Day 149: Up (2009)

Movie #96 – Up (2009) - 96 min, cert U.

Carl (Edward Asner) is a cantankerous old widower who lives on his own in the house he shared with his wife for most of his life. He shared with his wife a yearning for adventure and a desire to visit far-flung places, particularly a place called Paradise Falls in remote Venezuela, although it was a dream that never quite got realised. One day, when the outside world threatens to encroach too far on his solitary lifestyle, he takes the radical decision to take his house and head for Venezuela, suspending his beloved house from millions of helium filled balloons. After he leaves, he discovers a stowaway in the form of a boy scout named Russell, and together they go in search of Paradise Falls. When they get there, they encounter Carl’s boyhood hero, the adventurer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) who is searching for a mysterious bird and has been for decades.

This is another marvellous production from Pixar who are able to produce animated movies that have something to say not just to kids but to adults as well, in a way that no other company seems to do. As a father of two pre-teenage sons, I’ve seen quite a few films from the Pixar studio now – Up, WALL-E, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and all three Toy Story films and every one of them has been a joy to watch. In a lot of ways I actually feel that I’m getting more out of them than my kids are. I’ve seen Shark Tale, Shrek and Madagascar from DreamWorks and, while perfectly enjoyable, they were clearly aimed at kids and kids alone.

Up has a 12-minute prologue sequence in which we meet Carl as a young boy full of dreams and aspirations, he meets Ellie, a young girl full of the same dreams and aspirations and they fall in love. They get married, grow old together, and then Ellie dies leaving Carl to become a disheartened old man. Be warned, if you are prone to such things, you will need a healthy supply of tissues. I have never before seen an animated movie that begins with such a heartbreakingly sad sequence. It sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which is probably the most touching animated feature I’ve ever seen. Of course, it has its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments as well, but the way it gets its audience so emotionally involved in the characters is its stand-out feature.

Score – 10/10. I gave WALL-E 10 and I don’t think this deserves any less.

Next up is Oldboy, a Korean film about which I know absolutely nothing.

Day 147: Downfall (2004)

Movie #95 – Downfall (2004) - 156 min, cert 15.

The movie is an account of the last few days of World War II within Hitler’s bunker, as seen from the point of view of his personal secretary, Traudl Junge

The movie is mostly based on Junge’s biography, so it seems reasonable to consider it pretty accurate in terms of what actually happened. It portrays Hitler as a man who was clearly mad. He was wildly deluded about the state of the war. One moment he would be screaming and ranting at his aides and senior officers, then exchanging pleasantries with his more junior staff and petting his dog. Even when the War was all but lost, he was still having strategy meetings where he issued orders to troops that no longer existed and officers that had been killed or captured long ago.

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react to this movie. Was I supposed to feel anger or outrage at the monster that was Hitler? Or perhaps the portrayal was intended to provoke sympathy for a tormented soul. In the end, it just made me wonder how on earth this man was permitted to wallow in his own delusion and fantasy for so long, and at such cost to the people who looked to him for leadership. I came to realise that perhaps too much of the blame for the atrocities the occurred during that time is laid on his shoulders, and that perhaps more fault should be attached to the people who put him in that position and then kept him there.

An interesting film, overall, but it possibly dragged a little towards the end.

Score – 7/10.

Next up is Up, a Pixar film that I haven’t seen yet. I shall watch it with my kids, as they’ve been wanting to see it for a while.

Day 146: Gladiator (2000)

Movie #94 – Gladiator (2000) - 155 min, cert 15.

Maximus (Russell Crowe) is a successful General in the Roman army and a favourite of the Emperor. So much so that the Emperor tells him that he is going to name him as his successor. When the Emperor’s son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) discovers this, he is outraged. He kills his father and tells his soldiers to take Maximus out into the woods and kill him. Maximum escapes and hurries back to his family only to find that they’ve also been murdered. He is captured, taken to Africa and sold as a slave to Proximo (Oliver Reed), a trainer of gladiators. His prowess with a sword and as a military tactician ensure a swift rise to the top of his new profession, and eventually he is taken to fight at the Colosseum in Rome, in front of the very man who destroyed his life.

Crowe seems ideally suited to this role. He does mean & moody better than anyone which is exactly what this part requires. There are some fine supporting performances from the late Oliver Reed (who died during filming), Richard Harris (as the murdered Emperor), Connie Nielsen (as Commodus’ sister) and Derek Jacobi, a perennial favourite of genre, as Gracchus a senator. I wasn’t so keen on Phoenix, I felt his performance lacked something that I couldn’t quite put a finger on. It’s great to see an actor like Reed bowing out with a really good performance.

