Aha, a film I can truly sink my teeth into, something I have a response to. It was a beautiful film, but I didn't love it, or particularly like it. So I know this has been getting mixed reviews, but that's it, I haven't read anything about it, I just went to see it after reading the book a couple of times to get my own feel for the story. Call me a complete moron but the book, well it just wasn't as all encompassing perfection as I was led to believe, it's just a bunch of frankly terrible people being terrible to one another, don't get me wrong, in some cases that can be more than entertaining; but in this case it was just incredibly sad, and not in a good way. Anyhoo, what could have been an interesting insight into the inner minds and working of the rich and shameless back in the hedonistic 1920s, instead we have this. This is going to have spoilers in, for the film and the book, deal.
Baz Lurhman, what a guy, he has forged a career out of all encompassing love stories, his most famous contributions to cinema being his modern take on Romeo + Juliet (see what you did there Baz.) and his musical Moulin Rouge with Ewan McGreggy and Nicole Kidman. We could also throw Australia in there but the less said about that the better... Romeo + Juliet grabs the most comparisons to Gatsby, both adaptations of well known stories, both studied in schools by bored teenagers and all seeped virtually seamlessly into the world's subconscious, both inherently about love and both have some decent deaths at the end.
The thing about Romeo + Juliet is, although most purists, specifically my granddad, hated it for chopping and dicing the Bard's dialogue and putting it in a modern setting mentioning swords and having guns blah blah and some bizarre costume choices, that it was actually quite a daring and largely successful interpretation of the source material. For it's faults, it still managed to pull off the modern setting and the audaciousness of the whole thing was exciting and fun (I emphasise the word fun.) Also, it's a bit of an odd thing to bring up, but thematically it focused on the fact that the star-crossed lovers were clearly doomed, the whole modern Verona was decked out with a tacky Catholicism, just to hammer home that even the Gods were against them, there was religious paraphernalia all over the shop and even the + in Romeo + Juliet takes on a strange cross like appearance. We were literally hammered over the head with it, but it fit with the soapiness and over-the-topness of the film. Plus we had that little black choir kid singing, and Desree performing 'I'm Kissing You.' - both of which permeate through and enhance the mood and specific scenes as Craig Armstrong applies the music beautifully to the scenes. I'm getting to my point, allow me a ramble.
So then we come to The Great Gatsby, it's Baz Lurhman, it's Leonardo DiCaprio starring in the titular romantic role, and Craig Armstrong is scoring the damn thing, Carey Mulligan, one of the brightest and best young actresses roaming around is playing Daisy, this is a charmed project, it can't go wrong right? Well actually, compared to the messy but realised Romeo + Juliet, this just doesn't have the same energy or coherency, and that's why I keep comparing the two, because there are echoes of the former in this film but they just don't fit in here.
The most glaring example of this would be when Nick Carraway enters the Buchanan household and is introduced to the delightful duo. First off, it all happens incredibly fast, it's almost incomprehensible as Tom is bellowing at Nick about sports then throws him into a room with the girls, material is flying all over the place and there is incessant giggling and the girls emerge ridiculously. Back in Romeo + Juliet times, the characters would literally rattle off incomprehensible reams of text whilst the scene moved about at the same speed; the most prominent example that comes to mind is Juliet's mother talking to her before the party. This scene had the same bizarre energy and ridiculousness to it, and yet here it didn't seem to fit very well, and most irritatingly enough, the rest of the film failed to have anything resembling this within it; so in my head it stuck out like a sore thumb to me, it didn't fit with the mood of the film and it seemed to just introduce the characters (albeit in tune with their distinct personalities) as quickly and dramatically as possible.
Now to ignore everything else and just talk about The Great Gatsby, my main issue with it, was that through the film we spend a hell of a lot of time investing ourselves in the Daisy/Gatsby love affair, but I literally felt nothing. Perhaps from reading the book and never quite having a deep connection with the characters this is has somewhat shaded my perception of the big sweeping love story that I am viewing on the screen, but I never felt it. I'm not going to talk about Romeo and Juliet again but (and let's be honest here, they were adorable together) I never believed in the romance, it just didn't have that spark to it, perhaps it's the acting (as much as it pains me to say that...), perhaps it's the direction, but when you spend so much time with the characters ignoring other plot threads for a decent chunk of the film, it just didn't sit right.
The Great Gatsby isn't an all encompassing love story, it's more complicated than that, and my main hope would be that the film were tease at those complications rather than simply tell the story from start to end. Daisy is a shallow and interesting character in the sense that we're never entirely sure about what she's actually feeling, at least that's why I loathe and love her in equal measure, we know she loved Tom at some point, then Gatsby comes back and sweeps her off her feet with his riches and beautiful things, but is it love? My main question was always, is this a woman capable of love? Or is she just a 'beautiful fool', does she consider herself more than that? I know she does, but the way she acts, she is literally just that, a beautiful fool. All these questions and the film just plays out from one scene to the next adapting the book bit by bit without much time for introspection.
Another Lurhman trope, lifted from Moulin Rouge, is having someone chronicle the events on a typewriter. Carraway being in a psychiatric hospital after being tortured by the events, leads him to be convinced to write about what he experienced by his doctor. Make no mistake this is Gatsby's story, but what irritated me probably the most about Nick was that, sure, he had his problems with alcohol and depression, anxiety etc, but wouldn't all that be more pertinent if he himself had been suffering a broken heart? In the book it's touched upon that Jordan Baker and Nick have a romantic relationship and hurt each other too, but that's completely ignored for the all encompassing Gatsby/Daisy/Tom/Myrtle mess; just my two cents though, it would have given Jordan a little bit more of a reason to keep hanging around, she had so little to do... This also leads the latter parts of the film where Fitzgerald's words are hung on the screen like bits of confetti for us all to see and are narrated to us, but this only becomes a prominent tool later in the film. I just didn't understand the purpose if it, either start off with it like that or bloody don't do it, don't introduce later into the film and then excessively use it in the last act in order to just tie up the story. It just came off as lazy to me, I know the doctor only tells him after the first part to write his story down but, well I didn't like how it was utilised.
While we're at it I might as well list the other things I didn't like it. Nick Carraway wouldn't live in a shitty cabin in the woods between a bunch of castles, just no, that's just beyond stupid. He was a man of means, sure he had barely any money compared to the rest of that lot, but whole point is West Egg isn't as big and expensive as East Egg, in my mind it was really only Gatsby's mansion which was huge, the rest would have been standard mansions, and if not a mansion put Nick in a bloody house that would at least be... Something! Argh. Putting him in the gardener's shed was just cringeworthy... Also, it's probably a well known fact, but I hate Tobey Maguire, not even in a jokey manner, I genuinely hate him, just because he has bulging bright eyes does not make him a decent actor, his voice genuinely made my skin crawl, especially at the beginning when he tries to put on a wise older man voice, oh god, it was just embarrassing. Everyone else did a fine job, although special shout out definitely goes to Joel Edgerton who actually sounded like he was from the 1920s, everything about him just worked, shame nothing else felt like it fit in with the era...
