Chimpomatic

The New World

(dir. Terrence Malick)

As the first European settlers land in Virginia and begin to build the Jamestown colony, a native princess (Q'Orianka Kilcher) falls in love with rogueish adventurer - Captain Smith (Colin Farrell). As the two civilizations begin to understand each other, tensions mount and different mentalities drive them apart.

Anybody who has seen Terrence Malick's previous films will have a good idea what to expect here; long, slow shots of nature, extensive use of music to set the pace, disjointed, montage style editing and fairly minimal dialogue. You're either going to like that or you're not - and while I would rate The Thin Red Line as one of my personal favourites, I must admit that this one took me a while to sink into.

The initial tension of the European's arrival was handled well, but it was clear from the start that this film had been reduced in length and scope from what it could have been. Several name actors were spotted, but they often had little dialogue. Or none at all in the case of Ben Chaplin. The romance between Smith and Pocahontas popped up pretty quickly from nowhere, and then he was off. Considering this was only Terrence Mallick's second film in 7 years he could have benefited by giving himself a little extra time and space.

Things paid off nicely later, and the film found it's feet with the introduction of Christian Bale's character John Rolfe. He bridged the gap between the two cultures, and the narrative that developed was undoubtedly built strongly upon the previous scenes.

The contrast between nature and man, and then the almost alien contact between the two worlds of men form the heart of this unconventional film. The mood and atmosphere created in this film is amazing. Forget about convention and what you think you should be seeing and just relax and enjoy the ride.

Apparently the DVD will be 'extended'.

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21st Feb 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Syriana

(dir. Stephen Gaghan)

A beefed-up George Clooney plays a CIA agent worrying his bosses back in Washington with his rogue memo action. Matt Damon's a clean-cut oil consultant slowly getting his hands dirty out in the field. Jeffrey Wright's chasing a paper trail filled with dodgy Texan oil barons all wanting to keep controlling the oil and make sure the petrodollars are coming back to them and not floating off to China or the middle east.

Like Traffic (some of the same team worked on this), Crash, Magnolia etc, this is a film that jumps from one set of characters to another, building a global picture of an amoral industry. It works best as a mood piece, but it's pretty slow, and doesn't quite kick into the level of other studies of corporate corruption like The Insider for example. Still, it's good to see a film actually discussing the oil problem, and getting angry about the madness. Clooney's solid as ever, and the Texan oil cabal guys get some suitably pal-of-Bush style rants.

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20th Feb 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Hidden (Cache)

(dir. Michael Haneke)

We’re all under constant surveillance, so why not add another level to the panopticon by watching Cache/Hidden..? In the grand tradition of Rear Window, The Conversation, Blow-Up, and Lost Highway, Michael Haneke’s latest film gleefully undermines the viewer’s understanding of what s/he is looking at (and why), and its opening shot is even bolder than the slow zoom that starts The Conversation. (I do love a director’s who’s not afraid just to leave the camera running.) About halfway through the film, I was still wondering ‘Where on earth is this going?’, and I’m happy to say that the final reel provides no answers. The glorious opening shot is, moreover, outdone by an even braver closing scene, in which a fleck of sense briefly emerges from meaningless bustle, only to disappear again. Is this a film about celebrity, surveillance, the war on terror, the turmoils of family life, France’s colonial past, memory, generational conflict, guilt, film itself, or all of the above? The answer is hidden.

PS: Don’t see the film at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre, though, or you’ll have to first sit through a four-minute short starring Rhys Ifans and a Mars Bar. (I’ve conveniently repressed the name of the piece, I’m afraid, but it might have been Siocled – Welsh for ‘chocolate’.) The only good thing to come out of this experience was the realization that I can now definitively answer the questions ‘What is the most annoying film ever made?’ and ‘What were the longest four minutes of your life?’

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20th Feb 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Spartan

(dir. David Mamet)

A Secret Service agent (Val Kilmer) is called in to lead the investigation into the inadvertent kidnapping of the President's daughter by white slave traders.

