2010 - The Rest Of It: Part 2

Here's the rest of my recent film watching...

Red - It's completely silly but damn good fun. Morgan Freeman was underused, however.

Burke and Hare - Sadly very bland - aside from the curiosity factor of seeing Edinburgh onscreen (and the fact that I saw some of the filming), it's really very forgettable.

Skyline - A superb technology demo and a great display of what can be achieved with a low budget, but otherwise it's pretty much rubbish.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - Probably the second best film of the series after Prisoner of Azkaban - splitting the book finally allows the filmmakers to actually spend time on the plot rather than rushing through at breakneck pace. I'm looking forward to the finale.

Unstoppable - It's a Tony Scott movie about a runaway train and does exactly what it says on the tin. Enjoyable aside from a couple of cringe-inducingly bad moments.

The American - A very good, but sedately paced drama with great acting and cinematography. Don't go in expecting a fast-paced thriller.

Monsters - A stunning technical achievement considering the non-existent budget, but ultimately it's somewhat lacking in plot. A very long, if pretty, 95 minutes.

The Tourist - An enjoyable if unremarkable romp, albeit one which probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense by the end of the film.

Catfish - An excellent, intriguing and surprising documentary. The fact I knew nothing about it going in made it a vastly better experience. The less you know, the better.

Tron: Legacy - The plot still makes no sense but when a film looks that amazing and has such a fantastic musical score, who cares? I'll be seeing it in IMAX...

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2010 - The Rest Of It: Part 1

So, 2010 is nearly over. And I haven't written a film review since August. Oops.

Anyway, it's obviously too late to catch up properly now so here's a very brief run-through (in two parts) of what I thought of the films I've seen since. As ever I have managed to miss a few big ones, but hey, that's what LoveFilm is for, right?

Knight & Day - Entertaining enough for a couple of hours but otherwise fairly forgettable.

The A-Team - It's dumb, it's fun, and Sharlto Copley (from District 9) steals the show.

The Expendables - Even for an 80's-style action movie, the plot's thin, and it's really rather dull. The much-vaunted cast is actually quite underwhelming when you realise that Willis and Schwarzenegger are there for literally one scene.

The Illusionist - I didn't think the story was particularly interesting or enjoyable, but it's worth seeing for the beautifully animated rendition of Edinburgh alone.

Salt - Nothing particularly original but enjoyable nonetheless. I admit that at the midpoint I was genuinely unsure about where the plot was heading, which was refreshing.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World - Fantastically entertaining, visually exciting, and flat-out bonkers. It's great!

Winter's Bone - A very good film with some superb performances, but it certainly isn't fun to watch. One to be appreciated rather than enjoyed...

The Town - A highly-entertaining, solidly-made and well-acted heist thriller that proves that Ben Affleck actually is quite talented after all.

The Social Network - Absolutely superb, one of the best films of the year. Fast-paced, intriguing, and fantastically stylish. Not bad considering I thought the film would be a disaster when I first heard of it.

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Spamalot

- "Look my liege! A review!"

- "A review!"

- "A review!"

- "It's only a musical."

- "Shh!"

Yes, I know it's not a film, but it's based on a film, so that's close enough, surely?

The Monty Python musical is currently playing at the Edinburgh Playhouse this week and given that it's many years since I last saw a theatre production I felt this was an ideal opportunity to rectify that. I didn't know much about the musical in advance aside from the fact that it was written by Eric Idle and based upon Monty Python and the Holy Grail - so I was a little surprised just how closely it resembles the film. In fact, aside from the addition of new songs, this is almost a word-for-word re-enactment of the original movie.

This does of course mean that Spamalot is very entertaining - after all, the film is brilliant - but I can't help feeling that after so many years more newer material could have been added. The new songs are generally not all that funny (a couple of them excepted), but at least they are still very well produced. As it happens, the funniest moment was during the Knights of Ni scene, where the cast on stage nearly started cracking up from an obvious inside joke.

Overall, I would say it's worth seeing, despite maybe not quite living up to its potential. Provided you like Monty Python, of course. And if you don't, what's wrong with you?

