March 2014 + 5 Cancelled TV Series That Continued on the Big Screen

Posted on April 1, 2014 by badblokebob

I watched Gravity on the 1st of March. I didn’t watch another film ’til the 18th. Let’s see how this pans out…

March’s films

#13 Gravity (2013)
#14 World War Z (Extended Action Cut) (2013)
#15 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
#16 Chicken Little (2005)
#16a The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition) (2012/2013)
#17 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
#18 Space Battleship Yamato (2010)
#19 Union Station (1950)
#20 Mad Max (1979)
#21 Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
#22 Veronica Mars (2014)
#23 Legends of the Knight (2013)
#24 The Searchers (1956)

Analysis

Surprise!

March was set to be a bit of a challenge: I accumulated a deficit of four films across January and February, meaning I needed to be viewing at 150% normal necessity to get back on target; and I wasn’t going to sacrifice my annual Game of Thrones catch-up week just to accommodate some paltry movies, no sir.

So I feel a little pleased with myself that I managed to not only watch this month’s allocation of movies (for the first time since last October, in fact), but also that extra 50%. And all of Game of Thrones season three, of course.

Now, you may note that it’s the end of March — a quarter of the way through the year — and I’m not yet at 25 films. How can I be on target? Well, technically — technically — I don’t need to reach #25 until the start of April (thanks to February’s shortness, a day-by-day breakdown puts the quarter-way film on April 1st), so by making #24 at the end of March I am back on target. Technically.

That said, I’m more than 10 films behind where I’ve been for the past few years (2010, 2011 and 2013 all found me at #38 now, coincidentally), so that’s a shame. This year is shaping up to be a funny one though, so goodness knows what April will bring.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

Squeezed in at the end there is The Searchers, this month’s WDYMYHS film, meaning I’m still on track with that too. Maybe it’ll all work out this year? That’ll be the day…

5 Cancelled TV Series That Continued on the Big Screen

Many TV shows have been remade for the big screen, often old favourites revived with all-new casts and a bigger scope. In fact, a surprising number have made the leap to the cinema with the original cast intact — all those infamous “the regular show, but in Spain” sitcom movies from the ’70s, but also successful shows where someone saw moneymaking potential just by doing the same thing but bigger.

Rarer, though, are TV series that were dropped but then, due to the dogged determination of fans and/or creators, found themselves with a large-scale reprieve. The following aren’t just any movies based on TV shows (like I said, there are loads of those), but specifically ones that were continued on the big screen — not rebooted, restarted, recast, or in any other way remade, but continued.

Veronica Mars
The recently-released inspiration for this list. An underrated series from the late ’00s, its creator and stars have tried to get a movie made ever since it was ditched. With traditional options failing, they famously turned to Kickstarter — and fans coughed up almost $6 million. Relatively strong limited-release box office and VOD chart positions suggest their wish for a sequel may be granted. Unlike:

Firefly
The modern marker of true TV success — DVD sales (they also led to a return for series like Family Guy) — saw Joss Whedon’s short-lived, beloved space Western revived for a lap of honour. Sadly it struggled to find a big enough audience there either, dashing hopes of a sequel. But at least we got one movie. One big damn movie. One day, I’ll tell you all about how I think it’s better than Star Wars…

Star Trek
Sci-fi fandoms lend themselves to this kind of list. Now that it’s a massive multimedia franchise, spanning half a dozen long-running TV series and twice as many movies, it’s easy to forget the original Star Trek was cancelled after just three years. The post-Star Wars movie world saw it rescued for the big screen. A bit like what J.J. Abrams is doing now, one might argue.

Police Squad!
The what now, you might ask? Police Squad lasted just six episodes in the early ’80s, but then they spun it off onto the big screen as The Naked Gun (hence that first film’s ludicrous subtitle) — which was obviously a success, because it spawned two sequels and people still go on about it. Apparently “many gags from the show were recycled for all three films,” which I guess is fair enough if no one watched your show.

Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks was a cultural phenomenon, and is widely attributed with revolutionising US network television thanks to its filmic style and long-running storylines. Too long-running, as it turned out, when audiences abandoned it after things got weird (the fact it was masterminded by David Lynch should’ve been a clue) and the driving mystery was kinda-solved. A prequel movie did little to clarify things. (Apparently. I’ve still only seen season one.)

But then there’s…

The X Files

X Files

Was it worth these TV shows being continued, or should they have left well enough alone? What other demised shows deserve the same treatment?

