There is no Salvation

I'm not sure why I let myself get caught up in the hoopla for the release of Terminator Salvation. Somehow, during all the promotional activities for it, the trailers, the posters, the leaked Christian Bale rant, I managed to overlook one crucial factor: McG. He's an absolutely atrocious director, with a reverse Midas touch. So why, WHY did I ever fool myself into thinking that his take on Terminator would be any good?

It's not. It's not gouge my eyes out terrible like his Charlie's Angels movies, but it is not terribly good either. It isn't interesting to look at as it's all so flat and dull, nor was it interesting to watch. There were obvious clumsy edits where scenes had been removed wholesale too, and the whole thing did feel truncated, especially at the rushed and fumbled ending. McG doesn't bother to give us anything even approaching character development, presumably thinking that as the two main characters have featured in earlier installments, it wasn't necessary. Wrong-o. Anton Yelchin as a teenage Kyle Reese does a bang up job with the flimsy material he's given though. Christian Bale is very good too, of course. Sam Worthington struggles as Marcus Wright, wrestling with the accent as well as with a character that demands a subtlety and nuance that McG is incapable of extracting out of anybody.

Speaking of Marcus Wright, I have a question. In the film itself, it goes to great lengths to conceal his true identity and much ballyhoo is made around its eventual reveal. So why, then, is the same reveal in the trailer? Who the fuck authorised that? Having not really succeeded in telling the story very well, McG gives up not long after said reveal and the film collapses into a mess of incoherence and head scratching events that he doesn't bother to explain. The appearance of a naked Arnie-bot with Action Man genitalia was just one of those moments. A truly thundering disappointment in what has been, for the most part, a summer of disappointments. Sigh.

The 2009 disappointments continue

Though on a smaller scale than being denied my Canadian Visa. So far:

Friday 13th.

Yes, I know it seems unlikely that I would be disappointed over this remake. But I am. See, Marcus Nispel directed the Texas Chainsaw remake, which I loved and was terrified by. So I had high hopes that he would take the reins of this franchise reboot and deliver another nerve jangling treat. No such luck. I love love love the original so for me, alarm bells began to ring when a horribly edited opening credits sequence showed a Crystal Lake camp counsellor offing Mrs Vorhees right after she's given all the exposition required. Everybody knows the true joy of the original is Betsy Palmer's delicious turn as the batshit crazy mother of Jason when she's revealed as the killer. I can't believe they didn't get someone like Jessica Lange to ham it up as the deranged slasher this time around. For shame.

So anyway, it fast forwards to the present day and after a bunch of nobodys get offed by Jason, the action swings to another bunch of worthless cretins you will recognise from TV shows past and present as well as films with (for God's sake) Shia LaBoeuf. The great thing is, Nispel and the writers make the rookie mistake of having each of them be vastly irritating to the point where you're actively rooting for Jason to kill them, just so you don't have to listen to them anymore. Jared Padalecki is the hero of the piece, the loner outsider searching for his missing sister (she was one of the nobodys in the first bunch and because she looks a little bit like his mother, Jason has not killed her, he's keeping her in the basement. Whatthefuckever.) So when the people you don't care about have all been picked off in a variety of bloody ways (usually after they've had sex or been unnecessarily naked, of course), we're left with Padalecki and his sister to bring down Jason.

There is not one single good thing about this film. Not one. The writing is terrible, the acting embarrassing, the direction ham fisted. There's no sense of menace, there's no sense of horror or fear, it even fumbles the cheap shock, make you jump moments. It is, in a word, shit. And what is so frustrating is it could have been fantastic. In more capable hands, this could have been the horror franchise reboot the fans have been waiting for. But no, instead it's an unholy mess and I just hope the sequel baiting ending doesn't come to pass.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Yeah, make that The Tedious Case and you have a title closer to my opinion of the movie. Wow it was long and boring. I genuinely don't understand the hype and awards buzz around this one. It was pleasant enough to watch but it was kind of like a Chinese takeaway. I didn't really notice it at the time and I'd forgotten it about 20 minutes later. I wanted to love it as I love Cate Blanchett, I love Tilda Swinton and who doesn't love Brad? But it left me cold and it left me more than a little bored too. And I found the Katrina framing of the piece very heavy handed. Shame.

Heroes

It is becoming more and more apparent that the writers and creators of this show didn't expect to be a hit and therefore never thought beyond their first season. The second, strike interrupted, season was hated by pretty much everyone and the efforts to atone for that in the third season saw the show become increasingly fractured, misguided, overstuffed and underwhelming. The third season has two books, the first book, "Villains" failed on just about every level and if you want evidence, check out the two part episode "The Eclipse" which was trumpeted as a key and important episode but was instead everyone wandering around without powers for two episodes while absolutely nothing happened.

Book Four, "Fugitives", is only two episodes in and I already hate it. There are still too many characters splitting the focus and not enough of them are interesting enough for me to care about anymore (in fact, only the extended Petrelli family in the main storyline are worth bothering with). The ONLY thing worth watching the show for now is Sylar and his increasingly fascinating arc. It's like his scenes wandered in from a different show altogether, the level of writing and acting in them is so far removed from the dross of the rest of the show.

Winner!

2008 wasn't a brilliant year for me in many ways, not least of them cinematic. I didn't even bother with a top ten last year I found it so uninspiring. And when a film arrives on the crest of the critically adoring wave only to be from a director I don't think has delivered a watchable film since 1995, then my overwhelming response is "meh".

