The Fantastic Mr Fox

I am usually the first person out the door when a new Wes Anderson film is released, but when this movie was in cinemas last year I was hesitant. In fact, when I had heard about its production I already knew I probably wouldn't see it straight away.Why is he making a children's film? I thought. In fact, having now seen the movie, I wonder if anyone under the age of 18 and/or not familiar with Anderson's previous films could have enjoyed this at all. There is so much aimed at adults, and so much Andersonian techniques and trademarks, that with only a few changes it would closely resemble The Royal Tennenbaums, or Bottle Rocket. This in itself is both a good and a bad thing. Anderson's films are an enjoyable indulgence but, like Tarantino in a way, I begin to wonder if he'll ever make a 'serious' film, or deal with real issues. This is perhaps a fictitious division, it could be argued everything in life is real, everything is serious, but there is something undeniably light in Anderson's films that, given his incredible talent and vision, I wish he would turn to drama. The Fantastic Mr Fox is hilarious, surprising and heart-warming, but sadly it is nothing we haven't seen before. I've no complaints if he keeps on making such films, but would feel a tinge of regret each time he did.

Brooklyn Rules

I think this film may have gone straight to video, and once you've read my review you might agree with that decision. It stars Freddie Prinze Jr, Scott Caan and Jerry Ferrara as three close friends growing up in Brooklyn in the 1980s, struggling with what they want to do with their lives, and becoming involved with the Mafia. As you can tell from this summary, it's like a poor version of Goodfellas, The Godfather, Boyz n the Hood, or The Departed. This film fails in more than just its lack of originality, however. I wasn't interested in any of the characters, right from the start. They have no interesting, or new, dilemmas to face, and aren't particularly likeable. There is nothing life-changing or even intriguing here. The romance of Freddie Prinze Jr's character doesn't go through any complex stages that can't be predicted. It stutters along beside the main plot, trying to decide how important it wants to be, and ultimately becomes insignificant. A major problem is that Freddie Prinze Jr just isn't right for this role. He can't do the accent, and he can't pull off character's more complex motivations. Add to this the fact that the film was mis-advertised as an Alec Baldwin vehicle (he appears in literally three or four scenes) and you have a very disappointing movie. There is one particularly gruesome and shocking moment, but that's all, and it's hardly worth paying the rental money just to watch it.

Paranormal Activity

I realise I'm very late in reviewing this film, and that whilst it was immensely popular on its opening, it has now probably faded from your memory. It actually had its first release in 2007, but didn't reach the UK until November last year. However, this was not solely down to the usual time lag between the US and here. The movie was initially made and released with little budget (comparisons to The Blair Witch Project were inevitable), before being picked up by a big studio, altered slightly (with the help of Steven Spielberg) and then re-released. The plan had actually been to remake it entirely, and this almost happened when during a test screening people started walking out. What they soon realised, however, was that these people were walking out because they were terrified. So, the film eventually gained a full, international release, its popularity spread through social networks, and the rest is history. I can't deny that it's frightening. In many ways, the mundanity of its opening makes what happens later more scary. Tension is built successfully, with little or nothing ever given away. This is how horror films should be made. The acting is amateurish, and the camera-work becomes irritating after a while. The plot is contrived at times (to get them to stay in the house, and to get him to continue filming when any normal person wouldn't), but you are carried along by fear and anticipation. It may not be worth seeing a second time, and clearly they had problems with the ending which, for me, still doesn't work, but it achieves what it sets out to achieve, and you have to applaud them for that.

Stardust

From the moment I first heard of and then saw trailers for this film I felt there was something wrong. Having now seen it, I can confirm these fears. What I'm talking about you might say is only one part of the experience, but for me it was crucial. When dealing with the fantasy genre, you have to create a new universe with new rules. It has to be compelling, original, and believable. For me, Stardust doesn't achieve this. The world created here (either by Gaiman or the film writers) feels like a confused mixture of elements borrowed from other stories. It attempts to reassure us with well-worn clichés of witches, princes and so on, but then confuses us with the way in which they are all put together. In the film at least, it doesn't make sense. The universe is a random series of events and characters with no cohesion. It feels like a flawed attempt to copy other better, or more completely conceived, fantasy worlds. The movie is also hindered, rather than helped, by the big name cast putting in only average performances, and I think the over-hyping and advertising of the film made expectations too high as well. The lead actor is uninteresting, and his relationship with Claire Danes too saccharine for me. It is a strangely flawed film, and perhaps the good parts hint at what the book might be, but as it stands the movie fails to create a creditable universe and thus, I would argue, fails overall.

