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A film came out about six months ago. A friend of mine was in it. I saw the preview. There did not seem to be enough in the film to even make the preview interesting. I hadn't seen my friend for a few months, so I thought I could get away with not seeing it. Then fate intervened and I ended up with a DVD copy.
Let me start by saying that the actors in this film are brilliant. William McInnes, Monique Hendrickx, Bille Brown and my friend Christopher Sommers are all great. David Field overacts a bit, but otherwise, great acting.
The directing wasn't bad either. Sensitive, a little heavy with the creation of dramatic atmosphere, but on the whole, not terrible.
Why oh why then was Unfinished Sky so arse-numbingly boring? Perhaps it just had nothing I hadn't seen before. The leads were a good fit, and McInnes has presence to burn. But I just wanted it to be over. The romance seemed forced, the story too pat. Even the origin of Hendrickx's character (AFGHANISTAN - perhaps Duncan could have screamed MESSAGE!!! or put up a red flashing light in case we didn't get it) was too cute. It all fitted too well and too familiarly, even the revelations behind each character. But these revelations - Hendri
Unfinished Sky
ckx's nationality and McInnes' past - were not properly explored. It was as though the filmmaker thought mentioning these happenings was enough.
All in all, odd little film that needed a lot more to make it a satisfying journey.
But my mate Chris was great.
Brad as Chad
Yes! The Coens are back, just 10 months after they blew us all away with No Country For Old Men. Their latest is the comedy thriller confection Burn After Reading. It starts with the firing of low-level CIA analyst Osbourne (John Malkovich). The alcoholic Osbourne's wife (Tilda Swinton) is sleeping with serial philanderer Harry (George Clooney) while Osbourne writes a dreary memoir on his days at the CIA. A disc copy of the book and some financial records go missing at the local gym, where two dimwitted instructors (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) hatch a plot to extort money from Osbourne over its contents. Of course, it spirals out of control from there.
Like many Coen Brothers films, there's more going on than that, but telling you would spoil the fun. It's enough to know that the big name actors in this film, including the hilarious JK Simmons, are having the time of their lives playing complete idiots. Pitt is particularly memorable as the perenially bopping gym-junkie Chad.
The only warning I can give you, though, is not to expect too much in the way of story. Sure, there's plot aplenty, but as they sometimes do the Coens have let their characters run away with the film, meaning the ending is far less satisfying than it would have been had there been a point to all the sillyness.
Or maybe that is their point. The film has the slick opening sequence, the shadowy cinematography and even the soundtrack of a tense political thriller, but every character is a dimwit. Where a cinemagoer expects coherence, the Coens provide miscommunication, incorrect assumptions and downright stupidity. In their own way, perhaps they are providing a sly comment on the state of the US thanks to the guys in charge.
Or I could be stretching the point. Go, laugh, enjoy - but remember that this film is only there for the fun of it.
September 30th 2008 13:34
Two extraordinary animated films in two weeks. September has been a good month...
A haunting image from Waltz With Bashir
Waltz With Bashir, however, is no kids' film. It deals with the lead-up to and horrific events surrounding a massacre of civilians in the 1982 Lebanon war. But this is no Schindler's List, where the audience comes in knowing at least somewhat to expect. It is a journey into the psyche of war, as much as it is an examination of what happened. One of the things that makes this film so compelling is that is told from the unique perspective of a man who was there, but cannot remember.
images courtesy google.com
Director Ari Folman brings many other elements to the film that set it apart. For instance, while one could classify it as documentary, it is told in a familiar flashback narrative form, playing with our sense of what is real and what is constructed. Folman starts his journey after a former comrade tells him about a recurring dream involving precisely 26 dogs that come for him, intending to kill. Folman realises that he cannot remember the war, and begins to track down other former fellow soldiers so that they might help him jog his memory.
Before we get to that, we are treated to a quick overview of how memory, imagination and reality interact from a psychologist friend of Folman's. This inability to trust our own memories, especially in traumatic situations, is explored majestically by Folman and his team of gifted animators.
