Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - it's summer time!

With summer in full swing and a heatwave sweeping across Britain, what better thing to do than get yourself into the air conditioning of a cinema to cool off and watch the summer blockbusters?  Now that the world cup is over, the summer season of movies has shifted into gear, and one of the first big ones on screens is Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Putting aside any reservations that I have about the existence of these spoiler-inducing prequel to the SciFi classic Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a very good movie.  It's the follow-up to Rise of the Planet of the Apes and follows the continuing story of the super-intelligent Caesar, and ape who was created in a lab in the last film and now leads a group of apes living in the forests on the edge of San Francisco 10 years after the events of the first.  In those 10 years, the human race has been almost entirely wiped out by a simian flu virus and only small pockets remain.  When Caesar's band of apes encounter an advance party of humans from San Francisco scouting out a potential electricity source, tensions mount as there are those on each side who see the other as a deadly threat to their continued existence.

Where Rise... was a science fiction film about the balance that scientists have to strike between advancing their field and playing god, Dawn... is a film about politics.  On the side of the apes there is Caesar (Andy Serkis) and Koba (Toby Kebbel).  On the side of the humans there is Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and Dreyfus (Gary Oldman).  On each side one faction is pushing for all out war, while the other is calling for peace. The film-makers do a good job of not picking sides here.  'We' are on the side of neither the humans nor the apes, nor on the side of war or peace.  We simply stand at a crossroads in history, and watch as historical forces play out, each side as convinced as the other that it is in the right.  It's a film that asks questions about hard choices in realpolitik, about the courage it takes to make peace, and how the decision to do so can backfire on a leader who can be painted as weak and a traitor to his own people (examples throughout history are abundant - Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin come to mind though).

The special effects that are used to create the apes are outstanding.  There were a few moments when the green screened backgrounds seemed to float a little, but I think I was only noticing them because I was in such awe of the effects that were bringing the apes to life, that I was paying even more attention than normal.  Clearly a lot of care has gone into the motion capture process that made use of real actors to generate ape-like movements, the pay-off on screen is well worth it.  The film also allows its simian protagonists to communicate in their adopted sign language, with subtitles for the benefit of the human audience.  To use subtitles as standard in a Holywood film is both brave and serves as a narrative device to remind the audience of the genetic divide between them and the apes on screen.

In terms of negatives, the film does contain a lot of plot holes and conveniences that allow it to fit into the Holywood norm.  For example there's no reason why the humans couldn't already operate their radio without hydro-electric power, since they clearly have petrol and therefore have a way to generate electricity.  How many bullets do they really need to fire in order to test their guns?  Can a man really survive a detonation of C4 explosive in an enclosed area by simply jumping out of the way?  Just how many apes are there?  Like in the first film where they went from about 50 apes to several 1000 in a single cut, here the same thing seems to happen.  This is the biggest problem of all, since the film seems to want to have it both ways.  It seems to want the apes to appear to be a small band of loyal family members, but at the same time numerous enough to engage in a pitched battle against a heavily-armed fortified position.

I wonder how many more of these films there are going to be, and how many more of them are going to be given names that make them sound like the first of a series of prequels.  I guess in theory the studio could carry on making films as long as it has the desire to string out the narrative that the original classic starts with.  Given the kind of shit that we get used to being presented with from the big American studios, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a refreshingly interesting film.  It has science fiction, politics, action and successfully pulls at the heart-strings too.  If all Holywood films could be like this, the world would be a better place.

The Thing - testing the blood

Time for a quick 'classic scene', this time it's from John Carpenter's classic horror The Thing.  Starring Kurt Russell, the film follows a group of Antarctic scientists who find something weird going on underneath the ice after they discover a previous Norwegian team who have appeared to kill themselves.  It soon becomes apparent that they are dealing with an alien creature that can replicate itself by taking the form of any living thing it comes into contact with.

In this scene, MacReady (Russell) tests out his hypothesis that he can work out which of them are aliens by putting a scolding hot wire into a sample of each of their blood.  The theory being that the blood sample is still part of the alien creature, and that it will feel pain as if the hot wire had been pushed into the person.  Enjoy...



It's an outstanding horror film that, partly because of its reliance on animatronic effects rather than digital CGI, still looks terrifying today.  The film's final scene is one of the best in the history of the horror genre, full of sadness and poignancy at the numbing realisation of what's to come.

You need to have seen this film.

City Lights - IMDB top 50, done

Finished off my long-running project to have watched all the IMDB's top 50 films the other night by watching Charlie Chaplain's classic silent romantic slapstick comedy - City Lights.

When watching films like this in the post-modern age, it is very easy to slip into a trap where you look at the production values, the lack of sound, the occasionally hammy acting and the back-lit special effects, and conclude that such films are historical artefacts.  They're something that can be appreciated only from the point of view of film history, rather than for what they were originally intended.  However it's a trap that one would do well not to fall into, as to do so would be to miss out on something genuinely enjoyable and touching.

