tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15089597030501112252024-03-12T23:45:42.655+00:00Film BlogRob's Thoughts on FilmRob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.comBlogger164125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-61327608539373325262015-10-31T17:57:00.002+00:002015-10-31T17:59:46.498+00:00Eden Lake (2008)<div style="text-align: center;">
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Low Budget. Horror. Rising stars. All three things seem to intersect quite often, especially at the start of big careers. Eden Lake, a low budget British horror film starring unknowns Michael Fassbender and Jack O'Connell, alongside Kelly Reilly, is no different.<br />
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In a way that feels very "Deliverance but in the English countryside", Jenny (Reilly) and Steve (Fassbender) are a city couple looking to spend a romantic weekend out in the countryside on the shores of the soon to be developed Lake of the title. Their waterside peace is quickly shattered by the appearance of some local teenagers lead by O'Connell's Brett. Things escalate after a Steve confronts the group about their unruly behaviour, and we suddenly find ourselves in a Daily Mail writer's worst nightmare about hoodies who certainly don't want to be hugged.<br />
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While Kelly is in the lead role it's Jack O'Connell's unhinged performance as the leader of this gang of what are basically children that makes Eden Lake stand out as low-budget horror done right. He's a manipulative, machismo obsessed man leading children. Halloween classics might centre around the supernatural, but we've all met real people like Brett who we fear could end up going down the same road if they run into someone who won't back down. And that's <i>really </i>scary.<br />
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Eden Lake, through its protagonists, takes a look at what it really means to be a man and how one gets there. Steve and Brett are two sides of the same coin, where one is a real man who knows when to back down or cut something short and the other is so scared of being seen as weak that things will get crazy in an instant. It's almost enough to feel sorry for the boy, but soon enough he'll savagely beat one of his "friends" or threaten them with death if they don't do as he says, and then you'll remember why he's Eden Lake's version of that hillbilly who likes to get a little too acquainted with the tourists.<br />
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Short, to the point, tense and not totally out there, Eden Lake should be a highlight of the early careers for many of those involved. One of the finer products to come out of the UK horror scene in years.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-3645476790966331462015-08-20T00:05:00.000+01:002015-08-20T00:05:16.121+01:00Locke (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Locke is one of those films that sounds awful on paper, and has every chance of being awful in reality, but manages to pull through thanks to the talent and care of everyone involved.<br />
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Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) leaves the construction site he foremans on the eve of his biggest work project to date and sets off on a journey that will change his life irreversibly. On his two hour drive from Birmingham to London he tries to navigate his way through both his rapidly crumbling professional and personal lives via phone calls to his wife, family, coworkers and a figure from his past.<br />
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As the viewer you're trapped in this car for the duration of the film, just you and Tom Hardy. Once over the ridiculous Welsh accent (although, that is just how they talk) it's Hardy that this entire production relies and thrives upon. It's just him in a car talking to disembodied voices and it just works so goddamn well. It's a testament to what film can really be even at it's barest minimum. This is a man's entire life falling apart. There are no set pieces, no explosions. Just a guy in a car doing the speed limit, most of the time.<br />
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It's this bare bones approach that makes you focus on what works so well. Hardy pulls off this troubled man who is trapped by a decision he made that was so out of character with grace. He captures all the many faces of a man who is prepared to pay the price for the mistake he's made, in effect he's playing a number of characters within Ivan Locke himself.<br />
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<i>Locke</i> is grounded so much so in this minimalist storytelling that the verisimilitude of it all is what grabs you so much. Sure, we might not all be critical to the biggest concrete pour in Europe, but everyone will experience a night close to Ivan Locke's when your work life and your home life and everything else comes crashing down on you all at once and you just do your best to cope. Stories like that are relatable because, although this might be the most interesting night in Locke's life, it's probably on par with the most interesting night of most people's lives.<br />
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You can have all your superheroes, or your eldritch horrors or your international super spies and they're all well and good, but <i>Locke </i>is real. And it's just captivating. Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-63445558791963701972015-06-22T01:05:00.000+01:002015-06-22T01:05:20.484+01:00Spring (2015)<br />
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There has always been a place in my black heart for horror movies. They bring something primal and base to the world of film that other genres just can't present. Fear, despair and melancholy are something every person experiences through life. It might not be caused by an axe murderer or some dreadful apocalypse or a prolonged haunting but it's there. It's real, and it's human. <br />
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<span class="st">Of course, the opposite holds true as well. On the opposite side of the coin are love stories. Not rom-coms, but love stories. And again, the best of these are the ones that feel real. The fairytale ending may be satisfying in the short term, but it holds no real emotional impact. The ones that hurt, where it feels like the end of the film isn't the destination but just a waypoint on the journey, stick with you. (Which is why I think everyone needs to see <i>Eternal Sunshine</i> and<i> Lost in Translation</i> but I say that often enough).</span><br />
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<span class="st"><i>Spring</i> takes the stronger elements of both worlds and mixes a strange, heady cocktail of tropes to present one of the more weird and wonderful films of the past year. And in true indie fashion it's the strangeness of it that will mean it'll go underappreciated forever and that's a tragedy.</span><br />
<span class="st"></span><br />Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead make up the directorial team, with two relative unknowns taking the lead, in the form of Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker. Pucci is Evan, a young Californian who finds his whole life unravelling around him at breakneck speed. When the camel's back finally breaks he takes the leap most of us dream about and just packs his bags and leaves. Not long after his arrival in Europe he becomes enraptured by the enigmatic Louise (Hilker). The pair share a fast-forged love over a number of days, but Louise can't hide a dark side of herself forever.<br />
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The entire film seems share the slightly hazy, and jetlagged demeanour that Evan has while adjusting to a new continent. It always seems to be behind a slightly faint, smoky-dewy barrier. Early morning and dusk make up the majority of the scenes too, giving it this eerie ambiguity over when exactly things are taking place. It all combines into an atmosphere where even when nothing seems <i>wrong</i>, it feels different. Like the first time you were drunk.<br />
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A "strange not scary" bent is evident in how the horror aspects are handled by Benson and Moorhead. There is an amount"traditional" horror fare, especially in some of the visceral, Lynch-ian body horror moments, but also a nihilistic attitude to other moments that would typically be accompanied by a loud, shrill audio sting. Why yes, there is a disgusting animal corpse down that cliffside, but it's not dangerous. It's just a bit weird and not very pleasant. <i>Spring </i>just accepts strange things for what they are and moves on.<br />
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Spring is a visually beautiful and innovative film. Set on the Italian coast and making fantastic use of drone shots to see the slightly crumbling towns and cliffs from above as well as the two lovers captures a magical feeling about the otherwordly limbo in which the film takes place.<br />
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This is a horror/romance film unlike anything I've seen for a long time. With a heart as big as some of the tentacles of its monster, <i>Spring</i> will make you sit in a state of unease while reminding you to worry less about working and more about living.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-87819537211141990512015-04-24T22:40:00.002+01:002015-04-24T22:44:50.867+01:00The Voices (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) had a bit of a difficult childhood. He had a rough life. His mother was seriously mentally ill and his step-father was abusive. But that's all behind him. Jerry works a job he enjoys well enough at a bathroom fittings factory. He's got a nice apartment (even if it is above a disused bowling alley). Most importantly, he has his two lovable furry companions, Mr Whiskers and Boscoe. When he comes home from a shift on the factory floor he'll often recount his day to them as he pours their food and water.<br />
