Stuff for Dads

  Bridge to Terabithia (DVD)

Starring: Terminator 2, the older brother from Zathura, Trillian and the inflating gum-chewer from Charlie and the Cholocate Factory.

Rated: PG.

Story: Jesse (Josh Hutcherson) is in the fifth-grade. He feels under-appreciated at home, gets bullied at school and has a crush on his music teacher (Zooey Deschanel). Life isn't great. Then he meets new girl Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb). She's cute but crazy as an umbrella made of cheese. They create an imaginary, fantasy kingdom in the middle of the woods. Their experiences there help them deal with and overcome their everyday problems.

Comments: If all you know about Bridge to Terabithia is what you saw in the adverts, then this isn't the film you're expecting. It's not the Golden Labyrinth of Narnia where a ten-year-old decides that life sucks but then discovers a magical world where they learn to value themselves and others. This is a movie where a ten-year-old decides that life sucks and then discovers that life really, really sucks but learns to get over it by imagining trolls.

On its own terms, it's an affecting tale of children struggling to cope with isolation, criticism and bereavement. It's difficult to view Bridge to Terabithia without a host of expectations brought about by countless other films and its own advertising campaign, however. These expectations make the few short sequences of CGI confusing. I'm pretty sure the animated sections are there just to show the audience what the kids are imagining and I don't think they're meant to imply that the magical kingdom is 'real' but I'm not certain because I'm so used to films with actual elves and pixies, talking lions and Quidditch. I kept having to suspend my suspension of disbelief. This was slightly painful. The problem was made worse by my children constantly asking what was going on and which bits were pretend. I simply didn't know the answers, which simply made them ask all the harder.

Then the last half an hour turned out to be incredibly sad and I had to deal with a whole load of other questions.

I spent much of the film wondering where it was going. Even the end left me bemused because it's hard to work out the message. I suspect the general idea is that we all need a safe place to hide away from the world and that it's good to pretend and imagine. Unfortunately, the beautiful CGI blurs the line between a tactical withdrawal into day-dream and a full-scale retreat into delusion.

My eldest is nearly eight and the film was a bit over his head. He's never much been into make-believe, which didn't help, but the movie is probably more suitable for older children. Bear in mind that they could find it emotionally traumatic, though, so you might want to watch it with them.

Conclusion: A decent family drama that doesn't do what it says on the tin.

Explosions: None.
Bullies: Some.
Ending: Confused.
Sympathetic teacher, crotchety teacher and annoying younger sister: All present and correct.
Killer squirrels: Several... or none. Or maybe several and none. Who knows if they're really there? Perhaps they're quantum squirrels - only there if you think they're there and spending the rest of the time hanging out with Schrodinger's Cat. Don't ask me - I'm off to watch The Goblet of Fire.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: drama, family, fantasy, film review

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  Brick (DVD)

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun), Nora Zehetner (Heroes) & Lukas Haas (Witness - he's grown somewhat, though).

Rated: 15.

Story: Brendan (Gordon-Levitt), a loner at a Californian high school, discovers the body of his ex-girlfriend lying in a ditch and sets out to discover who is responsible. During his investigation, he has to gain respect with the factions within the school, ingratiate himself with the local drug kingpin and placate the assistant vice-principal. He does so using a mixture of charm, cleverness and violence.

Comments: Sometimes I think LOVEFiLM sneak extra movies onto my rental list when I'm not looking. Every so often, a film turns up in the post that I know nothing about and I can't remember choosing. Then again, I still can't recall 2003, so my memory's probably not be trusted. Maybe I just went down the Top 50 rental list in a hurry one day, clicking on any old thing that sounded half decent from its single sentence description. I should really stop doing that. (Highlander - The Source, anyone?) Thankfully, this time, it's thrown up something interesting.

Brick is film noir - think Humphrey Bogart in a trenchcoat, Marlene Dietrich smoking and lots of prodding the dark underbelly of society at night. Rather than aping the visual style of these movies, however, Brick takes the plot and characters and transplants them to a modern high school. There's a hard-nosed investigator, a femme fatale, tough guys, schemers and a ruthless, intellectual criminal boss. There's also a mystery to be solved and no one is quite who they seem.