So I'm really glad that Slumdog Millionaire was so completely wonderful. It did not put a foot wrong for its whole 120 minute running time. It was wonderfully written, it was superbly acted and it was pretty flawlessly directed. The viewer is drawn in to a story that is by turns funny, sad, dramatic, stomach churning, heartbreaking, nailbiting and of course uplifting. It's colourful, it's loud, it's kinetic, it has a killer soundtrack and if you're not wrestling with a lump in your throat (or indeed blubbing like the homo you are, PCB) over the inspired Bollywood end credits, then you have no soul. Slumdog has kicked off 2009 in fine style as the best film I've seen in quite some time. Here's hoping it's just the tip of the iceberg.

People, is this any way to start a new year?

So last night, for reasons I still can't quite work out, I went to the roadshow presentation of Che. The cinema just down the road from me was showing it, in its 4 hour 17 minute glory. The start time was listed at 6:45pm, so I figured it would be done by 11pm and I'd be home not long after.

Wrong-o. There was 20 minutes of pointless faff at the beginning and a 25 minute interval between the two parts so the whole thing took five hours from start to finish. The irony is it was only ever good and watchable (admittedly with an insanely amazing performance from Benicio Del Toro), it never really tipped over into being great. Oh well.

I forget, every time I go to this cinema that, as it's the local "arthouse" cinema, the level of pretentious film snob conversations I overhear tend to make me want to kick people. When I saw La Vie En Rose there, for example, I overheard someone saying "yah yah, well of course Charles did see Edith perform in Paris." Oh fuck off. Last night's little gem was someone commenting to their friend that the last time they'd seen a film here it was Terrence Malick's A New World. He then spent a few minutes waxing rhapsodic about Malick and how wonderful Thin Red Line and New World are before saying "I mean, I find it really challenging to stay awake during them, but they're so amazing". I had to really fight the urge to tap him on the shoulder and say "when a film bores you into unconsciousness, I don't think you really think they're good, do you?"

Twilight update

I have finished the first book in the Twilight series. I actually quite enjoyed it. I can totally see why there are pre-pubescent girls the world over going absolutely gonzo for it. It's interesting that they're pushing Stephenie Meyer as the next JK Rowling. They're both great story tellers but neither are what you would call amazing writers. Some of the prose in Twilight is so clumsy it's almost painful ("my traitor tears, betraying me" caused me to wince and say "yeah, that's what traitors DO"). But then there were some sequences that were really great, like the "you're my brand of heroin" scene.

However, I am now on to New Moon, the second book in the series, and it's making me want to claw my face off. Bella Swan is a whiny little bitch and the first 150 pages of the book are self indulgent teenage moping at its worst. I found myself shouting "do you EVER fucking cheer up?" at the chapters. And when the moping and the hopeless teenage rebellion is delivered with Meyer's clunky prose and limited vocabulary, it makes it all the more grating. The sentence that mentions "the other unique vampire family" very nearly sent the book hurtling across the room. I wanted to email Meyer and say "Dear Ms Meyer. If something is unique then there cannot, by definition, be something else like it. Love and kisses, PCB". While my patience with the books are really being tested, I am determined to finish them. And with the backlash against the final book currently at full tilt, it looks like I have my work cut out for me.

And as for the upcoming movie? Well I hate to say it but I think it's gonna be a great big pile of suck. Many many internet forums have been overrun with ardent lovers of the book decrying pretty much every aspect of the film's production. Some of the casting is a little bit of a headscratcher (Carlisle in the book sounds absolutely nothing like Peter Facinelli that's for sure. Not least in the fact that he "is claiming to be 33, but can barely pass for 30." Facinelli is 35 and looks it.) But the two trailers that are currently online are just breathtakingly awful. The cutting is so lightning fast that it's pretty difficult to discern what is going on but they seem to have something from New Moon in there and have moved locations and changed costumes for no real reason. I have a feeling that the pre-release hysteria will look like nothing when the fans finally lay eyes on the finished film. If you want to watch the whole movie condensed into 90 seconds then please click here and watch the clips. It's staggering how much they give away. And how bad they look.

Sigh

I wanted to love this. I really truly did. I went into it wanting to emerge as if I hadn't breathed for two and a half hours. But I couldn't do it. I didn't love it. I only enjoyed it sporadically. It was, overall, a crushing disappointment.

There are many good things about it, don't get me wrong. Aaron Eckhart did a bang up job and had the most satisfying character arc in the movie as Harvey Dent. His evolution into Two Face was beautifully done and he handled it just right. Every single action sequence, from the opening heist onwards, was thrillingly executed. And of course, Heath Ledger steals the film as The Joker with a performance that inhabits the role to an occasionally frightening degree. When he's onscreen, he is absolutely mesmerising. And that's not hyperbole because he died at 28 and before the film was released either. It's a seriously intense portrayal.

Bale as Wayne is great too, but in all honesty I didn't love his Batman and a lot of that was to do with the entirely ridiculous bass growl he affects for that persona. Maybe the suit constricts his vocal chords, I don't know, but what I do know is I couldn't really understand what he was saying half the time. The film runs two and a half hours and could have taken a complex plot filled with complex characters and given them all room to breathe. Instead, it takes about three complex plots along with myriad sub plots and suffocates them all with hyperkinetic editing before screeching to a halt for some seriously ham fisted and clumsy preaching.

Ultimately, I think this was (for the most part) incredibly well acted film that was also astoundingly well directed. It was just let down by a script that had simultaneously too much and not enough going on.

A cinematic glance ahead

Since I'm suddenly in a movie frame of mind (geddit?), I thought I'd take a look at what's waiting for us once the summer is out of the way. While this summer has been far better than, possibly even the best of, recent years, there's still no denying that the summer can leave those who like to leaven their blockbuster intake with some quieter and more thoughtful movies, a tad bit unsatisfied. The one film that looks capable of satisfying both at once arrives tomorrow, having smashed records practically every five minutes since opening last weekend in the USA. Yes, I'm talking about The Dark Knight. So what's coming up further ahead that's arousing my interest?


