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.

2010 Film List

561 Movies in 2010. I got the cinema 130 times, both down quite a bit from previous years, a disappointing effort but to be fair this was my first year with a full time job and I wrote and directed musical and performed in another, so free time was somewhat lacking.
However, I did manage to see 404 new films this year which is way up from last year. 212 of them were current releases and the rest were older films that I felt I should give a go.

So, Here are the current release films I watched for the first time in 2010 in a very vague order of Best to Worst in my bizarre and not to be recognized in any way opinion. (I would like to point out now that Positions vary WIDLEY depending on what mood I’m in or how the crowd reacted, stuff like that. And chances are I’d change the order next week if I were to do it again.)

1. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
2. Kick-Ass
3. Inception
4. How to Train Your Dragon
5. The Social Network
6. Boy A
7. In The Loop
8. Shutter Island
9. Monsters
10. A Single Man
11. Toy Story 3
12. The Loved Ones
13. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
14. Iron Man 2
15. Piranha 3D
16. Up in the Air
17. A Serbian Film
18. Frozen
19. Rec 2
20. Splice
21. Easy A
22. Fantastic Mr Fox
23. Animal Kingdom
24. Buried
25. The Road
26. The American
27. Nowhere Boy
28. Let Me In
29. The Secret of the Kells
30. Daybreakers
31. Fair Game
32. Agora
33. Pandorum
34. Peacock
35. The Last Exercism
36. Youth In Revolt
37. Tron: Legacy
38. Green Zone
39. Ninja Assassin
40. Humpday
41. The Book of Eli
42. Cyrus
43. Gentleman Broncos
44. Wasted On The Young
45. Symbol
46. Machete
47. The Men Who Stare At Goats
48. Predators
49. Redline
50. The Jonses
51. Bad Lietenant, Port of Call: New Orleans
52. The Human Centipede
53. The Crazies
54. Dorian Gray
55. 9
56. Triangle
57. Robogeisha
58. Red Hill
59. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
60. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
61. Red Cliff Part 1 & 2
62. Whiteout
63. Edge Of Darkness
64. Big Fan
65. Boy
66. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
67. Law Abiding Citizen
68. Wild Target
69. The Killer Inside Me
70. Defender
71. Black Dynamite
72. The A Team
73. Greenburg
74. The Losers
75. The Hurt Locker
76. Evangellion 1.0 You are (not) alone
77. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
78. Precious
79. The Ghost Writer
80. I Love You Phillip Morris
81. Harry Brown
82. Made in Dagenham
83. Salt
84. The Slammin’ Salmon
85. Chloe
86. Knight and Day
87. The King’s Speech
88. Me and Orsen Welles
89. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
90. Paper Man
91. Micmacs
92. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
93. Centurian
94. Heartless
95. The Disappearance of Alice Creed
96. Prince Of Persia: Sands of Time
97. Brothers
98. The Oxford Murders
99. Metropia
100. Due Date
101. The White Ribbon
102. Dead Snow
103. Leaves of Grass
104. Megamind
105. The Last Station
106. New York, I love you
107. Under the Mountain
108. Fish Tank
109. Soloman Kane
110. Creation
111. The Rebound
112. Stepfather
113. Clash of the Titans
114. Paranormal Activity 2
115. The Baader Meinof Complex
116. Bright Star
117. Hot Tub Time Machine
118. A Perfect Getaway
119. The Fourth Kind
120. Accidents Happen
121. Repo Men
122. Winter’s Bone
123. Unthinkable
124. Winged Creatures
125. City Island
126. Grey Gardens
127. Armoured
128. The Kids Are Alright
129. Blood: The Last Vampire
130. The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
131. Leap Year
132. Invictus
133. Operation: Endgame
134. Tomorrow When the War Began
135. Bunny and the Bull
136. The Wolfman
137. Dinner for Shmucks
138. The Tourist
139. Get Him to the Greek
140. Women in Trouble
141. King of Thorn
142. The Poughkeepsie Tapes
143. The Runaways
144. La Horde
145. The Tree
146. Crazy Heart
147. The Other Guys
148. Visioneers
149. The Horseman
150. Planet 51
151. Van Diemans Land
152. Halloween 2
153. Macgruber
154. Despicable Me
155. Robin Hood
156. Brooklyn’s Finest
157. Eat Pray Love
158. Beneath Hill 60
159. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
160. The Princess and the Frog
161. From Paris With Love
162. Mystery Team
163. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
164. Bran Nue Dae
165. The Killers
166. The Decent Part 2
167. Survival of the Dead
168. After.Life
169. Shrek Forever After
170. Resident Evil: Afterlife
171. Devil
172. She’s Out Of My League
173. A Nightmare On Elm St
174. The Blind Side
175. Holly Rollers
176. Charlie St. Cloud
177. The Expendables
178. Altitude
179. $9.99
180. Date Night
181. Cemetery Junction
182. Saw 3D
183. Twilight: Eclipse
184. Ink
185. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
186. Dante’s Inferno
187. The Bounty Hunter
188. The Sinking Of Japan
189. Love and Other Drugs
190. Letters To Juliette
191. Alice In Wonderland
192. Life As We Know It
193. Spread
194. Love Happens
195. The Tooth Fairy
196. Coffin Rock
197. It’s Complicated
198. Cop Out
199. Nine
200. Remember Me
201. S. Darko
202. Jonah Hex
203. Valentine’s Day
204. Did you hear about the Morgans?
205. The Backup Plan
206. Skyline
207. The Last Airbender
208. Sex and the City 2
209. When In Rome

Dang I forgot to put I Am Love on there. it's go in the middle somewhere...
Oh man, I'm looking of this list that I haphazzardly threw together and already i disagree with most of the middle section, but eh, gives you some idea.