As such, a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required. The dubious and bizarre goings-on in a seemingly normal town make it feel like Twin Peaks at times, and there are a few unlikely moments that are down to the difficulty of shoe-horning the genre into the high school setting. For instance, Brendan has to hide the body in order to ensure he gets to investigate without interference from the cops. Has he never seen an episode of CSI? Also, the minuscule budget leads to some fairly barren locations. The school, in particular, is permanently deserted. This adds to the atmosphere but detracts from the realism.

The acting is excellent, though, and the editing is slick and assured. The plot requires some concentration to follow but remains intriguing throughout.

Conclusion: A brooding thriller that will suck you in if you give it a chance.

Explosions: None.
Fast talking: Lots.
Teenage angst: Plenty.
People pretending to be teenagers: Several.
Actual teenagers: Almost certainly none.
Scenes stolen by a table lamp: One.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: drama, film review, thriller

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  Holes (DVD)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Sigourney Weaver, Patricia Arquette & The Fonz.

Rated: PG.

Story: Young Stanley Yelnats winds up in a juvenile detention centre in the middle of a desert even though he's innocent. He blames a curse that his great-great-grandfather brought upon his family but, as fate would have it, he is in exactly the right place to set straight a number of things which have been wrong for a very long time...

Comments: This film is hard to pin down. It's not a comedy, it's not a serious drama, it's not an action adventure. It's The Shawshank Redemption with a whimsical tone, children, a touch of magic, cowboy flashbacks, buried treasure and poisonous lizards. It's also very good.

The cast is excellent and the story is enthralling, if a little odd. Yeah, it's packed full of coincidences but they're convincingly passed off as destiny. The whole thing hangs together well without feeling forced. In fact, it's a master-class in how to hold information back from an audience without confusion or trickery. Events play out in different times and places, gradually becoming intertwined and leading to a satisfying conclusion.

The movie was a little over the heads of my kids but children of nine or ten shouldn't have a problem. Even if your kids aren't old enough, rent it for yourself.

Conclusion: Quirky but fantastic.

Explosions: None.
Coincidences: Lots.
Holes in the ground: Hundreds.
Thing you never thought you'd hear The Fonz say: 'Honey? Could you smell these shoes?'

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: drama, family, fantasy, film review, quick

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  Premonition (DVD)

Starring: Sandra Bullock

Rated: 12

Story: Linda, a housemom, lives a week in the wrong order, experiencing the days before and after a family tragedy out of sequence.

Comments: This is slick and tense but doesn't make much sense. In fact, it may even make less sense than Deja Vu but Premonition gets away with it better because it seldom pretends to make sense. The weakest scene is where a priest is drafted in to try and explain things.

There simply isn't a way to trace a convincing timeline from any perspective. Sometimes Linda's attempts to alter events she has already experienced succeed but then, on other occasions, these attempts cause the events. Maybe a point is being made that some things are pre-determined and that our free will is limited. Or maybe it's just a mess. Who knows? It's not awfully satisfying, though.

The cast are good (especially Bullock) and the cinematography is great but the script is broken.

Conclusion: There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half than staring at Sandra Bullock (unless you're watching Hope Floats, of course. That's worth battering yourself senseless with a frying pan to avoid).

Explosions: One very silly one.
Questions: Plenty.
Answers: Few.
Creepiness: Some.
Sandra Bullock: Lots.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: drama, fantasy, film review, quick

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  Little Children (DVD)

Starring: Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson & Jennifer Connelly.

Rated: 15.

Story: Frustrated housedad meets repressed housemom. They get together and have acrobatic sex while doing laundry. Meanwhile, their town is obsessed by the arrival of a newly-released sex offender.

Comments: I've been interviewed a few times about this site now. The only time I was really thrown by the questioning, however, was when asked if, in my experience, women are attracted to a man who's in charge of small children - the About a Boy factor, if you will.

Basically, the interviewer wanted to know if I get chatted up because of my kids.

I had to laugh.

