The Merchant of Venice, The Taking of Pelham 123, Y Tu Mama Tambien

I find myself chained to the television. Why are there so many good movies on at the moment? Don't they realise what they are doing to me?

#1 - THE MERCHANT OF VENICE


















Stars - Joseph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, Al Pacino, Mackenzie Crook
Director - Michael Radford
Memorable Quote - 'If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?'
Review - Having, of course, studied this for A-level Literature, I feel quite sentimental about this here film. Not only does it contain a fine crop of actors (Pacino at his best, Fiennes looking cute enough that his performance hardly matters, and Irons playing the lovelorn man resigned to death very well), it also brings a great reading of the play itself. The are they/aren't they hints between Bassanio and Antonio are amplified here until you can be almost certain that Antonio is in love with his 'friend', and the last scene compells you to feel for both him and Shylock: both of them are saved from death, but end up alone, in a way that makes you question whether they really benefited by Portia's intervention at all. Oh, and Nick from My Family/the BT ads is in it, so you've got to love that. I'm not sure exactly how he manages to make Gratiano exactly like his Nick character with a dash more intelligence, since that shouldn't really work in Shakespearean Venice, but he does. 3.5/5

#2 - THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123

Stars - Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini
Director - Tony Scott
Memorable Quote - 'You know we all owe God a debt... and I'm a man who pays his debts. Are you a man who pays his debts?'
Review - Quite a dramatic movie, and very fast-paced. In fact the start was almost disorientating, not my favourite start to a film ever, but it did improve once it reached the actual storyline. Washington is looking old but acting well, as he always does. Travolta for me was the weak point. I couldn't believe his character, and I couldn't take him seriously - the over-the-top swearing, the grimacing, the earring - all of it was wrong. For me that was the one big flaw, without which the movie would have scored a lot higher. There are a ton of actors with smaller names that would nonetheless be better suited to the part, and I think they were overlooked in favour of being able to name-drop two big actors as the leads instead of just one. The storyline was great, and believable - usually where things like this slip up is by letting everything go to plan with one big stuff-up at the end, but here there were problems from the get-go. In summary, great idea, well executed, badly cast. Keep Washington, Gandolfini et al, exchange Travolta. 3/5

#3 - Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN





















Stars - Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Ana Lopez Mercado
Director - Alfonso Cuaron
Memorable Quote - '... Y tu mama tambien!'
Review - Not for the faint-hearted, this one! I know they did warn about the nudity, but really I didn't take them seriously. By the end of the movie, though, you appreciate why it's all so full-on. Really, the whole movie - the sex, the arguments, the small moments of tragedy by the sides of the road - is setting you up for that final scene. It comes across as a tragedy, but then you remember all those other little anecdotes and you can understand that this isn't a tragedy, but simply the way of the world. The narration style is fresh and interesting, cutting over the sound as it does, and the two boys present perfectly drunk, stoned, naive teenagers. Most of it you can see coming, with trepidation as much as anticipation - once the dialogue gets into 'Yo tambien - yo y Cecilia', you feel yourself tensely waiting for who's going to come out with that line, 'y tu mama tambien'. The final scene is, it has to be said, a masterpiece, but some of the parts before may feel a little contrived or over-shocking (just how many sex scenes do we need before the point is well and truly made?) 4/5

Nightscream, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Lost Boys

Getting another post underway whilst actually watching a film really seems to be my style at the moment. Consequently I am still a post behind! No matter, it shall all be dealt with in due course.

