Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3

Director: Shane Black

Written by: Shane Black and Drew Pearce 

Photography: John Toll 

Starring:  Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley

Country: USA 

Year: 2013  

I feel that I should start this review with an apology for the recent absence of activity on this site, I've been distracted with other non-film related activities and I haven't actually been to see a film at the cinema since Stoker two months ago, in fact, I haven't really watched that many films in the comfort of my own home either. But fear not, I'm steadily getting back on pace now and I should be posting regular reviews from now on. As a result of my hiatus, I've fallen far behind on my Blind Spot challenge, so you can be assured of at least three new posts this month (he says).        

Anyway, I digress, Iron Man 3... 

The first two Iron Man movies, the first one very good  the second one not so much, were both directed by actor/director Jon Favreau. In Iron Man 3 Fravreau remains on as a producer and as an actor in a quite a big supporting role but the directing role has fell to another man. The director that was chose as Favreau's replacement was an odd, but in hindsight, a brilliant decision. Shane Black, who made is name as a screenwriter known for making 18/NC-17 rated action-comedies with creative and colourful  language, most famously the Lethal Weapon franchise and the brilliant Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. And for playing the role of Hawkins in Predator. Shane's auteur style brings a refreshing burst to a sub-genre that's been dominating the box office for over a decade. 

Regardless of the number three that appears at the end of the title is not so much at sequel to the previous two Iron Man films, but more to last year's Avengers Assemble, with Tony Stark trying to psychologically adjust after the events at the end of that film. Suffering from insomnia and anxiety Stark spends his nights obsessing over the Iron Man suit. Parallel to this the United States is falling victim to a succession of terrorist attacks from an international terrorist known an the Mandarin.

Robert Downey Jr. gives a fantastic performance once again. He's even more enjoyable to watch in this film as he suits Shane Black's sharp witty dialogue so fell. Gwyneth Paltrow, as annoying and unlikable as she seems to becoming in real life, is still highly watchable on screen. Don Cheadle is far more interesting in this film then he was in Iron Man 2. Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce were both very good. The real disappointment though was Rebecca Hall, her character was severely underdeveloped, waste of a great talent. 

The film looks great, the most beautiful of the Iron Man films. Containing lots of strong bright colours that make the film reminiscent of the old silver age comics. The cinematographer on the film was John Toll, a fantastic DP, whose filmography includes Braveheart, The Last Samurai and The Thin Red Line.              

It's for certain that some fans of the comic book source material will react negatively to the film and the artistic freedom Pearce and Black have taken especially concerning The Mandarin and Iron Patriot. Personally it didn't bother me because I felt it worked in the narrative of the film. Others might be disappointed that there is a lack of screen time containing Iron Man. Much like in The Dark Knight Rises, most of the film is Tony Stark weak and lost scrapping together materials to keep him self alive. I like this, it reminds us that Tony Stark's greatest asset is his intelligence, not the suit. 

Overall I found Iron Man 3 to be one of those films so enjoyable that I'm willing to look over few flaws, it's also evidence that the superhero sub-genre has a lot of life left in it yet.             

Stoker

Stoker

Director: Park Chan-Wook

Written by: Wentworth Miller

Photography: Chung-hoon Chung

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman

Country: USA, UK. 

Year: 2013

Emotions rest in the balance for fans of new wave Korean cinema this year, first we have Park Chan-Wook's debut into English language film with Stoker and then later in the year director Spike Lee's remake of Park Chan Wook's cult masterpiece, Oldboy.  

When I first saw the trailer for Stoker I was initially disappointed that it didn't appear to be a biopic of Draclua author, Bram Stoker. But with multiple re-watches I became more and more intrigued by what appeared to be a dark, twisted psychological thriller combined with stunning visuals.  And that's what I got. 

After India Stoker's father dies in a car crash on her birthday, she learns how disconnected she is from everybody else around her including her mother. She soon has to learn to live with a new person in her life as her father's brother, an Uncle she never knew she had, comes to live with her and her mother. 

The plot is hugely inspired by the classic Hitchcock thriller, Shadow of a Doubt.  In fact the mysterious Uncle in both films are called Charlie. There's also continuous references to various Hitchcock films throughout especially to Psycho. 

Stoker is set in the present day yet the art direction suggests something set in the '40s or '50s, again I think this is drawn from the Hitchcock influence but it gives the film a timeless look. 

There are three fantastic central performances from Goode, Kidman and Wasikowska. And as all too often in film, Jacki Weaver is given far too little screen time, but everything she does in that short time is sublime. 

Stoker isn't so much driven by it's narrative, heavy in symbolism it's more a study of the innocence lost in the transition into adulthood.

I was kind of grateful for it at the time because I had an engagement directly after, but Stoker after being slow and atmospheric throughout suddenly nosedives into an ending and it leaves you feeling a little cheated. 

