Tuesday, October 18, 2005
M.'s first bloggy blog film blow out
Hello and welcome to M.'s first amateur attempt at screwing up V.'s blog with inane comments.
Firstly - let's clear up the 'facts' about V.'s recent film-orama extravaganza, to which I bore witness...

Batman Begins:
this was great just as V. promised. And we saw it in the cinema for $1 each! OK our feet stuck to the floor and an ancient old coot came up to us after the finish and started yelling 'waaaaaay batman!' while flailing his arms around. But it was $1! Self same old codger wandered in and out of the cinema peering s-l-o-w-l-y at everyone in each row trying to find where he was sitting. Did I mention V. picked a fight with a girl-gang of 'toughs' in the back row for making too much noise (see also 'History of Violence' for similar antics). Anyway, enough about the venue.
Good points -
Almost dark and moody enough to do Batman full justice and the best Batman so far by FAR.
Scarecrow running Arkham Asylum.
Horror style effects when the bat attacks the baddies.
Bad points (being picky) -
V. pointed out that Katie Holmes wobbles her face non-stop whenever she talks and then I couldn't see anything else except wobbling faces...aaagh!
The event that triggers young Batty's vigilante streak was rather flat and poorly portrayed whereas it should have been a pivotal and emotional scene - take a look at how it's portrayed in the graphic novels in just a few panels...
They can't get away from the fact that a bunch of 'supervillains' want to 'destroy Gotham' with a giant comical and improbable superweapon - the personal vengeance and character issues are much more involving.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose:
henceforth this film will be named the Exorcism of Emily Bivens. Some very creepily effective imagery and the plot structure was well handled. Impressive how the film portrays both possibilities as seen or explained by different characters. I don't think it'll change anyones mind about the supernatural but it might make you look on the bedroom floor at night when you can't sleep...

Cry Wolf
Utter crud which V. cruelly persuaded me was 'going to be good'. As mentioned, all (OK most.. OK some) damn films currently being shown in the US features : a high school full of 'hip' 30 year old kids. A foppish 'new' British boy who talks like Hugh Grant and wins over the hip 'youngsters' with his damn jolly fine Englishness and ability to cope without his 'queen' and 'cups of tea'. Eurgh. The plot DID have a ludicrous twist in the nature of a scooby doo episode.

Flightplan
Hmmmm. I'm not sure why V. wanted me to see TWO films about airline terror when I had to catch a long-haul flight. This was slick but not exactly a brain teaser. There were too many plot holes and unexplained loose ends to really satisfy. Damn they had some nice roomy seats on that plane though! Also, the mood in the cinema turned quite ugly when almost everyone seemed to find the 'Arabs being beaten up' hilarious and worth clapping.

Red Eye
Wow - even bigger plot holes here that just get absolutely ludicrous when the plane lands. The interplay between the 2 leads was very engaging with Cillian Murphy particularly good (at first) though I think V. has a 'thing' about him... Most noteworthy scene was the final 4 minute climax where a woman (let's call her...V) dashed from the theatre, silhouetted against the screen with arms flailing towards the nearest restroom after helping consume a large cherry coke, thus missing the 'exciting' finale....shame! I doubt either this or Flightplan will be appearing on the back of a seat in front of you any time soon.

War of the Worlds
I'm a fan of that musical version with the Richard Burton voiceover and was hoping for a mix of the horror of this with some 'Dawn of the Dead' style updating and credible and bloody epic effects. I don't think there's anything much to give away about the plot. I do NOT get why the Martians buried their war machines on pre-historic earth(?) so they could wait a few aeons until there would be anything around to fight with them. Also the ending had a disgustingly sappy Morgan Freeman God-bothering voiceover prayer to all the suffering, much like his presidential prayer in Deep Impact. The noise the Martians made was pretty creepy too (not UUULAH!)

A History of Violence
Pretty much agree with V. on this on all counts. I DID find the violence a little too comic-book though. Not 'comical' but 'Rambo style' unrealistic, though very brutal. A very polished film and I'm sure there is much Cronenbergian imagery of significance that will require a future re-watching.

The Fog
You know how 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' have been 're-imagined' (along with many other films recently) and that they were pretty good entertainment, right? Well this stinks like a pile of leperous pirates kipper slippers.
Bad points: not scary; doesn't make sense; horribly wooden 'characters'; crappy CGI ghosts; utterly unneccessary - the 80's weren't THAT long ago! Yeah I know Amityvile was the 80's too but it had merit....
Good points: 2 bikini bimbos apparently love to dance vacuously with each other on a fishing boat deck in the dark to a small transistor radio for hours - what a party life eh?; You can watch the original which succeeds where this fails on all counts.

Phew! I'm off to watch some Special Perverts Unit. Hopefully V. will let me write my reviews of High Tension and The Village which I saw this weekend on the DVD.
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