Rope

Posted on December 23, 2011 by jaycluitt

The first of many Hitchcock films on this list – probably more than any other director, and rightly so – shows the great man at his most experimental, as he attempted to shoot this film, based on a play by Patrick Hamilton, in one continuous shot. Limited only by the maximum length of a film reel at the time (10 minutes), a fact cleverly, if unsubtly hidden by editing shots of the backs of suits or a close up on an open chest lid, he pulls it off, utilising moving walls and tracking shots to accommodate the action as it pans out in the three rooms of an upmarket apartment.
The film follows two young men – the charming yet callous Brandon and his nervous, increasingly agitated friend Philip, as they attempt to cover up the perfect murder of their classmate David, whose body is hidden in the chest they use as a centrepiece for a party held for David’s family and friends. The acting is flawless, particularly from the two leads and James Stewart as their inquisitive former house master Rupert, and Hitch earns his moniker as the master of suspense, accomplishing an ever mounting level of tension with minimal music and meticulous plotting.
Choose film 9/10

Get Carter

Posted on December 23, 2011 by jaycluitt

Get Carter is justifiably remembered for Michael Caine’s gripping portrayal of London hard man Jack Carter, visiting his old stomping ground in Newcastle to bury his brother and sort out the men who killed him. Caine is iconic as the immaculately attired, quick witted vengeance seeker, endlessly quotable (“Clever sod, aren’t you?” “Only comparatively”) and calmly menacing, yet credit should also be given to director Mike Hodges (…Flash Gordon). The framing of the shots is excellent, particularly when showing Caine watching a video, as a cleverly positioned mirror allows us to see both what he is seeing, and his reaction to it, without the need for split screens, a delayed response or a clumsy cut. The ending is brutal, if perfect, and it will take a great deal for me to sit down and watch the inevitably terrible 2000 Stallone remake.

Choose film 8/10

Les Vampires

Posted on December 23, 2011 by jaycluitt

If acclaimed surrealist master Luis Bunuel is a fan of your work, it’s fair to say it’s unlikely to be a straightforward police procedural picture. The likes of Zodiac and All the President’s Men are probably far too logical for him to have admired, with far too few poisonous rings, hidden cannons and magic anagrams for his liking. That, and they aren’t 10-part silent serials from 1915, as is the case with Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires, following newspaper editor Philippe Guerande and his flamboyant sidekick Mazzamette as they attempt to track down the notorious criminal gang known only as the Vampires, led by an ever changing Grand Vampire and his muse, the most interesting character of the series, Irma Vep.

In this world nothing is ever as it seems, with walls and paintings sliding aside to reveal hidden compartments (occasionally containing cannons), Vampires revealing themselves to be policemen, figures of authority revealing themselves to be Vampires and the dead returning back to life. This does become irritating, as logical second-guessing of the plot becomes impossible when it makes up its own rules as it goes along, but the sense of ingenuity keeps things interesting throughout the almost 7 hours runtime. I’m grateful too that modern architecture has advanced to a stage where most exterior surfaces are now only scalable using a ladder, whereas here they seem designed by the people behind Assassin’s Creed.

Choose film 7/10

Run Lola Run

Posted on December 22, 2011 by jaycluitt

Has there ever been a more straightforward plot? Lola (a flame-haired Franka Potente) has 20 minutes to find 100,000 Deutsche Mark (about £33,670 back in 1998) to save her boyfriend’s life. That’s it. Yet director Tom Tykwer (Perfume) takes this core premise and from it creates a film so startlingly original and entertaining its a wonder Hollywood has yet to fully embrace his unique style. Employing all manner of cinematic devices, from splitscreen to monochrome, converting our heroine into animated form and revealing the lives of very minor characters in Polaroid form, the film moves at such a breakneck speed yet remains easy to follow and only occasionally exasperating. The nightclub soundtrack may fit the relentless pace but is a little headache inducing at times, as are the jarring changes in pace, from running full tilt to pontificating pillow talk on the nature of love, but with ideas this fresh even 13 years after its release, these flaws can be forgiven.

Choose film 8/10

Two Days in Paris

Posted on December 22, 2011 by jaycluitt

Jack and Marion (Adam Goldberg and writer/director Julie Delpy) are a typical couple in their mid-30s on a holiday in Europe, culminating with two days in Paris to visit the French Marion’s parents. Jack is an insecure, devious hypochondriac, paranoid of terrorist attacks and knows less French than your average American, whilst Marion’s parents (played by Delpy’s real life mother and father) know very little English, and Marion herself seems reluctant to act as translator, leading to various comic episodes, most notably with Marion’s father attempting to act out cunnilingus to Jack at an exhibition of his artwork. The film plays on both French and American stereotypes – the French are homophobic, xenophobic, inappropriately flirtatious wife beaters, all of whom have either gone out with or are trying to go out with Marion, whilst Americans are brash, ignorant tourists. The performances feel natural – up until the arrival of Daniel Bruhl’s self-proclaimed fairy, and the situations never feel overly contrived, just maybe a little exaggerated, and the cinema would be a better place if more romcoms were as insightful and humorous as this.

