You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Sometimes incisive, sometimes plain old tut- the ouvre of Woody Allen will never be completely admired nor completely written off.
These days he churns out films with an almost reckless abandon. A diplomatic could only describe him as prolific. Me, i generally like the guy. I love Small Time Crooks and Sweet And Lowdown; i liked Vicky Christina Barcelona and Whatever Works recently but he doesn't hit every time and while I appreciate the need to be active and creative... i don't see why he has to maintain this almost yeoman-like production line of films every year. No one in the western film industry works like that, in writing and directing a new film every year since 1983 (?!) and i guess we wouldn't mind if some of them didn't seem so aimless but then next year, maybe he's back on form again- you can never totally write him off. Despite moments and a great cast, 'You Will Meet...' is one of those aimless ones.
Most of his films are about romantic couplings and this one is as one might gather no different. It covers the entanglements of 6 or 8people- newly divorced old couple Gemma Jones and Anthony Hopkins, their daughter Naomi Watts and her husband Josh Brolin as well Freda Pinto, Antonio Banderas and Lucy Punch, who variously represent new starts for the 1st four.
One of the strange things about Woody Allen films is his voice and style are so unique to him that it bleeds through and you start hearing it in other male roles on his films; Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters, John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway amongst others. It can be curious and/or jarring. But when it's coming out of the mouths of Brolin and Hopkins it just seems unconvincing. Now I think those two are very accomplished actors and It's hardly the shark-jump of say, Stone Cold Steve Austin turning up in an Almodovar picture but these guys are just plain shitty at delivering Woody Allen dialogue. Like creaky. Like they've never seen a Woody Allen movie before...  but that can't be the case because you wouldn't turn up unless you had and he only gives you the script on the day (probably.) It's not just those guys- there are other actors that can't deliver the one-liners and you're stuck watching them fall flat. I am reticent to blame the actors though; you don't really elect to be in a Woody Allen movie, he picks you and I'm sure he only directs people by telling them simply either 'try it again another way' and 'don't do it again like that' until it looks like something he's happy with. Not that doesn't work sometimes but you have to be a significant character actor like Gemma Jones and the glorious Lucy Punch for that to work. It's like Allen is so goofy about how nuts it is that Hannibal Lektor is saying his words, he doesn't really care about what he does with it. When you watch Brolin doing it, you think if this was nebbish New Yorker Woody you might buy the ironic lechery and jagging-about he does but Brolin is a good looking Californian and it really does not land.


I watched You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Faster (2010)...

True Grit (2010)

On Valentine's Day, I deliver you a tale of unrequited love.
A lot of the way i explain my opinion about culture is comes across as conflicted.
This may be the most conflicted post i write about a film. It might not be your favorite film but it should be in your top 10 is The Big Lebowski. The perfect marriage of Jeff Bridges and the Coens. The best ensamble cast of any film. One of the most quotable films ever; as i write this, I just heard a rugby commentator use the word 'parlance'. The film that allowed me out of the milky-booze closet; i was drinking/being fed Kahlua before i watched Lebowski and i can give you a note from my mother. So have i been excited about Bridges and the Coens getting the band back together. *inhales deeply* Yeah?
I guess i'm asking for trouble if i'm expecting a western about a trio on a journey with dangerous situations and people. I'm being facietious but asking the Coens to repeat themselves was always gonna be short-sighted.
True Grit is very good. I'm saying it's very good and i believe that. Everybody is great. Hailee Steinfeld is brilliant in-part carrying this film on her shoulder, as this frumpy forthright young girl on her path from justice and avenging her father. You forget she's a teenage girl, she's like a short fresh-faced Katherine Hepburn.
Matt Damon is brilliant as LeBoufe, a name i love. He's a wiley honest steadyhand compared to Cogburn but i love SPOILER the first scene that he and the girl share where he says, speaking with quite some candour that she looked so cute he was thinking about coming over to kiss her! Dude!! Not Cool! (SPOILER OVER.)
I gotta call out Barry Pepper. he's always come close to having a great role in some films but he's really good here; put to great ease by the Coens's evocing a young Dennis Hopper, who incidentally would have been in this sort of western. And of course Jeff Bridges is the man. Better, he's forever the Dude. Yeah Rooster Cogburn is a badass and violent and surley but he's also a collossal bum, a loser. So of course, i think he's great. Not the Dude though. And if you think that's unfair-i'll agree but it's how i feel.
In terms of the Coen Brothers, this is the most commercial film they set out to make to date. The plot is simple. The number of characters are few. The dialogue is quite direct and simple. Well for them it is. People are saying it's True Grit but it's still a Coen Brothers film. I say *hurm* to that. Compared to 'No Country...', I felt this came off as quite mercenary. Watching 'No Country...' i'd say it was unmistakably Coen despite originating from someone's prose. If i didn't know who made this, i can't say i'd feel the same but then i'd likely not judge it so harshly.
Let me be clear before i go straight back to being conflicting- i'm not saying this is The Ladykillers-bad. I'm not even saying it is bad. It just couldn't reach my sky-high expectations. This was my Phantom Menace. Actually that is too harsh but lets just say my objective brain thought it was great but my heart is pouting.
In closing as sisinctly as possible for me, please go see True Grit, if only so the Coens can get money to go back to the business of Coen Brothers movies.