Sure the music is supposed to be anachronistic. Does that mean it worked? No. Good soundtrack, bad execution. Sorry Craig Armstrong, it just didn't work here, and this is coming from someone who has the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack on their iPod...
Don't get me started on the 3D. I saw this in 2D and there were just several scenes where it was painfully obvious that they were meant to be seen in 3D because the focus was all off, and there were plenty of things swirling at the screen for little reason other than to wow people with 3D glasses on. It was annoying, as someone who likes their films on the screen embedded there without any trickery, it was painful to see this film so blatantly meant to be in 3D for so little reason other than it would make more money...
I'm going to sum this all up as succinctly as I can now. I didn't like The Great Gatsby, because it was a flashy expensive and boring. It had the Baz Lurhman flourishes, epic love story, death, maddeningly popular soundtrack, a dude writing on a typewriter, intense imagery, drama, lots of dancing, lots of pointless dancing, partying, and beautiful people with beautiful problems, but it just all rang so hollow. Non of it quite meshed, the plot just moved from one set piece to another, there was a few chuckles, there were a few (intended) tears, a few (unintended) guffaws, and absolutely no heart or soul or connection throughout. It just didn't work.
Plus call me an idiot, but a guy getting shot whilst lazing about on a lilo in his expensive pool I thought would have been a much better way to end it than the Baz Lurhman, shock eyed, died too soon, oh the humanity, moment. Worked in Romeo and Juliet, here it was just... blah. And on that bombshell.
Thursday 23 May 2013
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Star Trek - Into Darkness
Right this is it. I am going to write this, I am going to sum up my thoughts on this damn movie.
Did anyone else think that Carol Marcus and Bones would make an adorable couple? I don't care about her previous connection, I do not care that it doesn't make sense. They had more chemistry than anything else in that film. Or at least that's what I think. Although Karl Urban could probably have chemistry with a lamppost*... I love him...
That is all.
*That's the least sexy thing I can think of, but I know that a lamppost can be devilishly dirty, as can everything else that popped into my head, this took way too much consideration... My brain today...
Did anyone else think that Carol Marcus and Bones would make an adorable couple? I don't care about her previous connection, I do not care that it doesn't make sense. They had more chemistry than anything else in that film. Or at least that's what I think. Although Karl Urban could probably have chemistry with a lamppost*... I love him...
That is all.
*That's the least sexy thing I can think of, but I know that a lamppost can be devilishly dirty, as can everything else that popped into my head, this took way too much consideration... My brain today...
Saturday 18 May 2013
Dubrovnik
So I saw Star Trek - Into the Darkness about a week ago... It was the same day I packed my bags to go on holiday to Croatia, obviously there was a shift at work, a train, a plane, a coach and a hotel to collapse in immediately after this so I had no time to really reflect or write up what I thought about the film. I'll get to it soon enough but in all honesty it didn't leave a hugely lasting impression on me. Although a really wonderful holiday to the Pearl of the Adriatic could shade anyone's perceptions.
Dubrovnik is a beautiful city, everyone should go visit, if not for the fact that a few scenes from Game of Thrones were shot there - although there is no evidence of this and I'm intending to rewatch the entirety of the show just to figure out if I actually inadvertently walked on any sets - mainly because I wasn't thinking much about that whilst I was there... Plus the idea of being near Kings Landing was pleasure enough. Obviously nerdiness aside, I thoroughly enjoyed poking around the Old Town, a place that is hundreds of years old and survived the onslaught of modern warfare in the early 90s in which the city, a known historical landmark, was brutally attacked by the Serb and Montenegrin forces under the guise of the Yugoslav National Party - I did a fair bit of reading whilst I was there... Although I didn't fully understand the conflict, the impact of it was still there in the old walls of the city, there are clear scars from the recent past and yet the place was so beautiful and idyllic, I don't think I've loved a place so passionately since Venice. Which is odd because history had it that Venice would control Dubrovnik (known as Ragusa back then) for a period of the 13th century, then they'd later become maritime rivals, both beautiful magnificent powers on the sea. Ugh, I read too much, got too excited...
The Old Town of Dubrovnik is a walled city on the coast, it's a city contained with a dock and three gates, my brain is blank so far but the main tourist one was Pile Gate (pronounced peel-eh gate.) The main street leading up from Pile Gate was The Stradun, this leads the cathedral and the dock, and basically was always jam packed with people, mostly those who had stopped for the day on a cruise and were getting tours, on the night the city filtered out and it was much quieter and serene. The Stradun is the only consistently flat part of the city and the flagstoned floor and gutters were polished smooth from years of people treading all over them. On either side the city begins to elevate and consists mostly of steps, on the left it's a perilous climb up tons of steps to get anyway, on the right it's flat for a little while but still there are steps... I hate climbing steps... As so most tourists, hence why the Stradun is clearly such a good place to start. I don't know why I'm going on so much, it's really a lovely city.
Each corner of the wall has a tower, the walls facing the sea are a sheer drop into the ocean, you can walk around the entirety of the wall for a fee of course, but it's worth doing. The rooftops that were shelled during the Conflict have all been replaced, the oldest surviving rooftops are aged and yellow, in comparison to the bright orange which consumes the top of the city. There is also secret bar embedded in the wall, overlooking the ocean, known as Buza. It's hard to find, it involves climbing some steps (that look like the Spanish Steps in Rome to my untrained eye) and following the signs for 'Cold Drinks' and there's a gate covering a hole in the wall which you clamber through to find some steps down to small tables arranged on the side of the cliff; it's quite a nice sensation to find it; they also close when the weather is bad because it'd be far too dangerous otherwise.
Anyways I could rant about how wonderful it was for ages. Also I did some sea kayaking which was two parts nightmarish, one part breathtaking, shaken on a choppy sea in a plastic boat with a drenching salt spray for good measure. Oh and my knees were ridiculously sunburnt. I also learnt of my love for swimming around in the sea (I didn't fall out of my kayak or anything...) Bobbing about in the ocean is a lovely sensation, not that I could do it back home, it's far too cold.
I've rambled enough I suppose.
