tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11458935052938967462024-03-18T20:54:00.836-07:00Cinema CosmosA Cosmic Odyssey through CinemaAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-88299647092889209352013-04-02T04:09:00.002-07:002013-04-02T04:09:58.369-07:00Trance<br />
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Danny Boyle's latest is a real showstopper. Following the relative conventionality of his recent output (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours), Trance is a twisting, mind-bending mystery which unravels into a spectacularly dark and memorable finale. And memorable is an apt word, since the film uses memory (or in this case, its absence) as both a driver for the plot and the conceptual slipperiness of it to delve into the unruly dimensions of human nature in the form of the psychological subconscious. The amnesia belongs to James McAvoy's Simon, the inside man on an art gallery heist who is concussed by Vincent Cassel's gangster, Franck, after he diverts from the plan by stealing and hiding the painting in a place he cannot seem to remember. To shake the memory free, Franck forces Simon to see a hypnotherapist, Rosario Dawson's Elizabeth.<br />
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Simon's mind appears to be highly resistant to finding the memory however, and the more he is put under hypnotism by Elizabeth the more other memories shake lose and the intrigues proliferate - in the deep layers of his mind Simon is hiding more than a missing Goya. On top of that, as Simon nears the memories hidden in his brain, the line between reality and hypnotised trance starts to blur and the narrative perception of events fragments. The glossy cinematography contributes to the effect as the trance sequences segue eerily into reality, and retrospective visual markers, signifiers and motifs abound en route to the film's denouement. As a film about the human mind it speaks about the power of the unconscious and hidden psychological drives which take the waking mind hostage, and like Inception it simultaneously manages to make its audience think whilst set to the pace of a tense thriller. Of the three central performances Cassel is strong as lead gangster Franck (although perhaps in a role he can play on autopilot), but McAvoy and Dawson are the stand outs as Simon and Elizabeth, the ostensible protagonists of the film. Simon, a man with a gambling addiction who falls in with the wrong people is a character which McAvoy plays with an understated sense of heavy debt and guilt, which gradually turns to unease as more events transpire in his memory. It's an impressive performance that underlines McAvoy as one of the most talented, versatile current British actors. Rosario Dawson on the other hand arguably gives the performance of her career as Elizabeth, the benevolent hypnotherapist digging into Simon's psyche. At once beautiful, strong willed and benevolent, her ability to manipulate the mind is a foreshadow that there might be more to her than on first impression, and Dawson plays the ambiguity superbly, her demeanour a glassy surface, giving nothing away.<br />
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Trance is one of those films that revels in misdirection and is a brilliantly crafted, dark thriller, probably my favourite Danny Boyle film, and I'll be surprised if there's a film that messes with your mind more than this all year.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-45402865611170544552013-03-04T17:44:00.004-08:002013-03-04T17:44:53.347-08:00Stoker<img src="http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/news/nicole-kidman-is-a-disturbed-mom-in-stoker.jpg" /><br />
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If you're not familiar with Park Chan Wook's filmography, he has a predilection for all things dark, disturbing and at times, downright messed up. Stoker is no exception to the rule, and for his first English language film Park brings with him his wonderfully expressive directorial style to greater mainstream attention, crafting a masterfully atmospheric horror. The titular Stoker family comprise just India (Mia Wasikowska) and Evie (Nicole Kidman) after the death of Richard Stoker, father and husband respectively, until their discovery of Charlie, Richard's brother, who was unknown to them until his mysterious introduction at his brother's funeral. Charismatic and handsome, it is not long before he charms the widow and takes an interest in the moody and resistant India. The resultant tension between the three is unremittingly taut and marvellously underplayed by Matthew Goode, Kidman and Wasikowska. They each play off the other like dark mirrors, reflecting secrets too disturbing to make out. In particular the creepy relationship between India and Charlie which becomes more and more twisted throughout the film is conveyed with mesmeric control by Goode and Wasikowska, both of them conveyors of an unsettling, unblinking gaze as the one figures out the other.<br />
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Park's unique direction perfectly compliments the increasingly perverted series of events which transpire around the Stokers. The transitions between sequences and the inter-conectedness of scenes are masterfully orchestrated, and interwoven with a magnificent use of sound. Out of so many outstanding sequences the scene in which India delves into Charlie's belongings while a metronome ticks on is a masterclass in tension building. Very few directors approach the command or appreciation for each frame that Park seems to have, who infuses the film with a plethora of imagery Freud would have written an essay on. If Park's vampiric Thirst oozed blood, Stoker oozes symbolism and a very sly gamut of sexual suggestibility that remains on the side of disturbing rather than black comedy. It is extremely stylised, but that only works in its favour as the incredible visuals work in tandem with the realisation of how deep the rot in the Stoker family goes.<br />
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Stoker is arguably the most impressive of Park's filmography which includes the brilliant Oldboy; it's a mesmerising display of direction, with three superb, haunting performances of a family poisoned at the root.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-53116000467748058332013-02-03T08:00:00.001-08:002013-02-03T14:26:32.746-08:00Lincoln<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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To portray an historical figure as hallowed and significant as the 16th President of America, Abraham Lincoln, would seem to be the most monumental of all Presidential biopics. To bring to life the greatest symbol of American democracy is a daunting feat, even for a director as accomplished in historical film-making as Steven Spielberg. But when Daniel Day Lewis is your President Lincoln, you can be assured that the President will be monumental even if the film is not. Lincoln is masterful on both counts - a magnificent performance and painstaking, sensitive film-making in perfect compliment to each other.<br />
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Lincoln takes as its crux in Lincoln's life and Presidency the pivotal crisis over the drive to pass the 13th amendment at a critical juncture in the American Civil War. Persevering with the 13th Amendment was seen as both a suicidal political gamble and dangerous to the war effort among Lincoln's fellow Republicans, but through a combination of indefatigable political will and cunning machinations in Congress, Lincoln remarkably secured the votes from the opposing Democrat party to pass the Amendment and demonstrate political bipartisanship - a glaring phenomenon in today's American Congress. The film follows the various stresses on Lincoln's life and the extreme measures necessary to secure one of the most groundbreaking democratic principles in the US Constitution, brilliantly conveying the level of sacrifice Lincoln endured for the future of a nation. Spielberg captures the magnitude of the man magnificently, filming Day Lewis' Lincoln from angles accentuating the symbolic stature of a man who was also physically statuesque, at times observing him in unmoving silhouette, at other times close up on his face to recreate the intimacy of persuasion Lincoln encouraged in his listeners. Scenes are pervaded with an air of history about them through wonderful lighting and shot composition and although not as visually striking as Spielberg's other works it matches perfectly to both the grandeur of Congress and the couched politicking going on behind the scenes.<br />
