). Caul is in the plaza spying a young couple who are slowly circling, deep in conversation. Once at ground level the camera cuts to several other angles, showing the other members of Caul’s team hard at work, attempting to record the conversation. I have seen few better opening sequences than the one detailed above. It’s slow to build, intriguing, interesting and opens up several possibilities for how to proceed.

The way in which the conversation is recorded and then worked to create a clear sound is beautifully done. The analogue technology used seems dated by today’s standards but you can appreciate the complexity and skill of the operation. Something I enjoyed was that we go back to the plaza scene on several occasions as the recording is perfected, each time getting a better understanding of what the conversation entailed. This drip feeding of information is a classic thriller technique but done to near perfection by Coppola. The audio of the recording becomes part of the film’s soundtrack, eventually being woven into the musical score as it fixes itself to the conscience and unconsciousness of Harry Caul. The fuzzy audio and missing words slowly fit into place as the overarching story around it follows suit.

The plot and characters are both well drawn and layered. The central idea is perhaps more interesting than the actual plot but I was thoroughly entertained throughout. The conversation at the heart of the plot is fairly mundane and un-detailed, even when it comes to light in full. Because of this the audience can read into what certain words mean and the inclination of certain words can change the meaning of whole sentences. The acting and direction during that scene had to be spot on for the film to work and luckily both were. Gene Hackman is excellent as Caul. He is private and neurotic, worried about his past mistakes as well as the idea of being bugged himself. The film’s ending shows the fullness of his paranoia and although not finishing with a flurry, was a more than satisfactorily conclusion. Hackman underplays his role and is stealthy and private even with friends. Cindy Williams and Frederick Forrest are the couple being recorded and as I mentioned previously, they got their conversation spot on. The film features an early performance from a young Harrison Ford. Ford is composed and aggressive, playing off his later type. Robert Duvall has a small role as Harrison Ford’s boss but isn’t given much chance to shine. An actor who does stand out though, alongside Hackman, is John Cazale. Cazale, who has one of the greatest CVs of any actor despite dying prematurely at 42, is perfect as the edgy but unflustered sound recorder. He has a knack of quietly stealing the viewer’s eye from centre screen as fits his role really well.

The cinematography is something which deserves special mention. Haskell Wexler shot the terrific Union Square footage but was fired shortly into the production and replaced by Bill Butler. Although Wexler’s work stands out in my mind, Butler’s contribution is enormous. He helps Coppola to create some beautiful sequences and superb camera angles which really made me smile. One in particular was particularly noteworthy. The scene takes place inside Caul’s cavernous, loft style office and features a simple conversation with just two people talking. Rather than shooting from 90 degrees to the actors or using a simple over the shoulder reverse angle, Butler begins the sequence tight on one actors face while the camera is positioned to the left of the other actor. The camera then slowly pans and pivots towards the other actor while slowly zooming out. This is repeated three times during the same short conversation and was a really interesting, technically bold decision which added to my overall enjoyment of the film.

The sound design also deserves special mention as it is responsible for some of the best moments and biggest reveals. The way in which the conversation slowly reveals itself is superbly done and this is in no small part due to the sound designer Walter Murch. Something which we can comment on with hindsight is the film’s relevance in relation to The Watergate Scandal. The film was released while the scandal was unfolding but before it had reached its peak with Nixon’s resignation. Today it looks as though there are several parallels between Watergate and the film but whether these are accidental is still up for debate. Either way The Conversation is a fabulous film on both a technical and aesthetic level. It works well both as a thriller and a piece of art but is accessible, interesting and even occasionally moving.

8/10

Titbits

Robert Shields who plays the mime was actually a mime in Union Square at the time. He later went on to be an actor in both TV and film.
Images of Gene Hackman as a young man in the similarly themed Enemy of the State were taken directly from this film.
Coppola wrote the script in 1966 but couldn't get the project off the ground until after The Godfather had become a hit.
The film came joint 173rd in my Greatest Films of All Time study.

Black Sunday

2013-05-06T20:10:00.003+01:00

Black Sunday, also known as The Mask of Satan or La maschera del dominio in some territories is a 1960 Italian horror movie about a beautiful vampire-witch who is given new life two hundred years after her brutal murder. The movie opens with a horrific scene in which the witch, Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele) is put to death at the stake with a spiked, iron mask hammered onto her face. Blood splatters through the mask’s holes and drips down the woman’s body in a scene which would still shock if released today. For 1960s though, the same year that Alfred Hitchcock got into trouble for showing a toilet flushing in Psycho, its effect must have been extraordinary. The movie continues the trend of shocking throughout its 90 minute runtime but doesn’t simply rely on it. Black Sunday, despite its surprising gore, is a well made film which looks and sounds great and has a very good story at its centre.

The film was directed by Mario Bava in what was technically his debut feature. Previously a cinematographer, he had unofficially completed several films as a director but was always uncredited as he took over from directors who left the films they were helming. His background as a cinematographer helped here to blend beauty and gore and produce a film whose reputation stands out against the plethora of similar films from its period.

The story begins with the brutality mentioned above and then fast forwards two centuries to the eighteen hundreds where two doctors are travelling towards St. Petersburg. They pull over for the night in a small town after discovering an old crypt which contains the remains of a decaying dynasty of princes and princesses. Amongst the tombs is that of a woman punished for witchcraft, a woman who gave herself to the devil and was buried with a window on her tomb and a crucifix in her line of sight. After the two men accidentally break the crucifix the woman is able to rise again and begins to turn those around her into vampires while searching for the body of a young woman from whom she can feed on.

The body she finds belongs to Princess Asa (Steele – who plays both parts). Steele took the lead role despite not having read the screenplay or speaking Italian. At just eighteen she was cast after the director had seen photos of her modelling and the role lead to several more Italian horrors as well as a starring role in Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum and Federico Fellini’s masterpiece 8 ½ which is where her charms first came to my attention. Steele has the perfect look for the role, innocent yet sexual, capable of manic outbursts and glazed over eyes within seconds of each other. Her acting is to be honest quite poor and made me laugh a few times but she is well cast for the role and has a magnetic and mesmerising presence. The actors surrounding her aren’t much better than Steele, with a number of English and Italian actors struggling in the wrong language and with corny dialogue. A problem, as so often is the case with Italian movies, is the dubbing. The movie is available in a number of different versions due to language and censorship issues and I saw it in the original Italian, dubbed English version.

