A Few Films Later

A ‘Romantic Drama’; not usually my cup of tea, but I have to say I did enjoy this film.

Typical story: two childhood sweethearts who are forced apart and then lose contact, find each other in adulthood and the romance is still there. Nothing original there, and that is why I am not a fan of love stories because all avenues seem to have been explored and exhausted, this is no exception.

The difference here, to me, is that the love is actually believeable, it transcends past the ‘twilight’ style love that seems to have captivated the younger generations and really does seem believeable - even to a skeptic like myself.

There are other elements to the film that impress though, the editing on the film is interesting to say the least. Mostly at the beginning we see strange transitions which I think show time passing, but to me, they didn’t really work. However, the candle-light effect on the past-story part is very good, and it really does help to romantisise the whole film, the orange-ish colour grading of the film also enhances this. 

You can’t ignore the title either, it’s called “The Illusionist” for a reason. The illusions shown are actually fun to watch, and although you can think about the CGI and the ways the film-makers could have achieved these ‘illusions’, I found it much better to just sit back and appreciate the splendour and beauty in some of the things he does. The illusions also add a new part to the film, because you want to know how he does it. At first you think magic, but then he gives a logical explanation to some things and it leaves you literally craving the answer. The skeptical society we live in as well, leads us away from magic and from wanting magic to be the answer because it does seem like a bit of a get-out-clause. However, I won’t actually divulge the actual explanation because I don’t want to ruin anything. 

It goes without saying that Edward Norton gives us an incredible display of acting, I am a huge fan of him and his work, and this is no exception. He always plays a believeable character, which maybe is why the love is so believeable, because good actors are used rather than young ones that will allow the teenage population to ‘relate’ to the character. 

Rufus Sewell also deserves a mention, he pulls through with a good performance. You can clearly watch his character go from being a co-operative, curious man to a jealous, villainous character and that is something I like to see, the clear character arc. 

As a whole though, the characters are strange. Other than Paul Giamatti’s character, all the others lack the depth I would expect in a film like this, I can’t decide if this is an intentional transference of the mystery from the illusions into the characters, or whether it’s a poorly written script that didn’t allow the depth to truly be explored, it certainly isn’t a critisism of the actors and how they are.

Overall, it is a truly convincing love story, which is a big compliment coming from someone like me, who usually would discredit the ‘love’. However, the accents in the film are somewhat confusing, not Vienna accents at all, in fact they are very British. Some of the editing as I mentioned, is a little intrusive, but mostly you can’t help but smile at certain parts.

Rating: 7/10 - I really did enjoy this film, some slight lapses in the pace of the film at times, but mostly a very enjoyable watch. However from the producers of one of my all-time favourite films Crash, it is to be expected.

I want to start by saying that this isn’t really a review.

This post is more intended for people who are interested in the film industry, as this show takes you behind the screen and into the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle of an aspiring movie star. 

Not hooked yet? Well you might be when you consider that it is mostly based around the rise to fame of Mark Wahlberg (minus the criminal parts) and his entourage of childhood friends. However, it also holds an informative level, showing you the system of agents, studios and everyone involved in the process of making a film. 

I don’t want to get into a full review, because after 6 seasons, I could talk forever. I want to keep this short and sweet and just recommend that you have a look at the first season at least and see what you think.

I’m not a huge fan of most tv-shows, as I feel sometimes as though plots have a large amount of unnecessary twists and are massively over-complicated. However, this is a much more light-hearted programme, where the ‘main character’ is actually very two-dimensional whereas the people around him, particularly Ari Gold for me, are the characters you want to see more of and they’re the ones you want to meet in real life.

An easy-to-watch programme that has a surprisingly interesting plot to keep the general TV audience hooked, mixed with endless cameos from major stars to keep the film-lovers happy makes for such a fun watch for everyone. From Kanye West to James Cameron, you’ll see some of the most famous people in the world on this programme, and that pays tribute to how good it really is.

I’ll end it here before I talk on for hours, but it is an amazing programme and I’m recommending this simply because I love it so much.

Iconic images to prepare you for an iconic film.

First I’d like to start by warning you. The first 20 minutes of the film can be quite difficult to take. The use of camera can be quite nauseating, and in the cinema, it was even more difficult to take. It isn’t so bad on the television, but it can be an unpleasant experience.

But my God it’s worth it.

