Morning Glory

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Bad robot. BAD. I normally like the things you make. This film is as lightweight as the fluff pieces they portray. What is the point of having this cast if there is nothing for them to do? Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson and Jeff Goldblum just sort of stand there and Harrison Ford is still in grumpy old man mode. Rachel McAdams runs around being flustered. I usually like all these people so much.

The crowd I saw this with was dead. I think I was the only person there under 60. Consequently I was the only person who laughed out loud at one or two bits. Yes, I did laugh, don't get me wrong, this is not a horrible rom com by any means, but it doesn't offer that little bit extra that make you go from just watching the film to liking it. Like.... funny bits. I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be funny. It was just alright.

Unstoppable

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Spoiler alert: The train isn't unstoppable.

I don't mind Tony Scott doing his crazy shaky cam action stuff in action scenes. It's his "style" and it's why we love him, but does he really need to do it during simple dialogue scenes where two people having are just having a simple conversation? The character set ups at the start of the film look like a war scene filled with arbitrary crash zooms and whip pans etc. Perhaps he could have eased us in a little...

Once the train leaves the station it's pretty much non-stop apart from some unwanted divorce/family drama side story stuff no-one cares about. From the set up in the trailer you have to wonder how they are going to stretch this out into a 2 hour movie. Just keep throwing stuff in front of the train and then watch it explode? Well yes that does happen quite a bit but there was enough other sequences in there that kept it interesting and engaging. More than I expected, which is always a pleasant surprise.

The action beats are impressive but I had some trouble with the geography of the scenes, especially at the start. They give you some captions telling you which station you are at but when you have no idea where in the state that is and how far apart they are, things that a crucial to build the tension in a film like this, it gets confusing (Unless perhaps you are american and know all these places). They started showing maps halfway through and from then on it was fine.

So much telephoto photography. I guess this helps cheat the speed and distance significantly, but again, doesn't help much putting together the layout of the action in your head.

One thing that stood out was the sound design. This is a LOUD film. The trains roar like lions and really shook the theatre. The score does its job fine but there was one small moment where it came to the forefront and, I dunno, whatever that music was It didn't fit al all.

Eh, I'm being nit-picky, this was enjoyable and really managed to build the tension. It did everything it promised in the trailer, can't argue with that.

The Hole

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Not the British one from 2000.

Well I do like me some Joe Dante. Finally he's back making films, and scary kiddie ones at that. Seems to be going after his glory days from the 80's with films like Gremlins, Piranha, The 'Burbs, Explorers and Innerspace. Here we have a hole in the basement that unleashes various fear based creepiness, little girls ghosts, scary clown dolls and the like. Once again the kid from The Mist is being traumatised by spooky creatures. At least He's good at it.

Well It'll scare the kiddies that's for sure, but even they might be bored by the climax. What I loved about Dante's films as a kid was their wicked sense of humour. That is lacking here. I'm fine with a generic horror plot, I don't care that much about originality just as long as it's done well. This was just... ok. Perhaps in a theatre and in 3d it works better but unfortunately it looks like we'll never have the opportunity to see that in Australia (unless you were at MIFF in 2009). It's a shame too because they actually went to the trouble of shooting in 3D, something I wish more filmmakers would take the time to do instead of that horrid post-conversion they are palming off as real 3D, like when they re-made his Piranha film (which I absolutely loved btw but did suffer from some post conversion oddities. At least it had the Humour).

Well I hope we'll be seeing more Joe Dante soon. But for now, if you are looking for a fantastic kids horror film about a scary hole in the ground, check this out immediately, it's a personal favourite.

Tangled

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Louisa, Morgan, Andy, Emmet, Niamh

First heard about this in 2004, since then it's been passed on through disney regime changes and directors and story passes and styles, so you have to wonder if it could end up any good. Well yes it can.

Another disney film rated PG. Nowhere near as creepy as The Black Cauldron although yay for more animated blood and a very different kind of evil witch. In fact she was probably one of my favourite bits of the movie, along with the horse animation, the handful of songs that know not to overstay their welcome, the 3D and pretty much everything else. Jump cuts? In animation? You guys are crazy! lolz ;)

Also loving the online trailer campaign for this. A lot of hilarious and creative edits. Personal fav:


All in all, very much enjoyed this. Bonus catching the early session before most of the horrid holiday brats invade the peace and quiet of my sanctuary. Can't wait to go see this again and pick some more details!

