Chopping Mall

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

Another film I discovered on a top 50 movie robots list. Still not sure if I'd have this on there instead of those awesome Stand Winston designs from A.I. but they are pretty funny little dudes.

The movie is very trashy but very enjoyable despite itself. The perfect late night silly movie. A shopping mall get's new Killbots as security guards but something goes wrong and when a group of teens get trapped in there with them after staying late after work they have to fight them off. Bahahahahah it's great.

Nobody actually get's Chopped though, these guys have LAZERS! And they make the same sounds as the George Pal War of the Worlds tripods.

The thing plays out like clockworks, it's very obvious who's going to die but that's also the fun of it. It's delightfully bad.

Deep Blue Sea

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

Baaaahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha oh man. Ahhh. Heh.

Deep blue sea. Heheheheh.

Renny Harlin, you make some fun movies. And really, mad props to anyone who goes to shoot with that much water stunts and effects. Fully remote controlled robot sharks! That's awesome. And some CG that doesn't always hold up but is still pretty neat.

Cool cast the amassed. I'm pretty sure this is the film that introduced me to Thomas Jane and Saffron Burrows. And Samuel L. Jackson's death scene is the stuff of legend.

We made their brains bigger. As a side effect, they got smarter. Genius.

Black Narcissus

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

Those nuns be trippin'.

Always wondered what this film was about, having heard the name but never knew the story. The first thing that stood out to me was the matte paintings. Yeah they don't really hold up by todays standards but I really love those old style mattes and painted backdrops.

To be honest I didn't really care that much for the story, the love triangle thing. I did like seeing Sabu in another film though, bit of a childhood hero of mine. I do like the melodrama of the nun going crazy at the end though. The make up and lighting and the ridiculous cliff-face, you know it's not going to end well.

Rango

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

Original thoughts here and here.

I watched the Commentary on the bluray. There's an extended edition with 2 new bits including a nice little round up of all the characters at the end which is a cool bonus but not needed in the feature. Still nice it's included here.

It's great hearing about breaking ILM's render farm and them having to adjust to the idea of doing whole movie themselves, not just being told what to add in in other peoples shots. It seems that idea of ownership and letting the animators be creative resulted in very dedicated work. It certainly shows in the film.

The other thing I loved seeing was how they had the actors all together acting out the scenes and it was shot like a small little live action shoot. What a cast they got together! Great to see the chemistry they had on set pay off in moments of the animation. There's awkward comedy in this film that would be practically impossible to fake otherwise.

Such a fun movie. Go watch it!

Hollow Man

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

I might be the only person I know that liked this on it's original release and still likes it today. I think it's great fun. Paul Verhoeven just makes films I can enjoy. Campy and fun, yes, but also always slightly subversive and satirical.

I do own the bluray but I opted to watch the regular dvd version with the great Jerry Goldsmith's score and commentary track. Man he made some great film music. I was nice to hear his thoughts film scoring, not just for this film but in general. I've always fancied that as a career. It's also good to just listen to the music when you have a lot of other work to be getting on with.

Man do those effect hold up. They are awesome, really cool stuff here and very cutting edge at the time. As you always seem to find in Verhoeven's hollywood blockbuster output.

I also like the darker take on the invisible man concept. I think this is a much more realistic depiction of what an invisible guy would get up to. Of course he's going to rape some people. Makes for some spooky scenes, no?

So much naked Kevin Bacon too.

Don't understand the hate for this one. It's delightful.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

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

No blinking!

I do love this film. Spielberg taking the reigns after Kubrick died. What jump out at me this time after having not seen it for so long is how much I respect those ILM effects guys. It's can't be easy compositing anything into a frame shot by Janusz Kaminski. He puts in that much smoke and atmosphere and all the lights flare and glow, it would be a nightmare trying to match or put things behind. Hats off to them.

And the effects are awesome. I love all those robot designs. But more importantly than that is the sweet little mother son relationship at the centre of this epic film. In a film filled with so many cool concepts and ideas that's the central story that you can cling on too.

A lot of people are put off by the end and it's easy to see why. I remember when it came out we had arguments over if those things at the end were robots or aliens. They are robots though, that has been confirmed, I thought it was obvious. Although it does necessitate a bit of doing to get to the end I'm glad it finishes where it does and not earlier as some have suggested.

People accuse Spielberg of being to sweet and sappy. I do think that's the case with some of this stuff, but only ever after the fact, never while watching. Also there's quite a lot of really dark and slightly subversive stuff in the film too, it's not all bright and happy.

Where the hell is the Australian bluray release? everywhere else has it. Sad.

Shutter Island

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


Really like this recent effort from Scorsese. The things that jumped out most to me on my first viewing was the music and the photography. I love the was all those dream sequences and memories blend gradually into reality . And I love that there's always something floating in the air during those sequences, ashes, snow, paper, rain. etc. They are just gorgeous.

