Varsity Blues

I remember this film receiving reasonable reviews when it came out in 1999. It stars James van der Beek (at the height of his Dawson's Creek fame) as the reserve quarterback for a high school American football team, that is being ruthlessly driven towards success by their coach, played by Jon Voight. I have thought that this might be a better film if it was focussed on Voight's character alone. He certainly gives the best performance in the movie, probably the best I've ever seen of him. His breakdown at the end is particularly impressive. As it is, however, the film is about van der Beek. As the reserve to a star quarterback, he hasn't played a game in a long time, and is disillusioned about the team and the lifestyle, eagerly waiting for it all to be over so he can go to university. The movie gods, as you can guess, aren't going to let him get away with this. The star quarterback is injured and he has to play the final crucial games of the season, bringing him into conflict not only with the obsessive coach, but also his family, friends, and own ideas about what he wants from life. As you might be able to tell, I think this is a pretty good premise, the problem is that the film feels confused about what it is. It blends comedy with drama, when I think it should've just been a drama. Van der Beek also isn't quite good enough for this role. It needed to be a dark, oppressive film, but instead doesn't achieve what it could've been. Good elements interchange with some fairly average, if not awful, ones. There's a pretty good soundtrack, but perhaps too any slow-motion footage of players being tackled. Most teenage dramas that start with the main character as an outsider hating everyone else, end up with him/her being accepted, and this film sort of concedes to that formula, but I'm not sure if it does completely. Does the main character submit to the idea of success that coach wanted from him? No, but it still feels like he has conceded in some way. I'm aware of the book, film and television series Friday Night Lights, which has been highly recommended to me, and focuses on a high school football team as well. Perhaps it is the fulfilment of what Varsity Blues should've been.

Five Hundred Films

Have you seen five hundred films? It seems like a vast, impossible amount, but it's quite likely that you have. Stranded Cinema is now approaching its five hundredth review. Not necessarily all of these have been about specific films, and some of them have been repeats, but seeing as I've only been running this site for three out of my thirty years, I can say that I've definitely seen at least five hundred films, if not twice that amount. Can I remember all of them? Of course not. If I sat down to watch them, would I remember? Probably, yes. I'm hoping you're as startled as me by this number. It's astonishing that the brain can recall this amount of information, and it's not that I think I watch a lot of films. I watch a few a week. Perhaps this is a lot compared to you, but I compare myself to film critics and directors, who watch a few a day. It makes me think of how many films I'll see in my lifetime, how many films there are, and how many a critic will actually watch. These are big numbers. Does it devalue the individual movies themselves, or does it make the good ones stand out even more? If nothing else, recognition of just how many films you've seen forces you to contemplate the nature of the art and its production.

Dial M for Murder

There has to be a different model for reviewing films based on plays, but seeing as I don't have one, I'm going to attempt to ask and answer questions at the same time. This movie suffers greatly from the usual problems involved. There is too much dialogue, too little action, and only really one set. It seems as if in order to compensate Hitchcock included over-dramatic music and also, strangely, filmed it in 3D. Apparently it was only shown for a brief time in that format, and I can see why. Perhaps my modern viewpoint (notably Avatar) skews my perspective, but I can't see much here that warrants 3D viewing. There are some unusual shots, especially the high angle ones, and it would be interesting to see them in 3D, but this film is mostly dialogue, as I said above. It's also, I would think, slightly too long. Although the plot is compelling and intriguing (you actually want the murderer to get away with it), you also want the events to move quicker than they do. All the actors are exceptional and it's an iconic role for Grace Kelly (although I prefer her in Rear Window). Aside from this, it has to remain one of Hitchcock's less interesting films. There are touches of his macabre side, and perhaps one his best cameos, but aside from that the adaptation just doesn't work for me. Like Rope, it's interesting, but flawed.

No Way Out

Several times during this film I felt that there was no way out. It isn't entirely riveting. From 1987, directed by Roger Donaldson (Cocktail, Dante's Peak and others), and starring Kevin Costner (just as his career was taking off), it's a rather laborious political thriller. Costner is a naval officer, working at the Pentagon, having an affair with a woman who is also having an affair with his boss (played by Gene Hackman), the secretary of defense, who accidentally kills her. Costner is (in a roundabout way) framed for the murder. This is the gist of the film, but it takes a long, long time to get going. It's almost two hours long, and you can feel every minute drag by. Eventually the tension does begin to mount as the hunt closes down on Costner, but there's no great acting, music or dialogue to keep you excited here. Costner has always been rather bland, and it's a style that worked in a few movies, but doesn't really work here. The twist at the end is bizarre, and feels forced to make the film interesting (although I assume it must've been in the original novel by Kenneth Fearing). You lose all confidence and sympathy in your main character, and thus leave the movie feeling cheated, rather than satisfied. It's a strange decision by the writer/director. There's little to recommend here, and I think you might be better off watching the original film from the 1940s, The Big Clock.