Is it wrong to be so sexually attracted to cg characters?

Howl

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

I haven't seen 127 hours yet, but if James Franco gets a nomination for best actor it should probably be for this. He's great. Here we have an interview intercut with a poetry reading intercut with some neat animated segments and then through it all, the trial for obscenity.

Didn't know anything about this true story, the trial, the poetry or the man before watching, so that was interesting finding out. The poetry isn't really my thing but thankfully the animated segments give it some visual flare and the cross editing of the different times and different film stock and style kept things moving. They made a film about poetry interesting to someone who doesn't really like it, so kudos to them.

Catfish

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Not really fair to say that's a misleading trailer, it is and it isn't. The less you know about this the better. Unfortunately I knew a little about the ending before I started watching but still managed to be surprised, not at how the events unfold but at how emotional it was.

There is debate over the authenticity of this "documentary," I'd like to think it is real, but even if it isn't I don't think it matters, it was a damn good movie. Better than I was expecting.

So give this a watch. It made a great follow up to The Social Network.

Kicking and Screaming

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

No, not the Will Ferrell one.

Well I said I should probably watch this, so I did. College kids talk: the movie. It has some quietly funny moments, a little contemplative and rather aimless feel. I do tend to favour narrative over character though, so while this was nowhere near as painful as Down to the Bone, it didn't do much for me. If I were a college student in the 90's this may well have been a favourite. Sadly, it was not meant to be.

Man, Noah Baumbach got bitter as he got older. Good thing too, his later films are much more interesting.

The Collector

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

This film plays out like a reverse Home Alone. Bad guy breaks into a home, sets up traps and then another nicer and unsuspecting burglar breaks in and tries to help the family out. Of course they all die.

Some cool traps, some boobage from little Grace for The Nanny but not much else. I didn't like the title sequence either. One plus, the cat suffers and then is sliced in half. I hate cats.

The Social Network

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Mum

After Squid and the Whale last night I had a hankering to see this again, so I used taking mum to see it as an excuse.
Apart from the inept staff at Event cinemas who didn't believe me when I told them the film was out of focus because you couldn't even READ the opening titles, fuckers, for some reason what really stood out to me this viewing was the incredibly low light cinematography from the majority of the film. It's an interesting look from the Red camera with the pasty yellow-green light in the majority of the night time party and campus scenes. Re-watching those colour grading extras on the Se7en bluray makes me wonder what other possibilities we haven't tried out yet. Skin tones probably don't look very goon in magenta.

So many invisible effects. I had missed the camera pass through the window of a party on first viewing, a more flashy move that recalls Fincher's Fight Club/Panic Room days although no where near as overstated. The main reason for wanting to watch this again was the rowing sequence and checking the digital face replacement on the twins. Once again, the twin effect is completely seamless. The rowing scene, with those impossible depth of field shots still amuse and I can't wait to hear and eventual commentary about that sequence. I noticed a lot of more of the shots I thought might have been digital were actually just very telephoto, mainly the mid shots of the boats, but there are still those hand full of wide shots that they must have rotoscoped and blurred to give that miniature photography look. Why why why? All that work for something most people won't notice. I must know!

I think my favourite scene is still the chicken. I love how they start off talking about it then later on you can quietly hear it in the background then you catch a small glimpse of it's head bopping in and out of the frame and then finally to button the scene, just a huge great big full frame close up. Bam. I think my anticipation for wanting to see that chicken the first time through was disproportionately high so when that shot came and the scene ended I also laughed out loud disproportionately. This time I kept that in check but it still makes me giggle.

I notice Aaron Sorkin like to have two topics or points being made it his trademark rapid fire conversations at once and then have the lines from point A be answered in the questions from point B, thus causing confusion and back tracking. Makes thing a little dizzying but it's a neat trick. I'm stealing that.