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And between mouthfuls, Mr Whiskers and Boscoe will reply.<br />
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<i>The Voices</i> is a black comedy drama following Jerry and how he deals with the reality presents itself to him, and how it's different to everyone else's. Things all reach a tipping point at the start when Jerry, the new guy at work, is asked to help organise the company picnic and he's joined on the task by the lovely Fiona (Gemma Arterton). As can probably be guessed from the fact that this is a black comedy, things don't exactly play out well. Things quickly unravel and we take a trip down the rabbit hole involving talking cats and dogs, severed heads in the fridge and obscene amount of takeaway and tupperware containers and one particularly brutal slaughtering.<br />
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With <i>The Voices</i>, director Marjane Satrapi leads you up the garden path then brutally stabs you within about the first half an hour. While some black comedies are funny films with a dark subject (like <i>In Bruges</i> or <i>Sightseers</i> or <i>Fargo</i>) <i>The Voices</i> is a lot darker and punctuated by funny moments. As soon as you get used to the concept of Ryan Reynolds talking to a Scottish cat and a dopey dog (both also voiced by Reynolds, fantastically I might add) it stops being funny and becomes really quite sad as it becomes more apparent what's really going on in those scenes. That's not to say that the film isn't funny because it is. It's just that the tactic used throughout is typically something absurd happening directly after something really quite troubling occurs. The finale just before the credits roll is something quite inspired to say the least. <i>The Voices</i> is just kind of like that though, making use of misdirection. The first 15-20 minutes certaintly left me feeling quite confident about hwo the plot was going to go. Wrong. Completely wrong. Things got a lot darker, a lot quicker than I expected.<br />
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Satrapi brings a really interesting visual style to the film that really brings it to life. Jerry's world is bright, populated by saturated colours and soft hues. The grisly, visceral gore that punctuates the film makes for an odd mix of the quirky and the horrific giving The Voices a unique feel.<br />
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Reynolds' performance is just as important as the visual style in making <i>The Voices </i>memorable. Jerry is a simple yet troubled man. He just wants to be happy and healthy and not be alone. He's not the most intelligent guy and he's in the grips of a truly awful illness that pretty much means he can't achieve all three of the things he wants. Reynolds' showing as Jerry is simultaneously harrowing, hilarious and supremely melancholy. I've never previously rated Reynolds, but his role here has really, really got me excited for what he can do with the darkest comedy in comics that is Deadpool next year.<br />
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The performances of Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick are also worth mentioning. They both play characters that they've done before, but they've done them before because they're good at them. Arterton is the sexy and fun woman who can actually be quite cruel and harsh, and Kendrick's the quiet, sweet, slightly self-conscious girl who wouldn't hurt a fly. Arterton's range of expression in her face in particular is astounding.<br />
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So, <i>The Voices</i>. It's really dark. Like really, really dark. There are moments of truly absurd hilarity and the kitschy aesthetic that clashes violently with some of the grislier visuals give it a unique and refreshing take on the black comedy genre. the humour in no ways detracts from the drama and it takes much more of a back seat as the picture goes on. The film doesn't make comedy out of the illness though, and rightly so. Jerry is a man afflicted with a terrible situation and you'll watch parts of this film through your fingers not because of the gore but because you feel awful for everybody involved. Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-58613577817249833122015-02-09T01:11:00.000+00:002015-02-09T01:14:01.681+00:00What We Do in the Shadows (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Name the two things that are msot overdone in TV and film right now.<br />
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If you said "vampires" and "mockumentaries" then congratulations, we're both unusually tired of two quite specific things. It's strange then that this is the vampire mockumentary we didn't know we always wanted.<br />
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What We Do in the Shadows comes from the minds of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, two of the creative minds behind the massive cult hit Flight of the Conchords. Such a comedy pedigree bleeds into the bones of WWDitS and the style of humour blends well.<br />
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WWDitS is the documentary put together by the New Zealand Documentary Board team that shadowed four vampire flatmates in Wellington, NZ. The house is like a police lineup of vampire classics: the violent and explosion Vladislav from <i>somewhere </i>in Eastern Europe, a fancy 18th Century dandy in the form of Viago, Deacon the stylish and swaggering "youngster" at 183 years old and Petyr, the Nosferatu-esque ancient horror.<br />
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The four of them tackle issues that come up in all eternal lives. They have to feed on human blood, they struggle to keep up with technology, pine over long-dead lovers and argue about who has to wash the blood stained bowls that have been in the sink for years. The combination of the supernatural issues they face and the mundane gives the undead foursome a very human appeal, despite some of the sometimes digusting and sometimes hilarious (often both) things they carry out on their nights.<br />
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The style of humour is rapid, with quickfire jokes coming one after the next. The mockumentary style is used not like a crutch as it is in most TV shows right now, but to block off sections of the film with relative ease. It creates an atmosphere that feels almost like a combination of sketches, with little overarching plot, so don't go in expecting some Twilight drama you'll have trouble finding the vein.<br />
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A lot of the humour does feel quite obvious, but it's played off so smartly and genuinely that it works well enough to carry it off. Yes some of the jokes have been done before, and yes they were done because they were funny. The most cliché example lives in the rival pack of werewolves that the guys encounter a number of times through the film. The werewolves v zombies dynamic is nothing new, but the biting banter exchanged between the two, especially from pack's the alpha male (played by Flight of the Conchords' Rhys Darby). It's an easy joke to make, but not easy to do well, and this right here is one of my highlights.<br />
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The humour can kind of repeat itself, and not everything is original, but the quality of the jokes the team behind WWDitS breathes new life into at least two lifeless genres that have sorely been missing the blood in their veins.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-5341306891924226162015-02-04T02:22:00.002+00:002015-02-04T02:22:25.509+00:00John Wick (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you want your action sequences to an A standard and your movies to a B, then John Wick might be the Keanu Reeves return to the floor that you've been waiting for.<br />
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Reeves reappears in the form of John Wick, a hitman who comes out of retirement to avenge the killing of his dog, itself a final gift from his recently deceased wife. In his campaign to get revenge on the killer he'll tear apart the Russian mob, the hitman underworld and large swathes of New York City.<br />
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This film is built purely on one major strength: the unrelenting, visceral action. Teaming up with Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, whom he first met on the set of The Matrix where they were charting the choreography, Reeves brings the familiar finesse and weight to the bullet ballet that takes up a majority of the screen time.<br />
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"Gun fu" is a term that I have laughed at, am laughing at as I type, and will most likely laugh at in the future. It's a silly term, but it completely works because it's made for ridiculous movies. That is not a bad thing. Much in the same way that Kung Fu films had crazy, unbelievable fights that could never happen, films like John Wick have people so effective at combat and killing and shooting that it makes Gun Fu an applicable description. The weapons of the killers in John Wick are extensions of their owners' bodies making it as much as a martial art as karate or judo.<br />
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Wide, extended shots allow the beauty of all the fight choreography to really shine through. Where many films cower behind frenetic motion and quick cuts, John Wick avoids the shortcuts even in its sure to be iconic night-club chase-come-massacre.<br />