Stoker is thought provoking, beautifully shot and lingers in the mind long after viewing.Highly recommended.  

Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty 

Director: Kathryn Bigelow 

Written by: Mark Boal 

Photography: Grieg Fraser 

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke. 

Country: USA

Year: 2012

Back in 2009 one movie swept the Oscars beating the even the hotly tipped Goliath, Avatar. That movie was The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. That dream team have now reunited to bring us Zero Dark Thirty, the story of the decade long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden.   

The movie was originally about the failed hunt Bin Laden, but part way through principal photography he was killed by U.S Marines, which meant that Bigelow and Boal had to fashion a new ending for their film. I would like to know how the original movie was going to end because I just can't imagine how it would have worked. Unless it just ended abruptly which would have sucked. 

We're introduced at the beginning to CIA operative, Maya, who at the beginning is kind of a rookie mocked for her age and gender. We're pitched that this is one woman's fight to capture Public Enemy No.1. As the film takes place over a decade, we see Maya and the approval of those around her develop quite rapidly as the film progresses. The films been criticized for not giving any back stories to any of the characters. That's true off most, but then characters in Zero Dark Thirty are pretty expendable and they go as soon as they come. But Bigelow did something very clever with Maya, in the foreground you have this massive story about the hunt for Bin Laden but if you look carefully at the background; the wallpaper on Maya's laptop, the photos on her desk you'll begin to paint a picture of her past which I thought was a pretty interesting way of going about it. 

Kathryn Bigelow's direction is phenomenal, I've been critical of her in the past, I've said that there are at least half a dozen female directors that deserve the accolades she gets more than her. But I take some of that back now, Zero Dark Thirty is stunningly shot and all the performances are fantastic. Although I'll still stand by The Hurt Locker being very overrated.

Jessica Chastain has been having a fantastic couple of years and it's becoming repetitive to say how good she is, but I can't not talk about her astonishing job in this film, she really does carry it. Other actors, especially Jason Clarke, do great jobs too, but as I said before most of them aren't given a great deal of screen-time. Torchwood fans may be disappointed to learn  that John Barrowman only gets two lines and not good ones at that. 

Zero Dark Thirty, as you probably know, has been the target of much controversy surrounding it's depiction of torture as a means of getting information, some people say that it shows torture in a positive light. It's the kind of insistence when you really have to just see the film for yourself and make your own mind up. But for my money, no it doesn't. It doesn't show torture working to any great effect, they gather more information from straight interrogation and you're not walking out of the cinema at the end with your fist in the air shouting 'YEAH, TORTURE'. Boal and Bigelow decided to tell the story as truthfully as they could and not to whitewash history, which honestly I think was the right decision. 

The film is two and three quarter hours and to say that every frame is gripping would be a lie, the best part of two hours is spent talking in boardrooms and shiftily through papers. Some people will be bored, I know this for a fact because I counted two people walking out and never coming back. Although these scenes help to build a connection between the audience and the story, you're going on this journey with Maya and when she hits a brick wall, you feel her frustration. And if you stick with it you'll find the last forty minutes of the film is the action film you may have been hoping for. 

The film does a great job of being accessible to everyone without dumbing down too much. For a film that focused on the intelligence side of the mission to find Bin Laden, at no point did I feel lost in translation or not understanding what was going on.  

Zero Dark Thirty is a step above and beyond for Bigelow and Boal after The Hurt Locker, fantastically shot and acted, definitely worth checking out.   

Django Unchained

Django Unchained 

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Photography: Robert Richardson 
Starring: Jamie Fox, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Country: USA
Year: 2012  

Oooh Djangoooooo!

Quentin Tarantino isn't your run of the mill film school graduate, he's the video store clerk who set up a production company named after a Godard film (much to Godard's displeasure), making throwback films to all the exploitation and spaghetti westerns he loves so much. And Django Unchained  is nothing if not yet another homage to films that came before it, most notably films like Mandingo and obviously Sergio Corbucci's Django films. Tarantino's known for being a massive admirer of the great spaghetti western director, Sergio Leone, and I think everyone was expecting Django Unchained to be the grandest ever love letter to Leone's westerns. But there's a surprising lack of influence from Leone, it was there more in Inglorious Basterds. To me, Django Unchained is a Sam Peckinpah movie more than anything else, not thematically but in style; the slow motion gunfights and the strong violence. Given that he essentially invented movie violence, Tarantino owes quite a debt to Peckinpah.

Many people may be tried of Tarantino's fanboy filmmaking, it's 21 years now since Reservoir Dogs premiered at Cannes and I can see how for some people the joke may be wearing a bit thin. I still find a lot of fun in what Tarantino does. My problem with Tarantino is he's wasted talent, he's undeniably a very skilled director, if he wanted to, I'm positive he could be making films to the caliber of Paul Thomas Anderson's. But he doesn't want to. 

