Survival of the Dead

               

For the last film in Romero's dead series, he seems to have given up on getting any kind of meaningful insight across. That's a bonus, as far as I'm concerned, as the last film stank and the one before was too blatant and silly. This one is silly too, but it's not trying to be anything more than a fairly light-hearted zombie western about two old guys with grudges and a band of ex-military survivors lead by a Hugh Jackman lookalike.

                

              

The imaginative zombie dispatching is dwindling at this point, and the editing (one of the strongest elements of his classics) has become bland and formulaic. You can tell that nothing about this is an independent picture any more. Romero never suited mainstream Hollywood, he was at his best telling off the cuff stories that took a lot of feeling from their location and grew into cohesion in the editing.

I liked this one more than 'Diary of the Dead', but not quite as much as 'Land of the Dead'. While I hated the clunky commentary of that film, I did like the setting and general concept. This film was far more run of the mill, and while it was watchable, it was often comically uninspired.

           

Survival of the Dead: 33.2

A Million Ways to Die in the West

                     

while I don't hate Seth Macfarlane as much as some do (I like his stuff if I'm in the right mood (drunk, high, or post-head injury)), I don't think his pop culture reference based humour works so well in a western. 

This film feels a little off. It feels like ol' Seth is massaging his ego the entire time, and I didn't get the impression that he doesn't even know all that much about the genre (the two big references were to a 'Django Unchained' and 'Back to the Future Part III' (both great films, but not exactly classic westerns). I wonder weather Seth doesn't know the westerns very well, or just assumes (most likely rightly) that his fans don't?) It was dumb, obviously, but it wasn't as funny or as watchable as 'Ted'. Despite this I still enjoyed watching someone so rich get urinated on in the face by an inexplicably male sheep.

                

              

I laughed a few times, but most of this was just pretty boring. They repeated a lot of material that wasn't too funny to begin with, and treated the audience like idiots with the amount of hand holding they did with anything even slightly historical or plot developmenty.
I wasn't sure what I was in for when I started watching this, but was disappointed to find an extremely generic cut-and-paste triangle of romance with a garnish of bad guy gunslinger plot. I'd have preferred just a million death scenes, a sort of 'Bunny Suicides' set in the west.

              

A Million Ways to Die in the West: 25.3

Cowboys & Aliens

                  

'Cowboys & Aliens' is just about as goofy as it sounds, which is not an entirely bad thing.

                

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford lead as two gunslingers who you'd normally expect to be the arch rivals of the film, but the big subversion here is that they end up teaming up against a bunch of gold-hungry aliens.

The cast is excellent, and Craig and Ford are particularly fantastic. Honestly, I would have preferred a straight western with the two of them, because the sci-fi element was... not so good. The director just couldn't juggle the different elements, and the tonal shift between western and sci-fi is often jarring. I don't particularly like the design of the alien tech, or the aliens themselves, either. It's fine, but nothing new or very interesting, and their motives are just terrible.

             

                   

Watching it, I couldn't help but try and imagine how the plot would have played out if the aliens had never showed up. I feel like that would have been a far more satisfying movie. Don't get me wrong though, I enjoyed watching this one, and it held me attention - I just had to get past the inherent silliness of the story. I really did enjoy the leads though, and would recommend this to anyone wanting something that you don't have to pay much attention to.

                     

Cowboys & Aliens: 45.7

Brokeback Mountain

                        

Probably my favourite romance. Not that there are many to choose from, as I don't particularly like the genre, but still: this one I really enjoyed. It also ends unhappily, which I usually prefer.

                   

                

What was so great about this one was how unhappy it made me feel. Don't get me wrong, I don't really like being unhappy, but I was so impressed by how effective the movie was at wringing emotion from me at all. I think that speaks volumes of the two leads (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal - you know Anne Hathaway is also in this? I always forget that, and am surprised when she turns up half way through), and they're both brilliant here. I'd go so far as to say that this might be the best work of either actor.

The cinematography is excellent, and the movie often lingers to let the landscapes inject their energy into the plot. The contrast between the wide open beauty of nature and the constricting human world that they go back to is stark and makes the tradgedy all the more that.

