Safe (2012)

Posted on October 22, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #77
Boaz Yakin | 85 mins* | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English, Mandarin & Russian | 15 / R

Jason Statham plays a cop turned cage-fighter turned vagrant, who rescues a young girl and finds himself amidst a three-way brawl between the Triad, the Russians, and corrupt cops. They want the child for a number she’s memorised, but what is its significance?

Those are the basics of a surprisingly complex plot, albeit one sprinkled with well-handled (if unexceptional) action sequences. It at least manages some surprises, including a climax that exchanges the usual Big Fight for plot resolution, plus a nice double meaning for the title.

Intricate storyline aside, this is standard Statham fare — not bad, but not exceptional.

Safe is on 5* tonight at 9pm.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long. You’ve just read one.

* The PAL time listed by the BBFC is 90 minutes. It must have a lot of credits or something, because on TV it runs just over 84½. ^

The final end of FilmJournal…?

Aside

It looks as if FilmJournal.net may have finally shut up shop.

This is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. One, this blog survived and thrived there for a number of years, so it has definite nostalgic value; most of the blogs I pay attention to were ones I discovered there, too. In terms of my personal use, I co-posted my reviews here and there for a while even after I ‘officially’ made the transition to WordPress; then I posted links there for each new review; only recently did I abandon that practice altogether, because the site seemed to be slowly fading even further.

On a still-continuing note, however, a lot of my older reviews link to the comments that were posted on them back on FilmJournal. If the site is gone, those are now lost forever. I suppose that was inevitably going to happen someday — an inactive site isn’t going to remain online indefinitely — but it’s still a shame. Some of the comments sections were nothing to write home about, but at least a few were good, solid discussions of the film(s) in question. I’d occasionally, by chance, wind up revisiting those. I’ll miss that.

And similarly, it’s thrown a bit of a spanner in the regular reposts I’ve been doing. Fortunately I have offline versions of everything I’ve blogged (or, at least, everything significant — some of the more minor editorial-type posts may have been online-only), but many of these are incorrectly formatted or have spelling, etc, errors that I’d fixed online but not on the offline versions, so I’d been basing all my reposts on the FilmJournal versions. I suppose this is a selfish concern, really: I can still go forward with reposting everything, but now it’s a bit more effort! Especially as some of the images featured in the reviews were hosted on FJ too, so I have to re-source those ‘n’ all…

Sadly, that’s kind of my overwhelming thought at FilmJournal finally going away for good (I presume). I very much enjoyed my time there, especially as the community ended the feeling that I was blogging pretty much in a vacuum; but with everyone’s gradual move away from it, I’d already “let it go” in that sense — now I’m just frustrated at the inconvenience of its final passing. Which is a shame, but there you have it.

The Conspirator (2010)

Posted on October 20, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #54
Robert Redford | 117 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

Although John Wilkes Booth is famous as the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln, he was merely the person who pulled the trigger: eight people were tried for conspiracy to kill America’s 16th President; this is the story of what happened to the only woman among them.

Or, rather, it’s the story of the young lawyer who is forced to represent her. Rather than cave to pressure and more-or-less let the prosecution have their way, he fights her corner against a ludicrously biased system that would execute her without trial if only they could. The sheer weight of this bias — and the fact the story is from history, rather than a created-for-the-movies tale (with all the idealism that would bring) — means there’s a sort of crushing sense of inevitability about how it plays out. Some have criticised the film for lacking tension, a complaint that I think is to some degree misplaced — especially as, not knowing what happened, I felt it was fairly tense towards the end.

As the lawyer, James McAvoy has to lead the film against a few experienced names, but he can hold his own (which I suppose shouldn’t be a surprise at this point) and is easily the best thing in the movie. OK, so he’s saddled with a well-worn “lawyer so dedicated to the case he sacrifices his personal life” character arc, but that doesn’t mean he plays it so half-heartedly. The only acting weak link is Alexis Bledel, who somehow seems far too modern; or rather, like an actress versed in playing modern characters struggling gamely with a period one, and coming up short.