The animation itself is first-class, searing some extraordinary images into the viewers' minds, most notably the two above. The decision to go with animation frees up the filmmakers to insert whimsy, beauty and poetry into what is truly a horrific story. The ending, when it comes, is devastating.
There are, in the middle, parts where the film drags, due as much to the fact that I was unfamiliar with the details of the conflict as anything else. But these moments are short-lived and quickly forgotten.
See Waltz With Bashir. There is simply nothing like it out there.
September 19th 2008 14:34
WALL-E
It is as simple as that. WALL-E is an instant classic. The latest Pixar film somehow outdoes their best, and their best includes some of the greatest animated films of all time - Toy Story (and its sequel), The Incredibles, A Bug's Life.
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September 16th 2008 13:25
Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma
3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell 'The Phone Tosser' Crowe and Batman Bale, was touted as a return to good ol' drag-em-out, shoot-em-up, good guys versus bad guys westerns. Yee hah! I do love a good western, like Clint used to make. So I watched it. And I laughed.
September 15th 2008 16:56
Matt Damon gets boring
Sorry valued readers, but I have been too busy of late to catch up on my blogging. But I am back, alas with a film that failed to excite. Soon I promise a review of Dexter Season 2 which, because I do not own a TV, feels like a really long exciting movie to me. But back to today's topic...
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September 10th 2008 06:25
A long, long time ago in a studio far, far away, a short fat bearded guy made a film about a kid called Skywalker who, despite some Oedipal issues and a tendency to act like a 6-year-old when perturbed, was quite a good space pilot.
And lo, it was good. Of course, today those original Star Wars films look quite dated, but one can easily see how they changed the face of cinema. They ushered in an age of monster blockbusters with big characters, big set-pieces and even bigger budgets. Most of them were rubbish but quite a few were eminently watchable, and George Lucas was considered the grandaddy, the visionary, the insert-hyperbolic-superlative -here of modern Hollywood film
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So, The Dark Knight has made more money than everything except Titanic, and on top of sizeable hits such as Iron Man, Tropic Thunder, Wanted and the fourth Indy film (despite the fact the last two, to varying degrees, sucked) the film industry as a whole is headed for its highest-grossing year ever.
But where to from here? There is no denying the gaming industry is taking pundits out of cineplexes and allowing them to exorcise their aggressive tendencies in the comfort of their own home. Witness the monster money made by Grand Theft Auto IV.
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Young Frankenstein
"The Funniest Comedy Ever Made" is says on the front cover. According to who? Mel Brooks' aunties? Joke rehashing does not a funny movie make! These jokes were old when Brooks was young. And he's old now. He has, in fact, been old for quite some time. Which makes these jokes even older.
Now, I remember as an eight- or nine-year-old watching Get Smart and thinking it was kinda funny. I saw an episode a few years ago, and I gotta say eight or nine seems to be about the right age for Mel's brand of humour. I went to see the Broadway version of The Producers - okay, but most definitely not the funniest thing since whatever theatre-going people seem to think is funny. Neil Simon, probably
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OK, so it's a loaded question. In my humble opinion, Tropic Thunder is occasionally hilarious, often genuinely funny and sometimes curiously cringeworthy. All of these moments, sublime, stupid and soporific, have Stiller's fingerprints all over them. He was co-writer, director and star of the war epic spoof, and the whole idea was his in the first place. For that, we should all stand up and applaud. However, what is noteworthy about the film is that the dull or hollow moments often come when Stiller himself is on screen.
This is because Stiller is not naturally funny. This is not his fault, he just isn't. Kudos to him, then, for making it to the top of the Hollywood comedy tree, but I get the feeling that Thunder would have been funnier had Stiller cast a genuinely funny person as the fading action hero. Or even better, an actual action star - I can only imagine how close to the bone Bruce Willis could have taken the character. Hell, Hugh Jackman, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or even Tom Cruise (yeah, I know his support role is kinda funny, but what about really turning the celebrity apple cart over?) would have all ripped apart the role as the not-so-clever leader of the fake battalion
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Comment by Matt Rossner
on Family Guy: Blue Harvest