The censorship issues remained right up until the early 1990s when the film was finally passed uncut in the UK and rated '15'. It was originally banned altogether here and not released at all until 1968 in a heavily cut version. In the US, three minutes were trimmed, the dialogue was altered and the score was toned down but luckily I was able to see the movie in all its glory today. Some of the scenes are quite gruesome to look at but they are spread very thinly. The images aren’t as shocking as in many modern horror movies but I can’t say I’m surprised it was met with cuts in 1960. Stakes in eyeballs, burning, melting heads and dying dogs are just some of the gory images which the film offers up.

Despite the gore, Black Sunday is a handsome looking film with a noteworthy story. Its influence over other films in the genre is clear to see and it entertained me from start to finish. Mario Bava strikes me as an assured director and I want to search out more of his work while Barbara Steele’s big eyes and high, arched brows mean I’ll watch anything she’s in.

7/10

Titbits

Director Tim Burton sited Black Sunday as his favourite horror film and gives a clear nod to it with a death scene in Sleepy Hollow.
The vampires were originally going to have fangs but they were dropped after a couple of days filming because the director didn't think they looked real enough.
Mario Bava was offered an American-colour remake but turned it down.

The Ultimate Greatest Films of All Time #34th-76th

2013-05-06T12:53:00.001+01:00

For the last couple of months I've been compiling a greatest film list based on other greatest film lists. Here are the results of the films from 34th to 76th. Check back soon for 1st to 33rd. If you want to know how I got the results, click here. You can click on a film title for my review.

=34th (13 points) 8 ½ (1963)
The second Fellini film to feature, 8 ½ is a beautifully made, introspective film which features prominently on the Sight and Sound poll as well as on four others.

=34th (13 points) Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Another Italian movie, appearing on five lists, Vittorio De Sica's film is an obvious example of neorealism and was honoured with an Honorary Academy Award in 1950 and was the top film on Sight and Sound's first poll in 1952.

=34th (13 points) GoodFellas (1990)
Martin Scorsese's third film to feature, GoodFellas is both a cult classic and critical darling. It is the movie for which Scorsese's name has become the most widely known and remains one of the greatest gangster pictures of all time.

=34th (13 points) Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
The winner of a joint record breaking eleven Oscars, Return of the King is the highest placed Lord of the Rings film and generally regarded as the best of the trilogy, a rare occurrence for a third film.

=34th (13 points) M (1931)
Fritz Lang's crime thriller M is still brilliant after more than eighty years and marks some of the director's finest work. It appears on six lists.

=34th (13 points) Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The second Star Wars film is also the second to appear on this list. Originally released to mix reviews, it has grown in stature over the years and remains as popular as any film on this list.

=34th (13 points) The 400 Blows (1959)
This French drama is recognised on five of the lists I used and is one of the defining films of the French New Wave.

=41st (12 points) Blade Runner (1982)
Loved by fans and critics alike, this futuristic noir is one of the best loved science fiction movies of all time.

=41st (12 points) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Another Spielberg classic, as popular now as it ever was. It appeared on six lists and was the highest grossing film of all time for eleven years until it was overtaken by another of Spielberg's movies.

=41st (12 points) Modern Times (1936)
A near perfect silent movie made nearly a decade after the advent of sound, Modern Times is a satire of the modern world by a man who was afraid of it. Regarded as one of Charlie Chaplin's finest, it is his highest ranking movie on this list.

=41st (12 points) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Leone's epic Western is famous for its ultra widescreen cinematography and leitmotifs.

=41st (12 points) The Apartment (1960)
The third Billy Wilder film on this list, The Apartment is a laugh out loud comedy which was a smash hit with critics and cinema goers. It also won five Oscars including Best Picture.

=46th (11 points) 12 Angry Men (1957)
Sidney Lumet's directorial debut is a masterclass in film making and should be shown to every film student and law student. It only features on three of the twelve lists I used.

=46th (11 points) Aliens (1986)
A rare example of a sequel ranked higher than the original, Aliens is one of the greatest sequels and greatest horror movies ever made.

=46th (11 points) Fight Club (1996)
A huge cult hit, Fight Club features prominently on the Empire and IMDb lists and includes a now well known but still great twist.

=46th (11 points) Rules of the Game (1939)
Jean Renoir's classic gained most of it's points from the Sight and Sound list where it has been a mainstay for seventy years. It is currently forth in that poll.

=46th (11 points) Touch of Evil (1958)
Though it sounds like an 80s horror, Touch of Evil is in fact one of the last examples of original film noir and was written, directed by and starred Orson Welles.

=46th (11 points) Toy Story (1995)
The first animated feature on this list and separated from its sequel by precedent only, Toy Story ushered in a new medium of computer animation which is now the norm for the genre. Not only was it the first, it's still one of the best.

=46th (11 points) Toy Story 2 (1999)
With ten of its eleven points coming from its placing on the Rotten Tomatoes poll, Toy Story 2 might be a surprise companion for the first movie. Though not generally considered as good as the first film it is still one of the stand outs in the genre.

=53rd (10 points) Annie Hall (1977)
For such a prolific and critically successful film maker, Annie Hall is Woody Allen's first film on the list at 53. Generally regarded as his best it won three Oscars, two for Allen himself.

=53rd (10 points) Blue Velvet (1986)
Another film maker making a surprisingly low first appearance, David Lynch's Blue Velvet is a surrealist picture that was originally slammed by mainstream critics. It's a rare colour film to appear on the Sight and Sound poll.

=53rd (10 points) Double Indemnity (1944)
Another Billy Wilder film, this film noir set the mould for which noir films followed. It was nominated for seven Oscars but failed to win any.

=53rd (10 points) It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
A Christmas favourite, It's a Wonderful Life appears on six lists and is often regarded as one of the most aspirational films ever made.

=53rd (10 points) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The first in the trilogy and second highest placed of the three on this list, The Fellowship of the Ring wowed audiences in 2001 with its stunning special effects and epic scale.

=53rd (10 points) Rashamon (1950)
Only the third Japanese film to appear so far, Rashamon is a period drama which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and received an Honorary Academy Award. It was written and directed by Akira Kurosawa and marks the director's second appearance on this list.

=53rd (10 points) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
A joint winner of the top prize at the first ever Academy Awards, Sunrise marks a rare occurrence for a silent film on this list. A personal favourite of mine, it is widely regarded as one of the best films from the silent era.

=53rd (10 points) The Dark Knight (2008)
The highest placed of Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy, the film is most famous for the performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. The actor received a posthumous Oscar.

=53rd (10 points) The Gold Rush (1925)
The second Charlie Chaplin film to appear, The Gold Rush features some of the Tramp's most iconic moments on screen.

=53rd (10 points) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western is the final film in the Dollars Trilogy and stands out thanks to its cinematography and score.

