Tuesday 31 January 2012

January 2012


Back on the old Blogger blog with what I hope will be monthly posts. In January 2012 I watched…

Collateral Damage – 2002, Andrew Davis
I consider myself a bit of a Schwarzenegger aficionado yet Collateral Damage always felt like the long lost Arnie film. I’d only seen it once before, it was the first time I’d ever seen one of his films in a cinema. I remember being quite exited by that at the time and perhaps that clouded my judgement as I had fond memories of this one. It was released the year before Arnold became Governor and stopped making movies (beyond the odd cameo appearance) and came after The 6th Day, which is very poor, and End of Days, which isn’t particularly good either but I kind of like it.
Collateral Damage is slightly better than End of Days but it still disappoints. The story tries too hard to be clever and twisty and is more than a Schwarzenegger film requires. There are some quite good moments that stem from the fact that Arnold’s character isn’t a special forces guy or a secret agent or even a cop, he’s just a regular guy (albeit a heroic fire-fighter) so when he does bad-ass things, it’s in a refreshingly humble way. This time Schwarzenegger isn’t playing it to-cool-for-school and it works well. The early digital special effects look quite ropey now but I think they’re charming.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 2011, Guy Ritchie
No better or worse than the first one. The slow-motion-pre-imagined fight scenes start to drag a little by the end and it maybe suffers from having such a large budget as it all gets a bit like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie by the end. I’ve never found Robert Downey Jr to be all that funny.

Rare Exports – 2011, Jalmari Helander
A scary Finnish film about a demonic Santa Clause. I really liked it. I think it has a 15 rating but it’s a Christmas film and the main character is a little boy, so while it’s violent and scary, it reminded me of films like The Goonies. The best kids films are the ones that aren’t really meant for kids but that don’t have anything beyond a little bad language and a couple of spooky bits or monsters or whatever. I’d make an awful parent.

Captain America: The First Avenger – 2011, Joe Jonston

Not as good as Thor, better than The Green Lantern. I always think that the bad guy’s creation stories are better than the good guy’s so it’s unfortunate that the origins of The Red Skull are glossed over while the we spend the whole first act waiting to see super buff Chris Evans. I hope Thor gets plenty to do in The Avengers.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – 2011, Brad Bird
As much fun as you’d expect but I think the third one is better. It’s similar to MI3 in that it’s clear we’re not supposed to worry too much about what’s going on. It’s funny how such a big deal was made of the sequence in Dubai and the whole ‘international production’ when there’s not a single Emirati or otherwise Arabic character in the whole film, then when we end up in India for the climax and the one Indian character is just comic relief.

Source Code – 2011, Duncan Jones
Some people were under whelmed but I liked it, although I’m predisposed to enjoy high concept, low budget sci-fi in all its forms. The ending was a bit happy for me though. If you like this I’d recommend Surrogates. What next from Mr Jones?

The Duellists – 1977, Ridley Scott
I like Ridley Scott’s debut film. Harvey Keitel was very well cast as the villain who is a bit one dimensional; he just a complete prick who wants to kill the good guy in a duel. Harvey’s got the chops to make his character interesting even though he isn’t at all fleshed out. The two lead characters duel a lot throughout Napoleonic France while the hero (played by Kieth Carridine, who disappeared into obscurity) tries to get on with his life but can’t escape his nemesis. Harvey really pulls off the bad guy role leaving the good guy to provide the emotional weight. It’s very simple but it works well and looks lovely.

Summer Wars – 2009, Mamoru Hosoda
Not as disappointing as the tedious The Girl Who Leapt Through Time but still quite boring in parts. A lot more Animes receive high profile release outside Japan due to the success of Miyazaki, but films like Summer Wars just don’t ‘play’ in the west because (or not with me at least) because we don’t care about the love stories between high-schoolers that form most of the plot. We’re far more interested in the crazy, imaginative stuff that is, in the case of Summer Wars, frustratingly relegated to the background while mundane family drama/teenage relationships develop in the foreground. Boring

Stakeland – 2011, Jim Mickle
No cinematic release to speak of but it recently had a prominent Blu-ray release (by which I mean it was on the ‘New Releases’ shelf at the Prestwich Blockbuster). Post-apocalyptic road movie type stuff, it’s shot like a small indie film. More The Road than Zombieland, but with more scary bits and not so harrowingly bleak. And lots of Vampires in case that wasn’t obvious from the title. Shot on a low budget but with a high end digital camera (a Red One if that means anything to you) it looks very good it’s lovingly made, clearly inspired by Monsters. It’s let down slightly by some corny dialogue and would have been greatly improved if the plot and characters were just a bit better. It’s a good take on a rather tired premise but falls just shy of being excellent.

Mr Nobody – 2009, Jaco Van Dormael

138 minutes of pretentious guff that I couldn’t be bothered to finish.