REVIEW OF 2010

Ok ok, so with the end of another year it’s time to take stock and evaluate (apparently). So here goes with my list of the best (and worst) films from the past year. Some of these beauties are reviewed elsewhere on here, some are likely to be forthcoming, and others were just too darn good for words/awful to speak of (translation: I can’t be arsed to review them).

I should definitely have written a review for Boy, because it is a fantastic movie and I utterly loved it. To have not reviewed yet, does not sit well, as it’s defeating the point of the blog to have not written about a film I enjoyed that much. Monsters too should have got a write up after I saw it during the Melbourne International Film Festival (M.I.F.F), but I plum ran out of time. Red Hill is on my reviews agenda.

Anyway onward and upward. 2010 was a good yield overall. I couldn’t pare the list down to 10 so I’ve gone with my top 14 for 2010 in, more or less, descending order (subject to random changes of mind and/or alterations on a whim).

1.    Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
2.    Tron: Legacy
3.    Iron Man 2
4.    Red Hill
5.    Bunny and the Bull (didn’t come out until 2010 in Australia, so I’m including it)
6.    Boy
7.    Monsters
8.    Lemmy
9.    Avatar (late 2009 so I’m including it)
10.    Machete
11.    Animal Kingdom
12.    The American
13.    Four Lions
14.    Predators

Honourable mentions for the movies that just missed out on the top list by a gnat’s cock are:
Hot Tub Time Machine,
The Road,
The Concert.

The disappointments (enjoyable, but not as good as they should have been):
Extract (As a HUGE Mike Judge fan, this left me very cold),
The Expendables and
Kickass.

The shit worst:
The A Team. Displaying a COLOSSAL lack of respect for the original series – from Liam Neeson bad mouthing it in interviews, to lack of theme tune. It missed the point wholesale on just about everything that made The A Team great. Sharlto Copley was admittedly a great Murdock, but otherwise, fuck this movie.

And finally…
Those not included, because I still need to see them:
Piranha,
Easy A,
Winter’s Bone,
Toy Story 3,
Inception,
The Infidel a.k.a. The Reluctant Infidel

SOLOMON KANE

I had wanted to see Solomon Kane because I read that it was a bit like Krull!; and true enough I could see some similarities in a bunch of no-mark British actors stomping through a fairly predictable sword and sorcery plot against some black pupil-ed villans! Although that makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy it, when in actual fact it was rather entertaining. Drawing inspiration from Hammer Horror, set in a frosty, pea soup England and starring James Purefoy in the title role of repentant devil Solomon Kane - looking more than a little bit like a limey Hugh Jackman from Van Helsing, as he stomps around with long hippy hair, jet black cape and a wide brimmed hat.

Based on Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan The Barbarian – thank you very much Wikipedia!) ’s pulp novels, Solomon Kane is a formerly violent and evil man, seeking redemption for his sins having discovered his soul – promised to the Devil – is damned. Choosing a non violent path to penitence, Solomon is befriended by an emigrating family, but slowly drawn back to his violent days of old as Meredith, the daughter of the family is kidnapped by the forces of the evil Sauroman-lite sorcerer Malachi!

Solomon Kane is a pretty well made, enjoyable fantasy movie with some nice special effects and a cracking opening sequence in medieval North Africa. Despite a fairly generic plot it remained heartily entertaining and served up one or two unexpectedly pleasing moments of darkness.

In the minor complaint dept. I felt the hunting montage as Solomon goes after Malachi’s forces was a little cack handed. It was a little too muddled and didn’t give the feeling of passing time. One of the Devils Creatures was also a little to close in design to LOTR’s Balrog mixed with the Golden Army from Hellboy 2. Additionally after Solomon tooled up and hit the road I was left wondering where he got his pair of pistols from?!

Performance wise it featured the ever reliable Pete Postlethwaite, of whom I have been a big fan of ever since his sterling turn as the slimy Obadiah in the Sharpe series! He played the father of the emigrating family who take in Solomon, and he is great value as always.

