MovieGeekBlog Reviews

Uncharted (2022)

Indy-light

[7/10 · 11 February 2022]

I've been spotting some very scathing reviews around the internet about this one, but to be honest I don't really understand all the hate.

It might be because I'm still trying to recover that massive stinker that was "Moonfall" and I really needed some popcorn fun , or it might be because I'm beginning to grow a soft spot for little Tom Holland, or even because I've been craving for another Indiana Jones-like adventure for years, but I've actually quite enjoyed this one in a sort of unchallenging/turn-your-brain-off sort of way.

Of course, it's not going to set the world on fire, nor it's a game-changer, but it was a perfectly serviceable silly action-packed romp with couple of stand-out set pieces and which confirms Holland credentials as a likeable lead even outside his spider-suit.

It's also a film that never really takes itself too seriously, so why should we?

Serving as a prequel to the video games by the same name (in fact, geeky-nerd that I am, I seem to remember the third game had some flashbacks too), it follows Nathan Drake, a bartender, history buff, and occasional pickpocket, as he is recruited by Mark Wahlberg's character (Sully, also from the game) to search for the lost treasure across the world.

The game itself was a rip-off other other Intellectual Properties like Tomb Raider and of course Indiana Jones, so it's no surpise that the film too has constant echoes from those franchises: a sort of "Indy-light". In fact at some point one character even asks "When did you decide to become Indiana Jones? Proving that it knows exactly what it's doing.

It may lack the charm, panache and confidence of those early fantastic Spielberg's adventures, it is certainly better than any of the Tomb Raider films and it packs so much action that you'll hardy stop question any shortcomings. Of course if you are a fan of the games, you'll know it can do so much more

Holland has clearly biffed-up a lot for the role and it's a pleasure to see him doing a lot of his stunts. Hopefully in future instalments a more skilful director might be able to make more of his innate charm and bring a little bit more depth to the character and the story.

As a fan of the games, I know this franchise can do so much more.

Two Distant Strangers (2020)

It may not be subtle, but its message needs to be loud and clear

[8/10 · 12 April 2021]

Find 30 minutes to watch this NOW!!

Nominated for Best short film at the Oscar this year, this wonderful little film uses the "old" Groundhog Day formula to great effect and does something which is not just completely new within a genre which never ceases to surprise me, but also manages to deliver one of the most important moral lessons and heartbreaking message.

It might not be subtle, but the circumstances are such that subtlety is meaningless at this point.

The names over the credits serve as a reminder of how much out of hands this has gone. Just as I am writing this the news of 20-year-old Daunte Wright was killed by a policeman who "accidentally discharged a "handgun".

Yes, it is the real groundhog day.

Beautiful, clever and very effective.

The Birth of Valerie Venus (2020)

I didn't get it, nor found it funny.

[4/10 · 23 February 2021]

A rather frustrated, lonely and long suffering vicar's wife suffers a little accident which cleaning a statue of the Virgin Mary as a result of that her had becomes "possessed" for lack of a better term and begins to have a life of its own, with strange and supposedly funny consequences. Well, I have to say, not only I did not laugh once (the timing of the comedy seems to be off most of the time and every single scene goes on for twice as long as it should), but also the filming of it seemed to be very student-like and quite pedestrian. And finally the whole scene of the discovery of "self pleasuring in the bath" has already been done in a very similar way in "Pleasantville" and even there it seemed to be out of keeping with the rest of the film. Very disappointing.

Brave Blue World (2019)

A important message in badly produced film

[5/10 · 22 October 2020]

I was shocked by how badly this film was put together. From the way it's edited, to the choice of music (and how it's laid into the film), to the cheesy introduction shots of the contributors, the jump cuts and sound cuts (you literally hear the cuts during Matt Damon's interview), down to the way it's written: not just cheesy commentary, hyperboles, random links trying to stitch scenes together and things which are obviously been written without even looking at the film (There's a hilarious moment where the commentary says "this man is... etc etc..etc... " over the shot of the sky. We only see the "man" in question after a few seconds. That's film-making 101). The most impressive vistas are actually stock shots (I even recognised some from the Shutterstock Library). It is disjointed and confused, cheesy, one-sided and simplistic, but I suppose the core message is probably what counts here (and how they were able to get people like Matt Damon and Liam Neeson), which is also why I'm not giving it 1 star. There are some interesting snippets here and there and however badly the film is made, it does paint a promising picture of how new technologies are helping us to manage, clean and re-use our water. It's a shame that such an important message was only able to get such a bad piece of film-making. Even more astonishing that it currently has 7.3 on imdb.

A Story of Children and Film (2013)

Should have been called "a personal story..."

[5/10 · 1 February 2020]

I found this film tantalising, interesting and infuriating all at the same time. At times I found myself discovering hidden gems and film which I had never ever heard of, but other times, and more often than not, I was just left frustrated by how reaching some those links from clip to clip were, how far-fetched were some of the arguments and wrong were some of the readings and basically just how random it all seemed. It really felt as if Mark Cousins was so keen to try to include certain film clips (which he had to "fair deal" in order not to pay the copyrights, so he filled them up with pointless descriptions and analysis), that it didn't really matter whether they fitted or not: he just made them fit. Phrases like "a storm about to hit... just like adolescence" felt incredibly forced and actually quite up-their-own-self. And of course there were HUGE oversights too. Where was Bicycle thieves? And Kolya? Stand by me? The 400 Blows? Lord of the flies? Au Revoir les Enfants? ANd the list goes on... I was also amazed to see how ET was used 3 times (obviously the moon shot, but also two other moments which were beautiful but to me didn't quite illustrate the points Cousins was trying to make) but then when Cousins talks about adults cut off from frame, making the analogy with Tom & Jerry, he fails to mention ET, which is a wonderful example of how Spielberg keeps the camera a child's level all the time and keeps the adults out of frame as if they were not allowed to enter the children's world (except the mother, who's obviously special), until the moment ET is about to die (which is the moment Elliot really grow up). Incidetally, no animations? And finally the "family moments" were completely unrelated to the rest, despite the constant attempt to make it all relevant. Basically it was all just very very light despite all the pretences to be deep.

Night Will Fall (2014)

Some of the most painful footage I've ever seen.

[7/10 · 9 December 2014]

The footage shown in this documentary is really excruciating... And it goes on and on and on. The film never really shies away from showing you the horrors of hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies in concentration camps being dragged across and piled up one of top of the others as if they were just mannequins. It's a nightmare-inducing vision that I don't think I will ever be able to erase from my memory. Mountain of personal objects, spectacles even human hair carefully sorted according to type and colours.

And yet after a while I felt it was all beginning to be a little too much and I thought the film was probably going around in a circle and did not really have a lot more to say other than just showing detail over detail of the horror. Not that there is anything to say about the carnage that took place in those places, but somehow I felt this was probably a 40/50 minutes or so film stretched to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Yes the footage found is an incredible discovery and a terrifying testimony of a past that shouldn't be forgotten, but other than that, the film has very very little else to say. I also felt some of the use of the interviewees was a bit heavy-handed: cut to people staring into the void, or the use of pointless bit of dialogue just for the sake of seeing this people breaking down into tears half way through the phrase... There wasn't really any need for that. The original footage was heartbreaking enough without having to resort to people crying to make us the audience feel sad about it... or to dark ominous music. But that's just a question of taste. It's hard to review a documentary like this. Give it a small rating and you can be accused of being insensitive. But that's when you should really make a distinction between the subject matter and the material being shown and the actual craft of the documentary. The later is rather plodding, uneven, and as I said before a bit heavy-handed, but since the subject matter is so powerful, on balance 7 out 10 is perfectly justifiable.

