NEDS – Review

January 16, 2011 4 Comments

Neds (2010)

Directed by Peter Mullan. Starring Conor McCarron, Linda Cuthbert, David McKay, Marianna Palka

I don’t know much about Peter Mullan, but judging by his body of work, he must have had a seriously troubled childhood (to say the least), though he’s been reported saying that the film is “personal but not autobiographical”.

Neds is his third feature as a director, after Orphans (About four siblings who have to cope with the death of their mother) and The Magdalene Sisters (About young women suffering oppression and brutality at the hands of some over-zealous nuns). This one is essentially the story of teenage boy’s coming of age in the Glasgow of the 1970s and his descent from a potentially good boy to a ned

Neds is short for “Non-Educated Delinquents” in Scotland. The stereotypical view of a ned is a white adolescent of working class background engaging in hooliganism, petty criminality, vandal behaviour, fighting, underage drinking, smoking and general anti-social behaviour

There are obvious comparisons with This is England by Shane Meadows but this time we are in Scotland. Incidentally, some people may find the thick accent in certain scenes a big obstacle. I heard that in some festivals the film was even shown with subtitles.

Right now the film is being pushed for various Awards here in the UK (BAFTAs and so on), so I came in expecting to like it quite a lot… And unfortunately that is always a recipe for disappointment.

NEDS is well shot with its grim look and the art direction seems to be spot on, setting up the 70s without overdoing it. It all looks and feels real.

The score of the film, mainly made up with low drones and moody strings, is pretty bland and forgettable and the incidental was often used in contrast with the pictures, for example Irving Berling’s Cheek to Cheek played under a fight sequence among 2 rival bands: that wasn’t very subtle, nor, to be honest, very original either (I suppose he probably did it to distance the audience from the brutal violence of the scene, but we’ve seen this device used many many times before).

I’ve been reading few reviews praising Conor McCarron’s performance, but I actually thought he was quite miscast for the part. I didn’t really find him sympathetic, nor likable enough to care about whether he’s kill anyone or not. He seemed to lack that charisma that a lead actor should have.

Also I didn’t find his change from goody-goody to a ned quite unbelievably abrupt; then again, I am not sure whether that was a problem with his performance or with the script itself. On one hand I felt the shift happened to quickly, one the other hand it was obviously telegraphed from the script right from the start.

However I did like all the secondary characters in the film. Apparently the cast was largely made of untrained people, and they all added extra injection of realism to the grim story.

To be completely honest I found “NEDS” way too long and fairly messy in its episodic structure. I’m also beginning to find the brutal violence of films like these a bit too repetitive and pointless. In a way I felt like I’d seen this film even before I actually saw it for the first time. And although it started off quite promisingly, it then fell quickly into predictable clichés.

There were only few surprises here and there: the ending (with the non-too-subtle metaphor with the lions) and a scene with a crucifix (which I personally found of poor taste) being the only two worth mentioning and not necessarily in a good way.

Just because a film talks about serious issues in a serious way, it doesn’t necessarily make it a good film. There was very little in NEDS I haven’t seen before and despite some good individual scenes, but on the whole I felt that the film had said everything it had to say after the first 30 minutes, the rest was just pretty gratuitous and the open ending was just a bit disappointing.

I much prefer Peter Mullan‘s first two films, in fact I loved the The Magdalene Sisters, another tough film, for sure, but at least a more original one with more of grip on the story, the style (NEDS was a mish mash of styles) and and actual ending!

6/10

Filed under latest movies, Reviews Tagged with British, Peter Mullan, violence

Monsters – Review

January 12, 2011 1 Comment

Monsters (2010)

Directed by Gareth Edwards. Starring Whitney Able, Scoot McNairy.

When reviewing a film like Monsters you can’t help dealing with 2 things: the film, of course, which is essentially a road movie with some added Alien Monsters. And then you’ve got the making of the film itself, which is the issue everyone has been talking about (and that’s somehow even more interesting).

The budget of “Monsters” is reported to be under $500.000, shot with a camera in the region of $15,000, which in Hollywood wouldn’t even be able to cover the rental of the main camera for a week. And yet Gareth Edwards has been able to come up with movie which looks like any of those blockbusters out there, if not even better.

His background is from Graphics and Visual effects and it clearly shows. Here we are dealing with somebody who really knows the tricks on his trade. There’s hardly a frame in the film which hasn’t been treated or altered in some sort of subtle way: whether it’s just in the grading and colour of the pictures themselves which really makes it look and feel like any feature films out there, or whether it’s a detail way off in the background (an helicopter flying in the distance, the wreck of a tank, smokey ruins) and finally, obviously, the title’s ‘monsters’ themselves (though this ones, are the more showy and, to a degree, less successful Visual effects).