Rendition

This film bases itself on a real story, or rather a real situation, but most of what happens is fictional. Whilst perhaps unfair to the real persons involved, I think it's a good approach that could've been adopted with some other films. It allows the writer to stay true to the essential dilemma, but be able to create the drama around it to fit the pace of the movie, rather than real life. Jake Gyllenhaal works for the CIA in North Africa, where a suicide bomber has recently attacked. A man is arrested on a flight to America for the bombing, flown back to North Africa, imprisoned and tortured there, without trial. Reese Witherspoon plays the man's wife, and Meryl Streep a senior figure in the CIA. It's Jake Gyllenhaal, though, that steals the film here, and the whole plot could've easily centred on him alone. As it is, we are given two or three sub-plots, one of which at least must be unnecessary. The most interesting aspect of this film, though, which will ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it, is the time-shift that occurs towards the end. It's a very neat device which ties everything together, but looking back on it once the credits started rolling, I began to worry. What does it add except suspense? Did it mean something to the story (like the device in Memento did)? Do we even need that story line at all? The film does its job well, is harrowing and dramatic, but could easily be seen to be quite perfunctory, leaving several threads hanging at the end.

Charlie Wilson's War

There is one essential flaw in this film: the balance between comedy and drama is skewed. The poignant moments (pointing towards the current war in Afghanistan) lose their power because of the comedy before and after them. Likewise, the comedy loses its value because we are constantly reminded of the seriousness of what is happening. It is a dilemma that I'm not proposing I could solve. Charlie Wilson was a congressman in the 1980s who fought for heavier involvement by the CIA in Russia's conflict with Afghanistan. Russia, as the cold war enemy of the US, couldn't be fought openly, but the CIA could train and arm the Afghans to fight for them. Perhaps much of my enjoyment with this film came from learning about a period in history which I knew almost nothing. This would be hard on both Tom Hanks (who plays Wilson) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (as his contact in the CIA), as they are brilliant here. Hoffman in particular is exceptional. The humour comes from the incompetency in the system, and the ability of these two characters to manipulate it. The early exchanges between the two of them are unforgettable. The film moves along quickly, but perhaps the end is a little rushed. Julia Roberts' character feels like an unnecessary addition. It's undoubtedly great fun, but I returned again and again to my first fear: the balance between comedy and drama is wrong.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Instead of finishing one of the six or seven drafts of posts I've written, I'm going to review this film that I saw last night. Since it came out I have wanted to see it, and I realise now that such expectations are more than likely to be disappointed. The film is good, certainly - intelligent, thought-provoking, and brilliantly acted - but it is not great. It follows Thomas Seyr, played by Romain Duris, an estate agent/rent enforcer not afraid to use violence, who rediscovers his love of the piano (his mother was a concert pianist), and trains for an audition which might get him out of his situation. Various things, as you might expect, contrive to bring him back to it. This set-up is compelling, but it is the film's finale which lets it down. I don't think I am giving away too much when I say that most of the action takes place over a few days, perhaps a week, but then all of the tension that is built up over this short timespan is dissipated when we suddenly jump forward several years. Many of the issues that we've become involved with, including relationships, are forgotten. All hope of a climax is thrown aside. The opening monologue, which had seemed as if it was important, turns out to be neither predictive or profound. Moreover, what is the beat that his heart skipped? This film has all the elements to be great, but somehow fails to put them together in the right order.