After some of the coolest opening credits ever, the film beings at night with two slavers making there way through a forest carrying a chain line of slaves behind them. Towards them comes a wagon ridden by Dr. King Schultz, a bounty hunter posing as a dentist. It becomes clear that this isn't a coincidental crossing of paths, Dr Schultz wishes to acquire a specific person in the two slavers' company, Django. To cut a long story short, this is a three hour Tarantino movie we're talking about, Django becomes an assistant of Dr. Schultz's in the bounty hunting trade. After a long winter of Bounty Hunting in the mountain, Dr. Schultz agrees to help Django free his estranged wife, Broomhilda from the infamous plantation, Candyland owned by the villainous Calvin Candie. 

Many people have made comment about the run-time of the film, that it's unnecessarily long. The film runs for 165 minutes, which is long and strange for something that's essentially an exploitation film, which tend to run for about 80 minutes. But honestly, I didn't have a problem with the run time it never dragged. Actually, I would have liked it to be longer, I wanted to see more with Dr. Schultz and Django bounty hunting in the mountains. 

There's always controversy surrounding the violence in Tarantino's movies, but this time more so given recent events. I have many opinions on movie violence and it's relation with real life violence, but I'll save that for another time as I don't want to digress. What I will say is that to call Tarantino's films mindlessly violent is an example of looking at a film rather than watching it. Think back to the scene in Reservoir Dogs (SPOILERS) when everybody dies, as the bodies lay cold on the floor,it's at least 5 seconds before it cuts, Tarantino is forcing us to see the consequences of violence. Django Unchained has a sense of humor within it's bloody cathartic violence. But it's depiction of the slave trade is uncomfortably brutal. Tarantino is a much more intelligent director than some people give him credit for. *cough* Mark Kermode *cough* Spike Lee.
     
Perhaps it's hyperbole for Tarantino to be boasting that he's getting people to talk about slavery  like they haven't before. The slave trade's been talked about. But I've seen many films in my time that touch on the slave trade, but I haven't seen any films that depict it's brutal reality as unapologetically as Django Unchained. 

Tarantino is a brilliant actors' director, he can pull performances out of actors that they can't release with any other directors. Jamie Foxx is brilliant, Samuel L. Jackson is great, Leonardo DiCaprio is really good if maybe a little miscast, and Christoph Waltz is basically playing Hans Landa again but who cares because Hans Landa is one of the best characters in recent cinema history. One of my biggest frustrations with Django Unchained is that all the female characters suck. Neither Laura Coyouette or Kerry Washington are never given anything to do. And I know Tarantino can write good female characters; Jackie Brown, Mia Wallace.        

The soundtrack as usual from Tarantino is fantastic. It's a mixture of contemporary R&B and classic Ennio Morricone scores with a Johnny Cash song thrown in there for good measure.   

The film is very long and it has no pace, but it's extremely fun and more intelligent than some people would have you believe. Quentin Tarantino's best film since Jackie Brown.     

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Director: Peter Jackson 
Written By: Peter Jackson, Guillermo Del Toro, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens
Photography: Andrew Lesnie
Starring: Martian Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage. 
Year: 2012
Country: USA, New Zealand.  


I was going to be a lot kinder to the Hobbit in this review, but last night I had the pleasure of revisiting Guillermo Del Toro's stunning film, Pan's Labyrinth, and was reminded just what The Hobbit could have been. If you're unfamiliar with the production history of The Hobbit, here' a brief summery: Originally, Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro was set to direct the (then two) Hobbit movies. But after countless delays on a set filming date, Del Toro has no choice but to drop out as director, although staying on as a screenwriter. Ultimately, Peter Jackson was re-crowned as director and scraped all of Del Toro's concept art. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, of course, is based on the J.R.R. Tolkien's children's novel and precursor to The Lord of the Rings. Or it's at least on the first third of it, as this 378 pages novel (with pictures) is being turned into three separate 160 minute films. 

As someone who has read and loves The Hobbit, it's enraging to see how desperately Jackson and his team have tried to flesh out the story, by porting over tales and characters from Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion like Radagast the Brown. Or from their imagination created new tedious scenes with Galadriel, although it's nice to have a female presence, if only brief, now in a male dominated story. We'll probably even see Tom Bombadil in the next film. Oh joy! 

It's hard to tell if Peter Jackson actually knows what he's doing, he's made some pretty impressive films like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and by-all accounts Heavenly Creatures, but he's also been behind the uninspired King Kong remake and The Lovely Bones which is one of the worst directed films I've ever seen.  The direction in The Hobbit is... pretty poor, but not so much that it's unwatchable. 

Speaking of unwatchable, let's move onto the editing. Not only is the film ridiculously long, with many scenes that could and should have been cut out, the actual editing of the film is clunky and occasionally leads to problems with continuity.