Next month on 100 Films in a Year…

#25.

On the Waterfront (1954)

Posted on March 30, 2014 by badblokebob

2013 #104
Elia Kazan | 103 mins | DVD | 1.33:1 | USA / English | PG

So much more than one famous scene, On the Waterfront is a movie about a magic jacket, which causes anyone who owns it to stand up for what’s morally right even in the face of oppression, but also to suffer badly when they do.

OK, that’s not what it’s about. But you keep your eyes on that jacket and, I tell you, it may as well be.

The story, based on a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles, is actually about corruption in the dock worker union of New Jersey, with Marlon Brando witnessing what happens to those who attempt to blow the whistle, but deciding to do so himself anyway. Rather than a hollow issue-driven morality play, it becomes a tense and engrossing character drama in the hands of director Elia Kazan, screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and a capable cast. The latter includes Karl Malden as an initially quiet priest who resolves to stand up and fight the system too, even if he can’t persuade many workers to do the same; Lee J. Cobb as the self-serving man at the top, bitterly clinging to power ’til the last; Rod Steiger as Brando’s brother, part of the corrupt union architecture, but driven to protect his family at the sharp end of the wedge; and Eva Marie Saint, making her screen debut as the potential love interest, whose brothers was murdered doing the right thing but nonetheless persuades Brando to do the same.

The only potential downside to this comes if you dig behind the scenes. Kazan was one of those who testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities during its 1940s and ’50s witchhunt for Communists in Hollywood, naming eight men who were later blacklisted. If you consider the film to be Kazan’s answer to critics of his actions (as it “widely” is, according to Wikipedia), then presumably Brando is meant to be Kazan, calling out those who are doing ill to good hardworking Americans. But many a great film has been made with poor motive — just because Kazan thinks what Brando’s character does and what he did are the same thing doesn’t mean we have to. Even then, the issue of Kazan’s testimony is not so straightforward: a former Communist himself, he faced the end of his career if he didn’t testify, and the names he gave up were already known to the committee. The controversy dogged him for the rest of his career, though: when he received an honorary Oscar in 1999, several notable audience members refused to applaud.

While subtext is undoubtedly a meaningful thing, and using one situation to comment on another is a tried and true way of presenting an argument or criticism, I’m not a proponent of offhandedly dismissing work(s) just because we don’t agree with the actions or beliefs of the person who made it. On the Waterfront is a powerful film, exemplarily made by skilled craftsmen. Whatever Kazan was trying to atone for with its message about standing up to bullies in defence of what’s right, the sentiment is true. And you don’t need a magic coat to do it either.

On the Waterfront is on TCM UK tomorrow at 10:45am.

It was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 12 for 2013 project, which you can read more about here.

Fast Five (2011)

Posted on March 28, 2014 by badblokebob

aka Fast & Furious Five / Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist

2014 #3
Justin Lin | 125 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

Like a Doctor Who anniversary special, the fifth film in the Fast and the Furious franchise brings together its previous eras in an attempt to reach new heights of… something. Box office, most likely. Which worked. Fortunately, it also paid off as perhaps the most entertaining film in the series to date.

In hiding following the events of the last film, Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster end up sucked into a bit more criminal activity, which goes wrong — in the process drawing the ire of a local crime boss (24 season three’s Joaquim de Almeida) and an FBI super-squad, led by Dwayne Johnson. Cue an audacious heist plan and more action than you can shake a (gear)stick at.

Although it started out as a series about street racing, with some light criminal activity on the side, the fourth film tried to move F&F on a bit — but failed, thanks to being distinctly crap. Five is what that film wanted to be. It’s still not clever, but it is big — a big, somewhat daft, perhaps too long in the middle, but ultimately fun, Action Movie. It contains as much fisticuffs, shoot-outs and foot chasing as it does bits with cars, though naturally the climax is one huge motor-based action sequence.

The plot is essentially “Ocean’s Eleven with cars”, which is a surprisingly good concept. It also facilitates both the “getting the band back together” tone and a drip-feed of adrenaline. The notion of bringing in characters from every previous film serves its (presumed) purpose of making this feel like a bigger movie, a kind of celebration of the series to date. Whether it deserves such a party is beside the point — it ties together an increasingly disparate run of movies, in the process creating a surprisingly likeable team dynamic.