Dubrovnik is a beautiful city, everyone should go visit, if not for the fact that a few scenes from Game of Thrones were shot there - although there is no evidence of this and I'm intending to rewatch the entirety of the show just to figure out if I actually inadvertently walked on any sets - mainly because I wasn't thinking much about that whilst I was there... Plus the idea of being near Kings Landing was pleasure enough. Obviously nerdiness aside, I thoroughly enjoyed poking around the Old Town, a place that is hundreds of years old and survived the onslaught of modern warfare in the early 90s in which the city, a known historical landmark, was brutally attacked by the Serb and Montenegrin forces under the guise of the Yugoslav National Party - I did a fair bit of reading whilst I was there... Although I didn't fully understand the conflict, the impact of it was still there in the old walls of the city, there are clear scars from the recent past and yet the place was so beautiful and idyllic, I don't think I've loved a place so passionately since Venice. Which is odd because history had it that Venice would control Dubrovnik (known as Ragusa back then) for a period of the 13th century, then they'd later become maritime rivals, both beautiful magnificent powers on the sea. Ugh, I read too much, got too excited...
The Old Town of Dubrovnik is a walled city on the coast, it's a city contained with a dock and three gates, my brain is blank so far but the main tourist one was Pile Gate (pronounced peel-eh gate.) The main street leading up from Pile Gate was The Stradun, this leads the cathedral and the dock, and basically was always jam packed with people, mostly those who had stopped for the day on a cruise and were getting tours, on the night the city filtered out and it was much quieter and serene. The Stradun is the only consistently flat part of the city and the flagstoned floor and gutters were polished smooth from years of people treading all over them. On either side the city begins to elevate and consists mostly of steps, on the left it's a perilous climb up tons of steps to get anyway, on the right it's flat for a little while but still there are steps... I hate climbing steps... As so most tourists, hence why the Stradun is clearly such a good place to start. I don't know why I'm going on so much, it's really a lovely city.
Each corner of the wall has a tower, the walls facing the sea are a sheer drop into the ocean, you can walk around the entirety of the wall for a fee of course, but it's worth doing. The rooftops that were shelled during the Conflict have all been replaced, the oldest surviving rooftops are aged and yellow, in comparison to the bright orange which consumes the top of the city. There is also secret bar embedded in the wall, overlooking the ocean, known as Buza. It's hard to find, it involves climbing some steps (that look like the Spanish Steps in Rome to my untrained eye) and following the signs for 'Cold Drinks' and there's a gate covering a hole in the wall which you clamber through to find some steps down to small tables arranged on the side of the cliff; it's quite a nice sensation to find it; they also close when the weather is bad because it'd be far too dangerous otherwise.
Anyways I could rant about how wonderful it was for ages. Also I did some sea kayaking which was two parts nightmarish, one part breathtaking, shaken on a choppy sea in a plastic boat with a drenching salt spray for good measure. Oh and my knees were ridiculously sunburnt. I also learnt of my love for swimming around in the sea (I didn't fall out of my kayak or anything...) Bobbing about in the ocean is a lovely sensation, not that I could do it back home, it's far too cold.
I've rambled enough I suppose.
Wednesday 8 May 2013
I'm So Excited
So this was a completely random choice of film, in my bid to have seen every main feature in the cinema I currently work at I decided to see a subtitled Spanish film which I had no knowledge of beforehand. Actually, I tell a lie, Pedro Almodovar had directed Volver, a film starring Penelope Cruz which I found made so little sense I couldn't even begin to worry about the language barrier, her mother or some old lady faked her own death or something... It was years ago... But it was odd. I know that Almodovar is well respected in the industry and got a whole boat load of awards for Volver and his most recent (before this) feature, The Skin I Live In. Those were films about serious subject matter but were quirky and well crafted, I did not expect what occurred in I'm So Excited to happen.
The best thing about this film is how blatant it is, it's a massively soapy smutty sequence of events taking place on a plane which needs to make an emergency landing because of a problem with the... I want to say wheels... But anyways, there aren't any free landing strips which would accommodate such a tricky landing, so they are all flying about in the sky waiting to make a perilous landing. To keep the plebs happy the whole economy class are basically drugged into comas while the business class are left to their own devices, this largely involves drinking and being incredibly randy.
So there are three gay stewards managing the madness, the two captains, and the selection of passengers up front who all take part in some form of drunken sexual acts. It's about as ridiculous as any Spanish soap opera, or in the words of Seth Cohen, a telenovela. To be honest, my memory of Volver was that, although Penelope Cruz was fantastic in it, the story was a bit silly, so I wasn't expecting a serious film, but this was beyond that, it was ridiculous. The consensus seems to be that Almodovar wanted to cheer up people, because Spain is in the shitter lately, and his aim was just for a bit of fun entertainment for the grown-ups to escape from the depressing realities of existence, and as telenovelas are very much a popular thing in Spain, we all love a bit of a soap opera, we all love a bit of smuttiness, he achieves what he set out to do, it was fun!
So many reviews have been negative about this film, that even though all the smuttiness is occurring, it's not funny, it's not witty, it's just not up Almodovar's standard; I think people are being far to hard on the film. I enjoyed the stupidity, the salacious tales, the fact that it was all beyond stupid, the characters were two dimensional and facile, the set looked like a completely stationary and not once did I believe we were actually on a plane, the whole getting drunk and randy was just stupid but to be perfectly honest, I thought it was fun. Also, the extremely cynical people out there were totally impressed by the dance routine the gay stewards decide to do mid-way through the film to 'I'm So Excited' (get it?), well I have not laughed so loudly or repeatedly in a cinema in ages and that was just what I needed, a bloody good laugh.
Two things that irked me slightly were the sequences in which the soap opera star calls his girlfriend and his ex magically comes across the phone (the girl is beyond beautiful). So we have a whole sequence in which we're not on the plane and following her story, but it lends nothing to the tale as a whole (we just get to spend time with that beautiful girl) and non of the other characters get such a back story - as far as decisions go it made no sense and added nothing to the film apart from we were away from the plane for a short period of time. The other thing I felt slightly uncomfortable about was the virgin woman sneaking into economy class and basically performing sexual acts on an unconscious passenger, it's done for laughs but to be perfectly honest if it was a man doing that to a woman it would be pretty rapey... Actually it was pretty rapey... Apart from that!... I've just realised how bloody odd this film is...Well, a bunch of stereotypes having sex on a plane is fine by me.
To be perfectly honest, watching three blatantly gay spanish men dance cabaret around an aeroplane cabin to 'I'm So Excited' was about enough to keep me happy for the rest of my week. Of course there are bigger films coming out soon, Star Trek - Into the Darkness, The Great Gatsby, Man of Steel and Hangover Part III, all of which I intend to watch...
The best thing about this film is how blatant it is, it's a massively soapy smutty sequence of events taking place on a plane which needs to make an emergency landing because of a problem with the... I want to say wheels... But anyways, there aren't any free landing strips which would accommodate such a tricky landing, so they are all flying about in the sky waiting to make a perilous landing. To keep the plebs happy the whole economy class are basically drugged into comas while the business class are left to their own devices, this largely involves drinking and being incredibly randy.
