The Zero Theorem (2013) – Dir: Terry Gilliam (Monty Python, The Fisher King)

Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) is Qohen (pronounced Ko-en) Leth, his boss the interesting nerd, Joby (David Thewlis) often mispronounces Qohen’s name, calling him Quinn. Joby is angsty and anxiety-ridden, he’s a little bit crazy.

Thewlis’s Joby lacks presence. He doesn’t really follow through with the character. Joby is an administrator, an overseer of the IT talent – mainly because he burnt out as a coder when they put him on the big project. So he’s nuts, but other than being a bit nervy there’s nothing specific about his illness – which is the most developed trait of his character. It leaves one wondering why, knowing the actor has the talent to portray a character well, and express his well-drawn persona without expositional dialogue, simply by becoming that character. Why there wasn’t a finished character figured out for Thewlis to express.

Qohen is a hypochondriac and suffers severe social phobia. He doesn’t like people. A piece of his character which somewhat assassinates our feelings of sympathy, empathy, etc. is when he reveals that he used to drink, do drugs, sleep with lots of women – in short he used to be cool. This makes him more monastic than pathetic, and he’s not all that devout so the monk thing doesn’t work for him, either (it doesn’t fit with his personality; it’s not genuine.) So where does that leave Qohen, this man we are starting to care about?

He’s not that pathetic, he is abstaining by choice, so we don’t feel sorry for him. He does suffer social phobia, but when he gets set up to work from home this is no longer a problem, and he owns his own home – an old church.

He meets a girl who we don’t trust, is she on the boss’s dollar? It seems too obvious that she just happens to be throwing herself at our socially-stunted techno-monk, at a time where his performance puts him miles ahead of the curve, yet his health concerns are a concern for his bosses.

They want Qohen to be happy, not because they care, but because a happy worker is a productive worker. Qohen doesn’t feel challenged by his work. He does feel entitled to a little bending of the system, so that he can be more comfortable and get more work done.

So management (Matt Damon) decide to put Qohen on the big project (the one that turned Joby crazy – though Gilliam doesn’t really sell the crazy with specifics or depth.) They don’t tell Qohen what the project is, (he doesn’t care – it’s all code to him,) they just introduce him to his new system which is all designed around him, designed to support him and keep him happy and working.

Qohen’s story is fun and interesting. The world of this film is a bit less than imaginative, a little derivative. The real problem is with our protagonist – we don’t understand him. As a result we don’t care about him. If we knew from the beginning that Qohen is a guy struggling with social phobia, who used to be cool, but has given up everything fun and as a result he is a bit creepy and doesn’t know how to talk to people – this would be a start.

He doesn’t like people. But you don’t forget something like that. If he used to be cool and popular as plastic and superficial as that is, then he still knows how to be. The problem with this character is that all those conflicts and confusions are an interesting setup for a character. Finding answers to those questions, or figuring out where those arguments and puzzles lead would make for an interesting part of the story and a fully deep character. However, instead it's all setup, no payoff.

The most annoying factor of this film, besides half-drawn characters is that this giant philosophical rant that the film is supposed to be about is scripted into boring, irrelevant, expositional dialogue.

The nice thing is the twist at the end, this with better characters could have been a really deep, personal and interesting ending. However, instead, it simply feels like Qohen made a bad choice and it’s a tragic romance – but it wasn’t supposed to be.

The ending is horrible because the character is only half-developed. Everything is a weight resting on the shoulders of Qohen – Waltz plays silly rather than sincere, and instead of performing this character – he talks about himself. As much fun as monologues can be, this is a semi-written, badly performed monologue which hides expositional dialogue and pretends to be a scifi/fantasy film.

2 stars

American Sniper (2014) – Dir: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Unforgiven)

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) and his brother are cowboys from Texas. They like to fight, drink and chase women. Chris considers himself a patriot and when his life as a cowboy seems aimless, he notices the war on the news and decides that’s a cause he can get involved in. He’s thirty years old and ready to start basic training as a Navy Seal. His brother follows him into it.

Chris is a strong Texan stereotype – it’s a role he’s fallen into, partly because it’s a stereotype that he likes, but he’s also the strong, quiet, sensitive man. He meets Taya (Sienna Miller) in a pub and holds her hair back while she vomits. They bond over the experience. They get married and soon after, Chris ships off to Iraq ready to join the war.

Like many war movies, especially a lot of modern ones, few of the characters beside our protagonist are alive long enough, or interesting as individuals, to tell the difference between them. A few just barely stand out:

Biggles (Jake McDorman) is friends with Chris from early on, the actor displays a lot of personality, but there isn’t much of a unique history, or development. And he gets taken out after being on screen for only a short time and loses his sight.

Marc (Jake McDorman) benefits from a few more details as a person, but gets so little screen time that the emotion to sell the character is pushing a rock uphill.

D (Cory Hardrict) is one of the last left standing (yet the least developed of the three memorable-ish characters,) when Chris finally feels like he’s achieved his mission so he can quit the war on his terms.

Each of the other times Chris returns home, he is just killing time until he gets to go back. He struggles when he is sent home, because his mind thinks he’s still at war, every situation is a high pressure, life or death decision and as a result his health is suffering.

However, American Sniper is one of the better films of its type in this way, because while the focus is on the shock his experiences and tough choices/actions have on his mortal mind and on how he struggles to reinsert himself into civilised life when he returns from the war, Chris aka The Legend is a strong character, an emotionally complex character.

As Chris takes out bad guy after bad guy, his reputation and his prestige/command builds and improves within the military – the effects of this include an increase in control over his choices, a freedom of movement and higher priority targets.

There isn’t much time to spend on Chris’s emotional plot as the main story is already fairly complicated with his role as a sniper, the complexity of missions and choices in the war and his struggle with civilian life.

I enjoyed this movie as a war movie with something slightly more unique than the rest. It could have been explored more psychologically, or as an adventure story been made more exciting. I felt it was an average intellectual and emotional story about one man’s struggle against experiences that the audience needs to understand, in order to understand the man.

As an intellectual story it wasn’t very intellectual. As an adventure story it wasn’t smart enough. As an emotional story the characters weren’t very deep so the emotion had little to play off.

I think Cooper however, did an excellent job of portraying the emotional plot – which was strong enough, that one could get something out of this film despite its shortcomings. It does feel a bit morally superior like a bad TV movie.

The payoff for the emotional plot is the fact that it’s based on a true story and Chris eventually does seek help and return to his family so he can begin to live life, his mission over.

2.5 stars

Living on One Dollar (2013) - Dir: Ryan Christoffersen and Zach Ingrasci

What would life be like if you had to survive on one dollar per day as your only income? Four middle class, suburban, male, college students travel to a small rural village in Guatemala, called Pena Blanca, to try and answer this question. And also what would it be like to explore that world having come from a life that is so different, so privileged by comparison?

In a similar approach to Freakanomics  and Gang Leader for A Day, these young men find that a real life approach to a real life problem – social economics far below the poverty line, bears much more fruit than the books they’re studying.

Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple having studied the economics of specific cultures and global economic problems, they decide to try and make a significant difference by taking the problem seriously; they challenge themselves to stay in rural Guatemala for 56 days and attempt to survive the same way the locals are forced to, as locals lack an alternative.

They live on one dollar a day as their only income. Further, one intriguing point about their experiment is that locals don’t always know how much if anything they are going to earn on any one day. So the boys decide to pull a random number from a hat $0-9, which decides their income for that period.

They bring with them two filmmakers: Ryan Christoffersen and Sean Leonard. And the four of them for their time spent, consistently sway between trying desperately to survive, while learning tools from the locals – as well as offering their own tools to those in need. And on the other side of the scale, trying to be genuine with their experiment. If they don’t discover some answers to their questions, it may be because they are not approaching the topic accurately/honestly. And at a vital point they find that they could do more, they re-establish their process. We start to discover what this all means.

Besides the experiment, some of the most useful activities inside the film project are the interviews with the people they meet. They learn what it really does mean to survive in abject poverty. They also learn the difference between an experiment and the lives of the real people who have no choice but to live with it, and who can’t go home afterwards.

Through this journey we meet the young Chino whose family can’t afford to send him to school, but he is bright and optimistic, full of energy and wishes to learn Spanish and English. His dream is to play pro soccer, but he has decided that he will be a farmer. At just twelve years old he has resigned himself to the stark reality of life in his world. And yet you’ll rarely see him not smiling.

Anthony and Rosa, with a full family of their own at 20 years old and barely more than that for Anthony, they count themselves lucky because Anthony is one of the few people who live in this community who has an official job. He is a cleaner.

We meet a local woman who wishes to become a nurse, but can’t afford to go to school. Her family couldn't afford to send her to school when she was a child, so she works on the farm.

The key to the success of the people here are the institutions that have been built to provide micro-loans – just about the only way for these people to work out solutions to move forward with their lives, instead of every day digging a deeper hole in the mud. The ordinary bank loan system here is simply not an option.

The experiment these four boys document is intriguing, interesting and emotional. However, it feels like only one small part of the story.

2.5 stars

Top Five (2014) - Dir: Chris Rock (I Think I Love My Wife)

In this charmingly dull attempt at a subversion of the romantic comedy – we find a story that is neither funny, nor a genuine reflection of love – it is about a comedian, but it is a sad, boring film and though it does take the formula of the romance film and copy and paste structurally onto the screen, all there is to the subversive attempt is to cut off the ending.

The opening sequence of Tropic Thunder (as terrible in its cringe humour, as it is,) more thoroughly explores the themes that this film fails to do in its entire 102 minutes.

Chris Rock is Andre Allen, a successful comedy actor who got his start as a stand-up comedian. He publicly declares that he’s done doing funny movies, after a terrible popcorn trash movie, Hammy the Bear and its many sequels, loved by morons – who at last are the majority.

Some think that he’s tired of making crap films. The truth is he wants to be a serious actor because he doesn’t think he’s funny anymore, now that he's sober.

His first attempt at being a serious actor fails miserably – a film about the uprising of slaves who murder a LOT of white people. Nobody wants to see Allen not being funny.

