solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

It’s more than possible this will be the second positive review i’ve done in a row after ‘Hot Fuzz’, meaning of course I may have to self-harm afterwards in order to build up my inner-hatred again, or maybe i’ll just go and watch ‘Smokin’ Aces‘ for a second time.

On Friday I had the good fortune (along with a group of other UK bloggers) to see ‘300′. Now I’ll admit I’ve been looking forward to this film for a long time, and following any new developments closely (Just do a search on 300 and see how many posts turn up… there’s a ridiculous amount). I’ve had faith in Zack Snyder from the beginning as I really liked his previous project; the remake of ‘Dawn of the Dead’, but still I attempted to walk into ‘300′ without bias. So after sitting for 2 hours and taking it all in, I was happy from the feeling that all my coverage hadn’t been a waste of time. ‘300′ is an epic and brutal film, that perfectly encapsulates Frank Millers graphic novel, and if anything improves upon it. ‘300′ really does live up to the hype and visually looks like nothing i’ve ever seen before. It’s combination of unique visual style, old-school storytelling, graphic and exciting battle scenes and just straight-up balls-to-the-wall action make it near unmissable on the big screen.

Despite having roots in real events, the film ‘300′ is based purely on the Frank Miller graphic novel of the same name, and is every inch a comic-book adaptation of one of histories great last stands, drawing more on myth, legend and Miller’s own imagination rather than anything resembling historical fact.

The book and subsequently the film ‘300′ is a retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, where King Leonidas of Sparta took a group of men to fight back against the Persian invasion of Greece. Despite being grossly out numbered the 300 Spartan soldiers used the terrain and their superior training to make a stand against Xerxes (the king of Persia) and his army numbering more than 100,000.

I’ve always been slightly scared of old women. There. I’ve said it. This fear probably stems from being aggressively verbally abused on a regular basis by the mad old bag that lived on the street where I grew up. She used to sit on the corner shouting at all passers by like Satan’s right hand woman. Not nice. Needless to say, Richard Eyre’s new film, Notes On A Scandal, has done little to allay these fears.

Based on Zoe Heller’s book of the same name, and with Patrick Marber (Closer) on screenplay duties, Notes On A Scandal tells the story of Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) an art teacher who indulges in a bit of extra curricular activity with one of her fifteen year old pupils.

The affair goes unnoticed until Sheba’s colleague and confidante, lonely spinster Barbara (Judi Dench), discovers their secret. Instead of reporting her to the school as protocol dictates, Barbara decides that it is best to keep the secret between them as long as the affair is bought to an end. Sheba agrees, and relieved by Barbera’s compassion and loyalty offers her friendship in return. This is all well and good for a while, but before long their relationship descends into blackmail, and without giving too much away, eventually their ‘friendship’ dissolves with disastrous consequences.

On the whole the performances are pretty strong. Judi Dench is genuinely disturbing as the desperate, and deranged Barbara. You can’t help but think if she played M in the same way that Bond would never step out of line. Bill Nighy turns in a good performance as Sheba’s husband, as does newcomer Andrew Simpson as the object of her affections. In fact, my only real issue is with Blanchett. I felt the same way about her performance in Notes… as I did about her role in Babel. Unconvincing. I can’t really put my finger on why, but for me parts of her portrayal of Sheba just didn’t really seem to ring true.

That being said, it’s still an enjoyable film with elements of both thriller and black comedy, Dench’s Oscar nomination is well deserved, and Philip Glass’ score builds tension in all the right places. All in all, well worth a look.

Check out the trailer here

Release Dates for different countries are here

Considering I’ve been raving about Hot Fuzz for what feels like forever, It feels slightly pointless writing a review of it. I’m almost tired of it, but I think I might actually just be weary of hearing myself rave about it rather than tired of the film itself. Somehow, i’ll find the strength deep inside myself to struggle through. Life is tough, I know it.

With their first foray on to the big-screen ‘Shaun of the Dead’, director Edgar Wright and co-writer/star Simon Pegg made an almost near perfect film. The problem of course being that when you set such a high standard for yourself straight out of the gate, the expectations and pressure to deliver associated with your follow-up is immense. The second film is either going to show the way a director is going to perform through the rest of his career or be the ‘difficult second albwwum’ that drives them face first into the ground. While not quite as flawless as ‘Shaun’, ‘Hot Fuzz’ is cinematic genius, and an admirable follow-up to the best(only) zombie-rom-com i’ve ever seen.

