2006 Top Ten

1. Junebug (10)
2. Kenny (10)
3. Children of Men (9.5)
4. Babel (9.5)
5. Candy (9.5)
6. Brokeback Mountain (9.5)
7. The Departed (9)
8. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (9)
9. Little Miss Sunshine (9)
10. Friends with Money/Match Point (tied) (9)

Apparently it was a good year at the movies.

The Pursuit of Happyness

Dave encapsulated my feelings going into this movie perfectly when he said 'I wanted to refer to it as Sappyness or Happymess, but it's actually genuinely engaging with well judged performances. A lovely surprise'.

SO TRUE. My expectations were low going into this movie. Basically I was expecting it to be a shameless Oscar bid by Will Smith. Yes, it was an Oscar bid, but shameless it was not. Now if you don't know the premise behind this film, it's about a a family - the mother leaves, leaving the son and the broke father to try to make a life for themselves. Determined not to be broke anymore, the father takes an unpaid internship at a stockbroking firm, and he and his son have to live off next to nothing, sometimes sleeping in homeless shelters, bathrooms etc.

And it's based on a true story. A recipe for sugary sweetness, right? Not so.

A story like this was always going to be a little bit heartwarming, it's just the way it is. But the performances were subtle, and even the father/son dynamic (played by Will Smith and his real life son) wasn't overplayed. The tension and feeling of hopelessness was there, but never manipulative. There were some very 'real' little moments that saved it from that I think - the son having enough eventually and having a bit of a tanty, the father trying to have a word to the daycare provider about a few things he wasn't happy with etc. And most importantly, Will Smith's character was flawed enough to make him believable.

It did take me a bit to warm to this film because there were some jarring moments in the beginning, like when the mother first takes the son, Will Smith sat on the bed holding one of the son's shoes. We get it already, he's sad about losing his son. And there was a bit of an irritating rubix cube theme as well, but that thankfully only lasted a little while. Rosie has said that she was expecting sappiness, but swung to the other extreme to the point where she felt she didn't connect emotionally with the characters, but felt she should have. Like watching someone tell the story, instead of feeling the story. I can see the truth in this, and suffered from this a little myself, but I suppose when you're expecting to be smacked in the face with emotion and you're not, it does take that little bit extra to invest in the characters you're watching.

So, if you don't like a side serving of sugar with your film, and are hesitant to see The Pursuit of Happyness because of it, don't be. Sit tight through the beginning and I think it'll pay off as a great piece of entertainment, even for those with the lowest of sappiness thresholds.

8 for me.

To give you an idea of my taste in movies....

My top ten for 2005 and their ratings....These give away my soft spot for Australian film, movies with a strong conceptual theme running through them (eg. Look Both Ways - death, Crash - racism, The Sea Inside -euthanasia, Mysterious Skin - child sexual abuse) and very atmospheric films.
01. Closer (10)
02. Shopgirl (10)
03. Look Both Ways (9.5)
04. The Proposition (9.5)
05. Crash (9.5)
06. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (9.5)
07. The Sea Inside (9)
08. Mysterious Skin (9)
09. Tarnation (9)
10. Hotel Rwanda (9)
NB: Dismal failure for the year - Last Days, the second rate homage to Kurt Cobain's last days, by Gus Van Sant. It just missed the mark so badly, I can't even express it in writing.

My top ten movies for 2004 and their ratings....Unfortunately these reveal my secret love for musical theatre (Camp and Phantom), and also docos and once again, very atmospheric and subtle films that don't necessarily have a lot of action in them (The Return, The Station Agent, The Weeping Camel which is also a doco, Girl with a Pearl Earring).
01. Garden State (10)
02. Girl with a Pearl Earring (10)
03. The Return (10)
04. Coffee and Cigarettes (10)
05. The Station Agent (9.5)
06. Camp (9.5)
07. The Phantom of the Opera (9.5)
08. The Weeping Camel (9.5)
09. To Be and To Have (9.5)
10. Eternal Sunshine... (9.5)
NB: This was my first year of rating things on the DaveScale and I didn't yet understand the concept of outright failing things. My lowest mark was 5.5 for Anchorman, which I have since come to love since shedding my snobbery relating to ridiculous comedies. I do remember being incredibly disappointed by The Human Stain (it had Nicole Kidman in it, but she redeemed herself with Birth) and The House of Sand and Fog. In fact, I was quite passionate about the latter, but that was more to do with the irritation caused by Jennifer Connelly's character. I would probably also revise Garden State down to a 9 now, thus pushing it out of the top 10, making Girl with a Pearl Earring number 1 and bringing either In America, 21 Grams, Big Fish or Life and Death of Peter Sellars (all on 9) into the top 10.

