Category Archives: Danny Trejo

Listmania ‘10! Miscellaneous Movie Observations: Part Two

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One last post, and then I’m done for a bit, though I may return to film blogging when the Oscars happen. As usual, I had finished writing most of this series of year-end posts just before seeing the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, which would have easily found a place on many of the Best Of lists here: certainly it would be on the 25 Best films list, as would ace cinematographer Roger “King” Deakins and lead actor Jeff Bridges. I expect to be seeing The Fighter and The King’s Speech soon too. I have high hopes for one of them: anyone who knows me will know which one that is. As ever it difficult to do these posts in timely fashion, and I envy critics (especially US ones) who get to sample so many movies with plenty of time to compile lists. Sad, really. I’d love a job as a critic not because I love films so much, but because I want more time to make a bunch of pointless lists. I may need to reassess my life-goals here.

So anyway, this is a bunch of extremely miscellaneous gubbins. Have at it.

Best Movie From 2009 That We Saw In 2010: The Princess and the Frog

2009 was the best year for feature length animation that I can recall, thanks to the efforts of Pixar, Studio Ghibli, the Cloudy chaps, and Henry Selick. Just as Christmas rolled around lucky Americans got one last treat: a cel-animated Disney musical good enough to stand next to their 90′s run of classics. Ron Clements and John Musker got back the mojo they had started to slowly lose after Aladdin with a joyous and spry reworking of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale and subsequent novel by E.D. Baker, smartly adding iconography and mythology from African-American history. This decision seemed to rejuvenate the creative powers of all involved: it’s funny, moving, energetic, has a cast of utterly charming characters — plus Keith “Superawesome” David’s Dr. Facilier, the best Disney villain since Little Mermaid‘s Ursula – and features songs and music from Randy Newman that eclipse anything else he’s done in years. A triumph, in short, and one that already needs to be reappraised after it came and went from public view with such little fanfare.

Honorable Mentions:

Bright Star – Another great movie from Jane Campion: no real surprise there. What was unexpected was how much this tale moved a schmuck like me, who thinks that films about writers are usually only interesting if they feature Mugwumps. Credit is due to Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish for bringing the fragile love affair of John Keats and Fannie Brawne to such vivid life, and even more credit is due to Paul Schneider, who is truly excellent as the repellent Charles Brown, lingering in the shadows and spitting poison at the lovers.

Sherlock Holmes – Haters can suck it. Guy Ritchie’s surprisingly entertaining romp caught two-thirds of Shades of Caruso completely out by not being awful. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s loyal to the books, very funny, properly exciting and imaginatively filmed. It’s also the most successful film Joel Silver has produced in years: as a fan of his output from the 80s and 90s, it’s good to see him hit big every once in a while, especially as he seems increasingly keen to promote smaller genre movies like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Splice and he isn’t making much money from them.

Worst Movie From 2009 That We Saw In 2010: Whatever Works

Whenever I impotently but passionately rail against the staggering of global release dates for films, I should always be grateful for one thing: the fact that Woody Allen’s movies seem to arrive here very late or not at all, even though Britain is supposed to be one of the countries that are most fond of the increasingly irrelevant old grouch. Whatever Works limped over to the UK about a year after it was released in the States, and really, thanks so much to UK distributors Warner Bros. for getting a last few spins out of those worn-out prints. This is not quite as bad as Cassandra’s Dream, but it’s considerably worse than Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which was already not that great. Basically it’s just an excuse for the once-great director to hire nubile Evan Rachel Wood to bounce around in front of his latest ancient proxy in a tight-shirt-and-hotpants combo and acting like one a’ dem Suthners frawm thuh Red Stayts what is men-ta-lee challunjjed. It’s nothing more than a snide wank fantasy. I fucking HATED IT. I note that Peter Bradshaw is YET AGAIN tying himself in knots to justify the formerly brilliant director’s descent into awfulness. Not mediocrity: I’m talking total and utter artistic decrepitude. Give it up, man!

Dishonorable Mentions:

An Education – Carey Mulligan is transcendentally wonderful in this uninspiring coming-of-age tale, perhaps so much so that some critics failed to see what a lemon they had on their hands. A lot of great work was done to give this adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoirs an authentic period feel, but the tone is all over the place. Alfred Molina seems lost in his scenes, broadly playing a character that could have done with being quieter, though thankfully he is skilled enough to add some nice notes. Worst of all of Nick Hornby’s clunking screenplay, banging the movie’s points as hard as possible in case the audience was asleep. Dispiriting stuff.

Nine – How do you make a clumsy and unappealing musical worse? Get Rob Marshall to make a hash of filming it! As if Maury Yeston’s lyrics weren’t already excruciating to listen to (Possibly my least favourite lyric ever: “My husband makes movies / To make them, he makes himself obsessed. / He goes for weeks on end without a bit of rest. / No other way can he achieve his level best.”), now they’re linked to dance routines whose listless choreography is only matched by Marshall’s inability to put the camera in the right place, or cut to the most dynamic moments. If you thought Chicago was badly filmed, stay the hell away from this. Only the godlike Marion Cotillard and Fergie’s voicebox come out of this with any credit. A pox on it. Watch 8 ½ and then go watch the nearest Sondheim revival.