Hot Fuzz’s few minor flaws are all easily overcome by the films many varied strong points. The film manages to juggle a large cast of famous faces around the leads without anyone ever becoming a forgettable character, it nods to explosive cop-based action films and manages to sex-up the British constabulary (so to speak) at the same time, it also deftly handles the mix of comedy, occasional drama, and things exploding. Hot Fuzz also does something that Edgar has always been good at; hitting you with something quick and funny, and sneaking up the subtle jokes on you like a mild sex-disease at the same time. That’s a good thing, despite how I phrased it.

If you’ve seen the trailer you know the basic plot, and I don’t want to spoil anything by going too heavily into it, so I won’t. Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a top London cop who is forced into transferring to a Sergeant’s position in the sleepy West country village of Sandford after outshining all his fellow metropolitan officers by being simply too good at his job. The pace of life in Sandford is a little slower than Sergeant Angel is used to, so slow in fact it’s classified as the safest place to live in England.

I'm a little late with this so forgive me but I felt it imperative to correct some wrong in the world. I recently explained my utter dislike of Babel which I wont do again but it's enough to say it's as miserly a piece of cinema as you're likely to see. SO to restore some balance to the force I thought I'd recount my experience with Pan's Labyrinth. Written and Directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Blade II, The Devil's Backbone - apparently a mirror image of this film!). 

It's the story of a young girl who is forced to move to the Spanish countryside with her mother, who in turn is pregnant with the child of the villages psychotic Captain. The Capitan is interested in only one thing that of his prospective son. All of this is set against the back drop of Franco's rise and the brutal culture that brought with it.

Okay so that's the basics but what Del Toro delivers is utterly stunning, to escape the madness of the world around her Ofilia the young girl escapes into a fantastical world which by stark contrast to the gray severe  world of Fascist Spain is literally mesmerizing. The fantasy is warm and rich and populated by Fairies, and various magical creatures including the famed Pan. What impresses is the attention to detail how everything conspires to relay the narrative from the stunning sound design, Pan creaks and groans symphonically, to the character design which beautifully blends physical effects with CGI. The fact that he could have used CGI but didn't adds to the magic and the crafted skill with which he tells his tale. Del Toro's visual language is also amazing capturing all the darkness of the Brothers Grimm though what feels like a horror film but skillfully avoiding the gore whilst retaining the tension.  The film is beautiful, beguiling, sublimely acted and an utter delight. Sadly I doubt I'll come across anything like this for a very long time…but if you haven't seen it do, and cross your fingers it cleans up at the Oscars and not the rubbish Babel. It has restored my faith in film making. 

N.B Pan's People where a dance troupe that would grace the set of Top of the Pops back int he 70's and has nothing what so ever to do with this review.

"My name is Chev Chelios, and today is the day I die"

Now this gem is out on DVD I thought it got the fair hearing it deserves. It’s a bit hard to know where to start with ‘Crank’ as I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen a film quite like it, but the formula seems to be ‘take all the elements of a B movie action film and crank them up to 11’. Lets look at some of the evidence.

Exhibit A: The name Chev Chelios. A character surely conceived as a Hispanic gang-banger before true Brit Statham landed the role. You may question why the filmmakers didn’t bother to change it, but why the hell should they? It’s a totally ridiculous, but it works. In fact it may just be the best name ever. I’m even tempted to get my name changed by deed pole.

Exhibit B: The plot. Chelios (Statham) is an assassin working for a West Coast crime syndicate. Due to the nature of his work, Chelios has made a few enemies, and none more than a hombre called Verona (played by Jose Pablo Cantillo in a style so exuberant that could out booya the Booya Tribe) who breaks into his house to inject him whilst he’s out cold with ‘The Beijing Cocktail’, a deadly poison that will kill him the second his heart rate drops below a certain point. The rest of the film is dedicated to Chelios keeping his heart rate up (more on this shortly) whilst haring across LA to settle scores before he checks out. Just another day in the office, right?

Exhibit C: Keeping that heart rate up. These start off in a pretty run of the mill way. Running, driving fast, trying to get hold of adrenaline from a chemist etc, but quickly escalate. Starting a fight with a biker gang, stealing a policeman’s motorcycle (and then taunting him with it), nosing up coke off the floor, and boning his girlfriend (Amy Smart – hot) in the middle of Chinatown in front of an ever-growing crowd. But my favourite, holding a medical team with a defibrillator at gunpoint and demanding, “juice me!” This sort of thing happens to me every day, but I can appreciate that for the average punter this may seem a bit over the top.