                 

                     

If anything, the film leans towards tragging its feet sometimes. But in a similar way that I can't blame 'The Lord of the Rings' series for this, I find it hard to make this a point against 'Brokeback Mountain', but it does stop it being a complete all-time classic. The slow shots and wordless scenes are important in building tone and getting across how bad these two are expressing themselves. It's not an action movie.

That they begin their timeskips to soon, instead of maybe doing one right at the end, is a nice touch and gives the viewer a somewhat uneasy feeling. It's like their lives after that job are a dream sequence. The odd event remembered before time leaps forwards again. It's not until the end when we linger for a while and Jack is dead, that we're snapped back to reality.

You can see the ultimate tradgedy coming a mile off, but that doesn't diminish it. I think what you makes you feel sad - or anything - is a very personal thing, and this aspect just worked perfectly for me. I'm a sucker for the whole lifelong regret deal, it's one of the things I'm most scared of (apart from actual death, and as an extention of that being forgotten, and heights).

                         

 Brokeback Mountain: 77.9

The Sugarland Express

              

A somewhat dopey movie, nearly all of which is spent following a couple and a cop who they've taken hostage as they drive around the country in search of their son. It's not all comedy, despite there being many funny scenes, and throughout most of the film the viewer is just willing the pair not to do the next dumb thing that they inevitably do.

They're both heartbroken over being apart from their son though, and so we hope that they won't make the next big mistake even as we know that it is inevitable that they do. It all escalates until they have become legendary figures in the local area, and crowds of fans begin greeting them at every town they pass. Ultimately though it ends sadly, and Clovis pays with his life. It's a nicely constructed tragedy, and manages to be very watchable without being at all surprising. The movie ends with Slide telling the Captain that "he took my gun, but he wasn't going to use it". Aw man, major bummer.

It reminds me, and most likely inspired, an excellent episode of 'The X-Files' called 'Drive' which featured Bryan Cranston doing a good job of a man forced to drive west to stop his head exploding for vaguely explained reasons. It ended badly too, and the final few shots were much like the ones here: The car slows to a halt, something's wrong, it's revealed that he is dead, credits roll.

        

               

It's not all doom and gloom, though!

A lot of the fun that comes from watching this movie stems from the relationship between Lou, Clovis, and officer Slide. What is initially a kidnapping situation gradually turns into a mutual friendship, and watching this develop is a whole lot of fun. All three actors are brilliant in these roles, and the script is well written and funny while often being refreshingly spartan when words aren't what the scene needs.

There's also a strong 'Blues Brothers' feeling here, as car after car is wrecked and hundreds of bullets are spent in futile. Now and then a car flips for no reason, and there's even the odd explosion. This is fun too obviously, though not wholly needed. I particularly liked the scene where a couple of hicks shoot the crap out of a car lot, not hitting anyone even after about ten minutes of solid shooting. It's also pig snort laugh-inducing to see such a massive train of police cars slowly following the couple, especially when the lead one is forced to push their car along when they run out of gas.

Overall it's a very enjoyable movie, and watching it evoked similar feelings of warm quaintness and adventure that reading a Huck Finn novel would create.

             

The Sugarland Express: 60.2

Traumschiff Surprise - Periode 1

    

An enjoyably silly, camp spoof of 'Star Wars', 'Star Trek', 'Blade Runner', 'The Fifth Element', every wild west movie (with which Germany has a curious obsession), medieval movies, and, uh, several other genres. It's all been done before, obviously, but not by these guys: a team akin to people like Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell, but German. So I'm told.

This movie is a favourite of some friends of mine, and so I've seen it about three times. It only really needed to be seen once, to be honest, but nevertheless I confess a certain fondness for it. It's pretty dopey, and is mostly slapstick and 'Carry On' style innuendos, and I've yet to see a version with English subtitles (so my knowledge of the script is being given the gist of what people are saying occasionally). You don't really need to know exactly what they're saying anyway, as the story is fairly easy to follow.

