The Next Three Days

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

This was an alright diversion. Just not that engaging until the actual jail break which wasn't until the last 10 minutes. It's a very awkwardly structured film, Haggis keeps introducing elements and changing tone and consequently the whole film feels like exposition because the film keeps changing it's mind about what it is.

Whats good about the Russell Crowe character is that he isn't an expert, he doesn't know how to use a gun, in fact he screws up a lot. When he puts his plan into motion he doesn't suddenly become a martial arts expert. It was kept pretty real.

I hated the music in this. The choice of songs and the score just grated with me. But that was a small thing, that probably only I would notice in an otherwise alright film.

The Hudsucker Proxy

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

The Coen Brothers/Raimi love-in continues.

This is one of my favourites.I love the design and the style of this film. Everything from the set/costumes/structure/convention/dialogue and characters are styled in a very specific way. And I find it all hilarious. It recalls a classic 40's period film but with a slight satiric tinge to it all. And the score is just beautiful and lush, the main theme is iconic.

The film does some things that at first glance may seem very unusual but when seen through the eyes of 40's film conventions they start to make perfect sense. Why else would you stop the film dead for a dream dance number? Something I talk a great deal about in my Red Shoes post. The film even has a very literal Deus Ex Machina.

Tim Robbins is wonderfully naive in the role of the chump. Jennifer Jason Leigh is doing some hilarious Katherine Hepburn impersonation. Also it wouldn't be a Raimi-related film without The Chin! And as usual, the dialogue is just hilarious, witty and intelligent.

There is so much to love here. It is highly stylised but also very rewarding, if you can handle the ending. (I feel like I say that about a lot of Coen films.)

Tangled

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

This is such a delightful film. I had to see it again in 3D. The lantern scene HAS to be seen in 3D, it's just heart stopping. Hell, I started swelling up just anticipating it.

This time through looking closely at the animation the detail in the facial ticks and hands and eyes are incredible. A lot of the animation is cartoonish and stylised but there are definite moments that are so realistic you can forget it was made frame by frame by hand.

The music has also really grown on me in between viewings. I'm starting to recognise certain things that Alan Menken like to do, like establishing a phrase and then during a repeat, breaking it up before the resolve with some dialogue and then repeating it from the start, which makes the resolve of the phrase more satisfying and definitive as an end. I do like that.

Go see this in 3D while you still can. All the kids have gone back to school so you'll likely have the cinema to yourself. And unless you are a horribly embittered person you will leave feeling better than you did when you entered.

The Emperor's New Groove

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

YAAAAY! This animation is such a departure for Disney which is one of the reason why I like it so much. That and I think it's the funniest animation they've ever made. It's much more in like with a Warner Bros. cartoon with some very post modern self referential and absurdist jokes, so there's no way I can't like it. So many favourite lines and gags.

I also love the design, the angular characters and the great minimalist backgrounds. The animation is, of course, top-notch. Patrick Warburton and Eartha Kitt do some great voice acting as does the always reliable John Goodman and I must say this is the film I find David Spade the least offensive.

It's not a disney princess musical, it isn't based on some famous story or book, it doesn't have big musical numbers. All plusses in my book. It feels unrestrained and just plain fun. If you're a fan of disney animation and have missed this one, fix that.

Crimewave

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

A Sam Raimi film I've never seen? Written by the Coen brothers?! Well that mistake has been fixed.

It's a crazy cartoon of a film, like most of Rami's earlier efforts. It starts out with some very 40's stock dialogue, every line is practically a cliche. After a few scenes of set up the action begins, and from then on there is practically no dialogue until the final scene, just a huge long cartoon of slapstick violence and chases. And there is a lot of great stuff in there.

The tone of comedy was a little hard to get into this early in the morning. It's completely stylised and over the top like Evil Dead. I'm not sure these actors pull it off that well though, except of course Bruce Campbell, he's born to do this stuff. But if you can get into the style it's an enjoyable and entertaining film.

Splice

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

I love a good monster movie. This is a good monster movie.

I also love all of Vincenzo Natali's work (Cube, Cypher, Nothing and my favourite segment in Paris, je t'aime). Go and watch all his films now. I'll wait...

Cool huh?