The writing is also a pitfall, the book is written mostly in rhyme, is quite comical and is basically written for children. The film takes lines from the novel but doesn't draw inspiration from it for the rest of the dialogue. So what you're left with is a film jumping between two very different languages.     

Martian Freeman is the saving grace of the film, he's brilliant and Bilbo is a much more engaging character than Frodo ever was. Andy Serkis is great reprising his role as Gollum and Ian McKellen is probably the only person who could play Gandalf. The band of Dwarfs are nearly all annoying and other than Thorin, all underdeveloped.

The Hobbit doesn't have the sense of awe that The Lord of the Rings trilogy did mostly thanks to an over use of CGI. The Lord of the Rings films took full advantage of the gorgeous New Zealand landscapes which The Hobbit doesn't. Also the fact that all the Orcs and Goblins are done with CGI is a huge disappointment.  

The problem with Peter Jackson is the same of that of James Cameron, he seems to be primarily concerned with getting himself into the history books. Both men seem to think if they are the one to push 3D or to push higher frame rates, they'll be remembered along Sergei Eisenstein and Edwin S. Porter.   

This review has probably made the The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey sound much worse than it is, it's not terrible, it's okay, if you enjoy the Middle Earth universe you might even enjoy it.  If this review seems rather lack luster I apologize and my only excuse is that this isn't a review of a film, it's a review of a third of a film. 

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook

Director: David O'Russel
Written By: David O'Russel 
Photography: Masanobu Takayanagi 
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro.
Year: 2012
Country: USA 


    
 Picture the scene: I've just half heartedly purchased a ticket for Silver Linings Playbook, I've being forced to listen to the Aladdin OST while the screen fills up, I'm getting funny looks and laughs of people for being on my own and I know already that for two hours I'm going to have to sit through the most cynical piece of Oscar bait since Extremely Load and Incredibly Close.

 But something happened to me during Silver Linings Playbook where my reservations were overturned and I was completely won over by the film.

 Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, is diagnosed a with bipolar disorder and has spent time in a mental facility. Upon release he delusionally believes that is ex-lover is waiting for him to get better before they'll restart their relationship, despite a restraining order. Partly in an attempt to gain a link with his Ex-Wife, Pat strikes a friendship with an old acquaintance, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), now suffering from depression after the death of her husband.

 On paper the film seems very 'Hey let me tug at your heart strings.' And if it was directed by say... Cameron Crowe, it probably would be. But David O'Russel tones the film in an honest and sincere way that when you are effected by it's charm (and you will be) it's all natural.

 I personally see it as wrong to call Silver Linings Playbook a comedy about mental illness. What it is is a human drama, with comic moments where several of the characters are affected by mental illness. One of my concerns while sitting listing to A Whole New World was that the film wouldn't differentiate between being ill and just being quirky, but it was quite the contrary . What I really appreciate is that mental illness isn't the catalyst or the but of any joke. Take any of the jokes delivered by Bradley Cooper and give them to one of the many characters in the film not affected by illness and it would remain just as funny.

 The film is propelled by two central powerhouse performances from Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence plus two brilliant mediating roles from Jacki Weaver and  Robert De Niro. Even Chris Tucker manages to be oddly engaging.    

  This good hearted winter-warmer makes the perfect film for a Christmas trip to the cinema. And make sure to see it now, because it will be the film everybody's talking about come February.    

The Master

The Master

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson 

Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson 

Photography: Mihai Malaimare Jr. 

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams. 

County: USA 

Year: 2012   

 It's been five years since Paul Thomas Anderson released his irrefutable masterpiece, There Will Be Blood, which was a surprising commercial success, although it was duly robbed at the Academy Awards by the Coen's No County For Old Men (Also a good film, but not as good.)  

 Freddie Quell is lost. An aggressive drunk who hasn't been able to hold on to a job or a woman since his departure from the navy at the end of the war. His paths cross Lancaster Dodd, know by some as The Master.  

 Lancaster Dodd is the leader of a philosophical movement, or to be more frank, a cult, known as The Cause. There are many parallels between Lancaster Dodd and his Cause with L. Ron Hubbard and his church of Scientology. This is purely subjective, but for me, The Master extended a representation of Cults but also of all organized religion. Religion not being something Paul Thomas Anderson has shyed away from in the past, it's one of the prominent themes in There Will Be Blood.    

 It's hard to know what I think of The Master. I do know that I definitely liked it, but it's such a heavy film, with all the subtext and everything, I feel like I've only seen half the film. I imagine it'll be much like my experience with David Croenberg's Videodrome; I liked it from first viewing, but it wasn't until my second or third viewing that I realized what a masterpiece it is.  

