Ian's Cinema-Rama

The coolest DVD packaging of the year?

2007-09-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=285;5;-1;-1&sku=713485

Shit yes.

It may be Saturday night, I may be drunk. But...

2007-09-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=11883

Characters with the surname LORING!!! Finally my family's legacy gets movie recognition!! Ha, brilliant. Sorry but Loring is such a weird surname and its being used in a film, he he.

My bad.

Back to blog...

2007-09-20T02:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the massive interruption in blogging, work has been hectic hectic hectic, as I am currently the only manager in my store, and so I am spending too much time at work. This has also been affecting the output of my podcasts also but this area is getting fixed. The fact that I am not a professional who gets screeners also doesn't help as I can only see films when I have the time/money. I love doing the bloody thing though and I thank everyone for keeping with me.
So then, the impending strike in Hollywood. For those who don't know, writers and actors are going on strike next summer and this has resulted in mucho rush-to-production for some dodgy sounding properties. Particular stand-outs include:

A remake of Friday the 13th written by the guys who wrote Freddy vs Jason
Will Ferrell in a big-screen adap of old TV series Land Of The Lost
A fucking Sex + The City movie.

I understand the studio's postion. They need to have enough product to stagger releases during the strike. Indeed the third Narnia film has just been shoved back a year for this very purpose, but 2008 is already looking a bit shaky for big films. I can't help but be nervous about Indy 4 and the Incredible Hulk, with its teaming of action director Louis Letterier and control freak Edward Norton, could be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Iron Man, which anyone who listens to my podcast will know, is my only sure thing for summer 2008. Rushing films is completely not what we need and I can't help but fear for the level of quality Hollywood product we will be getting.

Speaking of quality product, after the death of Ingmar Bergman I have been going through some of his films. The only one I saw before was The Seventh Seal, a truly great meditation on the nature of death and what its inescapable grasp means to us, but I have now also seen Wild Strawberries and Persona. Wild Strawberries is a nice little film but I found it quite forgettable. Persona on the other hand is a completely different beast, Bergman fucking with the audience's notions of what is on the screen and what the images actually mean. The opening sequence with a projector actually being unable to fathom the film it is showing, is truly something amazing and indeed the cock moment at the end of Fight Club is obviously a tribute to this. The story is also a mjaor influence on Fight Club and is a chilling little film. Its only 78 minutes but it leaves you more affected than any 3 hour epic..

OK that's enough rambling. Podcast will be up over the weeknd. Coming up I got reviews of Death Proof and A Mighty Heart, a look at the DVD of Blades Of Glory and more.

Ian out.

The Format War gets really interesting...

2007-08-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

OK so HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray has had another major development. After mucho speculation that Universal would soon start to support Blu-Ray effectively ending the format war, it has been announced that Paramount/Dreamworks will be going HD-DVD exclusive aside from major Spielberg films. For the first time in a while, HD-DVD nabs some points in this particular race.

How many people do we think wil be getting HD-DVD just for Transformers? Even though it is a Spielberg production, thi shas been announced as an exclusive title. With HD-DVD player prices continuing to fall, could this mean that they will be making some ground up? I shall say this much.

2 hundred pound HD-DVD player with titles which have better features and no form of region coding. Or a 400 pound Blu-Ray system with more titles from more studios?

Fuck me this is tough.

God bless chud.com....

2007-08-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=steadyleak&id=11419

The summer lull...

2007-08-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

Fucking summer. Weather of the eh variety, no decent sport and to cap it all off, blockbusters aside, nothing of note at the cinema, and nothing worth looking at on DVD!! Seriously, I wish releases would gte spread out more. The last one I remember getting which was a big release was Hot Fuzz and that was what maybe April?

Thankfully though my friends, we are coming out the other side! The new Premiership season starts on Saturday, and Donna is actually going to let me watch some of it in the flat! Also, its my birthday next week, The Bourne Ultimatum comes out the day after and its Donna and myself's 2-year anniversary next Friday. Now all this is great, but not of much interest to you guys (Bourne aside). Oh no but...

THE GREAT DVD RELEASES ARE BACK!!!!

Next Monday (13th August), a 2-disc special edition of Taxi Driver is being released over here. At last, Taxi Driver is seemingly getting a set worth the film. Commentaries, documentaries, trailers, and some really nice artwork combine to make the first essential purchase in months.

Amazon link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Taxi-Driver-2-Disc-Special/dp/B000SNUQXA/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/203-4041995-1508726?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1186579795&sr=8-2

Play link http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/3350003/Taxi-Driver-Special-Edition/Product.html

Following this, on Monday 20th August, us Brits get a 2 disc special edition of INLAND EMPIRE. One of my favs of the year so far, the great David Lynch brings us his most challenging film yet. A running time of 3 hours, an incomprehensible plot, but images you will never forget and a film which seems to capture exactly what a dream feels like, I really rate this film and I hope you guys give it a chance. The Region 2 set comes with interviews including one with Lynch at BFI Southbank. I could listen to the guy talk for hours and the price for which the disc is being offered on Amazon and Play really is a bit of a steal IMO.

Amazon link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inland-Empire-David-Lynch-Laura/dp/B000OM8WWM/ref=sr_1_1/203-4041995-1508726?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1186580078&sr=1-1

Play link http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/3229343/Inland-Empire/Product.html

On Bank Holiday Monday, 27th August, my favourite film of the year so far comes out. Danny Boyle's Sunshine is something truly special and deserves to be seen by any Sci-Fi fan. The fact that this was made in a warehouse in England staggers me. This film is a perfect combination of visuals and audio and the story and perfomances are bnoth top notch. This film has a vibe the likes of which I have not felt since 2001: A Space Odyssey. Honestly. I love this film. The DVD looks pretty good, I would like a 4 disc mega set but hey. Commentaries by Danny Boyle and Dr Brian Cox should be interesting and intelligent meditations on the film, but the other features look a bit eh. get a great sound system and the largest TV you can find and wallow in this film. If it comes out on Blu-Ray, I may let it be a sole excuse for getting a PS3 and a HDTV.

Amazon link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sunshine-Rose-Byrne/dp/B000S6UZEM/ref=sr_1_2/203-4041995-1508726?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1186580345&sr=1-2

Play link http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/3308998/Sunshine/Product.html

On the 10th Septmeber, 28 Weeks Later comes out. A more intense, viscreal and disturbing film than the first, maybe lacking the social commentary but in my mind making up for it with pure entertainment and chills, 28 Weeks Later was one of the more satisfying franchise films of the summer and is one I very much look forward to seeing again. Disc has a commentary which should be interesting as its a Brazillian working on a very Brit-film, deleted scenes and a making of. like Sunshine, starndard issue but stuff I will still be exploring and no doubt reviewing on the podcast.

Amazon link http://www.amazon.co.uk/28-Weeks-Later/dp/B000RZFQ5W/ref=sr_1_1/203-4041995-1508726?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1186580552&sr=1-1

Play link http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/3335473/28-Weeks-Later/Product.html

Oh yes my friends. The good shit is back. Thank fuck.

Podcast up Friday, no cinema reviews this week but I got some good DVD stuff for you, and the next part in our Rebellion Marathon.

Ian out.

Podcast 11 - Show Notes

2007-08-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay...

If (with exclusive screenplay) http://www.amazon.co.uk/If-including-screenplay-exclusive-Amazon-co-uk/dp/B000NJLYV2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/203-4041995-1508726?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1186579216&sr=8-1

Heroes: Season One Part One (RIP-OFF BRITAIN!!!) http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/heroes-season-one-part-one.html

Spider-Man 3 http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/spider-man-3.html

Grindhouse: Death Proof & Planet Terror http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/grindhouse.html

Show Notes - Podcast 10

2007-07-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

First off, Iron Man footage from Comic Con is on youtube. It is fucking sick. Seriously, it looks like the best blockbuster of next summer already. Also Dark Knight teaser is out www.davestrailerpage.co.uk Eh is all I can say. Big thanks to Chris for giving me the Iron Man link.

OK...

Beowulf trailer - http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/

Simpsons Movie, still go by my opinion, would love to know what you guys think.

Upcoming DVD releases...

Departed on Blu-Ray - http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/eiv-goes-blu-ray.html

Oldboy on Blu-Ray - http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/tartan-goes-blu-ray.html

Knocked Up on R1 DVD - http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/knocked-up.html

Chinatown on R1 DVD - http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/chinatown-and-the-two-jakes.html

That's about it guys. Back with a new show on Friday and I'll be back on here if anything of interest occurs. Oh one more thing... Ed Norton has said at Comic Con that he rerote the new Hulk movie script. That is so odd...

SO SORRY...

2007-06-19T05:11:00.000-07:00

Many apologies for the no-show of the podcast this week. In moving, we have lost our microphone and today we are going to my mums to stay over before heading to Glastonbury tomorrow. I WILL be back next Tuesday (26th June) with a fat fucker of a podcast, at least 90 minutes worth, to catch right up. Thanks for waiting, very much appreciated!

IAN OUT

Sorry....

2007-06-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, there won't be an Ocean's 13 podcast, as I ain't seeing the fucking thing this week. Work and moving house are a time consuming combination. What there will be are DVD reviews of Hot Fuzz and Rocky Balboa and the last of our David Fincher marathon, a look at Panic Room. On Monday, there will defo defo defo be a review of Fantastic 4 2. Can't see it Friday as I have to wait in for a cable guy and I am going to my mums for the weekend as it is her birthday. I fucking hate moving. Oh and there won't be a main podcast next week as I am going to Glastonbury. That I don't hate. To make up for that, there is going to be a double length episode on the Wednesday after. Hope that all makes sense guys. Oh and get the Hot Fuzz DVD, its only a tenner at Tescos, Sainsburys and Morrisons so you have no excuse.

Bring the noise.

Ian out.

Tonight's Doctor Who...

2007-06-09T12:34:00.001-07:00

Anyone see this? Fucking great stuff, if I was a kid I would have shit myself, honestly, genuinely creepy stuff.

Coming Up On The Next Podcast....

2007-06-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Coming up on the next podcast, reviews of Hostel: Part 2 and Ocean's 13, a look at the next film in the David Fincher marathon, Fight Club, and the first installment of listener feedback!!

Up Saturday morning

The new podcast....

2007-06-01T13:03:00.001-07:00

The new podcast is up. Reviews include the DVDs of Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer, London To Brighton and The Fountain. I also look at the next part of the David Fincher marathon, The Game...

Up on iTunes or cinemarama.podbean.com

Coming up on the next podcast...

2007-05-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

The latest movie news, reviews of the DVDs (Region 2) of Perfume: Story Of A Murderer, The Fountain and London & Brighton, and the next film in the David Fincher marathon, The Game. Up Friday afternoon...

New Podcast Up!

2007-05-28T04:53:00.000-07:00

Title says it all really! Get it on iTunes or at cinemarama.podbean.com!!

Coming up on the next podcast....

2007-05-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, apologies for the lack of updates of late, work has been oh so very hectic and my movie watching has been lessened very much as a result. BUT in 3 weeks I got 2 weeks holiday (again) so that is certainly getting me through it. So yes, on the next episode of the Cinema-Rama podcast, I'll be looking at the latest news to hit the movie world (Rodriquez's new annoucement has me very interested), a review of the new Pirate's film, At World's End, a review of the first "midnight movie", Alejandro Jodoworsky's El Topo and the second part of the David Fincher marathon, Seven. Let's get the feedback in please! cinema-rama@hotmail.co.uk

Ian out.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2007-05-20T05:20:00.000-07:00

aintitcool.com has the first footage of John Rambo, it is brilliant quite simply. Harry is taking the footage down sometime tomorrow, go over there and watch it, soooooo good.

Ian out.

Podcast is up...

2007-05-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

Those of you who subscribe via iTunes should be able to download around now. Everyone else, please go to cinemarama.podbean.com The file size is less as I downed the quality a bit, its still perfectly listenable though! Its also 15 minutes shorter which I hope you guys find a more manageable listen. cinema-rama@hotmail.co.uk for any feedback at all. Hope you enjoy it.

Ian out.

Delay...

2007-05-18T14:01:00.000-07:00

Podcast up tomorrow before 1pm, many apologies!

Coming Up On The Next Cinema-Rama Podcast...

2007-05-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Coming up on Friday, the new Podcast featuring the hot movie news of the week, a look at the Cannes Film Festival, a review of David Fincher's Zodiac (in competition at Cannes) and the first film in our first marathon, Alien 3 part of the David Fincher marathon. Look for it tomorrow evening.

Oh yeah.

Ian out.

DVD Review: Stranger Than Fiction

2007-05-16T03:58:00.000-07:00

OK, podcast is going very well, I have had a fair few downloads and it is now officially up on iTunes so you can get it from there. I really wish I had the time to review this on the next podcast but its going to be pretty long anyway.

DVD Review: Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Foster, 2006, USA).

Will Ferrell has always had a rather interesting career. Starting off as one of the best things to ever hit Saturday Night Live, he then hit movies first in supporting roles, notably in the first two Austin Powers movies. He soon broke out into leading man status in both comedy gold like Anchorman or Wedding Crashers and real crap like Kicking & Screaming. Lately he has tried balancing his more wacky roles with serious work. He got good reviews for his role as a Woody Allen substitute in Melinda & Melinda and now follows his biggest hit to date Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby with Stranger Than Fiction.
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a man who lives his life doing the exact same things at the exact same time every day. His life changes when he starts hearing a British woman's voice in his head, a voice who turns out to belong to an author, Karen Ifill (Emma Thompson). With the help of a literature professor, Harold starts living his life unpredictably to try and stop what the voice calls in his head his "imminent death".
Right from the start, you know that this film is going to be special. The visual effects in the opening sequence do not feel annoying as they could well be, but they feed the plot. This follows through throughout the whole film. Everything in it is to add to the plot, it is rare that you see a film where you feel that nothing is extraneous, that nothing could be cut out. This film is full of wonderful little moments, right from the start. While at the start it feels like Will Ferrell's sense of comedy could overwhelm the film, this is soon reined in. Ferrell delivers a wonderfully understated performance, rather like that of Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine.., and this is likely the best role of his career so far in terms of pure acting. His quest to discover what is happening also works on many levels. Not only are we intrigued by whether Crick will die or not, we also see him start to live life, be it learning to play the guitar, or fall in love (with Maggie Gylenhall, which has got to be easy!). Not only this but the question of the life of art beyond those who are involved in its creation and whether it means more than the value of the individuals lives is also raised in a suprising and intensly pleasing way.
The supporting roles are also incredibly well cast and performed. Dustin Hoffman strikes a perfect balance between intelligence and kookiness and is able to move this somewhat unbelievable plot forward in an entirely real way. Emma Thompson as the writer brings the right amount of pathos to a character who has to deal with struggle after struggle. Maggie Gylenhall is also sassy, sexy and believably rebellious in a stronge role in what is a good film for strong female roles. Marc Foster must also be congratulated for creating an intelligent and yet really pleasing piece of cinema.
This film is a pure joy from start to finish. It may sound hyperbolic but I feel it is the kind of film which reaffirms that cinema can show us truly great things which can inspire emotions in us that many other artforms can only dream of. A real treat of a film and one I cannot recommend highly enough.

Video: Fine, slightly sharp, looking forward to seeing the Blu-Ray version.

Audio: Nice DD 5.1 soundtrack, never gets too involving but this isn't the type of film that calls for it.

Extras: Haven't seen them yet, look a bit disapointing.

Great, great film, enough said.

Getting the podcast on iTunes

2007-05-15T04:16:00.000-07:00

I have had a bit of feedback saying that people cannot get to the podcast within iTunes. I have dealt with this issue, it may take up to 24 hours apparently but from tomorrow, you can get to it via iTunes. For now, and all the time if you want, go to cinemarama.podbean.com

Tintin???

2007-05-15T03:19:00.000-07:00

So Variety has reported this morning that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming up to make a computer generated trilogy of Tintin movies with each helming one of them. Reports are that Weta Digital have made a 20 minute test reel showing what it will look like.

Eh??

This is such a random pitch! I know Spielberg has been thinking of a Tintin movie for years but roping Peter Jackson in for what will be for both of them their first fully CG projects, and Tintin is such a niche characfter that I really can't imagine it appealing to an audience outside of little kids. Sorry just had to get that out, such bizarre news. Kudos to chud.com for their headline for the story, nearly spat some coffee out at reading it.

The podcast is up as I am sure you will know, I have had four downloads of it in less than 24 hours which I must say I am really pleased with. As of the next one, I am going to put a running order with times for each section so you can skip if you want, I will also be posting shownotes here too. Please give it a listen if you can. I will be posting my review of Stranger Than Ficiton up here tomorrow as the next podcast will be about an hour long as it is and that it is the top end of what I am aiming for with time.

Ian out.

THE PODCAST IS UP!!!!

2007-05-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

head over to cinemarama.podbean.com to listen to it on the page or (do this!!!!) click the subcribe via itunes link to get every episode as soon as they are posted. It will usually be up on Friday otherwise Saturday's. This week includes a review of 28 Weeks Later, a Top 10 Summer Preview, and a look at the impact made by 28 Days Later.. Enjoy and any feedback to cinema-rama@hotmail.co.uk

PODCAST!!!!!!!!!!

2007-05-13T03:39:00.000-07:00

Not just yet lol. I am officially working on it. On the first show I will be doing a look forwrd at my 10 most anticipated films of the summer to come (UK release date wise), a review of 28 Weeks Later and to accompany this a look at 28 Days Later and the effect it has had. I will also be reviewing the DVD of Stranger Than Ficiton. I will be using the blog for my thoughts on movie news and also show notes until I can get a mailing list up together. Look for the podcast on Tuesday...
The winner of my first competition has been drawn. Well done to Mark Tworsk from Arizona in the good ole US of A who correctly guessed my second and third most anticipated films of the summer. They will be revealed on the podcast.... Really hope you enjoy the show, see you Tuesday.

DVD Review: Black Christmas

2007-05-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

DVD Review: Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1973, CAN).

I'm on a real horror kick at the moment for some reason. I had gone off it for a long while after finishing my dissertation for which I watched some classics but also some real shit. This one completely passed me by though, I just forgot it and I do not know why. Although many cite John Carpenter's Halloween as the first slasher movie, this is incorrect, and this title goes to Bob Clark's low-budget Canadian made Black Christmas.
Just before christmas, a sorority house full of female college students starts receieving prank calls from a rather twisted individual. After one of the girls is killed and hidden by a mysterious figure (Don't flame me, it happens in the first 10 minutes), the girls start to become concerned for the safety of each other and themselves.
A pithy little summary like that is all that is needed. All slasher films rely on one major setting, a series of characters, most female, getting picked off one by one and indeed Black Christmas started all this. It also began the killer POV shot which Halloween made truly famous in its opening scene. Many of the scares are also fairly predictable but before you criticse you have to realise that this was the film that started it so of course we are used to it, but audiences at the time would not. The girls can all be lifted from stereotypes which we take for granted in these films, the strong willed "final girl", the girl who likes to party, the girl who is constantly scared et al. All of these roles are performed admirably by the actresses involved. They all also seem to be of the age they play which considering films like Scream, is a refreshing change.
So then, for all the cliches which audiences today know very well, what does this film bring to the party by itself? What makes it worth watching now? The prank calls made are really some of the most unsettling things I have heard in quite some time. I watched this at 1pm on a Friday afternoon with it being light outside, but I was by myself in what is essentially a student house where I actually left the back door open all night a couple of nights ago, and I really started skecthing out. The noises made, at first weird but soon more and more intense are a crazy mishmash of different voices, animal noises and straight up screaming. This is something I have not seen or heard in a film made since. Sure we have had prank calls in many horrors, but certainly not this freaky. The other major refreshing thing this film brings is the killer himself. We areq neqveqr giveqn any solid facts about him and what his motivation is but theq diffeqrenceq beqtweqeqn this and theq killer from say Wolf Creek is that we are given someq information but nothing fully formed. All we have to go on is theq ramblings of the killer, his talking of Billy, Agnes and their parents. The body in the sttic and his fetting of her seems to suggest that he is renacting himself and Agnes but he seems to have some sort of incestual obsession with her. This lack of information feeds into the misunderstanding that drives the end of the plot in that these girls never try to find the prankster and indeed they wouldn't. In later films, the protagonists have become more pro-active (see the difference in the "final girls" in the original Texas Chainsaw and the remake), but these girls quite rightly rely on the police, who themselves are only human and prone to mistakes. This makes for an incredibly dark ending and one even I was shocked by. The lack of real resolution lingers with you after the film is over and there is no respite from this darkness. Many horrors made nowadays either settle for the happy ending or go looking for a sequel. While this ending, if done today could be seen as the latter, this can not be said for this film. This just adds to the unsettling atmosphere the film carries throughout.
A true masterclass in tension and plain darkness, this film rightly inspired many to come and it would be nice to think that people will lookf for this rather than the remake, which while I haven't seen and will review when I do, seems like it could piss over the memory of this (the director of the remake, James Morgan himself has said he doesn't like the final result). This film I know will influence the screenplay I am working on and I urge all those interested in the slasher genre to seek this out. A true classic of the horror genre.

Video: As good as I suppose the source material is going to be made. A soft transfer with no notcieable problems but a real made low-budget look which kind of takes away from the experience.

Audio: Original 2.0 audio or 5.1 soundtrack. I chose the 5.1 and while obviously artificially created for the DVD, it does some interesting stuff with the sound, but not as creepy as it could have been made.

Extras: Haven't watched them, I think I am going to be buying this at some point so I'll post an update when I do.

Really do recommend this film and the extras look good, the director's commentary particularly.

Right, think I'll have something up tomorrow or I may take the weekend out to work on the podcast.

Have a great Friday folks, going to see The Sunshine Underground tonight which I am very excited about. Good album, but made so much fucking better live.

Ian out.

DVD Review: Re-Animator: Special Edition

2007-05-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

At 2pm I finished my shift at work and now won't be back in till Monday 21st May. I am a happy bunny. 10 days of holiday, fucking yes. Expect far more content up here and the podcast should be up early next week too. So to start my holiday, Herbert West had a very good head on his shoulders, and one on a dish on his desk too!

DVD Review: Re-Animator: Special Edition (Stuart Gordon, 1985, USA).

The 1980's horror films often seemed like a backlash against the serious pieces of the 70's. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Black Christmas (reviewed tomorrow probably) et al were all examples in sustained tension and horrific imagery (real or imagined). The 1980's gave us such treats as Street Trash, the first two Evil Dead films and possibly the most ridiculous of them all, Stuart Gordon's frankly fucked Re-Animator.
Herbert West (Jeffrey Coombs) is a promising yong medical student who is completely dedicated to his profession and has just discovered something incredible, he can bring back the dead. Well kind of bring back. After getting kicked out of his previous residency upon discovery of what he was doing, he finds a new place of study where he boards with fellow student Dan (Bruce Abbot). Dan is dating the Dean's daughter Megan (Barbara Crampton), who conflicts with Herbert straight away. Herebert enlists Dan on his quest to perfect reanimation, but comes across trouble when Dr Hill (David Gale) decides he wants to steal Herbert's discovery. The things get screwed big time.
Re-Animator is pure cheese through and thorugh. Made on a shoestring budget, actors, sets and effects cobbled together for as little as possible, Re-Animator has a low budget feel that reminds of all these kinds of films from the 1980's. However, where this stands out is simply the craziness which begins right at the start and doesn't let up. From an old man with melting eyes at the start, joined with the pure Psycho rip-off score, you know this film is going to be ridiculous. Indeed the overacting which follows in the plot exposition scenes which follow certainly keep up with this. All of these actors were apparently theatre trained. Indeed the director also was. This lends a heigtened theatricality which means that while all the actors overact terribly, it just adds to the mood of the piece. When you have a film in whcih a cat is reanimated and immeadiately leaps on the nearest person to attack needs people to act ridiculously. This cat by the way is possibly the worst effect I have ever seen, it looks like random black fur shaking violently. And god bless the effects crew for thinking it could work.
While the plot is fairly unoriginal, there is one aspect I do love. When the Dean becomes reanimated he is mistaken for a mad man and is committed. This was an original idea and I do not believe I have seen it since. The switch in villains is also an admirable plot choice also. West is a disgusting excuse for a human being, filled with egotistical, arrogant rage which makes him use all those around him for his own gain. But then we are introduced to a character who is even worse, and then he becomes the villain of the film while also being a bodyless head! What he does in the film is truly shocking and indeed made it be cut until very recently. My girlfriend flat out hates this film because of this scene, and I have to say, my taste barrier is fucked but even this is just too far gone for me.
I knwo this has been a short review but I believe most reading here have seen this. My thoughts are merely a guide stating if you like the sound of this, give it at least a rent. Its an inventive little thing it has to be said. And hey it won at Cannes so it could be arthouse!!

