Monsters University

Seeing Monsters University puts me in the strange situation of seeing a sequel (or prequel in this case) before the original movie. Like a lot of people I’m a huge Pixar fan but 2001’s Monsters. Inc is one of two Pixar features which I haven’t got around to seeing yet. The central characters Mike and Sully are so well known though that I didn’t think my ignorance of the first movie would hamper my enjoyment of this one. Thankfully it didn’t. Pixar managed to hamper it all by themselves.

Monsters University takes us back to our central character’s college days where they first meet on the campus of the University of the movie’s title. The ambitious and book smart Mike (Billy Crystal) initially doesn’t get along with the confident and naturally scary Sully (John Goodman) and their falling out leads to their expulsion from Scare 101. The pair discovers that their only way back onto the course is to enter and win the University’s Scare Games. To do this they must join a fraternity but the only one that will accept them is a group of no-hopers. Will they be able to shape themselves and their team into first class scarers or will their dream of turning professional be lost?

On the Road

Based on Jack Kerouac’s book of the same name, On the Road is a love letter to the Beat generation of the late 1940’s of which Kerouac himself was a founding member. The plot follows various road trips and eventful days in the lives of several young Americans in the late 1940s as they experiment with drugs and sex and attempt to find meaning in the world and their own lives. The central character Sal Paradise (based on Kerouac – Sam Riley) is a young writer in need of inspiration who meets Dean Moriarty, a wild and carefree man for whom everyone and everything should be explored and or fucked. The two embark on several road trips and meet some strange and interesting people along the way.

Although I initially liked the look of the trailer for On the Road and was aware of the Kerouac novel, it was a film I didn’t get around to seeing in the cinema. Now I’ve seen it I think I made the right choice although overall I’m glad I saw the movie. The film has a terrific atmosphere of youthful energy, opportunity and freedom which is expressed through the music, sex and adventure of its young characters and to be honest I was jealous of their lives. Problems lie in the length of the movie and slow pacing which doesn’t match the exuberance of the plot. The acting is also very mixed but following the film I wanted to discover more about the Beat generation and its characters and beliefs.

Reservoir Dogs

A couple of nights ago I saw an interview with Quentin Tarantino on Film 2013 ahead of the release of his latest picture Django Unchained. The interview touched upon a lot of his films and with each film mentioned I turned to my girlfriend and said “Ooh! I really want to watch that again soon” while turning to my DVD shelf. When Reservoir Dogs was mentioned I looked for my DVD copy and suggested we watched it that night but my girlfriend told me that it was playing for one night only at our local multiplex the next evening. Five minutes later the tickets were booked and my excitement grew as I was getting the chance to see such an iconic film on the big screen, twenty-one years after its release. Reservoir Dogs burst on to the scene in late 1992 and unusually went on to make more money at the UK box office than in the US but following the release of Pulp Fiction two years later became more widely known and is today recognised as one of the greatest independent films of all time as well as one of the greatest debuts by any film maker.

Featuring a lot of the themes which define Tarantino’s filmography such as a non-linear story, extreme violence, pop culture references, rock and pop soundtrack, rich and deeply woven dialogue and a plot based around an accident, Reservoir Dogs takes place before and after an armed robbery orchestrated by Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and his son ‘Nice Guy’ Eddie (Chris Penn). We see various meetings and discussions which take place before the heist as the crew is slowly formed but the most famous and memorable scenes take place following the robbery when the various members of the group make their way back to their safe house. The audience never sees the robbery itself but with some of the gang dead and others badly wounded it is soon obvious that something went wrong and that they have a rat in their midst, but who?

The Island

I saw The Island a few years ago and noticed that it was on TV again so decided to give it a second watch. It didn’t make a huge impression on me the first time around but I remembered being interested by the opening act and Scarlett Johansson is in it so… I had a vague recollection of her in a tight, white jump suit so had to watch it again. As it transpired I was correct about the costume and Johansson looks incredible. I also correctly remembered the opening half an hour and it was still an interesting concept even though it was slightly diminished due to knowledge of any potential twists. What I’d forgotten though were the seemingly endless car chases and explosions which accompany the second hour of the movie. These were almost unwatchable due to the quick cutting and despite everything going on, felt really boring.

In the years following an untold natural disaster the world has become too contaminated for humans to live outside. The few survivors live in a deeply regulated and controlled facility in which every aspect of their life is measured and organized by those in charge. One of the few survivors is Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) who begins asking questions about his surroundings and the rules he is forced to follow. He becomes friendly with Jordan Two Delta (Johansson) who is the winner of a lottery to live out the rest of her life on ‘The Island’ the last uncontaminated place on Earth. Lincoln is worried though that not everything is as it seems and tries looking for answers.