P.S. A complete random aside: Todd Carty from EastEnders plays Patsy the "horse" and is surprisingly short.

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Universal Prepares to Sink a Battleship

Another one to file under Hollywood madness... a movie adaptation of Battleship - yes, the board game - featuring an alien invasion and starring Rihanna in one of the major roles. Oh dear.

And just to top it off, according to this report, the film is costing in the region of $200 million.

This cannot end well.

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Predators, Toy Story 3, Splice

I'm developing another backlog of films to review so it's time for another set of shorter comments. First off, a rather wide-ranging selection of films...

Predators

Wisely ignoring the very average Predator 2 and the awful Alien vs Predator movies, this sequel is a faithful follow-up to the 1987 original - perhaps too faithful. This time round, a collection of criminals, soldiers and assassins wake up to find themselves abducted and dumped on an alien planet - albeit one that looks like any Earth-bound jungle - and being used as game for a group of bigger, nastier Predators. To be honest, there isn't much to be said about Predators - it's moderately entertaining, doesn't last any longer than it should and is well put-together. Besides that, it's extremely predictable, rarely exciting and the numerous references to the original film almost verge into rip-off territory at times. Adrien Brody does a better job at being an action star than I'd have imagined, but he's no Schwarzenegger.

VERDICT: Average sci-fi action that passes the time well.

Toy Story 3

I like the first two Toy Story movies a lot, but I don't love them - Pixar have made several better films. I wasn't particularly anticipating the third instalment, especially after a set of frankly poor trailers, but after the torrent of overwhelming praise I did find myself looking forward to it. And in the end? I liked it, but I didn't love it. It is great fun and genuinely moving at times (although not as much as I'd heard), and the animation is of course spectacular, but ultimately I would still rank The Incredibles and Wall-E ahead of it. And the 3D is probably an even greater waste of time and money than it was for Up.

VERDICT: The best Toy Story film, but not Pixar's best.

Splice

Oh look, it's Adrien Brody again.

As a huge fan of Cube and especially Cypher, I was very much looking forward to Vincenzo Natali's next sci-fi movie. The plot is certainly intriguing; two geneticists experimenting in merging the genes of different species to produce new lifeforms rashly decide to splice in some human DNA, resulting in the birth of Dren, a fast-growing armless rodent that quickly develops into a highly intelligent feminine humanoid. The scientists (Brody and Sarah Polley) develop a bizarre parental bond with the creature, but struggle to cope when Dren becomes restless and curious about the outside world. Unfortunately what begins as a thought-provoking, Cronenberg-inspired drama eventually descends into an oddly controversial creature-feature horror. Some of the later plot developments are highly likely to divide audiences, with one scene in particular eliciting a mixture of shocked gasps and laughter from the audience I saw it with. While I didn't particularly object to those aspects of the plot, I do still think that Splice's final act is a bit of a predictable mess and squanders a lot of potential.

VERDICT: An interesting but ultimately disappointing effort.

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Who'd have thought it...

... I'm actually looking forward to a new sitcom with Matt LeBlanc in it. Sure, he was fun in Friends but what little of Joey I saw was painful. However, Showtime are launching a new sitcom called Episodes featuring Matt LeBlanc as... Matt LeBlanc. The trailer is fantastic:

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Inception

I'm not even going to bother trying to explain the intricate, complex, mind-bending plot. Or talk about the stunning visuals and awesome action scenes. Or the fine acting from a superb cast. Or the wonderful cinematography, production design, editing and music.

What I will say is: Inception is an amazing film and an absolute must-see on the big screen.

It's perhaps not quite the all-action spectacular that the trailers indicated it to be, and I may have fallen victim to slight over-hyping, but the fact remains that this is the best film released so far this year and likely will only get better with repeated viewings. Most of the criticisms I've heard stem from the "confusing" plot - in reality, the story isn't too hard to follow provided you pay attention, although some of the more detailed nuances can be a little hard to grasp at first. Ultimately it doesn't matter; it's so exciting that you won't care.