On the back of a majestic marketing campaign, which is the least revealing but most enthralling that I can remember, comes a film which does much of the same thing. The way it conceals the monster, with just a few glimpses of a back, or a leg, or a tail for the first 45 minutes or so means you are dying to see more.

This leads nicely on to the use of camera. Point-of-view filming for an entire feature length film is no mean feat. It immerses you completely in the film, but in a completely different way to other films. You feel at times, as though you are the person running frantically about the streets, trying to stay alive. This makes it all the more frustrating, to be part of the audience. There are times when you want to reach in and move the camera slightly up, so you can see more of the monster. This frustration though, is an amazing thing.

Further to the amazing camera work, and hidden elements, this film also has an amazing way of making you care about the characters. The camera work leads you to feel at times, as though the characters in the film are your friends as well. This makes their somewhat abrupt departures all the more shocking and upsetting (particularly the exploding stomach scenario).

Another dimension to this film, which I think really works, is the ‘secrets’ it has. The most obvious being the satellite landing in the background of the last scene, which is actually what causes the beast to start attacking. Then there’s the lesser known “help us” at the end of the credits. After looking into these a bit more, I also found out that the “help us” backwards sounds like “It’s still alive”. These little added extras, can really make an amazing film, phenomenal. This film really plays to the post-modern, media saturated audiences that would want to watch it, with another secret being the Dharma logo from lost. This would only be interesting to a certain number of people who watch Lost (I’m not one of them, but I figured some of you would be). Also, the audience are played upon with situations like the subway with the night-vision incident, where the slow incline of people as they creep towards the edge of their seats shows that they all know something is about to happen, and that’s what really makes the scene so much more interesting.

However, it does have some problems, but these are minor issues. Firstly there’s the camera, which survives crashes, bombings and still lives to tell the tale perfectly. Also, this camera is amazingly high quality in terms of sound and picture, yet it is a camcorder. It is mainly my opinion that opposes these, it may not bother some other people. Also, I found the comedy moments somewhat annoying, not really fitting the rest of the film.

Overall, it’s simple. You need to see this film. 

Rating: 9/10 - very close to a 10 though. Go and watch it!

about the lack of posts recently.

I did just write a review on Cloverfield, but my laptop decided to delete it.

A masterpiece.

Almost every single time this film is mentioned, tribute is given to the first 30 minutes of intense battle, which puts you about as into a war as a film ever will. I’m sure I’m going over old territory but it truly is amazing, and for that 30 minutes it’s hard to pull your eyes away from the screen.

It really captures the feeling of panic, partially down to the way it was filmed, with cameras set up at various points across the beach and then the ‘soldiers’ just told to simply get from one side to another. Unscripted - Like war. This really captures the true movement of the soldiers and that plays a massive role for me.

Also, putting about a minutes worth of almost silence into the middle of an epic battle only serves to show the severity of the situation. 

However, as well as the powerful battle scenes, there are also a lot of emotional moments in the film that are rightfully given a large time segment. For example, the long discussion about home life, or the scene where Pvt. Reiben discusses, in detail, an erection he had. These just give you such a strong connection to all of the characters, which makes some scenes almost difficult to watch. 

The connection to the characters, makes you try and empathise with them, as any good film does. However, what I’m not used to is having this question proposed to me: Do you kill an enemy in cold blood? 
The immediate response is ‘No’ but for those of you who’ve seen the film, you understand the dramatic irony of this and upon second watching the question gets harder to answer.

None of this could be achieved though, without the flawless acting from the entire cast. Obviously there are people who stand out more like Tom Hanks and Edward Burns, but the entire main cast are utterly incredible. However, as well as the characters being acted well, they were also cast perfectly, so props to DeniseChamian for her work. 

It’s hard to pick flaws in this film. Maybe the length would put some people off , because at 169 minutes it’s a long haul, but to me that only serves to increase your ability to appreciate the journey that the soldiers had to make, and there’s not a minute in that film that should be shaved off. 

Overall, I can’t pick a fault with it. Rarely do I get so attached to characters that I don’t want to hear the phonograph stop because I know that means the action will start and I don’t want that risk. This is a film that will still give you chills with every death you see, because the brutality never lets up (surprising for a Spielberg film). Be prepared to be left with some images that you won’t forget for a long time, whether it’s seeing a soldier with a caved in face, or the silhouetted image of Tom Hanks against a beautiful sunset, either way this film will leave you thinking about what you’ve seen.

Rating: 10/10 - The first one I’ve given, but after watching it again it definitely deserves it. If you like war films then this is a must-see, if you don’t like war films then you should watch it anyway and then you will like war films.

