Film Shapes

I caught  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in Kobe and this marks the first film I've seen in 3D. Probably the last also. At least until the technology improves to a level where I don't need to wear heavy, head-ache inducing glasses over my existing specs. But more than the lack of comfort, I don't think 3D actually brings anything extra to a film - I'm sufficiently 'immeresed'  if the film is good enough. And it darkens the picture somewhat as well. The HFR (High Frame Rate - 48 frames per second as opposed to the regular 24) was another oddity. Now I'm not sure if this was just the HFR or the 3D/HFR combination but the pictures seemed rather fake looking, especially at the start. Kind of like a presentation of some new ultra-clean medical imaging system or a Terminator show at USJ Osaka. Too sharp for these eyes. They need a bit of grain. So onto the film itself. Some pundits have derided it for being too long. I disagree with this but they'r...

Dodging newspaper and podcast reviews as well as YouTube trailers is fairly easy but it's more difficult to avoid spoilers when a preview is shown ONE MINUTE BEFORE THE FILM STARTS. Twats. Anyway, onto the film itself. Skyfall is Daniel Craig's third Bond effort but not his best - Casino Royale still holds that mantle. It's hard to talk about this movie without bringing the previous two in as comparisons, but I'll try. I enjoyed Skyfall but rather less than I had imagined I would. I think one of the reasons was the storyline, which seemed a bit old hat. Without giving too much away, the villain (a brilliantly camp Javier Bardem) seems based on Sean Bean's character in Goldeneye. Bondies will get the reference. The M-centric part of the plot worked in a kind of oedipal, 'mummies boys' sort of way, with both Bond and Bardem's Silva hovering around Judi Dench, albeit with different motives. But the MacGuffin that begins the film buggers off halfway...

I've been thinking recently about some of the films that are hovering around the gate to my favourite films paddock. The top ten that sits to the right of this post shall remain sacrosanct (though some films have crept in or out over my lifetime) but I sometimes happen upon a great film that has the temerity to challenge them. Here are some of those crackers in no particular order: Tell No One ( Ne le dis à personne) This 2006 French thriller has so many attributes, it's hard to know where to start. From the word go we're gripped, due in no small part to the lead, Francois Cluzet. He's a bit like a middle-period Dustin Hoffman (think Tootsie or Rain Man ), in looks and intensity. Cluzet is the perfect piece of casting in a film with countless great performers - Kristin Scott Thomas, Jean Rochefort and Gilles Lellouche all shine in parts of varying length or importance. After an initial, important back-story, the pace doesn't let up with the different thread...

It has taken me a few days to start this entry as I needed to ponder a number of issues. Without thinking too much about it, I really enjoyed Prometheus . It looked great (2D), the cast was pretty solid, Fassbender excellent, but I'll return to him later and the story was satisfying in its connection to, and, at the same time, its distancing from Alien . Let me explain that last messy clause. I think you can watch this without any knowledge of the Alien series but as most of us over 20 know about the other films, its quite good fun to recognise the hints and echoes throughout. The only slight issues I have are regarding the details in the story. Here's where it may get a little/very SPOILERY, so please look away if you haven't seen the film. Firstly, the religious angle irritated me a bit but I guess if you're investigating the origin of humanity, you might at least pay lip service to "the great magic". And of course, Christianity is at the heart of the ...

I saw the third part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy a few days ago in Kobe and I was suitably gobsmacked. TDKR is, I think, better than its immediate predecessor, The Dark Knight  and just as good as Batman Begins, maybe even a touch superior (no Katie Holmes in this, for example). The plaudits should go primarily to Nolan himself. This guy could find a novel way to direct a film based on the instructions on how to open a bottle of Pocari Sweat. Probably. He makes a seemingly routine story sparkle and the odd thing is, I'm not sure how he does it. Some of the scenes would have been quite clunky without Nolan's sure hand. He is helped no end by Wally Pfister, the DOP and by the guy responsible for the gargantuan task of editing this web of character and plot. It doesn't seem rushed and yet it's probably the longest 'tight' film I've ever seen (at 2 hours 45 minutes). There's not a single superfluous, 'look at your watch' moment a...