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There is dryness at times and the film moves at a deliberate, ponderous pace, but whenever Daniel Day Lewis is on screen it's impossible to take your eyes off his absolutely marvelous imagination of the silver tongued, powerfully willed Lincoln. Every word counts when it falls from his mouth, whether he is casually sharing an anecdote with the soldiers fighting for him or thunderously commanding his congressmen to secure the necessary democratic votes, he is at once the father of American politics, the avuncular storyteller and brother to the common man - simply put Day Lewis is indescribably brilliant in the role. He's also backed by an outstanding cast. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastically entertaining as the sparring anti-slavery politician Thaddeus Stevens, his blustery, vehement eloquence an antithesis to the softer but no less inspiring gravitas of Lincoln's rhetoric, and whose reaction to the passing of the 13th amendment is a wonderfully nuanced moment in the film. Forced to restrain his fiery attacks on slavery, Stevens' political compromise was an example of the sacrifice men endured to eradicate the great evil of human subjugation. Sally Fields and Joseph Gordon Levitt are strong respectively as Lincoln's wife and son, and despite carrying the burden of playing the more melodramatic side of the film, act to convey the stress and strain on Lincoln's domestic life as he struggles with his wife's mental struggles and his son's headstrong determination to enlist in the war effort.<br />
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Lincoln is an important film, in addition to being another landmark in Spielberg's considerable oeuvre of cinema. It is a memorial to the will of men who saw injustice and were willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure that all men are born equal, and should inspire people to do the same in the present day. Atop it all is a towering performance by Daniel Day Lewis as both man and symbol, the embodiment of American history. Sure, the success of Lincoln at Oscar will be drawn up to national pride, but when the performance is that good, who is to argue with the man who has played a President?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-18604266148338889592012-12-01T17:12:00.000-08:002012-12-01T17:12:02.942-08:00End of Watch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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William Friedkin heaped praise on this film calling it 'maybe the best cop movie ever made', and I can understand why. As far as cop movies go, End of Watch is a fantastically entertaining 2 hours with a sharp script, extremely visceral action and two outstanding performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as two patrol cops who get embroiled in the violent struggle with a Mexican drug cartel in L.A. It's filmed to give the maximum impression of realism, using POV and documentary style camera angles which double up as a narrative device as Gyllenhaal's Brian Taylor records their daily watch, and also works to show the cockiness and bravado of two cops who initially don't treat their work that seriously. But as the film progresses they both realise the danger of their profession and the possibility of either man dying in the field as they uncover the increasingly disturbing and macabre activities the Mexican gangs are into - after saving three children in a house fire neither man feels a hero, just more mortal than before. What elevates End of Watch above other cop movies is the excellent character development of Taylor and Zavala and an incredibly naturalistic partnership between Gyllenhaal and Pena. Whether they're bantering about Mexican versus White culture (some of the funniest exchanges I've heard at the cinema all year), discussing Taylor's love life, or covering each other in a gunfight, their rapport is engaging and instantly believable. Even if the film appears to wander at points, Gyllenhaal and Pena both turn out powerful performances which would be Oscar worthy in the right kind of film. It does appear to run out of steam towards the end, where I thought it would be slightly less predictable - I thought they would expand on the subplot where Taylor and Zavala are warned by shady government ops not to interfere with the cartel investigations - but nevertheless the film works on the strength of the dynamic between the two men.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-47029641383827342312012-11-06T19:46:00.003-08:002012-11-06T19:47:26.416-08:00Skyfall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As both character and franchise, James Bond's cinematic legacy is one of the most famous and quite potentially infinite, at this point in time. The problem with the series before Casino Royale and Daniel Craig's gritty interpretation of Bond, was the non-sequitur approach to the character, as multiple actors took on the role but with little reference to the films that preceded. In other words, there was a lack of character development from film to film. But with Skyfall, importantly the character, as much as the franchise, is as strong and assured as Bond's first iteration onscreen - it began with the vital reboot of Casino Royale, breathing life into an exhausted icon, and now over the latest three films it's been a demonstration to future Bond directors on how to (re)build a character, and make him compelling again. By really persevering with a strong narrative arc through the current chapter of the series, it ensures the core of what makes the character great will be preserved for a long time yet.<br />
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What Skyfall does so well is to combine the new, more reflective direction the series has taken with the sense of fantastical adventure which mainly characterised the Roger Moore years of Bond. Former Bonds and tropes are riffed on with Bond referencing Moore's famous crocodile stunt in Live and Let Die, and Ben Whishaw's Q douses Bond's mock enthusiasm for exploding pens by offering him a radio instead. There's a great sense of abandon that was lacking in the somber Quantum of Solace, and of the three films Craig clearly seems to be at ease with the more mischievous side of the character.<br />
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Simultaneously, the film shows an intelligent self-reflexivenesss about the existence of Bond in an era of techno-terrorism, delving into the politics and relevance of the secret service when the terrorists are constantly one step ahead - a post modern approach to Bond, if you will. Where the Bond of old would take his mission briefing, share a witty exchange with Moneypenny and fly off to kill Dr Evil, Craig's Bond is a barely stable, ageing rogue, resentful of the executives above and aware of his role as a government trigger. It's in the questioning of the Bond formula that distinguishes Craig's Bond films from previous ones, as Judi Dench's M makes a decision that almost kills Bond and is forced to retire, replaced by Ralph Fiennes' Mallory. For the first time I can remember in any Bond film, M faces a tribunal to explain the loss of government records of secret agents around the world, based familiarly on the mishaps of current goverments losing precious national records. Whereas this might have been a little dry and time consuming, the machinations behind the scenes at MI6 are genuinely compelling, mirroring the sense of archaism in MI6 with Bond, which the film knowingly acknowledges as a character with the sensibilities of times past.<br />
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Producing his finest performance as Bond, Craig gives 007 an unfamiliar dimension of melancholia. For the first time in the series James Bond visits the place of his birth in Scotland, adding a shift of tone to the film which distinguishes Skyfall from its predecessors. Craig plays it with brilliant control, conveying the look of a man who is emotionally exhausted, but with an edge of resentment towards M, and the organisation who took an orphan and created a government agent. As a two hander between Craig and Dench, the final act is highly moving, their reluctant mother-son relationship paid off with a peaceful farewell.<br />
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At the opposite end of the spectrum, Javier Bardem's Silva is a marvellously conceived, darkly funny antagonist, and easily enters the pantheon of great Bond villains. Extremely self-assured, and a sideways, leering smile constantly animating his face, Bardem is a scene stealing presence, his character nonetheless motivated by a seething desire for revenge against M. As it transpires, Silva was a former agent for MI6 abandoned by M in a pragmatic trade off which spared others' lives in sacrifice of his - which in a genial stroke of writing is the exact decision M makes at the start of the film, resulting in the near death of Bond. It's a brilliant idea to make Silva the flip-side of Bond, who is every bit the equal of 007 but oppositely working to subvert the organisation that betrayed him. His entrance is fantastic, as he slowly approaches Bond center screen in a wide long shot into a close up, and gets uncomfortably intimate in a scene of homo-eroticism you would never imagine in a Bond film 30 years ago, toying with the hyper-masculine Bond. It's a tense, but deeply humorous scene and from then on Bardem is superb to watch.<br />