The core of this story is Allen being interviewed by a (very attractive) New York Times reporter (Rosario Dawson.) Allen doesn’t like reporters, but she promises to do right by him if he gives her some honest answers.

Both the reporter and Allen are alcoholics in recovery – not surprisingly this topic is not explored beyond the surface details that are well known and boring in their lack of insight/depth.

Chris Rock is playing himself, but none of his lines leave any real impact. The interview might be a great puff piece, but the questions and answers are relatively without gravity.

This film expresses nothing very well. It might try to tell a story about a guy who forgets why he loves his work. But if that’s what this film is supposed to be about, then I could let everything else go, to express that sentiment powerfully. It doesn’t. I hated Funny People (2009) but at least there was an attempt there at exploring something, although it covered a lot of the same ground.

Allen is due to be married in the morning to a vapid reality tv star. But he is falling in love with the reporter, (I'm not feeling it, either.) Will the reporter and Allen throw caution to the wind and get together? I don’t know. Do we care? No.

The guy isn’t emotionally invested in the wedding. Is this a natural guy thing? Maybe. But when Chris Rock throws a few lines about it, I don’t believe him – and you’d think being a stand-up he’d be able to rant convincingly on a topic he cares about. We’ve seen him do this plenty of times in comedy shows.

Why does he think a film doesn’t require effective expression? Why does he think when he writes the script and performs the part, that his samey same tried and true so-called story means he can’t effectively express something – an emotion, an idea, a joke, an opinion?

It isn't explicitly stated in the film, but 'top five' refers to your top five favourite rappers. Mine are Rhett and Link, Eminem, Scribe, Savage, Ice T.

0 stars

Last Days Here (2011) - Dir: Demian Fenton and Don Argott

The title remarks upon a 54 year old crack and heroin addict who appears to be on his last legs. Robert Liebling is a fading rock star, who never had his big moment. Pentagram was a heavy metal band described as a street version of Black Sabbath. Liebling was their singer. Despite being an extremely powerful performer and artist – which becomes apparent to all who witness him on stage or on listening to one of his band’s albums, he was also the band’s undoing.

When we first meet Liebling it’s not quite a pathetic picture. It ticks all the boxes for pathetic. An aging child (Peter Pan syndrome,) with no skills or experience to progress him in the job market. No money, drug addict, still living in his parent’s basement. But there is more to Liebling than this position that he has found himself in. He is driven and he is an addict. If he can succeed and if he can kick it, he could be more than what we see. He’s far more interesting and vital as a person than what is granted the title of pathetic loser.

Liebling was unreliable as a performer due mostly to his drug habit. He was disrespectful when others would be cautious. He was a red hot ball of rage, sex, drugs and rock and roll. An artist with integrity; never willing to compromise. That is only part of the reason that their big breaks failed to deliver a rise to fame.

Pentagram did draw a loyal following in the 70’s but the live shows were all disasters – Liebling made sure of that. A fan (Sean Pelletier) who befriended Liebling, believes in him and spends most of the film trying to give Pentagram one last shot at getting a great record made and sold.

This story is a tragedy of what drugs can do to a man. How hard it can be to pick yourself up off the floor. How some semblance of life as an individual, a routine, interaction with society, being productive – can be important, as a way to move forward. For Liebling it’s all about the music, but the other half of his mind responds to this with - Yes, but it’s also all about the woman. And all about the drugs. Not necessarily in that order.

With the importance of this band to the heavy metal genre, it seems like a missed opportunity that this hasn’t equated to record sales. In the film we are introduced to Down’s Phil Anselmo – formerly of Pantera; one of the most successful heavy metal bands of the new age (80's-00s). He approaches Liebling with a genuine offer to make a great record, if he can stay out of trouble and follow through.

Much of the focus of the film seems to be the question – Will Liebling pull it together long enough for one last shot at greatness. Liebling's friend and manager, Pelletier guides most of the interview questions, so it doesn't get deep and probing. The relationship with Liebling's new girlfriend, halfway through the film is barely brushed over. We only know what effect she has on him – giving him a reason to quit drugs, making him feel alive and really start doing something with his life and eventually driving him half crazy.

She gets a restraining order against him, which he ignores and ends up doing jail time. Pelletier puts forward the argument that maybe for right now, this is a good thing. Because instead of being off trying to kill himself with drugs, he's recuperating in a cell.


2.5 stars

A Dangerous Method (2011) – Dir: David Cronenberg (eXistenZ, The Fly)

Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) is mentored by Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) to attempt to study and practice an experimental medical approach called talking therapy. He tries it out on a serious patient, Sabina (Keira Knightly.) She has physical tics and jerks, irrational reactions to the smallest things. When she is committed to the hospital in the beginning - she won’t stop screaming, fighting, struggling, freaking out and laughing hysterically, for the whole trip that we see.

When Jung begins to interview her, she appears to calm down. Her reactions are physical in the jaw, stutters – drawn out and emotionally stretching. She suffers anxiety and at first it’s unclear what else she suffers from. When Jung reaches tough subjects, she is open and honest with him – which surprised me. Perhaps doctors were more trusted back then, even by those suffering paranoid delusions and physically affecting emotional spasms.

When he hits a sore point, she seems to react with fear, with what I thought was the need to urinate or defecate. In fact what she feels is a desperate need to masturbate – and the humiliation related to the fits (and sexually deviant reasons for them) that this brings forth. She is overcome by erotic impulses.

The music and the cinematography are suspenseful and deliberate, but the film is not a thriller; more of an eerie drama about sex and therapy.

The more often she meets with Jung to discuss her problems, the more she appears to heal - towards feeling and being well. Jung also tries to look into what positive social outcomes she could attain; where her interests lie, and therefore what kind of work she might pursue.

She wants to be a therapist, (though I believe the term if it does at this time exist, is still in its infancy,) like Jung. In order to help her, he enables her to assist him on some of his experiments and she proves to be a particularly insightful trainee.

Freud (who believes that all mental illness is sexual in nature) prescribes a friend to Jung’s care. Freud’s friend Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) is something of a sexual anarchist. He encourages Jung to pursue his private desires to cheat on his wife with his patient Sabina. It becomes blurry which of them is in fact receiving the analysis, Jung or Gross.

Jung finally gives in to the carnal pleasures of Sabina who it seems is in love with Jung. He is her first. The wife (Sarah Gadon) is an unfortunate victim of this betrayal. She loves her husband, does everything to please him and even refuses to lay blame when he cheats, only asks that he return from it, as if it were a bad habit.

The friendship between Jung and Freud which starts so pleasantly and passionately with their thirteen hour discussion of their work, feels a struggle through Freud’s impression of Jung’s mistake in how he treats his women. And through Jung’s insistence that not everything is about sex and that Freud is not his father – a role in the relationship which he seems to resent Freud for attempting to perform.

The film is a serious and affecting expression of analysis, exploring the role of sex in life. And in civilised society.

3.5 stars

Iron Man (2008) - Dir: Jon Favreau (Zathura, Chef, Cowboys & Aliens)

Marvel Comics brings us Iron Man, but without the campiness of your average comic book movie. AC/DC and Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark. He’s cool and his wit is quick. His dialogue, though sharp, is possibly too fast to digest every joke. This only appears to be an issue occasionally – it’s because he mumbles. He’s much more difficult to understand in Sherlock Holmes.

The action is gripping and turns with the plot so every fight scene is meaningful, every hit, and every shot. The violence is not gory, directed at a family audience. Jeff Bridges (Obediah Stain) is amazing as the conservative company man to Tony’s brilliant mind and immature behaviour.

Stark’s friend, Rhodey (Terrence Howard) provides an emotional role for a less than intellectually complex adventure movie. I think it was a mistake to replace him with Don Cheadle for the sequel (though I seem to be the only one who noticed.) Apparently Howard wanted more money to come back and the production company refused to pay. You get what you pay for.

The structure of the film is very polished. Setting up the character and danger that forces Tony Stark to change – to take his company in a new direction – to change the world.

He falls into bed with a journalist – it happens so quickly that it’s surprising. She’s alright looking, but she doesn’t have time to impress him with her assets. He could do better. She went to a prestigious university and he’s drunk. She is a conflict toy for him. Apparently that is enough to convince him to seduce her. And she is seduced pretty quickly as well, but then Stark is rich and handsome.

This scene is really the only part of the film that I don’t get.

I’ve never really understood what popular America sees in Gwyneth Paltrow, until Iron Man. Pepper Pots is charming, clever, understated, demure, industrious, polite, funny and a servant. What more could you ask for in a woman. With such a wonderful personality, it becomes easier to find her attractive.

It’s a shame Potts doesn’t get involved in a David Lynch sex scene. (Quick Note: David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive – one of the few great romantic sex scenes in movies.)

I love the technology in this film. Tony’s inventions are consistently impressive to the point of being another character, and in fact are a driving force for the story.

Escaping the cave where the terrorists are keeping Stark captive, is a catalyst for his best invention yet. When he really puts his mind to work, he can change the world.

Fast cars, fast women and heavy metal music.

Howard creates a great, funny, support character for Downey's Stark.

Doctor Yinsen (Shaun Toub) whom Stark meets in his cave, is a friendly character. Likeable enough to motivate Stark to become a better man. These are not deep scenes. There isn’t a deep scene in the entire movie. But it’s a lot of fun.

It almost feels like Macgyver or Batman ’66. The most fun parts are the building of the gadgets and the action sequences where the hero uses them. The story is simple. The story needs to be simple, or so they think, because the target audience is a family audience.

In order to attract their key demographic young males, they’ve stuffed this film with heavy metal, comics, cool rebel rock-star guy who can have any chick he wants, and American politics.

The terrorist villain is somewhat interesting, but even more impressive is the American who hired him to assassinate Stark.

The simple truth is that Iron Man kicks ass. Tony Stark is cool. This movie is fun. It’s an entertaining film and that’s all it is. That's all it needs to be.