The oddest thing is that, between the “one last hurrah” tying-together and an ending that I won’t reveal but is tidy, the whole thing feels very conclusive — and I say that’s “odd” because it was never intended to be the final one: the foreshortened title was meant to be an indication that there was a ‘second half’ to come (hence why the next film is sort-of called Furious 6), and there is indeed a last-minute cliffhanger (depending on your point of view, it’s either a good twist or a tiresome comic-book-y move).

The Fast & Furious series has no right to have survived as long as it has, nor as successfully — it seemed destined for failure as its recognisable cast slowly abandoned it and the box office faltered. Yet somehow it came back fighting, with both this and last year’s sequel proving huge hits, and a seventh instalment rushed into production so quickly it lost its director. Even though the series’ longevity to this point was largely unmerited, if the makers can continue to produce films as unpretentiously entertaining as Fast Five, it earns its current place in the cinematic landscape.

Fast Five is on Film4 HD tonight at 9pm. Fast & Furious 6 is currently available on Sky Movies and Now TV.

World War Z: Extended Action Cut (2013)

Posted on March 21, 2014 by badblokebob

In the weeks leading up to its theatrical release, it was already known that World War Z was going to be an almighty flop. An unscrupulous movie studio had taken a cult novel and thrown away everything but the title, alienating its existing fanbase. They’d spent a fortune making a movie in a traditionally R-rated genre that, if released at R, could never make its money back, and if released at PG-13 would never attract an audience. Then they reshot the entire third act, pushing the budget through the roof and ensuring the resultant film would get critically mauled. A fanbase snubbed, an impossibly huge budget, a genre/rating disconnect, and unavoidably poor reviews to come — World War Z was going to flop, and it was going to flop hard.

Then it came out, and became the highest-grossing film to star Movie Star™ Brad Pitt, and the highest-grossing original film of Summer 2013, and made nearly triple its budget worldwide, and even got fairly good reviews. Maybe I was reading the wrong sources in the run up to its release, or maybe it really was that rarest of things, perhaps even unique: a movie hype-resurrection that was less zombie and more phoenix.

The film sees Pitt’s retired UN investigator called back to duty when a rapidly-spreading plague, which turns people into zombie-like rabid creatures, breaks out around the globe. With his family in tow, he escapes an over-run Philadelphia and ends up with what’s left of the US population on a small fleet of ships, before jetting off around the world on a hunt for answers and, hopefully, a vaccine. Cue large-scale action sequences as director Marc Forster aims for an apocalyptic sci-fi/action epic rather than the zombie genre’s usual stomping ground of claustrophobic supernatural scares.

That, at least, is something different. The first half-hour races through stuff we’ve seen time and again: zombie attacks, humans turning on humans as they loot supermarkets, etc. Here the zombies are of the 28 Days Later-style speedy variety, all the better for creating blockbuster action sequences, such as a huge chase through crowded streets, or a running fight up the stairways of an apartment building. This is where the PG-13 certificate shows through (even though this cut is technically unrated in the US, the fact both versions received a 15 over here is telling): there’s little focus on violence or gore; which is fine, but won’t satisfy the more blood-hungry genre fans.

It’s after this that things, as noted, turn from claustrophobic to post-apocalyptic. The storyline feels moderately fresh, showing us the global scope of such an outbreak, rather than how a global event impacts a small group of people. I believe this is the closest the film gets to the spirit of the novel (which I’ve not read, so take that comparison with a pinch of salt). However, what’s new to the zombie genre isn’t necessarily new in any other respect, and by the time we get to Jerusalem and the characters are again being chased through crowded streets, it begins to feel a tad repetitive. Some of the sequences work well though, particularly a zombie outbreak on a passenger plane.

The re-shot final act is a breath of fresh air. Apparently the originally-filmed version was yet another epic battle, which has been switched for a more tense creep around a semi-abandoned research facility in… Wales. Yep, a big budget Hollywood action movie climaxes in the middle-of-nowhere in Wales. I quite like that. It’s a Wales populated by a Londoner, a Scotsman and a Spaniard, but still. I say “more tense” because this is far from the most nail-biting zombie film you could see. The finale is a nice change of pace, and does work as a climax in spite of the bombast that precedes it, but these are zombies as teen-friendly action movie menace, not adult scare-inducers, so don’t except to feel much fear or surprise.

