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Changeling (Dir: Clint Eastwood) 60/100
There are two Eastwood films in this years lineup - Gran Torino is a revenge-fuelled crowd pleaser in the tradition of Dirty Harry designed to keep the money rolling in and this film - a more thoughtful period piece designed to keep his directorial kudos high. This is a pattern that a lot of the more successful actor/directors follow to keep on top of a competitive industry. Changeling features a decent enough performance from Angelina Jolie - an actress I find hard to take to at the best of times, and a nice extended cameo from John Malkovich, but not much more to recommend it than that. Jolie is a mother who's son goes missing and is replaced with some random orphan. She fights the powers that be who just want her to shut up, and she eventually exposes all sorts of nefarious goings on involving sleazy criminals and corrupt cops in 1920s Los Angeles. I didn't care much for this film because although it's supposedly based on real events the whole thing just doesn't ring true at all - it's too far-fetched but at the same time very flat. I didn't find Jolie's character or situation to be very sympathetic or believable, so everything just seemed a bit hokey. The production itself looks too much like it's been filmed on the Warner Brothers backlot with sets left over from the old gangster films of yesteryear and what with the unsympathetic characters and phoney seeming premise after a while I found I didn't really care what was happening or why. Maybe it's time old Clint called it a day because this isn't great and neither was Gran Torino. |
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The Dark Knight (Dir: Christopher Nolan) 90/100
Second of the next generation Batman films featuring Christian Bale and a really excellent performance by the late Heath Ledger. Looking back at his short career it's impressive to note the variety of parts he played and played very well. Shame. An Oscar nomination is on the cards what with him being dead and all and I wouldn't object to that; winning would be pushing it depending on who else is nominated, but Ledger does play a fascinating and entertaining villain in this film, and he plays it to the hilt. Anyway, the film: I liked this much more than Batman Begins which itself was pretty good, except the action scenes weren't great and it lacked a good villain. It's true of Batman as it is any comic-book movie that you have to have a great villain for the film to work and The Dark Knight has that in spades. The plot is rudimentary, but the psychology of it all is very interesting; the script goes into more detail than you would expect about the motives of the characters and this was the most interesting aspect of the film for me. Apparently director Christopher Nolan based the character dynamics on Michael Mann's Heat and it does have those overtones, with Batman and The Joker's bouts of verbal sparring in between the action set-pieces, and the film is much richer for it. Although I do still have a soft spot for the two Burton/Keaton efforts, of the six Batman films made thus far this is definitely the most accomplished, polished, entertaining, and psychologically interesting. In short it's a better Batman film than anyone could have reasonably expected. |
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Departures (Dir: Yôjirô Takita) 90/100
Masahiro Motoki stars in this sometimes comic, often fascinating and frequently moving drama that deals with the practicalities and superstitions surrounding death. The orchestra Kobayashi has worked so hard to become part of as a cellist is suddenly disbanded just as he secures his spot, and he's forced to sell his cello, move back to his hometown and make a new start in life with his young wife. Short on cash he answers a classified ad in the paper with the heading 'departures' that he thinks is some sort of travel agency but is actually for a "Nokanshi" or 'encoffiner' - a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. As death is a subject many people in Japan want nothing to do with there is a terrible stigma attached to those who deal with the business of death and the dying. Consequently Kobayashi doesn't tell his wife what he does for a living thinking he'll come across a 'real' job soon enough. However, the more he learns about being an encoffiner the more he comes to realise it may be his true calling in life, rather than being a famous cellist. This film features some lovely performances - especially from Masahiro Motoki as the apprentice nokanshi and Tsutomu Yamazaki, who puts in a wonderful performance as his idosyncratic but ultimately supremely professional boss. One of the very best films to come out of Japan for quite some time. |
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Il Divo (Dir: Paolo Sorrentino) 95/100
