Hopscotch Films were kind enough to send me a double pass for a pre-screening of the new sci-fi thriller Source Code. So I hooked up a good mate and we went along last night. Source Code opens with Jake Gyllenhaal snapping awake in a train carriage, clearly unaware of where he is and what’s happening. The girl opposite seems to know him well and he’s the only one confused by the situation. After a few minutes of running around the train in a state of anxiety, a massive explosion rips through everything, killing everybody. Pretty powerful opening. Gyllenhaal awakens in a pod and we discover that he’s Captain Colter Stevens, a military helicopter pilot, whose last memory is flying in Afghanistan. He’s told through a screen to go back and find the bomber. He fails again and is blown up again. So they tell him he’s wasting time and has to find the bomb, the bomber, or something they can use. They send him back again. That’s right – it’s Groundhog Day On A Train, with extra explosions. But it’s way better than that. I’m going to review this film with as little spoilerage as possible, but it’s one of those films that is hard to explain without some exposition. To be honest, if I wanted to give nothing away, that first paragraph would be all I could post! I’ll describe the overall premise very briefly here and then go on to a review after the next picture. I really won’t give too much away anywhere here, but if you want to know nothing about this film, skip to the other side of the next image. The basic premise is this: When someone dies their brain retains a latent glow of information, like a light bulb filament after you turn it off. That “glow” lasts for eight minutes. A certain compatible brain type, with the help of Dr Rutledge’s incredible science, employing quantum mechanics and some stuff or something and a clever machine, allows this military team to send a person back into the source code – essentially a program generated by the latent brain image of the dead. But every time a person goes back, they only have that eight minute window to work in. Clear? No, not really. Turns out that Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Captain Colter Stevens, is an air force captain and he’s in the machine, being sent back into the source code memory of a victim of a terrorist attack. A train was blown up on its way to Chicago and more attacks are imminent. If Stevens and the team can go back into the source code often enough for him to find the bomber and/or any information about the bomb, the military could conceiveably prevent the next attacks by catching the people responsible. They can’t do anything about what has already happened, because it’s just a program, just Source Code, but they can learn things to act on future attacks. Source Code is a slick, classy movie. It’s directed by Duncan Jones, the man who brought usMoon, so you know it’s in good hands, and written by Ben Ripley. The performances are all excellent, particularly Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, who plays Christina Warren, and Vera Farmiga, who plays Colleen Goodwin. I thought Goodwin was a particularly powerful character. The science in this sci-fi thriller is very much on the lite side. If you read the paragraphs above you’ll realise that it’s not clearly defined. I wasn’t vague about it because I wasn’t paying attention. I was vague because the film is vague on the science. Something about quantumm mechanics, a clever kind of machine thing and a smarmy, self-important doctor. But the science isn’t really the relevant part. If you want that properly explained, you’ll be diappointed. If you have a solid grasp on quantum mechanics and the like, you’ll probably cringe at the liberties this film takes with those ideas. But I didn’t let that bother me. It’s a strong action thriller and should be enjoyed as such. The premise and development of that idea are really well done and the film is powerful for its focus on subjects like fate, duty and the meaning of life. This film is in a similar vein to Inception and I’m really pleased to see these films being made. There’s a distinct return, most evident in Source Code and Inception recently, to intelligent, challenging storytelling. In Source Code they play with time (but it’s not really time travel) and the whole plot plays with your mind as you try to unravel it along with the characters. I did see most of the little twists coming and I imagine most people with even a simple familiarity with sci-fi would anticipate them too. But none of them were forced and they all worked well. Immediately on leaving the theatre my friend and I began chattering in earnest about the ending and how it happened. The film made us think while we watched and kept us thinking. We figured out a timeline that seemed contradictory but actually isn’t and is really very clever (quantum mechanic liberties aside). Source Code is a mind-bender. It’ll keep people interested long after the film is finished and won’t just leave people with the old adage, “Well, it looked good. Amazing effects!” Sure, the effects were really good and very convincing, but you know what? They were only used to advance the story. Imagine that! There was me thinking Hollywood had forgotten about that. The film takes its ideas from a number of sources. I mentioned earlier that it has a distinctGroundhog Day feel to it. It also has clear influence from a number of other sources, including most notably the premise of Quantum Leap. As an aside, there’s a clever Scott Bakula cameo (he played the main character in Quantum Leap). Don’t cheat, but I bet you a hundred bucks* you don’t spot his cameo appearance. Watch the credits afterwards to get the answer. * Not a real bet. I don’t have a hundred bucks! This is a film that’s well worth your time and money. It’s clever, brilliantly shot and constructed, neatly avoiding a lot of potential paradoxes even if it is light on the science, and exciting from start to finish. It grips just as a thriller should and will challenge your thinking all the way through. As a last note, when you do watch this film, spare a thought for poor old Sean Fentress. When you’ve seen the film, take a minute to think about that and you’ll see what I mean. Have you seen it? What did you think? Did the potential problems with the science bother you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
