catholiclefty

This will be a redirect to my summary of the year, if/when I get around to writing it.

...will be here, if/when I get around to doing it.

Clearly I've not been writing for a while. Apologies to my loyal audience of approximately zero readers - there's been a lot of irritating small things going on in my life which have pushed writing here to a low priority, and once I'd stopped it was easier to not start again.

I'm going to try to start again soon. I may or may not try to clear the 100+ film review backlog I've accumulated in the interim!

The sixth in the Potter series, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince was one of the better books and it is most pleasing to see that it has been translated to the screen in probably about the best way possible, resulting in the best of the films so far. This looks good, sounds good, is paced well, acted decently for the most part, and manages to convey most of the information required to setup the conclusion. There are a number of issues, which I'll get to in a minute, but the whole business of compacting the rather large and densely-detailed book into two-and-a-half hours was always going to be deeply problematic, and it is to the credit of those involved that they've done a rather good job.

Let's get the negatives out of the way first. By this point in the series, we're awash in characters, and any attempt to please everyone in sight by giving them all parts is always going to cause problems. As such, we get to see Neville a few times but he doesn't get to do anything at all - problematic given his big role to come. Luna Lovegood - pretty much the best thing about Order Of The Phoenix, if I'm remembering my opinion correctly, even if I didn't mention that in my review at the time - gets a couple of scenes but feels very underused. Hagrid doesn't feature strongly at all. Timothy Spall as Wormtail must have a good shot at having the shortest performance of a 'in-the-lead-credits' actor in a film ever - his screentime comes in at under 5 seconds. Lupin and Tonks don't fare much better, and nor do the peripheral members of the Weasley family. In a way, these all feel like extended cameos - and certainly there's too much going on elsewhere to devote too much time to most of these characters, so the decisions made are mostly good, though feel a bit perfunctory in many cases. If you're not familiar with the series you may well wonder who on earth all these people are and why they seem important - but if you jump into a series 5 films in, you've got to expect that kind of thing.

The changes to the story to accommodate the running time of a film mostly work well, and the balance between action, romance, and character moments is close to perfect. There are a number of issues introduced though - Dumbledore (somehow) appears to already know the contents of the memory he needs Harry to extract, so why go to all that trouble? The change of the attack at the end to be about Dumbledore rather than Hogwarts as a whole rather diminishes the impact of the scene - not least because it makes the vanishing cabinet stuff Malfoy has been doing all film pretty much pointless (Malfoy and Snape are already in Hogwarts - what does it really matter if the other Deatheaters are there or not?) I can see why Dumbledore's funeral is omitted, but I'd have had no objection whatever to sitting in the cinema for 5 more minutes to deal with this properly. And the whole half-blood prince thing is clearly only included because it is the title rather than because it imparts anything to the story - relegated to unimportant status, it makes Snape's 'revelation' at the end feel rather anti-climatic.

There are other issues that stem from the source material itself, which it is hard to blame the film for specifically. The 'luck' potion is a bit of a cheat on a par with the time machines in Prisoner Of Azkaban, even excluding the fact that the idea is lifted directly from Red Dwarf. The opening is very dramatic and shows the impact of the magic world spilling over into the muggle world - but then this idea goes nowhere and is forgotten about almost instantly. One place where the film improves over the book is in not delving too far into the tedious teenage temper tantrums all the lead characters indulge in - the level of complication and hormones on display in the film is much more bearable.

So, on that note, onto the good, which vastly outweighs the bad, even if I usually find it easier to complain than praise! The score is lovely, as you'd expect. The cinematography is actually rather nicely done, and bar a couple of small jumps, the editing is impressive. For a two-and-a-half hour film, you know it has been paced correctly when you don't get bored once and leave wanting it to have gone on for longer, and that is the experience I've had each of the three times I've watched this.

Most of the film rests on the acting and characterisation, and here there are mostly good things to report. Our leads have matured as actors immensely and have the potential of very good careers ahead of them. Somewhat oddly given he used to be the best of the leads, Rupert Grint is probably here the weakest of the three - he seems to have developed least. He's good, but is getting outshone by now. Daniel Radcliffe has come on in leaps and bounds since the early films, and delivers a competent and strong performance here. Emma Watson too has developed a great deal and gets the chance to successfully show this off here. Hermione and Harry's 'heart-broken' scene after the Quidditch match is one of the most memorable of the film, delightfully acted and strong enough that it seems to have set off another wave of 'oh, why didn't Harry and Hermione end up together?' fan-moans - though actually, the scene shows exactly why that isn't the important part. They are actually friends, and just friends, and all the better for it.

