Paul
Paul is a gentle comedy with some truly creative swearing in it, some really funny scenes, and a barrage of sci-fi references to find lurking in the details. It’s great to see Nick Frost and Simon Pegg back in action together again, although it’s a shame Edgar Wright wasn’t directing as well.
The ‘plot’ is just enough to create a movie-length chase scene, with the two guys meeting an alien, being chased by men in black, and taking a few detours to pick up a fundamentalist Christian and visit small-town America. Paul the alien is pretty much Seth Rogen by way of personality, and he gets some of the best lines in the script.
Unfortunately, the movie is a little bit *too* gentle. Once Frost’s character has a heart-to-heart with Paul, there isn’t any conflict within the group to create an emotional pull. I would have liked to see more to the main relationship than Pegg and Frost’s standard bromance-leaning-towards-homoeroticism jokes, as funny as I find them.
I’d give it 3 stars out of 5 - entertaining, but not a must-see.
Burke and Hare
An odd movie that probably seemed like a great idea on paper, but didn’t quite work out on the screen. It’s a black comedy based on the true-life story of Burke and Hare, two guys who killed several people so they could sell the bodies to a professor for his lectures in the new-at-the-time science of anatomy.
The cast is great, the script is ok. But the humour doesn’t sit well with the gruesome murder scenes and feels a little sick. The director should have chosen whether he wanted a true-crime flick or a black comedy (either would be fine with me) rather than trying to do both in the same space.
The Zodiac Killer
Recently I watched David Fincher’s movie Zodiac, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo. It was pretty good, if a little slow (like most true crime stories). I was interested enough to do a little research on the case, which revealed that the book the movie is based on is really just the opinion of Robert Graysmith (played by Gyllenhaal). Graysmith has been obsessed by the case for years, but his accusations of Arthur Leigh Allen don’t hold up to close scrutiny.
Arthur Leigh Allen is the prime suspect, but that’s based on testimony from someone with a rather large (and entirely reasonable!) grudge, so even though Allen was a perverted criminal I don’t think he was actually a serial killer. All of this led me to various conspiracy sites, each one with an implausible theory about who the Zodiac really was. Some claim it was one of the Mansons, others that it was an activist journalist, others that it’s a lecturer in politics who lived on the other side of the country (poor guy, he’s been harrassed for years).
The best site I found about all of this is Zodiac Killer Facts. It’s a skeptical look at the wacky theories, written by a guy who’s interested in facts and evidence rather than sensationalism. He’s driven by compassion for the families of the victims and a desire for the truth rather than an easy answer. Unfortunately his blog reveals that everyone connected with the case is old and dying. Unless some previously hidden evidence comes to light, it seems more and more unlikely that the murders will ever be solved.
Stingray Sam: a space-western/musical-comedy, as a 6-episode serial. Funny, with catchy songs and collages in place of special effects. It’s charming, and odd, and I enjoyed it immensely when I saw it at the Revelations Film Festival.
The director, Cory McAbee, was there to answer questions after the screening. The movie was deliberately made in episode/serial format because he figured that people watch stuff on their phones on trains, or on iPods on planes, etc these days - so he chose a crisp black and white style, short sections, simple sets without any lingering landscape shots to set the scene. On the big screen this feels a bit odd but I loved it anyway.
It’s available for sale/download at McAbee’s website, or you can buy a deluxe DVD set with t-shirts and stickers and stuff like that thrown in. I like this kind of distribution, especially for oddities like this which rely on word of mouth to get heard of. Check out the trailer and see if it’s your cup of tea.
American: The Bill Hicks Story
A good doco with lots of input from Hicks’ family; but I wouldn’t call it an “amazing” true life story as described in the trailer. He was raised by a nice family who loved him; he wanted to be a comedian, so he worked hard at it; he had a substance abuse problem, but got over it. He died too soon.
The photo-collage style adds a bit of interest, and the director doesn’t shy away from the substance abuse issue. But there aren’t any stunning revelations here, and there aren’t any insights into Hicks’ personality that you couldn’t get from watching his stand-up. 3 stars.
Bunny and The Bull
Funny and poignant, with a slight Boosh flavour. Not sure why the main character stole Vince Noir’s hair. Took a long time to get going. Boosh fans will enjoy it, others might find the dog milk scene a bit much. 3 stars.
The Prestige
A fascinating but somewhat cold film about two rival magicians, each willing to sacrifice everything good about their lives in order to be the best.
There’s no twist at the end of the story - it’s all laid out in front of us, in the dialogue and in the visuals. But like a magician, Nolan misdirects our attention away from the obvious until the perfect moment for the reveal.
The movie is rich in symbolism and foreshadowing, which makes it worth a re-watch. I thought the birds were a very clever touch, but I don’t know how much of that was in the original novel and how much was added by Nolan.
The most difficult aspect is the involvement of Tesla, since it introduces a science-fiction element which seems out of place at first. But it allows such resonant symbolism to be folded in, and it aptly demonstrates exactly how far Angiers is willing to go to win. That determination makes him the best showman, and the most vengeful of the two, but not the best magician. I just think that Nolan could have been clearer about science’s relationship to magic.
