Hello there. You may have been surprised at my remarkable lack of postings lately. This is primarily because of some events over Christmas and New Year that required my attention on a fairly dedicated level, and I didn't really have time to sit down and do as much reviewing as I would like to have done. I will not go into details because it was a little personal in nature, and I never really felt relaxed enough to sit down and do some reviewing kick-arsery. I will try to compensate however, and do a little recapping. Here are the films I did see:
The Hole
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Tron: Legacy
The King's Speech
The Black Swan
Tangled
Morning Glory
True Grit
Now, I will try to sum these up as best I can.
Rare Exports I went to see at the same time the snow was coming down and we were all absolutely crippled with anxiety as to whether or not any of us would get home for Christmas. Also occupied with learning material for my evening tour-guide/performance job (specifically about all the ghastly things that happen at Christmas), I seemed to be in the running for a bit of an anti-Christmas. Rare Exports is an amusing and wickedly dark perspective on the true origins of Christmas, a comedic way of looking at Christmas with the same tar-black humour as Gremlins. Yep, it was that sort of movie. Basically, some young kid comes to realize that children all around his area are going missing and it has something to do with the company excavating the huge mountain nearby. That mountain, y'see, had the real Santa Claus buried under it - and it seems no coincidence that reindeer are being slaughtered and all kinds of odd stuff is going on. The film isn't exactly unpredictable for the majority of its running length, featuring all kinds of scary-funny stuff but is unique and great fun to watch with other people. It does however have a bizarre and cynical twist at the end that I'm not totally sure belongs in this film, but still, this film from Lapland, the home of Santa, is a damned good bit of evil fun.
Next on my list is Tron: Legacy which attracted some astoundingly negative press from newspapers and fans alike, and which I recall was described by internet critic SpoonyOne as being for people who 'have low standards and are easily amused'. Then again, he likes Reb Brown, and there is no such thing as ironic fandom of Reb Brown. Still, I guess I'm in the minority, since respected film critic Mark Kermode also said the film bored him to sleep. Nerds from around the world utterly trashed Tron: Legacy, which I find curious given the film ain't really that bad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not apologizing for Tron Legacy - it is basically pretty looking vapidity in 3D with an amazing soundtrack, but damnit, it had Jeff Bridges and looked cool. That is why I enjoyed it, okay? Everyone has a part of them that likes films that make them go 'oooh, the pretty colours', and in that respect, Tron did it for me. It wasn't obnoxious, sexist and painfully sodomising like Michael Bay's films are, it was just simplistic A to B enjoyment. Maybe I'm not making the best case in the world by saying 'well, it wasn't a Michael Bay film', but come on, Tron was never exactly a legendary series. Few films stand up as badly as the original Tron, which now is just stodgy and kind of embarrassing, only roundly enjoyed by obsessed nerds who remember it as being far better than it actually was. Rose tinted spectacles have never been jammed on so hard as with die-hard fans of Tron. It was a fascinating bit of technology but that is its only (heh) legacy. So yes...I enjoyed its sequel. The soundtrack by Daft Punk was also probably one of the best scores of the last few years, and it is criminal it was not Oscar nominated.
And now to The King's Speech, a film I had to trawl through fire and flames to get to see. You may not care (and there is no reason you should) but I have rarely had to work so hard to get to see a film as The King's Speech. It was the day after opening day, and to my astonishment, every single screening was booked out, with queues through the doors of the cinemas. After having spent a goodly amount of time trudging through the cold and rain to get to one and then another cinema, I was not in the best of moods. I recall thinking that this film had better be bloody worth it. Thankfully, it was. The next day I caught an afternoon screening, before which I learned from the cinema staff that the night before had been a freak, and that the cinema hadn't sold that quickly in three years. This had to be interesting. The film itself is an Oscar film, and will probably do that annoying thing of winning in most of its categories, as it did at the BAFTAs this month. The problem is there that although this usually rouses my hatred and rage, given that most films with that many nods is usually far from deserving of these nominations, The King's Speech actually is worth it. The film is wonderful, a delight to watch. It manages to straddle that uneasy gap between costume drama and populist popcorner, being intelligent and insightful while also being very easy to connect with. Colin Firth? Bloody hell. It's almost painful to say, but...I really have to join the majority here. He deserves every acting award he is nominated for, because it is a phenomenal performance. His George VI is a brilliant thing to watch, with every tic and mannerism down pat and all of his repressed loneliness and fury at his brother for not doing the right thing. The film has been described as being like Rocky, and this is true. He is the underdog, looked down on by his peers, and can only break free thanks to maverick speech therapist Lionel Logue (a fantastic Geoffrey Rush) who manages to help him break free from his fear of becoming something he had never wanted to be. I will also do a call out to Helena Bonham Carter, who puts in a wonderfully clipped and understated performance as the Queen mother. So yes, oscar glory awaits I think.
