Looper (film)

I want to start on a foundation that establishes that I had no real idea what this film was about but was keen to see it as I'd heard it was good. Also: time travel!

Generally speaking, it is quite good as an action film. The performances by the three leads are spot on, and the ensemble cast was also well picked and supported the drama where they were needed most—in the fray.

Also praiseworthy was Rian Johnson's concept of the future: in the USA you could see the divide between the rich and the poor clearly and the cityscape was dilapidated enough to be a believable version of an America that was once great but had devolved into a slum-like state; in the Shanghai scenes you could see the Pearl Tower (currently one of the tallest buildings in the city) dwarfed by taller ones still, indicating China's future growth, wealth and power. Pre-empting this visual presentation is a verbal encouragement by the boss character for Joe to learn Chinese instead of French.

The premise of 'Looper' is fairly straightforward: In the future, time travel is possible but it is outlawed. A criminal organisation uses it to send people to the past (before time travel has been invented) to be killed and disposed of without a trace. A looper is a killer who works for this organisation in the past. He is called a looper because eventually the person he kills is his future self, thereby closing the loop. When the looper kills himself he gets a huge payout and lives comfortably for the rest of his life until such time as he gets sent back in time to be killed. This is presumably so the mob have no loose ends.

*** there are spoilers in this review ***

I have a fair few problems with this. Firstly, why would you need a looper to know he killed his future self? None of his other targets are identified. Except for the payout of gold bars, the looper would never know that the person he just killed was himself so why tell him? Just keep using him and then retire him. Get another looper to kill the future self, who cares?

The second, quite major, problem is the time travel element. Now, I've heard a lot of talk about 'Looper' and I can generally put the audience into one of two camps: action movie and sci-fi. I tend to find that the action movie audience like the movie a lot more, they find it cerebral without being too taxing with enough shoot 'em ups to make it a pretty good film. They believe they have a grasp of the sci-fi element.

The sci-fi camp are less impressed. They understand all the concepts of time travel presented in the film but they don't buy it because writer/director Rian Johnson has chosen to use a few theories in the one film and those few theories cannot coexist.

For example when one looper, Seth, fails to close his loop the gang hunts him down and then carves an address into his arm, knowing that his future self will bear the scars. As old Seth makes his way to the address, bits of him disappear—a foot, his nose etc—because the gang is hacking off bits from young Seth. Now if young Seth has all these deformities, how does he then grow to be old Seth, who is able to run from the young Seth when he is sent back in time to be killed? You cannot have a 'one timeline' theory (old Seth being affected by young Seth's amputations) and a 'many worlds' theory (old Seth, who originally closed his loop successfully and went on to live a good life and this situation, where young Seth does not close his loop successfully so therefore cannot go on to live the life that old Seth has evidently already lived) coexist.

So this is a really bothersome part of the main story in which one version has young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) close his loop and grow up to be old Joe (Bruce Willis) and a second version in which young Joe fails to close his loop and has old Joe beat him up and escape.

When the two later meet in a cafe old Joe tries to explain things by saying his 'memories' are vague and are full of possibilities rather than concrete recollections. The only things that are clear are the things that young Joe has already done, not the things young Joe is about to do.

This is problematic because at the end of the film young Joe kills himself to prevent old Joe from existing to threaten a mother (Sarah) and her son Cid, a future threat to old Joe. Except if we go by the 'one timeline' theory this means that old Joe should not have existed at all to come back to threaten the two. Only, young Joe would never have killed himself if old Joe hadn't come back and set all these events in motion, in which case we are dealing with a 'many worlds' theory. But in that case, young Joe killing himself would not have an effect on old Joe, who would have come from another 'version' of young Joe, one who had successfully closed his loop to become old Joe. GAH!

Even more problematic is the idea that young Joe has clearly made up his mind to protect Sarah and Cid and yet this understanding of the two has no effect on old Joe's decision to kill Cid, which proves that this old Joe is not derived from the young Joe we have followed throughout the film.

As for Sarah and Cid, the son is creepy and Sarah sleeps with young Joe for no apparent plot consequence. Also, the fact that they are telekinetic feels tacked on, even though telekinesis was introduced at the start and becomes a big deal as young Joe learns the consequences of Cid's powers.

All in all, the film appears all slick and macho and brainy but is actually a kind of mess. The only thing saving it is the performances by actors who probably didn't question Johnson's multiple uses of time travel theory too much and therefore gave a straight performance.

Film rating: 7/10 – actually quite a decent action film if you forgive all the time travel nonsense.
Enjoyment rating: 5/10 – except I didn't forgive it.