3.5 stars

Life As A House (2001) - Dir: Irwin Winkler (DeLovely, The Net)

Kevin Kline as the father George Monroe and introducing Hayden Christensen as his son, Sam. These players are at their best in this sad and raw slice of life – and inspiration on how to break free from your plastic days.

A subtle juxtaposition of the morning routine for father and son – detached from each other, as they are. Your mass manufactured life. Your job or school, more like a prison or a factory. Schools where they throw kids at a tall wall – skulls smashing and cave-in on impact. A few manage to climb the wall. Instead of building a ladder for them all, to get over. Or teaching them to construct a door.

And it’s acceptable, it’s normal to feel that you have to go to a place every day, that feels more like a prison every day. Visa Cards and suit and ties. The job you hate. The parents you wish could tell you something true. Something that can explain away all of the mistakes.

And endless traps of camouflage and obligation.

One of the most challenging emotions is an already frustrated and dominated teenager being forced into an uncomfortable situation.

This film deals with some really heavy issues. Male prostitution and death among them. I don’t expect you to side with the kid when he’s acting spoiled and obnoxious. But all parties involved are in the wrong, because they don’t have a clue how to change. George is the hero who turns this upside down world right side up.

The pressure on the parents is almost unbearable, pressure to try and connect with their child. To make him smile. To stop him from making some terrible mistakes, spiralling into misery and a cliché of drugs and self-harm.

His parents are fed up, out of options, with no clue what is left to do with him. The question not asked is what do the parents really want or expect from him.

The son is screaming in silence about the pain of his emotionally bankrupt world – what he’s really thinking, feeling, going through, is never actually explored. And I think this is unfortunate – Basketball Diaries springs to mind. But he wants what every young man wants, he wants love, sex and food, and he wants to enjoy himself and find passion. His life consistently gets in the way of his desires, which are uncertain and immature.

And nobody is listening. The mother has no idea how to talk to him.

George fails consistently, but at least he’s trying.

The mother Robin Kimball (Kristin Scott Thomas) is beautiful but she is run ragged and looks exhausted. And her husband Peter (Jamey Sheridan) is indifferent. We see her beauty gradually as she spends more time with George and Sam.

The music is atmospheric and helps tell the story. The poignant moments are simply and expertly performed and recorded with waves crashing against the rocks in the background – reminding some of us of the fickle love affairs on Summer beach holidays.

It is an important fact that is often disregarded, belittled, ignored and misunderstood by parents. Which is that teenagers need emotional space in order to express themselves and find their way to forming themselves as individuals, figure out what kind of person they want to be, form an identity or three.

Showing feelings in a blunt and sincere, direct way is too difficult for most teenagers. Parents need to make the effort to reduce the difficulty to communicate with each other honestly. In an ordinary household like this one, these truths are either ignored or simply unknown.

Too many surface arguments – no one bothers to try to understand the other. The truth is that all parents are bewildered by their offspring despite their wealth of experience. They are all simply making it up as they go along. Trying to do a better job than their own parents did.

This is a genuine portrait of not only American but global male teen angst. Often the frustrations played out in rebellion reflect sexual confusions and inadequacies, as well as the problem of a naiave, uncertain and tortured self esteem. Fear of self.

“Your job, your purpose is to get accepted, get a cute girlfriend, think up something great to do with the rest of your life. What if you're confused and can't imagine a career? What if you're funny looking and can't get a girlfriend? You see, no-one wants to hear it. But the terrible secret is that being young is sometimes less fun than being dead.” – Hard Harry, Pump Up the Volume

George has worked at his job diligently for 20 years, he always hated his job, and he gets no respect. Loyal, disciplined, conservative, hard work for two decades and it means what?

Life As A House constantly touches the heart strings with Kline’s subtle yet strong portrayal of a man with a weight on his mind and a new mission for this phase of his life.

This could be one of the most honest films I’ve seen and it’s somehow directed by the guy who directed Sandra Bullock in The Net which was b-grade Scifi at its worst.

The story is about a man’s life at fifty-something. But it cannot avoid also being about his relationships – the lives he manages finally to touch in his desperate late efforts.

Build a house.

The best part of this film is George’s relentless attempts to reach out to his son – that fail repeatedly at first.

I feel it is a familiar sensation for some of us when we were young, looking through our father’s things. You know in the back of your mind that if you take some of his tobacco, alcohol, drugs, firearms – he will notice it missing. But you convince yourself that he won’t if you only take one, two, three. And you will get the buzz that will make your life better in this moment, and that feeling outweighs the risk plus the guilt.

4 stars

Sleepers (1996) - Dir: Barry Levinson (Toys, Donnie Brasco)

Beautifully haunting music sets the scene. Jason Patric as the grownup Shakes gives a sufficiently haunted and fitting narration for the innocence stolen from these kids, because of a stupid prank.

Hell's Kitchen - sweaty ass neighbourhood in New York. You know the place, the place you grew up hating. Spent your childhood and will never go back to.

1966. A bond of brotherhood for four young boys. Fearless and invincible is youth.

They are content with very little and feeling a sense of ownership over their domain.

A world where Catholicism is important as is a sense of street justice. No crimes against the neighbourhood are permitted, and punishment is severe. Robert De Niro is the cool, approachable and staunch mentor and priest, Father Bobby.

King Benny (Vittorio Gassman) is the friendly neighbourhood mobster who relents the insistence of 'Shakes' to hire him to deliver packages.

The theme so far is patience and coldness as valued personality traits - meanwhile these kids live their days in heat, and always with a sense of urgency - to get laid, to grow up, to get paid. Lives centred around moral grey areas. And yet still adhering to a code.
These are kids with no clue about culture, but pure passion for the sweet simplicities - peeking into women's changing rooms, playing basketball and skiving off.

Father Bobby just wants them to keep out of any serious trouble. He looks out for the boys. When the littlest John (Geoffrey Wigdor) gets beaten up by one of his mother's boyfriends, the kid ends up in the hospital. Father Bobby has a chat with the guy and threatens to put him in the morgue should something like it happen again.

When we see these kids as adults, changed by years, they still share that bond. Perhaps stronger now because of what they all went through in the detention centre.

Fatman (Frank Medrano) - "Keep yourself mean and cut your life around it. That street is like a soup dish of life. You guys are soft like bread."

Pranks are part of daily life for these boys, consequences are not. It's a shock to them and to the neighbourhood when they get in deep trouble and have to face time. But it is also somehow nearly inevitable - except it could have been avoided if fate hadn't planted them in shit. Because Father Bobby was steering them straighter.

They are justifiably afraid when the incident happens and they end up facing time. So young, so soft. I feel for the kids. And for their loved ones. As much as they fear doing time, they have no idea what they are about to endure.

Be strong, be cold inside. Don't let them touch your heart. And when you get past this, you will forget the ghost of your past which the state took from you. And find someone, some thing to bring that smile back. The grownup Shakes' narration meets the feeling of terror that these boys are about to fall into.

I doubt they'll ever find a way out. Even after it's over. The event will alter their deepest selves and replace the life they were meant for, with one that tastes more real.

Kevin Bacon as Nokes is an incredible villain and he has been dealt with by the time this coming of age story becomes a courtroom drama/thriller.

3 stars

Sunshine (1999) - Dir: István Szabó (Being Julia)

This is a difficult movie to pitch to you so that you understand how great it is. Essentially the story is about a family recipe for a tonic.

Or it's about a family whose wealth centers around a secret family recipe. The story follows each generation of the family as they struggle through political tides - particularly fascism and communism.

Serendipity Point Films produce this movie - they are the company formed by Robert Lantos. Lantos is the producer behind another fascinating film, eXistenZ which was helmed by Canadian director, David Cronenberg.

Sunshine is a lavish production, epic in scale and yet sentimental and intimate, evoking terrible and wonderful emotions with the power of performance in response to conflicts spread throughout the story.

The three different personalities whom Ralph Fiennes plays, Ignatz and his son Adam and his son Ivan. He plays them expertly and they do feel as unique and separate characters.

Will Hurt as Andor Knorr also provides a strong performance. However, it is the women that really drive the men and this story towards each climax. Valerie Sonnenschein (Jennifer Ehle), Greta (Rachel Weisz), and Major Carole Kovacs (Deborah Unger.)

Perfect romantic subjects and complete characters. Youthful, energetic, full of quirks, wisdom and talents/flaws. Their passion and intensity bring our leading men to their knees. At times the women are greater motives than mere survival.

The adopted sister Valerie is a gifted photographer. Ignatz is our first protagonist. They have an affair which makes Gustav (their brother) jealous. He exposes them to mother and father. Ignatz is forbidden to continue the relationship, but he is in love. They are technically not siblings, only cousins.

She can be a bitch with cruel words, but out of love and desperation. Such things are said only when passion is so great, life is made of feelings such as this.

The pressures of moving forward, ascension and the governing organisations versus the family, the heart and the faith. It is the time for love and laughing. The calm before the storm.

The pressures of a marriage, a career, a family with strong roots in faith and culture. And a sense of justice and doing the right thing which Ignatz's superiors are pressuring him to sweep under the carpet.

Then the birth of the first son (the next generation) Istvan (Mark Strong) and months later his brother Adam (Fiennes again.)

This is an intricate portrait of life over time. A legacy of life lessons passed down one generation after the other. Perhaps proving once and for all how we as a people learn nothing from our mistakes.

The first stage of fascism is bullying, then conversion. Dictating assimilation and resenting those who they have assimilated. With the carrot and the stick. The second stage is to isolate and alienate. And humiliate those who have been chosen as the underclass.

The final stage is the Nazi boots knocking down your door. The scenes about the Nazis in this film, followed soon enough by the attack of an aggressively ignorant Communism, are the most powerful scenes out of any movie about the final solution.

Adam Sors becomes a fencing champion but faces corruption of the sport when the referee gives the match to his opposition, an officer (in the officer's club.) Adam clearly won the match and all who watch know this. To join the officer's club he must convert to Christianity. Even then he will still be viewed as just another Jew.

