Bicycle Thieves; Never Let Me Go; Little Big Soldier; The Grapes Of Wrath; Oz The Great And Powerful; Black Pond

Bicycle Thieves

Essentially the blueprint for the social realism films that would become more and more popular after the Second World War, the film focuses on the desperate attempts of Antonio to find a job in 1948’s post-war Rome. His only means of getting one is his ownership of a bicycle, which secures his employment putting up posters around the city, but on his first day his bike is snatched and he fails to catch the thief. The next day he sets out with some friends and his son Bruno on a journey that takes him all over Rome.

The location shooting is very evocative in a way that seems like it would be impossible to replicate these days, with touches like the wise woman and the mob surrounding Antonio when he locates the thief all feeling like local people rather than actors.

The ending is something of a gut punch, the general good will towards Antonio and the mainly gentle nature of the film (securing it a ‘U’ rating) lulling you into expecting a happy ending, but the end serves as another signifier that this is a forerunner for the harsh social realist movement to come.

Never Let Me Go

I’d heard that the big twist of the tale hits right toward the end, only for the film to explain early on that the school of children are being raised specifically as organ donors.

So, central character Kathy narrates the story of the love triangle including herself, Ruth and Tommy, as they grow up in their odd little 50s style private boarding school in the 70s, then in a little cottage provided for them in the 80s and then onto the end of their adulthood in the 90s.

The sets are evocative, the acting from all three leads - Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield - is great, and the film builds a convincing portrait of an alternate England where breeding/cloning (the details aren’t specified) people to be used as organ donors for the sick is agreed on in the 50s, a sort of skewed version of the NHS, and becomes a part of life, uncomfortable and unnerving for some but in most respects normal. Few protests or outcrying, just a part of society like vivisection or the meat industry.

Rather than focus on the administrational or medical aspects as many dramas would, the whole film centers on the character’s relationships and how they unfold, choices and mistakes made and regrets lived with, albeit shortly.

Even the quietly horrific revelation that the kids were the last of a humane experiment before the decision was made to basically factory farm donors is delivered in the context of the impact on our character’s relationship, and in this way the film feels a lot more realistic and grounded than it may otherwise have done, were the story to focus on the process rather than people.

On the other hand, the story of people making the wrong choices in love with little time to make amends is a universal one and no more affecting because of the organ doning aspect.

A decent film but not revelatory.

Little Big Soldier

Little Big Soldier is a breath of fresh air after Jackie Chan’s later 90s/early 2000s career. The tail-end of his shallow action comedies contained some awful duds, and this combined with his advancing age no doubt led to the decision to pursue some meatier acting roles rather than the usual action fests he’s known for, starting with New Police Story in 2004 and leading to films like the immigrant crime drama of 2009’s Shinjuku Incident and 2011’s historical Chinese Revolutionary epic, 1911.

Little Big Soldier however manages to go back to his action/comedy mid-career period with success.

Chan plays an old soldier in ancient China, the sole survivor of a large battle besides an enemy general whom he captures, with plans to return home for a reward of a peaceful farming life.

Obstacles on the path make for an eventful journey as this slapstick filled buddy-ish comedy plays out, with Jackie a likeable lead, more knowing than his usual bumbling apologists and less arrogant than the cheeky fighting masters of his youth.

The ending scene makes for an odd tonal shift which could easily be read as overwrought Cantonese sentiment, but really is part of a whole that has slightly more to it than the usual crowd pleaser.

The Grapes of Wrath

Poor Tom Joad.

After release from prison on parole, after the killing of a man at a dancehall in self-defence, Tom returns home to find his family has moved on. In the Oklahoma of the Depression sharecropper families are being turfed out by landlords to be replaced by tractors, and everyone is travelling West in search of work and a new start.

Adapted from Steinbeck’s 1939 novel, Wrath had a quick turnaround, released into cinemas in 1940.

There is a whiff of innocence to the film that point to the wider audience this is perhaps intended for, though the anger at the dire economic straits of the working man and his lot make for a stark contrast against the hopeful musicals and upper-middle class worlds of the screwball comedies of the time, without the cynicism of the noir crime features.

The laden, shambling trucks ferrying Midwesterners to California, the hostility faced by the migrants and the idyllic nature of the government camp are evocative of a situation hard to imagine now, indeed after the relative success of the Second World War it’s easy to see how patriotism was used by the authorities to quell socialist rumblings that rose up during the Depression.

Oz the Great and Powerful

Sam Raimi by way of Tim Burton, this leans more towards the CGI heavy Alice in Wonderland adaptation rather than the family-friendly nightmare of Return to Oz, let alone the classic original film.

Franco plays a lying sleazebag small-time travelling circus conjurer, who while trying to escape a cuckolded strongman in a hot air balloon is caught by a tornado and whisked off to Oz.

The wicked witch is making Oz suffer, but the prophecy of a great wizard saving the day gives Oscar Diggs (Oz the Great and Powerful) something to aspire to.

So off he goes on a journey to kill the wicked witch, but learns about the value of friends along the way.

The effects are bland in all their spectacle and the story feels like generic family fantasy, with lots of nods and winks to the original film that help remind you how slight this feels in comparison.

Black Pond

Black Pond, black comedy, though more a comedy of manners than one for belly laughs.

Tom meets Blake whilst walking the dog. Though odd, Tom finds him friendly enough and invites him home. His wife Sophie is unnerved at first by the introduction of a stranger, though she warms to him and soon he stays for dinner, and then for the night as he is afraid of the dark.

The next day Blake’s off at dawn, and before long Tom finds him in the woods, with the dog dead from drowning in the Black Pond that is central to Blake’s story of a man losing his wife to drowning.

Tom and Sophie’s two daughters Katie and Jess live in London along with a friend, Tim, who is in unrequited love with the both of them, and after the dog dies they come back home for an impromptu funeral.

