Wednesday

Vantage Point came out earlier this year. I remember wanting to see it, then reading a negative review and deciding not to. The film shows you several different viewpoints, or vantages, of the assassination of a US president. I believe the review said that seeing the same events repeated several times becomes tiring. I can say that this is almost true. I was about to get tired of seeing the same events, but then the movie changed. Every time you return to the beginning you learn something new. You are kept on the edge of your seat throughout. Things are revealed in perfectly arranged sequences. Although on reflection you might think that certain things are rather artificially hidden from you, in the moment of the movie you don't notice them. I think this would've been great to see in the cinema. It drags you along, surprising you every few minutes. Its lack of success owes more to a lack of big name star rather than anything else. If Tom Cruise had been in Dennis Quaid's role, this film might have been huge. I, however, prefer it as it is: a great fun, intriguing and entertaining movie.

Friday

There are perhaps too many things to say about Top Gun. I'll restrict myself to just one element that I noticed upon watching the film again recently. When I was a young lad, joyfully frolicking in the fields of Sussex, I remember loving especially the bit at the end of the film when the pilots finally go to war and fight the Russians. Yet, the other day, I found this was exactly the bit that could've been dropped from the movie entirely. To recap for you, Goose dies and Maverick loses his nerve. He doesn't feel like he wants to be a pilot anymore. However, his superior tells him he has enough credits to graduate from the academy anyway. The ceremony takes place the next day. Maverick isn't there, and everyone worries that he has given up. Suddenly, of course, he appears, receives his award (or whatever it was) and congratulates Iceman (his nemesis) on being the best pilot. Everything has been settled, there is no longer anything else to prove. I would've ended the film there, perhaps the movie would've been better, but less successful, if it had. However, the pilots are then called to war, Maverick once again loses his nerves briefly, but then recovers them. We're shown that he's learnt his lesson, but still keeps a bit of his personality that makes him the best. Perhaps we do need to see this, but perhaps we don't. I felt it was slightly unnecessary and gratuitous, pandering to the boy rather than the man, but then that is who this film was made for.

Sunday

You may not have even noticed the release of Semi-Pro. I'm not sure that I did. The release of a movie in the UK often depends upon how well it's done in America (although, conversely, certain films are promoted here more because producers believe we'll appreciate them better). I'm guessing the film didn't do well either here or there and there are two reasons for this. It stars Will Ferrell as the owner, coach and player of a basketball team in the 1970s. The team faces dissolution when their league proposes a merger with the NBA. In order to avoid being dissolved, his team have to finish in the top 4. As you can tell, this sounds like a derivative mix between Anchorman and Dodgeball, and it is. There's no hiding that. The concept isn't original. And the plot follows the contrived line of every sport movie: success, failure, success (only in the really great films do you not notice this narrative, or not mind it). Nonetheless, I think this is an extremely funny movie. If you like Will Ferrell, and I do, then you'll love this film. The jokes are great, even though some of them aren't built up sufficiently. The characters' back-stories and romances are messy, but then this is a comedy, and it made me laugh. The second reason the film didn't do well, which I'll try to tell you without ruining the ending, is in the team's hunt for 4th place: these guys aren't winners and they never will be. So, as long as you don't expect too much, and love Will Ferrell, this film is a great fun.

Tuesday

Last night I saw Her Naked Skin, showing at the National Theatre. My first problem comes when I attempt to tell you what the play was about. This normally simple task reveals one of the main flaws of this drama. It couldn't decide what it wanted to be about, and so ended up being about nothing. The background was the suffragette movement of the early twentieth century, and the foreground involved two women falling in love. If the play had been about either one of these things alone, it might have succeeded. After all, the acting was superb, and much of the dialogue excellent. But there was no one drive, or focus, to the narrative. I didn't feel pulled along in any way, either through sympathy or hatred towards any of the characters. The first half was composed of many short scenes, with many characters, leaving the audience confused. I felt indeed that it was a play that wanted to be a film. The second half contained much longer, intense scenes, that worked better, but surely they should have come in the first half when the audience had more patience? Whatever the outcome of this pacing, the play didn't work for me, and it also didn't work on the stage itself. Although the set design was intriguing, it couldn't fill the (admittedly large) stage. There were always large empty spaces that distracted your attention when the actors couldn't keep it - which unfortunately was quite often. You may or may not know that this is the first play by a female writer to be on the main stage at the National Theatre. I couldn't help thinking that if you wanted to show the brilliance of female writers, you would want to show that they can write about any topic or theme. By putting on a play about lesbian feminists they help to stereotype themselves.

