Hoo boy, has it really been that long? Was the last film I reviewed really We Bought A Zoo? If anyone should stumble upon this and wonder at the twelve month gap in my updates this is the only explanation I can give; the year of our Lord 2012 was not a good year for me. The second out of university I spent a good portion of unemployed with little prospect of any unpaid work experience which might further my career and paid work being pretty damn erratic. Needless to say I wasn’t in the ideal mood to make more videos or share my opinions with the world.
This
though was a shame because in contrast the film releases of the year went from
strength to strength. Big budget summer blockbusters like The Avengers proved
that brainless, action films were more entertaining when you had a developed
plot, strongly characterised protagonists and moments of levity in-between the
CGI. Worthy low budget sci-fi and horror films found their audiences and in a
year when Pixar failed to bring its A-game the animation industry showed up in
force. For a welcome change the contenders in the various Best Animated Feature
nominations feel truly deserving as opposed to the obligatory Pixar nod plus
whatever else came out for kids.
Because
of this I wanted to really celebrate the year in films as a way of making up
for lost time and to flush a bad period in my life down the toilet like an
unwanted bag of cocaine. Bear in mind this is entirely my perspective based on
the handful of films released that I was actually able to see so brain-draining
fare like Battleship or the dramatic impact of The Dark Knight Rises are
regrettably absent. All in all my view is a little rose-tinted as I was smart
enough to avoid most of the clunkers. So 2012 in film, a year which truly began
with:
Chronicle
Chronicle kicked off the trend of
2012’s overhyped’s with critics applauding it so hard their arms fell off. That
plus my love of low budget science fiction like Another Earth and Moon meant
expectations were high and with the benefit of hindsight Chronicle was almost
guaranteed to disappoint. By no means bad, the film is easily one of 2012
better movies, but it was handicapped by the found footage technique which I’m
finding quite jarring. The constant need to contrive reasons for the films
events to be filmed coupled with some of the more intimate moments lacking
in…well intimacy put Chronicle on the fast track to breaking my immersion. And
try as he might Dane Dehaan just doesn’t intimidate in the same way some of his
peers have done this year. I mean fancypants Englishman Tom Hiddleston spends
most of The Avengers getting knocked on his arse and he still manages to be a
frightening presence. One thing to the films credit is the vertigo-inducing
sequence in which two characters are filming from inside a car as it’s tossed
around Seattle like a damp sock.
The Cabin in the Woods
Oh…this is gonna get me in
trouble. Make no mistake The Cabin in the Woods is a truly great film. Original
story, likeable characters, good humour and some truly original creature design
in the third act. I genuinely hope it is the much-needed turning point in
modern horror but because of what it is The Cabin in the Woods is only one half
of an awesome film. Because of the early revelation that, Spoiler Warning, the
generic horror scenario is being orchestrated, and specifically orchestrated to
be generic, sucks all tension out of those scenes despite the life or death
consequences. This of course isn’t the case with the finale but it means much
of the time leading up to it has zero engagement, no matter how entertaining
Whedon’s dialogue is. It’s what I like to call the ‘Sucker Punch Problem’ in
that it can’t surpass the thing it’s attempting to analyse. Regardless I think
people should see the film if only for those last thirty minutes, perhaps the
single most balls-to-the-walls insane thing I saw all year.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
TBEMH is what I like to classify
as a ‘Mum Film’ a film no sane self-respecting individual would see unless they
were escorting someone’s mum and I was, yours to be exact. It’s all so quaint
seeing five elderly English citizens, some strapped for cash, some longing for
something else, travelling to India for the kind of transformative spiritual
awakening that NEVER happens in real life. That being said the script should be
considered the template for a good mess. To clarify how that’s even possible,
I’ve always considered a film a mess when it has too much going on and it
doesn’t know what to do with it. Well TBEMH does indeed have too much going on
but it knows exactly what to do with it. It knows who it can build deep,
emotionally impacting storylines around and who only needs short, comic interludes.
As a result almost everyone in the seasoned cast has the chance to shine in their
respective roles, the only exception being Celia Imrie who serves only as a
supporting player and in a minor comic story at that. Seeing her in an expanded
role should be top priority for the sequel because apparently there is more
mileage to get out of the ‘old people eat curry’ concept.