In the big adult actors category, Dumbledore actually has a good-sized role in this one, and Michael Gambon, unsurprisingly, delivers the goods. Alan Rickman doesn't have a lot more to do with Snape than he has already, but he's done a strong enough job to date that he has imprinted himself as Snape in our minds now, and it would be impossible to imagine someone else playing him. Jim Broadbent is probably a good choice as Slughorn - he fits the character described in the book pretty well. Robbie Coltrane doesn't have anything much to do with Hagrid this time around, but it is still welcome to see him, albeit briefly. Maggie Smith is rather understated here but delivers when necessary.

Tom Felton brings a surprising amount of depth to Malfoy that hasn't been readily apparent before. Ignoring the minor controversy over the part being recasted, Jessie Cave gets Lavender just right - borderline psychotic but fun! Evanna Lynch as Luna continues to steal every scene she's in. Rather a shame she's not in a lot more. My main reservation is with Bonnie Wright as Ginny - she's fine some of the time, but often her line delivery seemed off, and her chemistry with Harry was close to non-extant - though to be a little fair to her, the romance doesn't have any real development before it just sorta 'happens' (excluding the events of Chamber Of Secrets, of course), which is going to be hard to make work on screen. Hopefully it will work out better in the next couple of films now there is some degree of establishment.

Ending on one of the best and most poignant lines I've encountered at the cinema all year, in a beautifully-shot and touching setup for the conclusion yet to come, this film is quite the treat. Minor niggles aside, the tone is close to perfect, the characters well-balanced and the story (for the most part) an excellent representation of the book. Much better than I anticipated and probably about as good as a film based on the book could have been. 8 out of 10.

The trailers made The Proposal look appalling, even more so given how many times the trailer was shown. Fortunately it doesn't turn out to be a bad film at all, and while it doesn't do a great deal for the rom-com genre and suffers from various problems, it remains watchable for most of its length and has a handful of pretty-good performances, including the leads. The mix of silly over-the-top action pieces and quiet contemplative moments is more or less correct, and while some bits fail - an extended tribal dance sequence is quite risible - quite a lot succeeds, particularly a scene with a dog, an eagle, and a mobile phone, which is surprisingly amusing. All the usual tedious lessons are learnt of course, family is good, love can blossom in unlikely places, oh we all know the drill. Here the only real complication is an immigration status problem that sets the ball in motion, and I find it rather hard to believe the immigration authorities in the US are quite this lenient on people who have wasted their time - but in the end, this isn't a forensic examination of immigration procedures but a quite formulaic rom-com, and suffices quite well at that. And it does set up a for once decently amusing set of scenes while the credits roll.

Sandra Bullock is infinitely more watchable than in the trailer. Apart from the opening ten minutes or so, where she's deeply irritating and the cause of an office setup which is in itself deeply unrealistic, she mellows quickly and nicely and shows off excellent comic skills while managing to bring some depth to her character. Surprisingly, given the bits shown in the trailer, it's quite a nice performance. Ryan Reynolds, who I'm continuing to warm to as an actor, is fine here too, and he and Bullock play off each other very well. I'm not at all convinced they have the chemistry to work as a couple, but they do the comedy well enough, and the couple bit is going to be after the cameras stop rolling, so they get away with it. Malin Akerman is ok in a very under-written part that continues to look like it is about to be fleshed out but never quite manages it. Oscar Nunez has an amusing, well-played role as someone who keeps cropping up in different guises. Mary Steenburgen must have the 'nice, caring mother' thing perfected by now, and she's fine here but nothing too exciting. Craig T. Nelson doesn't get a very well-written part as the cranky father, a side story which mainly distracts from the main plot but fortunately doesn't get a lot of screentime. Betty White is good fun as the grandmother.

It's not going to change the world, and it's a bit hit-and-miss, but it's a lot more enjoyable than you'd expect from the trailer, and I can't deny that I enjoyed the majority of it. So 6.5 out of 10.