Video: Anchor Bay specailise in restoring old prints and this is no different. A cracking little transfer, not amazing as the source material does originate in the 1980's. A great job though.

Audio: DD and DTS 5.1 soundtracks. Funny directional effects, nice bass, clear dialogue. Nice stuff, like the video not ground breaking but it helps the proceedings.

Extras:

Only saw a couple, I don't have all the time in the world unfortunately.

Documentary: Back slapping, self-congratulatory stuff which is only periodically interesting. Disappointing in the extreme.

Trailer: Funny, pun-tastic trailer which matches the tone of the film completely.

Commentaries, interviews etc are also included but not watched.

If you love the film, a fine disc to have. If you have never seen this, give it a shot! Thanks to Al for lending it to me, really appreciated.

Back tomorrow with 28 Days Later/Black Christmas/Something else entirely!!

Ian out.

Competition Update

2007-05-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

Had over 60 entries so far, to say I am stunned is an understatement. The comp is open to US residents also by the way. cinema-rama@hotmail.co.uk by friday please!

Been watching some older stuff recently, saw Marathon Man for the first time yesterday, what a film! Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is currently making my head hurt and I am very much looking forward to exploring the Re-Animator 2-Disc Special Edition which I have been loaned by my good friend, Al. I'll have a review of that up in the next couple of days and 28 Weeks Later will be reviewed later in the week. Look for the podcast, first one up, hopefully through iTunes early next week.

Addendum...

2007-05-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Bruce Campbell steals auite an important scene. Lazy scripting? See the scene of chat between Venom and Sandman and the pivotal Butler scene. Fucking atrocious.

Review: Spider-Man 3

2007-05-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

Most anticipated movie of the summer for me is the first one. Here comes summer...

Review: Spider-Man 3 (Sam Raimi, 2007, USA).

The Spider-Man films have a very special place in my heart. I absolutely adore them. Spider-Man was at the time the best superhero film ever (Yes I include the original Superman in that). It has only been bettered by Spider-Man 2, a film with actually perfect pacing, fantastic action and sympathetic heroes and villians. Sam Raimi's love for the universe shines through every single frame of these movies. And anything with Bruce Campbell in interests me immeadiately. So Spider-Man 3 comes with BIGGER villains, BIGGER special effects, BIGGER plot, BIGGER portions of Bruce Campbell goodness. After the middling pre-release reviews, the public can make their own decisions. Mine? Read on.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is having the best time of his life. New York now loves him, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) loves him, and he is about to propose to her. Trouble is afoot though. Harry Osborn (James Franco) has revenge on his mind, Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), an escaped convict with a connection to Peter becomes the Sandman and a strange alien presence becomes drawn to Peter and changes his life forever.
Spider-Man 3 comes with maybe the same amount of fanboy anticipation as Star Wars: Episode 1 and so for many, disapointment is inevitable. The problem with Spider-Man 3 is that with some slight changes, it could have been a great, rather than very good film. Many of my problems with it have been sited by previous reviews so while I may sound like a skipping record, I do believe these opinions are my own. For those who know, the addition of Venom is an odd one as Sam Raimi has publicly stated that he does not like the character. The use of Venom in the film seems to validate this view. While the presence of the black goo from space is an excellent way of propelling the character of Peter Parker into unchartered territory, but the prsence of Venom towards the end of the film feels like an afterthought when if this was a Spider-Man made by a different director, he could easily be the main/only villain in the entire film. Instead he becomes the least focused, least thought about, and most weakly dealt with character in the fim. A real shame which could also be explained by the fact that this film has to achieve a 12a/PG-13 rating.
The 12a/PG-13 rating brings me onto my next point. While the first two had these ratings, actually 2 was a PG in the UK, the subject matter didn't feel tamed at all. However, in a plot where all is supposed to be dark, you need the darkness to truly appreciate the light when it comes. Instead of turning Peter Parker into a truly dangerous dark figure, he becomes Pete Wentz (Bassist/Narccissist of Fall Out Boy). This material is funny and also ever-so-slightly depressing, do not get me wrong. Seeing Peter Parker go all emo on us (which incidentally is going to date this film more than anything in the first 2 films), with his comb over and eyeliner is a sight to be hold. Flirting outragerously and becoming a bit of a cock, Maguire and Raimi pull this off well. Also well executed is the jazz club sequence which does make us believe that Parker has reached a point where he knows he has to stop. However, much of this being played for laughs feels strangely out of place. We have been promised darkness, a more adult take on Spider-Man and instead we get the potrayal of a boy who has listened to to much emo.
The script is also an interesting piece. Co-written by Raimi himself, this film becomes both a throughly interesting look at how boyish pride needs to be overcome to become a man, and also a bloated mess. The central relationships in the film are dealt with with the same amount of care given to them in the first 2 films. Parker and Mary-Jane's relationship feels strangely real, Mary-Jane facing a world of disapointment and Peter believeing too much of his own press and the friction this creates feels quite real. Harry Osborn becomes the most crucial character in the film, his personal struggle of his feelings is well executed and thought the first half of the film deals with him with one of the oldest tricks in the book, his character becomes the most interesting towards the end of the film and his arc is the most satisfying of the entire film. This streches to Sandman too. While purists will argue his caharcter is a betrayal of the one in the comics, his connection to Parker works as a plot devide and as a satisfying way for Peter to defeat his inner demons. Saying all this, there are massive problems. I have already talked about the treatment of Venom but Gwen Stacey is absolutly pointless. Such an intergral person in the comics, she becomes little more than a plot device used to create tension. Eddie Brock is also ridiculously underwrtitten and this ties in with Venom nicely. Captain Stacey also feels like a waste of time. If these charcetrs were ina different film, they could propel the whole thing by themselves, not just as additions to a bloated film.
The actions and the special effects are incredible, far better than the first two films. The Sandman's transformation reaches a point of visual poetry. Venom is also a work of scary beauty. Goblin Junior's fight sequences also look incredible. All the cast pull off their roles well, Kirsten Dunst in particular seeming far more comfortable than before. What I will say though is that this generation of filmmakers should end it here. There will be more films, but the ending while oddly subdued, feels like a natural conclusion for the characters but I hope Maguire/Dunst/Raimi end it here, lest they truly soil what they have achieved.
A truly good film, this really is. There are many highs to the piece. And then there is Emo-Man. A mixed bag if ever there was one and a slightly disapointing start to the summer season. I will watch it again and again however!

Back in the week with DVD reviews and my cinema review of the week will be the kind-of strangely anticipated, 28 Weeks Later.

Ian out

DVD Review: Kingdom of Heaven: Definitive Edition

2007-05-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

First off, after all the bluster back at the end of last year, I am finally getting around to getting a podcast up and running. I would like to ask your good self a favour though. I want feedback about anything you have thought about my ramblings and I will attempt to read out as many as I can on the podcast. You can either email me or, if you want I would love it, record your own feedback as an audio fail and email it to cinema-rama@hotmail.co.uk Oh yes, I have set-up an email account for the blog/podcast! I am really serious about this and your feedback would be so appreciated. Also, my competition I mentioned in my Spider-Man 2.1 review is very much up-and-running but with no entrys yet! Email the above address with your guesses of my 2nd and 3rd most anticipated films of the summer and of those who get it right I will pick a winner who will recieve a DVD! Not a shit one either, it will be your choice of a few! I am setting a closing date of next Friday the 11th May. Have a go, it won't cost anything. And please remember, I want your feedback! Right on to the review...

DVD Review: Kingdom of Heaven: Definitive Edition (Ridley Scott, 2005, USA).

Ridley Scott is most likely the director who has used DVD to his advantage the most. The original Gladiator DVD was one of the first to really deliver on the promises DVD could offer with a commentary, an amazing DTS soundtrack and featurettes a plenty. The "Extended Special Edition" (Note, not director's cut) adds some nice moments and features a documentary almost as long as the film itself and a very entertaining commentary with Sir Scott and Russell Crowe. He has been tinkering with a Blade Runner DVD for years now and apparently when it comes, it will have 4 versions including a brand new one. The orignal Alien DVD is also the first DVD I ever bought and includes some fantastic features also, most with direct input from Sir Scott. He knows that DVD can be used to provide material as detailed as the fan wants and can also give the viewer something we would not experience if DVD were not around. This director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven must surely be one of them.
For those who don't know there is a bit of background to this cut, if you know the story you may want to skip a couple of paragraphs for my specific thoughts. This film was originally designed to be an epic, taking what Gladiator had done and pushing it even further. Gladiator had shown that epics could work for modern audiences and so Ridley Scott was given the chance by Fox to make this film. With a script by William Monahan, one of the most respected screenwriters in Hollywood, they started filming what would be both an epic and a hit. When filming was finished and a 3 hour 5 minute cut was shown to Fox, they got cold feet and insisted on the film being cut down. Troy and King Arthur had both been critical and commercial failures (at least based on what was expected of them) and Fox was worrtied that people wre getting bored of these films. Instead of trusting the filmmakers, they turned out a botched 2 hour 15 minute edit to cinemas, aiming at the summer movie crowd and failing, making only 40 million dollars at the US box office. This edit was a mess and was quickly forgotten. However, rumblings from Scott were that he was not happy with this edit from the start and that he had a more coherent piece with plenty of room to breathe. Here it is.
Balian (Orlando Bloom) is a blacksmith whose wife recently committed suicide. At his lowest ebb, his long-lost father Godfrey (Liam Neeson) invites him to become part of the Crusades. Upon arriving in Jeruselam, he soon finds himself the protector of the "kingdom of heaven" from the outside and the inside.
The first cut of this film was a patectic rush job which screamed of studio interference and wsas an utter mess. Not only that, it was incredibly boring. This cut however, is something resembling a truly great film. While it may seem somewhat unfeasible that a film can be made that much different by a different edit, this really is the case. The fact is this film is 45 minutes longer than the theatrical version. While this was also the case with The Return Of Tke King extended edition, what is taken out here is not extra little bits which add to an overall feel when put back in, here we have vital scenes which make what were previously murky plot points into something which creates a truly epic feel. An entire plot is added which makes Sylbia (Eva Green) a character who is not just a perfunctory love interest but a fully realised character who makes the entire film a rather bittersweet affair. A simple addition such as the discovery of a caharcter actually being Bloom's brother also allows us to more fully realise the depths to which he goes before he can be redeemed.
The film also retains fully the only real redeeming point of the original cut, the quite incredible action. Scott's pefect way with handling huge battles was demonstrated in Gladiator, here it is realised to its full potential. The battle which is set over the course of days truly allows us to see how devatstaing a war of this type could be to both the individuals and the buldings they are fighting in and around. The room for this aspect of the film to breathe also improves another element, Orlando Bloom's perfomance. In the original cut, he seems little more than a moody bloke who decides to fight and inexplicably people follow. In this cut, we are shown many more character beats as he converses with those around him and really do make you believe that this "perfect knight" could inspire so few to battle so many. Bloom's peformance fares far better in this cut and it is to Scott's credit that my perception of his character is changed so much. All the perfomances are great work and unlike the previous cut where many characters felt empty and useless, all are given purpose here.
This may all sound hyperbolc but this cut really is a great work. The feel is timeless, and it says a lot for this film that it can have an overture and get away with it. Scott has done everyone involved with this production proud and I truly hope that this is the version that lives on in people's minds. Even if you did not like the original cut, I have no hesitation in recommending this.

Video: Extraordinary stuff. Scott's use of colour timing and lighting gives the film a look all of its own. I would love to see the Blu-Ray in action but this really will do for now.

Audio: You may get a DD 5.1 soundtrack but the DTS 5.1 is thunderous. From the start the bass booms out and sound blasts from all the speakers, and this pretty much does not stop. Always clear sound, with great directional effects and is truly a refernce disc for an audiophile. Again, the Blu-Ray is a tempting beast what with a lossless track retaining the quality from the original mixing desk. Drooling now.

Extras: Have only watched the Director's Cut featurette which is diminshed by the lack of Sir Scott axction. Saying that he seems to be all over this edition and I really do look forward to learning more about this film.

Truly great film, incredible video and audio with features I know will be well worth a watch. This edition is avaliable for around a tenner online and I say go buy it!!

Thoughts on this or any of my posts to cinema-rama@hotmail.co.uk please!

Heavenly kingdoms and angular rocking...

2007-05-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, it has taken me a while but I have finally started watching the Kingdom of Heaven: Definitive Edition. It is split in two parts and as now is around the time the housemates want to watch TV and I finished Part One, I will finish for now and watch the rest tomorrow. Its going to be a positive review I will say that much for now.
Was going to watch t all in one go yesterday but I got out of work late (again) and I had a gig to get to, the mighty Maximo Park at Bristol Academy. Fucking awesome stuff, really on top form and it has made me really appreciate their new album, the at first hard to get into, Our Earthly Pleasures. They played for a good hour and a half and were jumping about throughout, although I will say the lead singer, Paul Smith, was out of breath a bit too much for a guy of his size. Quality stuff through and through.
Back tomorrow with my review of KoH and I may well do a little Spider-Man v Spider-Man 2 action in preparation for what I hope will really be the best superhero film ever, Spider-Man 3. 3 days to go...

Review: This Is England

2007-04-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

Review: This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006, UK).

One of the most critically acclaimed films from the UK in quite some time, This Is England has arrived on a wave of hype. A successful premiere at the London Film Festival (I have to go this year), an official selection at the Rome Film Festival, and a multitude of enthusiastic reviews has made this a truly must-see movie, epsecially so as this will be the last less crowd-pleasing film I see before the blockbuster season kicks in, a season I become rather wrapped up in. Will it make me long for it after the Bourne - Spider-Man - Pirates - Simpsons - Transformers hits I will be mainlining over the next few months?
Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is on his last day of term when everything changes for him. After getting in a fight with an older boy, he encouters a gang of lads lead by Woody (Joseph Gilgun) and Milky (Andrew Shim). He soon starts hanging around with them and their friends and they start a summer where Shaun will experience real friendship and some things older boys experience. Things take a turn when Woody's friend Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison and starts to exert his influence over not only Woody's gang but also Shaun.
This Is England wears its heart on its sleave right from the start, shots of Roland Rat and Knight Rider show that we are in the 1980's and judging from this, a nostalgia trip. This changes quickly when we are shown shots of the Falkland's, an interesting war in English history to say the least. Its relevance proves to be one of the key points in determining the character's motivations and the events which will follow. We are then introduced to Shaun as a sweary but good boy who is sick of being picked on. His interactions with Woody and his gang are at first fun-filled. They parade through deserted homes and trahs them in a way which would be commonplace to many children and teenagers, the want for destruction being an element in boys throughout time. They have a great time and even when there is tension, it is sorted quickly. This juvenile behaviour is not just for the boys but for the girls also. They shave Shaun's hair as an initiation of sorts, let him smoke weed and... let him do stuff (well one of them does). All this childishness is entirely diminished in one scene, the introduction of Combo. He brings with him the resentful feeling sburning inside many people at that time and indeed now. The blaming of those who are different for all the problems in their lives, even if the reasons why are rather absurd. His reasons indeed maybe childish but his hate and his conviction are all adult. Combo's speech and the use of a weak spot in Shaun's life is enough to convince members of Woody's gang to follow him into this path into hate. The rite of passage is brought into full ber by Combo, he takes Shaun to a National Front meeting which Shaun doesn't seem to understand, he cojoles Shaun into intimidating some lads playing football and to traumatise a shop owner. All this makes Shaun feel powerful but the climatic act brings into focus just how young Shaun really is and just how wrong he was to trust in this particular father figure.
All of this is done in an entirely believeable way and this is a sill that Shane Meadows excels in. When he does it, he produces films like A Room For Romeo Brass and Dead Man's Shoes. When he doesn't, we get Once Upon A Time In The Midlands. Here, he is truly on the top of his game. Everything about this film feels entirely natural. Woody and Milky feel like the type of guys who would take a lad under their wing. Shaun feels like he would be able to handle himself in these situations and truly seems older than he is. Combo feels like a full-on portrayal of a man who has been influenced by the wrong people and really is an example of where Shaun could be going. The scene where Shaun wants to get a particular type of shoe feels like any child you see in a shoe shop all the time. The ending, while predictable feels like the kind of thing that will happen when a pressure cooker like Combo explodes. The only thing that does feel false is the relationship between Shaun and Smell feels very false. The sight of this kid and a obviously older girl to me was very very funny (Donna couldn't look though), but their rleationship strikes an off-chord boy's fantasy version of what is quite a realist take on England at that time, and maybe now.
The cast are uniformly amazing. Thomas Turgoose is a little revelation as Shaun. His attitude, his way with words, and his vunerability are soemthing that will take something for him to beat in later life. Stephen Graham as born to play his role, his wide-eyed psychopathic portrayal feels like soemthing he has been builiding up to for a long time and what could have been a one-dimesional perfomance becomes a fully realised character through his force alone. The others all do great jobs and I want to mention the guy with the galsses who joins Combo's gang. I don't know who he is but his intimidating of the lads playing football is a depressing image which I will take with me for a long time.
It feels awful of me to say that in my opinion this is not the best Brit film of the year. Meadows has done a great job in capturing both a realist portrayal of what the 1980's was like and a chilling look at where England could be going, and he should be applauded for doing as much. However, in terms of pure enjoyment, Sunshine and Hot Fuzz eclipse it completely. I will say this however, I respect This Is England far more for what it has to say. It is a film I ill revisit time and time again. I suppose I am just too shallow! Please do go see it though, it deserves to be seen by as many people as possible, and with its reclassification by the Bristol City Council to 15 (bravo by the way), any schoolchild should see it as both a fun trip, and a good lesson.

Back during the week with some more DVD reviews and then on Saturday my review will be up for my most anticipated movie of the summer, Spider-Man 3!! Anyone who gets my second and third wins a prize. Seriously, emails to ian-loring@hotmail.co.uk, decent prize too!! They have to be the right order by the way.

Ian out.

DVD Review: Spider-Man 2.1

2007-04-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

After a very scary mornig where I thought I would see none of my pay this month, I saw my pay today. At least some of it. At this point I just want to say thank you to my incredible girlfriend Donna, without whom I would be a complete mess/idiot. On with the show...

DVD Review: Spider-Man 2.1 (Sam Raimi, 2004, 2007, USA).

This release is one of what is commonly referred to as a "double dip", essentially a new edition of a DVD, brought out to even poromote a closely linked film or, more likely, a sequel. And so this is the latter case. Now I don't usually deal with double dips, I think they are a waste of money as a rule and the features only seek to promote the latest film. Spider-Man 2.1 offers something that many others don't. Extra scenes put back in to create an extended cut. Not only this but they are editied into the film under the supervision of the director, the man, the legend, Sam Raimi. This is often not the case, if you look at X-Men 1.5, the scenes are put in through really distracting branching where the video and audio are not made to the qaulity of the finished product. With this, it is. And so the question is, is this "extended cut", note not director's cut, better than the theatrical version?
I won't be running through the story as I think anybody who reads this has seen Spider-Man 2 or at least knows what it is about. This also won't be a long review as this 8 minutes does not add a lot. What we do get is some fine stuff. Individual scenes sometimes feel longer, an extra couple of lines have been put in here and there, I feel most notably so in the backyard scene between Peter and MJ. I say most notably, because it is also the most distracting. The scene's sound design seems to have not been mixed properly and the feel kind of takes you out of it. The whole thing is seamlessly edited aside from this but the rhythm feels odd where nothing really needed to be added. The scene between Spider-Man and the guy in the elevator (whom the features tells us is an American comedian) also feels jarring. Whereas in the theatrical cut the banter bewteen them about the difficulty of wearing the Spider suit was a really funny moment, this different version just feels flabby and self-indulgent.
The good stuff now and yes oh yes, it is good. J Jonah Jameson in the Spider suit is a sight to behold. I love the way he still has the cigar in his mouth while he is goofing around and the whole scene is a delight. While I can understand that the tone is too light in the darkest part of the film, but I think it is a fine addition to this "extended" cut. The extended train fight sequence is also all good stuff. It feels more violent, I think this coupled with the terrific Evil Dead riffing is the satnd out moment of the film and this adds much more to it. I don't want to ruin the extra bits because hey it is only 8 minutes in total.
Is it a better film then? No, no it is not. It adds unecessary character bits that make the film a bit too bloated, although the run time is still a quarter hour shorter than Spider-Man 3 (thoughts to which I will get to after the review, no I haven't seen it). The extra action is terrific and adds to the epicness of the obviosuly biggest action sequence of the film. What this is however is a worthy "extended cut" in that it is for fans of the original film who want a bit more, another example of this being the Gladiator extended cut. These films are authorised by the directors involved but they are not neccesarily the cut the directors want to be seen defenitively. What this offers are moemnts the fan will enjoy but which may make the film more of a slog for the casual viewer. Me? I may stick with this one for the longer train sequence and more of the Dunst. Love the Dunst.
One ore thing which i raised on the Empire Online forums ealrier today. This is the fiurst time I have ever notcied the acknowledgement that this is a different cut in the titles of the film. Instead of Spider-Man 2, the film itself actually says Spider-Man 2.1. Never seen this before, and it was a nice touch.

Video: Same standard as the previous DVD, really very good but I have a feeling when I get Blu-Ray I ill be re-buying for the extra detail. Added stuff looks just as good as the original DVD.

Audio: Really involving soundtrack from the start, great use of bass but not distracting, great surround effects, terrific overall. Again, the audio of the additional bits fits in entirely.

Features:

I have not seen all of them. I really can't be bothered to listen to the Screenwriter/Producer commentary.

Inside Spider-Man 2.1: Shows us how they intergrated the extra stuff and why. Conspicuous by Raimi's absence but I suppose understandable given Spider-Man 3's apparently troubled production.

Spider-Man 3 sneak peek: 3 minute pointless exercise in advertising what anybody who buys this wil already be seeing opening weekend. Also get a admittedly terrific trailer, as all the Spider-Man 3 trailers have been

Other features, all self-congratlulatory.

I bought this for 6.84 and was intrigued. I would not recommend anybody buying this for more than a tenner but as a warm up for the new one, its all good.

The first reviews of Spider-Man 3 are out and... a bit meh really. When you knock the ball out of the park given number 2, this was to be expected. But I am still pretty much drooling for it. I will love it, I know I will. All I am worried about is the length of time we get some Venom, considering what I heard not a lot considering Raimi was kind of forced into including him...

Back tomorrow with This Is England, which I am hoping I love. Still though best brit-flick of the year? One word: Sunshine Two words: Hot Fuzz Three words (please!): 28 Weeks Later. We will see. Again I am working at 6am tomorrow morning so to those who read, have a great Friday night for me!

Whoever wins, the viewer loses...