Invictus - Forgive me for taking the review I wrote on Flixster several months ago and just dumping it here, but it says what I need to say about Clint Eastwood’s horrid sport-uplift-a-thon better than anything I could no crank out, many months later:

For an hour Morgan Freeman’s performance as Nelson Mandela is entertaining enough to hold the audience’s attention even with the overwhelming treacle-thick sentiment pouring out of the screen and into your face. After that, nothing can save it. Endless – ENDLESS – scenes of incoherently edited rugby matches drag the movie to a halt, as the slow-motion sports scenes get slower and slower and slower. By the end you can’t remember who is playing any more. Which end of the pitch are they supposed to run to? Who is passing the ball? Why is he passing it now? Who’s that guy?

It eventually becomes an avant-garde exercise in deconstructing linear experience by bringing it to the temporal equivalent of absolute zero. Someone slowly points left. Another man falls over. Who are all these people watching? Morgan looks a bit excited. Another man points. A ball arcs slowly into another man’s chest. Matt Damon is tired now. Or in pain.

By now the movie has been on for fourteen years. The ball bounces across the floor. Morgan looks scared. The sound of cheering is like the screaming of God. Matt Damon leaps into the air: it takes so long he might be flying. Another shot of the crowd: CGI never looked so real-ish. Is that a goal? It can’t be. The South Africans shout “NO!” Oh, actually, they shout “YES!” The sound design is such that I cannot tell any more. Did they win? The uplifting music suggests they did: I check Wikipedia just to be sure.

In all, it is a staggering triumph.

South Africa’s victory, I meant. The movie’s shit.

The one comment I got on this was someone pointing out that the South African rugby team for that year was actually really terrible. If the worst team won, this conclusively proves my point about all sport being a total waste of time.

Best Movies I Saw in 2009 That Were Released In 2010 And Got On A Few Best Ofs And Thus Make My Exclusion Of Them Look Like I Didn’t Like Them Which Just Isn’t True, And Just To Prove It You Can Follow The Hyperlinks To My Reviews Of Them: Enter The Void / A Prophet / Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans / White Material

Ranking Decision Made In Last Year’s Best Movies List That I’ve Come To Regret: Placing Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet at number five in the list behind Avatar at number four has dogged me ever since I did it. That’s not to say I now dislike James Cameron’s slightly successful space opera: after seeing it a few times since I stand behind my glowing review 100%. Nevertheless, I suspect seeing it in IMAX just a couple of weeks before finishing my list may have pushed it a little higher than it deserves. I’m retroactively knocking it down to number five, and putting Audiard’s peerless prison classic up to four, because this shit is important to me. I wonder which of this year’s choices I’ll regret next year…

Best Hero: Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) - 13 Assassins

Honorable Mentions:

Quorra (Olivia Wilde) - Tron: Legacy

Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) – Easy A

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) – Winter’s Bone

Robin Hood (Russell Crowe) – Robin Hood

Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson) – Kick-Ass

Best Villain: Lotso (Ned Beatty) - Toy Story 3

Honorable Mentions:

Lord Narigatsu (Gorô Inagaki) – 13 Assassins

Fergus ‘Fergie’ Colm (The late, great Pete Postlethwaite) - The Town

Mal / The overwhelming guilt felt by Cobb that has forced an intervention by his therapist [Delete according to your theory of Inception's meaning] (Marion Cotillard) – Inception

Cheng (Zhenwei Wang) - The Karate Kid

Godfrey (Mark Strong) - Robin Hood

Worst Hero: Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) – Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Dishonorable Mentions:

Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler) - The Bounty Hunter

Bazil (Dany Boon) – Micmacs

Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) – The Expendables

Soren (Jim Sturgess) – Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

Aang The Avatar (Noah Ringer) – The Last Airbender

Worst Villain: Arnold Wesker (Shawn Roberts) – Resident Evil: Afterlife

Dishonorable Mentions:

Other people’s feelings and needs / the concept of working for a living / the world just being SO MEAN and not, like, totally spiritual and stuff – Eat, Pray, Love

William (Aaron Johnson) – Chatroom

Ilosovic Stayne, the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover) - Alice in Wonderland

God (Played by nothing) – Legion

Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard) - Knight and Day

Best Hero… OR IS SHE??!?!!?: Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) – Salt

Worst Hero… OR IS HE?!?!??!: Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) – Knight and Day

Worst Nazi Owl: Metalbeak (Joel Edgerton) – Legends of the Guardian: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

Most Passive Character: Bella Swan - Twilight: Eclipse (second year running, and still spending most of the movie being protected by the big strong men in her life UGGGHHH.)

Douchiest Crimefighter of the Year: FBI S.A. Adam Frawley – The Town

Most Annoying Character(s) of the Year:  Those goddamn squeaky minions in Despicable Me

Dishonorable Mentions:

Rashid (Amit Shah) – The Infidel

Rhiannon “Rhi” Abernathy (Aly Michalka) - Easy A

Captain H.M. Murdoch (Sharlto Copley) - The A-Team

Lou Dorchen (Rob Corrdry) – Hot Tub Time Machine

Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan) - Cop Out

Unluckiest Character of the Year: Rafael Dacanay (Joel Torre) – Amigo

I won’t go into the details of what happens to the hapless town leader in John Sayles’ excellent historical drama, but let’s just say, if you think you’re having a bad day, this character’s troubles might make you feel better about your life. Poor guy.