Eden Lake (September 5th). Yes yes, I realise I'm starting a supposedly cerebral list with what looks like a tacky horror movie. But the thing is, I love Kelly Reilly and would see her in anything, including this. She's a fiercely intelligent not to mention staggeringly talented actress who I've been besotted with for some time now. Plus this comes from Optimum Releasing, who just opened the surprisingly good Donkey Punch (which I saw over the weekend, more on that later).


The Duchess (September 5th). I'm torn about this as it looks like a sumptuous period drama with a fabulous supporting cast (Ralph Fiennes, Hayley Atwell, Charlotte Rampling, Dominic Cooper and so on). None of that can detract from the fact it has Keira Knightley in the title role as the Duchess of Devonshire. She is a horribly limited actress and her refusal to unclench her jaw when she speaks drives me up the fucking wall.

Pineapple Express (September 12th). Not doing well on the cerebral front am I? I'm sure there are people out there who are well and truly over Judd Apatow and his compadres. I enjoyed but was not floored by Knocked Up, Superbad or Forgetting Sarah Marshall though it has left me with a mad crush on Seth Rogen and Jason Segel. Only one of them is in this movie of course. The story of two slacker stoners on the run after witnessing corrupt cops commit a murder is hardly mining new territory but the trailer made me chuckle a few times, though I hope it's not a case of the only funny parts being in the trailer.

The Women (September 12th). I have to say I had completely forgotten about this movie being made and it's highly likely that while watching it, I'll keep getting the giggles thinking about Elaine Stritch's story about being in a touring production of this show, told in At Liberty. But it will be fascinating to see the likes of Annette Bening and Carrie Fisher completely upstage Eva Mendes and Meg Ryan, don't you think? I have to say that I do.

Brideshead Revisited (October 3rd). Now this is more like it. A sumptuous looking adaptation of what has already been a classic and much loved television series and is of course based on Waugh's timeless novel. The cast has old school brilliance (Michael Gambon, Emma Thompson) mixed with the pick of up and coming talent (the three key roles of Charles Ryder, Sebastian and Julia Flyte are taken by Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell, all of whom are fearsomely talented). I cannot wait. Here's hoping, after her Woody Allen disappointment, this is Atwell's breakthrough. Anyone who has seen her in The Line Of Beauty will know exactly what she's capable of.

Burn After Reading (October 17th). I am not in any way a die hard Coens Brothers fan. They've made some astonishing movies and they've also made some astonishingly bad movies. The former does of course outweigh the latter and when they get it right, they really get it fucking right (Fargo, No Country For Old Men). This cast makes me just about shit my pants in anticipation as well. I've loved Tilda Swinton for over 15 years now, she has such an incredible presence I could and will watch her in anything. Same goes for Frances McDormand. So if this film turns out to be the two of them reading the ingredients off the back of a cereal box for 90 minutes, I probably wouldn't mind. Certainly not if Brad and George were in the background.

Quantum Of Solace (October 31st). Yes, so it's a horrible title. It's still better than Tomorrow Never Dies, as titles go. Daniel Craig is the best thing that has ever happened to Bond and the franchise. While Casino Royale is not quite the slam dunk it thinks it is (weak villain, horrible third act), it's still mightily entertaining stuff and it's just full of tantalising promise. It's difficult to tell from the hyperkinetic editing of the teaser trailer whether the promise has been fulfilled or not, but I'll happily pay my money to find out. Plus, Judi Dench, the second best thing to ever happen to the Bond franchise is still front and centre as M. Good good.

Blindness (November 14th). Early reviews at Cannes were disappointed with the latest film from Fernando Meirelles. I have to say the plot sounds like Day Of The Triffids without the Triffids. Also, the trailer simultaneously intrigues and excites me, but also makes me think there's potential for this to be 2008's Children Of Men (which is to say an inexplicably publically adored piece of shit). Julianne Moore rarely sets a foot wrong and there's also Mark Ruffalo and Gael Garcia Bernal in the mix. Oh, and Sandra Oh. Also, City Of God and Constant Gardener were two jaw dropping films from a direction perspective. So the odds are on the film's side if you ask me.

Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince (November 21st). Is there anyone not looking forward to this? After turning the longest book of the series into the shortest movie so far, it'll be interesting to see what they do with Book 6, in which there's an awful lot of padding and not much happens until the final third. I was interested to read that all of the big action sequences which take place off the page and are merely discussed on the page will be shown in the movie, and apparently writ large. I still think cutting the final book into two movies is the worst idea possible (just write a really fucking good adaptation! You can pare some of the midsection of the book down to a montage without losing anything for the love of God) but at least Prince would seem to be shaping up nicely.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (December 12th). Could this be the role Keanu Reeves was born to play? When I first read about this happening, I thought it was shocker of an idea. Big sci fi remakes of alien invasion movies could only conjure up a flashback to Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, which caused me some serious acid reflux. But then I saw the trailer and thought "well, I'll be. They might just make this worth watching after all." Reeves seems to fit the role in a way he hasn't since Neo and while I'm sure there will still be some fist swallowingly terrible moments from him, they will hopefully be fewer and farther between than usual.

For 2008, that's pretty much it right now. Stay tuned for the joys of 2009.

Meryl Streep can do no wrong. I love her.

What started out as a hastily thrown together filler show for an unexpectedly vacated West End theatre is now a long running global phenomenon. Originally expected to last three months, next year sees the London run celebrate its tenth birthday and the Broadway production is closing in fast on its 3000th performance. Those are the two tentpole productions of this show, but there are countless other regional and international productions running, as well as touring casts. So is there anyone left who hasn't seen this show?