This is one of those films where if you blink you'll miss some important information - facts pertinent to the story fly by here at a rate of knots and it's quite taxing just trying to keep who's who and how they fit into the events straight in your mind as you watch. Tony Servillo gives a weirdly hypnotic performance in this whizz-bang look at the life and alleged crimes of Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti - elected to Parliament seven times since its inception in 1946. This movie struck me as a kind of cross between Oliver Stone's JFK, with its political intrigue and information overload, Scorsese's Casino, with its restless camera, punchy zooms and swish cinematography and Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs with its arrogant swagger. I found all the technical flashiness a bit over the top at first, but it settles down as it progresses and in the end you're left with a very confident and accomplished film that can certainly be enjoyed more than once. In fact I would say watching it a second time is pretty much essential if you're to properly absorb and collate all the information crammed into the two hour running time. I'll certainly be happy to revisit this because aside from catching up on stuff I may have missed I look forward to immersing myself once again in the beautifully photographed architecture of the government buildings full of oily politicians with their sharp suits, scrabbling over each other in their quest for power. Delicious. |
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Doubt (Dir: John Patrick Shanley) 70/100
Yet another sizzling performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman - this time as a newly appointed and forward thinking priest in a catholic school in new York in the sixties who may or may not have previously acted inappropriately towards a young black student under his care. In fact this film is chock full of tasty performances. Meryl Streep as an ultra conservative oldschool nun trying desperately to hold on to her draconian ideals and resist any forward thinking or modernist views falls just the right side of caricature - she doesn't care for this new-age priest and is like a bloodhound on the trail of a juicy prey in her quest to dislodge him from his position. Amy Adams is excellent as the timorous novice who sparks off the whole debate over the priest's guilt or innocence as is Viola Davis as the boy's mother who in a single scene almost steals the film with a performance of exceptional depth and emotional complexity - no mean feat considering the small amount of screen time she has and the talents surrounding her. All these four performances are nominated for Oscars as is the script by John Patrick Shanley - adapted from his own play. Though the plot might not stand up to a lot of scrutiny, and the production itself may suffer from being a bit flat, if you're looking for actors doing their thing brilliantly with great dialogue then Doubt is the film to see this year. |
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Gomorra (Dir: Matteo Garrone) 80/100
This gritty film swept the awards circuits on release and was a hot contender for the 2008 Best Foreign Film Oscar. It details, graphically and disturbingly, the clan warfare that exists between the various mob factions in an Italian slum. We follow drug and money runners - most of whom are young children, small time arms dealers and petty criminals along with supposedly respectable tradespeople and businessmen overworked, turning against their colleagues and families, poisoning the environment and generally taking a very short-sighted view of the world through circumstances beyond their control. The events are portrayed with a deal of authenticity and so make for a pretty depressing viewing experience. It's an accomplished and certainly very effective piece of filmmaking mind you, don't get me wrong - nice camerawork, good performances from a largely non-professional cast, and is brilliantly effective at conveying an atmosphere of all-pervading tension, stress and fear surrounding the characters and their tightrope-walk through life. |
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Gran Torino (Dir: Clint Eastwood) 50/100
Probably the last we're going to see of Clint Eastwood the actor and judging by his performance here that's probably a good thing, overall. His performance as retired veteran Walt Kowalski is perilously close to a parody of some of his earlier roles, so if he gets an Oscar nomination for this it would surely only be for old times sake. The setting is modern Los Angeles and Walt's an extremely grumpy old curmudgeon in a neighbourhood that's gone to the dogs. He's outrageously racist (but not really) and very unsociable (but not really) and his wife's just died so he's not in the best of moods. Along comes a bunch of Asian good-for-nothings (or zipperheads as he's so fond of calling them) who are terrorising the neighbourhood and are certainly not improving his mood. You get the idea. All his talk of chinks, gooks, and zipperheads gets old pretty quickly - it seems quite affected; as if he's just talking that way for the sake of being contoversial and anti-pc, but it just comes across as false and a bit embarrassing. As far as the story goes this is basically a poor man's Unforgiven updated for the modern generation and with none of the pathos or depth. Anyway, once around the block for that story was enough - this is just rehashing something that at the time was original and fairly insightful. It would have been nice for Clint the actor to go out on something with a little more depth than Gran Torino has to offer, but it's not a total disgrace - just painfully mediocre and a big disappointment after the high quality of the last few films with which he's been involved. |