Gareth Edwards is very aware of the limitations of his trade too. His handheld camera moves in such a way that he’s always able to diguise his effects and trick the audience. In the best tradition of great movies which have monsters in them (Alien, and to a degree, Jurassic Park and even Jaws), he wisely keeps them well hidden to the audience for most of the time (the monsters are only seen at night times or on TV newscasts), thus creating a sense of foreboding and adding a lot more tension to the story.

Unfortunately as a film, “Monsters” is a lot less groundbreaking. For some reason it has been compared to District 9, but it has neither the inventiveness, nor the humor, let alone the high concept and underlying subtext of Neill Blomkamp‘s sci-fi from 2009 (which I loved, by the way).

The story of Monsters is pretty simple. Right a the beginning a series of captions tells the following: Six Years ago…. Nasa discovered the possibility is alien life within our solar system. A space probe was launched to collect samples but broke up during re-entry over Mexico. Soon after new life forms began to appear and half of the country was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today… The Mexican and US military still struggle to contain ‘the creatures’…

From there onwards the film is essentially a road movie where the two main characters have to reach the US border, crossing the so-called infected Zone in Mexico. That’s pretty much it.

Gareth Edwards is clearly in love with his pictures, since he spent a lot of time cleaning them up, but he probably forgot about pacing them. It is a fairly slow film which seems to be more interested about creating an atmosphere than actually telling a good story. However the film is short enough to just about get away with it. The acting is pretty good (with however little material they’re given) and the non

He’s clearly an interesting director: he’s good a framing his action, directing his actors and creating the right type of mood, so it will be interesting to see what he can achieve with a proper budget (and a better script) in the future: unfortunately it looks like he might be getting stuck with Monsters, as it just emerged that he will be directing a new Godzilla Movie (he’s been quoted in Variety saying “you just don’t say no to Godzilla”): not very imaginative, I’d say.

So now we’re only left to see how Hollywood will respond to a film like this which looks like any multimillion dollar flick, and yet it costs just a fraction of what Michael Bay would spend in taxis.

In the end, this will be the only legacy of this film: it cost nothing to make andyes it’s watchable. I’ll take this over Transformers anytime.

6/10

Filed under latest movies, Reviews Tagged with Central America, District 9, Extraterrestrial life, Gareth Edward, Gareth Edwards, Godzilla, Hollywood, low budget, Mexico, Michael Bay, Monster, Monsters, NASA, Neill Blomkamp, Quarantine, Special Effects, United States

The Last Exorcism – Review

January 8, 2011 14 Comments

The Last Exorcism

Directed by Daniel Stamm. Starring Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr.

The success at the box office of a film like “the Last Exorcism” can only prove one thing: there’s still a great hunger for horror out there… and it doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. There have probably been worse films but this takes the crown as the biggest letdown of them. For a short
moment I really thought the film could have become one of the defining horror of the decade, but, sadly, the things that are wrong with
it, mainly in the last act, are SO BAD that somehow they manage to ruin everything and eventually plunge this film into the “pit of catastrophe”, despite some good performances ere and there.

In order to prove my point I am going to have to spoil the hell out of it, so if you haven’t seen it or
you’re planning to waste… erm.. sorry, I meant “to spend”, 90 minutes of your precious life watching it, then stop reading right now.

“The last Exorcism” is actually a clever spin on the usual exorcist fare, but more than that it is the latest entry into that much exhausted “found footage” genre started off by Blair Witch 12 years ago (My God, has it been that long already?) .

The film is produced by Eli Roth who in the last few years has created a name for himself, with titles like Cabin Fever and the infamous Hostel, for pushing the boundaries of taste and gore. This time the “shock factor” is kept down to a minimum, which is what makes the first part of the film quite intriguing and succesful. Because of its premise the film manages to put to rest right from the start the ever-ending question of a type of mockumentary like this (Blair Witch Project, REC, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity): why would the characters keep on filming, despite everything that’s happening? Would they actually been filming that instead of running away or saving their butts? It’s the sort of thing that usually annoys the hell out of me and pushes our suspension of disbelieve to absurd levels. In this case the plot requires the cameraman to actually film everything that’s going on.

A disillusioned evangelical minister, after years of performing exorcisms, decides to be filmed for a documentary exposing the fraud of exorcisms, proving that they do not really exist and it’s actually all in the heads of the people who think they are possessed… So far so good. The whole beginning of the film actually made me hope for something quite good: a new and intriguing take on the seen-before theme of exorcism.

However the film fails to keep it real by constantly breaking the rules of “mokumentary”, by having reverse angles, by adding sound effects and,
worse of all, a cheap music score underneath which goes for the cheap jumps out of your seats. Am I watching something which is
supposed to be real, or just a cheap heavy handled, tricksy, manipulative piece which doesn’t really care for its integrity but just wants to make me jump every time somebody goes “booo” on the screen?