Most Entertaining Scumbag: Stans (Walton Goggins) - Predators

Honorable Mention: Jason Patric (Max) - The Losers

Least Entertaining Psychic: Uxbal (Javier Bardem) - Biutiful

Badass of the Year: Hitgirl (Chloe Moretz) – Kick-Ass

Most Surprising Badass of the Year: “The Tough Guy” (Adrien Brody) – Predators

Most Debonair Badass of the Year: Eames (Tom Hardy) – Inception

Best Couple of the Year: Erin (Drew Barrymore) and Garrett (Justin Long) – Going The Distance

Best Parents of the Year: Dill (Stanley Tucci) and Rosemary Penderghast (Patricia Clarkson) – Easy A

“I Hope Those Crazy Kids Make It” Couple of the Year: Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) and Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige) – Submarine

“Dear God, Just Split Up Already” Couple of the Year: Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) and Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) - Youth In Revolt

“I Realise Now That I’ve Never Really Cared Whether Or Not You Make It Work” Couple of the Year: Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) and Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) – Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Most Tedious Couple of the Year: Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) and Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) – Monsters

Most Improbable Couple of the Year: Mahmoud (Omid Djalili) and Saamiya Nasir (Archie Panjabi) – The Infidel

Least Credible, Charming, Sexy, Appealing or Tolerable Couple of the Year: Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler) and Nicole Hurley (Jennifer Aniston) – The Bounty Hunter

Best Scene: The hour-long setpiece finale of Inception, from the “beginning” of the dream to the end.

Honorable Mentions:

Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo temporarily bond over Joni Mitchell in The Kids Are All Right.

MacGruber creates a fiendish trap using water, string, a cup and a corpse.

The heartbreaking sack of the Alexandrian Serapeum in Agora.

Jonah Hill strokes the furry wall while Diddy goes berserk in Get Him To The Greek.

The first sighting of “Space Dad” in Megamind.

Best Action Scene: 13 Assassins vs over 200 warriors in a town filled with traps. For 45 minutes. 45 unbelievably exciting minutes.

Honorable Mentions:

The Wheel King’s assassins’ attempt to kill Drizzle is deflected by her protector (spoiler obscured there) in Reign of Assassins.

Matt Damon, Jason Isaacs and Khalid Abdalla race across war-torn Baghdad at the end of Green Zone.

Iron Man and War Machine in a Genndy-Tartakovsky-choreographed blitz of orchestrated chaos against evil drones at the end of Iron Man 2.

Angelina Jolie and her stuntperson chase the President down a lift shaft in Salt.

Jason Statham destroys a pier with machine guns and a flare gun in The Expendables.

Cruellest Moment In Cinema History: The toys chase Lotso through a trash incinerator in Toy Story 3

Most Excruciating Moment in Cinema 2010: Futterwacken – Alice in Wonderland

Most Exciting Scene Involving Rampaging Bulls: 13 Assassins

Least Exciting Scene Involving Rampaging Bulls: Knight and Day

Most Satisfying Finale: Black Swan

Honorable Mentions:

Inception

Kick-Ass

Toy Story 3

The Karate Kid

The Ghost Writer

Least Satisfying Ending: The Infidel

Dishonorable Mentions:

Remember Me

Twilight: Eclipse

Jonah Hex

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Knight and Day

Best Twist of the Year: There’s a corker about halfway through The Disappearance of Alice Creed. I shall say no more about that, or all of the other almost-as-good twists. Good work, J Blakeson.

Worst Twist of the Year: The end of The Book of Eli is not only nonsensical, but I’m really not sure it adds anything to the movie, either narratively or thematically. I’d go back and rewatch to see how well it’s set up, but I really can’t be that bothered.

Satisfying, Unhistrionic and Beautifully Performed Ending That Made Me Sob And Sob And Sob: Rabbit Hole

Most Batshit Crazy Ending of the Year: The Killer Inside Me / Skyline

Directorial Debut of the Year: Richard Ayoade – Submarine

Honorary Mention: J Blakeson – The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Most Egregious Waste of a Musical Resource: Mastodon – Jonah Hex

Most Appropriate Use of David Byrne and Brian Eno’s Album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today As A Soundtrack Choice: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, as Oliver Stone added a couple of tracks from their previous collaboration — My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts — to the first and far, far inferior Wall Street movie. It’s, like, a homage or something.

Best Trailer: Clash of the Titans

Best Poster: Black Swan

Worst Poster: Death at a Funeral (Bad though the Photoshop is, it’s the exclamation point at the end of the tagline that sealed it.)

Creepiest Poster: Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

Most Misleading Poster: The Last Exorcism (Nothing like this happens in the movie.)

Least Informative Poster: Knight and Day

Best Promotional Campaign: Inception

Remember the first trailer for Inception, the one that came out in 2009? What the hell is this?, we all thought as we rewatched it for the twenty-hundredth time. It makes no sense but is so pretty and sounds so nice, what with that cool booming thing going on. I can’t recall the last time I got so excited for a movie on such little information. Keeping the plot a secret for so long was a brilliant move. With no recognisable characters or source material to look at, there was no way anyone could have known what Christopher Nolan had in store for audiences. The next trailer almost drove me out of my mind. The sight of Paris folding over was like a mindbomb going off. Had Nolan made something completely unprecedented in popular cinema? You know a promotional campaign has hit paydirt when something as innocuous as the booming noises in Zack Hemsey‘s Mind Heist end up being mimicked and mocked over and over again.

