Melancholia

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

Write Up.

 Tonight I watched this on bluray with Lars von Trier doing a commentary. He is rather hilarious but his sense of humour is so odd that it's no wonder he keeps getting into trouble. Well it's on full display in the commentary and it'd so easy to see why he gets tripped up. And I just find that even more hilarious.

There's some interesting bits about the filming and some great features on the disc about the fx work. Trier shows a lot of irreverence to his own work but if I distance myself from him as a personality I still have a film that I'm really fond of. If you missed this ins cinemas, check it out now.

Anonymous

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

Write Up.

I listened to the commentary on the bluray. Roland Emmerich is always an interesting listen, regardless of what you might think of his films (plus he has a funky accent) and writer John Orloff makes an interesting foil.

It was actually a really great informative commentary. Not only about creating the story, which parts are historically accurate, where they took liberties, what the scholars think and all that kind of intellectual stuff, but also purely rom a technical point of view.

I did not know this was the first film shot on the Arri Alexa. They talk about testing it out and trying to push its abilities in low light, with entire scenes shot only in candle light. Obviously this has been done before, most famously by Kubrick, but they were impressed with the richness of colour they still managed to get from the scenes and it's true, it does look pretty great.

I also had no idea exactly how much of the film was effects. Like 300, this was shot almost entirely on greenscreen or with a modular set, here they used a few walls, doorways and arches which they would redress and rearrange slightly to create all of the rooms, castles, pubs, courtyards, bridges and houses in the film. He actually used all the effects to make the film cheaper. Only a man who is so versed in big budget filmmaking and use of fx would know how to do that.

They also show a lot of love for their actors, who are all really great but they don't ever shut up about them. But it was a really good listen and well recommended.

The Divide

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

The best part of the film was the pre-credit opening. Once you're trapped in the fallout shelter with these "characters" the film becomes a mess.

I'm a real sucker for nuclear fallout and post-apocolyptic survival films so I just HAD to see this one and while it offers some nice ideas it never attempts to explain or develop any of the ones I actually cared about.

Instead of being worried about the bigger picture things, the nuclear war, who attacked them, what is going on up on the surface, who are the evil dudes in suits, what are these experiments they are doing, why are they kidnapping people, how will the the inevitable final girl survive once she escapes, etc. it instead chooses to focus on the much more budgetary friendly group dynamic and the characters decent into madness. I'm fine with that, in fact I usually really enjoy that and expected it but it just never clicked.

I think the biggest problem is the huge jumps in behaviour that happen. Sure you expect things to fall apart and descend into Lord of the Flies territory but this film has absolutely no grace or subtlety about it. It rushes to get there and then tries to exploit it as much as it can, but unfortunately all this shocking behaviour just comes off as laughable.

You can't really blame the actors, who are obviously giving it their all trying desperately to convince you but never managing to rise above the material.

While it has some nice ideas, overall it's not successful for me. The trailer has pretty much the whole opening, that's all you really need to see.

The Five-Year Engagement

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

Another crowd pleasing winner from the gratduate class of Judd Apatow. Jason Segel and
Nicholas Stoller's latest is even more accessible than Forgetting Sarah Marshall but still has an edge over the bland series of romantic comedies being slapped together these days. That mainly comes from the few out of left field moments that no one would expect in a formulaic romantic comedy and a great cast that give these characters enough weight to feel realistic and relatable.

Jason Segel and Emily Blunt are immensely likeable, it's hard not to fall in love with them yourself. And as always they are surrounded by the best cast of supporting characters you could want. Chris Pratt as Segal's brother and Lauren Weedman as his boss were standouts for me but it could have easily been any number of them.

The film opens with the proposal and intriguingly the tale of the meet-cute is spread throughout the film via various flashbacks which works surprisingly well and leads up to the finale nicely to tie everything together.

Once the inevitable roadblocks kick in the film, although enjoyable enough, tends to drag a little. They really make you feel those five years. I was surprised how far off the deep end they were willing to push Segal's characters but he's never been one to shy away from going there (or appearing naked, which he once again does several times in this film).

For a film that plays things so realistically it's a shame they had to push in a few tropes to get to the crowd pleasing ending. They make it work as best they can and it's probably the most naturally progressing plot structure you'll likely to see in a romantic comedy for a long time. 

Still it's hard not to be swayed by the feel goodlyness of it all. Although I think it could use some tightening up in the middle the characters and story works and most importantly, it is actually funny.

Safe

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

Jason Statham continues to make solid little action flicks. That he of all people would be this generations Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone always seemed unlikely to me and yet he's always been pretty reliable, his films enjoyable, at least his theatrical releases are.

This one, whilst having some nice action, also uses a good half of the film setting up its story and characters. We follow two characters intercut in their own little self contained films, one a down on his luck boxer film, the other a orphan girl with a gift coming of age film and then when they finally meet halfway through it explodes into nonstop action for the rest of it.

It is a long set up but it completely worked for me, while the story isn't anything that new or special it was convincingly done. I'll admit to getting a little gun fatigue, most of the action is fast paced shaky cam shoot outs, but it is punctuated often enough with little hand to hand moments and some inventive and very painful sounding blows. The bad guys in this film get hurt and the audience feels it too.

Another pleasant surprise was seeing some familiar faces pop up as supporting characters. Particularly James Hong whom I recently enjoyed rewatching in Big Trouble in Little China and Chris Sarandon who recently made a geektastic cameo in the new Fright Night.

Cathrine Chan never gets to the dizzying heights of, say, Natalie Portman in Leon, but she is serviceable as the young girl who is mixed up with all these gangsters.

This is definitely one of Statham's best and if he continues to output action of this quality and volume he's sure to be remembered with those 80's greats.

The Evil Dead

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

It's been almost 4 days since I last saw a film. I have been flat out with work and have unexpectedly found myself spearheading a campaign to get Cabin in the Woods released here in Australia theatrically. Roadshow changed their mind and decided to dump it to dvd. Bastards! So please do everything in your power to help out.

I decided I should watch this today. It's never not a good time to watch this icon of independent horror. Sam Raimi's masterpiece and probably the best cabin in the woods horror ever made (except for it's sequel, which I think mixes horror and comedy in perfect amounts and is my favourite of the series).

This film is just manic. The camera angles and movement and accompanying sound design almost make this cartoonish. It's larger than life. The gore and effects, while low budget and a little rough around the edges, are pulled off with glee and gusto.

And of course, The Chin. Joyous. The man is some kind of god.

It's a little strange in the widescreen aspect ratio on bluray, I don't like knowing half the image is cropped out, but it's still great to have in HD. It's just one of the best movies ever made. It does make me feel a little better too.

Creature

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

Baaahahahahahhahahaahhahahah!!!

Oh man.

Hilarious. Most blatant Alien rip-off I've ever witnessed.

Words. Cannot. Describe.

Dragonslayer

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

Write Up.

I may have been a little harsh with that last write up, but really that music ruins what would otherwise be a fun and unusually dark disney 80's fantasy film.

DeepStar Six

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

I can never watch The Abyss again for the first time. That's one of the sad things about storytelling. I still love revisiting it though, it's one of those great movies that has everything in it and really takes you along for the ride. But thankfully for me Hollywood produced not one but SIX underwater adventure/creature films in 1989. SIX. (Out of them all the only other one I have seen is Leviathan, but they also include The Evil Below, Lords of the Deep and The Rift aka Endless Decent. I think I must make it my mission to see them all.)

Of course nothing will ever come close to the awesomeness of James Cameron's epic but horror maestro Sean S. Cunningham takes a stab (terrible joke). And indeed this one has an awful lot in common with the former title and is quite entertaining. It also features a very Friday the 13th ending moment which made me giggle.

While this primarily is a creature feature it does well enough in other areas to hold together well. And the creature is pretty funky too. It has a cast filled with recognisable 90's actors who you've seen in a thousand things before but just don't know the name of.

The one thing this does have the The Abyss doesn't is a bit of gore. Some nice deaths in this one, a favourite being death by an air gun thingy. You'll see.

