Dirty Dancing

Posted on February 12, 2012 by jaycluitt

We recently booked tickets to see this on stage at the Mayflower theatre in April (not my idea) and I’ve never seen the film. I know, shocking. I’ve seen Crazy, Stupid Love, so I figure I’d seen the important bit already, but enough goddamn Empire readers voted it onto the top 500 films list that I had to see it. Motherfuckers.

It’s the summer of 1963, and Wayne Knight is working as an entertainer at a holiday camp. He makes a deal to steal some dinosaur DNA hidden in a shaving foam can and smuggle it out during a storm, but doesn’t bank on a dilophosaurus with a penchant for fat, sweaty guys. Some kids nearly diea few times, Laura Dern gets terrified by Samuel L. Jackson’s disembodied hand and a T-Rex eats Patrick Swayze whilst he lifts Jennifer Grey up in the air. Well you can’t blame me for dreaming, can you?

Alas, all we have here is a rather tepid story of a girl getting it off with her rather ‘hands-on’ dance instructor at a summer holiday camp, whilst her parents would rather she dated a rich, boring guy instead. Before this film I’d only ever seen Swayze as a sinister paedophile in Donnie Darko, so to me he comes off as creepy and predatory, praying on the naive young dancer as they are forced together, Swayze’s sleeve-phobic Johnny Castle having to teach Grey’s Baby to dance professionally in a matter of days, so the relationship that built up between them may have appeared more Sordid than perhaps it was supposed to.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no dancer – mainly because that means I don’t have to dance – so any dancing seen on film is lost on me. I can’t tell when people are dancing well, or even in time, so showing long routines or montages of improvement have a similar effect as me listening to someone gradually improving their Cantonese.

Grey is a terrible actress – her miming to Mickey & Sylvia’s Loverboy is excruciating, and the most famous line in the film (some crap about a corner) is tossed away so haphazardly I doubt it would have been missed had it been cut.

Anyone want to buy a theatre ticket?

Choose life 3/10

The Big Lebowski

Posted on February 4, 2012 by jaycluitt

I’ve made the point before that the list contains films of three varieties; great, popular and important. The greats arrive via the Empire 5-star 500 list, the popular from the two lists voted by the general public, and the important ones are provided by the 1001 Films to See Before You Die. Many films, though arguably important, aren’t actually very good, so one could argue that they should be remembered and acknowledged for their gifts to cinema, but not necessarily watched, as was the case with the Jazz Singer, marking the introduction of spoken dialogue to the big screen, which nowadays is dull, racist and features too many unnecessary songs. The Big Lebowski, on the other hand, is also an important film, spawning a cult following so vast there is a fan club (the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers), several books and an annual festival (creatively named Lebowski-Fest, I hope to attend one day). And yet, it does not appear among the important list, appearing here after being awarded a 5-star review and obtaining positions on both nominated lists. This is less a crime and more a cultural injustice, as the impact this film has had on society is measurable from space. Hell, they even played clips of it recently on Something for the Weekend.

So just what is it that resonates so much with the public? Maybe it’s the snappy, endlessly quotable dialogue (“Obviously you’re not a golfer), particularly everything said in the bowling alley. Or perhaps it’s the borderline caricature roster of characters on display, from John Turtorro’s lilac-hued pederast Jesus (whom nobody fucks with) to Julianne Moore’s naked yet cultured Pollock-esque artist Maud and of course John Goodman’s psychotic ‘Nam vet Walter. It’s probably got something to do with the extremely crowded plot that bears little effect upon the characters it happens to. But mainly, it has to be Jeff Bridges turn as The Dude, a man shambling and smoking his way through life, following the flow it leads him on via nihilists, urinating Chinamen, porn moguls and private detectives. That, and it’s the first great film to feature a pot-smoking lead since Cheech and Chong, and one must conclude that many of those attending Lebowski-Fest, drinking white Russians in their dressing gowns and sunglasses have similar feeling towards the weed as his Dudeness.