City Lights follows the story of The Tramp - played by Chaplain - and his chance encounters with a blind flower girl and drunken upper class fop.  When he is kind to the girl and buys a flower from her, the passing of the rich man makes her think that The Tramp is in fact a man of great wealth.  When The Tramp saves the rich man from killing himself in a drunken rage, the two become great friends, but the rich man can only remember him when he's drunk.  When he's sober again he demands The Tramp out of his house immediately.  And so we have a story of a Tramp, the pariah of the modern city, ostracised by those who are able to judge him by his appearance, but loved by those that are either without sight or without inhibition and therefore free to judge him on the content of his character.  It's a stunningly simple premise, filmed in a stunningly simple way and rounded off with a simple scene of touching humanity that film buffs have occasionally labelled the best final scene of all time - in any film.

This is a Charlie Chaplain film, and as such there is plenty of slapstick physical comedy.  And most of it is pretty funny if slightly awkward-looking in places (again, desperately trying to avoid that trap).  Many people might find the lack of sound and slightly stagy production difficult to cope with, but it would take someone with an incredible hard heart to not take at least some enjoyment out of this film.  Personally I thought it was wonderful.

With the IMDB top 50 under my belt, the obvious progression is to move on to the top 100.  Clearly since the IMDB list is a living document that changes over time, I will need to keep on watching new films as they come out in order to maintain my record.  But that's not hard.  The top 100 has quite a few more titles that I've not even heard of before (and a few that raise my eyebrows - Snatch for example.  It's good, but top 100 all time?  Really?) so it might take a year or so to get through them.  Bring it on.

Inside Llewyn Davis - it's all about the cat

Been away a lot recently and also the world cup's on, so I've either been abroad or drunk or watching football in place of watching DVDs / going to the cinema.  But with the world cup on hiatus last Sunday evening I busted out the most recent DVD that LoveFilm had sent me - Inside Llewyn Davis.  And now with work becoming boring again, there's time to write it up.

This is the Coen Brothers' most recent film, starring Oscar Isaac as the eponymous Llewyn Davis, it tells a short story of this folk singer's time in the 1960s New York folk scene.  The film considers a week in his life, a week in which he encounters various of his friends, travels across the US, loses and finds several cats, and plays folk music with various levels of intensity and success.  Davis is trying to make it as a folk singer, he was part of a small-time duo a few years ago, but his partner Mike killed himself a short time ago and Davis has been unable to find anything close to success since.  The film opens with him being punched in the face, awaking to find a cat on him and then gets odder from there.  Realising he is locked out of his friends' apartment, he takes their cat with him and goes about his everyday business of trying to bum money from his buddies and hating the fact that he plays music for a living.

As with everything the Coen Brothers do, there is a huge amount of subtext being thrown around in Inside Llewyn Davis.  On one hand the film is about the folk music scene of 1960s New York.  On another hand it's about how true art and beauty can often only emerge from some kind of suffering and pain, as is felt by Llewyn and everyone else in the film if the grey / brown colour scheme is anything to go by.

If you want to know what's really going on in this film, then you would do well to pay attention to the cat.  There are lots of theories out there on the internet that suggest the cat has an extra significance to it than simply being something that Llewyn has to deal with while trying to make his way in the world.  I wont reveal anything here, better to let you all try to work things out for yourself, but there are some nice metaphors for Llewyn and his life in his interaction with the cat.  Very arty.

My plan is to try to get back to the cinema next week.  I managed to miss the new X-Men film recently what with being away so much and the world cup being on, but there are a number of summer block-busters lining themselves up just now, starting with the new Planet of the Apes film.

Blue Jasmine - Comedy? Tragedy?

With the world cup happening at the moment there isn't a lot of film watching going on.  Not by me or the rest of the nation either according to taking at UK cinemas.  Takings at cinemas are apparently down over 50% from the same weekend last year.  Well they need not panic, it's the world cup clearly.

Watched Blue Jasmine last week.  Though it's billed as a comedy I don't remember it being all that funny.  It's the story of Jasmine (Cate Blachett), a New York socialite who has a nervous breakdown when her husband's illegal trading activities are found out and he kills himself.  She travels to San Francisco to stay with her half-sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) to try to get back on her feet and rebuild her life.  Though it's meant to be a comedy that isn't particularly funny, I think it's been labelled a comedy for want of a better genre to put it in.  And possibly because films directed by Woody Allen are expected to be comedies.  In reality it's about family ties, mental illness and class.  Not class in the intrinsic British sense that many of us would understand, but class in the American sense of being pretentious, throwing lavish parties and having an expensive dental plan.

I know that Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for her performance here, and though it is probably deserved I would say that Sally Hawkins is the better actress in the film.  I guess Blanchett benefited from the classic syndrome in which playing someone with a mental illness gets you a bunch of extra votes in Hollywood.  Hawkins plays Ginger as a character suffering from her own sort of mental illness though, one in which she doesn't seem sure if she should beat Jasmine or join her in her quest to scale the social ladder and escape from their down-to-earth upbringings.

