Below is my list of the top ten films I have personally enjoyed the most this year. As always I don't claim them to be the best but simply the ones I personally liked the most.
10. Mary and the Witch's Flower
9. Cam
8. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
7. The Shape of Water
6. The Night Comes For Us
5. First Man
4. Avengers Infinity War
3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2. Revenge
1. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Showing posts with label best. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best. Show all posts
Monday, 31 December 2018
Monday, 1 January 2018
MY FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2017
Here are my ten favourite flicks of the year. As always I don't claim them as the best films but simply the ones I personally enjoyed the most and have made the strongest connection with.
10. LOGAN
James Mangold's X-Men western proved to be tough, violent, emotional and an all round terrific send-off for Hugh Jackman as everyone's favourite badass Canadian mutant. Kudos to everyone but Sir Pat Stew turns in an Oscar worthy performance as a fading Professor X.
9. WONDER WOMAN
Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot proved to be a powerful force this year in bringing the Amazon princess to the screen in an exciting adventure which has something to say about how we see and treat each other. Gadot is fantastic in proving that the greatest of heroes are not just defined by their physical prowess and bravery but also by the tenderness and love in their hearts. Oh and the No Man's Land sequence is an all timer.
8. BABY DRIVER
Edgar Wright's action, romance, car chase, crime caper all set to a specific (and killer) soundtrack is pure genius film-making and an absolute blast from start to finish. The entire cast are terrific but the star of the movie is Wright and his utterly original and highly specific style of film-making.
7. GET OUT
2017 was a strong year for horror and Jordan Peele making his writing/directing debut hit a home run with this sly, subversive, darkly humorous, grimly disturbing racial satire. Asked what genre of film Get Out is Peele apparently said it's a documentary. That tells you all you need to know. I genuinely had no idea where this was going when I watched it and I was completely surprised and creeped out by the revelation. In the lead role of Chris Daniel Kaluuya is fantastic as are the rest of the supporting cast. I can't wait to see what Peele does next.
6. PREVENGE
Another horror from a debut director, this time Alice Lowe (Sightseers) who brings us another absolutely fantastic film. Widowed pregnant mum Ruth (Lowe) goes on a murder spree apparently being coached/controlled by her unborn child. Weird, brutal, sad and very blackly funny, Prevenge slowly unfolds its story and the motives behind the murders as it builds to its dark sad climax. Lowe is fantastic both in front and behind the camera and I was utterly transfixed for the full 90 mins.
5. YOUR NAME
Makoto Shinkai's tale of teenage life, gender body swap, time travel and natural disaster is a magical, whimsical and genuinely affecting delight. Shinkai juggles many balls with this film including different genres, characters, tones and doesn't drop a single one. Yes, there are one or two plot elements which require some mild suspension of disbelief but the overall film is so warm and magical and the characters so likeable and sympathetic that you just go with it as it builds to its achingly emotional finale. Your Name a beautiful film both in what it is saying and how it says it. The animation is gorgeous and the ideas and themes stay with you. A massive hit in Japan and China, Your Name deserved to be huge everywhere.
4. BLADE RUNNER 2049
Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival) does it again in this sequel to the classic 1982 original. Against all the odds Villeneuve crafted a sequel that honours the original film beautifully while also building smartly upon its ideas and themes in a completely logical way. The film looks gorgeous and plays out in a slow, coldly methodical way, layering on its intelligent sci-fi concepts while never forgetting to allow its excellent cast led by Ryan Gosling to show the humanity )or lack of) within machine and man. You just don't get films like this anymore – big budget slow, smart sci-fi aimed at intelligent adults. Not surprising that it wasn't a big hit, just depressing.
3. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Writer/Director Rian Johnson took the set-up from The Force Awakens and quite literally tossed it off a cliff. And I bloody loved it. You see, Johnson knows that for SW to survive and to continue, it needs to change, to grow. And growth is often painful. He wasn't content to just provide fan service and rehash old material, albeit in slightly different ways. That's boring. No, he wanted to push SW forward and force (pun intended) it to change and grow beyond what it has always been. And part of that means burning down what has come before. Get rid of dogma. Banish rigid structures. No more simple and easy black and white, good and bad. Democratise the galaxy and also the Force. Effectively Johnson has reset the SW universe. He's wiped away the definitions of the past which always dominated the future and has thrown that future out to everyone in the SW universe and said, “Here you go. It belongs to all of you now. Do what you will.” I just hope with Ep.9 J.J. doesn't just fall back on standard rehash and make it all for nought.
2. mother!
Darren Aronofsky is a film-maker with a distinct and uncompromising voice. I am a big fan. His latest is a dark, violent, twisted, provocative allegory depicting creation, the rise of humanity, the rise of religion (and religious conflict) and the brutal impact of mankind upon the planet we inhabit and rely on to survive. It is not an easy watch and I totally get why many do not like it but I was riveted right from the start to the very end. It's a bold film to make especially when you consider it is from a major studio, had a sizeable budget and boasted a big star in the lead. The entire cast is fantastic and led by the always terrific Jennifer Lawrence as the physical embodiment of Mother Earth. Horrifically mesmerising and thought provoking stuff.
1. DUNKIRK
Christopher Nolan is the man! This time he brings his amazing technical and story telling skills to depicting the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940. Nolan is not interested in politics or in character here, purely in the experiential. He provides the situation, the stakes and drops the audience right in the middle for an intense, propulsive, palm sweatingly taught ticking clock of a war film. As often with Nolan he uses time and perception as story telling devices, cutting between a week spent with the soldiers on the beach trying to survive, a day with Mark Rylance crossing the channel in his small boat and one hour with Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden flying their Spitfires and dogfighting the Luftwaffe over the evacuation below before all three time periods are eventually brought expertly together for the finale. The film is a marvel of technical expertise and of stripped down yet also beautifully complex storytelling. The cinematography by Hoyt Van Hoytema is stunning as is the visceral ticking clock score by Hans Zimmer. Pure cinema.
10. LOGAN
James Mangold's X-Men western proved to be tough, violent, emotional and an all round terrific send-off for Hugh Jackman as everyone's favourite badass Canadian mutant. Kudos to everyone but Sir Pat Stew turns in an Oscar worthy performance as a fading Professor X.
9. WONDER WOMAN
Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot proved to be a powerful force this year in bringing the Amazon princess to the screen in an exciting adventure which has something to say about how we see and treat each other. Gadot is fantastic in proving that the greatest of heroes are not just defined by their physical prowess and bravery but also by the tenderness and love in their hearts. Oh and the No Man's Land sequence is an all timer.
8. BABY DRIVER
Edgar Wright's action, romance, car chase, crime caper all set to a specific (and killer) soundtrack is pure genius film-making and an absolute blast from start to finish. The entire cast are terrific but the star of the movie is Wright and his utterly original and highly specific style of film-making.
7. GET OUT
2017 was a strong year for horror and Jordan Peele making his writing/directing debut hit a home run with this sly, subversive, darkly humorous, grimly disturbing racial satire. Asked what genre of film Get Out is Peele apparently said it's a documentary. That tells you all you need to know. I genuinely had no idea where this was going when I watched it and I was completely surprised and creeped out by the revelation. In the lead role of Chris Daniel Kaluuya is fantastic as are the rest of the supporting cast. I can't wait to see what Peele does next.
6. PREVENGE
Another horror from a debut director, this time Alice Lowe (Sightseers) who brings us another absolutely fantastic film. Widowed pregnant mum Ruth (Lowe) goes on a murder spree apparently being coached/controlled by her unborn child. Weird, brutal, sad and very blackly funny, Prevenge slowly unfolds its story and the motives behind the murders as it builds to its dark sad climax. Lowe is fantastic both in front and behind the camera and I was utterly transfixed for the full 90 mins.
5. YOUR NAME
Makoto Shinkai's tale of teenage life, gender body swap, time travel and natural disaster is a magical, whimsical and genuinely affecting delight. Shinkai juggles many balls with this film including different genres, characters, tones and doesn't drop a single one. Yes, there are one or two plot elements which require some mild suspension of disbelief but the overall film is so warm and magical and the characters so likeable and sympathetic that you just go with it as it builds to its achingly emotional finale. Your Name a beautiful film both in what it is saying and how it says it. The animation is gorgeous and the ideas and themes stay with you. A massive hit in Japan and China, Your Name deserved to be huge everywhere.
4. BLADE RUNNER 2049
Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival) does it again in this sequel to the classic 1982 original. Against all the odds Villeneuve crafted a sequel that honours the original film beautifully while also building smartly upon its ideas and themes in a completely logical way. The film looks gorgeous and plays out in a slow, coldly methodical way, layering on its intelligent sci-fi concepts while never forgetting to allow its excellent cast led by Ryan Gosling to show the humanity )or lack of) within machine and man. You just don't get films like this anymore – big budget slow, smart sci-fi aimed at intelligent adults. Not surprising that it wasn't a big hit, just depressing.
3. STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Writer/Director Rian Johnson took the set-up from The Force Awakens and quite literally tossed it off a cliff. And I bloody loved it. You see, Johnson knows that for SW to survive and to continue, it needs to change, to grow. And growth is often painful. He wasn't content to just provide fan service and rehash old material, albeit in slightly different ways. That's boring. No, he wanted to push SW forward and force (pun intended) it to change and grow beyond what it has always been. And part of that means burning down what has come before. Get rid of dogma. Banish rigid structures. No more simple and easy black and white, good and bad. Democratise the galaxy and also the Force. Effectively Johnson has reset the SW universe. He's wiped away the definitions of the past which always dominated the future and has thrown that future out to everyone in the SW universe and said, “Here you go. It belongs to all of you now. Do what you will.” I just hope with Ep.9 J.J. doesn't just fall back on standard rehash and make it all for nought.
2. mother!
Darren Aronofsky is a film-maker with a distinct and uncompromising voice. I am a big fan. His latest is a dark, violent, twisted, provocative allegory depicting creation, the rise of humanity, the rise of religion (and religious conflict) and the brutal impact of mankind upon the planet we inhabit and rely on to survive. It is not an easy watch and I totally get why many do not like it but I was riveted right from the start to the very end. It's a bold film to make especially when you consider it is from a major studio, had a sizeable budget and boasted a big star in the lead. The entire cast is fantastic and led by the always terrific Jennifer Lawrence as the physical embodiment of Mother Earth. Horrifically mesmerising and thought provoking stuff.
1. DUNKIRK
Christopher Nolan is the man! This time he brings his amazing technical and story telling skills to depicting the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940. Nolan is not interested in politics or in character here, purely in the experiential. He provides the situation, the stakes and drops the audience right in the middle for an intense, propulsive, palm sweatingly taught ticking clock of a war film. As often with Nolan he uses time and perception as story telling devices, cutting between a week spent with the soldiers on the beach trying to survive, a day with Mark Rylance crossing the channel in his small boat and one hour with Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden flying their Spitfires and dogfighting the Luftwaffe over the evacuation below before all three time periods are eventually brought expertly together for the finale. The film is a marvel of technical expertise and of stripped down yet also beautifully complex storytelling. The cinematography by Hoyt Van Hoytema is stunning as is the visceral ticking clock score by Hans Zimmer. Pure cinema.
Friday, 1 January 2016
MY FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2015
Another year, another list of my favourite movies.
I can't believe 2015 is now in the rear view mirror. Time is flying by at such an insane rate. But the year is done and dusted and these are my favourite 20 films I saw in 2015. As always I don't claim them to be the best, just my favourite. It is all subjective. I'd just say as well that the top two films on the list stand a fair way over all the rest moving into instant classic territory. So without further ado...
20. The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Based on the graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner, this is the debut film directed by actress Marielle Heller and is a funny, dark, honest, non judgmental and wonderfully inventive coming of age story set in 1970's San Francisco. British actress Bel Powley gives an unafraid performance of depth and honesty as 15 year old Minnie who begins to explore the adult world of sex, drugs and misplaced love as she struggles to discover the person she truly wants to be. Excellent support comes from Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård. Often uncomfortable but always honest and inventive, this marks a terrific debut for Heller as a director.
19. Sicario
Denis Villeneuve's tense and riveting thriller stars Emily Blunt as a principled FBI agent who is enlisted by a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel. The film is morally complex and tells a story set in the grey and murky margins of what is right and wrong both in means and ends. Blunt is great as is Benicio del Toro in a vital supporting role but arguably the true star of the film is DP Roger Deakins who once again does superlative work. Give him an Oscar already. Utterly gripping and morally challenging, Sicario is simply a terrific thriller.
18. Girlhood
Girlhood is the story Marieme (Karidja Touré), a young black girl who lives in a rough neighbourhood outside of Paris. The film follows her as she navigates through and struggles with social, gender and racial issues and pressures in modern France to try and forge some kind of worthwhile future for herself and her little sister in an uncaring and bureaucratic world that seems to have already written her off. Karidja Touré is a great find and while Marieme often does things we the audience find objectionable we stick with her and root for her because we see the real person within and how the deck is being constantly stacked against her. Sensitively written and directed by Céline Sciamma, Girlhood is often tough to watch but is ultimately a rewarding human experience.
17. Spring
Written by Justin Benson and directed by Benson and Aaron Moorhead (V/H/S: Viral), Spring is perhaps the most original and wonderfully strange film on my list. To escape his downward spiral of a life a young man (Lou Taylor Pucci) leaves the US for Italy where he soon meets a beautiful and enigmatic young woman (Nadia Hilker) with a dark and disturbing secret. What follows is a full-on and believable romance in the vein of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise but given a dark and horrific twist. The film looks lovely, the two leads are likable, have real chemistry and are good to watch. Watching the film is like having a delicious delirious sun kissed dream of love tempered with sadness and icky horror. Kind of classic Cronenberg meets 90's Linklater. Weird, scary, gross, beautiful.
16. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The writer/director debut of Iranian American Ana Lily Amirpour, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a wonderfully stylish, evocative and thematically rich take on the vampire myth. Described as "The first Iranian vampire Western", the film is set in a fictional Iranian town nicknamed 'Bad City' and follows a female vampire aka the titular Girl who stalks the night time streets feeding off of the many lowlifes she encounters and who seems content with her solitary predatory existence until she crosses paths with Arash, a young, compassionate, hard-working man who lives with and takes care of his heroin addicted father. The film is about loneliness, isolation and the struggle to make meaningful personal connections as well as to overcome personal adversity and escape to a better life not to mention the actualization of innate female power. As The Girl Sheila Vand is powerful and hypnotic and the rest of the cast provide solid support. The film looks great, too, as director Amirpour shoots the entire movie in a stark and moody black and white making wonderful use of shadows and street lighting. Stylish and smart this is a terrific debut film from Amirpour making her a real name to watch out for.
15. When Marnie Was There
It wouldn't be a yearly top twenty without at least one animation from Japan and this last year saw what is likely the final full length feature from Studio Ghibli (at least for the foreseeable future). Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and based on the children's novel of the same name by Joan G. Robinson, When Marnie Was There is a simple and sweet little story about a troubled 12 yr old girl called Anna who is sent by her foster parents to stay for the summer with relatives in a small seaside town. Anna is a loner and outsider filled with self doubt and insecurities but while staying in the town she strikes up a powerful friendship with a mysterious young girl called Marnie who apparently lives in the big old mansion the other side of the local salt marsh. What follows is a simple and lovely story of friendship, family and love. As always with Ghibli the film looks beautiful with its gentle watercolour stylings and simple-yet-effective hand drawn animation. And while the story has a slight supernatural bent and a small mystery at its heart, it never lets the more fantastical elements overshadow what is a simple and heartfelt story of a young girl dealing with her troubling emotions and finding her own personal happiness. Sweet but never sickly and completely delightful. I miss you already Ghibli.
14. Turbo Kid
Written and directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, Turbo Kid is a brilliant homage to 80's direct to video actioners mixing a post apocalyptic Mad Max type of flick with a kids adventure ala BMX Bandits with a horror/mutant exploitationer from the likes of Cannon or Charles Band. The basic plot sees The Kid (Munro Chambers), a teenage boy in the post apocalyptic wastelands become a mythical comic book superhero through the help of a mysterious girl he meets called Apple (Laurence Leboeuf). The pair then team up to stop the brutal and tyrannical leader Zeus (Michael Ironside) from ruling over the wasteland. To be honest the plot is really not important. What is important is the sheer creativity, exuberance and love shown for the material the movie draws from. There is action, chases, fights all done so weirdly and yet so imaginatively and with a ton of energy and style. Plus plenty of OTT gore. Also as Apple Laurence Leboeuf gives a winning and utterly adorable performance. Yes, she may be yet another example of the so-called manic pixie dream girl trope, but there is a twist here and her main trait is an adorable wide eyed innocence which is impossible not to love. A truly great genre homage and a hugely fun movie in its own right. I just hope we get a Turbo Kid 2: Electric Boogaloo.
13. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Otherwise known as the film that broke Joss Whedon. Only kidding...or maybe not. Ultron is huge. There is so much going on, so many spinning plates, so many characters, stories (and future stories) to serve that what could have been another truly great film from My Lord and Master Joss gets buried somewhere in the midst of TOO MUCH. Still, there are great ideas and strong themes throughout and all the main characters get moments to shine. The story is solid and thunders along at a decent pace and James Spader does a fun turn as the evil Ultron AI with daddy Stark issues. For the most part the action sequences are great if perhaps a bit too busy just like the rest of the film. By no means a bad film, AoU is actually a very, very good film...it just isn't as good as it could (and should) have been. Poor Joss. I feel for him. He did his best given all the masters he had to serve and ended up getting a ton of abuse on social media for such a totally misunderstood thing (Natasha and her sterilization). But hey, taking down a Hydra base, Hulk Buster, naughty Ultron, saving people above all else (take note Superman) and bringing Vision to life is more than enough to earn AoU its place on this list. So thanks Joss. Now, you have a nice long rest then go make something 100% YOURS again. Love you.
12. The Final Girls
On the surface The Final Girls is a very funny affectionate meta homage/spoof of 80's slasher films which sees a bunch of contemporary teens getting trapped inside 'classic' 80's slasher film Camp Bloodbath and having to then navigate through the story dealing with the actual characters within the film while discovering the rules which will allow them to eventually escape back to reality. Essentially this is Last Action Hero with stalk and slash. A fun concept for sure. But what makes the film work so beautifully is that it has real heart and is genuinely emotionally affecting. For beneath the silly concept the story is really about a young daughter desperate to reconnect with her mother whom she misses terribly after she was killed in a tragic car accident. And it turns out a younger version of her mother was an actress in the movie she is now trapped in. The film is inventive, stylishly shot and directed and has a funny, layered and emotionally affecting script. Also the performances are all terrific with Taissa Farmiga & Malin Akerman being the stand-outs as daughter and mother who eventually get to reconnect in the weirdest way possible. Stylish, funny, silly and touching, The Final Girls is a genuine unexpected gem. See it.
11. John Wick
Every so often Keanu Reeves makes an awesome action movie. It seems to be cinematic law or something. Point Break in 1991, Speed in 1994, The Matrix in 1999. So he has been long overdue a new one. But finally, here it is. John Wick isn't deep, it isn't clever, but what it is, is one hell of a cool and effective noir actioner which uses Reeves extremely well – a troubled loner of few words who unleashes one hell of a murder spree on bad guys after they steal his car and kill his pet dog. There is a bit more to it than that but basically this is a revenge thriller with ex-hitman Wick, a figure of mythic proportions within the criminal fraternity, taking down a whole organisation of bad guys with multiple head shots and ass kickery. The movie is smartly and sparsely written and is shot, directed and edited the hell out of. What is also great is the word building the movie does creating a strange-yet-believable criminal underworld for the movie's villains to inhabit. It feels like the film was based on a graphic novel ala Frank Miller or something but is in fact an original screenplay with the first time directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch drawing on anime, John Woo movies and noir crime thrillers to deliver something that feels original and delivers real visceral impact. Utterly awesome! Thankfully John Wick 2 is on its way. Keep your heads down bad guys!
10. Ant-Man
Ant-Man shouldn't work. It is a goofy character/concept with a daft title based on a comic that no-one outside of comic book nerds would have ever heard of. It certainly shouldn't be a better movie than a Joss Whedon Avengers throw down, especially considering how the original director left the project late in the game and a new director and writer were brought aboard to quickly re-tune the film and get it shot and done within a very, very tight time-scale. Nope, should be a train wreck, right? Wrong. Ant-Man is a blast. Against all the odds new director Peyton Reed and co-writer and star Paul Rudd pulled a blinder. The movie is a ton of fun, plenty weird (in a good way) and has a whole lot of heart. It is refreshingly small scale, too, and not just the titular hero. The story is not a save the city/world story but rather a heist film which is about righting past wrongs and reconnecting fathers and daughters. Paul Rudd is perfect as reformed criminal Scott Lang who just wants to make a life outside of prison and spend time with his young daughter, while legendary actor Michael Douglass is his usual terrific self as inventor Hank Pym who enlists Scott's help in preventing an old rival from using and abusing his potentially dangerous technology. Great support comes from the lovely Evangeline Lily as Pym's estranged daughter Hope, Corey Stoll as tech rival Darren Cross, and the fab and hilarious Michael Pena as Scott's former cell mate and pal Luis. The story is simple and fun and the action inventive and original with all the actors giving their all. Basically Ant-Man is just a whole heap of fun and I can't wait to see the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp. Bring it on, Peyton! (see what I did there?)
9. Song of the Sea
For me, to be truly successful a film has to make an emotional connection. It has to make you honestly truly feel something real. I had no big expectations of Song of the Sea, an animated fantasy from Ireland. The reviews were great and it looked lovely in the trailers so I expected it to be good. But watching it I was instantly captivated and drawn in to its beautifully rendered world of Celtic myths and legends and its story of a brother doing his absolute damnedest to help and protect his little sister whom up until now he'd strongly resented. This is the story of two young children who have lost a mother and whose father has become somewhat withdrawn and remote and who are then taken away by their grandmother to live in an unfamiliar world which seems alien and uncaring. To save his little sister's life Ben must get little Saoirse away from the grim city and back home to their lighthouse by the sea. For it turns out that little Saoirse is a Selkie, a mythological creature who lives as a seal at sea and sheds its coat to become human on land. There is more story which has to do with ancient Celtic legends of giants and owl witches but at its heart this is a film about a fractured family reconnecting and getting over a tragic loss. Inspired, artful, beautiful and with Celtic influenced songs and music which can sooth the soul, Song of the Sea is a captivating delight that builds to a powerful emotional conclusion which I don't mind admitting moistened my eyes.
8. White God
Directed by Kornél Mundruczó, White God is a Hungarian film which follows mixed-breed dog Hagen, who moves with his 13-year old owner Lili to stay with Lili's estranged father. However due to local laws and Lili's father being an ass, Hagen gets dumped and the film follows both Hagen making his way through the city searching for Lili as well as Lili rebelling against her father and getting into all kinds of trouble while searching for Hagan. Hagen's journey is a dark and brutal one which includes escaping from dog catchers, getting brutalised in a dog fighting ring before finally being caught and put in the pound where he is scheduled to be destroyed. However something amazing happens and Hagen and a pack of feral dogs break out of the pound and go on a rampage through the city taking savage revenge on all those who have wronged and hurt them. As the police try and hunt the dogs down it is left to Lili to try and find Hagen and stop his rampage before he hurts anyone else or gets killed by the police. White God is a brilliant film. It is harsh and brutal and uncompromising and has something to say. This is no Disney flick, kids. Dogs are tortured (not for real I hasten to add). People get eaten and throats are torn out. Hagen is basically Spartacus leading a savage slave revolt and the film plays as a brilliant allegory for all downtrodden peoples who eventually rise up and strike back in fury. The last act also plays like King Kong as young Lili tries desperately to find and soothe the now savage beast in order to save him from a sure-to-be tragic fate. The film is directed with style and energy with chases and set pieces as exciting and tense and scary as anything in a big budget Hollywood movie. Young Zsófia Psotta as Lili is terrific and the film plays as much a coming of age story for her as it does a story of revolt and revenge for Hagen. Just see it, okay. It is great. And remember no dogs were hurt at all making the film. Dunno about the humans though.
7. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
So, Star Wars. What more is there to say? Okay, so by all rights this film SHOULD have been number one. I wish it were. And while it is great and a ton of fun it has too many issues that just wouldn't let it creep any higher up my list. The issues are far from fatal and the good far outweighs the not so good. But those issues are there. And they are mostly down to story and plotting. I love all the characters old and new and they are all perfectly cast and all perfectly played. Harrison Ford is the most engaged he has been for years and having Han & Chewie back again is bliss. The film looks great, too, for the most part, and the pace is fast and fun as it charges along skipping merrily over plot holes and contrivances and coincidences to get to the exciting and emotionally charged finale. But despite all the good stuff, all the nostalgia, all the joy at having more Star Wars...I still have the nagging feeling that this is all just very expensive fan fiction. It feels like it. It plays like it. And that is fine. It is a lot of fun – basically just giving us fans what we want....but maybe not what we need. For at its core Star Wars IS George Lucas with all his genius and shortcomings. And yes, I know the prequels are not very good. But it was still his overall vision, what he wanted to say with his story, his creations. It's just a shame he lost his ability to communicate his vision back then. And while Abrams et al sure do make fast fun frothy popcorn flicks I can't help wondering/worrying that the core of SW has been lost. I dunno. I'm probably just being dumb. But hey, I loved this movie with all its problems and can't wait for more SW. I just kinda wish that somehow in some way George was still involved. Hey ho.
6. Ex_Machina
Alex Garland's directorial debut from his own script is a fantastic scifi story involving the potential creation of artificial intelligence, testing that it is true intelligence and the ramifications of man's hubris if such a creation comes to fruition. Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) gets invited by his employer, eccentric billionaire Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), to administer the Turing test to an android with artificial intelligence he has created called Ava (Alicia Vikander). Ava seems real and her and Caleb strike up a relationship which could be considered as love. Is Ava genuinely self aware and alive or is it all still just a computer program mimicking life? And what is Nathan's real objective in having Caleb and Ava interact? The film is set mostly in just one location – Nathan's reclusive modernistic Alpine house with its sharp sparse rooms and locking doors . The film feels like a three-hander play and is a story which could easily be put on stage. But it never feels stagey and is always cinematic and utterly riveting thanks to the deeply intelligent script, deft direction and fabulous performances, especially from Vikander. Themes of what being alive and being human actually mean, of slavery, of sexuality and of abuse are all there amongst others. The film is so deep and so rich with so much to chew on and is a damn smart think piece which is always compelling and never boring. Plus it looks amazing. The limited sets are all great and the FX used to help bring Ava to life are quite beautiful. Ex_Machina is a smart, engaging and brilliantly conceived and executed scifi drama. You don't get many films like this. Savour it.
5. The Martian
Finally! Ridley Scott is back at the top of his game with this, his movie version of Andy Weir's novel about a biologist astronaut who gets left behind on Mars and must somehow survive alone until a rescue mission can be sent for him...if one can be sent at all. Matt Damon is excellent as stranded astronaut Mark Watney who must “Science the shit of this” to survive in a totally hostile environment where nothing lives except him. The film could have been dry and heavy and tragic and very science heavy but Scott, working from a superlative script by Whedon alumni Drew Goddard, keeps the tone playful and light without ever making light of the actual situation Watney is in. There is humour to be found in all situations and Watney exemplifies this as it is his sense of humour as well as his smarts which keeps him alive and sane. This is simply a great story which takes itself seriously but is never po-faced or dour and treats its subject and its science with the utmost respect. Tense, exciting, charming, laugh out loud funny, The Martian is a great adventure which celebrates intelligence and humour and holds scientific discovery and exploration up as a dangerous but entirely worthwhile and noble thing to do. It is so good to have Ridley Scott back making great looking movies with great characters and a terrific script. It has been way too long. Welcome back, Sir Rid!
4. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Tom Cruise is back as IMF super spy Ethan Hunt along with Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and new addition Rebecca Ferguson as possible aly/possible betrayer Ilsa Faust. Long time Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie takes over writing and directing duties and delivers what is my second favourite of the franchise after Brian De Palma's classic first flick. The story is all about a shadow “anti-IMF” known as the Syndicate and Ethan's attempts to bring it down before it can do terrible damage to the IMF and the wider world. But really it is an excuse for more fabulous action and drama set pieces, for exotic locales and for Tom Cruise to run, fight, run some more, chase, be chased and hang off of things really high up. And that is fine by me. Cruise is great as always as is the returning supporting cast. But the stand out is Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust – a beautiful, lethal, charismatic and utterly compelling woman who has her own agenda and who can take down anyone (including Agent Hunt) without hardly breaking a sweat. She is awesome! Giver her her own franchise and cast her as Captain Marvel, like, NOW! The plot is actually well constructed and weaves around in a game of cat and mouse with the main bad guy played by Sean Harris a genuinely creepy and threatening dude. And it all comes to a head in a terrific end sequence on (and below) the streets of London. A ton of fun from a franchise which shows no danger of growing old and stale. Cruise, now 53, still looks and runs and fights better than many a guy half his age. Deal with the Devil or something (or maybe Thetans)? Jeez! So yeah, more please. I fucking love this franchise.
3. It Follows
I love this movie. David Robert Mitchell's film is a throwback to classier, smarter big screen horror which takes a shockingly simple idea and turns it in to a genuinely creepy and scary and disturbing piece of genius level cinema. The concept is simple. You have unwitting sex with a cursed person and the curse passes to you – an evil entity only you can see (taking the shape of a stranger or someone you know) begins to stalk you until either you have sex with someone else and pass the curse on or the entity gets you and kills you by busting your bones in to so very nasty shapes. But the thing is, if you do get killed by it, the entity goes back on down the line after the person who passed the curse on to you. Yikes! Our heroine is Jay (Maika Munroe) who gets the curse passed to her after a date with a guy she thought was a new boyfriend. After Mr Creep tells Jay the rules and shows her the evil entity coming for her he sets her loose. Somehow now Jay must evade the entity while convincing her friends that it is indeed real and that she is not mad. Can Jay survive? Will she pass the curse on to someone else? Who in the crowd of people at school or in the street is the evil entity that wants her dead? It Follows is not a jump scare movie like Insidious et al but rather a creepy atmospheric chiller with strong likable characters and a killer central concept which works as metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases. The script is taut, smart and does a good job of creating teenage characters we actually like and root for. Plus Mitchell's direction is old school Carpenter-esque but with plenty of his own artistic flourishes. The 360 degree camera shot at the school is brilliant as is the entire sequence at the swimming pool. As our lead Maika Munroe is great showing the same abundance of talent, likability and strength she showed in last year's The Guest. I've seen this film several times now and it continues to impress and to chill. Horror as smart art is a tough thing to do. The Babadook did it last year and It Follows did it this year. Horror as it should be.
2. Inside Out
Pixar's Inside Out directed by Pete Docter is a wonderful film on every level. The story is all about the internal emotional life of a young girl, 11 year old Riley who has just moved to San Francisco with her mum and dad. Riley misses her old home and her friends and her life and one thing leads to another causing her emotions to fall out of sync with Joy and Sadness being accidentally banished from her emotional control center leaving it up to Fear, Disgust, and Anger to try to keep Riley happy. But inadvertently they distance her from her parents, friends, and hobbies, and begin to cause the collapse of young Riley's internal emotional world. Meanwhile Joy and Sadness are trying to find there way back to HQ along with Riley's long lost childhood imaginary friend Bing Bong so as to try to restore Riley's emotional balance before it is too late. Can they do it in time? Can they bring Riley back to a place of happiness, bringing back her core memories where so many good times are recorded? Inside Out tackles a complex subject that many films aimed solely at adults don't even attempt. And it does so brilliantly. That this film aimed at children and families uses such genius methods to get across such complex concepts is, well, genius. And the story is completely engaging and charming and funny and invests us utterly in the emotional well-being of one 11 year old girl. The characters of the emotions are all terrific with Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith both wonderful as Joy and Sadness. Of course being Pixar the film's animation is top notch and looks gorgeous and the score by Michael Giacchino's, his fifth for Pixar, is as good as any he has done. In the end what this film does is exactly what I said a great film should do way back at number 9 with Song of the Sea – it has to provide an emotional connection, an emotional kick that gets you. And when what everything in your film boils down to is simply the happiness of an 11 year old child, then that kick comes hard and fast. And hits home. Inside Out is my favourite Pixar film. It is pretty much perfect and any normal year it would be my number one film. Any normal year that didn't have George Miller being insane in the desert with crazy vehicles and flame throwing guitars and Charlize Theron with a robot arm.
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
Please see below my honest reaction/review of Mad Max: Fury Road directed by the insane mastermind George Miller....
