Oscars 2011

Tonight is the Oscars and I feel I need to weigh in with my tuppence worth. I've got my Ballot Page from here and now you lucky people get to see what i thought was good this year. (The Number after thge Category is how many of the films in the category I've seen)

Best Motion Picture (8/10)

I'd love to be cheering for the British Film but as much as I liked The King's Speech, there were others I enjoyed more and with me enjoyment tends to be the final arbiter in my judgement on a film, after everything else is considered. I'm plumping for Black Swan as after an intial viewing which would have seen True Grit taking this one, I saw it again and it blew me away. I picked up on alot more on the second viewing than I had in the first and the intensity was more what I was expecting. On first viewing it wasn't intense enough but on second viewing I could appreciate it for what it was. I know this is a controversial choice as this film seems to divide folk down the middle but its my blog so deal with it. In reality I think King's Speech will win

Best Actor (4/5)
Saying it wasn't my favourite film I am going to go for Colin Firth for Best Actor, simply as I've seen him in more stuff and he is different in this one, although maybe a bit similar to A Single Man, which was great anyway. Bridges did manage to not seem like the Dude in True Grit (Unlike in Tron: Legacy bt more about that trainwreck another day) but still not sure if he had enough material to work with, to show a broad range of the character.

Best Actress (1/5)
I only saw Natalie's performance so by default she gets my vote.Although I did think it was stunning how she went from butter wouldn't melt to *Spoiler Alert* cold blooded murder *Spoiler End* and made it convincing.

Best Supporting Actor (1/5)
Another default win here for Geoffrey Rush.

Best Supporting Actress (2/5)
I'd like to give this to Amy Adams (mainly due to my crush on her) but I havn't seen The Fighter so can't really. Instead its going to Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit beating out Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen Mum. I'd argue Steinfeld was the lead character in True Gritand it is only her age which sees her in this category.

Best Director (4/5)
Aronofsky as Why not? (I'm always a bit hazy on how I'm meant to judge this not knowing how much the whole package makes an impact upon direction)

Best Original Screenplay (2/5)
The King's Speech as Inception wasn't quite as clever as everyone made out, as brilliant as it was.

Best Adapted Screenplay (4/5)
True Grit

Obviously Toy Story 3 will win Best Animated Film. The rest I'd be shooting in the dark even more so than with Best Director so I shall leave them.


And after all this so called "High-brow" discussion I'm going to try and see Drive Angry in 3D this evening. Or maybe The Fighter

Top 250-Mullholland Dr.

Its been over a month since I wrote on here and alot has happened in that time. So since August the 10th I have moved out of my old flat,tempoaraily moved in with some friends, convinced some other friends to move up North, found a house with them, put an offer in on it (rental only), been accepted, got accepted on a MA course in Film Studies, completed Two Sprint Distance Triathlons and been abducted by Aliens (I think they were hungarians). All except the kidnap has happened so I've been a little bit busy as Work keeps banging away. Anyway back to talking about films, at least for this post

So onto Mullholland Dr. This doesn't bode well for my new MA course (Its Film Studies with Screenwriting) but I had no idea what was going on for most of this film. I'm sure you could spend pages dissecting this film but I'm not interested enough in it to try.
It was enjoyable and had some good sexually charged scenes between the two main actresses but there were far too many throwaway scenes which didn't seem to add anything. (I guess these were going to be followed up when they originally planned the film as a TV series.) The guy in the diner is the one which comes to mind. And as for the plot I think the most cohesive version of it I've read is that the start of the film is all make believe and that the darker ending is the real world. This explains why Adam has such a harsh time at the start as Naomi Watt's Character feels he stole Rita away from her so is punishing him in her dreams. She is dead in the fantasy as she doesn't want to be her but to be Betty instead. The best scene was when Betty was acting out her piece for the audition I was absolutely riveted and couldn't take my eyes off the screen.

I wouldn't put this as one of the top 250 of all time and was shocked to see how many awards it had won. I'd give it 7 out of 10. That's another one down and more to go.

Top 250-Toy Story 3

First a disclaimer. Based on the viewing of this film I am a robot at best and a sociopath devoid of emotion at worse. In other words this weepy didn't get me going and I'm even struggling to understand why it made anyone cry. But I'll leave that for the end. And as ever there may be spoilers ahead.