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All this action takes place in a hammed up B movie hitman underworld completely bathed in style. Once he rejoins the criminal profesion, Wick inhabits a world where there are killer clubhouses, a hitman code and everybody seems to know everybody else's name and business (all things that, I imagine, don't tend to work out too well for your modern contract killer). The supporting cast, made up of femme fatales, unnerving hotel concierge and Russian playboys, pad out this world and bring it to life in that charms in a way only something out of a B movie can.<br />
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Somehow pulpy and fresh, John wick delivers a visceral, uncomplicated take on the B movie revenge film and Keanu Reeves proves that, as well as not physically ageing, he still possesses the skills to inflict unblinking, unemoting pain on the countless unnamed thugs of the mythical underworld.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-42701247568752155462015-01-12T01:55:00.001+00:002015-01-12T02:13:03.211+00:00The Guest (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Jesus, new surprise favourite right here.<br />
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If I'd known who Adam Wingard was before today I'd have seen this a lot sooner. Hot on the heels of <i>You're Next</i>, and <i>V/H/S</i> and <i>V/H/S 2</i> Wingard produces this and adds to the list of fantastic horror-comedy films I never realised he was in charge of. It's the sort of black comedy that you'll probably only appreciate if you've watched a lot of horror movies, producing laughter at times that'll makes family members worry about you.<br />
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<i>The Guest</i> is a darkly violent thriller in which a soldier, just discharged from the US army, meets the family of a fellow soldier whose dying wish was that his family was taken care of. David Collins arrives in small town New Mexico and is exceedingly polite, warm and helpful. Things take a dramatic turn as David's particular brand of "help" escalate everything around the family to dreadful ends.<br />
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Dan Stevens, of Downton Abbey fame, brings a psychotic energy to the main character. He's very polite, charming and a smooth talker, but at the drop of a hat is prone to extreme threats and even more extreme violence. In a bizarre sort of way, David isn't a bad guy despite all the atrocities he commits. He genuinely thinks he's helping because of everything he has been through. An unerring sense of loyalty to his dead friend and the family he swore to protect just makes the exciting conclusion of <i>The Guest</i> an even more messed up finale.<br />
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This is a brutal film. Like <i>You're Next</i>, there is a lot of on-screen, bloody violence. Wingard takes a different approach to combat than some of the films that obviously influenced the action scenes in other ways. It manages to achieve the same raw and harsh feel that the Bourne films have, but does so in the opposite way. Where Bourne has a shaky camera jumping all over in a frenetic craze, The Guest locks off with steady shots so you see every punch, stab and shot in visceral detail.<br />
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<i>The Guest</i> draws inspiration from a lot of places, action films like Bourne actually being one of the smallest contributors. There are countless pastiches and allusions to other horrors movies and directors throughout, all done fleetingly enough to not overstay their welcome or be too obvious about it. Importantly, none of these are jokes. <i>The Guest</i> plays it straight throughout.<br />
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The real influences are from films like the director's previous works and some other really style-heavy films. <i>Drive </i>and <i>Only God Forgives</i> are two that the film is very reminiscent of, in soundtrack and visuals respectively. <i>The Guest</i> features this eerie synth-heavy soundtrack from start to finish that hits the beats perfectly. Oddly enough, most of it is played in the film itself, from the car stereo or the DJ decks or the soundtrack to a party. Seriously, the soundtrack and sound design elevate this from "pretty good" to "holy shit", and I'm not even that into synthy stuff. It takes the creepiness that Dan Stevens seems so natural at and builds a wonderful sense of dread.<br />
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Visually, the film riffs on similar levels to the soundtrack. It's so incredibly eighties in so many ways. Lots of flashing visuals, neon and bright lights punctuate the film's major setting in the desert via parties and other scenes to create this cocaine-haze of an atmosphere culminating in the mind bogglingly hectic, bright, visually delightful finale.<br />
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<i>The Guest</i> is a great thriller. With creepiness and dread seeping out of every pore for the first half, the payoff in the last act as everything comes to a head is totally worth it. With it's brooding synthy score and hallucinogenic visuals it's a feast for the sense. And with the correct, specifically fucked up sense of humour it'll have you laughing from start to finish.<br />
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What. The. Fuck.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-26747882520927538952015-01-04T02:19:00.000+00:002015-01-04T02:25:23.755+00:00Nightcrawler (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For months I've been excitedly yammering from my soapbox about how fantastic Jake Gyllenhaal is and how much of a roll he is on. If anybody now questions my stance on the matter, I shall simply point them towards this film and await their grovelling apology. <br />
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This is a guy who has been making the right moves from the start and has a back catalogue to back up such a claim. Gyllenhaal's had a strong starring career spanning over a decade filled with films like<i> Donnie Darko</i>, <i>Jarhead</i>, <i>Brokeback Mountain</i> and <i>Zodiac</i>. His last three films were <i><a href="http://robsthoughtsonfilms.blogspot.com/2014/10/enemy-2013.html" target="_blank">Enemy</a></i>, <i><a href="http://robsthoughtsonfilms.blogspot.com/2013/12/prisoners-2013.html" target="_blank">Prisoners</a></i> and <i><a href="http://robsthoughtsonfilms.blogspot.com/2013/02/end-of-watch-2012.html" target="_blank">End of Watch</a></i>. All three of these are <i>fantastic.</i> It's not often that you get someone these days who is consistently in such high quality productions without selling out to either Hollywood blockbusters or easy cash cows like rom-coms. You can't get away from the fact that <i>Prince of Persia</i> exists, but Gyllenhaal has a filmography that will lead to many people, much like myself, looking over it and slowly coming to the realisation that he's one of the most talented actors working today.<br />
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And so, combining such a talent with a film like <i>Nightcrawler </i>is a guaranteed recipe for success. Nightcrawler sees Gyllenhaal as the creepy, psychopathic Lou Bloom who jumps head first into the dark underbelly of LA "nightcrawling"; the act of turning up at crime scenes, filming them and selling the footage to local news. Carjackings, home invasions, robberies, traffic accidents. All fair game. Lou takes the motto "if it bleeds, it leads" to heart and sets out on a terrifyingly escalating quest to become the best at this parasitic, leeching profession.<br />
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Lou Bloom is quite reminiscent of Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman (<i>American Psycho</i>) in many ways. Both are high-functioning psychopaths without any real regard for the people around them. Neither are the heroes of their stories. Both of them are likely to be held up as rolemodels for success. Neither of them should be. Both of them eschew real dialogue for verbose monologuing. Neither of them see relationships as anything other than transactions of power. <br />
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The film itself has many similarities with <i>American Psycho</i> as well. Where AP was a satire of 80s yuppie culture and excess, <i>Nightcrawler </i>is a biting attack on both the media with its voyeuristic take on tragedy and by extension the people that consume it. Where news in an idealistic world would be all factual, informative and focussed on the important issues, that's not how it works in the real world. What people want to see is something provocative and graphic. One news editor's description of her programme to Bloom hits modern TV news right on the nose: "Think of our newscast as a screaming woman running down the road with her throat cut".<br />
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Nightcrawler makes you very uncomfortable with a person like Lou Bloom, but he's the kind of necessary evil to produce the media society loves to consume. Any normal person would say they want to see important issues on the news: political reform, humanitarian works, corruption etc. But look around facebook and twitter and the things getting most shared are much closer to things like vigilante justice, isolated horrific incidents and the occasional heroic act of a single person. It doesn't take a genius to figure out though, that to have the footage of the cop pulling the kid out of the burning car, you had to have someone stop, <b>not help</b> and then get their camera out. Lou Bloom is that person. Lou Bloom <i>makes a living out of the being that person</i>.<br />