Playing out like a high-brow, super-condensed, 100 minute version of an entire series of 24 (it's not that hard, drop the Presidential sub-plot, Kim Bauer and most of the explanatory dialogue), this super taught thriller from David Mamet was a refreshing take on the action/adventure genre. Val Kilmer makes an enigmatic lead, generally dishing out ("don't make me zero you out") or even totally dispensing with Mamet's snappy dialogue and just getting on with the job at hand. Characters pop up and go with little introduction and we only ever hear what is heard by the men in the field... but that feeling of being on the inside only adds to the immediacy of the situations the Ice Man finds himself in. The riviting pace and atmosphere make this one not to be missed.

"I am dangerous" Grr.

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7th Feb 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Broken Flowers

(dir. Jim Jarmusch)

After being dumped by his current girlfriend, middle aged romeo Bill Murray takes to the road to look up his old girlfriends - in the hope of finding the writer of an anonymous letter informing him that he has a 20 year old son.

Some odd press had preceeded this film. All the reviews seemed complimentary, but it was generally getting around 3 out of 5. Being a big fan of Bill Murray (and the type of film where 'nothing much happens') this seemed like a high probability hit in the chimp camp. Jim Jarmusch has always had my respect, and for me he's been getting better and better - honing his ideas into a more engaging format.

As a result I was very surprised that in some ways this film seemed like a step away from the style of his more recent films (I'm thinking Ghost Dog) and back towards the slow, detached style of early films like Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law. Even Down By Law had a bit of action, whereas this film really did seem incredibly slight. Bill Murray is pretty much left to his own devices, which is fine on one level as he's always watchable, but beyond the amusing tracksuits his character really didn't seem to have the depth and history that it needed. He seems to pop up in the lives of these women, give us no real insight into what they ever had together and then he gets home with no resolution.

Jessica Lange's pet psychologist provides a few laughs, Chloe Sevigny makes only the briefest of appearances, and only Jeffrey Wright really makes much of an impression. On the whole, pretty disappointing.

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1st Nov 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Dark Days

(dir. Marc Singer)

Thanks in no small part to Michael Moore and his healthy appetite for regime change in North America, feature length documentaries have become something of the new rock and roll lately. Recent heavyweights such as Bowling for Columbine, Touching the Void, Super Size Me. Etc. all left their mark at the box-office and generated their own headlines. One that may have slipped through your radar is Dark Days, released in 2000.

Literally straight from the New York City underground, Dark Days spends time with a group of people who, each for their own reason, call the subway tunnels around Penn station home. And home is exactly what they have, individual shelters with locked doors, some with gas cookers, others shaving with electric razors.

What is remarkable is how the residents of this underworld community adapt to lead such apparently ordinary lives; playing darts with buddies, painting doors, wrestling with pet dogs etc.

But this is no utopia. Cat-sized rodents share the neighbourhood, a crack addict has her shelter burned down over a bad debt and a DJ Shadow score keeps things suitably atmospheric. As one-time resident Greg remarks when trying to figure out how he got so low (no pun intended) as to live in the subway for five years, "Those were dark days man."

Engaging, interesting, funny, sad and deep (intended). Watch it. and you'll get to thinking what's really going on beneath your feet next time you pound the streets.

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31st Oct 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sympathy For Lady Vengeance

(dir. Park Chan-Wook)

The third part of Park Chan-Wook's revenge trilogy, Sympathy For Lady Vengeance pulls off a similar trick to Old Boy and Sympathy For Mr Vengeance... taking you on an journey that's just out of the realms of the possible, but at the same time, entirely believable on the terms of its own warped logic.

Yeong-ae Lee plays a young woman about to be released from prison after serving time for the murder of a young boy. While in prison she's become the focus for a religious cult, as well as building up a string of alliances in her cell. Once out, she sets in motion her plan… (yes, she's out for revenge).