#1 - NIGHTSCREAM

Stars - Candace Cameron Bure, Casper Van Dien
Director - Noel Nosseck
Memorable Quote - none, really
Review - Er, yeah. This is really not as exciting as either the title or the synopsis make it seem to be. Basically, a spirit has 'possessed' someone, but then it turns out they were making it up because they were being paid by the 'boyfriend' because he was a murder suspect. Then it turns out the 'boyfriend' was actually the rapist who killed her. The end. Now you don't need to put yourself through it. 1/5

#2 - THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Stars - Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield
Director - Terry Gilliam
Memorable Quote - 'Nothing is permanent, not even death.'
Review - Let's deal with this by actor, first. Let's not dwell on the fact that he died during filming - Heath Ledger is wonderful as always, though this performance does not come close to his Joker. That said, he's easily the best Tony, though well matched by Johnny Depp's version (no surprise there - what character CAN'T Depp play, even if it is a fellow actor?). Jude Law is mediocre, quite painfully so compared to the others, and Colin Farrel is an average kind of good. Lily Cole is surprisingly good, and Andrew Garfield is also a good watch. Lastly, the film itself - it is interesting, certainly, and quite nice in that it presents you an imaginary world without having to stretch your own imagination too much. Good effects, good sound, and a pleasant setting in the modern world. All in all, quite a good little film really. 4/5


#3 - LOST BOYS

Stars - Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Keifer Sutherland
Director - Joel Schumacher
Memorable Quote - 'One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach, all the damn vampires.'
Review - Heh, you've gotta love a good teen vamp flick. (I'm not talking about Twilight, of course). Some of it is laughably bad, some of it is geniunely funny. Mostly it's just hilarious that people ever dressed like that or had those hairstyles. Or that Keifer Sutherland used to take roles like this. Anyway, a good casual movie night watch, but not something you're going to find yourself intellectually stretched by. 3.5/5

Heart of a Stranger, Little Miss Sunshine, Secret Window

Post the second... I'm doing well tonight!

#1 - HEART OF A STRANGER

Stars - Jane Seymour, Maggie Lawson
Director - Dick Lowry
Memorable Quote - yeahhh, none
Review - Yeahhh, the above image was all I could find to illustrate this, and I'm not surprised. WHAT A PILE OF CRAP seriously, wasted my life on this movie. Don't even bother with it. It's far fetched and badly acted and allover ridiculous. 1/5



#2 - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Stars - Paul Dano, Greg Kinnear, Steve Carrel, Abigail Breslin
Director - Johnathon Dayton and Valerie Faris
Memorable Quote - 'Everyone, just... pretend to be normal.'
Review - Hah, I love this movie, hence my buying it on DVD for this rewatch. Paul Dano is just great, isn't he? And even though we only see two days of this family's life we become greatly attached to them - I have to say that anyone who doesn't laugh at the final dance scene is totally without a sense of humour. It gives you a great feeling after you've watched it and is a barrel of wry little laughs all the way through. 4/5

#3 - SECRET WINDOW

Stars - Johnny Depp, John Turturro
Director - David Koepp
Memorable Quote - 'Shoot. Her.'
Review - You've got to love Depp, right? This is a well-executed movie, containing quite possibly the cutest dog I have ever seen, and the concept is of course wonderful. Mort Rainey is a great character, acually, that you can both empathise with and hold in disregard as a madman. The ending is quite simply exquisite, also. 4/5

Caché, The Man in the Iron Mask, Hollywoodland

This week, I have mostly been watching MOVIES. Many of them. This is the first of three blogs I have queued up, and it's the first time I've had a chance to write it in between watching them. In fact, I'm watching The Merchant of Venice right now.

#1 - Caché (Hidden)

Stars - Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou
Director - Michael Haneke
Memorable Quote - Not a quote, but actually the more memorable part for me was the unintelligible dialogue at the end.
Review - MICHAEL HANEKE, YOU GUYS. I think I finally have a favourite director. This man is quite clearly a genius, and one of the DVD gems of this is the interview he did about the film, which reveals a lot. Anyway, the film - normally I would find an ending like this so frustrating, but I like it because of that "thing" in the final scene (which, according to Haneke, only about 50% of viewers actually notice). It gives you the chance to have your own ideas about what happened - and I love the ambiguity of the whole storyline, actually. Always having to guess what is real and what is a tape, whether Auteuil's character is telling the truth, and who is the culprit behind the videos - I love it! I don't want to give anything about this film away so I'll say no more, except that I recommend this heartily. 6/5