In case there is, there now comes the movie, something that has become increasingly inevitable with each successful movie musical adaptation of recent years. As someone who spent five years working on the London production of Mamma Mia!, by the time I left, I was well and truly done with ABBA and with the show. At that point I thought if I never heard "Dancing Queen" again, I'd be a happy man. But slowly, oh so slowly, the movie began to intrigue me. One thing that got me interested was the pitch perfect casting of Donna's best friends (and back up band), Tanya and Rosie. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski were born to play those roles. And on a more shallow level, Dominic Cooper as Sky, Sophie's betrothed? Not only is he easy on the eye, but I've loved him since Mother Clap's Molly House, which I just discovered was his first role out of drama school. Once you've seen someone being buggered over a sofa, I like to think there's a connection there.



But what really suckered me into this was the casting of Meryl Streep as Donna Sheridan. I would watch her in anything and while she's sung in films every now and again, giving us all a glimpse of her vocal possibilities, here she is carrying her first screen musical proper and the prospect of that is oddly thrilling. So I was in. There was every chance I'd have some kind of allergic reaction in the opening credits and have to leave, but I was willing to give the film a try.

I think everyone knows the plot by now. It's sort of Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell crossed with Lace as 20 year old Sophie, having never known who her father is, finds her mother's diary and discovers there are three possibilities. So she invites them all to her wedding. Only she hasn't told them who she is nor has she told her mother what she's done. So the stage is set for misunderstandings, arguments, break ups, make ups and of course ABBA songs.

The movie is streamlined from the show's 140 minute running time (admittedly including intermission), mainly by removing songs. "Thank You For The Music", "The Name Of The Game, "Under Attack", "One Of Us" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" have all been excised. "Our Last Summer" has been moved up to much earlier and is now shared among all three possible dads (a respectable Colin Firth, an ok Stellan Skarsgaard and a completely tone deaf but game Pierce Brosnan) and Sophie (a lovely Amanda Seyfried) rather than between Harry (Firth) and Donna. Bizarrely, "When All Is Said And Done" has been shoehorned in and given to Pierce Brosnan to sing at the end, after he's demonstrated at least twice that he fundamentally can't. As changes go, that's pretty much it. Some numbers are opened out (most notably "Dancing Queen") but otherwise this is the stage show with beautiful locations (and some horribly obvious bluescreen backdrops) and a fabulous cast.

And that is where it all starts to go a bit wrong. 90% of me enjoyed the camp hilarity and what have you, 10% of me was thinking "dear sweet Jesus, what the FUCK were you THINKING?". It's been adapted, directed and choreographed by the same writer, director and choreographer that have helmed every single production since its inception. And while you have to admire the commitment and the continuity, I wonder whether all three of them were too close to it to see what really needed to be done to successfully put the show on film. Anthony Van Laast's choreography is plain godawful (the review in Entertainment Weekly said it best "It's tempting to say that Mamma Mia! has the worst choreography of any big-screen musical in history, though that would imply that what happens in the film IS choreography") but there isn't that much of it now (though what there is, especially in "Dancing Queen" is jaw droppingly, magnificently shit). The real problem comes from the direction. Phyllida Lloyd has never directed anything for television or film before, she's a stage director through and through. And it shows. The direction is uneven, uncertain and all over the place. "Money Money Money" is a prime example of that, with fantasy sequences artlessly shoved in and it is also one of the many many many numbers that switches pointlessly from diegetic to non-diegetic singing within the number. Why? Also the lack of imagination was occasionally annoying especially when all it did was demonstrate that something which works well on stage does not do so on film, no matter how vibrantly you edit it ("Voulez Vous"). And while the megamix finale is one of the show's strongest points, it's so shabbily thrown in for the credits that it made me wince more than it made me smile.



Luckily for Lloyd, Meryl Streep is such an instinctive actress that a green director can't harm her performance. She's radiant and glorious in the role, she's funny, she's charming and when she turns on the emotion it really grips you by the throat. Her reaction when Sophie asks her to give her away at her wedding is breathtaking. And then of course there's her singing. While she carries the more upbeat numbers with aplomb (anyone who can actually give me chills singing "Super Trouper" is undeniably a gifted singer), it's in the later power ballads that she really comes into her own and the big finish is her "Winner Takes It All" which has never been sung better. It is the song by which all Donnas tend to be judged and she really knocks it out of the park. I may have welled up with emotion during it (and during "Slipping Through My Fingers") but there may have just been something in my eye. Shut up.

Ultimately, the enjoyment outweighed the disappointment and I was left with a smile on my face and the thought that I wouldn't mind seeing the show again. And you can't say fairer than that.

A picture truly does say 1000 words

With the release of Hancock, Will Smith has been popping up all over everywhere just lately. And while I used to really enjoy him, every interview snippet I've read from him on his latest publicity tour has generally caused me to roll my eyes and think "you are such a tiresome dick these days". So you can imagine my amusement when I found the following pic over on Deus Ex Malcontent.



It truly summed up my feelings about him in such a beautifully succinct way.

Until someone loses an eye

So I have a question. When we were all watching Dawson's Creek, who out there thought that Michael Pitt would be the one to have the most interesting career? Who thought that moon faced infant Henry Parker had the chops for it? I know I didn't, my money was on Michelle Willams. But with projects like Hedwig & The Angry Inch, The Dreamers and Last Days, Pitt has emerged as a fearless and very talented actor. Go figure.

His latest tour de force performance comes in Funny Games, Michael Haneke's remake of his own 1997 Austrian original. I don't quite know why Haneke chose to remake and chose to remake it shot for shot as all that happens is the remake ends up being hamstrung by the same issues as the original, but there you go. The film focuses on a family who fall prey to two young pyschopaths who toy with them, torture them a little before eventually killing them. However, the film is peppered with ridiculous plot contrivances to remind the viewer that this is only a film and Pitt's character addresses the audience on a few occasions, making them (us) complicit in the film's plot. The film ends with Pitt staring down the camera and frankly, for me, that would have been enough. I didn't need the constant badgering throughout to remind me that a)it's a film, b)it's a film centering on the torture and murder of a family who have done nothing to deserve it and c) it's a film I have chosen to watch.