=53rd (10 points) The Seventh Seal (1957)
This is Ingmar Bergman's second film to feature and helped to bring the Swedish director to the world stage. It appeared on five of the twelve lists I looked at.

=53rd (10 points) The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
One of just three films to win the 'big five' Oscars, it was also the first horror movie to win Best Picture.

=53rd (10 points) The Wild Bunch (1969)
Notable for its multi angle, quick editing, The Wild Bunch appeared on five of the twelve lists I used.

=53rd (10 points) The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Still hugely popular after over seventy years, The Wizard of Oz features some of the most recognisable songs and images in cinema history.

=67th (9 points) A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Stanley Kubrick's film riled the censors in 1971 but remains popular due to its themes and violent images.

=67th (9 points) Alien (1979)
Though it appears here below its sequel Aliens, Alien is still regarded as one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time. It also crossed genres into horror.

=67th (9 points) Back to the Future (1985)
The first in a hugely successful and popular sequel, Back to the Future is a film which can be watched over and over again. It features heavily in the more populist polls.

=67th (9 points) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The third and final film in the trilogy to feature, it isn't considered quite as good as the other two but still made close to a billion dollars and won two Oscars.

=67th (9 points) Man on Wire (2008)
Receiving all of its 9 points from the Rotten Tomatoes list, Man on Wire is a tense and interesting documentary set around the World Trade Centre.

=67th (9 points) Metropolis (1927)
Fritz Lang's expressionist vision of the future is one of the gems of the silent period.

=67th (9 points) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
The second film to win the 'big five' Oscars.

=67th (9 points) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
A rare appearance for an action film and the only Terminator film to feature on this list.

=67th (9 points) The Shining (1980)
Another Kubrick classic, The Shinning can still send shivers down the spine and has movie fans guessing and speculating more than thirty years on.

=67th (9 points) The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)
One of the first Hollywood films to be shot on location almost entirely outside the United States, this film features on three of the lists I used.

77th-115th 1st-33rd

Night at the Museum

2013-05-06T12:12:00.002+01:00

The perfect family film for a Bank Holiday Monday morning, Night at the Museum is a film in which history comes to life. Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is divorced and unable to hold down a steady job in New York City. His ex-wife believes that the constant uprooting is affecting their ten year old son and pleads with him to settle down and get a steady job. Larry takes a job at the Museum of Natural History as a night watchman but soon discovers that the job is much harder than advertised as the exhibits literally come to life after dark.

I’ve seen this film a few times now but I’m not really sure why. It’s quite fun and passes a couple of hours but it’s by no stretch of the imagination, a classic. Night at the Museum is one of those films that you can put on and turn off the brain, allowing the noises and images to wash over you as your eyes glaze over. What it offers is silly fun and a treat for kids. Unfortunately I watched it alone, in my pyjamas.

I think that the film manages its set pieces very well and it always has a lot of action on screen with which to distract the viewer. The movie is busy and highly animated and features a lot of special effects, most of which look pretty good. There are plenty of characters and little sub plots which keeps the movie ticking over and some of these are good fun. I thought that the bickering, fighting and eventual friendship between the miniature Steve Coogan and Owen Wilson characters was a lot of fun and there was a nice romantic subplot between Mizuo Peck and Robin Williams. Some of the other characters were annoying or underdeveloped though and unfortunately these tended to be the central characters.

Ben Stiller does his best with the role but there is little comedy to be had and he mainly just runs around trying to close doors. He gets his hero moment late on but there isn’t much to his character. Carla Gugino is hampered with a character whose only trait is that she is writing about a two hundred year old woman and Ricky Gervais, who I’m a huge fan of, simply plays David Brent in a waistcoat. The film is full of inconsistencies and ridiculousness aside from the obvious museum coming to life. The first thing that annoyed me is the premise that the museum is attracting no visitors. I visited a couple of months ago and found it was one of the busiest buildings I’d ever been inside. There are other problems such as locking up the lions being top of the priority list, one man guarding an entire museum and the language issues but really I think its best not to over think the plot holes in a film like this.

In the end, Night at the Museum is a bit of throwaway fun which features a nice central idea and a few enjoyable moments. It’s ridiculous and silly but generally well made and popular enough to become the first part in a trilogy.

5/10

Titbits

The interiors were shot on a soundstage in Vancouver. They were originally scheduled to be shot in Montreal but Ben Stiller prefers Vancouver so the production moved there.
Owen Wilson was only meant to be appearing in one scene but his character tested so well in previews that he came back to shoot more.
The film spawned a sequel in 2009 and Night at the Museum 3 is scheduled for release on Christmas Day 2014.
Crystal the Monkey has appeared in films as diverse as American Pie, The Hangover Part II, We Bought a Zoo, Dr. Doolittle and 3:10 to Yuma.

The Ultimate Greatest Films of All Time #77th-115th

2013-05-05T22:48:00.002+01:00

After weeks of work, the first part of my Ultimate Greatest Movies of All Time list is ready. I used several lists to calculate the best movies ever and over the next few days I'll be publishing the results. This first part includes the films ranked 77th-115th. The films placed above these will be published in the coming days. To see how I completed the list, click here. You can click on a film's title to read my review of it.

=77th (8 points) Amadeus (1984)

Oscar winning Mozart biopic.

American Beauty (1999)

Oscar winning drama about a man on the edge. Debut film of Sam Mendes.

Andrei Rublev (1966)

The highest placed Russian movie on my list.

City Lights (1931)

Sweet Charlie Chaplin romantic comedy, regarded as one of the greatest of its genre.

Die Hard (1988)

First in the now ageing series. Still the best.

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Ealing Black comedy.

King Kong (1933)

Pre-code monster drama, famous for its closing sequence.

Nashville (1975)

Musical drama which appears on six of the lists I looked at.

Rio Bravo (1959)

Howard Hawkes Western.

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

Documentary which got all of its points from the Rotten Tomatoes list.

The Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957)

Oscar winning war drama.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Henry Fonda lead drama, appearing on four lists.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Early film Noir, Humphrey Bogart stars.

The Matrix (1999)

Influential science fiction-action film. Appears only on Empire and IMDb lists.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

American romantic comedy.

=92nd Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Silent Russian movie about a 1905 mutiny. Popular with Sight & Sound and Rotten Tomatoes. First of two Russian movies on my list.

Bringing up Baby (1938)
Screw ball comedy starring Katherine Hepburn and Carey Grant. High up on the Entertainment Weekly List.

City of God (2002)
Brazilian slum drama. Appeared on four lists and got a lot of points from the IMDb list.

Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Classic Paul Newman prison drama.

Gladiator (2000)
Turn of the millennium General turned slave turned hero epic. Oscar winner.

