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.