My 2011 in Movies

Howl (2010)

2011-06-30T23:50:00.001+01:00

I liked Howl because it reminds me of my creative writing class and writing in general because the first things I remember writing creatively was poetry. Admittedly, my stuff was never deemed revolutionary or obscene but I've always felt ahead of my time. Howl skips across the filmic styles- from re-inacted documentary to musical biopic to period piece to courtroom drama, in telling the true story of Allen Finsbury and his book Howl and how it was the centre of a court-case on obscenity charges. The film seems weightless as it flits from Ginsberg (methodically played by James Franco) reading Howl to Ginsberg discussing the time to the courtroom.
Maybe this constant mix of setting and style would make other films seem convoluted or confusing but it works in this case.
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, prolific gay documentary filmmakers seem to be to divine all the of this mixing and transform it into something literate despite not having worked a whole lot with actors. I'm not sure if working with actors after 20years in documentaries would be easier or harder! but they managed to pull together this cast including Jon Hamm, David Strathaven and Jeff Daniel for the courtroom stuff as well as the Franco.
I guess I preferred the interview/documentry style stuff and would have preferred more of that and less of the courtroom stuff but the courtroom stuff gets cut away from before it becomes repetitive and I guess a little courtroom drama used sparingly goes a long way. It's interesting to watch because it takes you not into the mind of a poet but into the time of a society on the cusp of a significant change in popular culture; where the 50's Beat Generation where warming up for the Peace, Love and Understanding of the 60's...

I watched Howl (2010) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)...

Season Of The Witch (2011)

2011-06-30T23:18:00.001+01:00

With Bad Lieutenant and KickAss as well as other stuff but mainly the above, Nicholas Cage was on a good streak last year. With forgettable tut like Season of the Witch, he may as well hope the skids are as cosy as when he left them.
I make no bones about the Nicholas Cage I Like on celluloid- the balls-out, pin-drop pupils, bad jokes, strutting, 'menk-tal' one,the sensitive but tough family man one can run the marathon.
Now I know the guy's got kids and needs to pick up a check but can't imagine he made that much on a film made in Eastern Europe and where Ron Pearlman is the second lead (no offence Ron. ); he decided to make this off his own back, that is certain.
I'm sure it has to do with the fact he likes all this swords and scorcery BS and I can take it, when it's done well but there's nothing at all original about this film- there's something about the church trying witches at the time of the Crusades or something going on.. I wasn't paying a heckload of attention. They have to transport a suspected witch to somewhere because... Some guff.
On the the other hand, a lot of goodly British actors are picking up a cheque like Stephen Graham and Stephen Campbell Moore and the whole reason for the rental, the man himself- Robert Sheehan. Honestly, i could tell this movie would be a schnore but I knew he was in it and well that was enough for me, but for some dumb reason- they're all talking in these generalised American accents!? Sheesh- what gives? They throw him no meaty bones and thereby he's grasping at straws for stuff to do.
But more fool me for expecting something decent from an obviously undecent film. This film makes Drive Angry look like A Clockwork Orange and Drive Angry was a greesy demo showing reel for hard R rated 3D exploitation flicks (I still think of it fondly)...

I watched Season Of The Witch (2011) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Howl (2010)...

Transformers 3D - Dark of the Moon (2011)

2011-06-29T22:01:00.001+01:00

I promised myself I wouldn't go see this. I knew I wouldn't like it or worse, be bored by it. I remember the first one was one of the most ugly films made for older children I'd seen with just vile dirty jokes. Now obviously, i'm a fan of dirty jokes but not in film's like this, ones made for children specifically and on top of that, it didn't make much sense either.
Then came the second film, and in my charitablity/stupidity-i hoped for a better film with the creases of the 1st film smoothed out and yet somehow they managed to all be magnified!! Transformers 2 should be investigated by the narcotic substances authorities because it manages to be violent, overblown, narcissistic, sexually and racially insensitive and all the while being thoroughly anti-senseicall, overlong and boring. And I don't have room on the my docket to be pissed with Michael Bay about it because he still hasn't apologised for Pearl Harbour yet. First things first.
But I dragged myself to see it because it promised Frances Mcdormand and like any Coen Brothers fan would be, I was understandably curious.
Well the somewhat good news, written on a bunch of clutched straws is that this Transformers movie (hopefully the last) managed to fix almost every issue (minus the film's length- a bum-numbing, multiple-phone-and-watch-checking 3hrs!). Now let me be blunt, i am in no way suggesting you give this film a second thought let alone pay to see it + plus popcorn and various 3D taxes but in the way that some crimes are less severe then others - this film is parking ticket compared to no. 2's genocidal war crimes status.
I'll give a spurious slow sarcastic golf-clap to Bay for making a film that generally makes broad common sense or at least a feeling of knowing what was going on for an audience and the skydiving stuff was exciting and... John Malkovich was pretty funny as was John Tuturro but these are basic requirements that a film like this should have not celebrations of relative success.
But you know what... I think that Michael Bay despite making some of the worst films i've seen in a cinema, i think he's capable to make something really exciting and amazing, if he could have it written and edited right like say, Bad Boys 2. It's bizarre and frustrating that his talent is apparent by the scale of his failures. Same goes for Shia LaBeouf - i like the guy but he's doing himself no favors doing sequels and franchise movies. They both must be rich enough to have creative freedom and crazy and kooky projects cos we want original material not repeats, man!

I watched Transformers 3D - Dark of the Moon (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Season Of The Witch (2011)...

