Review 2024: Films

Film  Christ in a crib, it's been a while.  How are we all?  Time for my annual list of favourite films, which I seemed to have completely forgotten to do last year amid the whole link diary thing which haunted my every hour in 2023.  To an extent, the whole thing is a bit pointless.  Do you need me to tell you how good The Holdovers is (The Holdovers is excellent) or give you a spicy take on Megalopolis (which wouldn't have had nearly as much vitriol if it had been projected on a wall via a Raspberry Pi at the Liverpool Biennial)?  Here's an aggregated list from the usual publications if that's the sort of thing you need. 

If you want to see what my year in film was like, just take a look at my diary on Letterboxd.  Some of my favourite viewing experiences weren't even released this year (The Wolf of Snow Hollow) or even a film (Douglas is Cancelled).  Unfortunately, I didn't reach my usual goal of 365 films (one per day) due to the Olympics, binging Taskmaster and a change in my work hours which I'm still trying to get my head around.  But nature abhors a vacuum and so here's a list instead of ten films which I've enjoyed this year which aren't featured in that aggregated list.  In no particular order and with a short justification beneath:

Carry-On

Contains one of my favourite fight sequences of the year in which Danielle Deadwyler fights an assailant while the car in which they're travelling in tumbles out of control, glass and limbs flying everywhere and it all plays out in a single shot all the while the frame keeping parallel with their faces.  However it was done, I really don't care, it turned the movie from being a pretty good thriller into something one of the best action films of recent times.

Fly Me to the Moon

The cat moment.  If you've seen the film, you know the one and if you haven't I won't spoil it for you but I YELPED.

My Old Ass

An excellent example of how to employ your concept sparingly.  Aubrey Plaza doesn't appear as much as the poster would indicate (perhaps she was only available for a few days) but her presence is felt throughout as the protagonist wrestles with the inevitability of time.

Damsel

Arguably this premise was done more convincingly, albeit on a much smaller scale in The Princess (which Disney+ have deleted since its 2022 debut but is available to rent at the usual outlets).  Like Carry-On, this is Netflix resurrecting a genre which theatrical companies are either ignoring or only supporting if their tied to an existing IP.  Also like Carry-On, reviews have missed this and often branded it as "Netflix slop" when there's a lot of talented people working here at the best of their abilities to create entertainments that audiences are otherwise missing.

Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara

The world of para-social relationship laid bare.  I've always had enormous sympathy for smaller scale celebrities who just want to live life like the rest of us, keeping their professions separate.  They owe us nothing but their creative endeavours.  I don't really care much about their social lives unless they're going out of their way to hurt people.  

A Quiet Place: Day One

The central casting suggested that this wasn't going to be just a cash-in and instead, like the best prequels, of which there are few, it provides depth to the series.  Although the horror aspects are present and correct, I wasn't prepared for how romantic yet sad it would be.

The Contestant

Best seen without much prior knowledge, this is deeply troubling exposition of the extremities of "reality TV" and its psychological effects on participants and viewers.

Anyone But You

It's been reported that Sydney Sweeney agreed to make Madame Web on the understanding that Sony would greenlight Anyone But You.  One of them has made her a much bigger star and it's not the one in which she was barely recognisable underneath a massive pair of glasses.  This was a much bigger hit largely due to a witty script and Sweeney and Glen Powell being just so damn charming.  This is an old school romcom of the kind which needs our support.

I Am: Celine Dion

Having had a soft spot for Celine Dion since reading Carl Wilson's Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, it was crushing to see what's happened to one of the most beautiful singing voices of our time.  A companion piece to Pablo Lorrain's Maria (they share similar moments in which the singer strains to return to their original strength), this at least could have a sequel in which we see  Celine triumph from adversity at the Olympics opening ceremony.

Argyle

Having found the Kingsman films pretty tiresome, I didn't enter into this with much hope but came out the other end absolutely beaming.  It's just so fricking weird with gonzo action sequences and Bryce Dallas Howard at her most adorable.  I'm not entirely sure what you were all complaining about.  

* * * * *

If it looks like I haven't watched much contemporary non-English films, you'd be right, but that's largely because so much of the material picked up for release in the UK this year has been on the dark side or already in the aggregated list.  But I am going to use that same list to try and catch up in the new year.  

As for my worst, here are the films released this year which I gave one and two stars.  I'm very forgiving: 

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

Madame Web

Late Night With The Devil

I've noticed Last Night With The Devil is on some best of the year lists despite ultimately being a total wash because after being an incredibly tense, mysterious film for much of its run time, it saps all of that energy at the end by dropping an infodump.  I might have been willing to give it three stars anyway, but the pointless deployment AI artwork, however limited the capacity is an ass move, whatever justifications the filmmakers may have.  So not that forgiving after all.

Review 2018: Bad Films.

Film Yesterday I ran down my top ten films of the year. In short order, here's my bottom ten:

The Snowman
The Image Book
Winchester
Kidnap
Fifty Shades Freed
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
Sicario: Day of the Soldado
Entebbe
Hold the Dark
Status Update

If that list looks a bit thin, it's because for a portion of the year I adhered to the rule of only watching films with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of over 70% and otherwise being pretty generous to anything which looks like it has a thought in its head, which is why I'm already feeling guilty about including Entebbe which at least tries to do something different with those dance sequences.  The Image Book has had some great review which is why I risked another Godardian shovel over the head, but I'm still convinced JLG hasn't made a good film since the 1970s.

Some of these are just boring.  Hold The Dark, Fifty Shades Freed (yes, really), Winchester and Mark Felt which somehow made a biopic about Deep Throat preachy and boring and looked especially poor when compared to this year's other All The President's Men homage, The Post.  A potentially expansive epic is turned into men talking grimly in brown rooms.  At a certain point it looked like it would smartly keep Woodstein off screen until it can't help itself and produces its own inferior version of the parking lot scene crucifying actor Julian Morris in the process for not being Redford.

But of all these, The Snowman was the worst.  As the director's admitted about 10-15% of the screenplay went unfilmed which meant they had to find ways of plugging the gaps in editing.  In some ways this is a fascinating watch, as we see Thelma Schoonmaker presses establishing shots into action via ADR to provide at least some connecting tissue between otherwise disjointed scene chronology.  But other oddities linger, like whether Val Kilmer actually had some dialogue originally or what the business was with the sausage in the pivotal breakfast scene.  A prime example of how even a great director, decent source material and impressive cast sometimes doesn't mean anything.

Review 2018: Film.

Film This past year, because of my working patterns, my time has been relatively limited, certainly more limited than it usually is. So at a certain point choices had to be made about what to prioritize, how to spend my leisure time. Reading has become a rare pleasure. Music's drifted into the background and my ability to concentrate increases without it in any case. Television consumption has been reduced to a few regular shows. But the one constant, the one activity which has remained because it gives me so much pleasure, is that I continue to watch a film every night after tea (US translation: dinner).

Which explains why, when you glance at my Letterboxd diary you'll see the total of three hundred and eighty (380) films so far this year, well over one per day.  Of those, thirty-seven (37) were rewatched which means three hundred and forty-three were entire new to me.  Which is less than the average film critic but far more than is probably usual.  Was it worth it?  Yes.  But it's also meant that for the most part I won't have seen the shiny television series you're all talking about.  Sharp Objects? Yes.  The Haunting of Hill House? No.  Others have been posting their entire lists to their blogs, but its all there on Letterboxd if you want to have a look along with often overly generous star ratings.

Choosing ten films from that lot has been a trial.  Having those star ratings to work from is useful, but honestly I've seen so many great movies this year that even as I glance downwards at this list, I'm still not convinced about the choices.  Why not Black Panther or Avengers: Infinity War?  Why not Tully or Thoroughbreds or Game Night?  Dark River?  Or Leave No Trace?  I honestly can't say.  Four of these films are Netflix releases and another one is from Amazon Studios.  What does that mean?  Plus there are all the films I haven't seen, especially released theatrically later in the year which I probably won't see until Cinema Paradiso or a streaming service adds it to their collection in 2019.