One level the film IS worth watching on is the performance level. The quartet of central performances are all outstanding. As the tortured couple, Naomi Watts and Tim Roth really go for broke and Brady Corbet, so sweet and innocent three years ago in Mysterious Skin, really proves he can act as Pitt's less intelligent sidekick. However, the film belongs to Michael Pitt, who is simply incredible as the chilly charming madman, getting the balance between creepy and camp just right so that he never lapses into parody and is never less than wholly convincing. In your FACE, Katie Holmes.

I just hate Diablo Cody

I'm sure there are a lot of struggling screenwriters who watched the vastly overrated Juno and Cody's unjust Oscar win and were thinking murderously hateful and jealous thoughts. My reasons for wanting to slap her stupid face whenever I see it has nothing to do with being jealous. I just think she's a moron.

First of all, her reaction to the publicity about the million dollar shoes she was due to wear at the Oscars was hilarious. To think, the designer would use her for publicity. Shocking! How could they? Cody blogged about how she was pissed and felt taken advantage of and so she ditched the shoes at the last minute. It's a good thing she did, really, as those million dollar shoes would have clashed something awful with her $50 dress, rightly fugged by those fabulous Fug Girls.

And now, to commemorate her undeserved success for the underwhelming movie she wrote, Cody wants to get a tattoo. Of Ellen Page's face. Not the movie title or something understated and simple like that. Nope. Ellen Page's face. She thinks it would look great. What it would actually look like is cheap and desperate. In which case, it'll fit right in.

Blood, Sweat & Tears

I saw There Will Be Blood on Saturday night. I was sort of intrigued to see it, but never what you might call excited. I run very hot and cold where Paul Thomas Anderson is concerned and I flat out fucking hated Punch Drunk Love. But this film is a rare beast indeed and one that should be seen.

At its centre, the film has what would, for any other actor, be a career defining, revelatory performance. But it's Daniel Day-Lewis and therefore it's business as usual. There's something about Lewis I just can't take to. He's such a cold fish. He's a phenomenal actor, but he's serious and humourless about his "craft" to the point of mind numbing tedium, and so painfully Method about everything, I often just want to shake him and say "oh for heavens sake would you lighten up?". He can be unforgiving to work with too, as the unnamed actor originally cast in the role of Eli Sunday will attest. Let go from the film midway through the shoot because, to quote Day-Lewis "we just weren't coping". With all that being said, his performance as Daniel Plainview is pretty astonishing.

There Will Be Blood is Plainview's story, foloowing him from humble solo beginnings, until he is a oil baron, commanding hundreds of men. During the story's wordless opening (it is a full eleven and a half minutes before any dialogue appears) Plainview adopts a fallen colleague's child for what might initially be seen as compassionate reasons. But in this film, nothing is really what it seems. Plainview is a man with no morals, no scruples, no nothing. Apparently. And yet, there are some moments that could be construed as genuinely tender. What struck me is that Plainview is a man constantly at war with himself, strangling any compassionate feelings because he knows he has to in order to survive rather than actually being an out an out calculating sociopath. Paul Dano is the constant thorn in Plainview's side, preaching religion and not hesitating in blackmailing people to act out his revenge. There are some truly thrilling moments in these scenes where he and Plainview clash against each other. Unfortunately, Dano was cast with just four days to prepare and consequently, while he's very good considering, he struggles with some of the less subtle sermons the fervent Eli delivers. Performance-wise though, the real revelation is Dillon Freasier as the young HR Plainview, Daniel's adopted son and, in just one heartbreaking scene, Russell Harvard as the grown up HR.

And so it goes, for 150 character driven, perfectly paced, exquisitely directed, always engrossing minutes. And then, some people say, Anderson spends 8 minutes completely upsetting the apple cart, pushing Day Lewis' performance so far over the top it comes down the other side, and taking Plainview to a conclusion that is anything but logical. Well to those people, I say this; poppycock. The final scene of the movie is pitch perfect and, if you read Plainview in the way I did, makes entirely logical sense. It doesn't make for comfortable easy viewing, but it makes sense. A film to be admired and respected rather than loved, There Will Be Blood is challenging viewing, but a challenge that is infinitely rewarding.

A turn up for the books

Technically, it's a turn up for the movies but that is not the saying now, is it? Anyway, two movies recently opened in the UK, arriving from the US on tidal waves of hype and hysteria (and in one film's case, many award nominations). I have now seen both and had my expectations confounded in both instances. Allow me to elaborate further.

Cloverfield's hype machine started about twenty minutes after the teaser trailer debuted, out of nowhere, in front of the US release of Transformers. It all kicked off so quickly that I was instantly suspicious of it all. It seemed so very planned. And of course it was, as JJ Abrams, the film's producer and publicity mastermind, has now admitted. The teaser trailer was specially shot and was in theatres a week before principal photography on the picture started rolling. As the film's US release neared, and new trailers demonstrated that the film was nothing more than a mash up of Blair Witch Project and any number of monster movies, what little interest I may have had in it quickly evaporated. The precipitously steep second weekend drop off in the US confirmed what I had come to believe before seeing it: the film was no good and word of mouth was killing it dead.

But I still went to see it, mainly because I wanted to be able to sneer about it from a more informed perspective (the same reason that I continue to watch Prison Break, even though it jumped the shark about 8 episodes ago). And I'll be damned, but I actually really enjoyed it. Not buying into hype, it seems, is a good thing. While the film is not perfect, it is still hugely enjoyable. I liked that you never found out anything about where the monster was from, why it had appeared, nothing. It was just there and there was something fantastically unsettling about not having an overly intrusive musical score or editing style to dictate when to jump, when to be scared, when to hide behind your hands, etc.