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Happy Go Lucky (Dir: Mike Leigh) 80/100
Mike Leigh's new film, and you could never accuse him of style over substance. This is another grass roots slice of life in modern Britain. It features a beautifully down to earth performance from Sally Hawkins as Poppy - a freewheeling primary teacher, and a magnificent turn from Eddie Marsan as a lonely driving instructor who's headed for a nervous breakdown. The two meet up when Poppy decides to take some driving lessons and some of the exchanges between them on these lessons range from absolutely hilarious through to heartbreakingly sad and quite disturbing. It really doesn't matter too much what Leigh's films are about as the pleasure of them usually derives from his ability to capture genuine human emotions in believable situations by selecting the best actors for the job then letting them get on with it. Even though you may be tempted to dismiss Poppy as merely vacuous and annoying, as the film progresses you really begin to understand that she's a much more rounded person who most times takes life with a pinch of salt, but is serious when the situation merits it. It's a deceptively good performance and should at least earn her an Oscar nomination. Although not for everyone Leigh's films are consistently interesting, incisive and subtle, and your average Hollywood film school graduate could learn a lot from him. Another quiet triumph from a seasoned filmmaker doing what he does best - and what is cinemas loftiest ambition - chronicling the human condition. |
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Let The Right One In (Dir: Thomas Alfredson) 90/100
Another vampire film but this one is very different from your average run of the mill vampire tale, full of coiffeured hair-dos and sexy blood-sucking scenes with romantic or erotic overtones. No, this is much more what you'd imagine the real experience of being a vampire would be - pretty miserable on the whole. We observe the humdrum lives of a few folk on a housing estate in a run-down part of Sweden where a lonely young boy who's being bullied at school encounters a strange young girl outside his house one day. The two strike up a weird relationship and the boy slowly catches on to the fact that she is in fact a vampire. Far from being some omnipotent winged fantasy figure though the girl is lonely, scared and does not hunt humans if she can avoid it. In fact her guardian - an old man (possibly her father) murders young men to harvest their blood so she doesn't have to kill. For the most part this film is shot in such an unassuming, matter of fact way that it adds to the fascination of the unlikely scenario by seeming so un-fantastic and therefore more believable, and is thus far more engaging than the likes of Twilight which was released around the same time and is more akin to something like Lost Boys which was pure teen fantasy. Let The Right One In reads like a cross between Interview With The Vampire, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and the Japanese horror film Juon, and strikes just the right balance between them. This is the best horror film I've seen since The Orphanage. |
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Quantum of Solace (Dir: Marc Forster) 50/100
Carrying on pretty much where Casino Royale ended Bond is off to find out who was behind Vesper's death and why she apparently betrayed him. On the way he gets tangled up in the world of high finance and dirty politics but tends to steer clear of doing much talking in favour of extreme violence. He's still ruthlessly efficient and clinical in his pursuit of revenge, M still doesn't quite trust him (but really does), and there's no stupid super-villains trying to take over the world. One Bond girl; I can handle that - she at least has something to do with the plot, such as it is. Lastly, there's no daft gadgetry and no silly quips so there's that. Solace does suffer by comparison with Casino Royale in every area though: The plot is servicable and no more - a bit convoluted and not that interesting. It's a little lacking in humour, but really I'm not going to argue in favour of a lot more humour - that's a dangerous road to go down in the Bond films (as the Roger Moore series proves). This time round though Bond's quite vicious and never smiles. Of course this is a revenge thriller at heart, so Bond doesn't have a lot to smile about. A more serious issue than these niggles though is that the villain of the piece isn't scary at all and is a really poor nemesis for such a driven and capable Bond as portrayed by Daniel Craig. Like the Batman films, having a really strong villain is vitally important to any Bond film, and Solace falls woefully short here with the white-collar criminal Dominic Greene, and makes the whole enterprise seem kind of pointless for much of the time. |