2007-04-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Really quick post. If you ever get the urge to rewatch Alien vs Predator, just don't. Fair enough if you have never seen it, the premise alone was enough to make me drool. But by christ what a clusterfuck. I know they have to gear it for big audiences but it is some tame and so ruled by a busted internal logic that it fails on just about every level. Even the end "twist" can be guessed at just if you think about it. God, why on earth did I think about watching this again lol. Anyway rant over. Hopefully back tomorrow as it be payday so I WILL be getting the Kingdom of Heaven Definitive Edition and Spider-Man 2.1, especially as that is apparently £6.84 at Asda and KoH is also under a tenner. Will have reviews of both, and This Is England up before the end of the weekend. Laters...

DVD Review: Sheitan (Satan)

2007-04-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

DVD Review: Sheitan (Satan) (Kim Chapiron, 2006, FRA).

Vincent Cassell is arguably one of the best younger actors in the world and yet he will never truly break through into American mainstream cinema. I say this because while he may act in some American films, these are mainly in supporting roles. However, I would say that the main reason is that he is happy in what he is doing for European cinema. Films like Doberman, Le Appartment, La Haine and one of the most contrversial European films ever made, Irreversiable have cemented his place as an important actor. With this kind of reputation, an actor can get films made. He can pick a pet project and get studios interested through their involvement alone. This must have been one of the reasons that Sheitan managed to get made.
After a night at the Styxx Club a day before Christmas Eve ends in Bart (Olivier Bartelemey) getting kicked out for starting a fight, he and his friends, Thai (Nicolas Le Phat Tan), Ladj (Ladj Ly) and Yasmine (Leila Bekhti) are offered the chance to stay at a country place by a girl who Thai is interested in, Eve (Roxanne Mesquida). When they get there, they are introduced to Joseph (Vincent Cassell), a housekeeper who lives with Eve and is looking after the place while her parents are away. What follows involves goats, dolls, a threesome, dolls, and possibly, the birth of the antichrist.
Now usually, I give a more detailed runthrough of the plot to a film I am reviewing but in this case, I am leaving it at this point. I think this film has to be seen to be believed. Whoever read the scropt to this and thought that it could be a viable commercial property is mad. I mean I loved every single bat-shit crazy minute of it but this film is for such a small audience, I don't know how it got made. Some of the things in it are of the blackest kind of comedy you can imagine. Some of it is just plain disturbing. But then some of it is just well... comparable to La Haine. Contreversial maybe, but its look at young French life feels authentic. The dialogue between them feels real, the nightclub feels real and the stunt they oull in the petrol station feels real. Another odd thing about this film, the first half or so seems targeted for a young French audience looking to identify with the protagonists and laugh at the strange village people. Then it takes a more blatantly surreal and creepy film and really kicks into another kind of audience, the cult horror audience. The end result the film is leading to is so odd, so gothic that to think the start ended in it is just bizarre. Bravo to the filmmakers for being able to make this transition and yet not break the diegesis of the film; it feels real in its own self-contained insanity throughout.
The younger people all do a good job of being convincing in their bratty and self-absorbed way, and the girl who plays Eve displays a real seductive quality which makes Thai and Bart's actions all the more plausible. But this film is not about them. This is a film of tour-de-force method insanityby Vincent Cassell. He is virtually unrecognisible for a start, playing what seems like at least 10 years older than he actually is. His character feels like a bunch of improvisations stiched together. His interest in Bart is at first gut-bustingly funny, the look on his face when he gets Bart some milk is prcieless. He deisplays an uneasy friendliness where you could believe tat he is just a tad eccentric. This continues on throughout much of the film. And then we start egtting the scenes with his pregnant "wife" where we realise that he is a lot less innocent than he seems and he is indeed a strange, satanic, psychotic, loon. He just so happens to be very very funny. One more thing - his "wife" although on IMDB seems to be played by someone else, she really looks like Cassell! That just makes the last grinning shot all the more freaky.
This film is an experience, it really is. Demented and yet quasi-mainstream, funny yet creepy, with what will go down as one of my favourite perfomances of the year. So very much an aquired taste, but if you have the taste for it, I think you will love it. I'll be buying it that's for sure.

Video: Looks like it was shot on digital video, so it is free from scartches and genereally looks good. Everything is clear though the contrast is a little disconcerting in the daytime shots. Adds to the atmosphere mind. Good stuff from an occasionally ropey company (when it comes to video transfers), Tartan.

Audio: Your choice of a 2.0 stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 surround soundtracks. I played the DTS and it was very impressive. Great, clear directional effects, and some wickedly strong bass. At one point, I honestly thought that was it for my sub-woofer. I have never had that before so take that as an impressive thing.

Extras: Making Of - 25 minute making of piece hosted by Cassell in a video diary sort of way in which he talks abiut the genesis of the film and his role of producer and how he had a hand in the film. He comes off as a genuinely nice bloke (not only in this but other things I have read/listened to) and this is an interesting watch.

Trailer - Perfectly sums up the cross-genre barminess of the film.

Short: Vampires - This is seen on a small TV screen during the film and starts Cassell's wife, Monica Belucci. Odd, funny thing which fits into the mood well.

Not the greatest selection of extras ever but the soundtrack is something to behold. In my opinion, well worth a buy overall but you may want to rent first off.

Back possibly tomorrow, otherwise Friday. Might well be the Simpon Pegg-David Schwimmer starring Big Nothing, might be something completely different. Have a good night/day.

Ian out.

DVD Review: Midnight Movies: From The Margin To The Mainstream

2007-04-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

This came a day earlier than I was expecting so here we go...

DVD Review: Midnight Movies: From The Margin To The Mainstream (Stuart Samuels, 2005, USA).

I was going to see this at the Watershed last week as a precursor to El Topo. Then I found out that it was pretty much day-and-date with the DVD release. Which one to go for A tenner for the bus fare and cinema ticket or 15 quid to own it? Think I'll buy it thanks!
The midnight movies movement was something born out of a cultural shift in American life in the late 1960's. The hippy movement was dying out and the death's of JFK and Martin Luther King combined with the start of the Vietnam conflict was leading to a large series of riots between the authorities and the liberal sections of society. Midnight movies represented this counter-culture, the films that became synomonous with the feeling of the time amongst the marginalised sections of society. The most famous of these films are the one's featured on this film, El Topo, Night Of The Living Dead, Pink Flamingoes, Reefer Madness, The Harder They Come, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Eraserhead.
The Midnight Movies phenomena is an odd one to be sure. No matter how much they try within the documentary, the films examined have very little links between them. Many have common threads, that the films seem to be best enjoyed when under the influence of some sort of substance. I can confess that The Rocky Horror Picture Show is much better when enjoyed under the haziness of weed. However, this thread and the one they try to establish most when it comes to the prople who viewed these films cannot be used for, at the very least, Night Of The Living Dead or Eraserhead. Eraserhead in particular is something that I feel you have to have a clear mind just to tolerate, I cannot imagine how terrifying it could be if you were not fully mentally awake. Eraserhead is the one that signals the end of the movement and is the most strikingly different; the audiences were smaller and it was not a particpatory event and through this, its addition is somewhat puzzling. I would go so far to say that its inclusion is simply to give the documentary more credibility and with the prescence of David Lynch in the piece, I am sure it gained more viewers for this alone.
It may sound like I did not enjoy this documentary based on what I have said. That is not the case. The odd inclusion of Eraserhead aside, the content is both interesting and illuminating and strikes a very comfortable balance between information on the films themselves and their effects on the people showing them. These films provided what many felt was a refuge, a place where they could come together and experience something that cannot be possible in life. The interviewees they got for this is also impressive. The directors of all the films featured, Reefer Madness aside, are all present and correct as are the operators of the two foremost Midnight Movie cinemas, the Elgin and the Orson Welles. I say foremost, but I don't really know. And here we come to my second problem with the documentary. I cannot truly say I know that the films featured and the people interviewed are those that were truly the forerunners and the filmmakers who made this whole thing happen. Could it not be that they were just the people they could get? The film does not provide a lot of basis on which to belive that the films were such crossover hits as we are led to believe at the start of the piece. The sub-title "From The Margin To The Mainstream" is painfully misleading. El Topo, The Harder They Come (which I had not even heard of before watching this) and Eraserhead cannot ever be considered something the mainstream will recieve. That is the true flaw with the piece, it never gets to the heart of what the film is obstensibly about.
It's a short review, but I think I can't review too much when as a documentary, its job is to tell you things. I shouldn't tell them. What I will say is that it is well worth a watch but its not as illuminating as you may expect.

Video & Audio: It's a documentary so standard stuff. Good quality video with the interviews, varying quality with the clips.

Extras: You get 2 Midnight Movies in the package, Night Of The Living Dead and Reefer Madness. Both are here purely because they have no copyright, are public domain and if I wanted, I could show both on this website with no comeback. NOTLD is a classic movie and is as chilling and creepy tody as then, Reefer Madness I have not seen, but apparently its very funny.

Have not watched the other features, may do in the future.

Well worth watching if on TV, I will watch it again but I am a full blown geek.

Was my first day off in a while today, and quite crappy outside so I have been catching up on some movies. As well as this, I managed to watch John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it. The child killing was shocking in its coldness and seemed to be an oddly explotative moment but that aside, a lean, mean, little number. I also watched Robert Wise's The Haunting, which really was as creepy as its reputation made out. Old-school frights and some crazy overacting and well worth a watch. Also watched the last third of The Pervert's Guide To Cinema, a very academic but visually arresting look at how our desires and fears are manifested on screen, something which I found engaging and a look at how Film Studies can be represented visually.
I'll be back probably tomorrow with a look at the apparently insane French black comedy Satan starring Vincent Cassell, star of such great works as La Haine, Le Appartment, and Doberman... and stinkers such as The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions and Ocean's 12. Notice the difference between the great ones and the stinkers?

Just a quick one...

2007-04-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Feeling rough as fuck and bloody tired so I'll make this short lol. I'll be having some new stuff up hopefully tomorrow but defo Wednesday. First day in 5 that I don't have to be up at 6am tomorrow so I'll have a load of sleep and I'll be right back on it tomorrow. Have a good night...

El Topo? Oh no, no...

2007-04-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Fuck. Couldn't see El Topo because I missed the screen due to work stuff, basically I have been running the shop all weekend, by myself. To say it has stressed me out is an understatement. So... it's out on DVD next month, I am going to blind buy it and will review it then. I am getting Spider-Man 2.1 on DVD tomorrow and will have a review up in preparation for the third installment, hopefully I will be getting Kingdom of Heaven: Definitive Edition and will also review that. At the cinema this week, I will have a review of Shane Meadow's apparently brilliant This Is England up on Saturday. After Dead Man's Shoes, I am very much looking forward to it. So for now, I will say get the new Artic Monkey's album when it comes out properly tomorrow, I have aquired it and it is fucking fantastic, great stuff which takes the first album and *shock* progresses on from it. "Flourescent Adoloscent" is an anthem in the making and "Teddy Picker" is a great little biting tune. Buy it. See you, probably Tuesday unless anything gets my knickers in a twist.

Oh and estimates for US Box Office this weekend were just released. Hot Fuzz, sixth place, 5 million dollars on a third of the screens usually allowed for a big release. Great fucking work.

Laters...

On a lighter note...

2007-04-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

Having a very vigerous debate on the Empire Magazine forums regarding the issue I talked about earlier. Anyway....

Hot Fuzz opens in the US today. It is truly an outstanding film. If anyone, I wish anyway, reads this and lives in the US, go see this. I have a review in my February section but seriously just go see. It is only opening on about 750 screens, which non-US folks is about a third of what is considered at least a wide release over there, but SEEK IT OUT!!

Back tomorrow with a review of El Topo. Strangely can't wait for that. Tomorrow, 2.50 at the Watershed in Bristol, I'll experience what John Lennon called "The greatest movie ever made". Should be interesting at the very least.

Have a great Friday, I got work at 6am so make it up for me!

A rather depressed rant

2007-04-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

So Oldboy, Park Chan-Wook's viscreal, haunting, mesmerising beast of a film is now being linked in the mainstream media s infulencing the fucker who perpertrated the Virginia Tech massacre. I feel for all the victims, their families and their friends and anyone hurt by this tragedy. I was apalled to hear of the events that happened last Monday. But now the British mainstream media has done something which while I can't say I am suprised by, I am depressed by. A likening of pictures of the guy to shots from Oldboy has been taken and ran with by not only the usual target the Daily Mail, but the BBC no less (on the 10pm news last night). OK, this guy may have seen the film, he may have thought the shots were cool and whatnot. But how out-of-touch can the media be? This film is about something quite different to what happened. I do not want to go through spoilers because this is a film, that if you are old enough and can stomach, should be seen. A likening of films to these tragedies is both lazy journalism and dangerously irresponsible. The fact that Oldboy does not feature any major elements involving guns has been suprisingly left off of reports of the "links". Indeed the Daily Mail was wildly off the mark when trying to find similarities between the events. Things like -

- The guy was Korean, so he could have seen a Korean film.

- Oh Dae-Su is locked up for 15 years. This guy was in America for 15 years.

- Oh Dae-Su cuts out his tounge. The guy was mute in his early years.

Ridiculous. Just ridiuclous. I am listening to a devate about this on Radio 5 at the moment where Mark Kermode is defending the shit out of the film industry against this nonsense. Thank fuck for that. He makes the point that in all these cases, whenever this happens, a link is found between the incident and a specific film. This time Oldboy. Next time, what?

50th post!! Review: The Lives Of Others

2007-04-18T06:07:00.000-07:00

Review: The Lives Of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006, USA).

The Lives of Others is a film which has two contreversial apsects attached to it, one not nearly as serious as the other, I will add. The first, lighter one, is that it took the Foreign Language Oscar this year, beating out the hotly tipped, Pan's Labyrinth, a film which won other Oscars also. Many people have asked whether this film can be better than Pan's, considering that that film is steeped in almost unanimous critical acclaim. The second is far more serious, as critics have condemned the film for portraying a member of the Statsi, the German Secret Police, as a sympathetic character, when it was known that it could never have happened in real life. These are noth issues I will address in this review. A warning: considering the subject matter, this review is going to be more academic than most of mine, and I will be quoting from varying sources (all of which will be credited honestly, and not presented as my own ideas).
Wiesler (Ulrich Muhle) is a member of the Statsi who specialises in interrogation and surveillance. He is assigned by his superior, and long-time friend Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur) to spy on a playwright and his actress girlfriend (Sebastian Koch & Martina Gedeck, respectivley), an outwordly respected couple who tow the line of the GDR in oublic, but is suspected of more by both Wiesler and Grubitz's boss, Minister Hempf (Thomas Thieme). Wiesler becomes attached to his subjects and finds himself being influenced by them, and soon, influences the course of events to come.
From the start of this film, we immeadiately know exactly where our main characters are at in their lives. We are first presented to Wiesler as the emotionally dead husk of a man he is supposed to be. Donnersmarck presents this in two ways, by what is said and what is shown. He is teaching a class of future Statsi agents and he tells them of how exactly to break a liar. When a student says that the treatment given is "inhuman", Wiesler is quick to say that these people are traitors and need to be treated harshly. We then see him look at a plan of the room and put a cross by this student's name. Wiesler knows exactly what is needed and that is people who do not question the methods. It is people who feel deeply that what the Statsi do is right and that is all they have to think. It is known that Statsi agents were all like this in real-life, they were fully indoctrined into this way of thinking and this is something shown clearly from the start. Even Wiesler's clothing and style of life shows that his life is uniform. He is literally shown "buttoned-up" his shirt completly done up and his jacket also. His hair is cut to within an inch of his life and the colours he wears are dull. The flat we later see him living in is drab, grey again, and the only sign of any culture are a few books which seem to be more for show than for anything else. By contrast, Dreymer and his girlfriend are presented as flamboyant, we see them early on dancing, enjoying themselves fully. A later scene shows that Dreymer is so unlike Wiesler and the Statsi that he does not even know how to do up a tie. His shirt is unbuttoned for most of the film. In his flat, there is almost a sense of bohomie, of recklessness and a style whch was very much unwelcome to East Germany at the time. It is to Donnersmarck's credit that he is able to bring both visual elements and storytelling together to make the contrasts so simple to grasp.
So the plot of the film has had many people up in arms. What Wiesler does through the course of the film, as said earlier, would never have happened in real-life. These men believed vehemently and as Anna Funder says in her article "Eyes Without A Face" in the May 2007 issue of "Sight & Sound", many of them still believe the principles and denounce those who speak against them. It is not like the example of Stalinist Russia or even Nazi Germany in that in those cases, many claimed they were just following orders; in East Germany under the GDR, those who acted truly believed it was the best whether it be for their own ends or for their country. That is where the problem of Wiesler's character really comes into play. He seems to believe what he is doing to a point of almost too much intensity even for his friend Grubitz. The course of the film, and the ways in bwhcih he intervene, can certainly come off as too simplistic, in film-making terms, or offensive if you take it as something based on reality, which given the realism of the rest of the film, is a valid way to come at the film. I would argue that Donnersmarck's juxtaposition of Wiesler, Dreyman, Grubitz, and Hempf validates the course of Wiesler's character. Grubitz, Wiesler's friend is presenetd as a man who will do what he can to get ahead. He acknowledges early that he steals Wiesler's ideas and indeed the starting of spying on Dreyman is suggested by Wiesler but stolen by Grubitz. He is getting ahead while Wiesler is stuck doing the donkey work. Hempf is the man Grubitz is looking like becoming. Bloated, powerful and capable of dispicable acts (including a borderline rape sequence which is the most disconcerting thing I have seen since Gaper Noe's Irreversible. Hempf is a disgusting man who through the GDR has become powerful, something Wiesler is very much not. So then Wiesler? If he had been in a postion of power, I think his transformation would have been far less realisitc. Hempf and Grubitz have filled their worlds with temporary happiness, and just want more power. Wiesler has othing, he has monotonous sex with a prostitute to try and jave the emptional fulfillment Hempf gets in his blackmailing, and Dreyman gets in his love for his girlfriend. His eyes become open to the world though Dreyman and indeed the more he becomes involved the more he starts to feel about the impact he is making in other people's lives, and in a strange way the happier he seems to become. His reading of Brecht makes him happy and indeed, his clothing becomes looser even, his sirt becoming unbuttoned, visually starting to replicate Dreyman. This transformation is done in an even-handed and, in the context of the film, a satisfactory way. The key for me is that Wiesler never seems to acknowledge that what the Party is doing is wrong. Indeed, his transformation is emotional not moral. His actions of interfering with the invetigation is more of an act of friendship, one of protecting those he has become attached to, rather than protecting the messgae Dreyman is trying to get to the West. Wiesler changes very little and indeed his victory is a personal one, he is able to break out of the life he was living and in the very last sequence of the film, finds that his actions did not go unnoticed. Wiesler does not become successful, he doesn't gain from his actions but he seems to achieve a kind of inner peace.
So... the rest of the cast. Uniformly excellent, all great, I'm a bit drained in truth so I will say just that. The script is superb, not an inch of fat on it, and it works as both a character piece and an involving thriller, and that is very much to Donnersmarck's credit. The direction is also superb, he achieves a sense of geography that a lesser director would screw up and the fact that he is a debut director is suprising.
Onto the second question. Better than Pan's? These are two very different films in some ways but the themes of opression and the human spirit rising above it is shared through both. The ways both show this could not be more different however. I would have to call it a tie, I could not decide between the two and it will take another watch of both before I could decide. However, what I will say is that this is an engaging, thought-provoking, sad, haunting, but strangely uplifting number of a film and I very much recommend it to anyone interested in serious, adult cinema.

I'll have thoughts up on various topics as and when, the next review will be for El Topo which will be up late on Saturday or Sunday morning. Thanks as always for reading.

Spider-Man, Pirates and Surfers

2007-04-17T03:08:00.000-07:00

So I just read some early reviews of Spider-Man 3 and apparently all is well. To say I am relieved is an understatement. For those who don't know, the shoot was actually kinda troubled. Considering they had a release date for the film locked before a script was written, and that there had been re-shoots, this is not a shock. Its got to say something that Sam Raimi is able to pull through the problems and deliver something that while long, around the 2 and a half mark, is apparently a streamlined fat-free epic of a movie. One with all the good stuff from the first 2, with added Defoe goodness, and also a more grandiose sense of storytelling, with multiple threads twisting and turning their way through and apparently all making perfect sense. Friday 4th May, it comes out, god willing I will be seeing it that day, I know Donna wants to see it so I'll have to get her in the right mind set for a long trip to the cinema, maybe with Spider-Man 2.1 which is out on DVD next Monday, so then I can have a review up on the Friday night or Saturday morning.
Contrasting with this, chud.com just reported that Pirates 3 is weighing in at 170 minutes. Even taking out credits, its gonna be over 2 and a half hours. Will it be needed? Fuck no. Pure speculation I know, but with Spider-Man 3 one gets the sense it is long because the story told requires the length. Pirates however, feels like it is alowing itself to over-indulge. The first two were long and didn't hurt their box office, but there is a lot you could take out of both of them, and this feels like it is self-conciously epic, it feels like it has to be because its Pirates Of The Carribean 3. I honetly think you could trim a lot of fat from the second film in particular and ram the 2nd and 3rd together. Of course they would never do that. Look at Grindhouse, piss poor second weekend has shown that two films in one may not work, for some bloody reason I can't get my head around (Seriously, I have it bad for Grindhouse at the moment), and two films = twice the profit, maybe more. Nature of the world I guess, tis a Capitalist society so to make money is an acceptable thing but what price a coherent movie and not a bloated beast which, judging by the second film which I don't think I will ever watch again, the third will turn out to be.
Still though, it won't be as bad as the cluster-fuck that will be Fantastic Four 2, a film which is being sold entirely on the prescence of a CGI creation and not the original cast. Early reports of this is that no matter how good the admittedly great teaser for the film was, its only 2, 3 minutes of film, and that this film is as much of a waste of time as the first. The question for this film is, why? They are taking a major risk with this one, the first did OK but nowhere near Spider-Man numbers and I believe the budget has been increased for this one. I will see it for the Silver Surfer but I may wait for DVD like the first one. I think I may not be alone but the Surfer is such an inherently cool concept that people will go see this for him. We all seem to focus on him as the main bad guy/ambivalent figure in this picture, but the fact is, he is CGI, CGI is expensive and they have a human bad guy, Dr. Doom, also in the film, although publicity material for this have not feature him extensivly. Rather than him not being in it too much, I think Fox are being clever on selling us on the idea that the Surfer is front and center, it is called Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer after all, but I get the feeling he won't be there too much. To be honest, I want this to work, Fantastic Four are a very good little property and it is nice that there is a PG superhero franchise that smaller kids can get into and the fact that co-creator of Twin Peaks, Mark Frost, was one of the credited writers of the first, and I believe second, had me intrigued and has me intrigued for the new one. Plus what I am hoping the film ends with. Again, for those who don't know, the Surfer is not really a villain, but a messenger essentially blackmailed into doing his job. By a big mother-funker by the name of Galactus...
What was meant to start as a little piece about Spider-Man, turned into a beast. Look at it as a metaphor for the increasing length of blockbusters. Or not. So, seeing The Lives Of Others today, will have a review up tomorrow, doing stuff tonight which inloved not sitting in with a laptop so I'll catch up tomorrow!

I am Jack's raging inner emotion...