Synecdoche, New York

In Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, a theatre director in Schenectady, New York, who eventually moves to the city itself. It starts with him listening to a radio program about how poets and novelists have often written about autumn, and it soon becomes evident that this is what Synecdoche, New York is about too. It is a masterpiece of the humour and surreal touches that we have become familiar with from Kaufman's earlier films (albeit directed by others). If you don't like that sense of humour, you won't like this film. It is essentially the same character from Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, just a little older: a man who enters a world too complicated for him. Yet it goes further than either of these, and I liked it more. It troubles our sense of identity, showing life as lived in the mind, rather than reality. Cotard wins the McArthur 'Genius' Grant, and sets about directing a play about death, but essentially about his own life. He fills an entire warehouse with actors, recreating scenes from his life, and elsewhere: this is the magnitude of the task, and it says something about the complexity of the human mind too. Of course, his project is never ready, never has a title, and never sees an audience. As the film goes on, the self-references would be perhaps too much for some. You begin to forget what is real and what is acted, who is playing who, and when. Years pass without him realising. It becomes slightly rambling, and perhaps it is ultimately fruitless, but maybe that's the idea. Is Kaufman merely repeating himself, or is he heading towards a masterpiece? Is this it? It might be. It's hilarious and disturbing, and one of the best films from last year. Unmissable.

WALL-E

I'm not sure if this is a children's movie, and I'm not sure if watching it with children would change the experience. So I should point out that I watched it as an adult film, with adults. It's easy to be cynical, but WALL-E is undoubtedly adorable. He's like a young boy, or puppy, who falls in love, which is the point. He's a human, really, with a few robot characteristics, rather than the other way around. You can be incredulous that robots would not act the way he does, but then you'd be what is called a 'killjoy'. This film doesn't submit to that sort of scrutiny, because it's not meant to. You have to admire the brave choice to have two main characters who speaks little more than two or three words between them. Aside from a few sentences now and then, this film really has no dialogue. Good writing doesn't mean lots of dialogue, and the writers of WALL-E prove that here, even though some of a action sequences are a bit routine, there's still a freshness to just about everything. The 'female' character EVE is a bit annoying, as is the cockroach, a character we definitely could've done without. The opening music was too cute for me, and I found the ecological message a bit irritating (we don't go to the cinema to be preached at). The crudity of the way the film manipulates the audience can be sickening, but isn't that the point of art: to produce emotions in the viewer? (You might argue good art doesn't aim at base emotions, and you might be right.) If you come to this film with an open mind, you're bound to enjoy it immensely.

Inglourious Basterds

I think I've been misled by false advertising around this film. Both the title and the trailer point toward it being a movie about the 'basterds', a gang of Americans/Jews/Germans brutally killing Nazis in occupied France. In fact, it is hardly about them at all. I would actually find it difficult to say who this film is about. It is hard to like any of the characters, or see them as the drive of the plot. None of them are full or rounded. We don't get to see more than one side of them, and as a result have little sympathy for them (not that Tarantino gives us much chance to). This is of course not a historically accurate occupied France, but a second-hand one based on war movies from the 40s and onwards. It's a transposition of Tarantino's style to a different period, which I think undermines the style itself. The film might be said to be more correctly about Christoph Waltz's character, the 'Jew Hunter', or Melanie Laurent's Jewish cinema owner, but it is hardly followed through. It feels like a film that was good in the writing stage, but got edited out of itself. Eventually, it becomes a plot to trap and then kill the Nazi elite in a cinema in Paris, but this feels tagged on to a random straggle of events with no purpose. More worrying is that there were several repeats of elements from Tarantino's earlier films - are these deliberate, or mistakes, or lazy repetition? If this film was by an unknown first time director, I'd probably have a very different opinion of it, and that's exactly the point. Tarantino's films come with such high expectations that you can't help but feel disappointed. There is brilliant acting (Waltz is considered a good bet for an Oscar), and good music, but scenes go on for too long, characters are laboriously introduced then disappear, and although the ending was interesting, when the credits started to roll I felt generally unimpressed and empty about the experience.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I had always thought this was the one 80s teen comedy not written and directed by John Hughes, but of course it is. Perhaps it was because it doesn't contain any of his usual cast, or that it feels markedly different from them. Perhaps the absence of Michael J. Fox disturbed me (he was considered for the role, but apparently Matthew Broderick was always the first choice). I think Broderick is key here. Talking to the camera, and his wry, adult humour sets this film apart from Hughes' other films (although of course his teenagers are all very adult). This is also a different movie in that the main character doesn't change. Ferris Bueller undergoes no emotional journey in this film. Instead, he is the foil, the catalyst, for the journey that his best friend Cameron goes on. Cameron is the one who is ill, and who doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything. Cameron is the one who stares at the little girl in the painting by Seurat. Cameron is the one who is at first terrified of his parents, then confident in meeting them. All the while in the background, as is typical, we are aware that this is their last year in school, and one of the last chances that they'll have to be together (the influence on Superbad is notable). Ferris changes Cameron, but doesn't change himself. Even his sister Jeanie develops, but not the main character. It is in fact a mish-mash of John Hughes' films, and lacks any real narrative drive. It isn't actually as good as his earlier work in this sense, and yet somehow it surpasses them. It contains that magic element, which might be Broderick, the music, or some great lines, that makes it culturally significant, and unavoidably great fun.