Like the other two, it's packed with tiny cinematic flourishes that other directors would spend the whole film milking, as well as his trademark capacity for inventive violence that never shies from showing the consequences. It's also beautifully shot, very moving, and funny; has some great performances (although the Australian scenes in English don't quite work as well as the rest), and also has cameos from the stars of Old Boy and SFMV (Yeong-ae Lee herself was in JSA, his take on South/North Korean border politics).

If you've seen the other two, you'll have some idea of where it's going, but only in the sense that you know it's going to be a dark surprise, operating on the edges of human motivation. Be very interesting to see where he goes next, but for this chimp, the vengeance trilogy has been a pretty exhilerating ride.

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9th Oct 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

(dir. Shane Black)

always been a sucker for films with good opening credits. the kind of opening where they've actually bothered to think about it, do some fun stuff with graphics, play around a bit before the film gets going - you know, saul bass, pink panther etc. add in a snappy plot, a film where they get away with smart-ass narration AND find something good for robert downey jr, and pack in as many raymond chandler references as they can, and you've got a small-scale winner.

plotwise, we follow low-level new york burglar RDJ as he bumbles his way into a screen test, gets packed off to LA, hooks up with gay PI/movie consultant val kilmer (probably the first time i've ever actually enjoyed one of his films) and then falls into a chandler-style murder thriller, that follows the general pomo big sleep noir conventions - double crossing, little sisters, sassy dames, mucho confusion and lots of great lines. it's written by shane black, who churned out much of the lethal weapon franchise, but it feels more like watching something like midnight run - 80s, but smart. and it also gets away with lots of "hey let's stop the movie to look at what just happened there" moments without being annoying. actually better than the trailer makes it out to be, for once.

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26th Sep 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Primer

(dir. Shane Carruth)

"I haven't eaten since later this afternoon…" Always been a fan of time-travel films, but you've got to love one that really finds something new to do with the whole time-paradox conundrum. Shane Carruth apparently made this white-collar sci-fi for $7000, using Super 16 short-ends - bits of film stock left over from other shoots, filmed it mostly in his garage and with his friends. It shows - but not in the usual lo-fi excuse kind of way. This is one of the first films in ages where you're struggling to keep up, but in that great way where you're convinced that it will make sense if you do. We follow some geeky science buffs working on some new projects in their spare time, trying to hit on something they can license on. Two of them work on a box which is giving them some unusual results - somehow they've built a time machine. What follows is a series of increasingly paranoid scenes, a looping plot, and a lot of hanging out in hotel rooms all afternoon. It's like a less self-consciously cool Donnie Darko, that almost seems believable. Definitely one to watch again. and again… the best kind of small-scale project, where they've spent time on a great script and a smart story that holds together.

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20th Aug 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Island

(dir. Michael Bay)

In the future, two beautiful survivors of Earth's 'contamination' while away their days in a utopian paradise, hoping to win the lottery and move to another even more utopian paradise. Then they realise they're just clones of rich or famous people, being harvested for spare parts in a secret underground bunker.

Very nice of Michael Bay to 'tackle' the issue of cloning for us, as I wasn't really sure what to make of it. The whole set up to this movie is kind of dumb, and pretty derivative of THX1138 and Logan's Run, but once they get out into the real world things pick up. The fact that the 'real' Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson are characters not dissimilar to themselves (Scottish motorcycle riding hoon & Calvin Klein model) is a nice twist, and the whole thing is just so big, fast, slick and expensive that it's hard not to enjoy it.

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20th Aug 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Paycheck

(dir. John Woo)

After selling 3 years of his memory to an evil corporation, engineer Ben Affleck slowly discovers mysterious details of what happened in the missing years - thanks to a series of apparantly meaningless items he left in an envelope....

Pretty standard future-thriller, in the post-Minority Report world of action-is-better-than plot. Ben Affleck doesn't do anything to change his status of 'only in it for the money' and John Woo drops the ball as usual.