So there are three gay stewards managing the madness, the two captains, and the selection of passengers up front who all take part in some form of drunken sexual acts. It's about as ridiculous as any Spanish soap opera, or in the words of Seth Cohen, a telenovela. To be honest, my memory of Volver was that, although Penelope Cruz was fantastic in it, the story was a bit silly, so I wasn't expecting a serious film, but this was beyond that, it was ridiculous. The consensus seems to be that Almodovar wanted to cheer up people, because Spain is in the shitter lately, and his aim was just for a bit of fun entertainment for the grown-ups to escape from the depressing realities of existence, and as telenovelas are very much a popular thing in Spain, we all love a bit of a soap opera, we all love a bit of smuttiness, he achieves what he set out to do, it was fun!
So many reviews have been negative about this film, that even though all the smuttiness is occurring, it's not funny, it's not witty, it's just not up Almodovar's standard; I think people are being far to hard on the film. I enjoyed the stupidity, the salacious tales, the fact that it was all beyond stupid, the characters were two dimensional and facile, the set looked like a completely stationary and not once did I believe we were actually on a plane, the whole getting drunk and randy was just stupid but to be perfectly honest, I thought it was fun. Also, the extremely cynical people out there were totally impressed by the dance routine the gay stewards decide to do mid-way through the film to 'I'm So Excited' (get it?), well I have not laughed so loudly or repeatedly in a cinema in ages and that was just what I needed, a bloody good laugh.
Two things that irked me slightly were the sequences in which the soap opera star calls his girlfriend and his ex magically comes across the phone (the girl is beyond beautiful). So we have a whole sequence in which we're not on the plane and following her story, but it lends nothing to the tale as a whole (we just get to spend time with that beautiful girl) and non of the other characters get such a back story - as far as decisions go it made no sense and added nothing to the film apart from we were away from the plane for a short period of time. The other thing I felt slightly uncomfortable about was the virgin woman sneaking into economy class and basically performing sexual acts on an unconscious passenger, it's done for laughs but to be perfectly honest if it was a man doing that to a woman it would be pretty rapey... Actually it was pretty rapey... Apart from that!... I've just realised how bloody odd this film is...Well, a bunch of stereotypes having sex on a plane is fine by me.
To be perfectly honest, watching three blatantly gay spanish men dance cabaret around an aeroplane cabin to 'I'm So Excited' was about enough to keep me happy for the rest of my week. Of course there are bigger films coming out soon, Star Trek - Into the Darkness, The Great Gatsby, Man of Steel and Hangover Part III, all of which I intend to watch...
Monday 6 May 2013
Blue Valentine/Place Beyond the Pines
Welcome to my double feature! This week I also saw The Place Beyond the Pines at the cinema so I decided to resurrect my long ignored Blue Valentine post that I failed to finish weeks ago. Both are directed by Derek Cianfrance. Haven't proof read this but I'll just post it anyways...
Blue Valentine
You always hurt the one you love.
So, in theme with the fact that when I can't get out to the cinema, I revert to watching romance films, it's not easy going. I've always meant to get round to Blue Valentine, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams enacting a realistic dissolution of a magical Hollywood romance, along with Grizzly Bear presiding over musical responsibilities? Oh and Ryan Gosling played the ukulele. Grab the popcorn, I'm there. Except it took me about three years to get round to watching it.
Call me naive or insane, but the fireworks of an initial relationship is great and all but sometimes I'm just happier knowing my partner intimately, feeling safe and comfortable in his company and being able to be my disastrous idiotic self around him. The initial throes of any relationship are laced with uncertainty and many people love that, the electricity, the delirium, the fact that they are just starting to know one another, everything is beautiful, everything is perfect. In Like Crazy it was apparent the leads were trying to recapture those initial feelings of ecstasy unwilling to accept that their relationship had developed to a point where that was essentially gone.* Blue Valentine juxtaposes the crazy romance with the results six years down the line of diving head first into an everlasting love consequences be damned, specifically when it was flawed to begin with. It's an interesting film, it's different because let's be perfectly honest, you don't go into a Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams romance film with Grizzly Bear scoring a twee beautiful love story and see a balding Gosling get drunk and make a scene at William's hospital where she works as a nurse full time.
Sometimes all we want is to feel that electricity, that craziness that compels us to life changing decisions, it makes us brave, or does it make us stupid? It's a malaise in society that women watch films and seeing these beautiful crazy people fall madly in love and pledge their lives together, makes them expect prince charming. That's not how life works, life is a constantly eroding process; it'll grind away and you simply can't live in a fantasy land where love fixes everything, although culture seems to champion this kind of love. Blue Valentine takes great pleasure in taking that magical love which people plunge into regardless of the consequences and shows us the consequences six years down the line, it's almost a cautionary tale, something which is completely different to your average popcorn fodder, and it's incredibly hard to watch at times.
Perhaps seeing someone who isn't in love with Ryan Gosling is a confusing prospect to me, but his balding his head and his boyish charms seem to have taken their toll, he also has a drinking problem, and no ambition, so where does that leave poor Michelle Williams? Constantly embittered at being the core provider for her family, playing bad cop to her daughter, and being harried from a mediocre life as a bog standard nurse when she had so much potential in her youth. Magical love doesn't fix these problems, and the carefree creative and beautiful Ryan Gosling doesn't stay beautiful forever. As I say, it's a hard film to watch, but it's also fascinating as we watch the burgeoning and break down of this couple's relationship. Being young carefree and in love leads to so many regrets it would seem and it's only been a short time of six years and they have aged so much and become such different people. It's just so sad! And as I have mentioned somewhere else in this blog, sad films make me sad, but also happy, so go figure.
Obviously as in any film, broad strokes are applied, there are the crowd pleasing twee romantic scenes to hammer home how cute this indie couple are, but these characters through the direction of Derek Cianfrance and the amazing Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, bring them to life and present a heartbreaking realistic representation of a disintegrating love.
The Place Beyond the Pines
If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.
This is a film about fatherhood, but where Blue Valentine applied the rigours of reality to reckless love in order to tear it apart, the Place beyond the Pines is a much less focussed film, and it suffers from it's uncertainty in what it's trying to convey. Pines consists of three smaller vignettes which blur into one another with intersecting characters, but all have their own core characters and events, it's a much bigger wider story, but the stories seem disconnected because it's not clear, at least not to me, the purpose of three stories.
So whilst filming Blue Valentine, Ryan Gosling had a discussion with Derek Cianfrance in which he claimed he had an idea in which he could rob a bank and get away with it, the director came back to this and cast him in this film and obviously Gosling played out his plan (it's not a spoiler to say he robs a bank right?) So that's where the initial segment of the film came from, which is actually the most succinct of the three. Gosling is playing a motorbiking bad boy who travels with an amusement park, the start of the film has him pulling on his shirt after displaying his array of scrawled on tattoos, and as the titles roll it's quite a beautiful little segment following him through the crowds only seeing his back and watching him trot along; unfortunately there is no time for such calm delicate moments through the film as it continues with the action from there on, in fact it's a bit odd that my favourite part of the film happened before it actually began...