2007-04-16T02:50:00.000-07:00

Well it's all over the net and I thought it was April 1st, Ed Norton has signed on to star as Bruce Banner as the Hulk in the sequel/reboot THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Suprised? Hell yes. Marvel seem to be taking the bull by the horns when it comes to their casting decisions lately, and god next summer will be exciting, Robert Downey Jr, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man and Ed Norton as the Hulk? Oh yeah! What I wonder though is what interested Norton? This guy doesn't whore himself out for just anything and he seems to pick projects he wants to do. But a comic book film eh? Script written by Zak Penn writer of X-Men's 2 and 3 and directed by Unleashed and Transporter 2 director Louis Letterier, this film was supposed to be more of a balls out action film than the first but with Norton involved, one wonders about this. Could they just be trying a more credible actor than Eric Bana to give it some cred then give us some crazy action to go with it? Bana must be pissed though, his film seems to be getting completely shoved aside to make way for this. All very interesting stuff. Going to be a real battle of the comic-book movies next Summer. The Dark Knight, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and hopefully Hellboy 2. Still though we still have Spider-Man 3 to come, early reviews of which are saying.... better than the first 2 and a downright epic. May 4th cannot come soon enough.

Update...

2007-04-15T03:42:00.000-07:00

Back next week with reviews of this years Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Lives Of Others. Also a forerunner of the "Midnite Movies" movement El Topo which has been restored and is touring the country. Also any new DVDs I get sent. Bye.

Advance Review: Grindhouse (Part 2)

2007-04-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

The revenge....

Advance Review: Grindhouse (Part 2) (Robert Rodriquez/Quentin Tarantino & Others, 2007, USA).

So..........

Eli Roth's Thanksgiving eh? Brutal 1970's horror mixed with the smoke pot/have sex = death slashers of the 1980's distilled in a 2 minute trailer "White meat, dark meat, its all carved" and the results of a trampoline, a girl and a knife... all those delights await you in this strange, kind of funny mixtape of a trailer from the bloke who brought us Hostel.

And now Our Feature Presentation.

What do you want to see more, even outside of Grindhouse? I believe the majority would go for Tarantino over Rodriquez, as would I. The right one?
Three ladies reunite after spending time away after college, in Austin, Texas. They spend the night at a bar which is also attended by Stuntman Mike. That's all I'm saying.
Tarantino characters, dialogue and style mixed with balls-to-the-wall car stunt craziness. An odd combination to be sure. But then Tarantino is one who has a fondness for the oddness when it comes to mixing it up. A talky heist film, a throwback explotation film brought to the ninetees and a throwback explotation film brought to the noughties, Tarantino is not one who is shy of taking risks. And not only is Grindhouse a great risk in itself but after the theatrics of PLANET TERROR!!!!, showing Death Proof after is quite something. The thing about the Grindhouse movies is that they have the lesser film before the "A" feature, the less explosive before the balls-out crazy second flick. This is the opposite with Grindhouse. PLANET TERROR!!!! is flashy, explosive, gory and sexy, Death Proof is.... a Tarantino film. Best way I can explain it really. You have your "mixtape" of a soundtrack, you have your obsession with women's feet, you have your long conversations which don't service the plot but are still achingly cool. QT pops up for a cameo again, Eli Roth makes an appearance it in itself is like a mixtape. The second half, the women getting revenge is a theme which runs through many of the man's work. Indeed this is one of its weaker points, the motivation for the girls to do what they do in the second half of Death Prood doesn't feel real except for the idea of them doing it for kicks (Throwback to Russ Myer there for you) and while they are pissed off, it doesn't quite seem right. Indeed, Joe on the rather wonderful podcast Cinemaslave makes a good point around this. Joe, I am stealing your thoughts! Sorry! I agree though,maybe not quite as vehemently as yourself but the film jutst ends. It's a funny ending, and feels oddly fitting but you do expect at least another 15 minutes, a final final showdown. Not what happens. Like I say though, what happens is very very funny and feels much like we have been exploited (as does the missing reel section, which dare I say it, is better than PLANET TERROR!!!!!). OK, so feels like a Tarantino film. The strong women, most notably the incredible Zoe Bell who you believe every second is capable of pulling off the stuff she does, are all excellent in playing stock Tarantino girls. BUT, the thing that makes this arguably better than PLANET TERROR!!! (though I reserve the right to strongly underline, ARGUABLY) is the man who drifted in from another movie entirely...
Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike. Dear god, do I want a movie of just him hunting people down, men, women, children, animals, buildings, whatever. He can exude charm, confidence, old-man sexiness even but turn on a psycho personna in a second. He does it remarkably well and all I can see is, we have one scene of it. One. And it is arguably the best part of the entire experience. He eats the role off, cracking off the dialogue like he has been working with Tarantino since he started writing Reservoir Dogs. He knows the scene entirely and the end to it is shocking and very exciting. Not compared to the following scene where we witness what happens when a car and its passenegers after the Death Proof juggernaut hits them head on. Quite simply breathtaking. And I haven't, and won't even talk about the car chase which ends the film. Cracking stuff, up there with the best and I won't spoil a bit.
So I have been in the Grindhouse completely. I would go through it again now if I could, and I will again in the next few days. People have generally loved one, hated the other. The overblown theatrics of Rodriquez or the mash-up of Tarantino? I would edge for Tarantino only if it is because I eat up everything he puts out. However, I'll say this much It is the best film Rodriquez has made yet, but certainly not the best Tarantino has. The trailers add to the experience with no complaint from me and I cannot wait to see this on the big screen. So fucking recommended, I can't believe it was as good, no better, than I hoped.

This, Sunshine, Hot Fuzz, Perfume, Last King Of Scotland, Inland Empire. What a year so far. It's only April!!!

Way Advance Review (For outside US): Grindhouse (Part 1)

2007-04-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, I may have obtained this through less than legal means but hey, waiting till June? Fuck that. Spoilers at times but not too detailed, don't worry. I am currently "obtaining" the second half but for now...

Advance Review: Grindhouse - Part 1 (Robert Rodriquez, Quentin Tarantino & Others, 2007, USA).

Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino have made an awful lot of money for the Weinstein's. The Mariarchi Trilogy, the Spy Kids Trilogy, Pulp Fiction, The Kill Bill's and Sin City have all made a huge profit and so they have been given free rein for probably the most risky investment yet. A 3 hour throwback to a genre of film not seen for decades. Two films, and trailers to create the "true" Grindhouse experience released in the US on Easter weekend. The result? It flopped pretty hard over there and now there is talk of seperating the 2 in the US and everywhere else, even though I have already seen ads in UK publications advertising it as a double feature. However, for those looking forward to it, nothing will stop them from experiencing the Grindhouse. Indeed, the belated UK release could not stop me either, but trust me, I know I'll be seeing it in the cinema.
I'll do the review in the order of contents within the film. The first thing we see is a trailer for a fake movie, as all the trailers are. The movie in question? MACHETE. Rodriquez stalwart Danny Trejo starts as a Mexican Machine of a man double-crossed and swearing to get revenge with the help of his brother, another stalwart Cheech Marin. The trailer has it all, the cool lines, the boobs and the guns that make up a great Grindhouse trailer (yes I've seen some, just go on YouTube). Rodriquez perfectly sets up this film in the trailer, and you truly get the sense that all the best bits are ion the trailer, as a great Grindhose tradition insists it must be. This settles you in perfectly for the tounge-in-cheek but kick ass action to come. Then the first movie starts, Robert Rodriquez's PLANET TERROR.
A go-go dancer called Cherry (Rose McGowan). A wandering trucker with a secret past called El Wray (Freddy Rodriquez). A husband and wife team of doctors with marital problems and a needle fetish (Josh Brolin & Marley Shelton). A scientist and an Army general who let off out green gases with horrific consequences (Naveen Andrews & Bruce Willis) A bar owner with the best BBQ recipe in Texas (Jeff Fahey). All their lives will collide as they all try to survive the night and get away from PLANET TERROR!!!
First things first, this title cracks me up. It's Earth! I went into this honestly thinking it was set on Mars or something, no its Earth. Points alone for that. The tone is set perfectly from the start with Cherry showing one of her "useless talents", dancing. A very hot scene setting the tone that explotation is the name of the game. This is further backed up by the next scene showcasing the KNB effects perfectly. These zombies? When they go down, they don't just go down, they fucking explode! Shit flys everywhere. Not just the zombies either (I'm looking at you, Lost man!). These old school throwback effects do very well in taking ny kind of realism out of the film and remind more of the horror of the 1980's, notably Society or Re-Animator. Of course, realsim is not the name of the game. Any film featuring Quentin Tarantino trying to rape a girl with his penis falling off can not be called anything like realistic! Everything in this film is hyper-real, the characters a suprising amount of room to breathe considering their number, they all get their moments for development and to shine and for Rodriquez to do this should be applauded. The film is tight with not an ounce of fat on it and it may be his strongest script to date. It is also a very funny film. One character's obsession with collecting balls is one of the most deranged character beat I think I may have ever seen. The film revels in its ridiculousness and feels more like parody than tribute. The Missing Reel gag is noteworthly brilliant. It cuts off at a point you really want it to continue and the film never explains what happens after the reel, brilliance.
To the cast. Rose McGowan is hot and kick-ass in her role and sums up a perfect explotation heroine. Brutal, sexy and not afraid to have a gun/rocket launcher attached to her leg. Freddy Rodriquez is quite the revelation as El Wray and fully aquits himself as an action hero. His wall-roll-kill is just awesome. Josh Brolin is a sick bastard as the Doctor and meets a pleasing fate, Marley Shelton is quite bizarre in her potrayal, her obsession with needles feels a little off but fits in perfectly given the film. Naveen Andrews is also suprisingly good. He is charming and also a bastard and that is something I never thought he could pull off. Good stuff from all really.
I did not expect to enjoy this section as much as I did. i have tried to remain fairly vague as to not spoil the film too much but the combination of outright coll factors Rodriquez has made has created something I will happily watch again and again.
We next have an intermission of sorts starting with a trailer for WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE SS. Bizarre stuff fitting in with the general work-ethic of Rob Zombie's. Dark but ridiuclous, smutty and outlandish, this is a fun little trailer with a terrific cameo I did not know was coming. I'll see this much, I want to see that person in that role in a full film RIGHT NOW. Following this trailer, we get what may be the most out-of-keeping aspect so far but one which is one of the highlights of the entire package so far. A mash up of Hammer Horror cliches, Edgar Wright's DON'T warns us of many perils which swirl faster and faster at us and then just... stop. You will know what I mean when you see it, but it is actually quite the gut-busting little moment.
And that be all for now. Back, god willing, tonight, otherwise tomorrow with the rest of GRINDHOUSE...

Review: Sunshine

2007-04-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

So after yesterday's post, the review...

Review: Sunshine (Danny Boyle, 2007, UK/USA)

Danny Boyle is one of Britain's top directors. A varied canon of work have involved the era defining Trainspotting, Zombie rule-book rewrite 28 Days Later, kids film Millions and catastrofucks The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary. With Boyle, you never know what you are going to get. He shifts genres with almost diturbing ease and is also capable of mastering these genres in his first attempt. 28 Days Later was rightly celebrated as breathing life into the zombie genre (Just realised while writing what a shit pun that is) and the film was hailed as one of the best horrors in recent years (and rightly so). Trainspotting needs no introduction. Less well known film Shallow Grave, his debut, is praised as being as storng a debut as many other directors have managed and is a taut, creepy little thriller. His last film, Millions, took him in another directon. A moral fable about the real value of money against that of the soul, this film hoped to lighten children's imaginations but was unjustly cursed with an ever-changing release date and a 12 rating due to some unsavoury activites practicsed by one of the saints who visits the portagonist. So what next for this ronin of Brit flicks? Space of course!!
The sun is dying. And if it extinguishes, so will humanity. To stop this, a "last best hope" is established. By dropping a bomb the size of Manhattan into the Sun, there are educated guesses that it will kick-start the sun but no one knows for sure. As ship phyicist Cappa (Cillian Murphy) says if one day you "See its a particularly beautiful day, you will know that we succeeded". The ship carrying the bom, the Icarus I, is crewed by an international group of astronauts and scientists who upon finding a marooned ship near the Sun, embark on a mission that will decide the fate of the world.
What does the premise of this film remind you of? Armageddon? Deep Impact? I would agree. But to sy that this film does not resemble those in the slightest is a harsh understatement. This film owes more to the science-fiction of the 1970's. Reviews I have read to this point have said that it owes more to 2001, Alien, Solaris etc. i would not disagree. But these reviews have said that it feels like a compilation, a montage of their best moments, more than anything truly original. At this point, I would disagree. It has been argued that nothing in cultrure is original anymore and that it is merely the combination of previous original facotrs. This in itself can be seen to be unoriginal. However, in combing these parts, is soemthing original not created? What if elemts from areas you would not expect are also added to the mix? That is what we get from Sunshine. The film may be obstensibly about saving the Earth and indeed, we are never allowed to forget taht this is wht the purpose of the mission is. But that is not why we are here. That is not what the film is about. It is about more. It meditates on the insignificance of man, about the overwhelming, seductive power of the one thing that both saves us, and has the potential to anihilate us. The Sun. the film does this by maing a perfect balance between visuals and audio. All that is said, is intergral to the plot. There is no bullshit included entirely to make us care. Alex Garland has crafted a screenplay which allows us to see his noevl writing past, his feel for character and events which creates opinions without telling us. We are allowed to think of characters what we will. Nothing is ever done to make us feel a certain way about them. Adding to this, the music in the film, which is blissful and haunting all at the same time, simply lets us wallow in the movie, it is not telling us what the story is, it lets us feel, and think at the same time. The cast are all exemplary. All are likeable in their ways, and everything they go through feels entirely uinderstandable. You may think of a character as a bad person, but you can understand their own justifications. All are beliveable and great turns are put in by all. Chris Evans shows himself as a better action than I thought he could be and brings a real depth to his role. Cillian Murphy also show that he is fast becoming one of the best actors of his generation with a slightly blissed out perfomance that conforms to none of the stereotypes offered by many films of its ilk.
Speaking of stereotypes, one criticism levelled at this film is the third act. It has been said that after such a strong first hour it starts letting itself down. I stongly disagree on this point. Any plot point can work as long as it feels right in the contezxt of the film. i will not reveal it here by what happens sounds horrible on paper. However, with the world that Garland and Boyle have created, the events that happen make a strange kind of sense. The revleation of the "big bad" as such, is done in such an intriguing way and the dialogue given so strong that I just rolled with it. This seemingly unworldly force seems like a real threat in this world and it i to the credit of everyone invlved that it does. Saying this, the film also screams of a kind of realism. A major threat revolves around the use of oxygen, something not seen in many of these films. Much time is taken into talking about the logisitcs of the mission. A fight has to be stopped because the people involved cannot breathe due to the lack of oxygen. What othe film does this happen in?
So Danny Boyle? He has filmmaking down to a tee. The opening shot (love the use of the Fox Searchlight logo) shows that he is playing with the big boys. The production and set design he has chosen and the visual motifs he establishes are simply inspiring. His use of the Sun pervades all the aspects of the film. the retro spacesuits are golden, the Sun itself is an astounding piece of visual effects and the way that much of the film is potrayed in a sort of glare present a world which could only be dreamed of in the 1960's and 70's. This film belongs in the 1960's but the visuals bring it kicking and screaming into the contemporary film world we live in. For example, I could not imagine the quick flashes of various things we see being used in films of the 60's and 70's and Boyle brings these flashes to create both another world for this film to exist (and you during its running time) and to make an atmosphere of severe all encompassing dread. Danny Boyle may be criticised for ripping off the works of old, but I would argue he has added to them and deserves a place with them. On another note, to learnt hat this film was made for 45 million dollars is quite amazing. It honestly looks like a 100 million plus blockbuster. I just hope it makes back on the investment. This is a risky film and to make it is quite an achievement. i can only hope it makes its money back to fund more exciting, exhilariting and inspiring work. In my top 20 of all time at the very least. I expect it to go higher.

Do yourself a favour, see this film, wallow in it, and want to see it again straight away like I did.

Sunshine...

2007-04-05T14:27:00.001-07:00

Review up tomorrow. I'll say this. It's in my best films ever list. No joke. Tomorrow...

Sunshine...

2007-04-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Review up tomorrow. I'll say this. It's in my best films ever list. No joke. Tomorrow...

UPDATE!!!

2007-04-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the rather barren field I have left yet again, I have been catching up on a lot of older films which I didn't feel were worth reviewing. I will review 300 on DVD (or please god HD-DVD) as I feel too much time has passed since it came out but as I will be reviewing it at that point, you can tell I liked it.
Will be back on Friday or Saturday with a rveiew of genre-hopper madman Danny Boyle's latest, Sunshine...

DVD Review: Hellboy Animated: Sword Of Storms

2007-03-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

DVD Review: Hellboy Animated: Sword Of Storms (Phil Weinstein, Tad Stones, 2006, USA).

Hellboy is not the most beloved of the comic book properties, not nearly as big as such titles as Spider-Man, Batman or Superman, but he is treated better than most. A labour of love for both writer/creator Mike Mignola and director Guillermo del Toro, the film was both a critical and commercial success and a sequel is currently in production. To stem the tide, we have this (and its sequel, Blood And Iron).
Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz Shermann (Selmar Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) are sent to Japan to investigate the disappearance of a professor. The professornhad recently come into posession of the Sword Of Storms, something Hellboy finds and as soon as he does, he is transported into the mythological world of the Sword's origin. Liz and Abe try to find Hellboy while he tries to find a way out of this world before our world is consumed by the sword's power.
This animated feature captures the tone of the original film to the letter and is all the better for it. The dry humour, the fantastical elements, the relationships between the charcaters and all the other elements are transferred perfectly. This is due in no samll part to the prescence of Mignola scripting, del Toro executive producing, and the original players coming back (Jones played Sapien in the film, he just didn't voice him). This in itself is a joy. Unforutnately, other aspects are weaker.
The story is rather convoluted and is not really that engaging. While the creatures Hellboy faces are interesting, the reasons behind what is happening do not fit quite right, even into the world of Hellboy. This does feel like a stopgap inbetween films and yet the mood of the piece and the humour do shine through. It is also, not the longest film in the world. At around 80 minutes, it would have been nice to have some more action with Hellboy, Liz and Abe together. Also, what happens with Abe and Liz at one point seems rather random as the fil does not hint t anything between the two. The action in the film is very 12 rated, this is not for small children. Some of the foes are scay and the posession sequences are fairly intense. Basically, if your kid handled the movie you should be fine. All the cast are good though Jones sounds like he could try and make a bit more effort to replicate the Abe of the original movie. Hellboy is a joy and Liz brings the right amount of conflict to her ole which was seen in the film.
While I cannot recommend this to anyone who has not seen Hellboy, it is a very enetertaining way to spend an afternoon and I am very interested in seeing where Blood And Iron takes us.

Video & Audio: Fine, nothing amazing but perfectly adequate. DD 5.1 seems unecessary.

Didn't watch extras.

Good rent folks.

DVD Review: Idiocracy

2007-03-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

DVD Review: Idiocracy (Mike Judge, 2006, USA).

Mike Judge then. Creator of Beavis & Butthead probably the most zeitgeisty cartoon ever made and King Of The Hill, a show that some regard as better than The Simpsons. With such respect from those shows he made Office Space, a commercial bomb which later became a cult hit on video. When he tried to make another film, he must have had a sense of deja vu about the exeperience. It was dumped in a few cinemas in America then left to go to DVD, here it goes straight to DVD. The real issue is why is this the case. Why again, when this film is better than many of the comedies which have successful theatrical releases.
Joe Bauer (Luke Wilson) is an average Army librarian who is enlisted into an experiment with a prostitute, Rita (Maya Rudolph). This experiement sends them 500 years into the future where because less intelligent people have more children than smarter, society has become very very dumb. With the society on the brink of collapse, it is found that Joe is now the smartest man alive. While trying to help the world he has stubled into, Joe also enlists the help of Frito (Dax Shepard) who tells him of a "Time Musheen" which can get Joe back home.
Idiocracy is a strange beast of a film. The point it makes is smart and feels very plausible. The threat it paints feels like it can happen and the idea of the film sounds very appealing to anyone looking for smart satrical comedy. It makes us laugh at the idea of people laughing at TV programs like "Ow, My Balls" and a Predisdent elected solely because he was a popular wrestler. However, much of it feels like it is reaching for the lowest common donominator. A narrator is used to explain every single little plot point in the movie. Much of the film's laughs come from moronic idiots who most would feel sorry for if we saw them in society today.The film feels like it should be a high-brow satire but it is in actuality fairly low-brow. It is not hard to see why Fox dumped this film. Much of the audience it is pandering to, is the audience it is insulting. Whether this is a work of perverse genius by Judge or a result of sloppy re-editing by Fox is an interesting question but one I feel we won't ever get a true answer for.
This film is funny it has to be said however. Some of its targets are obvious but the laughs are made. However, the laughs are front-loaded. Once we are used to this world, they start to dry up. There is some good stuff towards the end but it feels like the point has been made within the first half hour but it still has another 50 minutes to go. Luke Wilson is the bland everyman he always is and does it just fine. Maya Rudolph is funny in a stereotypical prostitute way. Dax Shepard is annoying after his first 30 seconds and does not really seem to try. However, a very funny cameo from Justin Long steals the movie for me. His bizarre screaming sequence was very random, and welcome for it.
Mike Judge just can't seem to get a break. While this film sounds promising on paper, it never quite delivers. The ending feels unsatisactory, the editing is sloppy as all hell and the point it makes soon become laboured. And yet, it is still funnier tha most of the stuff we see in cinemas today. guy just can't seem to get a break. Very recommended rental.

Video: Just fine, no major problems.

Audio: Uninvolving DD 5.1 soundtrack. Not much use of anything beyond the front and no discernable bass. Can't say I'm suprised but it is disapointing.

Extras: Maybe 3 minutes of deleted scenes which are all pointless.

Good movie, poor disc. Rent it, don't blind buy as I nearly did.

Back soon with Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms and 300

DVD Review: Marie-Antoinette

2007-03-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

DVD Review: Marie-Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006, USA).