On a typical visit to the swing park, I'm haggard, stained and already having two conversations at once with my kids. I have more likelihood of being abducted by chimpanzees than participating in a bit of flirting.

Then again, I don't look much like Hugh Grant.

Even if I did, though, I'm not in the market for any sexual tension. Like I have time to maintain a relationship with my kids, my Xbox and two women. Not to mention the small matter of that wedding ceremony where I promised my wife my love, loyalty and trust in front of God and a couple of hundred people. Nope, no kissing strangers by the swings for me...

Bearing all this in mind, the actions of the central characters of Little Children often seem improbable and foolish. The film just doesn't do the housedad cause any favours. Brad (Wilson) is only looking after his son because he can't work out what he really wants to do and he ends up having an affair with the first housemum that speaks to him (Winslet). Cheers.

The touches of reality amidst the madness make Little Children watchable, however, but the flow is frequently interrupted by the narrative voice-over. It's so obtrusive that it verges on self-parody. Redubbed in a sarcastic tone of voice, it would be hilarious.

The final message that it's always possible to change our situations without running away from them is reasonable but undercooked. All the characters spend the whole film making bad decisions before going totally crazy and coming out sane the other side in the last five minutes. After lengthy discussions of literature and some prolonged agonising, the sudden, fraught climax is jarring.

Conclusion: One of the main characters is a housedad, the other is played by Kate Winslet. If those both seem like strong selling points, then you'll be mildly entertained for a couple of hours.

If you're a housedad, then think twice before showing this film to your partner, her mum, your sceptical friends or, indeed, anyone you know. It's probably not worth it.

Explosions: None.
Book club meetings: One.
Unlikely turns of events: Some.
Kate Winslet: Plenty.
Actual chance in real life of getting two three-year-olds to nap long enough at the same time for their parents to have sex (acrobatic or otherwise) and angst-ridden conversation on a regular basis: Small.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: drama, film review

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  Battlestar Galactica (DVD)

Starring: The guy who does the origami in Blade Runner, the love interest from Dances with Wolves and a whole stack of other people who aren't bad but just can't compete.

Rated: 15

Story: The exiled robot slaves of humanity, the Cylons, return home to the twelve colonies of Kobol after an absence of forty years. They hold something of a grudge. After some serious Armageddon, all that remains of humanity is a small fleet of civilian ships led by a single military battlestar, the Galactica.

They run away.

Their only hope is the lost thirteenth colony - Earth.

Comments: The history of film and television is littered with decisions which must have seemed like no-brainers at the time but which later turned out to be a little iffy. ('Another Star Wars film, Mr Lucas? But, of course! Why not make three?' or 'I tell you what, let's hire Ben Affleck.') Then there are other decisions which seem insane even now but richly paid off. ('I know! We'll bring back Dr Who with Billie Piper as his assistant,' or 'All right, you've talked me into it, let's give this whole Buffy thing another try. I suppose the film wasn't that bad...')

Re-imagining Battlestar Galactica is definitely in the latter category. I have no idea what they were smoking when they came up with the idea but I'm very glad they went through with it. Forget the seventies version. This is tense, gritty war drama with a big slice of politics, a dash of religion and regular, spaceship-sized explosions. Fantastic.

Admittedly, after watching the first episodes, I wasn't too sure whether I could be bothered with any more. The initial mini-series is impressive enough but it's a bit of a downer since it deals at length with the end of human civilisation. Also, Season 1 is a little by-the-numbers at the beginning but this changes as the conflicts and schemes amongst the survivors start to build and the Cylon threat becomes more complex. Some of them look human; some of them even think they are human. The military command and democratic government of the fleet must try to work together against the threat of terrorism. Resources dwindle, the fighter pilots get tired, the story arcs build and the civilians start complaining there isn't enough hot water. Then, whenever things seem to settle down, there's a new twist. Everything continues to crank up during Season 2 with more discoveries and revelations. The first four episodes of Season 3 are as frantic and entwined as anything 24 has to offer. (There's also the bonus that they reach something of a conclusion rather than everything just unexpectedly rattling off in a different direction).

