The International

Lone maverick vs the big corporation, stuff that's been done before, the corporation in question in this case, is an enormous bank who's interests lie beyond simply making phat amounts of bonus, and the lone maverick in question? Clive Owen, a man who's emotional range is only a notch above that of Steven Seagal.

It's okay though, we've got Naomi Watts to lend her superb acting talents

SO! Clive Owen vs a Bank. Yeah, that exciting. Well, when it gets to the Guggenheim, that's quite good, then it drops back into it's dull procedurals again. I'm not saying procedurals are dull, Zodiac for instance is awesome, this one, however is no Zodiac.

It goes a little bit Bond towards the end, with a stonking lair (I have to admit the location dept. found some cracking locations). Only a little bit though, then it get's dull again. Kind of disappointing ending, but lives up to the rest of the film.

The International - 5/10

Valkyrie

I seem to recall this got pretty poor reviews in general when it came out, lack of actual Germans, lack of even attempts at German accents (which could've gone horribly wrong let's be fair), Tom Cruise in an eye patch.

Well, I finally got around to watching it and it's not that bad, it's a tad slow, I don't really care about any of the characters, but it was interesting enough to want to see how things turned out. Without wanting to spoil anything, it's not exactly an upbeat ending.

With all the names in this (Cruise, Branagh, Nighy, Stamp, McNally, Wilkinson etc), no-one really seems to be pushing themselves, in fact, considering the nature of the story; a complex plot to assassinate Hitler and his key staff, it's all a bit sedate.

Valkyrie - 6/10

The Wrestler

A lot of fuss has been made about Darren Aronofsky's fouth feature, especially after the flop of The Fountain, couple that with the 'comeback' of Mickey Rourke, in to be fair a very good performance, and you could possibly see why people were interested (myself included).

So what of it?? First impressions from the trailer... it's Rocky but with wrestling. After watching it... it's Rocky Balboa but with wrestling. Basically Rourke plays Randy "The Ram" Robinson and ageing pro-wrestler, well past his prime, still wrestling on the smaller circuits and fan events. He's just scraping buy, has an odd slightly more than customer relationship going on with a bar stripper in the shape of Marisa Tomei and no relationship with his estranged daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood.

When things start to go south, he tries to make a go of things without wrestling, needless to say that doesn't go so well and he heads back to the ring, for a rather upbeat/downbeat ending.

It's a good film, but it's a character study, so with that, not a lot actually goes on, there's sequences made up Ram just going somewhere, seeing his daily life, self reflection and all that. I watched it through, although interest did wander occasionally, but I can appreciate the filmmaking, which leads me onto the special features, something I don't usually comment on, but I'm a big DVD extras guy and while the rental copy only had 3 video extras (trailer, on set featurette & interview with Mickey Rourke), the featurette was brilliant, more interesting than the film to watch how Aronofsky went about making the film on a comparatively small budget of around $7m (£4m) and a shoot schedule of 35 days.

Worth watching, but an "in the right mood" film.


The Wrestler - 7/10

Twilight

I've decided recently that I need to watch more films that i wouldn't normally choose to watch. Twilight is one of them, after all Twilight (based on the book), is aimed squarely at, to use a cliche here, overweight, single women with too many cats. Or soppy teenage girls, of which I am neither.

So for those who don't know, Twilight is a vampire flick, takes some classical vampire notions, mixes them up a bit with a couple of new takes, which in a similar way to Being Human, allows for more EXT. DAY scenes and throws in a generous helping of teen angst and token Scream-esque school friends.

Now I'll be honest here, plot wise, character wise, even acting wise, it's not bad. The secondary characters are more interesting than the main couple, but the combo of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) is bearable, despite him looking like he's been smacked in the face with a cartoon frying-pan yet everyone thinks he's hot. Go figure.

The story pulls from various sources, there's the classic forbidden love story, and there's the new kid in town story. What is it with vampires and high school outcasts eh? It's not Lost Boys, but at the same time, it's this decade's answer to it.