As to the extended cut, it adds only about seven minutes… but there are 121 differences. I can’t even be bothered to read that properly, never mind recount it. There seem to be myriad tiny extensions to all the action sequences, many of them literally lasting a fraction of a second — someone watched this really closely! I can only presume this is actually the original cut, which was then trimmed for the sake of the MPAA to create a theatrical version, because who would consciously go back to add so many little bits? Some are even described as “very unnecessary extension”s by that summary. Other moments do expand on character, though in a subtle fashion (looks like the attempted rape of our hero’s wife, and the murder of one of the wannabe rapists, previously got the snip), or do add to the gore — clearly, it’s too much for a PG-13, but certainly within the realms of a 15. I can’t imagine any of it makes a great deal of difference to the overall experience, however.

Generally, World War Z is a competently entertaining blockbuster. It moves pleasingly fast, with characters quickly and lightly sketched rather than lingered on — not to everyone’s taste, and I imagine some will find it emotionally cold in the way so many recent spectacle movies are. There’s perhaps room for more, particularly from Daniella Kertesz’s Israeli soldier, who is nonetheless somehow the film’s most appealing character; but I don’t think it was the filmmakers’ aim to make us feel the characters’ plight, but instead to show the scope of a worldwide disaster. It does that pretty well, even if the occasionally-CGI zombies prove to be an I Am Legend-style plasticky distraction, especially when coupled with impossible swooping camera shots — it’s better and more effective in the sections where there’s a grittier feel to the camerawork and practical zombie make-up.

As it lacks the social subtext or extreme gore that the two branches of zombie fandom most value, I don’t think WWZ will find an enduring place in genre-fans’ hearts. As an epic summer action blockbuster, however, it largely passes muster.

World War Z is on Sky Movies Premiere this week, starting today at 4pm and 8pm. It’s also available on Now TV, where the running time suggests it’s the extended cut.

North by Northwest (1959)

Posted on March 9, 2014 by badblokebob

Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to Psycho if asked to name one, but that’s not to ignore Rear Window, Vertigo, Rebecca, Dial M for Murder, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Rope… And those are just the others on the IMDb Top 250 — what about The Birds, or The 39 Steps, or… so many more. But of them all, North by Northwest is so packed with his trademark plots, characters, and style, that it is perhaps the ultimate Hitchcock movie.

A ‘wrong man’ spy thriller, it starts with Cary Grant’s New York exec, Roger Thornhill, being mistakenly snatched by some hoods. Quizzed by their boss, he can’t answer any of his kidnapper’s questions because he doesn’t have a clue who they think he is. Before long he finds himself on the run from the police, and on the tail of the mysterious criminals, desperate for the truth and to clear his name. Along the way we’re treated to a blend of suspense, humour and action that could be a tonal mess but, under such a sure guiding hand, feels more like all-out entertainment.

The big set pieces (the crop duster; Mount Rushmore) may be well known now, but being aware of them isn’t the same as seeing them play out in full in context, and they remain fabulous. The direction is as glorious as you’d expect, not just in those big action sequences but in any given scene, be it a simple conversation or an auction room face-off. Throughout there’s gorgeous cinematography by Robert Burks, which looks utterly stunning on Blu-ray. There’s great special effects work too — not something you commonly call on in a ’50s thriller, but it helps to create some especially memorable imagery.

Grant is as wonderful as ever, a perfect ‘everyman’ to guide us through the crazy turns of events, but also finding the appropriate level of humorous edge where it exists. Eva Marie Saint is a textbook ‘Hitchcock Blonde’, attractive but duplicitous — women, eh? James Mason makes for an excellent English-accented villain — today it may be a terrible cliché to use Brits as villains in Hollywood movies, but we’re so damn good at it. That said, Martin Landau makes for a deliciously creepy henchman, so there’s no monopoly. There’s also Leo G. Carroll, who to me will always be best known from Science Fiction/Double Feature, but is equally memorable here as the apparent head of US intelligence.

Perfection is a rare — perhaps impossible — thing to achieved in film… and far be it from me to criticise Hitch, but I’m going go. I think it’s revealed far too early that (spoilers!) George Kaplan doesn’t really exist. Wouldn’t it be more effective as an ‘end of act two’ twist, when Thornhill himself finds out? He’s our figure of identification after all. Still, in the grand scheme of things this is a minor complaint: though it may’ve been even more effective if we didn’t find out until much later, the story and excitement still work regardless of the audience having that knowledge.