One of the strengths of the show is that very little is ever black and white. The Cylons have a legitimate fear of humanity. The humans cannot see past their prejudice against 'the toasters'. The leaders of the fleet often have to make difficult decisions that serve the greater good and they don't always get them right. It's all refreshingly mature.

If there's anything to be said against the show, it's that some of the characters are a bit annoying. The pilots, Apollo and Starbuck, need a good slapping on occasion. This is off-set, however, by the performances of Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama and Mary McDonnell as President Roslin. They do an exceptional job at keeping everything together.

If you start now, you might just about manage to catch up before Season 4 starts on Sky One after Christmas. Of course, if, like me, you're with Virgin Media and don't get Sky One any more, you might want to pace yourself or you'll be left with plenty of time to curse Rupert Murdoch and all his minions before the DVD release. (Sort it out, people!)

Conclusion: Drama, political commentary, big fights and spaceships. What's not to like?

Explosions: Loads.
Stunning CGI space battles: Frequent.
Duff episodes: Surprisingly few.
Dodgy haircuts, flared trousers and disco: None.
Chance of me finishing this review before skiving off to watch the rest of Season 3: [To do].

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: drama, film review, sci-fi

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  Babel (DVD)

Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, four tenuously related stories, some unpleasant stress and a strong desire to hit fast-forward.

Rated: 15

Story: Two Moroccan children play with a rifle as an American tourist couple go past. The Americans' children are unexpectedly taken to a wedding in Mexico by their nanny. The Japanese daughter of the original owner of the rifle struggles with being a deaf teenager in Tokyo. No one (including me) has a particularly pleasant experience.

Comments: None of the characters are very sympathetic - they're all grumpy and foolish. None of the stories is very substantial. Nothing much links together or has any purpose.

It might have been possible to get away with these things if the film wasn't both dull and stressful but everything is drawn out and there's the frequent possibility of very bad things happening to children. The fact that the stories are interleaved even though they are mostly days apart is confusing. Like so much of the film, this narrative device seems there simply for the sake of it. It certainly doesn't help relieve the tedium.

It's not like there's even any clear message. Maybe Babel is saying that one piece of stupidity or generosity can cause havoc for any number of ordinary people across the globe. Or maybe it's a look at all kinds of ways of living just to prove that everyone's miserable. I don't know and I pretty quickly ceased to care.

Conclusion: A film I only watched to the end so that it would be easier to forget.

Explosions: None.
Scene-setting shots with native music: Lengthy.
Focus: Meandering.
'No! Don't do that moments!': Almost constant.
Goats: Plenty.

Rating: 1/5.

Labels: drama, film review, quick

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  Little Miss Sunshine (DVD)

Starring: No one much.

Rated: 15

Story: A severely dysfunctional American family go on a disastrous road trip in order to get their young daughter to the finals of a very dubious beauty pageant. They become slightly less dysfunctional. The pageant remains dubious.

Comments: Remember the old adage, 'Sticking a load of crazy people in a camper van doesn't always make a great comedy'? Well, it's true. Not only that, but if all the people are stereotypes, it apparently doesn't make for a great drama either.

Guest conclusion from my wife: 'Well that was kind of OK.'

Explosions: None.
Predictability: High.
Satirical targets: Too soft.
Actually funny moments: A handful.
Apparent message: Families are hell, but pre-teen beauty pageants are worse...

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: comedy, drama, film review, quick

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  11:14 (DVD)

Starring: No one really. Sure, some famous people turn up but they only get a handful of scenes each to work with.

Featuring: Patrick Swayze, Barbara Hershey, Hilary Swank and Rachael Leigh Cook. (That's more like it).

Rated: 15

Story: A number of individuals in a small American town make some bad choices and suffer the worst case scenario consequences on the dot of 11:14 PM. At first, their lives appear unconnected but all their stories are tied up together. Events are retold from five different perspectives, time rewinding at the end of each.

Comments: This is one of those films like Memento and Lucky Number Slevin which makes a fairly basic or unlikely story more interesting by presenting it in a confusing order. The story of 11:14 is both basic and unlikely but revealing most of the details backwards does, indeed, make it much more interesting. Each of the stories starts a few minutes earlier in the evening than the one before and they only make full sense when considered together. It never feels like information is being purposefully withheld just to add drama, however. The format is excellent.