Me? I love it because it’s a quintessential Coen Brothers movie. It features everything you need to make a great film – a twisting plot, stellar cast (I haven’t even mentioned Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Sam Elliot, David Thewlis, Aimee Mann or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Flea), terrific performances all round and a cracking soundtrack. The film introduced me to my cocktail of choice – Vodka, Kahlua and milk, easy on the Kahlua and heavy on the ice – and every time I watch it I either see something new or am reminded of a moment of pure gold I’d previously forgotten.

Choose film 9/10

The Star Wars Saga

Posted on January 26, 2012 by jaycluitt

I’ve already discussed my disliking of George Lucas’ recent decision to withdrawn from movie making, and my distaste for those who’ve lobbied against him for years here, so I’ll say no more about that at this time.

I had a problem before even starting to watch these cultural milestones; in what order should they be seen? I’m one of those obscure creatures (also known as ‘young people’) who initially saw the Star Wars films chronologically, from Phantom to Return. My father was never an avid SW fan (to this day he still speaks of the films with a level of disdain and mockery usually reserved for discussing his son), so there were none of the Saturday afternoon viewing marathons subjected upon my friends, and I was left to discover the films by myself, with my first experience being Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson kicking some robot butt, and I’ve seen all the major scenes more time in Lego format via the videogames than on DVD. So, to solve my chronological dilemma, I consulted some of the aforementioned friends, and after being beaten to within an inch of my life with plastic light sabres and busts of Darth Vader, I concluded that release date order was the wisest option (although alphabetically was also suggested, but 4-2-5-1-6-3 is just silly). I should also note that episode 2, Attack of the Clones, did not appear on the list, but is featured here so it doesn’t feel left out, and because there are some (admittedly few) bits I like in it. And yes, this review contains spoilers.

So just what is it that makes Star Wars so iconic? Other than an ever-growing army of fans, the answer lies in the creation of an entirely new universe, where seemingly every minute detail of life has been mapped out. From the robot-hoarding Jawas of Tatooine to repulsive slug-like space mobster Jabba the Hutt, each new and exciting world has its own rules regulations and customs, although most worlds seem to have only one characteristic, be it desert, ice, cloud-city, forest or lava. Throw into this vast cornucopia a story of bounty hunters, intergalactic warfare and a dying breed of oddly magical humans, as well as a buddy comedy about two bickering robots, and you’ve got a license to print money and flog a limitless amount of merchandise to people who really need to get out more (that said, last year my advent calendar may have been from the Lego Star Wars range).

I’m hardly breaking new ground when I say that however big a cult following this saga may have, it also owns a few slaws. The dialogue and mythology are often hokey and cringeworthy (“May the force be with you”) and when not are hardly original (“It’s them, blast them!”) and George Lucas shows a racism and sexism unseen since Disney was room temperature, with one black man in the original trilogy (not counting Vader’s voice), and he is an opportunistic traitor, and no other human races bar whites, and aside from Leia and one other woman in power, all of the female characters are strippers or dancers.

That said, the character designs are phenomenally memorable by being really quite simple – Chewbacca’s walking carpet, clean white stormtroopers and the perfect villain in the glossy helmeted, all black Darth Vader, employing both David Prowse’s imposing figure and James Earl Jones’ mellifluous tones, no other character has so richly deserved their own theme tune.

hough the plot has many aspects to it you never lose track, and any scenes of dialogue and exposition are soon broken up with spaceship battles, light sabre action or new and interesting discoveries in the mythology. A New Hope is easily the most stand-alone film, with no initial setup required (other than rogue paragraphs travelling through space) and a satisfying ending only hinting at a sequel, but the Empire Strikes Back is widely regarded as the superior film, with the inclusion of diminutive Jedi master Yoda and jetpacking bounty hunter Boba Fett, two of the most enduring and iconic characters from the franchise, yet who only have a small fraction of the screen time between them. It also features that great twist ending, now sadly ruined by endless parodies and misquotes. Episode 6, the Return of the Jedi, is the weakest of the three, though there is no shortage of spectacle with the giant Rancor, the Sarlacc Pit and a landspeeder chase through the dense woodland of Endor. It is everything else of Endor that is the problem – the teddy-like Ewoks in particular – that explain the negativity, for if such crude creatures as these cuddly toys can take out the stormtroopers, why has everyone been so worried this whole time? That, and C3PO being heralded as a deity and the Emperor’s flawed plan to kill the rebels – if you’re leaking a plan to send the rebels somewhere deliberately so you can kill them, why not send them to a place where you don’t keep the shield generator for your new planet-destroying Death Star? – deters from the lofty levels of the earlier films.

