2012

Who knew the apocalypse would be so boring? If the Mayans were right and the world ends this year, at least it will probably be quicker than sitting through 2012.

This science fiction disaster movie, directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Day After Tomorrow) is set in the year 2012, the year that the Mayan civilisation supposedly predicted that the world would end. Dr. Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an American geologist, working for the White House. He travels to India where his friend and fellow scientist has discovered that neutrinos (remember them?) from a giant solar flare have mutated and are heating up the Earth’s Core. The US President (Danny Glover) begins a top secret project which involves building giant ships in order to save around 400,000 of the worlds best and brightest (and richest). The more human side to the story comes in the form of John Cusack’s character, Jackson Curtis who spends the film trying to avoid the disaster and save his family.

The film has been lauded for its special effects, and they are spectacular. While it is impressive to see cities destroyed and mountains covered with waves, the characters never appear to be part of it. Even when John Cusack is driving a limousine through the crumbling streets of Los Angeles he feels distant and separated from it and you never get the sense that he is in any real danger. It never feels real. Perhaps part of the problem is the realistic knowledge that none of the main characters are going to be killed off in the first two acts and this takes away any feelings of peril.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas



The script is really poor. The dialogue feels unrealistic and lacks drama while the characters are one dimensional. Much of the film is ill thought out; for example upon returning early from holiday, Cusack’s character suddenly receives a call to say he is late for work. He’s meant to be on holiday. Also, every time the US President walks into a room, the rest of the world’s leaders are waiting silently for him. I expect in real life they’d probably at least be talking amongst themselves about the end of the world and not always waiting for the US to sort everything out. Without giving too much away, the President also does something which he would never be allowed to do once the disaster strikes.

The acting isn’t very good. Many people are miscast. Danny Glover is unconvincing as the President and John Cusack’s wife is an empty shell. I expect some of this is down to the script and characterisation though. Cusack is affable but nothing more but Woody Harrelson shines in a small role as the token nut-job who was right all along.



"Stay perfectly still. Earthquakes can't see you if you don't move".



At 158 minutes, the film is about half an hour too long. It is too boring to keep you entertained for even two hours, let alone nearly three. Maybe the obligatory shots of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben could have been lost. We get it, we are in France, we don’t need to see the bloody Eiffel Tower. As with any film of this nature there were plenty of moments where the audience are left thinking “come on! What are the chances?” Examples include the whole earth shifting on its axis so that Cusack and co doesn’t run out of fuel over the sea and a chance meeting with a Tibetan monk on a Chinese mountainside. I know I should cut the film some slack but come on!

There is plenty more wrong with the film but I try to keep these reviews fairly brief. It took over $700m at the box office so it must be doing something right. All I can say is that Independence Day wasn’t that good but it had more likeable characters and was shorter. The Day After Tomorrow had equally as good GCI, more likable characters and was MUCH shorter. And despite both having fairly poor storylines at least they didn’t have (SPOILER ALERT) a character called Noah saving everyone on an Ark and a parallel to the evolution of our species by resettling in Africa.

Confessions

Confessions is a Japanese psychological thriller about a teacher who seeks revenge after two of her pupils kill her young daughter. The film is told mostly through a series of written confessions in the shape of diary entries, letters and blogs, each being narrated by the character doing the writing. These intertwine and converge to complete a thrilling and uneasy film, full of twists and suspense.

The film opens with an impressive thirty minute monologue delivered by Takako Matsu who plays the principle character and teacher of a class of unruly thirteen year olds. The monologue, set in a classroom, is interspersed with flashbacks to her daughter’s death as she announces calmly to the class that her daughter has been killed by two of their number. She then goes on to let the class in on whom the culprits are and explain that she has laced the milk that they just drank with the HIV virus. The whole scene is performed magnificently by Matsu who delivers the monologue in an ominous yet calm and distant monotone. After this, the teacher warns the class that if anyone tells their parents then she will infect them too, and leaves the school for good. The rest of the film follows the lives of the two murderous school children over the next few months of their lives as they and their class deal with what has happened.