Prometheus
For me the first real clunker of
the year, one part lofty examination of our origins and one part schlocky
Aliens clone. Individually neither is bad but when mashed together so clumsily
you can’t help but leave dissatisfied. The characters act incompetently and at
times out of touch with their field. At one point the leader of the expedition
falls into a drunken depression over the fact that they discovered their theory
of alien architects was completely correct…but now the architects are dead. Wow
way to keep that drive for discovery alive mate. As for the horror sequences
they’re so contrived and add so little to the overarching story that they’re
practically non-sequitur. And yeah Michael Fassbender is awesome as the android
but that only contrasts with the lack of thematic consistency. All through the
film we see him studying humanity and learning to be more like him, all the
while the human characters just shoot him down over the fact that he’s not
human. He may not be human but I like him a lot better than you meatbags! Oh
and Guy Pearce? Guy fucking Pearce? They could get any actually old person to
play old man Weyland but instead they’ve gotta put Guy fucking Pearce in
Benjamin Button make-up.
The Avengers
This is the big one, the most
anticipated movie of the year and for fanboys the most anticipated movie of
their lives and damn if they didn’t pull it off. The Avengers is a wild, epic
romp, without a doubt the most fun had in a film all year. The story is simple
but able to incorporate characters from five different movies all with vastly
different aesthetics. In fact one of the things I loved most is how the first
half works to establish the four different genres, Iron Man being the high tech
thriller, Captain America being the 1940’s pulp, Thor is an epic fantasy and
while Bruce Banner’s section can’t pull off monster mash his scenes in India do
give the impression of a loners tragedy the way the TV series used to. Then it
marries all of these respective elements in one unbelievable superhero team-up.
The final act may just be one brainless, citywide battle a’la Transformers but
it surpasses expectations because it’s taken the time to build its cast of
characters and throw them into the brawl with their own unique style. It’s
almost a year on and people are still talking about how awesome ‘I’m always
angry’ was. You can’t say that about any moment from Transformers.
The Amazing Spider-Man
Well this sucked. To bring back
Transformers it’s funny that Shia Lebouf’s douchebag Peter Parker performance
in those vapid affairs seems to have rubbed off onto Andrew Garfield’s actual
Peter Parker. Leaving audiences with a protagonist deliberately written to be
less likable, less interesting and just plain less. Comic book Peter may be an
anachronism in the modern world but there’s meat to the concept of an empowered
young man who abuses his abilities and takes up vigilantism to soothe his
survivor’s guilt. Here though, with the weight of Uncle Ben’s death wrenched
from his shoulders simply so a studio can differentiate new from old, all we’re
left with is a stuttering snarky teenager. Plus re-treading Spider-Man’s
origin, as opposed to say acknowledging that everyone going to see a Spider-Man
movie already knows the origin, kills the pacing dead. Add to that an inconsistent
villain, a love interest way too smart to blindly follow such insanity and a go
nowhere plot thread about Peter’s parents and you truly have a film where no
one involved gave a shit. The worst thing about The Amazing Spider-Man is just
how transparent it is in its desire to fulfil its contractual obligations and
nothing more.
Moonrise Kingdom
This is the one, my personal
favourite film of 2012. It’s not just that it’s a great, fanciful childhood
tale of love, told with great affection by a cast of tragically comic
characters against an endearing handicraft backdrop of sets, props and
costumes. I mean that’s true of all Wes Anderson films and if I had to hazard a
guess at the purpose to it all I’d say that the self-conscious fakery is
intended as a reflection of the films middle-class fallacy. In Royal Tenenbaums
it was the dysfunctional family, Darjeeling Limited I believe I’ve already
mentioned the bullshit that belies a spiritual journey, and now with Moonrise
Kingdom we have troubled children. Make no mistake children are troubled, they
are children after all and we’re expecting them to just accept a world of
death, pain, poverty and reality tv. But in recent years the rise of pop
psychology and Ritalin use, even among kids without attention disorders, has
led us to detach, over-analyse and stick a nice safe label on what troubles our
kids have leaving us to grow up into the sad, impotent creatures that make up
Moonrise Kingdom’s adult cast. As someone who’s been around troubled children
in addition to having been a troubled child, Wes Anderson’s film is a
revelation. A delightful, coming-of-age adventure designed to give hope to
anyone who doesn’t believe it gets better.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Speaking of coming-of-age there’s
this piece of shit. I actually have a habit of despising the label
coming-of-age in the same way I despise the spiritual journey. Adolescence is
not everyone’s make-or-break, decide who you are, first love period. Not
everyone is a closeted Keruoac wannabe keeping a journal of torments next to
their battered copy of Catcher in the Rye. So when I see a film that presents
this falsehood, especially as poorly as Perks does, it rubs me up the wrong
way. Anaemic really is the word for this film, giving us a teenager loner we’ve
seen a thousand times before and putting him through a series of disconnected
and inconsequential teen trials, most of which are fairly rose-tinted. The
central character gets taken to parties, takes drugs, meets girls, pretty much
what every teenager dreams of. The only troubles he encounters are either
self-inflicted or too little too late. And with eye-rollingly quirky dialogue
like, ‘welcome to the island of misfit toys’ and ‘let’s go be psychos together’
you turn a bland film into a painful experience. The only thing I can say in its
favour is that it seriously made me reconsider leading man Logan Lerman who I
wrote off after 2011’s The Three Musketeers. The final act shows off the
vulnerability and range that was seriously lacking in that pathetic steam-punk
adventure.