And so we arrive at the new trilogy. As a child of 12 I must admit I really enjoyed these films, so in some aspect George Lucas succeeded. The Phantom Menace was the most anticipated movie of all time, and there was no possible way it would ever live up to expectations (something I hope is not suffered by the Hobbit, the Dark Knight Rises or the Avengers later this year) so instead Lucas aimed the film not at the hoards of devoted fans he already had, but at newcomers and younglings. The fans would flock in anyway, their money was guaranteed, if not their approval, and which is more important to a movie studio? But, in a vain attempt to pander to the fans, attempts were made to tie the prequels in closely with the originals, and to expand upon the elements most popular in the older films.

And so it is that we see Jake Lloyd’s infant Vader Anakin building C3PO and playing with a child alarmingly similar to Greedo, we discover the stormtroopers are all clones of Boba Ferr’s father Jango, Jabba starts the podrace and Chewbacca pops up with Yoda in Revenge of the Sith. It’s a wonder we aren’t shown Han and Chewie thrown into detention together at school.

Across the trilogy there are some astounding set pieces – the adrenaline fuelled, Greg Proops’ commentated pod race, Attack of the Clones’ gladiatorial battle and Obi-Wan’s light sabre battle with four-sabred robot General Grievous being particular highlights, but too much emphasis is placed on the politics of the Trade Federation and the soppy romance of Anakin and Padme that has no place in a Star Wars film. That, and too many mysteries are uncovered – no-one cared that the force comes from midichlorians in the blood stream and Vader’s rise and conversion to the dark side was more effective before every detail was explained and we weren’t shown him as an annoyingly precocious brat or lovesick teenager.

Some performances are terrible – both Lloyd and his grown up counterpart Hayden Christensen are wooden and aggravating, especially when placed alongside Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson, and even Natalie Portman gives an uncharacteristically poor performance. The final film, Revenge of the Sith, is also disappointingly, but inevitably, bleak, lumbered with having to set up the gloom and oppression at the start of A New Hope. This sense of inevitability ruins the final battles between Obi-Wan and Anakin and Yoda and the Emperor, for we know everyone involved will survive, as they all appear in the original trilogy.

But however poor it seems in comparison, the new trilogy still contains films far superior, and more entertaining, than a lot else out there, and therefore should still be viewed, if a little less frequently.

This post could have gone on a lot longer – I haven’t even mentioned Jar Jar, Han shooting first, Luke Skywalker, Peter Cushing’s most evil face in the world™ or the glorious key to the series, R2D2, but I’m guessing no-one is actually still reading this, and I’ve still got over 30 posts to write, so I think I’ll call it a day.

A New Hope: Choose film 8/10

The Empire Strikes Back: Choose film 9/10

Return of the Jedi: Choose film 7/10

The Phantom Menace: Choose film 6/10

Attack of the Clones: Choose film 5/10

Revenge of the Sith: Choose film 6/10

The Dollars Trilogy

Posted on January 8, 2012 by jaycluitt

Widely regarded as the first spaghetti western (actually 1959s Il Terrore dell’Olkahoma), Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars is at least the first important one, birthing the greatest western icon since John Wayne in Clint Eastwood’s drifter, immortalised by a hat, beard, poncho and a squint. Before Leone, Eastwood was known best for his TV western Rawhide (the theme tune of which is sung at the country and western bar in the Blues Brothers) , but this shot him into not just the Hollywood A-List, but into the pantheon of American icons as the nameless cowboy out to make a profit from a small town heading into ruin. Run by two warring families, the Baxters and the Rojos, Eastwood sees a unique opportunity (unique that is unless you’ve seen Yojimbo, from which this borrows heavily) and sets about pitting the two families against one another. Leone’s direction, only cutting a shot when he has to, combined with Ennio Morricone’s whistling score and the spectacular cinematography of a barren, bleached landscape under a harsh, unforgiving sun makes for a spectacular western steeped in both American characters and European style.