District 9

Not the sequel to a film called 'District 8', but instead a fictional half-documentary set in Johannisberg, where a  spaceship has mysteriously stopped above the city, full of malnourished aliens. We join the story twenty years later when these aliens, who have been living in slums near the city centre since they arrived, are now being forcibly evicted. The man organising this procedure is our main character, Wikus van de Merwe. It's a sightly easy concept (the audience congratulates itself on noticing parallels with illegal immigrants), with some convenient turns of the plot, and obvious developments, but it's executed brilliantly on a large scale, with realism, and a grim humour. The bureaucracy of the administration involved is particularly good, and the main character's slow change is acted excellently. I wonder if the documentary style is necessary at all. It makes the film more of a comedy to begin with, like 'The Office' with aliens, but it doesn't really add much. The style is slowly abandoned, to my relief, but then the interesting concepts and emotions of the film give way to a fairly routine action ending. The final act of the movie is pretty predictable, and leaves you feeling empty, especially when you remember how well the film had started. It's as if the whole motive for the movie changed halfway through. Either one approach or the other would have worked, but perhaps not both. Regardless of this, it is a fascinating, almost brilliant, film. I hesitate, however, when I think about whether I'd like to watch it again.

Scream 3

I think there is something in the nature of a trilogy that makes us believe that it's good, even when it might not be. Perhaps if a franchise has got to the stage where they are being funded to make a third film, it must be entertaining. A lot of other people must have made the decision that we'd enjoy this, somewhere out there in movie-land. Certainly I'm not saying that the Scream movies are bad. I've always found them enjoyable, although I'm beginning to find there's a limit to how many times I can watch them. Reviewing them all recently, I haven't been as entertained as I once was. The third film in particular felt fairly perfunctory. There's nothing new here, really. We've seen enough people killed in enough ways for it to not be scary or funny any more. The self-references do reach a new high - the plot revolves around the production of 'Stab 3', and one scene involves actors being faxed lines about what's going to happen next - but this is hardly a reason to like the film. In fact, the post-modernism seems to become emptier and emptier upon revisits. It is funny in parts, but when we have to have another scene where Dewey Riley and Gale Weathers talk about how they fell out and might get back together again, we know we're watching one sequel too many. With those two, and Sidney Prescott, the series did create strong characters, and perhaps did have potential, but it almost takes itself too seriously here. What I've always found strange is that Scary Movie spoofs Scream, when the original Scream was a spoof itself.

The Sting

Although I might have seen a reasonable amount of films, there are of course always more films I haven't seen than have. What is more, some of these are considered classics that everyone should see (I only score 71% on Film Addict). Until yesterday, one of these was The Sting. In case you don't know, it stars Robert Redford and Paul Newman as conmen in 1930s Chicago. They get together to plan a sting on a wealthy New York gang leader (played by Robert Shaw). It aims for (and achieves) great cinema rather than great art. Newman and Redford have a magical on-screen presence, hardly rivalled nowadays. They don't really have to say anything. Their combination here (and again in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) make it the buddy-movie of all buddy-movies. It has good writing, good acting, good music, and is great fun. There are a few annoying moments where the audience is deceived as much as the characters, but that kind of device was probably invented in this film. We've just seen it too many times now for it to be fresh (including the very similar recent Ocean's Eleven). Is this the kind of film Hollywood would still be making if it wasn't for Star Wars four years later? Is that a good thing? Best line: 'Try not to live up to all my expectations'.

