Howl (2010)

I liked Howl because it reminds me of my creative writing class and writing in general because the first things I remember writing creatively was poetry. Admittedly, my stuff was never deemed revolutionary or obscene but I've always felt ahead of my time. Howl skips across the filmic styles- from re-inacted documentary to musical biopic to period piece to courtroom drama, in telling the true story of Allen Finsbury and his book Howl and how it was the centre of a court-case on obscenity charges. The film seems weightless as it flits from Ginsberg (methodically played by James Franco) reading Howl to Ginsberg discussing the time to the courtroom.
Maybe this constant mix of setting and style would make other films seem convoluted or confusing but it works in this case.
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, prolific gay documentary filmmakers seem to be to divine all the of this mixing and transform it into something literate despite not having worked a whole lot with actors. I'm not sure if working with actors after 20years in documentaries would be easier or harder!  but they managed to pull together this cast including Jon Hamm, David Strathaven and Jeff Daniel for the courtroom stuff as well as the Franco.
I guess I preferred the interview/documentry style stuff and would have preferred more of that and less of the courtroom stuff but the courtroom stuff gets cut away from before it becomes repetitive and I guess a little courtroom drama used sparingly goes a long way. It's interesting to watch because it takes you not into the mind of a poet but into the time of a society on the cusp of a significant change in popular culture; where the 50's Beat Generation where warming up for the Peace, Love and Understanding of the 60's...

I watched Howl (2010) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)...

Season Of The Witch (2011)

With Bad Lieutenant and KickAss as well as other stuff but mainly the above, Nicholas Cage was on a good streak last year. With forgettable tut like Season of the Witch, he may as well hope the skids are as cosy as when he left them.
I make no bones about the Nicholas Cage I Like on celluloid- the balls-out, pin-drop pupils, bad jokes, strutting, 'menk-tal' one,the sensitive but tough family man one can run the marathon.
Now I know the guy's got kids and needs to pick up a check but can't imagine he made that much on a film made in Eastern Europe and where Ron Pearlman is the second lead (no offence Ron. ); he decided to make this off his own back, that is certain.
I'm sure it has to do with the fact he likes all this swords and scorcery BS and I can take it, when it's done well but there's nothing at all original about this film- there's something about the church trying witches at the time of the Crusades or something going on.. I wasn't paying a heckload of attention. They have to transport a suspected witch to somewhere because... Some guff.
On the the other hand, a lot of goodly British actors are picking up a cheque like Stephen Graham and Stephen Campbell Moore and the whole reason for the rental, the man himself- Robert Sheehan. Honestly, i could tell this movie would be a schnore but I knew he was in it and well that was enough for me, but for some dumb reason- they're all talking in these generalised American accents!? Sheesh- what gives? They throw him no meaty bones and thereby he's grasping at straws for stuff to do.
But more fool me for expecting something decent from an obviously undecent film. This film makes Drive Angry look like A Clockwork Orange and Drive Angry was a greesy demo showing reel for hard R rated 3D exploitation flicks (I still think of it fondly)...

I watched Season Of The Witch (2011) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Howl (2010)...

Transformers 3D - Dark of the Moon (2011)

I promised myself I wouldn't go see this. I knew I wouldn't like it or worse, be bored by it. I remember the first one was one of the most ugly films made for older children I'd seen with just vile dirty jokes. Now obviously, i'm a fan of dirty jokes but not in film's like this, ones made for children specifically and on top of that, it didn't make much sense either.
Then came the second film, and in my charitablity/stupidity-i hoped for a better film with the creases of the 1st film smoothed out and yet somehow they managed to all be magnified!! Transformers 2 should be investigated by the narcotic substances authorities because it manages to be violent, overblown, narcissistic, sexually and racially insensitive and all the while being thoroughly anti-senseicall, overlong and boring. And I don't have room on the my docket to be pissed with Michael Bay about it because he still hasn't apologised for Pearl Harbour yet. First things first.
But I dragged myself to see it because it promised Frances Mcdormand and like any Coen Brothers fan would be, I was understandably curious.
Well the somewhat good news, written on a bunch of clutched straws is that this Transformers movie (hopefully the last) managed to fix almost every issue (minus the film's length- a bum-numbing, multiple-phone-and-watch-checking 3hrs!). Now let me be blunt, i am in no way suggesting you give this film a second thought let alone pay to see it + plus popcorn and various 3D taxes but in the way that some crimes are less severe then others - this film is parking ticket compared to no. 2's genocidal war crimes status.
I'll give a spurious slow sarcastic golf-clap to Bay for making a film that generally makes broad common sense or at least a feeling of knowing what was going on for an audience and the skydiving stuff was exciting and... John Malkovich was pretty funny as was John Tuturro but these are basic requirements that a film like this should have not celebrations of relative success.
But you know what... I think that Michael Bay despite making some of the worst films i've seen in a cinema, i think he's capable to make something really exciting and amazing, if he could have it written and edited right like say, Bad Boys 2. It's bizarre and frustrating that his talent is apparent by the scale of his failures. Same goes for Shia LaBeouf - i like the guy but he's doing himself no favors doing sequels and franchise movies. They both must be rich enough to have creative freedom and crazy and kooky projects cos we want original material not repeats, man!