Old Boy

I watched this film on the same day that I saw Alice in Wonderland, which may explain my negative approach to that movie. The two films couldn't be further apart. I suggest watching it without any information, but otherwise carry on. Old Boy, by the Korean director Chan-wook Park, is about a man who is privately imprisoned for fifteen years. When he is mysteriously released, he sets out for vengeance against whoever put him there, unaware that that person is still watching him, and waiting. As you can tell, this dilemma is intriguing and pulls you along easily. Min-sik Choi, who plays the main character, is very likeable and makes a brilliant transformation from ordinary man to crazed killer. This isn't, however, a film based round violence, or for which violence is the main attraction (as I had thought). Instead, it is the psychological consequences of the actions which are emphasised, and are far more compelling. This is a modern day Greek tragedy, but I wondered as I watched it whether it really successfully works for a Westerner. It was hard for me to be as strongly convinced as the characters seemed to be by what had happened. Their notion of shame, guilt, and confidence differs from mine and the conclusion of the film felt over-dramatic and strained. I didn't believe in what was happening, couldn't sympathise with the characters any more. I don't think I can blame Chan-wook Park for this. He's created a brilliantly sinister film that you can't afford not to have seen.

Alice In Wonderland

I was surprised by how quickly I became complacent of the 3D IMAX experience whilst I was watching this film. At first, it was once again astonishing (as it had been for Avatar), but you begin to forget it, or take it for granted. you live inside the film, as it were, as if it was a play or real life. You see the full dimensions of characters interacting with their scenery, but because this is what you do everyday, you quickly begin to overlook it. I wonder if the really astonishing thing is actually 2D, and the effort it takes to make us think that's real. Anyway, aside from the interest in the technology, I have to hesitate before saying whether the film is any good or not. You may have heard that it is not a retelling of Lewis Carroll's book. It inhabits that world, but is more of a continuation rather than an adaptation. It also includes elements from his other books. The main problem I had with the film is that it makes sense. This may be a strange complaint, but the essence of Carroll's world was that it was absurd. There was no over-arching plot to be followed, merely incidental ones. Tim Burton gives the film a narrative, which I'm sure Carroll would have detested. There is a quest feel to the movie, and a conventional battle scene at the end. So, I can't say that I like or what see the film again, but what was Burton's aim with the movie? He appropriates the iconic moments of the books, and then deploys them in his own narrative. Characters are given motives and back-stories, essentially contradicting the original intention of Carroll. Of course the film is enjoyable (I don't know what children would make of it), and we shouldn't get hung up on whether or not it does justice to its original, but there's something perfunctory and empty about the experience, which left me relatively unchanged when I exited the cinema.

The Break-Up

I think I've reviewed this film at least twice already, so I'm not going to do it again. Instead, I want to remark on something new that occurred to me as I was watching it recently. If you haven't seen it, I'm going to talk about the ending, which may ruin the whole thing for you. In my previous reviews I pointed out that I particularly liked the finish, avoiding the typical Hollywood ending. The main characters accidentally meet up again (perhaps six months or a year later), are happy to see each other, exchange pleasantries and then move on. Everything points towards this being a kind of closure to the relationship. They can finally see past all the anger and unpleasantness, and feel that that chapter of their life is closed. This is what I thought, and I liked it. However, looking more closely at that scene, perhaps I'm completely wrong? Are they going to get back together? The conversation is short and they don't make any plans, but they exchange compliments and both suggest catching up again. He invites her to come on his tour and she says she will. They're both extremely happy to see each other, and both (as far as we know) single. Throughout the film you are made to feel that they could resolve their differences if only they would stop being so stubborn, or explain their situation properly to each other. There is still obviously love there. I know this isn't exactly the riddle that is Michael Haneke's Hidden, but The Break-Up is a better than average film, and I think it deserves some consideration.

