51. Session 9 – Brad Anderson (2001)

First Viewing.

Brad Anderson’s probably most famous for directing the 2004 Christian Bale movie, The Machinist, which would be filed somewhere between Fight Club and Mulholland Drive, but nowhere near as good as either. Session 9 was the movie that showcased Anderson’s talents well enough to get The Machinist green-lit. So, presumably, it’s rather good, right? Well, you know, it ain’t so bad, it ain’t so bad….

Firstly, and this is what almost makes the movie work, it’s set in a abandoned mental hospital- a real-life abandoned mental hospital -which, so the director claimed, didn’t even need to be dressed for shooting! Making the movie a whole lot more affecting and creepy. It’s hard to convey the story precisely as to do so would give away too much, but it’s basically about five people renovating a mental hospital and, well, some weird stuff starts to go down. Paranoia takes over the men and we’re left with a modern day retelling of The Shining. There’s also something of a mystery being revealed as the movie goes along and the viewer is invited to draw their own conclusions on whether this mystery relates directly to the actions of the men or is more of a cautionary tale.

Overall Session 9 doesn’t really do anything that stands out or sticks in your mind especially, each function of the film process is capably handled without being amazing or fantastic. The acting is fairly good, despite the use of a Glaswegian actor who seems to be quite out of place with the other four characters, making for an unnecessary distraction. The cast also has some guy from CSI: Miami in it I’m reliably informed by the good people of IMDB, but, naturally, I only use my television for watching movies, sports and the occasional cooking show, so I have no idea who he is. The movie is a solid, if  not spectacular, mystery/thriller/horror – although it never really exceeds enough in any of those areas to even make for a good genre movie.

Marks out of ten – Six

50. The InnKeepers – Ti West (2011)

First Viewing.

50th film review extravaganza! (I did consider using a different colour or font to write this, but that would be madness. I’m allergic to anything that’s got more than a little colour in it. So I’ll just try mention my favourite director at some point instead to celebrate this milestone)

I’m not a big fan of the horror genre, but I do love ghost stories; Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving and so on. So, The Innkeepers intrigued me, it, so it has been claimed, isn’t your traditional try-scare-the-shit-out-of-me-24/7 type horror movie, but a slow burning old ghost movie instead. That’s enough to sell me on a horror flick. Nothing to do with me being an epic coward….

Now The Innkeepers is very low budget, we’re talking a few thousand dollars, but don’t let that put you off, the horror genre is rife with classics made for next to no money. The film does have that hipster vibe about it, you know, Baghead and Mutual Appreciation et al, you can imagine the director’s target audience was a bunch of kids with Win Butler haircuts who read Pitchfork (note: I’d totally get the one-side-shaved Win Butler look if I had more guts.) Again, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I like a film that sets a tone and sticks to it. I hate to give spoilers away, but the film doesn’t exactly aim to scare you, but more make you invest in the characters and thus it plays with your emotions when certain things happen to these characters, it’s a rather interesting way of going about creating a horror. Of course this isn’t the kind of film that’s going to blow you away, but it’s a very enjoyable watch and, for my money, it pisses all over the torture-porn type horror genre as it actually shows some brains and humility. So take that Paranormal Activity 17!  If Jim Jarmusch ever made a horror this is how I would expect it to play out, except Jim’s film would be dripping with coolness and Iggy Pop would probably be playing the cross-dressing ghost of Jim Morrison. So, you know, The Innkeepers got that laid-back, we’re in no hurry vibe that Jarmusch works so well, which I do enjoy….

Marks out of ten – Seven.

49. Lost in Translation – Sofia Coppola (2004)

Repeat Viewing.

Anyone who knows me will attest to my love of William James Murray, or just plain Bill to his friends. I could watch any film with him in, I even saw Garfield at the cinema as is my love for the great man (I didn’t see Garfield 2. That would’ve just been plain silly) So, and I can remember this quite clearly even though it was released here back in January 2004, I was standing on a platform waiting to catch the tube to some charming place and there, in front of my eyes, was a poster for Lost in Translation. It was magnificent. Okay, it was just Bill Murray sitting on a bed, but I was in love. I later found out that it also starred Scarlett Johansson, whom I had thought was fantastic in Ghost World, and so I started counting down the days until it’s release. Praying it didn’t disappoint. Hint; it doesn’t.