Gosling plays the bad boy with barely concealed rage issues, trying to do the right thing for his new found family, of course this leads to things going horribly wrong. Ryan Gosling is making a name for himself playing the action anti-hero and this specifically recalls Drive (even though his fashion sense in this film leaves a lot to be desired.) Some people were expecting the same film again, but where Drive was a violent gripping film, this was more considered and there was much less violence; so for those looking for a spiritual successor to Drive, you've come to the wrong place. I do love watching Ryan Gosling though, he takes great pleasure in playing characters that aren't pretty and applying a tenderness to them as well as a rage, it's impressive and interesting.
Unfortunately Ryan Gosling's section of the film is over too soon. There was a logic to his actions, his escalating desire to provide for his son and his position as a wandering soul means he has no anchor, nothing to lose apart, and he takes risks (by clearly robbing a bank if I hadn't made that clear enough) to do what he can, he's such a scarily beautiful mess...
Then Bradley Cooper takes over as a policeman with a moral quandary and a nagging wife and father. In this section the plot seems to unravel a little as we have Cooper tackling corrupt police officers, featuring Ray Liotta. I thought I understood Cooper's character's basic motivations, he wanted to do the right thing, to bring his son up in a world without such corruption and he is suffering from guilt, but then it became clear that his goals were more self serving than I first assumed and it put a bit of a dark slant on what I assumed were good intentions. Perhaps I wrinkle my nose as those who's goals are at their heart good but such people are also ambitious, I'm all for doing the right thing but that should a reward in itself, right? Once again Bradley Cooper is knocking it out of the park in his pledge to be a 'serious actor', combining this with his role in Silver Linings Playbook, he is showing everyone how good an actual actor he is, good for him!
The third section once again unravels slightly as it has even less of a clear motivation for it's core character, who is a teenage boy grappling with his disconnection from everybody else and falling into the wrong patterns. Dane DeHaan from last year's Chronicle takes the reigns here and I was pleasantly surprised and equally touched by how well his portrayal of Jason worked, all props to him, but once again his motivations are even cloudier than Cooper's as he seems outcast and lost and seems to appropriate this with his long gone father, even though he has a family and a father who raised him, he seems troubled and intrigued by the fact he doesn't know anything about his biological father. I have no idea how it must feel not to know an absent parent, but the story and the actions following through seem to facile to simply be about a young boy feeling hurt because he never knew his biological father. He's a sweet kid though, and the less said about Emory Cohen's character who strikes up a strained friendship with him, the better. Cohen sees his father making something of himself but seems happy to just cause bullshit and trouble, that just irked me.
What hurts most about this film is how hard-going it is, Blue Valentine inter-cut happier times of Gosling and Williams and their adorable flirtations and happy romance with their eroding bedrock of existence, but there is no joy to be had here; although there is a small cut of Ryan Gosling celebrating waving a dog around which I actually laughed out loud at... Otherwise it's just rough going, and slow, and tiring, and emotional and did I mention sad? And as each section makes less sense than the last it feels a lot longer than it probably was, I did look at my watch about three times. What did I take away from this film? Well, fatherhood isn't something that can be taken for granted, it's hard work, and it doesn't matter if you're there or not, your child will turn out to be a bit of a shit, congrats. Is it worth seeing? If you're a glutton for such punishment, sure.
*At least that's what the director stated in an interesting interview I read with him voicing his opinion.
Blue Valentine
You always hurt the one you love.
So, in theme with the fact that when I can't get out to the cinema, I revert to watching romance films, it's not easy going. I've always meant to get round to Blue Valentine, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams enacting a realistic dissolution of a magical Hollywood romance, along with Grizzly Bear presiding over musical responsibilities? Oh and Ryan Gosling played the ukulele. Grab the popcorn, I'm there. Except it took me about three years to get round to watching it.
Call me naive or insane, but the fireworks of an initial relationship is great and all but sometimes I'm just happier knowing my partner intimately, feeling safe and comfortable in his company and being able to be my disastrous idiotic self around him. The initial throes of any relationship are laced with uncertainty and many people love that, the electricity, the delirium, the fact that they are just starting to know one another, everything is beautiful, everything is perfect. In Like Crazy it was apparent the leads were trying to recapture those initial feelings of ecstasy unwilling to accept that their relationship had developed to a point where that was essentially gone.* Blue Valentine juxtaposes the crazy romance with the results six years down the line of diving head first into an everlasting love consequences be damned, specifically when it was flawed to begin with. It's an interesting film, it's different because let's be perfectly honest, you don't go into a Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams romance film with Grizzly Bear scoring a twee beautiful love story and see a balding Gosling get drunk and make a scene at William's hospital where she works as a nurse full time.
Sometimes all we want is to feel that electricity, that craziness that compels us to life changing decisions, it makes us brave, or does it make us stupid? It's a malaise in society that women watch films and seeing these beautiful crazy people fall madly in love and pledge their lives together, makes them expect prince charming. That's not how life works, life is a constantly eroding process; it'll grind away and you simply can't live in a fantasy land where love fixes everything, although culture seems to champion this kind of love. Blue Valentine takes great pleasure in taking that magical love which people plunge into regardless of the consequences and shows us the consequences six years down the line, it's almost a cautionary tale, something which is completely different to your average popcorn fodder, and it's incredibly hard to watch at times.
Perhaps seeing someone who isn't in love with Ryan Gosling is a confusing prospect to me, but his balding his head and his boyish charms seem to have taken their toll, he also has a drinking problem, and no ambition, so where does that leave poor Michelle Williams? Constantly embittered at being the core provider for her family, playing bad cop to her daughter, and being harried from a mediocre life as a bog standard nurse when she had so much potential in her youth. Magical love doesn't fix these problems, and the carefree creative and beautiful Ryan Gosling doesn't stay beautiful forever. As I say, it's a hard film to watch, but it's also fascinating as we watch the burgeoning and break down of this couple's relationship. Being young carefree and in love leads to so many regrets it would seem and it's only been a short time of six years and they have aged so much and become such different people. It's just so sad! And as I have mentioned somewhere else in this blog, sad films make me sad, but also happy, so go figure.
Obviously as in any film, broad strokes are applied, there are the crowd pleasing twee romantic scenes to hammer home how cute this indie couple are, but these characters through the direction of Derek Cianfrance and the amazing Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, bring them to life and present a heartbreaking realistic representation of a disintegrating love.
The Place Beyond the Pines
If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.
This is a film about fatherhood, but where Blue Valentine applied the rigours of reality to reckless love in order to tear it apart, the Place beyond the Pines is a much less focussed film, and it suffers from it's uncertainty in what it's trying to convey. Pines consists of three smaller vignettes which blur into one another with intersecting characters, but all have their own core characters and events, it's a much bigger wider story, but the stories seem disconnected because it's not clear, at least not to me, the purpose of three stories.