Rolling Thunder (1976)

2011-06-29T20:54:00.001+01:00

After all that talk of Rolling Thunder and Tarantino during watching Chungking Express, i was overcome with curiosity about the film- Rolling Thunder, it's self and it was a pleasant surprise to find it was on LoveFilm Online, seemingly just waiting for me.
Rolling Thunder is a post Vietnam film, the type where the protagonist comes back from war to find everything has changed and they've lost their place in society. Yeah we've all see one. The main character in this film has more than average malaise to contend with- i guess the film seems like its going to be one thing and changes gear halfway through and becomes a revenge film.
I don't know if you remember the film-within-the-film from True Romance, 'Home In a Bodybag' but i'd say 'Tino got the idea from this film- i say that because I get this feeling that someone told Tarantino that this was the most authentic Vietnam film.
In hindsight, it seems like stunt-casting to make the bad guy from Dynasty or Knots Landing to make the sympathetic Vietnam vet stretched to the limits of his humanity and see Tommy Lee Jones playing second fiddle to him but William Devane shows off some real chops as a man who's personality and sense of self completely vacated; someone who's loosing his grasp on giving and receiving affection or pain, or displaying his humanity. Like I say, it's very strange to see Tommy Lee Jones so underused but the way he's used sparingly through the film works well in its favor becuase hs character is probably more disconnected from Devane.
I certainly can't think of a better 'coming-home-after-war' film- it's short, pacey while at the same time it can be methodical and the end might be predictably enviable after the 1st half but it's in no rush to dote on it.
The film was one of the 1st things that Paul Schrader wrote; possibly the 3rd thing after The Yakuza and Taxi Driver and it's certainly easy to tell that the writer is at the height of his story telling powers because it's not convoluted with any unnecessary sub-plots or characters; everything serves a purpose.
But it's not the best film made by anyone involved yet it had enough going on to sustain your interest....

I watched Rolling Thunder (1977) on LoveFilm Online.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Transformers 3D- Dark Side of the Moon (2011)...

Dazed & Confused (1993)

2011-06-25T16:54:00.001+01:00

Richard Linklater is a prime example of a filmmaker, i try to get into but never can. I feel like there's always something remote about his work despite the underlying themes that interest me, like the psycho-social intellectualism of Waking Life and Slacker. He's experimental like the rotosvoping in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly and he was an early user of digital, when he made Tape; he made a critical and commercial success, when he made School of Rock but i feel like sometimes his films can get so wordy, it can be exhausting but Dazed & Confused doesn't really suffer from that.
It plays like 70's version of American Graffiti (probably every hack reviewer has said that.) becuase it has a massive ensemble cast and licensed pop music soundtrack; it's a recent historical period piece. The movie criss-crosses through a school on the last day before summer and all the various cliques within; from the jocks to the nerds and the cheerleaders and junior kids.
It appears to me, that there must be somewhat of a Dazed & Confused casting curse as by a strange twist of fate, a lot of the cast be came recognisable actors... For a minute.
People like Milla Jojovich, Joey Lauren Adams, Jeremy London, Cole Hauser were really popular at the one time and but their celebrity fell in. The 2 exceptions being Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck but in saying, that i think Linklater how precisely how to best McConaughey -sparcely- I'm certainly no fan of his but I'll say he has charisma like no one's business and after a while that gets to be smarmy and irritating but this is the best thing you'll ever see him in and he's in it for a total of maybe 7mins - less than 10% of the film. I don't mean that to sound backhanded- i just mean a lil McConaughey goes a long way.
I think it's probably the best thing that Linklater has written because it feels believable and all the characters and there must be about 20+, feel 3 dimensional. Yeah, they do that sorta-conversional philosophical rap that comes in most Linklater movies but it reigned in by a focused story and narrative and it doesn't go off on tangents.
This was his 2nd film after his debut, Slacker and at the time, it must have seemed like the guy only made that loose narrative - talk movie because of his budget and given a bigger canvas he'd turn in more structured fare but his next film was Before Sunset, another talk movie albeit with 2 good looking actors and set in Europe and until School of Rock, he kept making those kinds of pictures. But Richard Linklater always comes original and inventive so I'm sure I'll always be curious to see what he does next...

I watched Dazed & Confused (1993) on DVD, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Stakeland (2011)...

Chungking Express (1994)

2011-06-25T16:53:00.001+01:00

This is my take on the Wong Kar Wai astetic:- he takes the Hollywood/Western (social) love story and delivers it in Eastern packaging/photography. Now I'm not saying there's anything specifically wrong with that- they're very cute movies but I don't understand the hype.
On the new BluRay that distributor Artificial Eye has put out, i was reminded of something. In the later 90's, after the success of Pulp Fiction- Tarantino had the idea of distributing unseen or forgotten movies under a label called Rolling Thunder. I found this out a couple years ago, when i rented an old Grindhouse movie called Switchblade Sisters in Canada, which was under that banner as was Kitano's Sonatine, Canadian cult movie-Hard Core Logo and ChungKing Express; and Tarantino made an introduction to the movie for the DVD, which appears on the BluRay. As he tells it, Wong's films are unique in Chinese cinema because he tells these dramatic love stories in a market populated by action.
Basically, Chungking Express is 2 love stories that mediate on loneliness and finding love. The first one concerns a young naive cop who's mourning his last relationship and a shady woman in blonde wig, who seems to be involved in smuggling guys from India to Hong Kong. It's all very non-linear and since it's obviously in Chinese difficult to pick up (for me at least) to pick up the threads of what's going on; she's strutting around with a purpose without actually doing or saying much and he seems to be buying tins of pineapple (!?) - they get together sort of but... It doesn't really land (to me.)
The 2nd story is far more linear and far more simple to follow. It concerns another cop, who's a little older and a little more together (played by Tony Leung, a Wong favorite and memorable from as the bent cop from Infernal Affairs) and the cute girl that works at the fast food joint, he frequents everyday. Their story is far more traditional in the sense, that we know they should get together but he is in denial about the failure of his last relationship and isn't ready to move on-you get the picture.
The girl, played by Faye Wong is completely delightful with her short hair and bopping to California Dreaming and Faye Wong's own Chinese version of Dreams by The Cranberries, which is similarly delightful because it's musically exact and her vocals make the song even software and more cuddly to listen to.
I think there's a lot of subtlety that got lost in translation for me in watching this and maybe it didn't work for me as well as I'd hoped because it was a bad mixture of romance which is generally undemanding to watch and in a foreign language, which obviously requires a lot of attention but it is a very pretty film to watch.

