Saw VI (2009)

Posted on January 27, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #1
Kevin Greutert | 92 mins | Blu-ray | 18 / R

The Saw franchise dragged itself to a seventh (and final? The advertising said so; no one cares enough to spoil it any more so I’ve no idea if it genuinely was) instalment this past Halloween, but here I am playing catch-up with the sixth — you know, the one that got soundly trounced by Paranormal Activity in cinemas.

It doesn’t start well. The opening sequence is awful, sinking to torture porn levels again (something I feel the Saw series mostly manages to rise above, if only slightly) in one of the worst examples I’ve personally seen. It’s unquestionably gratuitous, the only people who could possibly take an interest in it being those who want to see characters quite literally tortured — in this case, by hacking off bits of their own bodies. Some of the traps in Saw are clever or intriguing, even when they’re gruesome, but this is just the second murder from Se7en reenacted in an overlong fashion with prosthetics and too many gory close-ups. It’s uncomfortable to watch — not because it’s scary, but because it’s scary that anyone might find this kind of sequence enjoyable.

And then, almost suddenly, it gets good. It’s probably the best Saw movie since the first.

OK, it’s far from flawless. It’s still tangled up in the over-complex ongoing story, and peppered with flashbacks, varying from flash frames to large chunks, to try to help you follow it. On the one hand that’s lazy storytelling; on the other, much welcomed — the plot would surely be impossible to navigate without it.

But, as with all later Saw films, this is all a sideshow to the main attraction: the standalone ‘Game of the Film’, the Saw equivalent of ‘Monster of the Week’. Saw VI takes on a political dimension by tackling the thorny issue of American health insurance. It hardly presents a well-considered and in-depth debate, true, but the “evils of the insurance business” angle is a welcome motivation and adds something to both the plot and the denouement. The latter has the best twist a Saw movie has had for a while (following the non-twist of the fifth’s ending, a muddled one in the fourth, and a distinctly mixed effort in the third). It actually caught me unawares, so that’s some successful misdirection they pulled off right there.

Following it, there’s a nicely edited closing montage. Not particularly relevant — in other entries it’s used to expose the twist, here the twist is pretty self explanatory — but it’s oddly, briefly, rewarding for those of us who’ve sat through all the films so far (and, to be frank, if you haven’t sat through the others, you’d be mad to jump on at this point). Plus there’s an intriguing post-credits scene. No idea what it means or signifies, but it’s clearly laying the groundwork for something in the future.

Aside from that foul opener, the traps and games show a level of innovation and forethought the other films have sometimes lacked. In fairness, the game-of-the-film and its traps are often the best bit of any Saw film, and though some of these could be better sold — the moderately infamous shotgun carousel would be improved if we had a vested interest in the six competitors (though that would mean boosting the running time by having to introduce them all, so maybe it is better this way) — they are all amongst the series’ most engaging.

It wouldn’t do to not mention some of the other flaws — it’s far from perfect, of course. The plot is riddled with holes and improbabilities (even aside obvious ones about the construction of the traps and kidnapping of victims), while the acting is hardly top-drawer — there aren’t even guest stars big enough to rival Saw V’s “Luke from Gilmore Girls”, “Darla from Buffy / Dexter’s girlfriend” or “Chloe’s boyfriend from 24” — but then you don’t expect watertight plotting or RSC acting from a Saw film.

Note: this is an Extended or Extreme or Whatever Edition again. Minor differences only, I believe, which you can find listed here.

Fortunately this franchise entry doesn’t live or die by its relation to the ongoing plot arc or its final twist. But combine that solid surprise with the plot’s ripped-from-the-headlines basis and it earns a third star. At the risk of damning with faint praise, this is largely the best Saw since the first.

Surrogates (2009)

Posted on January 21, 2011 by badblokebob

2010 #118
Jonathan Mostow | 89 mins | Blu-ray | 12 / PG-13

The near future: most of mankind now lives through ‘surrogates’ — robots that look like perfect versions of ourselves (generally), which we control from elaborate machines sat around in our homes. The anonymity of the online world brought into the real one, essentially.

It is, on the one hand, an intriguing premise. On the other, it’s thoroughly daft.