I watched Transformers 3D - Dark of the Moon (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Season Of The Witch (2011)...

Rolling Thunder (1976)

After all that talk of Rolling Thunder and Tarantino during watching Chungking Express, i was overcome with curiosity about the film- Rolling Thunder, it's self and it was a pleasant surprise to find it was on LoveFilm Online, seemingly just waiting for me.
Rolling Thunder is a post Vietnam film, the type where the protagonist comes back from war to find everything has changed and they've lost their place in society. Yeah we've all see one. The main character in this film has more than average malaise to contend with- i guess the film seems like its going to be one thing and changes gear halfway through and becomes a revenge film.
I don't know if you remember the film-within-the-film from True Romance, 'Home In a Bodybag' but i'd say 'Tino got the idea from this film- i say that because I get this feeling that someone told Tarantino that this was the most authentic Vietnam film.
In hindsight, it seems like stunt-casting to make the bad guy from Dynasty or Knots Landing to make the sympathetic Vietnam vet stretched to the limits of his humanity and see Tommy Lee Jones playing second fiddle to him but William Devane shows off some real chops as a man who's personality and sense of self completely vacated; someone who's loosing his grasp on giving and receiving affection or pain, or displaying his humanity. Like I say, it's very strange to see Tommy Lee Jones so underused but the way he's used sparingly through the film works well in its favor becuase hs character is probably more disconnected from Devane.
I certainly can't think of a better 'coming-home-after-war' film- it's short, pacey while at the same time it can be methodical and the end might be predictably enviable after the 1st half but it's in no rush to dote on it.
The film was one of the 1st things that Paul Schrader wrote; possibly the 3rd thing after The Yakuza and Taxi Driver and it's certainly easy to tell that the writer is at the height of his story telling powers because it's not convoluted with any unnecessary sub-plots or characters; everything serves a purpose.
But it's not the best film made by anyone involved yet it had enough going on to sustain your interest....

I watched Rolling Thunder (1977) on LoveFilm Online.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Transformers 3D- Dark Side of the Moon (2011)...

Dazed & Confused (1993)

Richard Linklater is a prime example of a filmmaker, i try to get into but never can. I feel like there's always something remote about his work despite the underlying themes that interest me, like the psycho-social intellectualism of Waking Life and Slacker. He's experimental like the rotosvoping in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly and he was an early user of digital, when he made Tape; he made a critical and commercial success, when he made School of Rock but i feel like sometimes his films can get so wordy, it can be exhausting but Dazed & Confused doesn't really suffer from that.
It plays like 70's version of American Graffiti (probably every hack reviewer has said that.) becuase it has a massive ensemble cast and licensed pop music soundtrack; it's a recent historical period piece. The movie criss-crosses through a school on the last day before summer and all the various cliques within; from the jocks to the nerds and the cheerleaders and junior kids.
It appears to me, that there must be somewhat of a Dazed & Confused casting curse as by a strange twist of fate, a lot of the cast be came recognisable actors... For a minute.
People like Milla Jojovich, Joey Lauren Adams, Jeremy London, Cole Hauser were really popular at the one time and but their celebrity fell in. The 2 exceptions being Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck but in saying, that i think Linklater how precisely how to best McConaughey -sparcely- I'm certainly no fan of his but I'll say he has charisma like no one's business and after a while that gets to be smarmy and irritating but this is the best thing you'll ever see him in and he's in it for a total of maybe 7mins - less than 10% of the film. I don't mean that to sound backhanded- i just mean a lil McConaughey goes a long way.
I think it's probably the best thing that Linklater has written because it feels believable and all the characters and there must be about 20+, feel 3 dimensional. Yeah, they do that sorta-conversional philosophical rap that comes in most Linklater movies but it reigned in by a focused story and narrative and it doesn't go off on tangents.
This was his 2nd film after his debut, Slacker and at the time, it must have seemed like the guy only made that loose narrative - talk movie because of his budget and given a bigger canvas he'd turn in more structured fare but his next film was Before Sunset, another talk movie albeit with 2 good looking actors and set in Europe and until School of Rock,  he kept making those kinds of pictures. But Richard Linklater always comes original and inventive so I'm sure I'll always be curious to see what he does next...