Ill Manors (2012)

Gritty realism... with a Hollywood twist

[6/10 · 12 June 2012]

This is a very hard film to review… And as a matter of fact it was a very hard film to watch too. More than once I found myself having to look away from the screen, just to be able to catch up with my breath and I had to remind myself "It's only a movie… It's only a movie"… Or is it? Sure one would want to give the film some credit for attempting to talk about some really serious issues in a stark and crude realistic way. However I find myself wondering: just because a movie touches important issues and goes to places where many don't even dare looking, does that make it a good film? Ill Manors (still trying to work the meaning of the actual title) is clearly a film made by a first time director: it's full of energy and ideas. It's inspirational too… But unfortunately some of the inexperience shows up on the screen too. It's almost as if director Ben Drew didn't feel confident enough of his own material and felt he had to pepper the film (unevenly, I may add) with a series of flashy visual devices: some of them work, but then, once the story takes over, the film almost forgets to keep up with them. It makes me wonder if Ill Manors could have been a much more powerful film, if the director had actually restrained some of that rather showy visual style and non-linear editing and had just concentrated more of the story. I'm not against time-laps or montage sequences edited to rap music (some of which were actually beautifully done), but I think once you establish a style, you should stick with it. In Ill Manors everything felt rather random and arbitrary: a hotchpotch of visual ideas and devices, borrowed from many other films before (Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting, just to mention the most obvious ones), but all without any real reason. And the proof is in the pudding: the strongest and most interesting bits in the film are also the plainest and the ones where the director focused just on his actors (or actually non-actors apparently) to tell the story of a broken society alive and well right in the heart of London. Despite the claims of realism, this bleak vision of Britain feels a bit contrived in places: lines like "Can I try some crack?" the endless prostitution scenes and the final sequence in particular when a fire takes place in a pub, all feel a bit heavy-handed and wildly exaggerated. Also most of the characters are a little bit too stereotypical and the film seems to rely more on the charisma of our main lead, Riz Ahmed (from Four Lions), for the audience to sympathise with, instead of giving him a full fleshed-out and a much more believable persona. In the end the amount of horror and depressing bleakness is just too much and what was already a fairly long film, with too many subplots, eventually just imploded. An exhausted audience during my screening even burst into laughing during the final climax (yes, it might have been a hysterical laugh, but still a laugh… and that's just the wrong reaction to have for such film!). The points Ill Manorswants to make are made quite earlier on and after a while it all becomes just too repetitious, over the top and indulgent. All this makes it loose its edge and diminishes its important message. It is a brave film and certainly must be commended for trying: there are some very intense and good moments, which I am really praising, however, even though I might talk to people about Ill Manors, I don't think I'll ever recommend anyone to watch it (aside for our prime ministers and politicians). 6.5/10 MovieGeekBlog

Friends with Kids (2011)

When Harry and Sally had a kid....

[8/10 · 12 June 2012]

Making a good romantic comedy is not as easy as you might think. Comedies in general have always been the overlooked genre when it comes to recognition or even awards: there is a certain (unfair) snobbery about them and an even greater misconception: because they talk about lighter subjects than, let's say, the holocaust or war or cancer (just to mention the few obvious ones), we should not consider them as serious films… Obviously calling them "rom- com" doesn't quite helped their case either… Isn't it incredible that people still look at the 50s and 60s for the favourite comedies (Some like it Hot or the Apartment)? Or that we still quote those classic Woody Allen movies from the 70s? And when asked about the best rom-com (there you, I'm saying that too!) many will go back 23 years to that little jewel of a movie called When Harry Met Sally. It's not surprising then to see writer/director Jennifer Westfeldt going back to exactly those types for her directorial debut. Friends with Kids owes a lot the best Wood Allen (nowadays we must specify 'best', as there's good Woody and dreadful Woody), both in its settings (New York, of course) and in the sharp and witty dialogue exchanges. But there are lots of echoes from When Harry Met Sally too, in fact it could almost be called "When Harry and Sally had a kid". But while in Rob Reiner's classic the question was "Can a man and a woman be friends without sex getting in the way?", in Friends with kids the question gets updated to "Can a man and a woman have a child, without getting stuck into the trappings of married life?". The actual premise and the excuse for the film is definitely rather out-fetched, gimmicky and to a degree it might feel a bit forced, but if you're willing to go with it, what you'll find beyond is an incredibly well-observed and smart piece of comedy about the painful truths of parenthood, about getting older, about responsibilities and friendship. Westfeldt relies more on her characters and their dialogue to make us smile, or cry, or simply think, as opposed to resorting on cheap gags, or shots of cute babies (well OK, you get a couple of those too… But you get my point). This is an actors' film, first and foremost and the cast is truly impeccable. Adam Scott had already shown what he could do with the underrated (and rather harsh and depressing) HBO series Tell Me You Love Me: in this film he makes a potentially unlikable and tricky character, warm, sympathetic and charismatic. However the film is also packed with other characters, which once again remind us of Harry and Sally's types of friends: these are all people rooted into the real world, instantly recognisable to anyone struggling to find love before the clock runs out, anyone dating, anyone who's been married for a long time, anyone who's had kids or who's about to have some. Like in the real world, there's no black and white here: each relationship in the film feels true, people are not simply bad or good, they fall in and out of love, they come and go in and out of your life. Everybody is perfect, even if they just appear in a few scenes. Jon Hamm shines, as he always does, and makes the most of his tiny role, even Edward Burns manages to be incredibly likable and there's even a surprisingly turn from Megan Fox, who shows she's not just a pretty face… and body, and legs.. and… OK well, you get it. It all comes to a head during an excruciating dinner sequence with no less than 8 people sitting around a table, which is not just beautifully directed and skilfully handled, but also it's where the film really shows its cards and goes beyond the simple rom-com boundaries. It's interesting to see this film only a few weeks away from the clichè-riddled What to Expect When You're Expecting. Both stories essentially tackle the same issues, but while WTEWURE goes for the easy Hollywood way (i.e. schmaltzy, A-list packed-cast, cheap jokes and so on), this one takes its time to work around its characters and aims at reaching a much more mature audience: it's not just the situation that feels real but way the characters behaves in that particular situation. Unfortunately there are some slips here and there: the excessive and unnecessary vulgarity of some of the dialogue does feel a bit forced and some jokes to do with kids seem to belong to a different kind of film (It's "Three men and a Baby" territory, more than Annie Hall's)… And the ending might make some people cringe a little bit… However most of Friends with Kids is so honest and balanced that it feels wrong be harsh about it. In an age where good romantic comedies are so rare (they only come once every two years, if we are lucky!) we should treasure films like these, which at least try to be a little bit more intelligent and step away from the clichés of the genre. MovieGeekBlog.com

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Pure Anderson, but in the end a bit too hollow.

[6/10 · 30 May 2012]

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) -

Directed by Wes Anderson. Starring Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel.

This film has got so many of all those Wes Anderson's trademarks that it could easily become a fan's favourite: the strange magical feel, the deadpan humour (almost Airplane! slapstick) mixed with that underlying sadness and melancholia, those classic sideways tracking shots across the sets, the reddish colour palette, Bill Murray, the quirky music... This could be nobody else's work, but Wes Anderson's! And yet, at the same time, you may argue, we've seen it all before. Not only there's a strange feeling of Déjà vu here, but also the inconclusive, weightless and wobbly storytelling and the stock characters feel even more exposed than they usually are. Maybe because the central story about 2 young kids who run away from home to find each other and fall in love is so heartfelt and sweet that it almost feels out of tune with the cartoony nature of the world around them.

I'm not even suggesting that the cast is not great, because it is: Bill Murray plays slightly against his likable self, Bruce Willis is as sweet as he's rarely been before, Ed Norton's performance too is perfectly pitched and rather charming... And yet despite making this a great ensemble cast each of them actually pulls the film in a different direction and eventually they add very little to the mix. For example, did we really need Harvey Keitel's character in this film? Could Tilda Swinton be anymore two-dimensional?

This is obviously an idealised vision of adolescent relationships, where love is honest, pure, simple, uncompromising, and it is probably the best part of the Moonrise Kingdom. And yet, the quirky style, the overloaded music (really too much, too loud and too intrusive in my view. There is never a moment of silence in this film), the over-the-top secondary characters, all enhance this feeling of hyper-reality which somehow prevents you from fully engage with the film. But then again, as I said, this is a Wes Anderson's movie and his fans will certainly love it... I'm not so sure about the casual viewer. As far as I am concerned, I liked it, I'm happy I saw it, I appreciated its technical skills, its meticulous look, its quirky humour (this is one of those films that leave a smile on your face throughout its entire length as opposed to induce out-loud laughs) but in the end it is all a bit too indulgent, slightly hollow and really it just left me a bit cold. And for a film that's all about pure feelings and childhood, that's probably not a great sign.

6.5/10 http://wp.me/p19wJ2-z8

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

Slick, well acted, but in the end a bit empty...

[6/10 · 25 May 2012]

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

Director: Kirk Jones. Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Chace Crawford, Anna Kendrick, Matthew Morrison, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock.

Don't ask me what possessed me to go and watch this film. In my defence I can tell you that I had seen everything else at my local multiplex and I had 2 hours to spare. Also the cast seemed impressive enough... and, to top it all up, my wife is pregnant, so I thought at least I would fit its target audience just perfectly.