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6th Aug 2005 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Subway

(dir. Luc Besson)

always intrigued by this film, commonly held to be a cult classic. well, the poster was a staple of 80s student decoration kits along with betty blue and the big blue. think i had in mind it was some existential sci-fi or something. what a pile of le merde. totally plotless. christopher lambert and isabelle adjani arse about in some cool subterranean world on le metro spouting le crap, avoiding les flics and drinking les coffees and vauguely falling in l'amour while jean reno droops around in the background with a dumb moustache drumming on everything. best thing is christopher lambert's uncanny resemblance to stewart copeland, but that's not really enough to keep you going.

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24th Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Aviator

(dir. Martin Scorcese)

I didn't have a huge desire to see this film, as I'm not a particularly big DiCaprio fan. However, I kept hearing that it was good so stuck it on the rental list and am glad that I did.

I previously knew absolutely nothing about Howard Hughes - other than the fact he had been involved in filmmaking. This story charts the first half of his life - taking us through all the eclectic events of these years, from his massive expenditure pursuing his love of aviation and movies, a brief tip of the hat to his development of a new type of bra, his relationships with his leading ladies and most interestingly his struggle with inner demons and paranoia.

The casting and acting throughout are superb. DiCaprio is excellent, as is Cate Blanchet as Katherine Hepburn. But the supporting cast all add something to the film - Jude Law makes a brief appearance as Errol Flynn and Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow.

The visual style of the film is big, in the same way that Hughes approached all his projects. Scorsese presents a very grand scope for everything and the (presumably cgi) moments with DiCaprio making the virgin flights of new aircraft are breathtaking. In contrast, the depiction of his mental health problems is also eloquently done as Hughes encamps in his private cinema.

This film is long and only covers the first half of Howard Hughes life, so presumably there is room for a sequel. The acting, directing and cinematography all add up to make this well worth watching.

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12th Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

CSI: Grave Danger

(dir. Quentin Tarantino)

While investigating a bogus crime scene, one of Las Vegas’ Crime Scene Investigators is kidnapped by a bad guy with a grudge and buried alive. Using what scraps of evidence they have, the rest of the team race against time to recover their colleague.

Since it first started, the original CSI series has been consistently good, slowly building up a loyal following. Five seasons in, and it’s really starting to reward the viewer - with strong characters that your feel like you know becoming more and more fleshed out.

The ratings are obviously paying-off too, as for this season finale the producer’s managed to draft in celebrity fan Quentin Tarantino – who came up with the story and directed this final episode. While that might seem like a dangerous move, Tarantino manages to direct the episode without stepping too hard on the established formula of the series. There are a couple of his trademark pop-culture snippets (such as two of the lab rats playing a Dukes of Hazzard board game), but generally he sticks to the program and uses the existing visual style - largely established by early director Danny Cannon.

The weight of having Tarantino on board injects an extra zap into the story, and the extended length of a double episode gives more room to build up the tension, suspense and sympathy - building up to a genuinely thrilling end.

Even Eckley comes out well in this one.

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6th Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

War of the Worlds

(dir. Steven Spielberg)

Across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes.. and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.

The ultimate earth invasion story gets the big screen treatment from the Stephen Spielberg / Tom Cruise double whammy, with Tom Cruise playing a regular American hero forced to spring into action when Martians decide to pitch up on earth and start blasting everything with their heat ray.

Things start off pretty well, with a tense set-up as strange electrical storms sweep the globe (Independence Day anyone?), but Spielberg pretty much skips to the end from about 20 minutes in - once the Martians have appeared. After that it’s just one long finale, as walking machines decimate everything in their path and Tom races to Boston to drop off the kids with his wife. Houses are blown away, fly-overs are annihilated and cars flip over in an endless display of stuff-we-can-do-with-computers-these-days. It’s not rubbish, and in fact it even gets a bit tense and scary in places, but it suffers mainly from being an obviously rushed production - put on a fast-track after the collapse of MI:3 left Tom's summer tentpole a bit pint-sized. Somehow it just seems a bit hollow and totally forgettable.