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Behind Skyfall's excellence is Sam Mendes; the difference when the series employs a brilliant director - not to mention the masterful cinematographer Roger Deakins - is strongly apparent. The film is superbly shot, the action crisply and excitingly edited, and as ever with Mendes he knows exactly how to string together and balance action with subtle drama. For the majority of Bond films I cannot honestly name each individual director, but Mendes style is unmistakeable and seems to work perfectly for Skyfall's story - the shot composition in the final showdown at Bond's farmhouse in Scotland is breathtaking. As with American Beauty, Revolutionary Road and Road to Perdition, the subtlety in Mendes' direction is perfect for the emotional conclusion of the film.<br />
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Skyfall is the high point of the Craig years, and continues the revivification of Bond which began with Casino Royale. Exhilarating action with compelling human drama and a sly referencing of the Bond canon, along with superb central performances and a brilliant Bond villain ensure it shoots right up there as one of 007's finest mission outings.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-35763827131632756162012-10-27T16:47:00.000-07:002012-10-27T16:47:09.018-07:00The Mist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With each rewatch the weak special effects are not any less jarring, but this is still a bold, relentlessly bleak horror where the real terrors are located more with the nature of humanity than the creatures brought by the mist enveloping the town. Early on the film's B-movie feel - a blood covered survivor runs in proclaiming 'something out there, in the mist!' like an RKO movie tagline - gives the impression of a monster movie with a siege setting like Hitchcock's The Birds, but this is belied by its pessimistic view of society, as the survivors gradually split into two groups, one of them led by Thomas Jane's David, the other by the frighteningly zealous, Christian doomsayer Mrs Carmody, played by a brilliant Marcia Gay Haden. I don't think a character has ever made me say 'fuck yeah' for someone's death with more conviction than when Toby Jones shoots her in the head, but the really disturbing thing is I can imagine there are some people in this world like her. It's a film which really doesn't pull its punches, not just in regard to its much discussed, depressing ending, but in its depiction of religious mob justice, as one of the soldiers is murdered by Carmody's crowd of converts. Thomas Jane is strong in the lead as the father-with-son who leads the band of sane survivors, and Tony Jones is his ever reliable self as the store clerk who knows how to handle a gun, although the boy who plays the son is a fucking whiny sissy boy who seems to be crying every other scene. Although the effects do let it down at times and the creatures are for the most part forgettable, Darabont nonetheless builds tension expertly at the right moments and keeps the atmosphere of human paranoia strong.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-37630827082943872482012-10-21T09:52:00.001-07:002012-10-21T09:52:38.944-07:0028 Weeks Later<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Its predecessor 28 Days Later reinvigorated the zombie horror subgenre, re-animating (give me one pun) the deceased as rabid, frenzied creatures instead of the lumbering incarnations of George Romero's zombie series. Other films such as REC latched on to this re-imagining of the zombie in modern horror to great effect, with Danny Boyle's 2002 original used as the blueprint for the walking dead. 28 Weeks Later picks up where the infected zone, Great Britain, has finally isolated and contained the contagion and begun to reconstruct after the nationwide mayhem brought on by the virus. London is now a militarised zone, governed by American forces. However, the events of the prologue, in which Robert Carlysle's character leaves his wife for the infected in the farmhouse they were hiding in, come back to haunt him as his wife reappears, found by her children in an abandoned house. She hasn't transformed, but is a carrier, valuable to Rose Bryne's army doctor for potentially developing a vaccine. Don visits her in quarantine but is infected by her, rapidly turning into an infected and killing her brutally. Moments later quarantine is broken and the infection spreads once again, and the military mobilises, implementing code red - killing without discrimination, infected or human.<br />
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As with 28 Days Later the direction and editing is frantic, ably continued by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and there are some impressive uses of sweeping long shots, for example in the prologue as Carlysle's Don escapes from the horde of infected, and a fantastically gory set piece in which masses of infected are wiped out by a helicopter blade. The London setting lends a greater sense of scale to the expansion of the contamination and when Code Red is invoked an extra dimension is added for the band of survivors as they have to avoid both the infected and the military. The survivors this time comprise the ever reliable Jeremy Renner (adding to his roster of military tough guys) as a deserting sniper, Rose Bryne's army medic, and Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton as the brother and sister who have had both parents taken by the Rage virus. So the plot focuses on the survival of the two siblings and Byrne's Scarlet as their protector, but compared to the previous film it is much more straightforward as a result, with character development secondary to the tension of the escape. The subplot of the infected Don chasing his children through London is also an overstretched plot point - does it suggest that he retained some memory of his family despite the transformation? It doesn't make complete sense. Overall however, 28 Weeks Later is an effective thriller and a worthy sequel which leaves its conclusion suitably open for another instalment, with the possibility that the children carry the key to a vaccine; but also an even more apocalyptic - global - contagion to destroy.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-55709413797371888222012-10-20T17:24:00.000-07:002012-10-20T17:24:01.808-07:00Haloween Season Cinema! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With Haloween coming up I'm going to be reviewing any horror film I see in the build up to the traditional day of horror and the supermatural, along with the films I consider to to be classics of the genre. I'm also very excited to see the re-released version of The Shining when it comes out, so expect an appraisal of Kubrick's masterpiece, which I'm sure will still terrify audiences today. So (adopts Vincent Price voice) enter my vault of horror, as we slash through the grue and the gore, ghosts and nightmares to celebrate the fears of man !Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-16219952203502321692012-09-24T17:53:00.001-07:002012-09-26T04:25:06.261-07:00Killing Them Softly<br />
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I thought this was an excellent, superbly crafted thriller with a strong ensemble of performances and a really fascinating attempt to square what is essentially a gangster movie with the economic realities of recession era America. If you think the film is a Brad Pitt vehicle you'd be wrong. He doesn't appear until after roughly 20-25 minutes, and even then it's not all about his character. But this is exactly the point - it's about the everyday travails of the criminal working class and the necessity to carry out hits for money in order to survive. It's an intelligent update of the source material and provides for an interesting social commentary, but also some unexpectedly funny incidents - the opening robbery by two incompetent bit part gangsters demonstrates the lengths to which these criminals are willing to go to make money. In a way it's like an inverted Goodfellas (cf. casting of Ray Liotta) in which the gangsters are scraping for pennies in a recession, not pulling scores in a boom.<br />
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When Brad Pitt is on a screen he's an engaging presence. An absolute professional in the way he treats his murder as work, he's a dispassionate killer trying to navigate through the underworld of blood money and gangster bureaucracy represented by Richard Jenkins go-between. Throughout their meetings there's a current of dark humour behind their conversations as Pitt's Cogan ridicules Jenkins about the gory as well as financial details of carrying out a beating on Liotta's Marky, who is suspected to be behind the robbery, after having set up the robbery of his own business before. That Cogan is more concerned about his potential earnings than the hit itself means we read his actions apart from the moral dimensions of good or bad - he's a pure pragmatist.<br />