OH MY FUCKING GOD OH SHIT OH SHIT OH FUCK ME THIS IS AWESOME JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS IS INSANE LOOK AT THOSE CARS WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING CHARLIZE IS KILLING ME THAT DUDE HAS A FUCKING FLAME THROWER ON HIS GUITAR HOW DID NOBODY DIE SHOOTING THIS STUFF ARGGHHH MY BRAIN IS MELTINGGGGGG SO SO PRETTY IMAGES OF CARNAGE AND WHAT THE FUCK IS TOM HARDY DOING STRAPPED TO THE FRONT OF THAT CAR OH MAN LOOK AT THAT HUGE TRUCK TIPPING OVER JESUS H CHRIST I THINK I JUST PEED A LITTLE AND NOW THEY ARE GOING BACK THE WAY THEY CAME THIS IS INSANE THIS HAS NO REAL STORY BUT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK CUZ CARS CARNAGE EXPLOSIONS STUNTS CHARLIZE CHARLIZE AND MORE CHARLIZE OH GOD MORE CHARLIZE SHE IS SO GODDAMN HOT AND BADASS HOW COME MAX IS THE SIDEKICK IN HIS OWN MOVIE BUT HEY WHO GIVES A FUCK CUZ THIS IS FUCKING AWSEOME AND CHARLIZE AND OH LOOK MAX HAS LEFT AND CHARLIZE NOW RULES THE WORLD WHICH I SO WISH WAS TRUE PLEASE GEORGE MILLER MAKE MORE OF THESE AS IT FEELS LIKE HAVING A FUCKING TWO HOUR ORGASM IN MY BRAINNNNNNNNNN!!!!
Good movie. I liked it.
Roll on 2016.
I can't believe 2015 is now in the rear view mirror. Time is flying by at such an insane rate. But the year is done and dusted and these are my favourite 20 films I saw in 2015. As always I don't claim them to be the best, just my favourite. It is all subjective. I'd just say as well that the top two films on the list stand a fair way over all the rest moving into instant classic territory. So without further ado...
20. The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Based on the graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner, this is the debut film directed by actress Marielle Heller and is a funny, dark, honest, non judgmental and wonderfully inventive coming of age story set in 1970's San Francisco. British actress Bel Powley gives an unafraid performance of depth and honesty as 15 year old Minnie who begins to explore the adult world of sex, drugs and misplaced love as she struggles to discover the person she truly wants to be. Excellent support comes from Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård. Often uncomfortable but always honest and inventive, this marks a terrific debut for Heller as a director.
19. Sicario
Denis Villeneuve's tense and riveting thriller stars Emily Blunt as a principled FBI agent who is enlisted by a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel. The film is morally complex and tells a story set in the grey and murky margins of what is right and wrong both in means and ends. Blunt is great as is Benicio del Toro in a vital supporting role but arguably the true star of the film is DP Roger Deakins who once again does superlative work. Give him an Oscar already. Utterly gripping and morally challenging, Sicario is simply a terrific thriller.
18. Girlhood
Girlhood is the story Marieme (Karidja Touré), a young black girl who lives in a rough neighbourhood outside of Paris. The film follows her as she navigates through and struggles with social, gender and racial issues and pressures in modern France to try and forge some kind of worthwhile future for herself and her little sister in an uncaring and bureaucratic world that seems to have already written her off. Karidja Touré is a great find and while Marieme often does things we the audience find objectionable we stick with her and root for her because we see the real person within and how the deck is being constantly stacked against her. Sensitively written and directed by Céline Sciamma, Girlhood is often tough to watch but is ultimately a rewarding human experience.
17. Spring
Written by Justin Benson and directed by Benson and Aaron Moorhead (V/H/S: Viral), Spring is perhaps the most original and wonderfully strange film on my list. To escape his downward spiral of a life a young man (Lou Taylor Pucci) leaves the US for Italy where he soon meets a beautiful and enigmatic young woman (Nadia Hilker) with a dark and disturbing secret. What follows is a full-on and believable romance in the vein of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise but given a dark and horrific twist. The film looks lovely, the two leads are likable, have real chemistry and are good to watch. Watching the film is like having a delicious delirious sun kissed dream of love tempered with sadness and icky horror. Kind of classic Cronenberg meets 90's Linklater. Weird, scary, gross, beautiful.
16. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The writer/director debut of Iranian American Ana Lily Amirpour, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a wonderfully stylish, evocative and thematically rich take on the vampire myth. Described as "The first Iranian vampire Western", the film is set in a fictional Iranian town nicknamed 'Bad City' and follows a female vampire aka the titular Girl who stalks the night time streets feeding off of the many lowlifes she encounters and who seems content with her solitary predatory existence until she crosses paths with Arash, a young, compassionate, hard-working man who lives with and takes care of his heroin addicted father. The film is about loneliness, isolation and the struggle to make meaningful personal connections as well as to overcome personal adversity and escape to a better life not to mention the actualization of innate female power. As The Girl Sheila Vand is powerful and hypnotic and the rest of the cast provide solid support. The film looks great, too, as director Amirpour shoots the entire movie in a stark and moody black and white making wonderful use of shadows and street lighting. Stylish and smart this is a terrific debut film from Amirpour making her a real name to watch out for.
15. When Marnie Was There
It wouldn't be a yearly top twenty without at least one animation from Japan and this last year saw what is likely the final full length feature from Studio Ghibli (at least for the foreseeable future). Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and based on the children's novel of the same name by Joan G. Robinson, When Marnie Was There is a simple and sweet little story about a troubled 12 yr old girl called Anna who is sent by her foster parents to stay for the summer with relatives in a small seaside town. Anna is a loner and outsider filled with self doubt and insecurities but while staying in the town she strikes up a powerful friendship with a mysterious young girl called Marnie who apparently lives in the big old mansion the other side of the local salt marsh. What follows is a simple and lovely story of friendship, family and love. As always with Ghibli the film looks beautiful with its gentle watercolour stylings and simple-yet-effective hand drawn animation. And while the story has a slight supernatural bent and a small mystery at its heart, it never lets the more fantastical elements overshadow what is a simple and heartfelt story of a young girl dealing with her troubling emotions and finding her own personal happiness. Sweet but never sickly and completely delightful. I miss you already Ghibli.
14. Turbo Kid
Written and directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, Turbo Kid is a brilliant homage to 80's direct to video actioners mixing a post apocalyptic Mad Max type of flick with a kids adventure ala BMX Bandits with a horror/mutant exploitationer from the likes of Cannon or Charles Band. The basic plot sees The Kid (Munro Chambers), a teenage boy in the post apocalyptic wastelands become a mythical comic book superhero through the help of a mysterious girl he meets called Apple (Laurence Leboeuf). The pair then team up to stop the brutal and tyrannical leader Zeus (Michael Ironside) from ruling over the wasteland. To be honest the plot is really not important. What is important is the sheer creativity, exuberance and love shown for the material the movie draws from. There is action, chases, fights all done so weirdly and yet so imaginatively and with a ton of energy and style. Plus plenty of OTT gore. Also as Apple Laurence Leboeuf gives a winning and utterly adorable performance. Yes, she may be yet another example of the so-called manic pixie dream girl trope, but there is a twist here and her main trait is an adorable wide eyed innocence which is impossible not to love. A truly great genre homage and a hugely fun movie in its own right. I just hope we get a Turbo Kid 2: Electric Boogaloo.
13. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Otherwise known as the film that broke Joss Whedon. Only kidding...or maybe not. Ultron is huge. There is so much going on, so many spinning plates, so many characters, stories (and future stories) to serve that what could have been another truly great film from My Lord and Master Joss gets buried somewhere in the midst of TOO MUCH. Still, there are great ideas and strong themes throughout and all the main characters get moments to shine. The story is solid and thunders along at a decent pace and James Spader does a fun turn as the evil Ultron AI with daddy Stark issues. For the most part the action sequences are great if perhaps a bit too busy just like the rest of the film. By no means a bad film, AoU is actually a very, very good film...it just isn't as good as it could (and should) have been. Poor Joss. I feel for him. He did his best given all the masters he had to serve and ended up getting a ton of abuse on social media for such a totally misunderstood thing (Natasha and her sterilization). But hey, taking down a Hydra base, Hulk Buster, naughty Ultron, saving people above all else (take note Superman) and bringing Vision to life is more than enough to earn AoU its place on this list. So thanks Joss. Now, you have a nice long rest then go make something 100% YOURS again. Love you.
12. The Final Girls
On the surface The Final Girls is a very funny affectionate meta homage/spoof of 80's slasher films which sees a bunch of contemporary teens getting trapped inside 'classic' 80's slasher film Camp Bloodbath and having to then navigate through the story dealing with the actual characters within the film while discovering the rules which will allow them to eventually escape back to reality. Essentially this is Last Action Hero with stalk and slash. A fun concept for sure. But what makes the film work so beautifully is that it has real heart and is genuinely emotionally affecting. For beneath the silly concept the story is really about a young daughter desperate to reconnect with her mother whom she misses terribly after she was killed in a tragic car accident. And it turns out a younger version of her mother was an actress in the movie she is now trapped in. The film is inventive, stylishly shot and directed and has a funny, layered and emotionally affecting script. Also the performances are all terrific with Taissa Farmiga & Malin Akerman being the stand-outs as daughter and mother who eventually get to reconnect in the weirdest way possible. Stylish, funny, silly and touching, The Final Girls is a genuine unexpected gem. See it.
11. John Wick
Every so often Keanu Reeves makes an awesome action movie. It seems to be cinematic law or something. Point Break in 1991, Speed in 1994, The Matrix in 1999. So he has been long overdue a new one. But finally, here it is. John Wick isn't deep, it isn't clever, but what it is, is one hell of a cool and effective noir actioner which uses Reeves extremely well – a troubled loner of few words who unleashes one hell of a murder spree on bad guys after they steal his car and kill his pet dog. There is a bit more to it than that but basically this is a revenge thriller with ex-hitman Wick, a figure of mythic proportions within the criminal fraternity, taking down a whole organisation of bad guys with multiple head shots and ass kickery. The movie is smartly and sparsely written and is shot, directed and edited the hell out of. What is also great is the word building the movie does creating a strange-yet-believable criminal underworld for the movie's villains to inhabit. It feels like the film was based on a graphic novel ala Frank Miller or something but is in fact an original screenplay with the first time directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch drawing on anime, John Woo movies and noir crime thrillers to deliver something that feels original and delivers real visceral impact. Utterly awesome! Thankfully John Wick 2 is on its way. Keep your heads down bad guys!
10. Ant-Man
Ant-Man shouldn't work. It is a goofy character/concept with a daft title based on a comic that no-one outside of comic book nerds would have ever heard of. It certainly shouldn't be a better movie than a Joss Whedon Avengers throw down, especially considering how the original director left the project late in the game and a new director and writer were brought aboard to quickly re-tune the film and get it shot and done within a very, very tight time-scale. Nope, should be a train wreck, right? Wrong. Ant-Man is a blast. Against all the odds new director Peyton Reed and co-writer and star Paul Rudd pulled a blinder. The movie is a ton of fun, plenty weird (in a good way) and has a whole lot of heart. It is refreshingly small scale, too, and not just the titular hero. The story is not a save the city/world story but rather a heist film which is about righting past wrongs and reconnecting fathers and daughters. Paul Rudd is perfect as reformed criminal Scott Lang who just wants to make a life outside of prison and spend time with his young daughter, while legendary actor Michael Douglass is his usual terrific self as inventor Hank Pym who enlists Scott's help in preventing an old rival from using and abusing his potentially dangerous technology. Great support comes from the lovely Evangeline Lily as Pym's estranged daughter Hope, Corey Stoll as tech rival Darren Cross, and the fab and hilarious Michael Pena as Scott's former cell mate and pal Luis. The story is simple and fun and the action inventive and original with all the actors giving their all. Basically Ant-Man is just a whole heap of fun and I can't wait to see the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp. Bring it on, Peyton! (see what I did there?)
9. Song of the Sea
For me, to be truly successful a film has to make an emotional connection. It has to make you honestly truly feel something real. I had no big expectations of Song of the Sea, an animated fantasy from Ireland. The reviews were great and it looked lovely in the trailers so I expected it to be good. But watching it I was instantly captivated and drawn in to its beautifully rendered world of Celtic myths and legends and its story of a brother doing his absolute damnedest to help and protect his little sister whom up until now he'd strongly resented. This is the story of two young children who have lost a mother and whose father has become somewhat withdrawn and remote and who are then taken away by their grandmother to live in an unfamiliar world which seems alien and uncaring. To save his little sister's life Ben must get little Saoirse away from the grim city and back home to their lighthouse by the sea. For it turns out that little Saoirse is a Selkie, a mythological creature who lives as a seal at sea and sheds its coat to become human on land. There is more story which has to do with ancient Celtic legends of giants and owl witches but at its heart this is a film about a fractured family reconnecting and getting over a tragic loss. Inspired, artful, beautiful and with Celtic influenced songs and music which can sooth the soul, Song of the Sea is a captivating delight that builds to a powerful emotional conclusion which I don't mind admitting moistened my eyes.
8. White God
Directed by Kornél Mundruczó, White God is a Hungarian film which follows mixed-breed dog Hagen, who moves with his 13-year old owner Lili to stay with Lili's estranged father. However due to local laws and Lili's father being an ass, Hagen gets dumped and the film follows both Hagen making his way through the city searching for Lili as well as Lili rebelling against her father and getting into all kinds of trouble while searching for Hagan. Hagen's journey is a dark and brutal one which includes escaping from dog catchers, getting brutalised in a dog fighting ring before finally being caught and put in the pound where he is scheduled to be destroyed. However something amazing happens and Hagen and a pack of feral dogs break out of the pound and go on a rampage through the city taking savage revenge on all those who have wronged and hurt them. As the police try and hunt the dogs down it is left to Lili to try and find Hagen and stop his rampage before he hurts anyone else or gets killed by the police. White God is a brilliant film. It is harsh and brutal and uncompromising and has something to say. This is no Disney flick, kids. Dogs are tortured (not for real I hasten to add). People get eaten and throats are torn out. Hagen is basically Spartacus leading a savage slave revolt and the film plays as a brilliant allegory for all downtrodden peoples who eventually rise up and strike back in fury. The last act also plays like King Kong as young Lili tries desperately to find and soothe the now savage beast in order to save him from a sure-to-be tragic fate. The film is directed with style and energy with chases and set pieces as exciting and tense and scary as anything in a big budget Hollywood movie. Young Zsófia Psotta as Lili is terrific and the film plays as much a coming of age story for her as it does a story of revolt and revenge for Hagen. Just see it, okay. It is great. And remember no dogs were hurt at all making the film. Dunno about the humans though.
7. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
So, Star Wars. What more is there to say? Okay, so by all rights this film SHOULD have been number one. I wish it were. And while it is great and a ton of fun it has too many issues that just wouldn't let it creep any higher up my list. The issues are far from fatal and the good far outweighs the not so good. But those issues are there. And they are mostly down to story and plotting. I love all the characters old and new and they are all perfectly cast and all perfectly played. Harrison Ford is the most engaged he has been for years and having Han & Chewie back again is bliss. The film looks great, too, for the most part, and the pace is fast and fun as it charges along skipping merrily over plot holes and contrivances and coincidences to get to the exciting and emotionally charged finale. But despite all the good stuff, all the nostalgia, all the joy at having more Star Wars...I still have the nagging feeling that this is all just very expensive fan fiction. It feels like it. It plays like it. And that is fine. It is a lot of fun – basically just giving us fans what we want....but maybe not what we need. For at its core Star Wars IS George Lucas with all his genius and shortcomings. And yes, I know the prequels are not very good. But it was still his overall vision, what he wanted to say with his story, his creations. It's just a shame he lost his ability to communicate his vision back then. And while Abrams et al sure do make fast fun frothy popcorn flicks I can't help wondering/worrying that the core of SW has been lost. I dunno. I'm probably just being dumb. But hey, I loved this movie with all its problems and can't wait for more SW. I just kinda wish that somehow in some way George was still involved. Hey ho.
6. Ex_Machina
Alex Garland's directorial debut from his own script is a fantastic scifi story involving the potential creation of artificial intelligence, testing that it is true intelligence and the ramifications of man's hubris if such a creation comes to fruition. Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) gets invited by his employer, eccentric billionaire Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), to administer the Turing test to an android with artificial intelligence he has created called Ava (Alicia Vikander). Ava seems real and her and Caleb strike up a relationship which could be considered as love. Is Ava genuinely self aware and alive or is it all still just a computer program mimicking life? And what is Nathan's real objective in having Caleb and Ava interact? The film is set mostly in just one location – Nathan's reclusive modernistic Alpine house with its sharp sparse rooms and locking doors . The film feels like a three-hander play and is a story which could easily be put on stage. But it never feels stagey and is always cinematic and utterly riveting thanks to the deeply intelligent script, deft direction and fabulous performances, especially from Vikander. Themes of what being alive and being human actually mean, of slavery, of sexuality and of abuse are all there amongst others. The film is so deep and so rich with so much to chew on and is a damn smart think piece which is always compelling and never boring. Plus it looks amazing. The limited sets are all great and the FX used to help bring Ava to life are quite beautiful. Ex_Machina is a smart, engaging and brilliantly conceived and executed scifi drama. You don't get many films like this. Savour it.