I think expectations have a big part to play in your enjoyment of this film. If you are expecting a moral drama and character study kind of film you'll likely be disappointed that the premise ends so b-movie. If you are expecting a b-grade monster movie you might get annoyed at the slow development of character and all the time spent on the drama. It sits comfortably somewhere between the two, The premise and structure is that of good old fashioned creature feature but the acting and drama and characters development is well above the level one is usually accustomed too in such a film.

Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are our renegade rock star scientists.They are both great. Sarah Polley was a bit of a hero in my youth because she starred in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a film that was on constant rotation in our household growing up. It is the most unusual dysfunctional family melodrama that plays out between them and their creation.

Delphine Chanéac also must be mentioned, playing the creature Dren in the later stages of the film. The combination of digital trickery and her performance bring this character to life in a scarily believable way. Dren's character is just as complex and emotive as her two human counterparts so it is a testament to all involved.

We all know Guillermo del Toro loves his monsters so it's no surprise to find him involved as a producer. But even he admits he would never go as far as they do in this film. Things get pretty damn screwed up as emotions become confused and the boundaries of the relationships are pushed into new and horrific territory.

It's not my favourite of Natali's films but it is a great achievement for a low budget independent horror film.

Sanctum

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

There have been quite a few Cave-themed horror films of late. This is a based-on-a-true-story drama though, so no fun monsters here. Unless you count the monstrous dialogue.

I can see why they didn't shoot piranha in 3D and went for post-conversion. Lighting on water and the sheen on wet skin causes havoc in 3D. The even the slightest offset between images is enough to shift the hot spots so they cause strange ghosting. Maybe nobody else notices. Underwater looks great though.

The other problem with a film like this and 3D is the lighting. Films set in dark locations aren't helped by the fact that the glasses make darken the image further. I don't know if it was intentional or not that they were brightening up the images with extra light to compensate for this, but when you are in a situation where the only light sources are clearly displayed in the frame it destroys the illusion a little to have entire backgrounds lit up by tiny light sources. The Cave suffered from this problem too. I liked the lighting in The Decent though.

ANYWAY how was the film? Umm, it was alright I guess. There are some hilarious character expositional lines shoehorned in at the start. The characters feel kinda stock, there's really only one note to each of them. They are mainly there to have enough people to die along the way. And apart from one at the start and maybe one at the end, the way each one of them dies is foreshadowed a mile away so there was never really much tension for me. The action was ok, the sequences were well put together but the whole thing was just uninvolving.

Antichrist

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

A divisive film if ever I saw one. I've never had much of a strong view about Lars von Trier's work. From the few films of his I've seen I've like more parts of them than I haven't. I guess the same goes for this film. There are more elements in the film I like than I don't like, however there's just so much I'm not sure what to make of.

One thing you cannot deny is that the film looks great. The photography is very beautiful and stylised in some sections and then other times reverts to something closer resembling his dogma 95 films. Lots of slow-mo. It's pretty. The crazy sound design is also hugely effective and inventive.

Willem Dafoe and especially Charlotte Gainsbourg have some seriously heavy lifting to do here. They bring their A game and dive right into it, god bless 'em. I don't know if they had any more idea about what they were doing that I do now after having watched the film a few times but there's no denying their commitment. They are absolutely brilliant especially with such tough sells to pull off.

It's said this was a horror film. There's no denying that it is horrific. There are some great and very brutal acts of violence often involving sex as well. It's not for the faint of heart. There are also some vague occult/religious/supernatural/psychotic elements that teeter between disturbing and comical, depending on your mood and level of involvement.

That's my main problem with the film. The plot and the themes and ideas in it are kept very vague. There's nothing concrete to grab hold of here. I guess it's like a David Lynch film, dreamlike and open to interpretation. But Lynch's stuff still feels purposeful for the most part. Antichrist just seems underdeveloped and disconnected. It's something about guilt and the evil of woman and their connection to nature... or something. I don't even know how the title Antichrist fits in with what happens in the film.

A tough nut to crack. And one most people would get impatient with and leave for something more digestible. I ordered the U.K. Bluray because it had a commentary which I watched this time through. The tech talk was interesting but the rest of it basically confirmed my suspicion that it's just a rorschach test. So if you feel like the test is for you, by all means give it a try. There's plenty to enjoy (as much as you can enjoy torture and self mutilation) but don't expect to come away with easy answers.