To be completely honest I was expecting (sorry about the pun) something a lot worse: this is one of those average ensemble comedies where, as always some of the stories and some of the characters are more successful than others but in the end they are so many of them that if you are a parent or preparing to be one, you're bound to find a something to like... Other than that, this is all pure middle-class Hollywood, pretty slick, light-hearted but with enough sweet-and-sour moments to make it feel like it's actually about something. Obviously at the end of the day it's all rather forgettable, and it's actually a great shame, because the acting talent a shown here is impressive (surprisingly even Jennifer Lopez showcases a nuanced performance unlike much we'd seen before) both directing and editing are potentially quite skilled at doing what they do and the few good moments here and there give you a little glimpse of what it could have been.

The main problem is that the film is just not funny enough to be able to be a crowd pleaser and looses itself among the too many subplots, some of which are way off the main subject, to be able to become a classic (the golf cart chase sequence is one of the lowest and unfunny points and the father group sequences, despite Chris Rock, are just too indulgent, over the top and long). However having said all this, I must confess, even though I laughed very little, I found myself moved a couple of times: oh dear, it really must be the hormones (I think they call it sympathetic pregnancy).

6/10 wp.me/p19wJ2-yv

Piranha 3DD (2012)

not funny, not scary.. just embarrassingly dull

[3/10 · 22 May 2012]

The only achievement of this film, as far as I am concerned, it that it has managed to get the lowest score so far among my reviews. Of course, I was never expecting to see a masterpiece from a movie with such title... But at least I was hoping for something just as self-consciously trashy, funny and splatter as the deliciously camp B-movie first part (which itself was a remake) directed by Alexandre Aja in 2010.

There have been several trashy splatter/exploitive horrors in the past (mainly in the 80s and early 90s) which I still consider classics within their own genre (Re-Animator, Society, possibly even Tremors and to a degree the Evil Dead movies just to mention a few). Why couldn't this have been one of them? All the ingredients seemed to have been there: an R rating (18 here in the UK), tits-galore right from the title, exploitive 3D, horrible little hungry monsters (piranha in this case), and a series of more or less famous stars willing to play along...

Unfortunately what I found was the most un-inventive, uninspired, un-funny, un-scary, dull piece of junk I have seen in a very long time... (Well, I guess that by itself is quite an achievement since I do watch quite a lot of movies). Yes, it's boring too, despite being only 83 minutes long.

How can somebody like Christopher Lloyd, the man with a resume sporting such masterpieces like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Back to the Future, could have accepted to have his name associated with such an insult to human intelligence is beyond me! Was your rent really so behind, Chris?

The film is badly conceived, badly filmed, really badly post-converted into 3D (possibly the worse conversion I've seen since a cheap stereoscopic comic I had when I was 10!). The story (if we can call it such) makes no sense (there's a piranha in the swimming pool... well, get the f**k out it!). The characters (again... characters?!) all merge into one and even the gore is way below anything one would have hoped for such a movie and most of the potentially gruesome stuff is happening off camera (I guess they didn't have enough imagination to figure out how to make it on camera!)

For the first 30 minutes or so, you don't really know how to take it. It seems a film aimed at 14 or 15 years old kids who are hoping to get a peek at some boobies for the first time in their lives... except that this film is actually rated 18...which kinda defeats that purpose. So in the beginning it all starts building up as a straight horror (a bad one of course, but still a horror). Only once David Hasselhoff shows up you actually begin to get a hint of the fact that this is all supposed to be taken for a laugh... If only it were remotely funny. The "jokes" (please notice the inverted commas) are so puerile and genuinely unfunny that it becomes almost embarrassing. Not only we are not laughing with it, but we are not even laughing at it... in fact we are just not laughing at all.

This is one of the few films where not even the endless outtakes during the end credits can make you smile (And when I say 'endless' I do mean really endless.. What an indulgent and embarrassing moment!. There is nothing worse than seeing a whole bunch of actors and grown-up film-makers laughing at things which are not even remotely funny to us outside.

To be honest, I think the film doesn't even deserve such a detailed review, so I'll just stop here and urge you to give it a miss, even (and especially) if you love this genre. wp.me/p19wJ2-xt

The Dictator (2012)

So desperate to offend and be controversial that it forgets to be funny

[5/10 · 16 May 2012]

Heralded by a strong marketing campaign that makes it sound as the most controversial movie since the last temptation of Christ, The Dictator is a strange hybrid. It is certainly not what the trailers makes it look like, nor is as innovative as Sacha Baron Cohen's best work (well... so to speak... I guess I'm referring to Borat, which is no masterpiece but at least it felt new at the time). I call this a strange hybrid because in trying to be both controversial and a crowd- pleaser, rude and cute, clever and silly, in the end might just dissatisfy pretty much everyone.

This time the documentary style from both Borat and Bruno has been abandoned in favour of a more straight forward and linear structure. But while there are undoubtedly some inspire puns and good ideas here and there (right from the start the mother dying in child-birth), the story (or rather lack of one) is so idiotic and pedestrian that leaves those few good jokes too exposed and definitely not enough to keep you engaged even if the overall length movie is pretty short.

Believe me, I'm all in favour of good satire and I'm certainly not one of those who claim we should not joke on delicate issued like racism, xenophobia, terrorism and Arab (or Western) stereotypes and preconceptions. If it's done with a purpose and if it's clever, it can be as sharp as a knife and quite effective. Sadly here, you can just see sporadic glimpses of what this film could have been, had it not fallen into the trappings of a thin love story. Four Lions tried it last year: it was not completely successful, but it was a noble attempt. Here, the satirical edge of the Dictator is too diluted among cheap slapstick and unnecessary interludes, extraneous to the central message (the masturbation sequence for example, rude for its own sake, was just cheap and unfunny in my book, just to mention one... Just being rude for the sake of being rude should really not be the purpose of such film. Leave that to Apatow).

The Dictator was so desperate to offend and be controversial that it forgot its main purpose: to be funny. In the end it just fell flat. This is certainly not Dr Strangelove, but it's not South Park or Team America either. It's just a collection of gags, some more successful than others; a sort of modern-day (and more polished and slick) Kentuky Fried Chicken (and let's not forget that even that one is NOT a good movie!).In theory there is nothing wrong comedies made up with a series of gags all stringed together by a silly story. Look at Airplane! But at least on that one the gag rate was so fast that all you did is laugh... here the laughs are too few.

At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding: I was in a half-packed theatre surrounded by what I suppose must have been the core audience for this type of product (a 20-something crowd) and the silence that welcomed some of the supposedly funny jokes was deafening: a clear sign that I was not alone in feeling sorry for a film that is just not as clever as it thinks it is...

wp.me/s19wJ2-2005

The Woman in Black (2012)

full of clichés, slow and greatly miscast

[4/10 · 4 February 2012]

I am really sorry to have to reduce most of my review about this film to the fact that it all starts with a bad casting choice, but it's really very hard to see past Daniel Radcliffe portraying a father of a four years old boy. I mean, how can I possibly buy into it when the DVD of the latest Harry Potter film is plastering every single window of every store in town right now? It doesn't matter how much facial hair Daniel is growing to disguise his baby face, or how far away he's trying to take his new character from the 'boy who lived', or even how little dialogue he speaks in this film (because let's admit it, it usually all falls apart as soon as  he opens his month), I am just NOT buying into it! A grown man (A lawyer in fact!) who's been married, widowed and has a child of 4? That is a big leap of faith...

However I was willing to take the leap and I did really try my best, despite the film itself doing virtually nothing to help me and convince me otherwise: there was not a single mention of his young look from any of the characters and we are just supposed to take it all from granted. At some point in the beginning there was even shot of what looked like the Hogward Express, running through the British landscape, with steam and all the rest (I was expecting to hear John Williams' tune at any point!).

Radcliffe himself does try his best to restrain his usual trade-mark heavy breathing. The film-makers made sure he spoke as little as possible and wisely they even avoided having him standing right next to any other cast members (so that it wouldn't show how short he is which would have made it even more laughable). But unfortunately all this is just not enough and his presence, instead of making the film better, holds it back..

It's probably not very fair to criticise a movie just for his main lead, even less fair to compare it to previous movies the same lead starred in, I agree. But even when you take Radcliffe out of this film, you're actually left very little else.

"The woman in Black" wants to be a film about "mood"  and "atmosphere" more than "action" and "twists". It's more about the expectations of the ghost in a looked room at the end of the corridor than the actual reveal of the ghost itself. In a way, it's an old fashion ghost story: it's all about those creaks in a old house, the thick fog hiding a secret and those eerie shadows that should make your skin cold.