Heat (1995)
Michael Mann's thriller which finally joined De Niro and Pacino on screen.

Intolerance (1916)
The earliest film on the list. D. W. Griffith's response to racist accusations. Appears only on Sight and Sound and Entertainment Weekly's lists.

Notorious (1946)
The first of many Hitchcock movies on this list. Post war espionage thriller.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Sergio Leone's epic crime drama. As long as time itself.

Persona (1966)
Ingmar Bergman's modernist masterpiece.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Tarantino's assured debut. His first appearance in the top 100.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Steven Spielberg's war movie, famous for its beach scenes.

Sherlock Jr (1924)
Buster Keaton detective comedy.

The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Italian-Algerian co-production about the Algerian-French war of 1954-62.

The Big Lebowski (1998)
Cult Coen Brothers comedy.

The Conformist (1970)
Italian Political drama. Popular on the less populist lists.

The General (1926)
Second Buster Keaton film to turn up on the list. Often considered as his greatest film.

The Interrupters (2011)
Documentary which gets all of its points from the Rotten Tomatoes list.

The Lives of Others (2006)
German stasi drama, a sleeper hit which becomes more popular with age.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Golden Age thriller. A rare hit for a black and white film on the Empire list.

The Sting (1973)
Robert Redford lead caper with Paul Newman. A big hit at the Oscars.

The Usual Suspects (1995)
One of the all time great reveals, appearing on the populist lists.

Three Colours Red (1994)
Conclusion of the Three Colours trilogy, the highest place of the three movies.

Unforgiven (1992)
Oscar winning Western featuring a late period Clint Eastwood.

34th-76th

Six of the Best... Marvel Films

2013-05-05T19:40:00.001+01:00

Marvel Studios have been responsible for creating some of the biggest box office draws in recent years with their variety of super hero movies taking over from the action movies that preceded them as some of the highest earning films in the world. Beginning as Marvel Films in the early 1990s, the studio originally turned their comic book properties into animated cartoons and with the likes of Spider-Man and the X-Men they created popular and long running animated series. The studio began venturing into movies in the late 1990s with co-productions alongside large studios and began going it alone in 2008. Here are Six of the Best…

6. Spider-Man 2 (2004). The best of the Sam Raimi trilogy, Spider-Man 2 contained some decent CGI and great stunt work as well as a deeper, more emotional story than the first movie. It’s funny and the ‘spidey cam’ looks great. It’s just a shame that Raimi went on to ruin all the good work in his third movie.

5. X-Men: First Class (2011). The fifth instalment in the X-Men series, First Class is an origins story set in the early 1960s. The movie features younger versions of the characters made famous in the comics, cartoons and earlier films which allowed a vast array of terrific young actors to make the characters their own. Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult provide some dramatic depth and Jane Goldman and Mathew Vaughn’s screenplay is one of the strongest a super hero movie has offered. Excellent effects round off a well above average movie.

4. Thor (2011). Kenneth Branagh’s slightly camp but very fun ‘Gods on Earth’ story was in my opinion the strongest pre-Avengers movie that Marvel produced. Chris Hemsworth makes a great lead character and Tom Hiddleston is a revelation as the evil brother. Some beautiful off world CGI and exciting, funny Earth bound action help to make Thor a movie I’d watch again and again and like the best comic book films, it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

3. Blade (1998). A co-production with New Line Cinema, Blade was Marvel’s first foray into live action movies and is also one of the studio’s most adult films. Wonderfully bloody and at the time, ultra modern, the Blade character took on cult status with the movie spawning two sequels. With extreme camera angles and violent, bloody fight scenes, the film became part of the Fight Club generation of gritty, grubby films which attracted high praise and multiple viewings.

2. Iron Man 3 (2013). The most recent Marvel film and the best in the hugely successful Iron Man series, Iron Man 3 is also Marvel’s funniest film to date. Coming off the back of the poor showing in Iron Man 2, the third instalment got back on track thanks to a more fleshed out story which didn’t rely solely on the charm and arrogance of its central character. At times moving and at other times laugh out loud funny, it’s hugely entertaining and only slightly tarnished by an overly long, unnecessary final fight sequence.

1. The Avengers (2012). What else could be number one but the culmination of Marvel’s work over the last decade? Bringing together multiple characters from their smash hit films, Marvel created a film which not only made over $1.5 billion at the box office but was also well received critically. Worries about egos and screen time were brushed aside as the characters gelled perfectly to create some massively entertaining sequences and very funny moments. They also managed to get the Hulk right after two previous failures. The benchmark by which all big budget movies will be judged for years to come, The Avengers is the best Marvel have produced to date. It also gets extra points for a certain female character's costume design.

The Greatest Films of All Time #1-33

2013-05-05T16:48:00.001+01:00

For the last couple of months I've been combining top movie lists to find out once and for all what the best movies ever made are. You can read about the process here and a full list of 742 films in contention will be released later but here is the top 33 in ascending order.

1st (44 points) The Godfather (1972)
Francis Ford Coppola's gangster epic tops Entertainment Weekly and Time's lists and appears on every single list I looked at. A clear winner, beating the second place movie by 8 points.

2nd (36 points) Citizen Kane (1941)
The film regarded by many as the best ever ends up 2nd on my list with 36 points. Poorer showings on the more populist lists such as the IMDb prevents it from being number one. It makes an appearance on every list bar the Oscars.

=3rd (24 points) The Godfather Part II (1974)
A full 12 points behind Citizen Kane and 20 behind the film for which it is a sequel to, The Godfather Part II still manages to end up at joint 3rd helped by its IMDb placing and Oscar haul.

=3rd (24 points) Vertigo (1958)
The first of many Alfred Hitchcock movies on this list, Vertigo recently overcame Citizen Kane to top the Sight and Sound poll. Strong showings on six other lists helps it to =3rd place.

5th (23 points) Casablanca (1942)
A film which is popular with both the snootier and more populist lists, Casablanca is a film which pops up towards the top of most of the lists I looked at.

6th (22 points) Singin' in the Rain (1952)
The first musical on my list, it appears on each of the poll lists but not in the critics or Oscars lists.

7th (21 points) Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The first Stanley Kubrick movie to appear and a film which features solidly across the board on the lists I looked at. The top comedy on the list.

=8th (20 points) Pulp Fiction (1994)
The first film on this list that you could accurately call 'modern' and the first appearance for Quentin Tarantino whose films are popular on the magazine and internet lists.

=8th (20 points) Seven Samurai (1954)
The first Japanese movie on this list and a film which pops up on most of the lists I looked at, being similarly placed on both populist and critical lists.