 Paul Thomas Anderson has already proved himself as a really special film-maker. I would go as far as to say he's best director working today. There are great directors like Godard and Scorsese who are stilling making films regularly, but their hayday is gone, as of right now, nobody's making better films than PTA is.  

 The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, who seemed to drop of the radar for a bit, but is back now with a career best performance with a character, reportedly, loosely based on the American author John Steinbeck. 

 You might be fooled early on into believing that Philip Seymour Hoffman is downplaying his performance is this film, but in a subtle and enigmatic way, it's possibly his most towering role. 

Question time. When did you realise how brilliant Amy Adams is? Because she's been around for a while now and it's only just clicked with me this year through The Master and The Fighter, which I caught up on this year and really enjoyed. 

 The film looks stunning, Anderson's direction is masterful as is Mihai Malaimare Jr.'s cinematography. The composition in every shot is inspired and lovingly crafted. 

 The major flaw in The Master is that it didn't so much end as stop. It seems like an recurring problem with Paul Thomas Anderson that he doesn't know how to end films; Boogie Nights had the same problem as did Magnolia and even There Will Be Blood, but that somehow got away with it. 

 The Master is a cinema at a raw level, which will make it unsavoury for many palates . But for cineasts and the likes, you'll probably find it just short of a masterpiece.           

Skyfall

 Skyfall

Director: Sam Mendes  
Written By: Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan
Photography: Roger Deakins 
Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem 
Year: 2012
Country: UK, USA 


Let me start by saying that this is a spoiler free review, however, if you want to go into Bond Number 23 completely fresh, stop reading now. But come back later, ok?

 The James Bond movie franchise reaches it's 50th anniversary this years, going from when Dr. No was realised back in 1962. Although, Skyfall wasn't intended to be an anniversary special, the original release date was 2010, but due to financial troubles at MGM, production was held back for a couple of years. 

 Since '62 we've had a Scottish Bond, an Australian Bond, a How the Hell Does He Do That Thing With His Eyebrow Bond, a Time Lord Bond and a Former Thief Turned Private Detective Bond. Now we have Daniel Craig playing the agent with the licence to kill. Skyfall is Craig's third outing as Bond, after Casino Royale  (which was really good) and Quantum of Solace (which sucked). Craig is the Bond who everyone wants to say is the best Bond, but feel it's too early to say. The emotional, sentimental Bond which was started by Lazenby and expanded by Dalton is perfected by Daniel Craig.

 It's hard to talk about the plot of Skyfall without divulging a plethora of spoilers, big and small. But what Skyfall is about, on a non-superficial level, is the co-existence of new and old. Bond and M are dinosaurs in an MI6 and a world that's changing at a speed they can't keep up with.             

 Skyfall is a Bond first, never before has bond had an Oscar winning director at the helm. Sam Mendes, who's directed American Beauty, Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road among others gave Skyfall his  love, care and attention. Mendes creates something that is both pensive and stylish, but for all intents and purposes, a Bond film.    

 Not to worry if you're more a fan of corny jokes, sex and expensive set pieces, Skyfall has more than enough of all of those.   

 The real star of Skyfall is cinematographer, Roger Deakins, who has been the DP on nearly all the Coen Brothers' movies post Barton Fink. I long thought Deakins to one of the greatest living cinematographers, now Skyfall has confirmed it. Through stunning lighting and composition Deakins creates something where every frame is a money-shot. Deakins has been nominated for an Oscar nine times but never won, hopefully this time.

 Skyfall's other Oscar possibility lies in Judi Dench reprising her role as Head of MI6, M. Skyfall takes a longer look at the character of M than any Bond film has in the past, in a way the film is more about M than it is about Bond. The legendary thespian isn't someone you expect to surprise you, you go in with high expectations in the first place, but Dench goes above and beyond with this one. And hey, if she can win an Oscar for 5 minutes of screen time in Shakespeare in Love, I don't see why she can't win one for this.    

 The Villain, Silva is played by Spanish actor, Javier Bardem. Although it's not a bad performance, quite good in fact, I would rank it as his worst. Bardem is post famous for his murderous role in the Coens' No Country For Old Men. I find his best performances lie in films in his native language, Spanish and Mexican films like Biutiful and The Sea Inside. 

 It's also nice to see Q get a bigger role than usual, because we all know he's the best character. Ben Whishaw is the new Q, I'm not sure about the whole geek-chic thing, but he's a very good actor. 

 The film is not without fault, I could have done with learning about Bond's childhood, the third act feels more Home Alone than James Bond and the film is overflowing with overt product placement. There's also the confusing bearing of whether it's a sequel, prequel or reboot. At the beginning of Casino Royale it implies that we're seeing Bond from the very beginning of his double-o career, yet Skyfall keeps making light of Bond being old and referencing past films. 

 As an intelligent, well made blockbuster Skyfall gives The Dark Knight Rises an run for it's money. Go watch it, it'll probably be the best film to play in ever theatre this year. 

Looper

Looper

Director: Rian Johnson 

Written By: Rian Johnson 

Photography: Steve Yedlin 

Starring: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt

Year: 2012 

Country: USA, China. 

The third film from writer/director Rian Johnson (whether that's pronounced Rain or Ryan is one of cinema's great mysteries).

Looper, which was selected as the opening film for the Toronto International Film Festival, takes place in two futures: 2044 and 2074. In 2074 surveillance is so advanced that it's literally impossible to dispose of a body. The only way criminal organisations can kill someone with safely is to use recently invented and outlawed time travel to send the target, cuffed and bagged, back to the year 2044 where a Looper will be waiting to blow them away.

Joe Simmons (Jospeh Gordon-Levvit) is a Kansas based Looper, he's selfish, a junkie and a bit of a badass; he's like Han Solo before he was ruined by Lucas is '97 by making Gredo shoot first; anyway, I digress. Waiting in a cornfield for his next hit to show up, (this is all in the trailer, no spoilers!) a few seconds late they show up but with no headbag. Joe makes the mistake of looking into his eyes and recognises immediately that it's himself, thirty years in the future (Bruce Willis). In the shock of seeing himself, he lets the taget escape. So now he's both running away and after himself while the looper orginazation, lead by Jeff Daniels, is after him for letting his target go. Confused?

Loopers remnicent of a lot of past Sci-Fi classics. Clearly Rian Johnson is big fan of James Cameron's Terminator films (it's safe to assume not of the other two) and Terry Gilliam's, brilliant, 12 Monkeys. The only modern Sci-Fi classic it's nothing like is The Matrix which seems to be the film most people are comparing it to.

Looper has a great cast, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who I'm a big fan of does a brilliant job as always. The script was a bit more Bruce Willis lite than I was hoping for, but it's great to see him back at his best. Emily Blunt was good, if slightly miscast. The story goes she accepted the role before her character even showed up in the screenplay she liked the story so much. And Jeff Daniels (who was either Dumb or Dumber, I can never remember) who was the surprise delight of the film.

Rian Johnson directs with such vitality, he really is one of the more intresting film-makers working in the mainstream today.

The only major problem with Looper is that the film changes half way through and it stops being an Sci-Fi action film about time travel, and starts being a pedophobic horror film in the tone The Omen.

I don't think this is quite as brilliant as Johnson's first feature, Brick, but it's a solid, well directed, well acted and interesting film. It's no Twelve Monkeys but it's not far off. Time will tell if Looper becomes a classic.

Score: 4.5/5

ParaNorman

ParaNorman 

Director: Chris Butler and Sam Fell

Written By: Chris Butler 

Photography: Tristan Oliver

Staring: Kodi Smit McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick

Year: 2012

Country: USA

 From Laika Entertainment, the people who brought you stop-animated features such as Corpse Bride and Caroline, comes ParaNorman; a big-hearted adventure-horror for the Family. 

 Norman Babcock, who lives in the town of Blithe Hollow, is an outcast; called 'Abnorman' in his school because of his unique gift to see and speak to the dead. When a Witch's curse is put over the town and zombies rise from the ground, only Norman can help to restore things to the equilibrium.

    

 It would have a made a brilliant movie for Halloween, it's strange then that it came out at the end of summer. I guess it didn't feel it could compete with the other two animated horror-themed children's movies coming out in October, Tim Burton's Frankenweenie and Hotel Transylvania. 

 It nice to see in a world full of CGI animation movies the likes of  Shrek, that stop-motion animation that still hold strong. The Gothic and exaggerated look of the film has been compared to the work of Tim Burton, which is fair, but I can assure you that ParaNorman is better than anything Tim Burton has made in nearly 10 years.   

 The character's are all rounded and interesting and the voice work fits each one perfectly. Casey Affleck plays dim jock, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays the school bully. Leslie Mann  and Jeff Garlin play Norman's parents and  Anna Kendrick  plays the sister all to great effect.  

 The controversial inclusion of a gay character was a brave one and a progressive one, but there's a part of me that thinks it may have just been added for comic relief.   

 ParaNorman gives genuine laughs throughout and, possibly, for some of the younger viewers, genuine scars. 

Score: 3/5       

True Romance

True Romance

Director: Tony Scott
Written by: Quentin Tarantino 
Photography: Jeffrey L. Kimball 
Starring: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper. 
Year: 1993
Country: USA, France.   

 We all know by now, I'm sure, that last month director Tony Scott died tragically.  It dawned me as the initial shock and sadness faded that I hadn't seen one of the late Mr. Scott's most critically acclaimed films, True Romance. Browsing in a cheap second-hand DVD and Games store, I saw a copy of True Romance and decided to pick it up. 

