Posts Tagged ‘future’

Scrooge – A Christmas Carol [1951]

Scrooge – A Christmas Carol [1951]

Monday, January 4th, 2010

My second review of an adaptation of this book this year and I’m afraid I’m going to come out sounding like a bit of a Scrooge myself. As you’ll know if you’ve been reading a month or more, I didn’t much like Robert Zemeckis’ new 3D animated version, especially not it’s last third. Since writing that review I saw the Muppet version for the umpteenth time and James Cameron’s Avatar in 3D, which collectively made me think even less of Zemeckis’ take not only on Dickens’ novel but also on 3D and motion/performance-capture cinema. So, we come to this, the one which Mark Kermode mentions glowingly on his show every Christmas (he likes the Muppet one too, it must be said) as being one of the best.

I don’t know what to say. I tried reading the original book again this year and stopped after the first ghost because I just know it too well. While one can’t deny that this is probably one of the greatest stories ever told, there’s just something after so many tellings that feels like all the energy and creativity in the storytelling has been snuffed out. I find myself turning to the more out-there versions, Scrooged, The Muppets, because all the nobler, “accurate” adaptations just feel like painting by numbers… almost like going to a very, very boring church, just point by point like an upmarket school nativity.

This is a version I’ll watch much sooner again than Zemeckis’ (if only because, for shame, this particular viewing was of the Five broadcast colorized version – I’ll likely get the Blu-ray for next year and give it a fighting chance). I was surprised by just how much I thought invented in Zemeckis’ version was not only present here but, when I looked back, actually in Dickens’ own words to begin with. I’d prefer Bill Murray or The Muppets and Paul Williams’ songs any day, though, and it’s Christmas so I really don’t care how that makes me sound :-P



Moon

Moon

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

I’m incredibly glad that even in this Twitter-enabled world I managed to avoid pretty much all plot details of this movie, and if you haven’t seen it yet, so should you. With that warning, I’ll still try to avoid any spoilers here as best I can. This movie completes a hat-trick of pleasant surprises for me this week, for though I’d heard many positive words about Moon, though I’m not a bit averse to the genre, though I think Sam Rockwell is a great actor and I’d seen an interesting interview with its director Duncan Jones on Robert Llewelyn’s Carpool, I still didn’t really feel that compelled to watch it.

This is, I’ve learned recently, what’s known as hard sci-fi – in this case, perhaps the hardest kind. There’s virtually nothing here that struck me as particularly far-fetched in terms of its vision of the (fairly near) future, even though the sci-fi aspect of the movie is not really what rings most true. I found myself drawn in and ultimately transfixed by where the story goes in the end, a seriously harrowing degeneration, both mental and physical, that brought to mind something like “When the Wind Blows” combined with revelations about a very recognisable corporate evil to whom human life is entirely expendable (to continue the wild genre-hopping comparisons, this complete disregard for human life in pursuit of capitalism reminded me of Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation). In short, way heavier stuff than I might’ve expected from what is a relatively small movie.

One thing I had known before the movie began was how it is almost entirely a one man show by Sam Rockwell. I’d seen the IMDb cast list and knew this not to be technically true, however, with Kevin Spacey on hand as the ship’s HAL-like computer (complete with very unsettling emoticon faces) and a wife and child on the end of a video communications link, but for all its visual wonder – with intricate model work instead of the CGI you’d find in most recent movies of this kind – it’s testament to good writing and acting indeed (to say nothing of Clint Mansell’s alternately unsettling and emotive score) that I could easily imagine this working as a one man stage play. Rockwell is phenomenal, easily the best performance I’ve seen this year so far – there’s one moment in particular which is actually kind of played twice (for reasons I won’t explain) where he receives some information from earth and breaks down, “That’s enough … I wanna go home,” he says, and it totally crushed me. This is the kind of sci-fi that even those who don’t consider themselves sci-fi fans should enjoy, where the “science part”, though amply established (it’s a slow burner but stick with it), serves merely as a kind of McGuffin for one of the most genuine explorations of the conundrum of human existence that I’ve ever seen.



S. Darko

S. Darko

Monday, May 18th, 2009

This was a lot better than I expected and reading other people’s reviews of it proved very interesting indeed. One of the first bad reviews I found said the following:

“To me this movie felt like someone watched Donnie a few times, wrote down some key elements from the movie in a notebook and then tried to incorporate it into a new movie.”