The elder Valerie (Rosemary Harris) watches as life seems to repeat its lessons on the next generation. The love affairs are the foreground for a backdrop of political conflict. A film about the trials of the heart. What you love, whom you fill with passion, how your heart will break. And what we can destroy to conquer you and leave you without a heart, without a soul.

5 stars

Leaving Las Vegas (1995) - Dir: Mike Figgis (Timecode, Cold Creek Manor)

It has been stated that nothing changes in this tragic drama film. That because we find meaning in a story from the change in values between the beginning and the end, and the reason for that change, that there is no change in Leaving Las Vegas and therefore no meaning.

I disagree. A man, Ben (Nicolas Cage) sets out to drink himself to death and nothing sways him from this course. What changes is that he begins his journey alone and ends it no longer alone, perhaps in love. But either way, no longer alone. That is a change, and a profound one.

There is also one other, I noticed in my most recent watching of this film. He begins his journey intent on killing himself, and in the end he finally achieves his goal. That also is a change, the difference between the wanting and the doing. And I think even the character changes over the course of the movie. That he is never swayed from his decision, just makes it a truer story, not less of a story. And certainly not without meaning.

A portrait, as portraits go, this is a beautiful picture of a man falling. Into the bottom of his bottle.

At some point, self-abuse of any kind becomes uncomfortable for other people – socially unacceptable. The kind where you only do it on the weekends, or the evenings is fine. Everybody does it, that’s the secret. But when you start to become too obvious. Lose sight of the facade. Disturbing other people’s conservative day jobs, the daily grind and threaten to give the game away. Then it’s time to politely get rid of you.

Sera (Elisabeth Shue) is a prostitute. She approaches her work as a film actor would prepare for a role. She becomes the fantasy that they desire, she can be what they wish for. And she’s good at it. And she knows it. Her pimp, Uri (Julian Sands) is a scary guy – and not always on hand to protect her.

Vegas is the place to do it. Ben hires Sera for a night to keep him company. They end up just drinking and talking. The binge drinking will eventually make him useless sexually, well half useless. But she doesn’t care about that.

They become friends. It could only happen in Vegas. This is the romantic side of suicide and the sexy side of Vegas. The film catptures the purity of the emotional persona of Las Vegas, with all the dirty trimmings.

Sera talks things over with a psychiatrist in confessional tapes.
She meets Ben at a time when her pimp is paranoid and needs money. So he is less forgiving when she returns with less than a night’s work worth of cash. Uri, the pimp, is being hunted by his people so he lets Sera go.

And so Ben and Sera go out for dinner.

We see so many things – hints of ghosts of the charming screenwriter Ben used to be – before the drinking took over his life.

“You can never, ever ask me to stop drinking.”

This film is as much about the city of Las Vegas as it is about Ben’s journey towards death. It’s a city that doesn’t sleep, pause, give in, judge you – but it does forgive.

The city is a place like no other. A place, the third lead character in the film. It beckons to the rejected ones, the sick, the leftover people. The ones that can’t fall in line and conform to the tidy, neat little non-dodgy, conservative nine-til-five day jobs. The non-working class. That day job that watches with luminescent lights, to see if you’re shaking too much, smoking too much, thinking too much, talking too much, laughing too much, dancing too much, enjoying too much. If you are imagining too much, creating too much, trying too hard.

Sera and Ben, the happy couple, they say nasty things to each other as they struggle to negotiate their lives around their unorthodox relationship. Two crusty demons justifiably and consensually stranded in the desert.

There is a reason some people are stone cold cruel. Because if they weren’t, there are those who would take advantage.
Hearts will be broken. As they do in a tragedy. This is inevitable. People are broken repeatedly. This is Vegas. Home to the homeless, the defeated, the lost and alone. Where can she go, when Vegas doesn’t love her back? Only to him.

4.5 stars

Temple Grandin (2010) - Dir: Mick Jackson (The Bodyguard, Volcano)

Claire Danes undergoes an impressive transformation to become the aggressively shy and curious, passionate, compassionate, amazing mind of Temple Grandin, the protagonist of this story.

She is a young student with Aspurgers syndrome and an interest in cows.

She has the mind of an engineer, but she also understands animals. From an early stage, she applies her attention to solving the problem of a badly designed cattle slaughter process. This is a world dominated by men, so it takes that much more tenacity to break down the barriers.

She has tenacity, as well as inginuity, confidence in her skills and in her thinking: sophistication, thoroughness, creativity and boldness.

Here is another film that utilises flashbacks to tell the story, but I feel here they elevate the structure of the film, rather than just showing off.

Temple is an expert at thinking things through and from all angles - she thinks visually and has an extraordinary imagination and spatial intelligence - which she constantly puts to use at breaking down the problems she faces in her areas of interest.

Though it does take her some time to turn these skills to benefit herself and her state of mind, to tackle the problem of her mental difficulties.

She adjusts quickly to a new way of life on the ranch, but she benefits from a friendship of sorts with the animals. They calm her.

Temple suffers violent panic attacks when something disrupts her cautious system of familiar methods for functioning socially. But with her family support and the support of some friends, she develops coping mechanisms.

Each phase of her life is another challenge. Her journey is inspiring. It's a tough struggle, especially with the harsh judgements of cruel bullies. She most of the time brushes them off and focuses on the road ahead.

She manages her life and her disability - knowing that she will never be cured, but can still be happy and successful.

Temple approaches many of the handyman jobs around the ranch with confidence and excellent competency. While on the ranch, she has another panic attack and she decides to use a cow-calming device to calm herself - unorthodox but it seems to work.

Later, in college she builds her own person-calming device based on the cow-calming device. A hugger. Unfortunately this meets with disapproval from the therapist on staff and persecution from the faculty, until her family convince them to let her prove herself as a student.

School is tough for her as young people lack self control - cruelty can be an instinctive reaction to someone or something different. They attack what they don't understand.

The real world is full of kind souls, even in a male dominated field. Temple, early on, is able to prove that the way her mind works is an asset, despite difficulty fitting in and at times, functioning in ordinary society. Although by the end of the film we find an incredibly accomplished, professional, extraordinary and confident woman.

3.5 stars

Across the Tracks (1990) – Dir: Sandy Tung (Confessions of a Sexist Pig)

Billy (Rick Schroder) has been in trouble – living by the law of the street, getting wasted and taking anything he wanted. Letting himself be led into worse trouble by his crazy raw-headed friend, Louie (David Anthony Marshall) – the shit gets deeper (shit happens, it’s just the depth that varies.) Billy gets in over his head, gets caught and finds himself, after doing kid time at juvenile detention, back at home with his brother, Joe (Brad Pitt) and his mother, (Carrie Snodgress). At home with nothing to show for his troubles.

Billy tries to start over. Stay out of trouble. But the locals aren’t making it easy for him and Joe’s resentment hurts. Joe runs track and he pushes himself too hard. Win at all costs, every time. Their mother appears like a ghostly waif, trying to support both boys but barely affecting either of them. The boys try to care for their mother, but she is ineffectual and out of touch, half crazy and ignorant of the bad in both boys.

Across the Tracks is a small story about two brothers from different worlds and what happens when those worlds collide.

This film is trapped in the 80s and Billy’s conflict with the ‘jocks’ at his new school is laughable – if only because they look odd and idiotic.

Joe is desperate for attention and reassurance, and with his dad gone, he turns to his mother for this. But she is often busy trying to clean up after Billy. This is at the centre of the conflict in this film.

Billy’s friend, Louie resurfaces to save Billy from a beating by the school jocks. Louie is the reason for Billy’s arrest and the initiator of the crime that got Billy put away. Billy didn’t rat on Louie, so Louie served no time. It’s obvious that the scale on this friendship swings one way.

The lack of subtlety in the message of this film makes it seem at times like a Christian TV movie. It is, however, elevated to the ranks of retro guilty pleasure due to the Stella performances by Schroder and Pitt.

Billy is wedged between his family and his friend. It’s hard for him to choose, because doomed to descend as this friendship is, he sees parts of himself or the person he sees himself as, in Louie.

Billy isn’t that badass he sees in Louie. And the playful friend Louie puts on, is a mask to hide the leech at his core.
Louie is a parasite that imitates the images of a misunderstood rebel, like the image of James Dean’s Jim Stark (Rebel Without a Cause.)

But only Billy is fooled by this. Joe is not. Their mother is the run ragged, tortured, leftovers of a person that she is because of Billy and Joe and their effect on her.

Running becomes the one thing that ties these brothers together, but Joe is so competitive (he has a lot on the line,) that running is more than a passion, it’s a religion to him and he takes it personally. Billy’s past is entwined with his self-image. It’s in too deep under his skin and Louie knows how to play with his weaknesses.

Joe tries to look out for his brother, but the old habits are keeping them apart.

3 stars

Spider (2002) - Dir: David Cronenberg (eXistenZ, The Fly)

In an extraordinarily taut suspense drama, David Cronenberg paints a character portrait of a spider - with Ralph Fiennes as the traumatised, mumbling Mr. Clegg. Beautiful cinematography by Peter Suschitzky (of Empire Strikes Back fame) introduces us to the world of the story, based on the uniquely morbid novel by Patrick McGrath.

First we see Spider's home. The train reveals society's pace and eventually Spider's own stunted, gradual stagger. We find our unlikely hero, Spider as he rediscovers his prior English home and finds the halfway house where he is to stay. England has changed. Spider is an alien in this place, mumbling in a desert expanse of memory.

He finds a cheeky friend in Terrence (John Neville.) The dialogue pace is prose-like. Mrs Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave), the landlady at the halfway house, is a clipped, dormant frustration - she has her reasons.

Spider must find somewhere to hide his secret notes. A paranoid patient, deep in the thick of his sickness. His world is claustrophobic, but we sense it is a home he made for himself. The scenery is bland, bleak and unchanging, but this is the life he chose.

He tries to piece together a past from the shadows and the scenery. The garden plot, a setting of importance - for the memories it reveals. Only tragic flashes of sorrow for now, but enough to reduce Mr Clegg to a pathetic, weeping mess.