Mixed in with documentary type talking head interviews retelling the fallout from the events of the film, as well as the odd therapy sessions attended by Tim as he deals with the aftermath.

The film maintains an odd tone throughout, with tension present but not unbearable, the comedy elements are gentle rather than hysterical and the darker parts are sympathetic rather than ghoulish.

A dream sequence in particular stands out as a fresh take on an age-old cinematic trope, managing to try things in bold new ways whilst still being immediately identifiable.

Not entirely successful but a fresh look at that most English of comedies, that of the awkwardness and inhibition choking interpersonal relationships.

Outlander; Hunger Games: Catching Fire; Brave; The Thin Blue Line; Cloud Atlas; Habit; Zero Dark Thirty; The Age of Stupid

Outlander

A little like the 13th Warrior, but instead of a Spanish Knight fighting alongside the Vikings, it’s a spaceman, fighting with them against an alien beastie.
As action B-pictures go it’s fairly entertaining stuff with enjoyably ropey CGI and a nice mix of action and suspense horror stuff with the hunty-stalky alien creature, but mainly it’s brainless fare with Ron Perlman being one of a few highlights.
Throwaway fluff.

Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The sequel to smash-hit adaptation of the Hunger Games, Catching Fire picks up where the first left off, with Katniss and Peeta now living in the victor’s village in District 12. Despite winning they soon find that the game never ends, and that they can look forward to a future of PR visits and events in the other districts for the benefit of the ruling capital.

In the course of these travels, Katniss comes to realise that there is trouble in the districts with many fostering opposition to the status quo, seeing her as a figurehead to a different way of life, but President Snow is keenly aware of this and quickly takes the opportunity to curb the chances of this proto-rebellion - the next Hunger Games will feature the current victors.

In the background Katniss is struggling between the affection she has for Gale, and something new that may be developing between her and Peeta, but the meat of the film focuses on the game itself and the strategies and alliances formed as a number of victors work to keep Katniss alive even as a group of the more bloodthirsty entrants work to end the lives of everyone else.

The game itself feels like a video game in many ways with elements revolving around timing and levels, but some of the personalities involved help to keep the drama from being alienating, with most of Katniss’ allies having some sort of personality despite the combat/survival setting.

Catching Fire suits the original well but ends on too much of a broken cliffhanger, rather than coming to a natural end which leaves you wanting more, it feels like a much longer film cut too early - in a book it would feel like a chapter ending a paragraph before the end.

Jennifer Lawrence is great again as Katniss, though rather than the character being a good example of a female lead being as capable as men, it seems like the roles of resourceful and determined Katniss have just been reversed with the relatively useless and helpless Peeta, who is hopelessly in love with Katniss while from her side relationships are more complicated. The only thing lacking in Peeta from the classic damsel in distress role is the screaming.

Brave

Brave tells the usual tale of a princess chafing against fate - she loves archery but is destined to be trussed up in a dress and married off for the good of the kingdom.
After accidentally cursing her mother and turning her into a bear, she has to set out and find the witch responsible before sunrise the next day, avoiding her father and facing a legendary bear in an ancient ruin.

Whilst the plot is slight with many elements borrowed from other Disney tales, and characters such as the larger than life Scottish king seemingly copied from How To Train Your Dragon’s Viking chief, the refreshing element here is that Brave’s journey is her own, there is no peripheral love interest or prince as a goal, neither does she reject arranged marriage because she wants to choose who to love, males simply don’t feature as what’s important to her beyond her father and brothers. It took a long time to get here from the swooning beauty of Snow White with seven half men protecting her and a prince to look forward to, but Brave feels like the first female animated film lead without a love story as the main or a sub-plot.
The animation is fine, there aren’t many jokes to speak of besides the attempt at hitting that Scrat/minion/Madagascar penguin sweet spot with Brave’s triplet brothers, transformed into bear cubs and forever in trouble, so the film isn’t going to be worrying the likes of Pixar’s first best work, but as family entertainment it is enjoyable.

The Thin Blue Line

Errol Morris’ 1988 documentary convincingly makes the case that Randall Adams was wrongly convicted of the murder of a police officer, due to the fact that prime suspect David Ray Harris was too young at the time of the killing to be given the death penalty.
Using a mixture of archival footage, reconstruction and interviews, the scene is set, certain elements are covered over and again from a number of perspectives and the picture is built of what most likely happened and why, and the detail presented is likely down to Morris’ past as a private detective.

Adams was freed in 1989 but due to the way in which the case was dismissed he received no money for 12 years of wrongful imprisonment, and passed away in 2010.
Harris was executed in 2004 for a separate murder.

Cloud Atlas

Said to be an unfilmable book, Cloud Atlas certainly makes for a slightly complicated blockbuster with its multiple plot strands set at various points in time, from 1850s Empire and slavery to a far-future of an Earth which has lost touch with off-world colonies after some catastrophe.
Many of the actors who crop up in each story arc appear again and again with the use of prosthetics, sometimes cleverly but often in a jarring manner, especially during the sequences set in a future Seoul where a number of Western actors have basically been given slanty eyes in a seemingly clumsy way, especially when they act alongside Korean actress Doona Bae who makes them look a bit like mutants.
Each strand feels complete in and of itself, though firmly set in the expected genre settings - the 1849 Pacific voyage is a slice of the likes of Master and Commander; the strand of Frobisher and Sixmith is awash with the repression and manners of pre-war homophobic Britain; the thriller in which Halle Berry’s journalist tries to expose a conspiracy behind a new nuclear power plant has the classic 70s grime of the conspiracy thrillers of that time; the dark, rainy, neon vision of Neo-Seoul in a time of clones and a high-tech police state takes the template of the post-Bladerunner dystopian sci-fi.
Despite the success in distinguishing between each of these disparate elements whilst simultaneously dropping clues as to how events and characters are connected through time, each part feels like just another entry into its own particular genre.
As the whole is no more than the sum of its parts, it’s hard to say whether Cloud Atlas is a failure, or a success simply for attempting and mainly succeeding in putting so many elements on screen at once, without really dropping the ball. Can you champion the okay?