I was trying to listen to the score a bit more this time around because I almost didn't notice it at all the first time. A sign of a job well done I think. I think the pulsing track from the start that goes with the creation of the Facemash website was a favourite.

Andrew Garfield, you are always so sympathetic and I think I will like you more as Spiderman than that Maguire guy.

All in all, loved watching the film again. I was thinking, it's basically the exact same story as every rock star music biopic but just... More interesting. And Entertaining. This is a very well made film.

Gypsy

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Mum

Ok, you're right I do like this version more that the '63 one. But I've never been that into Bette Midler (except for maybe Hocus Pocus, that film is genius). Seeing Elisabeth Moss and Lacey Chabert as the two young girls at the start was fun though. Umm, apart from that it obviously plays out exactly the same as the '63 so I don't know how much more I was going to enjoy it anyway. There's bits of score I like though.

Why are there so many musicals about show business? It kinda seems superfluous to me.

The Squid and the Whale

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Amberly, Jordan

Still my favourite Noah Baumbach film, although I have not seen Kicking and Screaming. Must fix that. Love this cast sooooo much. Jesse Eisenberg is great, I must go see Social Network again before it finishes on Wednesday.

This film is rather bitter and hilarious. Also it is short and sweet, which makes it the perfect late night follow up film to Life During Wartime. Noah Baumbach really seems to like to write characters that are, just, assholes. I like that though. Greenburg and Margot probably more so than in this film, but Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels especially get to go at it. And it's something to behold. So check it out!

Life During Wartime

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Amberly, Jordan

Yay! This was great and I can't believe it's already the 3rd and this is the first time I've been to a cinema. But honestly there is crap all out right now.

So the recasting issue is not so bad. I don't know how this film would play to someone who hasn't seen Happiness first, there were a lot of allusions to events from that film. And the dead character from the first film, well, he's still dead and just appears in ghost like visions so that's that cleared up.

Now, while nowhere near as painful (in the good way) as Happiness was to sit through this film still has it's fair share of hilarious and awkward moments. Allison Janney is of course wonderful, especially her first scenes talking to her son about getting wet.

All in all I think I like Happiness more, that film has a hell of a kick at the end, this one is much more contemplative, nevertheless the chance to spend some more time with these characters is a treat. A definite for Solondez fans and for anyone else, well, I'd like to know what you make of it!

Down To The Bone

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

You really have to be in the right mood to watch one of these slow paced indi character pieces and I don't think I am. Nothing much happens in this one, a single mum trying to cope with addiction. Very realistic, Vera Farmiga is fine, I just didn't enjoy this much. I keep hearing about how her career kickstarted because of this role but, similar to Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, I don't see what the fuss is about. They are fine and all but I have liked other characters she played more. The mother in Joshua and romantic interest in Up in the Air. Hell, even in Orphan she is amazing to behold. (highly underrated IMO)

It's one of those meandering films that doesn't seem to have much structure and just when they give me a relationship conflict to grab hold of the film abruptly ends. I guess character pieces don't need closure or resolution but still, that was kind of annoying.

These, I hesitate to use the term "mumblecore," films are always hit and miss. They walk a fine line. Sometimes I love them and sometimes I loath them and it's frustratingly hard to pinpoint just why some work and others don't. I wasn't really in the mood for this so I'm probably doing the film a disservice but It just didn't interest me at all.

Happiness

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Amberly, Jordan

Another kinda misleading trailer.

I do like Todd Solondz films. I think you either find them upsetting or hilarious. Or possibly both. I happen to find them hilarious. Happiness contains what must be the most squirm inducingly awkward dramatic scene ever put to film. Bloody fantastic actors, an amazing cast he assembled. Then of course he chucked a Palindromes and recast them all for Life During Wartime. That film is playing in Perth for one week only at an Outdoor cinema and I am desperate to see it, hence this brush-up. Apparently Philip Seymour Hoffman is now Omar from The Wire. And the Jon Lovitz character is still alive? no? Continuity?

Perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps that's entire point of his recasting. Or it's the same thing as in Palindromes and I just am too stupid to understand. It seems that the Mark Wiener character from Welcome to the Dollhouse and Palindromes is in Life During Wartime as well. Someones been making their own little film universe. Probably won't have time to re-watch them all, if everything goes to plan I'll be watching his latest tomorrow night. Looking forward to it as well. There were a few forgotten favourite moments from the re-watch tonight. Pretty much everything with Hoffman and also I had forgotten about the old couples divorce storyline. When Mona is looking to buy a new house. Ahhh classic.

I love films where you don't know if it's ok to laugh, or if you do you feel bad for doing so but just can't help yourself. Fantastic writing and brilliantly acted.

Lady In White

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

All this talk of great 80's kids horror films made me thirsty for more. I recently saw the article on Aint It Cool about them and I loved the other two but had never heard of this one.

First off, Lucas Haas you are great. Recently in Inception and Brick but for some reason I remember him most from Mars Attacks. I love it when you see someone well know pop up as a kid in an old movie, like last year when I saw Jodie Foster in The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane or Kurt Russell in Follow Me, Boys! I completely forgot that Haas was the kid in Witness. Well he sees a lot more than he should in this one too.

This movie felt kinda long, all the stuff with the ghosts and general halloween creepyness that goes through the first two thrids of the film had me thinking that yeah this would have been kinka spooky for kids. But then the last act came where you kind of forget about the ghosts once he realises that an adult figure he has long trusted is a pedophile and child murderer and goes chases after him at night through a haunted forest with a bow and arrow. The danger then becomes much more real and immediate and the climax was pretty spectacular.

One thing I noticed on the parental guide is, while it talks a lot about the spooky ghosts and briefly mentions that there is a murderer and child endangerment, it doesn't mention the fact that the mother of one of the victims goes to apologies to a wrongly accused old black school janitor, just after the town court found him not guilty and all charges had been dropped, but instead shoot him in the face with a revolver splattering his brains on a car window while his wife looks on from the other side. That was a rather huge shock. Points for.

Also I think it is impossible to see that "small american town square" backlot and not immediately think of Back to the Future. All that was missing was the clock.

All in all, a great film to terrorise children, I felt it was a bit long and don't have the nostalgia factor working for me, but still enjoyable for the last act.

The Black Cauldron

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Amberly

Disney, what were you doing? This came out the year I was born and apparently almost bankrupt the company. It's not hard to see why. I believe this is the first PG rated animation from Disney and it had to be cut to get even that. There's a bit of animated blood which is unusual for Disney. It's a very dark and creepy film that is rather awkwardly and perhaps inappropriately punctuated by horrendous cartoony comedy relief. As such the tone of this one is a bit of a mess. It's just very hard to know what to make of this film.

Some good things:
•John Hurt is evil as the Horned King. Scary evil. Awesome.
•Cinemascope! Yes! Bring it back! First time since Sleeping Beauty! But for god's sake frame your shots appropriately if you're going for the widescreen approach.
•The Annoying dog/gollum comedy relief thing dies. Yep, they kill him off. Brutal Disney. Brutal.

Some not so good things:
•Elmer Bernstein I love your score, but your instrumentation is just bizarre. I don't think anyone has taken Theremins seriously since the 50's sci-fi b-movies made them such a cliche.
•Story structure/character/plot. These elements must have been in the original novel or you probably wouldn't have spent 15 years to make a film from it. Perhaps they cut that out too. It's a rather short runtime at 77 mins. Actually maybe that's a good thing.
•The Annoying dog/gollum comedy relief thing comes back to life at the end. Thus the film looses any credibility it had earned killing him off in the first place.

I'm all for Disney making more "boys adventure" animations instead of the broadway musical princess stories. I happen to love Atlantis: The Lost Empire and quite a few bits of Treasure Planet too. I'm also all for going dark and spooky with their tone and adding a sense of genuine danger. Just as long as it's consistent.

This is a fascinating film when seen in the context of the rest of the disney cannon, and knowing the context in which it was made and the transition that lead to the so called "Golden Age" of disney I grew up watching. But if you aren't as into animation history as me, I would probably avoid this one, or treat is as a strange curiosity.

The Fifth Element

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Amberly

Wow that trailer is useless.