Max Von Sydow elevates the proceedings with a small-ish role as Solomon’s father, and for fellow Star Trek nerds like me it was cool to see Borg Queen Alice Krige playing the mother of the family.

The denouement was pretty much as predictable as they come and easily guessed, but that’s not such a bad thing in a flick like this. On the plus side I found it very entertaining to be watching a largely British fantasy movie, set in a World of demons and magic, doing its own thing; and it felt like perhaps Krull isn’t too bad of a comparison. I also thought it nodded its stove pipe hat toward Lord Of The Rings and maybe even Willow on occasion!

There’s overtly a bit of Hammer Horror in there and although it’s not perfect – a little light in the plot department, and I felt perhaps Solomon Kane was a little bereft of the necessary gravitas – it was a largely enjoyable watch, and as far as recent movies in this genre go, it was waaaaay better than the Clash Of The Titans remake! Let’s have a sequel please!

IMDB: Solomon Kane


Subsequent to my writing this review (which I penned back in December), the sad news arrived regarding the passing away of Pete Postlethwaite. As noted above, I was a fan, and so it would be remiss not mention how great of an actor he was. Whether he was Sharpe’s arch nemesis, playing The Usual Suspects for saps, hunting dinosaurs in The Lost World, or slumming it in Clash Of The Titans he was always a reliably great presence. One of my favourite roles, like many folk I’m sure, was in Brassed Off – a wonderful film and no mistake. One other thing is resolutely certain – cinema is far, far poorer without Pete Postlethwaite. R.I.P.

TRON : LEGACY

Ok then, allow me – if I may – to set my stall out right from the start. I am unashamedly a Tron fan. This movie and I go waaaay back. This is another meaningful part of my childhood right here. When I was but a young lad in short trousers I owned a Tron duvet cover that was scientifically calibrated to be ‘100% awesome’. It had a picture of Tron on the duvet and lightcycles on the pillowcase. I wish I still had it. My friend, Nick Osbourne, had a fantastic LED Tron game. It played 3 different games on it which was high tech for them days! You could play a lightcycle race, the disc game and finally attempt to defeat the Master Control Program. It was the height of coolness (Nick also had a ‘Snoopy Tennis’ game which likewise very cool but that’s a story for another time). I also purchased the hardcover TRON storybook from Salmon’s Newsagent, and although I am currently unsure of its precise whereabouts, I must faithfully assume it is still somewhere in my parent’s house on account of the fact I have never authorised it for release to either charity shop nor car boot sale. It depicted the movie in storybook form complete with half page and full page stills from the film. In those heady days before the internet and dvd those movie storybooks were the next best thing and I loved them.

Anyway, having been irreparably harmed by The Phantom Menace, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (it’s been two years but I’m still not over it. The pain is still raw) I was excited, yet subconsciously prepared for another such childhood ruining incident. I am therefore incredibly pleased to report that Tron: Legacy was GREAT!!! It was, in the words of Kevin Flynn, "Bio Electric Jazz". It was a party in my EYES and everyone was invited!

In 1989 Kevin Flynn disappears on his way to work. Leap to the present day and his son, Sam Flynn, now the absentee CEO of ENCOM, answers a mysterious page from his father’s office. Investigating the source he finds himself beamed into ‘The Grid’ where he must try to survive and bring home his trapped Father.

I have read differing reports since this came out. Most of the negative criticism revolving around the plot (or lack thereof), but I really don’t know what people were expecting. Reading the inanities of some fool on Aint It Cool News complaining that Jeff Bridges was too Lebowski-like, or missing the point of the cameo/in joke that was Cillian Murphy/Edward Dillinger, I came to realise the review really was just a big fat waste of the internet. Some people are destined to never be happy and completely miss the point of things. Perhaps Tron: Legacy will follow the path of the much maligned, yet criminally underrated Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. Another stunningly beautiful film that makes up for minor plot flimsiness with a wealth of style, attractiveness and downright coolness that most other films can only ever pine after like a kicked dog.