5. The Martian
Finally! Ridley Scott is back at the top of his game with this, his movie version of Andy Weir's novel about a biologist astronaut who gets left behind on Mars and must somehow survive alone until a rescue mission can be sent for him...if one can be sent at all. Matt Damon is excellent as stranded astronaut Mark Watney who must “Science the shit of this” to survive in a totally hostile environment where nothing lives except him. The film could have been dry and heavy and tragic and very science heavy but Scott, working from a superlative script by Whedon alumni Drew Goddard, keeps the tone playful and light without ever making light of the actual situation Watney is in. There is humour to be found in all situations and Watney exemplifies this as it is his sense of humour as well as his smarts which keeps him alive and sane. This is simply a great story which takes itself seriously but is never po-faced or dour and treats its subject and its science with the utmost respect. Tense, exciting, charming, laugh out loud funny, The Martian is a great adventure which celebrates intelligence and humour and holds scientific discovery and exploration up as a dangerous but entirely worthwhile and noble thing to do. It is so good to have Ridley Scott back making great looking movies with great characters and a terrific script. It has been way too long. Welcome back, Sir Rid!
4. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Tom Cruise is back as IMF super spy Ethan Hunt along with Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner and new addition Rebecca Ferguson as possible aly/possible betrayer Ilsa Faust. Long time Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie takes over writing and directing duties and delivers what is my second favourite of the franchise after Brian De Palma's classic first flick. The story is all about a shadow “anti-IMF” known as the Syndicate and Ethan's attempts to bring it down before it can do terrible damage to the IMF and the wider world. But really it is an excuse for more fabulous action and drama set pieces, for exotic locales and for Tom Cruise to run, fight, run some more, chase, be chased and hang off of things really high up. And that is fine by me. Cruise is great as always as is the returning supporting cast. But the stand out is Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust – a beautiful, lethal, charismatic and utterly compelling woman who has her own agenda and who can take down anyone (including Agent Hunt) without hardly breaking a sweat. She is awesome! Giver her her own franchise and cast her as Captain Marvel, like, NOW! The plot is actually well constructed and weaves around in a game of cat and mouse with the main bad guy played by Sean Harris a genuinely creepy and threatening dude. And it all comes to a head in a terrific end sequence on (and below) the streets of London. A ton of fun from a franchise which shows no danger of growing old and stale. Cruise, now 53, still looks and runs and fights better than many a guy half his age. Deal with the Devil or something (or maybe Thetans)? Jeez! So yeah, more please. I fucking love this franchise.
3. It Follows
I love this movie. David Robert Mitchell's film is a throwback to classier, smarter big screen horror which takes a shockingly simple idea and turns it in to a genuinely creepy and scary and disturbing piece of genius level cinema. The concept is simple. You have unwitting sex with a cursed person and the curse passes to you – an evil entity only you can see (taking the shape of a stranger or someone you know) begins to stalk you until either you have sex with someone else and pass the curse on or the entity gets you and kills you by busting your bones in to so very nasty shapes. But the thing is, if you do get killed by it, the entity goes back on down the line after the person who passed the curse on to you. Yikes! Our heroine is Jay (Maika Munroe) who gets the curse passed to her after a date with a guy she thought was a new boyfriend. After Mr Creep tells Jay the rules and shows her the evil entity coming for her he sets her loose. Somehow now Jay must evade the entity while convincing her friends that it is indeed real and that she is not mad. Can Jay survive? Will she pass the curse on to someone else? Who in the crowd of people at school or in the street is the evil entity that wants her dead? It Follows is not a jump scare movie like Insidious et al but rather a creepy atmospheric chiller with strong likable characters and a killer central concept which works as metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases. The script is taut, smart and does a good job of creating teenage characters we actually like and root for. Plus Mitchell's direction is old school Carpenter-esque but with plenty of his own artistic flourishes. The 360 degree camera shot at the school is brilliant as is the entire sequence at the swimming pool. As our lead Maika Munroe is great showing the same abundance of talent, likability and strength she showed in last year's The Guest. I've seen this film several times now and it continues to impress and to chill. Horror as smart art is a tough thing to do. The Babadook did it last year and It Follows did it this year. Horror as it should be.
2. Inside Out
Pixar's Inside Out directed by Pete Docter is a wonderful film on every level. The story is all about the internal emotional life of a young girl, 11 year old Riley who has just moved to San Francisco with her mum and dad. Riley misses her old home and her friends and her life and one thing leads to another causing her emotions to fall out of sync with Joy and Sadness being accidentally banished from her emotional control center leaving it up to Fear, Disgust, and Anger to try to keep Riley happy. But inadvertently they distance her from her parents, friends, and hobbies, and begin to cause the collapse of young Riley's internal emotional world. Meanwhile Joy and Sadness are trying to find there way back to HQ along with Riley's long lost childhood imaginary friend Bing Bong so as to try to restore Riley's emotional balance before it is too late. Can they do it in time? Can they bring Riley back to a place of happiness, bringing back her core memories where so many good times are recorded? Inside Out tackles a complex subject that many films aimed solely at adults don't even attempt. And it does so brilliantly. That this film aimed at children and families uses such genius methods to get across such complex concepts is, well, genius. And the story is completely engaging and charming and funny and invests us utterly in the emotional well-being of one 11 year old girl. The characters of the emotions are all terrific with Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith both wonderful as Joy and Sadness. Of course being Pixar the film's animation is top notch and looks gorgeous and the score by Michael Giacchino's, his fifth for Pixar, is as good as any he has done. In the end what this film does is exactly what I said a great film should do way back at number 9 with Song of the Sea – it has to provide an emotional connection, an emotional kick that gets you. And when what everything in your film boils down to is simply the happiness of an 11 year old child, then that kick comes hard and fast. And hits home. Inside Out is my favourite Pixar film. It is pretty much perfect and any normal year it would be my number one film. Any normal year that didn't have George Miller being insane in the desert with crazy vehicles and flame throwing guitars and Charlize Theron with a robot arm.
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
Please see below my honest reaction/review of Mad Max: Fury Road directed by the insane mastermind George Miller....
OH MY FUCKING GOD OH SHIT OH SHIT OH FUCK ME THIS IS AWESOME JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS IS INSANE LOOK AT THOSE CARS WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING CHARLIZE IS KILLING ME THAT DUDE HAS A FUCKING FLAME THROWER ON HIS GUITAR HOW DID NOBODY DIE SHOOTING THIS STUFF ARGGHHH MY BRAIN IS MELTINGGGGGG SO SO PRETTY IMAGES OF CARNAGE AND WHAT THE FUCK IS TOM HARDY DOING STRAPPED TO THE FRONT OF THAT CAR OH MAN LOOK AT THAT HUGE TRUCK TIPPING OVER JESUS H CHRIST I THINK I JUST PEED A LITTLE AND NOW THEY ARE GOING BACK THE WAY THEY CAME THIS IS INSANE THIS HAS NO REAL STORY BUT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK CUZ CARS CARNAGE EXPLOSIONS STUNTS CHARLIZE CHARLIZE AND MORE CHARLIZE OH GOD MORE CHARLIZE SHE IS SO GODDAMN HOT AND BADASS HOW COME MAX IS THE SIDEKICK IN HIS OWN MOVIE BUT HEY WHO GIVES A FUCK CUZ THIS IS FUCKING AWSEOME AND CHARLIZE AND OH LOOK MAX HAS LEFT AND CHARLIZE NOW RULES THE WORLD WHICH I SO WISH WAS TRUE PLEASE GEORGE MILLER MAKE MORE OF THESE AS IT FEELS LIKE HAVING A FUCKING TWO HOUR ORGASM IN MY BRAINNNNNNNNNN!!!!
Good movie. I liked it.
Roll on 2016.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
MY FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2013
So here's my ten favourite films of 2013 in descending order. Please note: I don't claim these as the best films of the year, just the ones I personally enjoyed the most. There are some films I saw in 2013 which would have made this chart but I left out as they were not technically 2013 UK releases but had already been released here prior to 1 Jan 2013. Also, at the bottom of this post you'll also find my five least favourite films of 2013. Enjoy.
10. THOR: THE DARK WORLD
The sequel to Kenneth Branagh's 2011 God of Thunder epic is a fast, fun, epic fantasy which opens up the restricted scope of the original to new worlds and new places on Earth (specifically London replacing a small New Mexico town). Game of Thrones' Alan Taylor comes aboard as director and brings a less shiny more lived in look to Asgard and its people. Principle cast returnees Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as Jane, Kat Dennings as Darcy and Stellan Skarsgard as Eric are all once more top notch. But it's the not-so-secret weapon of Tom Hiddleston as Loki who once again commands the screen and makes the audience just love a bad guy. Above all else though, Thor: The Dark World does what the best of Marvel movies should do - it is tons of fun. And sometimes that's all you need. All hail MeuMeu!
9. THE WOLVERINE
The Wolverine sees James Mangold (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) directing Hugh Jackman as the badass mutant with the cool adamantium claws. And in doing so makes up for the horrible poop fest that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Based on a classic run of the comics by Chris Claremont, the story sees Logan travel to Japan at the behest of dying Japanese industrialist Yashida who as a young man was saved by Logan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Yashida wants to repay his life debt to Logan by offering him the one thing he wants – mortality. However it appears there is a hidden agenda behind Logan's visit and our hirsute hero soon becomes involved with Mariko, Yashida's granddaughter, who has become a target of Yakuza gangs vying for control of her Grandfather's company. The Wolverine is a rare beast of a superhero flick in that for much of the time there are not any real super-heroics going on. It is more about character building and interaction and is not afraid to have well written, well acted scenes of just two people talking. But when the super-heroics do come then they come in style with some wonderful action sequences including a thrilling fight atop a speeding bullet train and a battle in the snow against an army of ninjas. All in all then a top notch character driven superhero thriller with Jackman hammering home yet again his total ownership of this role. Snikt!
8. IRON MAN THREE
I had a real hard time figuring out my fave Marvel movie of 2013. To be honest, it could easily be any of them (I include FOX's The Wolverine in this even though it is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). They were all great and they all had something different to offer while retaining the central Marvel demand that first and foremost they be FUN! But in the end, it came down to one thing...or I should say one person. Shane Black. Yep, the man behind Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was given $200m and told to go away and make a superhero film. Only Marvel would be this brave. And God bless 'em for it. It is precisely these smart and often brave choices that have made their films so much quirky, endearing fun, not to mention hugely successful. So what did Shane Black do with Marvel's $200m? What he did was to pretty much discard Iron Man and instead make a Tony Stark movie. For much of this film the armor is not even in use and when it is Tony is often not in it and is instead operating it remotely. Either that or other people are getting to wear it. In IM3 Tony is cast adrift and forced to use his wits and smarts to uncover the truth behind the terrorist known as The Mandarin as well as stopping a very bad guy from creating an army of exploding super-soldiers. Black invests his film with many of his usual tropes. In parts it becomes a buddy film (Stark and the kid, Stark and Rhodey), it is set around Christmas time, there is a torture scene where the hero turns the tables on the villains. And Black is also in super playful mode as he gleefully pulls the rug out from under the audience with a controversial twist about two thirds through which puts the whole film in to a new perspective. Also he is a dab hand at witty cutting banter. As such, IM3 is very, very funny with Downey Jr yet again proving why he is Marvel's most valuable on screen player. The action sequences are all good with the two highlights being the destruction of Stark's home via missile attack and the brilliant mid-air rescue of Air Force One passengers in free fall. The ending might devolve in to a bit of a flying CGI melee but it still contains some great character beats and gags amidst the carnage. Performances are all great with Downey Jr still at the top of his game. But special mention must go to Sir Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. He is scary and...a lot more. Oh, and Brian Tyler provides a wonderfully toe tapping score with his end theme being sublime. So yeah, in the end, Iron Man Three clinches the title of top Marvel movie of 2013 mostly by virtue of being a Shane Black flick. And thanks to Marvel (and IM3 making $1.2bn), Black will now go on to make more movies of his choosing. And for that alone we must all be truly grateful.
7. THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend) replaces Gary Ross as this series' director, and in film number two brings a wider scope and deeper mythos to the building story of Katniss Everdeen and her growing role as unwilling focus for a building rebellion in the future land of Panem. The story here builds logically and smartly on the first film with nasty President Snow (a wonderfully snakelike Donald Sutherland) looking to discredit our heroine before getting her killed in a new round of winners only Hunger Games. Once again Jennifer Lawrence is superb as Katniss – steely and smart, haunted and vulnerable. And she is given strong support by the rest of the cast with special mention going to the fab Elisabeth Banks as Effie Trinkett who brings new depth to the previously shallow Escort to the District 12 Tributes. As before, the underlying themes are all about social control, the power of a complicit media, and the horrific extravagance and waste of the Capitol contrasted against the extreme poverty of everywhere else. It is perhaps this huge gap between the haves and have nots of Panem that hits home hardest making for a powerful message in this time of real world austerity for the poor and seemingly continuing greed and avarice for the wealthy. What makes this series work and raises it above all other young adult adaptations is that it has something serious and important on its mind. It is actually about something. Something important. Plus it has at its center perhaps the best leading lady and character actress of her generation in Jennifer Lawrence. I mean, how awesome must it be to be Jennifer Lawrence right now? Pretty damn awesome I reckon. Top of the world. Girl on Fire! And good for her. Bring on Mockingjay.
6. ODD THOMAS
Tricky one this. Odd Thomas has not been officially released anywhere yet. It's been made for nearly two years but due to legal wranglings remains locked in distribution limbo with no release in sight. I saw it via other means and we'll leave it at that. That this movie hasn't been and may not be released is a crying shame. Based on the novel by Dean R Koontz, Odd Thomas tells the story of a young man, a short order cook in a small town, who has the ability to see and communicate with recently dead people. Dead people who often need Odd's help to pass on. And being a kindly soul, Odd is more than willing to oblige them, using the knowledge the dead impart to him to track down murderers, rapists and all kinds of scum. However when Odd starts seeing a major increase in the number of bodachs (invisible creatures that appear when death and disaster is near), he becomes convinced that something terrible is going to befall his town and sets out to stop it from happening. Now I've not read Koontz's books so I have no idea how faithful the movie is or isn't. What I do know though is Odd Thomas the film, as written and directed by Stephen (The Mummy) Sommers is an imaginative, witty, warm, emotional and exciting supernatural adventure helped along by a great cast led by Anton Yelchin who is superb as the highly capable and likable Odd. Yelchin is wonderfully supported by Addison Timlin as Stormy, Odd's cute and loyal girlfriend, and Willem Dafoe as local Police Chief Porter, a friendly father figure to young Odd. The core of the film though is Odd and Stormy. And they are great together. You really do buy in to their playful, loving relationship and the obvious history behind it. You care about these two kids. The supernatural story proceeds as you'd expect – always fun, always creepy, always cool – but the tale of Odd and Stormy is what counts. By movie's end I don't mind admitting that I was moved. An emotional connection had been made. The film had worked. It was lots of creepy charming fun, yes, but it connected too. And in the end, that is what really counts. Way to go, Odd one.
