Crash

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


Not the baffling 2004 oscar winner from Paul Haggis but the steamy and disturbing David Cronenberg film from 1996.

I'll be honest this one always confused me a little, having not read the J.G. Ballard novel. Cronenberg keeps the characters and actions very vague and poetic, it's very open to interpretation. Either that or I'm just not smart enough to pick up on everything. What I do know is there is a lot of sex and some strange car crash thrill seeking fetish stuff.

Howard shore music is unmistakable, with his long drones and increasing chord clusters but this time it's done with electric guitar, which is always jarring to my ears, I'm so used to it coming from the string ensemble in his music.

Deborah Kara Unger and James Spader, although they do great stuff here, they, along with most other characters are so closed off and subtle I find it hard to get a grip with their emotional states. Which is of course entirely the point, they are all so stunted emotionally they need to seek out more and more exotic and dangerous perverse thrills to get a rise, to feel anything. But this observational style also makes it hard to connect to anyone.

Elias Koteas is a stand out here, I find his the most fascinating character and one of the most enjoyable to watch.

As perverse and outrageous as a lot of the film is I actually find it overall to be very sad. It's a very dark look at obsession, addiction and an emotionally stunted and slightly masochistic mainframe. It's also very slow paced which is not a good thing for a film I have trouble connecting to.

Not my favourite Cronenberg film an certainly not for everybody. But seriously who, after being in a horrible car crash, wouldn't want to wake up with James Spader. He is awesome.

Never Let Me Go

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

So this film finally gets release in Australia today. I've had the bluray for a month but held off watching until I could see it in the cinema first. I'm glad I did because some of the photography is gorgeous even if a lot of it is gloomy.

This is a soft and very sad film. For the subject matter it's dealing with it could have been more sensational but instead Mark Romanek keeps things quiet and melancholic. In the same way, the science fiction aspects are played down to a point they are barley noticeable. I think this is a character relationship piece first and foremost.

And the three leeds are just super. As are their younger counterparts that have the slightly more daunting task of setting everything up. I really loved the young Keira Knightley, she made such a good match with the older version of the character too. And of course Carey Mulligan is great and I can't not love Andrew Garfield.

This is a pretty bleak film. A much smaller and subtler version of The Island, as Jordan would say. The only thing that really grated me about it was the voice over narration at the end. It spells out a few things I think could have done another way, it felt superfluous. I think it popped up a few times in the middle and didn't bother me but something about the opening and closing of the film with the narration felt a little awkward.

A minor grievance. The rest of the film is top notch. I love me my thought provoking sci-fi and as depressing as it is it's also lovely in a way and well worth having a look.

The Lincoln Lawyer

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

A good ol' fashioned courtroom drama thriller. The kind they seemed to make a lot in the early 90s but then they all turned into television shows.

This one starts out with some playful character building stuff, there are a lot of good supporting characters and little side cases we see snippets of and they lay the ground work for the main focus of the story the charges laid against Ryan Phillippe's character. The main plot takes it's time being set up and I wasn't really that interested until about halfway through when a few twists and turns made me sit up and start paying attention and really getting into what Matthew McConaughey was doing. His character is faced with a big moral dilemma and a bit of a Catch 22. And from there the best part of the film is watching him figure out how to get out of this mess.

That's not to say the first half is boring, but with the all the great acting and and little shifts in character to enjoy in the second half I was surprised how engaging Brad Furman managed to keep the proceedings. Not that the whole film takes place in the court room, but there is a significant chunk in the latter half followed by a little finale piece that felt a little sensational but nevertheless did add a little bang to finish off the proceedings.

Great cast and a good plot kept me engaged with this one. Hopefully more courtroom dramas can play out like this one.

Biutiful

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

The second of two films I saw tonight that I had the pleasure of only seeing a small clip from their oscar nomination during the ceremony and apart from that knew next to nothing about them. That helped this film greatly, I think you can tell from that trailer they don't give away too much of what it's about. It's nice to let the film and its surprises unfold and be surprised by them.

Alejandro Iñárritu only uses his usual non-linier storytelling device once in this film, as a little bookend. It makes a pleasant change. I don't think that story telling device would have really helped this film much anyway considering it's pretty much a one man character study unlike his other films with multiple narratives and main characters. Javier Bardem is front and centre here and he's good.