So whilst filming Blue Valentine, Ryan Gosling had a discussion with Derek Cianfrance in which he claimed he had an idea in which he could rob a bank and get away with it, the director came back to this and cast him in this film and obviously Gosling played out his plan (it's not a spoiler to say he robs a bank right?) So that's where the initial segment of the film came from, which is actually the most succinct of the three. Gosling is playing a motorbiking bad boy who travels with an amusement park, the start of the film has him pulling on his shirt after displaying his array of scrawled on tattoos, and as the titles roll it's quite a beautiful little segment following him through the crowds only seeing his back and watching him trot along; unfortunately there is no time for such calm delicate moments through the film as it continues with the action from there on, in fact it's a bit odd that my favourite part of the film happened before it actually began...
Gosling plays the bad boy with barely concealed rage issues, trying to do the right thing for his new found family, of course this leads to things going horribly wrong. Ryan Gosling is making a name for himself playing the action anti-hero and this specifically recalls Drive (even though his fashion sense in this film leaves a lot to be desired.) Some people were expecting the same film again, but where Drive was a violent gripping film, this was more considered and there was much less violence; so for those looking for a spiritual successor to Drive, you've come to the wrong place. I do love watching Ryan Gosling though, he takes great pleasure in playing characters that aren't pretty and applying a tenderness to them as well as a rage, it's impressive and interesting.
Unfortunately Ryan Gosling's section of the film is over too soon. There was a logic to his actions, his escalating desire to provide for his son and his position as a wandering soul means he has no anchor, nothing to lose apart, and he takes risks (by clearly robbing a bank if I hadn't made that clear enough) to do what he can, he's such a scarily beautiful mess...
Then Bradley Cooper takes over as a policeman with a moral quandary and a nagging wife and father. In this section the plot seems to unravel a little as we have Cooper tackling corrupt police officers, featuring Ray Liotta. I thought I understood Cooper's character's basic motivations, he wanted to do the right thing, to bring his son up in a world without such corruption and he is suffering from guilt, but then it became clear that his goals were more self serving than I first assumed and it put a bit of a dark slant on what I assumed were good intentions. Perhaps I wrinkle my nose as those who's goals are at their heart good but such people are also ambitious, I'm all for doing the right thing but that should a reward in itself, right? Once again Bradley Cooper is knocking it out of the park in his pledge to be a 'serious actor', combining this with his role in Silver Linings Playbook, he is showing everyone how good an actual actor he is, good for him!
The third section once again unravels slightly as it has even less of a clear motivation for it's core character, who is a teenage boy grappling with his disconnection from everybody else and falling into the wrong patterns. Dane DeHaan from last year's Chronicle takes the reigns here and I was pleasantly surprised and equally touched by how well his portrayal of Jason worked, all props to him, but once again his motivations are even cloudier than Cooper's as he seems outcast and lost and seems to appropriate this with his long gone father, even though he has a family and a father who raised him, he seems troubled and intrigued by the fact he doesn't know anything about his biological father. I have no idea how it must feel not to know an absent parent, but the story and the actions following through seem to facile to simply be about a young boy feeling hurt because he never knew his biological father. He's a sweet kid though, and the less said about Emory Cohen's character who strikes up a strained friendship with him, the better. Cohen sees his father making something of himself but seems happy to just cause bullshit and trouble, that just irked me.
What hurts most about this film is how hard-going it is, Blue Valentine inter-cut happier times of Gosling and Williams and their adorable flirtations and happy romance with their eroding bedrock of existence, but there is no joy to be had here; although there is a small cut of Ryan Gosling celebrating waving a dog around which I actually laughed out loud at... Otherwise it's just rough going, and slow, and tiring, and emotional and did I mention sad? And as each section makes less sense than the last it feels a lot longer than it probably was, I did look at my watch about three times. What did I take away from this film? Well, fatherhood isn't something that can be taken for granted, it's hard work, and it doesn't matter if you're there or not, your child will turn out to be a bit of a shit, congrats. Is it worth seeing? If you're a glutton for such punishment, sure.
*At least that's what the director stated in an interesting interview I read with him voicing his opinion.
Thursday 2 May 2013
The Look of Love
This is not a comedy. It has Steve Coogan in it, yes, it also has Chris Addison (of the The Thick of It fame) and it seems to be something that could grind a few laughs out, hell even Stephen Fry turns up in a judge wig in a completely non ironic manner. It's about Paul Raymond a chap who seems to have some unwavering belief that people will pay good money to see woman in various states of undress, it follows him as he proceeds to excel through life with various ventures which all involve some degree of female nudity. It's also a true story, just to add a stomach curdling awkwardness to the events playing out, you literally can't believe the events going on but you have to remind yourself it all happened in reality too.
My first complaint? Uhmmm for a film, which I aptly described as 60% boob as I left the cinema, where the hell is the male nudity? Fine, I know Paul Raymond specialises in female nudity but the film could even the books a little bit. Perhaps my version of reality demanding equality for both sexes is skewed, no one wants to see naked men, well, we get to see naked Steve Coogan, but is he full frontal? And most importantly did I want to see naked Steve Coogan? Not so much... Is this an ongoing issue for me? Why is that I've only seen Michael Fassbender and Mark Walhberg's genitals but it seems that female actresses are somewhat expected to get naked all the fricking time? I mean, come on, even the bloody Full Monty chickened out! Blah, feminist rant over, maybe I just don't watch films with full frontal male nudity enough, porn aside, I don't think there are that many...
The Look of Love spends so much time showing us naked women, in a way you become desensitised to the female form, as the film wears on it actually becomes boring, the novelty wears off quite quickly. Of course, I'm not naive enough to ignore that this is a blatant expression of Raymond's life, he can kid himself into believing that excessive drug use, partying and naked women may seem like a whole lot of fun but it wears on us all, including his two wives and even his daughter as they all part from him in one way or another. This life isn't sustainable, it can't last forever and that's what the film is desperately trying to plug into our skulls, endless fun and debauchery always ends badly, because it has no anchor to reality; there are consequences to our actions, there are risks that such a lifestyle inflicts. Paul Raymond lives his life ignoring the dangers and the consequences and plunges forward into ever more shocking and jaw dropping pursuits, because shock and awe sells, as do naked women and sex and thus he becomes a pornographer and keeps on going, because... Well he's happy with the way things are, as long as he is having fun, even though everything else around him fades away.