In any case it’s too long and it would probably have been better served as a TV series.

Habit

This 1995 indie vampire feature gains much from the New York City setting - with just one year in office Mayor Guiliani hadn’t put in place the tactics to reduce crime and arguably sterilise much of the city. The settings of dingy streets of warehouses and apartments, basement nightclubs and abandoned boats helps give the film a neo-gothic air.
Pleasingly for a modern-day vampire flick, the main character Sam (played by writer/director Larry Fessenden) isn’t in thrall to vampirism and indeed the term isn’t voiced until later in the movie. As Sam negotiates a tendency toward alcoholism and the breakdown of a relationship, he gets involved with a mystery woman who has some odd appetites.
Not as philosophically ponderous as The Addiction, as self-consciously gory as Near Dark or as emptily stylish as The Hunger, Habit is a neat entry into modern day vampire films that keeps much of the supernatural aspects off-screen and unspoken.
It has the feel of a proper low-budget feature with snatched shoots on location and an unknown but talented cast, echoing the aimless 20s New York youth vibe that would strike such a chord in the likes of Lena Dunham’s Girls and Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha two decades later.

Zero Dark Thirty

So, Zero Dark Thirty is a film in which you already know where it’s going and what happened at the end. This doesn’t mean that the film should be a pointless exercise, after all in recent years we have had the likes of United 93 and Argo, which either by using taut direction or artistic license have managed to make know outcomes fraught and exciting.
However, Zero Dark Thirty somehow misses this opportunity, working a bit more like a CIA based police-procedural as Jessica Chastain’s Agent Maya hunts down leads and roots out information over years in order to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden.
Cue lots of shouting as various agents argue about this or that theory or process, the odd bit of torture and then an extended special forces sequence as a bunch of ripped blokes get dropped onto Osama’s hiding place wearing ridiculous looking night vision goggles and then kill a bunch of people until they have their target.

You’ve seen the like before, though not usually based on real events. Sequences of intelligence agency people shouting at each other are no more engaging than similar parts of the Bourne films, and the climactic extra-judicial hunt and execution sequence offers little. No doubt it was meticulously researched but it feels a little redundant after the fact, it doesn’t have the entertainment factor of numerous special forces based action films and there are no unanswered questions to speculate on.

Competently put together, Zero Dark Thirty is certainly atmospheric and gives a feel for what it was like to be agents trying to find out information on possible attacks and prevent them, using whatever means they think they can get away with, but overall it just didn’t do it for me.

The Age of Stupid

Whilst the content of this withering accusative documentary sent from a likely future will be familiar to any who keep tabs on the state of the global environment, it’s still sobering to see such a collection of news footage weaved around six stories, hammering home the evidence for our effect on the environment and its possible outcome, with a marked increase in extreme weather occurring even before the film’s release in 2009.

The late Pete Postlethwaite adds a weathered authority to his tired damning of the past, reporting from a cultural arc in 2055 after the seas have risen and resource wars have lain waste to much of humanity.

Ultimately I found the story of the oilman the most affecting - a resident of New Orleans who was one of the many who helped rescue the stranded by boat, he says that given the chance again he would still choose to be an engineer prospecting for oil, a substance which he sees as a wonderful resource which enables us to do so much. Though his caution that we are using far too much of it far too quickly is the voice of reason too often drowned out by the shouting down of both sides.

It will be interesting to see how things develop globally, and how late governments will come round to the idea of sustainable resources - will it be from popular demand or economic necessity?
Meanwhile weather records continue to be broken on a regular basis and the global economic meltdown that began a year before the film’s release continues to ravage most nations, leading to ever more conservative governments in bed with the vested interests keen on pushing for oil.

Depressing.

Blackfish; Argo; Summer Wars; Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives; This Is 40

Blackfish

Which concerns the instances of deaths and injury caused by killer whales in captivity.

Lots of talking heads, a mixture of ex-trainers and employees and scientists, what is amazing is the amount of footage available. Whilst the incidents that took place and were captured on camera by visitors are understandably available, there are numerous instances of out-of-hours training sessions and the attacks that happened at those times, and it’s quite hard to work out how the film makers got hold of this footage as I would have assumed it would have been owned by SeaWorld.

The instances of orca interaction are engaging, and the enthusiasm of the neurologist claiming that their emotions are more advanced than ours, due to having parts of the brain that we don’t, build up in such a way that when you see footage like the orca capturing for Sealand in the 70s it is pretty upsetting.

By the end of the film there’s little doubt that keeping these or any whales in captivity is wrong, not just for the animals themselves but for the people working with them.

Argo

As it’s based on a true story, it’s hard to know whether the more clichéd aspects actually happened, but some of Argo certainly feels a bit too much like other thrillers. The 6 people at the heart of the story, stuck in Iran during the revolution and in hiding, are only sparsely sketched with just Scoot McNairy as Joe Stafford given some meat as ‘the cynical one’ who immediately dismisses the escape plan as doomed and likely to get them killed. Surprise surprise, as Joe is ultimately the one to make their cover work and succeeds in getting them that last step towards home.

Other elements equivalent to the bomb countdown turn out to be fabricated - the last minute interrogation by revolutionary forces was made up, as was the jeep and police chase on the runway. However, these worked well to inflate the tension and kept your heart pounding, despite knowing the outcome in much the same way that United 91 worked so well even though you know what happens in the end.

