I know I promised last time I restarted my blog that I would continue it every time I saw a film, and get it back up and running again...but I didn't.
So here's a retrospective view of the films I saw over Christmas and so far this year.
Sherlock Holmes
It's a Guy Ritchie film and it's good. No one has said that since 1998. But yeah. The title character is taken on by a favourite of mine, RDJ, with the handsome sidekick Watson tackled by Jude Law. And our femme fatale is Rachel McAdams.
The film is based on a Sherlock story not written by Conan Doyle, but written by the films producer, and it focuses on Holmes and Watson investigating the death and subsequent resurrection of the evil Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong). A string of deaths lead our loveable detective and his equally brilliant doctor friend on a quest delving into magic, machinery and midgets. Along they way, Holmes is 'reunited' with his ex-lover Irene Adler (the aforementioned McAdams), a 'world-class' criminal whom Holmes finds hard to trust.
Robert Downey Jr is fantastic in this film, so fantastic with his comic timing, and is believably the master detective of Doyle's tales. Jude Law is very easy to swallow, he jumps from Holmes' neurotic carer to his hero very comfortably, easily giving off the air of a life long companionship. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and I will openly embrace the inevitable sequel.
I did have a few qualms with Ritchie's direction. He didn't seem to know what he wanted to do. The slow motion stylised fight scenes that showed off Holmes' clear skill in hand-to-hand combat worked in some instances, but then were ignored in certain stand offs. Also, the spinning and upside-down camera shots were disorienting, and only used three or four times in the two hour presentation. And I hope the crow doesn't become a directors trademark, because it's very annoying.
Daybreakers
Daybreakers is the true definition of a 3-star film. The big-budget directorial debut of the Spierig Brothers, after their largely unseen Undead. Starring Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, with support from Sam Neill and Claudia Karvan, Daybreakers tackles a future in which the 'vampire plague' has over taken humanity and humans are harvested (a la The Matrix) for blood.
The Spierigs had, in their hands, a fantastic concept. The idea that vampires walk the earth and work as regular joes, keeping humans under strict population control, should make for a fantastic story. Sadly, they fell short, pretty far short. The film offers far too much for 98 minutes: Corrupt businessmen, human harvesting, vampire mutation and blood shortage. It rushes along at such a brutal pace that you feel nothing for the characters. There are so many minor characters that they expect you to give a damn about but have less than 10 minutes screen time each. I've said before and I will again, I'd love to see this adapted as a television show. The Spierigs clearly have a firm grasp on what they want from their films, with a lot of violence and some fantastic CGI in Daybreakers, but they also have too many flaws. Some vamps explode into fire, some just burn from the inside out, where some pop and leave their innards all over the room and people in it. Also, there are rather flat performances from all the characters, Sam Neills sinister businessman was like watching Stephen Baldwin the Big Brother house on the big screen, Ethan Hawke was cold and lacked substance, while Willem Dafoe delivers quip after quip in a manner not disimilar to Sean Connery in The Rock.
Avatar
I'm not going to write about Avatar, for I won't stop. I shall sum it up quickly as I have learnt to do so without getting annoyed.
It is the most visually stunning film you will see until someone else does it better, but it's incredibly boring and unoriginal. It genuinelly is EXACTLY the same as Pocahontas, and many of the other ingratiation films such as Dances With Wolves and *cough* Titanic *cough*.
And one last thing....UNOBTAINIUM. SERIOUSLY?! That is such a ridiculous use of language.
The Road
Based on Cormac 'No Country For Old Men' McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale of a Man and his Boy trekking across America whilst constantly evading cannibals.
The film adaptation, directed by John Hillcoat, stars Viggo Mortenson as The Man and Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy. Viggo constantly delivers in every role, and is comfortably one of the greatest actors around today.
The film is a stark and emotional journey, which takes the novel almost as a screenplay, but adds in flashbacks of the years slightly before the unexplained apocaplypse. The cinematography is fantastic, taking advantage of Pennsylvanias bleak landscapes, and post-Katrina New Orleans for its grey pallette.
I'd always recommend reading the book before the film in most cases, with the exception of a few on this list: http://www.cracked.com/article_15694_8-kick-ass-movies-you-didnt-know-were-based-books.html
Up In The Air
I'm going to say now that I love everything Jason Reitman has done, Thank You for Smoking, Juno and now Up In The Air. The latter and most recent is the newest film that probably deserves to sweep up at the Oscars, but, judging by it's Golden Globes perfomance, may not.
It stars former Oscar winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a middle aged 'corporate downsizer'/'insolvency practitioner'/'absolute bastard if you're on the receiving end' who spends the majority of his life in the air, travelling from city to city to fire company employees when the company can't do it themselves. With support from the sublime Vera Farmiga and annoyingly good Anna Kendrick, the former as a fellow air traveller, and the latter as the woman who could cost Ryan his job. After striking up an erratic romance with Vera Farmiga's Alex, and being forced to babysit the young and potentially job threatening Natalie (Kendrick), Ryan begins to question his life up in the air.
This film is absolutely fantastic. I, for one, adored it. Every performance is absolutely phenomenal, from the leads, Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick; to the short and superb support from Jason Bateman, Zach Galifianakis and J.K.Simmons. The story floats along at a perfect pace, with the comedy scattered in places that would falter a lesser rom-com.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium
Addaboy! Excellent writing, keep it up or I'll know nothing about films. I mean it.
From the wiki link: "unobtainium is a humorous concept for any extremely rare, costly, or physically impossible material needed to fulfill a given design for a given application."
The operative word there being 'hilarious'. Avatar was not a comedy. It belongs in a Mel Brooks film. The article itself demonstrates how other shows and films have used 'unobtainium' in theory but altered it's title. It was a cop out on Camerons part. Much like the robotic lifting suits.
My mistake: I meant the operative word was 'humorous'
Was it not just him saying "this is another sci fi movie full of clichés (just like Titanic was another disaster movie full of clichés) sit back, turn off your mind and enjoy the show, if you want a thrilling and compelling story line, go see something else" There was something in there for everyone and it appealed to a mass audience, looking at the box office reports it did what it set out to achieve, recoup some expenses and entertain a bunch of people. Did you really expect a world class story from Avatar?
Apologies for the double post, please remove.
To be honest, I did expect a good story, as it was being worked on for so long. You'd think it that time he'd look over the history of sci-fi and have a go at something that hadn't been done before, or at least tread on a well beaten path but with a bit more intelligence. For example, by synopsis, Moon is just another 'man goes mental from being lonely in space' film but the performances and little nuances made it much more watchable than, say, Sunshine.
I guess my standards were set a little high after it was called a 'gamechanger'. And you look at his history and see what he's achieved in the past with Terminator.
On a lighter note, thank you for taking interest in my blog, Anon
I see where you are coming from with that but I think that it would have been too risky to put in this groundbreaking storyline that might alienate half your audience and only appeal to the select few, especially when you have ploughed millions and millions of dollars into it, word of mouth spreads pretty fast and in the Americas where the majority of the box office money comes from, many of the general public don't have the patience to sit through something if they have to think too much, which is why subtitled/foreign films never do very well over there and get remade. I watched and enjoyed Moon but I don't think that it has mass appeal, it only did something like $5m at the box office. Think of Avatar as a Disney family film and it makes the pill a lot easier to swallow, maybe go back and watch it again with that in mind and it may turn out to be an enjoyable experience for you :)
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