5. JOURNEY TO THE WEST: CONQUERING THE DEMONS
Okay, so I had a big silly grin on my face all the way through this. Genius Chinese filmmaker Stephen (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle) Chow returns with his epic prequel to the famous 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. To western audiences (especially kids who grew up in 70's/80's Britain) Journey to the West is best known as the classic Japanese TV show Monkey! The novel and TV show concerns the pilgrimage of Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled to India to obtain sacred texts with the aid of three protectors: a magical monkey king with fabulous powers, a pig demon, and a water demon given human form. But instead of telling this tale again, Chow has created his own prequel concerning Xuanzang and his pre-pilgrimage days as a rather hopeless Buddhist demon hunter who won't slay the demons but prefers instead to naively use the non-violent method of reading old nursery rhymes with the intention of calming the demons down and reawakening their goodness. Of course this approach does not go well for Xuanzang who soon runs in to a fellow demon hunter called Duan, a tough and beautiful woman who slays demons the old school way. Xuanzang doesn't seem to like his new competition very much. Duan though becomes hopelessly smitten by the hopeless young monk/demon hunter and their paths intertwine, eventually leading them both to come face to face with the legendary Monkey King imprisoned by the Buddha beneath a mountain. To be honest, there is not much of any real story to Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. It is mostly a series of incidents as poor hapless Xuanzang keeps trying (and failing) to calm those demons and become a better man through finding enlightenment. The film's throughline is Xuanzang and Duan and their weird and wacky one sided courtship mixed in with lots of gloriously entertaining set pieces involving all kinds of crazy monsters and Tom and Jerry style cartoon action. This could easily have been one big rambling mess. But Stephen Chow knows what he is doing. And like the awesome Kung Fu Hustle, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons ends up a wildly inventive, very funny, very silly blast. The fact that it is based around the same tale that brought joy to millions of 70s/80s kids like me is just an added bonus. This time out though, Chow does not star in his own movie as he usually does. A younger actor was required to play Xuanzang. And Wen Zhang is a spot on Chow substitute. Then there is the beautiful Shu Qi (best known to western audiences as Jason Statham's 'cargo' in the first Transporter) who is terrific as the feisty, fighty, slightly unhinged Duan. The movie looks great too with big detailed sets, glorious design and lots of nifty FX. But in the end it is the pure nutty fun factor that Chow can harness so well in his films that makes this one a winner. Sequel please.
4. WOLF CHILDREN
Acclaimed Japanese director Mamoru (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars) Hosoda co-writes and directs this beautiful, simple animated film that tells the story of nineteen year old Hana who meets and falls in love with a man who she soon discovers is the last of his race: a legendary tribe who can physically transform in to wolves. The pair marry and Hana soon becomes pregnant, eventually giving birth to a daughter, Yuki, and then a year later a son, Ame. However tragedy strikes and Hana and her two small children are left alone with Hana struggling to bring up two small wolf children with hardly any money and no experience of rearing such creatures. All the while she is also trying to keep the children's existence secret from the rest of the world while also trying to give the two (literal) nippers enjoyable and fulfilling lives. Mamoru Hosoda has said that Wolf Children was conceived as his love letter to motherhood, to mothers the world over. And that it is. There is no big intricate story here. There are no bad guys. What there is, is a mother struggling against all odds to make a wonderful life for her two growing children while also giving them the strength and the space to find out who they are and to make the right choices for themselves. The film rings true throughout and visually it is truly lovely with the gorgeous and vivid watercolour style countrysides striking to behold as are the almost photo-realistic cityscapes. Perhaps the single greatest sequence in the film is of Hana playing with and chasing her two small wolf children through the snow on the mountainside where they live, all three of them filled with such unbound joy. Truly uplifting stuff. Wolf Children is a lovely film. Touching and emotional without being sentimental. Funny and charming throughout. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars were both great but this is Mamoru Hosoda's best film to date. A treat.
3. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
So, you're in the middle of directing one of the biggest blockbuster movies of all time (3rd biggest to be exact) and you get two weeks off. What do you do? Take the wife and kids on a break? Go home and sleep? Well, if you are Joss Whedon you go make a film in your own house with no money starring a load of your friends. And not just any film either. Oh no. You make an adaptation of a Shakespeare play. In black and white. But surely not I hear you cry? That could never work. No where near enough time. And who the heck wants to watch a black and white Shakespeare play shot in someone's backyard anyway? Well, me as it turns out. And a lot of other people too. I won't bother with a plot summary. Go look it up if you don't know. Just know that Beatrice loves Benedick and vice versa but neither of them know it or will admit it until romantic circumstances arising between Benedick's friend and compatriot Claudio and Beatrice's cousin Hero force the issue. There are conspiracies, back-stabbings, tragedy, fury, romance, and lots of laughs. Yes, I swear. It is honestly, properly funny. Possibly the first time I have ever found a Shakespeare comedy funny. This being a Joss Whedon film he focuses on the gender issues highlighted by the story with Beatrice's heartfelt and rightly furious rant about the unfairness of it all being a highlight. Oh yeah, Amy Acker as Beatrice. She is fabulous. But then she always has been right back to her days as Fred and Iliyria on Angel. And as Benedick, Alexis Denisof is also great, full of swaggering charisma and latterly a growing fury and passion. The rest of the cast are good too including Clark Gregg as Leonato, the governor of Messina, and Fran Kranz as Claudio. However it is the duo of Nathan Fillion and Tom Lenk as bumbling cops Dogberry and Verges who almost steal the entire movie. They are hilarious. Even if you don't understand the language you will get what they are doing. Comedy gold. I've watched this several times now since it came out and it never gets dull. In fact, it is a pure joy from start to finish. I truly hope Joss shoots some more Shakespeare plays this way. It would be a crime not to let his little rep company get their Bard out more often for all of us to enjoy. Yup, Joss (and William) remains Boss!
2. PACIFIC RIM
It's big. It's not subtle. It's kinda daft. But boy, is it a blast! Guillermo del Toro brings to the screen in the way only he could the story of humans piloting giant mechas knows as Jaegers to fight off the cross dimensional invasion of giant monsters who appear through a rift at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And that's pretty much it really. There's not any great depth to Pacific Rim (except when they are literally at the bottom of the Pacific of course). It's a giant monsters versus giant robots smash em up movie as filtered through the brain of monster loving, clockwork/gears obsessed Mexican geek demi-god del Torro. The cool and imposing Idris Elba as Stacker Penticost leads the charge for humanity in the dying days of the Humans vs Kaiju war which humans are now losing. However Penticost has one last card to play. He has a plan to end the war forever with one last major strike against the Kaiju's rift at the bottom of the sea. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), a washed-up Jaeger pilot is called out of retirement and teamed with rookie pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) who also happens to be Penticost's adoptive daughter, to lead this last-ditch effort to defeat the Kaijus. What Pacific Rim really is, is an old fashioned WW2 against the odds mission movie. Backs against the wall, chaps. Tally ho! The look and design of the film for all its high tech robots echoes WW2 flicks from the Jaeger hangers and bases and barracks to the battered leather fleece lined jackets the pilots wear. It is this future retro feel that really makes me love the movie. That and the terrific visuals including the designs of the Jaegers and the various monstrous Kaijus. The epic battles when they happen are humongous and inventively staged slug fests using supertankers as baseball bats to batter a monster and rocket powered arms to land a more powerful punch. The performances are fine with Elba being suitably gruff and intense and Hunnam reluctantly heroic. Rinko Kakuchi as Mako is good too with a nice line in deceptive fragility. However it is the little girl Mana Ashida who plays Mako as a child who deserves most credit. The sequence of her wandering Tokyo utterly terrified as a massive Kaiju runs riot is scary good. The poor kid looks like del Toro was threatening to shoot a puppy off camera or something. Tremendous performance! In the end, Pacific Rim is just big gleeful nonsense. But I bloody loved every minute of it. Thankfully (mostly due to the great people of China) it became an international hit after only doing so so in the US. This may mean we get to see a sequel, although the movie ends the story perfectly so I wouldn't be too upset if we didn't get another does of this mecha on monster action.
1. GRAVITY
In space nobody can hear you crap your pants! At the start of this end of year round up I made the point that I am not claiming these to be 'the best' films of the year, merely the films I have personally enjoyed the most. However I can honestly say that Gravity IS the best film I saw this year. Hands down. It is quite simply astonishing. Sandra Bullock is scientist Dr Ryan Stone who becomes stranded in orbit after her shuttle is destroyed by debris from a satellite mishap. Along with fellow astronaut Kowalski (George Clooney) she must find a way to get back to Earth before either the debris field comes around again or they both run out of oxygen. What follows is one of the most intense, scary, stressful, beautiful, awe inspiring pieces of cinema ever. Just the visuals alone with the groundbreaking use of CGI and other visual FX is enough to make your jaw hit the floor, but add in the buttock clenching and seemingly hopeless fight for survival and you end up with what is an unparalleled cinematic experience. Gravity is only one of three films you simply must see in 3D. The other two being Avatar and Hugo. Okay, so Gravity is basically a genre film which plays out kinda like a horror movie. But it does have depth to it. It has themes and layers. The main ones being about the preciousness of life, birth and rebirth, the vastness of the cosmos but also the vastness of the human spirit and its will to survive, to go on no matter what. Of the actors, Clooney is of course splendid but the film belongs completely to Bullock who cements her position as one of the biggest genuine movie stars on the planet as well as being a tremendous actress. Because despite the visual wonders on show if you don't buy in to Dr Ryan Stone as a character then nothing else will work. But buy in you do. Gotta say for a woman in her late 40's Sandy B is seriously bucking the Hollywood starlet meatgrinder trend. And more power to her. But the success of Gravity would not have been possible without the visionary direction of Alfonso Cuarón, the genius Mexican director of Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También, and the sublime A Little Princess. Cuarón is simply one of the very best filmmakers working today and I can't wait to see what he does next. Make no mistake, Gravity is the real deal. A tremendous piece of film making with a great central performance from a genuine movie star. I just hope Warners re-release it every few years so we can continue to see it as it was meant to be seen: on a huge screen in 3D. Cuz I really want that experience back.
Bubbling under:
Django Unchained, Rush, American Mary, The World's End, Les Miserables
And now my bottom five films of 2013:
5. THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES
A dull, hackneyed grab bag from other better fantasy franchises stuffed together in to this confusing, poorly written and completely uninvolving bore of a film. Only the super cute Lily Collins makes this even close to bearable. Thankfully it flopped...and yet they are making a sequel. Huh?
4. DRACULA 3D (Dario Argento's film)
Oh how the once mighty have fallen. Dario Argento has been a true visionary in the realm of horror cinema with classics such as Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebre. But those days are long gone. Dracula 3D is a laughably bad retelling of Stoker's classic featuring some truly terrible acting, awful FX and poor general production values. Argento manages to reduce Stoker's creepy gothic horror story to a silly bland cartoon. Only buxom vampire bride Tania played by the gorgeous Miriam Giovanelli provides any life being charismatically sexy and nicely ferocious in her role. But this is mostly some major suckage.
3. LOVE BITE
A British alleged horror comedy set in a small seaside town which sees teen Jamie (Ed Speleers) and his three pals looking to get laid so that they don't fall victim to a possible werewolf who is out hunting down virgins. The situation gets complicated by Jamie falling for a visiting American girl Juliana (Jessica Szohr) who may or may not harbour a dark secret. Okay, so the filmmakers were obviously going for something akin to The Inbetweeners meets Cherry Falls meets Ginger Snaps. Unfortunately they failed dismally on every level. It's crude. Sure, that's easy. But it ain't funny. And it sure ain't scary, tense or even gory. It is just a big fat nothing. A big empty hole lasting 90 mins. I felt sorry for poor Timothy Spall as a deranged werewolf hunter. How did he end up in this rubbish?
2. A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD
And so director John Moore and writer Skip Woods took a franchise I love (the first Die Hard is my second fave film ever), killed it, shat on it but then didn't even bother to flush it. They just left it there lying dead in cinema's toilet bowl mouldering away for us all to see before we turn away in violent disgust. Fuck them. Fuck them all. The basic premise of this the fifth Die Hard film is fine - McClane goes to Russia to help out his son who is in a spot of bother and gets dragged in to a criminal conspiracy to steal nuclear weapons. So far so solid. Problem is the resulting script is awful being filled with bad plotting, terrible dialogue and worst of all devolving John McClane – one of cinema's greatest heroes – in to a grumpy, ignorant, unlikable borderline psychopath who appears to care nothing about crushing cars with innocent civilians inside and seems to glory in getting his gun off whenever he can. That is NOT John McClane! McClane is always a reluctant hero, just a regular guy who is not eager for violence but who will step up and do the right thing if needed. But above all...he CARES!!! Add in the fact that John Moore is a director who can't shoot decent action to save his life and is incapable of bringing a sense of life or energy or drama to anything he makes and what we end up with is a complete and utter travesty of a Die Hard film. For all those people who thought Die Hard 4.0 was bad (I don't, I really like it) well, watch this and you'll think it was a stunner by comparison. Part of me hopes this is the end of McClane's adventures as I don't want to see the great man shat on anymore. But another part of me hopes that when John McTiernan is let out of prison he will get to make a sixth and final Die Hard which will restore the good name of the franchise and above all the good name and high standing of Mr John McClane. This? This is just utter, utter dispiriting shit. Shame on you, FOX.
1. A HAUNTED HOUSE
Any other year and A Good Day to Die Hard would easily clinch the bottom spot on this chart. However this year The Wayans Brothers (chiefly Marlon) unleashed this utterly wretched turd of a film on us. It's basically a spoof of the Paranormal Activity films (a series I've given up on now after the crap fourth film) that is so spectacularly unfunny and even offensive in places that I was quite amazed while struggling through it. What is even more amazing is that it made money and a sequel is on its way. Oh god no! But hey, if you think Marlon Wayans gurning like an idiot amidst lots of shouting, stupid sex jokes, borderline homophobic jokes, as well as a sequence which sees a young child being violently beaten is remotely funny then good luck to you. I don't. Quite the opposite in fact. I found nothing at all to like about this. I hated every vile second. At least A Good Day to Die Hard had a good score from Marco Beltrami to distract me from its shitness. No such luck here. Congrats Wayans Bros. With the likes of this, White Chicks and Littleman you continue to scrape the bottom of the comedy barrel. Gross.
That's all folks. Happy cinema going for 2014.
10. THOR: THE DARK WORLD
The sequel to Kenneth Branagh's 2011 God of Thunder epic is a fast, fun, epic fantasy which opens up the restricted scope of the original to new worlds and new places on Earth (specifically London replacing a small New Mexico town). Game of Thrones' Alan Taylor comes aboard as director and brings a less shiny more lived in look to Asgard and its people. Principle cast returnees Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as Jane, Kat Dennings as Darcy and Stellan Skarsgard as Eric are all once more top notch. But it's the not-so-secret weapon of Tom Hiddleston as Loki who once again commands the screen and makes the audience just love a bad guy. Above all else though, Thor: The Dark World does what the best of Marvel movies should do - it is tons of fun. And sometimes that's all you need. All hail MeuMeu!
9. THE WOLVERINE
The Wolverine sees James Mangold (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) directing Hugh Jackman as the badass mutant with the cool adamantium claws. And in doing so makes up for the horrible poop fest that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Based on a classic run of the comics by Chris Claremont, the story sees Logan travel to Japan at the behest of dying Japanese industrialist Yashida who as a young man was saved by Logan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Yashida wants to repay his life debt to Logan by offering him the one thing he wants – mortality. However it appears there is a hidden agenda behind Logan's visit and our hirsute hero soon becomes involved with Mariko, Yashida's granddaughter, who has become a target of Yakuza gangs vying for control of her Grandfather's company. The Wolverine is a rare beast of a superhero flick in that for much of the time there are not any real super-heroics going on. It is more about character building and interaction and is not afraid to have well written, well acted scenes of just two people talking. But when the super-heroics do come then they come in style with some wonderful action sequences including a thrilling fight atop a speeding bullet train and a battle in the snow against an army of ninjas. All in all then a top notch character driven superhero thriller with Jackman hammering home yet again his total ownership of this role. Snikt!
8. IRON MAN THREE
I had a real hard time figuring out my fave Marvel movie of 2013. To be honest, it could easily be any of them (I include FOX's The Wolverine in this even though it is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). They were all great and they all had something different to offer while retaining the central Marvel demand that first and foremost they be FUN! But in the end, it came down to one thing...or I should say one person. Shane Black. Yep, the man behind Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was given $200m and told to go away and make a superhero film. Only Marvel would be this brave. And God bless 'em for it. It is precisely these smart and often brave choices that have made their films so much quirky, endearing fun, not to mention hugely successful. So what did Shane Black do with Marvel's $200m? What he did was to pretty much discard Iron Man and instead make a Tony Stark movie. For much of this film the armor is not even in use and when it is Tony is often not in it and is instead operating it remotely. Either that or other people are getting to wear it. In IM3 Tony is cast adrift and forced to use his wits and smarts to uncover the truth behind the terrorist known as The Mandarin as well as stopping a very bad guy from creating an army of exploding super-soldiers. Black invests his film with many of his usual tropes. In parts it becomes a buddy film (Stark and the kid, Stark and Rhodey), it is set around Christmas time, there is a torture scene where the hero turns the tables on the villains. And Black is also in super playful mode as he gleefully pulls the rug out from under the audience with a controversial twist about two thirds through which puts the whole film in to a new perspective. Also he is a dab hand at witty cutting banter. As such, IM3 is very, very funny with Downey Jr yet again proving why he is Marvel's most valuable on screen player. The action sequences are all good with the two highlights being the destruction of Stark's home via missile attack and the brilliant mid-air rescue of Air Force One passengers in free fall. The ending might devolve in to a bit of a flying CGI melee but it still contains some great character beats and gags amidst the carnage. Performances are all great with Downey Jr still at the top of his game. But special mention must go to Sir Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. He is scary and...a lot more. Oh, and Brian Tyler provides a wonderfully toe tapping score with his end theme being sublime. So yeah, in the end, Iron Man Three clinches the title of top Marvel movie of 2013 mostly by virtue of being a Shane Black flick. And thanks to Marvel (and IM3 making $1.2bn), Black will now go on to make more movies of his choosing. And for that alone we must all be truly grateful.
7. THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend) replaces Gary Ross as this series' director, and in film number two brings a wider scope and deeper mythos to the building story of Katniss Everdeen and her growing role as unwilling focus for a building rebellion in the future land of Panem. The story here builds logically and smartly on the first film with nasty President Snow (a wonderfully snakelike Donald Sutherland) looking to discredit our heroine before getting her killed in a new round of winners only Hunger Games. Once again Jennifer Lawrence is superb as Katniss – steely and smart, haunted and vulnerable. And she is given strong support by the rest of the cast with special mention going to the fab Elisabeth Banks as Effie Trinkett who brings new depth to the previously shallow Escort to the District 12 Tributes. As before, the underlying themes are all about social control, the power of a complicit media, and the horrific extravagance and waste of the Capitol contrasted against the extreme poverty of everywhere else. It is perhaps this huge gap between the haves and have nots of Panem that hits home hardest making for a powerful message in this time of real world austerity for the poor and seemingly continuing greed and avarice for the wealthy. What makes this series work and raises it above all other young adult adaptations is that it has something serious and important on its mind. It is actually about something. Something important. Plus it has at its center perhaps the best leading lady and character actress of her generation in Jennifer Lawrence. I mean, how awesome must it be to be Jennifer Lawrence right now? Pretty damn awesome I reckon. Top of the world. Girl on Fire! And good for her. Bring on Mockingjay.
6. ODD THOMAS
Tricky one this. Odd Thomas has not been officially released anywhere yet. It's been made for nearly two years but due to legal wranglings remains locked in distribution limbo with no release in sight. I saw it via other means and we'll leave it at that. That this movie hasn't been and may not be released is a crying shame. Based on the novel by Dean R Koontz, Odd Thomas tells the story of a young man, a short order cook in a small town, who has the ability to see and communicate with recently dead people. Dead people who often need Odd's help to pass on. And being a kindly soul, Odd is more than willing to oblige them, using the knowledge the dead impart to him to track down murderers, rapists and all kinds of scum. However when Odd starts seeing a major increase in the number of bodachs (invisible creatures that appear when death and disaster is near), he becomes convinced that something terrible is going to befall his town and sets out to stop it from happening. Now I've not read Koontz's books so I have no idea how faithful the movie is or isn't. What I do know though is Odd Thomas the film, as written and directed by Stephen (The Mummy) Sommers is an imaginative, witty, warm, emotional and exciting supernatural adventure helped along by a great cast led by Anton Yelchin who is superb as the highly capable and likable Odd. Yelchin is wonderfully supported by Addison Timlin as Stormy, Odd's cute and loyal girlfriend, and Willem Dafoe as local Police Chief Porter, a friendly father figure to young Odd. The core of the film though is Odd and Stormy. And they are great together. You really do buy in to their playful, loving relationship and the obvious history behind it. You care about these two kids. The supernatural story proceeds as you'd expect – always fun, always creepy, always cool – but the tale of Odd and Stormy is what counts. By movie's end I don't mind admitting that I was moved. An emotional connection had been made. The film had worked. It was lots of creepy charming fun, yes, but it connected too. And in the end, that is what really counts. Way to go, Odd one.
5. JOURNEY TO THE WEST: CONQUERING THE DEMONS
Okay, so I had a big silly grin on my face all the way through this. Genius Chinese filmmaker Stephen (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle) Chow returns with his epic prequel to the famous 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. To western audiences (especially kids who grew up in 70's/80's Britain) Journey to the West is best known as the classic Japanese TV show Monkey! The novel and TV show concerns the pilgrimage of Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled to India to obtain sacred texts with the aid of three protectors: a magical monkey king with fabulous powers, a pig demon, and a water demon given human form. But instead of telling this tale again, Chow has created his own prequel concerning Xuanzang and his pre-pilgrimage days as a rather hopeless Buddhist demon hunter who won't slay the demons but prefers instead to naively use the non-violent method of reading old nursery rhymes with the intention of calming the demons down and reawakening their goodness. Of course this approach does not go well for Xuanzang who soon runs in to a fellow demon hunter called Duan, a tough and beautiful woman who slays demons the old school way. Xuanzang doesn't seem to like his new competition very much. Duan though becomes hopelessly smitten by the hopeless young monk/demon hunter and their paths intertwine, eventually leading them both to come face to face with the legendary Monkey King imprisoned by the Buddha beneath a mountain. To be honest, there is not much of any real story to Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. It is mostly a series of incidents as poor hapless Xuanzang keeps trying (and failing) to calm those demons and become a better man through finding enlightenment. The film's throughline is Xuanzang and Duan and their weird and wacky one sided courtship mixed in with lots of gloriously entertaining set pieces involving all kinds of crazy monsters and Tom and Jerry style cartoon action. This could easily have been one big rambling mess. But Stephen Chow knows what he is doing. And like the awesome Kung Fu Hustle, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons ends up a wildly inventive, very funny, very silly blast. The fact that it is based around the same tale that brought joy to millions of 70s/80s kids like me is just an added bonus. This time out though, Chow does not star in his own movie as he usually does. A younger actor was required to play Xuanzang. And Wen Zhang is a spot on Chow substitute. Then there is the beautiful Shu Qi (best known to western audiences as Jason Statham's 'cargo' in the first Transporter) who is terrific as the feisty, fighty, slightly unhinged Duan. The movie looks great too with big detailed sets, glorious design and lots of nifty FX. But in the end it is the pure nutty fun factor that Chow can harness so well in his films that makes this one a winner. Sequel please.
4. WOLF CHILDREN
Acclaimed Japanese director Mamoru (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars) Hosoda co-writes and directs this beautiful, simple animated film that tells the story of nineteen year old Hana who meets and falls in love with a man who she soon discovers is the last of his race: a legendary tribe who can physically transform in to wolves. The pair marry and Hana soon becomes pregnant, eventually giving birth to a daughter, Yuki, and then a year later a son, Ame. However tragedy strikes and Hana and her two small children are left alone with Hana struggling to bring up two small wolf children with hardly any money and no experience of rearing such creatures. All the while she is also trying to keep the children's existence secret from the rest of the world while also trying to give the two (literal) nippers enjoyable and fulfilling lives. Mamoru Hosoda has said that Wolf Children was conceived as his love letter to motherhood, to mothers the world over. And that it is. There is no big intricate story here. There are no bad guys. What there is, is a mother struggling against all odds to make a wonderful life for her two growing children while also giving them the strength and the space to find out who they are and to make the right choices for themselves. The film rings true throughout and visually it is truly lovely with the gorgeous and vivid watercolour style countrysides striking to behold as are the almost photo-realistic cityscapes. Perhaps the single greatest sequence in the film is of Hana playing with and chasing her two small wolf children through the snow on the mountainside where they live, all three of them filled with such unbound joy. Truly uplifting stuff. Wolf Children is a lovely film. Touching and emotional without being sentimental. Funny and charming throughout. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars were both great but this is Mamoru Hosoda's best film to date. A treat.
3. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
So, you're in the middle of directing one of the biggest blockbuster movies of all time (3rd biggest to be exact) and you get two weeks off. What do you do? Take the wife and kids on a break? Go home and sleep? Well, if you are Joss Whedon you go make a film in your own house with no money starring a load of your friends. And not just any film either. Oh no. You make an adaptation of a Shakespeare play. In black and white. But surely not I hear you cry? That could never work. No where near enough time. And who the heck wants to watch a black and white Shakespeare play shot in someone's backyard anyway? Well, me as it turns out. And a lot of other people too. I won't bother with a plot summary. Go look it up if you don't know. Just know that Beatrice loves Benedick and vice versa but neither of them know it or will admit it until romantic circumstances arising between Benedick's friend and compatriot Claudio and Beatrice's cousin Hero force the issue. There are conspiracies, back-stabbings, tragedy, fury, romance, and lots of laughs. Yes, I swear. It is honestly, properly funny. Possibly the first time I have ever found a Shakespeare comedy funny. This being a Joss Whedon film he focuses on the gender issues highlighted by the story with Beatrice's heartfelt and rightly furious rant about the unfairness of it all being a highlight. Oh yeah, Amy Acker as Beatrice. She is fabulous. But then she always has been right back to her days as Fred and Iliyria on Angel. And as Benedick, Alexis Denisof is also great, full of swaggering charisma and latterly a growing fury and passion. The rest of the cast are good too including Clark Gregg as Leonato, the governor of Messina, and Fran Kranz as Claudio. However it is the duo of Nathan Fillion and Tom Lenk as bumbling cops Dogberry and Verges who almost steal the entire movie. They are hilarious. Even if you don't understand the language you will get what they are doing. Comedy gold. I've watched this several times now since it came out and it never gets dull. In fact, it is a pure joy from start to finish. I truly hope Joss shoots some more Shakespeare plays this way. It would be a crime not to let his little rep company get their Bard out more often for all of us to enjoy. Yup, Joss (and William) remains Boss!
2. PACIFIC RIM
It's big. It's not subtle. It's kinda daft. But boy, is it a blast! Guillermo del Toro brings to the screen in the way only he could the story of humans piloting giant mechas knows as Jaegers to fight off the cross dimensional invasion of giant monsters who appear through a rift at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And that's pretty much it really. There's not any great depth to Pacific Rim (except when they are literally at the bottom of the Pacific of course). It's a giant monsters versus giant robots smash em up movie as filtered through the brain of monster loving, clockwork/gears obsessed Mexican geek demi-god del Torro. The cool and imposing Idris Elba as Stacker Penticost leads the charge for humanity in the dying days of the Humans vs Kaiju war which humans are now losing. However Penticost has one last card to play. He has a plan to end the war forever with one last major strike against the Kaiju's rift at the bottom of the sea. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), a washed-up Jaeger pilot is called out of retirement and teamed with rookie pilot Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) who also happens to be Penticost's adoptive daughter, to lead this last-ditch effort to defeat the Kaijus. What Pacific Rim really is, is an old fashioned WW2 against the odds mission movie. Backs against the wall, chaps. Tally ho! The look and design of the film for all its high tech robots echoes WW2 flicks from the Jaeger hangers and bases and barracks to the battered leather fleece lined jackets the pilots wear. It is this future retro feel that really makes me love the movie. That and the terrific visuals including the designs of the Jaegers and the various monstrous Kaijus. The epic battles when they happen are humongous and inventively staged slug fests using supertankers as baseball bats to batter a monster and rocket powered arms to land a more powerful punch. The performances are fine with Elba being suitably gruff and intense and Hunnam reluctantly heroic. Rinko Kakuchi as Mako is good too with a nice line in deceptive fragility. However it is the little girl Mana Ashida who plays Mako as a child who deserves most credit. The sequence of her wandering Tokyo utterly terrified as a massive Kaiju runs riot is scary good. The poor kid looks like del Toro was threatening to shoot a puppy off camera or something. Tremendous performance! In the end, Pacific Rim is just big gleeful nonsense. But I bloody loved every minute of it. Thankfully (mostly due to the great people of China) it became an international hit after only doing so so in the US. This may mean we get to see a sequel, although the movie ends the story perfectly so I wouldn't be too upset if we didn't get another does of this mecha on monster action.
1. GRAVITY
In space nobody can hear you crap your pants! At the start of this end of year round up I made the point that I am not claiming these to be 'the best' films of the year, merely the films I have personally enjoyed the most. However I can honestly say that Gravity IS the best film I saw this year. Hands down. It is quite simply astonishing. Sandra Bullock is scientist Dr Ryan Stone who becomes stranded in orbit after her shuttle is destroyed by debris from a satellite mishap. Along with fellow astronaut Kowalski (George Clooney) she must find a way to get back to Earth before either the debris field comes around again or they both run out of oxygen. What follows is one of the most intense, scary, stressful, beautiful, awe inspiring pieces of cinema ever. Just the visuals alone with the groundbreaking use of CGI and other visual FX is enough to make your jaw hit the floor, but add in the buttock clenching and seemingly hopeless fight for survival and you end up with what is an unparalleled cinematic experience. Gravity is only one of three films you simply must see in 3D. The other two being Avatar and Hugo. Okay, so Gravity is basically a genre film which plays out kinda like a horror movie. But it does have depth to it. It has themes and layers. The main ones being about the preciousness of life, birth and rebirth, the vastness of the cosmos but also the vastness of the human spirit and its will to survive, to go on no matter what. Of the actors, Clooney is of course splendid but the film belongs completely to Bullock who cements her position as one of the biggest genuine movie stars on the planet as well as being a tremendous actress. Because despite the visual wonders on show if you don't buy in to Dr Ryan Stone as a character then nothing else will work. But buy in you do. Gotta say for a woman in her late 40's Sandy B is seriously bucking the Hollywood starlet meatgrinder trend. And more power to her. But the success of Gravity would not have been possible without the visionary direction of Alfonso Cuarón, the genius Mexican director of Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También, and the sublime A Little Princess. Cuarón is simply one of the very best filmmakers working today and I can't wait to see what he does next. Make no mistake, Gravity is the real deal. A tremendous piece of film making with a great central performance from a genuine movie star. I just hope Warners re-release it every few years so we can continue to see it as it was meant to be seen: on a huge screen in 3D. Cuz I really want that experience back.
Bubbling under:
Django Unchained, Rush, American Mary, The World's End, Les Miserables
And now my bottom five films of 2013:
5. THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES
A dull, hackneyed grab bag from other better fantasy franchises stuffed together in to this confusing, poorly written and completely uninvolving bore of a film. Only the super cute Lily Collins makes this even close to bearable. Thankfully it flopped...and yet they are making a sequel. Huh?
4. DRACULA 3D (Dario Argento's film)
Oh how the once mighty have fallen. Dario Argento has been a true visionary in the realm of horror cinema with classics such as Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebre. But those days are long gone. Dracula 3D is a laughably bad retelling of Stoker's classic featuring some truly terrible acting, awful FX and poor general production values. Argento manages to reduce Stoker's creepy gothic horror story to a silly bland cartoon. Only buxom vampire bride Tania played by the gorgeous Miriam Giovanelli provides any life being charismatically sexy and nicely ferocious in her role. But this is mostly some major suckage.
3. LOVE BITE
A British alleged horror comedy set in a small seaside town which sees teen Jamie (Ed Speleers) and his three pals looking to get laid so that they don't fall victim to a possible werewolf who is out hunting down virgins. The situation gets complicated by Jamie falling for a visiting American girl Juliana (Jessica Szohr) who may or may not harbour a dark secret. Okay, so the filmmakers were obviously going for something akin to The Inbetweeners meets Cherry Falls meets Ginger Snaps. Unfortunately they failed dismally on every level. It's crude. Sure, that's easy. But it ain't funny. And it sure ain't scary, tense or even gory. It is just a big fat nothing. A big empty hole lasting 90 mins. I felt sorry for poor Timothy Spall as a deranged werewolf hunter. How did he end up in this rubbish?
2. A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD
And so director John Moore and writer Skip Woods took a franchise I love (the first Die Hard is my second fave film ever), killed it, shat on it but then didn't even bother to flush it. They just left it there lying dead in cinema's toilet bowl mouldering away for us all to see before we turn away in violent disgust. Fuck them. Fuck them all. The basic premise of this the fifth Die Hard film is fine - McClane goes to Russia to help out his son who is in a spot of bother and gets dragged in to a criminal conspiracy to steal nuclear weapons. So far so solid. Problem is the resulting script is awful being filled with bad plotting, terrible dialogue and worst of all devolving John McClane – one of cinema's greatest heroes – in to a grumpy, ignorant, unlikable borderline psychopath who appears to care nothing about crushing cars with innocent civilians inside and seems to glory in getting his gun off whenever he can. That is NOT John McClane! McClane is always a reluctant hero, just a regular guy who is not eager for violence but who will step up and do the right thing if needed. But above all...he CARES!!! Add in the fact that John Moore is a director who can't shoot decent action to save his life and is incapable of bringing a sense of life or energy or drama to anything he makes and what we end up with is a complete and utter travesty of a Die Hard film. For all those people who thought Die Hard 4.0 was bad (I don't, I really like it) well, watch this and you'll think it was a stunner by comparison. Part of me hopes this is the end of McClane's adventures as I don't want to see the great man shat on anymore. But another part of me hopes that when John McTiernan is let out of prison he will get to make a sixth and final Die Hard which will restore the good name of the franchise and above all the good name and high standing of Mr John McClane. This? This is just utter, utter dispiriting shit. Shame on you, FOX.
