Shockingly, a film fight that’s on time. Onward.

Interview is Steve Buscemi’s latest directorial work, and it’s a bit of an oddity. It focuses on only two characters: a gossip magazine featured actress (Sienna Miller) and a political journalist (Steve himself). What we get is an acting piece; a real opportunity for the two stars to show off their chops. It’s somewhat self-indulgent, with the little story given really suffering from the quick mood changes. Not awful, but not great.

I’m not against adaptations making major changes to the source material but 30 Days of Night really gets it badly wrong. It keeps the same premise (vampires realising that during the heart of winter an Alaskan town has 30 days of darkness in which they are free), some of the same character names (Stella, Eben), but loses much of the rest (like the character). Instead of an interesting premise, subtly done, we get a bad action-horror movie. The vampires are idiotic, with their new language, and the human cast are annoying. Really poor.

Robert Rodriguez knows B-movies and, more importantly, how to parody them with a deft touch. This is all too evident in the smirkingly good Planet Terror. All the over the top trappings are present: lame-but-funny dialogue, oddball characters, comically gruesome monsters, and a nutty plot. Everything has just the right mix of polish and rust to keep the film entertaining. A must-see film.

Ridley Scott manages to pull together a great cast (Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe) for the excellent American Gangster; the story of a Harlem druglord taking over the business from his mentor. As good as most of Scorsese’s work in the area, Ridley finds the right balance between building up his characters and boring people with excessive slow backstory. The pacing is spot-on, except for a slightly extended ending, and the cast really shine throughout. Very good stuff.

The story of Beowulf has been adapted many times before, so it seems like an odd choice for Robert Zemeckis. The main difference this time is that the film is animated, in 3D. The 3D (RealD) works surprisingly well once you put the glasses on, with no real colour oddities seen in previous 3d attempts. The depth really adds something to the feel of the movie. Sadly, that’s where the praise ends. Almost the entire film reeks of being an extended showcase for the admittedly interesting technology. Ray Winstone is dreadful as the titular hero, and the rest of the cast are all over the place. Not a great film, by any stretch.

I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson films (older readers may remember that The Life Aquatic won the 2005 Film Fight Finale), they tend to be a whole lot more interesting than most mainstream releases. His latest, The Darjeeling Limited, has all the trappings: dialogue light characters, quirky framing shots, beautiful art direction, a plot about finding yourself and letting go of the past etc. It’s all very familiar ground, with one exception: it’s lacking a lot of the humour of his previous films. While it’s by no means a bad movie, it is his weakest. Worth seeing, but not a patch on other efforts.

Finally, Eastern Promises is a gangster film that gets a lot wrong: flat or steretyped characters, plodding pace, predictable plot, notably bad sound direction, and very little else going for it. If someone told me a first year film student had directed it, I would not be shocked. Instead, it was the usually excellent David Cronenberg (let’s forget eXistenZ). The one saving grace for this film is Viggo Mortensen who puts in a great performance, settling comfortably into uncomfortably levels of violence as easily as showing an almost tender side. It doesn’t make up for everything else though, and the film is something of a failure.

This month is a genuinely tough call between American Gangster and Planet Terror. I think the latter slips past, with it’s tongue in cheek comedy. So the winner is Planet Terror.

Observations:

Time of Expectation

The period in which a Linux user believes a few simple additions are all that are needed for Linux on the mainstream desktop. “When we get better wireless support, then we’ll be ready for the desktop”.

Time of Denial

The period in which a Linux user evangelises to non-technical family and friends about Linux. “You can play all your games now, so there’s no reason to keep paying Microsoft”. This is sometimes known as the Time of Delusion, as they become deluded that anyone in the mainstream cares.

Time of Realisation

The period in which a Linux user realises that Linux isn’t ready for the mainstream after all. Usually after an incident caused by the Time of Denial: “I guess piping command line arguments out of files and into other processes is a little obscure, Grandma.”

If you think the problem is technical, you’re almost certainly wrong. We can fix all the holes we see in Linux support, that’s really the easy part. What we’ll never end up with is something that normal users will see as normal. We’ll never create what they’re used to, because we’re not trying to create that; we want something better.

No, the problem is social. People need to be educated about what makes a good system, about all the options available, about secure practices, about strengths and weaknesses. That’s a hard problem, and it’s one that your compiler can do very little to help you with.

October was a big month for viewing, as we approach the pre-Christmas clearance.

Death Proof is Tarantino’s segment of the Grindhouse double feature. While, sadly, it was split for the European release (look out for the Planet Terror review in November’s Film Fight), this part of Grindhouse still delivers the goods. Kurt Russell plays Stuntman Mike, a thrill-seeker who loves hurting and scaring young women. Without elaborating much more on the plot, it meets expectations of how ridiculous a b-movie should be. The characters are over the top, the dialogue is a little over-boiled (but not hard-boiled), and everything comes together nicely. Where it falls down is the length. This release is around 30 minutes longer than the original cut, and it shows. I enjoy Tarantino’s dialogue, he’s a master it believably, but it does go on a little long in places. So, a good film, but not great.

