Half-yearly report

So, as it's June 30th, I thought I'd jot down the 10 best films I've seen this year. These include repeat viewings (and even one I saw at the very end of Dec 2010). Some are new, some are old but all are quality.

1. Barton Fink
2. No Country for Old Men
3. Tell No One
4. The King's Speech
5. Broadcast News
6. Educating Rita
7. 12 Monkeys
8. Animal Kingdom
9. Army of Crime
10. Good Will Hunting


And just for balance, the crappest films I've seen so far this year are (worst first):

1. Battle Los Angeles
2. The Expendables
3. London Boulevard
4. Transporter 3
5. The History Boys
6. Stone
7. The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
8. Carry On Up the Khyber
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
10. The Book of Eli

X-Men: First Class

We saw this at HAT 109 on Sunday the 19th. I make this the 5th in the series (I hesitate to call it a 'franchise' - that sounds kind of ugly and capitalistic to me - I'll reserve that moniker for films I don't like), if you include Wolverine as part of that series. In my opinion, this prequel sits about 2nd best, after the first one (X-Men) and just above the second one (X-2).

I reckon they got the right director, Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) and Bryan Singer was on board as a producer too. The cast was patchy, from great (McAvoy, Fassbender) to serviceable (Byrne, Platt) to poor (Bacon, Jones - who is this dull Barbie?).

The pace of the film was an asset, it really rattled along in parts, especially the initial meeting sequence of Xavier and Lehnsherr. I really like the 3 way antagonism these films explore - humans v good mutants v bad mutants - and X-Men: First Class shows the origins of this. I think it's one of the reasons that sets it apart from other comic book adaptations that rely on a more black and white polarity.

There's also a classic 3 word retort that made me laugh quite a lot - you'll understand when you see it. As it's something of a spoiler, I won't elaborate here.

Worth watching.

The Adjustment Bureau

June 1st. Cheap tickets day at HAT 109. I was hopeful about this film, but also a little wary. As it turned out, both preconceptions were met. I liked parts of it a lot and hated parts in equal measure.

Positives first. Matt Damon is a really likeable figure on screen (off it as well, so I hear) and his acting is improving with age, rather like Di Caprio. His partnership with Emily Blunt works very well here - she's great too. The story is based on a Phillip K. Dick novella, and it has a certain nutty charm, reminiscent of an old episode of The Twilight Zone TV show. Some of the set-pieces come off (a couple of chase scenes on foot in particular) but the theme of the film is where the worms come out.

Right off the bat, let me say I can't stand religious propaganda in films. Religion, as a plot point, a theme or even an incidental garnish to a story are all fine with me, but I can't abide the sly stuff (and this is mostly perpetrated by Hollywood). The Adjustment Bureau has it riddled throughout. The ultimate conceit that "The Chairman" has the lives of everyone on earth planned out and these plans must be adhered to is bad enough, but the wet fish ending, as well as being naff, actually contradicts this.

The writers also need to bone up on some history. There's a scene where the typically wooden Terence Stamp soliloquises about when and why 'The Chairman" and his Angelic Hordes abandoned the humans throughout time and when they returned. It should make anybody with an inkling of history utter a quiet "what the fuckles?"

Incidentally; Terence Stamp, David Hemmings, Malcolm McDowell. These three often get mixed up in my mind, though I'm now starting to think Stamp is the lesser of the trio.

P.S. For proper angels, look no further than.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbzUfV3_JIA

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

We saw this on May 22 at the 109 cinemas in HAT Kobe. The HAT apparently stands for Happy Active Town, an area east of central Kobe that was rebuilt after the Hanshin earthquake of 1995. Why am I writing all this? Probably because it's a tad more interesting than the film we saw there.

I guess this Pirates movie shows that even if you throw actors the calibre of Depp, Rush, McShane and Cruz together, you still can't guarantee goals. It was a fairly flaccid affair (though a little better than numbers 2 and 3) and Depp is required to tent-pole the whole thing but he's not THAT good. It seems the franchise doesn't have the legs.

Bombastic and dispiriting.

P.S. A few days later I watched a 'small' German film called The Edge of Heaven and it stayed with me a lot longer than this Pirates film did.

True Grit

We saw this on March 30 at the Toho Cinema complex in Nishinomiya (I think it was free as I'd built up 6 movies on the point card). As I recall, there was a long queue and I was a bit concerned our theatre would be full. Luckily, the clueless majority were evidently lining up for something called Tangled. Or some shite Japanese anime or baseball flick.

As is usual with the Coen's films, True Grit looked great (shot by Roger Deakins again) and the dialogue fairly sparkled. The casting was typically spot on and they really have a sense of atmosphere - which the music (by Carter Burwell again), the costumes and the sets exemplify brilliantly.

But I reckon this film sits around the mid-section of the Coen portfolio, just near Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski. Not quite up to the standards set by Barton Fink, No Country for Old Men and Raising Arizona but not as low as The Hudsucker Proxy or Burn After Reading.