I find few things more annoying than type-casted actors.

I don’t find it annoying in what they produce, I mean Adam Sandler is great at being the angry, funny man with emotional baggage and a strangely bright future but I find it annoying that they got there in the first place.

I’d love to see Michelle Rodridez in romantic film, playing the soppy girl who’s on a quest for love, rather than the tomboy “bad-ass” with an attitude problem. However, i doubt i’ll ever see that, and why? because she simply couldn’t pull it off. So to me, that doesn’t make her the amazing actress that she’s portrayed as being, she’s an amazing tough girl, not an amazing actress. To me, a great actor/actress needs versatility so they can play all sorts of different roles, Brad Pitt for example is what i’d call an amazing actor.

The Golden Age of Hollywood has been over since the late 50’s, and for a while so was the categorising of actors. I agree that back then it was a lot worse, in that studios literally bought an actor to only play certain genres (James Cagney) but the confinement of actors to genres is still around, and i just wish it wasn’t. I think that if about 9 years ago, Michelle Rodriguez decided to try out a different role once in a while, she would be a much better actress than she is now. I don’t mean to pick on her so much, she’s just a very good example of what’s wrong with the system.  I just think it’s wrong that she can get paid so much to that one thing, almost anyone could decide on a role they would play, and after long enough they would be able to perfect it, that, in my opinion, does not make them a good actor.

My first impression was good from the first time I saw the DVD cover. It’s nice to finally see a film that’s proud of its accolades not it’s stars. I think that sets the tone for the rest of the film as well, which emphasises the bigger picture, and although you do care for the characters, you leave with a feeling that’s bigger than that, but I’ll get to that later.

However, the film is very generic in a lot of senses.

The characters:

- The protagonist who is the best soldier, but has a deep-seated problem that holds him back.
- The father figure.
- The butch one.
- The weak, but cocky one.
- The outsider. 

It’s all very predictable and once the characters had been established I could have told you who would die, who would forge hidden friendships and who would learn the lesson that changes them forever and I would have been right. The outsider character definitely deserves a mention of its own though. The character is a Brit, but no ordinary Brit. Take every stereotype of an Englishman and then over-act it, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing it just takes some time to realise that he isn’t a joke. The acting overall is average; believable but not mind-blowing. The plot, like the character journey, is also predictable, you know how it’s going to end after about half an hour, but with a playing time of only 86 minutes it couldn’t fit in an intricate plot. 

However, the lack of something new to the characters and the plot serve as an enhancer of the underlying tone of the film, which is not-so-subtly displayed through some excellent colour grading work. The whole film has a lack of colour, this comes through the bleak settings in the snow, but also through the process of editing which at times looks almost black and white. As I mentioned though, this gives an eery tone to the film, giving the audience the sense of bleakness and desperation that the soldiers themselves must have been feeling. There’s the occasional splash of red for the blood, or the light browns of the dead leaves but mostly it’s just grey, white and green. This means that when there’s a flash of colour it’s all the more important, for example a short section where a candle-light fires up out of the blue has much more of a profound effect than if the whole film had been awash with colour. The bleakness of the film is matched by the relatively poor storyline and characters. They provide no real interest because you’ve seen them both before in almost any war film, so you’re left to think about what it would be like if you were them. This gives the audience about an hour of empathising with these soldiers and scratching the surface in your mind, about how truly awful life was for them. It’s that which gives you the attachment to the characters and to where they end up, which makes the ending all the more satisfying. 

Overall I can see why this film won it’s 18 awards, and I can see why a lot of these were in the Best Picture category. As a whole, it’s phenomenal and relentlessly thought provoking. By giving me time to let my mind wander about the things I was seeing, this film developed different edge which I’ve almost never experienced before, and I want to experience again.

Rating: 8/10, but in my opinion you should watch it alone so you can have your own experience with the film and not be influenced by others. Definitely worth buying.

I’m sure you can gather from the title that I’m not that impressed.

I went to the cinema to see this, thinking about the old Disney version of the film that I loved as a child. I wanted that film, just a bit more grown up. I wanted all the heroic quests to rob from the rich and give to the poor and to see the Merry Men in their hideout in the woods, having fun and being the outlawed good guys. However, this was not the case.