On paper all this sounds great and I am all in favour of an old-style good ghost story... If only it was all building up to something... Alas the pace is evenly slow and Daniel is alone for most of the film investigating strange noises around the house for what feels like an eternity; so much so that after a while it all gets rather repetitive and tedious.

James Watkins was probably aware of this and in order to "jazz it all up" decided to pepper it all with several "fairly predictable" loud stabs of cheap scares. I say "fairly predictable" because as an average horror fan I could see most of those "jumps moment" coming from miles away. Of course some of them are quite effective, but I don't think that should be a mark of a good horror film. It's certainly not difficult to scare people with a loud crashes and bangs in the middle of a very quiet scene.

I couldn't help feeling there was nothing in this film that I had not seen before... A haunted house, rocking chairs moving by themselves, spider webs, locked doors, ghosts appearing in windows, a graveyard at night, thick fog and quicksands, old fading photographs ... No cliché was left untouched. Oh look, Daniel is reflected in a window! How long will it take until a ghost appears in the reflection. Not long, believe me.

As for the plot itself, it really feels rather dated, like a story that belongs to a different era, which in theory should be fine, but 10 minutes into the film I really get the feeling that I have already seen it all.

I haven't read the original story, nor seen the stage play, but by watching this film alone I do get the feeling that this is a short story stretched to its limits. Probably OK for a twilight Zone episode, or maybe even or a theatre stage, but as a film, aside from some interesting visual imagery, there was just not enough to keep me intrigued for the length of the film and by the time the ending came I just did not really care who lived or died.

Very very very disappointing. In fact quite laughable. Full unedited review on MovieGeekBlog.com

Tomboy (2011)

Beautiful and tender to melt your heart

[8/10 · 7 January 2012]

This small independent film was made for peanuts (Filmed on a Canon 5D and just a handful of people in the crew) and it is probably unlikely to make any big impact on the box-office. However I'm sure it'll leave a mark on those few who will actually manage to see it.

Zoé Héran is absolutely wonderful as Laure, the 10 years old girl who's just moved into a new neighbourhood where nobody knows her and pretends to be a boy (Michaël) with her new friends. Her performance is one of the best of the year, and possibly among the best ever performances by a child: she not only perfectly captures that innocence that children of that age have, but at the same time she seems to have a deep understanding of the struggle and the pain of her character. Throughout the film she really acts as if she was a real boy in a way that's so believable that at some point I really started to wonder whether "she" was actually a real "he". The film knows that and it does play with you by stretching the lie as far as it possibly can, until it decides to show you the real truth in a beautifully handled scene where you do actually see briefly the girl naked. It's a fleeting moment and the film obviously doesn't linger on it, but it's enough to put our minds at rest so that we can carry on enjoying the rest of the story.

The director Céline Sciamma's ability to film children making it look real is incredible. It feels effortless as if the camera was one of the children themselves and we as the audience are left observing them playing in the forest as if we were spying on them, or as if it was all a documentary. Rarely I have seen scenes with such young children that feel so honest and real: the approach is subtle and light, the atmosphere is almost muted, dialogue to advance the story is used to a minimum and the silences are charges with meaning and intensity. This is a subject that rarely makes the news, let alone the movie theatres. And it's so refreshing not just to see it depicted in this film, but to have it told with such an understanding, honesty and open-mindedness. All this together with the stellar acting from little Zoé make the internal drama of Laure/Michaël even more poignant and powerful. Be warned, this is a slow film (a very short one too at only 82 minutes), that has "French independent" written all over it, from its pace, to its rough look and its lack of music score, but if you, like me, love films about children growing up, this sensitive, tender and never heavy- handed story might just melt your heart too.

I saw it months ago and I still remember it vividly, so it must have worked on me.

moviegeekblog.com

J. Edgar (2011)

A wasted opportunity...

[5/10 · 19 December 2011]

am finding really hard to find something good to say about this latest dull dull dull film by Clint Eastwood. I am actually even beginning to think that it's probably time for Clint to enjoy his retirement, instead of giving us every year a film which borders between the cheesy, the flat and most crucially the rhetorical propaganda! I am sorry to say this, because I love the guy as a person, but let's face it, both Invictus and (especially) Hereafter were real stinkers As far as J. Edgar is concerned behind the thin patina of gloss, the actual true fascinating story and an impressive cast, there is otherwise very little to enjoy. Eastwood directs it all almost by numbers, as if he wasn't even there, without any visual flair, any care or attention for details, any subtlety, or worse any real ideas or anything to say. Every decision behind the making of this film seems to have been wrong one: the decision to break the film up, flashing backwards and forwards makes it too complicated to follow and keeps the audience emotionally detached for at least the whole first half. The decision to allow Eastwood to recycle his usual plain piano notes soundtrack, which sounds exactly the same as every other one of his films and actually here is used in the most cheesy possible way to its worse effect. The decision to have J Edgar Hoover telling the story of his life to a biographer (my God, can it all be a bit more obvious please!?), but most crucially, the decision to have Di Caprio & Co acting with (not very good) prosthetics for half of the film thus forcing the audience to get constantly distracted by the bad hair lines, the dodgy fake wrinkles and the rubbery feel on people's faces. I must have spent half of the film looking at the make-up thinking "God, this is bad" and even when sometimes I though "mmm, this is a bit better…" I was always aware of it. Even when you look at the publicity stills from the movie (the picture above this review) you can see tell how fake the hairline is. In an age of seamless CGI (look at the ageing effects of Benjamin Button!!) I am surprise to see such shoddy work (hopefully it'll look alright on DVD, but on the big screen I saw this, digitally projected, it all looked incredibly ropey). I am usually a huge fan of Di Caprio: I loved him since "A Boy's life" when he upstaged even Robert DeNiro (in a time where DeNiro was actually still good), he was absolutely amazing in "What's Eating Gilberg Grape" (to this day one of my favourite films), but on "J.Edgar" Di Caprio is forced to spend half of the film covered in that damn thick prosthetics which prevents him to convey any real emotion to his character. I felt like I was always watching Di Caprio in a fat-suit as opposed to J.Edgar. To be completely honest, it's not all his fault. Eastwood 's direction jumps from scene to scene, sometimes quite randomly, trying to cover as much ground as possible from the undoubtedly intriguing real life. There are way too many characters, too many story lines, most of which are left hanging without a real sense of place and eventually the emotional focus of the film gets diluted and any understanding of his character gets lost. There are some potentially very strong moments: for example the relationship between J.Edgar and his domineering mother (the always very watchable Judi Dench) and the sexual tension between Di Caprio and Armie Hammer, are both potentially very strong, however in the hands of Eastwood they all fall into schmaltzy and clichés as those cheesy piano notes tell us "a now, watch out… this is going to be emotional". It's all handled so badly that it even kills a potentially good performance like the one by Di Caprio. The rest is just a hollow mess where characters come and go without leaving any real mark: we never really know why Naomi Watts's character decides to stick with J. Edgar right until the end, we never really get a grip on the procedures that made finger prints database possible, we never really get a sense of what could have happen if the real J.Edgar had been exposed and while all sorts of lawyers and politicians appear and disappear in a seemingly random succession we are getting more and more lost in irrelevant subplots. It could have been a fascinating story: a closeted gay, the first director of FBI, a man who lived through presidents like Truman, Kennedy and Nixon. There could have been so much here and yet it's all wasted in bad storytelling, staging and wrong choices at every turn. I blame the direction, the script (surprisingly the same person who had penned the quite gentle and a lot more subtle Milk),but also the editing: obviously a lot has been cut out trying to condense 50 years into 137 minutes. But instead of loosing entire subplots and deciding to make it all more focused, somebody made a terrible decision to actually have it all in. The first 20/30 minutes are some of the most disjointed and messy I've seen in any film recently. It would probably deceiver even less than a 5/10 rating, but some of central performances are quite good, despite everything else around them. moviegeekblog.com

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

A handsome but quite pointless adaptation.