I watched Dazed & Confused (1993) on DVD, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Stakeland (2011)...

Chungking Express (1994)

This is my take on the Wong Kar Wai astetic:- he takes the Hollywood/Western (social) love story and delivers it in Eastern packaging/photography. Now I'm not saying there's anything specifically wrong with that- they're very cute movies but I don't understand the hype.
On the new BluRay that distributor Artificial Eye has put out, i was reminded of something. In the later 90's, after the success of Pulp Fiction- Tarantino had the idea of distributing unseen or forgotten movies under a label called Rolling Thunder. I found this out a couple years ago, when i rented an old Grindhouse movie called Switchblade Sisters in Canada, which was under that banner as was Kitano's Sonatine, Canadian cult movie-Hard Core Logo and ChungKing Express; and Tarantino made an introduction to the movie for the DVD, which appears on the BluRay. As he tells it, Wong's films are unique in Chinese cinema because he tells these dramatic love stories in a market populated by action.
Basically, Chungking Express is 2 love stories that mediate on loneliness and finding love. The first one concerns a young naive cop who's mourning his last relationship and a shady woman in blonde wig, who seems to be involved in smuggling guys from India to Hong Kong. It's all very non-linear and since it's obviously in Chinese difficult to pick up (for me at least) to pick up the threads of what's going on; she's strutting around with a purpose without actually doing or saying much and he seems to be buying tins of pineapple (!?) - they get together sort of but... It doesn't really land (to me.)
The 2nd story is far more linear and far more simple to follow. It concerns another cop, who's a little older and a little more together (played by Tony Leung, a Wong favorite and memorable from as the bent cop from Infernal Affairs) and the cute girl that works at the fast food joint, he frequents everyday. Their story is far more traditional in the sense, that we know they should get together but he is in denial about the failure of his last relationship and isn't ready to move on-you get the picture.
The girl, played by Faye Wong is completely delightful with her short hair and bopping to California Dreaming and Faye Wong's own Chinese version of Dreams by The Cranberries, which is similarly delightful because it's musically exact and her vocals make the song even software and more cuddly to listen to.
I think there's a lot of subtlety that got lost in translation for me in watching this and maybe it didn't work for me as well as I'd hoped because it was a bad mixture of romance which is generally undemanding to watch and in a foreign language, which obviously requires a lot of attention but it is a very pretty film to watch.

I watched ChungKing Express (1994)
on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Dazed & Confused (1993)...

Permissive (1970)

First off, I love these films that the BFI put out on their Flipside label like Private Road and Man of Violence. It's not that these film are very good but they illustrate unconsciously, a time where Britain (or London) made modest  arty or exploitative films on the cheap. We still do but that's due to a home video market. These films are before that. I can only imagine these films were sponsored by, made in and for London. Their appeal is distinctly colocuial- there are no stars in them... no international ones, at least and when they do have exploitable content, it's not really anything too major. To me, their charm is in the fact, they stand as a time capsule that transport you back to the style, taste and 'mores' of a few generations behind us.
Permissive is essentially, the tale of a young girl,who becomes involved with a band and being, for lack of a better word, a groupie. Now this film is hardly worth your time; it's predictable, populated with non-actors and it's horribly dated but it did take me back to when I was really excited into a certain band and got involved with other intense fans. Dear reader, they were the best of times and they were the worst of times. I loved spending time with these people and yet we were all in competition, to prove our worth and that we were bigger fans than others and such and so on. The great success of this film is that it successfully achieves that feeling of competition mixed with a sense of of belonging. Like I say, the movie's band was a real band called Forever More and i'm sure they had a few hits... Not enough to co-opt a movie, mind you but one of their songs I recognised a sample from a Talib Kweli song, Beautiful Struggle. There's no mention of the original in the liner notes of Mr Kweli's album. Which is an ironic conclusion to a film that was forgotten, brushed off and forgotten just as easily...

I watched Permissive (1970) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with ChungKing Express (1988)...

