Contrary to popular belief, not all slasher flicks are the same. Ok, the formula tends the same in all of them - take a group of youngsters, add one homicidal maniac and watch the blood fly all over the place - but that doesn't mean they're all the same. Ok, there's lots of bad ones... Jeepers Creepers, Scar... awful... Monster Man and Reeker... two of the worst films I've ever seen. But there are good ones too, Friday the 13th, Halloween, a recent one that comes to mind is Severance - well worth picking up if you see it in the video store. So where does My Bloody Valentine fall?
I wasn't expecting much after the crappiness of the last 3D film I saw (Scar). Let's face it, you always have to be wary with the slasher flick but actually... it was pretty decent! It helped that Jensen Ackles is in it... honestly, there are only two reasons Supernatural is still on TV... But that aside, it genuinely is good fun.
Aside from the fact that I had a good laugh at it there really isn't a massive amount to say about the film itself. I may as well summarise the plot for you... On St. Valentine's Day a load of people are massacred by an evil miner. 10 years later, a spate of similar murders occur, is the evil miner still alive? It is what it is really. Standard whodunit with buckets of blood thrown in.
What puts it ahead of some of the others in the genre is that it doesn't skimp on the blood and guts, they're all over the place. Too many times I've watched horror films and there's scarcely a dead body in sight. All over the place in this one, blood flying everywhere. Also the 3D is a welcome addition (unlike in crappy crappy Scar). While you wouldn't necessarily jump at the pickaxe swingin' at you, it does make the experience more fun. There's also a reasonable amount of guesswork involved in working out who the killer is - it's not too obvious but it's not too difficult either - you wouldn't want to be thinking too much though, it would interfere with the popcorn eating.
So anyway, to sum up - it was good laugh and an entertaining 2 hours.
7/10
Saturday 24 January 2009
Saturday 10 January 2009
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
The standees in Movies@Dundrum describe Slumdog Millionaire as the "The feel-good film of the decade"... so from the get go I'm worried; I'm not usually into "feel-good" films. Add to that the buzz about this film from the US... There's nothing wrong with good buzz... but about a "feel-good" film with no associated buzz about the script or the acting... what are the critics buzzing about exactly? Is this just some great PR machine at work? On the other hand this is a Danny Boyle film and imho Danny Boyle is on of the most interesting directors out there at the moment. So I cast aside my trepidation and decided to bask in the buzz. One ticket for the opening night please.
For those who don't know, Slumdog Millionaire is based on a novel called Q and A by Vikas Swarup. It's about a boy from the slums of Mumbai, Jamal (played by Dev Patel), who goes on the Indian version of Who Want To Be A Millionaire but is suspected of cheating when he reaches the last question; nobody believes that a kid from the slums could possibly do so well without help.
Is it a good film though? For the most part, yes. It is a good film... but it's not really a great film... That said, I really enjoyed it, it's practically impossible not to get caught up in the drama of the story. There's a reason Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is the most internationally popular TV franchise of all time.. the lights, the music, suspense of it all just draws you in. Danny Boyle is very successful in bring that suspense into the film, you need to know what happened to Jamal, how did he get to this point?
It's also a great looking film. The cinematography is brilliant, the slight over-saturation really works and there's some wonderful framing - excellent set pieces in the land and cityscapes. There's a vibrancy to the film that really sets off the story... It really reminds me of City of God. I'm sure I'm not the first nor will I be the last to say that...
Mentioning City of God brings us to the most important question though... City of God was one of the greatest films I've ever seen and it didn't win an Oscar. So is Slumdog Millionaire worthy of the hype? I'm not sure... I'm loath to say that it isn't because I think it's great that a film like this is being brought to a mass audience. I also think it's great for Danny Boyle and his co-director Loveleen Tandan that they are getting recognition for a great film. Danny Boyle should have been nominated for an Oscar for Trainspotting and 28 Days Later...!. Personally I can't say if this film is worthy of the Oscar, I haven't seen the competition so I can't really comment... but I can say that it's not without flaws.
I think the most glaring of them is that, in all the excitment, it's easy to miss that we don't actually know that much about the characters. There are glimpses at what drives them... but we don't actually know them outside what is relevant to the story. We don't know who they are, we just know what they've done. I would have liked to have seen more characterisation. Another is that I felt toward the end that we got a bit mixed in what matters... there's two threads in the story and as they both climax it doesn't quite manage to keep the momentum for both stories but it doesn't quite manage to merge them either... It might just be me but there wasn't the satisfaction in the end that I expected.