=10th (19 points) Chinatown (1974)
Popping up around the middle of Empire and Sight and Sound's lists, Chinatown creeps into the top ten alongside three others on 19 points. Roman Polanski's neo-noir was nominated for eleven Academy Awards but won only one.

=10th (19 points) North by Northwest (1959)
The second Hitchcock movie in the top ten, North by North West is amongst the director's most popular and accessible. It can be described as the template for the blockbuster which emerged twenty years later.

=10th (19 Points) Raging Bull (1980)
Martin Scorsese's highest placing film, Raging Bull is one of several which vie for the acclaimed director's all time greatest movies. It's loss to Ordinary People at the 53rd Academy Awards is often regarded as the biggest upset in Oscar history.

=10th (19 points) Some Like it Hot (1959)
Billy Wilder's highest placed film, some like it hot was a screw ball comedy which is creditied as one of the films which helped to see off the Hays Code for good. Marilyn Munroe stars.

=14th (18 points) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The top science fiction movie on this list, its influence can be felt forty-five years later in the science fiction of today. Stanley Kubrick's second film on the list.

=14th (18 points) On the Waterfront (1954)
A revolution in naturalistic acting, Marlon Brando won an Oscar for a film which also won Best Picture. The film was nominated for an incredible eight Academy Awards.

=14th (18 points) Psycho 1960)
Yet another Hitchcock movie (his 3rd in the top 15), Psycho stretched the boundaries of what was allowed in the Code era Hollywood. It's conclusion is magnificent and its score is amongst the most famous in film history.

=17th (17 points) Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
The first in George Lucas' double trilogy and the highest placed on this list. Star Wars is still one of the most popular movies of all time, more than thirty-five years after its release. It continues to make millions of dollars each year.

=17th (17 points) The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Despite a lukewarm box office reception, The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for seven Oscars and is the highest rated movie on the IMDb. A high placing in Empire's poll is its only other appearance on the twelve lists I used.

=17th (17 points) The Third Man (1949)
This British film noir is remembered for its atmospheric cinematography and musical score. It appeared on three times as many lists as The Shawshank Redemption but with lower placings.

=17th (17 points) Tokyo Story (1953)
The second Japanese film inside the top 20, Tokyo Story is considered the fifth best film ever made by Sight and Sound.

21st (16 points) Apocalypse Now (1979)
The highest placed war movie on this list, Apocalypse Now is Frances Ford Coppola's third film on the list. A troubled production couldn't stop the film from becoming a critical hit.

=22nd (15 points) Gone With the Wind (1939)
Criticised for its glorification of slavery, Gone With the Wind nevertheless manages to sneak into the top twenty-five on this list with strong showings on Entertainment Weekly and Empire's lists. Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award for her performance in this film.

=22nd (15 points) Jaws (1975)
Steven Spielberg's first appearance on the list, Jaws became the archetype summer blockbuster. It's terrifying visuals and score still make some fearful of stepping into the water over nearly forty years later.

=22nd (15 points) Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Based on the life of a First World War solider, LoA clocks in at 216 minutes making it a favourite for a cosy Sunday afternoon film. The film won seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor and featured on seven of the twelve lists I looked at.

=22nd (15 points) Schindler's List (1993)
A second Spielberg appearance and something vastly different from his first. A personal and harrowing film, Schindler's List is still the benchmark when it comes to depicting our species darkest hour.

=22nd (15 points) Taxi Driver (1976)
A second appearance for Scorsese for what is my personal favourite film. Popular with fans and critics alike the movie catapulted its star and director towards the big time. An edgy classic with controversial themes.

=27th (14 points) All About Eve (1950)
Nominated for a record fourteen Academy Awards, All About Eve won six and is the only film in history to feature four female Oscar nominated performances.

=27th (14 points) La Dolce Vita (1960)
Federico Fellini's film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes as well as an Oscar and appeared in two of the three individual critics top 10's that I used.

=27th (14 points) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
A third Spielberg film, Raiders was the first in the still running, still (ish) popular Indiana Jones series. Thirty years after its release it remains one of the highest grossing films ever made.

=27th (14 points) Rear Window (1954)
Hitchcock's forth film (the most for any director thus far), Rear Window is as tense as they get. The film was nominated for four Oscars but failed to win any.

=27th (14 points) Sunset Boulevard (1950)
A second Billy Wilder film following Some Like it Hot at number 10, this film noir turns the camera on Hollywood and isn't afraid to show its dirty underbelly. An undisputed American classic.

=27th (14 points) The Searchers (1956)
The highest ranked Western on the list, John Ford's film was named the greatest Western of all time by the AFI in 2008. It got points in five of the twelve lists I looked at.

33rd - 77th

All the President's Men

2013-05-05T14:13:00.001+01:00

This 1976 political thriller is based on the book of the same name by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the two reporters who were responsible for uncovering the facts of the Watergate Scandal which ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. Nominated for eight Academy Awards it won three and is often regarded as one of the best political thrillers of all time.

The movie manages to capture the sense of urgency, frustration and fear that must be present inside a major newspaper office as its staff are working on a sensitive story such as the one depicted here. It portrays journalistic workings in what appears to be an accurate way and follows the story from beginning to, not quite the end, but a satisfactorily conclusion. The central partnership is strong and ebbs and flows from distrust to jealousy to solid teamwork and mutual admiration and respect. The film also gets to the heart of the Watergate Scandal, introducing a lot of characters who would otherwise have been lost in history.

What I liked about the film is that it felt like we were on the journey of discovery with the reporters. Although we have historical hindsight now, if you ignore that, the audience learns about the scandal and surrounding crimes, cover-ups and lies in a slow and steady way, the film taking its time to unravel, much as the story did in real life. My favourite scenes were either set inside The Post’s offices or in one of the two lead’s apartments where they worked together on clues. The collaboration between the two reporters worked well both in real life and on screen and the actors had great chemistry. Both leads were superb in their roles and they were ably supported by a solid cast which included Jason Robards who earned an Oscar for his performance.

At times the film struggled to hold my attention, despite my interest in politics. Whether it was because I already knew the outcome or just wasn’t interested, I couldn’t say but at times my mind drifted. The film isn’t flashy and occasionally has a slight documentary feel to it. Perhaps the straight visual style impeded my enjoyment slightly? The score was very good and the design was excellent while the plot was often, if not always, intriguing. The film still stands out as one of the best movies of 1976 alongside the likes of Network, Taxi Driver and Rocky and for me it’s an interesting political thriller with its heart in the right place. It tells a story which needs to be told but it just didn’t grab me emotionally as did the real events.