10 Things I Hate About You

This film is much older than I thought it was (it came out in 1999). Notable is how young Heath Ledger - he was twenty at the time - and Joseph Gordon-Levitt look (star of the brilliant Brick). It's ostensibly based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, and is probably part of the spate of teen comedies derived from classic works (like She's All That and Get Over It) that I think was started by Clueless. On the surface you have to say that it's fairly awful. Gordon-Levitt falls in love with one sister, who isn't allowed to date until her older sister does. Now here's the twist: her older sister hates everyone. Enter Heath Ledger, who is willing to be paid to date the older sister, so that the younger is freed up. There's a few more twists and turns, but you get the idea and can probably guess what's going to happen. Nonetheless, this is a bit more refreshing and original than most teen comedies, but perhaps this is like being the best car in the scrapheap. Their teacher and the sisters' father are both enjoyable characters, but aside from them no one but Ledger is very interesting. The typical high school jock/jerk is just so obvious it's almost painful to watch (compare Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Overall I think it sits awkwardly with the original material, and doesn't have the post-modern irony and sharp wit that Clueless had. The school the film was shot in does give it an impressive background and feel, though.

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.

He's Just Not That Into You

I'll leave the question of why I watched this film for you to figure out. It's adapted from a self-help book, and some of this fragmentary nature is still evident in the movie. They have attempted to mould a narrative out of it - there are various interweaving story-lines, all aiming towards teaching us something about relationships - but I think ultimately they fail. It feels like a weak imitation of Love Actually (a film I didn't particularly like anyway). I found myself lost between the several characters and their problems, empathising with none of them. No one of them particularly caught or held my attention. You flit from one story to the next, not giving characters time to develop rounded personalities. Perhaps I'm being unfair, as I did approach this negatively right from the start. I am of course not the target audience (for much of this film men are portrayed as unfeeling bastards), but there is a central flaw to the movie.After offering good advice to women to begin with, it then contradicts it in the last ten minutes. For example, there is a man who throughout disagrees with marriage, but at the end he proposes. Why? This gives us the 'exception to the rule' that throughout we had been told to ignore. Avoid this if you are at all cynical about relationships, but if you're a born romantic, I think it will offer you a good reasonable night in with a glass of wine.

Sherlock Holmes

A last minute change made us see Sherlock Holmes instead of Up in the Air. I'd been hesitant because of the association of Guy Ritchie and Jude Law, two people I'm not normally convinced by. Jude Law was reasonable enough, but not brilliant, and the direction was merely following a style that's become popular, rather than doing something original (preview of fight-scenes seemingly stolen from The Last Samurai). It could be said that Robert Downey Jr was just replaying his performance from Iron Man, but all of this is too easy, and I think slightly unfair. I haven't read enough Conan Doyle to be able to say whether they do justice to the text, or whether they were trying to, but what is clear is that they're having fun with the characters, and this is infectious. There's a great score by Hans Zimmer, a fun sense of humour, some good action sequences, and intriguing plot turns. Overall, the story was predictable enough (although perhaps unfairly Conan Doyle was the first to write such stories), and the comic book style look of the film slightly annoying. I left the cinema slightly perturbed by the ending, I think it needed a bit more definition, although I believe they have already agreed on a sequel.

Alien 3

After recently watching Alien 3 again, I've been looking back into the nightmare that the film was to produce (partly inspired by filmonic). To recap, the studio apparently suddenly found themselves with a very successful franchise, one that could make or break the company. The pressure to produce a money-making third film was thus ramped up. They went through hiring and losing several directors and writers (Renny Harlin, William Gibson, Vincent Ward etc: the full details are here). Only then was David Fincher approached. Fincher had never directed a full length film before. He was subjected to budget cuts and time constraints, and I believe he left before the editing process began. What was released in cinemas (with trailers that suggested the events actually took place on earth) was a terrible mish-mash of ideas, belonging to all and none. Whilst its development process might be extreme, it's not hard to believe that this sort of thing happens a lot in Hollywood. It's the battle between creative ideas and making money that I talked about a while ago. In this case, the relationship destroyed the film entirely, even though I think it did actually make its money back. And this is why we see so many remakes and dramatisations of books. They're a safe bet for the studio, who can be reassured that no matter how wild the director, he has to stick to the source material. They have a guaranteed audience who've read the book, or seen the original film or TV series. Creativity doesn't make money.