I wrote a long essay about happiness the other day, it wasn't a well structured thing, it was just a rambling mess, but my core reasoning was that happiness is usually the strongest motivation in life; if something produces happiness you do it, once it runs out, you stop. Happiness is such a blunt emotion, it claps you across the face with a smile, a feeling of elation, it's like a drug. We're always looking for happiness, it dictates how we live our lives, because that's all we are looking for, and happiness usually comes from familiarity and comfort. If we know what makes us happy we keep going back to that font for constant refills, and sometimes it's hard to acknowledge when that which once made us happy doesn't have that same effect any more. Paul Raymond watches his life crash around him but he doesn't change his ways because he believes that endless partying, women and drugs make him happy and he continues with this because what else is there? It's a shallow lifestyle but the most shallow of people are the happiest.
Does this sound funny? There is some dark humour plumbed from drug use, and ex-wives and the hilarity of people discussing the insanity around them in such withered ways? There are some pithy one liners thrown in and a couple of ad-libs which are worth a chuckle but this is just a long and frankly sad film. We are immediately given evidence at the start of the film that things don't work out for Raymond's daughter Debbie, and as the film goes to great lengths to develop their relationship the end doesn't really shock or surprise anyone, it's almost a movie cliché to present the denouement at the start of the film and it doesn't nothing to make this film any better; as it is a biopic for those interested they would know the bare bones of the story to start, but for the casual viewer wouldn't it have more impact to surprise them instead of prepare them for this obvious inevitability? Well that's my opinion on that.
It's so hard to look at the broken man at the end of the film because he's such an intensely loathsome person; but then he has nothing particularly redeeming or interesting about him. He tells a few jokes and the women fall over themselves for his money and fame but he's not actually very interesting, I would go as far as to say that Paul Raymond, as a man is pretty boring, I thought there had to be some angle his second wife was playing because, let's be completely honest, why would someone so dazzling fall for him? You know, apart from the obvious, fame, money, power... But then she failed to actually be anything more than a jolly lover and a bit rude and able to further his magazine; it's a shame because her motivations and anything that might have made her a character were stripped away and all we had was a pretty face. In fact the most interesting character was his poor daughter and that was because it I found it intriguing to watch the lifestyle she had been born into inevitably destroy her, and she's such a delicate sweet girl to start with underneath all the bluster.
So from what I've gathered after ranting for this long, is that I didn't actually think much of this film. In fact it wasn't that great, apart from the ending which I found quite pleasantly sad (I like sad films...) it just wasn't something I enjoyed. Plus any day where I get bored of staring at bare breasts is certainly an odd one.
My first complaint? Uhmmm for a film, which I aptly described as 60% boob as I left the cinema, where the hell is the male nudity? Fine, I know Paul Raymond specialises in female nudity but the film could even the books a little bit. Perhaps my version of reality demanding equality for both sexes is skewed, no one wants to see naked men, well, we get to see naked Steve Coogan, but is he full frontal? And most importantly did I want to see naked Steve Coogan? Not so much... Is this an ongoing issue for me? Why is that I've only seen Michael Fassbender and Mark Walhberg's genitals but it seems that female actresses are somewhat expected to get naked all the fricking time? I mean, come on, even the bloody Full Monty chickened out! Blah, feminist rant over, maybe I just don't watch films with full frontal male nudity enough, porn aside, I don't think there are that many...
The Look of Love spends so much time showing us naked women, in a way you become desensitised to the female form, as the film wears on it actually becomes boring, the novelty wears off quite quickly. Of course, I'm not naive enough to ignore that this is a blatant expression of Raymond's life, he can kid himself into believing that excessive drug use, partying and naked women may seem like a whole lot of fun but it wears on us all, including his two wives and even his daughter as they all part from him in one way or another. This life isn't sustainable, it can't last forever and that's what the film is desperately trying to plug into our skulls, endless fun and debauchery always ends badly, because it has no anchor to reality; there are consequences to our actions, there are risks that such a lifestyle inflicts. Paul Raymond lives his life ignoring the dangers and the consequences and plunges forward into ever more shocking and jaw dropping pursuits, because shock and awe sells, as do naked women and sex and thus he becomes a pornographer and keeps on going, because... Well he's happy with the way things are, as long as he is having fun, even though everything else around him fades away.
I wrote a long essay about happiness the other day, it wasn't a well structured thing, it was just a rambling mess, but my core reasoning was that happiness is usually the strongest motivation in life; if something produces happiness you do it, once it runs out, you stop. Happiness is such a blunt emotion, it claps you across the face with a smile, a feeling of elation, it's like a drug. We're always looking for happiness, it dictates how we live our lives, because that's all we are looking for, and happiness usually comes from familiarity and comfort. If we know what makes us happy we keep going back to that font for constant refills, and sometimes it's hard to acknowledge when that which once made us happy doesn't have that same effect any more. Paul Raymond watches his life crash around him but he doesn't change his ways because he believes that endless partying, women and drugs make him happy and he continues with this because what else is there? It's a shallow lifestyle but the most shallow of people are the happiest.
Does this sound funny? There is some dark humour plumbed from drug use, and ex-wives and the hilarity of people discussing the insanity around them in such withered ways? There are some pithy one liners thrown in and a couple of ad-libs which are worth a chuckle but this is just a long and frankly sad film. We are immediately given evidence at the start of the film that things don't work out for Raymond's daughter Debbie, and as the film goes to great lengths to develop their relationship the end doesn't really shock or surprise anyone, it's almost a movie cliché to present the denouement at the start of the film and it doesn't nothing to make this film any better; as it is a biopic for those interested they would know the bare bones of the story to start, but for the casual viewer wouldn't it have more impact to surprise them instead of prepare them for this obvious inevitability? Well that's my opinion on that.
It's so hard to look at the broken man at the end of the film because he's such an intensely loathsome person; but then he has nothing particularly redeeming or interesting about him. He tells a few jokes and the women fall over themselves for his money and fame but he's not actually very interesting, I would go as far as to say that Paul Raymond, as a man is pretty boring, I thought there had to be some angle his second wife was playing because, let's be completely honest, why would someone so dazzling fall for him? You know, apart from the obvious, fame, money, power... But then she failed to actually be anything more than a jolly lover and a bit rude and able to further his magazine; it's a shame because her motivations and anything that might have made her a character were stripped away and all we had was a pretty face. In fact the most interesting character was his poor daughter and that was because it I found it intriguing to watch the lifestyle she had been born into inevitably destroy her, and she's such a delicate sweet girl to start with underneath all the bluster.
So from what I've gathered after ranting for this long, is that I didn't actually think much of this film. In fact it wasn't that great, apart from the ending which I found quite pleasantly sad (I like sad films...) it just wasn't something I enjoyed. Plus any day where I get bored of staring at bare breasts is certainly an odd one.