#2 - The Man in the Iron Mask

Stars - Leonardo diCaprio x2, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu
Director - Randall Wallace
Memorable Quote - 'I'm a genius, not an engineer.'
Review - So, shortly after watching The Three Musketeers, I returned to D'Artagnan and co with this rewatch, courtesy of channel 5. And this is another of the same line of thought as the previous, though the comedy comes from the wrong places - Malkovich's acting, for instance. He's just far too camp to play a hero! Also, diCaprio's strangely effeminate screams and fits of anger inspire laughter rather than fear. Still, who wouldn't want a chance to look at that pretty little face for an hour or so? And at least by watching a film version you don't have to read your way through all that flowery prose that Dumas would have presented to you. 3/5

#3 - Hollywoodland

Stars - Adrien Brody
Director - Allen Coulter, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, Bob Hoskins
Memorable Quote -
Review - I've always been a fan of Adrien Brody, and his performance here is no less brilliant than you might expect from him. I enjoy the way the film is set out - with the three different possibilities all played out and you as the viewer left to choose (though it seems the Brody character believes it was suicide). Certain parts of the movie feel a little awkward, however, and Affleck's part seems almost uncomfortably true to life. Not a bad movie, not an amazing spectacle either, but somewhere inbetween. 3.5/5

No Regret, Braveheart, Guns of the Magnificent Seven

Three movies now, one of which is a firm favourite of mine, and two new watches. Something that worries me is that I remember starting this post before, and now I can't find it.

#1 - NO REGRET (Huhwihaji anha)

Stars - Nam-gil Kim, Young-Hoon Lee
Director - Hee-il Leesong
Memorable Quote - 'Is it because I am poor? I'll work hard.'
Review - This is one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life, hence my finally managing to get in on DVD (this, as you may have guessed, is a re-watch). The script is superb, the acting so touching that anyone can see this without feeling something is colder than the polar ice caps. Yes, at times it's a little hard - you can only feel sorry for Su-min as he performs for the older, rich men, and wince through the whole snowy woods scene, but in the end the final scene is, at least, a marginally happy one. Yes, they may be risking everything - but isn't that what true love is all about? An outstanding film, particularly as it comes from South Korea, and moreover a modern tale of the struggles still faced by homosexuals within modern cultures. 5/5

#2 - BRAVEHEART

Stars - Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, a ton of other people
Director - Mel Gibson
Memorable Quote - 'Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!'
Review - Things that are wrong with this movie: why is Mel Gibson so old and everyone else so young? Why is there hardly any development of the wife character, thus making it obvious that she will die? Why does he go through all of that for his wife, and then end up sleeping with some French tart? And what the hell planet was Robert the Bruce on? Things that are good with this movie: the emotional heart-strings-tugging cinematography, that mad Irish guy, and Gibson's suprisingly convincing Scottish. Things that are ironic about this movie: the end of the film actually just signals the beginning of several hundred more years of conflict. Yaaay. 3/5

#3 - GUNS OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

Stars - George Kennedy, James Whitmore, Fernando Rey
Director - Paul Wendkos
Memorable Quote - "A coward dies many deaths... the brave only one."
Review - First of all, it's some indication of the film's general reception that the above and below images were the best I could find short of making a screenshot myself. Second of all, this is where the Magnificent Seven movies begin to go downhill. There's not much wrong with it, but George Kennedy is no Yul Brynner, and the ending was unsatisfactory for me. If I'd been Paul Wendkos, I would have finally killed off Chris, because he should die by the gun - and then Cassie and Slater would have been spared. What's the point of redeeming someone, giving them a reason to live, only to kill them off a few days later? I also wonder why P.J. had to die right after he found love. Anyway, it's still a good Western, even if at times a little frustrating. 3/5

Top Gun, Ghandi, The Bucket List

After the week of Easter, I had quite the opportunity to watch a lot of films - including several rewatches of those old 5*s, and then these new ones. There's another post to come sometime this week.

