Archive for February, 2009
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Released 6th March 2009
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Watching Zack Snyder’s 300 on the big screen was rather like watching a large masterpiece in an art museum coming to life. And the visionary director does not disappoint with his latest ‘work of art’, Watchmen, vastly improving on his signature film-making style. Although graphically violent and, unsurprisingly, rated 18, there is also a wonderful, tranquil fluidity, flamboyancy, comic-book magic to the cinematography and design that it is enthralling to witness. Watchmen is simply glorious in style, unforgiving in violence, and gripping in narrative: It is what cinema is all about.
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Released 27th February 2009
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Bourne has definitely raised the bar for action thrillers: As plots get more complex, and the number of international locations grows, so, too, does the expertise of the film-making style. The International by Perfume director Tom Tykwer is one such example of a well-shot and well-edited film, clinically orchestrated, technically, but with stylised beauty shots, such as the breathtaking ‘birds-eye’ views throughout. It also boasts an attractive storyline that is highly topical in today’s economic climate, and even though a work of fiction, supposedly based on fact with the downfall of the Bank of Credit and Commercial International (BCCI) in the 1990s, you can’t help but wonder what other real-life, shady financial dealings will come to light in near future: You can almost feel the banks squirm, should their representatives watch this. Like a prophecy, it has a powerful impact on the imaginations of any ordinary person who watches it.
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Released 27th February 2009
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Faith can be described as: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (New King James Version of the Bible). As a film about faith - or lack of it, you must have a lot of faith to see writer/director Gerald McMorrow’s new fantasy thriller, Franklyn, through to the bitter, grim end, as there is little evidence of what it’s really all about to begin with. But, arguably, that’s its appeal - as long as you don’t become disinterested in the meantime. However convoluted it may appear in parts, it is an intelligent and intriguing story concept that becomes more apparent, the more you delve deeper in the mysteries surrounding its four troubled main characters: a vigilante from ‘Meanwhile City’; a beautiful, suicidal art student; a jilted-at-the-alter groom; and a religious father desperately searching for his missing son. And there is revelation in the end as the parallel universes merge into one feasible explanation - however incomplete it may be. The film is certainly one of the most unusual seen this year - so far…
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Released 27th February 2009
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Hands up those who Googled ‘dybbuk’ after watching this film, the term for a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person? It’s about the only thing you really take away from writer/director David S. Goyer’s creep fest of fairly clichéd happenings. Indeed, ‘dislocated soul’ is rather ironic, here, given the film leaps from scene to new scene, without really paying attention to what’s happening, and ignoring the heart of the story in a chaotic, disjointed and impatient attempt to get to the grand reveal (which isn’t all that grand, actually). The really surprising thing was just how the usually impressive Gary Oldman got caught up in the questionable proceedings, agreeing to play a rabbi who must perform an exorcism, based on Kabbalah folklore. Oldman as a strait-laced cop in the Batman series was a little difficult to swallow, but as a holy man is even more far-fetched. Is he getting soft in his old age? What happened to playing ‘plain crazy’, where he excels?