The script is a tad ropey in places, some clunky dialogue, but that's kind of expected, what let's the film down and I think seriously holds it back, is the APPALLING camera direction by one Catherine Hardwicke, I mean, REALLY BAD, not helped by the editing. Whether the film's editor Nancy Richardson was beaten down on suggesting that maybe less cuts should be used or whether she pushed them through, I don't know, either way, it's crap! For instance, one scene where Bella & Edward are in the woods, she's sussed what he is and building to that point, in less than half a minute, one short piece has at least ten cuts, with different angles, handheld, undercranked steadicam, normal steadicam, swooping crane AAAARRRGGHH!

ONE SHOT, the whole scene could've been done in ONE SHOT and been a hell of a lot better.

Effects, well they're a bit hokey, fine it's a relatively low budget film but hollywood standards, maybe if they'd done less setups on the above scene, they could've squeezed a little more for effects (and maybe re-shooting the soft focus shots.. I mean really, c'mon!)

It's a soppy film, but once you get past the inept camera work, not terrible. Let see if someone can direct the sequels better.

Twilight - 6/10

Franklyn

This is possibly one of the most original and interesting British films to come out in a long time. It does riff on some familiar themes, but it does so in a very refreshing way.

Although by the end of the film I, just about got where it was coming from, I was totally gripped and genuinely intrigued throughout, I sussed the general direction of the film pretty early on, but what kept me interested was just how it was all going to tie up, constantly speculating on the different characters' connections and figuring out who's who.

It's not perfect, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! It also looks wonderful, it's very well shot (a quick butchers at IMDb reveals the DP to be one Ben Davis, who's also on Kick-Ass, cannot wait for that one!!!)

The cast aren't brilliant, Eva Green's voice irritates me, as does her waifness (!?), Sam Riley, while apparently brilliant in Control, was rather wet, Ryan Phillippe was behind a mask most of the time, but does a very good english accent and Bernard Hill, while good, could've done with more development and screen time. Despite this, the plot keeps it going.

So, written and directed by Gerald McMorrow, a promising debut feature, I for one certainly look forwards to more stuff from him and hopefully he won't let us down like a previous certain person...

Franklyn - 8/10

The Untouchables

I hadn't seen this in ages, but a recent (well not very recent as I'm catching up here!!) re-watch re-aquainted me with what is a classic movie and one of Brian De Palma's better ones in my view.

We've got Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness, Robert DeNiro as Al Capone and Sean Connery attempting an Irishman, what's not to like there?!?

It's an underdog story, set against the American era of prohibition, there's a lot of shooting and the iconic scene with the pram and the stairs. Not only one of De Palma's better films, but also one of Costner's best, if you haven't seen it you must!

The Untouchables - 8/10

Lakeview Terrace

Overall, not great, it's a by the numbers nasty-neighbour film, Samuel L Jackson, strolling through the performance of him playing himself and any attempt to get the audience to sympathise with him fails big time. Interesting to see Patrick Wilson in something else, I'd only seen him in Watchmen... he's roughly as downtrodden in this.

It's also a slooow film, it's set against the backdrop of the recent California wild fires, but apart from a bit of smoke they don't really show up til the end, more could've been made of this I feel, it certainly needs something to ramp up the tension a little.

(this was a recent watch, but I've got a load that I haven't typed up, so trying to catch up as well!!)

Lakeview Terrace - 5/10

Watchmen

Now I saw Watchmen around opening weekend over here in the UK, so it's been a good few weeks since then and I'm only just getting around to typing something up on it. To be honest, I did try pretty soon after but I couldn't figure out what to write about it...I still can't really, but here goes.

I'd read the graphic novel a while before seeing the film and, while I can see what all the fuss was about, it's not one of my favourite comics, it's a laborious read, weighed down with a lot of metaphor and waffle (yes I'll probably get flamed for that), and for once I actually agree with Jonathan Ross' view on the movie, in that it stayed TOO faithful to it's source material.

Whilst trying to satisfy the book's hardcore fanbase (and possibly Alan Moore as well..good luck) and depsite the changes that were made and the stuff that was left out, it's still a very heavy going film, very wordy and slow, with A LOT going on, I came out feeling that I possibly would've rather seen a stripped down plot, even adapted more for the film format, cos as a FILM, it's not the best narrative.

On the technical side of things, yet again Zack Snyder pulled out all the stops, he's clearly geeky about the technical side of things and pushing new technology, visually Watchmen is great, a real feast if you will, even if the speed ramped fights feel a little cliched now.