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It's an interesting variation on the gangster genre, which when paralleled within the recent historical framework of the economic collapse half a decade ago gives the film a pointed set of politics. The opening and closing scenes of the film are book-ended by George Bush's speech to the nation announcing the collapse of Wall Street and the victory speech of Barack Obama, and throughout televisions blare out the doomed state of the economy. A lot of criticism has been levelled at the film's politics as being awkwardly superimposed but on the other hand I would argue that it works by reason that outside of the references that the series of President's speeches give us there are few identifying features to determine where in America the gangsters are operating. The film does suffer from some tonal inconsistency with an admittedly funny conversation between a stoned Squirrel and Frankie perhaps overly experimental but the target of the film is very clear. Pitt's final speech hammers the point home with a scathing revision of Thomas Jefferson and his final line is an absolute corker, cynically debunking the myth of America not as a united country, but an individualistic business machine where all is reduced to a dollar value.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-77267191090955079432012-08-28T15:12:00.002-07:002012-09-26T04:23:04.221-07:00The Bourne Legacy <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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5 years since Ultimatum seems like a reasonable enough
amount of time to start the studio machine up again and squeeze more life out
of the Bourne franchise but Legacy is unfortunately for the most part an inert
attempt to expand the Bourne universe. Although it has a great cast with Renner
as a believable successor (contemporary?) of Damon's Bourne, a good dynamic
between Renner and Weisz and Ed Norton inherently watchable, the script becomes
confused too early on and fizzles out. Everything seems a bit rote after it was
so excitingly done in the Bourne trilogy, and although the final chase in
Manila is very good, it doesn't quite match the superbly orchestrated sequences
in Ultimatum. The first act suffers badly from a case of crosscutting mania as
the elaborate machinations within the CIA are intercut with Aaron Cross on a
training mission in the mountains - whereas in the trilogy the political
warfare within American secret intelligence is actually compelling to watch
here it is dry and unimaginative, Joan Allen's absence being a particularly
conspicuous one. There are some interesting echoes in there about Cross'
dependency on chems and his body's degeneration in a similar vein to Bourne's
coercion into the Treadstone program, but it isn't as intriguing as Bourne's
amnesiac quest to discover his real identity. So a passable thriller, but an
unnecessary addition to the Bourne series.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-5523730162598601422012-06-11T15:42:00.001-07:002012-06-11T15:56:58.930-07:00Prometheus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/movies/2012/06/120607_MOVIES_PROMETHEUS.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" height="242" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/movies/2012/06/120607_MOVIES_PROMETHEUS.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I had
genuine faith (please don</span>’<span lang="EN-US">t mention the irony) that Ridley Scott's return to the genre that
defined his early career would yield something special, if not a classic, at
least a thought provoking film that could stand on its own as one we might
appreciate in years to come like Alien or Blade Runner. Lofty expectations, but
that's just the problem - Prometheus cannot shake the lustre of what has gone
before with its predecessors, Alien and
Aliens. Either way, measured on its own or with reference to the Alien canon,
it falls down very early on and never manages to recover. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For
starters the very opening of the films destroys the mystique that the original
Alien sustained masterfully. The mysterious Space Jockey encountered in the
original film which posed so many questions and theories is immediately
revealed in the first few frames as a porcelain skinned alien, essentially
humanoid in appearance. With all of the possibilities and the iconic work of
Giger as a template, it is disappointing to find out straight away that beneath
that ornamental, elephantine mask of the Space Jockey, is an anaemic, oversized
human. Furthermore, the Promethean moment where the Space Jockey consumes the
dark liquid and kick starts the evolution of mankind I felt sucked a strong
element of discovery out of the plot. Immediately the who is taken away and
we're left with just the why. The why is fundamentally more interesting because
of the notions of God, human agency etc. but at the same time I didn't want to
know so early on who the creators, or 'engineers', are. What made Alien so
brilliant is that you never know who or what the xenomorph is until much later
in the film. The reveal turns out to quick and unimpressive after all that has
gone before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As
others have already said, Prometheus also suffers from a severe lack of
narrative direction, tonal consistency and intelligent character development. I
understood perfectly that the film was meant to be an interrogation on the
origins of mankind and the nature and existence of God, but this gets lost
amidst a chain of inexplicable plot diversions and incidences that left me
completely incredulous by the final quarter of the film. Noomi Rapace's
Elizabeth Shaw, a believer in God and divine creation is drawn to the answers
posed by meeting the makers of humanity, but the significance and magnitude of
this theme is diluted through being interspersed with action and gory set
pieces, as well as a remarkably unintelligent script. Only in the last twenty
minutes or so does it seem that the scriptwriters remember to make an attempt
at following through on the grand questions of creation and/or teleology, and
ultimately there is no payout. What cheapens it even further is that with
Shaw's departure with David to meet the maker (or the maker's maker) to
understand why mankind was targeted for destruction the idea seems to have been
so sow the seeds for a sequel, whilst in the meantime expecting the audience to
be contented with a distinct lack of closure. There are very occasionally some
great lines, mainly spoken by Michael Fassbender's David about the nature of
humanity and the relation between creator and created, but these are
overwhelmed by the constant shifts in focus and the tendency to revisit the
tropes of the original Alien universe, only this time a lot less subtly. The
shifty company plant/android sub-narrative returns, but we've seen it all
before with Ash and Bishop, and Charlize Theron's Vickers seems to be almost
completely redundant; Ripley, er Shaw gets pregnant with an alien; and the
scriptwriters make the fatal attempt of trying to cross the gritty character
development of Alien with the machismo posturing of the Aliens marines. The result
is lines like 'I'm a geologist! I love rocks!', and a complete apathy to the
gruesome fate accorded to the entire crew, save for the only interesting
characters, Shaw and David. Logan Marshall-Green's Holloway is a thoroughly
dislikeable, arrogant prick who I couldn't take seriously as a scientist, Sean
Harris is not much better as Fifield, and Rafe Spall's Milburn does possibly
the dumbest thing you can do in a Sci-Fi/Horror film when he invites a
pre-formed facehugger to get intimate with him the only way a facehugger knows
how. I was also bugged by how nonchalant most of the crew apart from Shaw seem
to be about their amazing discovery - if I were a scientist having discovered
an alien life form with the same strand of DNA I'd be astounded - but you just
don't get that feeling from the characters.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US">Out of the rest Idris Elba is
watchable as the straight shooting A to B captain, but no one is free from
shoddy writing as his character suddenly becomes privy to the increasingly
forced philosophical meanderings which later motivate Shaw to take the
Engineers' ship to their planet of origin. The writing, by and large, makes
absolutely no sense - after Shaw escapes after being sedated for quarantine,
why does no one seem to pursue her? She undergoes the whole surgical procedure
without anyone breaking in and even when she leaves to discover in a ridiculous
plot twist that Weyland is aboard the Prometheus, none of them seem shocked
about what has happened to Shaw, who is covered in blood. Also, why doesn't she
just flee after realising that she was going to be sedated in cryo by the
company so the alien she was impregnated with would be transported back to
Earth? Moments of intrigue such as when they bring the Engineer out of cryo
stasis are dashed when it turns out the Engineer is just as malevolent as the
xenomorph and would rather kill than communicate about their designs on
humanity. In reiteration, it's that inability to stay in one genre that weighs
the film down - the monster movie horror moments undermine the more cerebral
intentions and as a result the explosions of viscera dominate, to the detriment
of taking the questions of grand design seriously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For all
of this however, the one shining, saving grace is Michael Fassbender as David.