The film features some of the cornerstones of Asian cinematic themes. The story is one of vengeance which features prominently in the likes of Takashi Miike’s harrowing Audition and Park-Chan wook’s superb Oldboy, not to mention Quentin Tarantino’s Japanese inspired Kill Bill. Another theme of the film is juvenile delinquency, something that features significantly in Japanese horror due to Japanese children’s world renowned respect for their elders and good behaviour. This fear of aberrant children has been used to greatest effect in Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale but is taken to new heights in Confessions. Without giving too much away, some of the younger characters in the film are beastly and could give We Need to Talk About Kevin’s title character a run for his money. Other themes include loneliness and abandonment and as we learn more about the back story we begin to understand more about the motives for each of the central characters. This is never straight forward however and is released in a series of bluffs and counter bluffs which unbalance the audience.

I was slightly put off by the over-stylised directing, art direction and cinematography and was sometimes left wishing that Tetsuya Nakashima would just let the film play out without the slow motion, oddly placed shots of inanimate objects and cut scenes of clouds as the story is strong enough and powerful enough not to need it. I get the metaphor of the gathering storm but the film reminded me far too much of Zach Snyder and that’s never a good thing. I also found the choice of music slightly odd. It was a mixture of western pop songs and classical music interspersed with white noise from a guitar. Sometimes the white noise added to the tension but the story created enough tension without it while I thought the western pop music was misplaced.

The acting from the main cast was excellent. Takako Matsu conveys the heartbreak at losing her daughter while also she also maintains a creepy and calculating air to her. The three main child actors are also fantastic and deserve special mention. All three perform excellently and don’t have easy roles to play. It is rare to see acting of this standard from such a young cast. The rest of the cast are a bit hit and miss but don’t feature too much anyway.

The film’s suspense and mystery build to a horrifying yet strangely satisfying end in the third act and it completes a wonderfully thrilling and well told film that features some astonishing acting and a compelling and gripping story. 

0SS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

Cairo, Nest of Spies is a classic Eurospy parody written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, director of The Artist, and also stars the leads of that Oscar winner. It is in fact where Hazanavicius met his future wife, Berenice Bejo and her Artist co-star Jean Dujardin. The film is a parody of the spy films of the 1950s and 60s, most notably, early James Bond. It stars recent Oscar winner Dujardin as OSS 117, a French spy in the mould of Sean Connery’s 007 who in the words of the film ‘foils Nazis, beds beauties and brings peace to the Middle East. 117 has all the style, charm and quips of 007 but without any of the intellect or wit. The films opening scene, a homage to classic Film Noir shows 177 foiling the escape of a Nazi in 1945 along with his partner, Jefferson (Phillipe Lefebvre). Fast forward ten years after a fantastic and funny 60s Bond-esque Title Sequence and 117 is sent to Egypt where Jefferson has recently been killed. His bosses believe there may be a link to a missing Russian ship and Islamic radicals and it’s up to 117 to put the pieces together.

Michel Hazanavicius shows that The Artist’s cinematography and set design was no fluke as this film contains impressive and authentic sets and costume. At first glance it feels like you could be watching Dr. No or From Russia with Love. The film rivals Mad Men for its fantastic attention to detail and design. The background and costumes are extraordinary. The look of early Bond is added to with some great homage to those early films such as obvious rear projection cameras whenever the actors are in cars and a slightly grainy look to the finished film.

The film on the whole is in a word, hilarious. For most of its running time I had barely finished laughing about one joke or incident by the time the next one arrived. It’s spectacularly funny and very silly. There are lots of running jokes, including one involving a man in a fez calling the bad guys every time 117 enters or exits a building. This is homage to Bond in which there is invariably a henchman waiting for 007 when he reaches a new location. Another running joke is the increasingly homo-erotic flash backs to 117 and Jefferson on a beach. Much of the rest of the humour comes from Dujardin himself. He is wonderful in the film. Somehow he manages to bumble is way through fights and crime scenes, missing blatant clues and making a complete fool of himself but at the same time remaining suave and cool and irresistible to women. Dujardin has an almost identical look to Sean Connery and from certain angles it looks like you are watching Connery. He is just as smooth and has the most expressionistic eyebrows I have ever seen. Some of the humour comes from the blatant political incorrectness and misogyny which again is reminiscent of the films it is parodying. 117 also knows nothing about his surroundings claiming the Suez Canal is over 4,000 years old and confusing a woman for a Pharaohs’ niece. There are several layers to the comedy.