In other words, take these choices with a pinch of salt in terms of them being my actual favourite films of the year.  Lady Bird should probably be here.  So should The Cloverfield Paradox (which is brilliantly daft), A Ghost Story, Wind River and Mother!  I Am Not A Witch.  Whitney.  The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.  Cam.  Lucky.  Permission.  The Happy Prince!  When I saw The Happy Prince I was convinced it would be in this end of year list and then Roma popped up and smacked me around the eyeballs.  Does The Other Side of the Wind count as a 2018 release?  In the end I decided not to hold the extended post-production process against it.  So in no particular order:

Roma
Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
Wonderstruck
Anchor and Hope
The Other Side of the Wind
Molly’s Game
A Quiet Place
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
The Square
Annihilation

The completely ignored Anchor and Hope is a funny, poignant romance featuring Oona Chaplin and Natalia Tena as a couple living on a narrow boat trundling around London, who ask their friend (David Verdaguer) to offer up some sperm so they can gave a baby together.  But they're drawn apart by the effort and their insecurities.  Despite the city setting, director Carlos Marques-Marcet develops a bucolic atmosphere during the extended shots of the boat passing through office areas and high rise housing estates.  It's notable for featuring Chaplin's own mother Geraldine (daughter of Charlie) as her character's mum.

What'll actually end up becoming part of the canon and on film school syllabuses can't really be predicted, but Roma. The Other Side of the Wind and Annihilation all seem like probables.  Anything by Welles is a sure thing and even if this is just a best guess about his intentions, and so has a similar veracity in analytical terms as some of the apparently posthumous reconstructions in the Shakespeare Folios.  But Annihilation in particular feels like a decedent of Kubrick, Tarkovsky and Resnais in allowing the audience's imagination to infer part of the narrative as well as offering an extraordinary visual feast.

The Square is my favourite film of the year.  Over the past few years my appreciation of contemporary art has waned and Ruben Östlund's satirical fuck you has enunciated exactly why.  You will have noticed that I didn't review the Liverpool Biennial this year due to the Thumper rule and it's largely because so much of what was on display had a mediocrity which was indistinguishable from the material created for The Square in which the audience is either provided with a meaningless explanation for amateurish objects or no explanation at all, which is even worse.  The material surround the titular street furniture of the film is especially cutting.

But it's also the portrayal of the art world in general.  The lack of thought about how installation art will be interacted with by the public or as is hilariously the case, the gallery maintenance staff.  The insular nature of curatorial choice putting audience perception low on the priories list under selecting exhibition subjects because of their prestigious name over the work they've more recently produced.  The shocking realistic performance art section in which the sponsors and grandees of the gallery are confronted with something genuinely interesting but are embarrassed or take dislike to it because its so far outside their expectations.  Oh and pretentiousness.  Oh the pretentiousness.

The performances are extraordinary, especially from Claes Bang, the gallery curator with a far too high opinion of himself and A demonstration of white men failing upwards.  He's the sort of chap I've been either tried to be or fight with all my heart not to be across the years depending on the social circles I was trying to join (eventually giving in to Groucho's maxim).  Some reviews have suggested the wallet related subplot is the weakest element, but it offers a glimpse of how some people, despite what's being professed through the artworks are unable to appreciate the mechanics of the world outside their particular circle.

My Year In Film 2015.

Film  Happy New Year!  In 2015, for various reasons, I visited the cinema regularly again, attending most of the large action adventure films during the Summer months and into the Autumn (and The Lobster).  Most of the audiences were fine as were the films, and it was refreshing to be able to take part in discourse or at least understand the discussion surrounding the release rather than simply listening again much later to the Kermode review and looking below the line at The AV Club review.

Probably the most fun I had was with Mad Max, Jurassic World, Mission Impossible and of course Star Wars.  About the only entirely rubbish film on this list was Fan4stic which thanks to complaining about the noisy air conditioning unit which accompanied the screening I didn't end up having to pay for anyway.  Spectre was the most disappointing.  Bond's a busted flush until it does its own thing again and produces proper period adaptations of the books.

If I have to choose, my favourite film of the year which wasn't the obvious was Advantageous which I was happy to nominate for The Double Negative review of the year.  Here's what I wrote:

"Bought for distribution at Sundance by Netflix, ironically causing unfortunate obscurity, Jennifer Fang’s indie wonder Advantageous glimpses a dystopian future in which an older woman is given the choice of losing a job which guarantees her child’s future, or sacrificing her own identity. Tense, impressionistic, refreshing and warm filmmaking. Classic."

Seriously if you haven't found it yet, go seek.

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of my film studies degree, I'm currently working my way through the 1001 Films To Watch Before You Die book which thanks to being annually for the past ten years is actually nearly 1,200 films and growing.  My only rule is to ignore anything I've already seen in my life which slashes the number in half.  I'm also working through them chronologically and so having worked through the silent era, I'm currently at the end of the 1930s.

This project will also be my last hurray with Lovefilm which I'll be cancelling once I've reached the end of the list.  Between the iPlayer, my own unwatched archive and subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime and NowTV and the imminent price rise, I simply can't justify getting shiny discs through the post any more.  Despite back catalogue issues, there'll always be something to watch and frankly I'm also sick of something turning up on Netflix the week I receive the dvd.

So having spent much of the year watching classic films, you'll have to forgive me for not singling anything out.  Instead, I've gone the Soderbergh route and listed everything I've watched this year as far as my various sources suggest and my own memory will allow.  Find listed three hundred and forty films, although I think there may have been the odd thing on the iPlayer or from my own collection which could add another twenty or so titles.

Review 2013: Not The Doctor: My Year In Films.

Film As you know when it comes these "reviews of the year" and creating a list of my favourite films, it's a pointless exercise because I've usually only been inside a cinema once or twice and always desperately behind in catching up with everything via rental delivery services. This year, the films I saw inside the cinema were Star Trek: Into Darkness, which is entertaining while it's on but entirely falls apart in hindsight, Thor: The Dark World, which is just as good as the first film and continues the MARVEL experiment in fine style and Gravity, of which I think I've said enough already. Overall, I think I've been fairly lucky. My last roughly twelve months of watching films have been filled with transcendent moments. Kylie's song in Holy Motors - and indeed Holy Motors. The surprising narrative gearchange in Looper. The Perks of Being a Wallflower which was this years film I wished I'd watched before becoming gripped by the cynicism of age. Ruby Sparks which caught me at just the right time. Lincoln's introduction in the film Lincoln as the iconic monument which has been a comfort to so many film protagonists gained flesh and became a protagonist himself. The selflessness and support of the filmmaker in 5 Broken Cameras. Paul Bettany's multilayered performance in Margin Call, making us feel sorry for a banker. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen for being, at heart, an old fashioned romance but with a melancholy ending. Moonrise Kingdom for being, at heart, an old fashioned romance but with a happy ending. The Amazing Spider-Man for being the Spider-man I remember loving as a child. The tree scene in The Kid with a Bike. At least The Bourne Legacy tried to do something and Rachel Weisz is brilliant. She's always brilliant. That scene in A Field in England (Reece Shearsmith's a better actor than he gives himself credit for). That scene in Les Miserables (and all the parodies). The whole of Pitch Perfect. Most of Friends With Kids, which was sold as a Bridesmaids follow-up even though it really isn't despite having much the same cast. Oh and special mention for The Host which is also being unfairly treated in the years worst lists despite being a really, excellent piece of post-millennium sci-fi with a really quite remarkably pessimistic outlook. If only it had been successful enough to be granted the pointless sequel.

Review 2012: The Projects: My Top Ten Films of 2012.

Film Having thought about this for a few days, or at least hours, perhaps minutes, I’ve realised it’s impossible for me to select ten films I’ve truly enjoyed this year because despite outward appearances at the box office, I’ve seen so many more than ten great films this year, it’s impossible for me to single them out and makes me wonder exactly how film critics manage it, though to be fair most of the time they’re choosing what they think are empirically the “best” because it’s their job, whereas I’m trying to find favourites.

It’s also a process not helped by the sheer volume of films I’ve watched and also the haphazard way I approach them with little regard for release schedules or vintage. As we’ve established elsewhere, my paying film theatrical experience of new films this year amounts to Cabin In The Woods, The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit, with press screenings of Delicacy and This Must Be The Place, all of which I’d happily include on such a list if I was being forced to make one. Even now I have a strange feeling I saw something at the Cornerhouse in Manchester too. Um.