To say Sofia Coppola has had an interesting life would seem to be an understatement. Daughter of 70's uber-director Francis Ford Coppola, her life was in the spotlight since literally infancy as she was first seen on screen as a baby in The Godfather. She then grew up and famously replaced Winonna Ryder at the last minute in The Godfather Part 3, the subsequent reaction to which pretty much made sure that whatever she did in her adult life, it probably wouldn't be in front of the camera. Indeed this turned out to be the case. Her direcotiral debut, The Virgin Suicides was quite the indie darling. It never truly broke through to the maistream but the whimiscal yet disturbing air of the film, and a memorable soundtrack by french band Air, made sure that she ws to be a hip one-to-watch. Her next film the very funny, very moving, yet wholly overrated Lost In Translation earned her the respect of everyone in Hollywood and marked the resurgance of Bill Murray. Quite the hot property then. For her next film, Coppola had it all. Studio backing, access to some of the greatest locations in Europe and a cast consisting of pretty much whoever she wanted. The film made was Marie-Antoinette. Booed at Cannes, derided for its light and fluffy look at the Queen of France and a bit of a bomb, it seems Coppola had dropped the ball. I, for one, disagree.
Marie-Antoinette is taken from her home in Austria to become a symbol of the Franco-Austrian alliance and to cement this by marrying the future king Louis XV (Jason Schwartzman) who is also only a teenager. As she adapts to this strange world, she has to try and perusade Louis to have sex with her to have a child who will keep the union strong. Unfulfilled, Marie turns to hedonisitic parties and other men to make her happy. But then things get bad...
You can see why this film was booed at Cannes. Gaining unparalelled access to Versailles, given wonderful costumes (which earned the film its only Oscar nomination), and being given the chance to tell the story of one of France's infamous figures, Coppola has turned her story into that of a coming-of-age story in which in many ways, no-one comes of age. A pop-art explosion starts the film with contemporary guitar music filling the speakers. This, one suspects, is something not expected. The start of the film detailing Marie's journey echoes that of any teenage girl. excitement, gossip and boredom. The procession of marraige and consummating the marriage that follows is strangely surreal and very ridiculous, again not expected. none of this film is expected. No one attempts any kind of real accent, apart from varying degrees of English and American (Even a New Yorker accent highlighted in Asia Argento's bizarre performance). No french accenting here. This is a Hollywood film made in France, about, France but only taking the more ridiculous aspects into account.
Marie as a character feels relateable to any 16-year old girl. Bored by most things around her, wanting to indulge in drinking and boys, sneaking out to go to parties at night, one gets the feeling that Coppola is not interested in her real story at all and instead seeks to make a connection between the then and now. For all the ceremony and the different setting, the teenage years seem the same then as it is now. The use of music, the style of editing, the at time-s hand held camerawork all blend together to create this story. If I was a proud Frenchman, I would be furious. As I am not, I was throughly pleased by it, something I am suprised about. One thing I would agree with most critics of this film is that the ending seems very rushed. We are never too clear what part Marie is playing in the downfall of French society and yet she is blamed for everything. We see her escaping Versailles but this is all we get. No cards explaining what happened next even, just the credits. While the film was foucsed on a specific aspect of her life, it would have been nice to have some sort of closure.
Kirsten Dunst can do this sort of role in her sleep. She's beautiful, can be childlike, and seems like a bit of a twat. All it needs to be. Jason Schwartzman is forgettable, never does anything with his role but it feels like he needs to be a bit of a blank. Rip Torn is funny in his brief role of Louis XIV, Asia Argento is bizarre, and Steve Coogan is Steve Coogan. Nice, eccentric casting is always something I respect.
I feel sorry for Sofia Coppola. All 3 of her films have dealt with very similar themes, of girls feeling isolated. This, I would argue is her strongest film to date. The film is throughly entertaining, funny and gorgeous to look at. And yet while lost In Translation is seen as one of the best films of 2004, Marie-Antoinette looks like it will be forgotten about very quickly. That is a real shame and I hope Coppola doesn't change her track because of the negative reaction.

Video: Clean transfer, perfectly good, no noticeable faults seen.

Audio: Disappointing, Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. For a film with such an interesting use of soundtrack, it is sad that this is not as involving as I would like. OK use of surround for the music but no noticeable directional effects and no discernable use of bass at all. Sad.

Extras: Haven't seen them. Just wanted to get the review out.

OK, that's it. Back in the next couple of days with a review of Mike Judge's direct-to-DVD (over here) cult-in-the-making comedy Idiocracy. Also hopefully 300.

DVD Review: Casino Royale

2007-03-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

The film? Look for my review in my November posts. I'll say this: I enjoyed it every bit as much this time round and it really didn't feel long to me. Honestly, genuinely great film. Which is more than can be said for the DVD...

Video: Great. As good as you can get on DVD. No features on the first disc so you would expect the film to look good and it really does. Want to see the Blu-Ray version soooooooo bad mind.

Audio: Really solid Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack. Nice, involving, not too imposing, very good stuff.

Extras: The bad thing with the ever shortening cinema-to-DVD is that many companies have stopped trying with the first DVD release. The one for the mass consumer market who wants the film here and now, close to the cinema release while it is still in their minds, and will sell enough to give the companies plenty of revenue. Then later with the "double dip", they release the edition for the fans/edition plugging the sequel. One suspects the next edition fo Casino Royale on DVD will be a hybrid of both, following on from the "Ultimate Editions" of the previous films and coinciding (I think) with the release of the as-yet-untitled Bond 22. SO we are stuck with this....

Documentaries:

Becoming Bond - I thought this would focus on Daniel Craig's casting, and it does for about five minutes before focusing on the general making of the film. It's pretty interesting but cries out for more in-depth coverage. Decent made-for-TV effort.

James Bond: For Real- Again a fairly decent made-for-TV effort focusing on the stunts in the film which also deserve more in-depth coverage. Especially the free-running sequence, which was one of, if not the best action sequences of the year. Just not long enough.

Bond Girls Are Forever - Ridiculous and out-of-date TV special looking at the old-school Bond girls from Dr No - Die Another Day. Nothing much to do with Casino Royale, the key one being that Vesper Lynd represents a new kind of Bond Girl completely. One used to move the plot forward and represent a genuine emotional threat for Bond (I'll leave Diana Rigg from on Her Majesty's Secret Service out of this).

Great film, great AV, painfully rushed disc. Still though if you can get it for 7 quid from Asda like I did, go for it just for the film!

A little advertisement....

2007-03-19T04:31:00.000-07:00

Casino Royale is 7 quid in Asda until Sunday. By far the best price out there. Will have a review of the DVD up tomorrow. Great sound I will say now.

DVD Review: The Prestige

2007-03-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

DVD Review: The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006, USA).

After a comic book film, what would you do if you were a director? Make more like Bryan Singer or Mark Steven Johnson? Or strike out and do something different like Ang Lee? Christopher Nolan, a guy who obviously doesn't want to be pegged down, opts for the latter with a twisty-turney puzzle of a film. Or should that be magic trick... (Lazy writing I know).
Two up-and-coming magicians Borden (Christian Bale) and Angier (Hugh Jackman) start off as friends working for a magician hoping to be the next big sensation. After a tragic accident kills Angier's wife, the two become bitter rivals stopping at nothing to out-do each other. After Borden comes up with the greatest magic trick ever seen, Angier becomes obsessed with finding out his secret.
That is all I really want to say about the plot because this film has a place in the ever more commpn place genre of films with big twists. While this film does certainly have twists along the way, what must be said about it is how amazingly well the script and direction work to make this film become the cinematic equivilant of a magic trick. The film shows you things which you believe are ordinary, adds a sense of mystery and then amazes you with something which when you know, seems obvious, but at the time, you just cannot figure out how it will play out. Opinion of the reveal has been mixed. Some have complained that it was too obvious or was too outlandish or ridiuclous to be satisfying. I would not agree. Having seen this film twice, I can say that it holds up very well. The components which make up the big trick(s) are set up clearly but to say that you figure it out first time would be bullshit, I would suggest. This also takes out feelings of it being too ridculous. The world created is so intricate and fully formed that what happens does not feel unreal, it feels true to the world of the film.
Having said all this, watching it the second time, knowing how it plays out, brings to light just how brilliant this film is. It is comletely gripping from beginning to end. It looks amazing, the cinematography by Wally Pfister was some of the best of any film last year, and the direction is brilliant from beginning to end. the story of just what the two magicians are capalbe of is also brogught to the fore. if you think about what each one is doing, the film takes on a wholly more disturbing edge. The editing too is also top notch. the film amy be confusing at times but that is all to do with the plot, the editing makes the film flow as freely and easily as it can but does not ever intrude or dare to make this a case of style over substance. The production and set design are also exemplary. It's just a classy looking movie.
So the perfomances. Hugh Jackman and Chirstian Bale as the rivals do some good work without ever really breaking out. They have played these types of roles before and will again. They are very good at them but its nothing you haven't seen before. Scarlett Johansson does OK in what is a really quite thankless role, one which does not require the actress to do anything other than look pretty. To be fair, she does that well. Rebecca Hall on the other hand, pulss off a really rather well written role as Borden's wife. The sense of frustration she feels is brought o the fore very nicely and her perfomance really is heartbreaking. My favourites though are the two more left-field perfomances in the film. Andy Serkis brings a light to touch to his role as Tesla's assistant. His enthusaiasm bonds well with Angier and also with my favourite charcter in the piece. DAVID BOWIE!!!! Not only does Bowie play Tesla but a. He uses one of the strangest accents I have ever heard on a film and b. His first apparance is through a field of electricity! His charcter is supposed to bee malevolent and mysterious and Bowie is the perfect choice for this part. The man is jut odd, but very cool as well and again, that is Bowie. it may not be a strech for him but I don't care.
So, a great film. Brillaint plot, looks incredible and the perfomances are solid. And it has Bowie in it. What's not to love?

Video: Very nice transfer, handles both light and dark very well. Tis a tasd murky at times but I think this is a stylistic choice and not the fault of the DVD mastering. Would love to see the Blu-Ray version hoever, as I have heard it is incredible.

Audio: Involving Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. great surround where there needs to be, very nice use of bass when it has to be used (you will know), but it never overpowers the dialogue. Not exactly reference quality but a good job nonetheless.

DVD Extras:

The Director's Notebook: 20 minute long documentary, made up of several parts. Better than the majority of doumentaries on DVDs of this length as it talks about all sorts of aspects of the production and is not just full of platitudes directed at the cast and crew. We get talk of visual metaphors used in the film, and how certain shots were achieved. i wish it was longer to be honest as this film feels like it needs a good documentary.

Trailer: Really interesting trailer which perked my attention to the film up when I first saw it. Fits the mood and tone of the film very well.

Disapointing number of extras for a film which I very highly recommend as one of my favourites of last year.

I won't be reviewing Zidane as I didn't make it the whole way through. It's literally following Zidane for the whole time and it nearly put me to sleep. Great soundtrack though and the surround effects were used very well.

Bye!

Wee little update....

2007-03-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

OK first of all sorry to those who regularly read. Thank you soooooo much and I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up. Writing 2 screenplays and working in the high-octane world of retail management (JOKE) has left me with very little time for anything else recently. But, I am back and intend to be around a lot more. Thanks again.
Pan's Labyrinth DVD... The video is top class stuff, really great mastering and couldn't detect a fault. Nice, involving Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack which makes itself heard without being too distracting. One thing about the extras which bugs me and bugs me about a lot of 2 disc editions these days, THEY DO NOT NEED 2 DISCS!!! This film only has 3 soundtrack channels and about an hour and a hlaf of extras. These could easily fit onto one disc. As is though, its a pretty great effort. The commentary is very interesting and strikes a good balance between talking about the technical processess and ideas behind the film and being light-hearted enough so that it does not come off as too dry. Saying this waht you understand by watching all the features (and the features of his previous DVDs) is that Del Toro could not be dry if he tried. The guy is effortlessly entertaining and makes all the features worth a watch.
The lead feature is an interview with Del Toro filmed at the NFT in London. Not only is Del Toro on fine form for this half-hour session, but the interview is also conducted by my favourtie film critic Mark Kermode, a man whose enthusiasm for this film is almost boundless. Del Toro covers the genesis of the film, including childhood memories and talks in-depth about the shooting itself. The Power Of Myth looks specifically at the ideas Del Toro got from myths and fairy tales of old. At 15 minutes, it just about stays its welcome. The Director's Notebook is an interesting little piece showing us the sketches Del Toro has drawn over the last decade which were drawn together to create the film. Interesting stuff but a touch of repetition sets in in this and the other features. The UK trailer is interesting in looking at how it tries to make the film appeal to a broad audience. In all, a very good (but not truly great) disc for what was one of the best, if not the best, film(s) of 2006.

I'm going to have a review of The Host on DVD up soon. I have watched the features but have not watche dthe film (again) yet. I will also be posting a review of The Prestige at some point and I will also be reviewing something I have been looking forward too for a while, Zidane: A 21st Century Potrait. Cheers.

Review: INLAND EMPIRE

2007-03-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

Review: INLAND EMPIRE (David Lynch, 2006, USA).

Here are my notes written during my viewing...

1st 10 minutes - bewildering, a woman crying, 2 blurred figures. 1 takes her clothes off for some mysterious reason. Rabbits, a laugh track and a man wanting something. Sketchy conversation with neigbour seems normal in comparison.

The look is sometimes ghastly, mainly in scenes with high levels of contrast and in close-ups. Adds to otherworldness.

Neighbour. Fucking terrifying - wild eyes.

Goes on relatively coherently until the screwdriver scene.

There are consequences to one's actions, repeated.

Like somebody else's nightmare. A needle plays on a record player and a woman crying repeats.

The locomotion - Never could it be as unsettling as this, you would think.

That's as far as I got. I gave in and got sucked in by this world. And that's only about a third of the film.

Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) is an ageing actress living in Hollywood. One day she is visited by a "new neighbour" (Grace Zabreskie), who tells her that the part she will be getting (but has not got yet) is for a film not about lovers, but a "brutal fucking murder". Upon starting the film, she and co-star Devon (Justin Theroux) are informed by the director (Jeremy Irons) that the film "On High In Blue Tomorrows" is a remake of an unfinished Polish film which was stopped because everyone involved in it came to a sticky end. As well as this, Devon is warned off of persuing Nikki first by his entourage and then by her husband (Peter J. Lucas) who warns him that things will be done to ensure that the bonds of marriage remain. They end up sleeping together at which time Nikki says that she feels like she has been through it before but it was tomorrow. The next day, she is intrigued by a darkness towards the back of the film's set. Upon entering it, her personality fragments, she travels into different worlds, maybe the original Polish film, maybe of the people in the Polish film, may be the world of a curb crawler, maybe the life of a woman living with a Polish emigree who may kill her husband.
INLAND EMPIRE as Lynch would have us type it, seems to me like the great man's career has come full-circle and yet progressed further, like a spiral if you will, in that it feels like both a natural progression in his career, in terms of his use of narrative and subject matter and a spiritual return to the rawness of Eraserhead, his first feature. To write a review of it, almost seems like an insult to what Lynch has created with a cheap DV camera and no studio backing. This film will drive many crazy, the truest example of love it/hate it I think we have ever seen and to many my review will seem like prentious twaddle. I simply don't care. The images in this film are often truly mind-blowing. Lynch has always been known as a man who can create an atmosphere like no other but here, it feels like this is one area of his craft which he will never better. The film oozes menace, right from its first frame. The images are burnt into your head and really do stay with you. The sense of fractured time and world is represented so well that at one point I looked at my phone expecting 20 minutes to have passed, but 2 had! That's no lie either. Vagueness in this review is meant, to ruin any of the suprises which come from this film feels like a real shame. The lack of any cohesive narrative after that which I have told you, will be a problem for many and rightly so. Lynch has always been an aquired taste and I would not be suprised if he loses fans from this one, he surely won't be gaining any new ones either. This is a film preaching to the converted. And while it feels like a shame that he is not going to get the credit he desrves from more mainstream sources, I feel it would be right to say that Lynch wouldn't have it any other way. In fairness, much credit must be given to StudioCanal and Optimum Releasing for allowing this film to be shown as widely as it has been and it is reassuring that with a studio such as Optimum distributing this, it will certainly get a chance to shine on video.
Speaking of video... The look of the film. Lynch famously shot this on a Sony PD150 a pretty much consumer grade DV camera which used for its flexibility which in turn enabled Lynch to have more freedom with what he shot. The downside to this is that this film occasionally looks terrible. Even in what i am pretty sure was a digital presentation at the Watershed in Bristol (Feel free to correct me, I would be interested), the film does look amatuerish in parts, specifically, outdoors scenes. And yet, it adds to the mystery of the film. The actual camera itself feels like it is in on the gag, that it and Lynch are working together to create something which will eat away at you, in the INLAND EMPIRE of your imagination.
Laura Dern gives a bravura perfomance and holds the film up in her multiple roles, all with wildly different personalities and without an actress if her strength or even her particular look, the film does not feel like it would grab you as mich as it does. Supporting characters all do well in their own parts but do feel like objects in the background when compared to Dern and the images Lynch has created (Look out for the superimposition towards the end, truly haunting).
Bloody masterpiece.

Review: Ghost Rider

2007-03-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

Review: Ghost Rider (Mark Steven Johnson, 2007, USA).

Nicholas Cage is an enigma. A man who seems drawn to a wide ramge of projects, a man you can never pin down. After the clusterfuck that was Neil LaBute's appaling remake of The Wicker Man, Cage is back with what seems like a far safer bet, a comic book movie.
Cage is Johnny Blaze a motorcycle stuntman who as a teen is offered the chance to have his father brought back from the brink of death by Mephisto (Peter Fonda). In exchange for this, Cage must act as Mephisto's Ghost Rider, essentially his own personal bounty hunter. He is called upon when Mephisto's son wants to take over the world by stealing a contract. Or something. And so, Blaze must contend with being the Rider, saving the world, and getting the girl, childhood sweetheart Roxanne.
File this under what the great Mark Kermode calls "the death of narrative cinema". This film makes barely any sense and is incoherent at times. I did not really get what the thrust of the plot was and I think this is down to the filmmakers more than myself! When a good hour of the less than 2 hour running time is pretty much dedicated to setting up the Ghost Rider legend, the rest of the plot is bound to suffer. Look at the first X-Men film. Magneto's plan was clear but not important at all, most time was spent setting up the X-Men. Fair enough, there are a lot of them and a lot of back story. But the Ghost Rider story is very simple. Dude sells soul to devil, dude gets fucked over, dude has flaming head. Done. It should not take an hour to set up. I can see this being for budgetary reasons also. More time setting up Ghost Rider, less they have to spend to bring the effect to life. Thinking about it, it is probably the cheapest looking $120 million budget blockbuster I have ever seen. The Rider himself looks incredible, and the scenes of him tearing up the town bnoth vertically and horizontally are enough to watch the film for alone. And yet, the rest of the film looks rushed, cheap and just not good enough. Its all very second-tier stuff, much like Daredevil, Mark Steven Johnson's previous effort.
The enemies are also poor, Mephisto burns with an undercurrent of intensity but he is there for exposition and to set up a sequel (in a very very obvious twist, which is ruined if you have seen any of the TV ads in the UK, if you think about it for one second). Blackheart (Wes Bentley) is a sad goth teen who can suck out peopes lives and his gang are so very bland. The romance is not even worth talking about, just there to tick the boxes.
Nicholas Cage. The film's saving grace. You can tell he wants it to be a success and he is the only reason to recommend it. He is funny yet understated and he plays the tortured soul oh so very well. And yet the 12 year olds who this is aimed at won't be able to wait for him to transform into Ghost Rider for some more bland action sequences which show off nothing but how comic book movies can go oh so wrong if too mich money and not enough ideas are thrown at them. Sorry for the uninspired review but it just doesn't make me want to say anything else.
Unlike, I suspect, my next review due tomorrow or Saturday. One of the greatest living director's is back with what is supposed to be his most left-field entry yet. Oh yes, David Lynch's Inland Empire. I for one, cannot fucking wait.

DVD Review: Clerks 2

2007-02-23T06:38:00.000-08:00

DVD Review: Clerks 2 (Kevin Smith, 2006, USA).

Kevin Smith. Slacker, filmmaker, responsible for a cult-cultural phonemena with Jay & Silent Bob. But after the fifth film in the "Askewniverse", Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Kevin Smith decided that he wanted to move on, grow up, leave the characters behind. What happened after is pretty darn infamous and can be summed up in two words... "Jersey Girl". Moving on... So Smith has gone back to where he started, "back to the well" how he puts it, to reopen the Askewniverse, one more time.
Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) are forced to move to a new job when their place of work burns down. Now after nearly a year of working there, Dante is finally doing what he said he wanted to do for years: Get out of the slump he has been in. This invloves relocating to Florida with pushy fiancee Emma (Jenifer Schwalbach). But on the last day before he moves, things change. Things involving his boss Becky (Rosario Dawson), Go-Karts, dancing and a "donkey-show"...
There are many faults with this movie, some of which are symptomatic of Smith's way of working. There is barely any flair to his direction, something which Smith recgonises himself, and the dialogue really does have to do the bulk of the work. Even when he does try something with the camera, mainly within the ill-concieved dance sequence, it doesn't quite come off. Smith is also really rather self-indulgent but as he says he makes films for himself not others. However, the casting of his wife is completely out-of-place and she is not convincing either in her perofmance or really, her looks to nail the role. Let's just say she makes Brian O'Halooran look good nd that is saying something. This guy just cannot act. His delivery is strictly amaeturish, his character would not entice Becky in real-life for a second and when next to Jeff Anderson and Trevor Fehrman, pales into almost-insignificance.
All this being true, I can also say that I did not laugh so hard in the cinema or at home nearly as much as I laughed at this film, in the year of 2006. Smith's writing is very much for a certain crowd but to that crowd it is priceless. the scene of Randall making a LOTR fan so angry that he throws up is just ball-shatteringly brilliant . The introduction of Elias is a very welcome one. Fehrman pulling off the role with a nicely polished portrayal of a very naive teen who becomes Randal's new target. Jay & Silent Bob are as brilliant as other, enough said, and the "donkey-show" is so straight up in it's offensiveness that it has to be applauded. Rosario Dawson brings a real sweetness to the role of Becky. She does feel like someone you could fall in love with and she almost manages to make her realtionship with Dante look plausible. Smith must also be congratulated for bringing heart to the relationship between Dante and Randal, making it feel like they do love each other, but without the creepy stalker-esque nature that Randal was left with with Clerks.
So... Smith does not seem like he can get out of New Jersey. If I am honest, I really do hope that this is it. If it wasn;t for the script, this wouldn't be worth the time of day. Smith now has a choice to make, carry on with the Askewniverse knowing that your films will never be broadly loved. Or try and break out without making "Jersey Girl 2". I wouldn't want to be in his postion I must say.

Video: Way too sharp, a really obviously sharp transfer which while free of grain, really does not make a passable one. Not good.

Audio: Suprisingly decent Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. While dialogue-heavy , we get some nice directional effects mainly involving people working in and out of the restaurant, but also some nice work during the "Donkey-Show". A pleasent suprise.

Extras:

Deleted Scenes - Pretty funny deleted scenes, as always with Smith DVDs, really worth a watch. The improv which Smith does not usually allow, m,akes for some very funny stuff.

Cast Commentary - One of three commentaries but the only one I have listened to just yet. Good stuff, very honest, frank and some funny stuff also, worth a listen.

Documentary - Hour and a hlaf long documentary, comprehensive stuff and again very honest. Interesting stuff involving the relationship between Jeff Anderson and Kevin Smith, which still seems fairly strained,. Maybe one for people who really know their Smith films, but as someone who does, I enjoyed it.

Funniest film of 2006 for myself but a very niche film. Great disc as well makes it a must-own for all people who enjoy the "Askewniverse".

Back tomorrow, probably with a review of "The Number 23".

Review: Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer

2007-02-17T03:09:00.000-08:00

If anyone else has seen this, I want your views!!!!

Review: Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006, GER/FRA/ESP).

The most expensive European production ever embarked upon, a film which it was rumoured (but untrue) that even Stanley Kubrick could not get a handle on, a book where the sense of smell is the most important aspect of the plot. Upon release, very mixed reviews and barely any award buzz. My opinion....
Jean-Baptise Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) is born in rather extreme circumstances and would surely have been stillborn if it were not for the intense smells of the fishmarket he is born in. His sense of smell comes to define the character he will become in later life. He discovers that his purpose in life is to create the perfect scent. With the help of master perfumer Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), he acquires the skills to create the scent. But how to preserve it, is a different question entirely.
If you are to come across a more visually striking film this year, I would be amazed. Indeed, the visuals are the standout of this film. This looks like an entirely European film, reminding me in particular of the work of Jean-Pierre Jenuet with Delicatessen and City of Lost Children. It is beautiful but there is constantly a hint of darkness underneath. Sometimes this darkness comes to the fore, the smells Jean-Baptise first smells, the body of the first murdered woman which is constantly flashed back too; these images are obviously disturbing. Most of the time, it is kept to a bubbling undercurrent, like a smell which is lingering in the air which sometimes strikes to remind you of something you remember which you very much disagree with.
With all the sumptous beauty of the visuals, it is almost inevitable that something is to be lost. While I would argue that the narrative is stronger than many ithger cirtics have said, it is undeniably affected by the care taken with the visuals. Being presented with Jean-Baptiste as aoour anti-hero means that we can never truly feel for the "hero" of the piece. Although his lifelong journey is something we can latch on to, the actions he takes through the film mean that it is difficult to sympathise with him. In this aspect, it is similar to Notes On A Scandal, characters are presented who we are normally meant to identify with but in these cases, we just can't. When we are presented with other characters we can latch on to, Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman's specifically, they are not given enough time for development for us to understand them. The film does the best of what it can based on the source material. There is no getting away from the fact that the developments at the end will turn a lot of people off (My friend Helly was completely lost on the film from this point), but I was not. If you invest yourself in this world, I think you will go with what happens. Odd to be sure, but in the world the visuals have created in the previous two hours, it almost makes sense.
For a film lacking in character development, the perfomances are uniformally excellent. Ben Whishaw (who are only recgonised as Pingu from the Chris Morris/Charlie Brooker series Nathan Barley) is a revelation as Jean-Baptiste. His character is abhorrent and yet endlessly comelling. The sense of sheer force of will which goes with his character is something to behold and I am sorely disappointed that he got no serious awards buzz. Dustin Hoffman is distracting but still amusing in his small role. In any other film, he would feel out of place in this role, but Hoffman seems to understand completely what is required of him in the role and he really does pull it off. His fate in particular gives one of the few genuine laughs of the film. Alan Rickman also does well in a somewhat one-note role. John Hurt is wonderfully placed as the narrator and his sense of warmth and charm really moves the story along well.
Much of this review has been negative. A lot of people will not enjoy this film, there were walkouts in the cinema we were at. And yet, I loved it. The visuals are quite incredible and Ben Whishaw's perfomance alone makes this worth watching. I would very much recommend this, but I know some of you will hate it.