     

                    
It's sort of star wars, but the best ship that the rebels have is a cross between the USS Enterprise from 'Star Trek' and a cock and balls. It's crewed by a group of spoofed characters, who then race home to save the rebels from an evil empire and a Darth Vader-style baddie. Time Travel ensues, ensuring spoofs of a pile of other genres that are popular in Germany. The plot was both simple and engaging, and the effects were surprisingly good for the time and the budget. There's not much else to say, um, I could tell what they were referencing most of the time, so that's a good sign. Probably my favourite movie that I technically haven't understood a word of.

This is probably my favourite scene (on repeat). There's a single version too, but I like seeing them do the clap bit and whatnot.

     

Tranmschiff Surprise - Periode 1:49.7

Red Hill

   

The plinky plonk of a banjo - or guitar, I guess. The whisper of the wind through the corn. The smell of "country" (faeces). A nice way to open the movie, I suppose. There's a new cop and he has a pregnant wife, and he's moved to the middle of nowhere for a new job (the middle of nowhere in Australia, which is itself in the middle of nowhere). There's a horse in the parking lot and an angry sheriff and a church, and we can tell something bad is building.

We soon find out that he's moved out to the country because of his wife. They lost the last kid at 6 months and they have to keep her blood pressure down. I didn't have high hopes for its survival, judging by this movies listing as a "violent revenge thriller".

Very little background is given to the killer at first, though he is aesthetically pleasing (particularly his heavily scarred face). The characters are not very imaginative, and the writing is usually kind of meh. Most of the movie is just one big killing spree, with the scarred guy breaking out of prison and killing everyone in town. This gets tedious, though the action is competently shot.

  

   

The twist is very much needed, and it's an alright one. It's still difficult to feel sorry for the guy though, as he is brutally killing everyone. It wraps up kind of quickly, without explaining any of the legal stuff at the end or showing the wife's reaction. The leopard thing was rather dumb too, and acted as a clunky metaphor.

  

Red Hill: 33.3

Serentiy

An action packed space romp that doesn't take itself too seriously. 'Firefly' is one of many shows that Fox was too cowardly not to cancel, but that they should really have trusted. Thankfully the series got a movie to help wrap it up, and I don't know about y'all, but I found it pretty enjoyable.

"This is the captain. We're having a little problem with our entry sequence, we may experience some slight turbulence - and then.. explode."

This is Joss Whedon at his best script writing. The jokes are fast, quirky, and hilarious. This is something that hasn't been lost with time, exactly, but is different now. The jokes in things like 'The Avengers' are funny, but not as fast and... sort of cheeky, I guess, as they were in this and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'.

So this is a relatively young Whedon. My favourite flavour of Whedon.

The whole style is very fast and sharp. It's a sci-fi movie for sci-fi movie fans, and there are lots of almost-references to the genre. A lot of the plot is made up of setting events up, only to twist the outcome unexpectedly, and then laughing at the viewer's surprise. It is very aware of itself, giving it a touch of 'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' type feeling, but this it mixes with the adventurous style of 'Star Trek', the awesome space battles of 'Star Wars', the greasy, steam punky road battles of 'Mad Max' and the well choreographed fluid fighting of 'Hero' (at least River Tam's fighting).
The style is much like that of the show, but the budget has obviously ballooned. The scenes on the dead planet were particularly creepy, as everyone just lay down and died. The bleached white pearly clean surroundings are contrasted excellently by the masses of bodies, and the result is haunting. We also see a lot of classic Whedon camerawork. One of the opening scenes is spectacular. As we are introduced to each member of the crew, the camera sweeps from room to room. A one-take sequence that lasts several minutes. Also I should mention the space battles, which are great, and more true to science than many other sci-fi movies (lack of sound), though there are still lots of fire in their explosions, which is fair enough.

"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

The script is awesome, and the chemistry between every member of the crew is brilliant. There are countless funny moments. One of my favourite scenes was where the captain awkwardly talks to a girl he likes over an intercom, and the rest of the crew are (of course) watching. As he says that one of them really misses her, they all go "aww" and someone throws their popcorn at the screen.
Tam is also surprisingly hilarious in many scenes. Her usual deadpan performance breaks as she occasionally makes a goofy face in response to someone's question. The serious implication from her brother that she had a split personality was brilliant, as her reaction said everything that any viewer would be saying about the possibility of this cliche.
"Do you want to run this ship?!" "Yes" "...Well... You can't" was also great, as were many of the back and forths between the captain and Cobb. Cobb's slowness was good, his best moment in this was thinking that Tam's safe word would put literally anyone to sleep. The writing is great, is my point. Seriously good.

