![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Some films seen
Aug. 6th, 2013 08:34 amI seem to see most of my "first run" movies on planes these days, so the trup to Bermuda was the opportunity to catch up with a few:
Gangster Squad (dir Ruben Fleischer, starring Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn) is a very fictional account of Mickey Cohen's attempt to establish a mob in Los Angeles post World War II. I had assumed while watching it that it would be termed a "thriller-comedy", as Penn and Brolin appear to be having a lot of fun in the making of it, and Gosling too seems to have tongue firmly in cheek. But apparently it was meant to be a serious film. I see that Fleischer's earlier work (30 Minutes Or Less, Zombieland) have a "comedy" tag attached to them. So either Fleischer wanted to make a serious movie, but couldn't help put in comic touches, or he intended the comic touches to be in their from the first.
Mireille Enos (the US version of The Killing) is always watchable. Nick Nolte is the haggard old cop.
A better film than the critics give it credit for, but Sean Penn will not be looking for any Harvey Milk-like awards from this one.
Side Effects (dire Stephen Soderbergh) is a light-hearted crime caper that tries to say something serious about anti-depressants. Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones are, as ever, watchable, and Soderbergh is an accomplished director, playing his normal trick of taking the film in a direction that you do not expect. But the film suffers from a common problem these days -- none of the characters is particularly likeable. "Flawed" heroes or heroines are all very good, but self-centred tossers just leave you hoping that they all die at the end in some horrible kitchen-blender-related accident.
Django Unchained is an absolute gem, easily Tarantino's best effort for many years. Utterly top-notch acting all round, with Christolph Waltz and Jamie Foxx quite sensational in the lead. Tarantino pays homage to other films left, right and centre. As usual, the soundtrack is stunning. There are moments of horror, comedy, action, drama and tragedy. It's a nearly-three-hour movie that, when it finished, I was tempted to watch through again. And it's a long time since that happened.
The Hobbit, contrariwise, feels every minute of its (long) length. Watchable, well-acted, but, let's be honest, if it wasn't following on from the Lord of the Rings, this film would have sunk without trace. Tolkien wrote this as a children's quest tale, and it shows.
Down Terrace, A Field In England and Sightseers are the three Ben Wheatley efforts that I watched, despite my doubts about Kill List.
Down Terrace, the first, is easily the most straightforward and is great to watch. Marvellous acting all round, with Julia Deakin (the landlady from "Spaced") as the matriarch, Robert Hill as the father, and Robin Hill as the son in a rather dysfunctional crime family. The film cleverly dismantles the myths of "honour among thieves" and large "ill-gotten gains" from "career criminals". TBH, they are all fairly rubbish at it, but, hey, that's what they do. And that's what makes the film so good. Stong support from Tony Way, David Schaal and Michael Smiley.
Sightseers had me rather doubtful at first, wondering if I'd headed into an early Mike Leigh effort on acid. But Steve Oram and Alice Lowe brought me round, with the film taking off as Alice Lowe's Tina character stops being a wimpish girl and becomes a manipulating woman. It's a fairly thin premise, based on a couple of characters created by Lowe and Oram for their stand-up act, but Wheatley works it well. I watched this from Lovefilm, which meant that I had the added joy of the "Making of" Documentary, which is as enjoyable as the film itself. Wheatley comes across as a great character - dry, self-deprecating, and yet ever-optimistic that he will get the film made, despite the (many) obstacles that fall in his path. Such as trying to film three people in a small caravan. "Yes, I am sitting on the toilet" says director Wheatley. ... Pause ..... "I'm not having a poo, though.".
Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham, 2010) is a $50,000 micro-budget movie made by Dunham before she got snapped up for the cult TV series "Girls". It stars Dunham as Aura, a 22-year old back in Tribeca, New York, at her photographer mum's apartment (played by her real mum) and her 17-year-old sister (played by her real sister). Men will spend most of the movie thinking that Aura is a real twat who is self-obsessed, makes ridiculous mistakes and then enters into the well-known land of cognitive dissonance and "why can't you understand me?". Women, meanwhile, will identify with her and feel great sympathy with the problems she faces being a graduate of Film Studies with a successful mother and no prospects of gainful employment (equals, being paid a lot for not doing much work) as a first job. As the mother observes, sense of entitlement rules.