[6/10 · 19 December 2011]

Your appreciation and enjoyment for this film mainly comes down to whether you buy into the story or not and whether you are you a fan of the original book (I should probably say books, since this is the first part of a trilogy). Unfortunately my answer to both questions is quite a drastic no: I know I am going to be quite unpopular with this statement, but I've never really fallen in love with the book and I in fact just don't seem to be able to find the appeal for the actual story itself. I find it quite derivative, exploitive, contrived and a bit heavy-handed to be honest. These exact same problems are translated (in fact even enhanced) into both film adaptations. It's probably unfair to draw comparisons with Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 version, but also unavoidable. There are of course similarities, but given the fact that David Fincher is directing, the US version is a lot more slicker and cinematic. It is also closer to the original book in many places, but, as always in condensing it all into a movie, it has lost some of its more polemical thrusts from Larsson's story and some of the details which made the characters so compelling. All for the sake of the actual crime/mystery plot (which let's face it, it's pretty bland for today's standards and brings very little new to the genre). So in the end, not only the film suffers from the same problems of the book but by shrinking it all it has lost some of its more subtle subtext too. I am not really saying anything new here: what works in books doesn't necessarily work movies. For example, the film spends a long time setting up the two main characters who don't meet until a good hour and 20 minutes into the story. And yet despite all this time Daniel Craig's character is just as elusive to the audience as it was at the beginning. That is an ongoing problem with Fincher's movies. His usual cold approach to film-making and detachment from his characters makes it always very hard for anyone to empathise with anyone on the screen. Craig does bring some unexpected charm and a slight sense of humour to his character (something which was completely absent in the previous version), but it's really not enough to make you care for his character, let alone for making you want to watch him again for the next couple of sequels (Fincher has recently announced his interest to direct both sequels back to back… But no official announcement will be made until this one get released, of course). It's Rooney Mara who really steals the show here (well, let face it, so did Noomi Rapace in the previous version. It's a great part to play!). This is one of the performances of the year and there will certainly be nominations and awards for her coming left and right over the next few months. She even manages bring a certain realism to an otherwise over-the-top character by convey both fragility and an incredible strength, sometimes with pure simple looks. However, did we really need that 1 hour and 20 minutes of preparation before these two characters meet? Did we really need to see the infamous rape scene? Yes of course, it's that rape that gives her the motivation for wanting to solve the crime, but why couldn't they just convey that with a quick flashback? Why was the audience allowed inside that room watching not only the rape but also her revenge to her rapist? Wouldn't it have been just as effective and less exploitive if we had been left outside the door, maybe listening to the screams? The problem is, if you take all that preamble out of the equation, you're actually left with very little else because let's face it, as a mystery this is a fairly derivative film. As I said, these are all queries with the book and the story itself . Given the material Fincher has probably down the best he could. This is a handsome film, with some solid acting (Plummer once again is at his best!) but in the end you're left with a sense of "…so what?". I couldn't help feeling that everything that Fincher did in this film, he had already done it before. The dark tones of Se7en, the seedy and multi-layered atmosphere of Zodiac, the dark ominous music (if we can call it that) by Trent Reznor from The Social Network. Finally it's probably worth mentioning the impressive "James Bondesque" title sequence (again, Fincher has down beautiful title sequences before) to the notes of the cover version of "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin which I found absolutely mesmerising and yet somehow seemed to belong to a different film altogether. In the end this film adds very little to the previous version, aside from giving us the wonderful Rooney Mara, and certainly adds nothing to what I already know about David Fincher. I just look forward to seeing him handling a script and a story worth of his craft, because I do believe he's one of the best directors out there right now… Moviegeekblog.com

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Riddled in clichés and boring

[5/10 · 19 November 2011]

I can't remember the last time when I have been so much in disagreement with the general critical response for a movie… Everywhere I look I seem to hear and read high praises for Cronenberg's latest work, and yet I am willing to bet that few of those who claimed to like it so much would be ready to watch it again. As far as I am concerned I am struggling to find something positive to say (well, yes, nice costumes…) and the only reason why my vote isn't any lower is because I am willing to admit that I might have not been in the right mood for it. Even in his most flawed films, Cronenberg has always been an interesting director, or at least able to create not only an almost palpable atmosphere, but also a particularly defined style and vision which set him apart from the usual Hollywood crowd. And yet this one seems a film with no direction whatsoever. Not only each sequence felt random and inconsequential as if not necessarily edited in the right order, without any real feeling of natural progression from the previous one into the next, but also it was all so static and lifeless that sometimes I even wondered whether anyone was actually directing at all. At no point I felt any sympathy for any of the character: in fact, not only I did not like any of them, but I didn't even hate them either. I just didn't care. And this is is a rather strange thing to say, because on paper, a film about the relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud (and consequently the birth of psychoanalysis) sounded to me very intriguing indeed. Sadly, pretty earlier on into "A dangerous Method" I realised that this wasn't really the type of film I was hoping to see. I found myself uneasy right from the word "go", that is from the moment I saw Keira Knightley overacting like never before and stretching her chin to new unbelievable levels, as if screaming to the audience "I want that Oscar!!". Well, darling, not this time. Then, after the early screams, it all calmed down a bit and the dialogue started… and that's when it got worse! For a film which should rely on words more than action itself (especially given the static nature of it all), I found the script absolutely puerile. It all felt like it was written by a high school kid, who's just heard a few things about Freud and wants to impress his friend with his newly acquired knowledge. I mean, there are actually lines like "You Freud, have always sex in your mind. Why does everything always has to do with sex?"! Really? Mr Hampton, who are you writing this script for? Surely your target audience doesn't need things spell out so boldly and blatantly. It was like reading a checklist of all the possible clichés one could think about psychoanalysis (and Freud in particular). Who is this film for anyway? At times it felt like it was so ridiculously basic, as if it was written for people who have never even heard of Freud and Jung. Other times it was all so riddled with heavy handed quotes and so "up its own self" that it felt like watching some boring lecture given by an even more bored teacher, sitting on your old desk back in school. From such a renowned scriptwriter (he wrote Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement among the other things) I was expecting a lot more: maybe Mr Hampton should watch a few episodes of HBO's classy "In Treatment" to learn a thing of two about the subtlety of bringing psychoanalysis to the screen. As far as the two leading male actors (Fassbender and Mortensen, who by the way was so good in both Cronenberg "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises"), they were as good as they could possibly be, but in the end they both failed to impress, move, or even raise any sort of emotion beyond boredom. But then again, that's hardly surprising given both the script they were actually given and a clear lack of any direction, which forced them to talk at each other in the most contrived scenes and badly staged, where even the extras in the background seemed fake and moved slowly and gently like… erm…well, extras (particularly noticeable in the scene by the river). Sorry David, not this time for me

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

Action-packed for the whole family

[8/10 · 23 October 2011]

For a start I was very pleased to see how respectful Spielberg was with the handling of the original material. After all, this is the man who wanted to turn Harry Potter into an American, combining several books into one (A bad, bad, bad idea Steven!). The story of this film actually combines several of the Tintin books, but as far as taking liberties that's where Spielberg stopped. Everything else is precisely how the Belgian creator, Hergé had imagined it: with that same sense of adventure, mystery, intrigue, action and fun. In other words the same mood and atmosphere that made the comics so successful (at least in Europe) and incidentally, in a way those same elements that were also at the centre of one of Spielberg's classic, Raiders of the lost ark.

Spielberg pays homage to Tintin's creator right from the start by having Hergé himself appearing as a street artist drawing a portrait of Tintin the way we are used to see him in the comics: pure genius!

On the whole I must say that I wasn't as bothered as I thought I was going to be by the motion capture animation. In fact you stop worrying about it about 5 minutes into the film. The characters look more cartoony than realistic and that helps getting away with the fact that their eyes (especially Tintin's) are slightly dead. This is first and foremost still an animated film (I can place a bet right now that it's going to be nominated at the Oscars next year, and probably it's going to win one too!). One thing is for sure: it does look magnificent! From the moody dark shadows reminiscent of those film noir from the 40s, to the great vistas straight out of a David Lean classic, the impeccable cinematography (Spielberg is even credited as Lighting Consultant) is not just beautiful but impressive and atmospheric.

Spielberg in his first animated venture (and his first use of 3D too!) looks like a little boy who's just been told he can do what he wants for his birthday: he appears to be liberated from any restriction he may have had on a normal feature film and seems to have a lot of fun in finding new beautifully inventive ways to transition from one scene to the next in a way you could only do in animation (or with a lot of very expensive CGI): Spielberg's camera floats, glides, flies, moves through glass, shoots straight into mirrors and gives us views which would otherwise been virtually impossible and yet, most of the times it's never showy, it's never forced or indulgent.

It's like watching a master at work who knows exactly where the camera should be at which time. It all culminated with one of the most impressive and perfectly executed chase sequence ever portrayed on screen. Impressive not just because of its pace and its edge-of-your-seat thrills, but also for its meticulously choreographed technique: in fact it takes place in just one impossibly-long shot, which adds to the tension and to the sense of fun. If you ever wondered why didn't they just film the whole thing for real, that sequence alone (which by itself is worth the price of the entire ticket) should serve you as an answer.