Easy A I meant to see this film at the movies as I have a secret pleasure in watching high school teen angst films (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Breakfast Club) and this looked like it might be a good one. But alas, I never made it (despite its longer than usual run) and so when my husband asked if I’d like him to rent it via itunes, I jumped at the chance. As with all comedic movies these days, I worried that all the humour would be in the trailer and the lead, Emma Stone’s deep-voiced sardonic approach to her peers might get old, but how wrong I was. Ten minutes into the movie I already knew that this would be an instant classic for me. The first hint is in the supporting cast. Stanley Stucci performance as Olive’s dad is quick, witty, intelligent and kind – exactly the kind of parent you would expect to create the quirky and wonderful Olive. I expected him to steal the show (as he usually does) but the carefully crafted  dialogue give opportunities to all to shine, so that Malcolm McDowell, Thomas Hayden Church, Lisa Kudrow and Patricia Clarkson (the adults in the movie) all use their few lines to create strong and memorable characters. Openly drawing on the themes of a classic book, in this case The Scarlet Letter, has certainly been done before (i.e., Clueless) as has in-movie commentary on the genre the film situates. But the true genius of this script are the deeper themes of cyber bullying and social networking and their impact on age old high school issues of homosexuality, virginity, rumour mills, teasing and (less commonly addressed) prostitution. Emma Stone must be given her due: her droll Olive never waivers in providing humour and insight  as she intelligently attempts to navigate her increasingly bizarre school life and is central to the success of the story. And really, as Olive points out, who can resist a film with an unnecessary Glee style musical interlude and a John Hughes style ending. I give this film 4 stars. Review by Ranaberry
Battle: Lost Angeles Battle: Los Angeles is brought to you by the US Marine Corp Board of Recruitment. Hoo-rah! At least, it’s hard not to think so having watched the film. Battle: Los Angeles is about an alien invasion. Basically, these bizarre meteor showers suddenly appear in Earth’s atmosphere and within hours they’re crash landing in the ocean near major cities all around the world. Except they’re not really crash landing. They’re slowing down before impact, they’re of uniform size, their appearance is synchronised – obviously, it’s an alien invasion. The military is mobilised. We see the story from the point of view of one squad of crack Marines, led by one grizzly Staff Sergeant, two days out from retirement, and a fresh faced Lieutenant, green straight from the academy. As you can see, the whole film is cliché-powered. The Cliché Squad consists of one dude about to get married in three weeks, a guy barely recovered from shellshock, desperate to be cleared for combat duty again, a bitter young chap who’s brother died in a mission with the same Grizzled Staff Sergeant who now leads him and so on. Help me, I’m choking on clichés! So anyway, our erstwhile mob is sent into the war zone to rescue five civilians trapped in a police station several clicks inside the battle lines. They have three hours before the Air Force drop bombs to raze the place to rubble. Wait a minute, what’s that screeching noise? Oh, it’s the last vestige of credibility, spinning off Disbelief Suspension Highway in a cloud of tyre smoke and broken logic. And we’re barely ten minutes into the film. Let me get this straight – aliens have starting smashing major cities all over the world simultaneously. The military has a chance to bomb the intergalactic shit out of them before they can get too far inland as they seem to be ground based only and have no air support (which we’ll come to in a minute), yet they’re going to wait three hours before said shock and awe campaign? Bollocks are they. Aliens, destroying the world = coastal population: collateral damage. The only reason they would wait three hours to start bombing is to give a fairly ridiculous squad of marines a chance to have a film made about them while they move in to rescue five civilians. FIVE! There are already thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, dead. Dudes, bomb those fucking aliens back to Alpha Centauri! Quick! So yeah, it’s pretty stupid. Actually, it’s really stupid. They fly Cliché Squad into the war zone – i.e. the area that the aliens have already advanced into from the coast. That’s right, they fly them in by chopper. Yet they land them a couple of Ks out from the police station where the civies are. That’s because we then get to see the marines do their street by street thing, all cool and efficient. But, of course, that goes wrong. Yet they prevail briefly. When the marines find the civilians, they call in a chopper to get them out. WHAT!? Why didn’t they just fly all the way in then? Of course, at this point the alien’s air support is mobilised and the chopper is taken out and the marines have to escape again on foot. Well, of course the aliens have aircraft. THEY CAME FROM OUTER SPACE! Did the US military really think they flew here from another planet, but only had ground troops on board? That’s just mental. So Cliché Squad starts trying to get out again, Young Lieutenant loses it, Grizzly Staff Sergeant pulls him back together, Young Lieutenant does the honourable thing and gives his life to save the squad, Grizzly Staff Sergeant has to lead them, but he’s the one that got all his men killed before! “Don’t you think I think about those young men every day?” Oh, he’s actually pretty cool and he’ll lead us well. Hoo-rah, let’s fight those alien scum! Wait, all these flying things are unmanned drones, that means they have a mother of a command and control centre (because that’s how we humans would do it). If we can only take that C & C centre out, we could have a chance in this godforsaken war! Wait, what’s that? A large area with the power out? That must be where the C & C is, sucking up all the power. (Wait a minute, this entire city is being destroyed by an alien invasion force, wouldn’t pretty much everywhere have the power out by now? Quiet, you – you’re spoiling the tenuous plot. Well, I say plot…) Look at us go, Cliché Squad to the rescue! Hoo-rah! Yay, we’ve taken out the C & C, now we’re showing those alien scumbags who they’re messing with! Look at all the drones falling out of the sky. The aliens are retreating, we’re so super cool! But the war’s not over yet. No, we don’t need a rest Captain, we just need to refill our ammo and get back out there. HOO-RAH! And that’s only a fraction of the stupidity. I haven’t even mentioned the bit where they capture an alien and repeatedly stab it everywhere looking for “the vital organ” so they know