Tuesday

A second post on Avatar. I want to focus on the 3-D aspect of it, especially since I'd never seen a 3-D film before (I didn't know you got proper plastic glasses, for instance). I have to admit that I was astonished before the movie even came on, as several of the trailers gave us a taste of what 3-D was like (Alice in Wonderland and How to Train Your Dragon). Avatar, though, being ostensibly 'real', was a step up. The first shots in the cryo-chamber were just incredible. However, the images did occasionally seem simply like layers of 2-D images, rather than a full 3-D picture. What also disturbed me was the out of focus parts of the image. As with a normal film, there is only one bit in focus at a time, but with 3-D, because you feel like you are watching real life, your eyes have a tendency to wonder over the image, and you expect it to be in focus when you do. This, perhaps, is the next big test: for everything to be in focus when you want it to be. Several times during the movie I had to stop myself and say: 'none of this is real'. The film throughout mixes real with CGI in different proportions, but you would find it very hard to tell exactly what these proportions are. The CGI is so realistic now that you don't even notice it any more. I used to always feel myself pulled away from a film by bad CGI (even Lord of the Rings and King Kong), but now the connections are seamless. The greatest achievement of this is CGI characters that you believe in and empathise with (remember Jar Jar Binks?). I bet George Lucas is kicking himself that he didn't wait ten more years for his Star Wars prequels. Avatar is what his new films should've been.

Monday

Avatar is going to take more than one post. As the cliché goes, it's not so much a film as an experience. For today, I'll try to review the film for those of you who haven't seen it. Roger Ebert has famously compared it to when he first saw Star Wars, and for me Avatar has certainly been what I imagined being alive in 1977 was like. I'll still prefer Star Wars, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a whole generation for whom Avatar was their favourite film. I'd never seen a 3-D film before, which might explain some of my awe, but I believe Avatar goes further than any other such project has. There's no way to describe it other than to say 'it feels like you're there'. I was gasping in astonishment for about the first five minutes. After a while, you actually get used to it to such an extent that you're deeply disappointed when you see a normal film later. Criticisms that point to the similarity of plot to other films (Dances with Wolves, Pocahontus, FernGully) miss the point. You won't have seen anything like Avatar. Moreover you don't go to Avatar to see great character development, intense personal drama, and scintillating dialogue. You go for the experience, to be overwhelmed, which undoubtedly you will be. Is the dialogue in Star Wars great? Is the storyline all that original? You have to go to the film with the correct expectations. This is an incredibly beautiful movie (which is part of the point of the narrative), which takes itself seriously (I say this as a good thing). I was a little disappointed by the score. James Horner seems to have stolen melodies from his previous scores to Titanic, Aliens and Star Trek. Plus the Leona Lewis song is awful. Nevertheless, if you are at all interested in the cinema you have to see this movie, definitely in 3-D, and preferably in IMAX. To compound the comparisons to Star Wars, there's already talk of sequels.

Why Is It Called 'Stranded' Cinema?

The name may seem a bit odd, and perhaps slightly self-pitying. The reasons for it, however, are fourfold:

• Because I was intending at the beginning to talk about cinemas that had been closed, or stranded.
• Because one of these cinemas I mistakenly thought was on the Strand, in London (it is the one in the picture, actually on Piccadilly).
• Because I started writing due to a free-ticket promotion in the Evening Standard, which sounds like stranded.
• Because the reviews appear in a thread, or strand.

Friday

In a third computer related movie coincidence*, I happened to watch the 1995 film Hackers, starring Jonny Lee Miller and a young Angelina Jolie. This is the same year that The Net came out, although the tone of the film is very different. Miller plays a boy who at a young age wrote a particularly virulent virus, and is subsequently banned from using a computer until he's 18. Shortly before he reaches this age, now living in a new city, he meets a group of hackers at his school, one of whom has found something suspicious amidst a large corporation's computer network. As you can guess, Miller is forced to use his superior hacking skills to come to the rescue. Aside from the new context, there's nothing very interesting here. I think I remember it being popular at the time, but of course it ceased being so very quickly. Hackers are idolised here in a way few of us have patience with any more, not to mention that the computers, clothes, culture etc of these so called cyberpunks is long since out of fashion. The visualisation of the inside of computer networks is quite fantastical, a good attempt to make computers interesting on screen, but still all that is really happening is that a character is typing on a keyboard. I found it fairly uncompelling (if that's a word). Miller is not a great actor, but Jolie does have a good presence here. It's interesting perhaps only as a piece of history, not a piece of cinema.