Inconceivably, Fistful’s lesser yet still unmissable semi-sequel For A Few Dollars More didn’t make it onto the list, but I watched it again anyway. This time, Eastwood’s identically attired yet still nameless drifter finds that it may be beneficial to team up with Lee Van Cleef’s rival bounty hunter to catch their latest target. Look out for Klaus Kinski as a hunchbacked member of the gang they’re chasing.

The closer to this trilogy is widely regarded as one of the best films in the world, and currently holds the number 4 spot of IMDb’s top 250. From the opening score, undoubtedly one of the greatest in cinematic history that would be my ringtone were it not Reservoir Dogs’ Little Green Bag, you can tell you’re in for something special. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly follows, as the title suggests, three men, whose lives converge around a loot of gold buried in a grave. Eastwood’s Blondie is debatably the ‘Good’, a bounty hunter returning criminals for reward, then shooting the noose when they’re hanged so he can collect it again in the next town. Eli Wallach’s Tuco is the ‘Bad’, one such vagrant Blondie hands in, and Lee Van Cleef is given short shrift as the ‘Ugly’, as hired killer Angel Eyes, who always goes through with a job he’s been paid for. Unlike the previous two films, this is not the Clint Eastwood show, and if anything Wallach, the most interesting and entertaining character, is given the most screen time as the three set out to torture, beat and murder the others for a shot at the gold. Although the plot gets lost a little in the middle, when the US Civil War takes over, but by the three-way standoff at the end any flaws are forgiven. It’s the kind of scene that just doesn’t work on paper (shot of eyes, then a gun, then feet, eyes again, repeat for 5 minutes) but is unequalled on screen, and the ending is perfect.

A Fistful of Dollars: Choose film 8/10

For a Few Dollars More: Choose film 7/10

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Choose film 9/10

Cinematic Cure for the Common Cold

Posted on January 8, 2012 by jaycluitt

I have a cold, it’s quite possibly going to kill me. We’re not talking about some run-of-the-mill everyday man-flu here, this is like if Gwyneth Paltrow in Contagion screwed the monkey from Outbreak, then sneezed all over my Fruit & Fibre. My nose has become a sewer pipe for an over-producing factory of snot. And because of this ‘case of the sniffles’ (my mum’s words) I took a day off work (the first in living memory, save last year’s truck meets bike debacle) and whilst off I thought I’d endeavour to find the best kind of film to watch when you’re ill, and cross a few off the list whilst I was at it.

First off, discount anything subtitled or 3D, you feel bad enough already, having to wear glasses or read isn’t going to make you feel any better. Amelie is a great feel- good film, but if your head feels like wool almost anything in English is going to be a better choice. The same can be said for anything too obscure. David Lynch, Luis Bunuel, Lars von Trier, sit back down. Terry Gilliam is just about acceptable, as most of his work tends to have a light-hearted edge to it, but the others are going to look especially trippy, depending on your medicine cocktail of choice. Probably best not to watch Brazil though.

I’ve followed five schools of thought here: 1. Watch a western. Real men working hard for a living, fighting, killing and sexing up whores like real men should do might just inspire you to man up and show those germs who’s boss. If you’re a girl substitute this for some period Jane Austen nonsense. Being ill in olden times was not deemed proper. 2. Watch a horror, in an attempt to scare yourself so much you forget you’re ill, or possibly scare the illness away. I’m not a doctor, but I think this is medically possible. 3. Watch a depressing film. Seeing people worse off than you should make you feel better about the situation, in a “yes I may be ill, but at least I haven’t been buried alive” kind of way. 4. Watch a kids film, definitely animated, preferably Pixar. Lighthearted, simple to follow and always has a happy ending, this is a traditional antidote to any problem I come across. 5. Die Hard. John McClane has never found a problem he can’t shoot through, and you’re namby-pamby congested sinuses aren’t about to stop his track record. Plus, it’s festive, and I’m not waiting another 11 months before I can watch it again.