That noise seemed to soundtrack the entire year, but credit where credit is due, it’s also down to possibly the best poster campaign I’ve ever seen for a major movie. Despite no one knowing what the movie was going to be before release, the campaign rested on cryptic but epic-scale posters featuring flooded or folding cities and characters listed as The Shade and The Extractor. It was utterly baffling and incredibly exciting. A week before the movie was released, almost to the hour, a flood of reviews washed across the internet as Warner Bros. embargo ended. The sense that a genuine event was about to occur was palpable. Seeing it a week later at the IMAX near Waterloo was one of the most thrilling experiences I’ve ever had in a cinema, and much of it was due to the audience. Primed for the cerebral narrative to come, we raced through Nolan’s maze and came to that divisive and bold final shot, and greeted it with shouts of “NO!” and “What the fuck!” And then the applause. The campaign worked. Dismiss it as hype, but there’s almost an art to hype if it’s done right and used to promote something of actual merit. I doff my cap to everyone involved.

Worst Promotional Campaign: The Bounty Hunter

One of the most dispiriting sights of the year was watching the cynical promotional campaign for this lifeless romactioncom spill out across the pop-culture spectrum. Seemingly aware that there was nothing interesting to say about the punch-card-generated tale of a bounty hunter on the hunt for his ex-wife (LOL), the publicists were forced to play the weakest hand in their deck: the are-they-aren’t-they “romance” between stars Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. Not only was it lazy, but the actors obviously wanted nothing to do with it. Their fidgety non-commitals and attempts to brush aside questions from chat-show hosts and E! reporters were not just an attempt to create ambiguity: they looked genuinely embarrassed. The weak box office shows that no one else was interested either. Luckily once the movie was gone everyone could just forget about it, as if it was a drunken fumble between cousins that no one wants to talk about ever again.

Bravest Promotional Campaign of the Century: MacGruber

This notoriously unsuccessful but hysterical comedy — arguably the funniest of the year — featured one of the boldest performances of all time. Will Forte is utterly shameless as the hapless, cowardly mercenary, but the depths to which he was willing to plunge in order to generate a laugh happened offscreen, with this series of NSFW images. Maybe this was the reason the film sadly only made about $14, a half-full Starbucks loyalty card, and a poorly coloured-in photocopy of a $20 bill.

Best Hair: Pretty much everyone in Inception

Worst Hair: Scoot McNairy – Monsters

Best Wig (Male): Nicolas Cage – The Sorceror’s Apprentice

Best Wig (Female): Mary Elizabeth Winstead – Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Most Eclectic Collection of Wigs: Thekla Reuten – The American

Honorary Manuela Velasco Award for Services to Scream-Queen Culture: Rooney Mara – A Nightmare on Elm Street

Most Comfortable Actor of the Year: Denzel Washington, who gets to sit down for most of Unstoppable

Most Convincing Lust Object of the Year: Danny Fucking Trejo – Machete

Honorary Mention: Mila Kunis – Black Swan

Least Convincing Lust Object of the Year: Bradley Cooper – The A-Team

Dishonorable Mention: Megan Fox – Jonah Hex

Best Use of a Gun To Intensify Usual Levels of Hottness to Almost Unbearable Levels: Helen Mirren – Red

Best Value For Money of the Year: Alfred Molina

As you would hope, Molina takes a couple of underwritten roles in two Bruckheimer misfires and makes the most of them. In both movies he gives the liveliest performances of the entire cast, saving both movies from being consigned to the bottom half of my 2010-movie-quality-spectrum. Long may he get cast to add some spice to underwhelming action comedies. Or, you know, get the lead in a really good movie. That would be nice, HOLLYWOOD!

Lamest Contribution to a Major Battle: The end of Sir Ridley of Scott’s Robin Hood: The Puffy Years features a big pitched battle on a beach between the English and French. Midway through Maid Marian rocks up with her Feral Boys in an attempt to help repel the French using ponies and sticks. There’s about 12 of them, they do nothing, and then Marian ends up getting smacked around by Sir Godfrey until Robin saves her. Not sure what the point of this was other than to have Robin do something heroic for his suddenly useless lady. Not cool, Sir Ridley.

Best Movie Featuring Liam Cunningham as a Fearless Badass From Ancient Times: Centurion

Worst Movie Featuring Liam Cunningham as a Fearless Badass From Ancient Times: Clash of the Titans

Best Robot: Madd Chadd in Step Up 3D

Most Listless Movie: Somewhere

A half-asleep arse-poot of a movie that says nothing about life other than it’s easy to get a bit bored when you have a lot of money. Makes Sofia Coppola’s previous movie – Marie Antoinette — look like Trainspotting. Consider this half-hearted critique my homage to Coppola’s work ethic.