*There is actually a very good computer moment in It's Complicated, but I can't tell you about that.

Thursday

It's Complicated is the new film from Nancy Meyers (writer/director of Something's Gotta Give, What Women Want and The Holiday*), starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. You probably don't need to be told that this is a chick-flick, if that term means anything. A large part of it consists of Streep smiling, laughing, crying, and gossiping with her female friends. It ambles its way along fairly pleasantly. Everyone lives in large, beautiful houses, and it is almost always sunny. It is funny enough, although this isn't a comedy. I thought the funniest part belonged to John 'the next big thing' Krasinski (he plays the 'Tim' character in the American version of The Office). There is good chemistry between Baldwin and Streep, and its innovative at least to see romance now between people in their 60s, rather than their 20s. The baggage they have, and the complications it brings, make this a more nuanced telling of a story you've probably seen a hundred times. I found something slightly wrong about Steve Martin's performance (this may be that he's perhaps had cosmetic surgery and looks quite static), but it's a minor niggle. Overall, it is enjoyable, including one classic comedy moment, but I wouldn't see this again. Whether I have to or not is a different matter.

*Thanks to in cinema, by text, information from Alex.

Wednesday

What is it about Saints and Soldiers that makes (or made) it forgettable? You may not have even heard of it (released in 2003), but apparently it won many awards (16 according to IMDb). The title, to begin with, is probably putting you off. It sounds preachy already. What crippled it even more, I believe, was that it came out after Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and Band of Brothers, which made it look like a cheap imitation regardless of whether it was or not. Add to this a lack of recognisable actors (Corbin Allred, anyone?), and you're in trouble. Having now seen it myself, I can however confirm that it is a cheap imitation. Search for the soundtrack of Band of Brothers, compare it to this film, and you'll hardly be able to tell them apart. Now read a plot summary: a band of soldiers behind enemy lines are on a mission that could change the course of the war. The acting is mediocre (especially poor from the RAF pilot) and the script is terrible. It's like someone has tried to mesh together all the great moments from Saving Private Ryan, but forgotten about the parts that connected them, that strung them along into a compelling narrative. It doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about warfare and the human condition. It really is a poor effort. Added to this we are told at the beginning that it is 'based on actual events'. What we're not told is that the story and characters are completely fictional, and that real events (which happened to different soldiers at different times) are randomly jammed into the film. Worth seeing only to remind yourself how good those other films are.

Tuesday

Yesterday I didn't think I had anything to write about, but then I remembered that I've seen five movies since my last post. Quite an oversight. First off, David Cronenberg's first film: Shivers. It's very similar to his second movie, Rabid, which I reviewed here. Both involve parasitic type organisms which spread from person to person, causing panic and death, with some perverse sexual side-effects. Shivers is contained in one place, and its time-line is limited to just about one day. It feels more deliberately constructed, whereas Rabid was more natural, more freely flowing. Rabid seemed to let the story happen, whereas Shivers tries too hard to tell it. Nonetheless, there are not a great amount of differences. They both attempt mild social satire, and their endings more or less point in the same direction. The scope of Rabid sets it apart, however, and there is also something more intriguing there in the difficulty the lead character goes through. We experience with her the terror of the situation, whereas is Shivers we are isolated from it. I wouldn't say either film is brilliant, but they are definitely necessary viewing for fans of Cronenberg (and the zombie genre perhaps), showing his ability from very early on to disconcert.