For those who don’t know, this film is set largely before all of that. This was something I didn’t know going into the film, and I truly wish I had known it. The legend of Robin Hood, for me, is all about his exploits as a saviour for the poor and his audacious attempts to hit back at the corrupt rule of England. The legend of Robin hood, for me, is not about the man in this film, I don’t want to give too much away which makes it difficult to explain why, but he is not the chirpy, young outlaw I was expecting. This film shouldn’t have been given the title of “Robin Hood” as it meant I had completely different expectations. This kind of Robin Hood has already been done well enough, so this one is left seeming like a less epic version of Kingdom of Heaven; in terms of the battles and the time period and the general feel of the movie. I love the film Kingdom of Heaven but that’s not what I wanted to see.

Other than that crushing disappointment, it’s not a fantastic film anyway. It has a plot which, although in-depth and clever, was not pursued fast enough and it left me sitting there, willing the plot to take control and speed the film up. Unfortunately that didn’t really happen and the film never really picks up the pace that you would think it would.

However, my biggest problem comes from the characters. After the film had finished, I was discussing it with my friend, and we realised that (SPOILER ALERT) we really didn’t care that France were invading England. There were no characters in the film that you cared for, and in fact the French leader seemed quite likeable as well. This left me feeling kind of guilty, as I felt as an Englishman that I should care about my country. The kings of England (Oscar Isaac and Danny Huston), are both portrayed quite negatively and they are both very unlikeable characters who you never get attached to. Shockingly enough, the same can be said for Robin (Russell Crowe) who is quite a closed-book, you never really know enough about him to care, his character jumps from hating the army, to being extremely moral, to being in the army again as well as a quest to find out about his past and falling in love very fast in between all of that. This all makes him very distant from the audience and hard to keep up with. The only characters I liked were the Merry Men, and they weren’t really given enough screen time. This meant that an invasion of England didn’t really seem so bad, which is something I found quite hard to deal with.

Overall it’s a disappointing. Partly because of my expectations, so if you can get rid of them you may enjoy it a bit more. However the lack of depth and likeability of the characters really stands out in this and it leaves you with no real attachment to any characters in the film. This takes away from the big slow-motion moment when a special character is in danger, because you simply don’t care that they are in danger. 

Rating: 4/10 (when called Robin Hood)

6/10 (when called something else)

It could have been so much more, maybe if there’s a sequel it will be better but this film was not for me.

Also, I think I could count on my hands how many times he uses a bow and arrow.

From the first concept, to the initial pitch, to the green light, to the pre-production, production, post-production and distribution; all aspects of film are catered around one thing - audience.

Who would make a film if they thought nobody would watch it?
Which studio would pump millions into a film that, although might be amazing, might not get a return?

The answer, sadly, is nobody.

That could partly be down to problems with the industry backers who wouldn’t want to lose money, but I’m sure we can all relate to that on some level.

My point however, comes from the audience and film-makers. Film-makers are constrained by what the audiences will like. For example, genre comes down to classifications made by what the mass audiences will accept and have accepted, but there’s no way of knowing how different films could excel if they fought against genres.

Some film studios, mostly independent ones, will try and rebel against the genre but the majority won’t, because they think that we, as the audience, would reject the film. It’s not just genre though, it’s the story lines, the stars, everything. Take Pearl Harbour, the film (although fatally flawed by a painful hour or pure mush) would have been 10 times better if Josh Hartnett had survived and Ben Affleck died, but because Ben Affleck was the bigger star at the time, he survived. That all comes from the industry expecting that audiences won’t like seeing the star die.

So it comes down to personal opinion really. Does our power over the film-makers mean that it’s the audiences fault that poor decisions are made? Or is it just the lack of gutsy people in the industry who are willing to push the boundaries.

Regardless of your choice, the utmost respect has to go to directors like Christopher Nolan who won’t take the easy way out and try and cater to our every need. Think about the ending of The Dark Knight; everyone seems to be dead, the hero becomes an on-the-run villain and one of the villains dies a hero, not the typical happy ending to a film. Surely this film, with its incredible success should be carving a path for other directors, producers or any film-maker to start forging new definitions of genres. The Dark Knight allowed for the darker more sinister superhero movies, so why can’t changes happen to more genres?

Personally, I place a fair amount of blame on the people behind the screen not in front of it, they are the ones who should take the risks. The audiences however should be more receptive and welcome in new things into films to give the industry the confidence to make more changes. If you think about the way things have changed, particularly in the superhero style of film, you can see how much further other genres could go. Although this doesn’t really come to any particular conclusion, I hope it’s left you with something to think about next time you go to the cinema.