Wednesday 1 May 2013
Iron Man 3
Iron Man was a decent enough film, Iron Man 2 was a terrible mess of a film, it's seems that a new direction was being taken with Iron Man 3, they wanted a suitably convincing and threatening villain, and they also wanted a thrill ride adventure with some character development thrown in for good measure, and that's basically what all any comic book film aims to achieve in this day and age. Did Iron Man 3 succeed? Yes. But did that mean I actually liked it? Uh well... If I had anything reasonable to say, it was basically just another Iron Man film, it wasn't above and beyond any expectations I had for it and it wasn't boring so there's that. I didn't love it, but as I now work at a restaurant in a cinema, it's my aim to drum up people's excitements for our features, and my main go to point is, it's way better than the second one which seems more than praise enough as a fair few people thought the second one was actually alright.
So Robert Downey Jr is, as ever, embodying the role of billionaire, genius, philanthropist and superhero. It seems that the events of the big Avengers film are affecting Tony Stark for the worse, he can't seem to sleep or stop building new iron suits to play with. Plus we have nice scene of him working out how to make his suit shoot in parts onto his body. Now this is something which immediately demands a suspension of disbelief as, well how does that work really? Science, clearly. But they use the mechanism to good effect through the film so I'll let it off, I've been roaming the interwebs and it would seem this is something from the comics so it works I suppose... Anyways, he's dealing with his emotions in a very Tony Stark way, which is basically being a bit of a dickhead and refusing to discuss his issues with anyone, instead choosing to immerse himself in his own devices. Fortunately there's a global terrorist, uhm terrorising the world, therefore it's up to Tony to get in there and ruffle some feathers. Why? Because he's Tony Stark and... Well he's in a bit of a bad mood.
To be honest, the plot is pretty standard. It does it's utmost to isolate Stark from the action and throw him in a situation where he doesn't have his toys or his suit to help him out, just his own balls and genius and a plucky Hollywood kid. Oddly enough Hollywood kid and Stark's interactions are among my favourite parts of the film, largely because I appreciate human interaction in which there is a familiarity between characters in which they aren't afraid to be cruel to one another, as it's all in jest. Plus the Hollywood kid has sass so I'll let them off. Apart from that the big action sequences are... big and explosive, there are shocks and thrills and spills and but for all the cleverness behind the technology they are also extremely predictable. Another non-flashy part of the film I found brilliant was the use of the amazing Ben Kingsley, a performance that has to be seen to be believed, but he definitely stole every scene he was in and thus, my favourite parts of the film was when nothing was getting blown to shit. And make no mistake, there are more than enough explosions in this film to keep pyromaniacs extremely satisfied, in fact it takes up at least two thirds of the film; which makes sense as it's a big Hollywood blockbuster film, go figure.
What irritated me, rather than shocked me, was the criminally underused Rebecca Hall, the more I see of her the more I respect her as an actress (she was simply dazzling in Tom Stoppard's BBC adaptation of Parade's End) but she just seemed a stock femme fatale/scientist in this film. Sure Gwyneth Paltrow has plenty to do in this film but given the choice I'd much rather see Hall act her off the screen... Alas this is not my moment to rage about the way females are treated in big budget films. And hey, if femme fatale/scientist is a stock character in Hollywood films then I shouldn't complain... Right?
I will commend the film for one thing, and that's progressing Tony Stark's story. Most films of this ilk are quite happy to plod through two hours and for the characters to worm their way pretty much back to where they started in order to refresh for the next instalment. Iron Man 3 nudges the over-arcing story of Tony Stark forward ever so slightly, just enough that we feel he might actually be a better person for it... Of course this will leave him refreshed for Avengers 2 or Iron Man 4 but I was quite happy to see things moving.
Perhaps I had something more to say but it's been a week since I started this damn thing and I literally can't think of anything else worth saying. If it's not obvious, my perfectly succinct opinion is, it's just another Iron Man film, completely forgettable, moderately enjoyable and literally nothing to get excited about. But by all means go right ahead and go for it.
So Robert Downey Jr is, as ever, embodying the role of billionaire, genius, philanthropist and superhero. It seems that the events of the big Avengers film are affecting Tony Stark for the worse, he can't seem to sleep or stop building new iron suits to play with. Plus we have nice scene of him working out how to make his suit shoot in parts onto his body. Now this is something which immediately demands a suspension of disbelief as, well how does that work really? Science, clearly. But they use the mechanism to good effect through the film so I'll let it off, I've been roaming the interwebs and it would seem this is something from the comics so it works I suppose... Anyways, he's dealing with his emotions in a very Tony Stark way, which is basically being a bit of a dickhead and refusing to discuss his issues with anyone, instead choosing to immerse himself in his own devices. Fortunately there's a global terrorist, uhm terrorising the world, therefore it's up to Tony to get in there and ruffle some feathers. Why? Because he's Tony Stark and... Well he's in a bit of a bad mood.
To be honest, the plot is pretty standard. It does it's utmost to isolate Stark from the action and throw him in a situation where he doesn't have his toys or his suit to help him out, just his own balls and genius and a plucky Hollywood kid. Oddly enough Hollywood kid and Stark's interactions are among my favourite parts of the film, largely because I appreciate human interaction in which there is a familiarity between characters in which they aren't afraid to be cruel to one another, as it's all in jest. Plus the Hollywood kid has sass so I'll let them off. Apart from that the big action sequences are... big and explosive, there are shocks and thrills and spills and but for all the cleverness behind the technology they are also extremely predictable. Another non-flashy part of the film I found brilliant was the use of the amazing Ben Kingsley, a performance that has to be seen to be believed, but he definitely stole every scene he was in and thus, my favourite parts of the film was when nothing was getting blown to shit. And make no mistake, there are more than enough explosions in this film to keep pyromaniacs extremely satisfied, in fact it takes up at least two thirds of the film; which makes sense as it's a big Hollywood blockbuster film, go figure.
What irritated me, rather than shocked me, was the criminally underused Rebecca Hall, the more I see of her the more I respect her as an actress (she was simply dazzling in Tom Stoppard's BBC adaptation of Parade's End) but she just seemed a stock femme fatale/scientist in this film. Sure Gwyneth Paltrow has plenty to do in this film but given the choice I'd much rather see Hall act her off the screen... Alas this is not my moment to rage about the way females are treated in big budget films. And hey, if femme fatale/scientist is a stock character in Hollywood films then I shouldn't complain... Right?
I will commend the film for one thing, and that's progressing Tony Stark's story. Most films of this ilk are quite happy to plod through two hours and for the characters to worm their way pretty much back to where they started in order to refresh for the next instalment. Iron Man 3 nudges the over-arcing story of Tony Stark forward ever so slightly, just enough that we feel he might actually be a better person for it... Of course this will leave him refreshed for Avengers 2 or Iron Man 4 but I was quite happy to see things moving.
Perhaps I had something more to say but it's been a week since I started this damn thing and I literally can't think of anything else worth saying. If it's not obvious, my perfectly succinct opinion is, it's just another Iron Man film, completely forgettable, moderately enjoyable and literally nothing to get excited about. But by all means go right ahead and go for it.
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