Dredd
So Dredd is pretty much every bit
as good as people say it is though I don’t think it’s as much of a throwback to
the ostentatiously violent films of Paul Verhoven. Most of its handicaps are by
design namely the fact that it presents itself as just another day in Dredd’s
life rather than the most important event as a movie should be. Some could
argue this is because it’s more Anderson rather than Dredd that’s the central
protagonist. It makes sense as she’s the one that undergoes the most character
development but then it’s kinda disingenuous to call the movie Dredd. If the
writers decide to pull such crap in the sequel I implore them to sell it as an
Anderson movie rather than a Dredd movie. Believe me, I will pay to see an
Anderson movie as much as I will pay to see a Dredd movie. The second big
problem is the villain, while Lena Hedley gives an incredible performance as
drug lord Ma Ma it’s just that the character is a little too deep for her own
good. Her backstory paints her a shade of victimhood and she never bounces back
from by showing us how she puts such fear into her lackeys. Yeah she’s ruthless
but put her next to a perma-scowling Karl Urban and ask yourself who’s the
bigger threat? As much as I don’t think the two should be compared at least in
The Raid you really wanted to see the villain get his ass well and truly
kicked. With Dredd I just wanted to put her out of her misery.
End of Watch
And thus begins the Bath Film
Festival series. Volunteering for the festival is quickly becoming the
highlight of my year. Meet new people, have some writing on the films published
and get to see a wide array of independent, foreign and documentary films that
might otherwise pass me by. Making it all the more regrettable that the first I
saw wasn’t very good. The found footage style is completely juxtaposed by a
one-note drug cartel story. The disconnected series of crime scenes visited are
either bafflingly innocuous or cartoonishly graphic. And the film seems to
think its two leads are big cinematic characters with hidden evils and heroic
valour when it makes more sense, and is more in keeping with the style to play
them as regular schmo’s. The performances by Gyllenhall and Pena are the films
saving grace, examination unbelievable warmth and providing great humour.
Despite the cinema verite technique trying to evoke a sense of realism so much
of the film feels hollow and staged but thanks to End of Watch’s leads it could
almost be real. If End of Watch was really truly committed to being a
realistic, life on the beat, cop drama chances are it would’ve been 90%
watching these two guys doing paperwork and it would still be a much better
movie than this.
Berberian Sound Studio
I’m going to stick my neck out
and say that Berberian Sound Studio is on par with something like 2001: A Space
Odyssey and Tree of Life for being one of those films you don’t watch, but
experience. The film is built entirely
around the old school technique for sound effects as foley artist Gilderoy,
played by an exasperated Toby Young, proceeds to smash, splatter, boil and
behead all manner of fruits and vegetables to simulate the gore of an Italian Giallo
film (Giallo being a genre of film and literature incorporating horror and
eroticism). The films style is best described at schizophrenic; replaying old
scenes with Italian dubbing, pausing for non-sequitur segments from Gilderoy’s
earlier work and moments deliberately over-stylised to resemble the film being
made. All of which works to make you as confused and frustrated as Gilderoy
himself, eventually descending into the kind of dismissive callousness that
characterises the suave Italian pricks he works with. For the majority of the
film Jones’s performance is of a pitiable man but never someone who we are
forced to feel sorry for. He hides much of his weakness under typical English
politeness, keeping it from dominating his character, allowing you to follow
him in this weird and frightening experience every step of the way.