The content is more of a problem.

11:14 doesn't really have anything to say with its flashy story-telling, except maybe that being a callous, law-breaking imbecile can go badly on occasion. But anyone who hasn't worked that out already will probably have their head explode from having to concentrate too hard before the end of the movie anyway. On top of that, the motivation of some of the characters seems hugely unconvincing at times. The film is full of people doing stupid things. You may well find yourself shouting at the TV. Warn your neighbours to ignore phrases along the lines of:

'Fool! That's a loaded gun!'
'For crying out loud, just tell the truth!'
'Look at the road, you idiot!'
'Don't stick that there, that's just asking for... Ewwwwww!'

There are some bits that aren't for the squeamish.

11:14 is diverting while it lasts but it's the unpleasant and improbable scenes which stick in the memory. What I really want to see is the episode of CSI where they try to work out what happened. Now that would be amusing.

Conclusion: An average tale superbly told.

Explosions: None.
Unpleasant injuries: Two.
Really unpleasant injuries: One.
Lies: Several.
Crimes: Dozens.
Subsequent police investigation: Almost certainly confused...

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: drama, film review

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  Blood Diamond (DVD)

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly, Basil Wallace.

Rated: 15

Story: During the civil war in Sierra Leone, a white, Rhodesian mercenary chases after diamonds while a black native searches for his scattered family. They end up working together.

Comments: Want to watch an action film which makes you feel bad about the situation in Africa while giving no solutions and implying that there may not be any?

Thought not.

How about if it features Leonardo DiCaprio calling everyone 'bro' all the time in an impressive but somewhat unpleasant accent?

Really?

Ho, well...

Explosions: Some.
Guilt: Loads.
Answers: None.

Rating: 2/5.

Labels: action, drama, film review, quick

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  Thank You for Smoking (DVD)

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes & William H Macy (always a good sign on the cast list).

Rated: 15

Story: Nick Naylor is the king of spin. He is the spokesperson for the US tobacco industry and it's his responsibility to make cigarette companies look well-meaning and responsible rather than greedy and evil. He's surprisingly good at it. As his son begins to question what it is exactly that his father does, however, Nick is forced to examine and explain his own 'moral flexibility'.

That doesn't turn out how you might expect...

Comments: Cigarettes are bad for you. It's undeniable. Cigarette companies are making money peddling an addictive substance which kills people. Why would anyone want to be their spokesperson?

Naylor does it because it pays the mortgage and because he's good at it.

And he is good at it. He never makes the mistake of claiming smoking is healthy. He draws attention to the positive economic aspects of the industry, attacks his opponents' arguments from unexpected angles and presents a reasonable, likeable face for the tobacco business. His aim is never to convince his opponents that smoking is good but to leave those listening to the debate with a positive impression.

It's just scary. I start gagging if someone lights up in the next street. If I ever tried smoking myself, I'd probably cough up a lung instantly. And yet, Naylor makes the whole thing seem not so bad...

This isn't a film about smoking. It's a film about spin. If something so dubious can be presented in such a good light, what else are we being talked into? I guess it's not just that, spin isn't about positive persuasion, it's removal of the negative; spin is damage control. Even sound decisions often have some negative consequences - spin erodes our ability to make tough choices. Spin can be as dangerous as smoking. Think of Thank You for Smoking as the best public health warning ever.

Amazingly, the film manages to present Naylor as sympathetic. Yes, he's self-serving but you'll want him to succeed even as you hope his cause will fail. Whether this detracts from the message, however, or just makes it scarier, I'm not sure.

Thank You for Smoking never comes across as worthy. It requires some thought but it's fast and funny, too.

Worth watching.

Conclusion: Great for sharpening your debating skills. Not so good if you're in the mood for mindless action.