Oh yeah, and River Tam is played by Summer Glau, who's basically my favourite thing ever.

    

Her food is problematic.

The action doesn't infringe on character development, however. For those who are not familiar with the main cast, they are introduced briefly, and many develop as the film progresses. The villains are believable too; they know what they are doing is justified, and while I was never exactly torn as a viewer, I could always easily see both sides. I particularly liked the character of The Operative played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. He does a great job at bringing the intelligent, slightly conflicted agent to life, and he makes for a great villain.

The film is filled with larger than life characters (too many to list all in detail here), yet it balances them well and the ending effect isn't too goofy as to outweigh the serious elements of the movie. They seem to follow the rule of convergence that is explored thoroughly in Steven Erikson's 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' (I'm not sure if it was him that invented this rule, but he certainly has a lot to say on the subject). The rule is basically that power attracts power, and so main forces will eventually come together and clash, as they do in this movie (in a very satisfying way). The whole crew perform brilliantly, but my favourite character (apart from River Tam, obviously) is Mr. Universe.

I like his style, a little like a futuristic Howard from 'The Big Bang Theory'. I also like his set up: living in his own personal moon surrounded by screens and hacking tech, with a fembot forever reclining on a massive sofa behind him wearing a tacky prom dress. I like him so much that a GIF of him is on the title page of this blog. His death hurt the most, for me. My heart wept as he crawled into the arms of his blankly smiling robot, and when the Captain finds him later he is still there, his head resting in her lap. His recorded message, spoken by the fembot whenever someone comes withing proximity, is both tragic and haunting, and both Mr. Universe's character and his demise has stuck with me years after my first viewing of the movie.
 

"You can't stop the signal."
  

It occurs to me now that this blog could be taken as an insight into my own personality, with elements like what characters I like (both like like I like Mr. Universe and like like I like River Tam (like, likelike - and all of that made sense)) and stories and styles that I am drawn to reflecting on me in ways that I wouldn't purposefully tell anyone. I expect that this newfound openness is subliminally deliberate, and while the thought of strangers knowing me this well isn't a particularly fun one to entertain, I doubt anyone reads all of these anyway, and it's not like it's on the front page, right?
I put "Western" down as a tag for this one, as it undoubtedly has many aspects of one. It works very well, at one point the captain even draws faster than the Operative, in a classic stand off situation.

Well that got a little too personal for my liking, so I'll wrap it up now. The action sequences are excellent, the effects are state of the art (as good as Star Wars III, which came out in the same year) and the conclusion is just perfect. An exciting, fun, funny sci-fi movie, with a little heart and horror to boot.

Serenity: 80.0

Dead Man

   
A promisingly artistic opening introduces a somewhat disappointing film. I went into this thinking "OK, so this is slow, but the shots are nice and full of depth, I bet. This'll pick up." Sadly optimism turned increasingly to boredom as William Blake arrives in a hellish town to find that he is unemployed, before bedding an origami enthusiast and then killing her lover. The whole thing felt like 'A Clockwork Orange to me; interesting but boring (I don't get why everyone loves it so much.

None of this was particularly interesting. While it was pleasantly bizarre, it felt a little contrived, and I felt nothing for any of the characters. The story does pick up once Willy B 123 (as I shall henceforth refer to him) goes on the run with the help of an English-taught American called Nobody who is overweight (which looks kinda odd, what with the holocaust going on at the time and whatnot) and mistakes Willy B 123 for the poet of the same name. The three men sent to hunt them are entertaining too, though there is no satisfactory violent payout involving them.
    

Ya dead, man? Ya man.

The shots are all great though and I believe this film is best viewed as a road movie. It paints a (mostly) historically accurate picture of the Americas at the time, and it does it best with slowly tracking landscaped shots of burnt teepees, railways, dead buffalo etc. Add to this, though, a score that is jarring and often quite distracting. Niel Young made it - presumably by repeatedly dropping his guitar.

