I haven't done that for a while.

( Cut because this got long. )

Okay...I guess that was my day. Now I'm off to burn Simon in effigy on my Samhain fire.

Happy Halloween, all!

Crossposted from my Dreamwidth journal. You can comment here or at Dreamwidth.

Tags: movies:reviews

This isn't really a review - just a quick rec.

I just got home after seeing Public Enemies. I knew I'd enjoy it. I mean, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in the same film? It's not just the eye candy aspect: both men, in general, have really good taste in the projects they pick.

And I was not disappointed. The film does a great job of pulling you into the period. Johnny is amazing as John Dillinger especially in two particular scenes toward the end. The script pays a lot more attention to his character than to Chris Bale's, but Chris' performance, too, was very good. Subtle. I'm a bit torn on the way his character was treated. I would have liked to see a bit more of the human side of him - all the movie really shows is this dedicated cop - but on the other hand, movies that focus too much on the personal tick me off. The happy medium is hard to find.

The one disappointment was that the two male leads didn't get much time on screen together. And that's only disappointing becauce I was looking for the slash potential :-) Which I think is there in the way it is in any hunter/hunted relationship, but I was hoping for just a little bit more...

But seriously - good film, definitely one to see.

Franklyn is a British-made, independent film. I didn't have high expectations: the movie poster makes it look like a crappy horror movie and the trailer, though intriguing enough to get me to see the film, makes it look like pretentious arthouse nonsense. But it's neither of those things and I really enjoyed it.

The film is set in modern day London and a parallel fantasy world called Meanwhile City. The plot is made up of four apparently unconnected stories: Emilia (Eva Green) is a depressed goth art student who films herself attempting suicide as an "art project"; Peter (Bernard Hill) is a father searching for his missing son; Milo (Sam Riley) is a young man whose fiancée left him at the altar (all of these plots are set in modern London) and in the dark world of Meanwhile City, John Preest (Ryan Phillippe) is a masked man planning an assassination in revenge for the death of a young girl.

( Cut for length and some spoilers ) if you enjoy movies that play with reality, like Pan's Labyrinth or Vanilla Sky, or if you love the rusty-gothic visuals (think of a steampunk version of Chris Nolan's Gotham City and you'll be on the right track) you might like to give it a try. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

Before I launch into a review of this movie, I should confess that I was on drugs when I saw it. Painkillers, that is, but it meant that I kept falling asleep while watching. This is not a comment on the movie, it's just that Morgan+painkillers+dark cinema=sleep.

So, Push. You know how trailers for RomCom always seem to put the entire movie into sixty seconds, so there's actually no need to actually see the film? Well, Push is almost the exact opposite of that. The plot synopsis given in the trailer (at least the one I saw) has very little resemblance to the actual movie plot...unless maybe I slept through more than I think.

( Cut for length and movie spoilers ) I would recommend this movie, but I'd recommend it as one to watch on DVD. The complex plot would be easier to follow in that format and unlike many movies I don't think it would lose much on the small screen.

I promised a proper review of Friday The Thirteenth, so here goes. This is a re-imagining rather than a remake, with bits and pieces from several of the old F13 movies all thrown into one. I'll say at the outset that I'm not a big fan of the slasher genre and that I've seen only the original Friday the Thirteenth, not parts two to gazillion.

In the cheaply-made, effects-lite original, a group of young people come to the abandoned Camp Crystal Lake with the intention of re-opening the camp. They all die, murdered by the mother of a boy who drowned in the lake because the camp counselors were making out instead of watching him. At the end of the movie, the last (female) survivor of the group kills the killer and appears to hallucinate the dead boy coming out of the lake. There is no Jason (except that blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot at the end, and no hockey mask. The female killer actually makes it quite a subversive example of the genre.

By contrast, the new version is made by Michael Bay's company, Platinum Dunes. Bay has a producer credit but it's unclear how much input he had on the actual film. Platinum Dunes is known for these remakes and some have been very popular with genre fans, so we should expect a high quality, if unimaginative, film with plenty of nudity and gore.

Did we get it?

( Film spoilers ahoy! )

Well...it's a better movie than My Bloody Valentine. Actually, for a Platinum Dunes film it was downright plotty.

Am I missing the point if I say there was a bit too much death? I don't think so. There's a point beyond which the body count just gets boring. But I did enjoy it, and there were a few surprises - not all of them the horrible kind. Also, it was genuinely funny in a couple of places.