Affleck plays it pretty light for him, no shouting or tub thumping or rousing monologues, quite often he seems dejected and defeated even before things go wrong, so it’s pretty much Affleck doing subtle. But it does help it feel more real, rather than the shooty-fighty secret agent films we’re used to, and the supporting cast do a good job of bringing their real-life characters to life, with the likes of Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Bryan Cranston all putting in a good turn.

Despite the twisting of some elements of the story, Affleck manages to avoid the vilifying of the Iranians without making the revolutionaries’ actions seem reasonable.

Not as good as the Oscar would suggest, but definitely worth a watch.

Summer Wars

Bravura Japanese anime film with a dizzying plot that basically boils down to: an AI invades Oz, an all-pervasive ultra-advanced social network which most of the world now depends on to function. The AI messes up everything from water to traffic to satellite systems, leaving a maths genius boy and an extended family that can trace their family tree back centuries to save the virtual world.

A schoolgirl invites a nerdy boy, working as a part-time Oz coder, to do a job for her in the country. The job is to pretend to be her fiancé for her great-grandmother’s 90th birthday party, the head of a large extended family living at a large house with roots going back over 500 years. One night he gets an anonymous maths puzzle, which he stays awake to solve. The next morning he finds that Oz has gone haywire with many accounts cannibalised by an AI and infrastructure melting down, and he is being touted as the scapegoat on TV.

Visually dense, Summer Wars has a huge amount going on, both in the CGI visuals in the virtual world of Oz and those of the more traditional setting of the Sanada Clan’s family home.

The huge cast of family members introduced illustrates how director Mamoru Hosoda (of the acclaimed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) expects the audience to keep up, rather than kowtowing to them, and ultimately it makes for a satisfying tale despite the inevitable real-world consequences that are introduced to give the drama a little more immediacy towards the finale.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Boonmee is ailing. He travels to the honey farm that he owns,  and is visited by his family, including his dead wife and disappeared son in spirit monkey form.

The film feels very much like a tone poem or something a bit ethereal like that. Lots of sitting for intermittent chat, journeys through lush jungle, aspects of past lives such as the princess whose beauty fades but finds comfort in the form of a water deity in the shape of a fish who pleasures her in a jungle pond.

Glimpses of the red-eyed, thick haired monkey spirits who Boonmee’s son has joined.

A moment in a hotel room where Boonmee’s sister talks with her daughter, and her son arrives, trying to decide whether to continue being a monk.

It’s hard to put a finger on what is going on, besides Boonmee making peace and saying his goodbyes, but the world painted in the film is evocative and a pleasure to be in if you’re in the right mood.

This Is 40

Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd return to the roles they played in Knocked Up, as Debbie and Pete who are now struggling with the onset of middle age whilst feeling far from grown up.

The theme of extended adolescence has been around a long time now, particularly in the comedies director Apatow has been involved with, but Rudd and Mann make for good company despite their character’s whining, and Apatow’s daughters Maude and Iris again reprise their roles as the couple’s daughters and both are charming.

Chris O’Dowd, Lena Dunham, Johnathan Lithgow, Jason Segel and Megan Fox all crop up at some point to round out the cast, and though the incidents in the plot are fairly predictable and generic the players manage to keep you onside despite the over long running time.

Definitely an enjoyable film rather than a triumph, This Is 40 has a relatively low belly-laugh ratio due to all the griping and soul-searching, but to be honest I would watch Rudd in almost anything. 

Total Recall (2012); Killing Them Softly; 5 Broken Cameras; Silver Lining Playbook; The Monster Squad

Total Recall (2012)

In yet another case of the unnecessary remakes, Colin Farrell stars in the Arnie role of this reworking of the adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story.

The bare bones of the plot are the same, with factory worker Doug Quaid yearning for something missing, opting to visit the Rekall company who implant exciting false memories into you, and uncovering his status as an undercover agent.

However, rather than the previous set up of rebellion on the Mars colony, this time around Mars is a single reference, instead Earth has been devastated by chemical warfare leaving only the United Federation of Britain and the Colony (Australia) habitable, built up into 2000AD style Mega Cities. Connecting the two is the Fall, a drilled hole straight through the Earth’s core, with a transport that runs in between, altering its gravity half way through.

The set up is the familiar dystopia of the oppressed and oppressors, with the Colony here supplying hard labour to the UFB though the set design doesn’t distinguish a great deal between which is which. Blade Runner-esque is the order of the day with lots of rainy, neon-lit night and thousands of levels of buildings connected by hover car motorways.

This set confusion runs through most of the movie, as despite the mash up of languages and culture there are anomalies with accent where American seems universal and English rare, despite the UFB status as world leaders.

As well as this the whole idea of political upheaval doesn’t make sense. In the original there are defined differences between Mars and Earth, being different planets, but here the difference is ambiguous. Usually the richer part would live of the work or resources of the rest, but in this world of advanced technology encompassing a traversable bore hole through the Earth’s crust, a large automated robot police force/army and ubiquitous hover-cars, it’s hard to understand how resources are limited.

Still, Colin’s Quaid finds himself going through Arnie’s paces, fighting with what he thought was his wife (Kate Beckinsale in Sharon Stone’s role) and trying to reach the resistance to find out who he really is.

There’s lots of chase and fight related action, and neat little snippets of tech such as mobile phones implanted into the hand and bringing up a vid screen on any glass surface, but on the whole the film feels like empty flash, lacking the coherence of the original, let alone building on it.

Initially I thought Farrell would be okay compared to Arnie’s bug-eyed, gurning attempt at acting, but in retrospect Arnie’s cartoon character persona suits the ideas much better than Farrell’s anonymous, muted angst.