where to shoot. Or the fact that an entire alien invasion seems to consist of disparate groups of half a dozen or so alien infantry scattered here and there throughout LA. Or the seemingly indestructible Marine laser targeting device. Or the clearly structured nature of events identical to the increasing difficulty levels of a computer game. And… and… I can’t go on. The shooting barely stops, yet the plot holes still outnumber the bullet holes. To make matters worse, the whole thing is shot in the worst handicam style. It makes the Blair Witch camera work seems Oscar-worthy. It’s as if the whole thing is being filmed by an embedded journalist that’s lost his camera so he’s running around trying to capture it all on his phone. I know it’s a device to make us feel like we’re in the action, but it even happens right at the start with two dudes having a conversation in an office. It’s like the cameraman is on one of those 60s weight loss machines where you stand on a platform with a bigger rubber belt around your arse and it vibrates the flab away. And worst of all, this film once again employs that most annoying of alien invasion conceits – the aliens underestimate the tenacity of the human race; they have no idea who they’re messing with. You know, this is an alien race that’s spanned the galaxy. They’ve got here and they’re taking over the planet. It’s quite possible that they’re some pretty fucking tenacious creatures themselves. I bet they’ve got squads of warriors every bit as tough, determined and brave as the humans. We like to think we’re awesome, but an invading alien army would probably be pretty awesome too. And far better equipped. They came here through space, after all. Really, this film is utter shite. It has no redeeming features. It would be an impressive visual display of effects if the cameraman wasn’t having an epileptic fit throughout the movie. It’s just action and mayhem and American hoo-rahism, wrapped up in a complete lack of plot and a thoroughly implausible premise. For two hours when you can switch your brain to neutral and see if you can avoid your own epileptic fit while watching, give it a go. Otherwise do something more constructive with your time, like sit in the garden and eat grass. Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
Inception I think I love Christopher Nolan a little bit. He’s made some of my favourite movies of all time – Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight. I am constantly going on about the homogeneous rubbish coming out of Hollywood and lamenting that there are no clever, interesting, new stories being made into film. That’s not just because I have two novels out that would make awesome films. Incidentally, I’d give a testicle if Christopher Nolan would make my books into films, but that’s digressing and probably letting go a little too much information. But I go on about how Hollywood needs to take chances with films, trust their audience’s intelligence and challenge us with quality storytelling, not just impressive visuals on the story equivalent of See Spot Run. All of Nolan’s films above are clever, challenging movies. Inception tops them all. It’s incredibly beautiful, using the medium of film perfectly to tell a story that is deep, complex and intellectually stimulating. And audiences clearly love it. At the time of writing IMDB has it at 9.2/10 and Rotten Tomatoes at 87%. That’s some going, especially with today’s hyper-critical film-goers.  And yet, the basic premise of the movie is not especially convoluted. It’s a heist movie. I love a good blag caper, with someone assembling a team, getting the people he needs together with their special skill-sets and their cool names like The Architect, The Forger and The Chemist. Except this is a heist of the mind. The film centers on Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an extractor, who enters the dreams of others to obtain information while their subconscious is vulnerable to his skills. His job has cost him his family and his country, but he is given a chance at redemption if he can be successful in planting an idea in a corporate target’s mind, instead of taking one out. Known as inception, this is far more difficult and dangerous than extraction. And so we have a reverse heist of the mind. Cobb needs to assemble a team capable of putting something into the tightest vault of all. So, accepting that the technology and methodology for the heist exists, the principle idea is fairly simple. It’s the execution in terms of story, film-making and acting that is simply outstanding. There are amazing performances all round. Leonardo DiCaprio is still playing the same character from Shutter Island in some ways, but with a different twist. His performance is brilliant. Surely, between Inception and Shutter Island, he must be venturing into Oscar territory soon. The ensemble cast are all exemplary, but Tom Hardy as Eames was a standout for me and deserves a special mention. As does Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, especially for his zero-g fighting. Inception was written, produced and directed by Nolan, a truly amazing achievement. He originally pitched the idea in 2001 or 2002 and the studio liked it, so he went away to write a final treatment. He kept working until he was happy with it – which took eight years. And it shows. The story is largely flawless. A few conveniences keep the plot moving, but nothing that took me out of the picture. It’s so bloody clever, and Nolan’s use of the device of dreaming is inspired. I know I’m gushing a bit, but this is finally a film worthy of our adoration.  And it was spectacular to watch. Avatar was spectacular to watch, a beautiful visual feast, but the story was painting by numbers. A three year old could have written it. And the beauty of the film was almost entirely special effects. Nolan excels for using reality. His story, as I’ve already said, is excellent and intellectually engaging. It’s also a story that uses the medium of film perfectly. This would be a great book, but it’s a fantastic film. Every sequence has a balletic, dream-like quality, even when they’re not dreaming. The visual devices of dreams within dreams, the bending of reality in the subjects’ minds, is inspired. Yet Nolan insists on avoiding CGI as much as possible. This movie had less special effects shots than his Batman films. His use of in-camera effects and stunts is sometimes breath-taking. And you can tell it’s happening. If you watch for it, you can see that there’s a distinct lack of CGI in a film that would usually, these days, be blithering in post-production. Nolan has made a film here about the nature of shared dreaming and how that might be used or abused. At the end of the film, as the lights came up, I looked around the theatre. I was stunned and peoples’ faces all around me were equally blown away. We’d all just shared Nolan’s dream and we were better for it. Now, where’s my totem? I need to make sure I’ve actually woken up.  (And Mr Nolan, sir, please option my books next!) Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