Dante's Peak

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

I was the at the perfect age when this came out. This film and Twister impacted my life hugely and made me want to get into special effects and film making. It probably should have been Jurassic Park but my older brother saw it and got scared so my parents forbid me to see it in a cinema. I will never forgive any of them for denying me that experience.

I remember seeing this film a couple of times at the cinema. Not as much as Twister, which I still like slightly more. This was a huge fx film for 1996 and they hold up admirably by today's standards. Probably because they didn't rely on the CG that was available at the time and instead shot a lot of miniatures and live action elements. In a disaster movie, you want your disaster to look great, and that's certainly the case here.

Comparing this to the bigger scale Roland Emmerich disasters we have a much less corny dialogue, a smaller group of characters that we can actually take the time to invest in and a disaster that doesn't top itself in the first act and then doesn't know how to end. Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton make the unlikely couple and I think they are the nicest, normal characters I've seen either of them play.

Roger Donaldson does a great job directing. Some of the earthquake sequences are shot with nothing but long lenses which makes deciphering what is going on a bit tricky. Perhaps wide shots of the destruction would have revealed their limitations. But the performances and the pacing and the look of the film are all fine.

The other thing I absolutely adore about both this and Twister is the music. Here James Newton Howard provides a majestic and ominous theme and John Powell scores the film. It's a bloody great soundtrack and I sometimes find myself randomly humming the theme.

The Tommy Lee Jones movie, Volcano, came out around the same time. I'm not sure if that got a big release in Australia. If it did I missed it at the cinema. But I was already loyal to Dante's Peak when I eventually rented it on VHS. This film has a more classic disaster film feel to it, which I love.

I can't remain unbiased when reviewing films like this, the nostalgia factor is too high. A lot of people think these films are stupid but I will have none of that. They helped make me the person I am today and for that I love them dearly.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

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

It's no wonder I hardly remember this movie from the first time I watched it when I was younger. It's a wonder that a movie like this even exists. Is this based on an existing property? It feel like it is but I think that's exactly what they were going for. a Doc Savage/Flash Gorden type of thing. It's utterly bizarre and pretty damn funny.

It stars Peter Weller and John Lithgow, (both of whom recently showed up on Dexter) Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum. I'd also like to note Clancy Brown as Rawhide.

Peter Weller is so straight as the lead. In fact the whole film is done straight you could almost thing that everyone involved was taking the film completely seriously. But the story and characters are so far out hilarious and ridiculous that that would be impossible. It's no wonder it bombed at the box office but then became a cult classic.

It's a strange little curiosity and it was good to watch it again after so long. But I think I'll need to wait another 5 years before I feel the need to watch it again.

Body Heat

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

Hmm, the trailer wouldn't embed. It's a pretty interesting one too. But the main reason we are here is because John Barry has passed away. I went out and got Body Heat on bluray to watch tonight. His music is so important in this film, I think really drives the whole thing. Apart from his many James Bond scores the only other works of his I can recall are Day of the Locust, The Black Hole and Somewhere in Time. All great stuff.

Listen to that track, it immediately sets you in the mood for a modern day film noir which a whole lot of steamy sexyness. The film is drenched in sweat and humidity and fog. It looks like it was shot for black and white and just had colour seeped into it. It's a classic set up, girl and guy fall in love but she is married so they plot to kill the husband, but is the girl just using the guy to get her way? Well yes of course she is. They always are, but it's just great. There's a few twists and turns and some neat suspenseful moments.

William Hurt and Kathleen Turner are great (and rather naked) in this. Also I forgot what Ted Danson looked like before he got that awesome head of white hair. He's quite funny in this. I completely didn't recognise Mickey Rourke at all. Wow.

But for me, it's the music that makes this movie stick together. It pushes the mood in just the right way and sets and upholds the dark sexy tone. I love the soundtrack to this. It's a great loss to the film scoring community.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

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

What an unexpectedly disturbing film. I stumbled onto this one because I read about it in a recent obituary for Susannah York. I didn't remember her from the Superman films and hadn't seen her in anything else. This film caught my attention because it was directed by the late, great Sydney Pollack. I haven't seen enough of his work.