Choose film 7/10

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Posted on December 21, 2011 by jaycluitt

6 years ago Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy took the world by storm, so it was only a matter of time before movies were made, and even less before Hollywood came a-knocking with a US remake, due to hit cinemas this Boxing Day. David Fincher is a perfect fit for the source material, as he revels in the darkness and shadows of those living on societies outskirts, so hopefully he’ll do a better job of it than Niels Arden Oplev in this Swedish original. Understandably when transferring a book to the screen, especially one as dense as this, some omissions will need to be made; plot points will be skipped over, characters written out and those remaining will be trimmed down to a fraction of their former selves, how else will it all fit into a two hour time slot whilst not alienating newcomers by cutting vital exposition? But when the central storyline is a whodunit case of a 16-year old girl vanishing from a closed off island 40 years previously and only one possible suspect is given any level of character depth, it removes any sense of mystery as to who the culprit is.

That being said, the performances are exceptional, especially Noomi Rapace (currently seen in an underused role in the Sherlock sequel, and soon to be in Ridley Scott’s Alien sequel/prequel/equal Prometheus) as the rake-thin, leather-clad, eponymously inked super hacker Lisbeth Salander, but the overall feel seems rushed. Given the choice, opt instead for the six-part extended TV series version recently released on DVD, or read the books if that way inclined, as some of the grislier scenes – the anal rape, for example – are far easier to read about than they are to watch.

Choose life 7/10

Big

Posted on December 21, 2011 by jaycluitt

When 12-year old Josh Baskin is denied a ride on a roller coaster for being too short, and is therefore embarrassed in front of his dream girl, he wishes himself big at a fairground fortune booth. The next morning he awakes as a 30-year old Tom Hanks, complete with chest hair, deeper voice and a ripped pair of space pyjamas. So ensues a fish-out-of-water comedy, as Josh, having been chased from his house by his understandably terrified mother, must fend for himself in the big wide world.

Hanks is incredible as man-child Josh, in his first truly memorable role, utterly convincing in an underappreciated performance, arguably Hanks’ best, be it kneeling on a chair, eating Oreos or simply swinging his bag as he walks, every touch adds to the sense that this really is a 12-year old boy in a man’s body.

If there are any faults, they lie in the third act, when the clichés drop thick and fast into this previously original movie. Josh begins to realise his responsibilities and grows up, ditching his best friend for a girl and eventually, if a little suddenly, realising that he just wants to be a kid again. There is also one of the most uncomfortably wrong relationships ever seen in film between Josh and corporate climber Susan (Elizabeth Perkins), so squirm-inducing it probably would have been omitted today (that said, it’s just as bad as the centuries-old vampire/teenage girl romance from Twilight… not that I know anything about those films). But regardless of however many faults the film may have, one scene, featuring Hanks, his new boss (Robert Loggia) and a giant floor keyboard in a toy store, makes any film worth watching. This is the kind of scene that never fails to cheer me up.

Choose film 8/10

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

The Usual Suspects

Posted on December 20, 2011 by jaycluitt

Is it OK to ruin the Usual Suspects yet? Doesn’t anyone who cares who the ending already? Its 16 years old! Is it not another Sixth Sense or Empire Strikes Back, where the big reveal has either been witnessed firsthand or spoiled by someone else? Miraculously, my film watching companion had not seen or heard the ending to Bryan Singer’s sophomore film, and he’d have throttled me had I revealed it (Marcos hates spoilers, and will punch you in the head) so no, it would seem there are some out there yet to discover the fate of the five criminals bought in for a line-up, nor do they know the identity of their tormentor, the mythical Keyser Soze, so I’ll try and tread carefully. The cons in question – Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro and a career-launching, Oscar winning Kevin Spacey – have been brought together on a bogus line-up, and use their time in incarceration to plan a robbery, bus is it all a part of a bigger plan?

Told in flashback by Spacey’s weaselly over talkative ‘Verbal’ Kint, the tale begins with the death of Byrne’s Keaton, a crooked cop gone straight and the closest the gang has to a leader, after what appears to be a drug deal gone wrong. Chazz Palminteri, the cop to whom Kint tells his story, has his own theories as to what went wrong, but his opinions, and those of the viewer, get in the way of seeing the truth, ably assisted by Christopher McQuarrie’s deservedly Oscar winning ever twisting screenplay.

The cast are exceptional, particularly the scene stealing del Toro and Pete Postlethwaite at stoic lawyer Kobayashi, but it is the fine balance between tightly plotted twists and turns and sporadic bursts of action and violence that plants this firmly on the choose film list, regardless of whether you know the ending.

Choose film 9/10

Shoah

Posted on December 20, 2011 by jaycluitt

Without a doubt this 9 hour documentary about the holocaust, comprising entirely of original material with no archive footage, is worthy of a place on the list. Director Claude Lanzmann spent years interviewing historians, builders of the concentration camps, train drivers, camp survivors and even Nazi officials who ran the camps, and spent almost 5 years editing the hundreds of hours down to a four disc set. Viewing is a sobering experience, the very definition of hard to watch, but such insight of so important an event needs to be heard, with a barber tasked with shaving the Jews before they were gassed commenting that “people burn very well.” Yes, it could be shorter, as there is some repetition to hammer home the points, but anyone who felt they were only told a small portion of a much larger story in school history classes should consider this essential viewing.

Choose film 8/10