This now means that Christopher Nolan has made seven truly great films out of seven attempts. Why doesn't he have an Oscar already?

VERDICT: Just go see it. Now!

IMDb

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2010 So Far

So, we're already half way through 2010 (yikes) and I haven't written a single film review. Oops.

Anyway, without further ado, here's a quick rundown of everything I've seen so far this year. Sadly I have managed to miss quite a few big films this year through poor timing/apathy/general laziness...

The Book of Eli

Fairly standard post-apocalyptic stuff with a genuinely surprising ending... albeit one that brings the logic of the entire film into question.

VERDICT: Entertaining if implausible.

The Road

More post-apocalyptic fare. Tense, gripping, beautiful, wonderfully acted, but also possibly one of the most unrelentingly depressing movies I've ever seen.

VERDICT: Definitely worth seeing as long as you're in the right mindset.

Up In The Air

A genuinely funny and moving comedy-drama, well-deserving of its Oscar nominations. It's also pretty much the perfect role for George Clooney.

VERDICT: A great film, watch it.

Invictus

I have to say, if I was going to make a biopic of Nelson Mandela with possibly the most ideally-suited actor for the role in Morgan Freeman, I wouldn't have chosen to focus on the Rugby World Cup. As it turns out Invictus tries too hard to make everything seem more dramatic than it really was, and the result isn't really that interesting anyway. Freeman's accent also wanders around quite erratically.

VERDICT: A bit dull, to be honest.

Shutter Island

A tense, intriguing, Hitchcockian thriller featuring some fine acting, editing and cinematography. I do wish I hadn't seen the trailer though, as it meant that I could work out the ending a mile off.

VERDICT: Well worth seeing, but avoid the trailers!

Alice in Wonderland

To be honest, I didn't see the point. Even Tim Burton didn't seem interested, there was hardly any of his trademark style on display here. The converted 3D wasn't as bad as I expected but still seemed pointless. How did this make a billion dollars?

VERDICT: Forgettable.

Kick-Ass

The title pretty much says it all. I had so much politically-incorrect fun I saw it twice.

VERDICT: Kick-Ass. (I couldn't help myself!)

Clash of the Titans

An inoffensive but ultimately slightly dull remake of a frankly terrible 1981 "epic". At least the original was entertaining in its awfulness, this was just forgettable (and clear rewritten during filming). I intentionally avoided the apparently disastrous 3D conversion.

VERDICT: It passes the time, but that's about it.

Iron Man 2

I actually enjoyed this more than the original, much to my surprise. I do however admit that it's a whole heck of a lot sillier (to the point of absurdity at times, which does undermine the generally serious approach of the original), and the final battle is over before it even starts, but overall I had a lot of fun. Maybe I just liked all the RoboCop 2 references.

VERDICT: Really fun entertainment.

Prince of Persia

Another video game adaptation, another terrible film. The dialogue and acting were truly painful, and Gemma Arterton seems to have wandered in from the set of Clash of the Titans and decided to continue playing the exact same character...

VERDICT: Avoid!

Robin Hood

After hearing some decidedly mixed reviews I was very pleasantly surprised by this. A new approach to the story, exciting battle scenes and a surprising amount of humour made for a very enjoyable film, and I would genuinely like to see a sequel. Not sure we'll get one, though...

VERDICT: Definitely worth a watch.

And that's it... only 11 films. This must easily be the most lacklustre start to a year I can remember. Thankfully it's only a couple more weeks until Inception hopefully kicks things into gear...

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The Googling

It's only a matter of time...

It's the first in a five-part series, all of which are worth watching - check them out on Youtube...

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Confused

Could it be? A new post? Somebody alert the media.

At some point I will post my opinions on 2010's crop of films so far (honest!) - although the overall response to what I've seen this year so far would be "meh". However, in an attempt to keep this blog alive for the 3 people who may actually look at it, I'm going to start making shorter posts, probably film, TV or game related. Expect lots of links to trailers and posters. Which of course does mean that this site may not be much better than another news aggregation site (well, a lot worse actually) but hey, at least it'll be something...

Anyway, to kick things off, I'm still trying to wrap myself around the concept of The Social Network - a film about the creation of Facebook, with a cast featuring Justin Timberlake, written by the creator of The West Wing and directed by the man behind Fight Club and Se7en? Bizarre. What's even stranger is that the early word suggests that it'll actually be good.

It's not out for a while yet but here's a poster, which suggests that the film may be focusing on some of Mark Zuckerberg's more nefarious activities:

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Top 10 Films of 2009 (UK)

So, it's almost halfway through January so I'm probably overdue with my list of the 10 best films out of the 54 I saw in 2009.

As for how I'm classifying "best", well, that's a bit hazy to be honest. After all, a film can be artistically superb but not be as entertaining as a no-brain summer blockbuster, and of course my general mood both when watching a film and now when I look back on it can have a big effect on my opinion. In general I've simply asked myself "Which films would I most like to watch again?" - but there are some exceptions to that.

One slightly confusing aspect to the list - this list is based purely on films released in the UK during 2009, hence the presence of some of last year's Oscar contenders (and the potential absence of some of this year's likely nominees). In a few months I will hopefully have caught up with the rest of the US 2009 releases and can post a second top 10 that will match up with the Oscars better.

Anyway, on to the list:

1. District 9
2. Watchmen
3. The Hurt Locker
4. Star Trek
5. Revolutionary Road
6. Moon
7. The Wrestler
8. The Hangover
9. Frost/Nixon
10. Inglourious Basterds

Honourable Mention: In The Loop - a film I didn't review as I saw it on Blu-Ray, made it to number 11 on my list.

As you can tell, I like my sci-fi films. My review of Watchmen may not have indicated that I liked it as much as it's number 2 position implies, but a second viewing left me with a much improved opinion. The Hangover clinging on in number 8 may not hold up to a second viewing, however...

And while I'm at it, here's my list of the Top (Bottom) 5 Worst Films of 2009:

1. Repo! The Genetic Opera
2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
3. Where The Wild Things Are
4. The Spirit
5. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

It's actually debatable whether or not Repo! counts as it never actually got a real cinema release, only a special one-off screening I had the misfortune of attending. In which case, G.I. Joe would be worst film and the crushingly dull A Christmas Carol would slot in at number 5.

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Sherlock Holmes, Where The Wild Things Are, Nine

So, on to the final three 2009 releases that I saw:

Sherlock Holmes

Crucial to your enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes is bearing in mind that this isn't a true Sherlock Holmes adaptation. It is instead a 19th-century comic-book action movie which happens to share certain characters and ideas with Conan-Doyle's novels. If you can manage that then chances are you will find Guy Ritchie's first foray into Hollywood to be quite fun. It's stylish, well-acted, features some good action scenes and is fairly amusing. Whilst not quite the spectacular roller-coaster some early reviews promised, it does enough to warrant the start of a new franchise and the sequel has already been set up very well.

VERDICT: Enjoyable enough if a little forgettable.

Where The Wild Things Are

An adaptation of a (supposedly) classic children's book, Where The Wild Things Are tells the story of an obnoxious brat who runs away from home and finds himself in a fantasy world populated by large furry monsters, screws everything up there and then returns home. I really can't see the appeal, especially as the director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) has opted for a very indie-movie, grown-up approach resulting in a film that is boring for children and contains no plot for adults. The cinematography and the creature costumes/effects are very impressive though.

VERDICT: A waste of time.

Nine

Another Broadway musical adaptation from the director of Chicago, Nine was widely expected to be a major Oscar contender, but poor reviews and box office have put paid to that. As you would expect from a cast with a combined 7 Oscar wins (and 11 further nominations) the acting is good (Marillon Cotillard being the stand-out), and the cinematography, production design, costumes and so on are excellent. Unfortunately the plot itself doesn't have much substance and the songs aren't very memorable. All in all a lackluster effort.

VERDICT: It's okay but very forgettable.

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