Part of the problem is that Surrogates exerts too much effort establishing this world. The opening montage covers 14 years of future history to take us from the world we know to the world of the story, but in the process is so crammed with improbabilities I wouldn’t know where to begin listing them. The premise is dreadfully implausible; this just serves to highlight it. The whole film might fare better if it just asked the audience to suspend their disbelief — to just accept this world, not try to imagine it developing from our own — because as it is, the very unlikelihood of this coming to pass colours a lot of what happens after (at least, it did for me).

What happens after is a murder mystery-cum-action/adventure, and one that fails to satisfy on either front. It’s mainly a thriller, so the action sequences are rather tacked in — “I suppose we could manage one there, and another here, and that’s a little bit action-y” — while almost every plot ‘twist’ is startlingly unsurprising (though it does manage one half decent one).

Someone involved clearly thought they were being Profound and that the story explored issues of “what it means to be human” and all that kind of stuff. The concept does invite such musing, but it’s not well executed here. Mostow is more at home in the handful of action sequences, even if they are quite cheaply realised as well as being tacked on, and struggles to bring anything to the screenplay’s heavy-handed cod-philosophising that dictates events in too many of the subplots.

Plus, at only just over 80 minutes (before credits), it feels much longer. That’s never a good thing.

It’s a shame it’s been so mucked up, because there might be a good idea or two squirrelled away inside Surrogates. Conversely, that might be the problem: it’s a neat concept, but difficult to develop into a movie. Certainly it would need more skilled hands than these; hands that could avoid the pitfalls of a plot so predictable it becomes hard to list other movies that have the same story — you just know it.

If you want to muse on what makes us human in a world of near-identical robotic replicas, watch Blade Runner. If you want a plot about a future world where we coexist with robots peacefully until Something That Can’t Happen Does Happen, watch (the slightly underrated) I, Robot. If you want to get a little frustrated and lament missed opportunities, with a few flashes of inspiration, then rent Surrogates.

And that completes the reviews for 2010!

How Long is a Minute? (2001)

Posted on January 21, 2011 by badblokebob

2010 #103a
Simon Pummell | 1 min | DVD | U

60 seconds, naturally, which is also the length of this film. No surprises there.

At the length of a TV advert, there are two things that are hard with a 60-second short film: one is making them say or do much in such a brief period of time; the other is reviewing the result. Pummell’s point, more or less, is about how the same length of time can feel like a different length of time at either end of life. The film says it much more eloquently than that sentence.

There’s also a final shot that underscores the concept with the idea of youth having an effect on old age. In the sense of a baby and its effect on its grandmother, that is, not some kind of Benjamin Button-esque fantasy.

Though still as slight as a well-conceived advert, Pummell’s film succeeds by not over-reaching itself. He has a single philosophical thought, conveyed succinctly with a mixture of image and sound. That’s worth 60 seconds, surely.

How Long is a Minute? can be found on the BFI DVD release of Pummell’s feature, Bodysong, or as one of many one-minute films at stopforaminute.com.

A Good Woman (2004)

Posted on January 19, 2011 by badblokebob

2010 #121
Mike Barker | 89 mins | TV | PG / PG

A Good Woman adapts Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play Lady Windermere’s Fan, switching the setting to the Amalfi Coast in 1930. If one didn’t know better, one would believe that’s when and where it was always set.

And if one does know better, apparently one should hate it. Most reviews, which are largely negative, focus on it being a poor conversion of the play. I’ve never seen nor read the original and thought it slotted seamlessly into its new ’30s setting (even though I am of course aware that Wilde was not writing (or doing much else) by the 1930s).

It remains a very funny piece — well, I presume “remains” rather than “becomes”, because it seems this is purely thanks to Wilde’s outstanding wit rather than any particular skill in adaptation or acting. While I have nothing against either, it’s the witticisms — or one-liners, if you prefer — that give the film most of its quality.

Another point reviewers like to pounce on is the US cast members. Scarlett Johansson is neither here nor there, as per usual, but I thought Helen Hunt was quite good. It’s undoubtable that they’re overshadowed by British thesps like Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Campbell Moore however, but that’s just par for the course.