Beckinsale’s UFB agent and Jennifer Beale as Quade’s anchor to his old self do well in roles that require more fighting than looking pretty, but can’t elevate the film any more than Farrell, and Brian Cranston hasn’t chosen well for his post-Breaking Bad film debut as the evil leader of the UFB.

It will be interesting to see when Hollywood will decide to stop cannibalising itself, or are we stuck in this blockbuster & sequel cycle for another 30 years?

Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly yearns so hard to be a 70s film it hurts.

The wasteland sets of old crumbling buildings, sweaty card dens and battered cars along with the timeless wardrobe really give it a sense of place, with only the odd instance of a mobile phone or somesuch to pull you back to the future.

That and the constant glimpses of the Obama/McCain election campaign via TV and radio broadcasts and mentions of the ‘recession’ and ‘current economic climate’. Whilst many films attempt at a subtle introduction of subtext, KTS pretty much bludgeons the viewer with its references.

However, despite the bungled message, this is a beautifully shot film using lots of stylistic tricks to elevate the grubby setting of the story, concerning useless losers sticking up a card game and getting whacked - moments such as one of the junkies lost in a high, or a slow motion drive-by/car crash at night, seen from multiple angles.

Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn are brilliant as the losers, Ray Liotta is a slightly more vulnerable version of his usual roles, Gandolfini’s good as the repulsive hitman brought in by Brad Pitt’s fixer and Richard Jenkins is great casting as the administrative middle man for a corporate mob.

Pitt is as charismatic as ever but this isn’t his best performance, instead offering a nastier version of Ocean 11’s Rusty along with his usual schtick - the knowledgeable, worldly type. His own get-up hints at an even earlier time in cinema with his leather jacket and slicked back hair, a hangover of the 60s in a 70s film set in 2008.

Director Andrew Dominik’s previous feature was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and it seems he’s learning with Killing Them Softly, keeping an element of the more ponderous, painterly moments of the former, but upping the pace and keeping to a genre running time.

Pitt’s last line is obviously meant to be the summary to the whole thing “America isn’t a country, it’s a business…” but the film yearns to be more important than it is - and yet, despite not being as good as it hopes to be, it’s still a decent film that doesn’t outstay its welcome and classier version than the usual mob/hitman flicks that are regularly turned out, with some great performances and lovely camerawork.

5 Broken Cameras

In 2005, Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat bought his first video camera to film his fourth son. He then ended up recording the conflict between his home, the West Bank village of Bil’In, and the encroaching Israeli settlements, taking over much of the village’s land and the villagers’ livelihood.

The 5 broken cameras of the title are the cameras broken during the course of recording the village’s protest at the settlements, cameras which record the beating, tear-gassing and shooting of peaceful protestors by Israeli forces, of olive trees burnt by settlers in the night and of raids on the village to arrest children.

Throughout the course of this documentary it’s clear that there will have been some editing decisions made to highlight certain events in a certain way, but increasingly as the film unfolds it’s hard to imagine any context that would allow the Israeli army’s actions to make sense, culminating in the death of one of the village’s key protestors and Emad’s friend, a man you come to know in a small way during the film and then who you watch shot dead.

It’s hard to watch the film without feeling outrage, and it’s hard to imagine being in the same position without retaliating with violence, so it’s a testament to the patience of the villagers and their supporters that they manage to keep it relatively peaceful.

Silver Lining Playbook

Both Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are brilliant in bringing their characters to life, unpredictable and inappropriate, a strain on their families but ultimately trying to get better. Even with the trite plot tropes of the gambling all-or-nothing ultimatum and the challenge/competition finale, Silver Lining Playbook still manages to feel fresh.

Not only the leads but DeNiro as Cooper’s father turns in a brilliant role, the first for a long time that feels more about the performance than the pay, and Jacki Weaver, excellent in Animal Kingdom, matches him for the quality of performance. Even Chris Tucker manages to channel his usual screechy offering into a part that plays to all of his strengths, the fast talking energy and good-natured face that doesn’t seem capable of threat.

Excellent camerawork, jittery camera full of quick edits, but the framing gives you the feel of the shambolic inner world of the bipolar sufferer rather than the usual quick cutting of an action-packed blockbuster.

After the excellent The Fighter, it seems that director David O. Russell is excelling at coaxing spectacular performances from his cast.

The Monster Squad

Another of the video-shop tempters, I never got round to watching the Monster Squad in the 80s.

Perfectly aimed at it’s demographic, it focuses on a group of pre-teen outsiders who gang together as the Monster Squad, and hone their knowledge of the classic monsters - how to defeat werewolves and vampires for example.

It just so happens that after a failed attempt by Van Helsing to stop Dracula decades earlier, Drac gets himself and Frankenstein’s monster flown out in crates, only to be dropped over small town America after being discovered by the pilot.

In town a man turns into a werewolf, a swamp creature appears and a mummy escapes from the museum, leading to a perfect storm of 80s updated Universal classic monsters for the kids to face off against.

The squad consists of all the key skill sets - horror film geeks, a fat boy, a cool leather jacketed boy, a little girl - and the tone of the film is very light and fun-loving, a little at odds with the 15 rating earned by scenes like the werewolf being blown apart by a grenade, only to messily form together as it wasn’t a silver weapon. If the film were made today it would likely be a 12A, with its euphemisms such as ‘dork’ replacing any more grown up swearing.

Tom Noonan as Frankenstein's monster is the stand-out performance here, portraying the monster as a gentle giant in the vein of the James Whale adaptation, with less of the accidental killing.

Puppet Master; Ted; Moonrise Kingdom; Snow White and the Huntsman

Puppet Master

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I used to look forward to renting films. Quite often I’d trawl the aisles and see lots of juicy looking horror leering down at me, but would have to make do with what me or my friends could get or my family would let me get away with.

