United 93

I saw United 93 about three years ago and was well and truly shaken by it. I hadn’t seen such an emotional and harrowing film since Schindler’s List and wasn’t prepared for just how realistic and terrifying it was. I think I was expecting a sort of Independence Day-esque USA! USA! Saves the day! type film but what I got was a beautifully made, onslaught on my emotions. I watched it again last night to introduce it to my girlfriend. The film had the exact same impact on her and bought a tear to her eye. I found it just as traumatic the second time around and the fact that we are flying to Newark with United in a couple of weeks probably didn’t help our emotional state. The film left us both feeling drained and depressed.

United 93 tells the real story of the forth ill fated aircraft on 9/11. Almost brushed aside or forgotten about on that day and in the years afterwards, the plane was hijacked by four terrorists and heading for Washington (the film suggests The Capitol) when news of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon reached the passengers. Realising that this was a suicide mission, some of the passengers got together to try and force their way into the cockpit and a single engine pilot volunteered to attempt to land the place safely. History tells us this was unsuccessful.

The Birds

The Birds arrived towards the end of one of the most fruitful periods of Alfred Hitchcock’s career, at a time when he was still riding the waves of Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho. The movie, like Psycho is a horror film and to me is a clear influence on much that followed it. Young socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) meets the suave lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a pet shop in San Francisco. She becomes a little infatuated with him after a brief game of cat and mouse and decides to track him down. She finds him in the small hamlet of Bodega Bay and leaves a present of two love birds on his door step. Melanie and Mitch strike up a coy friendship much to the disliking of Mitch’s protective mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy). While Melanie is in Bodega Bay birds begin to attack people, occasionally at first but soon they have the town under siege and there is no explanation as to why.

The Birds was probably the first Hitchcock film I ever saw but I remembered little of it besides the stand out set piece scenes. It is also one of Hitch’s most parodied films (this is brilliant) and I recently saw TV movie The Girl which was based on the relationship between the film’s Director and lead actress. Now I’ve seen it again I can see that the movie has a lot going for it but I preferred Hitchcock’s earlier, tenser thrillers.

Run Out Groove - A Short Story

As Kina opened the bathroom door, steam flooded into the living room, rising sharply as it met the cooler air. Despite the large bathroom window being opened there was still more than enough steam from her long, indulgent shower to reach the high ceiling of her small apartment’s central room. As she walked over to her record player her light, satin gown hung loosely around her quickly drying body and a drop of cool water ran from her hair down the back of her neck.

Lifting the lid of her record player she gently placed the needle close to the edge of the 7”, letting go when she heard the satisfying scratch of needle on vinyl. Following a short, quiet, gratifying hiss, the first few bars of Parliament’s Agony of Defeet sprung to life and George Clinton’s smooth voice rang out. Kina slowly began to shake her hips as she walked the few feet towards her TV. She turned it on but kept the volume on mute. Kina enjoyed the company of a flickering TV late at night and it left light, fuzzy shadows all over the apartment. Briefly looking at the screen she half recognized an old John Wayne Western but wasn’t sure of its name. Turning to the drinks cabinet behind her sofa she continued her slow groove across the room. She stopped half way and turned as she heard a dull thud coming from the bathroom. Angry at herself for not hanging up her towel properly again she continued to her cabinet, poured herself a small scotch and used a set of polished silver tongs to pick out a warm slice of lemon which had seen better days. Heading to the kitchen in search of ice, Kina once more strut a funky walk across the room in front of the closed drapes and towards the open kitchen.

Robocop

The first of Dutch Director Paul Verhoeven’s three English language cult sci-fi films, Robocop is a movie that owes a great debt to the comic book character Judge Dredd and was inspired by Blade Runner. In the near future Detroit is a city on the verge of collapse. There are no jobs and criminal gangs run the streets. The mega-corporation OCP runs the battered up police force and hopes to create a new super-city in the ruins of Detroit. To clean up the streets they design an automated robot cop but when tests go badly they return to the drawing board. Veteran cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is out on patrol with his new partner Officer Ann Lewis (Nancy Allen) when he encounters a criminal gang. The cops chase the gang to an abandoned mill where Murphy is brutally killed. OCP use what is left of Murphy’s body to create a new version of their robotic policeman – Robocop.

I saw Robocop when I was in my early teens at remember thinking it was pretty violent and cool. Now aged twenty-six and twenty-five years after the movie’s initial release, I found the film had aged very badly and wasn’t anywhere near as fun as I remembered. The violence though, remains.

This is 40

This is 40 is being described as the sort of sequel to 2007’s Knocked Up in that the central characters first appeared in that movie. Besides that there is little to connect the stories of the two films although the early mid life crisis that Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) found themselves entering five years ago are now fully formed. Debbie and Paul are a married couple on the cusp of their fortieth birthdays. Their two children (played by Mann’s and Writer/Director Judd Apatow’s real children Maude and Iris) are finding it difficult to get along and both parents are in turn having problems with their own fathers. In the background is a financial noose which threatens to envelop their necks at any time.

I believe that This is 40 contains some of Judd Apatow’s best writing to date. This might not sound like much of a compliment considering his writing credits have included You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and Funny People but in amongst the poorer stuff, Apatow has written some very good comedy. This is 40 is not only very funny but also sweet and contains a lot of realistic relationship talk, arguments and situations.