#1 - THE BUCKET LIST

Stars - Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson,
Director - Rob Reiner
Memorable Quote - 'We live, we die, and the wheels on the bus go round and round.'
Review - Quite a touching little storyline really, which in fact causes you to think about the mortality of the actors themselves - Morgan Freeman's getting on a bit now, isn't he? Can't really say much about this one - worth a watch if you're a fan of either of them, and a heart-warming ending, but not so very amazing that I want to watch it again. Still, as I say, the storyline is nice, and there's a message to be found there. 3/5

#2 - GHANDI


Stars - Ben Kingsley, Martin Sheen, John Gielgud
Director - Richard Attenborough
Memorable Quote - 'I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed and raise him as your own. Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.'
Review - Wow, this film is long, first of all. Very long. A lot of the time I found myself thinking, 'do we need to see the same fight scene over and again so many times?' And if anything that is the main fault with the film - its repetition. Only so many times can you see a street brawl or watch Ghandi gaze with compassion before you start to lose your concentration. Good film though with good cause to create a film, and certainly one that could be inspirational to us all. Also, I now know what to do if faced with a charge of horses. 3/5

#3 - TOP GUN

Stars - Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan
Director - Tony Scott
Memorable Quote - 'You can be my wingman any time.'
Review - Ahahah. What a remarkably corny movie. Also, about halfway through I recall commenting that 'this is the most homoerotic straight film I've ever seen.' And I've seen a good few straight films. There was 100% a secret Maverick/Iceman relationship going on there, you could cut the tension with a knife. Seriously though, too many flight scenes and not really enough storyline. And what kind of training programme spends years getting the best pilots, sends them on ONE mission, and then lets them retire? Also 3/5, a bit of a week for it this time.

The Hurt Locker, The Company of Wolves, Inglourious Basterds

Whew, there are a lot of good films out there, right? And not enough time in the day to watch them all.

#1 - THE HURT LOCKER

Stars - Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo and some well-known cameos
Director - Kathryn Bigelow
Memorable Quote - 'You know you can shoot people here. You don't have to throw wrenches.'
Review - An interesting one, this - while I did enjoy it, I didn't quite think it was worthy of all the attention it has received. Yes, the cinematography and direction are very good, but there is a complete lack of storyline, and for me that's nothing more than a pretentious attempt at being realistic. I spent the whole film waiting for the storyline to actually start, but there just wasn't one. So a little disappointing in that way, but it was well acted, and as I said the camera work was nice (though not particularly exciting). 3.5/5

#2 - THE COMPANY OF WOLVES

Stars - Stephen Rea, Sarah Patterson, a whole load of creepy people
Director - Neil Jordan
Memorable Quote - 'If there's a beast in men, it meets its match in women too.'
Review - Uh, well, wow. I guess the animatronics were cutting edge back then, eh? Shame that they look so... ridiculous now. And, like most adventure movies aimed at young girls, there was so much wrong with this story I don't even believe it. I mean, come ON, the werewolf was not the kind of man anyone would go for unless they had a brain tumour, no eyes, and had lost their hearing. Plus, SHE WAS REALLY YOUNG eugh paedophiles. 1/5

#3 - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Stars - Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Melanie Laurent
Director - Quentin Tarantino
Memorable Quote - 'The German will be sickened by us, and the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us. And when the German closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. Sound good?'
Review - ARGHHHH this film is awesome! Tarantino's done it again - great script, great directing, great acting... Everything you could wish for, including a surprise twist ending and characters so good that you get all sentimental when they die. Also, isn't Eli Roth just great? Christoph Waltz deserved the praise he got - the interrogation scene between him, Pitt and his sidekick was hilarious. I particularly enjoyed the soldier who'd just had a son, the war hero, the Gestapo-murdering German, and the French girl with a penchant for revenge; and the best scenes a mon avis were the interrogation, the cinema finale, and the bar scene; though of course there were many great moments. There were also about 30,000 quotable lines, especially from Lt. Aldo Raine. I'm extremely glad I bought this on DVD, because I'm certainly going to watch it again. 5/5