I watched ChungKing Express (1994)
on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Dazed & Confused (1993)...

Permissive (1970)

2011-06-22T22:19:00.001+01:00

First off, I love these films that the BFI put out on their Flipside label like Private Road and Man of Violence. It's not that these film are very good but they illustrate unconsciously, a time where Britain (or London) made modest arty or exploitative films on the cheap. We still do but that's due to a home video market. These films are before that. I can only imagine these films were sponsored by, made in and for London. Their appeal is distinctly colocuial- there are no stars in them... no international ones, at least and when they do have exploitable content, it's not really anything too major. To me, their charm is in the fact, they stand as a time capsule that transport you back to the style, taste and 'mores' of a few generations behind us.
Permissive is essentially, the tale of a young girl,who becomes involved with a band and being, for lack of a better word, a groupie. Now this film is hardly worth your time; it's predictable, populated with non-actors and it's horribly dated but it did take me back to when I was really excited into a certain band and got involved with other intense fans. Dear reader, they were the best of times and they were the worst of times. I loved spending time with these people and yet we were all in competition, to prove our worth and that we were bigger fans than others and such and so on. The great success of this film is that it successfully achieves that feeling of competition mixed with a sense of of belonging. Like I say, the movie's band was a real band called Forever More and i'm sure they had a few hits... Not enough to co-opt a movie, mind you but one of their songs I recognised a sample from a Talib Kweli song, Beautiful Struggle. There's no mention of the original in the liner notes of Mr Kweli's album. Which is an ironic conclusion to a film that was forgotten, brushed off and forgotten just as easily...

I watched Permissive (1970) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with ChungKing Express (1988)...

Bad Teacher (2011)

2011-06-20T21:42:00.001+01:00

It goes without saying that Bad Teacher was made to be Cody-porn. Just the thought of Cameron Diaz vs. Lucy Punch in a comedy deathmatch is almost too much. Hurrrrm. Not mention, the fact that it's directed by Jake Kasdan, who ably made Dewey Cox- an overwhelmingly underrated movie and written by Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg, who write The (American) Office and wrote Year Zero, an other underrated comedy. All should be perfect and obstensively it is, it's just that it stands in the shadows of Bridesmaids and it's not as consistant. Herein lies the rub; Bridesmaids is completely populated with seasoned comedy actors and even though Jon Hamm isn't, he still knocks it out of the park. In Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake aren't funny enough because everyone else around them is really funny. Now don't get me wrong, they get to say funny shit and it's funny but that's more down to a hilarious script. Now in theory, Diaz playing a nasty conniving super bitch and Timberlake playing an asexual trustafarian dimwit AKA playing against type, is a funny idea but they sadly don't pull it off as well as the film should... Maybe it's something about beautiful people not being funny.
But that would be disprove by the stunning, talented, delightful MONSTER called Lucy Punch. I've not nearly professed all the ways she illuminates any screen she graces and i've professed a lot over the last 6months! but she does not disappointed again. Playing prissy, passive-aggressive nemesis of Diaz, she predictably kills her in every scene they share. There's nothing lacking, nothing she won't do to get a laugh and you feel that. Lucy Punch has no ego on screen.
As well as Punch, the cast is rounded out by Jason Segel, John Michael Higgins and Phyllis Smith, who are all sure hands here.
Now as much as I believe that the script is funny, that doesn't make it automatically amazing; Stupnitsky & Eisenberg, might be one of the current best American comedy writing teams but they've not perfected writing for a feature length yet and provide a particularly unrealistic super happy ending to the film, which is permissively aggressive and mean all the way through. But this is maybe their 2nd movie and they hardly coasting on laughs, they wrote a consistently funny film with at least 10 memorable funny moments and has maybe the best poop joke of year (maybe better than the one in Bridesmaid and that is a masterful poop gag)...

I watched Bad Teacher (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Permissive (1970)...

Cop Out (2010)

2011-06-19T19:20:00.001+01:00

I'm generally a fan of Kevin Smith. I think like a lot of my generation (maybe mostly, the one before mine) we thought his movies were brilliant when we were in our late teens. I used to love him between the ages of 16 and 20. I remember strongly where I was the first times I saw Clerks (New years eve 1999, on FilmFour when it was a subscription channel), Chasing Amy on Sky Movies, Dogma at the UCI Cardiff, on Boxing Day. I finegelled my way across the US border, from Canada on holiday to see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when i was 17 because it was 18 in Canada. So like I say, a certified fan but i think apart from Clerks and Chasing Amy, hs movies are quite juvenile or more so than care to hold in high regard anymore. But I don't hate him or anything and I like to see whatever he's working on. The movie he made before Cop Out, Zack and Miri was pretty funny and good-enough but based on Clerks, this man was supposed to be the comic book fan-boy equivalent of Tarantino - they shared the same home at Miramax and both had the best line on pop culture shit-talking but i think he second guess his fans on the comic book stuff and naughty talk with Jay and Silent Bob and left out the drama and heart in Chasing Amy.
Anyway, when i heard he was making a big Bruce Willis cop comedy, i was sure that was a step forward for him in finding a broader audience and more recognition. I mean I think it's always interesting to see what small budget directors do when they work on that scale.
Of course what I didn't understand was that this was essentially a directing/work assignment for him and he had little to nothing to do with writing it. Now the thing is that despite being generally known for his raunchy comedy, he's not the greatest visionary director and i'm sure he'd defer to that too... so then there's nothing for him to contribute here other than pick up a cheque and spent time gaining experience of working in the studio system and as such it shows.
Apart from the NY state setting and 80's hip hop soundtrack, this could have been anybody's movie and it just reeks to me of a missed opportunity. A lot of people teared into Cop Out and Smith was just as vocal about the critics and I'm not interested in doing that but my biggest disappointments is obviously how seemingly removed Kevin Smith is from this movie and i know he is because it's boring and laugh-free and he almost can't be blamed for that.
I still think the guy can still write better than most Hollywood writers and believe that and if he was really interested in a mercenary endeavour, he should be writing films he's not directing not visa versa.
I am hopeful for his horror-thriller about the Westborough Baptist Church, Red State for later this year. It seems like the sort of meaty thing that would challenge him...