Ruby Sparks (film)

*** there are spoilers in this review ***

I wanted to like this film so very much. It has been too long since Little Miss Sunshine and directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris certainly deserved a free visit* after the masterful dose of quirkiness from that film.

The premise—a writer bringing a character to life from the page and interacting with her—had a whimsy I thought Dayton and Faris could really work with, and the trailer looked promisingly full of writer jokes. Someone also mentioned a surprise ending. Goody, I thought, something refreshing at last. It won't be something lame like he stops writing about her and she ends up being a real person. And yet the most surprising thing about this 'surprise' ending was that it was no surprise at all.

First I'd like to say a few choice words about the good parts of this film. The performances were excellent. The rather diverse (from Annette Bening to Antonio Banderas to Steve Coogan in support) ensemble worked well and the two leads, Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan, had great chemistry as a duo. Zoe Kazan had the light-hearted kookiness of that other Z girl, Zooey Deschanel, but played her role with more vivacity.

If seen as a journey for Dano's Calvin, the film works well. We get a sense of who he is because when he stops 'writing' her, Ruby is a foil for him: she enjoys a weekend with his family while the distance he keeps from his mother and her partner couldn't be more clear, his solitude is more stark against her easy friendliness and his discomfort with writer's block (his first book was a bestseller and he hasn't written anything as hefty since) is played out against her burgeoning creativity as an artist.

Calvin writes Ruby because he wants to change all of those things. He wants to be emotionally engaged with someone, he wants company and he wants to write freely. When he gives Ruby up, he gets all of that in the most metafictitious sense: he writes a novel about a girl who springs from a writer's imagination, which unblocks him and leads him to meet a 'real' Ruby. If you love it set it free, et cetera.

The other great thing about this film is that it is genuinely warm and funny. There aren't a lot of one-liners, but it is generally good humoured and anything that can be played for laughs is woven in without malice.

Where the film falls down is in the idea of Ruby herself. The film is called Ruby Sparks so we want Ruby to be more than a figment, then we want her to be more than an unsurprising surprise ending but she never gets there. Curiously Kazan, who wrote the script and starred as Ruby Sparks, didn't think to push the character further. So Ruby as a foil and an idea = good; Ruby as her own being = not well realised.

On the way home my partner and I thought of better endings for the film, or at least endings that weren't as predictable, things like Calvin's ex, who is also a writer and who we meet at his agent's party, wrote him but lost control of her own creation, which is why he ends up being more successful than her. Or, it was a magic typewriter. Or something about Calvin's mother also being a creative type.

The other factor that disappointed me was that the directors didn't play enough with the story in a story in a story format (Calvin's novel, which was Calvin's life with Ruby, which was the film). I mean, that's a meta meta fiction and an opportunity lost. If you want to see a good story in a story in a story, go rent Stranger than Fiction (2006).

Film rating: 6/10 – fair expectations, but disappointingly predictable
Enjoyment rating: 7/10

* Free visit: where you see a film because of a certain director/writer/actor even if you don't really know what it's about, because you enjoyed the last one of theirs so much. When you have a favourite director/screenwriter/actor and will see anything of theirs no matter what the reviews, it's called a magnet.

Thoughts on the Sydney Film Festival

I was supposed to go camping on the Saturday and Sunday of the June long weekend so I cut back my Sydney Film Festival sessions to a Flexipass10 (usually I buy a Flexipass20 or 30 and watch 15-20 films and share the rest). Of course I knew that watching fewer films meant any 'bad' films would comprise a higher ratio of the overall selection and skew my impression of the festival as a whole. But even though I had to skip a few on my shortlist due to clashing schedules and other commitments, I was fairly confident of my choices because the last few years I seem to have picked films I've liked fairly universally.

So, how was it?

Here's are some short reviews (some spoilers—beware!):

NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS

Blurb: In this assured and astonishing feature-film debut, life in a middle-class neighbourhood in present-day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private-security firm. 

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars and surprised myself by awarding it that highly. In this 'slice of life' film, narrative plays a loose second to character. All the characters and the roles they play in the neighbourhood show the dynamic and culture of the street but there is simply not enough here to be more than a sketch of a film. We have a bored housewife, a bored building manager and his grandfather, a bored property magnate, and the families and ancillary characters that encircle them threatening, but never quite managing, to carve some sort of narrative arc.

Top marks go to mood and for the artful elevation of the neighbourhood into a character of its own. I suspect I gave one more star than it deserved because I have a soft spot for the underlying theme, the interconnectedness of all things.


POSTCARDS FROM THE ZOO

Blurb: Maverick Indonesian director Edwin creates a dreamlike world in this story about a girl raised in a zoo whose life changes when she meets a handsome cowboy with magical powers.