The film has an epic look to it, with elaborate sets and fantastically choreographed battle sequences. Ridley Scott has made a broad range of films in his time, from the brilliant (Alien, Blade Runner) to the downright awful (G.I. Jane, 1492: Conquest of Paradise), but this is definitely in the former camp.

Score – 8/10.

Next up is Downfall, an account of Adolf Hitler’s final few days in his bunker in Berlin at the end of WWII. I have seen many humorous rip-offs of Hitler ranting at his officers in German with various silly subtitles attached, but I’ve never seen the original.

Day 144: Metropolis (1927)

Movie #93 – Metropolis (1927) - 118 min, cert PG.

Set in the far future, the gulf in society between the rich and the poor has expanded to the point where the rich live a carefree Utopian lifestyle, while the poor dwell underground and operate the vast machinery that powers everything. This society is ruled over by Joh Frederson who is one of the few people who is aware of what goes on in the undercity. His son Freder descends into it and meets a young woman named Maria who wants to try to bridge the gulf between the two classes. Meanwhile, a mad scientist has created a robot to do his bidding. He kidnaps Maria, gives the robot her appearance, and uses it to lead the workers in a revolution.

I may not know much about movies and movie-making, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that this film was many years ahead of its time. For 1927, the special effects were amazing. OK, a lot of them look pretty tame these days – the flooding of the underground city is clearly a model, but the scene where the robot becomes animated still looks quite good today. Lang doesn’t like to break up his action with too many captions, so a lot of the dialogue is intimated through actions alone. This has the effect of making most of the physical movements of the actors very over the top, almost comically so.

I believe there might be a more complete version of the film than the one I saw. My one had quite a few scenes missing which were replaced with captions to keep the viewer up to date with the plot. I have read that a copy was found somewhere in South America that allowed a lot of these gaps to be filled in, but quite frankly it was quite long enough without these extra scenes. In its entirety it would run to nearly two and a half hours, according to IMDb.

Overall, it was certainly an enjoyable film. Although, probably more so when viewed as an interesting piece of cinematic history than as a story on its own right.

Score – 6/10. An interesting museum piece.

Next up is Gladiator. I have this one on DVD and it’s a great film. Russell Crowe in a role ideally suited to him.

Day 143: The Apartment (1960)

Movie #92 – The Apartment (1960) - 125 min, cert PG.

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a corporate wage slave, just one amongst a sea of faces in a vast office of identical desks. He lives alone in an apartment in the city, but he lends out his apartment several evenings a week to some of the managers within the company so they can take their mistresses and girlfriends there with no questions asked. Baxter is attracted to Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), one of the elevator girls in the building but discovers that she is the mistress of his boss Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) and has been in his apartment.

This is a clever little piece about two downtrodden employees caught in the rat race. Both Baxter and Kubelik are being used by their superiors. They are aware that they are being used, but they go along with it in exchange for promises of rewards that may or may not materialise. Baxter wants his own office and is promised a promotion, while Kubelik wants a proper relationship with Sheldrake, so Sheldrake promises her that he will leave his wife. Both seem reluctant to commit to each other as they are so accustomed to being let down, and it’s only after Kubelik attempts suicide in Baxter’s apartment and he finds himself nursing her back to health, that they start to open up to each other.

Billy Wilder is very good at balancing comedy with drama. He did it well in Some Like it Hot and he does it well here.

Score – 8/10. A very enjoyable film.

Next up is Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, a film famous for its futuristic vision. Like the vast majority of people, I’ve seen clips of it but never sat down and watched it through.

Day 142: Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Movie #91 – Inglourious Basterds (2009) - 153 min, cert 18.

During WWII, a small unit of Jewish soldiers operating behind enemy lines uses a combination of guerrilla tactics and extreme violence to instil fear into the hearts of the Germans. When they learn that much of the German High Command will be being attending the premiere of a propaganda film, the opportunity is too good to pass up. Meanwhile, the owner of the cinema that has been selected for the event has her own reasons to want revenge on the Third Reich.