The Hurt Locker

I am slowly coming to realise that I never actually posted a review of this film after I saw it. I can't conceive of a reason why. It is without a doubt one of the best films I've seen this year (with Moon, Avatar and Frozen River). Whilst not as popular as Avatar, now with an equal nine Oscar nominations it might get a re-release, or do well on video. It follows the story of a bomb disposal squad in Iraq and their new, unconventional commander. It feels about as real as possible, and tells the story in an unobtrusive style, with little comment or judgement, especially in its ambiguous relationship to war - is it a pro or anti-war film? What side are the characters on? These are the most frequent of the many questions it raises about not just the Iraq war, but the human condition in general. One quote comes after they have mistreated a civilian, and is particularly significant: 'if he wasn't an insurgent, he sure as hell is now'. You've probably already heard how unbearably tense this film is. It shows us a fascinating aspect of modern war, of the difficulties they face in telling civilian from insurgent, and of their inability to act in sometimes terrifying situations. The ticking bomb could be representative of many things - most obviously the situation in Iraq in general - but the brilliance of this film is that it doesn't try to force an opinion upon you (like say, Avatar). It is a first class, unmissable movie experience.

Frozen River

This if the first feature from writer and director Courtney Hunt, and was actually nominated for two Oscars last year (best actress and screenplay). Despite losing those, it won a string of other awards, and within a few minutes of this film it's not hard to see why. It follows a single mother in up-state New York, close to the Canadian border, who is desperately trying to scrape some money together to pay for a new house. It's a depressing, powerful film, brilliantly written, and perfectly acted. No one here is pretty, or rich, or lives in big houses. For some reason I think back to It's Complicated, and am astonished in the different values that produced each movie. It is a film, like any great work of art, that shows you a new world (or a new aspect to this world). This film shows you a side of America that you would never of thought of or understood. I say this as a European, but I'm going to guess few Americans know about it either. Indeed, the main character of the film stumbles into this world relatively innocent. The frozen river of the title refers to one on a native American reservation that allows them to traffic in illegal immigrants, a quick way of earning money that the mother becomes involved with. The story here is far more important than the form (no flashy cuts, no loud music), and the story is utterly compelling, told with subtlety and sensitivity. You should watch it after watching the latest Hollywood remake, and it might make you never want to watch another one.

Million Dollar Baby

I had avoided watching this film, for no reason that I can now think of. This ignorance, though, helped make the movie much more powerful for me than if I'd known the plot in advance. Yes, I knew that it was about Clint Eastwood's character training Hilary Swank's female boxer, but this is only the skeleton upon which the drama is built. Like every sports film, we inevitably have to sit through a training montage, watch an amateur attempt to perform like a professional, and have the plot revolve around what happens in the arena. However, this movie surpasses a lot of these clichés so that it is a point of contention whether to call it a 'sports film' at all. Hilary Swank is brilliant and believable as Maggie Fitzgerald, and she won an Oscar for her efforts. I was a little disappointed by Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, who seemed fairly lacklustre (and actually hard to hear they spoke in such gravelly voices, as if they trying to out-do each other), although one of them won an Oscar too. It could be said that the film is nastily contrived to produce tears, or that the voice over is unnecessary and sentimental, but these are arguable flaws. It is undoubtedly a powerful drama, played fairly straight, and days later it will catch you again, and make you pause for thought. If that isn't a sign of a good film, I don't like good films.

Alien: Resurrection

Seeing as I'd watched Alien 3 recently, I thought it was a good opportunity to watch the fourth film in the quadrilogy again (the correct word is actually 'tetralogy', but no one uses that). I've actually always liked this film, although when you compare it to the first two movies, and ask whether it successfully continues the franchise, you have to be disappointed. They are really scraping the barrel here. Ripley (along with the aliens) is quite conveniently resurrected. Her character bears almost no resemblance to the interesting figure of the first two films, though. She is now 'part alien'. There is no longer any attempt to slowly introduce the aliens, to terrify us with them again. Instead, the film gives us a series of fairly gruesome and complicated deaths, but we've pretty much seen it all before. There's only so many ways an alien can sneak up on someone and kill them. This film was written by Joss Whedon and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, however, which must account for the bits of originality that are here, and the sense of humour involved. There is a slightly annoying comic book look to the film, which I can assume comes from Jeunet. Watch out for the underwater scene, which is about as contrived as you can get, trying desperately to show us the aliens in a new light. This film is good fun, despite some bad acting by Winona Ryder, but when you compare it to its predecessors, which inevitably you have to, you can't help but feel that this was an empty exercise.