I watched Cop Out (2010) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bad Teacher (2011)...

Green Lantern (2011)

2011-06-19T15:26:00.001+01:00

I came to Green Lantern with a pure neutrality. Recent critical eviseration mixed with liking the people involved left my sense weighed evenly as to what I expected. But then there is a significant 'genre-mixing alert' feeling that comes embedded in it. The Green Lantern is a human Air fighter pilot who is given super powers by cartoony aliens, who live on a 1950's sci-fi style-planet. As I see it, not knowing very much at all about comic books, this is utterly unique in the sense of attaining superpowers. Either you are born with them al la X Men, Superman, Thor; or you make it by being rich - Iron Man or Batman. Sometimes something out of your control happens like in The Hulk or Spiderman but you never just get given them by admittedly dying but benevolent ailens AND I think for some reason this does rub people up the wrong way because they're not used to it. Maybe it's not quite that. I think this movie confuses people as to whether they're watching the comic book movies, that Marvel usually make and a total CGI animated movie; some of the film feels partially realistic technological sci-fi and some is Star Wars style alien creatures and CGI worlds and.... It doesn't sit well together. Usually you do one or the other. Basically what I'm trying to say is that sometimes it feels like the summer action blockbuster and others like animated kids film. We all generally see the summer blockbusters (against our better judgement) but despite being generally of good quality, we don't all want to watch animated film because they're made for kids. I don't really know how much of this is down to Martin Campbell, since the man obviously knows his way around an action pic, having made 2 of the best Bond films but he's never worked this extensively with CGI before and maybe that's telling...
Ryan Reynolds is fairly good at this action heroic stuff and aquits himself pretty well. If you find him likeable, there's nothing to dissuade you but i'm sure he grates on as many people and 2hrs with him and CGI ailens would drive people up the wall. Maybe more interesting is Peter Saarsgard as the scientist made evil by evil alien... stuff like NORMAL SUPERVILLAINS! He's really channelling a particularly acidic John Malkovich and it's wierd to see him in film's like this yet, he's a good match against Reynolds, i think at least.
Blake Lively joins the ranks of Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannson and other actresses completely underused in these movies as 2D strong women. Look Hollywood... Either make a good female superhero movie or just leave them out of them- that would surely be less offensive than the way they are used (in every sense) in these films. On the other hand, Mark Strong is the film sparingly and he's great; a real backbone of anything he's in.
As to whether it's worth seeing, i veer on NO as it's a bit of a failed experiment mixing the live action and CGI in this way but if you're curious, it's no waste of time...

I watched Green Lantern (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Cop Out (2010)...

The Beaver (2011)

2011-06-18T14:49:00.001+01:00

From warm inception to curious production to maligned release, The Beaver was always a weird prospect. But at the same time- a film made by and starring Jodie Foster, about Mel Gibson talking through a puppet would have been completely different if it had come about in the 90's, when you imagine that. It sorta looks like one of each modern day crappy Jim Carrey kids movies.
Today, it's a Hydrogen bomb of 'Meta' seeing a manic depressive Mel Gibson deride social conventions and push away the people around him with his behaviour, while Jodie Foster (prolific colleagues, if not close friends) tells him "We love you and want you to get better but we can't help if you keep pushing us away..."
The strange thing about the film is that it's neither the horrible saccharine family movie nor the dynamic heartfelt family drama it wants to be - it stays in the middleground. It explores the strong ideas like repeating the failings of your parents and coping with grief when the world around you continues and how you deal with that but then the whole puppet macguffin undoes the thread of the issues in the film. But then if it wasn't really the puppet, why make the effort to watch? I hate that kinda of earnest, worthy kind of social family drama.
The acting across the board is really good but that's to be expected from Gibson playing nutso and Foster playing a concerned mother (they've had practice) but Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence are especially good at playing dysfunctional teenagers (they be playing them for a while !) trying to resolve their own issues. In fact,Gibson is far better at playing The Beaver, a fake Australian anthropomorphic stuffed toy then a middle-aged man suffering with depression.
I kinda felt bored during the first half of the film but as the progressed, i really began to connect with it. It begins to develop good messages about feeling alone and how you counteract them though engaging with the people you care about for not disconnecting from them. Gibson needs to do something completely wild and original and i think he could legitimately come back and return to his previous profile in the movies and i think maybe The Beaver was a step in the right direction but it's not far enough a step, he needs to completely reinventing himself because the best parts of the film are where he's least playing Mel Gibson...

I watched The Beaver (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bringing Up Baby (1950)...

Touching The Void (2003)

2011-06-16T20:49:00.001+01:00

I don't know why I waited to watch Touching The Void. I guess I felt there was no sense of urgency to watch it; maybe I felt like I knew how it would play and that it would be predictable thereby rendering it unnecessary. But when I noticed it was coming on tv, i was keen to watch- maybe out of residual bonhomie from 127 Hours - ideal double-bill partners.
Not that they're especially similar the main difference that tragic accident in that movie means the guy is completely stuck- in this movie, the unfortunate climber has to keep moving or he will DIE. The other main difference is that this movie is told in interview and narration by the real people involved, with actors reconstructing the events.
Which brings me to one of my original preconceptions - if these guys are being interviewed, then by proxy- we know they've survived and if we know that where does the dramatic tension come from? Well to highlight my naivety, as with 127 Hours, The question becomes not did they survive but how did they escape their desperate situation? And in the broad sense, what does it feel like to be in that situation and an extra dimension not in 127 Hours, what is it like leave your best friend to save yourself?
It's at these points where Touching The Void shines with Simon Yates and Joe Simpson's intense honesty about their thought processes in these life-or-death situations like Simon admitting to thinking about coming up with a different story to explain what happened to Joe to explain why he didn't make it back so he wouldn't have to say, he cut his rope loose to save himself. It's moments like this that make the drama all the more accessible because... In that situation, you know in your heart-of-hearts, you'd be thinking the exact same thoughts and there's an unspoken agreement there between them because Joe would have done the exact same thing and says as much. But then besides the gallows-mindset, when Joe had to pull himself together to stay alive; he develops this fully understandable, petty system to make himself work harder and improve his time descending the mountain, in the way, any of us would in the way we work at work everyday.
It's an admirable debut from Kevin MacDonald and certainly better than recent effort, The Eagle. MacDonald was a producer on Senna and he's certainly better with the documentary/true story stuff like Last King of Scotland . I'm not writing the guy off just yet but Kev- Stay in the yard of the last century, yeah?