Now, “if you’d read the book" on the other hand… you’d know that isn’t all that satisfactory either - particularly with the ending - but it does have a lot more suspense, some awesome set-pieces and a much more universal appeal.

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6th Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Mr & Mrs Smith

(dir. Doug Liman)

A suburban couple live secret lives as assassins, until one day they realise they have been contracted to kill each other.

Doug Liman’s always been a chimp favourite, so we were always giving this film a chance. It’s well shot and directed, pretty snappy and quite funny, but essentially it’s nothing new. The gags are recycled – just done bigger and better, with Angelina and Brad on top form cat fighting their way around the house while working on their marriage problems.

Rating: Well worth watching on a dodgy pirate video.

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5th Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Batman Begins

(dir. Christopher Nolan)

As a lifelong Batman fan it's pretty much a given that you're setting yourself up for disappointment by getting excited about the prospect of a new film actually being any good. when the first michael keaton one finally came out (after being announced, oh, about 10 years before it did) i was kind of into it, but the more i went back to it, the more holes appeared and the more i thought "hang on, this just isn't the so-called dark vision that we'd been promised." basically it ended up being the first point at which i started to get annoyed with tim burton's sub-goth meanderings. anyhow. that's another point. quite liked the second one, thought val kilmer and george clooney totally sucked (obviously)...

so with that in mind, i was still kind of holding out for this one to be good - aranofsky sounded like a promising director, but actually i was happier with the idea of christopher nolan - loved memento, really enjoyed insomnia, and thought he was probably someone who would get it right. wasn't too sure about christian bale, but was happy to reserve judgement as he hasn't made too many real duffers.

in a bat-shell: it's as good as it looks in the trailers.

it sets up the bruce wayne mythology elegantly, without resorting to mindlessly mucking around with the established storyline too much: joe chill kills martha and thomas wayne (rather than the joker), young bruce is brought up by alfred (michael caine, remembering he can act).

his wilderness years are handled nicely - throwing himself into the criminal underworld to try and understand where they're coming from, then winding up training with the ninja-like league of shadows lead by the mysterious ra's al ghul. (ok, they're called the league of assassins in the comics, but never mind.)

don't want to get too much into the plot beyond that, as it unfolds in a really satisfactory way that seems to have avoided coming out in spoilers so far, so here's a brief list of other stuff that worked:

the batmobile. an urban tank that rocks.

the batcave. suitably low-tech - it actually is a cave, complete with lots of bats, water pouring down, mud, etc.

christian bale: seems like the right age to be suitably traumatised into thinking dressing up like a bat to fight crime might actually be a good idea. is a way more convincing bruce wayne than any of the other screen versions. also it feels like he's growing into batman, putting on a lower, more growly voice when he's got the costume on etc.

gary oldman. really looks like the jim aparo/ dick giordano version of jim gordon, and here he's a street cop too, so hopefully they'll work up the relationship between him and batman in the sequels (chimp75's got an inside source who says they're all signed up for 2 more...)

the scarecrow. a much less-obvious villain for batman's debut - not so well known, and also fits in with the overall "fight your fears" theme.

the city. actually looks like a living city, rather than some blue screen exercise/studio set. sort of a cross between new york and hk.

wayne enterprises. nicely handled boardroom b-plot.

the effects. very little overt CGI - none of that spiderman stuff where he looks like a computer game everytime he jumps around the city.

katie holmes. always a bonus.

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4th Jun 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Hamlet

(dir. Michael Almereyda)

After the death of the head of New York's Denmark Corporation, wayward son Hamlet returns to his home to find his mum shacked up with his devious uncle.

Set in modern New York, this film is a strange remake of the Mel Gibson original. Although the setting is modern, the dialogue is still in the original form, meaning it takes a good 20 minutes to settle in and actually get a hold of what's being said. You're left recalling your English O level to keep up.