Kick Ass Regulars at The Word will probably remember this post from back in December 2008. The post was a quick one, just for a laugh. The real value is found in the comments. But brace yourself for a big read if you haven’t been there before. There’s 156 comments and we get our very own RLSH or Real Life Super Heroes commenting and having a pissing contest. It’s hilarious reading, so I urge you to check it out. But what does that have to do with a movie review of Kick-Ass? I’m glad you asked. Kick-Ass is a movie about real life superheroes, that a lot of Real Life SuperHeroes got upset about. Seriously, read the comments to the post I just mentioned. But really, any “real life” vigilante justice wielder getting upset about Kick-Ass is a bit like a real archeologist getting upset about the Indiana Jones movies, but I digress. The REAL real life superheroes don’t get into whining matches on the internet, so it’s all a bit moot. I finally got around to seeing Kick-Ass just recently, and I’m really glad I did. The film is based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. It’s basically the story of Dave Lizewski. He’s your typical high school nobody and comic book fan who wonders, as we all do at some point, why some real people haven’t actually tried out the superhero thing. After all, Batman has no special powers, so all you really need to be a superhero is a fancy costume and a sense of justice, plus the balls to get out there and do something about it. So that’s what Dave does, styling himself as the superhero Kick-Ass. Of course, everything goes about as wrong as it possibly can. Fortunately, he ends up bumping into Big Daddy and Hit Girl. This father and daughter double act really are real life superheroes and they help Dave out of some sticky situations. They get entangled with the mob and Red Mist, a new kind of superhero, that’s actually the head mobster’s son using Kick-Ass’s sensibilities against him. From here things get brilliantly hectic and out of control. The film is excellent fun. It’s true comic book mayhem with a heavy dose of realism that makes for highly entertaining viewing. The filming itself is very slick and the soundtrack is awesome. It’s sharp, funny, poignant and hella violent. All that good stuff we love. There was a lot of controversy around the time of its release related to the Hit-Girl character. Mainly because she’s a little girl (something like 11 years old) that says fuck and cunt and shoots bad guys in the head. But what’s wrong with that? She a little girl that’s been trained by her father to be a seriously bad-ass assassin superhero, ever since her father got out of prison. Her mother died at the hands of the mob and daddy is on a revenge trip, taking his little girl along for the ride. He shoots her while she’s wearing a bullet proof vest so she isn’t surprised when it happens for real, for fuck’s sake. And people are getting upset about the fact that she swears? Within the context of the movie, Hit-Girl is just about the best and most realised character there. She’s also brilliantly played by Chloë Grace Moretz. This girl is just awesome in the role. When an uncensored preview clip of the film was shown before release, it was attacked by “family advocacy groups” for its violence and Hit-Girl’s line, “Okay you cunts, let’s see what you can do now!” delivered by Chloë Moretz, who was 11 at the time of filming. Australian Family Association spokesman John Morrissey claimed that “the language [was] offensive and the values inappropriate – without the saving grace of the bloodless victory of traditional superheroes”. Bloodless victory!? Has this fuckwit ever actually read a comic book? In response, Moretz said in an interview, “If I ever uttered one word that I said in Kick-Ass, I would be grounded for years! I’d be stuck in my room until I was 20! I would never in a million years say that. I’m an average, everyday girl.” What do you know – an eleven year old girl can separate reality from the moving pictures. John Morrissey should grow the fuck up. Moretz couldn’t even say the name of the film outside of character, calling it “the film” in public and “Kick-Butt” at home. Brilliant acting skills and serious smarts. This kid will go far. (Incidentally, I wonder if there would have been so much controversy if the character had been a boy rather than a girl?) The film juggles the levels of realism and comic book mayhem really well, leading to some truly shocking moments. Dave’s first outing as Kick-Ass springs to mind for its relentless realism, for example. If anything, this movie does more to educate people about real life from a “superhero” perspective than the actual comic books have ever done. If you’re a fan of cinema and especially if you’re a fan of comic books and that style of cinema, you’ll love this film. If you’re a namby pamby wowser that gets upset when little girls shoot a mobster through the head at point blank range, it’s probably not the film for you. And did I mention that it’s very funny? I was also pleased to see recently that Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall is in production for a 2012 release. More please! Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