Often I’d discover crap but fun flicks, or even decent ones, the likes of The Gate, the Critters films and The People Under the Stairs spring to mind, but I never got round to things like Ghoulies and Puppet Master which spawned numerous sequels.

Puppet Master is very bad. The acting is very poor, the abandoned hotel setting is mainly anonymous and adds nothing to the tension or feel of the film, the POV sequences of heavy-breathing puppets shuffling about at floor-level don’t work and the bloody set pieces are relatively timid for 1989.

The stop-motion used for the puppets is a pleasant change to the CGI that would inevitably be used if this appeared today and there are a couple of inventive moments, a female doll pretending to be sexy (think Gremlins 2 - female gremlin) before vomiting out leeches, and the final sequence of the big baddie being mashed to bits stand out, but are hardly worth sitting through the whole film for.

Besides the general crapness I have a problem with the plot - the original puppet master who has found an ancient Egyptian method for breathing life into inanimate objects - he explicitly states that he’s hiding his puppets back in 1939 to prevent people with bad intentions from getting to them. But then why fashion a puppet with a drill bit for a head and one with a knife and hook for hands?

It’s a shame that it’s so hard to distinguish between crap but fun and just crap in the straight-to-video horror world, and that audience opinion is often wildly fragmented, but in this case it’s hard to see what people could think Puppet Master has going for it.

Ted

Despite Will Ferrell cornering the market for films about idiot man-children, the creators of Ted obviously felt they had their own unique selling point with Ted, a boy’s childhood friend brought to life and still around decades later, his foul mouth voiced by Family Guy’s Seth McFarlane, also Ted’s director.

Mark Whalberg plays the grown up boy John, whose wish comes true in the form of his teddy bear coming to life, and he’s proven his comedy capabilities numerous times but something about Ted feels very by-the-numbers.

A man who won’t accept responsibility, stuck in a crap job, hanging out with stupid friends, frustrating his more ambitious and grown-up girlfriend? In Clerks and Mallrats the hook was Kevin Smith’s dialogue, in Shaun of the Dead it was zombies and here it’s a real-life teddy bear.

Ted is at it’s worst when sticking to the formula (‘worst’ meaning ‘okay’) but it shines in the quick little asides it snipes at you from between the scenes that push the plot along, in much the same way as Family Guy does.

One proper scene that pretty much lives up to this is an extended messy party montage that comes about as the childhood hero of John and Ted, Flash Gordon’s Sam Jones, turns up to raise hell with them.

Mila Kunis is given the thankless task of basically being pretty and disappointed in the straight role as the girlfriend. Even though she’s given more to do than in most films of this type with her own plot thread, she still ends up playing the straight role to her creepy boss.

Not as funny as it hopes to be with lots of crass moments, but still providing the requisite laughs, Ted is worth a watch but I get the feeling Whalberg’s comedy chops still have a bit of stretch in them.

Moonrise Kingdom

If you’re familiar with Wes Anderson’s films so far, Moonrise Kingdom isn’t about to challenge your assumptions.

This time around the 50s/60s vibe found in his films is justified by the setting, that sense of place coming through from the sets, clothes and objects in the world, quirky pre-mass production items that have a personal feel.

Again the main characters come from the middle class academic neurotic template; here the leading kids are the same precocious, intellectual outsiders as Rushmore’s Max Fischer, clever and quirky but not really betraying emotions with their face. As with the rest of Anderson’s world the adults are barely capable of maintaining relationships, but the pre-teen couple at the centre of this story make the case for love.

The sets have the doll’s house tableaux quality found in most of Anderson’s films, even the outdoor scout camp is set up in an improbable line, all the better for a steady shot along, taking in all of the detail.

Moonrise Kingdom’s isolated island setting is perfect for Anderson’s carefully constructed world, and the cast are all well placed at bringing his characters to life, with the likes of Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand and Edward Norton bringing sympathy to characters who otherwise could have been unlikeable.

For those who aren’t already won over by Anderson’s quirky charms this film isn’t about to win over new converts, but existing fans it offers a little more warmth than some of the others.

Snow White and the Huntsman

Ultimately this is a throwaway, forgettable blockbuster by numbers. It would be unfair to criticise the film for being unoriginal, but the formula followed to present it is fairly pedestrian.

This time round Snow White joins a resistance movement with fighting dwarves after the huntsman frees her in the forest, and reluctantly joins her cause against the evil queen.

The effects work shines, with the black magic used by the witch a stand out (though not that of the magic mirror) and a neat hallucination scene (Snow falls on to some mushrooms in the forest and breathes their spores) that manages to be quite alarming within a 12 certificate confines. Additionally a sequence in an enchanted forest with a nature deity is like a Ghibli movie brought to life (albeit via CGI).

The effects success doesn’t end with the overt CGI additions - the photography of the dwarves surpasses anything done in Peter Jackson’s Tolkein adaptations, and each is a brilliant character in their own right unlike in the Hobbit, each fully fleshed out thanks to the acting prowess of Ian McShane, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins, Eddy Marsan and Johnny Harris. The presence of these characters, and a decent turn by Charlize Theron as the evil queen, help to even out the blandness of Kristen Stewart’s Snow and Chris Helmsworth’s huntsman.

One particular oddity is Snow saying the protestant version of the Lord’s Prayer while still in captivity, despite no other mention of religion in this fantasy world of magic, trolls and fairies, besides a throwaway reference to heaven.

Not great but better than the likes of Burton’s Alice in Wonderland if you’re after that kind of female-led fantasy epic, good enough for a lazy watch.

Resident Evil: Retribution; The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo (2011); Resident Evil: Apocalypse

 Resident Evil: Retribution

Someone’s still paying to watch these films as they don’t seem to be stopping any time soon.