  For clearance, this is the original cut of the film, not the  later Tarantino Cut (Sometimes known as the Director's Cut) which I understand has a darker ending and has a non-liner narrative. 

 Tarantino gets the right to get his own cut because he wrote the screenplay (long before he made Reservoir Dogs,  and it's apparent from scene one that it's a QT screenplay. True Romance is much more a Quentin Tarantino film than it is a Tony Scott film, sorry auteur theory. Any time the male lead, Clarence, is talking about cinema or music, it's just Quentin talking vicariously through Christian Slater. 

 Clarence Worley is a Elvis Presley and Sonny Chiba obsessed, law-abiding, 20-something guy who works in comic-book store and seems to repel members of the opposite sex, until he meets Alabama (Patricia Arquette), a sweet talking call-girl who shares many of his interests. While freshening up in the bathroom, he's visited my his mentor (who only Clarence can see) played by Val Kilmer. He's never referred to by name and is credited only as Mentor, but he is clearly meant to be Elvis. He couldn't be credited as such because of legal reasons. Elvi-The Mentor persuades Clarence to kill Alabama's pimp, Drexl. After he kills him, Clarence finds a suitcase full of cocaine. Clarence and Alabama drive down to L.A to try and sell on the cocaine to a movie producer and use to money to start a new life together. 

 True Romance has a fantastic supporting cast; Dennis Hooper play's Clarence's Dad, Gary Oldman is like he often is, unrecognisable, as Drexl the pimp, Brad Pitt in an early role for him playing a stoner, Saul Rubinek playing a movie producer supposedly based on both Joel Silver and Oliver Stone. And Christopher Walken who, like in Pulp Fiction, is only in one scene but it's the most memorable scene in the film.      

 The film, being from '93, is in Scott's original recognizable style (long lenses and smoke diffusion), before he radically changed it, for the worse in my opinion, in the last decade with Man on Fire and Domino, where he drained a lot of the colour and overused used fast zooms in and out and other camera techniques.   

 Who'd have thought that one of the best romance movies ever made would be full of drugs, violence and black comedy? Ok, so maybe True Romance isn't one of the best romance films ever made, it certainly doesn't stand with movies like Casablanca, Brief Encounter or Before Sunrise, but it certainly a lot fun and packs a pretty big punch. Thank you Tony, you will be missed. 

 Score: 3.5/5   

 

Youth in Revolt

Youth in Revolt 

Director: Miguel Arteta.

Written By: Gustin Nash. 

Photography: Chuy Chávez.

Starring: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Ray Liotta. 
Year: 2009.
Country: USA.

 After becoming a household name from the perfect but short lived FOX comedy, Arrested Development, and two of 2007's biggest films, Juno and Superbad, Canadian teen actor Michael Cera became typecast before you could even say Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. 

 When it was discovered that Chuy Chávez was releasing an adaptation of the C. D. Payne novel, Youth in Revolt, about a sixteen year old who creates a separate, evil, personality to impress a girl (Portia Doubleday), it seemed we where finally going to see another side of Michael Cera.   

 Nick Twisp (Cera) is sixteen, a geek and a virgin. Though not the traditional geek that's into Magic the Gathering and Superman, but a more new age geek that's into Jean-Luc Godard and Frank Sinatra, sometimes referred to as "Hipster Geeks" which I object to, liking foreign language movies for their artistic value does not make you a hipster. But I digress. When Nick discovers the charming francophile, Sheeni Saunders, he thinks that Nick Twisp isn't enough to win her heart, so he invents himself an evil alter-ego called François Dillinger. The evil François Dillinger isn't much different from the feeble and awkward Nick Twisp, he just has a pencil moustache and a cigarette. Which is fine, it adds comic value and I like Michael Cera so it's okay, it just doesn't do any favours for his career. 

There are some laugh out loud moments in Youth in Revolt, but it falls short of passing the six laugh test for comedies. Youth in Revolt had the potential to be a film for a generation, but instead it will become forgotten in time. It's inspired me to read the book but I can't see me myself ever watching the film again.     
           
 Score: 3/5 

The Town

The Town

Director: Ben Affleck.

Written By: Ben Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard.

Photography: Robert Elswit. 

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner and Rebecca Hall. 

Year: 2010.

Country: USA.

  After directing his younger brother Casey in the superb Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck places himself in front of the Camera for his next directing venture, The Town. 

 The Town is a modern day bank heist movie with it's heart in bank heist movies of the past. It owes a debt to movies like Michael Mann's Heat. 

 The Town, which is Charlestown, Boston, a place infamous for it's history of Irish Mobs and high crime rates. Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) leads a team of four which includes his amoral best friend, James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner). While robbing a bank Coughlin decided to kidnap the manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), and leave her blindfolded on a beach. When MacRay runs into her in a laundromat,  he ultimately falls for her. Unaware that her new boyfriend is one of the men that robbed her bank, Claire is helping an FBI team, led by Mad Men's Jon Hamm hunt them down.