So it seems one’s perception of the film lies in what it is compared to. Compared to Wilde’s original, it may indeed be a pale imitation, relocated to an inappropriate country and period, with lacklustre performances and incongruous Wilde-penned lines crowbarred in. Taken without the context of the work it’s adapted from, however, I thought it was a flawed but, more importantly, highly amusing film.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Posted on January 3, 2011 by badblokebob

2010 #100
Kathryn Bigelow | 131 mins | Blu-ray | 15 / R

With 2011 underway we’re immediately heading deep into Awards Season, the time of year when everyone in the film world goes a bit mental and all the movies likely to win anything reach UK cinemas. The American Academy may nominate from throughout the year more readily now the Oscars have ten Best Picture slots, but it’s still not going to be a summer movie, is it. Not before The Dark Knight Rises anyway.

Unless it’s Inception.

(I’m not predicting The Dark Knight Rises is definitely going to win Best Picture, by-the-by, just that the fuss over The Dark Knight’s lack of a nod was half (or all?) the reason they doubled the nominees. Look, we’re getting distracted.)

What better time, then, to (finally) post a review of the last Best Picture winner — and 2010’s #100 to boot…

If you’ve ever seen the miniseries Generation Kill — the makers of The Wire do the invasion of Iraq, based on a book by one of the embedded journalists — then it might mean something if I say The Hurt Locker plays like Generation Kill: The Movie. Or perhaps another episode of that fine series, because it’s relatively low-key and everyday… as much as one can be about a bomb disposal unit in a warzone, that is.

I don’t mean this comparison as a bad thing — Generation Kill was an excellent series, and The Hurt Locker matches up to it. I also don’t mean to make a comparison in terms of content — the series follows troops at the front of the initial invasion (Band of Brothers: Iraq, if you can stand another HBO-based comparison), while the film is specifically about explosives experts during the occupation. The similarities are more stylistic — hot, dry locations and washed-out, hand-held cinematography (hardly innovative of either series or film, to be honest) — and thematic — the bonds between men in this particular war. I say “men”, I mean “soldiers”, but they are all men (in both series and film). The “gender in depiction of modern military” debate is for another time (and place) though.

Also like Generation Kill, The Hurt Locker is episodic, moving from one bomb-based set-piece to the next. But this is surely a realistic depiction of the environment and this job: these guys are going to go from one unrelated bomb to the next; they’re not going to end up on the tail of some master bombmaker, or single-handedly end the war in Iraq, or anything else one might construct as a coherent throughline for a film. What it has instead are subplots, largely based around the characters and their relationships to each other, which initially seem to crop up as slice-of-life asides before suddenly coming to the fore, usually to pack some kind of emotional punch — and, in at least one case, an equally affecting kick later on, too.

Bigelow & co construct each ‘action’ sequence with care and attention. They’re not action sequences in the truest sense — suggestions from some that she’d be a great director for, say, Bond 23 on the strength of this film are unwarranted (not that she wouldn’t be good, but this film’s action does nothing in particular to demonstrate appropriate skills). Instead of the fast-paced bullets-flying adrenaline-pumping sequences you get from An Action Movie, The Hurt Locker offers up more realistic (at least, realistic-feeling) sequences of tension as characters approach bombs, watch increasingly suspicious crowds, try to defuse the situation before the timer runs out… It could be clichéd — we’ve all seen plenty of bomb defusing scenes in movies before now — but, again, there’s a sense of “this is how it is”, rather than “this is how movies portray it for dramatic effect”. Is it how it is? I don’t know. But it certainly still packs dramatic effect.

Films sometimes struggle to create tension in sequences like these, but Bigelow achieves it by killing off any star that turns up. “OK,” you might say, “if they’re famous they die, if I don’t recognise them they’ll be fine.” Well, it’s not that simple. I was exactly that cynical going in, but still found myself agonising over who would or wouldn’t make it through, especially as we’re offered frequent reminders of how many days are left of their rotation — and, as we know from horrendous news stories, having “just one day left” is no guarantee you’re going home safely.