Opinions please!!

Review: Notes On A Scandal

2007-02-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

Bit of an odd choice for a review from me now but one I feel is worth doing.

Review: Notes On A Scandal (Richard Eyre, 2006, UK/USA).

Barbara (Judi Dench) likes to keep an ongoing diary detailing the events surrounding her life and her work as vice-headmistress at a London secondary school. She warms to Sheeba (Cate Blanchett), a new teacher at the school, as she is attractive, confident and seemingly in a happy marraige. Things change however when Barabra discovers a secret about Sheeba's life and uses it to have Sheeba guaranteed as a friend for life. However, Barbara also has her own secrets...
The idea of a teacher sleeping with a pupil is a gripping one and one used many times (And lampooned brilliantly in a recent episode of South Park). The skill of Notes On A Scandal is in the fact that as emotive a subject as this is, it plays second fiddle to the main relationship in the movie, the one between Sheeba and Barbara. Indeed the relationship between Sheeba and Stephen (Andrew Simpson) is so underplayed that it is resolved far earlier than I expected it to be. As it is, this side of the film is very intelligently made. The motivations seem real, the chemistry between Blanchett and Simpson is made uncomfortably real and the only bad thing I can say about its presentation is that sometimes it seems a little too played for laughs and is a little tasteless. Believe me, I have nothing wrong with tastlessness in the slightest but in the context of the rest of the film, it seems very out of place. For an exmple of this, watch the audience's reaction after Judi Dench answers Cate Blanchett's phone.
What this film revolves around, and what makes it such a gripping and intelligent piece of cinema is the character of Barbara. While the screenplay, adapted by Patrick Marber, gives Dench the material to work with, she makes it seem like she has lived and breathed as this character for decades. Her portrayal as Barbara is so convincing that it makes one think about the number of sociopathic old woman we have in our society and how they are not helped, but are shoved aside. What starts as a cynical but warm-hearted perfomance soon becomes something much darker and yet you pity Barbara by the end, which given the events of the plot seems like quite a hard reach. One complaont I would make about her character, and it is a minor quibble, the last scene in another film could be seen as something hinting towards a sequel. Her character does not seem to have been resolved by the end of the film. Even though I complain about this, I do acknowledge that the filmmakers may be saying that thing do not get wrapped up as easily in real life, and indeed considering threlaism of all that has been portrayed before this scene, it would seem that this would be the case. Maybe my want for a resolution is something that really needs to be looked at!
Cate Blanchett does well in what is most certainly a supporting role. Although she provides the main thrust for the story, this is certainly not her film, and her perfomance seems to acknoweldge this. However, her character is a complex one. While the machinations of the film would make you ususally sympathise with her, she never quite earns it. While she does not deserve what Judi Dench puts her through, she certainly does not help herself. The scene in which she explains to Dench what led to the scandal certainly paints a bad picture of her in the audience's minds, and I could not shake this off for the rest of the runtime (And the people I saw this with also agreed). I do not believe that this is a case of Blanchett not pulling off the character, this is intentionally done through the script. It is to Blanchett's credit that she is willing to let herself be painted as quite an unlikeable character. The chemistry between the two leads is soemthing to behold. Both have secrets, both are disahgreeable in a number of ways but both also give theiur cgarcters shades of light and make you feel for them. In the end, you cannot reall side with either of the chgaracter's and it is too Eyre and Marber's credit tgat they do not make us favour one more than the other. Dench is unhinged but she is also obviously suffering froma form of mental illness. Blanchett does not deseve what is happening to her but not once does she try to help Dench. When she finds out what she does, she solely thinks about herself. She uses her family as an excuse to try and get Dench to stop but is only thinking of herself. And yet, woyuldn't we all in the same situation?
The supporting perofmances are uniformly solid if not outstanding. Bill Nighy does nicely in a small role and is the only person out of the main cast who you can really feel sorry for (And yet, we are told that he left his wife for Blanchett so, is he just getting a piece of karma back?). Andrew Simpson does well as the young boy Sheeba has a realtionship with. He is on the cusp of adulthood and yet to eyes outside of the relationship, he is obviously still just a boy. Along Marber's previous adaptation Closer, this never feels like it would be better done on the stage. This feels like an intelligent movie and Marber is to be thanked. Richard Eyre doe s a solid if not spectacular job but I would say that the shifts in tone at times are jarring, as said earlier. The score also desveres mention. Phillip Glass creates an unnevring mood but the music never feels out of place.
This is another great job for British films. Although it is a co-production with Fox Searchlight, it feels every bit the Bristish film and this along with "The greatest motion picture ever" Hot Fuzz and The Last King Of Scotland are a great hat-trick to kick off the year.

Back tomorrow with a review of "Perfume: Story Of A Murderer".

Half Nelson update...

2007-02-11T09:12:00.000-08:00

Just went on the BBFC website, Half Nelson has been certified (15, if you are bother). Importnat thing is that it is coming out over here on the 1st April through Axiom Films. I wouldn't wait if I were you and to be fair, I know most of the distribution companies in the UK and I have never heard of these guys so the chance of it getting a theatrical release you can get to is slim. Just import the DVD if my review had you interested. I reckon it's worth it.

Advance Review: Hot Fuzz

2007-02-11T02:18:00.000-08:00

Advance Review: Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007, UK).

When Shaun of the Dead was released in 2003, it was very mucha cult hit. As well executed as the marketing was for the film (I especially remember the ads on the outsides of phone boxes), it never turly seemed to break out. There could be a number of reasons for this, Shaun came at a time when the zombie movie genre was just starting to ramp up again. The humour was very much of a Spaced-nature, it felt like a cult film. For the Pegg-Frost-Wright team's next project, I think the guys must have learnt something from the time they have spent in America (Where Shaun did very very well it must be said), as Hot Fuzz is going to be huge. I could not be happier.
Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is the best for the London Metropolitan Police has. In the fast-paced opening couple of minutes we learn that he has excelled in every area of Police training and has even gotten over being stabbed in the hand by a man dressed as Father Christmas (The man incidentally being played by Peter Jackson according to Pegg at the Q&A after). All this sucess has made his superiors (Cameos from Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan and Martin Freeman) nervous that he is showing everyone up. Because of this he is forced into a transfer to the sleepy village of Sandford. Upon his arrival he arrests half the town for public urinating and underage drinking, and in one instance trying to drink-drive, a man who later turns out to be Police Constable, Danny Butterman (my new hero, Nick Frost). The town, he discovers, has a relaxed attitude to polic enforcement, the team being more interested in eating Black Forest Gateau than looking for crime. However, Angel, with his new partner Butterman, soon discover that the townsfolk (Including Timothy Dalton, Edward Woodward and more) are not entirely what they seem.
To say this film will fast become one of my favourtie comedies ever feels almost like I am underselling it. the fact that after the first viewing, I already prefer it over Shaun, is mind-boggling to be honest. The team have really struck the ball out of the park with this one. The humour feels far more broad and yet it still hits every note for the people who have been with this team since the first days of Spaced. There are re-hashes of jokes from both Spaced and Shaun (As seen in the trailers), but they do not feel forced, they feel like naturally good jokes by themselves. The script is pretty much a laugh a minute. At first it is just the wordplay and funny circumstances surronding the little English village., but it later changes as the film becomes almost surreal in the ridiculousness of the action towards the end (Watch for the woman shooting on her bike), but again, the whole thing feels natural and completely right for the world that the tem have created.
The perofmances are top-notch and it is great to say that not once was I reminded of the charcters from wither Spaced or Shaun. Pegg as Angel completely changes his previous personnas to become very much a straight-man action hero. He is uptight and a bit of a prick at first even, but he is supposed to be. As the film goes on he loosens up (and finds an affinity for action films), and by the end becomes a top cop and a good person to boot. Frost pretty much owns the film, his character is hilarious, some of the stuff he comes out with is incredible, but he is not just comic relief. He feels like a proper charcacter. One of the film's biggest revelations concerns him and he carries off the dramatic weight of the script really really well. His brainfreeze moment is bloody brilliant also! Props most also be given to Paddy Considine and rafe Spall (who looks so different from his character in Shaun that I barely thought it was the same guy). As the Andy's, they own the scenes they are in. They are so childish and so bloody West-Country, you cannot help but laugh whenever they say anything. I have never seen Considine do comedy before but he seems to have a natural knack for it. He also gives what is my favourtie line in the whole film, "If you want to be a top cop, go fuck off up the model village". Might not sound funny now, but I almost pissed myself when I saw it.
Edgar Wright has also obviosuly grown as a director. The quick edits which were used a lot in Spaced and Shaun gradually give way to a more traditional action-movie style of editing, and Wright understands how to deliver the action perfectly. The homages are brilliant and you can tell that he studied the fundamentals of the action film before shooting. This fil excels in beign a great action film also. They are very very very funny but at the same time, you also think, "I want to have a giant shootout in a village square, IT LOOKS SO COOL!!!!!!!", yes the inner-child in me came out with glee! The kills in this film deserve a mention too, very bloody, not as gory as Shaun but getting there, but really very funny also.
If this review has been a little vague, it's just that I don't want to spoil too much of the film. I'll be back to see it this week, maybe twice and I'll be counting the days until the DVD comes out after. A truly fantastic comedy, a suprisingly gripping acion film, and already one of the best films we will see this year full stop.

If you guys want the Q&A, email me or comment. It was long but I'll transcribe it if you folks want it. Seriously see this film.

DVD Review: Half Nelson

2007-02-08T07:23:00.000-08:00

Back....

DVD Review: Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, 2oo6, USA).

The issue of drug abuse has been one which has propelled stories for centuries. Literature, art, music and film have all addressed the issue in myriad different ways. Inner cities are one of the more commonly used locations for such tales and indeed some films have dealt with drug abuse in schools. These films have painbted the students as the users who have to find a way out of this before it engulfs them in adult life. Half Nelson skews this scenario.
David Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is a history teacher in an inner-city high school. As the film starts, we see that he is the type of teacher we have seen in many inspirational tales gone past. He talks to the students not as students but as people of his level, he engages the students, they seem actually interested. Not only does he teach History, he also coaches basketball. After a game and a freak encounter with an ex we see that he is not the model teacher we would think he is, he is balancing his life with a crack addicition. After he passes out in the changing rooms and is helped by a student (Sharkia Epps), Dunne starts on a journey of self-destruction where he realises taht he may not be able to save this student from the life she starts on the path down.
After hearing about this film, a pick-up from Sundance last year, on the excellent podcast Filmspotting (www.filmspotting.net), I was intrigued. After hearing that Ryan Gosling had earned an Oscar nomination, I did something I am not prone to do, I blind bought it from a region 1 DVD selling website. I have not heard that this film has been picked up for distribution over here in the UK so I felt compelled to buy it. Considering some of the stuff that does get picked up by the independent distibutors over here, this is a crying shame. This film is exceptional. Not once does the film feel like it is trying to teach you an important moral lesson, it does not try to preach to you at all. It never even truly paints drug dealers to be bad people. A case in point is that you never find out what Frank (Anthony Mackie) the drug dealer did which resulted in the student's brother being sent to prison. Whereas other films would use this as a way of making us hate this character but it does not, he represents and alternate choice who the student could use as a mentor. What happens truly feels organic and this is down to the writing, the direction and the performances, all of which are first rate. Fleck excels in every way he can, and presents himself as a truly promising filmmaker to watch out for. Gosling also cements his place as one of this generations finest young actors. His perfomance is cocky but at the same time tragic. He believes he can change this girl's life but his actions throughout the film show that he just cannot help himself. The drug addiction has created a man who cannot do much with any intergrity. One moment late in the film is truly heartbreaking (You will know when you see it. Not if, when you see it). His face paints a picture words cannot and he truly present s what the character is going through fully.
A fucking remarkable film and one I urge you to see as soon as you can.

Other aspects of the review to follow.

Jesus christ....

2007-02-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a while! Sorry folks, have been very very very busy at work recently and its really been knackering. I have also started making strides with my first screenplay having finally ironed out a few issues in my head with it. Also, frankly, the stuff I have been watching hasn't been worth reviewing. The Black Dahlia was a mess of a film, a pure nonsensical mess, everyone has seen The Terminator but in honour of the forthcoming release of Hot Fuzz (Review here on Saturday as I am going to a screening and Q+A with Simon Pegg + Nick Frost on Friday night which I am almost too excited about), I'll be taking a look at the 3-disc collection of Spaced. I also hope to bring you reviews of The Science of Sleep and Half Nelson (Starring Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling) and hopefully some other stuff too. Buy the new Bloc Party album, also give Little Man Tate's About What You Know a try, good stuff! Should be back tomorrow...

DVD Review: A Scanner Darkly

2007-01-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

Go on then....

DVD Review: A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006, USA).

Phillip K Dick. His work has either inspired or was directly filmed in films such as Blade Runner, Minority Report and fucking Paycheck; some fucking incredible, some bloody shit. But now his work has spawned one of the most creative films of 2006, that film being A Scanner Darkly.
"Fred" (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover narcotics agent working to try and weed out the dealers behind a dangerous addictive substance known as Substance D. To try and do this, he takes on the guise, unbeknown to anyone else, of "Bob Arctor", a former family man who now lives his life being swept up in the drug-induced happenings of his housemates Barris (Robert Downey Jr) and Luckman (Woody Harrelson). During this time, "Fred" is assigned by his superior "Hank" to spy on "Bob Arctor" as he is suspected of being a major part of the Substance D circulation gang. At this time "Fred/Bob" is also becoming more and more reliant on Substance D and is trying to cling on to the one thing he believes he has, girlfriend/dealer Donna (Winona Ryder). Paranoia, depression and wackiness ensues....
The immeadiately striking thing about this is obviously the animation. Filmed as a live-action film and then animated over after, this follows Linklater's turgid first experiment "Waking Life" in creating an animated live-action world. While this felt pretentous in "Waking Life", it feels essential to this film. Not only are some things made possible which would be hard to otherwise, the key example being the "Scramble Suit" "Fred" wears to make himself unseen to people when not undercover, but it also adds immensly to the entire mood of the piece, the film does not feel as if it could really exist without this technique. For this to be not off-putting, but crucial to the film is an acheivement indeed.
The animation does not take away from the writing either. Having not read any of Dick's work, i can not judge the film badsed on its translation. What I can say is that the shifts in tone are awfully off-putting but the film still fully retains the atmosphere created. Some parts are awfully funny, the "Albino skinned lizard-bitches" scene is worth the price of the DVD alone. Rory Cochrane's Freck is also a very funny character full of nervous energy and his suicide attempt is one of the most strangely funny and yet uncomfortable scenes I have ever seen. When the film kicks into its absolute seriousness about an hour in, it really doesn't stop. the plot suddenly kicks in and is truly interesting as "Fred/Bob's" life comes crashing down around him and he literally loses his mind. The film ends on a cracking little couple of twists also and yet retains the sense of a happy ending. Strange considering a Thom Yorke song plays out over the credits....
All the actors do well, even though admittedly its not much of a stretch. Keanu Reeves plays confused. Robert Downey Jr plays a drugged up know it all. Woody Harrelson is permenantly spaced. Winona Ryder is a drugged up hotty. All do well without truly being great. Film doesn't need it.
Wicked film. Confusing both visually and in plot and just ridiuclously watchable. One for the DVD collection methinks. Love the cover art too.

Video: I'm assuming its digital-to-digital, certainly looks it. Great picture, maybe a tad sharp at times but very good. Would love to see the HD-DVD version!

Audio: Decent Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack. Kicks in pretty much at the start but calms down. Very odd, good directional effects spotted throughout but its like they rushed the mix after the first 15 minutes. Perfectly good, but really could have been better.

Extras: Haven't viewed the commentary yet, will post comments when I get round to it. 2 decent documentaries the standard making-of was a bit standard but the animation documentary is very interesting. Doesn't outstay it's welcome and truly shows you how much heartfelt effort was put into getting the film made.

Cracking film, slightly meh DVD especially considering its potential but if you can find it for around the 11 pound mark as I did, well worth a buy. No HD-DVD version yet announced but if you are patient, I reckon it will come eventually.

Wee little update...

2007-01-25T08:54:00.000-08:00

Wrote 95 per cent of my Little Miss Sunshine review last night, took me an hour and I deleted the fucker so... Might do that again later. Just wanted to say that I was going to review The Wicker Man (2006) today but there is no point. I feel sorry for Nicholas Cage but he should have seen that this film was going gownhill at the script stage.I know it has been a passion project of his but apart from being very very funny at points, its fucking pointless. A real waste of time and effort and really not worth your time (Well the last 20 minutes is good for a laugh) Seriosuly go rent/buy the original, much creepier, plot holds up better and it has Christopher Lee in. Enough said.
Buy the new albums by Jamie T and Klaxons, 2007 is upon us and its started very well.
And now your opinions.... I have a bonus hopefully coming my way at the end of March. i was going to put it towards an HD-DVD Player. However, the PS3 with Blu-Ray included has been announced as launching on the 23rd March. This is a time where I could also have a weeks holiday. What do I do? HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? Something else? I want your opinions, message me on my MySpace, found uner Leakage, My Balls!, email me at ian-loring@hotmail.co.uk or leave a comment. Would be very intrigued to see what you guys think I should do...
Back either tomorrow with a review of something, probably either my second attempt at Little Miss Sunshine, or maybe A Scanner Darkly. Otherwise back on Saturday or Sunday (Maybe Sunday cos I'm working this Saturday for once) with my review of the hotly Oscar-tipped Babel. Seriosuly opinions please, would be very nice. Take it easy.

Oscar Nominations Part One

2007-01-23T05:51:00.000-08:00

Best Director - Paul Greengrass nominated for United 93 - He won't win, no way but good on him, terrific film, great visual style and the tone is like nothing I have ever seen. Straight fight between Scorsese and Eastwood, Scorsese will get it.

Best Picture - Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed are the only 2 I have seen. Both great, Little Miss Sunshine, no fucking way. The Departed? Bit of a genre flick but you never know. I'm thinking Babel, seeing it in the wekk but the "important film" feeling puts me off. No Dreamgirls. So it could be a "serious" Oscars then?

Best Actress - Devil Wears Prada? That film gets an Oscar nomination? Dear me! Helen Mirren all the way.

Best Actor - Forrest Whittaker all the way. Doubt anyone comes close. Heard Ryan Gosling was really good in Half Nelson. It still ain't out here though so I don't know. Peter O'Toole! Saw him on The Daily Show last week, fucking legend but not a chance. Leo? Very interested in this film now... Will Smith eh? If he wins, I think Forest Whittaker would have to go all lazy eye on his ass!

Best Foreign Language Film - Pan's Labyrinth!!!!!!!

Best Original Screenplay - Pan's Labyrinth!!!!!!!!

Best Adapted Screenplay - Borat has a screenplay???? Very sad that this is the only big category Children of Men gets a nod in. Think something heavy will get this so straight fight between Notes On A Scandal, The Departed and Little Children here.

Best Editing - Only really technical one I'll talk about, just because the editing in this film is fucking incredible, cuts are seamless, you really get a feel for the atmosphere of the world being created.

Best Animated Film - MONSTER HOUSE! Won't win but great that it was nominated.

Best Supporting Actress - Jenifer Hudson is apparently a cert for Dreamgirls. Very intrigued to see Bable considering that the main acting categories were shut outs. Good for the girl from Little Miss Sunshine I say!

Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin. Best thing about Little Miss Sunshine. Jackie Earl Haley apparently the best thing about Little Children. Djimon Honsou, apparently very powerful in Blood Diamond. Mark Whalberg fucking fantastic in The Departed, and.... Eddie Murphy. Toush one this I must say.

Some interesting stuff. Don't think anything is going to walk away with a shit load. So glad Pan's Labyrinth is getting some love even if its in mainly technical departments. For the first time in a few years, my interest is pricked by all this. What do you folks think?

DVD Review: Thank You For Smoking

2007-01-21T03:06:00.000-08:00

Going to get podcast up by end of the week, should be moving to the new site too. Got a couple of days off work in the week and not much to do so I'll sort it out. Was going to review Rocky Balboa on Friday but the projector broke down at the cinema I went to and I wanted some more money to go out with on Friday night (Thanks to all those I saw, fucking funny night). So in Rocky's place....

DVD Review: Thank You For Smoking (Jason Reitman, 2006, USA).

First time feature director Jason (Son of Ivan) Reitman bites off what many would consider more than he could chew for his first film, a sort of bizarro-world version of a morality tale, hoping to teach us something, while wearing its own twisted value system on it's sleave. For many directors, this could have easily been either a jumbled mess or an in-the-end sacchrine tale. However, not all first-time directors have grown up in the house of the man who directed Ghostbusters....
Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is paid to talk, and talk well. He works as the Vice-President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies, an industry-funded authority who are trying to prove that the bad effects of smoking cannot be conclusivley proven. Naylor then has to convince the world of its findings. Naylor's world is soon turned upside down by two people, his son Joey (Cameron Bright) and investigative reporter Heather (Katie Holmes).
If the premise of the film is not caustic enough, it is added too further by the opening scene in which Naylor is able to convince a day-time talk show audience that the industry is being given a unjustly tough time by the press and even shakes the hand of a child known only as "Cancer Boy"- PC this ain't. However, as original the premise is, and indeed the things which happen in the film hold true to this spirit, less can be said about the screenplay. This film seems to hit every single beat of the "inspirtaional" drama. Father conncecting with his son? Check. Man experiences a fall from grace but through an inspiritional chat is able to get back on top? Yep. Potential love interest? Aye. Man realising who his true friends are? Sure, why not? The whole twisted morale of the piece is able to very well disguise the fact that at heart it is quite the unoriginal piece.
Saying this Reitman does a bang up job of filling this film with enough bells and whistles to still make this a very enjoyable film. If he was not brought up in the film industry, I very much doubt he would score the cast he does. Aaron Eckhart is able to pull off the sleazeball role while retining a large amount of charm, his job may make him a dickhead by default but he does seem to be a nice enough bloke. The fellow "Merchants of Death", Maria Bello and a typecast-but-who-cares David Koechner, pull off their roles with aplomb, Maria Bello is understated and actually fairly affecting and David Koechner the polar opposite but really fucking funny with it, his reaction to Joey's "cool gun" line had me in stiches. JK Simmons as Naylor's boss BR plays his role as a slightly less intimidating version of his editor of the Daily Bugle from the Spider-Man movies and makes it nearly as funny, one-dimesional but like Koechner all the better for it. Cameron Bright pulls off the role of the sun, slightly too old to be cute, but still at a stage where you believe he could be influenced by his dad that much, good work from him overall. Robert Duvall also deserves a mention in a brief but key role as The Captain, solid work as always from him. Rob Lowe is also fucking brilliant as Super Agent Jeff. He has only tow scenes but completely owns them both and his conversation with Naylor in the middle of the night is probably my favourite and also most surreal scene in the film. One weak link as she always is: Katie Holmes. Cannot play either a slut or a reporter well and as such is absolutly bloody useless in this film. Seems like casting with an eye to hitting certain demographics much like her frankly bizarre role as a LAWYER in Batman Begins (Incidentally, no prizes for guessing who is just about the only non-returning player for the sequel, The Dark Knight?). This woman looks too young to pull off the role, hs very little chemistry with Eckhart and while key to a certian aspect of the plot, has very little to do and is dropped from the film completely fairly early in the running. Reitman gets the best perfomances he can from the actors that he can and I would be suprised if he is seen as an "actor's director" as all the actors seem to be enjoying themselves an awful lot. Credit must also go to his directing chops, the man knows hoe to shoot a film. He uses the narration style of story-telling in constantly interesting ways and the film sparkles with energy. All credit to him for managing to pull off this film without once showing a character smoking.
Very enjoyable film, great perofmances and a first-rate directing job. It's just too bad that the film falls on its fundamental unoriginality. I will tell you something, this fault really shows itself up when you watch Monty Python's Life of Brian, pretty much straight after. Forgot how truly silly that film is.