Dujardin is supported by a good cast which includes Aure Atika as an Egyptian Princess who finds 117 irresistible and begs him to make love to her in every scene which they share. The Artist’s Berenice Bejo is the second lead, playing the assistant of Jefferson but as so often with Bond Girl types, there is much more to her than that. She is fantastic and gorgeous and fast approaching Scarlett Johansson at the top of my ‘women I’d like to ‘meet’ list’. She is the real brains of the piece and often has to lead 117 through the clues. Bejo plays an Egyptian but looks more like a French Socialite and wears ball gowns rather than a Hijab. She looks nothing like a 1950s Egyptian woman but this fits with the early Bond pastiche in which actors were rarely from anywhere near their character’s supposed home country. The film’s baddies all look and play the part and one in particular; Richard Sammel looks like he has walked straight out of an SS Training Camp. He has also played Nazis in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and the brilliant Italian film Life is Beautiful as well as a henchman in Casino Royale so has a fitting resume.

The film contains all of the great sets, locations, costume, puns and action which make early Bond films so wonderful but adds to this a great sense of farce. The film laughs at both the ridiculousness of the genre as well as itself and contains numerous wonderful comic moments. It’s a great spy film and a great comedy. It is far superior to Austin Powers in comedy and look and without it we may not have had The Artist.      

Wanderlust

Before watching this film I couldn’t help feeling that Ross and Phoebe were going to be really pissed when they found out that Rachel and Mike had secretly got married and starred in a film together. Having seen the film, I think they’d probably be more pissed that they’d had to sit through 98 minutes of some of the most painfully awful cinema ever.

The film’s central characters are George (Paul Rudd)  a successful financial worker in New York and Linda (Jennifer Anniston), George’s wife, who has yet to discover her calling in life. At the start of the film the couple are seen in the midst of a decision about whether to carry on renting an apartment or to take the plunge and buy. They decide to buy only to discover the next day that George has lost his job and Linda has had her latest project, a film, turned down by HBO. So, with no income they decide to take up a job offer from George’s brother and move to Atlanta. This is the first of the film’s ridiculous plot holes. Answer this. If you were a successful New York City financial worker, on the verge of a promotion but then lost your job due to the company going bust would you A) Look for another job in the financial capital of the world? Or B) Move to Georgia and live in a commune full of hippies? Another question. If you had made a film but it was turned down by the first TV station you took it to would you A) Take it to another station? Or B) Say, ahh well, I gave it a go. Let’s bin this film I’ve made about the fucking South Pole and move to Georgia to live in a commune full of hippies? It is preposterous!



How I felt while watching. Bored and wishing I was crushing the life out of Anniston so she'd stop.



On their way to Atlanta, the couple get tired and find a B&B which happens to be full of the most ridiculous stereotype hippies I have ever seen. There is of course the naked wine maker, the Earth Mother who gets upset when a fly is swatted, the sexy free love girl, the long haired, bearded man who talks nonsense and plays guitar, not forgetting the old guy from the 70s in a wheel chair. It. Is. Unbelievable. It’s like the film makers just Googled hippy and thought, “Right we’ll have one of those, one of those…” The characters are such caricatures that they are unbearable to watch. Upon arriving it is George who wants to stay and set up their home at the commune but after a ridiculous montage suddenly this switches around and he wants to go back to New York but the previously apprehensive Linda discovers ‘herself’ and decides she wants to stay. This causes problems for the couple and the rest of the film portrays their attempts to fit in and live their lives.

Even before the couple leave New York it is already apparent that these two characters aren’t suited (and it’s not just because of their unshakable Friends incarnations). All the way through I was just thinking, “Piss off back to New York George and leave her there. What the hell are you doing there? You are a successful banker who has left New York to live in a fucking commune that you hate”. They don’t feel like a married couple at all so there is no emotion from the audience when their relationship takes a turn for the worse.