I confess though, I was seduced by the visuals. But isn’t that the POINT of Tron, to a degree? I thought the design and the effects were jaw dropping, yet I relished the little details too, like the slightly distorted computer-y vocal effects, or Clu’s sidekick who looked like a cross between Lobot and one of the baddies from The Last Starfighter.

Jeff Bridges was great as always. Kevin Flynn is an idealistic old hippy and therefore you can't fail to think of The Dude. I admit when he faced off against Clu I was half expecting him to say "Well, yeah that's just like, your opinion, man"!! The CGI generated, fresh faced Jeff Bridges also worked remarkably well as Clu. Seeing as how Clu was a computer generated character within The Grid, the slightly unnatural look to him worked nicely. Garret Hedlund was solid as Sam Flynn, and Olivia Wilde mooned around for 2 hours with big doe eyes and an angular haircut and made every Tron nerd’s heart and brain explode simultaneously. Michael Sheen was superb as the Bowie-like Castor/Zuse. Stealing every scene he was in, and clearly having as much fun making the film as I had watching it.

Seeing Tron: Legacy in 3D IMAX, you really get the full benefit of how utterly STUNNING this movie looks. It made me feel a bit like the pretentious kid from American Beauty watching a plastic bag swoop around a car park on the wind. Just stop for a second and appreciate how incredible this film looks! Seeing Gem (Beau Garrett)’s mesmerising, spandex clad bum,  on a screen that was seven storey’s high (the 3rd largest in the World, no less) makes you realise what a wonderful World we live in. As the boffins toiled away for many moons (no pun intended) to develop the 3D technology, I wonder if they could ever have envisioned how it would have been put to such perfect a use as this. I’m sure you will join me next year in putting forward the names of those scientists for a Nobel Prize nomination. Humanity as a whole benefits from this.

From the moment the titles rolled, I was down with this movie. When the Lightcycles appeared for the first time I was grinning from ear to ear like a lunatic. The Daft Punk score is killer. Perfect almost. They put in a cameo at Castor’s sexy computer party, and channel the long lost mojo of John Carpenter. If there is any doubt from you at this point, let me spell it out: this is an exceedingly wonderful thing!

(As an aside I like to think that perhaps John Carpenter lost his movie mojo after going for a swim. Having completed his last great work, They Live, he popped into the local council swimming baths on the way home to do a few lengths. Having towelled off, dried his wavy 80’s lion hair, and sculpted his Fu Manchu moustache into its proper glory, I conceive that he got up to leave taking the wrong bag home with him! Instead of the bag containing his movie mojo, he returned home with someone’s wet swimming trunks and has, for the last 20 odd years, been making movies with a pair of damp speedos in the stead of his own raging cinematic genius. It would explain a great many things. Quite how this happened however, we can never be 100% certain. I like to think he picked up a similar looking, but incorrect bag. Perhaps it was the type of standard issue waterproof duffel bag we were issued in primary school. Perhaps it had a picture of a footballer on the front in order to make it more exciting. Whatever actually happened, it means John Carpenter’s mojo may still be in that municipal pool. Perhaps chucked on top of a locker by a school bully, or resting peacefully at the bottom of the changing room urinal alongside a solitary, moulded stud, Gola football boot.)

Finally I liked how it was titled Tron: Legacy and not something dreadfully unimaginative like Tron 2. Whenever there is a dismal numerical sequel title (hello ‘Die Hard 4.0’), all I can ever think about is Saul Rubinek’s quote from True Romance: “I have more taste in my penis”!