1: Our western of choice is Red River, primarily because LoveFilm delivered it through my door the day before the sick day. This is a proper western, with John Wayne and everything. He plays Thomas Dunson, whose woman is killed by Indians and, instead of seeking revenge like any other John Wayne character, sets out to start a cattle herd with his best friend Groot and a young boy with a cow. The boy grows up to be Montgomery Clift fourteen years later, and the three men must head a cattle drive of 10,000 bovine 1,000 miles in 100 days. It’s the kind of film where as soon as a kindhearted, friendly young farm hand expresses his intentions of spending his share of the pay for the drive on a pair of shoes for his beloved young wife, in the very next scene he is trampled to death in a stampede. Wayne gives one of his best performances as one of his most layered characters, and the film soon becomes less about the drive and more about the fate of Dunson and Clift’s Matthew Garth, as the two have different beliefs as to the correct destination for the drive, how to get there and how the men working under them should be treated. It’s a little long for the story it tells – in the third act diverting to assist a wagon train set upon by Indians just to add a romantic edge to the story, developing the script into a sub-screwball comedy, and I was a little disappointed by the surprisingly upbeat ending. That said, it was a good watch for a sick day, kept me engrossed and I genuinely cared about the characters come the close.

2: BBC iPlayer very kindly showed 1940s classic horror films Cat People and its sequel, the Curse of the Cat People recently, and having not got around to them yet, this was a perfect opportunity. Both films follow the life of Oliver, a 30-something New Yorker, who has apparently never been unhappy before, who falls in love with and marries a beautiful woman and has another, equally beautiful, intelligent and kind woman in love with him. Am I supposed to care about this guy or wish him dead? Anyway, the blurb for the film told me that Irena, the woman he falls for, is haunted by a past which threatens those around her with death and destruction. Couple this with a title like Cat People and I’m expecting either at some point she’s going to turn into a more feline werewolf than is traditionally expected, one side of her family are freakish upright-walking cat/human hybrids, anyone she loves will turn into a cat or at some point 50-foot long cats will drop from the sky and crush everyone she’s met. Disappointingly the first option is chosen, and the limited effects available in 1942 prevent a Rick Baker-esque transformation from being shown. There was an annoying lack of horror in both this and the sequel, which shows Oliver a few years older with a 6 year old outcast daughter, who is given a magic ring with which she wishes for a friend, only for that friend to be the spirit of a figure from Oliver’s past. Only a couple of scenes across the two films offer the slightest amount of tension and none are even the slightest bit scary, so I’m afraid cold theory number two remains untested. The characters are underwritten or superfluous, particularly the sequel’s Jamaican houseservant Edward, whose chief role is to spout dialogue the audience has already assumed or flat out knows, and I’ve have preferred more attention to have been spent on how stupid the woman is who, when she believes herself to be cornered by an attacker, jumps into a brightly lit swimming pool and splashes around for a bit.

3: If you’re going to watch a depressing film, it has to be a true story, as no-one has ever made something up that’s worse than something you hear on the evening news. And so is the case with Glory, Edward Zwick’s tale of the first all black infantry regiment of the Federal Army during the US Civil War. It says something about late 80s/90s Hollywood that the only way we could be shown a story about black people is through the eyes of the white man brought in to lead them (Matthew Broderick). The movie is rife with clichés (the four privates we focus on all have memorable and recognisable character traits, and all share the same tent, including Morgan Freeman’s kindly old hand and Denzel Washington’s Oscar winning portrayal of the angry, rebellious ra1bble-rouser Trip) and guilty of using Matthew Broderick in a serious role, and too often dwells on sentimentality. It’s also an enraging film, watching the racism against the men denied uniforms and shoes because they are not believed to ever be used for warfare. As for good for illness, the schadenfreude aspect did make me feel a little better, but the severity of how much these guys had to go through just made me feel worse.