The fifth in the series of Paul W.S. Anderson’s video game adaptations, the films' plots have long since diverged from those of the games, with the film universe currently a world overrun by zombies infected by the Umbrella Corporation’s T Virus. In this case, the corporation is being run by the rogue AI from the first film, the Red Queen, seeking to annihilate human life using brainwashed clones as well as the monsters created by the corporation.

Our heroine Alice (Anderson’s wife Milla Jovovich) finds herself in Umbrella’s secret test centre, an old Russian submarine station deep under the icy waters of the Arctic circle. There the T virus is tested in recreated city sections, representing New York, Tokyo and Moscow, where infected clones attack the rest. These are the sets for a number of protracted action sequences as a rescue team is sent in to get Alice and double agent Ada Wong out.

Lots and lots (and lots) of CGI, mostly for crappy uses like the oversized version of the Licker monster from the games, but the opening sequence during the credits features a slow motion action sequence in reverse, showing what happened to Alice and the ship of clones from the fourth film. It’s quite an engaging opener, eventually reaching a start point where the sequence plays out in chronological order and full speed, the long sequence now over in seconds.

Really though, Resident Evil 5 is just trash, so-so fan pleasing stuff with zombie soldiers, lots of guns and explosions and a little bit of maternal angst thanks to the clones for those after a sliver of cerebral activity.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Initial thoughts on hearing of this remake were that it fell into the wide body of unnecessary Hollywood adaptations of previously successful, usually subtitled films. Along with the propensity for sequels, the number of remakes highlights the urge to limit risk in Hollywood, narrowing the chance of original stories getting out.

David Fincher as director sounded promising though, particularly as with more recent films like Social Network he has proven able to turn something that sounds dodgy - a dry tale with an unlikeable lead - into a riveting watch.

Nevertheless, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo swiftly slips into redundancy - two years after the original’s release, it’s still set in Sweden with all the players trying out Scandinavian accents of varying quality, except for our lead Daniel Craig who plays it mostly English.

Whilst his sad dog eyes help bring a gravitas to his version of lead character Mikael, he ultimately feels less vulnerable and less like a normal guy with a passions for investigative journalism - his broad shoulders give him the air of someone who spends proportionately more time at the gym than the library.

Rooney Mara conveys the spiky exterior of Lisbeth guarding a scared and vulnerable core very well, but ultimately little different to Noomi Rapace’s original version.

Worse than this is the ending that ultimately betrays Lisbeth’s character, turning it into just another hokey thriller and undermining her fierce independence. It’s hard to understand how those responsible for deciding to film this in English could change such a key theme.

Despite the odd and gratuitously music video stylings of the opening credits sequence and some pretty camera work, this sequel of an adaptation is totally pointless and worse than the original. Avoid.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

This sequel to the original video game adaptation takes some elements of the game sequel - the zombies spread out into Racoon City and the Nemesis, a hulking, mutated man with a rocket launcher, which stalks our heroes.

Pleasantly surprised to see Jared Harris pop up here, but it was filmed in 2004 before the likes of Fringe and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes sequel presumably brought him access to the bigger bucks.

Milla Jovovich’s Alice has been infected with the T-Virus by the Umbrella Corporation, having being abducted at the end of the first film, but it makes her stronger rather than into a zombie due to bonding with her insides or somesuch guff.

As the zombies spread throughout the city, Umbrella puts a lock down in place and Alice’s only hope is to locate Dr. Ashford (Harris)’s daughter so that he can airlift Alice and whichever rag-tag survivors make it along with her.

Ashord’s daughter is the model for the Red Queen, Umbrella’s Hive AI from the first movie and a recurring character in the series with a creepy 'homicidal little posh girl' vibe, and the Nemesis provides a couple of action-packed sequences what with his mini-gun and rocket launcher, but despite the background being more intricate than a crappy horror series needs Resident Evil: Apocalypse is only okay, better than many recent zombie flicks due to their sheer awfulness.

Ultimately there are hundreds of horror films to see before you would want to give this forgettable effort a try, but at least it’s better than the Saw sequels.

Adam & Paul; Rango; Taken 2; Skyfall

Adam & Paul

Being a tale of two Dublin junkies in 2004.

The film follows them as they look for their next fix, and concoct hapless schemes for the money to pay for it.

The uneasiness I felt watching this story of two pathetic men as they negotiate the city that barely tolerates them, old friends who no longer trust them and family who are at least wary, is a testament to the performances of the leads Mark O’Halloran and the late Tom Murphy.

It’s a naturalistic tale featuring many moments of Adam & Paul aimlessly waiting in between events in a vaguely anonymous Dublin, and the comedy inherent in scenes like the bodged shoplifting are pierced by the low-level violence and other uncomfortable moments, such as the mugging of a disabled man.

I find Adam & Paul to be a decent film that’s hard to recommend as it’s a difficult watch, though not in the way I’m used to as with the films of Haneke for example.

The balance in tone with the stereotypical cheeky chappy Irish wit with darker moods was continued in director Lenny Abrahamson’s great second film, The Garage, and I’m looking forward to the chance to catch his third, What Richard Did.

Rango

A warm and inventive animation that’s family friendly and yet still manages to riff on a chameleon version of Johnny Depp’s Hunter S. Thompson interpretation, Rango is a delight. 

Arriving at a tangent from the usual CGI animation stables, Rango is a combination of the fish out of water or awkward urbanite stuck in the country (see also Depp’s Ichabod Crane), married with the old Wild West tale of a corrupt mayor/land baron controlling resources and gunmen to keep his town in check.

Despite these generic foundations, Rango has a lot to offer with lots of quirks and twists that aren’t twee or gratuitous, and treats the audience with intelligence so that it’s suitable for all the family but without making the mistakes of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.