The Conspirator takes a footnote from history and turns it into an engrossing legal drama. What it lacks in originality is made up for through compelling performances and the exposure of little-known facts and incidents surrounding one of American history’s most famous events.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Posted on October 17, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 Academy Awards
5 nominations — 0 wins

Nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay.

When someone says “100-million-dollar epic”, you probably don’t imagine a film about a swindling stockbroker; but, with a three-hour running time and a nine-figure budget, that’s exactly what Martin Scorsese’s black comedy biopic is.

Based on a true story, the film sees Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) start out as a stockbroker on Wall Street just before 1987’s Black Monday, which sees the firm he works for close down. Desperate for a job, he finds employment shilling cheap, crap shares to unsuspecting normal folk. Bringing his big-money skills into a grimy little environment, he revolutionises the way business is done, and soon finds himself back on Wall Street, where drug- and drink-fuelled parties, expensive houses, cars and yachts, and dodgy (well, flat-out illegal) business practices are the name of the day.

Some critics and viewers reckon the film is condoning or even glamourising that lifestyle. To which the only sensible response is, really?! How much must those people need their morality spelt out clearly and handed to them on a plate? Scorsese doesn’t out-and-out condemn the behaviour depicted, but nor does he present it as a jolly good time brought low by the cruel machinations of The Man. He’s more of an observer: this is what happened, both what they got away with and what they didn’t; both what was fun and exciting and what went wrong. There’s everything from moments where our own independent morality/irony is clearly meant to be brought to bear on these characters (such as the scene where they’re discussing dwarves) to sequences that outright depict the downside of their behaviour (such as the sequence where Jordan and Donnie take ‘Lemmon’, or indeed a good deal of the movie after that point). The film does not judge these people, but invites us to — and the closing shot clearly shows how many people have already judged them to represent something desirable, regardless of what position the film might take. Some people want this lifestyle, in spite of all the problems it wrought, and even if the film had clearly condemned it that wouldn’t change. In the end, to say Scorsese approves of it purely because he doesn’t lambast it is too simplistic a reading.

Despite the real-life nature of its tale, and the fact the illegal actions surely brought misery to many, the film nonetheless works best as a comedy, which is fortunately its default tone. In the rare moments it shoots for drama, it doesn’t function quite so well — whatever the results of their action, these lives and situations are so outlandish that it’s hard to find an empathetic foothold. The characters may be based on real people, but they don’t live in a world of “real people”; but that’s OK, because I don’t imagine the actual people involved would come over as much more than “characters” if you encountered them in real life.

In this regard, every cast member is excellent. You may most easily identify that quality among the top-billed names (Leo, Jonah Hill, break-out star Margot Robbie), or the masses of recognisable faces in cameo-sized roles (Matthew McConaughey, Jon Favreau, Joanna Lumley, Jean Dujardin…), but almost every supporting character gets a memorable line or scene, a moment where they shine brighter than everyone else; and even when the smaller roles aren’t dominating a scene, they’re part of a first-rate ensemble that functions like a well-oiled machine. My personal favourite was P.J. Byrne’s ‘Rugrat’, but yours may well be someone else.

One criticism I will hold with is that it’s too long. There’s fun packed throughout, but every now and then the pace flags or I found myself checking the clock. I can well imagine that on a re-watch the less-engrossing bits will be thumb-twiddlingly irritating while waiting for the quality memorable material to roll around. A tighter focus, probably at the writing stage but maybe it was salvageable in the edit, might’ve helped this.

And if you’re wondering how it cost $100 million, it’s packed to the rafters with CGI. Some of it is obvious (specifically, when they attempt to sail a yacht through a storm, with disastrous consequences), but there are also tonnes of more subtle digital set/location extensions and changes — check out this video if you want them revealed. Plus they used visual effects to obscure a gay orgy and avoid an NC-17. So that’s nice.

As one of two period comedies about real-life financial crime that contended at the 2014 awards (and neither of which won a single Oscar, as it turned out), The Wolf of Wall Street is the more entertaining victor, for me. However, despite many high-points, some scattered niggles throughout its excessive running time hold back unequivocal praise.

The Wolf of Wall Street debuts on Sky Movies Premiere today at 9pm, and is already available on demand.

Legends of the Knight (2013)

Posted on October 16, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #23
Brett Culp | 76 mins | Blu-ray | 16:9 | USA / English

Heartwarming crowdfunded documentary about the power of Batman — not to beat supervillains, but his positive influence on real people.

Its multitudinous subjects span everyone from a businessman who visits children’s hospitals in full Bat-costume, to an anonymous teenager in a homemade Bat-outfit who helps around his small town. Plus a five-year-old leukaemia patient enjoying a Make-a-Wish Batman day, inspiration for the grander “Batkid” that went viral last November.

There’s also analysis of what makes Batman such a powerful character, but I think the real message is how finding a symbol to rally behind can bring out the best in people.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long. You’ve just read one.

After Earth (2013)

Posted on October 15, 2014 by badblokebob

Conceived by movie star Will Smith primarily as a vehicle for his wannabe-movie-star son, and helmed by auteur-apparently-turned-director-for-hire M. Night Shyamalan, After Earth is a far-future sci-fi actioner about a militaristic father and son who crash land on a long-abandoned Earth, which has evolved into a hostile environment from which they must try to escape, while also being hunted by an alien super-predator.

Much derided by critics and audiences on its release, After Earth is not a film without merit. There are some good ideas here, albeit undermined by frequent plot and logic holes, often stilted acting, and a chronic need to over-explain things. There’s nice design work, even if its plausibility is suspect, but bonus points for creating a far-future humanity that feels weird and suitably distant, rather than showing tech in a currently-fashionable style that we could almost make now if only there was the money.

In many respects, it feels only a decent re-write — and a decent child actor — away from being a properly good sci-fi action-adventure. But story and dialogue niggles abound; the kind of things that perhaps seemed fine from the inside of the filmmaking experience, but to a fresh pair of eyes — i.e. the audience’s — get in the way. And when we’re increasingly treated to deep, subtle drama on television, any movie or show that seeks to over explain every plot or emotional beat just seems childlike. Maybe that’s my own fault for watching too much quality programming of late? Maybe people who don’t enjoy Game of Thrones or Mad Men or The Americans (or one of the other increasingly-prevalent shows that don’t feel the need to spoonfeed everything) prefer things to be spelled out for them? I don’t know. I feel like I want better, though; I feel like I want the film to make me keep track of things, rather than repeatedly spell it out; I want to spot the neat callbacks and gradual character development for myself, not have the screenplay or direction screaming “look at the subtle thing we did! Wasn’t it subtle!”; I’d also quite like the film to set up some of its developments better, rather than charge ahead with “now he needs to fly — by-the-way, did we mention he can fly? No? Well, now he is.”

It also suffers from the blight of many a modern genre movie: too much CGI. Things like the monkeys and digital landscapes look like they could be from a film made five, maybe even ten, years ago. Why do filmmakers overreach themselves so? I guess it fundamentally doesn’t matter — we’ll always know they’re effects, however slickly made — but when you begin to notice that, and care that you’ve noticed, surely it’s taking you out of the world? The CGI isn’t all bad by any means — the future cityscape and Evil Alien Monster are pretty good — but the spaceship hangar, for instance, looks like an early-webseries-level virtual-set, so obviously dropped in via green screen that the actors may as well have retained green halos.

Even with these faults, however, I mostly quite enjoyed After Earth. For all the complaints levelled at it, primarily centred around it being a vanity project for the Smiths, there’s actually good stuff buried here — given more intelligent development and a different cast, perhaps it could even have been a genre classic. It certainly isn’t that, but it’s not as bad as some say. And it’s definitely M. Night Shyamalan’s best film for years. Sadly, that’s not saying much, is it?