I think Borden’s wife figured out his trick. But her reaction just proves what Cutter predicts at the opening of the film: audiences don’t really want to know how it’s done - it ruins their enjoyment of the magic. That point makes this a darker and sharper story than The Illusionist, as well as a more complex one. 4 out of 5 stars.
The Illusionist
A beautiful film about a magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna trying to save his One True Love from an arrogant prince, and the police chief trying to figure out what’s going on.
Edward Norton has fabulous hair in this, and a vaguely European accent. But Paul Giamatti is the heart of the film. He’s tempted by the power the prince offers him in exchange for doing as he’s told, but (like any good detective) can’t resist the lure of solving a good mystery.
Unfortunately, the trick is a little too easy to figure out, and there’s not enough action or emotion around it to disguise it. Still, it’s a very pretty film - I give it 3 stars.
Sicko, Michael Moore
Last night I finally got to see Michael Moore’s documentary about the USA’s health care system, Sicko. There weren’t any real surprises, but I do think it’s Moore’s best documentary so far.
He sticks to what he does best: talking to everyday people who are struggling to get by in life and explaining how things got to the stage where middle-class people are going bankrupt if they get sick. He then visits places with better health-care than the USA, and asks people there why they have the system they do.
Moore’s only got one his standard ‘stunts’ in the film. He meets emergency workers who responded to the World Trade Center collapse on 9/11, but have since been denied health care for the respiratory problems caused by the dust and rubble. Then he takes them to Guantanamo Bay to ask for some of the health care available there - obviously this doesn’t work, and he has a plan B to get them some real help. The conclusion of the stunt is actually very touching.
The lack of grandstanding makes this the easiest of his films to watch. And I think it must be partly responsible for the random grumbles about US healthcare, which have been around for years, gathering into the groundswell of action that’s led to the issue being addressed in the US Congress right now. Maybe people used to think they’d just been unlucky, but Moore shows that it’s a systematic abuse across the nation, and that there are better options available.
I was appalled by the plutocracy that runs healthcare in America, and grateful for the better system we have in Australia. But seeing the UK and French setups made me think that we’re settling for merely adequate healthcare, when we could have something truly excellent instead.
Avatar
So, along with everyone else, I went to see the mega-super-uber-blockbuster “Avatar”. I liked it more than I thought I would, since awesome SFX with lame plots aren’t usually my cup of tea. But it was very pretty and immersive, and the blue kitteh aliens were cool. Let me know when I can get one of those tails with a built-in psychic link.
Additional good points: Michelle Rodrigues got to play a character without a chip on her shoulder; Sigourney Weaver is always fun; Phoebe-from-Friends’ little brother made a great corporate arsehole, although not as good as Paul Reiser in Aliens; and they actually showed Jake’s wasted-away legs, which isn’t usually allowed on film when characters have wheelchairs. Finally, I loved the creative and beautiful world of Pandora. Apparently it owes a debt to Roger Dean, a popular fantasy artist working since the 60s.
On the other hand, Jake Scully’s positive traits were an informed ability - apparently he can charm a whole tribe and get the girl with nothing but his arrogance and ignorance. He was happy to betray them, right up until the last minute. Not my first choice for a reliable and creative tactical leader! And it was pretty arrogant of him to believe that he (a jarhead in a wheelchair) could talk the genocide-is-fine-with-me military chief into doing anything except blowing up everything in sight.
It was pretty lazy/racist to come up with a unique biology and language for the aliens, but give them tribal chants, clothes and rituals lifted straight from several non-white Earth tribes. As if Native American and African and South-east Asian cultures are all sort of an interchangeable mish-mash, so can be successfully grafted onto whoever else happens along.
I don’t understand why it was Jake who came up with the successful plan of attack in the end. Does James Cameron think the audience couldn’t possibly identify with any of the Na’Vi, even after 2 hours telling us about (and encouraging us to admire) every aspect of their culture and personalities?
Speaking of James Cameron, why doesn’t he still make movies with a bit more to chew on than pretty visuals and action scenes? Aliens, Terminator 2, The Abyss - none of them will be included on lists of the most philosophical movies of the 20th century, but they had something to say about people that wasn’t like a brick to the head. Titanic and Avatar are truly beautiful spectacles, but they feel empty by comparison.
There was potential there for a comparison between the mechanical and biological “suits” worn by the humans. Or for something about the way the humans expected the Na’Vi to behave the way they would, to have the same population numbers (the military dude assumes there’ll be more warriors on the way before the final attack, yet they’ve assembled everyone they’ve got). Or a more subtle environmental message.
That said, it was a subtly bleak ending for the humans, and I liked it. Like belligerent drunks in a pub at closing time, they’re told they don’t have to go home, but they can’t stay here. Whatever their problems are (and Cameron is vague about it), they won’t be fixed by taking resources from other people.
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