Watchmen - 7/10

The Fall

I was intrigued in this from the moment I saw the trailer ages ago, partly because it looked visually incredible, partly because the actual story seemed interesting and partly because I hated The Cell.

The film does look amazing, he colours are out of this world, every now and again the framing's just a tad too 'stylised' for my tastes, Tarsem does follow themes here and there, certain stuff he's almost fetishistic about (see: slo-mo horses in desert), visually, everything about the film is an icing coated treat.

Story wise, it's not bad, it's a guy in a hospital telling a story to a little girl. The story reflects the events of the real world and it's pretty dark and emotional, and this is primarily sold by the performances of the little girl and the injured guy interacting with her, which is nothing short of charming and totally engaging.

It's a beautiful tale, not perfect, but a great watch.

The Fall - 8/10

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Looked interesting, was mildly interesting, but was kinda lacking in something.

Not sure what though, it was an interesting concept, apparently based on true events, however it's clumsily executed, too much voice over and the different testimonies, make it a bit of a slow watch, it's almost two films mashed together in a bad way.


The Exorcism of Emily Rose - 5/10

The Nines

I still maintain that Ryan Reynolds can be a good actor, 'The Nines' shows him trying, unfortunately it's got a highly convoluted plot, the structure's all over the place and by the end of it I was left kinda Meh.

Is it about religion, is it about Sims, is it about too many people thinking they can write the next Donnie Darko?!?!

The Nines - 4/10

Southland Tales

I seem to remember Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko follow up getting universally panned, being ridiculed at Cannes and disappearing back into the edit suite for a time, I also remember being very very intrigued by the trailer.

I missed seeing it in the cinema, in fact I missed seeing it for quite a while, always unsure as to whether it looked any good or not. Skip forward to December 2008 and an HMV 3 for £20 deal (this, [Rec] and Death Sentence btw). A day off over the xmas period and a quiet sit down to finally watch Southland Tales.

It's very weird, it makes very little sense, although you can follow a basic plot, it's over the top, part film - part music video and I loved it.

All the characters are off the wall, quirks, their affiliations are all over the place and for the most part you're not sure who's working for who or what their agendas are, which I guess kinda works as our main protagonist Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) doesn't really know what's going on either, at least not until the film's conclusion.

The highlights of the film for me, apart from just the really randomly enjoyable style, are Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake. Now that may make me sound like a twelve year old girl, but their performances in this, whilst not Oscar worthy, certainly made me look at them in a different light.

The film is pure Sci-Fi, it's all out bat-shit crazy for it and that's part of what makes it so wonderful, it takes a heavy influence from Verhoeven, which is no bad thing but it's also, stylistically very now. It's a bit heavy handed with it's politics, but it does the job. I can see how it's not to everyone's tastes, but I was pleasantly surprised and am looking forward to The Box.

Southland Tales - 8/10

Felon

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, the trailer looked interesting and I was somewhat intrigued by a fat, old Val Kilmer.

Basically, it's amazing! I was totally gripped, Kilmer is just fucking brilliant in what is essentially a supporting role, the whole film is a great emotional drama and I think somewhat overlooked as another mediocre Val Kilmer movie. Go watch it, it's brilliant!

Felon - 9/10

Black Rain

Black Rain is a quintessentially 80's thriller, so 80's in fact I almost aged backwards (?!), it's also a cracking Ridley Scott film, very Blade Runner esque with it's oriental backdrop, but not as heavily stylised.

Michael Douglas is a totally out of place cop, trying to track down a vicious Yakuza killer, Andy Garcia is his partner and Kate Capshaw reprises her singing in an oriental club role.

It's pretty much by the numbers, but it's got Ridley's signature stylings and once you get past the tad hokey script (especially at the start) it's pretty good.

Black Rain - 7/10

In Bruges

(In best terrible attempt at an Irish accent) It's fucking brilliant is that!

Two hitmen have to spend some time in Bruges, Belgium. Colin Farrell's Ray, really doesn't want to be there, isn't enjoying himself and thinks it's a "shithole". Brendan Gleeson's Ken, actually quite likes it, enjoys the architecture and takes the time to sightsee.

It's a fair bit more involved than that, but that's your basic character premise there. It's offensive to the point where we wondered exactly how they got away with it, it's also bloody funny, touching, brilliantly written and outstandingly acted.

The best hitman movie since Grosse Point Blank.