I was going to paste some honourable mentions, but I want to go to bed. Might update this later so check back if you care.

Tomorrow I'm seeing 'The Pursuit of Happyness'. Will Smith will probably get an Oscar nomination for it so I feel it's my duty to see it, even though I don't have high hopes. 2006 top ten coming soon i hope....

Blood Diamond

So, the end of this weekend's movie binge was Blood Diamond. I didn't know a lot about this film going in (I'd only seen one preview and apparently have had my head up my arse for sometime because it's gotten quite a bit of publicity) and wasn't expecting a lot.

What I got was what I would expect from an essentially 'Hollywoodised' account of the diamond conflict/civil war in Sierra Leone. It was unsubtle, and nothing was left to the imagination. The action sequences were brutal and full on, but the performances were strong. Even Leonardo Di Caprio's South African accent didn't grate on my as much as I thought it would.

David made an important observation - the grittier nature of the issue this film dealt with would have been better off framed in a drama, rather than an action/thriller which is really what Blood Diamond was. The action/thriller elements took up a lot of time that I feel could have been better used explaining the conflict more fully. Even the quiet personal moments were always interrupted by perfectly timed, hollywood gunfire. A little infuriating. Having said that, I realise that I am predisposed to liking movies that delve into the issues deeply, and this movie can definitely be enjoyed without the political side of it all being addressed in any depth.

That aside, this film had some good points. It was entertaining (which is something that should never be underestimated in a film in my opinion) and the performances were strong. But for me, the best part about this film was that it is bringing several incredibly huge issues to the public in a very accessible way - on the smaller scale, the black market in 'conflict' diamonds and civil war in Sierra Leone, and on a larger scale the situation in Africa and the plight of Africa's refugees and child soldiers. So as much as I whinge about it not being in depth enough for me, I think that's almost outweighed by the fact that it has brought attention to something so important.

7 for me.

Marie Antoinette

After seeing this movie I have to reneg on a statement I made back in that first post. Art direction apparently cannot sustain me for a whole movie. If there was ever a film that relied on art direction to get it through, it's this one. Sure, the costumes are amazing. Sure, it's shot entirely in and around the undeniably spectacular Versailles. However, without decent character development, a decent plot or theme development and consistent art direction, all that is going to fail to entertain me. I realise that this was never meant to be a informative account of history, rather a portrait of the times. But.

This movie for me was basically watching young, rich and beautifully costumed people for a portion of their substantially dull lives. The traditions of the French court are only interesting the first time you learn about them. After that there needs to be some development of tension, something that makes the history part seem like a story instead of a pesky sideline to the prettiness of it all. Surely the history needs to at least be acknowledged to understand the way the court operated?

I also had major issues with the inconsistency of this film. For example, the first part was largely preoccupied with the struggle of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI (I think?) to consummate their marriage and produce an heir. This was drawn out for far too long, and it was almost like the makers lost interest in that story line before it was even resolved because although it was eventually sorted out, that part of the story had petered out well beforehand. The rest of the film is a bit a mixture between the political doings of Louis and whatever Marie Antoinette was doing at the time. So basically, some poorly explained and developed history with no tension, and pretty young things bullshitting their time away. Not the stuff of great films I'm afraid.

There has been much ado about the music in this film as well. Firstly, a lot of the soundtrack (classical and modern) is downright intrusive in my opinion. The mix of music is strange - i got that there was a transition to more 'modern' music when the young royals were at parties and having fun doing young people things in contrast to the classical music in the earlier part of the film which is preoccupied with tradition. But when the film goes back down the 'serious' road it's like they couldn't decide what to do with the music so just decided on an annoying mish mash instead. The modern stuff had the potential to work, and so did the classical - but the way it was used was a mistake.

Just talked to David about this and was reminded about how much I was irked by the inconsistency of the accents. I can handle that no one spoke French - but there was no uniformity with the accents either. I probably could have even handled that except for the fact that Judy Davis had a French accent....but only some of the time! wtf? Attention to detail people, it needs to extend past the costuming.