I just wished that same tension and fun of that sequence had been present throughout the rest of the film. Don't get me wrong, this first adventures of Tintin is a roller coaster ride like few others. Essentially it's one action set piece after another, and yet somehow I felt there was a strange tendency to resolve problems much too quickly. It's almost as if Spielberg was so preoccupied to get us to the next action sequence that he almost forgot how to makes like the one we were watching. I give you a few examples: a chase sequence at the front of the film, ends much too soon before it has time to climax. Later on there's a scene where Tintin has to steal a key from a bunch of sleeping goons. A lot of time is spent setting up the dangers and then just when the sequence is about to get fun, Tintin gets the key. There's another scene where Tintin faints close to the propellers of a plane and once again he gets saved much too quickly.

The comedy aspect of the film is a bit of a hit and miss: the Inspector Thompson and Thomson are obviously aimed at the younger crowd, but they're also the weakest characters (we had a glimpse of that in the trailer itself, as one of them falls off the stairs: a scene which in the theatre where I was, full of kids, was received with dead silence), on the other hand Captain Haddock is perfect. I don't know whether it's the script, or Andy Serkis's performance or both, but most of the jokes around him seem to work perfectly. Same goes for the little dog Snowy who is in almost every scene of the film, even if just in the background licking a massive bone in the desert. The audience I was with seemed to love him and so did I.

And finally Tintin himself which in this whole 3D world is probably the most two-dimensional character. Aside from the fact that he seems to get a kick out of solving puzzles and getting into adventures, we know very little about him. I'm not really blaming Spielberg for that, this exactly how Tintin was in the comics, but I do wonder if some character development would have been really seen as sacrilegious by the hard-code fans. Certainly not by me.

My full review here http://wp.me/p19wJ2-ro

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

An emotional roller-coaster and the perfect end to constantly better series

[8/10 · 9 July 2011]

For many fans (and let me get this out now: I am one of them), this is much more than just another film in the franchise: it's the it's the end of an era, or simply the end of a journey which lasted for over 10 years (14 if you count the first book, back in 1997). There are no precedents like this in movie history... There's a certain poignancy that comes with it, because, as we all know, this is the last one EVER. There will not be any other Harry Potter, no matter what. The film clearly knows all that and consciously plays to it, tapping into our deepest-self, reminding us about this journey we've taken and how we've grown up with it. The previously-unknown David Yates has slowly been able to find his own voice with the latest 4 of the 8 instalments, by combining the sense of magic the first 2 films had, the darker tone introduced to us by Afonso Cuaron (with the third episode) but also that more grown-up approach to the story, which has been brewing and growing with each chapter (and book of course), but he also had the courage to actually hack to pieces the overly-written source and actually make a better film (clearly after book 3, no editor would dare to tell JK Rowling to cut anything out). In this last "Deathly Hallow", he was able to basically stretch the final battle over the course of the whole film, making it seem greater and more epic than it's ever been in the book (In the end, box office aside, it really did pay off to split the movie in two parts). Considering the incredible amount of expectations which a film like this can carry and, consequently, the almost impossible task of bringing everything to a close, HP 7.2 does a really good job! Yes, of course there will be some disappointed people, but I think the disappointment will come from the fact that secretly each of us would like this story to go on forever and, no matter what, you can never please everyone. Considering what a massive commercial machine Warner Bros is we must be so thankful for the way the franchise has been handled. Producer David Heyman is obviously a man of heart, who cares for his fans and set out to make the best films he could ever make, playing on the strengths of its (let's be honest) not-so-perfect source and in the end making it an even better product. In the end this film must be judged with that same heart and not so much with the brain, taking in consideration the series as well as this ending. And you know what? My heart can't stop saying "I just loved the journey, thank you so much for it

Trust (I) (2010)

A mature take on a complex subject

[8/10 · 5 July 2011]

Whatever you might be expecting from "Friends" star turned-director David Schwimmer, get ready for an unexpected surprise, because this is certainly not it. Trust is in fact quite a mature and complex drama about an even more mature and complex subject and though it might not be perfect, it certainly deserves a lot of credit and respect not only for tackling such a story, but also (and mostly) for its restrained approach throughout. The film is not preachy, nor it pretends to have all the answers: it doesn't offer any solution to an impossible situation and for most of its length, it manages to avoid the obvious clichés from the genre and just when you think you've seen it all before and it takes an unexpected and clever turn. Schwimmer is aware of the complexities of its story and carefully manages to keep his vision very well balanced. He is subtle in his style and in the staging and direction of some truly great performances. At the centre is the amazing performance by Liana Liberato as Annie, the teenage girl who befriends a stranger online, Charlie, who she thinks he's about her age. Once the truth comes out (don't worry, this happens quite early on in the film, so I'm not really giving away anything), and Annie discovers that Charlie is actually a lot older than he used to claimed, she's first taken aback, but slowly begins to feel more and more attached to him, as she thinks he's her first love and the only one who really understand her. Ms Liberato despite her early age seems to have a remarkable understanding for that adolescent naïveté, that awkwardness and innocence that most teenagers seem to have and she portrays Annie to perfection, with all their weaknesses and strengths. "Trust" is certainly not an easy watch. The scene with Charlie the "predator" in a motel room sitting on a bed next to Annie, is one of the most uncomfortable I've seen in quite a while: but like in all the best movies scenes of this kind, the tension is created by what you know and your expectations, not by what you see. And gracefully (and thankfully) Schwimmer shows us just about enough to get the idea across without exploiting the moment. Schwimmer is actually an activist in the field of rape awareness in real life and his understanding of the complexities of the issue is certainly apparent on the screen. If you hear David Schwimmer talking about this film you'll hear him saying that this is really a film "from the point of view of the father". And undoubtedly Clive Owen takes the centre stage at some point in the film (and as always he's pretty good too), but interestingly those are the parts I thought were probably the least successful in the film, all leading up to that final scene which felt to me a bit forced and actually slightly too melodramatic. However these are just small points in an otherwise really powerful film, which should actually be a compulsory watch in schools and among teenagers. In reality, in the UK the film is rated 15 and in the US is R rated: which once again shows the usual close-mindedness of classifications on both side of the pond. Hopefully some kids will get to watch it anyway either on DVD or thanks to mature parents. Oh, and that end credit sequence, which seems almost tagged on as an afterthought, is one of the creepiest thing in the film and leaves you with a really uncomfortable feeling as the credits roll, which I guess is the point of the film. On that respect, it's a success. moviegeekblog.com

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

A perfect film

[10/10 · 23 June 2011]

Call me childish, call me narrow-minded, call me a "blockbuster-junkie", call whatever-you- want, but to me this is the perfect films! Such a bold statement might require some explanation (which hopefully I will be able to give in this post) and certainly begs the question: what makes a film perfect? I believe a perfect film is one that can be watched over and over again: a film that you never grow tired of and that whenever is on TV and you stumble across it, you end up watching. A perfect film is one of those where you struggle to pick up one favourite scene, because they're all so good. A perfect film is one of those you really wouldn't change anything about it and where all its elements (story, direction, acting, music, cinematography, editing and so on) come together in a such a way that it's virtually impossible to choose one over the other. Raiders is 30 years, but still shines as if it were made yesterday… except that it wasn't because, as we all know "they don't make them like this anymore". I still remember going to the movie theatre when it first got released (Yes, I'm giving away my age: clearly I'm not a teenager!) and being absolutely blown away by it. At the time there was nothing like it (and arguably, that's probably still true today). Ever since then people have been trying to imitate its winning formula, and, needless to say, most of them failed miserably. Just to give you an idea of what I am talking about (and to prove my point), just think of Lara Croft, Prince of Persia, National treasure, The Mummy Trilogy and even those films inspired by the Dan Brown's books: well, those are the most successful ones… Enough said. I won't even go into the list of endless B-movies. Right from the word "go", from when the summit of the Paramount logo dissolves into a Peruvian mountain (a Visual device which will become the trademark of the entire series), you know you're in for something which is not only original but clever and handsomely made. What follows that logo is probably one of the best first sequences of any action movies ever made. The mysterious forest, the haunting music, the bloody statue, the group of explorers, the old map, the hidden cave, the pulsating tension, the crawling spiders, the giant web, the deadly traps, the decomposed body, the big scares, the golden idol, the sliding door, the traitor, the whip, the rolling boulder, the French baddie, the wild Hovitos, the arrows, the chase across the fields, the swinging vine, John Williams's "raiders theme", the snake on the plane, the jokes breaking the tension: and all this is just within the first 10 minutes!!! It is such an incredible edge-of-your-seat beginning that after that the film can afford to launch into a very long scene with some massive exposition And I haven't even mentioned the hero himself, Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford deserves a lot of credits for the success of this film. Who knows what would have happened if Tom Selleck had played the role: he was the first choice, after all (I will be eternally grateful to Magnum PI). Harrison Ford manages to make Indiana Jones strong and frail at the same time, funny and sad, invincible and weak. Indy is a hero but he gets hurt, tired, dirty and sweaty. It doesn't matter how far-fetched and over-the-top the action might be, Ford makes it feel real. Spielberg directs it all with clockwork perfection but he's also able to improvise on the spot and use it all to his advantage (most famously, the now-classic scene where Indy shoots the sword-man, which as we all know by now, was pretty much improvised on the spot). He orchestrates it all with a mastery that's never showy and always serving the story and the action as he uses all the tricks in the film-maker book: long lens shots during a chase sequence, a tracking shot across the desert to show the scale of the landscape, a single one- take shot during a drinking competition.

