rotsyourbrain.com

Friday May 23rd 2008, 4:00 am
Filed under: cinema

Charlie Wilson’s War, the opening credits proudly boast, is based on true events. This in indeed true, though at times you’d hardly know it. The movie charts the endevours of whisky-swilling, womanizing, Democrat Texan congressman Charlie Wilson to arm the Afghanistan militia and repel the Soviet invasion of the 1980s.

With thanks to recent events, even those too young to remember first-hand are familiar with the main facts of this story. And yet still at times, it can be very difficult to swallow that this was a true story. This is in part due to the titular character, who comes across as at once ignorant and savvy, and who seemingly throws himself at complex causes earnestly but also almost with gay abandon. As such, the character doesn’t seem very grounded in reality.

The supporting characters are similarly a patchwork of oddballs, ranging from a bleeding-heart wealthy constituent pulling the strings on an international level to an abrasive CIA agent with obvious anger management issues, played superbly by Philip Seymour Hoffman. These kooky characters,?coupled with equally unnatural but witty dialogue give the film an almost Wes Anderson feel, and go some way to removing any sense of realism from proceedings.

Other issues concern the plot itself. While the world today is still reeling from the repercussions of arming the Mujahideen, the story is almost entirely myopic. Charlie Wilson comes across as a hero for liberating Afghanistan, while the considerable fallout is relegated to a pre-credit post script.

This economy of facts, coupled with the off-kilter ambience, renders Charlie Wilson’s War’s impact as a history lesson very weak. As a piece of entertainment however, you could do a lot worse than this enjoyable old yarn.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Wednesday May 21st 2008, 1:41 am
Filed under: cinema, japan

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The 1999 low-budget Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai brings together two of my cinematic loves; gangsters and samurai. Though such a hybrid might suggest a trashy time-traveling car crash of a film, the truth is a lot different.

Ghost Dog concerns itself with an African-American assassin, played by Forest Whitaker, who attempts to live by the samurai code of honour whilst simultaneously carrying out hits for the New Jersey mafia. However, when a job goes awry, he finds himself a marked man and his loyalty to both his beliefs and to his mafioso lord are tested.

The film triumphs in making the central character believable. Indeed, with Japanese culture enjoying a boom in the mindspace of today’s youth, Ghost Dog’s obsession with Japan hits perhaps a little too close to home. While his appreciation for certain aspects of ‘The Way’ are admirable, others are sorely cringe worthy, as for example, he waves his pistol around like a katana before holstering it.

It is this attempt to reconcile loyalty to an obviously outdated feudal code with the realities of living and operating in the underbelly of a very different contemporary world that forms the film’s backbone, and it results in a strong character arch.

In many ways, the titular Ghost Dog is a pitiful character – a fact borne out by his only 2 friends; a French-speaking ice-cream man who he can’t understand, and a little kid he swaps books with on a park bench.

The film also deserves praise for the bleak soundscape, provided by RZA, and subdued colour palette. Alongside quirky interludes with Ghost Dog’s aforementioned friends, this serves to lend the movie an almost dream-like quality.

The Mist

Monday April 07th 2008, 5:37 am
Filed under: cinema

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When director Frank Darabont first adapted author Stephen King’s work, he gave us The Shawshank Redemption. Despite a poor box-office showing, and valid accusations of over-sentimentality, over time it managed to cement itself as a modern classic, and wormed itself into many movie fans’ top tens (this film fan included).

His next attempt was with The Green Mile, another film based on a Steven King saccharine prison-drama, proving that lightening rarely strikes twice.

Darabont’s third crack at the whip is with Steven King’s The Mist, wherein a mysterious fog (I guess the name was taken…) smothers a rural American town. With communication and power falling foul of the fog, people take refuge wherever they can as it becomes apparent that, in the words of one panicked character, there is something in the mist.

This setup makes way for a slow-burning character piece, as vastly different characters are forced to live on top of each other in the local supermarket under huge stress. Unfortunately, the characters are largely drawn from stereotypes, and so disappoint. Thomas Jane stands apart as the concerned father, but at times he too lapses into humdrum gravely-voiced snarls that jar with the material.

With such wooden, two dimensional characters, Darabont seems to quickly run out of ideas, and so much of the movie feels like mere padding. For a film that hinges on the conflict and in-fighting amongst the characters, the sense of rising tensions is handled with very little subtlety.