But that leaves five to fill in and with Margin Call, Shame, Haywire, Coriolanus, The Descendents, Young Adult, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, John Carter (of Mars), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, We Bought A Zoo, The Hunger Games, Tiny Furniture, Salmon Fishing in The Yemen, Damsels in Distress, Iron Sky, Moonrise Kingdom, A Royal Affair, Your Sister’s Sister, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World and The Flowers of War to choose from, that’s not easy.

Plus there’s all of the films made in other times which I saw for the first time this year which seem just as present, like the three hour cut of Margaret which would and should have been considered one of the greatest films of the 00s, and everything from the back end of 2011 like Midnight In Paris, Tyrannosaur, Sleeping Beauty, Contagion, We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Help, Immortals, The Rum Diary, 50/50, The Deep Blue Sea, Moneyball, My Week With Marilyn, Resistance, Another Earth, Mysteries of Lisbon and The Artist. Shouldn’t they count?

Take instead, then, all of those films as recommended, though let’s face it you’ve presumably seen most of them already. Here’s where I think film is in 2012. In surprisingly good health. Whilst it’s true there is a hole where US mid-budget films used to be, low budget titles have become even more ingenious to cope and the gap’s being filled internationally more than ever, in Europe and the Far East (cf, Headhunters and The Raid). Plus distribution networks outside of cinemas continue to make the history and geography of cinema even more available so there is always something “new” to watch.

The Opinion Engine 2.0:27/31:Challenging cinema.

Warning. Contains spoilers. I talk about the ending of the first two films highlighted. Do not read you haven't watched. Please. Thank you.

One of my theories is that in most circumstances comedies should be half an hour, dramas ideally two and Never Let Me Go was a perfect subversion of that. Over and over on-line and in some professional reviews, I’ve seen criticism that the film lacks a resolution, no third act, has an abrupt ending. Even not having read any of this before “going in” (if that’s possible with the a dvd) I understood that cleverly, as the characters reach their premature end, that is also being illustrated in the structure of the film, that the story is being purposefully denied its extra half hour. Rather like the metafictional games at the heart of Charlie Kauffman’s script for Adaptation, it trusts that the audience will understand the approach being taken, the point being made. Sadly too few people did.

The brave sport film structure of Scott Pilgrim vs The World also experiments with the audience’s ability to deal with narrative structure and the understanding of character development, almost including the alternative ending bonus feature from dvd in the actual film. The dvd of course does itself have alternative ending bonus feature and it’s a rare example of the one in the actual film being the correct choice. Like everyone else I became slightly obsessed with Ramona Flowers who seems to encapsulate every unapproachable cool girl but having tested the audience’s patience, it was inconceivable that there wouldn’t the potentiality for Scott not to be with her, allowing Knives to retain her independence.

Other films employed the production techniques of documentary to produce genre based efforts. In Monsters, like Inception last year (thanks to the way I watch movies via the home release schedule, there is a general blurring of what constitutes my cinematic year which is why this and Pilgrim have rolled over), Gareth Edwards melded the art house imperative with Hollywood concerns, in this case the loose plotting of the new wave with an alien invasion film. If you’re asking where the Monsters are, you’ve missed the point. But it’s still fairly ballsy to take your actors on a road trip, film their interactions with the locals and the landscape and hope that you have enough footage to produce a coherent story, let alone something in a genre which demands certain satisfactions.

Burlesque was a guilty pleasure, this year’s Coyote Ugly, but On Tour makes the list instead because (a) it’s actually about burlesque and (b) we’re never entirely sure what was scripted or improvised. Like Edwards, I understand that actor/director Mathieu Amalric took some mainly real American burlesque performers on a tour of the French coast filming very real shows then worked them around a narrative about his aging producer attempting to rekindle past glories but taken advantage of by his old friends. Many of the scenes are improvised and like Monsters we’re never entirely sure what was scripted or staged, and how much of the jeopardy is as a result of events over taking themselves in production.

But hands down the most startling image was in the documentary Gasland in which our perception of reality was bent by footage of actuality. An investigation into the potential risks of hydraulic fracking to the health of people and their communities, writer/director Josh Fox knows that his entire story is encapsulated in a single moment, when one of the participants sets light to their drinking water, flames shooting out from the one elemental place it shouldn’t. Over and over we’re greeted by this image and it’s scarier than a dozen horror films. Fracking is due to be carried out soon in Cheshire but as Fox’s film demonstrates, since the science is being wilfully submerged thanks to confidentiality, corporations are allowed to wilfully deny responsibility for ensuing health problems.

The Opinion Engine 2.0:26/31:The year in "nostalgic" films that aren't Hugo.

Chalet Girl was this year’s secret classic and I suspect the teenage version of me would have judged it the year’s best (which makes this choice about nostalgia for the person I once was). It’s essentially a British take on the Mary-Kate and Ashley cultural tourism series, but throughout it explodes expectations by making the bitchy blonde rival the best friend, putting the handsome suitor at the epicentre of a discussion on class politics and hiring Bill Bailey to play an emotionally crippled Dad. But the key success is Felicity Jones as the eponymous service worker who uncannily appropriates in her tiny form some of Katherine Hepburn’s verve, timing and just general weirdness, taking full advantage of a script which is drenched in buckets full of cynicism and still able to look just plain cute in a ski coat against the snow.  it's just a shame the typically mishandled advertising campaign and critical reaction put everyone else off.

Time was that late sequels to films recast everyone or put the same name on a remake and although that's still happening (though luckily so far not to The Happening), with the upcoming American Wedding and Scre4m there’s been a Herculean effort to bring the gang back together no matter where they are in their film career. Ostensibly rerunning some of the elements of Scream 3 with Sydney reliving past horrors, there’s often nothing wrong in seeing much the same thing, with the same characters in a slightly different order (I should know being a Doctor Who fan). I was even surprised by the ending, entirely buying in to expectations of what the fourth film in a horror series should deliver. Hopefully we’ll have 5cream before too long.

In The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, Luc Besson attempts to remake all of Steven Speilberg’s films. At the same time. It’s Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park with the sensibilities of 1941 directed in the style of Hook.  I suppose.  A plot synopsis would resemble a game of consequences because just when you feel as though you have a handle on the story, Besson chucks in something else to contend with. I don’t want to give too much away because his film wasn’t much seen, but this has one of the best closing scenes of the year and I might even have enjoyed this more than the Harry Potter conclusion which felt slightly anticlimactic somehow (other than essentially making Neville the hero). People who were disappointed by Tin Tin have said this is a useful alternative.

One of my few really vivid memories of primary school was the Film Club. Each Friday after four o’clock, a large percentage of the constituency would pile into the main hall, where a giant screen had been erected by a teacher who would show us actual film prints of old Disney classics. I remember particularly seeing One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and the Winnie the Pooh features. The latest release in that series by denying almost all modern innovations bar Zooey on the soundtrack took me right back to those times, reminding me that sometimes the simplest stories are the best. The sequence in which everyone is stuck in a hole was one of the most amusing in a year which also brought the seminal projectile vomiting scene in Bridesmaids but Disney's film as whole demonstrates it is still possible to be funny without being rude.

Hands down my favourite sequence of the year at least in the Hollywoods that aren’t Hugo, is the appearance during Thor of the Warriors Three in New Mexico, their panto costumes otherwise so in-keeping with the sets of Asgard entirely incongruous against the small town backdrop.  Looking nostalgically backwards to the kind of fantasy epics of the 80s  which were guaranteed the cover of Marvel’s Starburst, if Thor was anything, it was a homage to the Masters of the Universe film, but done properly with a sizable chunk set in Eternia. This whole Avengers project has been a joy and it’s a tragedy that some creative agreement can’t be made with the rights holders to other Marvel characters to have them all set in this same universe rather than making the rivals they shouldn’t be.

Review 2010: The Opinion Engine: 28/31: My year in films that aren't Inception. Part Two.