Having enjoyed prequel Night Watch, it was with some disappointment that I realised Day Watch‘s makers had gotten it so spectacularly wrong. The original had an odd epic battle going on between the two sides of Day and Night, with each character having their own power, the set-up being quite dark, and the mysterious Gloom unsettling. This time round everything is pulled out of the writer’s ass. Characters develop new powers and find artifacts to help them when it’s plot convenient, the story is all over the place (dozens of nonsensical slivers), the upped budget has produced some pretty brash effects (a bad thing), an abysmal ending, and the whole thing smacks of not knowing what to do. It lacks cohesion, intelligence and style: the very things that the original had going for it. A real shame.

Recent Farrelly brother films and Ben Stiller films have been pretty poor. That’s why it’s such a surprise to find that the pairing has produced a pretty decent movie, The Heartbreak Kid. The plot is thin, but the farce that develops around it is quite amusing. It features a good performance by Michelle Monaghan, some great back and forths between Stiller and Monaghan’s family, and a strong supporting cast. The layer upon layer of ending is, as always, a pain point, but the rest of the film is strong enough to survive it. Good, light entertainment.

It’s sad to see a good premise go wrong. Sadly, that’s what happens with the remake of The Invasion. As body snatchers take over, the film really let’s you see that the tricks used to fool it are noticed by other people much earlier than the main character, bringing with it a sense of realism. Throughout, there are moments of well-taut pressure followed by bursts of panic, but the whole facade falls down because the plot takes too long and makes the main character’s son plot critical. Sure, seeing the big victory is nice, but having viewed it through minor eyes for much of the film, it smacks of laziness to pull this particular ending.

The Counterfeiters tells the terrible (and true) story of Jewish bankers, artists and counterfeiters treated like kings in their own private camp, while being forced to manufacture fake notes. It’s an affecting drama, showing the struggle between survival and fighting injustice, as demonstrated by the film’s two main protagonists. It pulls you in every direction, perfectly executing each scene through the dramatic conclusion. Pitch perfect, and a contender for film of the year.

As most people know, making charming little animated films is what Pixar does best. Their latest, Ratatouille, doesn’t disappoint. While the main human character is a rare mistake for the company, the eponymous rat and the rest of the cast never fail to delight. The sense of adventure, light-handed morality, and carefully handled plotting that Pixar are known for shine through once again.

Finally, Mr Brooks looked like being a good Kevin Costner film, but failed to deliver the goods. The premise is that of a meticulous serial killer, with an invisible friend (his murderous side) advising him when things start to go wrong. It’s really just an excuse for some incredibly lazy acting and storytelling. Rather than Costner showing us what he’s feeling, he’ll get started and his invisible friend will then explain it to us through pretty painful dialogue. The other characters are numerous but largely superflous, given far too much screen time for what amount to plot strands that mean nothing to the film (Demi Moore’s character could have been in another film entirely). Mr Brooks gives up on it’s own internal logic, and gives up the ghost on what could’ve been an interesting film. Shame.

The obvious winner this month is the fantastic war time movie, The Counterfeiters.

Once again, the film fights are behind. Time to catch up:

Knocked Up is a surprisingly grown-up comedy. Expecting a bit of a gross-out, it was a pleasure to see a well-developed movie; with a decent enough plot, and even some (shock) character development. While it still has enough set-pieces to entertain (the trip to Vegas being particularly notable), it’s good to see that they’re part of the story, rather than the story being an excuse for them. It’s not a masterpiece, by any stretch, but it is worth seeing. One of the best comedies of the year.

Let’s get straight to it for the next one: 1408 is about as lazy a Stephen King adaptation as you can make (without producing utter excrement like Dreamcatcher). That’s a real shame as it has a handful of genuinely jumpy moments, before it descends into horror movie cliché, dream endings, and King’s own silly trappings: haunted inanimate objects. Cusack does the best he can with the material, while Samuel L Jackson phones in his five minute performance. Pretty dreadful, despite a decent opening.

As I’m sure many have realised by now, Run, Fatboy, Run is not a Simon Pegg film. Sure, he stars in it, but I’d be willing to bet that his 3rd-tier writing credit is due to the handful of jokes he wrote for it (and I’d bet on which ones they are). David Schwimmer, as director, proves himself woefully incompetent. He manages to create a fairly one-dimensional world, with painfully unrounded characters and poor motivations. It being a comedy is no excuse, as Pegg himself has proven time and again, for simply holding up a flimsy premise as completed material and running some fart jokes through it. Apart from the outstandingly funny Dylan Moran, this film is without merit.

Finally, Michael Clayton has George Clooney as a kind of fixer lawyer, dropped in to solve problems. Although he’s supposed to be great at it, the character isn’t doing so well. His best friend has gone nuts and is going against a multi-million dollar client. The main problem with this film is direction: it meanders in the set-up, and fails to really get going at any decent pace. The performances are strong, and the story is interesting enough, it’s just not going to really grab anyone.

It’s a tough choice, and Clooney nearly had it, but I think the winner from these four has to be Knocked Up.

Last year I was a young pup at 23. As of today, I’m an old and enlightened 24 year old *COUGH*.

Being 24 is a lot like the TV show of the same name: you’re an untouchable badass willing to do anything to protect your ideals, and there any number of terrorists willing to launch an attack on you within a few seconds of the hour mark (pro tip: if it’s a couple of seconds to the hour, maybe cover your head to be safe). Also, your daughter is probably fairly crap at not being kidnapped.

Anyway, the changes this year have been, in many ways, subtle. I’m still working for the same BigCo (in a different job), most of my circumstances are pretty much the same (aside from a few personal items), and that’s just fine with me; everything is going pretty great.

Here’s to another year of this.