He also knows exactly how to pitch the film: helped by a carefully crafted script, all the improbabilities are always levelled by humour, the action is always counter-balanced by actual dramatic scenes, the magical sense of wonder is always routed to reality and however cartoony some of the characters might be, they're always incredibly detailed. Paul Freeman's Belloq is not just a baddie. There's so much more to him: the care and attention he has for Marion, and whole untold back-story and a passion for archaeology he shares with Indy are enough to give him more depth and somehow make him more scary. He also gets one of the best lines in the film: "we are only passing though history, this… this IS history" What started off as a tribute to those Action Saturday Matinée that Spielberg and Lucas loved so much, here becomes a roller-coaster of sheer invention, cracking action and incredible fun. So many scenes are now become classic iconic moments in movie history, whether it's to do with snakes in "well of Souls", or ghost-like creatures during the opening of the ark, running though the streets of Cairo, or fighting with a bald guy by a plane out of control, in a secret chamber underground, or in a massive warehouse with thousands and thousands crates (incidentally, one of the best "last shots" of any movie!!). This is so much more than just pure escapism: this is a manual of "storytelling with pictures". moviegeekblog.com

The Tree of Life (2011)

An epic...failure...

[5/10 · 18 June 2011]

What really makes me angry about this film is that behind the preposterous, pretentious, tediously slow, shockingly simplistic muddle of philosophical clichés, there was actually a good story waiting to be told by a potentially great director. Those scenes with the kids for example (whose acting was particularly graceful and natural) were indeed nicely handled and gave you a little hint of how much better the film could have been if only director Terence Malick had been a little bit less full of himself. Instead he decided to cram it all with heavy, pretentious, superfluous, confusing and rather conventional voice over, plastered all over the soundtrack, preventing his audience from any emotional response to the film. All that was enhanced even more by the constant choral musical score (including requiem from Bach, Mozart, Gorecki, Respighi, Holst and God knows how many others) which gave the film the same monotone feel throughout. It's as if there was only one gear controlling the pace of this film. The parallel with Kubrick's 2001: A space Odyssey comes quite natural: in a way this film has the same ideals and touches most of the same grounds as Kubrick's classic and because of that, dare-I-say, falls into the exact same faults: the sketchy narrative, overblown abstractions and the slow pace. By while in Kubrick's' case, those "faults" were also counterbalanced by the gripping relationship between man and machine and a strong sense of wonder towards heaven and earth, in the case of Malick's Tree of Life, there's a certain pompousness which makes it really annoying. Also it is both too inaccessible and too obvious. Finally Malick's detached style makes it really hard for anyone to care: in my very humble view the film should have been much more focused on the central story. There was absolutely no need to show us the beginning of the Universe, nor the end of the dinosaurs age (incidentally, the dinosaurs looked better back in 1993 when Spielberg made Jurassic Park!). In fact, there was probably not even need for Sean Penn to be there at all: everything the film wanted to tell us was right there within the central story of the American family in the 50s. And there was definitely no need for that terribly smultzy and contrived final sequence which was supposed to show the end of the world and give us a vision of "heaven" but actually ended up looking more like some outtakes from the actual film's wrap party, with all the actors re-uniting again and congratulating each other on how good they all were. Or was it just Malick's own version of the finale of the TV series LOST? Everything in the film is heavily soaked in symbolism and religion. I read somewhere that Brad Pitt's character was supposed to symbolise the "Old Testament" and his wife was the "New Testament". I did noticed that the two of them were never shown talking to each other, and if they were it was always through a glass or from far away or even off-camera, preventing us from hearing their dialogue or to see them interacting with each other. But does all this stylish trickery and heavy subtext really make the film any better? Certainly not for me. In fact it is all too disappointingly literal and frustratingly patchy that in the end it just comes out as cold and distant. So much so that I just couldn't really care about anyone in this film… and for a film that's about life and love that is a terrible fault. All these attempts to elevate the small-scale, intimate family drama by inter-cutting cosmic sequences of the beginning of the universe in order to give a deeper meaning to the soul- searching of the characters are finally not enough to compensate for a lack of dramatic involvement and in the end, they just overwhelm the actual story. Even the beautiful cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki (where everything seems to be filmed at magic hour) becomes self-indulgent, repetitive and tedious. There's only a certain amount of trees, waterfalls and shots of glinting sun flaring at the lens you can take. It's hard to believe that this is only Terence Malick's 5th feature film as a director since 1973. The Tree of Life has all his distinct signature trademarks (the beautifully photographed shots of nature, the use voice over and music and the themes of the film themselves), but are they just trademarks or is he actually making the same sort of film over and over again? Whatever the answer is, apparently all this was enough for the judges in Cannes, where it won the Palme d'or back in May 2011. People in Cannes said that Malick is not really a real film-maker but more of an "artist". But as somebody once said "to make art is to fail" and he clearly does fail with this film, mainly because he just tries too hard. If only he hadn't aimed so high, he would have certainly made a better film, but as it stand "The Tree of Life" is an epic failure

Green Lantern (2011)

Loud, Messy, loud, boring, loud, confused... and loud!

[4/10 · 15 June 2011]

I should probably start by stating few facts about my position with Green Lantern and superheroes in general.

First of all my only little knowledge of Green Lantern came actually from an episode of "The Big Bang Theory", other than that, I didn't even know there was such a comic until I read that Martin Campbell was going to make a movie. In other words, I wasn't really a fan (and let me spoil you the surprise: I'm still not one!!).

However, I always try to be as open-minded as possible, in fact I was quite excited to learn something new about a new superhero. The fact that I hardly knew the existence of Green Lantern had nothing to do with me not liking the film: I wasn't a fan of Thor either, and yet I did manage to enjoy the film for what it was (here's my Thor review) and as far as the X-Men I knew next to nothing when the first Bryan Singer movie got released and still liked it. Finally, I should also point out that I have nothing against comic superheros either (in fact I still consider Spiderman 2 one of the best action movies of the last few years!).

Green Lantern opens with a very confusing prologue, visually unoriginal and heavy in exposition, characters and soulless CGI. And as it got louder and louder, more and more frantic the whole thing got even more confusing. I must confess, the film lost me right from the word "go", but I decided that it didn't really matter: "It's a comic! How hard can it be?" I said to myself. Thankfully I was right and when finally the action cuts to planet Earth I was able find my bearings again, though never fully comfortable.

Once we are finally introduced to our hero, played by Ryan Reynolds, I realise that I wasn't the only one who didn't really know how to take this film. Reynolds seems to be just as confused as he plays the character sometimes with a complete straight face and sometimes with a smirk irony as if he knew that the whole thing is just preposterous. He's likable enough, but sadly lacks of any emotional depth. The only thing left to marvel at, is his perfect body which only made me even more annoyed and jealous: in fact it distracted me even more as my mind started to wonder "when was the last time I actually went to the gym?"

Director Campbell, never really seems to be in control of what's going on and instead he decides to cram the film with as much noise as possible hoping it might distract his audience from thinking that this is actually all a bit of a mess... The result is that sometimes even some of the dialogue gets lost (though I'm prepared to bet that despite those 4 writer being credited, I didn't really miss much). Campbell clearly feels uneasy with this universe and doesn't quite know what to make of it. The whole philosophical side is just ridiculous, the action scenes are too messy, the special effects underwhelming and the love story is so flat that it becomes redundant.