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Dan Gilroy made <i>Nightcrawler </i>as his directorial debut, and what a feature it is to debut with. The film is slick and twisted throughout. It delves deep into the nocturnal darkside of LA and its morality-free world of ambulance and cop chasers and only briefly comes up for air. Much like its main character Nightcrawler doesn't let up and doesn't let go for its entire run. It's a brutal and critical attack on the unbridled voyeuristic, spectacle obsessed media. A 21st century twist on the American Psycho taking aim at the producer and consumer of a culture rather than just the members of it. It's a completely twisted take on the quintessential American Success Story.<br />
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Nightcrawler is simply fantastic from start to finish. It was everything I expected it to be from the first time I saw the first teaser all those months ago. It's incredibly rare that I let myself get hyped up so much for something and then it actually delivers up to my expectations.<br />
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Just go see Nightcrawler. Just seriously go see it.<br />
<br />Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-45830523599579765292014-11-03T02:24:00.000+00:002014-11-03T02:24:44.276+00:00Frank (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In this weird, strange and charming dark comedy drama Michael Fassbender and Domhnall Gleeson take a journey through music mental illness and acceptance.<br />
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Inspired and drawing on the Frank Sidebottom character, <i>Frank</i> presents the story of of a group of avant-garde musicians and their newest, tagalong bandmate (Domhnall Gleeson) as they set out to produce a new album and eventually chase fame in their own messed up way. Lead by the enigmatic Frank who never appears, to anyone, without his giant full-face mask, the band are enraptured by his optimism and innate musical talent, but trying to create something beautiful out of something broken is never an easy ride.<br />
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<i>Frank</i> is a difficult film to write about in that it's such a mixture. There's comedy, a lot of it. It's very dark, while still being funny. And most importantly it deals with mental illness in a very real way. In the same way that films like <i>50/50</i> can still be funny when dealing with something as horrific as cancer, <i>Frank</i> acknowledges that, yes being broken in some way is terrible, but it doesn't mean that funny things can't happen along the way.<br />
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It's this issue with insanity and creativity being inherently linked to performance that hits home the most in <i>Frank</i>. Can great art be made without a hint of crazy? Of course it can. Does it help? Who knows. But it an issue that <i>Frank</i> explores with a touching underlying current of fragility and sincerity that tackles the matter with a refreshing sense of maturity.<br />
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Fassbender gives an unusually vulnerable performance, compared to all his bombastic success of recent years. Behind that giant fibreglass head is an actor who's able to deliver sheer brilliance with only body language to go on. A performance that can only hype me up more for his upcoming role as Macbeth.<br />
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<i>Frank</i> is a charming, strange and compelling film. The closing act takes a much darker turn after a lighter beginning, but gives the film an ultimately more compelling conclusion. Anyone even vaguely interested in the creative process of either music or film would do themselves a disservice by missing this film.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-18809341027454890662014-10-24T16:15:00.000+01:002014-10-24T16:15:26.376+01:00Troll Hunter (2010)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The found-footage gimmick is somewhat of a hurdle to overcome these days. It's cheap, easy and often nausea inducing. Its similarity to a one night hook-up from the bar down the street continues in that it's difficult to make something that lasts out of it and get something that's more than one night's worth of fun.<br />
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It's a shame really, that something that can lend authenticity and an immersive feel to a film has been so overused.<br />
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Troll Hunter, however, jumps the hurdle and runs with the concept. For once, there's a reason to be filming for one. <span style="font-size: small;">Øvredal<b>'</b></span>s film features a trio of plucky Norwegian students are trying to make their mark on journalism by tracking down an illegal bear hunter in Volda. They soon discover that bears aren't his real prey and that far from the most fearsome creature lurking in the beautiful vistas of fjord country. <br />
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The bleak, mountainous and often dark surroundings that envelope the film are whole-heartedly reflected in the comedy of the writing. The typically dry humour of Scandinavia is weaved throughout the entire production. On one hand you have these terrifying, eldritch monsters towering up hundreds of feet up into the sky, ready to smash, tear and eat their way through anything that moves, and on the other you have incompetent civil servants, bureaucracy and a silly attitude to the dispensable cast. It's all delivered in a dry deadpan style and just works so smoothly that it works as a mockumentary on a level that many miss. It takes the "mock" bit as important for one. Poking fun at conspiracy theorists that believe that modern governments are capable of hiding a troll-sized elephant in the room, the film lambasts both the nutjobs and political landscapes with equal measure. One throwaway line about new Muslims immigration in particular is genius and biting.<br />
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Technically speaking, there are some weak points. With a CGI budget that is, understandably, much lower than those of Hollywood some of the effects can look a bit shonky. A very shaky and worrying start when the monsters are first encounter doesn't bode well, but it very quickly improves and some of the final scenes are genuinely impressive. The run time also feels a little padded out. As breathtaking as Norway's countryside is, you do see a lot of it shot from the inside of a moving Land Rover. But with a short runtime of around 100 minutes it's not something I think the editor's will be losing much sleep over.<br />
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Troll Hunter is a fresh take on the mockumentary genre and manages to spin the many plates of suspense, comedy, satire and horror with varying degrees of finesse, but all done to some level of high quality.<br />
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<br />Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-79360460501840225332014-10-14T00:05:00.002+01:002014-10-14T00:05:32.837+01:00Enemy (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I saw Enemy about a week ago, and ever since I've been mulling it over and replaying it in my head. I've been wondering around lost in thought just pondering exactly how to put down in words how I feel about it. I couldn't really put into words what I appreciated about it and why I enjoyed it because I couldn't land on a specific message or idea it was trying to tell me.<br />
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Then today I stumbled upon a quote from Stanley Kubrick that helped me out:<br />
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<i>Enemy</i>'s strange opening is matched only by its strange ending scene, with good competition coming from several seemingly irrelevant and isolated shots inserted throughout. Not a lot is explained, but the opening title card, reading "Chaos is order yet undeciphered", lays out why it's left unexplained. We are viewing a message that's encoded somehow without the cypher.<br />
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In essence, the film shows us the journey of university lecturer Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) who lives an unfulfilling, repetitive life. He discovers through chance the existence of Anthony (Jake Gyllenhaal), a man who looks exactly like him. <i>Exactly </i>like him. In an effort to track him down and figure out what's going on things get weird and existential.<br />
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It's Gyllenhaal's second film with director Denis Villeneuve, hot on the heels of Prisoners. It has very little in common with their previous film except for the high quality and understated, fantastic acting of Gyllenhaal.<br />
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I'm struggling to put into words exactly why I enjoyed <i>Enemy </i>so much. I think it's quite uncharacteristic for me. I don't understand it but I love it. That Kubrick quote is something that will stick with me for a while.<br />
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If the test is to love something without needing to understand it, <i>Enemy </i>steals my heart and hits my brain with a truck. So it passes, I guess.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-78092131110645785042014-07-24T02:02:00.003+01:002014-07-24T02:07:34.643+01:00Under the Skin (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, apparently I blinked and now Scarlett Johansson is now the queen of sci-fi?<br />
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She's been in soft sci-fi with <i>The Avengers</i> and other assorted Marvel products, she's been the voice of a (for once, not evil) super intelligent AI in <i>Her</i> and she's set to unlock 100% of her brain in Luc Besson's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt32qoyhi0" target="_blank"><i>Lucy</i></a> but that's all pretty standard stuff. <i>Under the Skin</i> is not standard. Not at all.<br />