The last thing that bothered me about Slumdog Millionaire isn't really a flaw but I do think it stops it from being a really great film. I thought it was forgettable... and maybe that's the problem of the feel-good film. There was nothing there for me to think about afterwards. I like to walk out of a theatre thinking about what I've just experienced - I might be thinking "What would I have done?" or "How could that have happen?" or I might just be thinking "Wow, the effects in that film were incredible", it doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm thinking of it and in this case I wasn't.
So... how to rate it? I would have loved for this film to be a new classic... which is what the marketeers would have us believe... but I really don't think it is. I think it's a good story told well and that might be enough for it to win an Oscar but it's not enough for me.
8.5/10
For those who don't know, Slumdog Millionaire is based on a novel called Q and A by Vikas Swarup. It's about a boy from the slums of Mumbai, Jamal (played by Dev Patel), who goes on the Indian version of Who Want To Be A Millionaire but is suspected of cheating when he reaches the last question; nobody believes that a kid from the slums could possibly do so well without help.
Is it a good film though? For the most part, yes. It is a good film... but it's not really a great film... That said, I really enjoyed it, it's practically impossible not to get caught up in the drama of the story. There's a reason Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is the most internationally popular TV franchise of all time.. the lights, the music, suspense of it all just draws you in. Danny Boyle is very successful in bring that suspense into the film, you need to know what happened to Jamal, how did he get to this point?
It's also a great looking film. The cinematography is brilliant, the slight over-saturation really works and there's some wonderful framing - excellent set pieces in the land and cityscapes. There's a vibrancy to the film that really sets off the story... It really reminds me of City of God. I'm sure I'm not the first nor will I be the last to say that...
Mentioning City of God brings us to the most important question though... City of God was one of the greatest films I've ever seen and it didn't win an Oscar. So is Slumdog Millionaire worthy of the hype? I'm not sure... I'm loath to say that it isn't because I think it's great that a film like this is being brought to a mass audience. I also think it's great for Danny Boyle and his co-director Loveleen Tandan that they are getting recognition for a great film. Danny Boyle should have been nominated for an Oscar for Trainspotting and 28 Days Later...!. Personally I can't say if this film is worthy of the Oscar, I haven't seen the competition so I can't really comment... but I can say that it's not without flaws.
I think the most glaring of them is that, in all the excitment, it's easy to miss that we don't actually know that much about the characters. There are glimpses at what drives them... but we don't actually know them outside what is relevant to the story. We don't know who they are, we just know what they've done. I would have liked to have seen more characterisation. Another is that I felt toward the end that we got a bit mixed in what matters... there's two threads in the story and as they both climax it doesn't quite manage to keep the momentum for both stories but it doesn't quite manage to merge them either... It might just be me but there wasn't the satisfaction in the end that I expected.
The last thing that bothered me about Slumdog Millionaire isn't really a flaw but I do think it stops it from being a really great film. I thought it was forgettable... and maybe that's the problem of the feel-good film. There was nothing there for me to think about afterwards. I like to walk out of a theatre thinking about what I've just experienced - I might be thinking "What would I have done?" or "How could that have happen?" or I might just be thinking "Wow, the effects in that film were incredible", it doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm thinking of it and in this case I wasn't.
So... how to rate it? I would have loved for this film to be a new classic... which is what the marketeers would have us believe... but I really don't think it is. I think it's a good story told well and that might be enough for it to win an Oscar but it's not enough for me.
8.5/10
Saturday 3 January 2009
The Spirit (2008)
I'd never really heard of The Spirit (the film or the comics) until I started seeing the tv ads about a week before it came out... I like the visual style and I'm interested in films of comic book stories but mostly what swung it was that it had Samuel L. Jackson in it. I'll watch anything with Samuel L. Jackson in it. So I booked the tickets.
I decided to go look it up a little before I saw it... it's very unusual for me to hear nothing about a film before it comes out particularly one that's an adaptation. I never read reviews before seeing a film but I'll cast my eye over IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes to get some idea of what I'm in for. The early signs weren't good (5.4 on IMDb and 15% on RT) but nothing will stop me seeing a film if I want to see it... I like to make up my own mind.