I watched True Grit (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies continues with Dinner For Schmucks (2010)...

Jonah Hex (2010)

Sometimes you just watch movies to have an opinion on them. 
Like James Cameron movies.
Jonah Hex is one of those. This mean it is likely to be shit but i'm still excited to see it since, i want to have my own opinion and i want to see where it goes wrong and how it does so.

Before i begin that polite hatchet job of Jonah Hex, i'll start with what good with it. It's short- it's 80mins (inc. 6mins of credits...). This blog's 'reason d'etre' will likely be- films are too long but 80mins is 'hell's bells, that's short' short. That's the size of a HBO pilot but with 4x the budget, which admittedly is pretty much on the screen with practical stunts and explosions. Neveldine/Taylor's script is not horrible, it's passable in so much as there are 'zingy' lines and the story's not so ambitious, it could become stodgy. Um, what else... people had work for a few months in 2009? Anyway, it's basically unmitigatingly crap. But we knew this. We'd heard. The question is why? Where does it fall down? Well everywhere really but mostly the acting.  From the droney Mastodon score to the paint-by-numbers direction. Jimmy Hayward was a Pixar (no-less) animator who got lucky. Hollywood- please stop letting CGI people direct live-action films, it'll never work. I'll admit it's not as bad as when Mel Gibson let his hairdresser direct Paparazzi but that was an isolated incident. I guarantee that from now on. (Fun Fact - Jon Peters, Joel Schumacher and Danny De Vito also started as hairdressers.) I'm not going to address the role of Malkovich in this film. It's not that urgent or important to me, to do so. I could talk shit about his acting but i want to focus on Michael Fassbender. Let me just compose myself, Michael Fassbender. I'm not upset... I'm just very disappointed. So much potential gone to waste Mike...  You were like 5 wins and undefeated in your short career. From Inglorious Basterds to Fishtank to Hunger.  Hunger-what a sumptuous cinematic debut. And then this... Playing irish henchman #1. If that wasn't so abhorrent, you really 'mick' it up to eleven. You're a proud Irishman FFS. It was so bad, i thought you were going to ask Jonah Hex if he wanted his drive tarmac'ed. I expect it of him, he says thumbing at Malkovich. But not you Fassbender. Not you. Apparently other-modern-acting-great Michael Shannon was in this, but I don't remember seeing him sooo... congrats to him. That's the cinematic equivalent of having gym-note from your mother. Not going to lay into Megan Fox cos well, Megan Foxs are meant to be seen and not heard but Josh Brolin has the capacity to be great- very good in W. and No Country.., generally solid actor. Here- phoning it in... just faxing it in. I get overarching feeling all the actors knew this was a piece of shit, the producers set-out to make 5-showing-a-day-for- 2weeks programmer. That this was made for the short-term, not as art made to last the test of time. It's already failed last year.

I watched Jonah Hex (2010) on Blu-Ray via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Blow Out (1981)...