The Tournament (2009)

Posted on October 9, 2014 by badblokebob

The Tournament is the kind of film where its relative quality is entirely dependent on what you want from a movie. Is it original? Not terribly. Is it clever? Not really. Is it action-packed and kinda fun? Yessir. If you just want to shift your brain into neutral and watch people punch, kick, shoot, stab, chase, and generally fight each other in a slickly-produced fashion, with a solid enough plot that (depending how brain-neutral you’ve gone) might offer an occasional twist… well, you’ve come to the right place.

The plot sees a bunch of the world’s greatest assassins lured to compete in a once-every-seven-years competition to find who’s the best — which, naturally, involves trying to kill each other. Meanwhile, a bunch of shady rich folk gamble on the outcome alongside the tournament’s organiser (Liam Cunningham). Particular interest is added because the last tournament’s winner (Ving Rhames) has been lured back for vengeance against whoever murdered his wife, while another canny competitor manages to shift his tracking device into an unsuspecting vicar (Robert Carlyle). Hilarity ensues! Oh, no, wait — carnage. Carnage ensues.

Also, it’s set in Middlesborough. No, really. You don’t expect a big explosive action movie to be set in Middlesborough, do you? Yet it somehow works. Or, rather, it doesn’t matter. Makes a change from somewhere obvious, at least, and the plain urbanity lends itself well to a few set pieces. It was shot in both the UK and Bulgaria, which probably explains why much of the city stuff looks British, but some (including a couple of churches) has a distinctly foreign feel.

The action is the draw, of course, and fortunately the film delivers in spades. The best stuff involves Sebastien Foucan, who you may remember as Bond’s bomb-maker target in Casino Royale’s post-titles sequence; or the 2012 season of Dancing on Ice, if you’re more sequin-inclined. He’s one of the founders of Parkour, and brings all those skills to bear in a duel with a car, amongst other sequences. If you like a well-choreographed bit of action filmmaking then The Tournament’s worth it for that bit alone. The climax, an explosive chase involving a double-decker bus and a motorway, is another highlight.

The Tournament sets out to provide action thrills, and those it delivers better than some more well-known examples of the genre. If it isn’t all that intelligent or original then that barely matters — it could be dumber and more derivative; again, there are worse instances among better-known movies. My score errs on the generous, then, but some overlooked films need the encouragement.

Darkman (1990)

Posted on October 7, 2014 by badblokebob

Before he made the insanely successful Spider-Man trilogy, horror auteur Sam Raimi helmed this cinema-original superhero-esque fable, about a scientist caught in the crossfire between a corrupt developer and the mob who sets out for revenge.

Although ostensibly a comic-book-y action/vigilante flick, Raimi brings his horror chops (note the certificate), as well as a left-field filmmaking style that gives the film a unique edge. Add Liam Neeson as an action hero decades before Taken, throw in that je ne sais quoi of ’80s/’90s-filmmaking-ness (it’s the lighting, the effects… I don’t know), and you have an atypical, enjoyable, overlooked genre minor-classic.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long. You’ve just read one.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Posted on October 4, 2014 by badblokebob

The big winner at the 2002 Oscars (four gongs from eight nominations), A Beautiful Mind adapts the true story of John Nash (Russell Crowe), a Cold War-era mathematics student at Princeton who hit upon a groundbreaking theory and ended up working covertly for the government…

Reviewing A Beautiful Mind is initially a choice between spoiling or not. There’s a Big Twist that they skilfully kept out of the advertising, and which many people have done a fair job of keeping quiet for the past 13 years; but, unlike most Big Twists, this one isn’t at the end of the film — in fact, it’s pretty early on, and the bulk of the movie is spent dealing with its fall-out. As with any movie that’s based on a true story, there has to be something that makes the tale remarkable and worth adapting into fiction. Here, it’s actually the post-twist portion that’s the draw; so it was a clever feat of marketing to have found another “this is why it was made” element to sell to the public. That’s not an instance of the much- (and justly-) criticised bait-and-switch style of marketing, but instead an effective rug-pull. So I’ll try to maintain that.