This one is very depressing. It's a world you don't want to spend too much time in, which is unfortunate because the film is almost 3 hours long and man it drags out. Bardem's character is trying to sort his life out before he dies from cancer, his wife is an unfit mother and his job getting illegal immigrants work and trying to stay out of trouble with the law doesn't pay enough to keep his 2 kids set up. Oh and there is a little bit about him talking to dead people too.

The film lays on tragedy after tragedy, and not in the hilarious way like A Serious Man. It's pretty bleak but just engaging enough to get you through most of it. There are a few cool turns here and there but ultimately it doesn't all tie up for me. I think it could have done with a but more script editing.

Barney's Version

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

I saw two films tonight that I had the pleasure of only seeing a small clip from their oscar nomination during the ceremony and apart from that knew next to nothing about them. Always a pleasant surprise.

This one was nominated for best make-up but Paul Giamatti also won a golden globe for his efforts. The cast is what makes this film so great for me. Everyone was just so damn good. Minnie Driver surprised me the most, I guess I've only seen her play the love interest or friend in most films, but here she has one of the more memorable and very gratingly funny characters.

The first half of the film is very funny, and I saw it with a good crowd that were really getting into it. The film easily had us invested in the characters to see it through the slightly darker and more dramatic second half. The laughs get you hooked and the drama then gives you something to think about. Good plan.

There's quite a bit going on here. They are telling a life story over a long amount of time (hence the make up, which was great, especially on Rosamund Pike at the end, where you can tell she is older but still looks gorgeous,) and the film feels a little long in places. The non-chronological story telling allows for some mystery and suspense, which of his three wives is he fighting with at the start? Or what really happened to his best friend. But ultimately those are less important next to the grander arc of the title character, who is not always the most likeable guy.

But always likeable to watch. And did I see David Cronenberg playing one of the tv show directors? Hilarious cameo. So if you are in the mood for a bit of a saga, check this one out.

Griff the Invisible

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

A neat little flick. It's the kind of quirky impossible love story that can only be found in independent films. It' not very believable but it's so gosh darn sweet you'll do your best to go along with it.

A huge part of that is thanks to Ryan Kwanten and Maeve Dermody. They are both great. And so fuzzy wuzzy adorable. Also unlike the last few Australian films I've seen they keep the cliche Hollywood dialogue to a minimum and only use it in the superhero fantasy segments where it belongs.

My biggest problem with the film was that it felt like it could have ended after the 2nd act. The lead in to the conflict in the last third was hugely contrived and felt very forced. It put a dampener over the whole end of the film for me, which then felt like it was just going through the motions to have some bigger dramatic revelations.

Structural problems aside the rest of the film worked best when it was just doing its own thing, when Griff is dealing with handling every day reality. There are some great douchey characters that have a particular vocal cadence that will ensure you want them to suffer. It's a very simple little film and enjoyable for what it is.

Tideland

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

One of Terry Gilliams most divisive films. Some people think it's his best work and some people think it is unimaginable garbage. I'm in the former category. I think the film makes a great litmus test. I can maybe see how this film upset people but not to the degree I read about when the film was released.

First of, I think Jodelle Ferland is remarkable. She's also great at playing evil demonic children in every other film but here she is the lead and carries the audience into the world as viewed through her eyes. I think it's one of the best examples of a childlike sense of wonder and imagination every captured on screen. Gilliam manages to create such a frenzy of chaos but also an excitement of wild joy at the same time. This film always just sucks me in to that mind state.

The other brilliant thing I love about the film is the position the audience are put in. We are watching the film's events play out through her point of view but tat the same time can look at the situations objectively and be completely horrified by the things she does not understand or chooses to ignore. Drug use, abuse, mental illness, death, sex, all the good stuff is there but she is blissfully ignorant and so while she ignores it and continues to play happily the audience can either cower in fear or go on the journey with her.

Being a Gilliam film you know it's going to have some great visuals. There is his usual use of the ultra wide angle throughout and some nice dream sequence trippyness. The music is great too and helps set tone in a lot of places that would have been really ambiguous otherwise. With a different score this could have been a flat out child abuse horror film but instead it is a strange dream like melancholy.

Jeff Bridges!

This one kinda slipped out under the raider a few years back, which is a shame because I think it is a monumental work from Gilliam and shows such a more mature restraint with theme and character at the forefront. I really love this film. Please see it now.