What can I say but I’m glad if this was the way they approached it. I have no time for those who think they can fathom the mystery of the original movie. Richard Kelly ruined it with his own director’s cut in my opinion. The mystery was key for me. For me, the things you need to fairly compare this straight to video sequel to are not the original theatrical cut of Donnie Darko (which it could never match) but other straight to video sequels, Richard Kelly’s demented director’s cut of the original, and Kelly’s own output since his ingenius debut. On all those counts, this for me easily comes out on top.

If you had any great love for the director’s cut of Donnie Darko over the original, clearly, this is not for you. You probably love the abundance of exposition in The Da Vinci Code and (I’m told) its sequel. I’m personally a fan of abstract cinema, believe it’s something that cinema does particularly well in fact, and to find that in a movie like this which on the surface at times looks as shallow as The OC or something is a huge relief. Like I said, it’s no Donnie, it couldn’t be. But it is beautifully produced, even the music being impressive; it has many parallels to the original story without being 100% rehash; and for a moment or two at least it even took my breath away a little. The ending kind of fizzles rather than blazes as it should and it’s an homage to the original too far that just doesn’t work, but otherwise, for what it is, I was very impressed with this movie.

(PS. Another of the reviews I just read said it was ‘worse than Grease 2 …’ which to my ears is really counter-productive, lol)



Idiocracy

Idiocracy

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

I’ve had this lined up for a long time now and just never seemed to get around to it because its sheer concept – that a guy wakes up in a future where today’s gradual dumbing down of society has reached its logical conclusion – spoke for itself. What I didn’t expect was a movie that in its own way is as bleak and ultimately moving as a more recent one it closely resembles: Wall•E.

Don’t get me wrong, Wall•E is doubtless a masterpiece that doesn’t even need a second viewing from me to verify while this lacks a certain amount of scope at times, perhaps simply because of the inevitable dumbness it’s dealing with. The same could possibly be said for the middle portion of Wall•E, from when the humans enter.

Some people might’ve read my comment about it being moving above and smirked a little. What can I say, in its last 10-15 minutes, this movie really caught me off guard. The fact is, there’s a truth in this film and Wall E and we’re all to an extent guilty of contributing to a backwards slide of our society, even if as Luke Wilson admits here it’s by doing nothing. I love the last piece of voiceover that states that our hero doesn’t quite rescue mankind, but that he got the ball rolling. Maybe that’s it. It’s so easy, easier with every passing year, to think of giving up trying to do something great in the face of the junk enveloping the world. But maybe it’s not about doing anything great at all; maybe we just have to do enough to keep the ball rolling, something being better than nothing.

(Incidental note, it’s a couple of weeks now since I saw the movie and started this review, and I swear barely a day has gone by now when I haven’t seen or read of something happening in the world and thought, “Oh no … it’s happening, isn’t it?” It really is kinda scary.)



Repo! The Genetic Opera

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

I was really looking forward to seeing this one, and it’s very possible that in the end I really like the idea of this movie more than the actual experience – I feel the need to say that right from the start. Attention must be drawn to a movie like this, I think, especially at a time when – while the musical is “coming back” in cinema – you still have people emerging from Sweeney Todd commenting less than favourably about “all that singing”, and when whole segments are cut out of Rent‘s libretto in favour of more “audience-friendly” dialogue. I didn’t expect this to live up to its title quite so much as it does – there’s barely a word of spoken dialogue (okay, a lot of the “songs” are sung-spoken), and for the most part, for what it is at least, it works.

The set-up reminds me of off-broadway type stage musicals like Urinetown and Bat Boy, both of which it must be said had more catchy tunes. The casting is impressive – I came to it mostly for Spy Kids‘ Alexa Vega but was surprised to find Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, and even Paul Sorvino among the warblers. I was equally surprised by the level of gore on display: they’re not just selling when they tell you this is from the makers of Saw on the DVD cover, lol.

In the end I just love that there are people out there trying to make a new cult classic in the vein of Rocky Horror, even moreso that there are people willing to fund such a thing to this level and clearly give the film-makers free rein – … even if, ultimately, they kinda fail. In all honesty, Repo! is really more Shock Treatment than Rocky Horror – even closer, in fact, this just occurred to me, to Hedwig and the Angry Inch … and it must be said again that all of those productions had more instantly memorable songs. But like I said, I love the idea of it more than anything else; and it’s highly likely to grow on me, as it surely already has on others, because I can see myself watching it many times again.