And though acknowledging that the theme may be regarding the dangers of the monster inside as opposed to those in the mist, the ghouls themselves are poorly-realised. Appalling CGI apart, their design is almost uniformly unimaginative and derivative. And yet with all that in mind, they are given centre-stage for perhaps a little too long.

The Mist is perhaps elevated out of absolute mediocrity by the closing act. Without divulging details, it is safe to assume that the ending will linger longer in the viewer’s mind than the film itself.

I Am Legend

Thursday January 24th 2008, 7:47 am
Filed under: cinema

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I Am Legend, the big-screen adaption of the cult Richard Matheson novel, has something of a checkered heritage. On one hand, the source material is regarded as a genuine classic horror novel, while on on the other hand, it has already spawned two movie adaptations of questionable worth in The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man, and it stars Will Smith, who has previously appeared in the not-entirely-faithful adaptation of other cult novel, I, Robot.

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It is at this juncture that I should point out that this post may contain spoilers for both the book and the latest movie adaptation.

I Am Legend tells the story of your average guy (the book) or US Army official/world reknowned scientist (the movie), Neville, as he tries to cope in a post-apocalyptic, post-humanity California (book) or Manhattan (movie). It attempts to capture the solitude of the last man on Earth, as well as such a position’s effects on the psyche.

The movie succeeds, to a degree, in capturing the double-life of the protagonist. By day, they are locked into a routine dictated by the height of the sun in the sky, striving simply to survive. By night, they bolt themselves in their home, and attempt to stave off the attacks of vampires (book) or mutants (movie).

It is perhaps that last change to the source material that harms the film the most. In the book, the vampires are monstrous. However, they are also smart, articulate and still almost, if not quite, human. They call Neville by his first name, and prey on his wants and needs to provoke him outside into the darkness. Crucially, they also lapse into a coma during the day, allowing Neville some outlet for his emotions as he drives stakes through their hearts, clearing the world one neighbourhood at a time.

In the movie, the antagonists are CGI ghouls, devoid of personality, language or interest. They don’t toy with Neville’s emotions, nor do they fear him. They’re cannon fodder.

With such vast different slants taken here, it was always going to be an uphill struggle to reconcile the two endings. For whatever reason (and one suspects the Hollywood machine had a hand in it), the ending of the book was completely altered, with the movie opting for a somewhat downcast but in general upbeat ending.

Fans of the book may be left perplexed, as it is the final act, and particularly the final few lines, that give the book its whole raison-d’etre. Some, myself included, would argue that to remove such material defeats the whole exercise of adapting the book.

If I Am Legend (the movie) is taken on its own, it stands up surprisingly well as a Will Smith meets 28 Days Later. It’s well-shot, well-paced and Will Smith is as likeable as ever. When the credits roll, however, fans of the book will likely be scratching their heads and wondering ‘Why?’…

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

We Own The Night

Monday January 21st 2008, 6:40 am
Filed under: cinema

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We Own The Night sells itself, perhaps, as a study of the duality of man. Set in a well-realised 1980s New York, it tells the story of a family divided by the thin blue line: one brother who follows his father’s footsteps into the police force, and another who renounces his own name to further his career as a seedy night-club owner. When the police attempt to close down a drugs operation running through the night spot, loyalties are tested and the two brothers must decide where they stand.

In many ways, it is a film exploring duality. The two brothers are, initially, quite contrasting and the source of much tension in the opening acts. Both characters are polar opposites, yet both are likeable in their own way. The film starts off as a slow-burning character study, with terrific performances from ‘Marky Mark’ Wahlberg and particularly from Joaquin Phoenix. However, the film’s tone and pacing takes a dramatic turn for the worst in the final third, and quickly reduces itself to banal, insultingly hackneyed finale. For a good hour, the film suggests to the viewer that it is up there with the best cinema of recent years, only to squander it by going for the cheap, clichéed ending. As such, colour me hugely disappointed.

On a slightly more positive note, the soundtrack is fantastic.

30 Days Of Night

Thursday December 20th 2007, 4:52 am
Filed under: cinema

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A downside to living in Japan is the movie studio’s scattershot approach to releasing movies in the cinema. Some movies, inexplicably, are released here ahead of other territories, while others leave a large gap, and more still simply don’t get released at all. As such, I was able to enjoy The US Vs. John Lennon in the cinema last week (amusingly renamed PEACE BED), I’ll take in I Am Legend tonight, and 30 Days Of Night shows no sign of making an appearance at all.