Repetition is avoided by mixing up the specifics of a sequence. Yes, many are variations on a theme, but so are most action movie shoot-outs or car chases — or rom-com love stories, or slasher horror movies, or any other genre you care to mention. What this film shows us, aside from the tension, is how different characters behave and react: James’ recklessness, for instance, which is contrasted with the more considered approach of Guy Pearce’s ill-fated character. Completely different is the sniper battle, not only because of the complete change of circumstance, but also because it’s drawn-out — Bigelow makes us feel some of the surrounded soldiers’ pain, lying still for hours in the baking sun, running out of fluids, just staring through a sniper scope at a heat-hazy vision of a far-off potential enemy.

The opening quote and closing scenes make explicit the main theme — war is a drug, one James (Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner) is addicted to — but I’m not sure how present this is in the body of the story. Rather, the majority feels like an attempt to convey the experience of living as an explosives expert in a warzone, with James’ ‘addiction’ just a side effect of that. Perhaps, then, it’s making its point more subtly than by battering you round the head with cinematic cries of, “He’s addicted to war! It’s just a drug!”

It doesn’t matter if it has a point to make about addiction or not. The Hurt Locker is still a tense, insightful evocation of what it feels like to be a bomb disposal expert in an active conflict; a dangerous job where each day really could be your last. The action sequences may not be Action Sequences in the way we’ve become accustomed too, and the narrative may be more episodic than a well-unified whole, and it may be readily reminiscent of other war films or series, and there are surely various other little factors people might pick on to criticise… but regardless of these, I thought The Hurt Locker was, from first to last, exceptional.

Nanny McPhee (2005)

Posted on December 23, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #75
Kirk Jones | 94 mins | TV | U / PG

Nanny McPhee is brilliant. But to expand more directly on that sentence would be a conclusion, and so, before that, I present a collection of thoughts on bits I liked. Let’s call it “a review”.

The story is excellent, the kind of tale that imparts moral messages and lessons without you even realising — perfect for kids… and adults. It rattles along throughout, but particularly during the opening, which is surely what you want in a kids’ film: keep their attention! Emma Thompson’s screenplay is a delight. She’s in full control of her material, which allows her to set up rules — such as Nanny McPhee having five lessons to teach — and than almost immediately subvert them — though to tell you how would be to ruin a bit of the fun. Humour is rife, and without even realising it you develop a care for the characters.

Some have criticised the film for having no likeable characters. I can only think they were actually watching something else. Are the children a menace? Certainly — but they clearly have hearts of gold; they’ve been neglected and to an extent rejected; they’re acting up for attention. And they care about each other and always band together — they aren’t squabbling brats, they’re a gang, sticking together to defend themselves from a world that they perceive is out to get them. This is never clearer than when Angela Lansbury’s evil, rich Aunt turns up to take one away, and they do all they can to prevent it. And there are consequences; consequences, in fact, that matter to them, rather than more of the semi-neglectful treatment they’re used to.

And even if you can’t engage with the troublesome children, surely Nanny McPhee coming in to sort them out is therefore a blessing? To say the children are a naughty, nasty rabble but McPhee is an oppressive, overbearing force is just trying to have your cake and eat it — pick a side, or pick both, oh awkward viewer. (And by “viewer” here I mean “one IMDb commenter I read”.)

The cast are exemplary without exception. Thompson, ‘uglying up’ as the titular nanny, conveys all the quiet authority necessary at the start, then softens without ever losing the sense she’s doing what is required; as she states, she never chooses sides. Colin Firth is naturally suited to being a dashing-if-bumbling type, so is also spotless as the father who does care but has forgotten how to show it, with the weight of the realities of the world — otherwise known as Money — pressing down on him. They’re ably supported by an array of British talent: Celia Imrie as a pink, fluffy, and dastardly potential fiancee; Imelda Staunton as a beleaguered ex-army chef; David Jacobi and Patrick Barlow as a Tweedledum and Tweedledee-style pair of comedy funeral attendants; Angela Lansbury as the controlling old Aunt.

Not to mention Kelly MacDonald, the film’s sweetness and light — not like Anne Hathaway’s caricatured (deliberately) White Queen in Tim Burton’s Alice, thank goodness, but more Cinderella-y; the downtrodden but caring servant, who, when given the chance, — well, I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending. You’ll probably guess it anyway. But that’s not the point; indeed, that’s Good Writing, isn’t it — everything must be seeded well in advance, otherwise it’s all a deus ex machina. But this isn’t a time to rant about storytelling mores.