This film maintains creepy paranoid feel and expertly builds the crazy. The actors are all great, an amazing cast and like Fight Club it's fun to watch the film again with knowledge of the end and see everything that's set up. Really love Patricia Clarkson's one scene, even though she's shot in front of a flickering fire that drives you a little batty after a while.

I remember seeing the trailer and picking the ending, although I didn't know it at the time, I said it aloud sarcastically on the way to the theatre, so when my made up twist turned out to be real everyone was pissed off at me for unintentionally spoiling  the film. But like Fight Club, the film is not it's twist, you can still enjoy it knowing the ending because it's a damn good film.

Akira

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

Here's my thoughts. Great to show this one to people too, It's always a confusing and eye-opening experience I think. It's such a monumental piece of cinema. Awesome.

Fight Club

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

Well what can you say, it's a pretty damn awesome movie its't it. And to those that haven't seen it, well, just watch. Fincher basically invents the virtual camera on this film. The editing and sound, music, narration, acting, effects it's all great.

I love the trick they pulled in the blurry menu too, freaked me out the first time I saw it. Now I just realised this has more commentaries on it that the old dvd I have does, I shall have to give them a listen soon, so I may save more detailed comments for then.

But it was great to catch up with this bad boy again and to show it to people for the first time is an extra special treat.

Stigmata

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

Does anyone remember this film? I hard vague memories. I think I may have confused Gabriel Byrne in this and in End of Days where he's the evil dude.  But he's not evil in this. I think I like him more when he's evil.

This movie is edited together pretty much like a 90's rock music video. That's what it feels like to me anyway. As for the story and acting, it's serviceable but doesn't do much for me personally.

This is a religious drama that wants to play up being a thriller or even horror but it is neither of those things. It's a straight drama with a bit of mystery and if it didn't feel the need to have its little nod to the exorcist at the end and embraced the drama and characters a little more it could have been more effective.

Either that or go the other way. The stigmata is after all inherently gory.

I watched the theatrical cut, not the alternate ending, I think the theatrical works much better. Anyway it's no wonder I don't remember it much, I've just watched it again and already it's fading from my mind.

Never Let Me Go

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

Finally got around to watching my bluray copy after waiting for so long to see it at the cinemas first. You can read my write up here.

As bleak as it is, it is a lovely film. Sweet and sad. I like that.

Jawbreaker

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

Another dark teen comedy, not as vicious or hilarious or intelligent as Heathers though. But I'd forgotten how very stylised this one was, it exists in a very pop teen world, the characters are caricatures, the dialogue idiosyncratic and the transitions are all accompanied by cartoonish sound effects. A lot of the editing and montages feel dreamlike and surreal. It's a strange mix that creates a very heightened reality.

It's a nifty cast that don't look like high-schoolers but in this reality anything goes. As one would expect it has a soundtrack made almost exclusively of indie pop rock from the period but the score by Stephen Endelman is very effective and I wish there was more of it.

I have fond memories of films like this and Gossip and Idle Hands, renting them out at the  beginnings of the DVD format and listening to the directors commentaries. I think that's where I got the vast majority of my filmmaking knowledge. The big blockbuster films never had anything decent to say about the actual ins and outs of day to day shooting on a budget.

So I do have some fond memories of these films but I think this one holds up pretty well.

The Rocketeer

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

Timothy Dalton you suave nazi bastard.

Captain America comes out at the end of the month, so why not have a look back at Joe Johnston's other WW2 comic book super hero film? Such a delightful film.

I really do love period adventure, there's something so swashbuckling old hollywood about it. The fact that Dalton plays a swashbuckling old hollywood star might have something to do with that too. I love his demise destroying the "land" part of the big hollywood sign at the end.

The flying action in this film is great and all done back before anyone relied on CG. I love the zeppelin climax and how they somehow managed to keep a fully inflated airship hidden in L.A. Terry O'Quinn is Howard Hughes! And he shows a damn cool German rocketeer propaganda animation, authentically made. I love that sequence!

I never watched this much as a kid. Even I underrated it. But it truly is a lot of fun. The unmistakable James Horner music really gets the tone and adventure. Nothing but love for The Rocketeer. I hope Captain America gets the same feel.

The Core

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

Oh the Core, you are ridiculous but I kinda love you anyway. I remember seeing this with a free double pass to an advanced screening. Not having to pay to see this probably had something to do with it too. I harbour no resentment.

What a cast! No one could sell the plot of this film but they got the best in the biz and they give it there all. Consequentially there is a good stretch in the middle of the film where the tension keeps racking up and up as ridiculous situation after ridiculous situation arises. It's surprisingly effective until after maybe the 7th or 8th unpredicted life threatening disaster and then it's just a matter of them whittling down the survivors. Stanley Tucci looks like he's having the time of his life.