In Bruges - 10/10

Logan's Run

Logan's Run is an odd film, it's a good ol' 1970's sci-fi, which feels totally of it's time, set in the obligatory dysotopian/utopian future, Logan is a 'Sandman' basically a copper who chases down 'runners'.

'Runners' are those who's life clock has run out (at the grand old age of 30), but don't really feel like getting beamed up and disintegrated. All's going well until circumstances lead Logan into becoming a runner himself.

There's a whole load of stuff that's never really made totally clear, not ambiguous, just not explained properly. Peter Ustinov is brilliant as the 'old man' and Jenny Agutter is HOT!! She alone is a good enough reason to watch this!!

Besides that, it was quite entertaining.

Logan's Run - 6/10

No Country for Old Men

I read the book prior to seeing the film. Wasn't overly impressed to be honest. The typeface and layout used in the book is really off-putting, but I digress..

The film follows the book pretty closely, losing only a few elements. What's good about the film is the characters come across a lot better, the humor comes across (not so much in the book) and the language translates slightly better (yes as an Englishman, reading Southern American isn't a strength).

Javier Bardem is as good as everyone makes out, but as a story it's all very disjointed, subtext heavy and ultimately bleak and disappointing. Josh Brolin's character's actions don't seem to ring true and things just seem a bit forced. As a Coen Brothers film, it's far better than Intolerable Cruelty (what isn't?!), but not up to Fargo or Big Lebowski standards.

No Country for Old Men - 7/10

Chaos Theory

This is Ryan Reynolds' Stranger Than Fiction.

By that I mean, this is where we find out that Reynolds can actually act. He did show a hint of it in the remake of The Amityville Horror, but this one really pushes the boat out.

The story of a man who's life, organised to OCD levels and works as an Efficiency Expert giving seminars, has it all suddenly turned upside down and decides to leave everything to chance (vaguely).

Apart from chocking me up and reducing my girlfriend to a weeping mess, it showed that Reynolds can do something other than shout and raise his eyebrows. Makes me slightly more interested in The Nines, but I'm expecting his appearance as Deadpool in the Wolverine movie to be more akin to Hannibal King.

A top top film.

Chaos Theory - 9/10

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

The Spanish language version of a "Quentin Tarantino Presents.." this "Guillermo Del Toro Presents..." follows a very similar style to Guillermo's own films.

It got pretty good reviews when it was in the cinema, and overall it's not bad, got quite a good end, although does suffer a bit from Return Of The King Syndrome, my main complaint is that it's VEEERRY SLOOOOW, it's a good story though and we stuck it out.

Not as creepy as I was expecting, there's a couple of creep-out moments, but it's not IMO, a full on scarefest. Well crafted and looks beautiful, Guillermo's certainly on a mission!

The Orphanage - 7/10

The Dark Knight

Before I start, there are probably spoilers here.

Y'know there's a very strong possibility that there's been more hype around this film than there was when Lucas announced he was making 3 more Star Wars films. This hype unfortunately primarily exists because of Heath Ledger's untimely departure from this world, ok there was interest in his portrayal of The Joker beforehand, but it then became known more for being "the role that killed him", which is a big shame.

I'm glad the film's doing well, especially on the IMAX performances (I buckled and saw it today at a normal cinema, cos I don't know when I'm gonna be able to get to IMAX), as it's good to see IMAX getting noticed for something other than droll James Cameron docs or making people sick. But the hype machine's in overdrive on this one.

Anyway, I'll move away from that amateur assessment of what's going on in the world and onto what I thought of the film.

I was as excited about this as the next person, I really liked Batman Begins, I like the comics, I like Christopher Nolan, I was intrigued to see where he was going to take it and the fact that it was stated that they were going for the "psychopath joker" rather than the "camp tv series joker" AND that one of the main influences on their Joker, was Alan Moore's "A Killing Joke" which is FUCKING AWESOME!

People are saying that TDK is much like The Godfather Part 2 or Heat. I haven't seen Godfather 2, and it doesn't have the same energy as Heat, and (at the moment at least), as a film, I actually prefer Batman Begins.

So why? Why am I not jumping up and down like a rabid fanboy like I probably should be?

The film's slow through most of it, and it's a bad kind of slow, not a good kind of slow (like Alien), it lumbers around, people chat, Bruce Wayne worries a bit, more chat, exposition, explanation, too much.