The title also helped the movie feel, not like a sequel, but like an extension of the story. The whole thing looked top to bottom phenomenal, and as a sequel, even though the story wasn't the strongest, it WORKED in the context of the first and didn't feel cheap! It was refreshing to see some last vestige of my childhood movie love not shit upon for a change, as well as being thoroughly enjoyable all round.

IMDB: Tron : Legacy

BUNNY AND THE BULL

This is a real gem of a film from director Paul King, whose work on the Mighty Boosh seems to have served, rather unfairly, as the main marketing point for this movie. There’s some Boosh styled silliness for sure and Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett provide laughs in some excellent supporting roles, but any comparisons would be misleading because the film is a warm, funny, inspired vision that is equal parts as amusing as it is poignant; and it should be judged very much on it’s own inventive merits.

It’s a tale told in flashback by Stephen, a lonely shut-in, recounting his travels around Europe with best mate Bunny, and Eloisa the fiery Spanish waitress they meet along the way. Essentially the film is a journey around Stephen’s mind with fantastic flourishes of imagination – a seafood restaurant is quite literally sketched out behind them, a horse race rendered in Captain Pugwash styled animation,  or the fearsome bull of the title depicted as a stomping, snorting, stop-motion amalgamation of cogs and scissors. This is a visually stunning movie with a great heart, and it’s a story well told.

It is also, crucially, very funny. Some great cameos abound, from Noel Fielding’s Spanish bullfighter to Julian Barrett’s disturbing canine obsessed hobo. With Richard Ayoade’s fantastically mundane Shoe Museum guide being the real standout.

There’s a nod to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as we traverse Simon’s memories and as a comparison, Eternal Sunshine stands as good one. Both movies blend the laughs and tears of the downtrodden hero to good effect.

In trying not to give away too much, it becomes hard to give away anything at all. Although the movie is best approached that way, it may explain why it was a hard sell. Bunny and the Bull is a film that defies categorisation – is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? The answer is both. It moves effortlessly between being deliriously funny and genuinely touching poignancy. But the most important thing to take from it is joy at a film basking in inventiveness and creativity. They have crafted a beautiful, humorous tale without straying into either weak humour nor maudlin heart-string tugging. We have a film setting out to be original and unique and largely succeeding on all counts.

This film is warm, funny and inspired and deserves to be seen by anyone craving an example of film with boundless humour and imagination. For my money, it’s one of the films of the year. Wonderful.

IMDB: Bunny And The Bull

THE AMERICAN

Directed by Anton Corbijn (who made the excellent Joy Division biopic Control) and starring George Clooney. The American is a very slow burn take on a conventional assassin-tries-to-leave-life-of-crime-behind movie.

It’s a slow, tense and arresting movie. After a stunning opening sequence, from which you feel like almost ANYTHING could happen, we follow Clooney’s ‘American’ into hiding in a small Italian town. The slowness of the film works very nicely from here on in, ratcheting up and grinding out the tension toward the movie’s inevitable finale.

In parts it is reminiscent of The Day of the Jackal, as Jack/Edward (Clooney) slowly constructs and tests the weapon he is building. His assassin’s life is one of meticulous solitude, and Corbijn makes the construction of this fearsome bespoke weapon look like beautiful craftsmanship in the hands of a master artisan.

Clooney’s character is a total blank. By the end of the movie we know virtually nothing more about him than we did at the start, other than a few (mostly implied) base facts. We learn early on that he is a solitary man, who will make the necessary hard decisions in order to keep things that way. However as he whiles away the days in the sleepy Italian town, his final job seeing him fashion a weapon in isolated seclusion, against his better judgement he finds himself with not only a friend, in the shape of the portly local priest; but also a super hot Italian sexpot girlfriend (Violante Placido) who lives her life with a typically Euro ‘clothes optional’ outlook.