I Am Love

Few directors have rarely known what to do with Tilda Swinton’s unique aristocratic exoticism. Most often she becomes the forbidden magical object of desire or else the wicked queen. I Am Love combines the two and also notices how sexy she is. To a degree this is simply a modern Visconti film (thankfully without the weird dubbing) and pornography for us cineastes who like our cinema with long expositional scenes filled of people eating, random intercourse and a pulsing John Adams soundtrack. But it’s impossible not to become wrapped up in the class politics and the atmospheric photography that favours the master, preferably if the characters are hidden within.

Iron Man 2

Since Christopher Reeves pulled on his tights and flew, superhero comic book adaptations have been fundamentally insubstantial because they transplanted the character from a complex multi-creator mythology and made them a unique figure within a relatively realistic universe. Finally, Marvel are doing something about that and though I can understand the frustration of some fans that IM2 spent too much time setting the ball rolling towards The Avengers, isn’t it just fun to finally to have Tony Stark in a universe with Shield, Black Widow et al and judging by the closing scenes of this a panoply of other heroes. It’s just a pity that some of the crown jewels, Spiderman, Fantastic Four and the X-characters don’t exist in this version of the Marvel Universe because of prior arrangements.

Letters To Juliet

Since gorging on the sleuthing series in a week earlier in the month, Amanda Seyfried has now in my brain become “Lily Kane off of Veronica Mars” and she’s done rather well for herself since that happened in 2006. Like Frozen, Letters To Juliet should be horrible with its one dimensional characters having the kind of problems most people would kill for and though it's crying out for Robert Riskin to drop through a time/space wormhole and give it the kind of polish he gave Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, somewhere between the Italian landscapes and Vanessa Redgrave I was enchanted.

Of Gods And Men

Four teenage girls attended the screening of this at the Cornerhouse at Manchester. They’d stocked up at the Sainsburys opposite beforehand an proceeded to masticate through four large bags of Doritos and assorted or crunchy goodies and then at the end when I turned around I could see them shrugging at each other in as much as to say “I don’t get it.” Not even these minxes could really spoil this tough but deeply moving mediation on rebellion in the face of absurdity, of fighting for what you believe in. Probably the perfect companion piece for Agora, in that it shows the flip side of religion, the one that’s the conscience of society. The Swan Lake scene is one of the greatest of all time.

Salt

Well, yes. Easily dismissed as Bourne-lite there’s still a certain manic excitement to Salt which is replete with the kinds of moments I love when even a jaded film viewer like me who thinks he’s seen enough films now that he can predict which direction a narrative is heading to scream with delight and there are few actresses who could pull of the emotional misdirection which Angelina Jolie is called upon to provide here at least not with the indefinable complexity which goes beyond the script. Like the Millenium trilogy, I can’t wait to see all of the dvd, which contains two other versions of the film which take much the same footage but spin it into two substantially different stories, which sounds like a full length version of Run Lola Run.

Review 2010: The Opinion Engine: 26/31: My year in films that aren't Inception. Part One.

Agora

Astonishing film that deserved to be seen far more than it was in the UK (especially since it was Spain’s biggest film in 2009) and was perhaps suppressed somewhat due to its politically sticky subject matter, the rise of Christianity including the sack of the library of Alexandria and the assassination of the Greek philosopher Hypatia because of her scientific and pagan beliefs. Rachel Weisz's fleet footed performance as Hypatia is the backbone of a film which meditates on the eternal struggle between belief and reason. The production design harks back to the old Hollywood classics by creating huge sets in Madrid rather than employing CGI which gives the piece a bags of authenticity, even when the work being carried out by Hypatia on the structure of the solar system is entirely conjectural.

The Concert

Probably the best place to see The Concert was at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall during one of the “Classic Film” screenings with the sound of the on-screen orchestra reverberating around a real venue. Somewhat dismissed on release as something of a Cinema Paradiso for classical music, there’s a stronger political thread running through Radu Mihaileanu’s evocation of censorship in the Soviet Union and some pleasingly ramshackle storytelling which gives the piece bags of character. The face of Mélanie Laurent is most associated with the film because she’s on the poster and she’s very good, but the emotional heart of the piece is Aleksey Guskov’s conductor boldly holding his own against each set back.

Daybreakers

Or Gattaca 2: It Bites or The Matrix with vampires. An entertaining attempt at something interesting and new with vampires, a Soylent Green style allegory on our morally ambiguous reaction to the scarcity of natural resources, ultimately handstrung by following the hero’s journey story structure beat for beat. Not without some decent scares, especially in Sam Neil’s executive’s treatment of his daughter and it’s good to see the undervalued Claudia Karvan in a reasonably big release. Though to be fair, Toy Story 3 would probably in this slot, but I've not been able to see that yet.

Frozen

Open Water on a ski-lift doesn’t sound like the most enticing pitch and indeed to an extent the three kids trapped on the chair in the sky during a cold snap are fairly annoying and the kind of victims of the week that might wander through an episode of Veronica Mars. William Goldman suggests that films are rarely about dialogue, which is lucky because most of the dialogue in Frozen is in the order of "Are you ok?" "It's cold." What Goldman doesn't mention is the dialogue coming from the viewer and Frozen is all about that. I swore, I screamed, and director Adam Green understands that the best way to creep the audience out is to concentrate not on event but reaction, all adding up to oddly, one of the most satisfying film experiences of 2010.

The Millenium Trilogy

Sadly for her, Noomi Rapace may never be as good in her future Hollywood career as she is as Lisbeth Salander and these “films” would not hold together as well without her. She has the relatively unique ability to underplay everything whilst still retaining incredible charisma, not unlike Clint Eastwood in his cowboy days – well at least until Paint Your Wagon. I’m still reserving proper judgement on these adaptations until I’ve seen the full television versions; the first was choppy and structurally suspect and though the second had a clearer through line (I’m yet to see the third) both seemed to contain lesions, bits of exposition left hanging here and there. The extended versions will apparently be released onto the home market on 14 July 2010. Can’t wait.

The Year In Film 2009. Post Script.

Film Warning. Massive spoilers ahead.

Moon

The key to the success of Moon is Duncan Jones’s deployment of Sam Rockwell’s clever performance. At some invisible point which I think is probably about five minutes after the different versions of the astronaut meet, you forget that one actor is playing both characters. When they interact, it’s seamless and it’s only until some time afterwards that you begin to consider how some scenes, particularly the fight, were completed. Jones also flies in the face of current conventional wisdom by creating a world using largely practical effects and a complex emotional arc that requires the audience to be sympathetic to characters that are slowly having that which makes them human stripped away. That’s what makes the film stand alongside the likes of Solaris (both versions), Blade Runner, 2001 and the rest as one of the great cinematic visions of the future.

Knowing

The key failure of Knowing is Alex Proyas’s deployment of Nicolas Cage’s numb performance. At some invisible point which I think is probably about five minutes after he appears on screen, you realise that he’s completely wrong for the role and you wish someone like Clooney, Hanks or Will Smith was filling his shoes. When he acts, it’s understated to the point of somnambulism, his expressionless eyes simply fixing on whatever he’s looking at. The idea might be that it’s then supposed to kill us when he finally breaks emotionally, but by then he’s lost our sympathy. Jones also flies directly into current conventional wisdom by ultimately deploying a CG apocalypse when smaller moments are far more effective and mistakes the omission of narrative information for creating a sense of mystery. That’s what stops the film standing alongside the likes of Signs, The Day The Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the rest as one of the great cinematic visions of first contact.

The Year In Film 2009. Part Three.

Religulous
Bill Maher might score a few points in demonstrating the disingenuousness of religion, but his approach negates the benefits some people find in devotion and that simply telling someone they’re stupid does little more than strengthen their faith. Also, having gone mercilessly after Christian fundamentalism, Maher pulls punches when approaching the other monotheistic religions. What’s the point if you’re not going to be even handed about it?

Slumdog Millionaire
Well deserved Best Picture Oscar which in its own way, was, in symbolic terms, the filmic equivalent of the Rage Against The Machine song becoming the Christmas number one. Running in the face of received wisdom that independent cinema set in somewhere other than the US or Britain cannot find a mainstream audience, Slumdog managed to be harrowing and sweet, experimental and conventional and just a damn good piece of cinema.