As with the previous androids he garners our distrust in him with memories of
Ash from the first Alien, yet we sympathise with the glimpses of humanity he
displays; his questioning of his makers, his appearance of innocence, and his
imitations of humanity. The dependent relationship he and Shaw have upon one
another by the film's end is genuinely touching, and thinking about it the film
would have benefited from more scenes between Fassbender and Rapace. On his
own, Fassbender is the most compelling presence on screen, communicating
curiosity, duplicity, and suggesting the potential for synthetic consciousness
Scott probed originally in Blade Runner. It really is a marvellous, fascinating
performance from one of the finest actors of his generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Prometheus
is a case of a brave, interesting concept collapsing under the weight of a
botched execution. It strives to provoke and ask compelling questions about
humanity, but this is a lost amidst aimless narrative direction and a confused
script. It has some memorable moments, exemplary visuals, and Fassbender's
performance is particularly worth revisiting, but unfortunately it cannot hold
the elements of intelligent science fiction and horror together to create a
coherent whole.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-15087755887241417652012-03-21T14:40:00.003-07:002012-09-26T04:23:21.885-07:00The Prometheus Trailer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://timeentertainment.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/600_prometheus-prom-007_rgb1.jpg?w=600&h=400&crop=1" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://timeentertainment.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/600_prometheus-prom-007_rgb1.jpg?w=600&h=400&crop=1" width="320" /></a></div>
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For the past few months the teasers and trailers for Ridley Scott's Prometheus have been drip fed to a salivating audience until the release of the official trailer this week, which looks mind blowing. Backed by a clever viral campaign featuring the character Peter Weyland from the Alien universe (played by Guy Pearce) giving a TED talk, the build up has been outstanding for Prometheus and the trailer has only bumped my anticipation up further. The trailer gives us plenty of fevered talking points but without allowing us to connect too much together, and there are tantalising glimpses of how Prometheus ties into Alien. For example the carving of what looks unmistakeably like the xenomorph into a temple wall, the eerily familiar shots of eggs which may or may not contain the forms of facehuggers, and the shot of what we assume to be the Space Jockey, fossilised into the throne which the crew of the Nostromo would go on to encounter in Alien. According to the most recent issue of Empire magazine, it has been tentatively suggested that the closing minutes of the film will thread Prometheus into the events of the 1979 sci-fi horror classic, and if that is so there is still the possibility that Giger's infamous monster will make an appearance. Questions abound until June 8 when the film is released, and I for one am charged with excitement about seeing how Mr Scott unravels the plot and attempts to capture the imagination of audiences the same way he did in 1979.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-73435058552578755112012-03-14T15:27:00.000-07:002012-03-14T15:27:54.238-07:00The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmmTwPc402RgKLLrKi0zVnOasJNLGMnM4r1QC4ovjYDc7JdXqUEYPGPUO7XPHKYtzjyX_jQIAJJEY0LwgOuMYakQJEjGRwrB4u0iZwD5WDvgUeUI1k0lyMzmcNNrHBriLqYAVj0YngBvxr/s1600/scarytv-nightmare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="368" width="493" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmmTwPc402RgKLLrKi0zVnOasJNLGMnM4r1QC4ovjYDc7JdXqUEYPGPUO7XPHKYtzjyX_jQIAJJEY0LwgOuMYakQJEjGRwrB4u0iZwD5WDvgUeUI1k0lyMzmcNNrHBriLqYAVj0YngBvxr/s1600/scarytv-nightmare.jpg" /></a></div><br />
A favourite among many TZ aficionados, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is memorable for starring a young William Shatner, and being one of the most thrilling episodes of all 5 series. Bob is a recently discharged sanitorium patient returning to the original scene of his mental breakdown aboard a plane, which happened over a year ago. His sanity supposedly cured, it is immediately jeopardised when he thinks he has seen something on the wing of the plane, but whenever he accosts someone to look, it mysteriously disappears. Set amidst a storm, the episode is a masterclass in suspense from the Twilight Zone's frequent contributor, Richard Matheson (author of I Am Legend), and the dichotomy between madness and sanity is played brilliantly by Shatner, whose character is so convinced he has seen something, but fears the possibility of being accused of insanity and having a mental breakdown again, thus fulfilling a recurring nightmare.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-17855838840731234082012-02-17T17:18:00.004-08:002012-03-14T14:37:10.192-07:00Maine to host International Mustache Film FestivalAs a prelude to the international Mustache Film Festival in Maine, USA, and a proud wearer of a mustache myself I thought I'd include a portfolio of my favourite movie 'taches in all their glorious forms. The festival will feature short films featuring a main character with a mustache, or a mustache oriented storyline. As Michael Caine in the Cider House Rules might say, 'Good luck you bristly kings of New England!'<br />
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<a href="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/Hunterism/there_will_be_blood_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b370/Hunterism/there_will_be_blood_3.jpg" /></a><br />
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcLgGpcuUQ3BDXHETZ_AfHP_yB3IOG3KHyLX2PD3tdYgpb2WKy0VBeKJGhOsyz_LwFwsUarJE911iKJ4ykqQo2AF8bkCaDDG8-NQSGQqn8KDIjsvcE5DgCI3c0fSX7ipFA6vsEQZTIoA/s1600/UN+PROPHETE+4.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://permanentplastichelmet.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/the_godfather_movie_image_robert_de_niro.jpeg" /> <br />
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoYMsRAtKqPTgBvsn8-awKKVQPXOWtnQow9evDa1unBqfkdQzGQCQx5jiuPz8r9ShtN65rLancWXAYLNm0mnHhkKN93l97WhN_wt3ZEyRPQJ3I78GSJbKCTaH2fi-PhLPXW8gA8F-P-7w/s1600/serpico.jpg" /> <br />
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<img src="http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/original/56252.jpg" /> <br />
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<img src="http://images.wikia.com/batman/images/9/91/Thedarkknight53.jpg" /> <br />
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<img src="http://www.filmequals.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/a-dangerous-method-movie-photo-17-550x365.jpg" /><br />
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<img src="http://www.virginmedia.com/images/top20jerks-hotfuzz-590x350.jpg" /> <br />
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<img src="http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/gallery/1009/Donnie_Brasco_11927_Medium.jpg" /> <br />
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<img src="http://purcine.free.fr/films/d/dodgeball/dodgeball-Ben%20Stiller.jpg" /> <br />
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I am sure I have ommitted many great uppper lip adornments, contributions are welcome!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-22368569207524340292012-01-03T17:54:00.000-08:002012-01-03T17:54:23.457-08:00Waltz with Bashir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/10/24/waltz460.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2008/10/24/waltz460.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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A documentary based on the massacres of Sabra and Shatila during the Lebanese war, Waltz with Bashir is a powerful, unique example of cinema acting as a medium for memory and self-reflection. The documentary follows its director, Ari Folman, in his search to recover the memories which had vanished about his time serving in the Israeli military, during which he had witnessed but could not recall the massacres. He interviews various soldiers who served with him and are the only witnesses who can confirm that he was present at that horrific event, and in narrative sequence, his memory eventually begins to unravel through the probing of his comrades'. It is highly intimate film-making made even more complicated by its situation around a war atrocity and told from an Israeli perspective, but it is nonetheless a fascinating immersion in Folman's personal quest to recover a defining moment of his past. Many of the memories of his interviewees are plagued with recurring dreams and nightmares about their experiences of the war, and articulates the irremovable mark war leaves upon the minds of its participants, and the nature of memory as a shifting filter which cannot fully process events quite as they are happening, or happened. In a wider sense the film engages with the effect of trauma upon the memory and the dis-associative effect between the witness and the event, and this is where the decision to use animation instead of real life footage is striking, apt, and provocative. It acts as a metaphor and a visual filter for Folman's memory, which is a form of representation itself, in the sense that it is an imagination of his history rather than a clear re-enactment of events, precisely because he could not remember them. Memory also becomes a politicised concept around events as inhumane and tragic as the Lebanese massacres, and it has not gone unnoticed that the film skirts around the Israelis' acknowledgement of responsibility over the genocide - the denial of memory in some ways might be interpreted as a defence mechanism, or a circumvention of guilt. Refusing to remember is sometimes an act with a deeply political agenda.<br />
<br />