Most Unsuspendable Mountain of Disbelief: Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

I tried so hard — SO HARD — to buy into this movie’s central conceit, but I could not get past the fact that it was a movie about warrior owls, no matter how beautiful it looked (and trust me on this, it’s one of the most beautiful computer-animated movies yet made: almost every shot is breathtaking). The killing blow was the shot of an owl blacksmith hammering away at a hot piece of metal, sparks flying everywhere. It’s an owl blacksmith. An owl, working as a blacksmith, with its tiny little talons gripping a huge hammer and smacking at a hot piece of metal it had just pulled from a furnace made by other owls in a tree village designed by owl architects and built by owl builders carrying little hods in their tiny owl hands. Maybe in the book this could work. Onscreen? Not so much.

Most References To Other Movies: Repo Men

Controversy surrounded this reasonably entertaining sci-fi movie after it became apparent that it bore some similarity to Repo! The Genetic Opera, though according to this HuffPo article this has been amicably resolved by all involved. Certainly the increased possibility of artificial organs being developed and then sold on by private insurance companies in the US is bound to get many writers’ minds working: I wonder how many thousands of potential novels and screenplays withered on the vine as Repo! and The Repossession Mambo (the novel on which Repo Men was based) were released. Nevertheless, the makers of Repo Men certainly owe huge debts to Martin Scorsese and Nick Pileggi for the framing device and freeze-frames they incorporated from Goodfellas, Chan-wook Park for the Oldboy-esque action scene that occurs close to the end of the movie, and Terry Gilliam for… well, let’s just say the ending seems rather familiar. As I say, I kinda liked it: the gore was plentiful and amusing, and the leads (Jude Law, Forest Whitaker and Liev Schreiber) were very entertaining. It did feel like it ran down some well-trod paths, though.

Most Amusing Number of Publicity Photos of a Director Pointing And Thinking And Holding A Camera: Alejandro González Iñárritu

While looking for publicity shots of the dirge-like Biutiful, I noticed that director Iñárritu (as he now prefers to be called — thanks to ace Tweeter and film blogger @iambags for spotting that) crops up in a surprising number of pictures looking all handsome and directory. Almost as many as lead actor Javier Bardem in fact. Not as many as Michael Bay, but then Bay has made more movies, so you’d expect that. I’m going to keep an eye on this race to become IMDb’s most photographed and photogenic director.

Most Frustrating Directorial Decision of the Year: The Last Exorcism

This Eli-Roth produced horror “documentary” featured a terrific breakout performance from Patrick Fabian — a familiar face who has had recurring roles on Veronica Mars and Big Love but has never headed up a film before — but sadly director Daniel Stamm let him down after an hour of commanding the screen. Whether through poor editing or a lack of money or some other unforeseen and unavoidable problem, the final half an hour, with all of its craziness and weird reveals, happen in a blur of badly-chosen camera angles and looping. The biggest emotional moments come at the end, and hopefully would have shown Fabian at his best, but the camera barely focuses on his face in the last act, with his moment of revelation seemingly shot from under his armpit and his final lines almost inaudible due to some muddy sound design. It’s a shame, as up to that point he had made a huge impression. Let’s hope the success of this low-budget movie convinces someone else to give Fabian another chance at the prize.

Worst Loss Of Superproducer Mojo: Jerry Bruckheimer

Two expensive potential tentpoles (Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Prince of Persia, obvs) crawled towards the edge of profitability thanks to worldwide box office, but it’s fair to say Bruckheimer won’t be trying to keep these frankly half-hearted franchises going. What’s worse is he only seems to have Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides lined up for next year, and though the Captain Jack Sparrow fan in me is excited (perhaps not as excited as the Elliott & Rossio fan in me, but still), it’s directed by Rob Marshall. I honestly don’t know what Jer (as he likes me to call him) was thinking. Let’s hope the main man gets his mojo back soon. Or hires Elliott and Rossio to write all of his movies, what with them being totes awesome and all that.

And with that little expression of hope, that we can see a franchise come back on track just through the power of the writer, I’ll leave it there. Thanks to everyone who has responded to these posts: your contributions and comments have been greatly appreciated. Let’s hope we have a thrilling 2011 in movies.

Listmania ‘10! Miscellaneous Movie Observations: Part One

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In the interests of not writing off-puttingly long 5000-word blogposts any more, my Miscellaneous Gubbins post has been split in two. The next one will feature more pictures than words, I promise. Also, apologies for relying on personal anecdote while talking about these movies. These are the films that don’t quite fit on my best and worst lists, movies that are not perfect or utterly imperfect, but fit right in between. They all have something to praise, or to criticise, and the level of enjoyment I got from them is often sadly linked to subjective experiences from either before or during my time with them. Hence, my clumsy authorial presence splattered all over this page like emoticons in an email from your mom.

Best Remake of the Year: The Karate Kid

When The Karate Kid won the weekend box office over the heavily plugged A-Team remake, I was befuddled. The remake of John G. Avildsen’s fondly-remembered-but-not-really-that-good coming-of-age tale seemed like a mindless low-rent cash-in, as lazily made as most of Jackie Chan’s US movies, while A-Team seemed at least to be making an effort. After seeing both, the depth of my error was made clear. Joe Carnahan’s shouty adaptation was not without its fun moments, but mostly it missed the mark, mainly by overestimating the appeal of Bradley Cooper and, sadly, Sharlto Copley. (N.B. I like Copley, and think he does a good job of mimicking Dwight Shultz’s original incarnation of H.M. Murdoch: the problem is that that character is not as amusing as you might remember. If you stumble across repeats on multi-channel TV, prepare for disappointment.)