Both sides of the reveal lean on the central performance, and Russell Crowe is up to the task. His initially twitchy, uncomfortable representation gives way to a fragile, broken, confused shell of a man, and both sides of the character are convincingly depicted. They’re also both a world away from the grandstanding military leaders of Gladiator, Master and Commander, Robin Hood, Les Misérables, et al, Crowe’s best-known and most-frequented screen persona. He didn’t win Best Actor — losing to an equally atypical turn from Denzel Washington in Training Day — but the display of range probably merited it; perhaps more so, in retrospect, than his win for Gladiator the year before.

As Nash’s wife, Jennifer Connelly did take home the Supporting Actress trophy. It’s a less (for want of a better word) showy role, but like so many secondary leads in films with large central performances, her well-judged support props up the more obvious Acting of the lead.

Ron Howard is a safe pair of hands in the director’s chair. Early on the visuals occasionally display the easy familiarity of Heritage cinema, and if the rest doesn’t exactly transcend that then it at least stops being too distracting. The same isn’t always true of James Horner’s plinky-plonky music, which chooses to do things like score a car chase as if it’s a romantic scene. Different, at least, but feels more like a “look how changing only the music affects the mood” demonstration rather than a solid artistic choice. In fairness, in many other places the score is perfectly effective or, at worst, unobtrusive; but those action beats… It doesn’t need to be Hans Zimmer, especially as this really isn’t an action movie; but it distracted me, and that means it didn’t work.

A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture in spite of being up against the incredibly more innovative, entertaining, and game-changing double-bill of Moulin Rouge and The Fellowship of the Ring, which certainly says more about the predilections of the American Academy than the quality of films released in 2001 (innovation, entertainment and game-changing-ness aren’t among their favourite attributes). Still, it’s an interesting tale, well told, and excellently performed.

* Another one. ^

September 2014

Posted on October 1, 2014 by badblokebob

“Did you sept emb ‘er?”
“No, I oct obe ‘er!”

(Don’t worry, it doesn’t make any sense. Let’s move on…)

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

This month’s WDYMYHS film was the massively appropriate Braveheart. I also watched a film actually about a public vote on the future of their country, No. About a nation seeking to get rid of a nefarious ruler who had reigned over them with malicious intent for far too long, the Scottish referendum is what connects these two movies. (Ho-ho!)

On the topic of WDYMYHS, I also finally posted a review for one of last year’s movies, Touch of Evil. I’ve still got Seven Samurai and The Night of the Hunter to go, as well as one other review, and then I’ll finally be done with 2013. (I’ve been exceptionally tardy with that, haven’t I?)

But back to 2014:

September’s films in full

#81 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
#82 Crimes of Passion: Death of a Loved One (2013), aka Mördaren ljuger inte ensam
#83 Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)
#84 Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
#85 The Grey (2011)
#86 Dark Shadows (2012)
#87 Braveheart (1995)
#88 Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
#89 The Spirit (2008)
#90 The Wall (2012), aka Die Wand
#91 Frankenweenie (2012)
#92 Always (1989)
#93 American Hustle (2013)
#94 Mad City (1997)
#95 Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
#96 No (2012)
#97 This is Not a Film (2011), aka In film nist

Analysis

At the start of the year, there’s rarely very much to say in these sections; by this point… oh, there are so many ways to look at the data! September is where that really kicks in, because it’s a month in which I’ve twice reached #100, the earliest I’ve ever managed it. That means “how near is #100?” becomes a very viable proposition; plus, I tend to get very watch-y as the big target nears — when it’s only a few films away, why not squeeze in a couple more than normal and get there sooner?