As someone was remarking to me the other day why all the excitement over a threequel? Shrek 3 wasn't greeted with such eagerness or recieved so favourably. Why has the third Toy Story burst into the top 250 at such a high place?

I brainstormed some ideas and came up with these as the reasons.

Characters
There is a big cast  of characters each of which is defined and memorable. We've come to care for these little guys, as we do our own playthings and we just want to hang out with them again. These characters have flaws but they're not as unpleasant as the Shrek crew. Sarcasm is a mode of communication in the Toy Story universe not the only way to make a snarky point.

Time
Its been sixteen years since Toy Story waas released and 11 since Toy Story 2. They haven't rushed out a sequel in record time. They've taken time with their craft.

Previous Quality
TS1 and TS2 were masterpieces. When building on solid foundations its harder to screw up. In no way impossible but more difficult.

Pedigree
Come on guys. Its Pixar. When did they ever release a bad film? And before you say it "Cars" was not a bad film, it was just an average film. Most other studios would kill to have their successes be as good as Pixar's "failures"

Actual Film
No matter all that bumpf up above this. If the film wasn't good then it would be so highly praised. And it is good but I think it may be overhyped. The basic story is that Andy is off to College and his toys get donated to a Daycare centre. Its a horrible place and they need to break out and get back to him. That's cutting out alot of it but why spoil the film too much?

It was a very funny film with a fantasy sequence at the beginning,with death by monkeys (Everything is better with monkeys!) and a lot of new characters to come to know and love and in one case hate. The villain of the piece had me at one point contemplating bying a stuffed version of him just to knock it around with a baseball bat. So well done Pixar for that.

But the main thing I'm left thinking is why all the hyperbole about the tears? At its saddest the ending was bittersweet but more sweet than bitter. And the other part I've heard talk about being a tear duct wringer is when they all hold hands. Now maybe I was just more caught up in the dynamics of the plot that the characters at that point but I was thinking "No way can they end it like this." and I was admiring the bravery of such a down ending to a kids film. So it was disbelief rather than sadness at that point. There was then relief but I didn't feel sad. The only point at which I did was when the remembered all the fallen toys near the beginning and Woody missed Bow Peep. That was the most emotional part for me.

I understand why I'm meant to have felt sad about it. The loss of childhood and how our children outgrow us. But I don't have any children to outgrow me and you can still be childlike without being childish. I suppose the film does make me wistful for an easier time when all you had to worry about was the space goblins coming to invade the playmobile castle being defended by Big Ted and a Lego Diver Man. So a Wistful film for me rather than a sad one. As sad films go "Up" and "Wall-E" have this one beat in my mind. Go see this though and make up your own mind.

Its Tuesday-Its Graph Day

I love me some graphs

Books

Films

As you can see I'm quite ahead of the curve for books and well behind for films.

BRICK!

Today I completed my first lot of Brick training. What is that I hear you cry? Its when you bike then run. The entomology is either from Bike, Run, ICK or from the fact your legs feel like someone has attached some brick to your lower legs. Either way its not a pleasant experience. I bike for 40 minutes (covering 17.5K in that time) then running straight after for 10 minutes which got me about 1.85K. I would have run longer but my training session only said to do that and I was in a rush to go see a shared flat. I didn't even have time to shower and change properly. So when I turned up wearing shorts, dress shoes and a monkey tshirt with Aviators perched on my balding head I'm sure you can imagine the odd sight it was. Off for that Shower now then to Tramlines.

Image found here

Frankie Boyle

My Shit Life so Far by Frankie Boyle

This is a simple review really. Do you find Mr. Boyle's Stand up funny? Then you'll like the book. Do you think he's a vulgar bully? Then you won't like the book. What about if you think he's funny, definitley vulgar but you're still sitting in judgement about the bully part? Then you'll enjoy it with the occasional nagging doubt that you shouldn't be laughing. If you're anything like me you'll shake off that feeling with the justification that humour is all about transcending boundaries, whether that be of taste, reality or social norms. Why is someone falling over funny? Its not the done thing in normal society so it is inherently ridiculous plus we're glad its not us. Why is Python funny? Its bizarre and the manner in which it doesn't match reality makes it ridiculous. Why are Frankie's jokes funny? They're past the boundaries of taste and aren't said in polite society. Its the same as the falling over. Its not the done thing in normal society and you're really glad this time that its not you involved in the joke. Just a quick theory of humour there, which I shall be looking to develop as time goes on.