I had a lot of fun with this one. Pretty similar to Leviathan in that respect although I dare say I think this was just a little classier. Let's see how the others hold up.

The Fall

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tim, Kim

Write up.

Beautiful film. Another all time favourite.

Brazil

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

Write Up.

Looks great on bluray on a big screen. Such a chaotic film but so great. All time classic.

The Avengers

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Belinda, Paul, Claire, Blair

Write Up.

The midnight screening is always so enjoyable. A crowd of fans that want nothing more than the love the film and this one delivers.

Thankfully the aspect ratio was correct this time so none of the subtitles were cropped. That mysterious scene that was recently reported being filmed is still absent from after the credit role. I guess I'll just have to go back and see it again in May. Well I need to see it again anyway, there's still a lot of dialogue I've never heard over the sounds of laughter from the audience. Not a bad problem for a film to have.

The Lucky One

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

Scott Hicks made a big break out with Shine. I presumed he hadn't done much after his follow up but was surprised to find I've actually seen 3 of the romance films he's made since. Add this latest Nicholas Sparks adaptationto the list. If you've seen one you've seen them all.

They have become predictable to a degree that when I sat down to watch this and the film opens with a helicopter pull back shot of a boat on a river at sunset I thought, oh this should be the end shot that the credit roll goes over, which sure enough it was. But who the hell opens a film with a pull BACK shot anyway? Must have been a last minute bookend decision. 

As much as you can blame the blatant romance formula at work here it really doesn't help that it's one of those films where the trailer shows you all the beats and has been playing for the past 3 months in front of every single film to the degree where I can recite it.

It's actually very canny and no-one can argue that it doesn't hit its target audience, who want nothing more than some some safe ad predictable trash to enjoy on a night out with the girls or drag a boyfriend to and if he puts up with the sap he's proven sensitive enough to get laid that night. I had both parties sitting either side of me. I don't think the guy got so lucky that night though, the film was too much for him and he made this known much to the dismay of his partner.

For the girls though this film panders like I've never seen before. A hot masculine war hero, who's also incredibly sensitive, intelligent and struggling with an inner turmoil, just begging to be loved. Add to that he spends half the film cuddling cute little puppies and playing with an adorable kid. Then we have the girl of his affections, who he's uncontrollably drawn to. She's not a big movie star so none of the girls feel threatened and can easily put themselves in her shoes.

They get no less than 5 make out sessions over the course of the film ranging from a small kiss to the most classily lit softcore porn available from PG-13 rated film. They really push the limits here. 

While the 3rd act complication (in this case it's a photo) is a complete dud here and doesn't really work the way it's supposed to, they are given a common enemy to overcome. Unfortunately he's also completely 2 diminutional and is removed from the story in one of the most heinous uses of deus ex machina I've seen in quite a while. 

So besides the 30 minutes of required story beats, you have an hour of hot steamy wish fulfilment that is too classy to actually be called porn because it takes place in a fantasy world where it is perpetually magic hour. You can't argue that the film it gloriously lit, warm and inviting.

It's hard to be upset by a film that knows exactly what it is doing and is shameless in accomplishing it. You know if you want to watch this film or not. Your opinions are made already and seeing the film will only confirm your suspicions whichever way they may go. Transparent filmmaking at its finest.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

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

Write Ups.

Watched with the Commentary today. Wonderful. Love this film so much.

Art School Confidential

IMDB

First time viewed: No

Current Release: No

Watched With: Kim, Jordan, Tyler

Terry Zwigoff made a big splash adapting Daniel Clowes' graphic novel Ghost World. Thats was pretty cool. Here they team up again to bring us a similar coming of age story this time set in the pretentious world of Art College, which provides plenty of hilarious fodder for characters and situations. They also manage to cram in a murder mystery on the side. Good for them.

This has a great cast that provide some very amusing characters. I find this film hilarious and a bit more accessible than Ghost World, primarily for the fact that the ending feels more definitive. It's a great little satire that I think has been overlooked but deserves more recognition.