The animation also suggests a kind of hybrid documentary style, a new way of merging the real with the cinematic - a clash which is emphasised powerfully at the end when the film finally segues into real footage of the aftermath of the massacres. It is a startling change from the jaundiced but beautiful dreamscapes of the animation and it hits like a sledgehammer, leaving the visual residue of murdered bodies firmly in your mind. Rarely has a documentary film challenged its own medium to produce such a startling effect, and it is Folman's innovative decision which makes the film one of the greatest documentary films to have ever been made. While there are political wranglings over Waltz with Bashir, the essential examination of the atrocities of war and the physical and mental destruction produced by it is undeniably powerful.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-90659570612654682932011-12-12T18:26:00.000-08:002011-12-12T18:26:45.273-08:00The Twilight Zone: The Shelter'Those people are our neighbours.'<br />
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This episode is one of the most terrifying ever written for the Twilight Zone - and there isn't a supernatural element in it. Precisely what makes it so disturbing is that the scenario Serling poses seems to be all too possible, and was possible in the Cold War era of the atomic bomb.<br />
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The episode opens with the celebration of the local doctor Bill Stockton, played by Larry Gates; a gathering of nuclear families and the exchange of normality and pleasantries, soon to be broken by a radio broadcast warning of UFOs converging on America. As panic sets in, each of the families leave to retreat to their homes and gather supplies. But the good doctor has something the other families do not - a bomb shelter. The other families plead with the doctor to let them in, but he refuses and events quickly turn nasty as the veneer of normality observed at the opening dinner quickly evaporates.<br />
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This 'exercise' as Serling likes to call it is one of his most powerful studies of human nature. The episode examines what happens when humanity is faced with its extinction, and Serling's answer is a troubling, pessimistic one. The families turn on each other with startling, uncivilised ferocity and the imperative becomes not just to survive, but to destroy others to live. Ugly prejudices rise to the surface; pointedly the suppressed xenophobic discourses of post-War America are directed at one of the characters described as a 'semi-American' by one of the men and his wife, who moments before were so amiable. Eventually two of the men decide to destroy the shelter door and they succeed seconds before another announcement is made, declaring the UFOs as harmless satellites.<br />
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What happens here is another disturbing idea: the families want to return to normal. The husband who barely minutes before had assaulted the 'foreigner', Marty, defends himself by protesting his fear of death, and Marty himself suggests a party despite the racial and physical abuse he has suffered. They all want a celebration - a performance of normality - apart from the doctor, who is appalled by what he has witnessed, and who suggests that normality, really, is the mob that almost tore itself apart to survive. Normality the episode suggests is a construct, a way of papering over the cracks and prejudices, joining in a false unity which evades the knowledge that you might not know your neighbours as well as you think, and that put in the right (or wrong) situation, they would destroy you to preserve their own lives. It is only the doctor who was prepared for the very possibility of a nuclear or bomb attack - and the disruption of normality -, and acknowledges that he might well have seen the neighbours in their true colours. The resonance of the episode is produced precisely as Serling forewarns: it is unsettlingly close to home, to the neighbours you may not fully know.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-55651918076565922932011-11-26T13:33:00.000-08:002011-11-26T13:33:22.955-08:00The Twilight Zone: Eye of the Beholder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNojZcSvyZ7TCiZAvbp9-C-yxk0PgdBKSxeyQSy20C1_Z90V1c2sdaaO1A2akrziispthAwGfbGCwSZ6rgxMgNU_hag4cqktO324rVboZ68hH0YirRNEAEPnd1NvRwRplg576TlFz9ll4F/s1600/THE_TWILIGHT_ZONE_SEASON_2_DISC1-8.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNojZcSvyZ7TCiZAvbp9-C-yxk0PgdBKSxeyQSy20C1_Z90V1c2sdaaO1A2akrziispthAwGfbGCwSZ6rgxMgNU_hag4cqktO324rVboZ68hH0YirRNEAEPnd1NvRwRplg576TlFz9ll4F/s320/THE_TWILIGHT_ZONE_SEASON_2_DISC1-8.bmp" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">I promised a follow up to my Twilight Zone run down a while ago, and after a long procrastination I present one of the all time greats, <i>Eye of the Beholder</i>.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">The episode opens in a hospital with a lady whose face is entirely bandaged, and we learn is undergoing some sort of treatment for what we assume to be a hideous, ostracising deformity. But it becomes apparent we cannot see the faces of the doctor and the nurses either, theirs in silhouette or their bodies turned away. The cinematography and mise-en-scene used to achieve this is some of the finest in any of the series of the Twilight Zone, the lighting perfectly utilised to obscure faces in darkness, and low angles employed deftly to create an ominous sense of concealment. That we do not see a face until the end of the episode is stylistically and thematically intertwined, and without spoiling anything, it has to the greatest reveal in the show's history. The problem with reviewing this episode is precisely that I refuse to give away the ending, but I shall nonetheless expand on the themes it touches.</div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
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As you might have guessed, the episode is built around philosophical principle 101: 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder', an ageless principle which is relevant as ever today, but so resonant in contemporary America when both the fear and discursive necessity of conforming or being 'normal' was prevalent in society. Elsewhere in the episode we see television screens with a Stalin or Hitler-esque dictator ranting to the people about the need to conform within a state, and the bandaged woman's doctor frequently refers to her deformity in reference to the state and the measures taken over people with her condition. There are disturbing echoes of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and ghettoisation, and the episode becomes an indictment of the way in which discrimination is in many cases state sponsored, and marginalisation sanctioned in pursuit of an oppressive conformist state model. It is Serling at his very best; moral, political, but subtle and clever without being heavy handed. It is the combination of these elements that makes the best Twilight Zone episodes, and compels me to watch them years after they are supposed to have dated.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-73970916681919820422011-10-22T18:06:00.000-07:002011-10-24T16:26:23.317-07:00Drive<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://0.tqn.com/d/movies/1/0/5/Y/X/drive-photo-ryan-gosling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://0.tqn.com/d/movies/1/0/5/Y/X/drive-photo-ryan-gosling.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Drive is a wonderfully minimalist title, and one which not only describes, but encapsulates the very existence of Ryan Gosling's vacant, ghostly driver, whose cogito ergo sum as he imperatively puts it is, 'I drive.' The film opens with 'The Driver' assisting a robbery as a getaway driver in most probably the coolest opening to a film in recent memory, and later it is revealed he daylights as a stunt driver and is poised to become a racing driver under the patronage of a local garage owner, Shannon. However, there is mob interest in the form of Albert Brooks' menacing Bernie Rose, and the driver's life soon veers off course into a web of indebted money and murder. Notice the several driving metaphors I'll be using here - as many have interpreted the film, Drive is a modern continuation of the existentialist road movie: life is a drive, albeit without the sentimental chaff about twists and turns. <br />
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But that is exactly what happens to Gosling's driver, and it takes on a much more disturbing path. His straight shooting driver only knows one thing, and has rigidly defined principles: on getaway drives he gives 5 minutes to get in and out, anything longer and they're on their own. He resembles to an extent Robert de Niro's Neil McCauley in Michael Mann's Heat, whose discipline is never to get attached to anything that he can't walk out on 'if you can't see the heat around the corner', and who is a similarly cold character. And the comparison doesn't stop there, as both men inhabit a visually cold environment with coldly murderous characters, as with Albert Brooks' ostensibly calm but murderous mobster. When the driver gets involved in the murky business of debt and blood money, his principles are thrown out the window, his life is ripped apart and he reacts with a psychosis comparable to that of Travis Bickle or Patrick Bateman. It is tantamount to trauma for the driver, and Ryan Gosling plays the switch from passive observer to avenging angel with a superbly disturbing modulation in performance. The explosions of violence that attend to his path of vengeance are genuinely shocking, and despite protestations by some viewers of gratuity, it is entirely part of the driver's character, whose spectrum of morality is so confused and polarised that he can only respond to injustice with the most excessive retribution. The film itself is split into two halves, as the second half is so in contrast with the dreamy lethargy of the first that it should be understood as a deliberate and masterful control of atmosphere by Nicolas Winding Refn. His direction is fresh if indebted partly to other directors such as Michael Mann, and with any justice, he should be duly nominated come awards season.<br />