Leprechaun

A film from the early 1990s to consider today. Not exactly a classic, but it has generated some sort of cult, incredibly spawning five sequels, perhaps because it marks the first film performance by Jennifer Aniston, although we can't give all of the credit to her. It is a terrible movie by most standards, but we have to see past that if we want to understand why some people like it. There's no doubt that it's funny, for instance. It's in fact so funny that you have to categorise this as a 'comedy-horror', rather than a 'horror'. You can't take the Leprechaun seriously for more than about two minutes of this movie, and it's not helped by the bad acting. They could've held back his appearance to build up a bit of tension. Aside from one scene with a pogo stick, he's not frightening at all. His almost OCD-like compulsion to clean shoes is hilarious. Overall, there is little to no character development. Everything is rushed through from one action scene to the text, with a hashed attempt at mythology trying to mesh it all together. The only answer to the conundrum of its popularity is that people must like it because it's so bad, and because Aniston is attractive (and pre-nose job). For a true masterpiece in the 'comedy-horror' genre, you have to see Tremors.

Star Trek

Perhaps the hardest of all franchises for a new director to find his identity within is Star Trek. There have been eleven films and five different television series (let's not forget video games, novels and even an animated show). This is what J. J. Abrams had to contend with, and it has to be said he's done a good job. He did what is known as a 'reboot', but in a particularly effective way that can't be copied in any other genre (any fictional universe that can make use of time travel has the greatest deus ex machina available). As soon as you begin to think 'this didn't happen in the original show', you realise that's exactly the point of the film.We see Kirk and his crew grow up, meet each other, and have their first adventures on the Enterprise in an entirely new context. Indeed, this film in a way cancels out all the films that have gone before it. There are a few cheap moments that rely on our preconceptions about the characters, but this was probably inevitable. Overall, though, I in fact felt that the main plot-line to stop the Romulan ship at many points overshadowed the more interesting stories of who Kirk and his crew were etc. There were also a fair few plot holes and very convenient coincidences, some typical of actions films, but some just lazy writing. I have to say a word about the re-enactments the actors attempted. There seemed to be two different approaches: some tried to copy the  original actor, others gave a new reading of the character. In the first group, I felt Scotty and Chekov were quite awful, but Bones and Spock very good. Kirk and Uhura fall into the second group, and I think they both succeeded. Chris Pine is Kirk, but without imitating William Shatner, which is a very hard thing to pull off. It is though, as I said at the beginning, a very tough thing for all involved to be a part of, and they actually managed produced an enjoyable film which without a doubt can be described as a 'roller-coaster'. I wonder what original Star Trek fans made of it.

Moon

There is surprisingly little to say about this film, except that it is virtually a masterpiece. It falls short because of its small scale (and perhaps because it's not by a 'master'), which is not its fault. It is without a doubt a masterpiece of a small scale drama (compare Drag Me To Hell). The dialogue is pitch-perfect, the music great, and Sam Rockwell brilliant. It doesn't tell you anything you can't figure out for yourself. It's an excellently conceived and complete concept. I can't tell you much more about it without ruining it for you (so if you haven't seen it I suggest you stop reading). Created and directed by Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie, if that matters), there are now high hopes for what he'll do next. The film raises in a new context fundamental questions about our identity, our memory, and our individuality. You can't help believe in the life Sam Rockwell's character remembers, and you can't help wanting him to go back to Earth, despite him never having been there. This alone is a fascinating dilemma. The final interaction between him and the robot 'Gerty' is perfect. There are virtually no negative points I can make about this movie. The voice-overs at the end were a bit of a cheap trick, but perhaps necessary. Otherwise, along with The Hurt Locker, this is one of my favourite films of the year.

Drag Me To Hell

I have to admit to being disappointed in this film, but I think this might be because of false advertising, rather than any particular failings. I was led to believe it was one of the most terrifying movies ever made, but found it actually more funny than frightening. There were a fair few jumpy moments, but nothing out of the ordinary. Instead, this film succeeds as a small-scale, classic horror, with a good premise well executed. Although the initial insult and curse didn't convince me enough, and I would've liked to see more definition in the progression of the curse itself, this is still great fun. Apparently Sam Raimi planned this film more than ten years ago (before Spider-Man). Could he have been influenced by The Ring? There are a lot of similarities, and that remains the better film. Some of the plot turns here just aren't worked out well enough. Although I believe in subtlety, we need clearer signals in a film like this. Conversely, you can see the final twist of the film coming a mile off. This makes about ten minutes of the movie pretty redundant, which is a shame. It's a movie that is just slight off being very good. Perhaps the production was rushed, or perhaps it was pushed through too quickly due to Raimi's success with Spider-Man. Would a less influential director have worked harder to make sure every element of this film worked? As an interesting comparison, tomorrow I review Moon.