1. A HAUNTED HOUSE
Any other year and A Good Day to Die Hard would easily clinch the bottom spot on this chart. However this year The Wayans Brothers (chiefly Marlon) unleashed this utterly wretched turd of a film on us. It's basically a spoof of the Paranormal Activity films (a series I've given up on now after the crap fourth film) that is so spectacularly unfunny and even offensive in places that I was quite amazed while struggling through it. What is even more amazing is that it made money and a sequel is on its way. Oh god no! But hey, if you think Marlon Wayans gurning like an idiot amidst lots of shouting, stupid sex jokes, borderline homophobic jokes, as well as a sequence which sees a young child being violently beaten is remotely funny then good luck to you. I don't. Quite the opposite in fact. I found nothing at all to like about this. I hated every vile second. At least A Good Day to Die Hard had a good score from Marco Beltrami to distract me from its shitness. No such luck here. Congrats Wayans Bros. With the likes of this, White Chicks and Littleman you continue to scrape the bottom of the comedy barrel. Gross.
That's all folks. Happy cinema going for 2014.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
MY 50 FAVOURITE HORROR MOVIES: 50 TO 41
Greetings fellow horror hounds!
This year, to celebrate Halloween, I thought I’d do a countdown of my own personal favourite horror films of all time.
Now, I don’t claim these to be the ‘best’ horror films, just the ones I find I enjoy the most and can watch the most. In doing this I’ve tried where possible to steer clear of comedy/horror and to concentrate on pure horror, though there will be a few notable exceptions to that rule. I’ll aim to post my fave fifty in blocks of ten starting here with fifty to forty one, leading up to the final top ten being posted around Halloween itself.
This has been far from an easy task and almost certainly isn’t gonna be definitive as I’ll probably end up remembering titles after the fact that I should have included. But hey ho, it’s all just a bit of ghoulish seasonal fun.
Feel free to comment and slag off my choices and to suggest your own faves.
So, without further ado, here numbers fifty to forty one:
50. Ginger Snaps 2 (D. Brett Sullivan, 2003)
Brett Sullivan's sequel to John Fawcett's brilliant Ginger Snaps is a rare beast: a direct to dvd sequel that is not only a worthy follow up but a logical and smart continuation of the story begun in the first film. The excellent Emily Perkins returns as Brigitte, who after the death of werewolf sister Ginger in the original, is also now infected and is regularly injecting herself with wolfsbane to keep the curse at bay. This soon leads to a mix up with Brigitte being locked up in a drug rehab centre. Separated from her wolfsbane she must try to stop her change while also avoiding a new werewolf who is apparently tracking her down, looking for a mate. Smartly written, crisply directed and with two excellent performances from Perkins and Tatiana Maslany as a strange young girl called Ghost, GS2 is a sequel almost as good as the original.
Trailer
49. City of the Living Dead (D. Lucio Fulci, 1980)
The first of two films in this countdown from Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci, City is the first instalment of Fulci’s unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy, which also includes The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery. City is a weird surrealist mash-up of atmospheric Lovecraftian horror and Romero inspired zombie flesh munching. The story is something to do with the gates of hell about to be opened in the small US town of Dunwich, New England due to the suicide of a local priest. For some reason this suicide has gone and unleashed a horde of ghostly teleporting zombies to eat people up as well as various nasty curses which sees one young girl literally (and grossly) puke up her own guts. Like the best of Fulci, City doesn't make much sense but it is stylish, weirdly dreamlike, supremely atmospheric and utterly gross. Great demented fun.
Trailer
48. Rec. (D. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, 2007)
This Spanish found footage/mockumentary about a city building under quarantine after some kind of deadly outbreak is a swift, intense, super tense, super scary rollercoaster ride. Being shot almost in real time lends extra urgency and desperation to the whole affair with the dark hallways and rooms of the labyrinthine building being a non stop terror trap with hostile zombie types ready to leap out and attack at any second. The final ten minutes in the pitch-black attic is one of THE scariest sequences in horror history. The sequels are pretty damn good too.
Trailer
47. Trick r Treat (D. Mike Dougherty, 2007)
Mike Dougherty's gleefully nasty anthology celebrates Halloween with a slice of twisted small town Americana. It's as if Amblin had decided to make a proper horror film, if say, they'd pushed Gremlins that extra couple of notches to make it really gleefully nasty. The film's four separate tales intertwine cleverly, linked together by the presence of tricky little Halloween sprite Sam, before becoming one big and hugely satisfying whole at the end. Shot for only $12m and produced by Bryan Singer, the film looks gorgeous and is full of splendid actors including the fabulous Dylan Baker, Bryan Cox and Anna Paquin. No trick, this is a brilliant Halloween treat. Just don't be dissing the 31st October or little Sam will come get you.
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46. The Ring (D. Gore Verbinski, 2002)
Gore Verbinski's US remake of the Japanese original is to my mind the superior version of the story. Verbinski manages to capture the atmosphere of the original (something no other US remakes of J-horror have been able to do) while also building a deeper and more satisfying story around the cursed videotape and the dead girl who haunts it. Tense, chilling, and featuring a great central performance from Naomi Watts, The Ring will make sure you never watch TV the same way again. Seven days!
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45. The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (D: Jorge Grau, 1974)
Spanish director Jorge Grau's zombie horror is a strange one. It's a Spanish/Italian co-production set in England featuring the Manchester Morgue in the title yet set somewhere up in the Lake District instead. An experimental sonic pesticide machine being tested on a farm has the bizarre side effect of raising the recently deceased as flesh hungry zombies who roam the countryside killing and eating locals. It's up to a local copper, a young female tourist and a biker dude to combat the undead menace. A weird film, TLDatMM succeeds for three key reasons. First, the English locations (mostly the Peak District) are beautiful and Grau films them with an artist’s eye for composition and capturing natural beauty. Second, there is a strong eco theme running throughout the film re. science messing with nature. And third, the zombies, though not that many of them, are fab and do some very gory kills. Thanks to Grau, a good director, the film has atmosphere and though overall it might not make a whole heap of sense, it does stay with you.
Trailer
44. Audition (D: Takashi Miike, 1999)
Acclaimed Japanese director Takashi Miike's deeply disturbing tale of obsessive love and pain is a hard watch, especially once things get really full on and the wire saw comes out. Middle aged widower Shigeharu is looking for a new wife and decides to accept his film producer friend’s offer to hold an open audition for his prospective new bride with Shigeharu soon becoming smitten by Asami, a seemingly sweet young ex-ballet dancer. But Asami hides an appalling secret. And what follows is an exploration of how the search for true love can go horribly, horribly wrong, shown to us as only Miike can. Ghastly but great.
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43. I Walked with a Zombie (D: Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
The first of two films in this countdown by French-American director Jacques Tourneur is a dark, dream-like tale of jealousy and betrayal set on an island in the West Indies where a young Canadian nurse relocates to look after the sick wife of a rich white land owner. The nurse is introduced to the landowner's dysfunctional family as well as to the local legends of voodoo, which may or may not have something to do with the zombie-like state the sick wife is now in. Tourneur, who previously made the seminal Cat People (a toss up for this spot), was a great director for creating mood and atmosphere and went on to become a major player in film noir. Here, a deep sense of creeping unease permeates every frame of film, which also includes sound effects of omnipresent distant drums and whispering grasses and rumbling storms. Tourneur was also one of the first directors to use and to master the jump scare, with this film having one great one. A correctly regarded classic of the period.
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42. Braindead aka Dead Alive (D: Peter Jackson, 1992)
Peter Jackson's crazy, OTT, blood and gore soaked period Kiwi horror nearly didn't make this list as it also falls in to the comedy genre. And I've tried with this countdown to focus more closely on pure horror (with a couple notable exceptions). But Braindead is such a riotous affair and is so, so gory and so much horrible fun that it simply can't be ignored. A rare Sumatran Rat-Monkey is captured and taken back to New Zealand where it bites the ghastly mother of hapless put upon Lionel, turning her and then others in to depraved, flesh hungry zombie mutants. What follows is a Grand Guignol of Sam Raimi inspired sick, gory lunacy. Fun with a capital F.
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41. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (D. Terence Fisher, 1966)
It took Christopher Lee eight full years to be convinced to reprise his most iconic role for a sequel to Hammer's huge 1958 hit The Horror of Dracula. And according to Lee he only did it under the proviso that all of his dialogue was thrown out and that he wouldn't say a single word on screen. A genius move as it turned out. DPoD is essentially Dracula as The Terminator – a single minded, utterly unstoppable killer focussed on tracking down and getting the one woman he wants. And nothing will get in his way. Lee is all red eyes and snarling fangs, charging around with a manic animalistic energy. In his way is the gruff gun toting friar Father Sandor played by the late great Andrew Keir who delivers a performance as charismatic and charming as Lee is intense and bestial. A simple, streamlined plot and stylish and energetic direction by Hammer legend Terrence Fisher together with Lee's intensity and Kier's gruff charisma makes DPoD the very best of the classic Hammer catalogue.
Trailer
40 to 31 coming soon. Stay tuned.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
My Favourite Films of 2009
Okay, so here is my much considered and pondered over list of favourite films of 2009.
Please note I say ‘favourite’ and not ‘best.’ I make no claim that any of these films are definitely better than other films released last year, only that I personally preferred them. And I make no apology for being populist in my tastes. I saw a fair bit of stuff last year, which included Oscar winners and indie/art house films. And while many of those were great I have to remain honest about what I loved most and what connected to me either emotionally, thematically or just on a pure unabashed entertainment level. Films that, for whatever reason, had an instant rewatchability factor. Or, better still, films that gave me the feeling while watching them of being totally transported away, of simply hoping for them never to end. That last feeling is one that doesn’t happen very often. Normally no matter how good a film is after a couple of hours have passed in a cinema I'm ready to go home. But sometimes movies come out that so captivate me that I become instantly lost in the world they create, so engrossed that I don’t ever want to leave that world. That happened twice last year with Let The Right One In and The Dark Knight and twice again this year with my top two choices. So, without further ado, here goes:
10. District 9
Peter Jackson produced, Neill Blomkamp directed sci fi tale of aliens as refugees in South Africa and the ensuing cultural and civil strife caused. A brilliant allegory for race relations and apartheid with excellent FX by WETA and an affecting and star making central performance by first time actor Sharlto Copley. Sci fi doing what sci fi does best – holding a mirror up to society and asking us who we are and why we do the things we do.
9. Zombieland
An inspired, zany, inventive zombie comedy (zomcom?) with a great script and a great cast headed up by the never better Woody Harrelson as nutty zombie killer 'Tallahassee.' Opposite him Jessie Eisenberg as the nerdy, insecure college kid ‘Columbus’ is just as good. And the movie is filled with tons of very funny sequences and lines of dialogue all brilliantly played and delivered by the spot on cast. This flick is a whole lot of crazy, clever fun that had me laughing hard while admiring the gruesome zombie mayhem, which wasn’t skimped on one bit with the blood and gore is still there, as you’d expect from this sub-genre.
8. Inglorious Basterds
Tarantino is back! Basterds is a gruesome WW2 fairytale, historical accuracy be damned. I loved the inventive cinematic style on show here. Basterds is gorgeously photographed and designed employing everything from captions, insertion of old film clips, narration, flashbacks and gloriously shot imagery - especially around the beautiful Melanie Laurent as Shosanna and her lovely old style cinema. The performances are all very good with two being great: Christophe Waltz as the Nazi Jew hunter Col. Landa and the aforementioned Laurent. Waltz is charming and brutal while Laurent is lovely and calmly compelling. Of the Basterds, Pitt is thuggish and funny and Til Schweiger as ex-German soldier turned Basterd Nazi killer is quietly psychotic. A great movie with QT back on top form.
7. Paranormal Activity
A genuinely scary, tense, creepy and unsettling mockumentary film where atmosphere and tone is everything. A young couple, Katie and Micah, have become isolated in their own home. Sleep deprived, paranoid, terrified, they are being persecuted by an unseen supernatural entity. Nobody will come and help them and they can't run, as it is Katie who is being haunted and not the house. There is something most unsettling about watching people sleeping through a locked off camera while you scan the screen tensely awaiting the next freaky incident - be it a moving door, ghostly footprints appearing, a moving bed sheet or a nasty sudden and violent attack. Yes, a couple things make you jump like any decent horror film should, but it is the hopelessness and the relatability of the situation that scares the most. Brrr!
6. Valkyrie
Bryan Singer makes a tense, old fashioned and highly skilful adaptation of the real life attempt by high-ranking German officers to assassinate Hitler in the hopes of preventing the destruction of the fatherland in the later days of WW2. This is great stuff with a solid and commanding central performance by Tom Cruise as Von Stauffenberg, the leader of the plot. Cruise is excellently supported by a top-notch cast including the always wonderful Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh. But it is the true story itself and the meticulous telling of it along with the brilliant recreation of the period that impresses most. It was also shot on location using the real places where the events actually happened lending a genuine sense of grim reality to the whole thing. Excellent.
5. Drag Me To Hell
Or ‘When Sam Raimi stopped messing about with Spider-Man and dramas and went back to what he does best.’ Drag Me To Hell is a crazy, inventive, scary roller coaster of over the top horror. Sam pulled out all his favourite Evil Dead/Army of Darkness tricks and made a really loud, intense, scary spookablast of a film. It's ninety minutes of earsplittingly loud sound effects, yucky gloop, superjumptastic scares and tons of zany black comedy. Watching this I was jumping out of my skin one moment then laughing so hard my sides ached. Drag Me To Hell is huge fun and is one of those films that really does deserve to be seen in a theatre with an audience. It's a proper movie going experience. Screams and laughter all around. Popcorn flying. Great stuff!
4. Up
Once again Pixar knocked the ball way out of the park with Up, a gloriously entertaining adventure that’s also a bittersweet tale of life, love, loss and life again. Up has a wonderful, layered, intelligent script packed with so much depth, honesty and meaning. The entire film is brilliant but the first act transcends brilliant to become something quite special. It is genuinely moving in a way most films can never hope to be. The montage of Carl & Ellie’s life together is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of storytelling put on screen. But the emotional story never overshadows the humour. Up is consistently very funny in smart and inventive ways. All the characters are fab but I especially love Doug the Dog, "SQUIRREL!" Pixar is something to treasure. They are not driven by selling merchandise but rather by creating art that generations will come back to again and again long after the likes of the Ice Age’s and Monster’s vs. Aliens have been forgotten.
3. Watchmen
Director Zack (300) Snyder pulled off something pretty darn special here: an incredibly faithful film adaptation of beloved source material.
The story of Watchmen poses the question what would society be like if masked vigilante heroes really did exist as they do in comics? What would these heroes really be like and what would that choice to don a mask and ‘do good’ actually do to them - physically and mentally - as well as to the world around them? My overriding memory of the book is of Rorschach - the streetwise, moral absolute and unbalanced vigilante with the ink blot shifting mask who narrates a lot of the story by writing in "Rorschach's journal". It has to be said that Jackie Earl Haley who plays him in the film is perfect. The character has come direct from the page to the screen intact. The rest of the cast is also great - especially Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg played by Patrick Wilson. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake aka The Comedian is also very good. The character is a vile, misanthropic, murderous nutcase and Morgan plays him disturbingly well.
The whole film looks stunning and captures the feel of a nihilistic and hopeless time just counting down the hours until its own end. Watchmen is also extraordinarily violent with a lot to say about the often depressingly vile nature of humanity and our unending capacity for cruelty and (personal as well as global) self destruction shown by nuclear demigod Dr. Manhattan's gradual disconnection and eventual isolation from humanity. Towards the end of the film there is a small hopeful note of beauty amidst all the horror and chaos as the doomsday clock eventually hits midnight, but the story finishes on a final bleak note; a last truthful, moral absolute which could still destroy everything.
I loved the book and I thought this adaptation was note perfect. It is a great movie that looks fantastic and makes you think.
2. Star Trek
JJ Abrams movie is exactly what this franchise needed - a reboot/sequel that relieved it of the intolerable weight of over forty years of canon. Star Trek went back to the beginning and returned the idea to its original concept: Kirk, Spock and the USS Enterprise. Above all, though, it just made Star Trek fun again.