They pull out every trick in the book with this screenplay. For what should essentially be 6 people in a super-submarine they come up with enough scientific mumbojumbo to justify about 5 major top side disaster sequences and a dozen or so in the core. My favourite has to be the pidgins in Trafalgar Square going nuts. I hope The Birds is never remade (I presume the one Platinum Dunes was going to do starring Naomi Watts fell through) but if it was it could look a little something like that.

It reminds me so much of those great 70s disaster movies, just with a more modern look. But everything about it harkens back to those old classics that I love. I know it's preposterous but I can't help but have a bit of a soft spot for it because of that. The pumping soundtrack, the creative science, the opulent display of spectacle and the hilarious overpopulation of disasters make this a winner in my book. Delightful.

Red Planet

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

What a crap trailer.

I don't know what prompted this viewing. There was a bunch of space set movies late 90's early 00's when CG was becoming a little cheaper and easier. Some of them were great, some not so much. But there hasn't been a team-of-astronauts-space-action-drama that I can remember since Danny Boyle's Sunshine in 2007. I do like them.

I also remember this came out very close to the time when Mission to Mars came out. Did it even get a cinema release? Can anyone clarify that? Whatever the case, Mission to Mars was the big film and this got shoved to the side. It's certainly much less grand in scope and less lofty in ideas than that film, it's also a little more fun.

I recently looked at a list of top 50 movie robots. I definitely would have made room somewhere for Amee, she is badass even though she's really haphazardly shoved into the film for no reason. I love the whole mystery of what happened on Mars, and the small group of people trying to survive stranded on a planet. These are things I inherently love.

The film has a great cast, I really love Carrie-Anne Moss in this, I don't know why but it could be that she's always so cool and level-headed, even during the craziest circumstances. She's the kind of person you want to lead a team for this.

The film looks and sounds great, The effects hold up surprisingly well on my dvd. The Mars photography is beautiful. I believe they shot in Australia somewhere. Works well. I love the production design and the cool little gadgets and stuff they have. Graeme Revell's score is pretty good. He scored Pitch Black that same year, some striking similarities in films (stranded survivors on a desert planet shot in Australia) AND score(why so much tabla in space?), but Pitch Black is vastly superior.

Really where this film is let down is the script. I can see in the deleted scenes a lot of the character development in the beginning got thrown out, rightfully so I think. It establishes them fine what it doesn't do is develop them in any way. The conflict between the survivors seems heavy handed. Also once they are stranded there's not much they can do. Sometimes that can be great, but here it's not that interesting. I guess that's why they felt the need to thrown in a rogue military robot hunting them.

It's a really shame though, everything else about this film really works. With a few more re-writes this could have been fantastic. As it is, it's just alright.

Jane Eyre

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

Love the Suspiria music in that trailer.

Now, despite being adapted about 200 times and despite my mothers strong affection for anything Brontë, I didn't know too much about the story. So when some tickets fell into my lap (Big thanks!) I jumped at the chance to go to this advanced screening, I really enjoyed it.

I can't speak for other versions but this one is always teetering on the edge of becoming more of a horror thriller but is constantly pulled back into the drama. I was dying for it to up the ante and embrace the darker side but it never quite got there. Still I should probably be grateful that there was any at all in such a period drama.

I didn't much care for Dario Marianelli's score. I really loved his work in Pride and Prejudice but this is a completely different beast. I did like the dark gloominess of the photography. They weren't afraid to make the night scenes look pitch black with only faint candlelight illuminating parts of the frame.

Mia Wasikowska is very cold and reserved as Jane Eyre. But she does a great job of showing us there's something going on underneath the blank exterior.  I like Michael Fassbender a little better as Magneto, but he's great here too.

I think what threw me most was my preconceived notions about what to expect. The ending surprised me. I was a little disappointed it wasn't more tragic. As it is, it's not overly happy either, it's a little unsatisfying but I feel that could well change on repeat viewing.

On the whole, this was far more enjoyable than not. I think, like Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, it keeps all the period detail and language but feels much more like a modern film. That's great for people like me, who can find period drama a little stuffy in film adaptation.

Topsy-Turvy

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

I had caught a little bit of this when I was younger but never saw the whole thing. I'm not that knowledgable of Guilbert and Sullivan but I know the most popular titles and could hum a few tunes. Mike Leigh takes us backstage in the creation of The Mikado.

It's a film filled with period detail and a great cast of some of my favourite actors, only this time singing operetta as well. Wonderful.

I know Leigh usually improvises the majority of his films, or at least he does now. I don't know how that works when recounting historical fact but the way scenes unfold and the side stories told often feel like little anecdotes that have been expanded upon. They don't often resolve or add to the plot but do give an insight into time and practice.

As such it feels very observational. A little slice of life that will definitely interesting any fans of the material. I found it a little long but it feels like a very realistic depiction.