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Revanche (Dir: Götz Spielmann) 85/100
Alex, an ex-con recently released from prison and looking to make a fresh start is working in a strip club as an odd job man - presumably the only work he could find. His girlfriend Tamara is a Ukrainian prostitute and they both dream of escaping the shady and violent world they are forced to live in by saving enough money to emigrate to South America. Unwilling to wait any longer Alex hatches a plan to rob the local bank then flee the country with the proceeds. He and Tamara carry through with this plan which goes awry as Tamara is accidentally shot by Robert - a passing off-duty policeman. Shortly after the incident Alex finds out the policeman lives close to his father's farm and his thoughts turn to revenge. Again though, Alex hasn't thought through his actions and slowly comes to find out that Robert is suffering severe guilt over the incident and that Alex himself may have been more responsible than he for the turn of events at the bank. Johannes Krisch gives a believable performance as the thoughtful Alex, and Spielmann does a fantastic job of setting the scene for us - seedy nightclubs and organised crime surrounds Alex and Tamara. There's an authentic sense of impending doom the two lovers are caught up in and we want them to escape before it's too late. An accomplished rumination on the use and abuse of power, freedom to act and dealing with the consequences in life. |
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Wanted (Dir: Timur Bekmambetov) 60/100
Wow. There's certainly no shortage of films that stretch credibility to the breaking point in Hollywood, but Wanted has taken bonkers to a whole new level. About twenty minutes into this film the lead character (James McAvoy) smacks a co-worker with his computer keyboard, and that scene along with the opening sequence tells you everything you need to know about this film - if they do nothing for you then you'll hate it, if you love the audacity of them then you'll probably be okay. Either way this film, as silly as it is, features some stunning cinematography, outrageous action sequences, and pretty good performances if you don't count Angelina Jolie. McAvoy plays a boring guy with a boring life until he's whisked away to get trained up to be a hitman for a secret society of weavers - yes, cloth weavers - run by Morgan Freeman. Fair enough you might think - but everything's notched up to eleven - no make that a hundred and eleven. This isn't the kind of movie I usually gravitate towards, but if you can disengage your brain sufficiently from reality it's the closest you'll get to a live action roadrunner cartoon, so take that for what it's worth. |
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X-Files: I Want To Believe (Dir: Chris Carter) 40/100
The title is the biggest problem this film has. First of all it's called X-Files, but the plot doesn't involve the investigation of an x-file. Secondly, there isn't really anything of note that happens in the film that would require someone to believe in anything out of the ordinary... maybe a tiny hint of psychic powers from one of the characters, but they're not investigating that so all in all it's a very curious choice of titles. I kind of liked the first film - it had the ingredients that made The X-Files so popular - paranormal activity, alien abduction, government conspiracy, but this film has none of these elements. It's pretty much just a manhunt movie. Mulder and Scully are both present, but really don't need to be - both of them are no longer FBI agents and neither has any special knowledge about the matter at hand. Scully's involved in some unrelated medical matter that just distracts from the main story, such as it is, and Mulder's not doing much of anything except brooding about being kicked out of the fibs. If you're a fan of the X-Files television show then this movie will probably disappoint you as it's not paranormal, aliens or conspiracy enough. If you forget it's an X-Files movie then what you've got is an awkwardly put together mood piece featuring familiar characters not doing much. There's a very good performance from Billy Connolly as a paedophile priest, but aside from that it doesn't rise above a below average X-Files episode. In short, if this film didn't feature Mulder and Scully (and we've already established that it needn't) it would be lost among a dozen other serial killer whodunnits doing the rounds and would probably never be heard of again. It's not terrible; it's just not very good and certainly doesn't do what it says on the tin. |
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