This film takes me back. Apparently it is ALWAYS on TV and I ALWAYS seem to miss it. Watching it for the first time on bluray was a treat though. I just love this movie, I think I holds up really well too. But perhaps that's just the nostalgia talking. Showing it to someone who's never seen it before I did think, man this is a pretty strange movie with a lot of far out elements (no pun intended). But I loved all that about it when I watched it growing up and I still do.

One of my favourite things about it are the rapid cross-cutting scenes between the various characters and plots threads that are either similar or opposing and the juxtapositions and dialogues created by these parallel edits. That sounded wanky but I mean it. Scenes like Ruby having sex with a flight attendant cut with the shuttle taking off cut with Zorg wasting away one of his underlings.

I also love the setting up of all these different group trying to get the same goal but in opposition of one another, the film juggles them all incredibly well. Although if a few of them, e.g. the military, the priests and Korben all talked to one another they would probably realise they were trying to do the same thing and help each other out instead of trying to stop each other, which always frustrated me when I was younger. I guess you could take that as a social comment on communicative skills. Also there would be a really boring film.

Costume design by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Okay!

Check out all the peeps on the youtubes doing a rendition of the diva dance song. heh, I must admit I used to sing along to that too..

P.S. When I watched Gothika and Babylon A.D. I spent most of the runtime giggiling to myself thinking about the "gimmie the cashhhhhhh" guy directing it. It's a pretty funny image.

Monster House

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Amberly

One of the few recent children's films that has that awesome 80's kids only adventure vibe about it. Where the kids act like kids, adults don't figure into the story and there is a real sense of danger and consequences. It's a pity I'll probably never get to see this in 3D on the big screen again because I recall it being spectacular.

I have a huge fondness for "Kids Horror Films" and they are hard to come by nowdays but this fits the bill nicely. Fantastic actors used for the motion capture and I think it's mainly because of them the humour works so well. I forgot how funny this was and all the lines we used to quote from it.

Oh and someone needs to tell Robert Zemeckis that, while motion capture is cool, using characatured humans rather than trying to get perfectly lifelike people from cg characters works much better. None of that uncanny valley nonsense here.

Director Gil Kenan does a great job and I hope his next film City of Ember hasn't destroyed his career, because I actually really liked that film too and would love to see more from him, animated or live action.

Yatterman

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release Yes
Watched With: Myself

Ok, interesting way to start of the new year and the new blog. Takashi Miike is one of my favourite directors. Even when he makes stuff I don't enjoy you cannot argue that it isn't interesting. The man makes about 2 features a year so he's bound to have some crap but I'm always curious as to what he has up his sleeves and he somehow always manages to surprise me.

So they have given him the task of adapting some beloved manga franchise to the big screen, a franchise I know NOTHING about so I'm sure most of the references went over my head. When you get the man who made such hardcore graphic and violent cinema (like Audition, Visitor Q, Gozu, Dead or Alive and of course the infamous Ichi the Killer) to make an anime adaptation primarily for children, who know what you are going to get. I have seen his adaptation of Zebraman which, in typical Miike fashion, was throughly self referential and post-modern and one of my favourites, The Great Yokai War which has some fabulously subversive elements in it that make it just too unsuitable for the littler kids.

With Yatterman I wasn't disappointed, the subversive elements were even more gratuitous than his other "kids" films. But not with violence this time, although the demon possessed father giving a hard beating to his crying daughter could cause some upset. This time it was more to do with mindboggilingly inappropriate (perhaps only in western eyes) sexual innuendo. There is quite literally a sex scene between two giant robot mecha things that starts off as a fight and then gets all kinds of creepy naughty. The fact that one is a giant woman with huge breasts that fire missiles and the other is a big red dog only adds to the confusion. Perhaps more hilarious/disturbing is one of the baddies fantasies involving "every high school girl." Nuff said.

But apart from these few undeniably Miike touches the rest of the film plays like a big budget power rangers episode shot entirely on greenscreen. If you can enjoy those goofy power ranges costumes and acting then you'll eat this up. I enjoyed those few unexpected moments but didn't care much for the rest. Still I'll be interested to see what he might come up with for a sequel.