District 9 I’m behind the times on this one, but I missed District 9 when it went round the cinema circuit. However, having picked up the DVD recently, I finally got to see it and find out what all the prawn fuss was over. There’ll be spoilers later, but I’ll give you fair warning. District 9 is a very imaginative and original sci-fi movie. A massive spaceship breaks down over Johannesburg in 1985 and nothing happens. After three months of wondering, the humans finally fly up there in choppers and cut their way in to see what’s going on. They find a million very sick, malnourished aliens on board. A “humanitarian” effort is mounted. (Interestingly, what are we going to do about that term when aliens and humans do mix freely, as will obviously happen eventually. Lifetarian effort? Suggestions in the comments please). These aliens, derogatorily referred to as prawns due to their distinct prawn-like appearance, end up in a refugee camp in Johannesburg that quickly becomes a slum. Crime and violence are rampant and people have serious issues with the whole situation. After 20 years of this an effort is finally mounted to evict the aliens and move them 200km outside town to a new refugee camp, where it will be easier to forget about them. Wickus Van Der Merwe (seriously, one of the best protagonist names in ages) is tasked with the legal and logistic job of getting this eviction happening. Naturally, things go awry and all kinds of mayhem ensue. During one of many skirmishes that occur during the eviction, Wickus gets a spray of juice from some alien tech in the face and it alters his DNA. This alteration causes him to become slowly more prawn than human and he finds himself trapped between the human world and the prawn world and the only place to hide is District 9. The film is shot in a very original way. It’s primarily (at the start) a documentary being made with new interviews and old stock footage of Wickus and news footage of events surrounding the start of the eviction. Security camera and CCTV footage is spliced into it and the gaps are filled with regular film-making. In literature this kind of “head-hopping” can be very poorly done and rarely comes over well, but with this film they’ve pulled it off. The prawns are excellent creatures, brilliantly realised with an array of top notch special effects, and District 9 itself is flawlessly believable. The story doesn’t pull any punches and is as gritty and gruesome as such a situation would really be. It was all too much for my wife and she went off to do something else. We follow Wickus as he goes on the run from the company he works for. There’s more going on than anyone realises and Wickus slowly discovers secrets and gets inextricably tied up in them. And here’s where the film falls down for me. It raises a lot of questions and answers virtually none of them. After the next picture I’ll discuss in more details those issues, but if you want to avoid spoilers don’t read on after the pic until you’ve seen the film. District 9 is an excellent achievement in film-making. It’s different, raw and clever and it keeps a relentless pace. It has a commentary on racism, corporate greed and the nature of “humanity” that is explored really well. It’s definitely worth seeing, if you can handle it. But be prepared to be frustrated by a lot of unanswered questions. Read on though beware lurking spoilers. So, the unanswered questions. Let me highlight my many issues by listing all the questions I need answers to: Why did the alien space craft break down and grind to a halt over Johannesburg? Why did the alien commanders, or the smart ones, disappear? Why did the little craft that was hidden under Christopher’s shack drop from the mothership in the first place? Why was Christopher so much smarter than the others? Why was he desperately searching among wreckage for alien tech with this mysterious liquid in it? Where did that wreckage and rubbish come from? Why was there so much alien weaponry in District 9? Who brought it down from the mothership? Why did the liquid turn Wickus into a prawn? Why did the liquid aboard the little ship suddenly make the mothership capable of flying back to the prawn home world? Why couldn’t Christopher have done whatever he did (on the ground) on the mothership in the first place? Why didn’t they stay in space while he did that, rather than coming to hover over an Earth city? It seems that the key point of this film is that Christopher spent 20 years in District 9 gathering this alien fluid to effect the escape by powering up the mothership. That makes no sense to me. If that’s what it took to get the ship going, surely they would have gathered all that liquid from various techs on board before they even became stranded. And Christopher is always talking about “his people” – is he the prawn leader? There’s no exploration or explanation of the hierarchy and what really happened before the events of the film. Obviously, there’s only so much that can be explored, but a few clues dropped here and there would have fleshed out the whole premise really well. We can have a guess at the answers to several of the questions above, but none of my guesses really satisfy my curiousity. It’s unfortunate that an otherwise excellent film has all these holes in the plot and premise that take away from the overall enjoyment of the experience. Leave me some comments with your views – have you seen District 9? Am I being really dense and missing something obvious with all these questions? Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
Orphan On Friday night I watched the horror/thriller Orphan after hearing some good things about it, despite it coming across of typically Hollywood. Without expecting anything but some easy entertainment, I was pleasantly surprised.     Isabelle Fuhrman plays the charming, polite and (perhaps too) mature orphan, Esther who’s adopted by a couple, Kate and John, with two kids after their third child dies whilst still in the womb. From Russia, Esther makes a big impression on the parents until some strange things begin happening and Esther creates rifts in the family, particularly between the parents. The plot begins in a typical Hollywood fashion but I didn’t find this boring. I’m a pretty easy audience and was hooked by the character of Esther. She’s certainly a unique character but as the plot developed I could see similarities with other child-villain moves such as Hide and Seek with Dakota Fanning and The Good Son with Macaulay Culkin. Aside from Esther, the mother Kate was one of the more interesting characters. I sympathised with her the most as her family turns against her due to Esther’s manipulative antics. This was the real tension in the movie. Without giving the twist away, the ending and the revelation was very satisfying and genuinely unexpected and clever. The clues left behind at the beginning and the movie were very well placed, so perhaps smarter viewers could’ve picked it but I certainly didn’t. And in light of the twist, I have enormous respect for Isabelle Fuhrman, the 12-year-old who played Esther. She did well to play such a complex character that goes beyond playing an ordinary girl. I think this is well worth watching if you’re not a total movie snob that needs some extra unique, because whilst it was a bit Hollywood-esque and more of a thriller than in the horror genre, it did provide enough of something new to be interesting. Review reprinted with kind permission from @BenjaminSolah. You can read the original review here and more about Benjamin Solah at his blog here.