 Ben Affleck does a pretty good job of directing, there are the occasional and rare out-of-place arty moments where you think 'Ben, if you wanted to make an art film...' His acting was on-par, too; A lot of people claim to hate Ben Affleck's acting, which I've always found ridiculous. Affleck's nether a particularly good or bad actor, if you "Hate" him you must be really easily offended. 

 The rest of the cast includes Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite (in the last role of his released before his death in early 2011).  Most the acting in the Town is good despite the dialogue sounding unnatural. The actors didn't make the words their own; I think Ben Affleck may have been a bit too protective of his script. The only bad performance was Blake Lively's, whose unbelievable and OTT performance shouldn't come as a surprise as she's awful in everything. 

 If, like me, you thought the coolest thing about Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break was the novelty masks of former presidents they used during the robberies, then you will enjoy the array of diverse masks they use in The Town. Given that when you strip The Town naked it is at most a romance film, it has more than a fair share of on the edge of your seat set species and action sequences. 

 The Town makes for a fairly entertaining watch. A cut above most films of it's type and has potential for repeat viewings; it will make a good double bill with Spike Lee's Inside Man.

   

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise

Director: Richard Linklater.

Written By: Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan.

Photography: Lee Daniel.

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Andrea Eckert.

Year: 1995

Country: USA, Austria, Switzerland.

 Richard Linklater, a figure whose impact on American cinema is often understated, stunned everyone in 1995 with his simplistic and charming romance of two strangers finding love in Europe. 

 Jesse, played by Ethan Hawke, is an moneyless American travelling from Budapest to Vienna by train when he encounters a French beauty named Céline (Julie Delpy) making her way back to Paris. The two engage in discourse and strike an instant affinity for one another. When the train pulls up in Vienna, Jesse takes his chance and ask her to get off with him. Although they both know that he needs to make his flight back to the US in  the morning so they only have the one night together. 

 In their exploration through late night Austria they meet an assorted array of idiosyncratic characters, including avant-garde actors, fortune tellers and poetic bums. Raising similarities  to the film that made Linklater famous, Slacker. It's essentially the same film only giving it a story and changing the location from Austin to Vienna.    

 The film is written with a great deal of intelligence but not in a contrived way; it's apparent that the writers of the film (Linklater and Krizan) are both smart and it comes through naturally in the screenplay. The two characters, Jesse and Céline are likeable and well acted, unlike the unbearably cocky characters you get in most contemporary romances like the horrible The Notebook. 

 Before Sunset has one of the strongest female voices in cinema, developed from Kim Krizan and Julie Delpy's involvement in the film. Yet there is only one named female character in the whole film, so it's helps prove how little weight the The Bechdel Test holds.

 Guaranteed to make you laugh and likely to make you cry, Before Sunrise isn't another unrealistic and ostentatious romance film; it's a slice of real life and a showcase of real love. 

 Score: 5/5

   

Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are

Director: Spike Jonze 
Written By: Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers 
Photography: Lance Acord
Starring: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker.
Year: 2009
Country: USA, Australia, Germany.


 Beastie Boys music video director and Charlie Kauffman collaborator, Spike Jonze, creates an autearistic adaptation of the beloved Maurice Sendak children's book.

 Max is an eight year old with more anger and imagination than he has friends. One night he gets so frustrated with his home life after an argument over frozen corn and learning that his Mum is banging Mark Ruffalo, he runs away and charters a sail-boat to a mysterious island, where the wild things are. The wild things don't take long to crown Max their king and he takes even less time to being the wild rumpus.  

 I did read the book, not in my childhood but, possibly ironically, in my mid-teens. I don't really remember it so I can't say how dedicated the film is to its source material. I would imagine not very

 In the lead up to this film, Spike Jonze was quoted as saying  "I'm not making a film for children, I'm making a film about childhood". As you would expect from the auteur director behind Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, the film takes a melancholic artistic approach, raising questions about its suitability for junior audiences.  If you ask me I think it is, it's not like Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was trying so hard to be a kids' film it had George Clooney contemplating out loud philosophical theories that would go over most adults' heads. 

 Where The Wild Things Are adopts themes that some people may label as 'adult', but I don't think any of these themes will be completely lost on children. You underestimate them too much.   The only fear that you should have as a parent is that some of the scenes are legitimately scary. If I was to give a recommended age it would be upwards of six.  

 The film looks stunning both through Lance Acord's cinematography and these beautifully designed Wild Thing suits with what I imagine are CGI faces to sink up to the voice talents of James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara and Paul Dano.    

 Where The Wild Things Are is an aesthetically pleasing and sentimental tale of childhood that should tug at the heart strings of anyone, despite their age.   

Score: 3.5/5