It is most welcome to see an original science fiction film, especially one that has clearly had a lot of thought put into it and has been produced with a lot of care and affection. It is also pleasing to see a film that slowly reveals a complex story without exposing gaping plot-holes - this film holds together very well indeed. In addition, it is also a pleasure to watch a showcase of acting in what is almost a one-hander film, with demonstrably different (and yet, in many ways, the same) characters played by the same actor. All of which are to be found in spades in Moon. There's a lot to like here and a lot to commend. While owing an acknowledged debt to movies such as 2001 : A Space Odyssey, this is highly original. Telegraphed twists turn out in the opposite direction - for example and almost uniquely, the clearly-partly--homage-to-HAL computer isn't evil and is actually helpful.

There are two minor drawbacks however. The first is that, while the story structure has no clear holes, it feels like a story that demands a final-act revelation, and that doesn't get delivered. All the twists have been revealed by the end of the second act, and it is a little disappointing that the film ends without any extra shocks. The second is that this is quite a cold, clinical film - we sympathise with the problems faced by the characters, and are intrigued by the story, but there is a sense of emotional detachment that doesn't involve the viewer half as much as I'd have liked. They are small but, in the end, quite significant problems.

Sam Rockwell is extremely good as our lead character(s) - which is fortunate, as he's the only person in sight for the vast majority of the film. He delineates his characters very well but in a way that makes sense when things get explained. When the script calls for him to physically deteriorate, unfortunately he's a little too good at that too, and perhaps the film becomes a little too graphic at this point for my sensibilities. I'm continually surprised whenever I pick up an old film and find Sam Rockwell has been in it and I haven't previously noticed (eg. Galaxy Quest, for goodness sakes!) so hopefully he'll start getting the attention he clearly deserves. The only character not played by Rockwell is the computer played (vocally) by Kevin Spacey, and he does a good job of ambiguity when required, and then friendliness and compassion later on. The 'gimmick' of the smiley faces representing his moods is good for a few chuckles and adds significantly to the ambiguity early on - the only criticism there is that the cute faces take away attention somewhat from the poignancy of when he explains the truth of what is going on.

I wish I'd been a little more emotionally grabbed by the film, because technically this is excellent - for one, there's a brilliant table-tennis scene that confounds your expectations completely on the use of split-screens, which deserves to increase my rating by a half-point in itself. Clever and filled with close attention to detail, this is a very well-done film and I'm quite unhappy I didn't engage with it and like it a lot more than I did. Even so, this is clearly deserving of a 7.5 out of 10.

Skin tries to say something new about apartheid South Africa and pretty much succeeds, though it turns into a rambling and eventually rather unsatisfying film. Strongest when examining the stupidity of stupid laws - what exactly happens to someone who isn't clearly of either skin colour, when you're dividing the population into two based on that - the story eventually ends up as a rather pedestrian family melodrama with brief flashes of brilliance (the way the mother cuts down the father during his death-bed repentance is quite chilling). I suppose it is also to be commended for not showing anyone in a particularly good light - there are oppressed people here, but they're not entirely lovable underdogs and can be nasty too. Given the film is based on a true story, this is one occasion where this authenticity is valuable.

Sophie Okonedo plays our protagonist for most of the film (she's played by a younger girl for the stronger opening section) and her casting is, for me, the main problem with the film. There's something about her rather affected style of acting that really irritates me. In The Secret Life Of Bees (my review) that seemed to be because she had mental issues, but her character here - who doesn't have any mental issues - doesn't perform in a vastly different manner, and her jerky, nervy performance grates rapidly. Well, for me at least. Others seem to have thought it was a good piece of acting. Oh well. I guess I should see her in some other movies and see if I can prefer her elsewhere - but here she was plain annoying.

Sam Neill is reliable, as you'd expect. His character's ambiguity (is he a racist, or is he just trying to prosper in a stupid system?) is welcome at first, but also grates a little as the film progresses. Alice Krige does a decent but mostly unremarkable job, but she does deliver the best lines of the film (in the deathbed scene mentioned above) which elevates this performance considerably. Tony Kgoroge manages to craft a workable character who starts off loving and decent and ends up quite a bit darker.

It's nice that they tried something different for this film - despite the obvious Romeo and Juliet etc. etc. connotations, it doesn't feel hackneyed or excessively done before. Though it's less nice that they tried one of those tedious narrative devices of starting the film with a scene that should be chronologically about three-quarters of the way through, told the story up till then, and then carried on. As I've said before, you need a good reason to do this. There isn't one here. And finally, for me, the film suffers from Sophie Okonedo's performance, which I really tried to get into but just couldn't. 5.5 out of 10.

