Gran Torino - Review

In a nutshell...
For the best part of 50 years Clint Eastwood has provided cinema with some truly memorable moments, from both in front and behind, the camera, from the iconic Western anti-hero 'Man With No Name' to the anti-hero detective Harry Callahan to (my personal favourite) the WW2 ... um... anti-hero in Kelly Hero's plus countless other eh, anti-heroes. Although been fairly quiet on the acting front these past few years concentrating on his consistently fruitful directing career with such Oscar nominated heavyweights such as 2003's Mystic River, 2004's Million Dollar Baby (which coincidently was his last movie he appeared in, in an acting capacity) as well as 2006 war time epics Flags Of Our Fathers, Letters of Iwo Jima along with the recently Oscar nominated Changeling starring Angelina Jolie. Suffice to say old Clint has been around the block, beat up enough punks and won more praise and awards than most actors and directors will in a lifetime combined.

This brings us to his latest film Gran Torino, back in the director's chair once again, but more importantly, his first acting role for nearly 5 years. Eastwood plays the role of semi-racist Korean war veteran/retired car factory worker Walt Kowalski, who in the light of the opening sequence where he attends his wife's funeral is now alone for the first time in around 50 years. Angry and bitter at the mere sight of his two sons and grandchildren he finds solace in being alone (with his beautiful 1972 Gran Torino sport) until a chain of events brings him together with his immigrant next door neighbours, the shy Thao and his feisty sister Sue Vang Lor who live with their mother and eccentric grandmother. Over the course of the film you start to see Walt take down his own personal barriers and really grow to have a connection with the family, possibly having the family he always wanted, one who treats him with the respect he deserves and considers his company a privilege instead of a burden. Well, so far so summer children's movie about the curious kids and the grumpy old bastard next door. That is until Thao starts to be harassed by his 'gangster' cousin and without having the guts and determination to fend for himself he goes off and gets the next best thing. Yes, that's right, Clint Eastwood. In true Eastwood fashion he sorts them out harking, a huge chunk of nostalgia, back to his glory days of Dirty Harry and his films with Sergio Leone, proving that you should never underestimated any old man with a shotgun and a lust for killing.

One of the reasons I think Eastwood might have made this film with him as the star is because there could not be a more fitting way to mark the twilight (possibly even the end) of his film career as an on screen actor, at 78 we were never going to get that one final Dirty Harry movie so Gran Torino is possibly the next best thing. If you ever wondered how Harry Callahan would have dealt with being a pensioner, this film is currently the closest I could of imagined to it. Backed up by a solid, yet not overly stand out supporting cast (though look out for Clint's son Scott in a brief appearance has Sue's date), though Chris Carley deserves praise and an honourable mention for his role as Father Janovich, who kind of acts as Walt's unwanted conscience for most of the film. In my opinion Eastwood delivers another brilliant, accessible and most importantly enjoyable film that should be loved by anyone who has been a fan of his work. With scenes that reminds us of his glory days (though in fairness Eastwood has rarely not had glory days), along with scenes that reminds us of other great ethnic suburbia films such as the Oscar winning Boyz In The Hood to the doom and gloom environments of Mystic River. Beautifully shot with a moving score from Clint's other son, Kyle who has provided music to all of his films since 2002's Mystic River, Eastwood has pretty much done it again, and you know what? It honestly made my day (sorry for the pun I've been waiting the entire review to say it).

Stand Out Scene...
The scene where he attends a party at his neighbours home I found quite endearing and quite heart warming showing the first signs of a soul within the bitter lonely old man. Also the scene where he stares down 3 African-American hoods giving Sue a hard time. Pure Eastwood. Yash.

Stand Out Quote...
Walt - (to Father Janovich) "I think you're an overeducated 27-year-old virgin who likes to hold the hands of superstitious old ladies and promise them everlasting life" There is also a mountain of racist slurs I could list here but that just wouldn't be appropriate. Watch the film and you'll know what I mean.

See this if you liked...
Um Clint Eastwood movies? Also Boyz In The Hood.

Pop by later in the week for my (as promised) divine preview for 2009's Academy Awards.

Bolt - Review

Bolt


In a nutshell...
So...Disney...For anyone reading this who knows me, they should know by now my undying love for this animation company since pretty much I was old enough to register images into my brain back when I was a tiny infant. From Snow White to Sword In The Stone to Sleeping Beauty to Beauty And The Beast To Aladdin and all the way back again I grew up and loved them all. Until that is, the late 1990s/ early 2000 came, 2-D animation is vast becoming outdated and Disney's storylines are becoming dull and frankly shite (Treasure Planet and Atlantis anyone? Really?) which resulted in Disney slowly becoming merely another childhood memory. "Getting fat and lazy, and he walked in and ups a daisy!" That man is of course John Lasseter, creator of one of the most important animation studios in the world, Pixar, that brought you the likes of Toy Story 1&2, Finding Nemo and my second favourite film of last year the ground breaking Wall-e, and now back where he started at Disney he is now the head chief creative officer for the company and vowed to bring it back to where it should be, and that's at the top of the animation mountain.

Bolt marks the 48th film under the title of Walt Disney Pictures and follows in the footsteps of its CGI predecessors, the dull and depressing Dinosaur, the film that could've been great but wasn't, Chicken Little and the distinctly average and forgettable Meet The Robinsons (what you say? Exactly). However with Lasseter at the helm of producer and a directing team of Chris Williams and Bryon Howard from one of the company's last great 2-D films, Mulan surely it can be better...right? Yes! Right! Bolt is a tale about a dog (voiced by the man who keeps coming back John Travolta) who has been sheltered for most of his life on a film set leading him to believe he is actually a super enhanced hero (imagine The Truman Show crossed with Buzz Lightyear, except...a dog) protecting his human or "person" as he puts it, Penny (voiced by some doll who all the kids love these days...Miley Cyprus? Cyrus? Stratus? Sterruss? Stratocaster? Ah who cares). With his delusions eventually leading him astray from his owner he embarks on a country wide travel from New York to Hollywood along with his travel companions, cat Mittens and hamster Rhino of course getting into all kinds of funky trouble along the way.

The visuals are beautiful and lush which, is what you have come to expect from Pix....um I mean Disney, and honestly would not look out of place in the Disney/Pixar film The Incredibles or to a somewhat lesser extent Cars. It was colourful, bright, cute and topped surprisingly with a witty enough script to keep the kids and adults amused for the whole duration, however what was a little disappointing was that it failed to deliver anything new or exciting to really announce Disney's "2nd Coming" as many other journalists have been putting this recent renaissance. The voice cast however do deserve praise and for me personally top props go to the cameos of the pigeons who actually made me "LOL" (jeez I feel so dirty for putting it like that) a couple of times. Animated and performed with true warmth and heart Disney have made the "Oliver & Co." of their CGI productions, and if history is to repeat itself, (the film that came after Oliver & Co was of course the legendary and absolutely spell-binding Little Mermaid) then the next film to come under the "Walt Disney Pictures" emblem is something truly to look out for. To round up Bolt is a loveable tale that, although been told time and time again in films like Homeward Bound, Oliver & Co, Lassie, Old Yellor! The Aristocats about a human and their pet, it should not take anything away from how much the kids will enjoy it. However as I'm sure the amount of traffic from people under 13 is low in these parts, to any devote bloggers out there who wanna watch an animation masterpiece, go watch Wall-e instead...or Beauty and The Beast. Walt, mate, you're nearly there but just slightly off the finishing line. One more try!

Stand out scene...
Any involving the pigeons for me, some comedy gold there.

Stand out quote...
Rhino (the hamster) with an upset stomach, "That meat lover's pizza is NOT loving me back"

If you liked this go watch...
The Truman Show or any Disney film involving talking animals!!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona - Review

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

In a nutshell...
As with Benjamin Button in my last review, Woody Allen falls into two categories for most people, you either like him (and I do) or you loathe him. Over recent years though Woody has broken away from his primary inspiration for his movies, New York, to chart across the Atlantic to experience other cities which has resulted in somewhat of a mixed bag. With his films over the past few years being mainly set in the UK, Mr Allen decided to head for sunnier and greener pastures in Barcelona this time round. Vicky Cristina Barcelona follows the tale of (you guessed it) best chums Vicky and Cristina (played by the beautiful Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson respectively, reuniting them in a film for the second time since 2006 film The Prestige) as they spend the summer in (wow you're all rather good at this, that's right!) Barcelona. Typical of Allen's portrayal of any city he sets his films in, Vicky and Cristina experience the beautiful luxurious side to the city dining in fine restaurants, drinking wine aged to perfection, mixing with the creative elite, which brings us to the male lead of the story Juan Antonio (played with a better haircut than he did in No Country For Old Men, Javier Bardem), who successfully attempts to woo both of the ladies into a crazed passionate affair with sex, booze and Antonio Gaudí architecture.