Harald Zwart, on the other hand, helmed an indecently entertaining reworking of the threadbare Avildsen original, helped by Christopher Murphey’s clever tweaking of Robert Mark Kamen’s original script. The key to its success is the relocation of the story to China: placing protagonist “Xiao” Dre Parker in a new and unfamiliar country is far more effective at providing an alienating motivation than moving Ralph Macchio from one American city to another, and the cultural differences between Americans and Chinese are skilfully played up without veering too far into over-familiar avenues. It also makes the movie look distinctive: the location shooting is some of the best of the year. Occasionally it wanders into travelogue territory, but it’s never less than a fascinating window on contemporary Chinese urban life, even if there is likely some inevitable pro-tourism white-washing going on.

Best of all is the considerable emotional charge within: kudos to Zwart and his main actors Jaden Smith and a never-better Jackie Chan (seriously, he’s never hinted at being able to convey the emotional turmoil he does here). Treated with a potent mixture of solemnity and playfulness, the movie skips through its considerable running time with welcome momentum, building to a thrilling final half-hour of emotional revelation and cathartic resolution. It would take a truly stony-hearted person not to feel a thrill of emotion during Xiao Dre’s final battle. If every overrated movie of the 80s was remade this well, perhaps there would be less complaint about how there are no new ideas out there.

Worst Remake of the Year: Edge of Darkness

Regular readers will know that I tend to go easy on Hollywood product, partly due to long-standing fondness for populist cinema, partly as a corrective to the relentless negativity about mainstream culture from some cineastes who are unable to allow that there is any form of value or artistry present in such commercially funded baubles, and partly because I genuinely do think some “blockbuster” movies are properly thrilling, especially when seen as part of the expansion of cinema’s storytelling toolbox. Sadly, Martin Campbell’s second run at this tale is just the kind of thing that makes even a soft touch like myself despair of Hollywood’s distrust of anything even vaguely challenging. It’s especially frustrating as Campbell and writers William Monahan and Andrew Bovell often make a pretty good fist of things: I call this the worst remake of the year, but really it’s just the most exasperating.

Almost anyone who has seen Campbell and Troy Kennedy Martin’s original BBC mini-series will know what an amazing achievement it was: an emotional journey as well as a politically relevant story with an epic sweep. Its ecological message was timely, but that doesn’t mean to say it isn’t any less relevant today, which is one of the reasons why it’s so sad that the remake jettisons that plot in favour of a “topical” conspiracy tale about manufacturing bombs and making them look like they were made by Al-Qaeda. The BBC series’ focus on looming ecological disaster generated a frisson of cataclysmic terror even if the drama didn’t go in for apocalyptic histrionics. The movie is more interested in depicting Mel “The Gentleman’s Gentleman” Gibson’s grief over the death of his daughter: fair enough, as that was a key factor in the success of the original, and this is only a two-hour movie with a greater need to find one point of focus, but Edge of Darkness 2 is not really doing anything that hasn’t been done before.

Basically, there’s no room for the weird here, and even if the intensity of Gibson’s grief is depicted with skill, it’s the details that are missed. There’s no way we’re going to have a “vibrator” moment in something this streamlined, and Ray Winstone’s Jedburgh is no match for the unforgettable oddness of Joe Don Baker in the original. The true killing blow has to be the absurd final scene. No spoilers here, but the mawkish daftness of it is an insult to the poignant final image that played out behind the credits of the series. For everything this version does right (such as casting “Dependable” Danny Huston as the bad guy), it does about 5.6 things wrong. It’s a missed opportunity.

Disappointing Movie of the Year: Machete

Man, I was totally psyched about this movie for so long, so imagine how miserable I was when it turned out that the invention displayed in the hilarious trailers was stretched so thinly over an hour and forty-five minutes. Planet Terror was perfectly weighted in the truncated version that ran as half of Grindhouse, cramming huge amounts of disjointed madness into a punchy 80 minutes of fun. I’ve not yet seen the extended version, but if Machete is anything to go by, I should stick with my memories of the original. There’s still much to love in Machete, especially the continuing resurgence of Mighty Jeff Fahey, but well before the final battle rolls around, my patience was at an end. Sad that this advert for iced tea is almost more fun than the movie it’s based on.

Surprising Movie of the Year: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Initial responses to the Platinum Dunes remake of Wes Craven’s beloved original were so negative it was hard to expect more than a misguided and cynical failure. Perhaps it’s just low expectations that led to me enjoying Samuel Bayer’s gloomy and depressing revisit, as well as a smarter and more respectful script by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer than was necessary. It’s obviously no match for Craven’s eccentric and creepy masterwork, but as these modern retellings of “old” horror classics are so often phoned in and obnoxiously boisterous that an attempt to make something quiet and moody — albeit punctuated by grisly murder — should be noted.