Fortunately, my living room does a respectable job of replicating the cinema experience, save for the buttered popcorn and overpriced cola.

Anyway, 30 Days of Night. The title refers to the northernmost town in Alaska, which every year experiences 30 days of darkness. Things start to go wrong for the inhabitants who choose to stay for the duration when holidaying vampires turn up to take advantage of the darkness and drink their fill of human blood. Santa Ponsa isn’t for them, I guess.

30 Days of Night is yet another movie based on a ~~comic~~ graphic novel, directed by a music video director. As such, it shares many traits of it’s siblings. The directing is full of quick-changing camera angles as well as beautifully-framed shots, the supporting cast is largely 2 dimensional, and the dialogue can at times seem a little hammy.

And yet for all this, it is a surprisingly tense, claustrophic affair. This isn’t an over-the-top gorefest of the likes of 300 (though there’s plenty of the red sauce on show), but instead closer to Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead - in so far as the band of survivors’ biggest problem may not be the external threat, but rather the interpersonal problems of the group. However, this side of the film is left underdeveloped, and the film sadly slips down a gear into a more predicatable, mundane affair.

That leaves the film somewhere in No Man’s Land. Infinitely more stylish, tense and gripping than most of the dross masquerading as horror these days, but not quite enough to leave a lasting impression or be considered a true classic of the genre.

Special praise must be awarded to Josh Hartnett, who seems to be metamorphising from Hollywood cutie into a more serious actor, a la Leo Di Caprio some years ago. His performance here is a great addition to the film.

Dates on my calender (part two)

Saturday October 06th 2007, 3:19 am
Filed under: cinema

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Continued from part one, commenting on the films I’m most looking forward to.

I Am Legend (14/12/07)

The third attempt at a film adaptation of the classic horror novel. Will Smith already butchered sci-fi masterpiece I, Robot, but will he make it two in a row? The teaser trailer suggests a film that takes liberty with the events of the book, but that may be no bad thing. The premise holds up, how will the execution?

Iron Man (02/05/07)

Firmly in the camp that believes Jon Favreau’s take on Daredevil was hugely underrated, I’m hopeful that Iron Man will deliver him the credit he deserves. Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark, and provided they can sort out the villain of the piece, it should be a hit.

1-18-08 (18/01/08)

I’m not a fan of all this new-fangled viral marketing, nor was I keen on the Abrams-helmed Mission Impossible III, but I can’t say no to a good old monster movie, especially if this one is as innovative as people believe it will be. We’ll see.

10,000 B.C. (07/03/08)

Creationist undertones aside, it’s great to see a Roland Emmerich blockbuster. Godzilla may have been misguided, and The Day After Tomorrow was utter dross, but in Independence Day, they crafted one of the most arresting blockbusters of recent times. Here’s hoping for a return to form.

More soon!

Dates on my calender (part one)

Friday October 05th 2007, 5:54 am
Filed under: cinema

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There’s no denying that 2007 has been a pretty lackluster year for cinema - especially when compared to the exceptionally strong year it followed. However, as a film fan, I’m always looking forward to the next big release, and here’s what I’m keeping my eye on:

American Gangster (02/11/07)

Ridley Scott directs Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in a 1970s cop drama. Denzel’s collaborations with Tony Scott have been hit and miss, but the gritty tone of this film should suit the two leads perfectly.

We Own The Night(12/10/07)

A film unknown to be until about a week ago when I laid eyes on the trailer. Joaquin Phoenix stars alongside Mark Wahlberg as two brothers on opposite sides of the tracks. Again, it’s gritty New York setting may bring the best out of the two actors. Pre-release buzz has been terrific, so it could end up being a pleasant surprise.

Bee Movie (14/12/07)

Jerry Seinfeld is undeniably a funny guy. He’s also not a man short on cash, thanks to a windfall due to Seinfeld’s worldwide syndication. As such, he can pick and choose what work he does. Bee Movie looks like being a project of passion for him, and I’m keen to see how it turns out. Computer-animated children’s films have rapidly become stale, so hopefully this one can give the genre a shot in the arm.

30 Days Of Night(19/10/07)

I’ve not read the graphic novel that the film is based on, but I am a fan of Steve Niles’ other work, and that he had a hand in the screenplay is welcome news. A promising premise, a promising trailer, and so my hopes are high for this one.

Check back tomorrow for more!

