Hextuple Bill Mini Musings: December 2010 left overs...

The Descent: Part 2:
Neil Marshall's spelunking 'chicks with picks' claustrophobic nerve shredder was a truly wonderful piece of pin-sharp scare mongering, but annoyingly for the American release it had to have an 'up' ending (relatively speaking) ... or, rather than 'up', an ending capable of providing a sequel.

So here we are with a second part that brings in a bunch of American spelunkers, including one beligerant bastard of a Sheriff, and off we go again as the sole survivor of the first quietly goes along with the plan to head back down into the caves.

There are a few moments of nice scene setting, but there's no mystery here. The first had mystery, and it had build-up (lots of it), and most importantly it was nail-bitingly claustrophobic and provided a handful of proper scares. Sadly, yet entirely predictably, this unnecessary sequel can't beat Marshall's superior original, which should have always been a stand-alone affair.


Lost Highway:
Having been all about Twin Peaks for a few weeks, I figured I'd give David Lynch's surreal dose of disjointed nightmares another go - I say that because during my teenage years I attempted to watch it and gave up after half an hour. So a good ten-or-more years later I returned, determined to see it through to the end.

There's not really much of a plot, nor does it seem there is supposed to be one, so really it's a series of vaguely connected nightmares and nightmarish ideas. Like a blended mixture of shreds of various disturbed night's sleep. I much prefer Blue Velvet, but it was good to finally see this one through to the end.


The Bird With The Crystal Plumage:
Everything that Dario Argento is, does best, and does time-and-again, is exemplified during an early sequence in which an artist witnesses a mysterious attempted murder in an art gallery. Everything about this sequence summarises Argento's direction, writing, and attention to appearances.

Typically, the plot has its fair share of holes (particularly the typically last-minute-seeming twist), but Argento has never really been about having a solid plot. It's all about the carefully crafted design behind the camera of what is in front of the camera, and Crystal Plumage proved to be an involving muder mystery.


Deep Red:
Similar to Crystal Plumage, this gore-flecked murder mystery features an artist (a pianist) becoming fascinated by solving a murder, which becomes a series of murders, featuring a figure clad in leather gloves, a black hat, and a leather trench coat. Once again the plot isn't the main focus - it's the lush visuals and sheer design aesthetic - and, again, the twist reveal is all a bit hurried. However, once again, this proved to be a hypnotically good bit of giallo.


The Cat O'Nine Tails:
It's not really a horror flick, it's a murder mystery, that just so happens to feature moments of horror-movie-like crimson grue, and - you guessed it - aesthetic takes the driver's seat. The plot is a little more dense than either Deep Red or Crystal Plumage, and while I enjoyed it least of the three, I still dug the overall vibe.


Up In The Air:
Thank You For Smoking, and Juno, were both memorable comedies with an indie-ish vibe that stretched beyond the dull and banal traditions of many recent Hollywood laughers, and Up In The Air continues in a similar vein. The final act may prove less assured than the first half, which provides a strong central protagonist for George Clooney to sink his teeth into - a protagonist who is a bit of a narcisistic git who only cares about getting to 10 million frequent flier miles and being away from 'home' as much as possible. Yet, much to the quality of the script and direction, you never feel put off by this man - indeed you find yourself becoming fascinated, impressed even, by his carefully organised business travel life going from city-to-city sacking employees of various companies, whose bosses are too wimpy to do the deed themselves.

I really quite enjoyed it, and out of Reitman's two previous flicks, it feels more like Thank You For Smoking - with it's not-that-likeable-yet-still-likeable protagonist - than Juno, with it's face-punchingly-sarcastic high schooler.

Octuple Bill Mini Musings: August/September 2010...

Up:
I'm a big fan of Pixar (even if I didn't care for Cars or Ratatouille), but it's taken me a while to get around to this. The first half an hour is flawless, and yes, minute 10 is utterly, utterly heart breaking and it establishes a thread that runs throughout the rest of the movie ... but the second and third acts are a bit of a mixed bag. It's beautiful looking like all Pixar movies, there's a great sense of physical humour like all Pixar movies, and there's a real heart to it all - also like all Pixar movies.

But there's just something missing from the central threat portion of the script. Everything works nicely (frequently fantastically), but I wasn't as impressed by it as I was with WALL.E - and as impressed as I'm sure I will be when I finally see Toy Story 3.