It wasn't perfect, of course. A couple of obvious blue screen moments and some nagging questions that pull you out of the reality of the situation (would one character really walk three miles through subway tunnels in strappy high heels without taking them off or complaining about how much her feet are hurting?) but for a film that you know the outcome of from the very beginning (we're told that the film was recovered at the site formerly known as Central Park, so you know going on that nobody is going to make it out alive), it is still pretty riveting to watch. There is already talk of a sequel though, which would be a terrible idea. Book Of Shadows, anyone?

And then there's Juno. Originally this entry was going to be titled "what not to expect when you watch a movie about someone who's expecting" but that was too cumbersome. Anyway, it is opening here having gone from being "little seen indie film" to "rave reviewed, Oscar nominated, huge box office smash hit movie" seemingly overnight. I have been seeing trailers for it since October and thought it looked like it could be cute and funny as well as insightful and honest. Well, how wrong I was.

The performances are the only good thing the movie had to offer. Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Alison Janney, JK Simmons, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, all great. But the dialogue, oh sweet Jesus, the dialogue. Nobody talks the way these people do. People like Juno simply do not exist and so making an oh so real film with that character as your centrepiece? I was never going to buy it. It's telling that the film only works when it drops its "I'm so smart and clever, LOOK AT ME AND NOTICE how smart and clever I am" schtick that made me want to track writer Diablo Cody down and punch her in the face. Even more telling, the only moment that really feels genuine and true is entirely devoid of speech, as Juno and Bleecker embrace after she has given birth. I keep reading reviews that say how one of the reasons Juno is such a success is because it is a lot smarter than you think it is going to be. I could not agree less and I have to say the biggest reason that I fundamentally don't think it's a good film is because it isn't anywhere near as smart as it thinks it is.

The 2007 Cinema Hall Of Shame

1.

There were many films vying for the top spot on this list, but Next is in a class all its own. The goodwill that Nicolas Cage amassed in Leaving Las Vegas has long since run out (he's been running on empty, pretty much, since Windtalkers) and casting 12 year old Jessica Biel as his love interest is really truly the final nail in his coffin. But more pressing, what the hell is Julianne Moore doing here? Can NONE of these people read? A stupid premise, a horrible script and the worst "Bobby Ewing in the shower" cop out ending since Identity this is an embarrassment for everyone concerned.

2.

I have already had my say about this travesty.

3.

And this one.

4.

Wow, this was bad. A punishing running time (just 12 minutes shy of THREE HOURS), an incomprehensible plot that was, literally, all over the place, some horrible horrible horrible jokes and some equally poor performances. Please god there won't be another installment.

5.

A statement I could repeat here. The first installment was actually enjoyable, or at least I thought it was. I was looking forward to this sequel, the trailer was all dark and exciting and the interviews from the director leading up to the release acknowledged that the first one had its shortcomings, not least that it was pitched at slightly too young a crowd, errors that would be addressed this time around. And a lot of the reviews noted that this was an improvement on 2005's freshman effort. Well all that did was set up a Galactus sized disappointment. If anything, this film was pitched even younger, with atrocious fart gag level humour and an offensively simplistic plot. A mercifully short running time of just 92 minutes felt so so so much longer.

6.

While we're on the subject of short films that feel much longer, this little baby clocks in at a mere 86 minutes. Felt like a lifetime. How could it go so wrong? Well, let's start with Harold fucking Pinter who delivered the most inelegant, cloth eared, blunt edged travesty of a screenplay. And then move on to Branagh whose solution to shooting a two hander with one set was to have about 800 different camera angles for each scene, some of them provided by CCTV. Oooh, how up to date. Then there's the oversights like Michael Caine apparently being able to control every whizzy gizmo in his painfully modern house with the remote control that comes with the Apple iBook (there's even a close up with the Apple logo visible just to ensure there's no remaining doubt). I haven't even gotten to the performances yet. How Michael Caine has been getting away with for over 50 years now is a real mystery to me. And dear Jude Law, how you had it all for the taking after Talented Mr Ripley. And how you buggered it all up.

7.

One of two films that has received almost universal acclaim to open this year that I feel like I missed the point of (the other, which didn't make either list, is Todd Haynes's I'm Not There which I sporadically enjoyed but it is nowhere near the masterpiece it thinks it is). I should have learned my lesson after Elephant. I should have listened to my friend Lottie who warned me this film was bad. But I still went into it thinking that surely all the good reviews must count for something. Ha! A non professional cast recruited from MySpace (none of whom can actually act, something that a lot of reviewers found "endearing", while I would opt for "embarrassing" and "painful to watch"), it's frustrating that it takes what could have been an interesting film and buries it in pretentious tedious wank. Apparently, Gus Van Sant was too busy indulging himself to notice one of the worst continuity errors I have ever seen. There's big fat spoilers coming up for anyone who wants to see the movie and hasn't yet. So in the pivotal sequence where Alex causes the accidental death of the security guard, he pushes him and he falls on his back, his torso on the train tracks, his legs hanging off the tracks. The train comes along and severs him in two. In the next shot, a horrified Alex looks on as the severed top half of the guard drags itself, belly down, leaves his legs ON THE TRAIN TRACKS, as it pulls itself towards Alex. Well, he was not alone in being horrified. I was slack jawed with disbelief at just how terrible this scene was that I burst out laughing. Not the reaction Van Sant was hoping for, I'm sure.

8.