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The extreme stylisation of the film from its neo-noirish visuals to its synth 80s throwback soundtrack also swathes it in a mood of dreaminess, and as the driver's life descends into disarray the stylisation serves to represent the psychotic fantasy he has entered. In one unnerving, brilliant slow motion sequence the driver visits the diner to revel in the last moments of his next target, Ron Perlman's Jewish gangster, his face concealed by a blank rubber mask he uses for stunt driving. That he uses the mask is also wonderfully ironic, in that the expression Ryan Gosling's driver wears for the majority of the film is immovably blank. The face seems but a mask for the driver, who is surely crumbling inside.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-78466091321184574172011-09-01T18:38:00.000-07:002011-10-24T16:25:42.251-07:00Source Code<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://iwatchiread.com/Images/SC2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://iwatchiread.com/Images/SC2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> <br />
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I saw <span style="font-style:italic;">Source Code</span> a few months ago on its cinema release and my positive impression of it hasn't changed. The sophomore feature of Duncan Jones, director of <span style="font-style:italic;">Moon</span>, Source Code only consolidates an impressive emerging pattern, and now directorial trademark of intelligently produced, original science fiction cinema. It is a very different film but it shares its DNA with Moon in this sense. <br />
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It works successfully on many levels. On its surface level as an action film, it fully exploits its setting on board a Chicago bound train; the minimal space, and the paranoia accompanying modern travel is effectively reproduced and amplifies the film's central premise - what would you do with only 8 minutes left to live ? This 8 minutes as it transpires is the last memory of a passenger killed in a terrorist attack on the train, and is being used by Jeffrey Wright's mad scientist to recreate a scenario for Jake Gyllenhaal's captain Colter, who must re-experience these 8 minutes to work out who the bomber is in alternate reality before they set off a bigger dirty bomb in real time Chicago. This is the function of Source Code: to temporarily recreate the past in order to change the future. It's a genial science fiction concept which resonates on the planes of philosophy and morality while creating a different spin on the sci-fi staple of parallel universe theories. <br />
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Colter is sent back several times through Source Code to catch the bomber, which means we keep returning to the same environment. But it rarely becomes dull despite this, and there are plenty of twists and false starts to vary the deja vu setup. One sequence for example makes a clever riff on the paranoiac assumption that all terrorists are non-white Muslim suicide bombers. But there is also plenty going on between the sequences which give the film emotional clout and a core of human sensitivity to the film which was also present in Moon. Without giving too much away, Wright's Dr. Rutledge and Vera Farmiga's captain Goodwin reveal to Colter that he is an unwilling test subject for Source Code, and each time he returns he is both given and makes ultimatums which will have consequences on his own life. With Colter flitting back and forth between the Source Code and reality, he begins to invest himself more and more in his assumed identity and becomes increasingly attached to Michelle Monaghan's passenger Christina, while realising that he can use the parallel reality to find out about Colter's. It's all finely but superbly balanced, and Gyllenhaal gives a nuanced and multi-faceted performance of a man trapped in a limbo of emotional and even metaphysical sorts. Colter is a man forced to visit the great beyond several times through Source Code as he inhabits Sean Fentress' last moments, and Gyllenhaal perfectly conveys the psychological weariness of having to face death time and time again. <br />
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Akin to a Philip K. Dick story, Source Code is also a highly intelligent science fiction film which engages with the ethical implications of its imaginary technological invention, much like the classic Blade Runner, the excellent Minority Report, and indeed Jones' first film, Moon. It sets Source Code apart from simply being a thriller with a science fiction element, to a sophisticated mind bender which imagines the possible moral questions should something like 'Source Code' ever exist, and is expressed through the growing sympathy of Farmiga's Goodwin for Colter, and her increasing doubts about the morality of the project. <br />
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Satisfyingly, the film endeavours to follow its ideas of quantum physics through to conclusion in its ending, which seems to have split audiences, but I think works perfectly, and plays cunningly with a Hollywood genre cliche in the process. Although it may be the clinching moment for some who see it less favourably (or miss the point altogether), I see it as a brilliantly inventive coda and shows the film hasn't run out of ideas, even as the credits are about to roll.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-29172643306653977742011-08-28T04:22:00.000-07:002011-08-28T04:26:01.979-07:00RocknRolla<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzW0OLeV-LdNALhXiSKsNH6YH-6Go8k7yfkHp2Z3WXWOaY079zEp8ULqIxllJdHhJBPE7A5aHf1ptXpzHVjBiGGy9Q0lHIeDMarmP59H5lUwnOzfYdf9nUMUlZQMoGZ7ITGKq2C6QuWKV6/s1600/rocknrolla.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzW0OLeV-LdNALhXiSKsNH6YH-6Go8k7yfkHp2Z3WXWOaY079zEp8ULqIxllJdHhJBPE7A5aHf1ptXpzHVjBiGGy9Q0lHIeDMarmP59H5lUwnOzfYdf9nUMUlZQMoGZ7ITGKq2C6QuWKV6/s1600/rocknrolla.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>
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<br />I'm so glad my prejudice against Guy Ritchie gets to stay intact, because this is surely one of the worst films I've ever seen. At first I really did want to give this film the time of day, but after 10 minutes I quickly realised this was his usual fare, only amplified and worse, itself carrying some ugly prejudice of its own. It manages to bounce racism and homophobia for (non-existent) laughs through Tom Hardy's coming-out-scene and a copious and nonchalant use of the word 'immigrant' in pretty much every scene with Tom Wilkinson, who pantomimes his way through every scene as a hammy sub Bob Hoskins cockney gangster, and subsequently becomes an unintentional parody of a character type we've seen many tedious times before. I like Tom Wilkinson, but I must admit he gives way at times to chewing scenery - just see his performance in the risible television series 'The Kennedys' for recent reference. But with RocknRolla the dialogue is so excruciatingly contrived there's not much more to work with than self-parody. Ritchie's insistence on dividing the English language into Cockney and not is the funny thing about the film, along with his supposedly original idea of having a painfully unsubtle Roman Abramovich clone move in on his territory as a play on the possibility of Russian gangsters moving in on London gangster territory. And the final seal that we're watching a dreadful comedy is the idea that the Abramovich clone gets into a mob war with Wilkinson's goons over a missing painting, commandeered by Toby Kebbel's titular RocknRolla, Johnny Quid. Frankly, it doesn't get sillier than that. Performances hit the usual one note Ritchie demands, i.e., wisecracking Cockney hostility, although Tom Hardy, Toby Kebbel and Mark Strong do the best they can. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-53732705590041742952011-08-22T18:46:00.000-07:002011-08-23T04:06:36.641-07:00Man in the Bottle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/da/Man_in_the_Bottle_-_Hitler.jpg/250px-Man_in_the_Bottle_-_Hitler.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/da/Man_in_the_Bottle_-_Hitler.jpg/250px-Man_in_the_Bottle_-_Hitler.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>
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<br />To open up my Twilight Zone marathon, a familiar parable about a genie in a lamp. Arthur Castle is a pawnbroker struggling to pay the bills and unable to abandon his charity for a poor elderly lady, who one day brings him a seemingly worthless bottle to pawn. A genie inhabits this bottle, which appears to Arthur to grant him 4 wishes - but warns him of the consequences.
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<br />Although this episode is a fairly predictable narrative and the moral message takes the oft heard form, 'be careful what you wish for', it nonetheless has one very memorable moment when Luther Adler's Arthur wishes to become the leader of a modern country 'who cannot be voted out of office' - only to become Adolf Hitler at the end of the Second World War. It becomes unintentionally funny when Adler, adorned with the fuhrer's moustache, turns round and realises his mistake - 'I'm Hitler, I'm in a bunker !" - but it remains a great illustration of what man might do were he given four wishes by a genie. John Ruskin also gives a good performance as the foreboding genie, quietly awaiting Arthur's catastrophic wishes but granting them all the same. The admonition 'be careful what you wish for' seems to occur frequently in The Twilight Zone, and to invoke psychoanalytic theory, Serling engages with the notion that humans can never achieve or realise their desires without provoking consequences or debts (To be consumed or ridiculed accordingly).