So in summary, this movie looked gorgeous. But not gorgeous enough to make me think it was any good.

Only a 5 for me I'm afraid. Sofia Coppola - what were you thinking?!

Babel

From the flier: Babel: (noun) 1. In the Bible, a famous tower built by a united humanity to reach toward heaven, causing God in his anger to make each person involved speak a different language, halting the project and scattering a confused and disconnected people across the planet.

I will admit, I was hazy on what the term ‘Babel’ meant before I read the brochure. I’m glad it was cleared up for me before the movie; I think I watched in a different manner because of it. And my god, what a phenomenal movie to kick off 2007 with. Editing wise, it’s very much like Crash. Slightly non-linear, a few stories edited together and eventually colliding at the end. But where Crash’s ‘theme’ is racism, this one essentially comes back to the above concept of Babel and the language barrier and the way it can interfere in so many things. However, the real strength of this movie was that it didn’t deal with just the language barrier but also a deeper themes of cultural and language disconnect, and even went so far as to broach these issues within the context of authority and generations. The three stories are set in three different locations – Morocco, Japan and the US/South America. You couldn’t really get three more different locations and this is where my only criticism comes into play – the link to the Japanese portion of the story was tenuous for me, but at the same time the Japanese part was so interesting and challenging that I’ll forgive it for that. The value of this movie for me personally lay in the issues it raises about (to borrow a term from the flier again) ‘the barriers that seem to separate humankind’. The film deals with them in such a way that even the warm and ‘happy’ parts are never soppy and condescending, and it never preaches which I always appreciate in a film. The cast is uniformly outstanding, which is great considering that it was filmed over three continents and in four languages and not all the actors are professionals. The real strength of this movie is really in its characters and the interactions between them in the scenarios they have been placed in.

Overall, a massively high benchmark for the year – 9.5

ps: I keep editing this review, because I can't work out how to add in that it's just such an important film. Not only is it great as a film, but the theme at its heart is something that's so important for everything to think about, and dare I say, dwell on. I will be seeing this film again and won't be able to stop thinking about it for some time.

It had to happen.....

So the inevitable has happened. I talk about films so much that I figure why not just write it all down so you can read it at your leisure. I figure I should let you know a few things about the way I rate things. First of all, I use the DaveScale, created by my cousin Dave:

1 - 4.5: Fail, based on how fired up I get about it's crapness.
5 - 5.5: Thumbs down but a pass (something like a C-)
6 - 7.5: Fair to Good - a good way of thinking about this is a really good bad movie (a guilty pleasure or similar) or a film that should have been higher but just missed the mark.
8: The first mark for a very good film, 4 stars. This mark and above is really a matter of taste.
9: something like an A grade
9.5 -10: A+

It seems that I rate things generously/highly. And I do, but there is one reason for that which will betray my snobbish outlook from the beginning - I don't see anything crap. I don't see production line teen comedies, brainless action flicks (although I do like a good, violent film if done well) and stupid infeasible chick flicks etc. Occasionally I will fail something and get very passionate about failing it. I get so fired up about the fail usually because I have expected some basic level of quality and been horribly, horribly disappointed *ahemLastDaysahemPoorHomageToKurtCobainAhem*. Having said this, I am actually quite open to acknowledging that people enjoy films for different reasons. The things I talk about here are merely the reasons that I enjoy movies.

I also have a massive preference for character/theme driven films over plot driven films.

I like art direction and it's my dirty secret that it can sustain me for a whole film, be it sexy, highly stylised, dark and brooding.

I love well used, sexy violence. Examples would be The Departed and the Proposition.

I use the term 'sexy' far too much.

I am a film snob. I like 'arty farty' movies.

I often have a lot of typos, grammatical errors etc. that I can't be arsed fixing. I often just swear instead of thinking of something more eloquent. But, I usually write the reviews right after I've seen the movie and just want to get it all out. Deal with it.

I may from time to time use this as a forum to have a rant about poor cinema behaviour, be excited about upcoming films and other movie things in general.

I daresay I will mainly review things I have seen at the cinema.

Feel free to use the comments as a place for discussion - buut if you are viewing them, be warned they may contain spoilers.

And importantly....I realise I am prone to being long winded.....in real life, in emails, in my old blog....so I am going to endeavour to keep these reviews short and sweet. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments.