Knocked Up

After young up and coming TV reporter Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) gets promoted she heads out to celebrate with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann). She ends up having a drunken one night stand with an unemployed, pot smoking; man child called Ben (Seth Rogan) and a few weeks later discovers that she is pregnant. Knocked Up follows the nine months of pregnancy and the difficulties faced by unprepared soon to be parents Ben and Allison and married couple Debbie and Pete (Paul Rudd).

I saw Knocked Up on a transatlantic flight a few years ago and remembered enjoying it but remembered little of it. With a sort of sequel This is 40 released this month I thought I’d go back and give the film a second watch. For me it is average in terms of laughs for a Judd Apatow produced film but considering his films can be very hit and miss this is one of the most entertaining and also sweetest.

Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies is a loose retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet but with a twist. Romeo or R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie, living in a post apocalyptic world. He spends his days shuffling around a long abandoned airport, looking for food and grunting. One day while out searching for brains he comes across a group of young survivors and despite his condition, falls in love with one of them, a girl called Julie (Teresa Palmer). Going against his nature R saves Julie and takes her to a safe place. Something about his love for Julie triggers a reaction inside R’s heart and he slowly becomes more human but with armed militia out to kill zombies, will anyone believe him?

Warm Bodies begins with a fantastic idea. The film is mostly told from a zombie’s perspective which I found really interesting. He has an internal monologue which is deep, thoughtful and funny but outwardly is only able to produce a few groans. Unfortunately the interest soon wears off in favour of the romantic elements. While this is fine the film plays fast and loose with the zombie concept and purists will struggle to engage with a fast moving, talking, sentient zombie.

Hitchcock

Hitchcock is a behind the scenes telling of the making of Psycho (1960) and the relationship between its Director Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife and long time collaborator Alma Reville (Helen Mirren). The plot encompasses Hitchcock’s search for a follow up to the hugely successful North by Northwest and then the difficult production of Psycho, ending at its Premier. Although Psycho and its production provide the backdrop, the plot is really about love, jealousy and aging. Hitch and Alma had been married for almost thirty-five years by 1960 and one of the avenues the film explores is the fractious relationship which they share. Hitch’s obsessions with his leading ladies, here Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) is something which Alma has put up with for decades but when the writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) takes an interest in Alma, Hitch’s jealousy effects their relationship and his work.

Hitchcock isn’t a bad film and it’s always nice to see behind the scenes of a Hollywood production but even if it had been great there would still be one problem and that is that it isn’t Psycho. All the way through I thought to myself that I wish I was watching Psycho and the underwhelming central performance and flabby plot just made me think back to what is in my opinion one of the greatest films in history.

The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia is a neo-Noir film Directed by Brian De Palma and based on the book of the same name by James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential). The film was a critical and commercial failure on its release in 2005 and I first saw it on DVD in about 2007 but on a really small TV in my girlfriend’s university flat. We both fell asleep so didn’t remember much about it. There were two reasons why I wanted to see the movie again. The first was that it was featured in a fantastic Sight & Sound article about post 2000 Noir and the second was Scarlett Johansson. Any excuse to watch one of her films. Having seen it properly now I’ve come to the conclusion that I probably didn’t need to see it again and there’s a reason I didn’t remember much of it. The Black Dahlia is overly confusing and the time I spent trying to piece things together took me away from the plot and the excellent period world that the film created.

Placed shortly after the Second World War in Los Angeles the movie is set around a real life murder case but everything else is fictional. Former boxers turned cops Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) take part in a fixed fight which earns everyone in the Department an 8% pay rise. They soon end up as partners and following the grizzly murder of a young wannabe starlet (Mia Kershner) Blanchard begins to obsess about catching the killer, leaving the rest of their work and his girl (Scarlett Johansson) on the outside looking in.

Safe House

I don’t know what I was hoping for with Safe House but I certainly wasn’t expecting so little. With films like Taken setting the bar very low these days for the action genre it seems that a whole parade of films are following in its ridiculous wake and Safe House is but one of these movies. Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a CIA Safe House Operative in Cape Town. His role involves waiting around a secure house in case the CIA ever needs to move a criminal, terrorist etc. Twelve months into the posting Matt’s first house guest arrives in the shape of Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) a highly skilled rogue CIA Agent who is being chased by a menagerie of vaguely foreign looking killers. Frost repeatedly ditches Weston but he never stops hunting the rogue agent down and more nonsense I’m bored.

Safe House was more full of holes than holy water from the holy land and had the most obvious twist since Rock ‘n’ Roll. It is such a stupid movie that I can barely bring myself to discuss it. It is never exciting or interesting and beside solid but unspectacular central performances there is literally nothing of merit in the entire 110 minutes.