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<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Next: A classic of the Twilight Zone pantheon involving a lot of bandages. A lot.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-30026808100317991712011-08-18T17:11:00.000-07:002011-08-17T18:49:00.011-07:00The Twilight Zone Revisited<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.sodahead.com/slideshows/000001411/the-twilight-zone-20517907901_xlarge.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://images.sodahead.com/slideshows/000001411/the-twilight-zone-20517907901_xlarge.jpeg" border="0" alt="" /></a>
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<br />Over the next few weeks and months I'll be (re)visiting Rod Serling's classic series to coincide with the remastered release of all 5 seasons of The Twilight Zone on DVD half a century since the seminal show first aired. Its legacy is unmistakeable. A theme tune younger generations recognise decades after the programme ended and associate with horror, science fiction, the mysterious and unexplained. The trademark clipped delivery of Rod Serling's opening caveat at the start of every episode. And some of the most memorable moments, and (oft imitated) twists in television history.
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<br />For its time, The Twilight Zone was a groundbreaking series, critically acclaimed, and earned Serling multiple Emmys for his consistently superb writing. But it was much more than a science fiction television programme, weaving contemporary political and social issues, morality and philosophy into the fabric of many of its episodes. As a genre, science fiction is extremely fertile as a vehicle for allegory, and The Twilight Zone exploited the possiblities of the supernatural, super-scientific and hypothetical to invert the way we look at the world. After some episodes we are left even wondering whether the real world is, actually, the Twilight Zone.
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<br />The famous opening describes the Twilight Zone as 'the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge'. It is a ground of moral grey areas, double edged situations and paradoxes which forces us to examine whether people are as moral as they believe they are. In the postwar, ideologically conformist America of the 1950s and 60s, the Twilight Zone was a bold programme which used its science fiction form to subtly challenge contemporary politics and social prejudices. It interrogated the human condition and examined its hypocrisies, ironies and superficialities, and didn't shy away from politics in its critique of the state as a vehicle for totalitarianism.
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<br />I'll be reviewing my favourite episodes as well as those held in high esteem by fans and critics, so stay tuned while I navigate you all on a trip, through the Twilight Zone ...
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-24808065763253747972011-07-29T08:54:00.001-07:002011-10-24T16:27:50.916-07:0030 Days of Night<a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/19/arts/19thirty600.1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" height="160" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/19/arts/19thirty600.1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;" width="320" /></a> <br />
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The mythical lore of das vampyr has been incarnated on celluloid countless times dating back to Shreck's portrayal of the Nosferatu, regarded to be the definitive interpretation of the living dead; through to Bigelow's twist of a vampire western, Near Dark, and Coppola's Dracula, spattered with blood and the obligatory camp, although the majority of these renditions fail to convey a less than romanticised view of the stark brutality of a vampire's carnal existence - the breed of bloodsucker to be found in 30 Days of Night shares little with its predecessor, albeit the immaculate dress sense, and is as far removed from humanity as possible. <br />
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The clan of vampires, led by a passive, but imposing Danny Huston, communicates among its number lingually through screeching utterances in vampire tongue, and it is one such instance of the excellent use of sound to invoke fear, an aspect which is sometimes as visceral as the visual brutality - the sequence in which the town is rapidly decimated is one that lingers indelibly on the mind, and the combination of the three primary colours, in this case sanguineous red, black and white impress on the eyes a bleakness and desolation that accentuates the nightmarish situation. What really gives the film bite, is the extremity of the violence; one sequence involving the vampire's ploy to draw out the survivors culminates in the torment of and eventual murder of the woman being used as bait, that is deeply unsettling to watch, and possibly requisite of another visit to the censors. <br />
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Disturbing and perturbing, 30 Days of Night is one of the most effective horror films of recent times, and gnaws at the jugular for the entirety of its screen time.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-77976698525972195272011-07-29T08:45:00.001-07:002011-08-16T02:20:41.989-07:00Black Swan Cinema Review<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pricescope.com/files/blog/natalie-portman-black-swan.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.pricescope.com/files/blog/natalie-portman-black-swan.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>
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<br />An outstanding film with a tremendous performance from Natalie Portman as Nina, the obsessive ballerina torturing herself in pursuit of the ultimate performance of both the White Swan, and the Black Swan. Aronofsky's unique auteur style transposes amazingly from The Wrestler - where previously he captured the grit and degradation of amateur wrestling the ballet stage is a shadowy mirror world, the Freudian subtext hanging deliciously and maliciously in the air. Certain sequences might appear to tip the subtle fantasy into generic horror but they're constructed with an indeed balletic panache and nightmarish-ness that it's as exciting as it is psychologically sinister. Vincent Cassel is also very good as the demanding director, and Mila Kunis suitably lascivious and alluring as Lily, Nina's nemesis and feared usurper. Portman deserves all the plaudits she gets as this is by far her best ever performance; the dedication she put into the role is brutally visible, her performance a mirror of Nina's gruelling pursuit of perfection.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1145893505293896746.post-27092771312468900322010-12-04T14:06:00.000-08:002011-08-16T02:14:38.721-07:00Monsters<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://taivia.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/monsters_2010_movie_andrew.jpg?w=610&h=300"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 610px; height: 300px;" src="http://taivia.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/monsters_2010_movie_andrew.jpg?w=610&h=300" border="0" alt="" /></a>
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<br />Monsters, along with District 9 and Moon is another recent reminder of how rich a genre the Sci-Fi is. I expect there to be allegorical interpretations aplenty as District 9 provoked, but taken on its own as an imagined, wonderfully constructed world it is an engrossing, unique experience. As others have said, its one word, seemingly self-explanatory title doesn't convey what you would expect, and is a consciously ironic choice. By the end of the film, you'll wonder who the real monsters are' a question which is posed by the world Gareth Edwards has created. There is a definite, possibly polemic resonance in the division of the infected zone between America and Mexico, and the huge defensive wall built around the American border. The gulf between Mexico and America has widened even further in the film it seems, and although I won't go as far as to say it's a allegorical target, there are certain resonances present which are intelligently woven into the film. More and more these days Sci-Fi has shown itself as an incredibly malleable genre, shored from its more stereotypical moorings and willing to ask fundamental questions about the world.
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<br />On an aesthetic level, it is simply one of the most beautiful films one can ever see - the vistas of the infected zone and the creatures when we eventually see them is breathtaking. They are truly aesthetic monsters, the antithesis at the heart of the film. The central performances are correspondingly nuanced and heartbreaking; McNairy and Able share a wonderful, effortless complementarity that A list actors struggle to achieve. McNairy is steadily endearing as a mildly world weary photographer who realises his own alienation from the images he captures, and Able similarly has an easy charm and subtlety that produces an believable rapport with her co-star. It's essentially a Sci-Fi romance, as odd as it sounds and probably unattractive at first glance, but it's so well acted and plotted that it shouldn't be passed up on regard of lazy generalisations.
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<br />Monsters then is a marvellously made, nuanced Sci-Fi hybrid which deserves great appreciation and has introduced another brilliant talent to the scene.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13491838760457558078noreply@blogger.com0