Sightseers
Sightseers may well be the
funniest thing I’ve seen all year. A quaint, romantic, road trip offset by the
fact that the couples inclination towards murder. Written by and starring Alice
Lowe (of Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace fame) and Steve Oram (of things I haven’t
seen) the humour is fresh and very British even before the nonchalant approach
to homicide. Mostly focused on the unnatural fascination with the protagonists
niche hobbies (caravanning and knitting) and their attempts to incorporate them
into modern life (such as making lingerie out of them…the knitting not the
caravans). After that the conflict between the conflicts between the two begin
to emerge and despite the tragedy of it all the jokes continue in ample doses.
It’s a testament to the characterisation that you still feel sympathy for Tina
and Chris, who follows a Ben Wheatley trait of being an utter monster and yet
still somehow remind me of my Dad.
This concludes the meatier films I saw at the BFF, other notable mentions
include The Moon Inside You, Ghosts with Shit Jobs and of course Manborg…for
science!
Skyfall
When Casino Royal came out I
truly thought Bond was back. Yeah it had none of the campy fun of an old school
Bond film but I truly believed that was as much of an anachronism as nerdy
Peter Parker. Skyfall threw all that to the wind from the get go, presenting
high octane action with a fantastic sense of fun. One-liners, elaborate action
scenes, overt sexuality (more on that in a bit) and all the iconography of a
slick, old-school spy flick. Not to mention the fact that it was just a great
film overall, with a tangible cyber-threat to MI6 and M in particular while
Bond struggles with returning to duty despite physical setbacks and the
knowledge that he can no longer trust his surrogate mother. And then there’s
Silva. If 21st century Bond was ever lacking in one thing it was a
decent villain and Javier Bardiem puts predecessors like Le Chiffre to shame.
An unsettlingly permed, unsettlingly toothed (even before the reveal) all round
unsettling figure. His first scene with Bond is a thousand times more
uncomfortable than Le Chiffre’s testicle twattings and due in no small part to
the fact that you feel yourself being seduced by the truth in everything he
says. In fact between Silva, Adele’s memorable opening number, the original
action scenes and powerful story the whole of Skyfall is a seduction in
process.
Life of Pi
Life of Pi is a film that had a
lot of potential, both a compelling survival story and visual meditation on the
conflicts with the self. The film attempts to do so through series of stunning
sequences of moving images. Waves of flying fish, bioluminescent wales and
mysterious islands of meerkats and on terms of such visuals the film is a
success. From the tiger known as Robert Parker to the boat crash all the
effects have a distinct sense of mass and physical presence strongly reinforced
by the 3D. Where the film falls short is in its thematic consistency, MAJOR
SPOILER WARNING. The film is essentially an anti-secularist piece as the writer
is told the Pi’s story will make him believe in God. Now for the record I
didn’t mind this particular bit of preaching, its inclusion amounts to little
more than lip service, adult Pi doesn’t exactly seem convinced of the notion
and in reality the story is equating religious belief to belief in the
fantastical. Its argument for this belief is that people only believe Pi’s tale
of surviving so long with a Bengal tiger until after he tells the darker, real
account. The animals we see in the fanciful were in fact representations of
people and the tiger was a representation of Pi. Except it doesn’t make sense
because Pi’s conflicts with Robert Parker imply a sense of self-loathing and
violence that doesn’t characterise Pi. In fact there’s very little at all that
does characterise Pi, he’s more collection of quirks than a human being and
something has gone seriously wrong when he’s the least interesting thing in a
film called Life of Pi.
The Hobbit
And what a way to round off the
year. I loved The Hobbit, truly, truly loved it. It brought me back to a far
more charming version of Middle-Earth but one with no less depth. It wasn’t a
film about epic conflicts of good versus evil spread across various factions
who had to unite and set aside petty squabbles. It was an intimate character
based adventure about a life-long shut in offered a chance to see the world,
who now had to prove he could be just as much an adventurer as the band of
Dwarvish nomads. In fact if there was one small criticism I have it was that we
never saw Bilbo feel temptation at the prospect of reclaiming Erebor. The film
spends a lot of time establishing Bag End as a comfortable, homely place and
why Bilbo wouldn’t want to leave it, but it never shows the flipside, the
longing for adventure which so well characterised Frodo. Speaking of which FUCK
OFF FRODO, you’re wasting time which the film already takes liberties with. I
enjoyed the hour long dinner party, I enjoyed the montages of journeying, I
enjoyed the extraneous padding out with Radaghast and Saruman. What I don’t
enjoy is Peter Jackson feeling the need to hold my hand and explain to me ‘yes
the other ones happened after, this one happens before’.