A bit late but here are the 10 best films I've seen up to June 30 2012. Again, most of these are repeat viewings, in fact only one is a new(ish) film. So here they are from the top: 1. Blade Runner 2. Casablanca 3. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 4. There Will Be Blood 5. Delicatessen 6. The Apartment 7. The White Ribbon 8. Some Like It Hot 9. Dr. Strangelove 10. Welcome to Sarajevo All great, unlike the following. Here are the worst 10 up to the middle of the year. (Admittedly, some of these are not terrible, just the ten films I liked the least. A special mention though, for the top of this list - it's possibly in my ten worst films of all time.) 1. Mighty Joe Young 2. Wedding Crashers 3. Young Sherlock Holmes 4. The Spanish Apartment 5. Me and Orson Welles 6. The Iron Giant 7. The Merchant of Venice 8. Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol 9. A Little Romance 10. The Wings of the Dove

UPDATE : June 1st Michael Haneke has won the Palme d'Or for Amour. This is his second Palme in 4 years after The White Ribbon in 2009. Both times Jacques Audiard has missed out, though this year Rust and Bone was completely overlooked whereas in 2009, Un Prophete at least took the Grand Prix, ostensibly the runners-up prize. Here are the winners in the main categories. I'm pretty chuffed for Mads Mikkelsen (he won best actor for The Hunt ). I first noticed him in a pretty good Danish police show called Unit One . He's since appeared in some average Hollywood films but he made a class villain in Casino Royale , scratching Daniel Craig's nuts. I reckon he's one of the most intense actors rocking the screens these days. It looks like a pretty good year for official entries at Cannes. The stand-out for me is the new Jacques Audiard film Rust and Bone with Marion Cotillard. One of my favourite directors AND possibly my favourite actress working rig...

Released in September last year in the UK and it takes SIX MONTHS to get to Japan, yet Battleship  arrives seemingly everywhere at once! Just one of the many injustices Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy must endure. Another would be the notion that films like The Artist and Hugo are better than it (according to assorted Awards ceremonies recently past). Piffle and tommy-rot! After reading the book years ago and watching the BBC series with Alec Guiness as Smiley, and enjoying both, I approached this new film with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. And I think it needs to be stated that the book, the TV show and the film are like kids with the same father but different mothers. They all come from the same seed but have quite noticeable differences. Le Carre himself apparently told Tomas Alfredson to do what he liked with the film, saying something along the lines of, "If you fuck up the film, the book will still be good". Well, Alfredson certainly di...

The last couple of months have thrown up (and I use the term deliberately) some nasty prospects at the cinema. I'm talking specifically of the slew of (once) great actors appearing in roles ordinarily thought well beneath them. Case One : How the fuck did Robert De Niro go from this.....  ....to this? The film (?) is New Year's Eve -  full of pretty, vapid, talent-shy, model-cum-actors AND Robert De Niro!!?? That said, De Niro has some form with poor choices ( We're No Angels , The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle , Little Fockers and Righteous Kill for example). And so does the next perpetrator. Case Two : From this.....             ........to Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ? The near legendary Michael Caine seems to enjoy this flirting with dirge, as though he wants us to forget his roles in such classics as Get Carter (above), The Italian Job , The Man Who Would B...

Like I did at the half-way point of the year, I've chosen the best ten films I have seen since July. Again, some are old but a couple are new releases. Here they are in a top-down fashion: 1. Yojimbo 2. Taxi Driver 3. Secrets and Lies 4. Don't Look Now 5. Inception 6. A Separation 7. Point Blank (A Bout Portant) 8. Seven Samurai 9. Rise of the Planet of the Apes 10. Pan's Labyrinth And for balance, the bilge and dross..... 1. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale 2. Sucker Punch 3. Sliding Doors 4. Blitz 5. A.I. 6. Escape from New York 7. Shall We Dance? 8. Finding Forrester 9. Perfect Blue 10. Limitless