Meatballs:
It's weird how many comedies from the 80s were really about the key performers than a range of gags, and being that it's only rated 12 it's all quite gentle stuff ... and really it's not very interesting. The only reason to watch it is Bill Murry doing what he does best (although it's an earlier performance and he's not fully off-the-leash here) ... and that "Are You Ready for the Summer" song (butchered by a bunch of tone-deaf children) is like rusty nails scraped down the side of a chalk board.

Pirahna 2: The Spawning:
I've still not seen the first movie, and I've not seen the recent Aja remake yet (but I will at some point), but this sequel to the Dante original was on and being that it was James Cameron's first flick I was intrigued. Bloody nora it's dull, and it barely makes a lick of sense ... clearly more a career move than anything else, and who's to blame Cameron? The dude went on to make hugely successful classic after hugely successful classic.

American Grindhouse:
A documentary all about grindhouse cinema from the days of Edison all the way to the present day. There's far more to the genre than what you might initially think, so if you've got an interest in this type of cinematic treat, this doc is well worth a look for a great overview.

The Final Destination:
I recently saw the third movie for the first time and while it was a bit naff, the death sequences were still decent and enough of the characters were still likeable and switched-on enough to bother watching. This fourth film in the franchise has neither. The characters are painfully dull, moronic, unsympathetic and switched-off, and the plot's no better. It hits enough standard beats to vaguely hold itself together but it's dull as ditch water and offers absolutely nothing new to the franchise. Nothing advances from the other three, so it's yet another group of people trying to figure out what's going on (while the viewer has known since the first bloody movie!) until one-by-one they've all been bumped off by an oddly more-hands-on-than-is-appropriate-to-the-franchise-gimmick that is Death. Avoid it. Just avoid the hell out of it.

Churchill: The Hollywood Years:
There's been a lot of talk about the end of the UK Film Council recently (from both sides), but this dreadfully dull and ill-considered and torturous 90 minutes of goodness-knows-what is a great example of how not to make a British movie. Like The Final Destination, avoid the hell out of this crap.

Fast & Furious:
Aside from a couple of genuinely tense action sequences, it's really quite boring. The first movie was what it was and it did it well. I never bothered with the second or third movies and this fourth entry may be the best of the three sequels, but it's just a load of old cobblers. This record played well, once, many years ago and that was that. It's time in the spotlight was brief, yet it keeps lumbering on far beyond it's one-movie prime.

The Mechanik:
Dolph Lundgren. That's the only reason to watch this relatively cheap Euro-actioner. The plot is simple, but kind of simple in a boring way, unlike simple in a good way - such as with The Expendables - and the editing is all over the place, it really does prove to be a confusing distraction throughout. Moments are missed, the choice of shots isn't ruthlessly efficient enough, there are too many 'driving/walking around looking pensive' moments weighing down the whole movie and it doesn't make much sense either. Light on action and light on substance, the only reason to see it is the star himself - hopefully he's learning from these entries as he makes each new film he directs too as he's clearly an intelligent and passionate dude, but yeah, this flick isn't much cop.

The 2009 cinema trip list...

The following is a list of all the flicks I caught at the cinema in 2009 (replete with the dates on which they were viewed - yes, I do keep my ticket stubs), with short summaries beside those titles which didn't make it into my Top Ten or Honourable Mentions of 2009.

Role Models - 11/1/09 ... good fun, but not a lot more.
The Wrestler - 18/1/09
Friday the 13th (Remake) - 20/2/09 ... good Jason, good violence, good sex, bad script and direction.
Gran Torino - 8/3/09
Watchmen - 15/3/09
Lesbian Vampire Killers - 22/3/09 ... fleetingly amusing, but more filler than killer.
Crank 2: High Voltage - 19/4/09
I Love You, Man - 26/4/09 ... solidly entertaining, gotta love the Rudd/Siegel paring.
Observe & Report - 26/4/09 ... dreadful.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 3/5/09 ... weak, but it's still Wolverine.
Drag Me To Hell - 31/5/09
Terminator Salvation - 7/6/09 ... "meh", and then gets increasingly worse with repeat viewings and an online article that condemns the 'super Terminators' of T3 and T4.
The Hangover - 14/6/09 ... surprisingly fun comedy romp.
Doghouse - 14/6/09 ... good for a laugh, laddish turn from Evil Aliens' Jake West.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 21/6/09 ... utterly stupid guilty pleasure that leaves you feeling a bit dirty.
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra - 9/8/09 ... some spiffing action, Levitt is awesome, but Tatum and the plot are god-awful.
Inglourious Basterds - 16/8/09
Funny People - 30/8/09 ... unmercifully overlong, but still funny with a slice of reality thrown in.
District 9 - 6/9/09
Adventureland - 13/9/09
Gamer - 20/9/09 ... occasionally fun, but clearly lacking due to the directing duo's lack of knowledge about videogaming beyond the 1980s.
Surrogates - 27/9/09 ... churned-out Bruce Willis factory action that didn't live up to an interesting trailer.
The Invention of Lying - 4/10/09 ... neat premise with moments that are crushingly emotional, but the lack of laughs throughout leave this one wanting, so go and watch Ghost Town instead.
Zombieland - 11/10/09
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - 8/11/09
The Men Who Stare At Goats - 15/11/09 ... quirky comedy that never lands the sucker punch, gotta love that bit of Boston though.
2012 - 22/11/09 ... like driving a monster truck made out of cheese burgers, loaded with dynamite, through an exploding volcano made out of buildings that have a propensity to fall over, explode and fall over while exploding.
Avatar (3D) - 20/12/09