Friday

I've had the David Lean quotation below the title for a while now. As I was looking at it yesterday, I realised that I didn't really agree with it. 'Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director's job to make it appear real. An audience should not be conscious of technique'. I agree with the first part, to a degree. It is not about appearing real, as in 'like real life', but of being consistent within itself. Or, rather, the characters should be real. You can put them in whatever situation you like, as long as they are believable. It's the second part of his quote that I'm more wary of, however. Should an audience be conscious of technique? I think they almost definitely should, but perhaps it is a semi-consciousness. I think what Lean is talking about is something that takes you out of the moment of the film, that makes you think 'how did they do that?' (I think Kubrick talks about this too). There should be technique that you're aware of, camera movements, cuts, focus etc, but they should be integral to the film, built within it and incapable of removing you from it, and back into the seat you're sitting in. You might even think 'how did they do that?' (say with some of the shots in Touch of Evil) but never to the extent that you stop engaging with the characters. It's only with the 'second watch' of the film that these questions should raise themselves up to full consciousness, and this is something that Lean perhaps didn't consider.

Thursday

David Mamet has half-confirmed my fears about the Hollywood system: that no one watches films any more. He suggests that very few people read scripts, especially those with the higher positions in the production companies. The reason for this, he argues, is that 'script reader' is one of the basic jobs in such a company: trawling through the hundreds of scripts that get sent to them. These junior members of the company do then read, but they only read in order to please those higher up the chain. They don't look for what is good, but for what their superiors are looking for - that is, to make money. When these 'script readers' are elevated up in the company, they look with disdain (and perhaps boredom, horror) on script reading, leaving it to those below them, and their concerns become more directly 'how can a film make money?'. This, you might say, is only for scripts that get sent in, what happens to work from established writers? It's more than possible that this work is green-lighted without anyone reading it. More worryingly, such scripts will be reduced to a 'pitch', and this is what gets the film made, or not. Likewise with a director, with or without a script. He is either agreed to based on his reputation, or his pitch. So if no one reads scripts, does anyone bother watching the films?

Wednesday

I had always avoided The Butterfly Effect because for some reason I confused it with Wicker Park (perhaps because Josh Hartnett and Ashton Kutcher are easily confused, or that both movies came out the same year). I'd seen bits of Wicker Park and not liked it. Now, however, I've seen The Butterfly Effect, realised it was a different film, and actually really enjoyed it. Ashton Kutcher is a young man who has suffered from memory blackouts, missing vital minutes that changed the course of his life. Not wanting to ruin the plot, I'll just say that as an adult he realises a new aspect to these blackouts. It's a good sci-fi premise (or the kind of one I enjoy), well played out, with good special effects, and some pretty harrowing scenes for an Ashton Kutcher film. It raises some good questions about success, what it is that makes us happy, and the idea of memory*. I was a little disappointed by the ending, but can't really say much about it without ruining the whole film for you. It felt like an easy escape, when the writer could've come up with a truly original twist for us. Nonetheless, this is great fun for those of you that enjoyed Deja Vu or Jumper, and aren't too irritated by Kutcher (I know some people are).

*For an amazing book on the notion of memory, try 'The Echo Maker' by Richard Powers.

Tuesday

By coincidence, the day after I saw Firewall, the early 90s film The Net was on television. I thought this was too good an opportunity to miss to compare these two movies about technology. They both deal with the way computers can manipulate our identity as easily as they can create them, or how they can be used to commit any kind of crime merely by hacking security systems. In Firewall Harrison Ford, the head of on-line security for a bank, has his family kidnapped and accounts hijacked in order to force him to transfer money to the criminals. In comparison, Sandra Bullock is a software engineer in The Net who has her identity deleted when she finds something suspicious in a program she is examining. The differences in the computers are astonishing, and almost embarrassing. The first thing that struck me was how poor The Net really was, when I remember when I was younger I liked it. The innovation of using the internet as a plot device is about the only interesting thing here in an otherwise mundane movie. As for Firewall, I can't say that it's much better. Take away the context, and you're left with a fairly dry narrative. Harrison Ford seems to put little effort into the movie (as far as I can tell), although Paul Bettany is reasonably frightening as the lead kidnapper. One interesting development between the two (possibly helped by the first) is how the internet user has turned from geek to hero.