While Psycho may stand out from Hitchcock’s filmography for the common man, it’s not particularly typical of his oeuvre as a whole. For that, it’s difficult to imagine a film that is a better summation, distillation, and celebration of his work than North by Northwest.

North by Northwest was viewed as part of my What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…? 12 for 2013 project, which you can read more about here.

It also placed 4th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2013, which can be read in full here.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)

Posted on March 5, 2014 by badblokebob

Based on a novel by Morton Freedgood (writing as John Godey), previously adapted into a classic ’70s thriller (and a forgotten ’90s TV movie), The Taking of Pelham 123 (aka 1 2 3, aka One Two Three) concerns the hijacking of the titular New York Subway train (that being the 1:23pm from Pelham) by a mysterious gang of men (led here by John Travolta) who begin negotiating with a regular-joe train controller (played here by Denzel Washington) for money in exchange for the lives of their hostages.

As with most remakes, the need for this film to exist is questionable. Reportedly the original novel tells the story from the perspective of more than 30 characters, “keeping readers off balance because it is unknown which characters the writer might suddenly discard”, but the 1974 film focused in on the relationship between the hostage taker and the de facto lead negotiator. This film emulates that dynamic. While Denzel Washington and John Travolta are both actors who veer between competent and great, and so could theoretically match the performances of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw in the earlier film, unfortunately they just don’t. Compared to the memorable characters created before, here the acting is crushingly adequate.

The writing doesn’t help, with stapled-on backstory additions that promise development and twists but ultimately go nowhere. Even the minor part played by the hostages is lesser here. In my review of the ’70s version I commented that I didn’t think they had enough to do, but that film did have a pleasing element of the hostages being more unlikeable than their captors. None of that here, where the captives are either even more unnoticeable, or heroic off-duty military types. So far so standard.

Otherwise, the film can be characterised as Tony Scott’s extraordinarily expensive take on a relatively straightforward story. Believe it or not, they pumped $100 million into this movie. Watching the disc’s making-of material, it becomes apparent how they managed to spend so much, but it remains strikingly needless. There was a tonne of research into how something like this might go down for real, including hiring former gang members for some of the supporting roles. Such attention to detail doesn’t come over on screen, the film still feeling like a Movie-Land thriller rather than a real-world drama. There was also a lot of Doing It For Real, including much filming in active subway tunnels. A headache to organise, and I’m sure an authentic experience for the cast and crew, but is the result on screen any better than they would’ve got from doing it on a soundstage? The makers clearly think so. I’m not convinced.

If those behind-the-scenes decisions are lost in the final film, then you can’t miss Scott’s whizz-bang direction. It’s the same grab-bag of visual tricks and ticks that dominated the latter stages of his career — jerky cutting, weird saturation, step printing, anything that makes the film look like it’s been massively over-processed. For me this extreme style sometimes worked (Man on Fire, Beat the Devil, even the unloved Domino), but, on balance, he probably went too far with it too often. Applied here to such a meat-and-potatoes tale, it feels like they’re trying to jazz it up because it can’t sustain itself otherwise.

Thing is, it can. Just about. There’s nothing special here; nothing to make modern audiences look back on it fondly in decades to come, as many do to the ’70s version. For fans of the genre, though, this is a solidly adequate experience.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is on Film4 tonight at 9pm.

February 2014 + something to do with the Oscars

Posted on March 1, 2014 by badblokebob

As one-sixth of the year passes, things are not going as planned…

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

Well, some things are — those things being WDYMYHS. Though only just, in the dying minutes of the month — just like the good ol’ days of 2013, then.

February’s choice is a film I’ve been meaning to watch for years, and the desire to get it included in this year’s 12 films was one of the guiding principles behind the selection criteria. It is, simply, Up. Which was also an Oscar winner and Best Picture nominee, making it highly appropriate right now.

Elsewhere, however, things were less rosy…

February’s films in full

#8 Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
#9 The Next Three Days (2010)
#10 Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
#11 The House of Fear (1945)
#12 Up (2009)

Analysis

With only five films watched, this is the worst February since before Up was released. It’s less than half what I managed last year, and that was down slightly on the three years preceding it too. Not only that, but it’s a full three films off the amount I should watch in any given month; add that to the single film shortfall of January and I’m a full four films behind — which, at this stage, amounts to a quarter of my intended viewing. Oh dear.

On the bright side… um…

Yeah. Must try harder.