Hotel Transylvania

Fed up with being persecuted by humans, Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) decides to build a hotel for monsters that is protected from humanity by haunted forests and zombie filled graveyards. His ulterior motive though is to keep his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) safe and secure and away from anything that can hurt her. Dracula is planning a huge birthday party for Mavis with all of his monster friends in attendance when he is shocked to discover that a human (Andy Samberg) has found the hotel and is threatening to bring his and his daughter’s peaceful existence to an end.

Having been disappointed by ParaNorman and still waiting to see Frankenweenie I went into Hotel Transylvania with some trepidation. This feeling of weariness was heightened by the fact that I deeply dislike the majority of the voice cast. Even so I went in with an open mind and came out the other side thinking, “meh”. Overall I enjoyed the film more than ParaNorman but the initial conceit, which was a very good idea, couldn’t be sustained for ninety minutes. As a result there were large chunks of the film which were quite boring but were occasionally livened up by a decent joke or some attractively busy animation.

The Big Lebowski

After a case of mistaken identity Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), an unemployed Los Angeles based slacker seeks out his millionaire namesake in order to complain about the mistreatment he received by mistake. The meeting is followed the next day by a call from the millionaire saying that his young, trophy wife has been kidnapped and he wants The Dude to be the bagman; delivering the money to the kidnappers. This sets off a chain of events which leaves The Dude bewildered and confused and all on the eve of his bowling league semi-finals.

The Big Lebowski is one of the hundreds of films which I’ve wanted to see for a long time and I’m happy I’ve finally sat down to watch it. I’m a fan of the Coen brothers’ work having really enjoyed seven of the eight of their films I’ve seen previously. This is most definitely joining those other seven and avoids being plonked in the bargain bin next to The Ladykillers. It’s packed full of great Coen dialogue and fantastical situations, all bought together with a great cast who are all on sparkling form.

King of New York

"You guys got fat while everybody starved on the street. Now it's my turn"

A New York drug lord Frank White (Christopher Walken) is being driven in his limousine back into the city following his release from prison. His crew are busy taking out a rival Columbian gang who have been encroaching on White’s business while he’s been away. Once he’s back White wastes no time in taking out more of New York’s crime lords and cements himself as the King of New York. Disgruntled that they are never able to get charges to stick, a few wild Police Officers decide that the only way to stop White and his gang is to take them out.

Featuring an impressive cast which alongside Walken includes gangsters Laurence Fishburne, Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito and Theresa Randle with Cops Wesley Snipes, Victor Argo and David Caruso the film is a tale of good vs evil, but as you’d expect the lines between the two are blurred. Although not in the same league as the likes of Scarface, Carlito’s Way or Serpico all of which share themes with this, it is a decent gangster picture.

Rampart

I’d been looking forward to Rampart for some time after hearing rumours of an excellent performance from Woody ‘cooler than Sam Jackson in a fridge’ Harrelson but left the cinema feeling a little disappointed. Harrelson stars as Dave Brown, an LAPD Cop who is from a different era and gets embroiled in scandal after scandal. He is considered a dinosaur by colleagues and friends for the way he goes about his police work and has no qualms about placing evidence on suspects, beating them or even killing them. We follow Harrelson as his character spirals ever deeply into trouble with both his family and the police department through a series of ill judged moves.

I felt that the film was quite boring. Despite a fantastic central performance from Woody Harrelson I didn’t really care what happened to him and it was obvious from the outset that there would be no way back for him. The film looks great. I am a big fan of the kind of beauty in urban decay shots found here and in films such as Tyrannosaur, Coriolanus and Lebanon. You get the sense of a never ending battle that the police are facing in both the visuals of the film and the actions of its characters. But as I said, I felt bored and the film seemed much longer than it was.

Woody Harrelson is fantastic as the bent cop, Brown. He is from a different era, the last of the renegade cops who sees nothing wrong is doing anything he has to in order to clean up the streets. His self destructiveness shows no bounds and he goes out of his way to piss off and alienate those closest to him. This is especially so with the female characters such as his partner and ex wives. The supporting cast is all good. Sigourney Weaver and Ice Cube are excellent and could have done with a bit more to do. There is a brief cameo from the always excellent Steve Buscemi but Ben Foster is the standout in the supporting cast as he wonderfully portrays a down and out, homeless Vietnam Veteran. He is quite superb in his few scenes.

Both Harrelson and Foster excell

Overall this is a film with a great cast, equally good acting and there is an interesting story in there somewhere but it just doesn’t seem to take off. Some of the director’s camera work was off-putting and for the most part it was dull. It’s a shame as the story and cast involved should have produced a much better film. While it isn’t terrible, it isn’t particularly good either.

6/10