On that last point, it’s perhaps interesting to start with previous Septembers. Last year was my best-ever tally for the ninth month, by some 23% as well… and yet I didn’t reach #100 until two months later. In part that was just the aforementioned pushing on to get closer to the end — the same thing happened in October, and after I actually reached #100 (in early November) I only watched a couple more films. This September, meanwhile, is 31% higher than last year’s — or, to put it another way, 55% better than the best-before-2013 was. And yet I still haven’t reached #100…

What viewing 17 films this month does mean, however, is that it’s my joint-second highest month ever — hurrah! That’s tied with March 2013; it would’ve needed only one more to be outright-second (oh well), two more to be joint-first (looking right back to December 2008 for that), and (obviously now) three more — i.e. have reached #100 — to set a new record.

What does having reached #97 mean for the rest of the year? Well, it’s the furthest I’ve ever gotten by September without reaching 100. Next nearest was last year, when I was at #84. From there, I went on to #110, which is another 26 films — if I do the same this year, I’d reach #123, which would become my second-highest total ever (behind 2007’s 129 and just ahead of 2010’s 122). Widening the parameters to include all previous years, my average total for the year’s final three months is 27 — making last year the most average of the lot, in fact.

That might be the most accurate predictor of where I’ll end up (though still prone to wild variation: I may’ve watched 26 more last year, but the year before that it was only 16, and in 2009 it was up at 40), but let’s use the rest of the 2014 to make some wild assertions anyway. So, my year-to-date average suggests I’ll reach #129, which (as mentioned) would put 2014 equal-best with 2007; pushing a tiny bit harder would leave me with a record-setting 130 films. The most recent months bode well for that: if I maintain my average viewing from the last three months, I’ll reach #139; if I keep up the average of the last two months, however, I’d make it all the way to #145; and if I kept pace with September, I’d make it all the way to #148!

Will any of that happen? Probably not (never say never!), but it’d be nice to end up in the 120s at least.

Slipping…

A side effect of the higher-than-average viewing is that the extent of my backlog has worsened. You may have noticed the number of new reviews step up a little in the past few weeks to try to stave it off, but in the end I had to relent: having kept the “coming soon” list at no more than 49 films ever since July 2012, it slipped to 50 this month. Ah well. Efforts will continue to stop it growing any longer.

This month’s archive reviews

A bit of a lax start to the month means just 17 archive re-posts this time…

Be Kind Rewind	The Blues Brothers
Bride & Prejudice	Children of Heaven
Clash of the Titans	Field of Dreams
The Game	It Happened Here
Ladies in Lavender	The Lady from Shanghai
Lethal Weapon	Miracles
Murder on the Orient Express	Over the Hedge
Shadow of the Vampire	Star Trek: Insurrection
The Woodsman

Also this month, the two bookend posts from my 2011 David Fincher Week. Most of the reviews featured therein have already been brought over to this blog, but Fight Club and Panic Room will round them out tomorrow and Friday.

David Fincher Week	The end of David Fincher Week

(You may have noticed my Se7en review appeared here before this post, but as that’s technically the archive repost for October 1st it’ll be in next month’s update. I am nothing if not precise about these things that don’t really matter.)

5… what?

This is the second month in a row without a “list of five”, but they have not necessarily gone the way of the dodo — last month I couldn’t think of anything worth doing; this month I’ve run out of time.

I was considering “5 favourite Tim Burton films”, because I finally caught up on both Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie this month. My list would probably have included Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride and Sleepy Hollow (along with a fifth, obviously), and definitely would have left out Planet of the Apes, Mars Attacks and Beetlejuice. (Lest you judge my selections harshly, bear in mind I still haven’t got round to Ed Wood or Big Fish. Or Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.)

What about you, dear reader?

Next month on 100 Films in a Year…

98…
99…
100!

101?

100Films.co.uk

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Category Archives: “100 Films”

Safe (2012)

The final end of FilmJournal…?

Aside

The Conspirator (2010)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Legends of the Knight (2013)

After Earth (2013)

The Tournament (2009)

Darkman (1990)

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

September 2014