Coming soon will be my Top Ten of 2009 list (with Honourable Mentions included), complete with short summaries of why I dug them so much.

All guns blazing...

Shoot Em Up:

I'd heard little bits about this film on the internet, things like "delivers a baby during a gunfight, shags during a gunfight", so I figured this was John Woo meets thrash metal meets speed & cocaine in a blender. And indeed it was with brass-shelled-gusto.

Admittedly I didn't really bother following the twisty-weird-story, I guess every film needs a story (of some sort) even a film that takes indiscriminate action up to 11 like this film does, but who cares when Clive Owen is chomping on carrots and blazing pistols? It's genuinely entertaining, the whole film just getting more and more ridiculous with every passing minute and gunfight.

Clive Owen is beginning to carve out a niche as a gun toting badass of late, what with this and 2005's "Sin City" where he played Dwight. Everybody involved is clearly having the best time ever, and in turn the viewer has a bloody good time too. This film is sheer entertaining committed to celuloid, 'nuff said.

Another slew of new movie viewings...

Well, it's been a while since my last round up of new flicks I've recently checked out, so here goes with as little ramble as possible:

"The Host" - a foreign monster movie without (for a lot of the time anyway) a monster. At least it isn't a guy in a suit falling on styrofoam buildings, but I felt it was overlong, the central plot being a bit too thin and a bit too "meh" in general. I appreciate what it's trying to do, or what it's there to do, but I personally wasn't bothered by it in general. It was okay, but yeah...

"Ocean's 13" - it's certainly not as good as the first in the new-version-chise - but it kicks the nuts right off "Ocean's 12" which was just a bunch of stuff happening in Europe, with the majority of the so-called 12 getting nary-a-look-in...which was partially the case with 13 as well, but nowhere near as much. It felt much more like the first, even if Pacino was kinda wasted for the most part (no real "GREAT ASS!!!" type moments here I'm afraid). Over all, it's fun, it's intensely stylish (if only more Hollywood fair was pieced together this excitingly) and you can kick back to it quite easily, if you liked the first you'll no doubt dig this one...but leave "Ocean's 12" well alone, it's just cack...stylishly edited cack though.

"1408" - John Cusack = awesome. New Stephen King adaptation = awesome. "1408" = alright, a bit up & down. It starts well, and it continues that way at least up until the half-way point, perhaps a little further. But it is as soon as all the really obviously supernatural stuff starts happening (i.e. the stuff beyond a crazy alarm clock and scary window), that it starts to crumble a bit, taking a bit of a detour, and then re-adjusting to a solid-enough ending (part of which I found to be quite visually arresting, many kudos going to Cusak's performance). Definitely worth a watch, not superb, but there are far worse King adaps out there...although "The Shining" this is not.

"Knocked Up" - what can I say? Absolutely balls-out hilarious, maybe a little less-so than "40 Year Old Virgin", but probably only because this film is a chunk more sentimental (but not sickeningly so, rather in a growing up & moving on kinda manner). The extended version is definitely better than the theatrical (same as with "40YrOV"), because there is a decent dollop more in the way of irreverent guy-gang trash talk and dick jokes. Seth Rogen is a LEG-END, nuff said. I absolutely cannot wait to see "Superbad" - NICE!

Yes, I know it seems like all I do is watch movies all day, but I don't ... I play Xbox too! :)