Monday

The second part of Che is as remarkable as the first, although I think it would be a mistake to think of it as a separate film, containing unique or new developments (like, say, a true sequel would). Instead, it is a mere continuation of the understated excellence of the first. As such, there isn't much for me to add to my earlier review. I felt the first film was almost a set up for this one, providing the background detail, letting us know who Che was and how he worked. In a way, it shows us his ability so that we know what goes wrong in the second is hardly his fault. If so, the film flatters Che a bit too much (noticeable is the only brief mention of his part in the executions in Cuba), but it is hardly a laudatory movie. The failures of the Bolivian campaign are slowly revealed with an inevitability that is almost painful. We see his persistence here, his true belief in what he is doing, and why (as well as being shown some examples). We also see much more of his opposition, the Bolivian government, its military, and its help from America. The film deals as plainly as possible with the tragic and almost heroic end to Che's campaign, although it does have a few over-stylistic sequences that irked me a little. If anyone wants to buy me the box-set, though, that would be just fine.

Wednesday

I have now seen the first part of Che and am preparing to watch the second part tomorrow. This news alone will tell you that I thought the first part was good. I would say that it is almost brilliant, but I think I'll only really know what to say when I've seen the second part. Steven Soderbergh has said that initially he was only going to make the film about Che's actions in Bolivia (part two), but that the scope naturally broadened to Cuba as well (part one), so I have hopes that the second part will be better. Perhaps, though, it will be worse, or too clever, as Soderbergh sometimes is. The first part, however, was good, perfectly understated and brilliantly performed by Benicio del Toro. I really don't think I've ever seen a better performance by an actor, although he is recreating a real person, rather than a character from a script (is there a difference?). Soderbergh has said that he wanted to avoid a biographical film, and hence deleted anything about Che's private life, but this isn't the point. The problem with the biographical film is that it subsumes narrative drama under actual events. Instead of the rhythm of a story, with carefully orchestrated peaks and troughs, we get the random pacing of an actual life. Nonetheless, Che so far excels like no other biographical film, and I can't wait for part two.

Tuesday

What was the first film I remember seeing? I've forgotten (I think this joke is from Waiting for Godot, but I can't remember). Seriously, though, I don't think I trust my memories to pick out the exact film that comes first. Like Alex, Star Wars is a very early one for me, specifically The Empire Strikes Back. I remember watching it in my cousin's house. It was always on around Christmas, but I think he had the videos as well. I remember the snow on Hoth, and Yoda in the jungle. As for an actual cinema, I distinctly remember going to the theatre in Germany (where we lived at the time) to see Jungle Book. This must have been pretty early. I don't remember much of the film itself though. Flash Gordon is also in there very early, as is Uncle Buck (I remember sneaking into the cinema to see it when I was underage). Apparently I used to hide behind the sofa during Doctor Who episodes, but I don't remember this myself, and this doesn't really count as film. I don't remember many of the specifics of the films, or my reactions to them, as others seem to. For instance, I have no memory of being shocked when Darth Vader told Luke he was his father. I feel like I've just always known that. Perhaps the force is strong with me.

Tuesday

Which film is scarier: The Omen or It? I ask this because I saw both films for the first time on Sunday, and as I lay in bed trying to get to sleep that night, I wondered which movie's images would haunt my dreams: the little boy or the clown? When I awoke about 4am to go to the toilet, I was surprised to find that it was the clown I was more scared of. When watching the films I'd found the clown slightly ridiculous and not that frightening. The little boy, as the title suggests, is more ominous. He is terrifying, but poses no real physical threat himself. What is more, his danger comes only if you have a Christian upbringing. It, on the other hand, threatens everyone - he is in your imagination. However, there is another distinction to be made. It is more obviously frightening, the kind of film that makes you jump out of your seat, whereas The Omen works away at your unconscious, like The Exorcist, and terrifies you to the core. I say this, and yet I hesitate. I didn't find The Omen that frightening, and its effect so far seems limited. Despite the weird and terrible ending to It, I think it the more truly scary film, and it was the image of the clown that frightened me in my dark hallway.