4: Here we go, the last Pixar film to be crossed off the list (A Bug’s Life, Cars and Up didn’t make it I’m afraid) tends to be one of the least remembered, though that may change once next year’s prequel Monsters University hits cinemas. This is the best kind of Pixar film, one set in a slight variation of the real world, showing a side of it previously unseen, yet whose origins exist as mythology in our world, in this case that there’s a monster hiding in your closet. The studio – the most consistently outstanding studio working today – takes this concept and forms not just a plot but an entire world around it, with the monsters working for a corporation collecting children’s screams to be used as power for their city. Somehow, who knows how, they manage to make two of these child-terrifying employees our heroes; Mike and Sully voiced perfectly by Billy Crystal and John Goodman), who must face the everyday woes of paperwork and fuel shortages like the rest of us office-ridden schmucks. I’ve mentioned it before, but the key to Pixar’s success is in the details. Mike uses a giant contact lens to cover the single eye that takes up most of his body, sprays on Wet Dog odourant before a date and takes his snake-haired girlfriend to the acclaimed restaurant Harryhausen’s. That, and top notch voice work from a cast including Steve Buscemi as dastardly reptile Randall, James Coburn as Monsters Inc. CEO Henry J. Waternoose and Yoda himself Frank Oz as Randall’s sidekick Fungus. Perfect viewing if infected or not.

5: Ah, Die Hard. You revolutionised the world of action movies, encouraging studio execs all over Hollywood to green light Die Hard… in a submarine, on a bus, in space concepts left right and centre. You gave us Bruce Willis as a believable action hero without the need for bulging biceps and legs like tree trunks (he even name-checks Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the script). And you gave us Alan Rickman’s greatest role until Galaxy Quest as the refined, immaculately attired thief Hans Gruber (I don’t count Snape as a new character, as he’s basically Gruber with a cloak). The film is note perfect and barely puts a foot wrong, though some characters are broad stereotypes, especially the members of Gruber’s crew, and McClane’s wife’s sleazy co-worker Ellis, so much of a bastard whenever he’s onscreen you root for the terrorists. I tend to put this on as a background film when doing other things, but this is incredibly counter-productive, as I invariably end up engrossed as soon as McClane throws a corpse out of window and I join in with a “Welcome to the party pal!” This was definitely the film that made me feel the greatest, or was at least the one I watched with the moost narcotics inside me, so I’m going to conclude that the best film to watch when you’re ill is one you never forwards, backwards and thrown off a building. If it’s a seminal 80s action movie, so much the better, just make sure it’s one of your favourites. If only a cold were curable by making fists with your toes on carpet.

Red River – Choose film 6/10

Cat People – Choose life 4/10

Curse of the Cat People – Choose life 3/10

Glory – Choose life 6/10

Monsters Inc. – Choose film 8/10

Die Hard – Choose film 10/10

The Sound of Music

Posted on December 30, 2011 by jaycluitt

Unbelievably, not only had I reached the grand old age of 24 without seeing this film, I also had little idea as to the plot, with the only detail I could quote is that at some point Julie Andrews prances around the greenest fields in all the world. It turns out this happens almost immediately, and moments later I was asleep, for a good half an hour no less, so after several chapters were skipped back I tried again, but I stick to my guns when I say that this 3 hour musical about a singing nun looking after the seven children of a strict retired navy captain is really quite boring. Yes, the songs are catchy and have had a good run outside of the film – I know most of them and have never seen an episode of How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria? – but Andrews and the children are unbearably chirpy, Christopher Plummer’s Capt. Von Trapp too extreme in his before and after being Maria’d states and Charmian Carr as the terribly named eldest daughter Liesl is a long way from even passing for 16. Add to this the predictability of the plot, the inevitable mellowing of both the children to Maria and the stony Captain to everyone – through song of course – and the aforementioned nauseating level of happy everyone is, all you get at the end is a headache. Damn good nap though.