It's an interesting story, though somewhat inorganically told with its externalised conversations and the opening scene in which Jasmine introduces herself to the audience by talking to a stranger on a plane and telling her about her life up to this moment.  I think Blue Jasmine is meant to be about class, family and being true to yourself as much as it is a drama about mental health.  The trouble is that for me - as a British person - the concept of social class means something totally different to me than what I assume it means to director Woody Allen.  So I think it's going over my head a little.  Regardless, Blue Jasmine is a superbly acted film that's a good watch.  I would give it an 80% recommendation.

Incendies - an unlikely history lesson

It's Friday afternoon, work is dull, therefore a film review!

I learned a lot about Lebanese history and politics the other day when I watched Incendies, a film that's mainly in French and set in Canada and Lebanon across two different time frames.  This is the story of Jeanne and Simon, a Canadian brother and sister whose mother Narwal has recently died.  In order to fulfil their mother's last wishes, they travel to Lebanon where their mother was born to search for their mysterious brother, a man about whom their mother talks in her will, but who she never mentioned when she was alive.  As they travel through Lebanon searching for lost records, the film cuts back to the Lebanese civil war, in which their mother was initially a peaceful objector, but then after witnessing several acts of carnage becomes a willing participant.

This is an extremely well acted film that tells a compelling story about the tragedy that befell the Lebanese people.  If nothing else, it serves to highlight a portion of history that I feel has been largely forgotten in the west 25 years on from the ceasefire and amnesty agreements.  The film's depiction of brutal acts of terror against ordinary people is realistic and horrifying.  These acts were largely performed by ordinary people against their neighbours, friends and family members, and often simply because you were wearing the wrong sort of religious symbol around your neck.  It reminds us all that nationalism and the politics of division can very quickly result in one or other group becoming dehumanised in the eyes of wider society.  It's something that in the modern age of austerity we need to be vigilant against more than ever.

Incendies does have a major flaw though, which is that it contains something of a plot twist that felt a bit unnecessary.  As if the horrors of war weren't enough for the viewer, there's a twist to events that I think are meant to make things more horrible still.  Though in the end the reaction of Jeanne and Simon to their discovery gives hope, perhaps saying that forgiveness is possible, and that the passage of time can heal even the deepest wounds.

Though it's a very unbelievable story, it highlights the dehumanising nature of war and warns against religious intolerance, and from a cinematic and acting point of view the film is outstanding.  Definitely one to check out.

Godzilla - suitably epic, but flawed

Wednesday night buy get free night is still running courtesy of EE, and so it was that last week a bunch of us went to go and see one of the first of this summer's blockbusters - Godzilla!  The original Gojira is the seminal Japanese monster movie that riffs off that nation's post-world atomic paranoia and tells a story of an ancient sea-borne monster that rises from the depths to punish humanity for its experiments with nuclear power.  As the monster destroys the cities of Japan, scientists realise the they only way to kill it is worse even than atomic weapons, and so they wrestle with a moral dilemma - to act and risk future destruction, or stand idle and allow nature to take its terrible course.

Ever since Gojira there have been numerous adaptations of the monster theme, though none have really touched on the theme of morality of science and warfare or been as strongly anti-atomic.  Mostly they're just interested in having a monster or several monsters fight Gojira.  There was even a cartoon series.  This latest incarnation of Godzilla does little different, and though it makes nods towards the nuclear paranoia of the original, but it couldn't really be accused of making any sort of political statement about the nuclear age.  Instead the makers have opted to go for more of a straight-forward monster movie in which a paranoid ex-scientist played by Bryan Cranston believes the government is covering up what happened in the nuclear accident that resulted in the death of his wife - little does he know the truth though.

Any movie calling itself Godzilla needs to get one thing right - monster fights.  Despite several failings this is one thing that the film gets absolutely right.  Godzilla himself looks suitably huge as he battles the ridiculous metallic giant bird-like creatures.  The sound and feel of each sequence where this happens is truly spectacular and feels genuinely apocalyptic, it's a true cinematic spectacle.  This new Godzilla movie also takes time to build to the final fight, cutting away from a lot of the preliminaries or only showing us what's happening via the medium of news reports.  A bit like Cloverfield did.  Unlike Coverfield though, here we eventually have a pay-off worth waiting for, as monsters stomp around San Francisco obliterating all around them while humanity stands back in awe and terror.

The film does have failings though.  The main one is the woeful under-use of its cast.  Ken Wattanabe seems to only be there to say "Gojira" in a Japanese accent, Sally Hawkins explains the plot, Juliete Binoche gets killed in the opening scene and Bryan Cranston isn't in it anywhere near as much as you'd want.  In their place you have Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen as the annoyingly bland military family who run around just happening to be places where Godzilla does his stomping.  Is this a clever comment on the helplessness of humanity against natural disasters / Godzilla?  Unlikely.  More likely it's a script-writer having to pander to Hollywood sensibilities.  It's a shame, but what can you expect from Hollywood?

Overall, Godzilla is a pretty good monster movie with a number of flaws.  Thankfully the actual realisation of Godzilla himself is extraordinarily good, which puts criticism of the plot and character flaws into the realm of nit-picking.  You should be watching this for the visual spectacle, try to ignore the rest and you'll be fine.