The scene at the cafe might remind some of the process of separating the hours of the day with cigarettes and cheap tea.

There is a funny scene depicting a day trip out of the asylum - but its placement is out of sync. Feels disjointed, which might seem suitable considering the film's subject.

Puzzles are a motif as Spider is struggling to reconstruct his past, which is a puzzle to him. We finally get to see what Spider is beginning to remember, as his past is juxtaposed with the present walks among the silent city. The streets are empty to support the mood of the film, a bleak, empty silence.

Gabriel Byrne as Bill Clegg, plays a father through his son's eyes. The father is the victim of this tale - perfectly innocent, just trying to do his best.

Spider's mother, (Miranda Richardson) sheltered him. He loves his mother's image desperately, with something of an Oedipus complex. He is offended by the evolution of his mother, lashes out in an effort to protect his image of her.

5 stars

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012) - Dir: Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected, The Animation Show)

Never before has hand drawn animation been so raw, so artsy, so bad. It is minimalist to the extreme - one supposes this is a conscious effort to draw the focus to what is more important than flashy spectacle, the fireworks. The story matters more. And it is cleverly and at times beautifully told.

It's Such A Beautiful Day is sometimes incredibly morose, other times terrifyingly traumatic. This is the story of Bill as he struggles to survive day after day with severe mental illness. There are moments of clarity in this film, which mirror the insecurities, fears and neuroses of many of us.

The story is told in a pretty, yet simplistic stick figure opera - which is narrated in third person perspective. The narration is funny, pointless at times, but most often it tells us who Bill is, why he is and how he is.

The narration voiceover has a deadpan voice, but a sadistic sense of humour. Bill's neuroses are evenly matched with the style of this film - disjointed, insane, absurd, disgusting, bloody and depressing. The precise choices of details in the narration and the stream of consciousness style, the ongoing rhythmic beats and rants, are pure poetry.

Though all people are stick figures, the images are creative and at times interestingly grotesque. Bill's descent into madness is the most realistic depiction I have witnessed on film. Less glamourous than a trip like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Bill faces and endures the prospect of death - he faces the dismantling of his life. And then he discovers that he is not dying. This entire time being from the perspective of a drug-addled, certifiably insane and pure deceitful point of view character.

Even the endless rain is beautiful. There are other characters in this film - Bill's ex-girlfriend, his mother, his neighbours. But most of the film focuses tightly on Bill - and vaguely on the people he meets at the bus stop (however most of the time, these people are demonic figures.)

Death hits suddenly. Time is not linear in this story.

Bill tries to pick his life off the floor, and piece it back together. His girlfriend tells him it's over. Bill is a bit of a pushover. He is self-conscious, insecure and neurotic. But this is only the beginning of his problems. His grandmother as he remembers her, is funny and crazy.

This film is a serious drama, a tragic story about the failure of medicine to save the nut job from his downward spiral into crazy and death. But it's a really funny story as well - with sparks of miserable humour and hope.

Start watching it and Bill's world sucks you in and consumes your attention. I absolutely empathise with this crazy character and his ambitions, his wasted opportunities, his lost life.

Kind of reminds me of a minimalist cartoon version of 2001: a space oddysey.

Every complicated emotion in life is finely expressed in this style, in this story.

5 stars

Hard Candy (2005) - Dir: David Slade (Twilight: Eclipse, 30 Days of Night)

Ellen Page injects her whole self into this role, a prepubescent siren in Hayley Stark. Patrick Wilson plays Jeff, the clueless predator wannabe with unfortunate tendencies - a predication for the prepubescent. She drives the hunt, despite the fact that she very convincingly plays the victim.

The sexual implications hover beneath the flimsy surface, which holds the appearance of a perfectly innocent coupling - two friends hanging out. But we began with a nicely timed and executed instant messenger conversation which was anything but innocent. Subtext of serious illicit flirtation.

In a way, it's disgusting to watch him fawn over her. Whenever they are in public, he pretends his role is innocent. But he is transparent to them. To her. She has a surprise waiting. They both pretend that their relationship is not targeted at sex, but for her there is more going on.

She puts up with his plastic face, his sickeningly pretentious lie, which he uses to seduce her while seeming harmless.

"I am aware of the legal boundaries."

It is cat and mouse until the tables turn, and they switch places to continue the game. The story itself is very simple. However, there are some brilliant images - the look she gives him when she has him on the table, his helpless pleas, the comfortable ordinary way we see them together in the cafe - which is anything but an ordinary meeting.

She gets closer with him, letting the conversation evolve. She caresses, and masturbates his ego. She spikes his drink and he reveals too much about himself, about his truth.

He wakes up restrained. In a way the conversation becomes more intimate when he realises his helplessness. She is enjoying dismantling him, for the fun of it. She has two voices, her victim voice and her satire of the victim - the hunter voice. She has the control, the power, dominance over him.

He manipulated his online approach of her. He faked interest in obscure pop culture. She busts him. She lectures like an adult, while bringing the point to a close that he is a sexual predator and she is the wrong girl.

He keeps trying to control the situation, but she is not an amateur. Jeff lies on the mat while a fourteen year old girl cuts off his balls.

5 stars

A History of Violence (2005) - Dir: David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch, Eastern Promises)

This is one of the most effective films I've seen. A small town, a simple world - a simple story for it, a study of violence - performances that hit you like blunt instruments. The heat is first, a lazy Summer day. The temperature is palpable. The violence doesn't wait. These characters are brutal and deep. The style is a contrast to the graphic novel it is based on. Quiet, simple, edgy realism. Not cartoonish at all.

Packed with harsh images. Young Jack Stall (Ashton Holmes) creates trouble for himself when he beats an overconfident jock in gym class baseball. He's clever but nervy, making jokes when the inevitable confrontation takes place in the boys' locker room.

We establish a loving, passionate relationship between Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife, Edie (Maria Bello.) And Tom is a quiet, strong and supportive father to his kids.

This family is about to get a violent shakeup. The dynamics will have to be re-established. The organised crime element, Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) comes to town when a media story blows up, about the violence at the cafe, and Tom is hailed as a hero.

Carl thinks Tom Stall is this other guy Joey Cusack - and others begin to question it as well. Surely it's just a case of mistaken identity, but then again how is it that Tom is 'so good at killing people?'

An intense suspense drama which reveals secrets gradually - flipping the world of the characters upside down. A story about the argument between the violence and the family unit.

The haunting music and surgical cinematography draw out the violence in layers of beauty. Richie Cusack (William Hurt) is impressive, intimidating. The quiet tension is exhilirating. The terse performances are expertly delivered.

Some of the action is actually pretty disgusting. The ferocity of the no holds barred fighting with guns, wire, foot and fist. It gets bloody.

They think that they are going to live forever, right up until the moment when the bullet hits the flesh. And the life drains out.

Powerful ending, like the ending to a song. Profound in its volume of questions, giving no conclusive answers, but provoking thought. Sliced off clean, fade to black.

5 stars

5150 Elm's Way (France: 2009) - Dir: Eric Tessier (The Pee-Wee 3D: The Winter That Changed My Life)

A young filmmaking student moves into a new flat in a suburban French neighbourhood. He rides his bike around town. And tapes his new location. A fat black cat crosses his path and with a squeal of brakes he avoids the cat, but crashes his bike - breaking the bike chain and his phone in the process.

He notices a taxi parked at a house nearby, but he finds that the driver is off-duty. He asks if he can borrow the phone to call a taxi, the man offers to call for him, leaving the boy to wait outside. The boy, Yannick realises that he is quite wounded and instead of waiting, invites himself inside to clean up his hand and his forearm.

That's when he notices something strange and gets sucked into the torture chamber of blood at 5150 Elm's Way. The suspense has a calm approach. Alot of the early violence and gore is subdued. The father Jacques Beaulieu (Normand D'Amour) is cool, calm and controlled. A master of the situation. And a chess champion. Yannick, the boy, is in panic mode from the beginning.

Yannick Berube (Marc-André Grondin) is however enough of sound mind to attempt escape at every opportunity. Meeting failure with repeated failure, and yet his instinct for survival, his keenness to escape never calms, never falters. He is a hundred times stopped, and he is just as hopeful, just as optimistic.

The cinematography is pedestrian, but the drama comes from the consistently building story and its events and surprises. We follow Yannick's plea for help in the form of a video cassette as it makes its way out into the world.

Will someone find it and save him?

"A clean kill, with no pain! Don't you get it?"

Until Yannick has a broken leg and it is as if he has a broken spirit. He still tries to escape but his heart is not in it.

Jacques is a believable villain but with not a very strong presence. The girl, Michelle (Mylène St-Sauveur) seems obedient if a little boring - no character in the eyes. The wife is ordinary.

The game is essential to the plot in the middle half of the film. Not the most exciting cat and mouse, but a match of wits is intellectually interesting. Yannick is outmatched and outgunned. Still he tries to win.

The longer Yannick stays trapped in that room, cabin fever begins to set in. His visions consume him and yet he still hopes to win. The family falls apart around him and still he is locked up tight. A strange turn of events towards the end of the film has the invalid wife wanting out while the young Yannick wants to stay so he can challenge Jacques and beat him finally.

The ending mirrors American slasher films with everybody desperately killing everybody else. With one unexpected shotgun blast to the head schocker. And then a surrealist solution: one last vision, one last game.

"We have to finish the game, okay?"

2.5 stars

Goal: the Dream Begins (2005) - Dir: Danny Cannon (Nikita, CSI)

This is a made for TV movie. This at first should be understood. It actually has a lot of heart and it's not morally superior or patronising.

Goal is a story about soccer/football. Tension between father and son as the Munez family, illegal Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles, California, struggle to make ends meet.


Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) his real passion is soccer. His dad thinks it's a meaningless hobby, trivial. Munez is talented.
He puts savings away for a dream of his own. Glen Foy (Stephen Dillane) is at a game to support the kid of his daughter, he notices Munez - who dazzles him. Glen used to be a player, then a big time scout, now retired from football.

"You dare to dream, you get screwed."