The best move was to make Freddy Krueger less campy (though his awful jokes remain) and focus on what he really is: a disgusting and depraved monster who preys on children. His taunting of his victims is sickening and plays on the mind far more than the silliness of the later installments of the original series, to the point that the movie veers very close to tastelessness. Changing Krueger from a child murderer to a paedophile who is now killing his former victims during their dreams is a brash and unpleasant move, but it does maybe make the movie work on a new level, as a metaphor for the difficulty in healing horrific psychic wounds that flare up in later life. As I ponder it I go back and forth on whether or not this is an exploitative move too far. Nevertheless, it lingers in the mind longer than you’d expect: some scenes were still bothering me several weeks later. Recommended, hesitantly. (See also Breck Eisner’s well-played and bleak remake of Romero’s The Crazies, which was an early surprise in 2010.)

Overrated Movie of the Year: Monsters

Arriving on a tidal wave of positive word from festival screenings, and breathless talk of director Gareth Edwards being the next big thing, how could I not see it? Anything that expands the sci-fi genre has to be worth hunting down, and the frankly stunning Red camera photography shown in the trailer made it look like the most beautiful movie about aliens made this year. Well, it actually was the most beautiful monster movie of the year, but also the most inconsequential. Unlike District 9, to which Edwards’ movie is compared on a regular basis, Monsters has little to commend it other than its impressive low-budget production values. Though yes, much praise is due to everyone involved for making something so visually compelling on such a small amount of money, and Edwards needs garlands thrown at his feet for getting off his arse and making something this technically accomplished and ambitious. It’s a genuinely monumental achievement.

Nevertheless, it’s also a sci-fi movie that doesn’t even need to be a sci-fi movie, and merely serves as an indicator of critical opinion of the genre. The existence of the monsters is, for the most part, a MacGuffin just to keep these two self-absorbed ninnies together as they trek through pretty scenery and encounter “local flavour” during their travelogue ramblings. Only the final monster scene has some purpose other than to have a big effect in it, and even then it’s only tangential to the real will-they-won’t-they “plot”. Perhaps if you buy into the love story at its core Monsters is a moving experience, and certainly I’ve been told by many people that the slowly developing affection plucked their heartstrings, but if you find these guys as insufferable and tedious and annoying as I did, then no amount of off-camera grumbling sound effects will hold your attention.

And yet, despite the thinly sketched characters and the lack of event — plus lots of mood that pleasingly flows from the screen like dry ice at a Spinal Tap concert — critics have fallen over themselves to point out that this is superior to other sci-fi as it’s about real people and not effects. Fine, whatever. Sci-fi does not require effects. Well done for spotting that. However, all stories need something — anything — besides an A-to-B structure to qualify as a worthwhile journey, and Monsters lacks this. As for the “real people”, yes, our heroes are like people in that they have torsos, limbs and heads and don’t run around shooting things or running away from explosions in slow motion, but what we really need in a movie is a pair of “characters” who contain multitudes. Instead, we get cyphers: he’s a bit of a dick who becomes slightly less of a dick, she’s getting married to someone offscreen and then she isn’t getting married to someone offscreen.

I’m not asking for McKee to swan in and add subplots and emphasise clunking arcs and second/third act transitions, etc. I’m just asking for some content to go with the lovely atmospherics. No critic wants to go out of their way to praise a genre movie: even the mainstream raves for Inception made an effort to paint the sci-fi elements as the brainy stuff Nolan puts in there to look smart like some big NERD or something haw haw.  Monsters gives them a get-out clause, as it’s about a “worthy” thing, about “people” and not spectacle (funny that the spectacle is the best thing about it). It’s about “love”, and so is deserving of praise. Because love is nice, and sci-fi is usually about robots or the helium-coated moons orbiting the gas-giant Zootrong or alien impregnation or something. Ew, icky. But look! They’re in love! Like in real life!

When Richard Linklater made Before Sunset and Before Sunrise — two other movies about people wandering through a foreign land — he  joined with Julie Delpy, Kim Krizan and Ethan Hawke to create arguably the most fascinating, complex couple in recent cinema history, two smart and funny people whose chemistry sparked and whose conversations flowed with wit and insight and personality, and whose relationship and affection grew organically and realistically. Edwards has made a movie about two people who don’t like each other, and then do. But with aliens. Call me a stupid cynical asshole if you want, but that’s really just not enough. (Disclaimer: I can’t wait to see what Edwards does with Godzilla. A more ruminative take on that classic character would be very interesting.)

Underrated Movie of the Year: Predators

And now I shall praise a big splashy sci-fi movie featuring alien hunters and lasers and macho men fighting! Hoorah! I am a philistine! And proud of it. Predators isn’t about love. It’s not about emotion, really, other than fear and gritty determination. It’s got little insight into humanity, and it features big action setpieces involving running through jungles and firing mini-guns at trees and stabbing things to death with knives. It’s gory and loud and fast-moving and has McKee structures and everything. It’s the polar opposite of Edwards’ sedate love story, AND I LOVED IT!

Which is not to say it’s art, but then, neither is Monsters. Predators is a sequel to a sequel, it’s about nothing more than not getting killed in space, and it’s mostly about bombarding the eyes and ears with spectacle. That’s all. But it does all of that with such verve, and sly narrative trickery, and good performances, that it achieves what all movies should: it sets out to do one thing well, and it exceeds its goal. And yet it was dismissed by mainstream critics (predictable) and genre-friendly critics (surprising) alike. Again, perhaps low expectations played their part. Nevertheless, what I saw was a punchy, well-paced and surprisingly smart actioner that easily matches the absurdly entertaining original.

