L’Age d’Or

Posted on March 17, 2011 by jaycluitt

You know the feeling, you’re trying to plan a party, deciding whether to have six singers in front of a microphone or 60 singers 10 kilometres away, when you go upstairs and there’s a cow in your bed. Just an everyday occurrence, I know, but still a little annoying. And then during your party, the man you so desperately want to be with (seemingly John Lithgow doing a Dick Dastardly impersonation) is prevented from being with you, by a woman who spills his drink of him and a man shooting a small boy several times outside. Finally, the two of you are able to sneak off and suck each other’s hand whilst rolling around in the gravel, but all he seems interested in is a statue’s foot, so obviously when he’s called away to scream at the Minister of the Interior, you suck said stony appendage until he returns, when you rejoice about having killed your children. And of course, when the orchestra conductor interrupts you while clutching at his head, your man storms off to shred your pillows, and throw them, along with a burning tree, various items of furniture including a full scale wooden giraffe, and possibly the Pope out of a window.
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The Killing Fields

Posted on March 15, 2011 by jaycluitt

OK, I’m going to try and post a little more frequently now, instead of allowing a stock pile of watched films to be reviewed en masse at the weekends. I’m thinking maybe if I watch a film, I post about it the same day. Sound good? Awesome. I’ve checked my stats, and I’m a few films behind where I should be (I just made a graph, how I love Excel!), so I need to step this up a little. Also, I’ve had a check on LoveFilm, for when I eventually join, and there’s quite a few films I’m going to have difficulty getting hold of as they’re not available for rental, but we’ll cross that bridge another day.

I’ve just watched The Killing Fields, a film in two halves that deals with Sydney, a reporter for the New York Times (Sam Waterston) stationed in Cambodia, and his interpreter/assistant/friend Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S. Ngor). During the troubles in Cambodia, Sydney and his fellow reporters (including John Malkovich) are taken capture by the Cambodians. If not for Pran, they would surely have been killed, so when the reporters are evacuated and Pran is unable to leave, Sydney does all he can to help his friend escape.

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Rocky

Posted on March 15, 2011 by jaycluitt

Written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, Rocky tells the story of Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer working as an enforcer for a loan shark to make ends meet, and clumsily wooing his friends sister, a shop assistant at a pet store. Rocky is given a shot at the big time by superstar world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), Rocky exact opposite in a man seemingly with everything. Rocky won the Oscar for best picture in 1977, beating such classics as Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men and Network, yet I am at a loss for why. Yes, it is enjoyable, with some great dialogue (“It’s Thanksgiving” “Yeah to you, but to me it’s Thursday”) but the acting is mostly passable and the story derivative, but it did birth the training montage, now a staple of any sports movie.

Choose life 6/10

Zelig

Posted on March 14, 2011 by jaycluitt

Shot completely in a documentary style, complete with narration and interviews with those involved, Zelig tells the story of a man with the ability to transform his appearance, personality and skillset to those around him as a chameleonic defence mechanism. I knew a little of the plot before watching the film, but I found the documentary style to be refreshing, especially the way it limited the lead performances of Woody Allen as Zelig and Mia Farrow as the doctor who falls for him to audio footage, archived interviews and media clips. The film is littered with Allen’s trademark humour and surreal style, and I found the use of different styles of camera to reflect the purpose and technology behind the footage.

Choose life 6/10

Olympia

Posted on March 12, 2011 by jaycluitt

I’ve been putting this off for a while. I can quite easily sit down any time and watch a long film, or a documentary, a film about sport (not massively into sport), a very old film or a foreign film, but an old (1938), long (3 ½ hours) documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympics? That’s a tough sell. I mean, I don’t care about next year’s Olympics, when some of the events will be taking place not far from where I’m typing, let alone ones that happened almost 75 years ago.

The film is essentially just a retelling of the Olympics, showing the events and then revealing the winner, with occasionally shots of the commentators, crowds or photographers. Some tension is brought around from some of the closer run events, such as the men’s pole vault going on into the night, and there’s a collection of clips of people falling off horses that I felt would have been vastly improved with a Harry Hill voiceover.

