#004 SKYFALL

A fair amount has been said on the subject of this film already, especially when referring to it's context within the canon of Bond, so I will mainly look at this from the point of view of looking at it as a Movie.

Directed by Sam Mendes of AMERICAN BEAUTY fame (my favorite film of all time), SKYFALL is an exceedingly superb action film. Opening of a wonderful and constantly escalating action sequence that flows from setpiece to setpiece in what feels like utter ease and landing us smack bang in the middle of the world James Bond inhabits. Cut to a brilliant title sequence with a great Adele number underneath.

The visuals on this film are amazing, and with Roger Deakins behind the camera, what did you expect?  Interestingly enough, the Arri Alexa was used on this picture and while images aren't always as flawless as those from ANONYMOUS, also shot on the Alexa (though not the studio model) the camera is fast proving itself to be the greatest digital camera to date.

The story, even for non-Bond fans, is exciting and enthralling from the get go covering a plot by a mastermind hacker to take down MI6 and it's leader. All actors here handle their characters perfectly.  Judy Dench is especially given a great plot in which she shines and damn near steals the film from Craig... nearly.

This film is exactly what you want in an action picture, explosions, chases, jokes and a damn good story. I can't really say much more other than it's worth the hype and deserves the some $871 million dollars at the box office as of this writing.

Brilliant, fun and a damn great action film - 10/10

#002 The Sessions

The Sessions. A wonderful film that's generating a lot of awards buzz at the moment.

It follows the story of Mark O'Brien who, stricken with polio as a boy, has no control over almost all of the muscles in his body, requiring him to live most of his life in an iron lung and at the age of 38, decides that he doesn't want to die a virgin and opts to employ a sex surrogate.

Mark is played by John Hawkes who gave a brilliant performance in the well-accoladed Winter's Bone. And here he give a very nuanced performance, made especially difficult by being restricted in only moving his head but it never becomes an act of self pity and that what I loved about this film. It never made his situation a pitiful thing, only a different one.

Helen Hunt plays the sex therapist Cheryl and give a very.... very revealing performance, but again this movie exceeds expectations in that the sex scenes in this film are not shot romantically at all, they are merely another scene and this is where I give props to director Ben Lewin who shoots most of the film with the camera stuck on a tripod which fully places the audience in perspective of Mark's situation.
There is also a Priest character, played by William H. Macy who provides a lot of the film's unexpected comedic moments that elevate it beyond typical dramas.

This is a very good movie, but by no means my favourite of the year, the ending kind of fizzles but overall I had a very good experience... or session.... (I know that was awful but I had to do it... when I bought my ticket I said "Can i have one to the 2:30 session of The Sessions and then laughed at my own joke.... yeah... I'm that guy)

Solid film with a wonderful (and potential Oscar-worthy) Performance from John Hawkes
8/10

*Sidenote: So evidently this won't be a movie-a-day thing as making your own movie eats your time like Mr. Lecter eats census takers. But I shall try my best to review as often as possible.

#001 Blurred

So first on my movie pile is the 2002 Australian film BLURRED.
It was suggested to me by a friend who recommended it when I was explaining a teen party-esque idea I had and to be honest, I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did.
For anyone that has heard me talk about movies, it will become very quickly apparent that I have a love of multi-plot films, that is films with multiple protagonists (the official term is "Hyperlink Cinema" but that's far too wanktastic for me to ever use that in public). Even the ones that aren't supposed to carry a lot of artistic merit such as VALENTINE'S DAY, I find myself, more often than not, enjoying them in some small way.

But with Blurred, it's just that much more difficult.

Blurred follows a dozen or so characters all on their way to schoolies week on the Gold Coast in sunny Queensland... yeah that's pretty much it.

I must give props to some of the actors here who manage, in some small way, to handle the incredibly on-the-nose dialogue that feels like first, maybe second, draft material rather than something that's been properly re-written. I mean, for example, the first 30 minutes are coated in every piece of Australian slang. Ever. Other actors in this ensemble piece don't fare so well such as the guy on the train who dumps his girlfriend and goes on a high with a random goth character for the entirety of the film.

That's another thing, most of these characters are unfathomably stereotypical to the point where it feels forced and yet those stereotypes aren't taken anywhere new or given a new spin or development throughout the film that would make them interesting. The characters all just kind of sit there and shit happens. There is, to my great dismay, a totally unnecessary love story that seems to come out of nowhere as two of the characters suddenly "Realise we like each other" in order to create conflict, these kinds of developments scream that the writer is taking a hand and only adds to the parts that feel forced.

Don't get me wrong, there were some good moments to this film: there's one particular sequence at a petrol station where several of the stories collide (my favourite kinds of moments in multi-plot films) that was quite enjoyable to watch and the ending wrapped it up nice enough that it didn't feel like my time was completely wasted but at the end of the day, while it wasn't a terrible movie, it wasn't a very good one either.

4.5/10 for me on this one.

P.S. The one amusing thing is how serendipitously creepy Matthew Newton's role is when considering all the things he did later on in life.... but perhaps that's not a particularly good thing...


Next on the pile is TRAINSPOTTING.