Star Trek
Did for Roddenberry ’s franchise what the Doctor Who reboot managed in 2005, to be respectful of the past reminding fans about everything they liked about the core concepts whilst simultaneously bringing in an audience that might not necessarily have been too interested before, especially women. It’s just a pity that Paramount have dropped the ball in solidly announcing when the next instalment will be and do we really need to have Khan back again, as rumoured? [full review]

Synecdoche, New York
Has a “debt to the great auteurs, giants like Tarkovsky, Bunuel, Resnais, Fellini and Tati, directors who treated their audience with intelligence and respect with work in which ideas took precedence over explaining the plot and offered a visual contract that asked us to use our own imagination and personal experience to explain the order of events and character motivations. Like Kaufman, they’ve also been accused of self-indulgence which isn’t necessarily incorrect; but everyone with a personal vision is self-indulgent and more often than not the really interesting, surprising work comes when that vision hasn’t been compromised.” [full review]

Vicky Christina Barcelona
“It’s all here, the trademark opening titles (that white on black font over jazz music he’s used since Annie Hall), the abrupt editing, the wordy dialogue laced with poetry and psychological self discovery, a clinical narration sharply revealing the thoughts and feelings of the characters, counter-pointing the apparent reality. It is closer to the art-house style, and nothing like the rather bland Hollywood experience that the blurb suggests. No wonder a couple of teenagers stalked out of the screening part way through.” [full review]

Wendy and Lucy
Spiritually similar to Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne Rosetta and Agnès Varda’s Vagabond, this story of another homeless girl lost to the landscape demonstrating the fragility of life and how, if one of the pieces is removed or doesn’t quite slot into place in the morning everything can fall apart. Though she’ll likely continue to be defined by Jen Lindley, Michelle Williams still continues to work producing heartbreaking little performances like this. When she shouts for her dog, it’s ten times more emotionally authentic and shattering than all two hours of Revolutionary Road.

The Wrestler
Ouch.

The Year In Film 2009. Part Two.

In The Loop
“She’s very good. She’s about the funniest thing in these American scenes. Not quite The West Wing. Nope still not laughing. She’s good. Ha! That’s better. Who is she? I feel like I should know her. Must in some US tv show. No, can’t be that. (credits roll) Anna Chlumsky … Chlumsky … My Girl!?!” [full review]

The International
Battling with Duplicity as the best Clive Owen film of the year, it’s quite a surprise that this architectural finance thriller hasn’t turned up on the best of lists of professional critics, despite featuring some of the best action scenes in some time (poor MOMA) and a coherently thematic approach to its use of locations. Perhaps we just don’t like to be reminded that we’re simply part of a machine, and that film simply keeps us distracted from knowing that from time to time.

Let The Right One In
Is it this best film of the year? I expect that plenty of critics have decided it must be simply because it’s such an antidote to the bile and chunder they have to sit through on a weekly basis. It certainly kicked me in the gut, and I was impressed by its texture, intelligence and wilful disregard for the norms of genre storytelling, especially in relation to vampirism. But I didn’t come away thinking it was the best film I’d seen this year. Does that make me ungrateful?

Milk
Which feels like it was released about ten years ago, which was probably director Gus Van Sant’s intention. The trick to the film is the telling of what could be for some viewers a controversial narrative and frame it in as conventional terms as possible. Some saw that as a missed opportunity, but many scripts and stories have been ruined by experimental direction and editing. Milk is respectful of its subject and that will be its legacy.

Monsters Vs Aliens
One of the year’s disappointments, this 3D digimation demonstrated that decent character design, voice acting and spectacle mean nothing if your script isn’t up to snuff. What the filmmakers failed to notice in attempting something akin to a Brad Bird post-modern nostalgia fest is that in The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, Bird was using the imagery of the then to chat about the now. Making a film rooted in the past is inherently pointless. Only Insectosaurus made this endurable.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
A melancholic reminder that I’m not getting any younger. I imagined a teenager version of me being greeted by Nick & Norah and think it the best film of the year and like the similarly structured Adventures in Babysitting when I was the right age, watching it every week, in and out. Instead, I found some of the music a bit irritating, Michael Cera too much of a cipher and felt slightly grubby for fancying punkish pixie dream girl Kat Dennings. Which isn’t to say I haven’t ordered a copy from Amazon.

Rachel Getting Married
Like attending one of those weddings where you don’t know anyone and despite everyone seeming very friendly, inclusive and wanting to have a good time at no point do you feel welcome. But unlike those weddings, you’re not able to take a break and have walk about outside to test if anyone is actually missing you. So you’re simply stuck there, being alienated by the speeches, the horrible music and the general goodwill which seems to be in short supply just a couple of inches away from your skin.

The Reader
Most people would look at The Reader and find it an uncomfortable reminder that when the Nazi’s were defeated the vestiges of its network were still threaded into German society. On the other handed I was reminded that I simply don’t read enough books. I’ve now set myself a target of reading at least fifty pages a day of something. Which explains why the reading box in the far sidebar of this blog is changing on a more regular basis.

Revolutionary Road
Like being punched in the ears repeatedly or spending two hours on purpose with the argumentative couple who always seem to sit near me on long distance train journeys. Why the hell would people want to subject themselves to this as entertainment? It’s not thoughtful. It’s not telling us anything new about marriage in that period (certainly not more that Douglas Sirk). It’s just lots and lots of pain and shouting. About the most depressing film released this year.

The Year In Film 2009. Part One.

The problem with simply listing my favourite films of the year is that, as usual, that I haven't seen half of anything which has been released. So instead I've decided, over the next few days, to offer a capsule opinion of all the film I have seen from this year according to the directory printed in this month's Empire Magazine. It should be longer. Let's begin ...

Angels & Demons
Not quite as pantomime entertaining as The Da Vinci Code and mostly consists of Hanks and co running from church to church before the kind of fake out twist M Night would disapprove of. But the anti-matter explosion is Baroquely awe-inspiring and not even Hitchcock developed a suspense sequence based around trying to escape from a malfunctioning library microclimate.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil
It was impossible not be swept along by the sheer injustice of seeing these apparently influential musicians eeking out an existence while their once cohorts continued to have exciting careers. Hopefully the filmmakers continued their association and we'll be able to see a sequel that investigates this mid-level band struggling with their own limitations in the, you know, harsh face of stardom.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Impressed by taking the modern filmmaking techniques in make-up and CGI and marrying them to script and direction with an old Hollywood sensibilities, even if Brad Pitt’s performance as Button mostly consisted of him regressing through his different screen personas right back through Thelma and Louise.

The Damned United
Not knowing anything about football and particularly Brian Clough, I was able to watch this without prejudice and simply enjoy a large collared, rose-tinted study in hubris and friendship which demonstrated that you can never assume anything is permanent because it can all too easily be taken away and that loyalty is just as important as success.

Doubt
A fairly good demonstration of my theory that any play will work on film if it's shot simply and you use some decent, committed actors (see also Neil LeBute's The Shape of Things). Some criticised its lack of pace and moralistic tone. I revelled in the pleasure of seeing a compelling three-hander that actually gave its participants space to act, the camera resting upon their faces, and which offered no easy answers. Revealed Amy Adams as an actress with some range and depth and a potential successor Streep who, if she’s not careful, will spend the rest of her career playing jagged matriarchs.

Duplicity
Battling with The International as the best Clive Owen film of the year, like Benjamin Button this recalled old Hollywood in its treatment of character, its curious mix of screwball comedy, espionage and unreliable exposition not sitting well with some critics, especially with that ending. I loved it, though the rather prosaic approach to slipping between timeframes grated after a while. Soderberghian wipes would have done just fine.

Fireflies In The Garden
Which I gave twenty minutes of my time before deciding that writer/director Dennis Lee didn’t know how to structure a script, that he wasn’t going to have anything new or interesting to say about families and that it wasn’t worth sitting through the rest. We didn’t need to see the older Julia Roberts in the opening. Better to have her living totally in the flashbacks as a memory; it makes her character more significant. Also, if Ryan Reynolds is your viewpoint character, why cut ahead to his destination?