7/10

Titbits

In posters and trailers, Redford was billed first but in the opening credits it was Hoffman who took top billing.
Frank Willis, the security guard who discovered the Watergate break-in, plays himself.
During filming, Robert Redford stayed at the Watergate Hotel.

Citizen Kane

2013-05-04T23:04:00.000+01:00

If you were to talk about the best video game ever made, you might describe it as ‘The Citizen Kane of video games’. You might describe New York City as ‘The Citizen Kane of cities’. Personally I mentioned in my review of The Room that it’s known as ‘The Citizen Kane of bad movies’ Citizen Kane has come to be used as a bench mark for all that is great. The best of the best. The top ‘thing’ in any particular field. This of course arose due to the 1941 films’ long held standing of being the greatest motion picture ever made. For fifty years it topped Sight and Sound’s poll of the ten best movies of all time, it is listed as the AFI’s top movie and is currently battling for top spot with one other on my Ultimate Greatest Films of All Time list which is under construction at time of writing.

To my great shame I’d never seen the movie until today. I’m twenty-seven, have been interested in film for nearly a decade and have been writing about the medium for over a year yet I’d never seen the ‘greatest of them all’. If I’m honest I can’t put my finger on why. The movie wasn’t difficult to track down; I have no issue with the black and white, the time period or the subject matter. I think I’ve narrowed down my reasons to two things. The first is the title. Citizen Kane doesn’t do anything for me and as titles go I don’t think it’s particularly strong but I think the main reason was that I was afraid of disappointment. So many times since I began to write my thoughts on film I have been let down and then let down my readers when I didn’t get or didn’t like classic, highly rated films. I think The Lion King is poor, I gave North by Northwest 6/10 and much of 8 ½ was lost on me. It was with great trepidation then that I recently took the plunge and bought Citizen Kane on Blu-ray. And was I disappointed? The short answer to that question is, no. A slightly longer answer is No, I wasn’t and for a longer answer still, you can read the next 1,110 words.

I’m not sure that Citizen Kane is the best movie ever made. I’ve enjoyed a lot of films more and thought that a couple were of a higher technical quality but I would ever argue with someone who gave their opinion that it was the greatest motion picture of all time. To get it out of the way, I’ll start with what I didn’t like about the movie. OK, now we can move on to what I did like. Citizen Kane was directed by Orson Welles who was twenty-five at the time of production. While short on years he was even shorter in directorial experience. Although successful on the stage and on the radio, the movie was his first. This boggles my mind. I have two years on the Kane era Welles and haven’t even crafted a movie as good as Mirror Mirror yet and while most his age were starting out in their chosen professions, fetching coffee and trying to get noticed, Welles was busy on what would turn into a cinematic masterpiece that has arguably never been bettered. Not only did Welles direct but he also co-wrote, produced and starred in the title role. Unusually he was afforded complete control over the movie with a minimum of outside interference. Rarely has a director been given such control over a movie by a studio and only Chaplin at his height springs to mind as another example. Because of the complete artistic and creative freedom he enjoyed, Welles was able to mould the movie by his rules and create the image that was inside his head. Surprisingly given the critical success the movie was met with, neither Welles nor any other director since was given such licence by a major studio.

The movie’s plot borrows heavily from the life of William Randolph Hearst, a wealthy newspaper magnate. This got the film into trouble on its original release. Hearst’s influence threatened to derail its circulation to the masses and almost certainly impacted on its initial financial failures. The central character is also partly based on other tycoons and the director himself but it’s the similarities to Hearst which are not only most notable but also the most problematic. The movie opens on a spellbinding sequence which shows the final moments of Charles Foster Kane (Welles). As life slips from him, a close up of his lips shows the pronouncement of his final word, ‘Rosebud’. What follows next is a brief newsreel summary of the man’s life, from his humble Colorado beginnings to sudden wealth, separation from his family, wild youth, marriages, successes, failures, political aspirations and later hermit mannered old age. The newsreel itself is fantastically exciting and intriguing but the reporters watching it are curious as to the meaning of the man’s final word. What is Rosebud? What does it mean, represent or stand for? Was it a person, a long lost love, or a coded message? One reporter sets out to discover the meaning behind the word and in a series of flashbacks, attempts to unravel its meaning.

The plot spans several decades and while touching on Kane’s formative years, focuses mainly on his adult life, from twenty-five to his mid seventies. The character through all this time is played by Orson Welles who is sublime in the role and makes use of near perfect makeup to add age and girth to his figure. The entire principle cast is made up to be either younger or older at various times and for a film which is now itself in its seventies, the effect is remarkable. The makeup is just one of the superb effects which the film uses to fool the viewer’s eyes. In several scenes Citizen Kane uses an optical printer which creates composites of often two and sometimes three images to form a single shot. This helps to form otherwise costly scenes and also helps to maintain the film’s distinctive ‘universal focus’. We are used to movies pulling focus on an item or character that is often in the foreground of the shot. This means that the rest of the frame is out of focus. While this is usually pretty and often effective for its purpose, for Citizen Kane, Orson Welles wanted to create a film which looked as the eye saw the world. If you look up from your computer, phone, or tablet and look ahead of you, most of what you see is in focus. Welles wanted his film to look the same and employed cinematographer Gregg Toland who perfected the director’s vision. As well as the distinctive focus, Citizen Kane also features beautiful lighting and innovative camera placement which often shoots from ground level, meaning sets had to be built with ceilings, something which was and still is, rare.

In addition to looking great, Citizen Kane also sounds great too. Bernard Herrmann could legitimately be referred to as ‘The Citizen Kane of movie composers’. He is perhaps most famous for his Hitchcock collaborations which included Psycho, Vertigo and North by Northwest and his final score was for Taxi Driver but his first was for Citizen Kane. The music of the film is as revolutionary as any other aspect and is notable for being intermittent rather than continual as was the norm in 1941 and earlier. Herrmann used different musicians and orchestras for different scenes and as such was able to include a variety of music to match each scene. The music works perfectly in obedience with the visuals, matching them for style and beauty every step of the way. Even the standard positioning of microphones were re-written for the movie in order to capture the various sounds from scenes on one track, rather than using a more conventional multi track method.

What must be several hundred words ago I joked that there was nothing that I disliked about this movie. That wasn’t entirely true. Very occasionally I found my eyes wandering from the screen and towards the window or my DVD collection. I have to be honest and say that the film didn’t always hold my attention but this ocular wandering was a rare occurrence. Generally my pupils were glued to the screen, flickering from image to image, marvelling at the complexity and beauty of the visuals they were converting for my brain. At the same time my ears were listening intently to the well formed dialogue and delightfully executed sounds and music and my mouth was curled into a smile. Many better film critics than myself will have undoubtedly written many better reviews of Citizen Kane than me, but I’m glad I can finally add my two thumbs up, my five stars, my ten on ten to Citizen Kane, possibly the best movie ever made.