And yet, Aura DOES manage to come across as a sympathetic character, mainly because, even though she is a bit selfish, she is also lovable because of her vulnerability, and her kind-heartedness is exploited by a couple of, basically, useless men and another even more self-obsessed woman. The problem with Aura's kind-heartedness is that she has nothing of her own to be kind-hearted with (except her body), so she ends up being generous with her mother's wine, apartment, bedroom, whatever. Somethings which, quite reasonably, the mother takes exception to, and which Aura cannot understand her mother taking exception to.
It's important not to confuse Dunham (here, and in Girls with the real Lena Dunham, even though there is an element of autobiography in both the film and the TV series. I was reminded most of early Henry Jaglom stuff, although, TBH, she is not yet up to the genius that was Sitting Ducks. And, yes, I did spend much of the movie thinking to myself "oh, god, stop whining you privileged little git", whereas I suspect I should have been thinking "oh, yes, I know EXACTLY what you mean!".
KM 31 (Rigoberto Castaneda, Mexico, 2006) is a horror movie based on the old premise of ghosts on the highway. In fact, there's not much original in the whole film. But what there is, is done very stylishly. The title of the film refers to a spot on the road where mysterious road accidents happen. It turns out that the road is on top of an old river where a woman drowned herself and her young son in the 17th century after being betrayed by a Spanish soldier. Well, you get the idea. Good fun.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23580075
Nothing could indicate more than the quotes of politicians in this article both their paucity of imagination and their utter uselessness when it comes to things that matter. Both sides want us to pretend we are richer than we are, spending money that we haven't earnt but which have obtained through asset bubbles. Both sides blame the deterioration in living standards on the other side, rather than on our own desire for consumption today for something the next generation will have to earn tomorrow. Everyone wants to describe "spending" as "investment", although I'm still awaiting dividends on that so-called "investment". Everyone agrees that someone else should cut back. No-one wants to spend any of their own money. There's no such thing as "government" money. Either it comes from us today, or it comes from workers tomorrow. We are happily borrowing from our children's future for an NHS which burns money and an education system that is hardly even a system.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Gangster Squad (dir Ruben Fleischer, starring Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn) is a very fictional account of Mickey Cohen's attempt to establish a mob in Los Angeles post World War II. I had assumed while watching it that it would be termed a "thriller-comedy", as Penn and Brolin appear to be having a lot of fun in the making of it, and Gosling too seems to have tongue firmly in cheek. But apparently it was meant to be a serious film. I see that Fleischer's earlier work (30 Minutes Or Less, Zombieland) have a "comedy" tag attached to them. So either Fleischer wanted to make a serious movie, but couldn't help put in comic touches, or he intended the comic touches to be in their from the first.
Mireille Enos (the US version of The Killing) is always watchable. Nick Nolte is the haggard old cop.
A better film than the critics give it credit for, but Sean Penn will not be looking for any Harvey Milk-like awards from this one.
Side Effects (dire Stephen Soderbergh) is a light-hearted crime caper that tries to say something serious about anti-depressants. Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones are, as ever, watchable, and Soderbergh is an accomplished director, playing his normal trick of taking the film in a direction that you do not expect. But the film suffers from a common problem these days -- none of the characters is particularly likeable. "Flawed" heroes or heroines are all very good, but self-centred tossers just leave you hoping that they all die at the end in some horrible kitchen-blender-related accident.
Django Unchained is an absolute gem, easily Tarantino's best effort for many years. Utterly top-notch acting all round, with Christolph Waltz and Jamie Foxx quite sensational in the lead. Tarantino pays homage to other films left, right and centre. As usual, the soundtrack is stunning. There are moments of horror, comedy, action, drama and tragedy. It's a nearly-three-hour movie that, when it finished, I was tempted to watch through again. And it's a long time since that happened.
The Hobbit, contrariwise, feels every minute of its (long) length. Watchable, well-acted, but, let's be honest, if it wasn't following on from the Lord of the Rings, this film would have sunk without trace. Tolkien wrote this as a children's quest tale, and it shows.