Even the rabble of children are pitch-perfect. With a cast this young that’s as much the skill of Thompson’s writing and Kirk Jones’ directing as any genuine acting talent, but that doesn’t make it any less of an achievement. As the eldest and therefore leader, Thomas Sangster is superb as ever. He gets the most to do, evolving from the awkwardest of the awkward to reveal intelligence and caring. The scene where he visits his father at work to ask him not to marry is almost heartbreaking, the boy’s well-meaning confused for his previous obstructiveness; and what he does next just shows how much he’s evolved. If there’s one flaw among the children it’s that Eliza Bennett (seen to good effect in Inkheart, shot just a year later) isn’t given much to do as the eldest girl; that’s an inevitable side effect when you’ve got a mass of kids fighting for time alongside several significant adult parts.

Around the large cast, there’s plenty more to see. The primary-coloured sets and costumes work marvellously, a delightful mash between reality (the actual buildings, sets, costumes, etc, all look real and period-accurate) and fantasy (the bright colours!) It could’ve been garish; instead, it’s vibrant. The effects are properly magical. They don’t overwhelm, always serving the story rather than themselves, which is probably what makes them all the more effective. The climax is another highlight — though what occurs at the wedding (oh, it’s obvious there’ll be one) I shan’t spoil by describing.

I confess, Nanny McPhee took me by surprise. It always sounded a bit too much like Mary Poppins; it might be passably nice but little more, I thought. But no. It’s its own film, with its own magical nanny. It’s a children’s film, but with plenty for adults to engage with — assuming it doesn’t simply unleash your inner child, which it may well do. It’s exciting, funny, touching, magical and charming, quite often all at once. It’s brilliant.

Nanny McPhee placed 5th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Tales of the Black Freighter (2009)

Posted on December 21, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #100a
Daniel DelPurgatorio & Mike Smith | 25 mins | DVD | 15 / R

In the world of Watchmen, superheroes are real, and so comics have turned to other avenues; mainly, pirates. Threaded through the novel is a boy reading one of these pirate comics, which we also get to see excerpts from, because it (rather obliquely) mirrors the arc of one of the tale’s major characters. As a comic-within-a-comic — indeed, a comic commenting on a comic — it works well as a conceit. But when it comes to adapting the novel to the big screen, how do you convert that?

In this case, as an animation… which was then removed from the feature. It’s back in the home-video-released Ultimate Cut though, which I’ll cover at a later date. First, what of Tales of the Black Freighter as a standalone animation, which is how it was released in the run up to Watchmen’s theatrical run last year.

Appropriately, the short emulates an ’80s Saturday morning cartoon style… albeit in cinematic widescreen, evocative 5.1 Surround Sound, and with horrific R-rated gore. Yes, this probably wouldn’t actually have been shown on Saturday morning TV, even in America. Nonetheless, considering Watchmen’s ’80s setting, it’s a solid choice for this adaptation, which could well have gone down a more modern-styled route.

The story itself is a bit slight. It barely runs 20 minutes once you take off credits at either end, and even at this length feels a little drawn out. It’s a morality play, one that it would take mere minutes to cover the key points of, including a twist ending that seemed surprising in the original. Knowing what was coming, I can’t say if it’s as surprising on screen as it felt on the page; the cartoon is at the disadvantage of presenting the story in one 20-minute chunk, whereas in the graphic novel it’s scattered in small chunks throughout, delaying the reveal and making it harder to piece together the clues.

Overall, however, I did find the story easier to follow in this form. Perhaps Zack Snyder and Alex Tse’s screenplay strips away some of Alan Moore’s typically pretentious narration, or perhaps it was just the benefit of consuming it in one sitting rather than in morsels woven through an already-complex narrative, but keeping track of what’s happening is easier here. Does it lose something when taken out of that context though? Probably, but then I never felt it added much to the graphic novel in the first place. It’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the film when I finally get round to watching The Ultimate Cut — I already have some reservations waiting to be expressed in my review.