Frost/Nixon
Feels like it was released about ten years ago, which was probably writer Peter Morgan’s intention. Cleverly turned the interviews into a kind of boxing film, with the build up to the fight, the pre-show sparring and the consequences for loss stacked up against each of the participants. It would be interesting at some point to see Sheen not playing a celebrity or overtly character based role; the idea of seeing him in a romantic comedy has its attractions, not least in imagining who would be his co-star. I suppose Miranda July would be out of the question [full review].

The Girl Cut in Two
Or Sky weather girl Lisa Burke turns up in the middle of Harold Pinter’s Sleuth and starts romancing Larry Olivier or Michael Caine depending on which version you’re watching. An expression of what’s wrong with film distribution in the UK, Chabrol’s film took two year to cross the channel from France. But to be fair the terse characterisation probably didn’t help in trying to package film or the wild vacillations in tone, between May-to-December romance and psychoanalytical pseudo-erotic thriller. Fun.

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince
Still not as a good as Azkaban and mostly set-up for The Deathly Hallows, this instalment was the creepiest of the series so far, especially the scenes in the swamp and in the retrieval of the memory. Other than the first two, I’ve only watched each of these films once. I’m looking forward to taking in the epic sweep of narrative in one go when the dvds of the finale have been released, watching the kids grow-up into fine young actors.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
In an ideal world, like Woody Allen, studios would be throwing Gilliam money every year to produce a new film, knowing full well that the result will at least be out of the ordinary and different to anything else on the market as a way of demonstrating that they are still interested in funding independent voices. Instead, Gilliam has to scrape around to get the money together, never has enough time, has to deal with studio interference and unforeseeable happenstance which results in films which always just fall short of expectation but you love them anyway. Every single time [full review].

Not Review 2008: Film

Film I’ve been working towards putting together a top ten list of films of the year and as I’ve glanced at everyone else’s words something has become abundantly clear – my ten would look boringly like everyone elses. So rather than simply regurgitating I thought I’d instead offer five things which were released earlier which I’ve only just got around to seeing which I’ve equally loved and in some cases more so.

Across The Universe (2006)
What’s particularly clever about Julie Tabor’s film isn’t that it simply throws in some Beatles songs when required, it’s that they’re in chronological release order and she still manages to wrap a half decent narrative around them; you’re not just getting an education in the music of the band but also the history of the period when they were recording, with the emotional complexity of the characters growing along with the musical invention. Perhaps it was just too complicated for audiences, who tend to like a good singalong in their musicals these days. (pictured)

Barefoot In The Park (1967)
Lately, romantic comedies have rarely just been about two people falling in love – there always seems to be some kind of high concept reason for them to meet which more often than not leads to the need for a coherent plot resolution getting in the way of the romance. Not here. New York married couple move into rubbish apartment which is falling apart around them and they rarely leave within the next hour and half. Fonda and Redford haven’t been cuter. This is basically the film a hundred American sitcoms have begged, borrowed and mugged from.

The Man From Earth (2007)
Similarly static in its staging, but no less effective, this sci-fi tale about a college professor who suddenly offers revelations about his past to his colleagues is a great demonstration that so long as you have a clever central idea and good script everything else should fall into place. Just the kind of film which if you catch in the right frame of mind could rock your philosophical world. It certainly did mine.

After Hours (1985)
One of the few films I've saved for a rainy day or when I’m under the mistaken impression that I’ve already seen anything good. Somehow manages to work the horror conceit of anything being hidden in the darkness into a comedy. Incidentally, Linda Fiorentino finally has a new film coming out in 2009, ‘Once More with Feeling’, which does seem terribly apt.

Goya's Ghosts (2006)
Because even masterpieces can be ignored. If this had been release ten years ago it would have been Oscar nominated. But period artist biopics are out of fashion in the English speaking world, Goya isn’t a household name like Mozart and painting -- unless there’s some time lapse action isn’t the most cinematic of pursuits. Yet, this is ripe for rediscovery with its chameleonic central performance from Stellan Skarsgård and Natalie Portman in twin roles as a mother and daughter and an exciting historical backdrop, oh and Javier Bardem wearing even funnier hair than he had in the film he made next, No Country For Old Men.

Not Review 2007: Films

Film Once again this year my cinema going was random at best. As I said last year, my approach to film releases has stopped being – chronological. There have been very few films which I’ve dragged myself to the picture house to see and more often than not I’ve completely missed something. So I’d be shocked if any of the Branagh trilogy (man had three films out this year) or Two Days In Paris wouldn’t have been on this list had they actually been on in Liverpool for long enough for me to realise. Anyway, apologies in advance for the mainstreaminess of the films, and I’ve really got my work but out next year catching up on everything. Not that I’ve caught up with 2006 yet. And in case you're wondering I've included films which were released in the UK in 2007 based on this official listing.

300
Sometimes all that's needed to make a great film is Gerard Butler and pals implacably facing down demon hoards with nothing but some swords and a bit of shouting. Underneath all of that though, the film takes a very interesting theological perspective on the art of war and actually gives the ravishing Lena Headey some cogent political intrigue. Plus Xerxes!

Hallam Foe
Sometimes quirky is good, and Hallam Foe is oh so very quirky. Demonstrated to me for the first time that Jamie Bell does have the chops for an extended acting career and Sophia Myles confirmed that she’s entirely wasted currently working in an Angel knock-off for US television. It’s also one of the best looking films of the year, the night time scenes of Edinburgh by cinematographer almost worth seeing the film for on their own [full review].

A Prairie Home Companion
Perfect footnote to Robert Altman’s career with a massive improvisational cast, supernatural element and the overall sense of the end of an era – it’s almost as though he knew it would his last film. Musically it’s perfect too, weaving the same magic as Nashville in making country and western listenable [full review].

Blade Runner: The Final Cut
I’m sure there’s a rule against including rereleases in these things, but it’s not often your served with your favourite film, something you’ve seen dozens of times, in way which makes it totally new again. This cleaning and re-editing doesn’t put a foot wrong and actually deepens the experience, as well as underscoring what’s been lost as Hollywood’s shifted inexorably towards digital imagery [partial review].

Bobby
Emilio Estevez’s fictionalisation of the assassination of RFK was largely ignored or shouted at by critics even though it features some of the best performances of the year. Yes, it slackens narratively somewhat in the middle – as most of these Grand Hotel-style films tend to, but given that the writer/director actually references that earlier work right at the beginning, it’s almost as though he intended it to.

Enchanted
Very late entry, but I couldn’t not mention this really sweet and charming piece of work that I’m still thinking about days later wishing that the dvd was already available (legally). Loony Tunes: Back In Action was on television earlier and that’s a salient and humourless demonstration of how not to do this stuff (even though it features a Dalek voiced by Roy Skelton) [full review].

Hot Fuzz
Watched this again yesterday and although I still don’t think it’s as good as Shaun of the Dead, it was still the best British comedy of the year, constantly inventive and hilarious always repaying repeated viewings. I love that Somerfield agreed to let their supermarket with the film be managed by an utter murdering bastard (albeit one played by Timothy Dalton) – I can’t think of many other brands that would be that open minded.

Notes on a Scandal
The trailer for this turned out to be total disappointment. As usual we found clips from the film with jangly piano music underneath. When what it really needed was names in block capitals and exclamation marks filling the screen one after another DENCH! BLANCHETT! ONLY ONE WILL SURVIVE! Followed by a clip of sour faced old Judi and naïve Cate wrestling with one another outside the house. Yeah, that would have been nifty.

Ocean’s Thirteen
Well I thought it was good. Again the reviewers jealously described the cast as smug or detestable whilst simultaneously ignoring Soderbergh’s experimental approach to narrative, imagery and editing. Both this and Twelve are ripe for reassessment in the future and I look forward to the fall out. Roll on Fourteen frankly. I mean how can you not love a film when one of the characters has The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me as a ringtone? [full review]

Orchestra Seats
Whilst I wait for Cécile De France to accept my friend request on Facebook, I can at least watch her brightening up a small corner of Paris. This is the kind of romantic drama which the French seem to do so effortlessly but always end up feeling a little forced over here (see Born Romantic etc.). Now that I’ve been through the Proms education plan, it’d be nice to revisit it this with half the possibility I’ll understand the musical references [review].