Daybreakers As usual, I’ll keep this Daybreakers review spoiler free at the start. I’ll warn you before I spoil anything.  So last night I went with Cat and Rob to see the sci-fi vampire flick, Daybreakers. It’s one of those films that I was aware of but actually knew very little about. I’d seen the trailer, I knew it was an Australian production and that’s about it. From the trailer it certainly looked good. There’s a bit of a heavy handed info dump over the credits at the very start of the movie, but once the story gets going you can forget that and forgive it. The basic premise is that a single bat started a global pandemic of vampirism back in 2008. It’s now 2019 and the world has changed. There’s a small percentage of humans that refuse to turn and hold on to being human, the vast majority are vampires and living a nocturnal life and it’s got to the point where the vamps need to farm humans for blood as supplies are so low. It’s actually a brilliant premise – if vampirism did become the global norm, human blood would run out very quickly. What do you do then? There’s a big corporation, Bromley Marks, that farms humans for blood and is, supposedly, looking for a quality blood substitute. Of course, here we have the allegory of big corporations trying to nail demand and corner profits and repeat business. Even the undead have a marketing department. Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a hematologist vampire with Bromley Marks. He’s a key player in the search for a substitute. He’s also a reluctant vampire, turned against his will. His brother is a vampire soldier, hunting down humans. Cue family angst. Even vampires can’t choose their relatives. Then there are the subsiders. When a vampire is starved of human blood a physical and mental change starts to take place. It starts with elongating of the ears and eventually the vampire becomes a feral, bat-like creature, more Bela Lugosi’s Nosferatu than Tom Cruise’s Lestat. Again, this is a brilliant concept the film explores. When starved of human blood, especially when you add to that the consumption of vampire blood, these creatures become the true monsters of the piece that even the vamps are afraid of. Then Edward stumbles across a group of humans trying to survive, discovers something that indicates a possible cure for vampirism, making the need for a substitute irrelevant. Or is it? Some people probably want to be vampires, with the immortality and everything that comes with it. The film is beautifully shot. The vamps live pretty normal lives, taking commuter trains to work and getting a coffee on the platform (infused with blood, naturally) and so on. Only it all happens at night. Subways and tunnels are everywhere. The lighting and colours used to evoke the feeling of this new world are brilliant. As is the use of the reflective vampire eyes. The vamps look pretty much normal, except for two slightly long canines, a grey pallour to the skin and those amber eyes. You get used to it. When you then see a human with tanned skin and normal eyes, the effect is surprisingly strong. The story is complex and interesting, with a few twists and turns that keep you guessing. The idea behind the cure is brilliant, an inspired concept. The effects are excellent, especially a few choice moments of pure splattergore like the exploding test subject and subsider attack at Edward’s place. This film is packed with subtext. The corporation making a fortune out of criminal activity that people ignore, being primarily the horrible exploitation of humans. The blood is running out, which is pregnant with ideas along the lines of oil and climate change that we face today. There’s a sub-class of people that are becoming dangerous due to the economics of who can afford the last few remaining drops of blood and who can’t. And so on and so forth. But all of this is never hammered. It’s just explored within the story and done very well. If anything about the film sat a little uncomfortable for me it was the date. The Spierig brothers (writers/directors) have done a great job of creating a nocturnal world with some cool sci-fi updates to things for 2019. But all this has happened in just 10 years from outbreak to present day. It seems like vampires are a lot more organised than humans are right now in getting things done. I guess exploding in sunlight is a great motivator. But given that the night hours are shorter than the light hours, it’s a stretch to see the developments. Still, I suppose a lot can be done in ten years when necessity drives you and it’s really a very small and pointless gripe. This is a really interesting, clever and beautifully shot movie. It has a good story, it keeps hold of the classic vampire lore while still managing to put a new spin on things and combines the sci-fi idea with the horror idea very well. And there’s just gallons of blood pouring out here and there to really keep the “Ew-factor” high. Plus a quality projectile vomit moment. And this is a vampire film that, in this age of vampire saturation, actually comes across as fresh and different. Well worth a watch. After the next picture I’ll talk about a few more aspects of the film that you’ll want to skip if you haven’t seen it yet. Spoilers ahoy! EDIT: Thanks to Rob Hood for this clarification. I made a mistake above when talking about Bela Lugosi’s Nosferatu. From Rob: “You don’t mean Bela Lugosi’s Nosferatu. Bela’s Dracula was human-looking and famously elegant. It’s the earlier film version of Dracula, “Nosferatu” directed by Murnau that featured a grotesque rattish vampire like the subsiders.” Rob’s quite right. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror or simply Nosferatu is a German Expressionist vampire horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. Released in 1922. This is the film I was thinking of when I made the comment above. Thanks Rob! OK, so on with the spoilers. I don’t have any real gripes about this film. The storytelling is actually really good and there aren’t any gaping holes. At least, none that I noticed. The idea behind the cure – burning out the disease with sunlight – is inspired. The way it happened to Willem Dafoe’s character was also very cool. However, and this is a small, pedantic gripe, when he burst through the windscreen and into the water he was exposed to sunlight for a lot less time than Edward in the tank. Yet he came out all scarred and cured. They ended up exposing Edward for longer, and he came out cured and unscarred. I found that a little bit annoying. Sam Neill as Charles Bromley was a bit of a disappointment too. For a film with such great performances, especially from Hawke and Dafoe, Neill’s overtly evil corporate overloard was a bit too comic book for my liking. The film was grounded with a strong sense of realism, so the Bromley character’s two dimensionality was a bit of a shame. The savagely bloody death in an elevator was, however, a very fitting end. The product placement was a bit heavy handed. I’m really pleased that we’re getting films like this and they would never be like this from Hollywood. I’m extra pleased that it came from Australia (all filmed in Queensland apparently) but the intense placement of Chrysler over everything was a bit annoying. Still, if that’s the price we pay for a film like this, fair enough. One last gripe. The film opens with a board meeting about the lack of blood. The corporation, Bromley Marks, is a leader in human farming and synthetic blood research, yet they claim that there’s not enough blood left to last a month. OK, first off, if this is a global phenomenon, why is it just Bromley Marks that we’re seeing? This is something that should be global priority number one with governments all banding together. The climate change allegory is clear, but with blood remaining for only a month, surely more than one company is working on the problem. Secondly, regardless of the outcome – whether they find a substitute, whether the cure starts to work or not – we know that blood deprivation causes subsiders. Given the size of the world, the size of the “third world”, which persists as the film makes clear, the end result is bound to be a global subsider takeover. No way, with only a month of blood left, could people hold back the tide of subsiders. The feeding frenzy at the end of the film with wave after wave of soldiers attacking their fellows as they turn back into humans, becoming human and being attacked in turn, leaves us with one scenario: eventually the whole population will be massively reduced with those surviving being human. If a subsider attacks a cured vampire, are they cured too or are they too far gone? This is a question that, to me, has massive implications for the resolution of the whole story. Then again, the way the film ended is a wide open, gaping hole for a sequel, so maybe these ideas will be addressed. Whatever, I loved it and I’ll probably see it again if I get a chance. Go forth and support Australian indie films. It’s well worth it. Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 1 is an excellent continuation of the equally impressive The Clone Wars animated film. Each episode contains the same attention to detail, and superb CGI animation as did the film. Production is top notch (being a production of Lucasfilm it should come as no surprise). The story lines make for great additions to the Star Warsuniverse. These would make a great live action film if strung together (a pity as there are some great battle sequences as good as the motion picture films) however the space battle CGI sometimes makes you forget you are watching a cartoon (err … animated series), at least until a character steps in. One of only a tiny handle of animated shows I would go to the trouble of watching: 3.5 stars. Review by The Reluctant Journalist
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Strictly for kids only, Ice Age 3 lacks the adult humor which popped up occasionally in the first 2 Ice Age flicks. What could have been a fun ride, turned out to be a very thin story line pulled together by some reasonably funny set pieces, somewhat toned down to safe kiddie levels which would make Walt Disney proud. Even the mighty Tyrannosaurus is reduced to nothing more than an overprotective mum looking after her cute off spring. Oh please. The film is saved by the funny antics of Scrat and that elusive nut which always guarantees to raise the laugh factor of any scene he’s in. Here’s a thought. Maybe the next film should be just him. Strictly for kids only: 2.5 stars. Review by The Reluctant Journalist
Avatar I’ll discuss the general plot in this review but I’ll give you a warning before there are any real spoilers.  I was very dubious about this film. I really wanted it to be a great movie, but it could so easily have just been a tacky display of special effects without any substance. I try to keep faith in James Cameron, the writer/director. After all, he’s given us Terminatorand Terminator 2, Aliens, True Lies and Strange Days. He’s also given usTitanic. It’s not a spotless track record. In truth, this movie lies somewhere between eye shatteringly, brain stunningly awesome and Meh, it’s all right. It actually has aspects of both. The basic story is this: It’s some time in the future and Jake Sully, a paraplegic Jarhead war veteran, is shipped to the planet Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi. Jake’s brother was trained to interact with the Na’vi, but was killed. Jake, as his twin, has the necessary genome to take over his brother’s role. That role is to lie in a box, remotely operating an artificially grown Na’vi body or Avatar. Of course, the humans are actually there for a rare and valuable resouce and moral dichotomies ensue. The rare resource itself nearly made me get up and walk out right away. It’s called, wait for it… Unobtanium. Fucking really?! I was appalled at that. It’s worse than Adamantium in the X-Men movies that my wife can’t hear as anything but Adam Ant Ium. Unobtanium. Man, that’s really, really bad. Also, there’s something kinda weird about the whole Avatar concept itself. The planet has a toxic atmosphere for humans and the Na’vi are about twelve feet tall and the planet is all hostile and so on. So I suppose that’s why they’ve gone to these ridiculously complex lengths to interact with the natives. It does sort of work, but I couldn’t help thinking that it was a bit like white people going into Africa with boot polish on their faces saying, “We’sa here to um-help you, bongo bongo.” That aspect of it all was a bit uncomfortable for me. The Na’vi are a race absolutely in tune with their green and vibrant planet. The humans are a bunch of yahoos desperate for this rock and want the Na’vi to move so they can mine the best of it. The Na’vi want nothing from people, so the people decide to muscle in and take it. Jake manages to get deeper