It is a real shame, because I really thought this was working up to a certain point. And finally, a couple of words about the ending of the film, which is one of the most awful ending I can ever remember. It is so bad that it actually makes you forget all the good things you’ve seen up until that point.

I haven’t yet met a single person or read a single review that hasn’t actually mention how terrible it is!! How can that happen? Either they got cold feet and changed their mind at the last moment or they must be really stupid to even think for a moment that the audience could buy into something so stupid. They wanted to do a “Rosmary’s Baby” type of twist, without realizing that Rosmary’s Baby actually builds up for two hours towards the revelation. This one feels just like a last-minute turn.

In a way “The last Exorcism” is the type of film that doesn’t really work for any kind of audience: the avid horror fans will get disappointed by the lack of “action” and “gore” (the marketing campaign is incredibly misleading!!), the people who like good storytelling and good twists (the Sixth sense fans) will hate its clunky turn and awful ending. All the others people who never really liked horror films will find no redeeming feature in this either.

The DVD and BlueRay has just come out and it’s packed with Special Features including 3 types of commentary tracks. It will be interesting to know if we learn anything more to explain how such bad ending was conceived. If anyone has listen to those commentaries or seen the many special features available, please let me know. I am not giving a single extra dime to Ely Roth.
5/10

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Filed under DVDs& Blu-rays, Reviews Tagged with bad ending, Blair Witch Project, Cabin Fever, Cloverfield, Eli Roth, Exorcism, horror movie, Hostel, Iris Bahr, Last Exorcism, Movie, Paranormal Activity, Patrick Fabian

Four Lions – Review

January 5, 2011 14 Comments

Four Lions (2010)

Directed by Christopher Morris. Starring Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay, Riz Ahmed

Chris Morris is probably not a very well-known figure outside of the UK. The English comedian, writer, actor and director is famous in his own country for his controversial radio programmes and television sketches.

Four Lions is his first feature film but it does suffer from that feeling of a made-for-TV type of product, both in its look, its format and its construction. It is essentially a series of sketches some of which are more successful than others, but as a whole it’s not as strong and coherent film as it wants to be.

Apparently it was originally rejected by both the BBC and Channel 4 as being too controversial, and you can easily see why. The plot tells of a group of inept suicide bombers and it’s clearly a subject anyone would normally stir well away from, especially in a comedy.

“Four Lions” is undoubtedly provocative and certainly quite a brave film, unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily make it a good one and in the end you can’t help feeling a sense of superficiality to the whole thing: it is an honorable but failed attempt.

The main problem is to do with its comic depiction of his main characters which veers not just toward the parody but the slapstick. This clownish approach makes it all a little bit too over simplistic and doesn’t ring quite true as it probably should. It’s hard to believe that somebody like Omar, the main character (Rix Ahmed, the only actor worth watching in the whole film) would actually decide to “work” or even just associate himself with anyone so stupid like all those people in his group.

What Chris Morris is trying to do is to make the terrorists look like regular guys, likeable people and not just real monsters. However by treating them like silly idiots, it diminishes the message of the film and any emotional response the audience could have towards them. So one side you have touching (and yet uncomfortable) scenes like the moment where Omar tells the story of his version to the “Lion King” to his son. On the other hand you get moments which could be straight out a Mr Bean sketch, undermining everything he’s done before and, above all, our suspension of disbelief . These two “styles” don’t necessarily glue together as a film.

I didn’t find the comedy very funny at all (call me sad, but I don’t think I laughed once) and because of these incongruous way of telling the story, nor I found the film as moving as it was probably trying to be.

On the technical side of things, it’s all done rather on cheap and it shows. There’s nothing remarkable about the photography, the music, or any of the technical aspect of the film, which makes me doubt whether this should have ever been a cinema experience at all.

Furthermore, the thick Sheffield accent and constant British references could even limit its worldwide appeal.

In the end it all comes across just as a brave but very superficial exercise and it’s a real shame because this could have been something quite different, almost life-changing.

5.5/10

Filed under DVDs& Blu-rays, latest movies, Reviews Tagged with Armando Iannucci, BBC, Chris Morris, comedy, film review, Four Lions, Jesse Armstrong, Kayvan Novak, movie review, Nigel Lindsay, Riz Ahmed, suicide bombers, Terrorism

2010 Stats on MovieGeekBlog

January 2, 2011 2 Comments

This Blog has only been around for 3 months but it seems like it got off with a good start. The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ from WordPress seems to be veering towards the “wow”, whatever that means.

Healthy blog!