Once you get into the swing of things however it's a pretty good adaption. Ethan Hawke plays a good Hamlet, and while some of the actor's seem a bit like they're reading gibberish without knowing what it means, a few really let their screen persona come through - Bill Murray and Steve Zahn in particular.

Good music, good locations, nice pixelvision.

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23rd May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Sum Of All Fears

(dir. Phil Alden Robinson)

A Nazi extremist gets hold of a missing Israeli nuclear bomb and tries to use it to start war between the US and Russia. Only young CIA analyst Jack Ryan can see the truth and prevent all out war.

Unfortunatly that young CIA guy is Ben Affleck, not the Harrison Ford of previous Ryan films. Affleck is surprisingly undislikable, mainly due to the fact that this is a big film with a lot of character's - rather than a typical star-focused Hollywood blockbuster.

It's a pretty intelligent and engaging film, that holds back on the usual punch up action, and focuses instead on Nuclear armageddon. It's a weird cross of pre/post 9/11 paranoia - as the bad guys in the book were Islamic terrorists, but at the time of filming (2001) it seemed implausible that they would be able top get hold of a nuclear weapon. Things had to be re-jiggled a bit in the edit however, as things had changed...

It starts to unravel slightly towards the end, but generally it's pretty entertaining. Good cinematography too.

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23rd May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Copland

(dir. James Mangold)

A New Jersey sheriff tries to bring justice back to his town, which is almost entirely populated by a corrupt group of NYPD. After the wackness of Identity, I went back for a re-evaluation of Copland, and can still report it is an awesome movie. While the set up is a little contrived, that is quickly surpassed by the performances in this movie. Almost every actor in this movie puts in a great performance, from De Niro through to Janeane Garofalo. Sylvester Stallone is particulalry great, putting in a touching and sympathetic performance as the local hero left out of the loop... which only serves to remind us that he never followed this break into serious acting with anything else. It's awesome to see DeNiro and Keitel in a scene together again, with an instant history and presence to both character's. "I gave you a chance and you blew it!"

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16th May 2005 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Basic

(dir. John McTiernan)

I had pretty low hopes for this, but the fact that John McTiernan was at the helm (Die Hard fans - you know who you are) swayed me into watching it. It actually started off pretty intriguingly, with a Agatha Christie style whodunnit set-up after drill Sergeant Samual Jackson is killed in the Panamanian jungle. As the story unfolds from different perspectives it is left to investigators John Travolta and Connie Nielsen to unravel who's telling the truth.

The bigest problem with the movie was that John Travolta was his typical over-acting-annoying self that he's been ever since Tarantino gave him the false belief that he wasn't just another David Hasselhoff. While I admit that the movie was slightly more twisty than I guessed, Travolta's manner just telegraphed from the start that there was going to be a big twist... meaning it's all no surprise.

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16th May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Good Girl

(dir. Miguel Arteta)

A grocery clerk in a small town embarks on an affair with a delusional younger man.

This is a pretty engaging movie, with Jennifer Aniston putting in a surprisingly watchable performance. Jake Gyllenhaal from Donnie Darko is good too, but there's something slightly fishy about the whole thing. It's seems to be have been pitched as a far more indie movie than it actually is somehow...

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16th May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Identity

(dir. James Mangold)

Pretty tricky mystery/thriller/horror from Copland's James Mangold. A load of strangers get stranded at a motel, while a killer with multiple personalites has his execution debated. It's twisty with a couple of surprises, but you can kind of see it all coming.

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14th May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

(dir. George Lucas)

After several years of fighting, the Clone Wars are coming to an end. As Chancellor Palpatine's influence grows, the Jedi Council become suspicious of him and both sides enlist the help of Anakin Skywalker to keep things under control. Meanwhile, Amidala (or Padme, depending on your preference... ahem) is secretly carrying Anakin's child, and the promise of preventing her death draws Anakin towards the power of the dark side.