The best thing about Hannibal Lecter was that so little was known about him before he makes his first appearance in the fiction world, in Red Dragon. There were hints here and there and hopefully like all good authors, Thomas Harris knew the back story of how one of literature's most memorable monsters came to be. And really, that should have been enough. He didn't need to share it with the world, and he certainly didn't need to do it in such a poorly written piece of crap like Hannibal Rising. So it's no surprise that the inevitable film adaptation (the script was written pretty much in tandem with the novel) would also be a big pile of suck too. Harris wrote them both so he only has himself to blame. Every last drop of creativity has now been wrung out of the Lecter franchise. I hope.

9.

In which Jim Carrey took the career points he'd earned with Eternal Sunshine and pissed them up a wall, while Joel Schumacher showed once again that Tigerland really was a fluke. An initially intriguing idea, this just doesn't know where to go with it and flounders around in a quagmire of ridiculousness before finally collapsing in on itself with a laughable third act. Almost as laughable as casting the not very good Rhona Mitra, who is 32 and looks every day of it, as someone almost a decade younger than that.

10.

This sounds like it could be the most relentlessly terrifying movie ever. A bunch of vicious vampires descend on an Alaskan town and have a whole month of darkness to play with. But sadly, the terror never comes. A lack of back story for everyone except Josh Hartnett and Melissa George meant I didn't care who ended up with their claret all over the lino. More of an issue was that I found George so irritating I found myself wishing for her to find herself on the wrong end of a bloodletting. Quickfire editing continually destroyed what should have been unbearable tension until the film became just so much gore. And gore is a whole different matter. It's not scary, it's just bloody. And the ending felt tacked on out of nowhere to boot. A gigantic missed opportunity.

The 2007 Cinema Hall Of Fame

1.

Aka La Vie En Rose. It is a testament to how poor a cinema year the UK experienced in 2007 that a film I have a few minor quibbles with should be my number one film. I am not certain that a chronological jumbling was a wise idea and there were a couple of other directorial flourishes that I didn't think really sat well with the film. However, said quibbles fade into nothingness when Marion Cotillard is taken into account. Her performance is absolutely extraordinary. She so embodies Piaf that it is as if there are four different actresses in the role. It's the performance of the decade, in any medium, by anybody.

2.

This was a truly unexpected treat. A distinctly American novel transported to France, adapted and directed by the guy who Virginie Ledoyen dumped in The Beach? How on earth is that going to be good? Well, it's more than good. It's a taut, gripping, atmospheric thriller which, if it were adapted from better source material, would probably have eclipsed Rose for film of the year. Unfortunately, the novel's reach somewhat exceeds its grasp and the screenplay is a little too faithful to it. Up to the overextended ending though, this film is relentless in its grip.

3.

This film has had its UK release indefinitely postponed due to similarity with the Madeleine McCann disappearance which is why I made the point of seeing it while I was on holiday in New York. One of Pajiba's twelve best films you didn't see in 2007, I echo their sentiment that is a real shame this film was so ignored. It seems poor Ben Affleck can do no right, even when he is behind the camera. Damn you, Jennifer Lopez. I really hope this has its day when it makes it to DVD because otherwise one of the best directorial debuts in recent times will have been unjustly dismissed. A great script that manages to be a crime thriller and pose difficult moral questions (refreshingly not giving an easy answer), this also has some outstanding performances in it too. Amy Ryan was critically lauded at the time and is starting to see nominations coming her way. But Casey Affleck is every bit as watchable as she is, in a fantastically understated way. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman bring the gravitas but it's the locations and the extras that add the veritas.

4.

I am as surprised as anybody that this film made the list at all, let alone as high as it did. I think it's because I never in a million years expected the film to be any good. In fact, I was so uninterested in the movie version of the musical of the movie (apparently now called movicals) that when I sat down to watch it a few days after it opened, I realised that beyond the casting, I didn't know a damn thing about what had been altered for the stage to screen transition. It was the casting that caused my lack of interest. As soon as John Travolta was cast, I gave up hope. Well I was wrong. He is great, quite clearly having the time of his life with the role and everybody else in the cast does a bang up job too (biggest surprise? James Marsden). A joyful and life affirming film that made me weep tears of happiness. Several times.

5.

How do you make an interesting movie out of a true story that doesn't really have an ending? Well, if you watch Zodiac, you will find out. Intertwining three strands of plot, each with a strong performance at its centre (from Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo) ensured the film never sagged. Unflinching and unsettling recreations of the Zodiac killer's crimes made sure the audience cared as much as the characters did. Never less than engrossing, this also has the most intense and suspenseful scene of the year in it, when Jake Gyllenhaal pays a visit to someone who it turns out might just be the killer.

6.

Another unexpected treat. I really hated the book and my distaste for Keira Knightley is well documented. She's ideally cast as a brittle upper class girl though so it kind of worked. What worked far better was the elegant adaptation and the flawless direction (the rightly celebrated tracking shot on Dunkirk beach is wondrous). And it's pleasing that the supremely talented James McAvoy is being noticed, having been overshadowed by Forest Whitaker this time last year.

7.

I was not pleased when this film beat out Pan's Labyrinth for the Oscar. Well, I take that back. It's not a fun or easy film to watch but it is a riveting and sometimes unbelievable one (and of course, the parts you can't believe are all true). Telling the story of the Stasi through one target and the operative who is assigned to him made an impossibly huge story intimate and personal. Anyone who was dry eyed in the heartbreaking last few minutes has no soul.

8.

Emile Hirsch has been proving himself as one to watch for quite a while now and with this film, hopefully people will start watching (and hopefully for reasons other than the fleeting glimpse of his cock in a nude scene). The story of Chris McCandless, who rejected society to live off the map and died for it, is an endlessly fascinating one and so is the film that tells his story. Graceful direction and a refreshingly unpretentious adaptation of the book, this is another overlooked film of last year that deserves to be seen by far more people than it was.

9.