With this year’s Oscars tomorrow, I thought I’d see how my WDYMYHS films for 2014 fared at that esteemed event. Turns out, only seven of them were even nominated — so this week’s top 5 is a top… well, 6. You’ll see why.

5 7 6 (kinda) WDYMYHS Films With Oscar Nominations

Braveheart
With five wins from ten nominations, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart is the most successful film here both in terms of “number of wins” and “percentage of nominations to wins”. Perhaps that’s apt, with the forthcoming Scottish referendum frequently dominating the news at the moment; perhaps it just says something about the level of film appreciation the Academy work at.

Up
Pixar were once known for releasing a critically-acclaimed non-sequel every year. Up will be five years old soon, but it’s their last non-sequel to score over 80% on Rotten Tomatoes (and the same but with “over 70%” on Metacritic). It also bagged five Oscar nominations, including a Best Picture consideration, taking home gongs for Animated Feature and Original Song.

Amélie
Although it scored a total of five nominations across the board, with particularly notable categories like Original Screenplay and Cinematography among them, this French film didn’t even manage to win the Best Foreign Feature award. That honour instead went to Bosnian war drama No Man’s Land. No, I don’t remember it either.

Rear Window
Hitchcock infamously never won an Oscar. I don’t know how his films fared generally speaking, but Rear Window certainly didn’t nab any. It did get four nominations though, including a Best Director nod for Hitch. He lost to Elia Kazan, whose On the Waterfront dominated that year (though three different pictures bested Rear Window in its other three categories).

12 Angry Men
There were three nominations for this jury room thriller from director Sidney Lumet — a Best Director consideration among them. He lost that to David Lean for The Bridge on the River Kwai, which similarly triumphed over the Angry Men in the contests for both the Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay trophies.

Blue Velvet and Requiem for a Dream
Just one nom apiece for these two. David Lynch secured his second Best Director nomination for the former, but lost to Oliver Stone for Platoon. Meanwhile, Requiem for a Dream appeared in the Best Leading Actress group with a nod for Ellen Burstyn, but she was defeated by Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich.

None of the others even merited a nomination, apparently… though one did even worse…

The Shining

The Blue Lagoon

Xanadu

And remember that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences consider all of those films to be infinitely better than The Big Lebowski, Modern Times, Oldboy, and The Searchers. I’ve only seen two so I couldn’t possibly comment… but you can, here. (Ooh, that was smoothly mentioned, wasn’t it?)

TV plug

It’s the UK network TV premiere of The Lincoln Lawyer on Channel 4 tonight at 10pm. My four-star review is here, and you can also read about the film when it placed eighth on my list of the 10 best films I saw in 2012.

As you can see, it comes recommended.

Next month on 100 Films in a Year…

By the end of March I should be at the quarter-way point, aka 25 films. Only 13 to go, then — a higher number than I’ve managed so far this year, true… but also the same amount (or less) that I managed in three of the last four Marches and three of the last four Februarys.

There is hope for me yet.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Posted on February 25, 2014 by badblokebob

2013 Academy Awards
5 nominations — 1 win

Winner: Best Sound Editing (tied with Skyfall)
Nominated: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing.

I was going to, in the run up to this year’s Oscars, post a series of reviews looking back at last year’s Best Picture nominees. Unfortunately the viewing for that didn’t really come off (February’s been dismal all round, as you’ll find out in a few days in the monthly update) — but I did manage one, and here it is:

The writing and directing team from The Hurt Locker reunite for another perspective on the last decade-and-a-half-(almost)’s ‘War on Terror’. They set out to make a film about the CIA’s decade-long failed search for Osama bin Laden… and then he was found, immediately leading the film to be restructured as the story of the CIA’s decade-long successful search for Osama bin Laden.

The film focuses on Maya (Jessica Chastain), a fresh CIA agent in Pakistan who, in 2003, latches on to a piece of information about a messenger. No one else has much interested in this lead, but she pursues it for the next however-many years, most of the time getting nowhere — until eventually it results in something concrete…

Zero Dark Thirty feels like a dispassionate film, a characteristic that has debatable merits. The goal is clearly to present an objective, fact-driven account of how the CIA eventually found their most-wanted target, but how successfully it does that has been called in to question multiple times: there were those who felt it justified the use of torture, and those who claimed its facts were all wrong. On both these facts, any one viewer’s mileage might vary. I don’t think it defends torture, but nor does it condemn it — just as bad, in some people’s eyes. Do the agents in the film get information from torture? Some — but by no means all, and the quality of what little they did get is queried by other characters. I don’t think the film is pro-torture, but by trying to be objective and not really criticise the torture and torturers either, it doesn’t go in the direction some would wish it did.