I did enjoy Tales of the Black Freighter, though I wouldn’t readily recommend it to others without specific reason. One can easily imagine it as an episode of an anthology series about this mysterious vessel; indeed, thinking of it that way makes me long to see more episodes. But it’s still an odd tale, one created primarily to serve a purpose alongside the main story of Watchmen. I think it does stand alone, but in doing so it becomes reliant on the final twist, which takes a time coming. I’m not sure how many would be interested in the story if they weren’t fans of the novel or film.

It’s got an excellent song over the end credits, mind. Definitely the highlight.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Posted on December 18, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #107
Stuart Baird | 112 mins | TV (HD) | 12 / PG-13

After the widespread disappointment with Insurrection, the ninth big screen outing for Star Trek, fans hoped the tenth, Nemesis, would mark a return to their old adage “even ones good, odd ones bad.” They had reasons to be hopeful: a new director, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and (potentially) the final outing for the beloved Next Generation crew. Surely they’d be given a fitting send-off?

Sadly, it wasn’t to be: Nemesis was a critical and commercial flop, the only Trek not to open at #1 in the US, the lowest-grossing of the entire franchise. And quite rightly, because it isn’t very good.

While Insurrection was accused of being dull because it was largely about a dispute over who got to live on a planet, the political side of that kept it engaging. Nemesis’s plot, on the other hand, just doesn’t go anywhere fast. Attempts to liven it up with some action sequences often come off as tacked-on asides, while discussions about just who Picard’s clone is and what he wants feel hollow — of course he’s a nasty piece of work, otherwise your film is completely villain-free!

Picard’s clone is played not by Patrick Stewart, but by a shaved Tom Hardy. Yes, that Tom Hardy. We should be glad Nemesis didn’t kill off his career, which at the time consisted of small roles in Band of Brothers and Black Hawk Down but has gone on to acclaimed leads (or other significant parts) in TV such as Stuart: A Life Backwards, Oliver Twist and Wuthering Heights, and on the big screen in Bronson, Inception and (soon) The Dark Knight Rises and Mad Max 4. He’s not got much to work with here, though the knowledge of better things to come means his presence somehow lifts his scenes a notch.

The film ends with the most pointless heroic sacrifice I’ve seen for a while. OK, the well-loved character’s dead, but that identical clone — you know, the one they downloaded all the character’s memories into — is still hanging around. Give me strength.

It’s a shame the Next Generation lot had to go out on such a duff note, their series of movies conforming more to the usual sequel pattern of diminishing returns (their first, First Contact, is highly praised, with the next two increasingly slated) than the original series crew’s good/bad alternation. Still, at least it cleared the way for what Trek probably needed more than anything: a good, clean, rebooting.

The Night Listener (2006)

Posted on December 8, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #108
Patrick Stettner | 78 mins | TV | 15 / R

This review contains spoilers.

Robin Williams surprised everyone when he started appearing in films as a serious actor in the early ’00s. Previously — and, if you’ve seen him on chat show in recent years, still — an outrageous funnyman, Williams turned in excellent straight performances in the likes of Insomnia and, particularly, One Hour Photo. The Night Listener very much follows in this vein, casting Williams as radio host and author Gabriel Noone, who begins a correspondence friendship with a terminally ill abused boy, Pete, and his carer, Donna, either of whom may not be real…

What sounds like an intriguing concept is actually based on a true story — from what I’ve read, it’s pretty close to it, albeit with fictionalised versions of the real people and a more definite idea of What’s Really Going On — and is executed with good performances, a well-paced screenplay and direction that renders the film tense or mystifying when it needs to be. Sadly it seems to go nowhere, the mystery fizzling out and the characters gaining little from the experience. It’s not that it needs to have a big twist or a complicated reveal or any of those thriller-ish things — it doesn’t even need to be conclusive necessarily (and it isn’t) — but I wasn’t sure of its dramatic point. It’s one of those mystery-thrillers that you can watch once and be intrigued by, but once the answers (such as they are) are provided, there seems little reason to return.