Saturday

Possibly the strangest film you'll ever see is Lars and the Real Girl. It stars Ryan Gosling as a lonely man who buys a sex doll and presents her (he calls her Bianca) to his family, friends, work colleagues, and neighbours as his girlfriend. The doctor says he is suffering from a delusion, and suggests that everybody in the town should pretend she is real. They do so. What is incredible from the writer, director and actors is the ability to maintain sincerity in what is obviously a ludicrous (but I'm guessing plausible) scenario. Overall, though, the film is a bit twee, and the ending predictable from halfway through, but there is something so unsettling about it that you won't be able to get it out of your mind. The performance of Gosling, above everyone is outstanding, he makes you believe, and perhaps in someone else's hands this might have been a farce. I have a feeling that if, or when, Gosling becomes a superstar this film will be remembered only as one of his 'early, weird movies', but one that made directors and producers notice him. I have a theory that the film can be read psychologically: we are only what everyone thinks of us. Perhaps this isn't suggested by the script, but it's an interesting angle. Undoubtedly you have to see this film, whether you'll like it or not is a different matter.

Tuesday

I'm going to spoil the end of the movie Cloverfield. I'll post a fuller review later for those of you who think you might watch it. If you're undecided, I should just say that it is a great monster movie, definitely worth watching. So, this post remains for those of you who have seen the film, or know you never will. Near the end, the character who has been holding the camera throughout dies. In his commentary to the DVD, the director Matt Reeves says that this is a great and exciting shock to all monster movie fans. It's as if Sam Neill had died at the end of Jurassic Park, or Matthew Broderick in Godzilla. Or is it? Throughout the film the man holding the camera is distanced from us. In fact, we don't begin with him at all. He is thrust on us after five minutes. From the start, he is a comic character, clearly not a main participator. We are shown his weaknesses and failings. He's not involved in decision making. When we see it from this point of view, we realise the director has not been shocking at all when he kills this character at the end. The director has been quite traditional. Remember the rules of the horror genre set out in Scream? If you have sex, you're going to die, only virgins survive. In less crude terms, what this means is that flawed characters will not survive, or at least characters with flaws that are not redeemable. Main characters are usually flawed, but their flaws are forgivable. In Scream, Sidney has sex, but she was tricked into it, she went into it with honest intentions, and so she survives. Both Scream and Cloverfield, whilst pretending to subvert the rules of their genres, in fact maintain them.

Friday

If you loved the previous movies of Wes Anderson, then no doubt you'll love The Darjeeling Limited. It contains all of his, now trademark, stylised camera movements, music, creative set design and dry sense of humour. What happens, however, if you've never seen or liked his films? I have to say that you probably won't like this one. There is not much direction, or drive, to the narrative, and little real interest in the characters. Instead of smiling when you recognise a deliberately unsteady zoom-in, you'll probably feel disconcerted. Wes Anderson has created a world for himself that he might find it difficult to get out of. Nonetheless, as I said, I still loved this film and would happily watch it again. Something should be said, however, about the short film Hotel Chevalier, which prefaces the main movie. It contains one of the characters, and some minor plot points that will reappear later, though that doesn't make it necessary. I read one review that said they preferred the short to the long film. I can't agree. I was left amused, but generally not intrigued by it. Natalie Portman just isn't a good actress, I don't think. So, I would suggest renting if not buying this movie for Anderson fans, but then they knew that already; anyone else should be cautious.