The story revolves around Bill and Scarlett being alone in Tokyo at the same period of time, and, in a somewhat unlikely fashion, they become friends, and possibly more. I could gush on about the wonderful direction, the beautiful photography and great soundtrack for an age, but I’ll try not to. Sofia Coppola, who had just the one previous film on her CV before this, The Virgin Suicides, does a remarkable job of allowing us to believe the relationship Bill and Scarlett are forming is real and not manufactured for a film. It seems entirely natural. The pair have great chemistry and Bill gets to show off some of his typically wonderful dead pan stylings. Everything in this movie works for me, it’s exactly the type of movie I love; it’s fairly minimalistic in it’s approach and it doesn’t get bogged down trying to tell a complex story, it’s just about a bunch of different people occupying a city at the same time & this is what happened. And, of course, there’s the ending, ah the ending, I wonder what was said….

See this movie if you haven’t already. It’s one of the best from the 21st century.

Marks out of ten – Nine

 

 

48. Cube – Vincenzo Natali (1997)

First Viewing.

Super low budget, it’s Canadian and it’s about, well, a Rubik’s cube with serious issues; it likes to kill people. On the face of it it’s not exactly the type of film I’d be rushing out to watch usually, but I thought I’d give it a go due to a combination of good reviews and peer pressure. And, I’m not going to say I wish I hadn’t seen it, but it didn’t rock my world (I’ve never used that phrase before, and, reading it back, I don’t think I ever will again!) I can live with the dubious special effects, I can live with the weird set-up, I can almost live with the awful dialogue, but when certain characters started acting like they’ve been lobotomised half way through the film I lost interested. I understand that the characters, who are trapped inside this killer box, are under intense pressure to escape, but really, you don’t go from being a good guy to a total dick in the space of 30 seconds. If you’re a huge sci-fan it’s probably worth checking out, or if you find a regular Rubik’s cube just far too easy you might want to take a look too, otherwise I’d watch something else.

Marks out of ten – Five

*Bonus Oscar related content!*

Being a huge Woody Allen fan I’d like to see Midnight in Paris sweep the Oscars up, but that’s never going to happen. Midnight in Paris isn’t actually even close to some of Woody’s best work, so I shan’t be overly gutted if he goes home empty handed. It’s not like he’ll give a fuck either way. I quite liked Moneyball too, but that’s because I’m a closet baseball and stats geeks. I guess I might not feel the same if I had zero interest in the sport. I’d also like to see Gary Oldman win for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but I’m finding it hard to find any other films I truly love out of the nominated bunch, so that’s a big “meh” from me on what goes on to win tonight…

47. Young Adult – Jason Reitman (2012)

First Viewing.

2008 seems so long ago; that Obama guy was elected president, the stock exchange went into meltdown, the Giants shocked the Patriots to win the Superbowl and Juno, a film directed by Jason Reitman & written by Diablo Cody, was released in the cinemas here. I’d been waiting months to finally see it, and, if I recall, I went to view it on a grey Friday lunchtime instead of going to class (going to the cinema isn’t technically skipping class if you’re a film student. Probably.) I loved it. The dialogue was fantastic, Diablo Cody’s script was razor-sharp. (actually Diablo and I were once friends on Myspace because, yes, I really am that lame cool.)  I thought Cody was going to be the next Charlie Kaufman, so I wanted to get on that bandwagon early, and, as we know, she went on to win an Oscar for best original screenplay.

It’s now 2012, the world is still in a financial meltdown, Obama really isn’t as cool as we all hoped, the Giants have beat the Patriots in the Superbowl again and Cody & Reitman are back with another film, Young Adult. (Twitter has also now made it so uncool to talk to a celebrity online that should you actually do that then I’m going to have to ask you to quit reading my blog review right here. We can’t be friends. You’re just not the kind of reader I’m looking for. It’s you not me.) Where was I? Oh yeah, Young Adult. Firstly, it’s nowhere near as good as Juno, it’s lacking that emotional connection you had with the two main characters, Juno & Paulie, sadly with Charlize Theron’s Mavis you just kinda hate her. There’s no warm glow emanating from your body as the end credits roll with Young Adult, I’d probably suggest a large amount of apathy was kicking around instead. Now I know Young Adult has received mainly positive reviews in the press, and I guess I can kinda see why, but it’s got a touch of the Emperor’s new clothes about it for me. I will, however, say that I didn’t hate it, it entertained me enough for the duration of the film, but it’s not special like Juno is. And I do like that Mavis starts off as a bitch in the film and ends pretty much in the same place. Too many films like to have their protagonist “go on a journey of change” through the narrative and, frankly, everyone I’ve ever known whose been a dick once continues on being dick. People rarely change. That’s the best thing I can say about the flick. (I do also apologize for the epic use of brackets, weird social commentary and lack of any real review in this review.)