It's a simple story with two fascinating characters - the agent who is dazzled by the kid's talent, and the boy whose distance from his dream is staggering, yet he never gives up hope - which inspires Glen to keep trying to help him.

The boy's faith, character, determination and raw talent impress everyone he meets. If he can get to England, Glen convinced Newcastle United to give him a tryout. He has to save up for the trip. But everyone knows where he hides his savings. His dad steals his money and spends it on a new truck.

Munez is a passionate and charismatic character – sometimes over the top as emotional drama, but his friendship with Glen and his faith in people is engaging.

His emotions ride the rollercoaster of the plot and bring the viewer along with him. The angst is toxic and eloquent. Juxtaposed with the attitudes of some of the now famous players – those who have achieved the grand dream.

Munez's situation now seems dire, with no money for the trip, but his Granny gets him the money to go to England. He leaves without saying goodbye to his father, shows up in England and Glen takes him in.

England is another world to him.

"He’s never seen mud, before."

He screws up his tryout but he’s never played in a wet environment.

He still manages to show a little magic and Glen pushes on his behalf.

There are enough antagonistic forces in the story to test his mettle.

Munez has his dreams ripped from him repeatedly.

This is a story about hope in the face of adversity. Less about football than it is about a man’s character.

And he meets a girl – a nurse. She is cute and clever, perhaps brighter than him. She’s a football fan mainly because she’s a Munez fan. She’s not a groupie.

Glen is a cool, interesting, powerful character.

Munez has a lot to learn, through the course of the film, change is applied to him and his friends. He becomes a more complete and happy person by the end of the film. It’s not epic or grand, but a subtle and enjoyable little sports film.

3 stars

We Bought A Zoo (2011) - Dir: Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire)

A tear came to my eye the first time I saw this film, I was choked up. Not streams of tears - but that kind of tear jerking emotional effect from a film or from anything is rare for me.

The relationship between the young single dad and his son is familiar only because I am a son. I think anyone who is or was a son or a father can relate to these emtional scenes.

We Bought A Zoo is in a way, an instructional manual on how to grow up.

Benjamin (Matt Damon) is more grown up than we've seen him before and he still manages to show the struggle.

He has a close connection with his kids but they need a change. There is subtle humour - verging on quirkiness, but it's mostly just charming. Because the film is about the way it touches your heart.
When the daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) can't sleep because of loud neighbours in close proximity to her bedroom, our inciting incident is that Benjamin is inspired to make a significant life change. A new house, a new life.

This film is an emotional adventure about the reality of adventure - it's difficult, it hurts, it will change you and it's meaningful. There will be challenges and there will be moments of regret, but fight through it and it might just be worth it.

The new place, it's a zoo. And when Benjamin finds out that it's literally a zoo, he doesn't instantly jump at the opportunity, until he sees the light in his daughter's face.

The boy, Dylan (Colin Ford) is not impressed with his father's decision to uproot and move away from his friends. He thinks the zoo idea is ridiculous and he's probably right.

The cast of characters are ecclectic. The pirate type, Peter (Angus Macfadyen) 'visionary Zoo architect' was Robert the Bruce in Braveheart. So I'm a fan of this guy. The character doesn't get much play unfortunately, or much development.

Probably because they wanted to sell Scarlett Johannsen and Matt Damon as a leading force. Even Scarlette is likeable. She plays her role and commits to it. She is charming, tough, staunch but still pretty, and a real fresh and unique character.

As far as native Zoo characters the key role is young Lilly (Elle Fanning) who plays awkwardly attempted love interest to Dylan, who seems to take advantage of her kindness.

He expects her to keep coming back regardless of his appreciation of her. His excuse is that he is confused, frustrated and inexperienced in matters of the heart. At which point he turns to his father - up until now he has been disappointed with their connection, but he finds the obligatory sage advice.

These are the key scenarios which set up all of the most powerful heartbreaking moments for the viewer.

Dylan, with the help of his father, is the unexpected and extremely unwilling hero of the story.

The zoo crew are resistant to Benjamin at first because he's an outsider with no experience, a noob. They are confused and curious about his intentions and motivation.

Dylan, don't open the snake box!

The troubles ie bills keep stacking up, but Benjamin is earning their respect. It's not even about respect to him. It's about being sincere, making an effort to build something real and taking responsibility.

Dylan screws up the thing with Lilly, he breaks the girl's heart because he doesn't realise and therefore show that he values her. He hasn't appreciated her and that causes her pain when she discovers it.

Benjamin doesn't want to put down the big cat - tied to this is the memory of losing his wife.

An overheard conversation with scarlett spawns a verbal faceoff between father and son, my personal favourite scene in the movie.

A very rewatchable tear-jerker for the guys. Not a very cerebral film, a small film. A nice film.

3.5 stars

Argo (2012) - Dir: Ben Affleck (The Town, Gone Baby Gone)

The one thing I liked about this film is Ben Affleck's performance as Tony Mendez. However, overall I hated this film so much that I was forced to give it zero stars.

This film is introduced as a political thriller, it does not achieve this. It feels as if the film can’t decide whether to be silly or serious. And fails at both.

A storytelling decision is made to avoid qualifying as a good film of a certain type and to focus on the six victims. However we don’t spend enough time getting to know these shallowly written characters, for that approach to be effective. Affleck’s character, though less important to the story, is a better performance.

The opening scene is relevant, informative and emotive. The uprising in Iran of a justifiably angry, and violent mob – due to the US government’s manipulation of their distraught political system and the asylum of their ex-tyrant, results in an overthrow of the American Embassy.

The film, Shooter (2007) comes to mind as a more effective political thriller on the topic of being frustrated by the red tape that strangles a first world government in its attempt to provide justice.

Clerks working at the embassy are trapped in a political war zone. They decide to flee. They take their time, but they do eventually escape. This is all great concept so far, the escape is dramatic, there is an effective setup for a political thriller/spy film like perhaps Spy Game (2001).

The army are playing it safe, deciding not to shoot anyone, so they lose to the mob. Probably they would have lost either way. The innocent clerks are sufficiently scared and as a viewer, I sympathise with them.

Their indecisive panic could have been played up more or been more fluid and relevant/raw/realistic.

While the movie is probably the most effective story about the topic, it doesn’t work as a film. Affleck is believable and charming as the bearded CIA agent Mendez. He's the one who comes up with the brilliant plan.

The film could have worked as a black comedy/political thriller if it had been effective emotionally and intellectually in both genres. This I think may have been its intention, unfortunately it misfired. Perhaps too ambitious.

No attempt was made to design its form, content or structure with a story that could have been suspenseful, surprising and cerebral – which are the goals of a good political thriller.

As well as the goals of a good black comedy – sadistically funny.

The humour was neither dark, nor persistent.

I understand the political reasons for liking it, lauding it. But even the politics of the situation were such a small part of the movie.

This movie has no core, except Affleck, whose performance, I’ll admit was spot on.

But I disagree with a voice that says this is a good film.

So the six escapees hide at the Canadian Ambassador’s house. Nobody knows that they were at the embassy. Unfortunately, one of the agents at the embassy was keeping a file on all who worked there. It was shredded, but the rebels have sweatshop kids putting the shredded pieces back together. Soon they will know who worked there – specifically that six escaped and what they look like. The rebel motive is to trade the six for the ex-tyrant.

The US government stance is that they must honour their agreement so that their credibility remains intact. They have a relationship with the ex-tyrant, so they are stuck with him. They can't make the deal.

CIA plans to rescue the six. The plan is to make a fake movie and get the six out of the country as film crew. The other failing of this film is that it doesn’t work very hard at selling the process of being an unskilled, untalented filmmaker which is supposed to be the humorous part of the story.

0 stars

The Rocker (2008) - Dir: Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty)

Rainn Wilson from the American version of The Office (TV) stars in this lovely and silly piece of rock trash. A beautiful parody with a soft heart. Wilson as Fish is hilarious. Fish is loud, gross and brutal. He is a satire of rock/metal attitude.

The movie is infinitely re-watchable. The music is cool, the satire is friendly. Glam rockers or caricatures of glam rock? They still come off as cool – and over the top, disgusting in places. The Rocker is funny all the way through, with the odd breathing-break to get deep.

These motley band of characters – the post-modern punk edgy redhead girl Amelia (Emma Stone), the brooding young male frontman Curtis (Teddy Geiger), the nerdy nice guy keyboard player Matt (Josh Gad: Keep watching this guy he's excellent - Woz from Jobs and Headphones from The Internship) and the freakish geezer Fish, the heart of the band.

Christina Applegate as Ms Powell, Curtis’ mom is effortless and funny. Curtis is awkward, heavy – the hurt and angry artist.
Fish is the driving force. Attitude of a rock star in a world well past rock stars. Fish’s sister, Lisa (Jane Lynch from Glee) is hilarious as the tough love for his man-child problem.

While the story is not particularly original, the writing is full of laughs and is both fresh and quirky.

All the kids get grounded and Fish gets kicked out of his sister’s basement for stealing the car to attempt to drive out of town for their first gig.

The band decides to practice via laptop network – like a Skype or Google hangout.

But Fish’s new pad beneath a Chinese Takeaway restaurant is stiflingly overheated. Not realising that the PC is a camera as well as a microphone, he plays the drums in the nude. The keyboard player’s little sister sees the video – and as a naughty prank, she puts the video online.

This movie has heart and a real rock soul. Fish is goofy, wears his heart on his sleeve and wants more than anything, to be a legitimate rock star. He is immature, naïve and loveable. He is sloppy, silly and brilliant at helping the littler rockers climb the ladder of rock and roll success.

This is not without its challenges. Their manager is a real nasty piece of work – intent on elbowing Fish out of the band, because he isn’t photogenic - totally missing the point of Fish, and of rock and roll. His sharp and biting insults are funny and though a villain, he is not a throw away character.

Most of the film produces a number of conservative adult sources of pressure trying to get Fish to grow up – but he only sees the negative connotations of that – which are to give up on his dream (of being a rock star – like his idols whom he never mentions, but obviously influence his attitude, persona and ambitions. Possibly clues are hidden in the soundtrack.)