Look! A stick with orange peel on it! Ha! How quirky and funny.

The film is meant to be a comedy but they are really stretching the use of that word. I laughed twice; once when a child said something sarcastic and again when Paul Rudd was talking to himself in the mirror. The rest of the ‘jokes’ were just awful. There was a recurring joke about names which was irritating and most of the humour was meant to be coming from when the audience says “ha-ha! Look at those funny hippies. They are doing and saying things differently to me. That’s funny”. Well it really isn’t. It was just boring, cheap and dumb. In the half full cinema I counted only three laughs from the majority of the audience. It’s just not good enough. I don’t know how people can get away with making films this unfunny and still come out the other side with mixed reviews. The film has a 58% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I must have been watching a different film. I’m disappointed with myself for watching it. If people keep going to see this tripe, it will only encourage more of the same.

Jennifer Anniston is back to her usual self here. After a good performance in Horrible Bosses, she is back in Just Go With It territory. I know that she gets pigeon holed but I wish she’d just stop or say no. Surely she’s rich enough to say no or to seek out smaller, independent films so she can prove everyone wrong. Paul Rudd is the only actor who emerges with an ounce of credibility. The films best moments come when he is on screen alone but he is better than this. The supporting cast are made up of half recognizable faces but their characters are so desperately annoying that it was difficult to get past and think about the acting. I guess that most of the actors probably aren’t irritating, outlandish dick heads so maybe they were very good. Just when you think that the film can't get any worse, there is a cameo from an actor who has appeared in a title role in one of Martin Scorsese's greatest films. His appearance creates no laughs and just makes you say to yourself "What happened to you? You are in THIS film. For thirty seconds. Naked.." Its pitiful.

Wanderlust is a film that I wouldn’t want to subject on my worst enemies. It is 98 minutes of incredibly boring, ill defined drivel with barely any laughs and an ending which made me want to vomit.

Fright Night

Fright Night is a comedy horror which is neither funny nor scary. It is a remake of the 1985 film of the same name which I haven’t seen so cannot pass any judgement. The premise of the film is that central character Charley’s (Anton Yelchin) life is turned upside down when a vampire (Colin Farrell) moves in next door to the house which he shares with his mother (Toni Collette). Farrell’s vampire becomes hell bent on killing everyone Charley knows including his friend (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and girlfriend (Imogen Poots). It is up to Charley to save his friends and family and to save the day.

The film has a stylish look to it. Despite being set in the hot, bright desert (Las Vegas) the majority of the film seems to be set at dusk which gives a very eerie look to the proceedings. In the cinema, it was released in 3D but I watched it at home in 2D (as all films should be watched) and there were far too many pointless pointy things coming towards the screen. Maybe in 3D this would have looked good, though I doubt it. In regular 2D it was just annoying. Despite this the film did have a good horror look to it. It is a shame then that it wasn’t in the least bit frightening. There wasn’t even one moment where I was slightly worried or anxious. It fails miserably on the horror front. In terms of comedy, most of the comedic moments come from either Christopher ‘McLovin’ Mintz-Plasse or David ‘Dr Who’ Tennant but both of their roles are small and I felt could have been expanded. There were no real laughs to be had but the script did contain the odd witty line and was quite snappy and fresh sounding.

Colin Farrell was born to play a vampire. He gives off an air of dangerous sexuality to which the female characters (and my girlfriend) are drawn. He is very well cast and his accent holds up admirably. The rest of the cast were fine. Mintz-Plasse was excellent as I stated previously although he basically just recycled his McLovin character from Superbad. David Tennant has a good cameo, at first as a kind of Russell Brand impersonator but later as a character with depth and back story. He pulled it off well. Anton Yelchin is very good as the hero of the piece. He is turning into an actor to watch for the future. Imogen Poots had little to do to be honest but look pretty and scared and Toni Collette was agreeable, especially when flirting with Farrell’s character.



"You gotta' kill em' with a Crossy Woss"



The film could have been so much more had there been just a few more laughs or just some scary moments. There was potential for a very good film here with a strong cast and excellent central performance from Colin Farrell but in the end it turned into a bit of a damp squib. It isn't terrible but it is in now way good.