As well as the original approach to family film, the animation itself is glorious with a keen attention to detail capturing myriad textures but in a way that brings the characters to life, rather than just ticking a technical expertise box (see Monsters Inc’s Sully whose fur seems luxuriant because they wanted to show off more than anything).

Taken 2

So after Liam Neeson rescues his daughter in Taken, killing a fair chunk of human traffickers in the process, the surviving relatives are somewhat upset.

Coincidentally it seems that not only are they from some indeterminate Eastern European state, but that they are muslims too!

After Liam takes a security job in Istanbul he mistakenly invites his daughter and ex-wife (newly estranged from her last man) to join him after his job finishes, putting them at risk from the muslims!

After Liam and ex-wife are abducted, the daughter manages to escape thanks to a phone call from pops and his secreted stash of spy bits, eventually helping him escape too but not mom!

So then off he goes to get her back.

Some of the DIY escape/fighting bits are fun as Liam convincingly takes out the baddies with confidence, but ultimately it feels a little dissatisfying compared to the original, which was a guilty pleasure as it is.

What with the Bourne films and the like, Western action films have become much more competent and to stand out you need something special, or be consigned to the heap of straight to video fodder.

Forgettable.

Skyfall

In comparison with the Bourne films that took the latest Bonds as a jumping off point, Skyfall shows the signs of the Bond franchise’s age.

The comparatively low speed and lack of kinetic rush in the opening chase sequence feels pedestrian compared to similar scenes from the Bourne films, whilst the incredibility of the speeding train fight sequence just stands out as odd in the context of the new ‘gritty’ Daniel Craig Bond. The prominence of the product placement of the Caterpillar brand of construction vehicles highlights how invasive product placement has become such an integral part of Bond that it is beyond parody and can only serve to break any suspension of disbelief, like the bad jokes Bond tosses out moments after reluctantly leaving a fellow agent badly wounded. The use of the Caterpillar vehicle as well shows up the absurdity of Bond, forcing a fantastical set piece into play rather than letting one evolve naturally or logically.

Thematically, a washed-up Bond who hits bottom and struggles to stay relevant as an agent in the field in this age of techno terrorism tries for an earthy weight. However, although this thread does work, it’s hard to see how Bond could hit bottom again after the turmoil of Quantum of Solace where he seeks to both avenge his lovers’ death and deal with her betrayal.

On the upside Javier Bardem’s pretty good as the big baddy, there is a nice big explosion at the climax and a few fun set pieces, however silly they are.

Not as good as it wants to be but still a fun watch.

The Horde; 1911; Bourne Legacy

The Horde

A squad of cops attends the funeral of one of their number. It turns out he was murdered by a notorious drug gang – they plan to tool up and take down the gang’s tower-block hideout, strictly off the books.

Things quickly go wrong and the cops are killed, wounded or captured, but just as the gangsters are working out what to do with their new captives the dead start rising…

Heavily armed dirty cops, gangsters and zombies seems like a bland recipe these days as seemingly everyone with a camera and make up kit tries to cash in on the zombie buck, but in recent decades French cinema has broken out of the middle class drawing room and into thrillers and schlocky action flicks, with some decent results.

Unfortunately the Horde, whilst certainly not as bad as some zombie films made in the last few years, offers little to justify an audience.

There are a few short, brutal sequences of survivors beating up zombies hand-to-hand in a novel approach to traditional zombie apocalypse survival, but these few scenes aren’t enough to hang a film on, and a supposed comic relief character introduced in the last act is unpleasant if anything.

 1911

Jackie Chan’s career has been rooted in the martial arts genre, displaying his skills in straight action films and slapstick comedies and famous for performing his own stunts. Impressive as those skills still are, Chan’s acting wasn’t always seen as a strong point, but since 2004’s New police Story Chan has attempted to stretch that part of his repertoire, most likely as a fall back now that the fully action packed roles aren’t possible – Chan turned 59 in 2013.

1911 is another drama entry, released on the centenary of the Chinese Xinhai revolution of 1911, which overthrew thousands of years of monarchy.

Chan plays Huang Xing, the revolutionary leader and first army commander in chief of the Republic of China, and he holds his own against the rest of the cast.

Unfortunately the film is quite slow and stilted, struggling to hold the interest despite numerous battle scenes of conflict between the revolutionaries and Qing dynasty forces.

Much of the action sequences, thanks to the period detail of uniforms, rifles and trenches, feel like many other First World War films, and all of the political machinations both within China and between representatives of western nations are rather formal and sterile.

Ultimately it feels like a propaganda piece glorying in the overthrow of a decadent, out of touch ruling class by the rule of the people, and Chan has little to do outside give pained looks in reaction to the deaths of young revolutionaries.

Not bad enough for Jackie Chan completists to avoid (they will have already ground their eyeballs against the likes of The Medallion and Around the World in 80 Days) but certainly not a great advert for Chan’s abilities beyond spectacular stunts.

Bourne Legacy

Jeremy Renner was destined to be an action hero since his fantastic turn as the sniper in 28 Weeks Later. Despite this I was concerned about the first Bourne movie in franchise to trade just on the name, making it seem much more likely to be a cash-in than anything.

But! It’s good.

Renner is believable as the agent with just a little more personality than the other trained killers, but ruthless when he needs to be. The action sequences retain the improvised feel of the previous films, with a number of sequences both tense and exciting.

Director Tony Gilroy wrote the screenplays for all the Bourne films and previously directed Michael Clayton, explaining how the film retains the smarts behind the thrills, with the background and sequences of the earlier films interwoven to set up Renner as one of the few agents to avoid the cull as Treadstone is shut down. Edward Norton makes a welcome appearance as  the man responsible for terminating Renner’s Aaron Cross, and Rachel Weisz continues the Bourne films run of intelligent female roles, despite the action/thriller genre setting.