He tests his body to the limits, breaking himself repeatedly in the name of rock.

There are some great moments in this movie where Fish shows how generous his heart is, and how wise without realising that he is. When the band get arrested, he gives Curtis some sage advice and a heart to heart. There is a real relationship growing there. A friendship of substance amidst the crazy of rock stardom and the struggles – of Fish’s out of work drummer, of Curtis’ emo desire to be a recognised artist.

So many funny bits in this movie – quirky characters and odd moments. With at its centre, the drama of some really strong friendships formed. The Rocker is only a silly little comedy – but it’s got a lot going for it. It’s fun to watch and has depth that is missing in a lot of little comedies of its type about the struggle for success and silly jokes.

Romance is in the air for all of our misfit characters. Eventually, Fish is forced to succumb to the conservative workforce – the Hell of a buttoned down, short hair, suit and tie, soul-crushing office job.

Without Fish, the band has no heart – and the real friendship at the heart of the story drives the band and the movie towards its climax.

Wilson is the star of this movie; all the other characters do their part. But without Fish you don’t have anything special.

3 stars

Last days of disco (1998) – Dir: Whit Stillman (Damsels in Distress)

We all know that disco sucks. However, this is the second disco film that I have enjoyed. It is intelligent, peculiar and unique. It celebrates disco as an era, and its end.

Alice (Chloe Sevigny) is beautiful, naïve, tragically burned. There is a lovely juxtaposition of the nervous pre-coupling rituals for men and women. The tales drawing our neurotic characters together.

With disco fever at its centre, this film might be more interesting than Saturday Night Fever – but that’s just one man’s opinion.

Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale), the bitch, is funny and as lovable as the misogynist, Des (Chris Eigeman) who pretends to be gay so he can more easily shoot down girls he's already slept with. I think he enjoys doing it this way. He's something of a habitual liar.

An intellectual portrait of the attitudes that people had towards the end of the disco era. Painful to hear the somewhat judgemental line coming from the lovely Alice – that she doesn’t consider the guy who writes the spiderman comics to be a serious writer. And then says that Uncle Scrooge is sexy. She seems as intellectually absent as Des is ethically vacant.

Alice is consistently bitch-slapped by her friend, Charlotte. And she takes it, submits, even agrees. Charlotte’s is a point of view which will ruin Alice. Alice is a beautiful person and not confident of it.

The bouncer – God of elitism. On the dole when disco dies.

The cruel Charlotte is a perfect match for Des, who really doesn’t want to go to prison.

The idea that disco wasn’t about the bad music, it was instead about dancing and finding connections with other people. Sharing ideas. Connecting intellectually, emotionally, and sensually through dance.

When the girls dance, it’s something special. Their joy is infectious. As they play the old OCD management games, organising their romantic interests, following traditional and post-conventional rules. Testing their choices on their friends.

The guys are clueless. Everything will fall down around them as secrets and coupling drives an emotional plot with elements of intellectual speculation – philosophy and romance. A rival to Swingers.

Sevigny plays the virgin with grace and passion, hesitation and regret. Anxiety, paranoia and fearful interdependency. Alice is too agreeable – she seems to evolve by the end of the film.

A short, sharp, cynical peek into the publishing industry via the day jobs of Alice and Charlotte. They are as artificial in their work as they are in their relationships.

One moment, Charlotte is hassling Alice’s choice in men, the next she openly steals one of the choices. Ferocious pairing off is a bit of an understatement.

The elitism is attractive even as it is devious. In the midst of a criminal conspiracy, drugs and sex, happy victims and despicable characters. A portrait of horrible people seen through a different, more tolerant lens.

This is one of those stories that meanders, but in a fun underground and jazzy way. The dialogue in this film is funny and doesn’t seem to go anywhere except to speculate openly and interestingly about a number of obscure topics, perhaps simply to entertain each other enough to get laid. An artfully made film even as it is fairly trivial.

3.5 stars

Super High Me (2007) - Dir: Michael Blieden (Melvin Goes to Dinner, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

Starring Doug Benson as himself. Benson is a funny guy and a legitimate pothead. His quest to do thirty days of dope smoking is a fun concept. Especially when to be truly scientific, he has to abstain for thirty days prior to the experiment. And attempt to function in the world and in his rather appropriate stand-up comedian job. Will he be as funny without weed?

This doco is interesting and it’s also insightful in that we get to see different phases of Benson's weed-influenced life. His comedy routines, his health – interviews with his doctor and his therapist. And their impressions of how weed affects the brain.

The comedy snippets are great and relevant. Different marijuana-related points of view. The experiment is approached in a truly scientific method – or it at least tries to. As a viewer, I appreciate this. Even laws on legal marijuana restrictions are considered.

This is a film that covers a lot of bases. The interview with the Prince of Pot is intense. This guy is eccentric, but he’s a machine of exciting monologue.

When day one of the pot experiment hits, it’s so exciting.
Benson tries vaporising weed. And gets high with a bunch of celebrities. He also discovers and documents a number of pro-weed institutions such as a 420 church, how weed can affect psychic ability and medicinal marijuana businesses.

Some really great comedians in the movie discussing weed, from Sarah Silverman, Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt. But there isn’t as much interesting material that actually covers marijuana.

As a documentary this feels entertaining for a while, but not ground-breaking. Benson is charismatic, kind and quirky. His humour is genuine and he speculates in a mode which alternates between the silly and the complex.

Benson is fun to watch. And if you do like this movie check out his podcast, Doug Loves Movies, because he’s good fun to listen to, as well.

This film lacks expression of a strong idea or emotion. It’s a little bit silly, but funny. With breaks for documented political rebellion.
The process of getting high for thirty days legally (because he's doing it on film,) is refreshing to see - so much weed, so much variety, so much choice. He is able to explore many different methods for smoking many different types of weed. But we never see him do a bucket bong.

Benson looks depressing when he's not smoking weed, but he says he feels fine. He's anxious about the idea of smoking weed constantly for such a long time, but he's also excited. Through his experience, we the viewer also feel intrigued and looking forward to the experiment.

Benson's comedy style is youthful and a little provocative, but mostly he looks like he's having fun on stage and this transfers to the audience.

His comedy and his approach to the experiment are the most enjoyable aspects of the film. However, the direction of this movie is a little aimless - sometimes political, sometimes philosophical, sometimes ironic. But never enough to be meaningful.

2.5 stars

New Suit (2002) – Dir: François Velle (The Narrows, Kings for a Day)

I recognise three things, that I personally enjoy this film. And the second is that it's pure rubbish. Third, I appreciate the topic. With a very cool concept and the topic of a creative struggle through filmmaking politics.

The soundtrack is gorgeous, supporting a vast array of silly characters. The story is kind of sweet, as is the progression of the hero - Kevin (Jordan Bridges) from naive screenwriter hopeful to disillusioned glorified secretary for the ignorant, yet powerful Hollywood executives.

It's funny in a restrained and cheeky cringe-worthy way. Mostly it’s just a bit of silly fun to watch. All of the characters (which could have been artful portraits, but were instead jokes,) you would ordinarily hate – there is something likeable about each one of them.

The ignorant boy scout is also a genuine, decent guy. Passionate about movies and maybe even an artist. And we like him more as he grows as a character. And this is the story’s hero, even the hero is both likeable and horrible.

The old agent lady is a bitter cynic and totally useless as a source of advancement. But she has a good heart. She’s also a liar.

The girl, Marianne (Marisa Coughlan), a producer wannabe and a man-user but she goes out of her way to try to help the boy scout, which in a small way redeems her.

Probably the truest line in the film, ‘You’d do more for your career in Hollywood by going out and schmoosing than staying home and working on your script.’

The chauffer is slick, and underneath all the bravado a truly noble character and a voice of reason. Creative and possibly the only non-plastic person in Hollywood. He considers himself a karmic Robin Hood. He is also one of the most manipulating forces in the system and still he can’t break through.

The bullying executive boss is a horrible little man, but we see him in a different light when he himself is bullied by his nemesis. The bullying just rolls downhill and seems to be the very foundation of the system.

Marianne and Kevin are a perfect match it seems. Both struggling to get noticed and negotiate the politics of working in the industry.

The two producers hate each other officially, they are both fairly despicable characters – but easy to sympathise with at the same time, because of the amount of shit they have to eat every day.

Trey (James Marsh – Brainscan) is excellent as one of the group of ‘elite’ assistants whom Kevin hangs out with to discuss scripts which they pretend they’ve read and talk about buzz – which they almost unwittingly create (with totally unqualified judgement.)

When a brilliant idea occurs to Kevin to invent a script and a screenwriter merely to fool his friends – the plan snowballs and the buzz gets out of control – in a similar situation to And She Was (with Kirstie Ally.)

Marianne is not entirely unlikable despite the fact that she consistently uses Kevin. I enjoy the consistent satire of the formulaic, or if you like manufacturing approach that Hollywood seems to have taken for the filmmaking process: Writers are cattle, producers are whores, nobody knows anything and films are chocolate bars and Burger King. Rather than gourmet pasta and handmade sorbet.

The producers are bullies – but they are also neurotic, anxious, helpless and suffering. In a way we feel for them as much as we despise them.

Marianne and Kevin make a great team once the buzz becomes real. Some of the scenes are emotionally tragic and jazzy – which is cool. The performances seem polished at times, quirky but melodramatic. However, this isn't as effective as it could be and the film isn’t artful.

It’s a nice parody of a grasp for success as moments of a life, in film.

2 stars

The Core (2003) – Dir: Jon Amiel (Copycat, Entrapment)

I love this movie, but I have a fetish for disaster/end of the world movies. It's actually a pretty terrible film. The film has a cool first half and it’s a movie about the end of the world which is a fear that I fixate on – the reason I like this type of movie. However, The Core is a spin on Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It’s a fairly ridiculous concept and a piece of crap story. It’s just a bad film. Even if you liked Armageddon, you’ve got to accept that this movie is not even good trash, it’s weak.