Video: Pretty great transfer , maybe a little soft but given that this film was fairly low-budget it looks good nonetheless.

Audio: Better than expected Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Nice use of surround and in perfectly appropriate places. Not too much bass but this isn't an action film so none really expected. Dialogue is perfectly clear.

Extras not viewed, not very bothered about them either to be honest.

Very much recommended rent.

Back with M Night Shayamalan's Lady In The Water, probably Tuesday and hopefully with news of the new site and podcast.

NEWS!!!

2007-01-17T11:31:00.000-08:00

I may well be shifting off this space in the very near future, Blogger really is terrific but for the kind of stuff I want to do, it isn't quite the right fit. No review today though I will say this: If you get a chance to see Bernando Bertolucci's The Dreamers, see the damn thing. Not only do you get some rather bloody good stuff involving a naked Eva Green, it is also a fascinating little film, ery interesting, and is a VERY cinephile friendly film. Back on Friday/Saturday with my review of Rocky Balboa and maybe a DVD review of Children of Men. Also, assuming I get the web space, I will hopefully have the podcast up and running next week. Its going to be a weekly affair where hopefully I can rope in other folks as well. If anyone is interested in contributing to the website or to the podcast, please email me at ian-loring@hotmail.co.uk and I will be very happy to discuss further. Thanks to everyone who have been reading, more than I thought I must say, and I'll be back on Friday. Let's get Thursday out of the way quick, yeah?

Review: The Last King Of Scotland

2007-01-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

Review: The Last King Of Scotland (Kevin MacDonald, 2006, UK/USA)

One of the more hyped films in both the upmarket papers, The Guardian, The Independent etc, and the most upmarket film magazine in Britian, Sight & Sound, for a good few months now, The Last King Of Scotland arrives on the scene with an awful lot of pre-release hype. Forest Whitaker has already won many awards and is hotly tipped to win an Oscar and the director Kevin MacDonald is a critical darling working on his first ficitonal narrative film. Does the film live up to all the pre-release buzz? In a word, yes.

Johnathan Kerrigan (James McAvoy) is a recently qualified doctor looking for some excitement before embarking on a career as a family doctor. He decides upon working in the villages of Uganda. After a chance incident involving a cow, Idi Amin (Forest Whittaker) and a sprained hand, he is asked to become Idi Amin's physcian. What he does not expect is that as he becomes one of Amin's closest advisors, he will be drawn into a world he can't escape.

The Last King Of Scotland is an odd beast of a film. In the beginning we cannot help but be sucked into the world of Kerrigan. He is obviously a but of a bastard, trying to get into women's pants at every opportunity (Within the first 5 minutes he manages to sleep with a random woman on a bus), but it seems we can relate to him as a young man trying to have a good time before settling into the monotony of working adult life. The world of Uganda is also initially displayed as a world of hope; all the people Kerrigan experiences seem to be happy especially with the coup which has just taken place, putting Amin in power. The first meeting of Kerrigan and Amin also walks a fine line between funny and unsettling and really pulls it off. Amin is charismatic, playful and maybe just a little bit... childish?

This playful tone is very carefully interjected with sinister events as the film unfolds and as it goes on the balance starts to shift. MacDonald working from a script from Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock plays this beautifully and the film turns into a rather tense little thriller detaling Kerrigan's attempts to escape with his life. The film manages to be the weridest of hybrids, a coming of age comedy, a serious study of a terrible and yet seductive man and a conventional thriller. The only thing which felt forced to me was the aspect involving Amin's wife. In terms of conventioanl story telling I understand why it was introuduced, however the film up to this point does not seem to follow any real stereotypes and yet this is one of the oldest in the book. The fate of Amin's wife is anything but conventioanl and provides the climax to what is certainly the most disturbing scene of the film.

James McAvoy does very well with what could be a one-note role, the obnoxious, arrogant young man. His arrogance is broken down throughout the film and McAvoy makes this apparent in even his body language. By the end of the film, the man deserves to die and yet you do not want to see him get fully consumed by the world of Amin. Only a truly great actor could pull that off. Forest Whittaker pretty much runs away with the film. He completely gets taken over by the role, he does not play the calm, patient man seen in films such as Ghost Dog or Panic Room, and he does not appear to be himself. His charming facade is wonderfully played but what is better is his portrayal of the childish brute which he becomes whenever things start to slip from his grasp. Enough praise has been lavished on him from all circles so I'll just say this: I agree with all of it.

One of the best thrillers of recent years, and a fascinating look into the mind of a madman, The Last King Of Scotland deserves to be one of the biggest British films of the year and incidentally, is a stunning return to form for the newly relaunched production arm of Film4.

In the second week of January, we have already seen what will be one of the best films of the year.

Coming Soon....

2007-01-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

(Hopefully) ......

THE PODCAST!!!

Beware....

Review: Apocalypto

2007-01-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

Hello gang. First apologies for the rather poor review of Night At The Museum, really shows I should wait and think about the review insted of reeling out a stream of conciousness.

Review: Apocalypto (Mel Gibson, 2005, USA)

Mel Gibson. Interesting bloke isn't he? Oscar darling with Braveheart, Christian saviour (as such) with Passion of the Christ, whose success, I would say in large part, led to the idea that Apocalypto could become a breakthrough hit. But the contreversy surrounding the "sugartits" incident has quetioned whether Mel Gibson has actually gone too far, whether this film may be one step too far in a somewhat fortuitous career thus far.

Apocalypto is an astoundingly well-made film. From the very first moment, the film shows itself to be a visual feast. Gibson along with the Director of Photography Dean Semler, has managed to create a film which shows off sumptous locales, the village and temple are breathtaking in particular while not forgetting that this film is about a civilisation brought up on living in a tight community and harsh violence. Gibson uses every visual trick he seems to be have in the book (Including the christened by housemate Helly "Boar-Cam") which give the impression of a constantly moving environment. Moving for survival, moving for hunting, moving to a imminent death, Gibson captures it all with an intensity which I cannot say I have seen in even the most hardcore action film in a fair while (Well, except for Crank...) The violence? Probably the most contreversial aspect of the film, while it is pretty extreme, and many pople in my screening seemed to think so, I myself did not think it was too bad, though I think it says something more about me than them...

Judging from this review so far, you think I would love this film. And yet, the narrative holes! Unlike many people, I had few problems with the script (Though "He's fucked" and "I am walking here" are ridiculous), but the sheer logic holes astounded me. I really don't want to give spoilers so I won't but they annoyed me for the entire length of the film, I was annoyed and it only got worse as the film went on. It took me out of the film completely, and I feel that I may have missed something from the sheer brilliance of what was on the screen itself because of it. I don't feel I would bother seeing it again sheerly because of how much this aspect of the film annoyed me. The perfomances were uniformly beliveable and it is quite amazing to think that most of the cast were unknowns. The editing is Oscar worthy, the music was fitting and not too overblown, but... I just can't bring myself to really like it that much.

First real shame of 2007.

Review: Night At The Museum

2007-01-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

Review: Night At The Museum (Shawn Levy, 2006, USA)

So, three choices for films to see on my day off. Flags Of Our Fathers... can't be bothered to be honest, reviews I've read suggest I'll wait for the DVD. Perfume... Go see it next week with Neil, Helly and hopefully Donna during my semi-regular "cinema day" in a double bill with Jew-hater Gibson's Apocalypto (Expect reviews of both next week). Third... Night At The Museum, very middling reviews, but trailers seemed fun enough and a lot of great comic talent was featured, seemed like a good choice. Was it?

Larry (Ben Stiller) is a guy who can't commit to a job but in a last ditch attempt to stay in contact with his son (Jake Cherry) takes a job as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York. When he fins out that the job involves a lot more than playing with the tannoy and sleeping, he has to choose what kind of a man he really is...

The big christmas film from Fox this year is an odd film. It feels like Jumanji (complete with Robin Williams) filled with more comic talent than can possibly share one film. Many of the stars of this film, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, Steve Coogan and arguably, Ricky Gervais, could all headline their own film and pull it off with aplomb. This film combines all of them and somehow makes it work. All the comic stars seem to have their moments (perhaps with the exception of Dick Van Dyke, who seemed slightly bored by it all. Mickey Rooney in particular made me giggle like a child. The script itself is pretty unoriginal and bland but the perfomances elevate it far above its station. The action is fairly unmemorable also but I think children would liek it. This film appeals to all ages but in different ways. Kids would come for the action, the "insiprational" plot, and the silly monkey slapstick (although the slap-fight was priceless). Adults will enjoy the perfomances of the talent on display, all getting their moments to shine. In all, a likeably daft hybrid of family blockbuster and more adult comedy, which I look forward to seeing again. Must see the Brockback Mountain gag again to, I missed it first time (Thanks to Neil and Chris for pointing it out). Back hopefully tomorrow, but defo before the weekend...

DVD Review: Crank

2006-12-31T07:58:00.000-08:00

As promised....

DVD Review: Crank (Neveldine/Taylor, 2006, USA)

Speed in a body. Four such brilliant words. An incredible premise. The best pure action film for a good few years.
Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) has been posioned with the "Beijing Cocktail"; if he doesn't keep his adrenaline up he will die. Before he dies, Chelios has to get revenge on the man who did it to him, Verona (Jose Pablo Casillo).
That's all you need to know. To say anything else would spoil some of the fun of this picture as you are never sure where it is headed next and the spontaenity is very much part of the appeal. Directing duo Neveldine/Taylor (surely previous music video directors) use many tricks in the book and stage some new ones to make this feel truly like an action movie for the 21st century. The eidting smacks of MTV school esque filmmaking but the sheer bravado and surreality of much of the film (the scene with the Japanes businessman seems to mimic Statham;'s Revolver weirdly enough) seem to suggest that these guys have more brains than most hack action directors (Ratner, I'm looking at you). The use of HD cameras is also evident and impressively so. Unlike some of the earlier digitally shot filmsreleased in cinemas, this film retains a very clean and sharp image and iit brings out the more iinventive uses of the camera very well.
The film also has a wicked streak of black humour running throughout it, and while very funny, is very much men's-only humour. It certainly struck a chord with me and my good friend Neil when we saw this at the cinema, and it lost none of its appeal
The film belongs to Statham, barely any characters get a look on and you do not care. Seeing him tear up the streets of LA is surely one of the most enthralling cinematic treats of 2006 and he pulls it off with aplomb. That being said, I found his girfriend played by Amy Smart less annoying than many reviewers seem to have thought.
That's about all I really want to say, I feel I may ruin your experience if I say much more. It's a shame this kind of died in cinemas and as I really do mean it when I say this is one of the best pure action films made in years. Also, if its tagline "Poision in his veins, vengeance in his heart" doesn't get you going, you can't call yourself an action fan lol.

Video: As said in the review the film itself is shot incredibly well with HD cameras. Assuming this is a digital-to-digital transfer as I think it is, it is pretty much the best picture quality you can hope for on DVD.

Audio: Slightly disapointing Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The front gets a lot of action but I didn't feel the rears were used half as much as they could have been. When it does kick in, its more a suprise than anything else. Very nice bass though.

Extras: Teaser trailers for two of my most anticipated films for the first half of 2006, Joe Carnahan's Smokin' Aces, and the follow up to Shaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz". Good stuff to have. Trailer for Crank which reflects the film's style rather well. And that is it.... Would have loved a commentary. Is it just me or are commentaries starting to die out? Real shame.

Great film, average DVD. I couldn't wait to buy it, but if you want, rent it for now and wait until its a fiver in a few months time.

Happy New Year everyone, I'm working at 8 tomorrow morning. Balls.

DVD Review: Snakes On A Motherfucking Plane

2006-12-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

Yep, I'm back, not with a review of the best action film of the year, but THE BEST FILM EVER MADE.

DVD Review: Snakes On A Plane (David R. Ellis, 2006, USA).

"Eddie Kim let a load of vemonous snakes onto the plane".

How's that for a synopsis?

I have quite a long reltionship with this film. Not as long as with Donna but... actually nearly as long. Thats kind of creepy... Anyway, last year I heard of this film on various internet sites. A film starring Samuel L Jackson, the coolest actor alive, starring in a film called Snakes On A Plane. That was before the whole internet got buzz of it (And I mean that, as lame as it sounds). But when it came to the cinema, I didn't see it. I wanted to ee it with a bunch of people, I even offered to pay for Donna's bus fare, ticket, popcorn and drink just so I could have someone there with me, but eventually I admitted defeat. I waited for the DVD. WHY DID I WAIT? I grabbed a few tinnies and stuck it on....
Sean (Nathan Phillips, who two minutes ago I recgonised as being the guy from Wolf Creek), an extreme sports addict, shown by um.. his riding a bike during the titles, witnesses a mob hit by gangster Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson, main villian in two scenes!) and has agent Flynn (Samuel L Jackson) to protect him on a flight to the trial for the murder Kim commited. Obivuously Kim doesn't want this to happen, and so after "exhausting all other option", decides to unleash a load of posioinous snakes on the plane to either a. kill Sean, or b. (and this is the kicker) make sure the plane crashes and no one survives. The plane, its crews, and passengers must band together to try and get out of the situation alive.
Where do I even begin? I can't be objective, I was prepared to be disapointed but god it blew me away, it is absolute pure cheese of the highest order. Very much as well as Crank but in a different way. The dialogue is terrible such as...

"Sir, Are you telling me that your only flight time is on a video game?"

"This plane will go down faster than a Thai hooker"

Two particular favourites. The effects are fucking terrible, I mean really very bad, it looks unfinished, much of the acting is shocking and the titliation in the film is absurd. But it seems to know this. Everyone plays it straight but there are signs. The shitty effects seem to be done so purposefully to illicit laughs, one thing which springs to mind is when a guy gets hit by a nsake smacks his head on a wall and seems to start bleeding through the sheer mild force of the hit to the head. Of the film was being played straight, it could not have got past spec stage without lines such as those above being cut. The actors seem to have been given the instruction to play the thing straight but with a sense of knowing behind the perfomances. Samuel L Jackson is clearly having the time of his life and that comes across in every frame he is in. My favourite part of the film? Sounds odd out of context but some lights come on and you hear a random passenger shout "Snakes!" Love it. That's all I can say. I think many people may very much hate this film, it is rubbish really but rubbish which hits my buttons dead on.

This was a rental copy, I'll have my opinions on the other aspects of the DVD when I buy the retail copy.

What up, yo

2006-12-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the lack of posts this weeks folks, been a hectic one, got a promotion at work and christmas there is hectic so I haven't had a lot of time to watch new stuff that i really want to review. I will say this thought, Poseidon... just a nothing movie really, was going to review it but I didn't what to say. Bought Predator today, looking forward to listening to the DTS soundtrack, droolworthy I bet. Anyway, I'll be back after christmas with a review of what I'm hoping I get for christmas, and the best action film of 2006, Crank. Happy Christmas everyone, don't party too hard, next weekend is gonna be large to!

DVD Review: Monster House

2006-12-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

DVD Review: Monster House (Gil Keenan, 2006, USA).

Interesting one this, I've got to say. Saw a trailer for it an age ago maybe Summer 2005, then forgot about it. Then it came out and the reviews were pretty fucking great. Thought I would wait for the DVD to come out before seeing it, and I really wish I saw it in the cinema. Being raised on 80's kids films, The Goonies, ET, Tron all that stuff. As soon as the Amblin logo (Spielberg's other production company, pretty much attached to ever good kid's film of the 80's), I knew this would be something special. It's both special, 80's but sitting on the cutting edge.
A motion-capture film following on from the frankly disturbing The Polar Express, this film deals with TJ (Mitch Musso) a kid who after a particularly tense encounter with the child-hating owner of the house Mr Nebercrakker (Steve Buscemi), which results in Nebbercrakker being collapsing, finds himself being haunted by the Monster House of the title. He along with his best friend Chowder (Sam Lerner) and new girl in the neighbourhood Jenny (Spencer Locke) must try nto uncover the House's secret before it eats all the children in the neighbourhood on Halloween.
This film pratically drips of the 1980's. Not only is it set in the 80's, it has the nature of kids banding together to try and deal with something extraordinary, and quite possibly life-threatening, like many of the kid's films of the 1980's had. This sense of real adventure seems to have been lost in many of the kid's films of the recent past, instead opting for either endless direct-to-video sequels to Disney classics or well High School cocking Musical. God bless Gil Keenan and the writers, whose names escape me at this point, for bringing back this 1980's feel for todays kids, and big kids like myself.
The motion capture aspect of the film is interesting. Gil Keenan explains that if this film was shot as live action, he would not have been able to attain the sylisitic tone that he wanted to set and indeed the finsihed result is interesting, best described as hyper-real I suppose. The characters look real but something is just a little off with them, certain features are exxagerated. I would also argue that by making this an animated film, the more intense scenes have been lessesened in impact and this could surely have had an effect on its success. It is scary in places, for kids anyway, but it never gets truly to intense for most children, I would think. The film looks superb though. Taking a less photo realistic route than The Polar Express was a great idea as I do not think the computer images can quite pull it off yet (Although Rober Zemickis' upcoming adaption of Beowulf should prove very interesting for this effect). It is certainly very impressive animation.
The voice acting and script is also nigh-on perfect. The film has got some pretty big names in it, Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, Maggie Gyllenhall (who incidentally is fucking incredible in real life), Jason Lee and Steve Buscemi to name just a few, but the film is not overhwlemed by them and this is the kids story, every one of whom does a stand up job of pulling off the fine line walked by all kids between childish playing and the prospect of growing up and getting into the opposite sex (as such).
Overall, if this film doesn;t get some recognition at the Oscar's for the best animated feature category, it really would be a crime. Much better than the frankly mediocre Cars, which will no doubt be nominated also, and also just a great film for all ages, this one is a definite purchase for myself. Anyone not into 1980's nostalgia may just want to rent but you should certainly enter this house!

Video: Digital-to-digital transfer, so no real issues. The film looks great but god I can't help but think of what the Blu-Ray version looks like. I imagine I would drool.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Pretty involving, you get some rear speaker action when you would expect it, and the bass is ever present also, soemthing I find lacking in many modern titles. A truly involving track but maybe a little to involving along with the images for smaller children. An audio descriptive track is also avaliable and that is a great thing to see and a very commendable extra.

Extras: Commentary by Gil Keenan which I have not listened to but will update when I have. Some really great featurettes which can be viewed a whole documentary. Facinating seeing all the actors doing the motion capture themselves and you can see that Gil Keenan's ideas really were very definite at the start. Worth the price of the DVD alone to see Kathleen Turner doing motion capture as the house, one of the most bizarre things you will see in a long time.

Great film, best animated one of the year which I've seen and one I can't wait to show my kids (Well obviously I can wait but... you get the picture).

Back hopefully tomorrow, have a good Friday all!

Review: Magic (Richard Attenborough, 1978, USA)

2006-12-14T13:24:00.000-08:00

This is a film I had been meaning to see for a while now. Mentioned in passing in magazines, never really seen on any show talking about horro and yet the combination of factirs intrigued me. Anthony Hopkins... An evil puppet... Directed by an Attenborough... How could I not want to see this. Only after hearing the trailer discussed on the rather great podcast Filmspotting (look for it on itunes or www.filmspotting.net), did I get the motivation to rent it. And how is it? As weird as it sounds.
Corky (Anthony Hopkins) is a failed magician who suddenly hits it big with a ventriloquist act featuring a dummy called Fats (Voiced by Anthony Hopkins). After getting scared of the level of his success, he goes to his home town where he tries to start a relationship with an old unrequited love, Peggy-Ann (Ann-Margaret), who happens to be married. While doing so, Fats (Or is it Corky's other side), grows increasingly impatient with events. After a tense encounter with Corky's agent Ben (Burgess Meredith), things start to spiral out of control and Fats shows his true self.
This film is hard to find, barely ever on TV and released on a label knon for releasing obscure horror, Anchor Bay. And yet, this is a cracking little thriller which is also really chilling to boot. The whole question of how much of Corky is in Fat's and vice versa is handled brillaintly by Hopkins, Attenborough and the writer William Goldman, adapting his own novel. We are never able to get a true handle on Corky, he is likeable and yet he seems to be psyhotic. You really care about him and it does hurt by the end of the film when you have seen what he has gone through to try and have a happy life. His perfomance during the "five minutes" scene is amazingly subtle; this could have been easily hammed up but in Hopkins hands, he pulls it off with real panache.
The other actors are really orking in Hopkins shadow. Ann-Maraget has a thankless role and acts more like a plot device than anything else, she truly sets off the events of the story but she doesn't really bing anything else to the film. Burgess Meredith brings a touch of showbiz to the film and yet again, where he could have been portrayed as a greedy slimeball but instead seems to really care about Corky. And then there is the puppet... Hopkins makes a chilling alter-ego for Corky in Fats and he really does stay with you after the film ends. As does what could be seen as a "twist" in the end which to be honest, freaked the living shit out of me. The films is wholly ambiguous and whereas sometimes you can see that Corky is obviously one thing, the next scene can contradict that. Thing is, I really don't want to watch it again, as it really did shit me up. And for a film to do that to me these days, is quite a thing. Fucking puppets man.

DVD Review: Brick

2006-12-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

This is an updated version of a review I posted on my previous blog, I'm watching it again at the moment so I thought why not.

DVD Review: Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005, USA).

The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, um Body Heat? Films featuring grizzled heros with fast mouths and even.... um faster women? All, well almost all, classics and in particular classics of the Film Noir genre.

The Breakfast Club, American Pie, She's All That; Films featuring high school kids getting lucky, getting embarrased and getting life experience.