I love films from this time period, especially the paranoid thrillers and bleak downer sci-fi. Here we follow a bunch of characters during the 30's depression, hoping to win some money in a dance till you drop competition. The spectacle quickly escalates and drama ensues. The good kind.

This feels brutal. And exhausting. Which works well for the ending which they foreshadow through a series of flash forwards. It's one of those films where you know this can't end well and every moment is leading toward some disaster. I loved it.

I'm starting to see the appeal of Jane Fonda. A few years ago I only knew her from Barbarella and Monster In Law but I've since seen this one, Klute and The China Syndrome which were all fantastic and highly recommended.

The rest of the cast are great too, the only other person I recognised was a young Bruce Dern. Check this one out.

Metropolis

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

The Anime one.

Holy crap this movie is gorgeous looking. Absolutely stunningly detailed background and unusually fluid and realistic movement from the animation. No surprise Katsuhiro Otomo, of Akira and Steamboy fame, was involved. And like those two film the finale features mind boggillingly huge city wide destruction so lovingly rendered. It truly is a joy to look at.

Based on the manga by Astro Boy creator and all-round father of anime, Osamu Tezuka, this film is like someone mis-remembered Fritz Lang's classic. No surprise to find out after watching it that Tezuka saw the poster for that film, but not the movie, and then came up with this story as what he thought it was about. It features some similar imagery, A beautiful girl robot in a chair and some general civil unrest and social uprising and huge retro-future cityscapes but they are not the same film at all.

The character designs, like Astro Boy, look like something from the very early years of animation. Rather fittingly the music in the film feels feels like something from the 20's or 30's. It's great stuff.

As for the story, It's pretty good but, like my only problem with Akira, there a few scenes at the start where it gets bogged down in long political conversations where I loose track of what they are talking about and what is going on. It's all good at the end though.

I enjoyed this one, I don;t know why it took me so long to get around to it, but with the Anime convention on last weekend and the festival on all week on TV I though it's about time I caught up with some. I got a few more as well, so we'll see how I go.

Easy A

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

Yay Amanda Bynes actually has something to do in this film! This teen flick is up there with Mean Girls for me. Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci are THE best parents in the world. In fact the film is populated with a plethora of great comedic adult actors. Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow, hell even Malcolm McDowell all have their moments. And as great as Amanda Bynes is in he prissy christian bitch role, this film belongs to Emma Stone who is fantastic in the lead.

This just has a great script. It's funny, has some great teen speak and isn't too cliche. In fact it goes out of its way to point out the conventions of teen films and has some fun with them.

This film has the most gratuitous use of 3D title tracking since the Fringe captions. Also, useless trivia, I was listening to the commentary this time in which they reveal there are oranges in every scene. Good for them.

Will Gluck's previous film Fired Up! is an under seen and underrated comedy. The trailer did that film no favours. If you haven't seen it, check it out because it is great. Thankfully this film got a lot more recognition. I had downloaded the script for it but held off reading until I had seen the film. They had obviously taken out all the bad language for a PG13 rating but really I don't think it makes any difference to the finished product.

His next film is called Friends with Benefits and comes out later this year. Not to be confused with No Strings Attached which looks like the exact same thing. Strangly enough one stars Natalie Portman and the other Mila Kunis. Have a look at the trailers, I know which one I'm looking forward to more.

The Fly 2

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

Holy crap look at that writing team: Mick Garris, Ken and Jim Wheat and Frank Darabont! Great work guys. Great work.

Well it has a few nods to the first film, but the tone is entirely different. The first part of the film is the best, watching the spawn of Brundlefly grow up into a super intelligent Eric Stoltz. I don't know why he's super intelligent he just is. Then there's a bit of coming of age drama and first love but instead of human puberty we get some other fly-type stuff. And then the last half is just a B monster movie.

The film is like fly-lite. It's a much lighter tone, there are a few comedic moments shoe-horned in, unlike the first film where the comedy just came from the characters and, well, Jeff Goldblum. They also set up a happy ending. This isn't a tragic love story, it has a happy ending. all the bad guys get killed by the Eric Stoltz fly and then he swaps some human genes with the evil corporate scientist and turns him into a horrible mutant while he magically turns back into Eric Stoltz.

I guess it's a slightly above average monster movie. There's fun stuff in there too, but obviously no where near as great as the Cronenberg film.