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Touted largely as a "sci-fi art" film and given very limited releases, <i>Under the Skin</i> was never meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The freedom of not having to target the masses obviously gave film-maker Jonathon Glazer to create the trippy, Kubrickean art piece that he wanted.<br />
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I say this a lot, but this is really a film you're better off going into when you know nothing. I saw the first trailer for it and it didn't give away too much, but the description below the video contained one key word that pops up <b>everywhere</b> if you search for this film. Personally I think you're better not knowing from the start, but even then it works either way because you'll figure it out on your own thanks to the fantastic direction by Glazer.<br />
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In many ways, considering large amounts of it are so bizarre and surreal, much of the film feels incredibly grounded and real. Part of the film involves Johansson's character driving around Scotland picking up hitch-hikers in an old white van and flirting with them. And according to Glazer, the way you make that authentic is put some hidden cameras in a van and have Scarlett Johansson pick up hitch-hikers and flirt with them.<br />
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It's odd then that these scenes provide some of the most tense and horrifying parts of the film. The way Johansson switches back and forth between a cold, robotic manner into a charming and flirty personable woman is scary in and of itself. Throw into the mix that she's some form of sexual predator in a quite literal sense and you get a sense of unease not often seen in horror films: men being groomed and targeted as victims by a sexual villain. A man driving round in a van trying to lure women in, no matter how good looking, would set off the creep alarm for just about anyone, but a beautiful woman trying to lure men into a van is subtler and makes the victims even more vulnerable because of the lack of suspicion. <br />
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A pivotal encounter with one victim triggers an exploration into two areas: what it means to be seen as something that is "less than"- whether it's one sex being "less than" the other, or someone being "less than" human because of how they look and it takes a look at the idea of how different the dangers of sexual assault is for the genders. By pointing a lens at the idea that a lone man cannot be safe walking down the street at night without being put at a very real risk of being abducted and raped, it shines a light on just how bad, and actually real, the danger can be for women. It comes full circle final scenes of the film when Scarlett's character's fate is determined not because of what she really is, but because of how she looks to those in the world around her.<br />
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All in all, <i>Under the Skin</i> is a truly artistic and cinematic film in the truest senses of the words. A lack of true dialogue leaves you to figure out a lot of the film for yourself and take away what you want from it. With a really sharp eye for special effects and how to frame the distinctive landscapes of Scotland, Jonathon Glazer captures a sense of beautiful horror the likes of which haven't really been seen since Stanley Kubrick's reign.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-1642278447022112962014-06-24T23:24:00.000+01:002014-06-24T23:35:56.407+01:00Throne of Blood (Kumonosu-jō) (1957)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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***<i>A fair warning: This post will contain spoilers for both Throne of Blood and Macbeth. It's based on Macbeth. The story's been around for about 400 years. Spoilers aren't really an issue for something like that</i>***<br />
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There's always been somewhat of a cultural gulf between the anglosphere and Japan. From language to social attitudes to food to media, everything is different whether it's by a little or by a lot. SOme of the best modern films trade on this fact to make an impact. Two of my favourite films of the last decade are set in Tokyo and use the almost alien locale to paint massively different pictures for a Western audience: Lost in Translation uses it simply as a slightly offbeat and eccentric backdrop while Enter the Void embraces the neon and sleaze of the Japanese underworld to create an outright trippy experience.<br />
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So in a way Throne of Blood comes as a bit of a surprise. This is a film created completely by a Japanese crew, actors and director. This is the country that gave us the crazy and fantasical Studio Ghibli films and Miyazaki's anime creations. Then, of course, there is Throne of Blood's director Akira Kurosawa who brings a grounded and powerful adaptation of one of the West's classics.<br />
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Set in feudal Japan, this version of the Scottish play follows Washizu, a general and leader of the First Fortress, who upon meeting with a spirit in the forest is told he will one day became the Great Lord of Spider's Web Castle. From this moment on a huge doom-laden shadow covers the events of Wushizu's life as, at the behest of his wife, he goes on to satisfy what may have always been a self-fulfilling prophecy.<br />
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Adaptations of Shakespeare are a dime a dozen. As much as I scoff at Baz Luhrman's <i>Romeo + Juliet</i>, plonking the star-crossed lovers in 1990s LA complete with original script was a ballsy, brilliant, brilliant idea. Unique spins on the classic tales like that can either make or break an adaptation. But using feudal Japan as the tapestry hits the balance right and is makes Kurosawa's film still feel fresh while not straying too far from the source. "A land ruled by lords and violent power" could refer to both 1600s Scotland and Japan easily.<br />
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This film is a powerhouse of classic cinema. The theme of a never-ending circle of violence (one major difference to the source material being the King Duncan analogue seized the throne by killing his predecessor himself) along with Kurosawa's beautiful direction to create a landscape as haunting and desolate as the highlands brings this darkest of Shakespeare's plays to a beautifully tragic adaptation.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-8263849053261003962014-05-17T00:20:00.000+01:002014-05-17T00:20:32.918+01:00300: Rise of an Empire (2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A largely unnecessary prequel/parallequel/sequel (which actually
happens before, during and after the events of the first film) that
departs in quite a few ways from the first.<br />
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300: Rise of an Empire follow the campaigns of Themistocles (Sullivan
Stapleton), an Athenian general as he wages war against the seemingly
unstoppable might of the Persian war machine's navy as King Leonidas'
Spartans hold the Hot Gates against the land forces. Themistocles finds
his match in Xerxes' unhinged naval commander, a traitorous Greek named
Artemisia (Eva Green), as he tries to unite Greece to fight as one force
against the Persian empire.<br />
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All the hallmarks of what made the first film great are present, but
are either somewhat lacking or undermined by some other aspect of the
film.<br />
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To give Rise of an Empire its credit though, it does look good. The
stylish and slick action sequences that comprise most of the film,
ducking in and out of super-slo-mo as they go, do look excellent and the
same crazy excess that made the first look so good carries over. The
only issue I would take with the look and visual of this installment is
the colour. Where the red and gold filters of the first sat well with
the visuals of the blood and glory themes, Rise of an Empire is very
cold and blue. In an attempt to match the seas on which they fight for
most of the film and it loses something with that. CGI blood just
doesn't look as engaging when it's closer to black that red.<br />
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The biggest problem is the spot on the testosterone-fuelled blood and
guts meter that the first hit so sweetly. In 300, the central
characters are the Spartans: a warrior people to whom death in battle is
the ultimate goal and the glory of the fight is all that matters. Led
by the charismatic and ultra-masculine leader Leonidas, the ultra
violence and super-glamorisation of the combat and the money shots of
heads taking leave of their necks, it all makes sense then because
that's what the Spartans are all about. But with Themistocles and the
Athenians, everything is a little bit more political. They fight for
freedom and ideals rather than just for the glory of themselves and the
fight, so the gratuitousness and pleasure taken by the film makers in
the violence just feels a little out of place.<br />
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So it would be fair to say that the problem is the lack of a King
Leonidas. The lack of someone charismatic and crazy enough to make sense
and function in the world that Zack Snyder created is the downfall.
Except it's not. Because 300: Rise of an Empire has this crazy bastard
at its heart:<br />
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<span rel="lightbox"><img alt="tAFIMYLl.png" class="bbc_img" src="http://i.imgur.com/tAFIMYLl.png" /></span></div>
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Eva Green nails the character of Artemisia so hard you could pin a
Greek skull to a ship's mast with her performance. She has that crazy,
obscene and just plain terrifying quality that's just brilliantly
ridiculous and could only exist in such a comic-book influenced world.