Down Terrace, A Field In England and Sightseers are the three Ben Wheatley efforts that I watched, despite my doubts about Kill List.
Down Terrace, the first, is easily the most straightforward and is great to watch. Marvellous acting all round, with Julia Deakin (the landlady from "Spaced") as the matriarch, Robert Hill as the father, and Robin Hill as the son in a rather dysfunctional crime family. The film cleverly dismantles the myths of "honour among thieves" and large "ill-gotten gains" from "career criminals". TBH, they are all fairly rubbish at it, but, hey, that's what they do. And that's what makes the film so good. Stong support from Tony Way, David Schaal and Michael Smiley.
Sightseers had me rather doubtful at first, wondering if I'd headed into an early Mike Leigh effort on acid. But Steve Oram and Alice Lowe brought me round, with the film taking off as Alice Lowe's Tina character stops being a wimpish girl and becomes a manipulating woman. It's a fairly thin premise, based on a couple of characters created by Lowe and Oram for their stand-up act, but Wheatley works it well. I watched this from Lovefilm, which meant that I had the added joy of the "Making of" Documentary, which is as enjoyable as the film itself. Wheatley comes across as a great character - dry, self-deprecating, and yet ever-optimistic that he will get the film made, despite the (many) obstacles that fall in his path. Such as trying to film three people in a small caravan. "Yes, I am sitting on the toilet" says director Wheatley. ... Pause ..... "I'm not having a poo, though.".
Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham, 2010) is a $50,000 micro-budget movie made by Dunham before she got snapped up for the cult TV series "Girls". It stars Dunham as Aura, a 22-year old back in Tribeca, New York, at her photographer mum's apartment (played by her real mum) and her 17-year-old sister (played by her real sister). Men will spend most of the movie thinking that Aura is a real twat who is self-obsessed, makes ridiculous mistakes and then enters into the well-known land of cognitive dissonance and "why can't you understand me?". Women, meanwhile, will identify with her and feel great sympathy with the problems she faces being a graduate of Film Studies with a successful mother and no prospects of gainful employment (equals, being paid a lot for not doing much work) as a first job. As the mother observes, sense of entitlement rules.
And yet, Aura DOES manage to come across as a sympathetic character, mainly because, even though she is a bit selfish, she is also lovable because of her vulnerability, and her kind-heartedness is exploited by a couple of, basically, useless men and another even more self-obsessed woman. The problem with Aura's kind-heartedness is that she has nothing of her own to be kind-hearted with (except her body), so she ends up being generous with her mother's wine, apartment, bedroom, whatever. Somethings which, quite reasonably, the mother takes exception to, and which Aura cannot understand her mother taking exception to.
It's important not to confuse Dunham (here, and in Girls with the real Lena Dunham, even though there is an element of autobiography in both the film and the TV series. I was reminded most of early Henry Jaglom stuff, although, TBH, she is not yet up to the genius that was Sitting Ducks. And, yes, I did spend much of the movie thinking to myself "oh, god, stop whining you privileged little git", whereas I suspect I should have been thinking "oh, yes, I know EXACTLY what you mean!".
KM 31 (Rigoberto Castaneda, Mexico, 2006) is a horror movie based on the old premise of ghosts on the highway. In fact, there's not much original in the whole film. But what there is, is done very stylishly. The title of the film refers to a spot on the road where mysterious road accidents happen. It turns out that the road is on top of an old river where a woman drowned herself and her young son in the 17th century after being betrayed by a Spanish soldier. Well, you get the idea. Good fun.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23580075
Nothing could indicate more than the quotes of politicians in this article both their paucity of imagination and their utter uselessness when it comes to things that matter. Both sides want us to pretend we are richer than we are, spending money that we haven't earnt but which have obtained through asset bubbles. Both sides blame the deterioration in living standards on the other side, rather than on our own desire for consumption today for something the next generation will have to earn tomorrow. Everyone wants to describe "spending" as "investment", although I'm still awaiting dividends on that so-called "investment". Everyone agrees that someone else should cut back. No-one wants to spend any of their own money. There's no such thing as "government" money. Either it comes from us today, or it comes from workers tomorrow. We are happily borrowing from our children's future for an NHS which burns money and an education system that is hardly even a system.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