The pace is completely off and for a film of this kind which last just under two hours, I found myself looking at my watch way too often. The editing is just as uncertain as the rest of the film, as Stuart Baird seems to be randomly cutting to wide shots and close-ups, irrespective of what the action would require and not taking into account that a film in 3D should really hold its shots for much longer, otherwise the 3D effect is lost on its audience. But then again, who cares about 3D! This is another of those films that's been converted into 3D after it was filmed (and my God, it shows!!) and I suspect will have a very short life in this form: many people will probably watch it on DVD or on TV anyway, so why bother cutting it for the 3D format. Those action scenes, particularly at the beginning, are so fast that you really have no idea what's going on.

It doesn't really help the fact that there are way too many characters, obviously introduced to us because of a possible sequel (clearly set up in the end credits with a silly plot twist): after all today it's all about franchises, isn't it? (Bloody hell, Warner, aren't you happy with your 8 Harry Potter films and your never-ending Batman?! Do you really want to embark into another franchise? ).

Peter Sarsgaard plays a sleazy over-the-top baddie without a proper script to allow him to actually be one of those really good baddie. Mark Strong is pretty much wasted, not to mention Tim Robbins in what is possibly his most forgettable role in years. Angela Bassett plays is as if she's been told "you're not allowed to show any emotion, in fact deliver those lines thinking of something else...". Even Geoffrey Rush who probably had a couple of hours spare in his schedule was just happened to pass by the film set, lends his voice for one of the character sounding pretty much like one of those Owl from that film by Zack Snyder.

Finally James Newton Howard's film soundtrack (who I usually really like) is as derivative as all the rest. Not bad, but certainly unremarkable, just like the film itself.

In the end, this is probably out there with some of the most disappointing comic book movies of all times (Elektra, Daredevil, Spawn, The Avengers). Its main crime is that it thinks is a lot better than it is... and it must have cost a lot of money too!!

One positive note: I did like the costume...

Life in a Day (2011)

The Ordinary becomes extraordinary!!

[9/10 · 14 June 2011]

Last year (2010) YouTube launched a campaign, supported by executive producers Tony and Ridley Scott, asking everybody with a camcorder to record a day in their lives. Fast forward a year to 2011 and director Kevin Macdonald and editor Joe Walker (never an editor has been more crucial to the making of a film), release their documentary to the world and to the same people who actually filmed it. Apparently 80000 videos for a total of 4500 hours were submitted from 126 different nations. The result is a film that tells the story of a day on Earth, and precisely the 24th of July 2010: 24 hours in the life of ordinary people. Their stories, their images, their thoughts, all linked together by an incredible work of editing and a rousing soundtrack by Harry Gregson- Williams. You can argue that some of it might be slightly heavy-handed (a shot of a cow being killed on camera is then, non very subtlety, cut together with a man eating from a bowl of spaghetti), but some of the choices are absolutely inspired (montage sequences of people getting up in the morning or having breakfast or simply walking). It's the amalgamation of all these little snippets of life that makes the film an incredible watch and in the end it ends up actually telling a story as the ordinary becomes extraordinary. The film starts at midnight as people are still asleep in most places: some night shift workers are already at it, some wild party animals are still up from the previous day, but generally speaking it's a quiet start. Within a few minutes, we are treated by a sunrise montage from all over the world as people are getting up in the most remote corners of the globe. They have breakfast, some of them go to work, others stay at home, somebody shaves for the first time (a very funny scene!), somebody decides to lay in bed for a bit longer, and somebody else begins a new "empty" day: loneliness might be just around the corner… Despite the sometimes over-indulgent choice of editing and the ever-present soundtrack the film still manages to capture that pulsating realism of modern life through simple gestures, looks, words and silences as the similarities and (many) differences are exposed. But just when you are about to think "is this film going to be just a long montage sequence?", then the film suddenly slows down and you are actually treated to real moments into people's life (well, I say "real", obviously there's a camera filming so I suppose it's "a version of reality", but that doesn't diminish its value nor its emotional impact on the audience). For example, quite early on a little boy of probably 4 is woken up by his dad who's filming the whole thing (I seem to remember they were in Japan or thereabout): we stay with them for a while as they talk about seemingly mundane things: the boy is incredibly sweet, the house is strangely messy. Then dad says "let's go and say 'hi' to mom". They move to a corner of a room where we see for the first time a little shrine with a picture of a woman. Together they light an incense and pay their little morning tribute to the mom. It'a quiet moment that tell a thousand words: no need for commentary or any explanation. It's clear these two have been doing this for a while. It's clear they are incredibly close to each other. Mom is gone. They are both alone, but they have each other… We fill the gaps in an instant. It's an incredibly poignant moment. This time there is no music playing underneath. The director knows when to manipulate its audience and when he should take a step back and let us make our own mind and feel what we want to feel. Life in a day is full of simple moments like this one. So simple and yet so powerful. Don't worry, there are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments too. Generally speaking the film is edited in such a way that shows a certain optimism that comes with the beginning of a new day and yet is some cases, this fades away for some as we approach sunset and go through the night by which time loneliness takes over the weakest ones. It's a beautifully constructed device, which might be a bit contrived but it works perfectly. In the end, this is a film about everything: rich countries and poor countries, smiles and tears (quite a lot in my case, I must confess), day and night, life and death, animals and humans, man and women, whites, blacks, gays, straights, children and very old people, happiness and desperation. We are all there, with our fears, our idiosyncrasies, our routines, our doubts, our weaknesses… Everybody will come out of it and will probably remember something different. Each of us might identify with a different moment in the film. One thing is certain: you will never forget it. It might not be a complete masterpiece, but there is so much good stuff in it that makes you forget the slightly sugary moments and the most heavy handed ones. This was my favourite film of the year so far and definitely the most intense emotional experience I've had in a long time.

Little White Lies (2010)

Indulgent but engaging

[7/10 · 5 June 2011]

When watching Carnet's third film, you'll be excused from drawing some obvious comparisons with the 1983 hit classic the Big Chill: not only the story of a group of friends gathering together for a holiday and ending up taking their skeletons out of the closets is a fairly familiar territory, but also the way the film itself is handled, with that mixture of comedy and drama and a constant (and most of the times fairly random) soundtrack of old American songs playing in the background. The film starts off with a spectacular piece of cinematic bravura: a one take wonder which serves as an introduction for the rest of the film (though I must confess it's so perfectly well choreographed that actually makes you expect the big surprise that's about to come). Unfortunately this perfectly well-timed sequence is a rather isolated example in an otherwise indulgent and over-long film. In fact, after the striking beginning it takes at least a good 30 minutes before the actual holiday (and the real film) starts. Thinking back at it, with hindsight, it would have been quite easy to cut all that part out and set it all up just during the holiday. It would have also brought the film down in length from those 154 minutes. Yes, the accident sequence was very good, but did we really need to see it ? But aside from few indulgences, once the film actually gets going it is a real delight. There are some individual very funny moments (the one where two friends get stranded on a boat gets my top marks…) and generally speaking the inter-relationship between all the various characters is beautifully portrayed and very well observed. Of course, the whole things couldn't be more French and, seen from the eyes of a foreigner, all the so-called clichés that you would expect from these sort of people seem to be there: from the hysterical dialogue, to the wine drinking, the talk about sex and to the fact that they could all end up in each other's bed… and just when you think you've seen it all, a man shows up with a baguette under his arm (really!). However none of that takes anything away from the genuinely affecting drama that unfolds under your eyes. And just like in "the big chill", underneath the surface and all the laughs, there's an impending sense of nostalgia that permeates the atmosphere. All the performances are top-notch; so much so that they make real even some of the most far-fetched situations. These could be friends who spent most of their life knowing each other. François Cluzet, resembling more and more Dustin Hoffman, gets some of the best lines: his storyline about a man who's just been told by his best friend that he's in love with him, is probably the most original and definitely the most entertaining. Everything else is pretty standard for this sort of "re-union" films and yet perfectly enjoyable and very engaging. But while some of the characters work better than others, sadly it's the women that are most two-dimensional (with the single exception of Marion Cotillard) to the point that more than an hour into the film I was still not quite sure about how many where actually there. The film runs slightly out of steam towards the final act where the dialogue becomes more forced and a certain tendency to give every character a cathartic moment starts to creep in. The tearful drawn-out ending to the notes of Nina Simone's version of "My Way", however moving, was probably a step too far and where subtlety really went out of the window. On the whole it felt like a very personal film made by a director who should have been kept more on a leash by a more watchful producer. There's absolutely no excuse for a film of this kind to be so long! And yet, despite all its weaknesses I'm still giving it a thumb up. Would I watch it again? Definitely not. But I certainly did enjoy it the first time around