She has this swaggering walk and talk that had me convinced I wanted the
Persians to just steamroll the Greeks and all their moping about
freedom and democracy along with them. When you put Artemisia's
absurdity next to Themistocles' maudlin moaning, all of his scenes just
feel like distractions from the scenes with the more fun character.<br />
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If you seek out Rise of an Empire, don't expect much. It's still
stylish and fun, but not as much as the first. Eva Green stands out as a
shining light of craziness in a cast that's taking itself a bit too
seriously considering there's a perfectly waxed 8 foot tall guy
wandering around in his pants declaring himself a god king.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-17833853557275256322014-05-12T01:23:00.002+01:002014-05-12T01:23:35.401+01:00Blue Ruin (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A broken man, clumsy and visceral violence and a overall atmosphere of bleak tragedy are the main ingredients for <i>Blue Ruin</i>; a revenge film that takes the genre in a melancholic direction and paints revenge as the dishonourable act it can be.<br />
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The with a dialogue-free sequence following the life of a drifter on the Delaware coast. He eeks out an existence metres from the joy and happiness of the fun fair on the pier. Eating out of bins, scavenging bottles to recycle for cash on the beach and breaking into homes in order to feed and clean himself make up his day-to-day existence. This broken man without purpose, Dwight, was driven to this life after a tragedy tore his family and his life apart, and now he finally has an opportunity to exact his revenge on those who robbed him.<br />
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Macon Blair plays this listless, fragmented man. His Dwight isn't the typical revenge thriller hero or anti-hero. Dwight is a man doing the only thing he thinks will make him whole again and how he deals with the fallout. He's a pitiable shell of a man who doesn't talk much and can't handle a gun. He's not a badass and this isn't <i>Taken</i>. <br />
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It's his ineptness that really sells the bleakness of <i>Blue Ruin</i>. The clumsy, and realistic, take on the violence paints the walls of the rural homes a visceral and raw shade of red. There are no drawn out fight sequences, no massive gunfights. Just scared people struggling to find a way to make themselves feel better.<br />
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<i>Blue Ruin</i>, with its conservative use of dialogue and uncompromising look at violent revenge, makes a beautifully tragic watch. It presents a damning indictment of America's infatuation with the right to bear arms against one another. When the truth is being decided by the person standing at the right end of the barrel, nobody really goes home a winner.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-6246428534619546182014-05-02T01:38:00.000+01:002014-05-02T01:38:07.933+01:00Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes) (2007)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There isn't too much that can be said about Timecrimes without spoiling what exactly transpires in it. To put it shortly and sweetly: Timecrimes is a smart and suspenseful thriller that has an interesting take on time travel movies. It's pretty small in scale (no going back in time to save the planet) and doesn't get too convoluted to follow, a trap that many films like this fall into.<br />
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I'll go into more detail and still try to avoid spoilers below, but it really is best to go into Timecrimes completely blind.<br />
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<br />
Timecrimes is a clever film in that it plays with your expectations well and takes what you think will be a standard time travel plot and puts more than one interesting spin on it. Know-it-alls like myself will probably notice a number of things throughout and think "Well that doesn't make any sense because of [<i>some timetravel techno-babble</i>]" only to later be proven wrong as it all gets meticulously explained away with later developments.<br />
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That said, it is straightforward enough and not a headache to follow. It is <b>not </b>like Primer. Primer gets lauded constantly as the thinking man's timetravel movie, but that's just because the logic in it makes sense (i.e. you can't travel back to before the time machine was switched on) and because it's really, really complicated. I'll gladly admit to not having a clue to what exactly goes down in the last twenty minutes of that film, but thankfully I do in Timecrimes. In this case, someone literally draws a concise little diagram for it. If you can figure out a curved line and two x's then congratulations, you can follow Timecrimes.<br />
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A slippery, dark slope forms the meat of the film, as Hector tries to fix the problem's he has caused by accidentally going back in time. There are some pretty grim implications in trying to resolve things by messing with what's already happened, what has to happen and what's going to happen. But you also have the question of whether anybody is responsible for these things because didn't they <b>have</b> to happen to make time work? Timecrimes manages to raise some interesting questions about the notion of travelling in time, but uses a deft touch to avoid falling into the ones that can easily unravel the whole piece.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-19039597666041854262014-04-10T00:30:00.000+01:002014-04-10T00:30:02.155+01:00Grabbers (2012)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's like <i>Attack the Block</i>, except there's a remote island instead of a city tower block and a bunch of drunks instead of chavvy kids. But there are aliens. Aliens <i>and </i>comedy!<br />
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An functioning alcoholic cop and his new, over-functioning workaholic partner must work together to overcome their differences and survive the night as their isolated community comes under attack from be-tentacled aliens. Aliens that are allergic to the one thing half of the pair knows all too well.<br />
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<i>Grabbers</i> is a film from the comedy-horror genre and owes a lot of its existence to classics like <i>Tremors</i> and <i>Eight Legged Freaks</i>. Putting a uniquely British/Irish twist on the concept, <i>Grabbers</i> strikes a careful balance between tension and comedy, so much so that at some points you'll actually forget that the premise itself is completely ridiculous. The up-and-down nature of the tone lets <i>Grabbers</i> stand out from a lot of British/Irish comedies that usually find their humour in darkness, where here there's a good share of slapstick and just general drunken mirth.<br />
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<i>Grabbers</i> is simple, really simple. It's just a hell of a lot of fun. The booziest horror this side of the atlantic is probably best watched after one or two yourself, but well worth it without. It provides us with an answer that we all knew deep down: when the shit hits the fan, head to the local and wait for it all to blow over.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-19743719425642426362014-03-27T01:36:00.002+00:002014-03-27T01:36:25.765+00:00Restrepo (2010)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington follow the 503rd's Second Battalion B Company into hell and showcase the horrors and realities of war for America in the 21st century.<br />
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The two film-makers were embedded with B Company on their fifteen month deployment in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, at the time dubbed "the deadliest place on Earth". Within minutes of opening, the soldiers make their first contact: an IED and gunfire rain down upon them in the first instalment of what would become, literally, a daily occurrence. US soldiers in the area were coming under fire every single day of their deployment and it was the goal of this deployment to push further into the valley and establish new outposts in lieu of a new highway being built in the future. The major outpost that they built was named in honour of one of first men they lost Private First Class Juan Restrepo.<br />
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<i>Restrepo</i> is cinéma vérité in its truest form. There is no narration and only a handful of notes appear on screen, and usually only to give location and time information. A few post-deployment interviews with the soldiers themselves are all that break up the in-the-field action coming straight from the battlefield. It's just the soldiers, their job and the camera.<br />
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The observational approach lends itself to the a-political nature of the job. "The War in Afghanistan" is just a something that appears on the news once or twice a week to most of us. It's something that happens over there, off screen and something we never truly see. It's all politics and words and seemingly never ending fighting. It's a world away from what actually happens. In <i>Restrepo</i> you just have what's in front of you and that's what's in front of the soldiers fighting this war.<br />
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What's in front of these soldiers is an arid and unforgiving valley filled with an enemy that can't be seen until he's already attacked and locals who are just doing whatever they can to not to be killed by either side. The job of this deployment is one part of a seemingly unwinnable war and these men get to work anyway. The admiration for the men featured grows as the film goes on. The hardships they endure are incredible: constant fear of attack, the uncertainty of every single day and the nagging thought that even the most capable soldier can and will risk death every day. Death is unavoidable here but B Company gets to work regardless.<br />
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The futility of some of their efforts becomes apparent at a few points throughout the film. Locals lie to them. Men are lost. Nothing new gets built. Innocent people get caught in the crossfire. They all talk of the hard work they do being necessary, and then it all being undone once the film is over and we're still waiting on the Korengal to be safe four years after the deployment rapped up.<br />