into Na’vi culture than anyone ever has before, he learns about how they’re just lovely folk and falls in love with one of them. Naturally, even though he said he would report back to the army with intel, he ends up siding with the scientists and trying to save the Na’vi from the marauding humans. There are heavy and obvious overtones of looking after your mother planet, the humans not understanding the Na’vi’s deep bond with all of nature and so on. So you can see that we’re following a story by numbers here and this is where it’s hard to call this movie good or bad. On the one hand it is visually fan-fucking-tastic. The world building, the scenic backdrops, the native life, the whole vibe of the planet Pandora is absolutely beautiful. The use of 3D is clever, without trying to shock the audience all the time. There’s very little stuff-flying-at-your-face-to-make-you-gasp 3D and a lot of just normal, well shot cinema that just happens to be in 3D. The 3D does have some flaws. In fast action sequences the focus is sometimes lost, for example. Also, everything seems to have a slight sheen over it and you are fundamentally watching a movie with your sunglasses on. Taking the glasses off, the film, while blurry because of the 3D effects, is actually brighter and more vibrant. You’d think they could crank the brightness up a bit for 3D to account for the fact that everyone is wearing shades. Small gripe though. The futuristic nature of the human’s vehicles and computers and stuff like that is well thought out and interesting to look at too. There’s no doubt that as pure cinema this film is a stunning achievement. It would have been really nice if the story had been as powerful and mould-breaking as the technical extravagances. But, even though the story is predictable potentially to the point of boredom, it’s very well done. It’s painting by numbers but they stay very neatly within the lines. There’s nothing here, nothing at all, that will surprise you. You can see the major plot points coming like one of those massive hammerheaded bull things smashing through the forest (you’ll know ‘em when you see ‘em) but that somehow doesn’t spoil it. Although it’s cliche, it’s well-scripted cliche. There’s enough going on that it doesn’t seem like a kid’s film and by the time it all starts coming to a head there are very few punches pulled and that helps to lend it credibility. So yeah, it’s a pedestrian story but an incredible spectacle and worth seeing on the big screen, especially in 3D. There are some problems I had that I can’t discuss without spoilers. Read on if you’re interested or go and watch the movie and then come back and see if you agree with me. Seriously, Unobtanium. FUCKING UNOBTANIUM?! I’m still offended by that name. It’s almost like Cameron said, “What does it matter? Call it anything. We just want mad blue dudes diving around in a glowing forest anyway.” Which is a shame. Unobtanium, for fuck’s sake… all right, let it go, Al. Let it go. There are other problems with this flick. The whole Avatar concept I’ve mentioned up above and that is a bit weird, but we’ll just accept that because it’s the foundation of the entire movie. The other major problem I had was this. Jake and the scientists, with one rogue chopper pilot, decide that what the company is doing is just plain wrong and they take a stand against it. Would no other people there stand against it too? Why would just one tiny handful of people decide genocide was wrong while the rest of the humans there go along with it? We’ve reached out to the stars, but we’re still that dumb? And that then leads on to another problem. Against all odds (naturally) Jake and the Na’vi stop the humans from destroying the Soul Tree, and round up all the remaining people and ship them back off to Earth. So you’ve just handed the US Marine Corps (which appears to have taken over as the entire Earth army) a massive spanking. These tall blue hippies with their bows and arrows have sent the Marines packing. So those Marines get back to Earth and tell everyone what happened. You can imagine what happens next. Avatar 2 would be a very short film – Earth arrives with multiple battlecruisers, hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers, massed gunships and tears through the Na’vi population like a teenage boy through his prom date’s knickers. Or are we supposed to believe that the humans “learned a lesson” and will leave the Na’vi alone from now on? Hmmm. Also, the biggest deposit of Unob… you know, I just can’t bloody say it. I’m going to call it Plot Device Stone. So, the biggest deposit of Plot Device Stone is right under the big old Home Tree. Or was it under the Soul Tree? Whatever, basically, it’s exactly where the Na’vi are. But there’s an entire planet out there – what’s the rush? Why couldn’t the company mine all over the place where there weren’t any indigenous populations and let the Avatar program spend months or years more interacting with the Na’vi. They might have learned more, might have negotiated mining rights or whatever. If nothing else the slaughter would have been delayed by a fair chunk of time. More realistic than it was presented in the film anyway. Still, that sequence where they blow the shit out of the Home Tree was pretty damned impressive. Lastly, something that simply did my head in. What the fuck was it with Sigourney Weaver/Grace’s nose?! All the Avatars were essentially Na’vi people that resembled their human operators. Except Grace. She was an Avatar with Sigourney Weaver’s face. That was just bloody freaky, especially a Na’vi with a human nose. Imagine how much that would have freaked out the Na’vi when she first showed up, especially as she was one of the first. She walks in and the entire population screams, “What happened to your face?!” There are other small plot issues that I have. The usual convenient story events, the blatant set ups (like him flying the big orange dragon thing) and so on, but we can ignore those. It is a shame that such an incredible looking film had such a predictable story, but there you go. It wasn’t all bad and I have to be honest – I sat in the cinema and lapped up every second of it. (Except Plot Device Stone and Grace Face – they were both just wrong.) Review reprinted with kind permission from @AlanBaxter. You can read the original review here and more about Alan Baxter at his blog here.
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