Bad Teacher (2011)

It goes without saying that Bad Teacher was made to be Cody-porn. Just the thought of Cameron Diaz vs. Lucy Punch in a comedy deathmatch is almost too much. Hurrrrm. Not mention, the fact that it's directed by Jake Kasdan, who ably made Dewey Cox- an overwhelmingly underrated movie and written by Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg, who write The (American) Office and wrote Year Zero, an other underrated comedy. All should be perfect and obstensively it is, it's just that it stands in the shadows of Bridesmaids and it's not as consistant. Herein lies the rub; Bridesmaids is completely populated with seasoned comedy actors and even though Jon Hamm isn't, he still knocks it out of the park. In Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake aren't funny enough because everyone else around them is really funny. Now don't get me wrong, they get to say funny shit and it's funny but that's more down to a hilarious script. Now in theory, Diaz playing a nasty conniving super bitch and Timberlake playing an asexual trustafarian dimwit AKA playing against type, is a funny idea but they sadly don't pull it off as well as the film should... Maybe it's something about beautiful people not being funny.
But that would be disprove by the stunning, talented, delightful MONSTER called Lucy Punch. I've not nearly professed all the ways she illuminates any screen she graces and i've professed a lot over the last 6months! but she does not disappointed again. Playing prissy, passive-aggressive nemesis of Diaz, she predictably kills her in every scene they share. There's nothing lacking, nothing she won't do to get a laugh and you feel that. Lucy Punch has no ego on screen.
As well as Punch, the cast is rounded out by Jason Segel, John Michael Higgins and Phyllis Smith, who are all sure hands here.
Now as much as I believe that the script is funny, that doesn't make it automatically amazing; Stupnitsky & Eisenberg, might be one of the current best American comedy writing teams but they've not perfected writing for a feature length yet and provide a particularly unrealistic super happy ending to the film, which is permissively aggressive and mean all the way through. But this is maybe their 2nd movie and they hardly coasting on laughs, they wrote a consistently funny film with at least 10 memorable funny moments and has maybe the best poop joke of year (maybe better than the one in Bridesmaid and that is a masterful poop gag)...

I watched Bad Teacher (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Permissive (1970)...

Cop Out (2010)

I'm generally a fan of Kevin Smith. I think like a lot of my generation (maybe mostly, the one before mine) we thought his movies were brilliant when we were in our late teens. I used to love him between the ages of 16 and 20. I remember strongly where I was the first times I saw Clerks (New years eve 1999, on FilmFour when it was a subscription channel), Chasing Amy on Sky Movies, Dogma at the UCI Cardiff, on Boxing Day. I finegelled my way across the US border, from Canada on holiday to see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when i was 17 because it was 18 in Canada. So like I say, a certified fan but i think apart from Clerks and Chasing Amy, hs movies are quite juvenile or more so than care to hold in high regard anymore. But I don't hate him or anything and I like to see whatever he's working on. The movie he made before Cop Out, Zack and Miri was pretty funny and good-enough but based on Clerks, this man was supposed to be the comic book fan-boy equivalent of Tarantino - they shared the same home at Miramax and both had the best line on pop culture shit-talking but i think he second guess his fans on the comic book stuff and naughty talk with Jay and Silent Bob and left out the drama and heart in Chasing Amy.
Anyway, when i heard he was making a big Bruce Willis cop comedy, i was sure that was a step forward for him in finding a broader audience and more recognition. I mean I think it's always interesting to see what small budget directors do when they work on that scale.
Of course what I didn't understand was that this was essentially a directing/work assignment for him and he had little to nothing to do with writing it. Now the thing is that despite being generally known for his raunchy comedy, he's not the greatest visionary director and i'm sure he'd defer to that too... so then there's nothing for him to contribute here other than pick up a cheque and spent time gaining experience of working in the studio system and as such it shows.
Apart from the NY state setting and 80's hip hop soundtrack, this could have been anybody's movie and it just reeks to me of a missed opportunity. A lot of people teared into Cop Out and Smith was just as vocal about the critics and I'm not interested in doing that but my biggest disappointments is obviously how seemingly removed Kevin Smith is from this movie and i know he is because it's boring and laugh-free and he almost can't be blamed for that.
I still think the guy can still write better than most Hollywood writers and believe that and if he was really interested in a mercenary endeavour, he should be writing films he's not directing not visa versa.
I am hopeful for his horror-thriller about the Westborough Baptist Church, Red State for later this year. It seems like the sort of meaty thing that would challenge him...