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<i>Restrepo </i>is an uncompromising and authentic look at what it means to be <i>in</i> a modern war. The politics aside, it allows an insight into what those men who stand willing to do violence in the night to protect those of us who won't. Soldiers don't join the military to protect political interests, or to dismantle governments that theirs doesn't agree with or win oilfields or whatever reasons these wars start. They join to protect the people they love and those who need protecting. You can hate the military all you like, but films like <i>Restrepo </i>remind us that all soldiers deserve love for their service.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-85419551611577211082014-03-20T01:30:00.001+00:002014-03-20T01:30:02.037+00:00Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Vampire movies take on a lot of forms. <i>Nosferatu</i> set the standard in the 20s as an expressionist film. <i>Buffy </i>made it all into a bit of a laugh. The <i>Blade</i> films are better forgotten than remembered. And the <i>Twilight</i> series took the classly, immortal damned folk and made them into sparkly whiners.<br />
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Jim Jarmusch's <i>Only Lovers Left Alive</i> takes a subtler and slower approach than most. Vampires are few and far between in OLLA, with the titular lovers Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) (yes, they really are called Adam and Eve... I know) spending years apart from each other at a time. When you're already centuries, maybe more, old and you've got a good chance of living forever you can take a bit of time for yourself away from everyone.<br />
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Adam and Eve tend to form two sides of the same coin. Adam secludes himself and becomes world weary. He creates and inspires for centuries but grows tired of humanity's self sabotage and destruction. Eve sees the beauty in the world and friendship, choosing instead to see the world's cycles that even the immortal can't escape.<br />
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Hiddleston and Swinton are the emotional core of this film where plot is sparse. The two take on their roles as the proto-hipsters of culture and long term partners wonderfully. Hiddleston is brooding and listless as if his immortality stopped him aging during his nihilistic 16-year-old phase and Swinton brings a marvellous agelessness quality to Eve. She has this strange ability to look both extremely young and old at the same time. A truly youthful expression on a slightly aged face is exactly what's needed and it's exactly what she brings.<br />
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A moody and sulking soundtrack compliments the visual design amazingly well. I'll usually say a great soundtrack is just one part of the atmosphere and you shouldn't be drawn out by it, but the music by Jozef van Wissem and Sqürl is nearly a characters in itself. Alongside the visuals (which peaks in the costuming of the central characters), the music and philosophical conversations between the lovers <i>Only Lovers Left Alive</i> feels like one of the most artistic vampire films for a long, long time.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-29134008226001886382014-03-11T01:58:00.001+00:002014-03-11T01:58:23.463+00:00In Fear (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ever since the American classic Deliverance appeared way back in 1972, being lost in the woods with unseen local pursuers has been a staple of suspenseful thrillers. <i>In Fear</i> is a very British/Irish take on the set up.<br />
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Directed by Jeremy Lovering, <i>In Fear</i> takes new couple Tom (Iain De Castecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) deep into the Irish countryside on their first weekend away together when they soon find themselves not only lost but being purposely led in circles by some mysterious tormentor. As the sun sets fears reach a head and the stakes rise as the couple tear into each other as well as those who would scare them.<br />
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The concept of getting lost in the countryside and having someone mess with you isn't exactly the newest idea under the sun, but in this debut picture from Lovering he manages to keep it pretty fresh. Bleak open moorlands giving way to the densely forested, claustrophobic back lanes reinforces the sense of isolation and the descent into a dark hell that only the locals can win in.<br />
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A mixture of unsettlingly close shots and repeated scenery (90% of the set is identical roads and the couple's car) breeds an atmosphere of distrust between both each of the character and the audience with them. These people barely know each other, and it's obvious. Tom and Lucy only met two weeks ago, and the fact that they don't quite click becomes apparent rather quickly. For once, it's actually commendable to the actors to be able to say there's no chemistry, because there isn't meant to be.<br />
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It might just be two duelling banjos away from a cliche, but <i>In Fear</i> delivers on its promise to put the anxiety of being lost in the woods back into your heart.<br />
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<i><span class="st">Diddleing <em>ding ding ding ding ding diiing...</em></span></i>Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-18919937457507973142014-03-10T02:05:00.000+00:002014-03-10T02:05:08.160+00:00You're Next (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Home invasion films are a dime a dozen. It's one of the quintessential fears of middle-class America it seems, and that fills seats and sells DVDs. With so much competition it's an effort to stand out. You want to aim less for <i>The Purge</i> which was universally panned, <i>The Strangers</i> which got mixed reviews (some of it was brilliant, personally speaking) and go more for something of the same quality as <a href="http://robsthoughtsonfilms.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/funny-games-2007.html" target="_blank"><i>Funny Games</i></a>.<br />
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Horror as a genre tries to tap into something primal in your brain, and I'm convinced fear of a home invasion is somewhere in there. Even the toughest person's been home alone at night and heard something thud or creak somewhere in the house and felt that small gut punch of anxiety. Nearly every time it's nothing. It was probably just a pipe creaking or the damn cat, but no matter how many times you rationalise that, you still have to have a careful look around each room before you go off to bed and "forget" to turn the lamp off.<br />
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You're Next pulls off what I think The Strangers did so well. Building a sense of fear and dread is something that's common to every horror picture. It's the promise that a film-maker makes for the rest of the film. Sometimes they make a big promise and can't deliver. Director Adam Wingard makes a few we've heard before in the setup: a girl goes to a gathering of her new boyfriends family in a big house in the middle of an area where you have to drive to your next-door neighbour's house. It has a couple of false scares towards the start ("Oh it's just you!"), but once things start to get heated the sense of fear goes full throttle. These people are scared, they don't know what's happening to them or why, and neither do you. Some brilliantly voyeuristic cinematography breeds an atmosphere of paranoia and impending doom.<br />
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Some quick and clever editing leaves you guessing a lot of the film. It's a struggle to keep track of how many attackers there are, with their uniform of black tactical clothing and those standard issue horror movie animal masks. If you're paying attention you'll be able to figure it out quickly, but good luck with that when the shit is truly hitting the fan in from all directions.<br />
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At a key point we're given an inkling or partial clue as to why it's all happening, and that's when the promise ends and the delivery has to step up. Where <i>The Strangers</i> failed to deliver, <i>You're Next</i> makes a smart move and shifts the tone of the film, if only slightly. Many will disagree, but it takes on an air of dark humour towards the second and third act and it's like an unexpected Christmas gift: you didn't get what you were expecting exactly but you're still smiling. <br />
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It's no Cabin in the Woods or Shaun of the Dead in terms of comedy. If you're a fan of horror you'll be clued in enough to get some laughs out of it, and if not you can just sit back, grip the arm of the sofa and strap in, 'cos you're in for one hell of a blood soaked ride.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-27266724102345071042014-03-09T23:17:00.001+00:002014-03-09T23:23:17.134+00:00The Midnight Meat Train (2008)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I remember seeing the trailer for this years ago, just before it came out, and the person sat next to me just burst out laughing with "That's the title of an awful porn film if I've ever heard one" when the title screen appeared. And it stuck with me. I've never been able to consider that this was an actual horror film that wasn't a joke.<br />
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That was, until today. There's nothing special about why, I just saw on a list of horror movies that it had a pre-superstar Bradley "Hasn't set a foot wrong since starting <i>Silver Linings Playbook</i>" Cooper in it. <br />
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If you're able to get past the innuendo, <i>Midnight Meat Train</i> is a very literal title. There's a train. It runs in the middle of the night. And there's a
certain kind of meat involved on said train. If you've ever seen a
horror film, chances are you can figure out that it's not beef.<br />
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To be fair to the film, it's pretty solid on the most part. It's very standard, but it's solid. Bradley Cooper's performance as a photographer involving missing people carries it mostly, alongside an otherwise mediocre cast in an urban legend come to life. Vinnie Jones co-stars, if you can call an all-psyical and zero-verbal performance a "starring" role.<br />
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Fans of the genre won't be disappointed in the explicitness of some of the horror. One scene depicts a butchering that most will watch through their fingers; extended, locked-off shots focus on some body horror that'd make <i>Saw</i> franchise directors gag a little. Nothing really gets held back in that department, and the film really kicks it up into the highest gear right at the end with some crazy changes of pace as the film veers into ridiculousness.<br />
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<i>Midnight Meat Train</i> is a fast and firm encounter with some incredibly explicit acts that really earn it its 18/Adult rating. Its lack of inhibitions and pounding pace that ramps up in intensity before delivering an ultimately disappointing ending will leave viewers feeling a little disappointed in themselves for enjoying it.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-84959945656670811542014-02-08T02:28:00.004+00:002014-02-08T02:28:40.313+00:00Rush (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If I can claim that knowing nothing about Formula 1 got me anything, it's that I didn't go in to <i>Rush</i> knowing the ending. That's something I'm incredibly thankful for.<br />