Soylent Green

Soylent Green

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

This is one of those movies which every time I see it’s on TV I wonder to myself, why haven’t I seen that movie yet, and then skip it again anyway, only to then wonder, “why do I always skip it?” – and when I finally get around to watching it, I just kinda look at the TV and think, “oh yeh.” I of course knew the ending to this movie – don’t worry, I won’t spoil it – but I still find myself wondering if that’s really such a shame as it sounds like it oughta be. If I hadn’t been aware of how this movie ended, would I really have got any more out of it? Sadly I don’t think I would. This is a genuinely well-realised vision of the future: production design, visual effects and ideas come together to keep it marginally interesting for the duration, alongside some semblance of a detective story. But you get to the end and realise that’s kinda all these things are there for. At least, that’s how I felt.

All this said, it must be said, it took me until almost half way through the movie to even think to check the IMDb and see if the guy who looked like Charlton Heston really was Charlton Heston, lol (yes: some facts just skip me by, lol), and I was pretty surprised. Heston is not someone I like to watch in movies as much as a lot of other people – I have the same issue with Steve McQueen and used to have it with Warren Beatty, but Heston is like the king of the unwatchables, and yet he is perfectly watchable here. Other than this, what can I say except it just didn’t do it for me.



Wall·E

Wall·E

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Okay, we may be entering the realm of reviews that I actually started, so they might be getting longer, hehe …

But it almost pains me to say, what can be said of this that hasn’t yet been said? I know, it’s taken me an unforgivable amount of time to see it. But it’s Pixar … their reliability level is almost boringly, consistently, humblingly high, I think I’ve said before. There are other animation mediums thankfully creeping back out of the woodwork lately after a decade of CG holding centre stage (Disney’s own stuff to come in the next couple of years fascinates me it looks like the ArtRage of computer animation lol) – but when it comes to computer animation, Pixar really does unfailingly put the other companies to abject shame, and Wall•E is no exception.

What struck me most about the movie I think was how much bleaker it was even than I’d been told. Right from the opening, the empty scenes of desolation that Wall•E rolls through to Thomas Newman’s lonely score, it’s extremely unnerving and frighteningly believable as to a place we could be headed. Once the movie goes into space, I actually found myself momentarily feeling very wrong indeed at the portrayal of today’s lazy humanity’s ultimate destination. It’s astounding that a movie that on its very surface is so scathing can still win its audience over with humour and emotion through a couple of hunks of metal.

For me it easily beats Cars and The Incredibles (sorry Vi!) – perhaps not Ratatouille though the running time helps it in the repeat viewing zone. I’m not sure if it’s up there with Andrew Stanton’s own Finding Nemo. I personally wasn’t impressed a few years ago when people wowed at the expressionless emotion of Gromit in Curse of the Were-Rabbit but the amount of emotion gleaned here from glances and gestures is frequently overwhelming.

A lot of reviews I’ve read or heard talked about the basically silent first half and seemed disappointed by the second half where it’s a little more traditionally Pixar but I really didn’t feel that – and the moment at the end where the “lovers” are finally together on the same page just melted me completely, the silence, stillness, and slowness of that moment are just astonishing – nevermind for a “kids” movie … for any movie today. There’s tons of competition coming up as the Oscars approach, but I’m still standing by my theory that this year will be a more commercial contest after 2 years of bolder film making taking the cake; my beloved Mamma Mia! predix may be dreamy, but this one certainly seems like it has a shot at being the second animated feature ever to be nominated for Best Pic.



Doomsday

Doomsday

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

If I was the kind of person who walked out of / switched off movies, and lord how I wish I was sometimes, I would’ve been done with this around the hour mark. It fits the mould of the Grindhouse movies, particularly Planet Terror, but like, in a really, really bad, sad, pathetic wannabe British way.

I really don’t want to write what I really think of this movie because I did so and I read it back and I just don’t want the feedback that what I wrote might trigger. That some people might get some enjoyment out of this movie doesn’t bug me. That someone like Neil Marshall can make such a movie and still somehow be regarded as a gem in the British film industry … no matter how much I may try to distance myself from the herdlike mindset of the masses … it still makes me feel ashamed to be alive.

I’m inclined to add somewhere here, “y’know what, it’s just not for me,” but I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it being somehow okay for people to get a kick out of shit like this while I and others get regarded as sickeningly weird for, relatively speaking, reasons that couldn’t be more innocuous.

‘kay, like I said I didn’t even intend to include those last few sentences, but I couldn’t bring myself to delete them anyway. I’m not sickened this way by many things. I laugh at people who are sickened by such things in such a way. But I don’t know what else to say about this movie. It just made me wanna die, and right now all I wanna do is get any words I have about it published so I can move on. And for the record, I wrote the bulk of this long before this past weekend’s events. Thank God I didn’t watch it after, or I mightn’t be here at all.