Grindhouse: Planet Terror

Thursday October 04th 2007, 3:31 am
Filed under: cinema

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Again, based on the stand-alone Japanese cut, presumably the same as the stand-alone European cut.

Planet Terror

Grindhouse was something of a cinematic conjoined-twin. Upon release, the film struggled at the box-office, and so, with the two parts of the film’s interests in mind, they were seperated, and released separately.

Tarantino’s Death Proof still had difficulty maintaining a steady pulse, but what of the other half - Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror?

The prospects were undoubtedly stronger for this one. Rodriguez had undoubted genre credentials, having helmed From Dusk Till Dawn. His El Mariachi Trilogy proved no slouch in the over-the-top action stakes either.

However, whereas the above films had plenty of neat characterisation and style going for them, Planet Terror is unashamedly crude, in-your-face an outright stupid.

The plot, what little there is, sees a small town in Texas overrun by mutants as a result of a leak of chemical weapons at a nearby army base. A motley band of survivors are formed, charged with cleaning up the whole mess.

And that, essentially, is it. Unlike Death Proof, the trailer succinctly captures the film. It’s a film comprised of gruff men, victimized women and lots of gory, tongue-in-cheek action. Rodriguez is clearly in his element, stuffing the film with gratuitous head-shots and corny lines (You killed Bin Laden? I put two in his heart, one in his computer…) and it accomplishes what it set out to do very well. Fans of the genre won’t be disappointed.

However, the film is by no means a classic, nor up there with some of Rodriguez’ other works. No amount of knowing winks and nods to the audience can elevate the silliness to a higher station. It’s shallow stuff, and probably won’t leave a lasting mark on the audience.

So, to return to the awkward analogy: it is definitely the stronger twin, but the long-term outlook isn’t very good. (groan.)

Grindhouse: Death Proof

Tuesday October 02nd 2007, 4:47 am
Filed under: cinema

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Based on the Japanese theatrical cut, which is presumably the same as the stand-alone European cut.

Tarantino is a pretty divisive film maker these days. In one camp, there are people who accredit him for creating some of the most important movies of our age, of re-invigorating independent cinema, and presenting off-beat, niche cinema to the mainstream like few others have done before.

The other camp is an increasingly vocal one. They say he’s a hack, not so much as a revolutionary auteur as a plagarising copy & paste merchant, who owes his success to the films he pays homage to in his own works.

Generally, I fall into the former category. Tarantino’s films may be derivative, but there is no doubting his flair for writing and directing captivating dialogue. He makes no bones about the fact that his films frequently reference other works, and once the audience is aware of that, I’ve no problems with his unoriginality.

So, anyway, Death Proof. Death Proof was originally released as one half of Grindhouse. It supposedly came about as the result of a bet between Tarantino and long-time friend and collaborator Robert Rodriguez, with the challenge being to create the best homage to grindhouse cinema. However, when Grindhouse was released in the States, it was something of a flop, and so both halves of the film (Rodriguez’ Planet Terror and Tarantino’s Death Proof) were re-cut and re-released around the world as seperate, longer films.

Death Proof, then, tells the story of a stuntman who goes by the name of Stuntman Mike, played by the under-used Kurt Russell. Stuntman Mike travels the land looking for young women who he can torment and/or kill with the help of his trusty Hollywood-rigged car.

The above, coupled with the pre-release Grindhouse hype, might lead the audience to believe they’re in store for a no-holes-barred, dirty, low-budget horror/thriller.

Tarantino, clearly, had other ideas. The finished, re-cut film clocks in at a solid two hours, and, perhaps somewhat ironic for a director so often accused of plagiarism, this film references Tarantino’s previous works more so than grindhouse films. The film is essentially composed of long, meandering, irrelevant talking heads scenes between the female leads, bookended by literally a couple of thrilling scenes with Kurt Russell.

For fans of Tarantino, the thought of a film chocked full of his dialogue is perhaps a welcome one. And yet, the dialogue struggles to hold the audience’s attention. Tarantino’s most memorable dialogue has always come from male characters - the gangsters arguing over tipping a waitress, discussing European burgers and so on - and so it comes as no surprise when the banter between the female characters in Death Proof variously completely fails to captivate or sounds like it was written for Samuel L. Jackson or Harvey Keitel.

And so, what are we left with? A scenery-chewing Kurt Russell, a thrilling chase scene, and not a lot else. It is, as was originally planned, one half of a film.