I really don't like the dialogue, (the screen I was in had a shitty sound system this could be contributing), there's a lot of "thinking out loud" type stuff in this and "summing up for the audience" at the end... what am I watching Scooby Fucking Doo?

There's some seriously bad editing too (I think this has been picked up on the IMDb boards as well), a few shots that look like they were cut back for the ratings, and then just some shoddy editing, or some amazing ventriloquism by Christian Bale, one of the two.

The opening scenes are great, starts setting things up pretty well, then it gets a bit boring for a bit, Scarecrow! damn, underused again with bad attempt at comedy, then Joker pops up again, he's ok, then we have the 1-on-1 with him and the Bat, this is, in no uncertain terms, FUCKING AWESOME, this is where I got an enormous... grin on my face and thought "Okay, here we go, this is the movie I want to see kicking off now!", cue faster pacing, explosions, jeopardy, pain and...oh.. it's slowing down again now... why is it not going well....it's alright now we have Joker and Two-Face!! C'mon!!...please? just a bit... No you don't need to explain it to me...no really you don't...

Characters;

Bale is Bale, he plays BW/BM much like he did in the first, only he's even more arrogant now he's been doing this for a year. His lisp has got worse, or maybe its just he has more dialogue as BM now and you get to hear it more. He doesn't offer much else, except in the interrogation scene, but then that's quickly forgotten about.

Gordon is possibly the best character in the film and obviously Gary Oldman does an outstanding job of playing him in every single of his scenes (even the one's where he's explaining to the audience)

Harvey Dent/Two-Face, has potential, which would be interesting to see if he's about for the 3rd film, but I don't know if they'll fully explore it or not, I like how they deviated from his origin story, but feel they didn't run with it enough. Aaron Eckhart did a pretty good job, but there wasn't really enough time for the split personality to settle in.

Scarecrow, painfully underused again :(

Random crime bosses and gangsters, were pretty pointless.

Alfred Pennyworth, same old same old from Mr Caine, nothing new to see here.

Rachel Dawes, thank the lord for Katie Holmes "scheduling conflicts", but depsite Maggie Gyllenhall's better performance, the character's a tad incidental, but possibly a good thing for part 3 ;)

Mayor, blah blah, Ramirez, blah blah

The Joker.... here's the biggie, Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker is such that people are screaming for him to receive a posthumous Academy Award, that it's one of the best performances of all time etc etc. It's very good yes, Oscar worthy, I don't know, as good as I was hoping for, no.

There's been a big thing made of how creepy and messed up Joker was going to be, how he was a proper psycho, hell bent on destruction and chaos, yet through most of the film he's actually pretty mellow. I was hoping for a full on electrifying performance, I wanted to be SCARED by him, this didn't happen. There's a level of violence to him, a small hint of comedy, only the odd gag here and there, but there's only really one scene/sequence that features the Joker I was hoping for and that's the interrogation scene.

Here's where he really comes alive, where him and Batman are 1-on-1, there's flaws with the dialogue here too, but the scene plays out beautifully, Joker keeps pushing and pushing and Batman starts to crack, Joker just takes the abuse, here we get a REAL Joker laugh (hairs on the back of my neck!), Batman going crazy because he can't deal with him, it's awesome, then Batman goes off to be all heroic and Joker is left to make his way out, still awesome, after everything's done in the police station, it all starts to fizzle out again and by the end we're back to not so great again. The reason? Who knows, maybe that's how they wanted it and they think it's realy psycho like, maybe we couldn't see the Joker I wanted to because at the end of the day, it's a Batman film and needs to be suitable for a certain demographic??

Hellboy.

When I first saw Hellboy (the first one) in the cinema, I thought it was okay, not great, but okay. Then i watched it again and started to really like it, now I love it, the film got me into the Hellboy (and BPRD) comics and I'm quite looking forward to The Golden Army.

My point is that I'm hoping that after another viewing I'll start to like TDK more, I sat wondering if I had seen it on IMAX first would I have liked it better, am I just being a little unfair on it (yes and no maybe). Did I enjoy Iron Man more? yes I did.

I will be going back for another viewing, hopefully on IMAX and I will be buying it on DVD, I hope I like it better as it goes on.

The Dark Knight - 7/10