Though Vicky is engaged to be married to another man the committed but unromantic Doug (Chris Messina), she is always drawn to Juan Antonio though she eventually goes on to distance herself through guilt, this leads to a proper relationship emerging between Cristina and Juan Antonio, which blossoms through once again a lot of passionate sex, elegant booze and mixing with the creative elite. However through events which I shan't disclose for people who actually want to see the film, a string of events brings Juan Antonio's, bunny boiling, psychotic ex-wife María Elena back into the frame (played with utter brilliance by the film's true star Penélope Cruz) which leads to a strange and unique relationship emerging from the three characters in ways that they would never have expected. One of the aspects of this movie I really enjoyed, as with most Allen films, was the witty intelligent dialogue, with a dead panned narrator commentating throughout the film voiced by the mostly unknown Christopher Evan Welch (though for all "20-something" geeks who frequent the blog, he did the voice of Tails in the original Sonic The Hedgehog cartoon, how fucking cool is that!?), set to a backdrop of beautiful quaint side streets and luxurious buildings and high society life that if it was actually always like that, I'd be on the first flight to Barcelona and never come home!

Overall this is probably Woody Allen's best film in years and vastly better than his 2005 Oscar nominated film Match Point. However I will be honest and say this isn't the movie for the blokes to watch and banter about afterwards in the pub, it is very much a well written, witty intelligent romantic comedy for the ladies reading in the blogosphere, lead by an excellent cast and a solid, return to form, from the director. So to summarise if you are are a bloke and want to watch a movie with your mates and share in the experience, go watch The Wrestler, however with Valentine's Day vast approaching and wondering for a film that your lady friend will enjoy and frankly so will you, go see Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Stand Out Scene...
Any scene with Penélope Cruz is simply wonderful and full of life with a brilliant mixture of comedy and intensity.

Stand Out Quote...
I was in love with the most incredible woman and she put a knife in me- Juan Antonio (he ain't kidding...)

If you liked this go watch...
Allen's best films, Annie Hall, Manhattan and (though critically not his best, my personal favourite) Life and Death. Also, though totally unrelated to this film, Hall and Johansson's first film they appeared together The Prestige.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - Review

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button


In a nutshell...
Question. What do you get if you cross Robert Zemeckis' Forest Gump with Tim Burton's Big Fish with a touch of Francis Ford Coppola's Jack? That's right! You get The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button! Now that isn't meant to be a negative comment, but this movie might not be as original as some people may have you believe. Benjamin Button tells the life story of a remarkable human being, who is born as a baby with the physical features of an elderly man, abandoned by his birth father and as luck would have it ends up in an old people's home and raised by an African-American family. Over the first few years it doesn't seem like Ben is getting any younger and thus is treated by most strangers, unbeknown to his condition, like an old man and thus experiences certain situations at (mentally) a relatively young age, such as drinking, sex and work as well encountering for the first time his soul mate Daisy played by the ever consistent Cate Blanchett.

This takes us to the second part of the story where Ben joins up with the drunken "Irishman" Captain Jack and becomes part of his crew (no they don't go looking for shrimp...) which eventually takes Ben to Russia where he encounters his first meaningful relationship with another woman played by Tilda Swinton with a level of warmth and innocence that I wouldn't usually associate with her performances. One of the beautiful aspects of this film is how his own life's events coincide with historical events such as WW2, Apollo shuttle launch, Wall Street Crash right up to the later day current events of Hurricane Katrina etc As time goes on the lives of Daisy and Ben's lives start to cross once again we start to endure one of the more frustrating elements of the story of the "will they, won't they?!?!" cat and mouse game which eventually leads to the grand love story of the piece as you might have already seen from the trailers. One of my main problems with this movie is how hard it was for me to really enjoy it, frankly on a technical level there was nothing really wrong with it, visually absolutely epic and breathtaking and the opening sequence is one of the most wonderful scenes I have seen in a movie for quite some time. However it just felt as though it was missing...something? Think possibly the comparisons with Forest Gump (and trust me there were many) left me uneasy as I gotta be honest it was a film I never really enjoyed, and it isn't even a case of plagiarism on the screenwriter's part as Eric Roth in fact wrote both Benjamin Button and Forest Gump.

The actors carry the film extremely well despite its somewhat hollow misgivings and Brad Pitt's leading performance is as consistent as it has ever been (seriously there are very few films I could name that he was shit in) though whether he deserved an Oscar nod is up for debate in all honesty. In terms of supporting roles it was good to see Jason Flemyng (known mainly for his roles in pretty much all of Guy Ritchie's earlier films) making the jump to Hollywood and quite rightfully Taraji P. Henson deserves plenty of praise for her performance as Benjamin's foster mother Queenie , and was in my opinion one of the strongest performances of the entire film. As already mentioned the film's visuals were beautiful and the visual effects boys do a fine job of mapping Pitt's face on to his elder/younger self. If there's one thing I found quite uplifting and endearing about the film was its provocative underlying message that no matter how young or old you may be, you are never too late to try something new or to start over and that is what life should indeed always be about.

To round up TCCOBB is a hard film to review, it's not necessarily a bad film, in fact its a very good film technically but its not the life changing classic that I had intially built it up to be in my opinion, I honestly think in years to come people will be talking about this film from two different arguing sides; from a set who absolutely love it and the group who simply, don't. Regrettably I feel I would be inclined to agree with the latter than the former on this one.