Explosions: None.
Smoking: None.
Guns: A couple.
Alcohol: Some.
Fast talking: Lots.
Merchants of death: Three.
Assaults with a deadly nicotine patch: One.
Induced cravings: Cigarettes and cheese.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: drama, film review

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  Heroes (TV)

Starring: A whole bunch of people getting their big break, with brief appearances by Malcolm McDowell, Captain Sulu and Christopher 'I-was-a-fool-to-quit-Dr-Who' Ecclestone.

Rated: TBC but I'm guessing it'll be a 12 on DVD release.

Story: A group of people leading disparate lives begin to discover that they have superhuman abilities. As they come to terms with these abilities, they learn that their lives are connected - they are all threatened by one of their own and by a conspiracy that seeks to bring a new order to the world. Their normal lives start to unravel. (No one wears spandex, though).

Comments: The first series of Heroes has just finished on Sci-Fi in the UK. It starts on terrestrial TV on BBC2 on Wednesday 25th July (2007) with a double episode. Set your videos/DVD-recorders/PVRs now!

This probably isn't the show you're expecting. It's different in both structure and style from how I imagined it having seen the trailers. It isn't about a group of heroes who get together and fight evil every week, emerging victorious just in time for the credits. It's about a number of individuals, mostly in different locations, who meander from one scrape to the next. They have special powers but they don't know what to do with them and they are keen to keep them secret. They very seldom do anything heroic. Episodes don't have self-contained plots which reach a conclusion - like 24 (only more so), the series is one continuous narrative.

There are more than half a dozen main characters, each with their own plot-thread, and so it takes several episodes just to introduce them all properly. Later episodes then focus on a subset of characters but this means it can be frustrating to watch the show at a rate of one or two episodes a week. Some episodes barely seem to advance the plot at all. Others leave a character in a cliff-hanger that's not returned to until the episode after next. Everything moves at a glacial pace, so the show is really about character development.

Fortunately, the characters are all likeable. It's shame, however, that some of their powers are so generic. Flying and fast healing? I think we might have seen those a few times before. Others, such as the ability to stop time, are more interesting and accompanied by excellent effects.

Heroes is a good show but it's never quite brilliant. It's always enjoyable to watch but never entirely satisfying. It always feels like it's going somewhere but never actually does. The build up to the finale goes on for weeks and then the conclusion is all played out in seven fairly confusing minutes. Gah! So close...

I'm still very keen to see season two, however. A little tinkering with the format, and it could be superb.

Conclusion: Worth checking out but you might want to watch it six episodes at a time. Consider waiting for the DVD.

Explosions: Yes.
Episode length: Too short.
Series length: Too long.
Episode pace: Moves like a greased weasel.
Series pace: Frequently loses sprints to tortoises.
Number of major characters: Hang on a minute, I'm going to need to use my fingers...
Spandex in patriotic colours: None.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: action, drama, fantasy, film review

  3:00 PM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  A Scanner Darkly (DVD)

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson & Rory Cochrane (Nice to see he got some work after CSI: Miami).

Rated: 15

Story: Bob Arctor (Reeves) is an undercover narcotics cop whose identity is secret even to his superiors. While investigating a group of suspects in the hope of learning the source of a drug known as Substance D, he finds himself struggling to hold onto reality. Since it's not a very interesting reality, you have to wonder why he bothers...

Comments: This movie is based on a novel by Philip K Dick who was one of my favourite authors when I was a teenager (back when I still had time to read) so I was quite looking forward to it. I was expecting a futuristic conspiracy story set on one of the moons of Jupiter. Unfortunately, I'd got entirely confused over my PKD stories and was somewhat surprised to find myself watching a near-future conspiracy story set in a house full of spaced-out junkies. It wasn't entirely what I was in the mood for... (The story I'd been thinking of is The Mold of Yancy. You can read an amusing/scary analysis of its fore-telling of the Bush administration here.)

The first thing to note about the movie is its visual style - it's sort of animated. How can a film be 'sort of' animated, I hear you ask? Well, it appears they shot it all in live-action and then traced and shaded over the top to make it into a cartoon. This probably involved a lot of work. Which is a shame because, as with cel-shaded computer games, it frequently appears quite drab. Certainly it gives the opportunity for some striking effects but most of the time it just removes detail and texture, making scenes seem lifeless.