R.O.T.S. gets off to a spectacular start with the opening space battle, but that soon becomes waaayy to confusing, hectic and ultimately pointless. Once things settle down the story does thicken up a bit, with the council's lack of faith in Anakin slowly pushing him away and into the Emperor's grasp. As the relationship between Anakin and Padme develops there is some actual emotion and empathy for the characters, and there are even a couple of scenes that step back from the CGI and just let the characters briefly live within the world of the film.

The potential for a great movie is there, but the film is still 30% fluff, which a better director (David Fincher was rumored at one point) would have stripped away. Things get pretty mechanical as Lucas whacks his square shape into a round hole, and we see things like the Wookie planet (and Chewie) for no real reason. General Grevious is a stupid chain smoking bad-ass semi-droid character, who just slows the plot down, before eventually we end up on the volcanic planet that everyone has known about since they were kids. The final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan is pretty ferocious and engaging and then things wrap up with a couple of quick Darth scenes.
"Where's me bird gone Palpatine?"
"Calm down Darth!"

The attempt to tie EVERYTHING up just serves to make the galaxy much smaller than it ever was in the old days, with much of this undermining the original films. Surely hiding Luke on Vader's home planet with Vader's only living relatives isn't very smart?

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10th May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sin City

Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino

Pretty spot-on adaptation of the Frank Miller super-noir graphic novels, packed with a great cast. Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke are vying for "hardest bastard in town"; Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, Devon Aoki and Jaime King as "hard dames not necessarily in need of saving"; Nick Stahl, Powers Booth, Elijiah Wood and Rutger Hauer as "evil bastards"…

If you've read the comics it's like they've come to life - it's basically a shot-for-shot translation, which works way better than most other comic-to-film adaptations. all that's missing is the words. If you're new to the stories, it's like they've taken the Raymond Chandler/Mickey Spillane aesthetic and beaten it into a bloody pulp. Even Clive Owen can't ruin this film.

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5th May 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Negotiator

(dir. F. Gary Gray)

When a rogue Police negotiator (Sam Jackson) goes off the rails to prove he is being set up, the Police call in another top negotiator (Kevin Spacey) to negotiate with the negotiator.

Not bad action/drama. About as tricky as it was to write the synopsis, but still somehow managing to be predictable.

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25th Jan 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Keep

(dir. Michael Mann)

Possibly the dumbest film to be shown in the Chimp Towers screening room. Nazi fog, Ian McKellan with a floating American accent even though he's supposed to be some Romanian mystic dude, lots of glowing eyes, and Tangerine Dream testing out their new-fangled synths all over the soundtrack. Almost worth watching to the end to see how stupid it gets.

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4th Jan 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

(dir. Michel Gondry)

After realising that the love of his life has had him surically erased from her memory, Joel Barrish sets out to have his memories erased - before changing his mind and desperately racing to hold on them.

Finally, a film that lives up to it's hype. After the relative disappointment of Human Nature it was looking like this might be a hit or miss movie, but Gondry has managed to restrain the clever tricks to just the right level so they don't overpower the movie, while Jim Carrey in particular was excellent - swapping his typical role with Kate Winslet. Photography and editing were also superb, all adding up to one of the most engrossing and entertaining movies I have seen for a very long time.

Surely anyone who has been in any kind of relationship will relate to this movie. Even a stalker.

NOTE: I've found myself watching this film every month or so, so I'm upgrading it to 5 stars.

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11th Oct 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

Happy, Texas

(dir. Mark Illsley)

Two bumbling convicts escape from prison and upon arriving in Happy, Texas are mistaken for a couple of gay pagent organisers. Slowly however their presence in the town begins to affect different people in different ways...

I don't even know why I watched this, or in fact why I taped in to begin with.... but it was allright. Kind of reminded me of the kind of movie I would have got out from Star Video in 1987, in a License to Drive kind of way. It was moderately amusing, I like Steve Zahn, Jeremy Northam, Illeana Douglas and of course William H. Macy. It wasn't too long either.