I watched Cop Out (2010) on BluRay, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bad Teacher (2011)...

Green Lantern (2011)

I came to Green Lantern with a pure neutrality. Recent critical eviseration  mixed with liking the people involved left my sense weighed evenly as to what I expected. But then there is a significant 'genre-mixing alert' feeling that comes embedded in it. The Green Lantern is a human Air fighter pilot who is given super powers by cartoony aliens, who live on a 1950's sci-fi style-planet. As I see it, not knowing very much at all about comic books, this is utterly unique in the sense of attaining superpowers. Either you are born with them al la X Men, Superman, Thor; or you make it by being rich - Iron Man or Batman. Sometimes something out of your control happens like in The Hulk or Spiderman but you never just get given them by admittedly dying but benevolent ailens AND I think for some reason this does rub people up the wrong way because they're not used to it. Maybe it's not quite that. I think this movie confuses people as to whether they're watching the comic book movies, that Marvel usually make and a total CGI animated movie; some of the film feels partially realistic technological sci-fi and some is Star Wars style alien creatures and CGI worlds and.... It doesn't sit well together. Usually you do one or the other. Basically what I'm trying to say is that sometimes it feels like the summer action blockbuster and others like animated kids film. We all generally see the summer blockbusters (against our better judgement) but despite being generally of good quality, we don't all want to watch animated film because they're made for kids. I don't really know how much of this is down to Martin Campbell, since the man obviously knows his way around an action pic, having made 2 of the best Bond films but he's never worked this extensively with CGI before and maybe that's telling...
Ryan Reynolds is fairly good at this action heroic stuff and aquits himself pretty well. If you find him likeable, there's nothing to dissuade you but i'm sure he grates on as many people and 2hrs with him and CGI ailens would drive people up the wall. Maybe more interesting is Peter Saarsgard as the scientist made evil by evil alien... stuff like NORMAL SUPERVILLAINS! He's really channelling a particularly acidic John Malkovich and it's wierd to see him in film's like this yet, he's a good match against Reynolds, i think at least.
Blake Lively joins the ranks of Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johannson and other actresses completely underused in these movies as 2D strong women. Look Hollywood... Either make a good female superhero movie or just leave them out of them- that would surely be less offensive than the way they are used (in every sense) in these films. On the other hand, Mark Strong is the film sparingly and he's great; a real backbone of anything he's in.
As to whether it's worth seeing, i veer on NO as it's a bit of a failed experiment mixing the live action and CGI in this way but if you're curious, it's no waste of time...

I watched Green Lantern (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Cop Out (2010)...

The Beaver (2011)

From warm inception to curious production to maligned release, The Beaver was always a weird prospect. But at the same time- a film made by and starring Jodie Foster, about Mel Gibson talking through a puppet would have been completely different if it had come about in the 90's, when you imagine that. It sorta looks like one of each modern day crappy Jim Carrey kids movies.
Today, it's a Hydrogen bomb of 'Meta' seeing a manic depressive Mel Gibson deride social conventions and push away the people around him with his behaviour, while Jodie Foster (prolific colleagues, if not close friends) tells him "We love you and want you to get better but we can't help if you keep pushing us away..."
The strange thing about the film is that it's neither the horrible saccharine family movie nor the dynamic heartfelt family drama it wants to be - it stays in the middleground. It explores the strong ideas like repeating the failings of your parents and coping with grief when the world around you continues and how you deal with that but then the whole puppet macguffin undoes the thread of the issues in the film. But then if it wasn't really the puppet, why make the effort to watch? I hate that kinda of earnest, worthy kind of social family drama.
The acting across the board is really good but that's to be expected from Gibson playing nutso and Foster playing a concerned mother (they've had practice) but Anton Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence are especially good at playing dysfunctional teenagers (they be playing them for a while !) trying to resolve their own issues. In fact,Gibson is far better at playing The Beaver, a fake Australian anthropomorphic stuffed toy then a middle-aged man suffering with depression.
I kinda felt bored during the first half of the film but as the progressed, i really began to connect with it. It begins to develop good messages about feeling alone and how you counteract them though engaging with the people you care about for not disconnecting from them. Gibson needs to do something completely wild and original and i think he could legitimately come back and return to his previous profile in the movies and i think maybe The Beaver was a step in the right direction but it's not far enough a step, he needs to completely reinventing himself because the best parts of the film are where he's least playing Mel Gibson...

I watched The Beaver (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bringing Up Baby (1950)...