To be perfectly honest the critics aren't really wrong... there are lots of things to dislike about The Spirit. I mean seriously, it is terrible... in a way. The dialogue is awful and I don't where they found Gabriel Macht but they should put him back.
It's actually hard to describe what's bad about it because what's bad is what makes it great. My criticism of it is that some of the dialogue is repetitive, that always annoys me, and it stutters to start. It's completely outlandish but it takes a while to get to that point. It's as though Frank Miller started off thinking he'd make serious film noir then realised that there was no hope of that so chose to go careening off the rails.
Sure, it's annoying but I can't agree with what Rotten Tomatoes surmised from the critics - that it doesn't make sense and the characters are unmemorable. It has a very simple plot and the characters are all great fun. Ok, they're not characters in the sense they have no particular substance, they're more like interesting props. And they're all just so odd, it's great. Samuel L. Jackson is brilliant and for once I didn't find Scarlett Johansson annoying at all. To be honest herself and Eva Mendes weren't in it enough I would have liked to laugh at them a little longer. The one character we could have done without was Lorelei Rox (played by Jaime King) I don't know what was going on there. I can only assume it something from the comics that they felt they had to put in...
I can only thank Frank Miller for going off the rails on this, it is a great film. It is however, doomed to be a cult classic. There just aren't that many people out there are who are going to stick with all the madness and there are even less out there who'll appreciate it. Personally I've never seen so many people leave a theatre (that said, I rarely notice people leaving the cinema - I usually watch the film) and it's a pity because the film does deserve to be seen. At the very least it looks class.
Anyway I, for one, am glad I saw it.
8/10.
PS - I just had a look at the Roger Ebert review of this and he gave it one star. Which is fair enough, his accusations aren't unfounded, but... he's got the plot wrong. I don't know how someone can get the plot wrong - it's really very simple, you'd have to stop watching the film to get confused... so I gotta say, a little down in my estimation there...
I decided to go look it up a little before I saw it... it's very unusual for me to hear nothing about a film before it comes out particularly one that's an adaptation. I never read reviews before seeing a film but I'll cast my eye over IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes to get some idea of what I'm in for. The early signs weren't good (5.4 on IMDb and 15% on RT) but nothing will stop me seeing a film if I want to see it... I like to make up my own mind.
To be perfectly honest the critics aren't really wrong... there are lots of things to dislike about The Spirit. I mean seriously, it is terrible... in a way. The dialogue is awful and I don't where they found Gabriel Macht but they should put him back.
It's actually hard to describe what's bad about it because what's bad is what makes it great. My criticism of it is that some of the dialogue is repetitive, that always annoys me, and it stutters to start. It's completely outlandish but it takes a while to get to that point. It's as though Frank Miller started off thinking he'd make serious film noir then realised that there was no hope of that so chose to go careening off the rails.
Sure, it's annoying but I can't agree with what Rotten Tomatoes surmised from the critics - that it doesn't make sense and the characters are unmemorable. It has a very simple plot and the characters are all great fun. Ok, they're not characters in the sense they have no particular substance, they're more like interesting props. And they're all just so odd, it's great. Samuel L. Jackson is brilliant and for once I didn't find Scarlett Johansson annoying at all. To be honest herself and Eva Mendes weren't in it enough I would have liked to laugh at them a little longer. The one character we could have done without was Lorelei Rox (played by Jaime King) I don't know what was going on there. I can only assume it something from the comics that they felt they had to put in...
I can only thank Frank Miller for going off the rails on this, it is a great film. It is however, doomed to be a cult classic. There just aren't that many people out there are who are going to stick with all the madness and there are even less out there who'll appreciate it. Personally I've never seen so many people leave a theatre (that said, I rarely notice people leaving the cinema - I usually watch the film) and it's a pity because the film does deserve to be seen. At the very least it looks class.
Anyway I, for one, am glad I saw it.
8/10.
PS - I just had a look at the Roger Ebert review of this and he gave it one star. Which is fair enough, his accusations aren't unfounded, but... he's got the plot wrong. I don't know how someone can get the plot wrong - it's really very simple, you'd have to stop watching the film to get confused... so I gotta say, a little down in my estimation there...
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