Stand Out Scene...
The beautiful opening about the story of a man who invented a clock for a train station that went backwards. Extremely Burton-esque.

Stand Out Quote...
Always thought this one summed up the point of the movie quite well, taken when one of the people in the old-folks home sums up love and death to the title character, "Benjamin, we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?"

If you liked this film go watch...
Forest Gump, Big Fish, Jack

Milk - Review

Milk

In a nutshell…

So this is a biopic about the first openly gay man in US politics by one of the most openly gay directors in Hollywood starring one of the most straight men in the film industry. I must admit I wasn’t that intrigued, considering the last film I enjoyed by Gus Van Sant was Good Will Hunting, and that was over 10 years ago (not counting his short film in the ensemble movie Paris Je t’aime). This film takes us through the rise of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, charting his journey from owning a small quaint photography shop, to the position of district supervisor of the now infamous Castro district of San Francisco. As already said at first I honestly was not that bothered, that’s not meant to be taken as a homophobic comment just these kind of movies have little interest for me, but I am willing to admit when I am proven wrong, this film was absolutely wonderful. Sean Penn delivers frankly the best role I have seen him in a long time, taken out of his comfort zone of the cold heartless bastards he usually is associated with and thrown into this very camp, charismatic and truthfully charming persona. One of the most fascinating aspects of the film’s journey was through the evolution of Harvey’s own disposition and how he started as quite a, dare I say, timid inwardly gay man who felt sort of down on his luck and approaching a mid life crisis into the full of life politician who wasn’t afraid to stand up for his people in the same way Martin Luther King did for black civil rights roughly at the same time. Unfortunately this would also be, ultimately, his downfall after encountering his political rival of the piece, Dan White, played superbly by the man of the moment Josh Brolin.

Interestingly Brolin’s character kind of acts as the opposite side of the coin to Penn’s Milk in that he is in politics for personal gain, wanting to provide for his wife and children by trying to put through such deals as pay rises for him and his peers, which in turn Milk objects to, concentrating solely on his life mission, as the two clash there is only one outcome, which for anyone familiar with US political history will know and for those who don’t, well go see the film and you will see for yourself. Delightfully filmed to mimic the 1970s and using old real life news reel footage to coincide with the film’s events, Van Sant brilliantly sets the viewer into the period without making it look like a contemporary film set to an original score by the consistently brilliant Danny Elfman (Tim Burton associations aside for a minute, he is fantastic). As with some of the other films I have reviewed of late, the stars are only as good as their supporting cast, and Milk, surprisingly had an exceptional set. Hats should go off, for their roles in this movie, to both Emile Hirsch playing Harvey’s right hand man for his campaign, Cleve Jones and James Franco playing Harvey’s first partner (in the movie at least), and also arguably his muse and inspiration Scott Smith which proves in my eyes that they are indeed stars to watch out for in the future, whoever the weakest character of the piece and one I honestly did not feel anything for was Milk’s second partner Jack played by Diego Luna who was too intense and over the top and actually fairly irritating compared to the rest of the extremely colourful likeable characters. Furthermore Van Sant does a tremendous job of making the audience (regardless of their sexual orientation) feel involved in the film and caught up in the drama which flows at a really pleasurable pace building up to a beautiful emotional climax which made this reviewer weep…a little…ok…a lot.

Milk is also, as some know, recently and rightfully been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, and you know what it could well win it in my honest opinion. If I hadn’t already made up my mind that Mickey Rourke will win for Best Actor for The Wrestler I would have put money on Sean Penn to claim the prize for himself. Likewise for Josh Brolin, if I hadn’t actually put money (and I have) on Heath Ledger to win best supporting actor for The Dark Knight he could well have been a front-runner but alas it will not to be just like Franco and Hirsch shamefully didn’t even get a mention. To summarise Milk is a captivating portrayal of one of the most important gay men to live in America during the 20^th Century and Penn gives one of the best most endearing and charming performances, you will see in the cinema all year. Well done Gus you have suddenly got my attention again.

Stand out scene…

Any scene Penn is seen smiling, seriously you will never ever see that in a movie again!!!

Stand out quote…

The movie has a lot of tear jerking quotes that are a little cliché but hey if it works for Optimus Prime why not Harvey Milk…

“All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words.” Or “Without hope, life's not worth living.”

But I personally liked the tongue and cheek nature of this quote during a debate Milk had with another politician…

“If it were true that children emulate their teachers, we'd have a lot more nuns running around.”

If you liked this movie watch…

Van Sant’s best movie before Milk came along, the Oscar winning, Good Will Hunting