Choose life 1/10

Second Chance: The Bodyguard

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jaycluitt

Previously, I only knew of The Bodyguard as the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston film, one of my Dad’s guilty pleasures that he can almost quote word for word. I’d never had much desire to see it, as I’m not a huge fan of either of the stars, and thought that the plot seemed incredibly straightforward and obvious. Man-with-a-past (Costner) is forced by circumstances to guard woman-with-a-diva-complex (Houston). Initially, the pair hate one another, until he saves her life and she shows him who she is inside. Eventually, they fall in love, possibly after someone dies. I was not disappointed.

The film mostly annoyed me for how blatantly it is trying to set up an acting career for Houston. Her character, Rachel Marron, is a famous actress, trying to launch a music career by singing in a film, just as Houston is trying to launch an acting career by appearing in a film in which she performs most of the soundtrack. The main drawback to the launching of Houston’s film career though, is that in the Bodyguard she does no acting, whatsoever, as the ‘character’ she plays is herself, the diva with the overstuffed ego, blissfully unaware of anyone but herself.

Choose life 3/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Posted on March 6, 2011 by jaycluitt

The second pirates film is not as good as the first, but is still thoroughly entertaining, and features several enjoyable set pieces, not least of which is the three-way swordfight between Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Jack Davenport (who really should be in more films). This is probably my highlight of the trilogy, especially once the giant wheel comes into play.

The special effects are stepped up from the first film, with Davy Jones and his crew looking exceptional, with the many hours of work involved being well worth the effort. Still, the cliffhanger endings do make this seem more of a set-up for the trilogy closer.Choose life 6/10

Juno

Posted on March 3, 2011 by jaycluitt

I live my life by a predetermined set of rules. These rules are not written down, and they are frequently adapted to however I fancy, but one rule that remains is that a film cannot be added to a list of favourites until at least 6 months after its release, and at least two viewings. Upon its release many people of a relevant age, including several acquaintances of mine against my frequently versed opinions, elected Juno to the hallowed status of their favourite films, thereby explaining it’s presence upon the list.

Ah, Juno, yes, you won the Oscar for best original screenplay, but really, did you deserve it? Although witty and endlessly quotable (“Honest to blog”, “Your eggo is preggo”), the main character is very unlikable and rude. Yes, she’s supposed to be a teenager, so these characteristics are entirely suitable, but I find her to be very annoying, although I’m sure she wouldn’t mind that at all.Choose life 5/10

Au Hasard Balthazar

Posted on March 1, 2011 by jaycluitt

Au Hasard Balthazar is the kind of film that just couldn’t be made today, at least not with the same result. Today, it would most likely be made by Dreamworks, telling the tale of a morose animated donkey, voiced by Christopher Plummer, as he sets out an epic journey to be reunited with the family he’s worked for his entire life. Along the way, he learns lessons about friendship not judging by appearances, with the help of a lazy squirrel (Kathy Bates) a know-it-all platypus (Jemaine Clement) and a wise-cracking raccoon (Cuba Gooding Jr.).

As it is, Balthazar is a tale of the life of a donkey, from children’s plaything, through toiling away for various family’s, finding fame in a circus and finally, tragically, used for drug trafficking. It took me two attempts to watch this film, as after the first viewing I did not fully comprehend the cause of the mass adulation poured upon the picture, although I was quite tired and may have drifted off a couple of times, as it’s not necessarily the most captivating of films. That said, on the second viewing I more greatly understood the reasons for the various plot jumps, as for the most part the film is shot from the viewpoint, and therefore the understanding, of Balthazar himself, thereby it would not always be clear as to why some characters behave the way they do.Choose life 4/10

The Jazz Singer

Posted on February 22, 2011 by jaycluitt

Today I watched the Jazz Singer, infamous for being the first film to use dialogue, or more accurately, singing, as this is a semi-musical, presumably to showcase the new sound technology of 1927, as I felt that the inclusion of full-length song performances detracted from the plot, of a young Jewish boy who runs away from home to become a jazz singer. I feel that this film was included in the 1001 Films to Watch Before You Die purely due to its significance in cinema history, of being the first ‘Talkie’, not because it is one of the ‘great’ films.

Choose life 4/10