The new cast is perfect. I was initially concerned about Chris Pine as Kirk as I wasn’t familiar at all with him as an actor. And with Shatner as such an iconic presence in this role, how could anyone else capture the essence of James T. Kirk without just descending in to parody? But to his enormous credit Chris Pine doesn’t do that. He’s done his own thing as Kirk with just a few tiny classic Shatner/Kirkesque poses creeping in. Pine just exudes charisma like a young Harrison Ford and also has excellent comic timing. The sequence with Kirk charging around trying to convince everyone of the Romulan trap while McCoy is running after him and injecting him with various hyposprays is hilarious. In short Pine is amazing and delivers my favourite male performance of the year. A big time movie star was born right here. Karl Urban inhabits Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy completely. His take on the irascible doctor and extremely reluctant space traveller is awesome. It’s almost as if Deforest Kelley is back with us. Zachary Quinto is also very good as Spock, although he is quite a different Spock than I remember. He’s far more emotional and easy to rile. He’s even having a full on romantic relationship with a certain lovely young communications officer. And speaking of…
Zoe Saldana as Uhura. What a year she’s had starring in two of the biggest and best films of 2009 with her being one of the very best things about each. I love this girl. She is a damn good actress and just so natural, charismatic and likeable. She has real presence. Her Uhura is immensely intelligent, wise, emotionally sensitive and supportive. Another big time movie star was born right here.
To sum up, Star Trek is enormous ear to ear grin making fun, a wonderful adventure with a great cast who brim with charisma and talent. Star Trek manages to be both nostalgic and modern and is just tons of rip roaring, space faring fun.
1. Avatar
Nobody makes films like James Cameron. He makes very few, but when he does they are huge in scope and cost more money than the GDP of a small nation while always pushing forward new technologies and methods of filmmaking or just inventing entirely new ones. Every time the naysayers and doom mongers predict his latest film will be rubbish and unsuccessful. And (almost) every time they're wrong. Hugely wrong. Okay, so The Abyss was financially not so successful, however it was still a very good film. But apart from that (and Piranha 2) every film Cameron’s made has been either awesome or a classic and been embraced by audiences worldwide. His last, Titanic, was twelve years ago and is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it (how come?) then do so. Don’t believe the haters. Since Titanic rewrote the books on box office success it has taken JC a very long time indeed to get around to making his next film and to develop the technology to a point where he could make that film exactly how he wanted, to do it justice and to give audiences something special.
And, boy, did he ever.
I love Avatar. A lot. It may not be perfect or the most original story ever told but that really misses the point as similar stories to this have been told and retold for as long as people have told stories. They are just reinvented and retold in different ways. It is not what you do it is how you do it. And nobody has ever told this story like Cameron has with Avatar. He has created an entire world called Pandora with an eco system based on sound science and come up with great sci fi ideas within that eco system that bring to life many similar real life concepts here on Earth such as the Gaia hypothesis. But Cameron’s genius is to present it all in a quasi fantasy/pulp sci fi romantic adventure style that harkens back to the otherworldly tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Frank Herbert. Plus it has real emotional weight and is chock full of relevance to our current world. For instance the destruction of Home Tree is a fabulous and terrible sequence that carries a huge visceral and emotional wallop. It is awful to behold and reminds us of real life atrocities – none more so than 9/11. And Cameron has not lost his touch in directing action and spectacle either. The sweeping vistas of Pandora are stunning, as are the intense, violent and perfectly choreographed battles.
So the story is familiar but great and the world created is perfectly constructed and stunning. That brings me to the single best thing about the film. The Na’vi. They are simply amazing. The level of performance capture and CGI realism is far beyond anything previously managed. But the technical side of their creation would mean nothing without the performances of the actors playing them. And they all do great work but especially the fabulous Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. It astounds me. Neytiri is incredible, a wonder to behold every time she is onscreen. She lives and breathes. She is the single greatest synthespian character ever. Zoe’s gestures and movements - be it subtle look, a twitch of a cheek muscle, a trembling lip, a ferocious snarl, a tiny giggle - are all captured perfectly. Neytiri is a brilliant character and Saldana nails it perfectly.
It was a close run thing this year between Star Trek and Avatar for my fave movie and truth told there is not much in it at all. They could easily be swapped. But I think Avatar just edges it for the sheer scope and scale of James Cameron’s imagination and creation, for the utter mind boggle I get every time Neytiri is on screen, for the incredible use of 3D, for the emotional wallop I get when Home Tree falls. For the nerve jangling animal howl of rage and grief Neytiri gives as her father dies in her arms. Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.
As I write this, Avatar has been a strong critical success and a huge financial success with it looking likely that James Cameron will end up being writer/director of the two biggest grossing films of all time. Nice going JC. So can we have Avatar 2 please? Just not in another twelve years.
I see you.
Please note I say ‘favourite’ and not ‘best.’ I make no claim that any of these films are definitely better than other films released last year, only that I personally preferred them. And I make no apology for being populist in my tastes. I saw a fair bit of stuff last year, which included Oscar winners and indie/art house films. And while many of those were great I have to remain honest about what I loved most and what connected to me either emotionally, thematically or just on a pure unabashed entertainment level. Films that, for whatever reason, had an instant rewatchability factor. Or, better still, films that gave me the feeling while watching them of being totally transported away, of simply hoping for them never to end. That last feeling is one that doesn’t happen very often. Normally no matter how good a film is after a couple of hours have passed in a cinema I'm ready to go home. But sometimes movies come out that so captivate me that I become instantly lost in the world they create, so engrossed that I don’t ever want to leave that world. That happened twice last year with Let The Right One In and The Dark Knight and twice again this year with my top two choices. So, without further ado, here goes:
10. District 9
Peter Jackson produced, Neill Blomkamp directed sci fi tale of aliens as refugees in South Africa and the ensuing cultural and civil strife caused. A brilliant allegory for race relations and apartheid with excellent FX by WETA and an affecting and star making central performance by first time actor Sharlto Copley. Sci fi doing what sci fi does best – holding a mirror up to society and asking us who we are and why we do the things we do.
9. Zombieland
An inspired, zany, inventive zombie comedy (zomcom?) with a great script and a great cast headed up by the never better Woody Harrelson as nutty zombie killer 'Tallahassee.' Opposite him Jessie Eisenberg as the nerdy, insecure college kid ‘Columbus’ is just as good. And the movie is filled with tons of very funny sequences and lines of dialogue all brilliantly played and delivered by the spot on cast. This flick is a whole lot of crazy, clever fun that had me laughing hard while admiring the gruesome zombie mayhem, which wasn’t skimped on one bit with the blood and gore is still there, as you’d expect from this sub-genre.
8. Inglorious Basterds
Tarantino is back! Basterds is a gruesome WW2 fairytale, historical accuracy be damned. I loved the inventive cinematic style on show here. Basterds is gorgeously photographed and designed employing everything from captions, insertion of old film clips, narration, flashbacks and gloriously shot imagery - especially around the beautiful Melanie Laurent as Shosanna and her lovely old style cinema. The performances are all very good with two being great: Christophe Waltz as the Nazi Jew hunter Col. Landa and the aforementioned Laurent. Waltz is charming and brutal while Laurent is lovely and calmly compelling. Of the Basterds, Pitt is thuggish and funny and Til Schweiger as ex-German soldier turned Basterd Nazi killer is quietly psychotic. A great movie with QT back on top form.
7. Paranormal Activity
A genuinely scary, tense, creepy and unsettling mockumentary film where atmosphere and tone is everything. A young couple, Katie and Micah, have become isolated in their own home. Sleep deprived, paranoid, terrified, they are being persecuted by an unseen supernatural entity. Nobody will come and help them and they can't run, as it is Katie who is being haunted and not the house. There is something most unsettling about watching people sleeping through a locked off camera while you scan the screen tensely awaiting the next freaky incident - be it a moving door, ghostly footprints appearing, a moving bed sheet or a nasty sudden and violent attack. Yes, a couple things make you jump like any decent horror film should, but it is the hopelessness and the relatability of the situation that scares the most. Brrr!
6. Valkyrie
Bryan Singer makes a tense, old fashioned and highly skilful adaptation of the real life attempt by high-ranking German officers to assassinate Hitler in the hopes of preventing the destruction of the fatherland in the later days of WW2. This is great stuff with a solid and commanding central performance by Tom Cruise as Von Stauffenberg, the leader of the plot. Cruise is excellently supported by a top-notch cast including the always wonderful Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh. But it is the true story itself and the meticulous telling of it along with the brilliant recreation of the period that impresses most. It was also shot on location using the real places where the events actually happened lending a genuine sense of grim reality to the whole thing. Excellent.
5. Drag Me To Hell
Or ‘When Sam Raimi stopped messing about with Spider-Man and dramas and went back to what he does best.’ Drag Me To Hell is a crazy, inventive, scary roller coaster of over the top horror. Sam pulled out all his favourite Evil Dead/Army of Darkness tricks and made a really loud, intense, scary spookablast of a film. It's ninety minutes of earsplittingly loud sound effects, yucky gloop, superjumptastic scares and tons of zany black comedy. Watching this I was jumping out of my skin one moment then laughing so hard my sides ached. Drag Me To Hell is huge fun and is one of those films that really does deserve to be seen in a theatre with an audience. It's a proper movie going experience. Screams and laughter all around. Popcorn flying. Great stuff!
4. Up
Once again Pixar knocked the ball way out of the park with Up, a gloriously entertaining adventure that’s also a bittersweet tale of life, love, loss and life again. Up has a wonderful, layered, intelligent script packed with so much depth, honesty and meaning. The entire film is brilliant but the first act transcends brilliant to become something quite special. It is genuinely moving in a way most films can never hope to be. The montage of Carl & Ellie’s life together is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of storytelling put on screen. But the emotional story never overshadows the humour. Up is consistently very funny in smart and inventive ways. All the characters are fab but I especially love Doug the Dog, "SQUIRREL!" Pixar is something to treasure. They are not driven by selling merchandise but rather by creating art that generations will come back to again and again long after the likes of the Ice Age’s and Monster’s vs. Aliens have been forgotten.
3. Watchmen
Director Zack (300) Snyder pulled off something pretty darn special here: an incredibly faithful film adaptation of beloved source material.
The story of Watchmen poses the question what would society be like if masked vigilante heroes really did exist as they do in comics? What would these heroes really be like and what would that choice to don a mask and ‘do good’ actually do to them - physically and mentally - as well as to the world around them? My overriding memory of the book is of Rorschach - the streetwise, moral absolute and unbalanced vigilante with the ink blot shifting mask who narrates a lot of the story by writing in "Rorschach's journal". It has to be said that Jackie Earl Haley who plays him in the film is perfect. The character has come direct from the page to the screen intact. The rest of the cast is also great - especially Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg played by Patrick Wilson. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake aka The Comedian is also very good. The character is a vile, misanthropic, murderous nutcase and Morgan plays him disturbingly well.
The whole film looks stunning and captures the feel of a nihilistic and hopeless time just counting down the hours until its own end. Watchmen is also extraordinarily violent with a lot to say about the often depressingly vile nature of humanity and our unending capacity for cruelty and (personal as well as global) self destruction shown by nuclear demigod Dr. Manhattan's gradual disconnection and eventual isolation from humanity. Towards the end of the film there is a small hopeful note of beauty amidst all the horror and chaos as the doomsday clock eventually hits midnight, but the story finishes on a final bleak note; a last truthful, moral absolute which could still destroy everything.
I loved the book and I thought this adaptation was note perfect. It is a great movie that looks fantastic and makes you think.
2. Star Trek
JJ Abrams movie is exactly what this franchise needed - a reboot/sequel that relieved it of the intolerable weight of over forty years of canon. Star Trek went back to the beginning and returned the idea to its original concept: Kirk, Spock and the USS Enterprise. Above all, though, it just made Star Trek fun again.
The new cast is perfect. I was initially concerned about Chris Pine as Kirk as I wasn’t familiar at all with him as an actor. And with Shatner as such an iconic presence in this role, how could anyone else capture the essence of James T. Kirk without just descending in to parody? But to his enormous credit Chris Pine doesn’t do that. He’s done his own thing as Kirk with just a few tiny classic Shatner/Kirkesque poses creeping in. Pine just exudes charisma like a young Harrison Ford and also has excellent comic timing. The sequence with Kirk charging around trying to convince everyone of the Romulan trap while McCoy is running after him and injecting him with various hyposprays is hilarious. In short Pine is amazing and delivers my favourite male performance of the year. A big time movie star was born right here. Karl Urban inhabits Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy completely. His take on the irascible doctor and extremely reluctant space traveller is awesome. It’s almost as if Deforest Kelley is back with us. Zachary Quinto is also very good as Spock, although he is quite a different Spock than I remember. He’s far more emotional and easy to rile. He’s even having a full on romantic relationship with a certain lovely young communications officer. And speaking of…
Zoe Saldana as Uhura. What a year she’s had starring in two of the biggest and best films of 2009 with her being one of the very best things about each. I love this girl. She is a damn good actress and just so natural, charismatic and likeable. She has real presence. Her Uhura is immensely intelligent, wise, emotionally sensitive and supportive. Another big time movie star was born right here.
To sum up, Star Trek is enormous ear to ear grin making fun, a wonderful adventure with a great cast who brim with charisma and talent. Star Trek manages to be both nostalgic and modern and is just tons of rip roaring, space faring fun.
1. Avatar
Nobody makes films like James Cameron. He makes very few, but when he does they are huge in scope and cost more money than the GDP of a small nation while always pushing forward new technologies and methods of filmmaking or just inventing entirely new ones. Every time the naysayers and doom mongers predict his latest film will be rubbish and unsuccessful. And (almost) every time they're wrong. Hugely wrong. Okay, so The Abyss was financially not so successful, however it was still a very good film. But apart from that (and Piranha 2) every film Cameron’s made has been either awesome or a classic and been embraced by audiences worldwide. His last, Titanic, was twelve years ago and is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it (how come?) then do so. Don’t believe the haters. Since Titanic rewrote the books on box office success it has taken JC a very long time indeed to get around to making his next film and to develop the technology to a point where he could make that film exactly how he wanted, to do it justice and to give audiences something special.
And, boy, did he ever.
I love Avatar. A lot. It may not be perfect or the most original story ever told but that really misses the point as similar stories to this have been told and retold for as long as people have told stories. They are just reinvented and retold in different ways. It is not what you do it is how you do it. And nobody has ever told this story like Cameron has with Avatar. He has created an entire world called Pandora with an eco system based on sound science and come up with great sci fi ideas within that eco system that bring to life many similar real life concepts here on Earth such as the Gaia hypothesis. But Cameron’s genius is to present it all in a quasi fantasy/pulp sci fi romantic adventure style that harkens back to the otherworldly tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Frank Herbert. Plus it has real emotional weight and is chock full of relevance to our current world. For instance the destruction of Home Tree is a fabulous and terrible sequence that carries a huge visceral and emotional wallop. It is awful to behold and reminds us of real life atrocities – none more so than 9/11. And Cameron has not lost his touch in directing action and spectacle either. The sweeping vistas of Pandora are stunning, as are the intense, violent and perfectly choreographed battles.
So the story is familiar but great and the world created is perfectly constructed and stunning. That brings me to the single best thing about the film. The Na’vi. They are simply amazing. The level of performance capture and CGI realism is far beyond anything previously managed. But the technical side of their creation would mean nothing without the performances of the actors playing them. And they all do great work but especially the fabulous Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. It astounds me. Neytiri is incredible, a wonder to behold every time she is onscreen. She lives and breathes. She is the single greatest synthespian character ever. Zoe’s gestures and movements - be it subtle look, a twitch of a cheek muscle, a trembling lip, a ferocious snarl, a tiny giggle - are all captured perfectly. Neytiri is a brilliant character and Saldana nails it perfectly.
It was a close run thing this year between Star Trek and Avatar for my fave movie and truth told there is not much in it at all. They could easily be swapped. But I think Avatar just edges it for the sheer scope and scale of James Cameron’s imagination and creation, for the utter mind boggle I get every time Neytiri is on screen, for the incredible use of 3D, for the emotional wallop I get when Home Tree falls. For the nerve jangling animal howl of rage and grief Neytiri gives as her father dies in her arms. Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.
As I write this, Avatar has been a strong critical success and a huge financial success with it looking likely that James Cameron will end up being writer/director of the two biggest grossing films of all time. Nice going JC. So can we have Avatar 2 please? Just not in another twelve years.
I see you.
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