Brick: A grizzled high school kid hero with a fast mouth, getting lucky with a fast woman and getting more experience in high school than I think I'll get in most of my life. When the money men got a hold of the script, their heads must have spun with all the mixing of genre and styles. Not to mention the dialogue... and yet it works staggeringly well.
The story of one high school kid, Brendon Fry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) trying to get to the heart of a mystery involving a whole load of words he doesn't initially understand and the death of his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie De Ravin), Brick is an invloving watch from start to finish. But where to start? Play.com is currently selling Brick with a free glossary of the terms used in the film and indeed at early screenings, glossarys are also handed out. Yet how much of this is required? Noir films such as those mentioned earlier (maybe not so much Body Heat) have prided themselves on their involved, inclusive and maybe somewhat restricted world for years. While Brick may take this principle and run with it completely, I would not feel that a glossary is needed. Simply, you get what they are saying. If you don't get what they are saying, the visuals tell you all you need. Saying that, when I initially watched Brick in the cinema (at the simply awesome Watershed in Bristol), my housemate Jess' head was spinning. This may be becasue she wasn't expecting the dialogue style while I was, but if you are, I think my point remains valid.
Hard to believe Rian Johnson is a first time writer-director judging by this. I would imagine it would be hard to have the courage to pull off anything truly audacious with your first film and yet with the specific example of the chase with the man with the knife? He pulls it off. This specific scene is probably my favourite of the film, just for the fact that the only sound we hear are the sounds of footsteps. The purpose of this is revealed when (SPOILER) Brendon takes his shoes off to mask his footseps and make the crucial move. Suprising style mixed with a narrative purpose? I would say thats audacious and dare I say it original!
Just have to say the Score? I had the theme running in my head for weeks after the film and have it in my head right now.
Perfomances. Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes the character come alive. While he is a bit two-dimesional, a rare case of style over narrative (His history is frustratingly teased but never really explored), the style he has makes up for it in spades. Funny, touching and showing a surreal amount of strength (see any of the fights), Gordon-Levitt shows that with Mysterious Skin and now Brick, he is turning out to be a far more promising proposition than the boy who played Tommy in Third Rock From The Sun should have any right to be.
Nora Zethner as the Femme Fatale, Laura imbides her character with wit, charm, a bit of sluttiness and a sense of something wrong under the surface and does so with ease. Lukas Haas as the enigmatic Pin is just... pleasent really. You know he is dangerous, you get that feeling throughout but... he's just nice really. Emilie De Ravin playing the doomed Emily does her best with a nothing role, but by Christ, she don't look like a High School kid!
Right time to sum up, this has taken far to long and I apologise! Damn damn stylish with a plot which will have you guessing, well I was anyway, with a killer script and some pretty decent perfomances, if I were you I would believe the hype, because Brick deserves it.

Video: Shot on Digital tape, looks pretty great, no real block, bit of artificing every now and then but as it is such a new release it looks as good as it could get on DVD.

Audio: Interesting 5.1 track, only comes alive at specific bits, rears only come into play for music and some set pieces, the car ride with Tug and the foot chase spring to mind/

Extras:

Commentary with Rian Johnson: Good commentary, you can tell he really pired his heart into this, nice anecdotes to, reccomended.

Look at the soundtrack: Very funny look at how a soundtrack can be created.

Video diary by Rian Johnson: Dissapointing four minute video journal, those his observations on the monotony of the press tour makes for some funny viewing.

Trailer: Love, love, love this trailer. Sums up the film perfectly and a little piece of art in itself.

While the film didn't have an effect on me as such efforts as Pi or Donnie Darko, it's still a very impressive debut and the extra features give real added value to the set. A great rental or a solid purchase.

DVD Review: Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (Region 1)

2006-12-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

DVD Review: Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979, 2006, USA).

If anyone has been reading, sorry about the delay. I had a real hectic week at work last week and my PC's fucked so I am using my lovely girlfriend Donna's laptop. So... First film to watch totally with my new home cinema system (Samsung HT-Q20 if anyone is curious). hat better film to go with than the first film to use a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and arguably the best film of the 1970's, and in my opinion one of the best films ever made, Apocalypse Now.

Many have argued the 1970's was the most productive decade in American Cinema yet. Certainly the emphasise placed on the decade in my Film Studies course made me feel that this was the case to. The films of this decade are compelling evidence for this theory. George Lucas' debut THX-1138 was a haunting if not rather derivative science-fiction piece, Robert Altman's Mash was a biting satire dressed in the clothes of a fish out of water comedy which dared to take humour from places you could never expect before, Tobe Hooper took all of America's anxieites regarding Vietnam and the direction the country was taking and turned it into one of the most famous, and certainly most influential, horror films ever made The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Don't get me started on this film, I'll be talking for decades). However, none of these films can hope to even come close to the viscreal, shocking, moving and to be honest just plain fucking incredible visual and aural experience which is Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Based very loosely on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now sounds simple on paper. A hardedned soldier, Captain Willard is given a confidential assignment; to go up river through Vietnam and into Cambodia to "terminate... with extreme prejudice" Col. Kurtz, a once-brilliant soldier who has now go mad and made a society for himself. To make this film as it sounds, and how one of the original writers John Milius would have made it if he had his way, you could have old Arnie go up river, blow up some Vietnamese soldiers, rescue a hot American girl on the way, have an overblown final showdown with Kurtz and walk off into the sunset (or perhaps SURVIVE A FUCKING NUCLEAR EXPLOSION like he does in Predator). What does happen is quite different. Martin Sheen plays Willard a man who though burnt out, just wants to fight. When he gets his mission he believes he is getting his chance. However, as he becomes sucked in to the world of Kurtz through the evidence given to him by his superiors, the more he seems to be drawn in. hile this is happening, he and the crew of the PBR Streetgang the boat he is being escorted on encounter a series of bizarre situations happening all the way up the river. Perhaps the most iconic of these is the sequence early in the film featuring Kilgore, a surf loving General who only agrees to take Willard where he is going ecause one of Willard's crew members Lance, is a famous surfer and the place they need to get to has good surf. Kilgore is quite a character. To paraphrase Willard in the film, he seems to have a light around him which you know will let him survive the war. And yet, he sends his men surfing in the middle of warzones and commits multiple atrocities during the famous Ride of the Valkyries sequence. And oh my that sequence! Exciting and yet rather disturbing I would argue it is the perfect distillation of the excitement you get from seeing violence on screen, the purging of the build up to it, and the horrific nature which you only really realise after you have clapped all the way through the sequence. Robert Duvall is incredible in this sequence, he displays the authoritative aspect you ould expect a man in his position ould have and yet in his recklessness and love of surfing, you can see a little boy who is itching to break out and at some moments does. This is best shown in the Redux cut in a sequence in which he goes looking for a surfboard which Lance stole. As he is looking for it, he shouts through his megaphone, "It was a good board Lance!", this bit cracks me up beyond belief but I can't really say why!
Marlon Brando. Fat, tempermental, demanding. One of the best actors who ever lived. These conflicting aspects are best seen in Apocalypse Now. Sticking largely to improvisitional dialogue, doing what he wants, he truly makes Kurtz his own, and you can see hy illard and Colby before him would want to stay with him. While it is fairly easy to tell that his scenes are really a "best-of" of what Coppola managed to film of Brando. Can't say much more than that.
The whole film, the music, the acting (Martin Sheen has an intensity which will forever be hard to rival), the iconic images, the editing everything about this film is grade-A stuff which considering the nature of the whole production is quite a feat indeed.
A word on the Redux cut. I'll echo what most say, not as good, doesn't flow (the plantation sequence stops the film dead in its tracks) and is far to overblown. It's great as a curio but you will only want to watch it once. Stick to what you know in this case.

Video: Best you will ever see it especially as a Region 2 edition will be hard to come by as the two versions are distributed by different companies (Pathe for the original cut, Miramax for Redux). This print has been remastered, barely any scratches, colours are great, thats about it.

Audio: Fucking spectacular. Watching this film with the whole 5.1 experience is a whole new ball game. Directional effects go all over the place yet the dialogue remains clear. The opening sequence alone is reference material for any AV enthusiast.

Extras: Yet to watch the commentaries, I will post my thoughts when I get round to it. The featurettes are all interesting enough, the birth of 5.1 sound one particularly so but the whole glaring omission of the documentary Hearts of Darkness, renders this Complete Dossier, incomplete and inadequate. They may be rights issues involved, I do not know, but I have been lucky enough to see this and it is a comprehensive and yet funny and insightful look into this modern classic. If this had come ith the package, you would never need another copy of Apocalypse Now ever again, this would be it.

One of the best DVD's of the year, doubt it will ever be released over here but go to www.playusa.com and get it for around a tenner. Worth every penny. Thanks as always for your time.

Review: El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)

2006-11-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

Review: El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) (Guillermo del Toro, 2006, USA).

Looks like I'm going to be towing the critical line on this one.
I'm not even sure I can really write a review after one viewing, this is a film you could watch 20 times and not fully absorbed all there is to it.But, I'll try! Ofelia (Ivanna Baquero) and her mother Carmen (Adriana Gil) are being driven to stay with Carmen's new husband, Captain Vidal (Sergei Lopez) when they stop because Carmen is feeling sick while carrying Vidal's child. While stopped Ofelia finds a rock and places back in a statue where it looks like the rock should be. Doing this, she unleashes a force which could take her to her rightful place, a Princess of the underworld, or damn her to a mortal's life on Earth.
To even tell anymore of this film would ruin it. You need to go in as fresh as possible to fully get everything out of the film. I knew certain things and I feel like it made it less fresh for me and for that I am a lot sadder. All there is to say is that there are twists and turns. Aspects of the Spanish Civil War come into the picture in surprising, disturbing, and moving ways. The film is technically perfect. The art direction, writing, effects, practical make up (Doug Jones does an astounding job as the mysterious faun Pan and as the Pale Man, of who I will say no more), and performances are nothing short of incredible especially based on the small budget del Toro had to work with. Speaking of del Toro, it feels like all the films he has made before have led up to this being his seminal work and he knocks it out of the park. This film, like Cars, is the director's most personal work, and yet it doesn't feel self- indulgent at all. del Toro has things to say to all of us and does them in amazing ways. To say this is the best film of the year feels almost like an insult to the cast and crew, it is certainly the best film of the century so far and I say that with a straight face. That's all I can say.

DVD Review: Cars

2006-11-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

DVD Review: Cars (John Lasseter, 2006, USA).

Pixar, the animation house which could do no wrong. After the massive successes of their previous films, the man who started it all with the Toy Story films came back to make what he regarded as his most personal project yet. Ironically, my biggest problem with the film is the impersonal feel which runs throughout.
Lighting McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson, is an arrogant young racer who wants to win the biggest prize in racing, the Piston Cup. in doing this he can live his dreams and sign for the biggest sponsor there is and become the most famous car in the world. While on his way to a decisive race he finds himself in the sleepy of town of radiator Springs where he leanrsa that life doesn't need to be raced through, sometimes you have to slow down..... If that sounds trite, thats because it is. That's all there is to this film, a cocky arrogant youngster finds out that life isn't about pursuing success in your field, its about friends and appreciating whats around you. Like hicks and desert plains.
This film feels manufactured, like something which has come of a conveyor belt, and if this was just a Disney film, I wouldn't be surprised, but this is Pixar! Makers of Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and The Incredibles, some of the most original, satisfying, funny and downright great animated films there have ever been. And so for a a film like Cars to come from them, is such a crying shame. McQueen goes through many standard narrative tropes. Cocky kid learns lessons slowly, is faced with a stumbling block, gets though it and becomes a changed person. Success isn't everything, friends are important, these are pure cliche. While it could be argued that other Pixar films have extolled these values, I would argue that they have never done so while pushing them down our necks through montages and songs, they have done so through very clever writing and inspired plots. While the writing through this film si sharp at times, and Tow-Mater voiced by American comic Larry the Cable Guy, gets some very good stuff to work with, the whole thing felt flat with me. When the most exciting thing in a film happens in the first 15 minutes (the brilliant race which opens the movie) you know you are in trouble. All the technical aspects are brilliant, the cars themselves look incredible, the landscapes terrific, but with Pixar, the storytelling always shone through. It's just to bad they seem to have forgotten their own rules while making Cars.

Extras: Pretty light for a Pixar film, could be a sign that Disney accept that this didn't do so well in comparison to the other films. We get the obligatory shorts, one created for the DVD, Mater and the Ghostlight which is funny without being memorable, and the short which preceded Cars in the cinema, One Man Band, a funny little thing which while entertaining, you would never feel the urge to watch again. A few standard featurettes fill the disc out and they just go to further emphasise the flatness of the whole package. Bitterly disappointed.

Back tomorrow with my review of Pan's Labyrinth.

DVD Review: Superman 2 - The Richard Donner Cut

2006-11-23T05:56:00.000-08:00

Superman 2: The Richard Donner Cut (Richard Donner, 1980, 2006, USA).

So my review of Godzilla will be up some other time but for now...

Superman 2 had a troubled production as Richard Donner, the man responsible for Superman 1, was kicked off the production by the producers and it was taken over by Richard Lester. Fans have known for years that the material Donner shot was still intact and so, after much petitioning, and coinciding with the forthcoming DVD release of Bryan Singer's affectionate remake Superman Returns, this cut has been assembled by editor Michael Thau under Donner's supervision.
This cut has some of the footage found in Lester's finished film but also contains some amazingly revealing stuff. One of the things about the original release was that while fun in a comic-book way, it felt like the seriousness Donner, along with the man who created the story Mario Puzo, was lost in exchange for a slightly more campy tone (Although who cannot love Terrance Stamp's incredibly hammy performance as General Zod, KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!). While the campiness remains in this version, we also see what could have been. The reintroduction of Marlon Brando as Jor-El, highlights the struggle which forms the backbone to the movie: Can Superman have what he wants while still upholding his duty to man? The debates he and Superman have reinforce this issue. The presence of Lois Lane dressed only in Superman's shirt during this scene also heightens the mature tone. It is not just this which has changed. The opening in Paris has been cut completely and to me this is a good thing as it always seemed like a throwaway sequence in the context of the movie.Lois Lane trying to prove that Clark is Superman is a far better opening as
it adds to as I mentioned before is the main theme of the movie. Also thank god that the frankly bizarre fight at the end with the attacking S's had been cut and replaced with something far more down to earth. However, the reuse of footage from the end of Superman 1 is jarring, although it makes sense in the context of the individual film (Although in terms of continuity, the last scene really does not make sense!) The same goes with the reuse of part of the score but as it really is one of the best film scores ever, I ain't complaining! There is far more which I won't go into here, but it really is amazing how much was found and restored. The footage has been very well restored and the gaps in the film do not ever really jar.
In all, a fascinating look into a film which could, and should, have been but it is very very nice to see it avaliable for anyone interested.

Review: Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny

2006-11-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

Review: Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny (Liam Lynch, 2006, USA).

This is up early as I wanted to get it off my chest so I can concentrate on Godzilla tomorrow.
Jack Black and Kyle Gass' first theatrical piece recalls the often genius HBO specials which they made in the early noughties but to me is an overall disappointment When a film's soundtrack album is funnier than the film itself, you know you are in trouble.
The formation of Tenacious D leads to an ageing rocker (Ben Stiller in a not-funny-enough cameo) pointing the wannabe rock gods giving the guys instructions to gain the Pick of Destiny. They get it, fight Satan and thats it, film over. Along the way, there is much randomness including a cheeringly bizarre early Clockwork Orange homage, and a magical mushroom induced trip with Sasquatch. I'll be honest, those are the only 2 parts I can really remember (and I was sober throughout). The two leads put their all into the film, but it lacks focus and, perhaps, key, a big enough budget for them t0o truly achieve what they want. A car chase aside, the film feels far to much like their HBO specials when you would think they would break everything out with a theatrical stage. The climatic battle with Satan is barely glimpsed in the trailers for a reason; it feels to small to fill the screen. I am sure that in the original script, it was not set in a deserted car park! This is a shame to because the musical num,bers are mainly terrific but outside of them, there are few laughs to be had unless you a re a 15-year old who has just been introduced to the world of weed. The direction is competent enough and Liam Lynch seems to have done as much as he can with the budget. And yet, again, it just feels too small! A crying shame, as this really was one of my most anticipated films of the year. Honestly! I must say also, the opening sequence was wicked, Meat Loaf should have been in the film far more and the kid who plays young JB looks so much like Jack Black, its scary. Too bad the film couldn't match my expectations.
next theatrical review should be Pan's Labyrinth, my most anticipated film of the Winter after Casino Royale. That won't leave me as cold as Tenacious D: POD but if it does, I may cry!

New stuff later....

2006-11-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

Reviews of Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny and the original Godzilla movie newly out on DVD , will be up sometime tomorrow....

Review: Casino Royale

2006-11-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

So I couldn't bloody wait for this. I had holiday from work so instead of waiting till I could see it with friends, I went by myself. A Thursday, 2.15 showing and it was two thirds full, something I doubt would have happened with Die Another Day, or any Brosnan era film such is the anticipation for this film.
Starts with the much-talked of black and white sequence (nice touch with the B/W studio logos to). This sets up the tone of the entire film; downplayed, more based in reality and a new era for Bond. His first kill is harsh, pushing the 12a rating and is pretty great. This is also where we see where this Bond is going to be different, Craig can actually ACT. He is a proper actor. I am sorry and flame me if you will but no Bond since Connery has acted, they have played "Bond". In this scene you can see how unsure Craig is when he finally kills his first man. His second is done with Bond-like panache and yet this sequence sets him up niely; he knows how to do his job, but he is defenitly not the "Bond" we have come to know him as.
This feeling continues on. the first major action sequenc e featuring the frankly scary talents of free-runner Sebastian Foucan has Bond eventually catching his target but having a very tough time doing it. He has to rely on shortcuts to catch the free-runner, he falls down and obviously hurts himself often,, whereas Foucan is able to leap through a window above a door, Craig has to crash through it (one of the many natural, brilliant laughs found in this film). After this sequence, Bond needs treatment, something not often seen (though admittedly a more gimmicky way of showing this was seen in "Die Another Day".
As well as shoowing this new Bond's physical limitations, his mental limitations become key to the plot. The script for this film by regualr Bond scripters, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with polishing done by Oscar-winner Paul Haggis, is able tyo show how the job and the encounters he has within it have made Bond the man we see him as in the other Bond films. By the end of this film we understand how he has come to regard women as coldly as he does thorughoiut the Bond cannon (with a very honoruable exception made to On Her Majesty's Secert Service, itself a reboot of the franchise). Bond is hurt in this film, as said earlier, in both mental and physical ways and as I do not wish to include spoilers that is as much as I will say.
So Daniel Craig? Who gives a shit if he is Bond, he is magnificent. Oozing charm, wit and yet obviously showing that he is not the Bond we know yet, he excels in this role and long may it continue. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd is great, her role is far larger and much more developed than any other Bond girl and considering that she does not appear until nearly an hour into the film, this is no mean feat. You believe every move she makes and yet in hindsight, this should not be the case. She had me as much as she had Bond when it came to her motivations (Looked gourgeous to). Mads Mikklesen as Le Chffre does a commendable job as an enemy who is not as much of a threat as other villians of the best. He is in it to save himself as much as further any other cause and this kind of motivation sucked me in much more than diamonds being put together to control the suns rays, or whatever it was the villain in Die Another Day was doing. The lead in his character makes to future Bond films is very interesting to, could we be seeing another SPECTRE? A mention must also go to Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter who I sorely hope becomes a recurring character as it is great to see an actor of his class trun up in this supporting role.
Martin Campbell does a great job of directing. This guy has been directing action movies for years but with some of these set-pieces, and the car crash, he has obviously pulled all the stops out and congrats to him. I have also got to say something bout the score. While i cannot remember any of the title song, the score was amazing (In fact I am downloading it now). the way it develops the Bond themes over time before unleashing at the end is simply awesome. And the title sequence also? Maginifcant, love the diamonds motif!
Any downsides? As many reviews have started the pacing, in between the torture scene (also pushing 12a, but with some brilliant lines, and Venice specifically is a little slow, considering its run time is around 140 minutes, 10-20 minutes being cut specifically from this section would not have been missed.
Overall though? A great film, not just a great Bond film. thanks largely to Daniel Craig and his actual ACTING but also the great supporting cast, stunts, music, direction and considering the pedigree of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, the writing, this is one of the best of the year for me. Pure fun and a great way to kickstart the Bond franchise. I, for one, cannot wait for Bond to return.

Spelling

2006-11-13T12:21:00.001-08:00

Just re-read that post, many apologies about the spelling, I was in a rush, will be better in the future, thanks....

First Post!!! - Mission Impossible 3 DVD Review....

2006-11-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know who will read this but I may as well introduce myself. My name's Ian Loring, I've just graduated form University of the West of England with a Film Studies degree. I'm writing this blog, which will be reviews and maybe some other stuff, to kinda keep up writing about Films. I hope to do an MA at some point but not just yet and this is something to practice my writing. Anyone is more than likely to give constructive criticism and I would really appreciate it. With that out of the way, lets begin!

DVD Review: Mission Impossible 3 (J.J Abrams, 2006, USA)

After the monster smash which was M-I: 2, M-I:3 was seen as a sure-fire hit. Its amazing what can happen in the development of blockbusters though eh? First David Fincher filled then vacated the director's chair (imagine that....) then celebrated director Joe Carnahan, of Narc fame, filled the chair before leaving due to "creative differences" (Carnahan has now moved on to make Smokin' Aces whose trailer on the Apple site looks suitably gun-tastic). The man who Tom Cruise, as producer, finally selected for the job is the TV demi-God J J Abrams, whose work on Felicity, Alias, and crucially Lost convinced Cruise that he could give the reins of his franchise to a man who had never directed for film before. Abrams wrote a new script (with co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci) and filming went from there. How did the new guy do?
Well in my mind it seems like the big budget pilot for a reborn M:I TV series, albeit one witht he best TV visual effects ever seen. Let me explain my stance. The film does a complete about turn on M:I 2. This film has some sense of characterisation, it tries to bring in new characters with new relationships and new dilemmas. ALl the characters apart from Cruise and Ving Rhames are all new to us, and yet it feels like we are going to learn a lot more about them, or it feels like we should know a lot more about them before the film starts. For example, Johnathan Rhys Meyers' character; he complains in the film about his status as "the driver", he seems to want to do more. If this had been a TV series, you get the feeling this would have been more developed, that we would actually learn about this. Instead, it made me flat out convinced that he would be a traitor. Instead Billy Crudup's character fills that genre trope, though he does so well.
Michelle Monaghan also does well with a thankless role that again you feel Abrams wants to explore much further though he would not get the chance. Phillip Seymour Hoffman positively drips menace as Owen Davian and yet you feel he would make a terrific "big bad", an enemy who could be developed over a lot of TV time. This whole sense of newness in the film puts me off it. I admire what they tried to do, indeed it is certainly one of the best blockbusters in many years in terms of character development and the action sequences are breathlessly done (the bridge sequence, certainly my pick for action scene of the year) but I just wanted more on the relationships. Something I thought I would never say about this film. Oh and by the way I know I haven't mentioned Simon Pegg. But hey everyone knows the guys a fucking god so I need say no more. One more thing... Cruise? He's Tom Cruise he can try and act all he wants but the man fills the "celebrity" stereotype so much, I can't see him as any character. Still though as misguided in many things as I thing he is, the guy is more than capable of putting everything into his action and you can't naysay him for that at least.

DVD:

Video: Pretty damn great, though it is so recent a release it would be hard not to be. DVD mastering has been perfected for so long that i think this is as good as you will get with DVD level quality

Audio: Fine, I don't have a surrond sequence but the mix levels were fine.

Extras (One disc edition): Standard EPK stuff, Generation Cruise seems to be there entirely to make those annoyed by Cruise to be even more so. Commentary? Fuck me Tom Cruise is a happy little monkey isn't he? One thing I did notice is that several times in this, Abrams says somthing then Cruise interprets it as how he sees it and runs with it while Abrams shuts up and agrees. Makes you wonder who had the trousers in their relationship on set.

Verdict: Disapointing but in a suprising way, though a heartily recommended rental

Ok thanks for reading, hopefully back with another tomorrow...

Oh and head to the Apple site and download the Simpsons Movie trailer. That and Spider-Man 3. Next summer man..... oh yesh!