Choose life 5/10

Saving Private Ryan

Posted on December 30, 2011 by jaycluitt

There is a drinking game, the most disrespectful and coma-inducing that I’ve ever come across, where when watching Saving Private Ryan the players all drink a shot every time someone on screen dies. If one were to play this game, which I cannot advise for medical, moral and cinematic reasons, then I would recommend having 50-100 shots per player lined up ready and waiting for the opening 25 minutes of the film, as the much celebrated D-Day landing is a veritable cornucopia of fatalities, with soldiers coming a cropper as soon as the rear doors of the landing ships open, drowning in the water struggling with heavy packs, being carried to safety and every other way available.

This opening scene is a landmark in war movie history, recreating the sense of utter confusion and imminent death present at that time. With a shaking camera, dialogue lost to explosions and gunfire, men wandering around after lost limbs and a bloody tide lapping at fallen soldiers and shot fish alike, it’s almost a relief once the landing has finished and they can get on with the plot, as Tom Hank’s captain is ordered to find Private James Francis Ryan, last survivor of four brothers and location unknown after parachuting somewhere in France. With a cast positively brimming with stars and up-and-comers – Giovanni Ribisi, Matt Damon, Nathan Fillion, Jeremy Davies, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Adam Goldberg, Paul Giamatti, Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper, Ted Danson, Bryan Cranston, Dennis Farina – no character is left without some characterisation, or providing an insight into a soldiers life, be it collecting dirt from every country they fight in, writing a novel about their experiences or making sure every German soldier they come across knows they have been bested by a Jew.

There are those that claim this is a long, boring film about walking, bookended by two of the greatest battle scenes in cinematic history, yet without the middle, where we truly understand the brotherly bond felt by soldiers fighting and dying together, would the closing battle – a much more personal, strategic affair than the opener, have such an impact? For my money this is Spielberg’s most cinematic film, showcasing his ability to show ordinary people in extraordinary situations, yet without losing the human touch.

Choose film 9/10

Inception

Posted on December 27, 2011 by jaycluitt

Apparently the concept of Inception began when director Chris Nolan, he of the Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Memento and the upcoming Dark Knight Rises, the most anticipated film of 2012 (tied with the Avengers and the Hobbit), wanted to make a film in which several climaxes are all occurring simultaneously. Most directors would then structure a plot in such a way as to have different characters in different locations, all partaking in various climactic events and cutting between them, but Nolan, in what I’m going to assume was an evening rife with alcohol, narcotics and some rare kinds of cheese, opted instead to make a film predominantly set within the world of dreams.

Taking an already interesting, fantastical premise – secrets can be obtained by stealing them from people’s dreams via extraction and spinning it on its head, as Leonardo DiCaprio’s master extractor Cobb and his team – Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao, are enlisted for one last job, to plant an idea in Cillian Murphy’s dream by business rival Ken Watanabe. By using this world of dreams, Nolan has released literally all limitations as to where the plot can go, and opened up the door for some thoroughly original set pieces, the standout of which is Gordon Levitt’s taciturn Arthur fighting armed goons in a corridor with an ever-changing, and disappearing, centre of gravity. This, combined with a rain-lashed chase through busy city streets and a Bond-inspired snowbound explosive finale adds up to one of the most thought provoking action movies in recent years.

The plot is sometimes lost amid the spectacle of the dream worlds and the new logic required to understand it – in a dream, time travels 12 times slower with each level you go down, your subconscious can flare up against you but you can bend the environment around your will – so at times you forget just what they are fighting to achieve. Nolan also appears to have paid attention to the naysayer accusers who believe, not unfairly, that his films lack a required heart and emotional depth, as the addition of Cobb’s deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) appears in his subconscious, eager to turn the dream worlds against him, and the entire plot takes place just so Cobb can be reunited with his kids. Both these points seem tacked on and superfluous to the overall plot, other than adding a motive and antagonist that, although not asked for, do not overly deter.