I watched Touching The Void (2003) on FilmFour.
My 2011 in Movies will return with CopOut (2010)...

Brazil (1985)

2011-06-16T20:01:00.001+01:00

Maybe it’s just indicative of my ‘ornry’ personality but the most interesting, engaging thing about Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is the ‘custody battle’ that surrounded its American release.
Now none of even it’s most ardent supporters/fans would suggest that this film was a commercial motherlode and even in pre-production it would have been clearly far-out and an ‘acquired taste’; I use that term specifically- I don’t think there’s anything about the film that’s beyond the average person’s conception or imagination BUT it’s very arch, exceedingly bleak in places, phantasmagorical and emotional yet illogical. But then, that goes for most Terry Gilliam films.
The obvious point being that this was not something a studio like Universal should have touched with barge-pole. Studio head- Sid Sheinberg, to many the literal godfather of the ‘blockbuster‘ and Steven Spielberg (metaphorically), saw what Universal probably chipped in half the budget for (5-7mill), and saw something they would struggle to sell. (So would I… There’s a completely tenuous reason for the film to be called Brazil for starters. Don’t ask me what I’d call it… ‘The Steampunk Bureaucracy’…’‘1985’?!).
Something pertinent (I feel) that gets left out of the discussion of that mild skirmish is that in 1985, there was no studio-‘art-house’ labels like Focus Pictures or Fox Searchlight, that would underwrite this sort of kooky, medium-scale film for your overseas markets and Western pseudo-intellectuals like me.
If you can’t already tell, I’m not the greatest fan of Terry Gilliam movies; I always feel like I should like them more then I do. I think he’s a great visionary stylist and he made a significant contribution to comedy with Python, which gave birth to more DIY dark animated comedy, and he’s a massively charismatic public figure but I have trouble dialling into his movies and Brazil is no different.
But I have to give the man credit for landing this purposely convoluted with a lot of different messages like homeland security and surveillance, bureaucratic superstructures and the day-job and as well as this, the film is set in this world of 30’s/40’s style with 80’s technology. It’s not for me but he created a British fantasy epic.
The delicious irony in the American battle for control of Brazil, that this film about getting lost on the industrial ladder and fighting against it, managed to break free from its creatively corrupt overseers and blossom due to grass roots support for it…

I watched Brazil (1985) on BBC2.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Touching The Void (2003)...

Seven Samurai (1954)

2011-06-14T23:51:00.001+01:00

This is my first foray into Kurosawa. He had a history of giving birth to these new types of stories- most famously, the percieved memory by different people as seen in Rashomon and Seven Samurai was one of the first gang-on-a-mission film; The Magnificent Seven being a direct remake.

Point Blank (A Bout Portant) (2010)

2011-06-13T20:49:00.001+01:00

This movie almost perfect in a weird way. I know I'm going to struggle to explain this. It's like a take away at the end of a night out- and almost spiritual in the way, it fills you up to your soul. It's not actually the best meal you'll ever taste and you'd never attempt when you weren't drunk but used in a mercenary way, it just... It just works. It serves its purpose perfectly. Does what it says on the tin. This is an ideal example of the French modern thriller, made by an assured master of this sub-genre. I guess the most famous of these films is Taken. That was made by the French for Hollywood and worked like gangbusters. Recently Hollywood took on of the classics of the sub-genre, Anything For Her and made a foul horse turd of a remake called The Next Three Days, which I obviously still carry a high level of distain for. The original, which i admit now I did not see- was made by the maker of this film, Fred Cavayé but I promise to remedy that soon because this is everything you want from a thriller- it's short, sharp and assured.
What's great is that, he doesn't want to makes a 2hr action film with set pieces-he's made a 80min film which goes hard from the start and doesn't run out of steam. Cavayé also knows how to dress a simple story and make it LOOK convoluted- during the mid-section, the film does a lot of nifty twists and turns and doesn't really carry it through but it's not an issue.
Still I don't really want to say what the films about-there's elements of '2 strangers stuck together on the run', 'family in peril' and 'civilian has to take on criminal underground'.
Needless to say, I thought this was great; exactly what I hoped for...by no means, the best movie i'll see this year and i have to say, that it's not as good as Animal Kingdom in the thriller stakes but perfectly executed, in terms of genre and form.
Luc Besson and his proteges, like Pierre Morel and Olivier Megaton produce 2 or 3 films a year, in the hopes that they make something like this good but they never match their promise. Fred Cavayé obviously has the inside track on crafting these confectionery thrillers and will be great to watch develop in the future.
And this time, Hollywood - bring him to over and let Cavayé work on a bigger canvas. That would be best....

I watched Point Blank (A Bout Portant) (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Seven Samurai (1954)...