Aside from ‘The Last King of Scotland’ the only other Kevin Macdonald film I’ve seen is ‘Touching The Void’, an entertaining, and at times hilarious, film about a pretty horrific subject, namely a climbing disaster and the life and death consequences of it. In many ways ‘The Last King Of Scotland’ is similar. The bloody regime of dictator Idi Amin is hardly a cheery subject, and yet Macdonald has created another really enjoyable piece of cinema from horrifying source material.

Based on Giles Foden’s book of the same name, ‘The Last King of Scotland’ tells the story of Idi Amin's brutal dictatorship over Uganda in the 1970's as seen through the eyes of fictionalised Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan. Both Forrest Whitaker (Amin) and James McAvoy (Garrigan) turn in strong performances, with the former playing the schizophrenic dictator to spine chilling T. One minute the charismatic and cheerful gentle giant, the next the paranoid, cold-blooded psychopath.

Although this has generated some criticism, for me one of the most interesting things about ‘Last King of Scotland’ is that for most of the film the horrors of Amin’s dictatorship are only really alluded to (Amin is believed to be responsible for the massacre of over 300,000 people during his regime), with the plot predominantly concentrating on his relationships with those around him. This not only goes some way to explaining how someone as clearly evil as Amin managed to use his personality and charisma to win the people of Uganda over, but also provides the calm before the storm for when the penny finally drops for Garrigan and he finds out exactly what Amin has been up to.

The final third of the film is pretty mental as Amin properly loses the plot and Garrigan’s world falls apart around him. It does go a bit over the top, but not enough to take the shine off what I thought was an entertaining, good-looking and thought provoking film.

I’ll certainly never look at a fishhook in the same light ever again. Recommended.

Paul Verhoeven is an odd guy, I'm not totally sure how he's perceived in Hollywood but I'm sure to most people he's the Dutch guy that makes big-screen soft core porn movies. Verhoeven's Hollywood career has been chequered, with most of his films wavering  between the aforementioned porn and intensely violent action films with a undercurrent of satire. In one hand he holds crap like 'Showgirls' and 'Basic Instinct' which barely even qualify for the 'so-bad-they're-good' category and with the other he holds gems like 'Robocop' and 'Starship Troopers'. The thing most cinema goers are unaware of is that he made some really interesting films before he hit the states, normally starring his man of the hour Rutger Hauer; 'Soldier of Orange', 'A girl called Katy Tippel' and 'Turkish Delight'. 

By returning to his roots Verhoeven has made a really great World War 2 drama that follows the story of  Rachel Steinn (Carice Van Houten) a young Jewish singer who's hiding place in the occupied north of Holland is destroyed by a stray bomb and so decides to cross the Biesbosch and flee to the liberated south. When the crossing goes tragically wrong Rachel Stein is forced back into the occupied north and is recruited by the resistance. With her feminine charms being of great asset to the resistance Rachel is sent undercover to seduce the head of the Gestapo Ludwig Müntze (Sebastian Koch).

It's easy to presume from the trailer that 'Black Book' is a harrowing World War 2 film, with touches of 'Downfall' and 'Schindler's List' while in fact the tone is much lighter than that, and switches smoothly between 'mission movie' and 'tragi-drama' without missing a beat. I went into the film with very few preconceptions and that was absolutely the best way to view it, as what was presented to me really surprised me and kept me gripped to the screen for the entire 2 hours.

Verhoeven is obviously back in his element and has a real story to chew on for a change. The plot is nicely paced, but does has a tendency to be overly convoluted in places with characters uttering something early in the film and paying it off at a later point. You see these pay-off's coming a mile away but it never overly detracts from the plot that keeps ticking over. As fluffy as the story can get at times it's still holds up, with some nicely rounded characters adding texture to the contrivances taking place around them (Carice Van Houten is stand out in the lead).

Last night I was lucky enough to see one of the first full screenings of Hot Fuzz. While I'm going to write a proper review nearer the release date (16th Feb in the UK, 13th of April in the US), but it's fresh in my mind and I need to write down what I thought of it.

Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost. I've been following these guys since episode one of series one of 'Spaced' the UK tv comedy that brought them to everyone's attention. 'Shaun of the Dead' is one of my favourite films of the last couple of years, so obviously my anticipation for 'Hot Fuzz' was also quite high. Wright (writer/director) and Pegg (writer/lead) did not let me down, I never expected them too, and i'm glad that preconception wasn't shattered.

At one point while I was sat in the cinema, I had to take a little step back and say to myself "Am I actually enjoying this as much as I think I am?"… then the film would hit me with the punchline of a joke they'd been setting up for 12 minutes (without you realising) and I'd know..yes… I am enjoying it that much.