Edit: He won, hahahahahaha, told you so! TOLD YOU!!!!!
Shortly before going to see The Black Swan, I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. It was a film I had always been looking forward to see, but it became clear the Black Swan was somewhat like cinematic marmite. You loved it, or you really hated it. I gathered that dancers though the dancing was simply not up to standard, but when I finally did see it, the film was as much about actual dance as Star Wars is about snazzy desert clothing. The point of the film was to represent a painful environment where everybody is competitive, obsessed and would quite clearly crawl over broken glass in their birthday suits than not make the final cut for the chorus line. We see sweat, injury, creaking shoes and endless physical exertion that is simply supposed to represent a tense and difficult environment. If you want a documentary about dance, don't see Black Swan. If however you want an operatic grand-guignol tale of obsession and delusion, then this film will provide lots of deliciously dark entertainment. Natalie Portman is Nina, a ballet dancer who wants to get the role of the Swan Queen in a new production of Swan Lake at the New York Opera House, gets it, and finds herself changing as she strives to understand the dark opposite to the swan queen, the erstwhile black swan. The film is pretty frightening. Virtually every character in the film looks like they are about to fly into a homicidal rage, especially Nina's Mother, a woman with depths of terror I have not seen in a film in a long time. Rarely has a woman looked so threatening when about to throw a cake into a bin. Believe me, see it, and believe it. The film attracted a lot of negative press over the 'candid lesbian sexy stuff' in it, which the trailer would have you believe takes up half the running time, but which really isn't anything at all. It is all fairly restrained, only making us see a certain correlation between uptightness and sexual frustration and how Nina's sexuality is only part of the puzzle that is unlocking her true self. Mostly, the film plays on paranoia. Nina is paranoid about her mother's off-the-handle behaviour, paranoid about Lily (Mila Kunis) trying to steal her role, and paranoid about what is happening to her and what ultimately will happen to her. Winona Ryder puts in an electrifying turn as the long-in-the-tooth dancer Nina has replaced, a bile-spitting empty shell of a woman who was clearly once upon a time like Nina herself. The only man in the piece with any real importance here is the Ballet teacher, Leroy, who spends the whole time behaving like what happened if you blended Louis Spence and Hannibal Lecter. The film is insane and frightening, with some really quite inspired visuals and a truly operatic climax.
After seeing some major crazy, I was in the mood to let my hair down. Yes alright, laboured joke about hair, seamless segue, and ta-dah, Disney's Tangled. The first trailers for this cg 3D film from Disney didn't exactly impress many people at first, coming as it was in the wake of Toy Story 3, and Disney's 3D efforts have never really been that impressive. Watch Chicken Little and see what I mean. Yet Tangled turned into probably the biggest surprise here, since I really, really enjoyed it. It was a Disney film that made me feel good, I enjoyed the action, the visuals, the romance and thankfully, the leads were just right. It was a genuinely funny film, with a story that was full of heart and a really quite good villain. A modern take on the fairytale of Rapunzel, Tangled decides to revise it by giving it a romantic buddy comedy twist, which does work. The two complement each other well. Rapunzel is pretty but also a talented artist, is ditzy but also very much aware of how lonely she is and where she wants to go with her life. Flynn is a conniving thief with a penchant for selfishness, but also just wants to be a hero and deep down, is a good guy. Sounds corny, but it works. The one liners are stonkingly fun and the individual comic situations are all quite elegantly scripted. It is interesting how Disney have taken something that on paper is cheese city and made it a charming and funny fairytale. Then again, they always have been good at that. The aforementioned villain is impressive not because they are evil as such, but because they have an actual motive. Villains with actual motives that define who they are and what they do are rare in Disney. Cinderella's evil stepmother is just that, an evil stepmother who is evil coz, y'know, she is, and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast is just kind of a dick. Dr. Facilier too was cool and evil, but seemed to have no greater motive for doing what he did in Princess and the Frog than casual xenophobia. In this film, the witch Gothel kidnapped Rapunzel from when she was a baby so that she could be young forever, and while you don't sympathize with her on account of being evil and all that, her desperation is personal, Gothel's life is literally in the balance. The only thing it could be said is disappointing about it is the soundtrack, which is Alan Menken written (automatic yay) but which manages to be instantly forgettable.
But enough for now, I will sum up the last two films in my next blog post. Stay tuned! Apologies for an extremely extended absence.
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