Marks out of ten – Six

46. Brief Encounter – David Lean (1945)

Repeat viewing.

England may not have as fine a tradition of cinematic excellence as some other European countries, I’m thinking France mainly here, but we do have a fair amount of great movies that capture our country exquisitely, and none more so than Brief Encounter. If England were ever needed to be represented by a movie to be shown to visitors from a galaxy far, far away then you couldn’t pick anything more suitable than this. It’s what I loved about this country. It’s charming, witty, and beautifully sad. It captures a country recovering from war and entering into a period of great change and the two main characters, Laura and Alec, capture this moment perfectly. Both are married, both, it would seem, love their partner, and both have fallen in love with each other. They want each other, but know the consequences of running off together are terrible in the eyes of society. It’s the eternal question, should one do what one wants or should one do what is considered right? The films follows the characters as they make their choices. Of course being English and living in the 1940s they, Alec and Laura, cannot possibly confess their love of another person to any of their friends or acquaintances, they have appearances to uphold, and that famous stiff upper lip to adhere to, so nearly everything we hear on the subject of love is from the inner monologue of Laura. It works rather well here, but it isn’t exactly the best way to tell a film and this technique would crash and burn in other films, especially ones much less charming than this.

This film, as you may or may not know, was written by one of the legends of English playwright history, Noel Coward, the Shakespeare of his day, except he’d be more likely to be found with a Martini  in his hand rather than a goblet of red wine. Coward creates a beautiful script with such perfect dialogue that it left myself pining for the days when the people of this country spoke with eloquence and wit, not the bastard love-child of Dick Van Dyke and Ali G we’re left with instead. I also cannot finish this review without mentioning the director, David Lean, another shining star in English history. The direction is so perfect here that one barely even notices the lack of set-pieces and how this film really is a play at it’s heart.

Marks out of ten – Eight

45. Take Shelter – Jeff Nichols (2011)

First Viewing.

Micheal Shanon is one of my favourite actors and it’s great to see him getting the lead in such a fantastic and complex movie as Take Shelter. Anyone who has seen Sam Mendes Revolutionary Road will recall Shannon’s scene stealing performance as the crazed son of Kathy Bates. He is an actor who really gets inside his character’s mind. And the mind Shannon gets inside in Take Shelter, Cutis’, is one that needs some serious care, attention and rather a lot of therapy. Without giving too much away Curtis starts experiencing a deluge of dreams, delusions and/or premonitions concerning a storm about to hit his town. These dreams are either a terrible warning, the first signs of hereditary mental illness or a reaction to the stress he has been under, or, perhaps, a combination of all three possibilities. With these possibilities weighing heavy on Curtis we get to see the very  best of Shannon’s acting abilities, and he gives one of the finest performances of the year. It’s a real actors workshop going on. You can’t take your eyes off of him.

The director, Jeff Nichols, handles the apocalyptic-world’s-going-to-end genre in a way I’ve not seen before, it’s incredibly engaging and deep. It doesn’t offer up answers or a tidy conclusion, if anything you’re left with more questions by the end of the film than you had two thirds of the way through it. It encompasses many interesting elements, from the existence of a god right through to what it means to be a father/husband/son and onto the difficult issue of mental illness. I’m really quite shocked that films such a The Descendants, Moneyball and Hugo can be showered with Oscar nominations, but films like Take Shelter and Martha Marcy May Marlene – which ask difficult questions of the viewer and make for great, captivating cinema – are criminally snubbed. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to see such accomplished films ignored in favour of the established, bankable directors/actors as it happens almost every year now….

Marks out of ten – Eight