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<i>Rush</i> is the (apparently very true to life) real story of the rivalry between the British and Austrian racing drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, respectively, through the 1976 season. Two very different approaches to racing and living life collide as the two diametrically opposed personalities clash throughout the years, and those preceding it.<br />
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There isn't all that much to say about <i>Rush</i> other than it is tuned as finely as the cars it depicts. Chris Hemsworth and <a class="" href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/daniel_bruhl/" itemprop="url"><span itemprop="name" style="display: none;">Daniel Brühl</span></a>
<span itemprop="name">Daniel Brühl</span> lead the piece both playing their parts perfectly. Hemsworth shines as the real world equivalent of his Thor character<span class="characters">: social, brash, suave and constantly teetering on the precipice. Bruhl mirrors it perfectly as the calm, slightly removed and overly logical Lauda. The two of them combine to form a dynamic yin-yang symbol with eventually each of them being dependent on the other's presence in the race for either of them to truly shine.</span><br />
<span class="characters"><br /></span>
<span class="characters">Many people will take many different things from <i>Rush</i>, but racing fans and bystanders alike will all enjoy the beautiful cinematography. The races pump with adrenaline, sweat, oil and rain throughout leaving you on the end of your seat not just worrying about who will win but who will make it out alive.</span><br />
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You can always be the James Hunt, sometimes you have to be the Niki Lauda.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-11520066775745838872014-02-07T02:34:00.001+00:002014-02-07T02:35:25.235+00:0012 Years A Slave<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Gruelling, unrelenting and difficult to watch all the way through to the final cut to black, <i>12 Years A Slave</i> is one of those films that you don't get all too often. Tone wise, subject wise and quality wise, films that are easily comparable to <i>The Shawshank Redemption</i> aren't exactly ten a penny.<br />
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<i>12 Years A Slave</i> tells the real story of Solomon Northup (Chitwetel Ejiofor), an educated and free man in 1840s New York who is kidnapped and illegally sold into slavery where he was stripped of everything for a dozen years.<br />
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The film very quickly gets into the territory of hopelessness. Solomon is quickly stripped of his name, his identity and his entire self as he struggles to hide his true nature for fear of being treated differently by both his co-captives and his masters. A good slave is only good at one thing: working. Solomon's talents should betray his nature as a free man, but instead they only make him a tall poppy to be trimmed. He can think like an engineer, play the fiddle and read and write, all of which are his undoing at some point, showing how slavery would eventually deprive all its victims of anything that defines individuality.<br />
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The pain in experiencing <i>12 Years A Slave</i> is twofold. The first is obviously the brutality of man's inhumanity to man. Michael Fassbender plays a truly awful slaveowner who sees his slaves as not only his property but as the playthings of his wife and himself. The cruelties which he, and most of the non-slave cast (bar two examples), visit on their victims are horrific and make for a harrowing watch. The second wave comes from the slaves themselves. Man's inhumanity to man only serves to breed yet more inhumanity. In a world where stepping out of line in any way is met with a lashing or worse, standing up for your fellow man becomes impossible. Eventually you have people sharing a common enemy turning on each other or, even more hurtfully, being indifferent to their co-captives' suffering. You end up with slave children playing tag only feet away from where a man hangs in a noose frantically trying to prop himself up and prolong his life.<br />
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The only problem with the rightful criticism of slavery in the tone of the film is the Chitewel's Solomon isn't supposed to be a slave. The main injustice of the film, as it is presented, is that a legally free man is stolen away from his family and illegally thrown into slavery. Not that the injustice is that <i>anyone</i> could be put in that position. The idea of the large scale inhumanity is only addressed in the closing scenes of the film, and quite hamhandedly done with one white man standing up to another to tell him off. Solomon is presented as "better" and "different" than the rest of the slaves, and as such he's undeserving of his fate, where in reality none of them are. It works brilliantly as the singular story of the struggle one man goes through, but feels a little hollow in the bigger picture.<br />
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Technically though, it's pretty impeccable. The cinematography is beautiful, juxtaposing the ever sunkissed American South with cruel, visceral violence creates an even more unsettling image than many slavery films can boast. Hans Zimmer's score manages to be almsot as emotionally effective as Ejiofor's powerful performance of a broken man surviving as best he can, and Steve McQueen's direction has created a number of emotionally affecting scenes that will be burned into the minds of many viewer's for a long time to come.<br />
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I'd prefer other films to win Best Picture at this year's Oscars, simply because this isn't my type of film, but <i>12 Years A Slave </i>is a film that everybody should see. It's by no means a "enjoyable" watch, but it is a necessary one.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508959703050111225.post-19197922804022171252014-02-05T02:23:00.000+00:002014-02-05T02:23:08.729+00:00American Hustle (2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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David O. Russell's <i>American Hustle</i> (starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, among others) is only the second film since 1981 to be nominated for all four of the big acting Oscars. The other one was David O. Russell's <i>Silver Linings Playbook </i>in 2012, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, among others. So it has a lot to live up to.<br />
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It's billed as a "crime comedy drama" film with five of the biggest names in starring roles (Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner and Jennifer Lawrence). That's a hell of a lot to have going on in one film. Three genres. Five stars. Two hours.<br />
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I'm all for ensemble casts where everything comes together to paint a wide landscape instead of a detailed portrait. It works especially well in crime films, just look at <i>Ocean's Eleven</i> and <i>Inception</i> (which <b>is</b> a heist film, I don't care what anyone says). The sprawling web-like nature of heists and long cons just works when you've got a lot of big personalities bouncing off each other in every scene, but you can take it too far. If <i>Ocean's Eleven</i> is like looking at a nice colourful Picasso, <i>American Hustle</i>'s like staring down a harshly lit kaleidoscope while on acid. You know what you're looking at is pretty damn cool, but it's a bit too much and doesn't make all that much sense.<br />
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You get the impression that director, writers and producers weren't too proud of the central plot and just heaped more on top to obfuscate this problem. It's solid though: a pair of con artists (Bale and Adams) slip up and get caught by an FBI agent (Cooper) who uses them in an attempt to advance his career by giving them the opportunity to work with him in return for immunity. Of course, Cooper's ambition get them all in over their heads with some really dangerous players and there you go you've got a movie. But then you've got all their family lives, people falling in and out of love with people, except some of them are just pretending to fall in love, and oh yeah <i>that </i>person isn't even who they're pretending to be for about 80% of the movie and you completely forgot that and and and... it's just too much going on and not enough of it's engaging.<br />
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There's also an issue with the characters, fundamentally. They aren't likable, not a one of them. Films don't have to have stand up guys centre screen, in fact it's usually boring, but they do have to have something about them. Another Oscar nominated film you could tag as "comedy crime drama" does it perfectly. <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i>'s Jordan Belfort is a colossal asshole, I'm talking unrivalled levels of scumbaggery, but he's charismatic and fun to watch and it works. Pretty much everyone in <i>American Hustle</i> is just looking out for themselves and does so unremarkably. The only ones who don't look out of place; Louis CK, playing Cooper's FBI handler, is a deer caught in the headlights because he doesn't want to do something incredibly risky while surrounded by people who might as well play russian roulette over their cornflakes.<br />
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Where David O. Russell's last project succeeded so where <i>American Hustle</i> flops. In his fantastic <i>Silver Linings Playbook</i>, Bradley Cooper's Pat and Jennifer Lawrence's Tiffany can be downright vicious to each other, often saying things with enough venom to knock out a horse. But they can be so cruel to each other because it's justified. The tight focus in <i>SLP </i>gives you a glimpse into the downtrodden and broken heads of the pair and it all becomes completely understandable and even sympathetic. <i>American Hustle</i> just has a cast of dicks for no real reason.<br />
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Shifting away from the tight focus that made <i>Silver Linings Playbook </i>so fantastic to watch was the fatal mistake for Russell in making <i>American Hustle</i>. The acting is all top notch and the basic bones of the plot are solid, but with all the extras piled on, the film becomes less than the sum of its parts. It's a literal five star film (just look at the poster) that comes out with a three star rating at best.Rob Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08039077294705961504noreply@blogger.com0