10/10

Titbits

Looking closely you'll notice that the camera looks up on stronger characters like Kane and Leland and down on weaker characters like Susan Alexander. This was a technique Welles borrowed from John Ford.
The film was a box office failure and booed every time one of its nine Academy Award nominations was announced.
Xanadu was based on William Randolph Hearst's own home and on Mont St. Michel in Normandy.
During production Orson Welles chipped an ankle bone and directed for two weeks from a wheelchair. When needed in front of the camera he wore a metal leg brace.

Bullitt

2013-05-04T11:19:00.001+01:00

When a defecting Chicago Mobster arrives in San Fransisco ahead of a Senate Sub Committee hearing on Organised Crime, the SFPD are tasked with providing around the clock protection in his cheap boarding house. When hitmen burst in, shooting and seriously wounding a police officer and the mobster turned witness, Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) and Sergeant Dalgetti (Don Gordon) pick up the trail to hunt down the murders while uncovering a deeper plot. Their progress is hindered by the ambitious politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) who wants the witness back on the stand and blames Bullitt for the attack.

Bullitt is one of those classic, cool 60s movies which I’ve always wanted to see but never got around to doing so until now. I was aware of the famous car chase and that Steve McQueen was meant to have given one of his trademark edgy, cooler than ice performances but I knew little else. As well as the above, the film has a lot to offer the viewer from a fantastic score to impressive cinematography but I was never engaged in the storyline.

The film won an Oscar for Editing and it was well deserved. The movie makes use of a plethora on interesting camera angles to keep the eyes entertained. It’s impressive just how many new and eye catching angles and camera positions were used. These shots are then edited together superbly. The two stand out scenes are both chase scenes. The most famous of these is the car chase which was groundbreaking at the time and still holds up as one of the greatest, if not the greatest I’ve seen. It lasts over ten minutes but flashes by as if it’s just mere seconds. The brilliant score drops out at the first screech of tires and doesn’t return until the chase is over. Instead the film relies only on the sounds of the engines, gearbox and tires and this works wonderfully. The stunt driving is magnificent and the camerawork gets right to the heart of the action, using both in car shots, close-ups from around the vehicles and panning shots as they whiz past. The scene also features no dialogue and instead allows the cars to do the talking. It’s a magnificent scene and yet it’s so simple. Just cars, men and the streets of San Fransisco. Modern film makers could learn a thing or two by studying the sequence instead of relying on carnage and destruction as is popular today.

Following the highs of the chase the film falls into a bit of a lull. This is replaced towards the end though with another chase, this time on foot and through an airport. The chase heads from inside a plane, across the runways and surrounding areas before heading back inside the terminal for its climax. It’s another great scene, wonderfully designed and beautifully edited with the great score back in place. The score added so much to the movie that its use should not be brushed aside. Composed by Lalo Schifrin it’s a brass and percussion lead jazz score and fits perfectly with the time period and visuals. It adds tension and excitement when needed and is a superb accompaniment to the cinematography. Steve McQueen gives a straight and quiet performance but has the screen presence to pull it off. He doesn’t say a lot but still carries the film and is the focal point throughout. Robert Vaughn comes across as slimy and has a habit of popping up wherever the plot takes the film. He has a somewhat alien quality to him which is unsettling. Jacqueline Bisset is very attractive and floats around the place looking lovely but her character added little to the proceedings. Robert Duvall has a cameo as a cab driver and plays his small role in a naturalistic way.

My main problem with Bullitt is that to me it felt like style over substance. The film looks and sounds brilliant but the actual plot is just a run of the mill cops and robbers story with little in the way of originality. The film making methods are full of originality and that is what makes the movie the classic that it is but I didn’t invest in the story or the characters. Despite this the film deserves its place in film history for the fantastic visuals, top notch soundtrack and incredible chase sequences.

7/10

Titbits

Frank Bullitt's car is a 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback. The hitmen drive a 1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum. The Charger is just barely faster than the Mustang, with a 13.6-second quarter-mile to a 13.8-second. Two of each cars were used and they had their suspension modified to withstand San Fransisco's hilly streets.
Robert Vaughn turned down the film as he felt there was no plot. He was eventually persuaded after the studio offered him more money.
This was one of the first films to use squibs for sunshot wounds.

Young Frankenstein

2013-05-03T20:22:00.002+01:00

When people look back at the films they remember fondly from their childhood, they often remember them through rose tinted spectacles. When I saw The Lion King last year and rated it 6/10 I was given disapproving looks from those who saw it when they were children. One of the films I remember fondly from my childhood is Young Frankenstein. I saw it several times when I was young as it was one of the few VHS movies my parents owned at the time. I haven’t seen the film for about thirteen or so years and while I remembered lots of it, there was much which I’d forgotten or had gone over my head as a child. I’m able to appreciate the film more as an adult and understand the subtle performance of Marty Feldman, get more of the horror in jokes and laugh at the racier stuff which was once lost on me. Young Frankenstein isn’t as good as I remembered, it’s better.

The film came about after an idea Gene Wilder had while filming Blazing Saddles with Mel Brooks. Wilder thought that it would be funny to create a distant relative of the Frankenstein family who wanted nothing to do with the rest of the family and their infamous experiments. The film was put into production shortly after Saddles wrapped and the plot took from the early Frankenstein movies of the 1930s as well as borrowed affectionately from the horror genre and classic comedy. Dr. Fredrick Frankenstein (Wilder) is a brilliant American physician/lecturer who discovers that he has inherited the family’s old world estate. He travels to Transylvania where his grandfather’s experiments get the better of his curious mind.

Young Frankenstein is often voted towards the top of comedy film polls but I only laughed a few times. The film is quite funny but generally it just made me smile rather than laugh. Although I’d disagree that it’s one of the funniest films of all time, I do believe that it’s one of the best and most lovingly made comedies of all time. The script, design and acting are all fantastic and the film expands beyond the classic Frankenstein story to include more modern themes and storylines. Although I didn’t laugh throughout, the film did make me laugh and the humour manages to be both broad and subtle at different times. Some of the comedy is innuendo based and slightly crass whereas some jokes are deeply woven and wonderfully timed. There are also some nice repeated gags which get funnier as the film plays out.

