Paranormal Activity review
Hey, lookie, 10 years after The Blair Witch Project, another “scary,” “gritty,” camcorder-shot, bugger-all-budget “horror” flick. Whoopie! But, “Hey…” I hear you cry, “…does it live up to the insane hype?”
Nope.
The unoriginal, unsophisticated excuse for a plot is a big bag of bollocks. A ghosty demony thing, the hero, gradually intensifies his fucking about with a vapid couple. We start with a bump. Then a door moves. A little bit. More bumps. More creaks. Some footprints. Things get smashed. A bit of physical interference. And then a big ending. It’s fucking boring. For want of a more eloquent phrase.
So it’s not great. It was cheap to make and there’s no escaping that the final product looks and feels cheap but real kudos for putting it together for $15,000 and subsequently grossing over $100m; that’s quite clever. The film’s certainly a curio. And a producer’s wet dream.
30th Nov 2009 | Comment | Official site | On IMDb
A Serious Man review
A Coen Brothers film is always an enticing prospect and usually a very satisfying film-going experience. Following the celeb-fest of the ever-so slightly below par (yet still entertaining) Burn After Reading, A Serious Man does away with the big names and, with a considerably lower budget ($7m vs. $37m of its predecessor), pulls off a better looking (thanks, perhaps, to “The Third Coen”, director of photography Roger Deakins), considerably more entertaining film.
The relatively low budget has given the filmmakers more freedom to explore Hollywood-unfriendly themes and go for all-out dark, dark comedy that doesn’t let up. Following a bleak, black opening scene, we follow Larry Gopnik as his life turns from bad to worse. To even worse. Again and again. And again. Very appealing to an acerbic British sense of humour.
And although it may not be Clooney, Pitt, McDormand and Malkovich, Stuhlberg, Lennick, Kind and Melamed all deliver absolutely superb, convincingly depressive, performances, helped by very well conceptualised, strong, deep characters. Building such enthralling characters really is the key to the Coens’ success and it’s something they’re getting better and better at.
23rd Nov 2009 | Comment | Official site | On IMDb
Cold Souls review
It would be far too coincidental for writer/director Sophie Barthes to have not been heavily influenced by Charlie Kaufman but whereas he (and his accomplished directors) established such depth and intrigue in their films, Cold Souls trundles along with nothing of any real substance taking place.
Paul Giamatti (finely played, as ever, by Paul Giamatti) finds his soul a burden so he has it removed but then feels empty without it so uses someone else’s soul but he can’t really handle it so he wants his own soul back but someone has stolen it so he goes to Russia to retrieve it.
The whole self-reflective pseudo-real world of Being Paul Giamatti along with the Eternal Sunshine of Soul Removal concepts are tantalising but they don’t automatically make a compelling story by themselves and perhaps due to over-reliance on the concepts and lack of focus on building a solid story out of them, the end result is a heartbreakingly humdrum, uneventful film.
19th Nov 2009 | Comment | Official site | On IMDb
An Education review
I hate to be boring, but, like every other review of An Education, there really is just one point of focus, an almighty stand-out aspect; leading lady Carey Mulligan.
Her aside, the film is OK - well made, well written, vaguely interesting, but there I go talking about the things that don’t really matter. Mulligan’s performance is absorbing, charming, utterly convincing and second only to Kate Winslett’s efforts earlier in the year. The Brits are doing well.
The rest of the cast is hit and miss - supports are largely good but I can’t help but think the whole thing would be more powerful with a different leading man. But, gah, there I go again; it’s not really that important. If Mulligan can continue to deliver performances of this calibre then the future is bright, for her, for the films she’s in and, ultimately, for us.
What was the name of the film again? A Mulligan? Directed by Carey Mulligan? And didn’t she also write it? And design the sets? And operate the boom?
Score out of five: Carey Mulligan.
7th Nov 2009 | Comment | Official site | On IMDb
9 review
Let’s get one thing out of the way: The story behind 9 is severely lacking. Conflict isn’t convincingly defined, the relationships between characters, which are intrinsic to the story, are far too shallow to register much empathy and the conclusion is wishy-washy enough to be entirely unsatisfactory.
Unusually, given story is king, all of this barely matters a jot. The reason for that is the film’s concept and the style of animation that fits around it. Shane Acker has realised a gob-smacking broken world almost entirely devoid of colour filled with highly imaginatively stylised characters and wonderfully weird contraptions. Through superb visuals alone, the result is original and compelling, thanks to a great imagination on overdrive.
If ever there was a case of style over substance, this is a masterly example but, boy, it’s a seriously hypnotic style and it is worth seeing for that alone. If only Acker’s powers could be harnessed and combined with super storytelling powers then he would surely have a classic film on his hands. As it is, 9 widely misses that accolade but it thrills nonetheless.
4th Nov 2009 | Comment | Official site | On IMDb
London Film Festival Roundup opinion
I managed to catch 10 movies at the London Film Festival. That’s a grand total of 5% of the films on offer. So don’t take this as the most comprehensive coverage of the festival.
The highlights were Micmacs, which needs at least one more viewing to really let it sink in, and Ajami, a powerful, wonderfully structured film about hardship and small-time crime in an Israeli neighbourhood. The lows, both awkwardly slotted in to the “Experimenta” category, were Castro, an unfortunately (given the premise) dull Argentinian indie, and The Portuguese Nun.
The rest range from the very good (The Last Days of Emma Blank) to the good (Gigante, The Informant and Up In The Air) to the decent (Metropia and Don’t Worry About Me). I only wish there was more time to see more films from the tantalising line-up.
I’m already looking forward to next year’s festival but, for now, it will be interesting to see how the higher profile, usually American, films, fare when they go on general release and even more intriguing to find out which of the more independent, foreign language, films make an impression.
2nd Nov 2009 | Comment