It's difficult to describe how good 'Hot Fuzz' is, without gushing like a total fan-boy but It really is great. I don't want to over-hype it, but as a point of reference; Shaun of the Dead was Edgar and Simon's love song to 'Dawn of the Dead', 'The Evil Dead', 'Day of the Dead', and 'Night of the Living Dead', 'Hot Fuzz' is their new album of songs dedicated to 'Bad Boys', 'Bad Boys 2', 'Point Break', 'Commando', and 'The Wicker Man'. That was one of the things that was so great about 'Shaun' and is equally true of 'Hot Fuzz', the films are littered with movie references both obvious and subtle, If you get them you're loving it, but if you don't there's enough jokes to make you love it anyway. 

While sat there last night there was at least one occasion where I picked up on a line that was a movie reference, and myself and perhaps five other people in the audience got it and chuckled, but then the film hits you with something so obviously funny the entire crowd erupted in laughter, and there-in lies the genius.

Before I go any further, I have to say I just don't see what all the fuss is about… I watched The Host and it got a big fat "Meh" from me. I'm big onto my monster flicks, and love Korean cinema, but I couldn't help but feel totally let down by the movie. I wrote a review a few weeks ago, the day after I'd seen it:

The Host is definately not the one with the mostest. Being a big fan of Korean cinema, I was eagerly anticipating this movie, as I'd heard that it had done really well in Korea, and the internet buzz was pretty positively looking forward to it. So, I toodled along down to the cinema to be entertained. I wasn't expecting anything more than a creature fest, with a little style. Sadly, I was thoroughly disappointed.

Its the story of a beast thats born through a chemical mishap in the Han River (which incidentally is a beautifull place!). Creature gets big, people get eaten and chased. There's a Virus that people that come into contact with the beast contract, and there's also confusion over whether said virus actually exists or not (I didnt quite figure this one out even though I sat through the whole thing). A girl gets taken to its lair in a sewer tunnel off the river, from where she calls her dad on her cell phone. Her dad, an absolute idiot, embarks on a mission to save her. Now, I'm not an easy man to disappoint when it comes to Asian Cinema, however, this one took the biscuit. The subtitles for a start, were extremely badly translated. It would seem whichever translation company got the gig either didn't have enough time, or they were very, VERY cheap. The acting is atrocious. Even for slapstick asian style flicks. As for the creature, please… most of the time it looked like a big blob with a couple of legs. Really badly designed, absolutely nothing new at all. It can swim, and it can swing under bridges, and it has a massive tongue. I'm bored even describing it to you it was that uninspiring. The CG, while it had its moments, and despite the poor design of the creature, was somewhat crappy too. Without spoiling it (it does a good enough job itself!), the fire at the end is possibly the worst CG effect I've ever seen. People, I'm sad to say, avoid this one at all costs. Given the option to give it a second chance, I think I'd rather sick up a lung.

I've been waiting for this one for a while now. I had a feeling it was going to shake up my top three movies of the year, and boy was I in for a treat. It's a wonderful and truly amazing work. I found myself utterly gobsmacked staring at the fantastic looking Digital Projection (oh yes! Not a pube in sight! Smoochy!) on the screen. 

So, what is it? Well, its a dark and twisted Alice in Wonderland type fairytale about choice and faith, set against the backdrop of a WWII fascist Spain. A little girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who's widowed mother weds a captain from the Spanish Civil guard who's marshalling a heavily wooded area of Spain to try and thwart a small anti-fascist resistance. Ofelia is taken with her pregnant mother to be with him as he believes that a Son should be born where his Father is. Whilst at what can only be described as a military camp rather than a home, Ofelia discovers an ancient Labyrinth in the gardens near the surrounding woodlands. Within this Labyrinth, she discovers a Faun who claims that Ofelia is in fact the daughter of a Great King. A princess. He explains that it is prophesized that she would return, but that in order to return to her kingdom, she must perform three tasks before the Moon is Full.

The stuff that fairytales are made of…

Its delightful in how effective it is in bringing the contrast between this fantastical world that Ofelia is enveloped in and the harsh reality of Civil war and its brutalities she escapes from. This is something Del Toro wanted to present vividly to the audience and does so with a magestic confidence. We're thrown about between these two contrasting worlds so elegantly that it really left me speachless. When Ofelia is in the the "real" world we're bombarded with cold, dark, blue settings that make us feel claustraphobic and disturbed, yet when she delves into the "other" world its just as dark in mood but for some reason there's a warmth to the settings she traverses. Stark and violent contrasts but with undertones of disconcerting similarities, executed with sheer brilliance.

The creatures she meets are amazing. Not the over the top, elaborate, CG fest you might expect, rather relying on the creatures being just downright frightening.