Kill Bill Volume 2

Kill Bill Volume 2 is the second part of Quentin Tarantino’s female led revenge thriller and was released six months after its predecessor KillBill Volume 1. The film follows the continuing vengeful rampage of The Bride (Uma Thurman) who we discover in this film is actually named Beatrix Kiddo. Her name remained secret in the first movie. Having dispatched of two of her former assailants in the first film, Kiddo here hunts down the remaining three; trailer residing, titty bar bouncer Bud (Michael Madsen), one eyed jealous blonde Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) and the eponymous Bill (David Carradine).

The film opens with a Hitchcockian style pre title sequence in which The Bride is driving to her final destination while giving a brief outline of the plot so far. This sequence is shot in black and white and uses rear projection to give it the look of a Hitchcock thriller. Even the title font and score are Hitchcockian. The remainder of the film is much more conventional and more settled than the first Kill Bill movie as Tarantino keeps his genre mashing directorial tricks mostly in his pocket. There are occasional switches to black and white and one chapter resembles a Hong Kong Kung Fu movie but for the most part the film is more unadventurous than the first movie. There is much less violence too with only two onscreen deaths in the entire movie.

Antichrist

Lars von Trier’s censor terrorising, award winning 2009 horror film Antichrist was the first film I saw from the Danish art house Director and its beauty, graphic violence and almost pornographic visuals left me stunned for days. For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to get my girlfriend (who disliked Melancholia more than I did) to watch it, in part because I knew it would disgust her. Much to my relief it did. Antichrist is one of the most violent and certainly the most sexually explicit film I’ve ever seen but it isn’t simply a trashy exploitation Tits & Guts horror, it is a well crafted, beautifully made and deeply traumatic horror film.

Antichrist begins with a prologue featuring a married couple who are never named (Willem Defoe & Charlotte Gainsbourg) making love in super slow motion. The scene is filmed in black and white and using a camera capable of capturing a thousand frames a second. While the couple pound away their young son climbs out of his cot and heads towards an open window before falling to his death. The couple enter into the grieving process in very different ways with the husband taking a clinical approach while the wife spirals deeper and deeper into depression. The film is divided into chapters which mirror Gainsbourg’s emotional state with Grief being followed by Pain and Despair. The couple make the decision to relocate to a cabin in the woods but the wife’s emotional state takes a dark and bloody turn for the worst.

The Help

It’s rare that I watch a film and want to hurt the cast but I deeply disliked about 60% of the characters in The Help and wanted to punch about 20% of them in the face. The Oscar winning 2011 film tells the story of disenfranchised maids living in early 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) returns from college with the world at her feet but realises that her family and friends expect very specific things of her. She is to act and dress in a certain way, not think too hard and settle down with a husband as soon as possible. Skeeter goes against what is expected and gets a job at the local paper. Desperate for something worthwhile to write about she asks her friend’s maid Aibileen (Viola Davis) if she can write about life from the help’s perspective. Although weary at first, Aibileen soon opens up to Skeeter and soon fellow maid Minny (Octavia Spencer) is telling her story too.

I never saw The Help on its initial release and is in fact a rare example of a recent Best Picture candidate I’ve missed. Something about the movie didn’t appeal to me and my early hatred of the bad guy characters coupled with finding Emma Stone’s character annoying got me off to a bad start. By the end though I was wishing the film wouldn’t end and would have watched another act. I grew to respect and love certain characters but still want to punch others and the story is a remarkable example of bravery, courage and setting right what is wrong.

Sexy Beast

Gary Dove (Ray Winstone) is an ex safe cracker now living in retirement in Spain. He and his best friend Aitch (Cavan Kendall) live idyllic lives in the Spanish sun but their relaxed lives are interrupted by the arrival of terrifying London gangster Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) who tries to forcefully persuade Gary to do another job back in the UK. Despite his protestations Don won’t take no for an answer and an uneasy standoff develops between the two men.

I’ve never been a fan of the Guy Ritchie style London based gangster films and get annoyed that British films are generally divided into costume drama or East End Gangster flicks. Sexy Beast feels very different from the Gut Ritchie style of film and reminded me more of a Nicholas Winding Refn film. The colour saturation, violence and electro, bass heavy soundtrack are all signatures of his work and had I been told this was one of his films I wouldn’t have doubted it. The film is actually the debut feature of Director Jonathan Glazer who is better known as a Director of adverts and music videos. He brings his easy on the eye style to the big screen and here creates a memorable film which also has one of the best Ben Kingsley performances I’ve seen.

A Good Day to Die Hard

Twenty-five years since the beginning of the terrific Die Hard trilogy and nearly six years after the quite frankly terrible Die Hard 4.0 (you know, like computers) John McLane (Bruce Willis) is back for a fifth instalment of Dying Hard but not actually ever dying ever. As with a lot of tired, out of ideas sequels, Die Hard 5 takes place outside the US and finds our hero in MosCOW on the trail of his wayward son Jack (Jai Courtney) who he learns is due in a Russian Court on a murder charge. What John doesn’t realise however is that Jack is in fact a CIA Agent, working undercover to protect a political prisoner (Sebastian Koch) who has a highly sensitive file on a high ranking Russian Politician.

A Good Day to Die Hard tries its best to construct a story worthy of the original trilogy and even springs a surprise twist but nothing can mask that fact that this movie is boring. Dull, dull, stare, drive, BOOM!, guns, dull, talk, father-son, dull, driving, radiation, BOOM! BOOM! Hahaha, end. There is an incredibly tortured father-son relationship thing which gets dragged out for far too long and some stuff about Uranium but for the most part Die Hard 5 is just another run of the mill action shooter with far too much money to play with and not enough inventiveness.