Troll Hunter

Released towards the end of 2011 in the UK, Norway’s Troll Hunter (Trailer Here) was one of the more pleasant surprises of the year for me. I originally came across the film on an impromptu visit to our local art house cinema and have since watched the Blu-Ray. I was blown away both times. The film uses the found footage formula which is often hit or miss but the mokumentary style works well within the confines of this story. The footage is shot by three university students who are investigating illegal bear poaching in Volda but stumble across Norway’s best kept secret - Norway is home to trolls and there is one single man whose job it is to keep the human population from discovering their existence.

Much of the film could be used as a tourist advert for Norway. The scenery is amongst the most beautiful in the world and provides an impressive backdrop to the darkly comic story. Just watching the film made me want to travel around Norway, visiting every mountain, lake and waterfall… That is, until the trolls make an appearance. The film features several different variations of trolls, from a three headed Tosserlad to smaller Mountain Kings and the 200 foot Jotnar. Each troll species has its own distinct look and personality and despite the odd dodgy bit of CGI are impressive and menacing. For the most part the CGI is very good given the budget.

One of the films best scenes



The film is packed full of great comedic lines, often delivered dead pan by a terrific cast of comedians and relatively unknown actors. The acting feels natural and the cast do a fine job of displaying first amusement then later fear, excitement and confusion. Otto Jespersen in the role of Hans the Troll Hunter is absolutely brilliant. He plays the role with an air of resentment towards the Government and you really get the sense that despite his respect for the trolls and dedication to his job he has had enough. In one scene he complains about receiving no extra pay for working nights which is hilarious given the nature of his job. A scene on a bridge featuring a metal suit and sheep had me in stitches.

The world which the film creates is full of very nice little details. For example, you may think that power cables are there to deliver electricity across the countryside but the film comes up with a genius alternative explanation. Other little details such as the Governments hilarious attempts to cover up troll activity using bears add to the world created by the film. Many of the films ideas come from troll fairy tails such as their aversion to light and attraction towards Christians. This second idea is used to comedic effect when one character asks if being Muslim will be a problem, to which the hunter replies “I have no idea, but we’ll find out”. The film is full of little ideas and bits of dialogue which help to make the film the stunning success that it is. The way the film is shot keeps the audience on their toes. There is a well balanaced mix between the students being in control of their film and total panic when they are confronted with the trolls. 



"Lets have a look in that dark, abandoned mine"



The film is quite unique, or at least it is at time of writing. As per usual a Hollywood remake is in the works so look forward to a US set film coming in the next couple of years which will more than likely take the heart and soul from this film and have trolls ransacking Los Angeles with Tom Cruise hot on their tails in a helicopter. *Sigh*

One great part of the film for me was the choice of music over the end credits. I was introduced to what is now one of my favourite current bands, Kvelertak. The use of their song Mjød works very well and it’s a great song. I advise anyone with a puncheon for Scandinavian death metal to check them out.

While not perfect, Troll Hunter is a fantastic monster movie which keeps both the genre and the found footage style fresh. It is full of funny lines, great action and suspense and creates a world which I’d be thrilled to visit again.

Moral of the story – Christianity = uhoh.

The Immigrant

Charlie Chaplin’s 1917 short film The Immigrant features Chaplin’s Tramp character aboard a ship to America and later penniless on a New York street before a final set piece in a restaurant. Along the way he meets Edna Purviance, also an immigrant, and the two strike up a relationship.

The film’s most enduring scene features The Tramp and other immigrants being herded like animals and cordoned off as they arrive in America. During this scene, Chaplin kicks an immigration officer, something which was later held against him when he was accused of Communism and anti-American sentiment during the McCarthy era.