As for the veracity of the facts, I have no idea. Nothing seems implausible. And when condensing eight years of a manhunt into around two hours of screen time, of course some details will be lost, or truncated, or slightly modified to support the flow. I think those who allege the film is poppycock are accusing it of more than minor tweaks, but nonetheless, that’s inevitably part of the process. What’s perhaps most interesting is it hasn’t whitewashed the facts to make a film that feels like A Movie — this isn’t a relentless thriller-shaped eight-year chase, but a more methodical, occasionally messy, real-life-like quest for information.

For me, that worked. It takes a little time to get going, to settle down into its rhythm and to let us identify the important characters, but once it does that, it’s suitably gripping. Not in a nail-you-to-your-seat way like, say, a Bourne film, but in an ever-more-engrossing fashion. It can feel a bit like watching a drama-documentary, however, because there’s very little investment in the characters. There are maybe two or three brief scenes in the entire thing where we’re invited to identify with these people, or even consider them as people, with emotions beyond the methodical drive for information. Some people will hate that, but I don’t think Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal really want us to focus on the human toll of this almost-never-ending investigation, they just want us to follow what happened. The focus is on how it was done, not the people who did it.

This carries through to the final half-hour (or so), which is a near-real-time rendition of the Navy SEAL mission to invade bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. The unit assigned to the task turn up and get on with it — like the rest of the characters, they are no more than sketches. I read a review that asserted this is where the film’s focus should have been — on who these men were, what their home lives were like, on their training for the mission, and what effect it had on them after. All of which are valid points for a film, but that’s not what Zero Dark Thirty is trying to be.

When we see the mission executed, it feels like a well-researched and detailed recreation of what happened — who moved where and when, how the building was entered, who got shot, etc — rather than asking us to identify with what these characters are thinking or feeling. Nor does it really seek to elicit too much emotion from the audience — it’s not forcing events into a standard action sequence template, with split-second cutting and a thudding soundtrack; it’s not trying to create tension and excitement, or at least no more than is inherent in the real events. I think Bigelow is borderline documentarian in her aims throughout the film, here as much as anywhere else. Clearly some people find that cold, or at least it leaves them cold, but I think it works. Would it be a better film if it came loaded with a greater exploration of the characters as people, or with a depiction of the events in more regular Thriller terms? I’ll let you know when someone makes that film.

The one other criticism I do agree with is that we don’t see enough of the SEALs’ preparation. They built a full-scale replica of the compound and trained on it — was that not worth putting on screen? I know this is the story of Maya and her investigation, not the SEALs and their assault, but I think a bit of time could have been spent on that fascinating aspect of the raid. On the bright side, there’s a sequence where our characters collect their still-in-development super-top-secret stealth helicopters from Area 51. Yes, really. I guess that must be true, because without the reality-claim of the previous two hours it would come across as Independence Day-level sci-fi!

I imagine debates about the moral stance and veracity of its facts will continue to dog Zero Dark Thirty, as well as the question of whether its too emotionless. For me it nonetheless made for an effectively modern and realistic take on the spy thriller.

In the UK, coverage of the 86th Annual Academy Awards is on Sky Movies Oscars from 11:30pm on Sunday 2nd March 2014.

HBO Binge Madness and the Art of the Spoiler-Free

Posted on February 23, 2014 by badblokebob

I could virtually have written this myself, so close is it to my thoughts. (Apart from the bit about Game of Thrones season 3, because I’ve not watched it yet. If anyone spoils what the Red Wedding entails, I shall reenact it on you. Once I know what it actually is.)

the ghost of 82

If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean- there’s a point near the end of the ninth episode (its always the ninth episode with this show) of this third season when my jaw near dropped to the floor. “What?!” I cried out loud, stunned at what I was seeing; “What!?” And then the end-credits followed in sudden silence, as if sharing the numbness of every viewer who hadn’t seen the events coming.

Just how good is HBO’s Game Of Thrones?

I won’t discuss what it was that happened for fear of spoiling it; no-one , save someone who has read the books, should ever see this series having been spoiled of its secret delights, its twists and turns. Its something special. Readers of the books may say otherwise, but to me, this show is darn near perfect.