The film is oddly balanced and ends disappointingly. It's odd how much I love 'A Field in England' when I didn't hugely enjoy this. The two movies are cosmetically pretty similar (and I don't just mean because they're both in black and white), but 'Dead Man' either lacks the depth that 'A Field in England' has, or it's lost on me. It certainly tries, but it often comes off feeling heavy handed. It's like an abstract painting that someone points to and says "look. Art. Get it?"
   
It was fun watching Iggy Pop ridiculously over do a death scene, though.
    

Dead Man: 44.7

The Wild Bunch

       

        

'The Wild Bunch' opens with some children forcing some scorpions to battle ants, before setting fire to the whole mess. This is representative of the outlaws turning on each other while the times change and their world shrinks. At the core of the movie is the story of a betrayal, and its eventual forgiveness. The bandits live by a code of honor, but also have to live with the guilt of having violated it when they betrayed one of their own in the past.

This theme is explored in several ways during the movie: the group effectively leaves one of their number to die, but no guilt is felt until the leader discovers that he was married to his friends granddaughter. The Mexicans are not trusted at all, and for good reason, as they attempt to take the stolen guns by force. At one point someone remarks that these days one must sleep with one eye open to save having one's throat cut.

Times, they are a changin, as several characters remark during the movie. The aging bandits are big fish in a shrinking pool, with nothing to show for their lives of crime but $1000 on their heads and a bag full of steel washers. This is another major theme (Major Theme) of the film. Other signs of the wider world advancing around the weary bandits is the appearance of a motor car (and talk of the early airplane) and the presence of a machine gun in with the crates of weapons that they steal from a train (which was a great scene - anything involving guns and fast moving trains is fun to watch).
        

Say hello to my little mustache.

This was a violent movie for 60s America. The director intended to horrify the audience into appreciating the seriousness of killing through use of more realistic gore, gun effects, and general awfulness (General Awfulness) of the time. He was disturbed when audiences grew to enjoy it rather than be repulsed.

The movie features a ridiculously forward-thinking opening montage (the style of which continues throughout the other shootouts of the film). It was pioneering in its use of fast cuts during the shootout and slow motion shots during the montage of violence. Though this had been used before in films such as 'Seven Samurai' I don't believe it had to this fully-realised standard.

Speaking of editing, I also liked the us of black and white freeze frames at the beginning to include credits, and the cut from a noisy Mexican battle to jarring silence and the view through a pair of binoculars.

Watching this movie for the first time, I've just realised that the line from 'From Dusk till Dawn' that I quoted - "What's in Mexico? Mexicans." - may have been inspired by this movie. As they cross into Mexico the leader of the bounty hunters asks "What's in (insert Mexican village name here)? Why, Mexicans, what else? (laughter as the leader grimaces)

This is an example of a great old western. The genre has never particularly appealed to me (and what I find even more confusing is it's prevalent popularity in Europe) but this is one of few films in the genre that does something new. Not just different, but new in a way that movies very rarely can be anymore.

The Wild Bunch: 61.2

From Dusk till Dawn

       
"What's in Mexico?"
"Mexicans."

A break away from his earlier films such as 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', 'From Dusk till Dawn' starts as many of Quentin Tarantino's other movies do, but about a third of the way in makes an unexpected shift. It wasn't actually directed by Tarantino, but by Robert Rodriguez and Sarah Kelly, though Quentin did write the screenplay. Perhaps he was too busy playing Richard Gecko, brother of Seth Gecko (George Clooney (both he and Tarantino were clearly having a lot of fun (this was his first leading role in a movie))).

The film opens perfectly, the shop scene is classic Tarantino, and the there the movie continues in like fashion. The dialogue is great, the action is violent, but then vampires start killing everyone and it all falls apart.

       

       

The movie gets at least 85 until they reach the Titty Twister, a "Biker and Trucker only" strip bar in northern Mexico. It's inhabitants lure customers in, before feeding off them. It's all going along fine one minute, then the next the strippers are killing the patrons and the bands is playing instruments made of dismembered people. This part has some 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' flavour to it, coupled with special effects out of 'The Thing' and gore from 'Kill Bill'. It's not bad but it's not great, and while the shock factor as the first few people start turning into vampires and killing people is a lot of fun, the first half of the movie is definitely better.