Cinema Paradiso (1988)

2011-06-12T23:59:00.001+01:00

Perpetually on 100 Greatest Movies lists and lauded since it's release more than 20years ago, Cinema Paradiso to me was worth watching just to tick it off list; to have an opinion on. 
In hindsight, I can see why film fans and cinema critics love it so much- It's like The Notebook for movie nerds. It's a Mills and Boon love letter to the darkened room with the magic beam of light called cinema and y'know... Obviously, I'm hip to his 'eternal magic of film' message but i still say when you cross the 2 1/2hrs mark, you're crossing to the darkside. 
But then I'd be lying if i said Giuseppe Tornatore's sentimental journey, didn't resonate with me. 
The almost 50year story of an old projectionist and his sweet young boy protégé plays out in 3 parts, when the boy is in his tweets, his late teens and his fifties and we see how cinema builds their friendship and shows us how captivating a role film can play in our lives. In the Italian community, where the film is set- the town cinema is where the community gathers to. They all watch together, this being before tv and the Internet. It reminds you how exciting it is to be in a packed cinema, how an audience can breath life into a film. It's a simpler time, that i certainly don't wish to return to but it's nice to visit. 
Then again they get to watch movies outside in the summer, under the moonlight which looks and sounds heavenly. One of my favourite movie experiences was watching The Blues Brothers under the stars with thousands of compares at Glastonbury, one year. 
I guess when the film turns into a literal love story and the young Toto begins to find love for himself, that's when I started checking out. You can trust me when I say that this film could very comfortably finish after the 2hr mark but it insists on continuing with the story passed the point of caring with a seemingly tacked-on wraps-everything-up-in-a-tidy-bow 40min epilogue. Now admittedly this is the director's cut - so... okay, there are other shorter versions readily available but like Oliver Tate from Submarine, i think it's the preferential way the filmmakers would want me to watch the film but as I say, the stuff I liked was the etherial magic of cinema stuff at the start because the little boy and the old man make such a cute friendship and the schmaltzy nostalgia for cinema of yore is quite effective is reminding you of your own early memories of going to the pictures; watching some crap 6weeks after everyone at the Park and Dare, a grand old theatre and sneaking underage into films at a god-forsaken fleapit called the Phoenix... 
These times are cherished memories that ignited my love for film today... 
I watched Cinema Paradiso -Director's Cut (1988) on DVD via LoveFilm. 
My 2011 in Movies will return with Point Blank (A Bout Portant) (2010)...

Screwed (2011)

2011-06-10T21:45:00.001+01:00

I was so on the edge as to whether to see this because frankly this film has no place in a cinema. No offence but the cast and crew were probably as surprised themselves because this is British DTV fodder and I don't take that the wrong way but there's nothing about this film that says theatrical release- the cast are DTV or TV stars, the director made 2 DTV movies before it and it's written by the writer of 'Is Harry On The Boat?' - don't remember that? Great. And there's nothing particularly ambitious about the film either... It's the adaptation of a British prison officer biography but apart from the obligatory escape plot, it follows all the rules of a prison film.
In deciding, i even consulted reviews of the film, which were obstensively terrible but one highlighted, that some of the This Is England cast were in it - this sold me.
Well that person lied- Milky is in it and I think Woody is in it too but he's got no lines and nothing to do. Sacrilege and waste!
It 'stars' James D'Arcy (don't know) as the prison officer and Noel Clarke as the prison gangster and Milky and the fat guy from the Football Factory (you know...) as other prison officers. Our man begins as a squadie sent home after time spent in that mild skirmish in the Middle East before setting into the Prison service as a last option after that it's downhill fast as he becomes corrupted by the stress, drugs and violence that goes hand in hand with working in the slammer... I guess!?
It's not so much poorly written as it lacks originality- any of the reveals at the end or the outcome, were telegraphed to anyone who's seen a prison movie, from about 10mins in; apart from that, it's sparce in detail-high on action, which in this context is good.
If anything, this film reeks of going through the motions; i can't imagine that anyone involved was there apart from work and/or financial gain- i can't imagine any of them feel particularly passionate about it. Noel Clarke, who I like, just looks bored but isn't horrible in it. Actually, the woman playing 'the wife' is making an effort but since no one else is... I just looks like she's annoying and trying too hard. In the last half of the film, whenever she turns up on screen, it's unintentional comedy gold.
In reality, you should always support British cinema (or any country's cinema) but i don't know if supporting this particular breed of tosh but then there were a lot of people coming out to see it, so...

I watched Screwed (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Ip Man (2008)...

Ip Man (2008)

2011-06-10T17:07:00.001+01:00

As much as i want to like and/or love kung fu movies, they never resonate with me as well as I would hope. I really like Enter The Dragon and Kill Bill Vol. 1 but secretly stuff like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Iron Monkey sends me to sleep. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive to look at and i love all the wire work but the stories are DULL. But I keep coming back, which leads us to Ip Man. I must have seen Donnie Yen be alright to middling in about 10films but i couldn't tell what they were or if he was actually in them; Ip Man is my eyes and probably others is where he begins to make a lasting impression.
It's the true(?) story of Martial Artist Master Ip and his journey through the last years of the second World War 2. At the start, he has a nice house and surroundings for his wife and child and has a lord of the manor respect around a town famous and full of martial arts masters and schools. His life and temprement are modest and he is happy to practice his art with friends and colleagues. By the 2nd act of the film, his family are homeless and destitute, due to the invasion of China by the Japanese; and yet, he remains strong is spirit; not resting on his laurels to provide for his family by finding manual labour but his trouble really begins when a narcissistic Jap General decides to organise fighting tournaments between the Chinese and Japanese...
In this film, Yen gets to play a character, just short of an Asian 'Superman', he is modest, honest and true. When he hears that people are being beaten and killed, he's desperate to help and when the town are being subjected to bullying by a gang of thugs, he teach them all how to fight his style of 'Wing Chun'. He inspires his town to rise up and defend themselves and they in turn, inspire him to continue fighting and rebelling against their oppressors. Yen, obviously good at the tough stuff is surprisingly effective at the dramatic and emotional 'actory' parts, playing not the hardman hero with the one-liners but a thoughtful and obstensively peaceful man fighting to save lives.
If you couldn't tell, what engaged me about this film over other similar movies was the story and this career defining role by Donnie Yen. I'm looking forward to Ip Man 2, which is already available and i understand that Ip Man 3 is on it's way too....

I watched Ip Man (2008) on FilmFour on 9th June.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Cinema Paradiso (1988)...