Paris Je T’aime
Clearly I can’t get enough of films about Paris and here were a couple of dozen of them. Why should it be unsurprising that most of the contributing directors managed to produce some of the their best work in years given the tiny and focused running time? Apparently the plan was to make this even more of a hyperlink-lite work, with the various characters interacting more closely – I suspect that would have spoilt it though – this film is about showing a collection of unconnected visions of one city [review].

Sicko
I was watching Bowling for Columbine the other day, and in between bothering Moses, Moore offers some suggestions as to why the US has the highest number of gun related deaths and already he was comparing the health system of his own country with Canada and its almost as though you can see him test out a few ideas for this later film. These films are not isolated collections of anger but a sustained attack [full review].

Sunshine
If ever there was a film that deserved to be made in IMAX. Some hated the ending because it seemed to throw out the more thoughtful elements of the film out in favour of a good old fight to the death, but throughout this straddles the sub-genres and although it’s clearly at its most comfortable when exploring the Sol imagery it wouldn’t nearly be as watchable were it not for the crew [full review].

The Bourne Ultimatum
Magnificent, majestic and obviously the best action film of the year. Die Hard 4.0 was good fun, but it simply lacked the emotional character beats and understanding of how they can drive a plot forward, that contrivances are not always the only option. I’m still reeling from the realisation that the first two thirds of the thing happen in the closing moments of Supremecy. It takes a really gutsy bunch of filmmakers to try something like that and pull it off [review].

The Last King of Scotland
Forrest Whitaker seems to live two lives. In one he’s the director of fairly anodyne chick flicks like Hope Floats, Waiting To Exhale and First Daughter – he might even help his landlady out with her garbage. In the other he plays, crooks and charlatans and African dictators demonstrating what a job of acting his turn as Idi Amin actually was. It’s one of those rare occasions when a man looking through a television screen actually makes you take a step back because you think he might kill you.

Water
Taking two whole years to be released in this country, this Oscar-nominated film which you’ve probably never seen looked at how we really do need to balance how religious and cultural ideas effect human freedom. Why should the life of a seven year old be mapped out because a fated husband she’s never met dies? A truly courageous and surprising piece of film making that deserves to be seen by everyone [old review].

Review 2006: Life Props Christmas Special

Annette asks:
What is your favourite film and why?



In The Bleak Midwinter (1995)

It's December 1995, I'm at university the first time around and I live very close to the one cinema I would say that I ever really loved, The Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds. In The Bleak Midwinter turned up pretty much unheralded but I'd read about it in Empire Magazine who gave it a sparkling review and having loved everything else Kenneth Branagh had directed (yes, even Dead Again) and being someway into a lifelong appreciation of Shakespeare I knew had to go and see it..

The Hyde Park was the kind of cinema in which any film could potentially be packed out because the audience tended to go see whatever was on. I took my tall friend Dave with me, even though he wasn't sure if it was his kind of thing - in black and white and about theatre - and we sat at the back of the balcony because there was more legroom.

I'd like to be able to give you a long flowing description of the experience of seeing it for the first time but I really can't. I remember being enchanted and laughing a lot and feeling very Christmassy afterwards and Dave saying that it wasn't what he was expecting and that he really enjoyed it but other than that I'd say that it just made me more excited about seeing Branagh's Hamlet the following year, this almost being a rehearsal for that.

It wasn't until the following Christmas, when I was given the video that I really fell for the film. There was certainly the nostalgia factor - I'd left university by then and it reminded me of a good night out at a place that I wouldn't necessarily be able to go back to with someone I hadn't seen in months. But it was also that it somehow managed to distill everything I felt about Shakespeare into an hour and a half and was also brilliantly funny and touching.

The following year, in 1997, I watched it around Christmas time again while I was wrapping my presents. And again in '98 and since then it's become part of the ritual. When I say that I watch it every Christmas, I really do. Which seems like the definition of a favourite film. Each viewing it means more or less to me than the year before depending on what else is happening in life. Last year I was at university again nd it just fitted into the many hundreds of other films I seemed to be watching. This year I noticed that the main character mentions in his opening monologue that he's thirty-three and I realised that I'd be the same age as him next time I see it.

Perhaps I should provide some background because I know that this isn't a film many people have heard of (it's not even available on dvd). In The Bleak Midwinter (or A Midwinter's Tale as it's called in the US) features Branagh and Shakespeare stalwart Michael Maloney as Joe an out of work actor who decides to produce Hamlet at Christmas time in a disused church in his sister's home village of Hope. With him are a group of actors, some in the offseason from seaside shows, all with their own neuroses and the film charts the rehearsal process and the production. It very much follows the structure and style of the Hollywood backstage films from the heyday of the studio system, except with obvious nods and influences from sources as diverse as Woody Allen, Ealing comedies and silent cinema.

Branagh says that it isn't autobiographical, but when Joe describes his passion for the play, that he saw it when he was fifteen and it changed his life that's exactly what the director has said about seeing Jacobi at the RSC all those years ago. His motivation for making the epic film version of the play later mirrors one of Joe's needs here - to try and make something which has a reputation for being musty and boring and making it exciting for a new generation, essentially dragging out of slow amateur schoolroom readings.

Having tried acting and been around a few actors I can absolutely say that the film captures the brilliance and pain of the art, the fact that it can boil down to bringing the deep seated emotional crap that you try to suppress up to the surface in order to entertain others. But what is really clever, is that having suggested from the opening that all of the characters are pretentious and affected and everything everyone expects actors to be - John Session's raving queen and Richard Briers grumpy old man, for example, in a series of carefully chosen two-handers he carefully peels away the surface and reveals them to be perfectly normal people like us, absolutely aware of the mask they're otherwise wearing to get by in the profession.

I think the film was derided at the time as another opportunity for Ken to give his chums something to do, but I thought it was unfair, particularly since it allows them to reproduce the fragile chemistry that any short term group dynamic has but also because many of them are producing what I think are career best performances. People like John Sessions or Celia Imrie, so often stuck playing grotesques and eccentrics are brilliant here when demonstrating the serious side of their all too camp exteriors. Gerard Horan, latterly typecast as policeman is beautifully touching as Carnforth the man with the drink problem. To be honest the only weak link is Jennifer Saunders with her mad American accent who looks like she's charged in from a Comic Strip skit, but there no doubt she's fulfilling the role of the big producer redolent of the genre.

The film is composed rather like a something from earlier in that century - most of the action plays out in medium or wide shots in deep focus with the actors moving into the foreground and back again creating the effect of seeing characters on a theatre stage - there are very few close ups and they only appear late in the film as the group is fractured and the infighting and arguments have begun in earnest. There are montage sequences, such as the audition process and the costuming but Branagh uses a series of jump cuts and juxtapositions to move the story forward.
Branagh employs lighting akin to film noir which fits the mood of the play in production and there are some lovely compositions as the actors walk in and out of silhouette.

Noir is also implied in the costumes that are finally selected for the production within the film which have a kind of 40s gangster style - and there's a spectacular use of a machine gun which accentuates that idea which I don't want to give away. There's also very little music. The film opens with Noel Coward singing 'Why Must The Show Go On' and ends with a plucked instrumental version of the titular Christmas carol. It's a brave stylistic choice but it gives room for the actor's performances to provide the emotional core and make the one musical moment from inside their story - when Nina (Julia Sawalha) sings Ophelia's lament - all the more heartbreaking.

It has dated slightly. One of the jokes hinges on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers which to be honest seemed out of the date at the time although the target audience will at least have heard of it - I'm not sure what the equivalent now would be - probably Xbox or Wii. Also, when Nicholas Farrell's Tom is auditioning for Laertes, he goes into a wild digression about how relevant Hamlet it and mentions that it's like Bosnia. That would be Iraq now I suppose. One element that hasn't aged is the crucial plot point of the filming of a giant sci-fi trilogy that could be the new Star Wars, especially since we've actually had a new Star Wars trilogy (coindentally featuring Celia Imrie as a fighter pilot) and since and everything seems to be about pre-planned franchises and series now.