I was impressed with a couple of the performances. Some of them were simply excellent acting performances while some were what I’d describe as good comedy performances. Gene Wilder has one of the all time great actor’s voices. I’d add him to the likes of James Stewart and Morgan Freeman for top vocal style. He has a speaking voice which rises slightly towards the end of sentences while remaining flat. His voice doesn’t inflect like an annoying MTV orange person but rather stays constant while rising in tempo, volume and excitement. Aside from his voice, his comedy timing is spot on and he carries much of the film as the central character. I also enjoyed Marty Feldman’s performance. He breaks the forth wall occasionally and has a laid back acting approach while makes his character amiable. He was often the funniest person on screen and I found myself watching him even when others were meant to be the focal point. I also found myself sometimes watching Teri Garr when I wasn’t meant to be but this was for other reasons. Garr’s performance and character was a bit broad and Carry On but she played it well. Peter Boyle made a good monster and wonderfully altered his performance as the script required.

There were a couple of things which annoyed me about Young Frankenstein but they were usually geography related. I couldn’t understand why people spoke with German accents when the film was set in Romania and there was a wide range of accents on screen which was a little off-putting. I can forgive the film this though as after all it’s a comedy, not a historical drama. When I watched as a child I used to get a little bored but this wasn’t the case watching as an adult. The film is entertaining and engaging and is full of cultural references from a Casablanca style goodbye scene to a Dr. Strangelove inspired arm and of course it takes a lot from the earlier Frankenstein movies. Young Frankenstein was a film that I enjoyed returning to and still holds up well after several decades. It’s very well made and very entertaining and makes a fun companion piece to the Frankenstein movie collection.

7/10

Titbits

The film used many of the props and lab equipment made for the 1931 Frankenstein film.
The idea of the dart hitting the cat was ad-libbed on set. After Wilder released the dart, Mel Brooks made the cat noise from behind the camera.
Gene Hackman was uncredited as the blind man.
Marty Feldman had been shifting his hump from side to side for several days before anyone in the crew noticed. He carried on with this and it became one of the movie's gags.
Aerosmith's Walk This Way was inspired by the movie and written the morning after Steven Tyler saw it.

Frankenstein

2013-05-02T19:52:00.001+01:00

1931’s Frankenstein remains after more than eighty years, one of the most recognisable, influential and respected horror movies of all time. While it may do little for the gore hungry Saw generation, to those of us who appreciate the art of film, it stands up against the test of time and despite numerous subsequent attempts at the iconic story, this version will undoubtedly be the one you have in your head. From the imposing gothic architecture and magnificent use of shadow to the distinctive and now ‘go to’ flat head, Frankenstein is a movie which many of us will know before even seeing it in full.

The plot is taken from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of the same name and should be known by anyone with at least one functioning sense. The story and its characters are some of the most iconic and recognisable not only in horror history but also literary history and the tale has been repeated and twisted in everything from Mel Brook’s spoof Young Frankenstein to TV classic The Munsters to the recent animated film Frankenweenie and has influenced countless books, TV shows and movies. This adaptation is relatively faithful version of the timeless original text.

At the film’s opening, actor Edward Van Sloan appears from behind a curtain to deliver a brief caution to the audience. His words resonate with child in you to make you feel a little scared before the film even begins. His closing words of “We warned you” must have built the anticipation in the original audience’s minds before they’d even had a glimpse of the monster. Of course by today’s standards the film barely even registers the thought of fright but I’m sure that audiences in 1931 left the theatre as excited and scared as a modern audience does when viewing the latest gut busting, brain slurping horror. As well as not being at all scary, the film is also slow to build. For a 70 minute film it takes its time to show the monster and for the chaos to ensue. Early scenes focus on Dr. Frankenstein and on his motives and possible madness.

A problem with a monster movie, especially one like Frankenstein is that you can’t wait to get a glimpse of the monster. The film teases and draws you close before its reveal and even when the monster is finally presented, he walks backwards towards the camera and in a darkened room. From this scene on though, the monster is highly visible. The movie spends some time on Dr. Frankenstein’s motivations and although this is sometimes interesting, it is intercut with a side plot about an upcoming wedding which I didn’t care for. Once we pass the “It’s alive! It’s alive!” scene, the Doctor and the rest of the characters take more of a back seat and without speaking a word of dialogue, Boris Karloff’s monster becomes the focus. The monster is given some of the pathos and ‘emotion’ that later versions give him but it isn’t layered as thick or anywhere as sickly as in the likes of the 1994 Branagh-De Niro adaptation.

My favourite thing about Frankenstein was its design. The makeup was exceptional, especially given the age of the film. Karloff is unrecognisable in his most recognisable role, behind layers of revolutionary makeup. Although the design on the monster was not set before this movie, it has since become the look we expect to see. I was taken aback for example when I saw the De Niro version which lacked the flat topped head. Jack Pierce is the man who is credited with creating the look that took four hours each day to perfect. The makeup when added to the bulky costume and 6 kg shoes turns Karloff into the monster rather than acting the monster.

Aside from the costume and makeup I also thought that the direction and especially cinematography was breathtaking. The film makes heavy use of shadows by lighting scenes from either floor level or above head height which creates some drastic lighting effects that smack of German expressionism and reminded me a little of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu. The set design also reminded me of a scene in the later Murnau classic Sunrise: A Tale of Two Lovers. In that film, the German director created a Dutch angle while keeping the camera perpendicular. He did this by twisting the backdrop and sets into skewed and contorted positions which give the effect of the camera being off kilter while in fact remaining traditionally straight. It’s a great effect and creates an ill at ease feel to the sequences in which it is used. They also work to create differences between scenes outside the laboratory which are filmed in a much more traditional way.

The acting is a little problematic here, being an early example of the continuing lack of acting prowess in the horror genre. Boris Karloff excels in his role and I was also very impressed with Frederick Kerr who played Baron Frankenstein. The rest of the cast though were wooden and off-putting. This is rarely more than a small annoyance and if anything make me laugh more than anything else. The acting aside, Frankenstein has the full set of criteria to make it a bona fide classic. The story is a classic, the makeup looks great, the central performance is mesmerising and it is exceptionally well made for its era and budget. Despite numerous attempts, this early film still remains the definitive version of Shelley's novel.

8/10

GFR 7/10

Titbits

This 1931 wasn't the first or even the second screen adaptation of Shelley's story. A 1910 and now lost 1915 version preceded it.
When it was re-released in 1934 the Hays Code had come into effect. As a result several scenes were cut from future versions with some scenes not being restored until 1999. Scenes considered blasphemous or in bad taste such as the death of a child were cut.
Bela Lugosi was originally offered the part of the monster but turned it down as the character doesn't speak. John Carradine also turned down the role.
The method of animating the monster isn't discussed in the source novel but the electric method featured here has become the accepted methodology and appears in most subsequent versions.