I wasn’t sure that I’d over-hyped this movie in my own mind to the point where it was almost bound to be a disappointment. But I found it hugely enjoyable. I particularly liked the ending which was hugely unexpected. It’s very rare and quite refreshing to find a movie that is set in the historical past with such a scant disregard for historical accuracy. This is a work of fiction, after all, and Tarantino takes that as carte blanche to rewrite history as he sees fit, and why not?

Score – 9/10. Very entertaining with a wonderful ending.

Next up is The Apartment, a black & white comedy from 1960 which I’ve never heard of. But the cast looks strong.

Day 141: Braveheart (1995)

Movie #90 – Braveheart (1995) - 177 min, cert 15.

This movie tells the life story of William Wallace, the 13^th century Scottish knight and major figure in the Wars of Scottish Independence, from his childhood up to his death at the hands of the English.

How much of this is historically accurate is hugely debatable, but irrespective of this it makes for an impressive spectacle of a film. Mel Gibson gives an excellent performance in the title role, and his Scots accent seems pretty believable to a non-Scot like myself. The battle scenes are done on an epic scale with plenty of blood and gore for added realism.

The film is nearly three hours in length, but it held my attention throughout.

Score – 9/10. Thoroughly enjoyable. My top ten remains unchanged from ten films ago:

1.       The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

2.       Pulp Fiction (1994)

3.       Forrest Gump (1994)

4.       The Green Mile (1999)

5.       Amelie (2001)

6.       Fight Club (1999)

7.       The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

8.      Toy Story 3 (2010)

9.       The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

10.   Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Next up is Inglourious Basterds which I was tempted to go and see when it was on at the pictures a couple of years ago. I bought it on DVD a month or so ago, and I’ve been waiting to watch it.

Day 140: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Movie #89 – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - 141 min, cert U.

I normally start these reviews with a brief plot summary, but this film is so unfathomable that I’m not sure I can. There seem to be a number of black slabs that lead mankind to explore the Universe. Or something. There’s a section in the middle when a supposedly failsafe supercomputer that’s in control of all aspects of a particular space flight goes wrong and tries to kill everyone on board.

I got to the end of this film and found myself wondering what sort of strange drugs Kubrick was on when he made it. Maybe it makes sense to him, but it certainly doesn’t to me. The first section goes on for far too long as it observes a group of apes at the dawn of Man as they encounter a mysterious black slab and suddenly realise they can use bones to hit each other with. The second section seems to introduce some sort of plot as the HAL9000 supercomputer develops a fault and attempts to terminate the entire crew of its spaceship. Any concept of plot is then abandoned in the final half-hour section which is some sort of bizarre acid-trip where the lone remaining crew member is pulled through some sort of wormhole in space and ends up in a one-room apartment.

Score – 1/10. A load of self-indulgent claptrap.

Next up is Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. An excellent biopic of William Wallace. I’ve no idea how historically accurate it is, but it makes for a great movie.

Day 139: Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Movie #88 – Bicycle Thieves (1948) - 93 min, cert U.

Antonio Ricci lives with his wife and son in abject poverty in Rome during the depression that immediately followed WWII. He is offered a job sticking posters up around the city, but the job requires a bicycle. Seeing the job as the possible key to a better life, they pawn their bed linen to raise the money to recover his bicycle which is already pawned. Unfortunately, on his first day on the job, an opportunist thief makes off with his bicycle. Antonio then spends the next few days combing the city is the desperate hope of recovering it.

When I saw this film, I didn’t really understand what it was doing in the Top 250. It didn’t seem in any way special. The acting was not particularly good and the storyline seemed to lead very slowly to an anticlimactic ending. I’ve since read other reviews which hail this as one of the greatest movies ever made, so I guess this must be another of those films that can only be fully appreciated by people who know what they’re talking about.

It’s in the neorealistic school of cinema, evidently, which means that the cast is made up of ordinary people rather than professional actors, the sets are real places, and the dialogue and action is all done as naturally as possible. This is all very well, but real life just isn’t very interesting. When I go to the cinema I want to be transported to another world where life is full of excitement and adventure. If I wanted reality, I’d stay at home and look out of the window.

Score – 2/10. I just don’t see the point of it all, I’m afraid.

Next up is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is Kubrick’s sixth entry in the Top 100, which is two more than anyone else. I remember watching this film many years ago, but can’t recall many details.

Day 138: Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Movie #87 – Full Metal Jacket (1987) - 116 min, cert 18.

The movie follows Private Joker (Matthew Modine) as he endures basic training on Parris Island to become a US Marine, then as he is posted to Vietnam as a reporter for Stars and Stripes.