Cecil B Demented (2001)

2011-06-09T20:34:00.001+01:00

After the disappointment of the previous film (I don't even want to say it name), I retreated to a cantankerous old friend, John Waters and his film, Cecil B Demented. I've never been in any rush to see his films in a completist way and if anything, i love the man for himself, less than his films but they have a delightful distasteful fug them. I don't know why but the 3 or 4 films of his i've seen, have a comforting simple entertaining trashyness about them like fast food. They're superfluous, salty and probably bad for you. I love his sense of absurdity like in this film, he has a character that's continually torturing one of the main characters, as a way of venting his own frustration at being heterosexual and that his life would be so much easier if he were gay!
Cecil B Demented is the story of a wannabe director and his cult-like desciples who kidnap a Hollywood actress, for the purpose of using her to make a movie. But this is more or less, a vehicle for Waters to vent about Hollywood and how fay their movies have become. Cecil's gang/crew have directors like Fassbinder and Sam Fuller and William Castle tattooed on their body and Cecil takes time give sermons on the weight movies used to carry, while they hang on his every word. The Hollywood actress, played by Melanie Griffith, exemplifies everything wrong with them- she stars in these trite romantic comedies, that are offensive by their inoffensiveness.
Another delightful surprise about the film is that 10 or 11years later, it features glimpses at a youthful Maggie Gyllenhall and Michael Shannon. They look so cute!
The point of Water's message is 'I don't care if you make high drama or pornography but do something that makes me feel!'. I mean obviously the idea of an audience paying to see Patch Adams 2 or a sequel to Forest Gump is a joke (and a righteously distasteful Waters-ean joke at that!) and but, there's obviously a realistic sense that it's not exactly far from reality in this 'Wild Hogs/Old Dogs' industry.
There are many sight gags set by Waters like cinemas showing the likes of Lake Placid 2 and Scream 4,obviously auspicious by the reality that they actually exist nowadays.

I watched Cecil B Demented (2001) on LoveFilm Online.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Screwed (2010)...

Norweigian Ninja (2010)

2011-06-09T19:13:00.001+01:00

Lost in translation- that's the closest to a positive, I can give this film. As will become very apparent, this film was one of the biggest disappointments I've had in watching a film in some time. I'm not sure how but I guess my expectations were too far wide of the gap. The cover art/poster of the film is great as is the evocative title- Norweigian Ninja. I guess I was hoping for a Norwich version of a exploitation flick or a quirky pale Black Dynamite but it's nothing close to that.
For one, it's not funny and it might be lost in the language gap but there's a definite unsuccessful sardonic tone to proceedings.
There's little to no action or any other exploitative qualities either and this leaves the film to be reminicent of an Action Man advert, where these guys are preparing to fight an enemy but there's very little of that too.
So there's not really much else, I can say about it since my knowledge of Nordic cinema is certainly limited but I hope the record shows that i certainly didn't come at this film, with knives out and I really wanted to see this idiosyncratic take on the exploitation film or even the spy film, like say the OSS films. It's a crime for any film to be boring but for an action film, Norweigian or not- it's still quite inditement.

I watched Norweigian Ninja (2010) on DVD, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Cecil B Demented (2001)...

Bridesmaids (2011)

2011-06-07T22:16:00.001+01:00

I've been looking forward to this film for a while, so when the chance came up to get preview tickets, i was quite diligent in getting them (I'm usually too slow in getting those tickets usually).
It's a condescending statement to make but i've always wanted to see that comedy where girls are mischievous and funny, like in the films i love like Superbad or Withnail And I. I mean most of the women in my life are really funny and funny women are so sexy to me. Too much information I know but ... still at some point, these films turn into identikit romcom tripe. I mean I'm (fairly) romantic (I'm not made of stone!) and i love comedy- romantic comedies should be glorious but they're usually neither. Bridesmaids solves that problem by removing the romance angle.
Okay, it doesn't actually but it's not the crux of the film, just a sub-plot. When the film works best, it's when these women are all together and playing off each other and the other strength is that all but 2 or 3 characters in the film are women. It should go without saying that Kirsten Wiig is brilliant, mostly playing the straight woman it should be said. If I'm honest I found her sketches on SNL really irritating TO START but then I quickly realised how super talented she is not performing comedy. But then in her modesty, she's not only co-written a film to showcase her talents- she created a world for all these other talented women to work too like Rebel Wilson and more obviously, Melissa McCarthy. She's going to big star now after her role as tenacious Megan and I get the feeling... It maybe something I read but I think they reshot to put more of her in the film based on the stirling work she was doing. But then there's Chris O'Dowd and Jon Hamm as Kristen's good and bad love interests; Hamm gets to be deliciously vile and the lovely Chris O'Dowd gets to be the sweet guy. THEY MAKE SUCH A CUTE COUPLE.
Well put together by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow, it's just a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours in the cinema and you feel good leaving the cinema. It's funny and delightful and sweet. I have could watch this film over and over again and in a year, where everyone is making these dirty comedies- it's nice to see one that's as funny as it is naughty.

I watched Bridesmaids (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Norweigian Ninja (2010)...

Citizen Ruth (1996)