The casting helps. Adrien Brody does a shockingly good impression of a tough guy as “The Tough Guy”, aided by equally committed performers as Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, and the magnificent scene-stealing acting colossus that is Shades of Caruso favourite Walton “Shane Vendrell” Goggins. Even more so is the peculiar casting of Lawrence “Also An SoC Favourite” Fishburne as the crazy survivor of a previous hunting round. Fishburne’s fidgety paranoia plays interestingly against his usual gravitas-laden personality, creating a pleasant disconnect that keeps the movie flowing through what would otherwise be a mid-movie lull. Perhaps that’s the best thing about Nimrod Antal’s movie: it moves at a clip, keeps you guessing, and places its key showdowns at exactly the right moments.

No, it’s not “art” and it won’t “fulfill” you like the sight of two photogenic people going from point A to point B with the odd well-shot glance of something resembling an emotion, but it will give you space-boar rampages, multiple canny references to John McTiernan’s original action-horror classic, Adrien Brody with his shirt off, Danny Fucking Trejo, some well-conceived last-act surprises, and a Yakuza enforcer with a katana facing off against a Predator in a samurai duel. A YAKUZA ENFORCER WITH A KATANA FACING OFF AGAINST A PREDATOR IN A SAMURAI DUEL! Monsters can’t even begin to compete. Predators can rip out its skull and spine and turn it into a nice trophy, for all I care.

Critically Acclaimed Award-Winning Movie That Almost Sent Me To Sleep: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Remember what I said about being a philistine? Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s mysterious… something or other won the Palme d’Or, and came garlanded with ecstatic praise from critics I respect and trust. It should have knocked my socks off, but instead I was wrapped in a confusing fog of baffling symbolism. Upon escaping it, I was left utterly bemused and — most crucially — utterly unmoved and intellectually isolated. Much has been made of Weerasethakul’s facility with mood, and certainly there were moments where hazy atmospherics held the attention, but these moments were not enough to make up for the frustration I experienced as I tried to parse the obscure events depicted.

Maybe I thought about it too much. Maybe I should have let it flow over me. Maybe I would have been able to surrender to Weerasethakul’s vision if I saw anywhere other than the ICA, which is the home of fidgety women scribbling on rustle-paper notepads directly behind me in a miserable room heated in the middle of winter by a tiny tiny radiator hidden behind a chair near the perpetually open exit. When the last baffling image faded, I dragged my consciousness away from the theta-wave mire it had almost fallen into and scoured the Internet for the meaning of these symbols, assuming that my ignorant ass was just in need of a quick primer on Thai culture or Buddhism that would unlock all of these mysteries. But no. Instead it seems that Weerasethakul’s symbolism was specific and meaningful only to him.

That’s great for him, and I’m not saying it’s not a valid way to make a movie, but I’m not that interested in watching his large-scale doodle-pad/dream diary get brought to life. It’s not put me off catching up on seeing his other movies — which I hope will be more comprehensible, less alienating — especially as there were truly wondrous moments in Boonmee that rocked me in my seat: not just the dread-soaked images of the monkey ghosts emerging from the darkness with their eyes blazing red, but the outrageous catfish sex scene, and the descent into caves that turn into a glittering starscape. It’s apparent that Weerasethakul has a unique directorial eye and ear, enough that I desperately want to be on board with him. However, this was not the movie to do it.

I’m not gonna get into a debate over who is to blame for my inability to bond with this movie: Weerasethakul for selfishly making a movie with the express intention of making audiences feel stupid as an act of cultural warfare, or poor, blameless me who was fooled into spending money to see this film instead of donating it to a puppy charity. Whoever is at fault, the fact remains: of all the cinema experiences I’ve had this year, seeing Boonmee was one of the most frustrating and boring. Even more so than seeing Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which I was convinced would blow my mind but ended up alternately thrilling and annoying me. Now, who shall I blame for that exasperating experience? Bryan Lee O’Malley? Or the pungent tramp sitting on one side of me, and the shoeless guy on the other side who kept creepily hugging his son throughout? ::sigh:: If only I could buy the right audience when I buy my ticket.

One last one to come! If my shameful praise for base Hollywood confectionery hasn’t put you off, dear reader.

Pop Culture Will Fight Itself (1)

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Who would win this head-to-head match? He-Man…


…or Machete?


He-Man has one half of a Power Sword and the Power of Greyskull on his side.


Machete has a lot of machetes. And throwing knives. And a nice coat and vest combo to hold it all.


He-Man gets around on a large Battle Cat.


Machete has a motorbike with a minigun on the front.


He-Man was once played by musclebound engineering graduate and former Punisher Dolph Lundgren. He seems like a nice chap. Though in one movie he played a horrible boxer who killed Apollo Creed, which is egregious.


Machete is played solely by Danny Trejo, who I have heard through an internet acquaintance is a very very nice man who has helped people escape delinquent childhoods.


So, who will win this impossible fight? You decide!!!