This movie can be split into two parts. In fact, it almost comes across as two completely separate movies. The first 45 minutes or so deals with basic training, concentrating mostly on the ongoing confrontation between Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, the drill instructor, and Private Pyle, an overweight recruit who can’t seem to get anything right. The remainder of the film follows Private Joker as he travels around Vietnam, taking up most of the time in a couple of key encounters.

Of these two sections, the first is by far and away the best. Quite frankly, after basic training is over, the film seems to lose its way a bit, and becomes much like many of the other Vietnam War films that have been produced.

Score – 7/10. The second half of the film fails to live to the first.

Next up is Bicycle Thieves which I’ve never heard of. It’s old, black & white and in Italian, and looks dull as ditchwater, but we shall see.

Day 137: The Great Dictator (1940)

Movie #86 – The Great Dictator (1940) - 125 min, cert U.

Charlie Chaplin plays a jewish barber in the fictitious country of Tomania. The Dictator of Tomania, Adenoid Hynkel (Chaplin again), is oppressing the jewish population, but the barber leads his neighbourhood in a fightback against the military. Inevitably, the two doppelgangers get mistaken for each other.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this movie. I was expecting more of the same slapstick drivel that was prevalent in Modern Times and City Lights, but there wasn’t actually that much of it. I hadn’t realised that this was a talkie, and was quite strange to hear Chaplin talking. I also hadn’t realised that Chaplin was English. Since his acting career took place exclusively in America, I just assumed he was American. But he has quite a well-spoken English accent. In fact, probably the funniest moment in the film (and, yes, it did have funny moments) was the speech Hynkel gives quite early on in a sort of mock-German. It makes me wonder why Chaplin was so reluctant to move into talkies when he was actually quite good at them.

Score – 6/10. Still not brilliant, but a good deal better than the others of his that I’ve seen.

Next up is Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It’s a hard-hitting Vietnam film that doesn’t pull its punches. It’s been many years since I last saw it.

Day 134: All About Eve (1950)

Movie #85 – All About Eve (1950) - 138 min, cert PG.

Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) is spotted hanging round a theatre after a performance. She says she is a huge fan of Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and watches every one of her performances. She is invited backstage to meet her idol and quickly becomes part of her entourage. Before long she is using her new position to acquire important contacts in the theatre business and understudies her idol in her latest play. Margo’s friends feel she needs bringing down a peg or two, so they deliberately stage an incident that keeps her away from a performance, allowing Eve to go on in her place. They also make sure several critics get invites for the performance, and they all love Eve. Before long it becomes apparent that Eve is quite a bit more scheming than anyone thought and she is trampling on all the people who helped her to further her own career.

I was quite tired when I watched this, and found it quite difficult to concentrate on the plot. I think this was my fault rather than the movies’, and actually found it quite enjoyable. More so than I was expecting. I thought the ending was clever, and wished I’d been a little more alert when I ‘d been watching the rest of it.

Score – 7/10. It may have been a little better than this, but it failed to properly grab me until quite near the end.

Next up is another Chaplin movie, The Great Dictator. Judging by the previous Chaplin movies I’ve had to endure, I’m dreading this one!

Day 132: Amadeus (1984)

Movie #84 – Amadeus (1984) - 180 min, cert PG.

I seem to have dropped behind with my reviews again, so I shall have to write a few quick short ones to catch up.

This movie tells the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the point of view of Antonio Salieri, the court composer to Emperor Joseph II. Salieri is reasonably well regarded in Vienna, but when the young upstart Mozart appears on the scene, Salieri knows just enough about music to recognise the real genius in Mozart’s work, and how inferior his own work looks by comparison. But despite Mozart’s gift he acts like a modern-day rock star – drinking to excess and cavorting with his young girlfriend like a couple of kids. Salieri becomes deeply jealous of Mozart’s ability and despises him for the way he appears to squander it.

A very watchable movie with good performances from the two lead actors – Tom Hulce & F. Murray Abraham as Mozart & Salieri respectively. Not really the sort of movie I would normally sit down and watch, which explains why I’ve not seen it before, but quite enjoyable nonetheless. It’s worth watching just for the soundtrack alone, and Mozart’s own music sets the mood perfectly.

Score – 7/10. Pretty good, but not really my sort of thing.

Next up is All About Eve, a black & white from 1950, which also doesn’t seem like my sort of film.