Apart from the expected tasteless jokes about all and sundry I was also surprise by the warmth in parts of the book. I'm sure that this has snuck into the book under the radar but its there. In particular the part where Frankie is speaking about homeless folk. We're all only a couple of paychecks away from there ourselves and he suggests its this fear that we could so easily slip off society's rungs that leads to our fear and distrust of the homeless. He also says that walking past these folks every day is damaging our society. Its in our nature to have compassion and we are stamping it down on a daily basis. Quite some interesting thoughts there in amongst all the filth.

Even after reading the book I couldn't tell you anything particualr about his life. It seemed pretty uneventful, Even the hedonistic druggie days were kinda dull but the jokes surrounding it make up for it. The overall image of Frankie Boyle I get from the book is an angry guy, who wants to be seen as a misanthrope but deep down he cares for the little folk who get crapped on, even as he gets angry at them for letting it happen to them and for others for doing the defecating. Basically Frankie Boyle is Spider Jersualem but without the filthy assistants.

So after reading that my bookshelf position is 2687.

Image found here

Top 250-Inception

*May Contain SPOILERS

With the very first image from this movie I thought "Oh A Sequel to Titanic". Obviously its far from it but the sight of Leo Dicaprio face down in the surf looking half dead its easy to see why the connection came up.

Inception is currently Number 3 in the Top 250 and I'm sorry to say its not the 3rd best film of all time. (That would be The Big Lebowski, Planet of The Apes(1968) or Fight Club depending on my mood.) Its a new release though and any connoisseur of the top 250 knows that many films burst into the Top 250 only to disappear once more than just the fanboys have seen it. I think this one will hang in there but only time will tell.

I doubt you really want to read my ramblings about the figures and trends of the Top 250 and would prefer to read an actual review of the film. So where to begin.

In this world that Christopher Nolan, Cinematic Genius. has created its possible to get inside peoples dreams and to share them as a group. This has led to a group of thieves using it to steal secrets by constructing dreams which the target then populates with their sub conscious and their secrets. Even just writing that had increased my awe for this film. I've made it sound complex and confusing whereas the film manages to introduce the idea naturally and smoothly The intricacies of the plot get complicated later but the blocks that are used to construct the plot are not. You'll need to pay attention to keep up with what is going on and the way I found to do this was to concentrate on what had just happened and what was the current objective. This prevented me getting caught up in knots about everything else that was in play at the same time. The filmmaking skill would remind you of what was important and you needed to know as you went along.

The visuals were amazing and I've heard complaints that the dreamworld wasn't surreal enough. I thought this was a good move. Dream Logic is not narrative logic. If a dream logic had been adhered to then causes and consequences go out the window. So by keeping the dreams based in reality even if it is the hyper reality of a crime caper. It even explains why this creative decision was made via an inworld explanation.

Again I've heard that some saw it as overly expositional, too much tell not enough show. I didn't find this so. This was because of the strength of the actors doing the telling and how gripped I was by what was going on. It does show as well with some great action sequences like the corridor fight and some stunning imagery as dreams collapse.

My only critique would be that I wasn't emotionally enough invested in the characters. I did care but as one detached. Other films drag you in a make you empathise with the characters. You feel what they feel. With this one you know what they are feeling but it never impacts on you. Without this flaw I'd have given it a 10. It does for now get a 9.

Image found here

Inception, books and graph fail then Fix

Just seen Inception. Proper review to follow but it was excellent. Its in the Top 250 so that's another one off the list but it appears that something else I've already watched has dropped off. So the graph looks like this.

And although the chart looks lovely on my desktop I can't work out how to get it to post here. Edit: Bit more research solved it.




Also I've been reading quite a lot of books so that side is going well also. At this point you were also suppose to get a graph but its late and I'll work it out later.
Edit: Solved it



Edit: So make of those as you will for now.

Just got a New Camera

Just got a new camera and not alot to take pictures of in my living room at one in the morning. So here's a photo of the picture on my wall.