I love stuff like this. When something happens that takes…

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Oblivion (2013)

Posted on February 7, 2014 by badblokebob

As Oblivion informs us in a hefty chunk of voiceover exposition at the start, the year is 2077, several decades on from a war with aliens that we won but left the Earth in ruins. Humanity fled to a colony on Titan, but the last party to depart remain in orbit aboard a giant space station. Waiting to join them are Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough, the last humans on Earth, serving the final few weeks of their mission to watch over the drones that guard giant water-collecting machines, sucking up the oceans for the benefit of the new colony.

Any film that begins with a screed that long just to explain what the heck is happening is setting itself up for a fall, and it’s a shame that Oblivion feels the need to. Indeed, the only reason it ‘needs’ to is for the benefit of the instant-fix blockbuster crowd, at which the film is at least partially aimed. The whole shebang is recounted again by Cruise to Olga Kurylenko when she turns up about a third of the way through — the intelligent viewer would, I think, be prepared to go with it until then. Fortunately, it doesn’t destroy the film: unlike the twist-ruining narration from the opening of Dark City’s theatrical cut, this at least is genuinely the initial setup, on which twists will later be performed.

You could probably have generated a whole film about this world as it appears to Cruise and Riseborough, but it’s obvious from the very start that there’s something more going on. The guessing game is part of the fun, and as with almost any film with twists some viewers will get them bang-on and feel it’s all blatant, and some will be genuinely surprised. Also, as with many a tale desperate to surprise its audience thus, there are holes in the story and its logic (for a good summary of some of the major sticking points, check out ghostof82’s review). Your mileage will vary on whether they undermine the entire enterprise or wash; for me, it hangs together well enough… while you’re watching, at least.

There are a lot more science-fiction films around these days than there used to be, thanks to both the lowering costs of special effects and a generation (or two) of new(er) filmmakers who grew up with Star Wars and all that followed. Most of these films are regular old action-adventure movies just with more expensive trappings, but occasionally you get something that tries to engage with sci-fi ideas or concepts. Credit where it’s due to story-creator/director Joseph Kosinski for attempting that here. Some have accused it of stealing those ideas from previous movies, but I think such criticisms are over-emphasised. There are only so many stories and ideas in the world, after all, and only so many concepts and ways to explore them. Oblivion isn’t so derivative that you can clearly pick out one, or even two, things it’s ripped off.

Don’t worry if you do prefer your sci-fi blockbusterised, though, because Oblivion comes with its fair share of action sequences. Even though it doesn’t rush through events (it has the kind of pace where I thought it was nearing the end just 40 minutes in, which seemed to be a problem until I accepted it was telling a different, longer story than I’d thought), there’s an array of appropriately-timed shoot-outs and spaceship chases to keep the mainstream happy. I like a good action sequence, and some of the ones Kosinski presents have their moments, but I also found I could have done without most of them. To a degree they seemed to have been slotted in so it could look like an Action Movie in the trailers, the aim (as ever) being to pull in the punters, thereby justifying the budget needed to create such a slick SF world.

If that’s the case, it was worth it, because the visuals are one of Oblivion’s strongest points. The design department give us a sleek and glossy style, but one that still feels plausible — like an expensive Grand Designs project, rather than the plastic-and-lens-flare of J.J. Abrams’ Trek movies. The vistas of a ruined Earth complement the industrial design well, with only the odd dud CG shot in a movie overloaded with visual effects. The drones seem to be a mix of practical props and must-be-CGI, which gives them a solidity and therefore threat that at times feels palpable. This is emphasised by Kosinski’s well-composed shot selection, supported by Richard Francis-Bruce’s editing and Claudio Miranda’s cinematography, both of which are wonderfully classical (no shaky handheld camerawork or cut-to-shreds action; at least, not that I recall). The scene where a drone invades Cruise’s home particularly sticks in my mind.

With the aforementioned plot issues, not to mention an ending that some will find too twee (I saw the broad strokes of the epilogue coming from quite a way out, so can’t say I was surprised), Oblivion is not quite all it could have been. But it gets considerably closer than I expected — it’s undoubtedly an A for effort — and that, bolstered by faultless technical aspects, makes for an all-round enjoyable experience.

Oblivion comes to Sky Movies from today, debuting at 4:10pm and 8pm on Sky Movies Premiere. It’s also already available on NOW TV.

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