2011-06-06T23:55:00.001+01:00

First of all, Citizen Ruth reminded me about solvent abuse.
God... No one does that anymore do they? Used to be a major thing. And I remembered that and i don't know why that is something inordinately funny about huffing glue to me. I guess compared to other drugs, it doesn't look so severe. You just look like you're having a panic attack.
Anyway, this film is about a women who's addicted to doing this (as well as anything else she could get her hands on) and finds her self pregnant. Due the continuous habit of Ruth (played by Laura Dern) getting getting caught and having her 4th or 5th child at this point, she's advised by a judge to have an abortion. This begins a battle between the hard left and hard right to decide the future of this fetus.
I first found out about this film while reading Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures. It's an incredibly rich idea or concept and the idea has always stuck with me. It seemed impossible to me that that could ever make a comedy out of it and land it as well. But surprisingly, it can have it's cake and eat it!
By some act of movie miracle, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor manage with their debut film to make a generally even-handed movie about Abortion and have it be thoroughly hilarious as well as sensitive and affecting. First off the script is solid and it's perfectly paced with a strong sense of story. They also wrote a great character in Ruth and it's the best thing I've ever seen Laura Dern ever do. Ruth is an incredibly stupid person, who unfortunately also has a bad addictive personality. She's selfish and childish and i guess that takes the sting out of the tail of all the A-word talk because she's so unaware of herself, she doesn't understand the severity of her choices and Dern hits the nail on the head perfectly, not by portraying her as a junkie but as a wholly lazy woman.
Other notable cast members include Swoosie Kurtz and Mary Kay Place playing right wing protesters and everyone's favorite American bureaucrat prick, Kurtwood Smith as their leader. They're all playing roles that they've all done before several times but it works for the film to make for a realistic environment for when things get more incredulous.

I watched Citizen Ruth (1995) on BBC 2.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bridesmaids (2011)...

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

2011-06-05T23:58:00.001+01:00

Sunset Boulevard, like other classic films of the time like Casablanca and Gone With The Wind has unfortunately been overshadowed by their endings to the point that that all people can remember them by. Before I saw it, i thought it was a story about an old melodramatic actress whose glory days where behind her (which it sorta is...) but that she was the protagonist because she's the focus of any incidental talk about the film.
But as much as i love Gloria Swanson playing the iconic faded silent movie star, Norma Desmond- it's sad to me that everything else gets forgotten about. For one, this film is sensationally darkly humorous; but of course it is... It's Billy Wilder. He deftly mixes the humor with this bleak almost ghost-story like plot of the older woman gentrifying this young man in Hollywood. Then there's William Holden as the youngsters man that she almost imprisoned in her house- it's the best thing I've seen him in because his character is sharp, witty and human in his sense that he just wants the easy life and his ambition doesn't really stretch as far as he'd like.
I guess what people have loved about Sunset Boulevard over the last 60years was that it was 'meta' before 'meta; obvious it a Hollywood story made by Hollywood but it's litter with cameos of people playing themselves, most substantially Cecil B. DeMille. Add the the fact that Gloria Swanson was a silent movie star who saw her popularity fade after the talkies began and the man playing the lady's butler is Erich von Stroheim- one of the most prolific European silent film directors. What I'm trying to say is that no-one made films like this and no one else probably made anything remotely similar until Singin In The Rain (... 2years later.. Still though...)
But then who can deny the pull of Norma Desmond? A cynic might argue that it's just the most broad overacting ever seen but the woman's callous wit and deep self-doubt is completely magnetic. Her decent into madness is completely understandable and her actions seem completely excusable if not justified.
Sunset Boulevard is a classic because it's story and themes, especially in today's through-away celebrity culture are particularly apt and still as fresh as it was 60years ago...

I watched Sunset Boulevard (1950) on FilmFour.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Citizen Ruth (1995)...

Senna (2011)

2011-06-04T19:00:00.001+01:00

Only a few days after writing about The Thin Blue Line and 20years after it's release Senna shows just how far the theatrical documentry has come. Produced by Working Title for Universal on relatively large distribution/release and directed by Asif Kapadia, a BAFTA winner for his debut film, The Warrior; he'd never made a documentary before this.
I didn't/still don't know much about Formula One or Motor racing or sport at all. To me, it preferable to Nascar only because they don't insist on going around an infernal bowl and obviously, the crashes. Admit it, you like the crashes too. But I still think the sport is still so boring because everybody seems so evenly matched in machines and almost prerequisite lack of charm and charisma.
Almost polar-opposite to the drivers of today was Ayrton Senna, the Muhammad Ali of F1, the embodiment of work and focus and daring behind the steering wheel. Senna (the film) is made up totally of old footage of the man via home footage, interviews and obviously, the races, with notable friends, family and colleagues narrating over it. This works as opposed to the talking heads style of documentary interviews/information because it keeps you in the 80's/90's in which it's set; there's little sense of hindsight of it being something that took place 20years ago-more that it's unfolding infront you like more of a biopic.
At the centre of the film is the struggle between Senna and Alain Prost, his worthy adversary in the sport. From the film, you get the sense that Senna was unpolished talent-rough in the sense of being naive about the nature of politics in sport whereas Prost was a master of perception, on and off the circuit; who understood the what was unnecessary was not always being faster on the day. As I've said before about filmmakers and their antagonists, Kapadia knows better to make Prost the villain and he comes across equally if not more charming then Senna. The audience always pulls for Senna in their battles but we respect Prost totally. What Senna represents and what Kapadia captures perfectly is that he was a role-model of tenacity and determination and perfection in his craft. In the best moments of the film, he talks about almost transcendentally driving the car through the circuit - that his focus and determination attain a level of second nature- he talks about it like moving through a tunnel and his only concentration being the act of moving forward, not left and right. Just the pure joy of attaining that level of enlightenment, that he felt was like being touched by God.
Like I say, I think what Kapadia beings to the film is that it doesn't feel like a documentary, more that it feels like a movie with the story unfolding in front of you. I want to describe it like Titanic (except that its a horrible metaphor) in that, you know something tragic will happen eventually but you forget. Kapadia doesn't dote on that and i think that adds strength to the film.

I watched Senna (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Sunset Boulevard (1950)...

Leaves of Grass (2010)

2011-06-03T20:44:00.001+01:00

Leaves of Grass is a meeting of two great American actors - Tim Blake Nelson, most memorably from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, and Ed Norton from a few films you love and lots of films that diminished on your expectations. Nelson writes and directs, Both produce and act. What essentially takes place is a druggie Parent Trap, where Norton plays identical twins; one, a straight-laced classic philosophy college professor and the other; an obsessive weed seller. When Richard Dreyfuss' demand payment, the drug-dealing brother hatches a plan for the educated brother to take his place for protection since they never speak.
I watched Leaves Of Grass (2010) on DVD via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Senna (2011)...