Crazy title, glorious film. As beautiful to look at as it was fascinating to watch, this film could have been the most tedious pile of shit in different hands. But somehow it works and it works well. It has a host of good performances contained in it, but there is one truly outstanding performance on show here. Casey Affleck, as the titular coward, is absolutely unfuckingbelievably amazing. I have been a fan since American Pie and pledged my undying love after seeing him on stage in This Is Our Youth in 2002. He's seriously talented and he is this film's rock and anchor. If only for him, see it.

10.

What? So I have an inner child, so what? I unashamedly and unabashedly love Disney animated movies (but not blindly. Pocahontas? Fuck off.) so when I heard about this I thought it was the best idea ever, couldn't think why it hadn't been thought of before. To make the utterly insane plot work, the performances have to be spot on. And they are. Amy Adams, James Marsden and Patrick Dempsey are all pitch perfect with how they handle their roles. The script is sweet, funny, charming and cute (but not cloying or cutesy). The big musical number in Central Park is just one of many many highlights. I loved it. I laughed, I cried. I laughed again and then cried some more.

Already the best film of next summer

I am very much alone in my dislike of Batman Begins. In my defense, I attribute my disdain for the movie to the fact that I saw it on opening weekend in a packed cinema where the a/c had broken down. Before the trailers, I was already uncomfortably hot so by the time Christian Bale suited up, I was almost passing out from heat exhaustion and was therefore not in the best place to enjoy the movie. I keep meaning to give it another go, but never get round to it.

However, having seen the new trailer for The Dark Knight, I am fairly certain I'll watch its prequel right before seeing the follow up. Watch it and be amazed.

The Dark Knight

what do you get if you cross Blair Witch Project with Indepence Day?

You get Cloverfield

I love Amazon

When I upped sticks in 2005 for a few months and went off to pursue my dream of moving to NYC, I got rid of all my Region 2 DVDs. For the most part it didn't bother me as I was selling them on ebay and amazon marketplace and funding my trip with the proceeds. But there was one I did not want to get rid off and that was my treasured Alien Quadrilogy. I bought it day of release for a fair whack of money (I can't remember exact figures but £65 seems about right). But it had to go and so I resigned myself to never owning it again due to its limited edition nature.

So today I was idly surfing Amazon's Black Friday sale. I am only buying Region 1 DVDs at the moment due to the weak dollar and my refusal to give up on the dream of NYC. What should catch my eye but the Alien Quadrilogy for a perfectly insane price of $27. Including shipping. How great is that???????

Audience Proof

Last weekend I attended a preview screening of the new Tarantino movie, Death Proof. As everyone knows, it is a newly expanded version of his half of the failed Grindhouse experiment. I have to say, having seen this, it is no longer a mystery to me why the experiment failed.

Firstly let me put all my cards on the table and say I am not a fan of Tarantino the man or the movie maker. I find him unbearably smug and irritating when interviewed and his films have grown ever more painfully self indulgent. I really liked Kill Bill Vol 1 but the second installment bored me to tears. And the fact that what started out as an 80 minute quick and dirty little revenge movie bloated in to a two volume FOUR HOUR movie highlights the biggest problem with Death Proof: It's too long and too dull.

Grindhouse in its original double bill format was supposed to run two hours max. Due to the madness of the directors behind the project it finally clocked in at over three hours. And now, with 25 minutes of footage restored, the stand alone Death Proof runs at close to two hours. Which normally would be fine. But when you only have enough plot and character development to sustain maybe a quarter of that running time, then there's a problem. Whole sequences of the film are made up of uninteresting characters having highly unbelievable and really very boring conversations. And one more shot of bare feet and I was about ready to kick the screen in. Yes, Quentin, you have a foot fetish, I get it. But come on.

However there are two more problems far more fatal than the above. Firstly, the film lacks the courage of its convictions. The first half of the movie is all bad edits, crackly film stock and so on, exactly the retro Grindhouse look aimed for. The second half of the movie doesn't have that at all, it's a "proper" film in terms of editing etc. But even more annoying to me was that having worked so hard to give the film a 70s look and feel in everything from the shooting style to the locations, props and costumes, the film was set in the present, with cell phones and iPods making unnecessary and glaringly anachronistic appearances. And the second half of the film focuses on four people who work in the movie business and their dialogue is so clogged with pop culture references that it eventually suffocates on its own post modern clever-cleverness. If you must see it, pay for another movie and sneak in to watch the last 20 minutes for the only bravura stunt sequence in the film. Other than that, file it under "failure". Shame.

Harry Potter and the Um of the What?

I went to see the new Harry Potter movie last night. I'm seeing it again on August 4th at the IMAX and believe me when I tell you that I enjoyed it a lot and will have no problems sitting through it a second time.

However, this was never going to be an easy adaptation. The book is ridiculously overlong and overextended. Boiling it down to two hours twenty minutes makes for some serious editing but it's been edited so much that it makes no concession for anyone unfamiliar with the source material. And while there's an argument that you shouldn't really be starting out with the fifth movie, a scooch more information here and there wouldn't have gone amiss. Two new characters are so diminished in the adaptation they should really have been written out altogether (Tonks and Luna). For the most part though, I had very little issue with the cuts and rewrites, but some of the edits will make adapting book 6 a little tricky.

Which affirms a belief I've been harbouring for a little while that the big screen is not the best medium for the novels. They should have waited until the final novel was published (five days to go!) and then the BBC, for example, should have adapted each book as a five part mini series. The later novels would have had the room to breathe that they really require instead of multiple plot strands and characters fighting for space. Also, starting the films before all the novels are published is a little tricky. How can they be sure that elements left out of the forth and fifth films aren't going to be important points in the final installment? Maybe in the due course of time, the mini series will become a reality, who knows? At least the acting in the fifth film was a massive improvement on the earlier films and the main offender for atrocious acting (Tom Felton's horrible HORRIBLE Draco Malfoy) had barely three minutes of screen time.