I gave it 3 out of 5 stars, one for the mention of 'postcard', one for the mention of 'zoo' and another for having a character best described as 'handsome cowboy with magical powers'. This film shows what happens when tight magical realism unravels into a 'then this happened' kind of story. The first thing that happens is a really cute little girl wanders around the zoo at night looking for her father. It's never explained how she was left behind. She finds an encampment of unofficial zoo workers and we accept that she grows up at the zoo as an unofficial guide before following said magical cowboy into the 'real world' as his assistant. During practice of a disappearing trick, he literally disappears and she gets a job as a masseuse in a shady parlour down the road.

I think Edwin was trying to hard to convey the parallels between this innocent girl and the captive animals that she loves so much. There's a sense of exploitation at both the zoo and the parlour, and even the cowboy's employment of her as his assistant. The reason it doesn't work is that he's trying to cram too many surreal moments into a fairly weak narrative and these quirks jolt us into realising there are too many unanswered questions, enough to make us distrust the quivery story. However, the lead actress was likeable and I love zoos so I'll stick with the rating.


L

Blurb: Drolly funny Greek 'Weird Wave' film about a driver, referred to as the Man, who lives and works in his car and spends all his time sourcing the finest honey for a narcoleptic—occasionally meeting his wife and children in a carpark.


I gave it 2 out of 5 stars. The theme of disconnection and connection is quite strong, coming through in the set-up of the Man living in his car and then, after he loses his honey-couriering job, joining a motorcycle gang. Meeting his estranged wife and children is also a recurring motif, as is dreaming about a dead friend who appears in the film as a man pretending to be a bear.

There's quite a bit of WTF?! in this film and in some weird way I do care about the Man, but the piecemeal story was too alienating for me to truly like it. At the end, all I could think was 'that was it?'


LOVE LASTS THREE YEARS

Blurb: This charming comedy follows the misadventures of a literary critic who meets an irresistible and inaccessible beauty and tries to hide the fact that he wrote a cynical bestseller denouncing love.

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars for its tight script, well-cast characters and real laughs. It was also a beautiful film with some excellent cinematographic choices, which is unusual for a comedy. The script plays for laughs on three levels: there is farce, there is slapstick but there is also plenty of clever wordplay (the main character is a literary critic, after all). Our protagonist is a likeable but self-absorbed rogue who is too smart for his own good but with whom we empathise in his quest to understand love after he's jilted by his wife and falls for his cousin's spouse.

There's no Hollywood ending here; although he gets the girl, he doesn't 'learn a lesson' about himself or about love, but in the meantime we do. Sort of. At least we laugh at what we think we understand, which is far more important in a film that bills itself as a comedy.



BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Blurb: A Sundance and Cannes prize winner, this unforgettable feature-film debut is set in a defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world, as icebergs melt and prehistoric creatures descend.

I gave it 5 out of 5 stars for its heartbreaking beauty, vitality and indomitable spirit. This is magical realism at its best: grounded enough in reality for us to understand and care for these fringe characters who dwell in poverty but are otherwise happy, but wondrous enough to open our eyes to the world that they see for themselves, a sparkling, carefree future. The theme of freedom was as tearaway as the main character Hushpuppy and lingered long after the closing shot.



DEATH OF A JAPANESE SALESMAN

Blurb: The last months in the life of recently retired Japanese businessman as recorded by his filmmaker daughter: a surprisingly funny and immensely moving documentary.

I gave it 3 out of 5 stars but on second thoughts it should probably have one more (which I will take from 'Neighbouring Sounds'...). This film is incredibly droll for a doco about death and much of that comes from the filmmaker's well-scripted voiceover as she speaks as her father. An example: "That's my youngest daughter. She should stop following me around with a camera and find a husband." However, in some ways this makes the accompanying image lose some intimacy.

The scenes were well chosen, representing the traits of both her father and the wider family, while keeping to the thread of his preparation for death. It's amazing that throughout this doco we are prepared for his death and yet feel it so acutely when he does pass. I bawled my eyes out.


PINK RIBBONS, INC

Blurb: Provocative documentary that exposes problems with the ubiquitous pink-themed corporate fundraising for breast cancer research.

I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. For everyone who has ever been annoyed at how pervasive pink is during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, how entwined pink is with breast cancer, and suspicious about where all the money really goes, this doco is for you.

First of all, this is a brilliant film to see if you are interested in how to market a disease. 'Pink Ribbons, Inc' deals with the corporatisation of breast cancer and how it shapes the way we think about charities and medical research. But beyond that, it looks at some of the hypocrisies in the Pink Ribbon campaign (e.g. companies that sell carcinogenic products sponsoring Pink Ribbon events) and the gaps in where the funding goes (too much towards research to find a cure and not enough towards investigating causes).

While presented as a stock standard doco (talking head cut to Pink Ribbon event cut to animated graphic cut to talking head), it doesn't push a cynical view but fairly even handedly allows its interviewees to say what they need to say. Any cynicism comes from the audience's perception of that interviewee. Really made me think not just about Pink Ribbons but charity marketing as a whole.




ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA

Blurb: Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan takes on the police procedural, and the result is a beautifully layered narrative in which every line of dialogue contributes to solving the puzzle.

I gave it 3 out of 5 stars, all for cinematography. The blurb lies: there is no puzzle, just long lingering shots of the Turkish countryside and a seemingly neverending night in which a team of police staff attempt to find the body of a murder victim using the testimony of a prisoner who has confessed to the crime.

This is a beautiful-looking film, badly made. I understand the Ceylan is trying to make us feel like the characters who must endure the long night, but all of that could've easily been rectified with an injection of narrative. By the end of it I didn't care for any of the characters, what they did or did not do, nor the murder victim, nor the prisoner. The 'twist' is more like a clumsy reveal that loses its meaning in the weak ending.


ALPS

Blurb: The team behind Greek 'Weird Wave' films Dogtooth and Attenberg return with the absurd tale of a secret club whose members are paid to act as replacements for the recently deceased.  

I gave it 2 out of 5 stars and was incredulous when I found out it had won the 2012 Sydney Film Festival Official Competition prize. Granted I came into the session at least 20 minutes late and may have missed some of the crucial setup, I mustered no sympathy for any of the characters and what should've been a compelling premise fell flat in every scene due to the thick layer of contrivance to be weird.

The addictive nature of the club's activities was the strongest part of the film and that was well played throughout, but the dynamic between the characters was stilted and the dialogue (albeit deliberately in some scenes) even more so.


A SIMPLE LIFE

Blurb: With perfect performances from Andy Lau and Deanie Ip, Ann Hui's moving film looks at the decades-long relationship between a man and a devoted family servant who suffers a stroke. 

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars. This film surprised me as I didn't expect to like it so much. Apart from being a touching story, the blurb was right about the perfect performances: for a sentimental story it was emotionally restrained and well played. It was also surprisingly humorous with some light touches that didn't feel inserted. The theme of family and belonging was very clear and although I didn't bawl my eyes as in 'Death of a Japanese Salesman', I did shed a tear for aunty when she passed, yet I was happy that she had found true friendship with her ward before she did.


OVERALL
Aesthetically this was one of the best film festivals I've experienced for cinematography, so I gave it plenty of points for beauty. For a festival that touted the slogan 'One festival, infinite stories', however, there was a distinct lack of narrative in many of the films I watched, which was disappointing from both an expectation level and an enjoyment level.

I watch films because they have a beginning, middle and end. The good ones make me think and are enjoyable to watch, the bad ones at least end. All these 'slice of life' films and movies with weak endings just make me feel like I've wasted my time. I mean, if you're not going to provide closure, all you're doing is setting me up for disappointment because hell, as a filmmaker, you have to give me enough plot, character, setting so I can construct something worthwhile for the time and money I've afforded you.

I can get a good plot from a book, I can get good characters from TV, I can get good settings from my travels: only in cinema do these three elements combine in an optimal way to become art. Unfortunately in the 2012 Sydney Film Festival there were too many parts missing for the films to really soar.

#30: Five films that mean a lot to you

Love it when a 30-day meme takes almost two months.

This list does not include my favourite film of all time because I think it'd be too difficult to name just one from a list of about 20 films I really, really like and would be happy to watch over and over again.

But here's a shortlist of films that mean a lot to me and why.

Inception
Well, it was directed by Christopher Nolan, what's not to like? But beyond that, Inception is a cerebral blockbuster, the difficult balance between critical and commercial success. If you didn't think about it, you could still enjoy it. If you did think about, you'd enjoy it more. Who would've expected a speculative heist movie to earn so much at the box office?

True, Nolan was not nominated for an Oscar for his direction, but I think he was robbed (of a nomination—I don't think he should've won) because Inception is a difficult story to convey and the direction in it was spot on.

Add the fact that Inception was designed specifically for the medium, an original story, and not part of a franchise and you have an acclaimed filmgoer's film.

Teeth
This is a B-grade horror film (the humour is also so very black) that was screened at the Sydney Film Festival a few years ago. I liked it so much I later acquired it on DVD as an example of a horror film that I could actually watch again.

Teeth means a lot to me because it's a prime example of a film that's very firmly B-grade not aspiring to be anything else, yet with an excellent cast and well directed. It's money well spent in other words, and gives me faith that the industry isn't completely full of people who earn too much for bad movies.

The Graduate
This was the first old movie I liked. It is also a film that stands the test of time: I feel it covers the universal theme of a disaffected youth trying to find himself, his confusion about love and sex, and the point at which he grounds himself and chooses life.

Speaking of choosing life, what's not to like about a film that gets sampled in a George Michael video clip? "Do you want me to seduce you? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" Too funky, Mr Graduate.

Kundun
The scene of the massacre. Unforgettable.

Into the Wild
It's a romance about a young man's relationship with the world and it's based on true events. Let's call this a vicarious pick.

Read the entire 30-day movie meme.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#29: Last film you watched

I thought 'hang on a minute—isn't this Day #12?' But yes, it differentiates between films seen in the cinema compared with films I've watched in general.

Well, the last film I watched was at the cinema, Sleeping Beauty. I had these Dendy vouchers I wanted to use up so organised to meet my boyfriend at Dendy Newtown to see The Tree of Life. Unfortunately, due to train dramas we missed the start of The Tree of Life so we decided we'd try and catch the later session.

WELL, the later session was at 9.20pm and for a two-and-a-half hour movie, that would've made it incredibly difficult for me to get home. I saw Sleeping Beauty was also playing—I missed it at the Sydney Film Festival—and that the next session was at 9.10pm and at a respectable one-and-a-half hour running time.

So thanks to Cityrail, two more people saw Sleeping Beauty than would have ordinarily.

I liked it more than my boyfriend did. It was aesthetically quite cool and distant, which corresponded with the main character's (Emily Browning) encounters as she drifts from day to day, never really engaging with anyone or anything with any warmth.

Unfortunately, this meant that it lacked was audience empathy. I would say that about half of the audience in the cinema didn't care about her, or what happened to her. There were also lots of nipples.

However, there was the compulsion to want to know what was behind the things that happened—the creepy lingerie waitressing gig and the nude sleeping gig—which intrigued until the end. This was not climactic enough to make it a good film, I'm sorry to say, but I still thought of it as an interesting piece that was worth watching.

Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#28: Last film you bought

I... don't recall. The last film I acquired was The Hulk (starring Edward Norton), which was in a leftover promo pack and attained as a gift from a neighbouring publishing house.

The last DVD I bought was Leonard Cohen Live in London.

The last film on DVD I bought would've been during the Borders closing down sale and I think it was an enviro doco. Ah yes, it was Garbage Warrior, which I haven't seen yet. Unfortunately I missed this one at the Sydney Film Festival a couple of years ago, hence the purchase.

Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#27: Total number of films you own on DVD/video

Another difficult one to answer considering I've packed most of my DVDs, which was a preventative measure from when I had a thieving, lying, no good very bad housemate. That time has since led into a period of vague renovation and a furniture shuffle so in short, my parents still have the core DVDs from my collection.

BTW, I no longer have videos because I no longer have a video player, but my 'collection' consisted of Disney's Aladdin and its sequel, The Return of Jafar (which someone bought me as a birthday present because they saw I liked Aladdin). The rest were all part of the 'family' collection, which included The Sound of Music (taped from TV), 101 Dalmatians (pirated), The Last Unicorn (pirated) and a couple of Chinese ghost movies (taped from TV).

My current DVD collection consists of movies that I want to watch again and again. Strangely enough, it does not contain all my favourite films. As a guesstimate, I'd say there are probably 30 films there all up, and then another 30 DVDs of TV shows and music. It's reasonably complete, which is to say I'm not desperate to buy anything at this point in time.

I'm a little concerned that because the price of films has come down (I mean, videos used to be like RRP $30 and now you can get DVDs of fairly recent movies for $12.95 or even less at JB Hi-Fi) people just buy them without having seen the film before. I think I'm a little more discerning because while DVDs are cheap, real estate is expensive and I just don't have the room. I will always watch the film before buying the DVD and will only buy the DVD if I know I will want to watch the film at least a few more times.

I used to live with a friend who had more than 400 DVDs, so I just borrowed discs from her. Now I have a Quickflix account so I watch films that I miss at the cinema and also try out TV shows that I think I might like.

Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#26: Popcorn?

Er no, I shouldn't. I don't mind popcorn, but if I weigh things up correctly, in the big chain cinemas I'd pay something in the vicinity of $9.90 for a small combo (drink + popcorn) presented in receptacles roughly the size of my head.

If I finish the combo, I would have consumed enough sugar, salt and butter to power a small nation and therefore feel guilty. If I don't finish the combo, then I feel like I've wasted money and food and therefore feel guilty.

I'd rather pay less money for less popcorn, but they don't really give you that option unless you're at one of the smaller theatres. However, the smaller theatres I go to are usually licensed, in which case I generally purchase booze with the bill still only coming to $7.

Generally I don't like to eat in a movie because there's no real way to do it quietly. I was running late once and when I got into the cinema I realised I was starving but only had an apple in my bag. I ate it during the ads and trailers and the woman in front of me turned around to glare at me. I wanted to say, "lady, I'm not stupid or inconsiderate enough to eat this during the film" but instead I just smiled at her and took a large bite, daring her to say something.

My usual movie treat is an EasyWay, if convenient (the reason I go to Event Macquarie and Event George St) but I'll occasionally get a frozen Coke. Which reminds me—what the hell happened to the frozen grape Hoyts Mandarin had so very briefly and then took away?

Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#25: Favourite movie franchise/series?

Hmm! This is a hard one because the only ones I don't like are the horror ones.

I've had a lot of people diss later movies in franchises/series that 'lose their way' and while I think that's a valid argument, I feel that as long as the movie itself has something to offer, consistency with other movies is kind of secondary. I mean to say that if the film is reasonable on its own merits, then why should we worry that it's not as good as another in the franchise? After all, there are always going to be movies you think are weak or movies you don't like and that's generally subjective.

I like the X-Men franchise and, as you may have guessed from yesterday's entry, I love the Three Colours trilogy. Christopher Nolan's Batman series is shaping up to be good—better than X-Men, despite the delightful X-Men: First Class. I'll eat my hat if the third film isn't brilliant.

Another series looking to be huge is the Marvel franchise, right now a disparate bunch of films about the origins of certain heroes—Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America—which will culminate in The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon. I already know this will be good, but just how good? We'll have to wait until next year.

Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#24: Favourite sequel?

A good sequel should carry the story of the original film but not rely on it. If a moviegoer has not seen the first film, he or she should be able to understand what's happening in the second all the same.

At the same time, people who have seen the original film need to benefit either with a few in-jokes, or having something happen in the sequel that throws light on events or characters in the first. It's a fine line to tread and I'm sure you all know it.

I don't generally like sequels but I'm one of those suckers who will go and see the second film just to know for sure that it's worse than the first and they never should have made it. I have been pleasantly surprised more often than I care to admit.

The best sequel I've ever seen is The Dark Knight, the second of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. In many ways it actually surpasses the original. I think the villains get a good workout, for starters, and share the spotlight with party boy/psychopath vigilante Bruce Wayne.

But my favourite sequel (if you could call it that) is Three Colours White, directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. How to describe it? It's about an award-winning Polish barber whose wife wants to divorce him because he can't satisfy her in bed. The barber leaves France and goes back to Poland in a suitcase... I won't say more but it's funny and touching.

I'm not sure you can call it a sequel, though because there are only cameos of characters from Three Colours Blue (the first movie) in it, rather than it being a continuation of a narrative but I'm going to nominate it all the same because this is my blog.

Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#23: Favourite director?

This used to be an easy question. I took a look at all my favourite movies and shortlisted the ones where I thought the direction was exceptional. Then I tallied up which director had the most movies in the shortlist and the answer was Christopher Nolan.

Before Inception (yes, I am one of the many who believe Nolan was robbed of a Best Director Oscar), which is the only heist movie I've ever liked, there was The Dark Knight and Batman Begins. But before *those* were The Prestige and Memento. Not only does Nolan pick interesting movies, he directs them well, and that combination is the winning one.

Now I said this used to be easy because I've come to realise that there are a number of films I really, really like that I don't necessarily own or name on my top films list that have amazing direction.

Among them:
Danny Boyle, for 127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire, Sunshine, 28 Days Later and The Beach.
Guillermo del Toro, for Pan's Labyrinth.
Spike Jonze, for Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich.

I also don't mind a bit of Quentin Tarantino—and I think Duncan Jones is one to watch.

Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#22: Favourite documentary?

Ah, how to describe a documentary? Filming real life? Is a tortoise eating its vegies a documentary? I think Baraka is one of the most stunning pieces of non-fiction film you may ever behold, but I don't think you could call it a documentary.

According to Wikipedia, "documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record" [my italics].

Very well then, I nominate Paris is Burning. I saw this film as part of my cultural studies class 'Reading the Body'. It had so much in it—race, gender, underground culture—and it was such an eye-opening doco that I watched it three or four times even though I only needed to see it once (or twice if I were particularly studious).