Some other things I noticed watching it again the other night - the (uncredited) puppet theatre girl in the audition scene is Katy Carmichael who played Twist in the sitcom Spaced. The brilliance of the acronym LCA - Less Crap Acting. Joan Collins as Joe's agent gives probably her best performance since classic Star Trek's City of the Edge of Forever. That Maloney is the best Doctor Who we never had and is completely wasted playing the range of wackos always seems to now in tv dramas - this is the man who stole Juliet Stevenson from Alan Rickman in Truly Madly Deeply after all.

Stylistically different to anything else what Branagh has directed but still with that love of theatre and theatrics it touches me each year and even with the darkness it somehow manages to put me in the Christmas mood. There is a scene within in which people talk about what makes their life worth living and someone mentions Brief Encounter and offers to buy someone a copy for Christmas. Do yourself a favour and hunt a copy of this down in time for next Christmas because if you're a reader of this blog I really think you'll enjoy it.



Which seems like the perfect moment to run through my ten favourite films of 2006. Something that happened this year is that I stopped getting too excited about release dates and being really quite disappointed with most of the films I've seen at the cinema. But anyway I've managed to hash together the following. Happy Christmas!

Clerks II
Somehow managed to be nostalgic about the original and also a development. Funny, touching and just as quotable. Won't be able to see The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the same light again.

Mission: Impossible III
One of, if not the best action film of the year cruelly overshadowed by its star's public activities. Never thought I'd ever see Simon Pegg and Tom Cruise in the same frame together. Actually enjoyed this more than Casino Royale which was too damn long.

The Prestige
Although it didn't quite manage to sustain its finely balanced storytelling into the final reel, it's still a magnificently atmospheric film with great performances. Yes, even David Bowie.

Superman Returns
About as good as you would want it to be, although I've since wondered if there was slightly too much stylization going on and not enough action - but as an iteration of an old myth it works brilliantly and seeing those credits and that music on the big screen again was gutwrenching.

An Inconvenient Truth
Save the debate about whether this is a real film, I saw it at the cinema which is good enough for me. Brilliantly presented the case for global warming and managed to turn the non-election of AlGore into the White House look like a very big mistake indeed.

The Russian Dolls
This ramshackle sequel to The Spanish Apartment has bags of heart and the moment when Kelly Reilly was left on the railway station platform was one of the saddest of the year. The perfect antidote to having to sit through Love Actually five times when writing my dissertation.(pictured)

A Cock and Bull Story
Somehow managed to make me laugh at two of my least favourite comedians. Another triumph from Michael Winterbottom, this managed to be slapstick and intelligent at the same time.

The Squid and the Whale
Demonstrated once again that shorter films are often the best. Direct and to the point, Noah Baumbach's film seemed to distill what Woody Allen has been trying to do shots and editing since the 90s and succeeds ahead of him.

Volver
The first Almodovar film I've really engaged with, and Penelope Cruz's best performance in years. Particularly worked because as well as being a relationship drama, it was a mystery.

Pan's Labyrinth
With a caveat. I don't think it's the Citizen Kane of fantasy Mr. Mark Kermode although it is still a great historical film about the civil war with one of the greatest devils on screen this year in the shape of that Captain.

Not Review 2005

Culture Well obviously it is a review, not necessarily the one you've all been enjoying. Every year, even when I've been taking the alternative approach I have managed to list other impressive items. I've had quite a soupy approach to culture this year, particularly catching up on things I've missed from the past. With that in mind, rather than producing separate lists, here are seven cultural moments which I've loved in the past twelve months. It's not a complete list (no television, timelords or books?) and in no particular order ...

(1) Sideways was the film which made me buy a Pinot at Christmas time (Chilean not Californian though). It was great to see everyone related to the film demonstrating that great actors, script and directing still have value. Virginia Madsen in particular shone after years in the direct-to-video wilderness, being looked at again by a cruel film industry.

(2) Natalie Imbruglia's album Counting Down The Days had the rare distinction of not being a nagging disappointment. Each of Nat's albums feels like a labour of love, the work of someone who genuinely believes in what they're doing. I gave the cd a slightly negative review originally, but on subsequent listens it slipped under my skin, the title track being a particularly stirring pian to those of us waiting for something ...

(3) Melinda and Melinda was a surprising film, effortless in many ways and despite what others might be saying one of the most inspirational films of the year. Let's remember that Woody Allen's turned seventy and yet here is a film which feels like its been directed by someone a third of his age. Even after all these years he has the ability to create something fresh and inspiring that also talks about the very nature of drama.

(4) Nina Gordon's cover version of Straight Outa Compton was with the wierd comedy drama trailer for The Shining an excellent example of a cross genre approach to culture. It was a stunt, a way of selling a few records, but with such a beautiful voice tempering one of music's angrier songs it's difficult to see why she's not a major star. Sigh, next album then.

(5) Here is what I wrote about Doug Liman's excellent Mr & Mrs Smith back in June. Listening to the dvd commentary reveals that this was a difficult shoot, with Brad Prit disappearing for a while in the middle to film Ocean's Twelve and a patch work of editing and reshoots. But what's been created is a curio which melds the sensibilities of a 1940s screwball comedy with a Michael Bay film. With Vince Vaughn. And as I said back then, "It's an Angelina Jolie film I can like. I've never found her all that inspiring but there's just something about the way she pouts, raises an eyebrow, holds a gun and wears knee high boots which slays me..."

(6) "Look, it's not that I've had a sense of humour bypass, and lord knows music is not be beyond satire or reproach, but which twonk thought Jonathan Ross was the man to introduce this event? Dido and Youssou N'Dour give a great performance of Seven Seconds in one of the highlights of the show and he comes on at the end with -- 'I thought it went on a bit too long at the end.' Who cares what you think? You're not funny and your hair's too long." Sums up my Live 8 experience. Shame. Included for some of the performances, but not the production.

(7) I think the world can probably be separated into those who like Joss Whedon and those who are wrong. Serenity was like watching a dream become reality telling the story we all wanted to see and speaking to each and everyone one of us. Like Sideways it seemed to be doing and saying an awful lot effortlessly. Like the best of Whedon's work it dragged the viewer through the emotional ringer, spitting us out the other end better people for the journey. The year's Lord of the Rings.

Review 2004: What I Watched: Epilogue

I was originally going to include everything I hadn't seen everything of in the appendix, along with all of the music, books, magazines and newspapers to give a rounded picture of the media I enjoyed in 2004. But to be honest, if I tell you I like watching BBC News, listening to female singer songwriters and film soundtracks, read Empire, Doctor Who Magazine, Retro Gamer and The Guardian and it pretty much covers everything. Enough of the lists.

Epilogue

What I inevitably learnt from the exercise is that I probably watch too many films. As I reviewed the contents of the diary before posting each day it was shocking actually how few days there were when I didn't watch some new film. It honestly hadn't occured to me that my consumption was so high especially when I consider that I haven't seen a tenth of what's out there to be discovered and that my grasp on film history is shakey at best. I watch Aguire: Wrath of God for the first time last night and it felt like an entrance into yet another world for exploring. Both exhilarating and maddening at the same time.

It's hard to put my finger on what drives me on to see more, to increase my film literacy over other pursuits, especially reading. What makes it so difficult for me to read books as much as I'd like but so easy for me to watch a narrative in two or three hours? Is it as I said in the introduction that my attention span has been battened down over time that I can't following anything without pictures. My father wants me to read The Da Vinci Code. I've told him I'm waiting for the film. Depressing or depressing realism?

More important than that, does it matter? The really good books won't disappear because I'm not reading them. Do we all at some point make a choice of the form our escapist fiction of choice is going to take, some go for pages, some for soaps and some like me for film, and are they all equally valid choices for the individual? They're all going to be mixed and matched to a degree but in most cases the percentages are going to be weighted in one direction.

Even if the result of what turned into a project ended up a little bit flat in the reading, it demonstrated a couple of things. That I'm still willing to try new things and educate myself, even if that's just in new film making techniques and styles. That I'm probably addicted because it's the one thing keeping me sane at the moment. That I'm going to wait until at least December before I decide what I'm going to do about 2005. And that things are going to change around here.