I was hoping to get an autograph from DJ Qualls on my DVD copy of The Core at Armageddon Expo (the New Zealand pop culture expo/convention.) Unfortunately, I didn’t end up going this year. I ordinarily don’t like Hilary Swank (I hated Million Dollar Baby.) However, she was amazing in Boys Don’t Cry, so she has my respect as an actress.

Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) was awesome in the half decent film, Thankyou for Smoking. So he’s cool as Dr Josh Keyes in The Core. Stanley Tucci (Conspiracy, Big Night) as Dr Zimsky and Tcheky Karyo (Kiss of the Dragon, The Patriot) as Serge are veteran artists of the highest calibre.

Characters are introduced elegantly – such as our businessman who invites us into the film. And the teacher, super-smart Keyes, who is charming and well-liked by his students, yet a very ordinary person. His ordinariness in a spectacular situation is a nice feature that could have been played with more to interesting effect, if more attention had been paid to the writing. Rather than focusing on making a (bad quality) product for a market – the disaster movie fetishists.

There is no doubt that the production value is top notch. Even some of the cinematography is nice. Because you get what you pay for.

The mystery in the beginning is intriguing and Keyes is a nice, cool, everyman character. He’s clever, like a charming version of Sherlock Holmes. I would suggest if it was still in screenplay form to ditch the end of the world concept and do the whole film about Keyes and the other scientists, they’re far more interesting.

The symptoms to the planet’s illness are cool, but nothing we haven’t seen before. And not shocking, specific enough, or violent – as to really affect the viewer.

Tucci really commits to the up-himself famous scientist role in Zimski. He’s great.

The storyline where Rebecca (Hilary Swank) saves the day but is blamed for crashing a space shuttle is a clever device to introduce her character and line her up with the series of natural phenomena that foretell the end of the planet.

This is why I say the first half of the film shows great potential in characters, writing, action, and performances. Unfortunately, instead of taking this as the core of the film and seeing where it leads, being Hollywood, they had to tack on a second half that was tired, tried and expected.

The problem with this film is that it could have been really interesting, but the second half (from the point where they shoot the ship into the ocean for the start of their voyage) when they actually try to stop the end of the world, it is wrapped up far too neatly, easily, unrealistically and predictably.

Delroy Lindo as Braz is another fun character. Noble enough to let Tucci’s prior betrayal slide off his back. Perhaps enough time has gone by that he’s no longer furious, especially when he’s being offered a job. He is a bit bitter, but probably the quirkiest character Lindo has played recently. The technological inventions are cool, but they look pretty ordinary. They lack style, but they do the job. The FX are nothing to write home about.

The Core is a very bad movie, with a half decent first half. Watch it only if you like crap movies about the end of the world.

1 star

Oldboy (2013: USA, remake) - Dir: Spike Lee (Jungle Fever, Do the Right Thing)

It’s pretty much a case of either/or, having watched this version – I see it now. And if you can’t handle subtitles then you might watch this version. I think Spike Lee has respected the source material. I agree with every one of his translation choices except for the ending.

I’ll try not to spoil it, but Joe (Josh Brolin) feels that he deserves to be punished for what he’s done. Which is fine but he’s already been punished. Yes, he’s a changed man, but he was wrongly imprisoned, so he deserves a pass. He has served his punishment – he should just accept it. Yes it was a good idea to disappear, but more punishment was silly.

Josh Brolin is a badass – his process of change isn’t as effective, and he isn’t as easy to relate to as the original actor, Min-sik Choi. Brolin looks ripped even as a slobby alcoholic compared to the dopey, fat and clumsy Oh Dae Su actor. However, the result – Old Joe is a very cool character. Personally I like this love interest more than Mido in the first movie. But that’s probably my Caucasian bias.

This is not a direct translation of the original – which would be both impossible and pointless – this is something we quickly discover. Nice tip of the hat to Dumas. 2013 Oldboy still respects the spirit of the first film. There are a lot of crossovers, but it’s the new stuff that is the most exciting. The equally pretty violence, which really starts when Joe kills a bunch of jocks on a football field. Pure Joe is a cool cat. Callous, purposeful, but merciful.

The crossovers mainly deal with our main character’s progression and cerebral journey, with the situation of imprisonment, and the disappointing villain – who was so amazing and important in the first film. A lot of the villain’s dialogue is reused.

The approach is very different. The villain (Sharlto Copley) is weak and has a grating fake British accent. Samuel L. Jackson is such a big personality that he is wasted in this role – it didn’t require that and I don’t feel that he really commits to the role – though I don’t fault him for it, he was miscast.

Good things about this movie – I can see how some people could hate Joe the obnoxious drunk in the beginning and love him after 20 years of change. The character that I feel is missing is the seafood.

Brolin’s Joe is possibly a better fighter than Oh Dae Su was, even though he still manages to get stabbed in the back. Which is a cool bit.

Or to put it a different way. Oh Dae Su fights and it feels real. Joe fights and it feels like you’re in an action (Segal) film.

The poetic cinematography and beautiful villain are absent. Joe’s friend, this time played by Michael Imperioli, is actually more of a natural feeling character in 2013.

Joe reacts to tragedy this time, and society seems to more easily recognise a murderer on the street in 2013 America. Or perhaps Brolin is playing a more paranoid and caring Oldboy.

Oh Dae Su was callous, his stone heart made him invincible. He wasn’t superpowered, he just never gave up until everyone was dead or brutally wounded.

Joe is a badass, but he feels something when he hurts people. He feels pain and has a big heart. But he’s got skills. And is not against murder to win a fight. Which makes him dangerous.

The villain is a major slack sail on this boat. Which is unusual because in Elysium, Sharlto Copley’s creation was a wonderful character. So vital to the story is the villain, that the character’s weakness pulls the whole story down. He isn’t mysterious, or beautiful. He’s still a perv, but not scary. His political and financial power should have given him an edge that could have been better illustrated through more writing to really strike fear in the viewer. Missed opportunity.

It would be fun to imagine a world where instead of being punished for our actions, we are punished randomly. And then allowed to commit atrocities equal to the punishments that we endured, without further consequences.

2.5 stars

Oldboy (2003: South Korea) - Dir: Chan-wook Park (Thirst, Stoker)

Oldboy is one of my favourite films of all time. This is a beautiful film, not simply violent, although it is.

This is the far superior film to Spike Lee's remake - however, if you can't handle subtitles, the remake is quite watchable.

The original seems to have everything. It is intellectually interesting. Poetic cinematography, pacing and choices of details; ways of revealing the story. We don't meet the villain, at first. We are with Oh Dae Su (Min-sik Choi.) He is a drunken bufoon, seeking a payphone to call his family.

Some of us have been in this situation before. Get drunk and self-pitying. Start trouble and the cops step in to sit on you, until you settle down. Though they usually don't let you go until you've sobered up a bit – in case you relapse.

Kidnapped without reason, without a word. And held prisoner in a hotel room for fifteen years.

What is particularly interesting is that Dae Su reacts to this extraordinary situation, just as man on the street would react. He panics, he begs, he freaks out, he tries to negotiate, he surrenders, and he sets about to change into the man he wants to be. A man who can deal with this situation. All he has is time. So he works hard and gradually, he changes.

One of the key points about this movie that makes it so special, is that not only could it happen to you, but that also you could rise to the occasion if all you had was time. Or that's the theory.

Dae Su in the beginning is a pathetic waste, a loud-mouthed nobody. If you can't see something of yourself or better in him, you ain't looking properly.

The other interesting thing about this film is how Dae Su tries to deal with the lack of explanation for what he sees as his punishment. He begins to write penance – a novel of his sins. In an effort to deduce the motive behind his situation – but also as part of his chosen process of change.

This may be worse than prison – in prison they tell you how long you've got, it may change – but an idea of duration keeps one from having to imagine forever.

It's not enough to hold him, he must be trained to fit our design (with gas and visions) and his life must be taken from him.

Tragedy will force the hero from his heart to materialise (our villain may want this – he is after all a fan of Dae Su, after studying him for all this time.) But that may not be the point, taking from him is further cold-blooded penalty for his crimes.

The narration is relevant to the tone – Old Dae Su – old, calm, morbid. Stone Heart Dae Su is telling the story of his imprisonment as we watch Early Dae Su – silly, weak, surrendered.

Early Dae Su, after only a year inside. Old Dae Su is telling the man who found him, after Dae Su got out.

I love the form that this story has taken – almost a fable.

Spectacularly shot, melodic and it has a feeling of piercing originality. At the same time you can really get into it and hope for the hero – Hope he changes, hope he gets free, hope he wins vengeance and the truth which he seeks.

The story is one mystery after another but it will all make sense in the end – such a fantastic design. A flourishing genius of images and relationships. Of this one man, Dae Su and his quest to avenge the death of his heart.

Dae Su is crazy – authentic psycho, as a result of his journey.
The people he meets are fascinated by him, just as we the viewer are impressed and intrigued. What will he do now?

And then the violence begins and it is pretty. Old Dae Su continues to narrate himself, because he rarely talks (a big change.) The changed man impresses us and is fun to watch unleashed on the world. But he mustn't get too comfortable. He must not forget his reason – he must take it all back, not by living but by fighting.

The villain – Lee Woo-jin (Ji-tae Yu) is decadent, callous, pure and beautiful like blood.

Oh Dae Su is the ultimate action hero. But this isn't really an action movie. It is a unique, sad, violent, love story.

The fight feels real – he takes on so many bodies, he is such a badass. He even impresses himself. But it's not easy for him. He feels the pain, he fights awkwardly against so many and for someone who isn't experienced against real opponents. He just never gives up and he's had fifteen years training himself for this.

Stoning his heart so that he can really dish out the pain. This is the hard part. He no longer shies away from hurting the other guy worse than a normal person might consider reasonable. Once you understand that about him, the violence makes sense.

It's something any one of us could do after fifteen years of stoning heart and training body – that is the theory that this film presents us with.

The ending is perfect. Who will win? Who will die? Whose heart will crack? Why was this done to Oh Dae Su?

5 stars