More to say when I'm a bit more awake. Except, you know what really disappointed me? ( Serious spoiler for both boys' films - think before you click! )

My movie of the week was Revolutionary Road - what a depressing film! Depressing isn't necessarily bad; there are a few downbeat films I really like, but this one didn't make the list. The performances are very, very good.

I'm not a huge fan of Leonardo di Caprio but that's mostly down to the kind of movies he's been making lately; this is a break from type and he really nailed the role. Kate Winslet is just as impressive. There's also a stellar supporting cast but Kate and Leo really have to carry the film.

But the plot is not a happy story and the pacing drags a lot, especially in the middle. I think maybe it'll be a better movie on DVD, when you can pause it an make a cuppa when it gets slow, and maybe if I were in a better mood I'd have enjoyed it more, but...no. I won't go so far as to say it's boring, just slow.

I think that, if the pacing were better it could have been a powerful film. The story is good, the cast is impressive and the cinematography is gorgeous. The music is irritating, but that may have been intentional, given the whole theme of being trapped and unhappy. The themes are familiar: the whole thing about being stuck in a marriage that's not working, about the sacrifices you have to make, about youthful dreams and which ones are realistic and which just aren't. There's also the abortion issue which I think the film deals with very well, but that aspect would have worked better if the movie were set in a different era...or perhaps if the historical context were better established. I had the impression that there was something significant about the context of that discussion in the film, and I wasn't getting it.

But basically...yeah. Good film, but very depressing and not really for me.

*

I have hurt my foot. I can't exactly blame it on the snow: I didn't fall or anything. But I have only one pair of boots suitable for this kind of weather, and I'd forgotten that there's a good reason I haven't worn them for two years. I'm not sure how to describe the injury: there's no swelling but it feels like I've badly sprained my big toe. I can't put my weight on it. I shouldn't have gone out today, I guess, but I figured I'd be sitting down in the cinema and would be sitting down if I stayed home, so why not? I am officially an idiot.

Mel, I'm taking your advice and some of Mum's painkillers :-)

I have also chucked those accursed boots in the bin. If we get more snow, I'll just have to wear my usual mules and carry spare socks.

*

My new laptop is coming on Tuesday! I can't wait! I still haven't picked a name for her. I thought maybe Cameron (as in the Terminator) but that could be asking for even more trouble than naming the first one HAL.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

You can keep your Twilights, this is a vampire movie.

( Cut for length )

Two more movies I've seen this month:

( The Reader )

( Slumdog Millionaire )

And one stage show:

( Circus of Horrors )

Poltergeist was made in 1982. I was ten. It was probably two or three years later when I saw it for the first time: it would have been a video rental. Horror movies were a staple of my childhood. I started watching Hammer House of Horror when I couldn't sleep at nights when I was about seven. We got our first VCR in the days before video rentals required an age-related certificate and I saw most of the old classics: Halloween, Friday the Thirteenth, The Exorcist as well as a couple of the movies that were later banned when the BBFC started certificating video releases.

Very few films from those days frightened me. There are not many I even remember. I remember one Hammer film featuring an African fetish (doll, not sexual); I remember An American Werewolf in London mostly for the bad joke the guy in the pub tells before everything goes bad ("Remember the Alamo"); and I remember Nightmare on Elm Street as the movie that made me give up on the genre for good...or so I said at the time.

Poltergeist is one of the few horror movies of my childhood that actually scared me. Over the past couple of years it's been shown regularly on Film Four and I keep missing it. So I finally bought it on Blu Ray DVD (bringing my total Blu Ray collection to three - it's huge!).

Rewatching over the past couple of days, I was struck by how completely outside the usual conventions of the genre this film is. Read a summary and it sounds like a typical haunted house movie. It's even got a couple of sequels which, as is traditional, are not especially good. It's got the usual quota of screams and special effects and made-you-jump moments. And yet...

( Five reasons Poltergeist is awesome. )

Lastly: the print of the film was remastered for Blu-Ray and it really shows. I don't think the effects were re-done but there's probably some digital enhancement. The quality of this new print is fantastic. I can't comment on the sound so much as there's too much ambient noise in my house for me to judge properly, but the picture is pin-sharp and has real depth, and the special effects are actually just as good as modern CGI. Totally recommended...and just what I needed this week.