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Burlesque. 2/10. It only gets more than one point because it was shot on digital video rather than non-digital video. I laughed a whole lot. I frowned. It was unpleasant. It wanted to be Moulin Rouge. It had a lot of drag queens. I like drag queens, but these weren't good drag queens. One was Christina Aguilera(sc).
It was stupid and sexless. High School Musical III meets G-rated Showgirls meets the Sex & the City movie plus All That Jazz. I'm sure it's perfect if you're the kind of woman who likes this sort of thing.
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^Haha!
I caught The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (original Swedish version) last night which I thought to be good and bad in equal measure. There was a guessing element to the whodunnit plot and I kept guessing wrong (which is apparently how these things operate), though the denouement I found obvious and weak (and expected it from the beginning - maybe you'll be taken in by the words used to throw the reader/watcher, but alas, not me).
There were slow ponderous parts that might have been better suited to a slow ponderous avante garde experience - these seemed to fumble for a foothold, and gave me the feeling the author hadn't really thought it through (only afterward did I discover it was based on an entire trilogy of novels, so perhaps this was the reason for its length, but sections could have been cut considerably. Also I'm not a native Swedish speaker, so to an extent I forced myself to the screen and subtitles (I'm trying not to subtract points for that).
Was it gripping? Sort of - just not rivetting. There needed to be more concern for the characters, and they largely played as marionettes in a puppet show. The locale, which I must hasten is Sweden and probably the setting, were without exception bleak - though I wasn't expecting a happy comedy - but it's a film, and there could have easily been license for climatic variation: Summer always took place in memory/the past, Winter in the here and now.
There is something to be said about the actual 'physical appearance' of the actors - it was Andy Warhol who said that real people just don't look like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. When something happens in real life it happens to people of little consequence, and a well-chosen cast should reflect this.
I think they got that right - they were believable even though not likeable.
There were novelistic aspects left in which was a good touch, and at moments made me wish I had the book next to me to compare how that bit was written, or this bit. And overall it seemed to succeed as a translation from page to screen, though I haven't read the page.
All up it gets 7/10 (even though one point is out of sympathy/disregarding the subtitle hassle, it is definitely better than a 6)
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Well it's 2012 now so I'm just going to list and rank my 10 favourite films of 2011.
10. War Horse - 6.5/10 The movie is very well made, but the corny plot makes it a bit too cloying at times.
9. 13 Assassins 7/10, Takashi Miike is a guilty pleasure of mine.
8. Super 8 - 7/10, a good children's film that captures much of the wonder of an E.T. or the Goonies, but falls apart at the end when it becomes a formulaic action film for the last 30 minutes.
7. Midnight in Paris - 7/10, a middle of the pack Woody Allen film.
6. The Artist - 7.5/10, a good film that is endearing because of its concept. Strong ending and good performances throughout, but has moments where it was a bit dull for me.
5. 50/50 - 8/10, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is my celebrity crush.
4. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - 8/10, Gary Oldman is great in this movie.
3. Drive, 8/10 has a real Cronenberg vibe to it.
2. Tree of Life, 8.5/10 I have mixed feelings about this, but some parts of it are transcendent.
1. Hugo, 9/10 an ambitious children's movie about cinema itself essentially. It's just great.
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I agree Hugo was fantastic!!
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Jsut saw Elvis and Anabelle on TV. 7/10.Loved Elvis !!
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8 1/2 by Fellini 7 out of 10. I have to really watch it again to determine why it's on the top of every critical list.
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Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton). 6/10. I love the Alice characters. I give this movie a 6 for the art, mainly. I did like the art, but the whole movie is kind of washed in a bleak gray/blue/black. I don't think it was necessary. Rather than making it a darker tale, it made it somewhat monotonous. The Hatter and the dog characters were endearing. The actress for Alice was quite good. I found the rabbits a bit difficult to look at. I thought the Cheshire cat was cute, but missing his somewhat sinister charm.
The story is simple. It had so much potential but it left me imagining how they could have improved it. It fell apart in the second half. The jabberwocky was decidedly unscary, in some really bad CGI. The ending was a dud.
I'll still rewatch this movie for the lovely first 45 minutes.
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The Beaver (Mel Gibson) - I'll give it a 6/10. It was very thought provoking, but gave little for entertainment. It started rather slow and never quite picked up. One thing that was very realistic, it portrayed life in a manner as such that life's problems will never be fully solved. We can address the issues in a positive way, but unlike the finale in most movies, all the problems that each person had were still there. But each person started coping with them in a different way. Maybe I'll up it to a 7/10.
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A River Runs Through It
An oldy but a goody - actually much goodier then I remembered it. Great landscape scenery frames a fairly soft brotherly tale, but this time around upon finding out it was based on a true story, the much better for it. A portrait of the author's brother over a period of six months after having not seen each other for years, ending in tragedy which is hardly touched upon, leaving his memory fresh and eternal.
It's really very good 9.5/10
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The Iron Lady. I give it 6/10. Too much attempt to gain insight into her private life and little on her role as prime minister.
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I watched A Christmas Carol last night. Its a nice movie and I'll give it 7/10.
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I just watched Pulp Fiction, again. Still love Tarantino and this is one of his best.
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Not a movie, but a documentary called What The Future Sounded Like, a history of British synthesizer development in the sixties. Quite interesting look at how Electronic Music Systems came into being, the AKS and VCS3. Also their powerful use in Dr Who via the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Great footage of a long-haired Brian Eno glammed up in Roxy Music, a look at Silver Machine and the origins of Hawkwind with comments from the band as they were only a few years ago.
Interesting was that back then computers were rare and one of the founders of EMS hocked his wife's tiara to get one (at the price of a house). It was so unusual that someone would want one for personal use that Tomorrow's World dedicated an episode on him and it. Enough memory to record a buzzing blowfly for half a second, and even performed something random on stage in front of an audience to mixed reviews, the music computer was here to stay.
9/10 (could have been longer)
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A Dangerous Method - 2/5...I had high hopes for this movie, none of which were met. Viggo Mortenson delivered a great performance as Sigmund Freud, it's too bad that he was only in the movie for about 15 minutes. The rest was Keira Knightley screaming and Michael Fassbender showing us that Carl Jung isn't nearly interesting enough to deserve his own movie.