Under close scrutiny some of the dream logic is inconsistent and doesn’t quite hold up, with some questions remaining unanswered – how exactly does Tom Hardy’s scene-stealing Eames transform into other people as the teams forger? – but the performance, cast (also including Michael Caine, Tom Berenger and Pete Postlethwaite), effects and sheer scale of the project make this unmissable, and my best film of 2010, although it makes my dreams look utterly pathetic in comparison.

Choose film 9/10

Evil Dead Trilogy

Posted on December 23, 2011 by jaycluitt

When five college friends go to stay in a mysterious cabin deep in the woods, it’s safe to assume they’ll be lucky to see their homes again, as they will undoubtedly encounter a clan of cannibalistic hillbillies or some centuries old curse. So when, in Sam Raimi’s schlock horror debut, the kids find the Book of the Dead, bound in human flesh, written in human blood, and play a recording of it being read, the dead become free to walk the Earth, and the kids must struggle to stay alive until morning, in the hope of finding their way back to civilisation. So far, so standard, but where the film differs from the gory also-rans is when a girl is dragged into the woods – by the woods – and raped by a tree. Plug sockets and light bulbs leak with blood, and one by one the kids become possessed by demons, with bloodied eyes, gnarled, pallid skin and faces like beaten up clowns. Raimi’s innovative camerawork and game cast – all terrible actors aside from our hero, the uber-chinned Bruce Campbell – stand this film out from its imitators and inspirations.
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is that rarest of sequels that rewrites the entire plot of its predecessor in its first 7 minutes, showing what the film could have been had a greater budget been available – a more attractive love interest, advanced effects and even a back story for the Book of the Dead. Having discovered an audience for his own brand of homemade horror and slapstick splattery, Raimi lets himself, and reprising star Campbell, off the leash, balancing the grotesque with the quirky in such classic scenes as Ash cutting off his own possessed hand and replacing it with a fully operational chainsaw. The more what the fuck moments add to the feeling of watching someone’s head explode onto a screen – the maniacally laughing moose head and bizarre neck extension are standouts, and this remains a tremendously fun, if occasionally bat-shit insane adventure.
As with Raimi’s other threequel, 2007’s Spiderman 3, the approach to Army of Darkness is to take everything and throw it at the script, see what sticks, and include it all anyway. This leads to a film with a frankly ludicrous premise – at the end of part 2 Campbell’s Ash opened a rift in time, and is now stranded in 1300AD, and stretches it past breaking point with the sheer volume of ideas piled on top. The opening death pit scene is fun, but the ensuing insanity of a two-headed Ash (beginning with a repulsive eye growing on his shoulder), Gulliver’s travel style tiny men causing havoc and a skeletal army complete with beards takes it all too far. The result is a film still endlessly enjoyable and quotable, but lacking the overall playful sense of fun from the previous entries.
The Evil Dead choose film 8/10
The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn Choose film 9/10
The Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness Choose film 6/10

West Side Story

Posted on December 20, 2011 by jaycluitt

It’s easy to mock West Side Story, and incredibly hard not to let out a start of incredulity, disbelief and hilarity when the Jets, a New York street gang, begin clicking, walking and turning in sync, but this 60s retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has a lot going for it. Yes, the two leads – Jet old hand Tony (Richard Beymer) and rival Shark’s head honcho’s sister Maria (Natalie Wood, not even close to being Puerto Rican) are lifeless, charisma free and unforgivably dubbed for their singing. And yes, the dialogue has not aged well in places, but the toe-tapping tunes, particularly I Feel Pretty, America and Gee, Officer Krupke and outstanding choreography, with dances staged as fights and fights staged as dances more than make up for its faults. Supporting players perform admirably, notably Russ Tamblyn as Jets leader Riff and George Chakiris as Shark leader Bernardo, making this a musical for people who don’t like musicals – people like me then.

Choose film 7/10