Flight

Prime Oscar bait Flight is Director Robert Zemeckis’ return to live action following more than a decade producing animated and computer generated movies. The movie tells the story of a crashed aircraft and the following weeks for its functioning alcoholic pilot (Whip Whitaker) Denzel Washington. Whip is a well trained and long serving pilot who has got by all throughout his adult life despite being drunk and stoned everyday. On the morning of the fated flight he is seen drinking beer and vodka and snorting cocaine and even drinks vodka during the fifty minute flight. Despite some miraculous instinct and skill which manages to save many lives Whip is due in front of a tribunal with a failed toxicology report hanging over his head.

It’s fair to say that Flight is one of the weaker of the Oscar season films and the intense crash and admirable Washington performance are all that separate it from mediocrity. The movie is full of religious babble, poorly chosen music and a code era ending which make the excellent opening instantly forgettable and sets up an hour and a half which passes the time but does little to induce much of an emotional response past the odd laugh and one tense moment.

Strangers on a Train

Alfred Hitchcock’s tale of doubles, murder, light and dark, Strangers on a Train is a film with a lot of deep and hidden subtext which sits underneath a nicely woven story. Amateur tennis player and wannabe Politician Guy Haines (Farley Granger) is on a train when he meets a chatty and confident man named Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). Bruno recognises the tennis ace and begins talking about stories of Guy’s private life that he has read about in the newspapers. Guy is uncomfortable but humours the strange man who soon begins to talk of murder and how they could pull off the perfect murder by each murdering the other’s problem person. Guy is on the way to speak with his wife about a divorce and Bruno suggests murder. A few days later Guy’s wife is found murdered and Guy is stalked by the shady Bruno who says that it is Guy’s turn to commit the crime.

Strangers on a Train is far from my favourite Hitchcock film but it features some stunning cinematography and a vast array of visual motifs which help to spell out the plot and themes. The performance of Robert Walker is also noteworthy but I rarely felt fully engaged with the story. It is perhaps a movie that would benefit from a second viewing but like pretty much all of Hitchcock’s movies is still worth watching.

Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite is a 2009 blaxploitation action/comedy spoof written by and starring Michael Jai White. Although my knowledge of blaxploitation cinema extends to what little I’ve picked up during some light reading and watching Jackie Brown, Black Dynamite is one of the funniest and most enjoyable films I’ve seen in recent years and I’ve now seen it five times. Black Dynamite is a pitch perfect pastiche of the genre that it imitates and takes special care in making sure that the look, direction, acting and mistakes are done just right. It is a film that I’ve recommended to several people, all of whom have laughed their way from start to finish and I’d recommend it to anyone, regardless of age, race or gender.

Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) is an ex-CIA Agent/Kung Fu expert who leaves a trail of satisfied women and battered crooks in his wake. When his brother Jimmy is killed by the mob Black Dynamite goes back into service to catch his brother’s killers, clean up the streets and generally kick ass, ya dig? Along the way Black Dynamite gets the help of several members of the community from Pimps to Black Panther members, seducing and reducing as he goes.

The Pilgrim

Charlie Chaplin’s shortest feature or longest short, depending on which way you’d like to view it, is important for a number of reasons. Not only was it his final short film before moving to features permanently but it was also his last film to co star Edna Purviance. Purviance stared in over thirty of Chaplin’s films and was his leading lady for eight years but The Pilgrim was her final major onscreen appearance with Chaplin*. The movie also bought to an end a fruitful relationship with The First National Film Company. Following this film Chaplin would produce his final films with United Artists, the company he founded with D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Those films would go on to define Chaplin’s long career.

Besides the above reasons there is little worth remembering about The Pilgrim and for me it is a bit of a blot on an otherwise successful era for Chaplin. The Pilgrim begins slowly and never kicks into a high gear. There is very little humour or comedy of any sort and the story, while occasionally attention-grabbing, didn’t do anything for me. The ending was nice but The Pilgrim isn’t a film I’ll be returning to in a hurry. In a typical case of mistaken identity an escaped convict (Charlie Chaplin) dresses as a preacher and takes a train to Texas where he is immediately taken for a small town’s new Church leader. His past comes back to haunt him though as an old friend makes a surprise appearance.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Following on directly from the second film in the Millennium trilogy, the final part of the series deals with the aftermath of the events that took place during the previous film. Both the central protagonist Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and her father Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov) lie seriously injured in hospital while journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) tries desperately to clear Salander’s name and discover the links between the state’s poor treatment of her and a shady underground police organisation known as The Section.

After the disappointment of the Girl Who Played with Fire I was glad to see a partial return to form in this film. The poor end to that film is partially explained as this one picks up seconds after the climax of the second. Although never reaching the heights of The Girl with the DragonTattoo, this movie is interesting but rarely tense. The story is more reminiscent of the original film and ties the series together nicely.