The immigrants corralled by the authorities in an overtly political scene

Although only twenty minutes long, the film features some tremendous sight gags and stage direction and Chaplin’s Tramp is a fully formed character by this point in his career. The makeup is also fantastic. I am a big fan of the white face/dark eye makeup of early cinema. Another area where the film is superb is in its direction and cinematography. Despite being fairly new to moving pictures, Chaplin’s mastery of the camera is clear to see. This is especially so in a scene in set aboard the boat featuring the whole cast eating soup in which Chaplin slides across a slippery floor as the ship rocks from side to side. Suspense is built towards the end of the film when The Tramp after seeing a man beaten for being 10c short on his bill, realises he has lost his money. His attempts to find money and or escape while under the watchful eye of a burly waiter are comic genius.

On the downside some of the scenes on the ship are a bit stale. These were actually filmed later than the final scenes as the film was written and performed as and when Chaplin came up with the ideas. The card game was boring but it did allow Chaplin to give Purviance’s character his winnings, thus introducing himself to her. I unfortunately watched a 1946 print of the film which contained some very annoying sound effects associated with the era. By the 40s with silent films long out of fashion, many earlier silent films had annoying sound effects added to them to give them a more up to date feel. This almost ruined the film for me. Most of the effects appear to have been produced using kazoos and slide whistles and are unnecessary and irritating. I also have a feeling that the film was lacking its original score. It’s a good idea to try and source early films without added sound effects and with their original musical accompaniment.

For Chaplin fans, this film is a must watch, however if you only have a passing interest in him or the films of the era then perhaps you’d be better off searching out the kick scene on YouTube.The film can be watched for free on YouTube here.

Room in Rome

WARNING : Adult Content

Room in Rome is a Spanish (albeit with English dialogue) erotic/romantic drama starring Elena Anaya and Natasha Yarovenko. Anaya plays Alba who meets and seduces Natasha (Yarovenko) in a club in Rome and persuades her to accompany her back to her hotel room. Despite protesting that she is not gay, Natasha agrees. What follows is a whirlwind affair which takes place over the course of a single night, within the walls of Alba’s hotel room.

While at its heart the film has a very good romantic story, this takes a back seat because of the characters sex and the amount of sex within the film. Although loosely based on a Chilean film about a mixed sex couple, Room in Rome’s protagonists are both female and that brings a whole new audience to the film. I think people who wanted porn would feel disappointed and people who wanted a good romantic drama would feel equally as disappointed. The film unfortunately falls between the two. Both actresses spend almost the entire film naked. While I didn’t mind this on an aesthetic level (they are both incredibly beautiful) it is slightly off-putting. There are whole swathes of the film in which the characters have sex but while this is titillating to watch, the story itself suffers. The last third of the film deals with what will happen in the morning; will they go back to their separate lives? Could they be together? Do they want to? By the time it gets interesting you have already sat through 90 minutes of soft core lesbian porn interspersed with poignant romance by which time you have forgotten about the plot.

It isn't easy to find suitable photos of this film!

Much of the dialogue feels fake and forced. Both the actresses and the director are working in their second or third language and I think that being a Spanish film, it may have worked better in Spanish with the Russian character speaking Spanish. This wouldn’t be a stretch. As it is she speaks Russian, English and Italian during the film. Why not try Russian, Italian and Spanish? Both actresses are fine in their roles. They play the emotional scenes well and the sex scenes ‘convincingly’. If I had to pick then I’d say Anaya comes out on top (if you excuse the pun). Elena Anaya is an actress who I shall always be interested to see after she gave a wonderful performance in The Skin I Live In.

Although their relationship became interesting towards the end of the film, for the first two thirds the two women tell each other lie after lie in order to hide their true identities from one another and I found this very tiresome after a while. The film keeps the audience waiting too long to discover who the women really are, by which time they have lost interest.

An example of the beautiful cinematography

I really feel that the film would have been improved had it not contained so much explicit sex. While these scenes are great for showing the passion and heat between the two women, they detract from the story as a whole. The most intense scenes in the film aren’t those which are overtly sexual in tone. The film is at its best when the two are talking quietly, maybe stroking a thigh or back or looking into each others souls.

The ending is fairly ambiguous and for once I actually wished for a ‘Hollywood Ending’. I suppose this shows how invested in the love story I was and how well the film showed the passion and love between the characters.  It also has to be said that as well as the beautiful naked women, the film also has some beautiful cinematography but in the end the sex got in the way of the story.