Probably my least favourite of the three major Sacha Baron Cohen characters, I did seriously wonder how you could construct a whole movie around Bruno. And the answer is that, well, you can't really, you just chain together a set of incidents with a very loose overall story. Which is fine, but does require the question of why this needs to be on the big screen, and I'm not sure any answer is all that convincing.

That said, there is much to enjoy here, with some of the silliest and most outrageous antics to grace the big screen in quite some time. The trademark deliberate misunderstandings result in some comedy gold, and some ultimately shocking ideas - I certainly didn't expect actual footage from the Middle East where he tries (and obviously fails miserably) to broker some peace deals. Certainly this isn't simply a case of picking the easiest targets to lampoon - perhaps in many ways some of the most ridiculous, but by no means easy. While much comes across as clearly cherry-picked in editing, and some seems a little mean-spirited (probably inevitable when sailing this close to the wind in so many places), there's certainly a lot to entertain and openly laugh at here. I'm deliberately skirting the issue of whether this is insulting to gay people, or exposing the hypocritical attitudes of people towards gay people, or both, or neither, because I'm not sure either that there is a coherent message or that one was fully intended.

I found Borat (CLoAfMBGNoK) surprisingly disappointing, though I had high hopes for it. I had much lower hopes for Bruno and ended up pleasantly surprised. C'est la vie, I suppose. Don't see Bruno if you're easily offended, but otherwise you'll have a lot of fun. Still, my opinion of this *as a movie* is significantly tempered by the fact that it isn't really much of a movie to start with, and also that it has close to zero repeat value (most summer blockbusters I'll try to see at least twice, unless they are truly unbearable or dull as ditchwater. But I had no desire to see Bruno a second time). Also it ought to have had a silly long name like Borat did, as that would have been more fun. 6 out of 10.

A mostly silent comedy, Rumba is full of bright gaudy colours and surprisingly edgey humour, and while some bits of the comedy fall rather flat and the final third is a bit lacking in a number of ways, this is unusual and innovative and not really the kind of film you'd expect to see.

Two teachers, who have rather unusual teaching styles, like nothing more than dancing, and then enter competitions and so forth. After an unfortunate accident involving a guy failing to commit suicide, one ends up with memory loss and the other loses a leg. Cue many scenes which flirt with being offensive but are instead just ridiculous - notably, a scene with literally minutes of throwing around crutches and paperwork in an attempt to balance with just one leg. Still, even while flirting with convention, this is a gentle, slow humour that nevertheless can be appreciated and enjoyed, though this does make the bits that don't work too well drag on a little too long. I suppose the closest thing in recent times would be Mr Bean, though Mr Bean tends to edge over the crass line rather more regularly (not to its benefit, in my book).

Both Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon are excellent at utilising this rather old and out-of-fashion style of physical comedy. Philippe Martz is excellent support too, as the continually unsuccessful suicidal guy.

There's quite a lot of fun to be had here, and it is pleasant to see a different style of film that points back to much earlier times, but retains a decent amount of contemporary edge nevertheless. The visual gags are very strong. A shame, given the short running time, that it starts to drag towards the end, because for the first 50 minutes or so this is quite a novel delight. 6.5 out of 10.

35 Shots Of Rum is a rather odd film to try to review, because of all the films I've reviewed over the past couple of years, this is probably the one I have the least idea what on earth it was about or what it was trying to say or even what was going on in the film itself. That's not necessarily a bad thing - I'm a big fan of David Lynch, for example - but this seems to present itself as a reasonable straightforward story about a family doing regular things and having some events happen to them. There's nothing outlandish in sight, but there's little explicable to the actions of these characters and few if any motivations are offered. There's lots of train-driving scenes, which is nice, and some good character moments, but my general bewilderment at the purpose of the film just leaves me incapable of judging much else.

I can't shake the feeling that there's something here that I've completely missed, and perhaps I ought to have watched it a second time to try to get some clarity. But on one viewing, this appears almost entirely incoherent, and just leaves me confused in a way no film has for a very long while. As such, I've no idea if this was a good film or not, and so I suppose I have to give it a very middling 5 out of 10, with the provisio that if I ever do see it again that could wildly change either upwards or downwards.