Not that there's much going on anyway. A large part of the film is junkies sitting around being hyper, depressed or paranoid at each other. There is an actual conspiracy taking place but it isn't very fleshed out and seems tacked on.

It doesn't take long to wonder if the movie is going anywhere. And it's not really. It does make the point that drugs are bad for you and big corporations aren't necessarily much better but that's not entirely startling news. I nearly fell asleep.

The whole thing feels like a waste of the decent cast.

Conclusion: I'd like to give A Scanner Darkly a high mark for tackling a difficult subject, for artistic style and for being based on something by Philip K Dick. Problem is, I wanted to watch the second half in fast-forward because I was bored. The review scheme says I have to give it a 1. (Cue five junkies rambling interminably about authoritarian abuse of objective integrity... At length... And nothing much else happening... And this conclusion dragging on... Until... ... ... It ends).

Explosions: None.
Rambling: Plenty.
Sense: Little.
Drug abuse: Lots.
Excitement: Not much.
Most memorable scene: A heated discussion over the exact number of gears on a mountain bike.
Really?: Yes.

Rating: 1/5.

Labels: drama, film review, sci-fi

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  Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)

Starring: Some people who speak Spanish.

Rated: 15

Story: In 1944, in Franco's Spain, a girl named Ofelia and her family move to the country to be near her psychopathic stepfather. He is an army officer and is conducting a ruthless campaign against Communist rebels. Surrounded by human evil, she finds herself drawn into a dark, fantastical world where a sinister faun sets her three tasks in order to reclaim her throne as a princess of an underworld kingdom.

Comments: At this point, you're probably thinking this is one of those kerrr-azeee foreign arts films. Don't worry, though - it doesn't feature psychedelic giraffe-people, moody black-and-white shots of Death, Gerard Depardieu or a heartfelt conversation with an orange. The effects and cinematography are fantastic and the production values are as high as any Hollywood movie. The only real problem is that it's a bit in Spanish. Actually, it's a lot in Spanish. Oh, all right, it's all in Spanish.

Don't be put off, though.

I have to say that when I put this on my LOVEFiLM rental list, I didn't read the synopsis too closely. I looked at the picture, read the title and had a flashback to David Bowie surrounded by muppets. Truth be told, though, this isn't a fantasy film book-ended by a couple of real-life segments; it's a war-time drama occasionally interspersed with a dark faerie tale. It's more Captain Corelli than The Lord of the Rings but with an oppressive atmosphere and graphic, bloody violence.

Personally I would have preferred a greater emphasis on the fantasy side of things but the film is absorbing nonetheless and the pacing is superb. The cast all do an excellent job (as far as I can tell). The English translation for the subtitles is decent and certainly better than the misleading title suggests. Fortunately, most of the more visually impressive moments don't have much dialogue, allowing concentration on the action.

Conclusion: Excellent and much less of an effort to watch than it sounds.

Explosions: A couple.
Amputations: One.
Self-sutured stitches: I couldn't watch.
People shot in the head: Rather more than you'd imagine.
Spanish: Lots.
Muppets: None.

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: drama, fantasy, film review

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  Crash (DVD)

Starring: Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, a stack of other people

Rated: 15

Story: The lives of about a dozen people from a selection of ethnic backgrounds intertwine around each other (and car accidents) in Los Angeles.

Comments: This is a fast-paced drama which switches frequently between different characters and story-lines. The threads occasionally cross and there is plenty of tension but no over-riding arc to the story. The events of the script are there to explore the racial interaction of the characters and examine the differences between what they say to be politically correct, what they claim to believe and what they actually do when push comes to very big shove. The conclusions are never clear-cut since the characters are both complicated and sympathetic.

Perhaps the point is that we're all just people, often frightened and always flawed, and we all have our prejudices. Concern about being perceived as racist prevents open discussion of these racial fears and grievances, which merely perpetuates them.

Gripping. Only the implausibility of some of the chance meetings prevents it getting a 5.

Explosions: One
Provoked thoughts: Many.
Coincidences: Too many.
Headache from mental exertion: On-going.

Rating: 4/5

Labels: drama, film review

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