Anton Corbijn has, unsurprisingly, a great eye for the visual. Whether the camera is lingering on Clooney’s impressive exercise regimen, peering through a car windshield at a motorway tunnel for a striking credit sequence, or taking in a bird’s eye view of the stunning Italian landscapes - like a feature film version of the ‘Earth From Above’ book –  the film is quite often fantastic to look at. If the story itself is perhaps a tad generic – hitman trying to leave ‘the life’ – then it is done with a panache that renders any genre staples as merely minor concerns.

Some berk in the cinema loudly denounced it as ‘shit’ the minute the credits rolled, but the more I think back on this movie, the more I like it. It’s almost like an art house action movie! For all of it’s slow pace, the attention never wanders, and at the end of it we are left with an enigmatic, stylish take on the hit man movie.

IMDB: The American

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

Let us be clear from the start. George A. Romero can rightfully lay claim to the status of ‘legendary’. His peerless, stunning, horror-classic triple whammy of Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead and Day Of The Dead have him rightfully revered across the globe. Those films are every bit as good as their reputation would have you believe and he should rake in the plaudits for the rest of his natural life and beyond.

Something, however, is rotten in Denmark.  Land Of The Dead was a towering disappointment. Diary Of The Dead was one of the most turgid pieces of crapulence I’ve ever had the misfortune to suffer through, and now here we have Survival Of The Dead, which I am sorry to say continues Mr Romero on his downward trajectory.

A gang of faux military survivors find themselves headed toward an island in order to take refuge from the zombie hordes. The island is essentially controlled by two feuding family men and the survivors find themselves caught up in the middle of it all.

At times Survival Of The Dead dared to suggest it might end up being halfway decent. Unfortunately it got quickly bogged down in a mess of appalling stereotypes, shit C.G.I., lame 'big noise scares' (come on George you're better than that), and a totally dumbfuck plot. The lowest ebb occurs when you think a main character has been killed, only to discover that they have, I shit you not, an identical twin!!!!

On the plus side it wasn't as bad as Diary of the Dead, but then neither are 99.9% of all the films ever made in the history of the Universe.

I really don’t know what to make of Mr George A. Romero these days. I had compared his recent career to George Lucas, and his own one man mission to destroy every bit of goodwill that people still harbour for him. But at least George Romero isn’t going back and tinkering with his own movies, or kicking a fond childhood memory square in the ballbag. So comparisons to the devil George Lucas are still a ways off. George Romero is still at least TRYING to recapture what made him great in the first place. And I appreciate that, I really do. At the risk of mixing my metaphors, if George Lucas is the Emperor, then George A. Romero is Darth Vader – I sense there is still good left in him.

Nevertheless Romero does seem to be following the ‘John Carpenter 2 Point Career Progression Plan’:

1) Make stunning, genre defining films of complete unparalleled awesomeness.
2) Suddenly and without warning, go completely shit.

It may be best for all concerned if Mr George A. Romero were to drift gracefully into retirement. He doesn’t have to get a ‘real job’. No one wants that. But based on his early works, here is a man who should never have to buy another drink or steak dinner for the rest of his life. Combine that with a couple of conventions a year and he’d be all set.

It must be noted that Survival Of The Dead is at least watchable, which is more than can be said for Diary Of The Dead, but when you compare it to Romero’s back catalogue it’s just not cutting the mustard.

IMDB: Survival Of The Dead

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

To sum it up this film is one long, 2 hour-odd shouty argument, made to feel as if it lasts for about 15 billion years! Two married arseholes, hector back and forth at each other about their first world problems until you just can't take any more of it. It's full of 'emoting' and the sort of bellowed monologue that is like catnip to the serious actor. No doubt when the script came through both Winslet and DiCaprio probably thought it had 'Oscar' written through it like a stick of rock. Unfortunately the dialogue is the kind of preachy eulogising that nobody in reality actually ever speaks like, and whilst I concede the time period was far more rigid regarding the roles of men and women in society, with two central characters who care nothing for each other, it begs the question of why the fuck should the audience? Tedious.

IMDB: Revolutionary Road