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29th Jul 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

Goodfellas

(dir. Martin Scorsese)

Following the day-to-day lives of three gangsters from the 1960's through to the 1980's and their steady decline. Goodfellas is based on the real life memoirs of Irish-American mafioso Henry Hill, who eventually turned snitch and joined the witness protection programme.

One of several peaks in Scorsese's career, Goodfellas is a bonafide masterpiece and a regular in this chimp's top 5. Superb performances from Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and De Niro amongst others, fantastic music and flawless camerawork and direction make this utterly watchable. Even though I have the DVD, I caught two minutes on TV the other night and ended up watching the whole thing. Again.

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20th Jun 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

Vanilla Sky

(dir. Cameron Crowe)

A rich playboy is disfigured in a car crash shortly after meeting the girl of his dreams. Then is it a dream/it isn't a dream..? Who cares.

I'd heard this was bad, but I just didn't listen. I like Cameron Crowe, Jason Lee is always good (since Video Days) and even Tom Cruise is usually OK. It started off reasonably enough, once you get used to the fact that Tom Cruise and Jason Lee might be friends. The dream/reality thing was pretty student-film-like in a predictably-unpredictable kind of way, but then when you got to the 'twist' it was just shit, possibly deteriorating into the worst film I've seen since What Dreams May Come. And that was BAAAD.

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4th Jun 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

Eraser

(dir. Chuck Russell)

Jesus christ, this was some of the most hair-brained shit I've ever seen in my life. The highlight had to be Arnie playing chicken with a Lear Jet (seemingly travelling at around 5mph) while parachuting down to New York.... although the kid where he landed did provide some light relief:

Arnie: "Where am I?"
Kid: "Earth. Welcome"

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22nd May 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pearl Harbor

(dir. Michael Bay)

Two childhood friends and a plucky young nurse are drawn into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which drew America into World War II. Starring a big list of names: Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Jon Voight, Dan Ackroyd, Tom Sizemore and others.

Apparently this was the most expensive movie made at the time, costing a whopping $140+ million. It certainly looks good, with great cinematography and effects. Unfortunately that doesn't compensate for the terrible script and dire direction.... and Affleck and Hartnett are certainly lacking that Han Solo/Luke Skywalker chemistry.

Boy, do I have a problem with Ben Affleck.... how did he become such a star?
"Just get me up in a plane!"

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3rd May 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

St. Elmo's Fire

(dir. Joel Schumacher)

A mixed bunch of University graduates find life in the real world much tougher than they thought.

Re-watching this movie recently, I slowly realised that this is really what I expected grown up 'real life' to be like. Crashing round people's 'pads' on the floor after a row with the wife, shooting vodka at random moments and playing the sax. Even casually smoking a fag while haphazardly cooking stir fry.

This movie is so John Hughes-esque it's unbelievable, even though he didn't have anything to do with it. It does however turn out on the DVD commentary that Joel Schumacher had an office just down the corridor from Hughes, so they no doubt had a crazy night out, ended up having a glass of brandy and smoking a fag together on the fire escape while mulling over ideas.

Part goofball, part genius. This movie works on many levels.

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23rd Jan 2004 - Add Comment - Tweet

Empire Records

(dir. Allan Moyle)

A bunch of wacky "Generation X" types working in a record store race to find $9000 to save the store from a corporate takeover.

I watched this hoping for some good soundtrack action in the vein of Pretty In Pink or High Fidelity. Instead I got a couple of shit covers and Gwar. The closest thing to cool was a Rhino Records sticker on the toilet wall.

Renee Zellweger, Maxwell Caulfield and Liv Tyler are amongst the cast members embarrassing themselves, plus Rory Cochrane from C.S.I. Miami (AKA ROn the stoner from Dazed and Confused) and Anthony LaPaglia from Without a Trace. Bruckheimer obviouly liked this movie.

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29th Dec 2003 - Add Comment - Tweet