The most fascinating aspect was not the queer and transvestite culture depicted, although that was the most fun to watch, but the individual lives that this culture touched. The spectre of the AIDS era and the ever-present danger of being found out in a straight world added a dark reality to what is otherwise a colourful, often garish film.

See IMDb and Wikipedia entries.

Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#21: Favourite movie quote?

It's the whole Latin lesson scene from Life of Brian.

Centurion: What's this thing? "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS"? "People called Romanes they go the house?"
Brian: It... it says "Romans go home".
Centurion: No it doesn't. What's Latin for "Roman"?

[Brian hesitates]

Centurion: Come on, come on!
Brian: (uncertain) "ROMANUS".
Centurion: Goes like?
Brian: "-ANUS".
Centurion: Vocative plural of "-ANUS" is?
Brian: "-ANI".
Centurion: [takes paintbrush from Brian and paints over] "RO-MA-NI". "EUNT"? What is "EUNT"?
Brian: "Go".
Centurion: Conjugate the verb "to go"!
Brian: "IRE"; "EO", "IS", "IT", "IMUS", "ITIS", "EUNT".
Centurion: So "EUNT" is ...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But "Romans, go home!" is an order, so you must use the ...?

[He lifts Brian by his short hairs]

Brian: The ... imperative.
Centurion: Which is?
Brian: Um, oh, oh, "I", "I"!
Centurion: How many Romans? [pulls harder]
Brian: Plural, plural! "ITE".

[Centurion strikes over "EUNT" and paints "ITE" on the wall]

Centurion: "I-TE". "DOMUS"? Nominative? "Go home", this is motion towards, isn't it, boy?
Brian: (very anxious) Dative?

[Centurion draws his sword and holds it to Brian's throat]

Brian: Ahh! No, ablative, ablative, sir. No, the, accusative, accusative, ah, DOMUM, sir.
Centurion: Except that "DOMUS" takes the ...?
Brian: ... the locative, sir!
Centurion: Which is?
Brian: "DOMUM".
Centurion: (satisfied) "DOMUM"...

[He strikes out "DOMUS" and writes "DOMUM"]

Centurian: ..."-MUM". Understand?
Brian: Yes sir.
Centurion: Now write it down a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: [saluting] Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
Brian: (very relieved) Oh thank you sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar and everything, sir!

(Thanks http://www.epicure.demon.co.uk/latinlesson.html)

Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#20: Favourite movie adaptation

(from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)

A good adaptation is not necessarily one that is faithful to the events in the original text, but one that is faithful to its concepts, characters and consequences while also using the advantages of, and understanding and finding solutions to the limitations of, the silver screen.

As I mentioned on Day 10 I like Danny Boyle's take on Alex Garland's novel The Beach. What was marketed as quite a mainstream movie turned out to be edgy and profound in many ways. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't like it and it received quite bad critical reviews. I'm not sure whether good old expectations had something to do with that.

I also like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which remains by far the best of all the Harry Potter adaptations. (I haven't seen HP7 Part II but seeing as it is a continuation of Part I I'm not expecting it to be any better than the book).

Alfonso Cuaron's direction on Prisoner of Azkaban is tight, horrifying in all the right places, and he gets the best from the cast. I emphasise 'tight' because the others tended to have a scene-by-scene deference to the book, which made the narrative choppy. Cuaron cuts all the right parts without sacrificing much in the way of plot, and best of all he deftly handles the time travel elements, making it seamless and easy to understand.

I'll add Watchmen and Sin City because I really like the films, although I haven't read the respective graphic novels from which they come.

Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#19: Favourite movie villain?

Dr Evil! "I didn't go to evil medical school for six years just to be called MISTER, thank you very much!"

There's so much I love about Dr Evil. His incompetence. The fact that he is a collage of so many other villains from spy movies but created to show how absurd they are. Read the following:

Dr Evil reveals his strange background. All villains must be strange and unloved. Most often foreign, too.

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanise, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds—pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of 14 a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking—I highly suggest you try it.


Here are a few quotes that show the stupidity of the villain's interaction with the hero, particularly with regard to killing him.

Dr Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
Dr Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr Evil: Oh well, that's a start.

Dr Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers.
Scott Evil: What? Are you feeding him? Why don't you just kill him?
Dr Evil: I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.

Dr Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?

Now I'm killing myself laughing here.

All right, you want a real villain? Bill from Kill Bill. How could he do that to her? Bastard!

And You-Know-Who. Voldy from the Harry Potter series. Ralph Fiennes plays him well. Actually in some ways I think Dolores Umbridge (played by Imelda Staunton) is more evil because she's known a better life and had a better upbringing and yet is fully behind Voldy's evil plan for domination. She's so *shudder* spiteful. Voldy, when he was Tom, was brought up an orphan and never knew love. Sad, ain't it?

Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#18: Favourite movie hero?

Dude, this is hard. I like the new Batman (Christian Bale) because he is a psychopath and there's not very much that separates him from the villains in the films. I mean, Superman and Spiderman are basically goody-goodies who have powers—Batman is a guy with serious mental issues who uses his wealth to build gear that allows him to track and kill people. There's something cool about that.

At the same time, I quite enjoy the softies like Scott Pilgrim and Griff the Invisible, who you might argue are not really heroes at all but protagonists who stumble their way through their respective films.

Then there's Wolverine, who is a violent misanthrope, an anti-hero, and yet like Batman happens to be working on the 'right' side. Heroes are so complicated nowadays.

Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#17: If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?

Mmmphmm. I'm not the sort of person who wants to be characters. When I was five I wanted to be Zia from The Mysterious Cities of Gold (TV series), but since then I don't think I've had a burning desire to be a character.

Every movie character I can think of comes from a book so I'm trying to think of a movie-only character. Maybe The Bride from Kill Bill? Besides Uma Thurman looking hot in yellow, she has the moves to match. And the sword. Don't forget the sword.

Day 18 - Favourite movie hero?
Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#16: What is the scariest film you’ve seen?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I scare really easily so this question should probably be answered by saying 'any horror movie I've ever seen (except Scary Movie 4)'.

But really, there are two that stick out in my mind and both are connected to Guillermo del Toro. The first is Pan's Labyrinth, directed by del Toro, which scared me because the 'reality' scenes were so brutal and the 'fantasy' scenes just had some freaky shit in it, particularly the bit where she has to get the dagger from the dining table without disturbing the creature. You know the one.

The other is El Orfanato (The Orphanage), which del Toro produced. There's something about creepy children, creepy orphan children, that really gets me. And occult and supernatural type stuff freaks me out. Characters seeing shit is bad enough, but when shit gets real and there's a sort of poltergeist type reckoning, I don't like it.

I should probably mention right now that because horror is not my favoured genre, I've never seen any of the classics like The Shining, The Exorcist, The Omen or even films like Pet Sematary, so this post is really about the most scary drama films I've ever seen.

Day 17 - If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Day 18 - Favourite movie hero?
Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#15: What film do you wish you had never seen?

I'm not entirely sure how to answer this: never seen because it was really bad? A waste of time? Scared the bejesus out of me?

Hmm, I'd probably say Cabin Fever for a bit of all of those reasons. I'm not a horror fan at all, at all, so the way I came to see this film was a (now ex) friend of mine had won free tickets through some sort of competition.

I found it a bit schlocky and seeing as I didn't really want to see it in the first place, I considered it a waste of time. And yes, it did scare the bejesus out of me, because I scare really easily and I have a great fear of disease, especially diseases that involve spraying around a lot of blood (can't withstand zombie films, for example...).

If you've seen Black Swan, you may remember a scene near the beginning when Nina goes to the bathroom and she picks at a bit of skin next to her nail and rips it back but then it turns out she didn't actually do it? Well, I found that the most terrifying part of the movie because this is something I do quite often (not tear off my finger, mind, just rip small slips of skin off so it bleeds because I'm careless). Let's forget the sprouting black feathers and stabbing people with glass; the fingernail scene is scary.

Anyway, Cabin Fever has a similar scene in it where one of the girls, who doesn't know she has this flesh-eating disease yet, starts to shave a leg and the skin of her leg falls away. Ever since that I've made an effort to depilate with Silkymit over a razor. For this alone I wish I'd never seen Cabin Fever.

Day 16 - What is the scariest film you’ve seen?
Day 17 - If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Day 18 - Favourite movie hero?
Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.

#14: What’s the first film you remember seeing in the cinema?

I accidentally already answered this on Day 11: it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Oh the shame. The shame.

Day 15 - What film do you wish you had never seen?
Day 16 - What is the scariest film you’ve seen?
Day 17 - If you could be any character portrayed in a movie, who would it be?
Day 18 - Favourite movie hero?
Day 19 - Favourite movie villain?
Day 20 - Favourite movie adaptation (from book, play, musical, graphic novel etc)?
Day 21 - Favourite movie quote?
Day 22 - Favourite documentary?
Day 23 - Favourite director?
Day 24 - Favourite sequel?
Day 25 - Favourite movie franchise/series?
Day 26 - Popcorn?
Day 27 - Total number of films you own on DVD and video.
Day 28 - Last film you bought.
Day 29 - Last film you watched.
Day 30 - Five films that mean a lot to you.

Twenty-one categories of this meme are from Books and Movies and Wordsmithsonia. The rest of the categories are my own creation.