Still, Robin Williams is excellent, once again displaying his recently-found gift for serious acting. His character’s homosexuality is nicely handled too. It seems to have overshadowed the rest of the film for some viewers, but I’m confused as to why. Perhaps precisely because it doesn’t come out screaming “look, look, he’s gay! Isn’t that edgy!”, leaving it as just a fact of his character — and one that’s only important because his personal life is part of the story — means some viewers are so shocked by their own realisation of his sexual orientation that it gets in the way for them.

As for the other characters (and here be those spoilers), it’s hard to suss out Donna’s motivations for targeting Gabriel. Her illness is understandable on a small scale — convincing townsfolk, etc — but why go to the trouble of penning a whole biography/novel, getting bloody lucky that it was just accepted outright by a publisher, and at the publisher Gabriel was signed to too (presumably), and then it being put into his hands… Why did she go to all that risk? Was it all accidental? She was certainly lucky it went so well and so far, so maybe she didn’t expect it to? I don’t know. I’m not sure the film does either.

And for all that, this is a case of Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction because, though fictionalised, that sequence of events is entirely based on stuff that really happened to author and co-screenwriter Armistead Maupin. The downside is, this “but it happened!” logic seems to allow the filmmakers to get away with not offering adequate explanation. Then again (not sure how many “other hand”s I’m on now), it’s just like real-life: sometimes things can’t be explained in a rational way. Some people will have a problem with that from their films; sometimes I’m among them, but in this instance I think there are enough explanations and ambiguities. My problem was more that getting to them seemed to provide nothing, particularly as, being twist-free, they only confirmed one of the options that had been supposed an hour earlier.

Perhaps The Night Listener is actually meant to be a character drama — the effect events have on Gabriel being more important than the veracity of Donna’s story — but Stettner takes the mystery element and runs with it, turning in a thriller that’s often not especially thrilling. While many bits do work, and work very well, by the end it doesn’t seem to gel into a cohesive whole. Those after something primarily thought-provoking may find themselves adding an extra star; those interested in a conclusive or pacey thriller may wish to subtract one.

The Special Edition of Beauty and the Beast (1991/2002)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #115a
Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise | 92 mins | Blu-ray | U / G

Do you need me to tell you how great Beauty and the Beast is? I imagine not. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know. If you haven’t, you really should, and then you’ll know.

There’s a reason this managed to become the first animated film ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It’s impossible to fault in any significant way. The design and animation are beautiful (in particular the stained-glass opening), the voice acting spot-on, the score exquisite, the story fast-paced and enthralling, there’s even a variety of moral messages for the kids to learn — though, to be honest, some adults could do with learning them too. It’s hilariously funny, remarkably exciting, surprisingly scary, relentlessly romantic… By forefronting the love story it may not be as obviously boy-friendly as Aladdin or The Lion King, but between Gaston, the wolves, Lumiere, Chip, and the action-packed finale, there’s plenty for less romantically-inclined little’uns to enjoy.

As a musical, it’s equally faultless. Every song is a gold-standard Disney tune — Belle (the opening song), Be Our Guest, Gaston, The Mob Song (as the villagers set off to kill the Beast), and of course Beauty and the Beast itself. There are few musicals of any calibre where I feel able to say there’s not a single dull or mediocre song to be found, but Beauty and the Beast is certainly one of them. Every number bursts with memorable tunes, witty rhymes, genuine emotion — even the Soppy Girly Song is a good one! Perhaps the only exception in this Special Edition’s sole extension, a previously-deleted song called Human Again. It’s not a bad song — not at all — but it’s a notch below the others. (There are a few more changes to the film than just adding the song, listed here.)

You may have heard that a 3D version now exists too, released in some territories earlier this year with a US cinema and Blu-ray 3D release scheduled for 2011. Aside from the usual issues around post-production 3Disation, how well can a 2D-animated film convert to the format? Surely it looks even more like flat layers stacked on top of each other than other fake-3D efforts? I’m curious, though probably not enough to seek it out if it makes it as far as UK cinemas.

Some of “Disney’s Animated Classics” (do they still call them that? I don’t know) stretch the definition to its breaking point — indeed, some of them do break it. But Beauty and the Beast more than lives up to the name. In fact, it could easily drop the “Disney’s”. And the “Animated”. It’s a pure Classics. Erm, Classic.

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Category Archives: 2000s