I loved the bit where Seth comes back to find their hostage killed, and the pair stand looking at the corpse while Seth tells Richard off. There are flashes of gore as Seth talks, as the horror in his face grows. Another favourite was where Frost was going on about his time spent in Vietnam, and much of his speech fades into the background. Eventually Sex Machine (that's his name) bites him in the neck and finally shuts him up. The movie is full of black jokes like this, another great example is when some popcorn started popping in a store, because of the flaming corpse of it's owner.

The beginning was great, on par, perhaps, with 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Inglorious Basterds'. Sadly it is let down by the second half, though the movie post-twist is still watchable, and as a whole it is still a good film. "Well that was dumber than I remember" I said after Re-watching it recently, as the camera zooms out at the end and reveals that the bar is at the top of a pyramid, before cutting to the credits.

     

From Dusk till Dawn: 69.8

No Country for Old Men

It's no country for old men, as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is taught during the course of this movie. And that's what it feels like is happening, to me. Llewelyn and Chigurh represent two kinds of people in the new world; one he can't help, and one he can't catch.

The Coen brothers always make an interesting product, and this one is no different. Unexpected deaths can be done by any bland action movie or 'Game of Thrones' episode, but that we didn't see it (trying hard not to let spoilers seep in here, but you know the ones I'm talking about) and that it was barely acknowledged in the traditional sense pleased me no end, for some reason. What I enjoyed even more than watching it alone, was with someone else, and seeing their indignation. I guess I like it when the movie basically gives the audience the finger. Not when it tries it just to be edgy, but when it does it and succeeds, and it adds to the story. As it does in this case, I think.

I've always loved chasey-type movies. Not necessarily one one character actively chasing another (though this was the case here) but a set of characters meeting repeatedly in different variations. Coming together and moving apart, escaping one another and then regrouping in some kind of final showdown. The difference here was that we were cheated our showdown, and I like that. The movie petered out, and I was left feeling depressed, but I'm not a moron (well maybe I am) so I don't need to be made happy to enjoy a movie. I just need to feel. And I did.

Bell isn't really the central character for much of the film, but it's his voice you hear at the start, and the end wraps up his thoughts at the beginning. As I said up there somewhere, I think this is all about him. Him being somewhat forced into retirement by the world (and kind of his wife).

Then there's Chirgurh, a classic Coen brothers villain. I'd like to see him fight Gaear from 'Fargo'. In his first scene he is shown violently strangling a police officer, and his wide-eyed manic expression is a chillingly accurate introduction to his character. He follows Lkewelyn, promoting his deadly coin-tossing philosophy along the way. This makes for some awesomely tense scenes, and by the end we don't even need to see him pop the man's brain out to know what's happened. I particularly liked the scene where he enters a shop and demands the keeper call a coin toss. The tension builds perfectly, as Chirgurh scrunches up and places an empty packet on the counter and it slowly unravels, crinkling and scraping on the table top. It's like someone scratching down a chalk board; it screams 'something's wrong!".

Finally there is Llewelyn, who discovers a big bag of cash at a drug deal gone wrong, and spends the rest of the movie trying to keep it. He's an alright guy. Smart, especially when sleeping, and his wife is cool. While I found Llewelyn likable, I wasn't hugely taken with his character, but I get the impression that that's just me. He has a kind of cool and in control air of confidence, but as the movie progresses and his wounds mount up this persona begins to crack.

The long landscape shots are beautiful, and are equaled by few other movies (2001 springs to mind). These shots linger for just the right amount of time on the scenery, before cutting to a brutal murder or a flaming car. There's not much music, and this works well. The lighting is mostly warm, conveying the temperature, and the oppressive feeling of heat runs throughout the film (or maybe that's just my own dislike of hot weather).

The last scene is one of my favourites from any film, as Bell tells his wife about his dreams. He gets it all just right. The simplicity of his language and his clear, yet understated, emotion all makes it feel so real.

No Country for Old Men: 89.8