Still elementary

As the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” right? That must be Guy Ritchie’s mantra, as the sequel to his Holmes hit movie from two years ago is as light, flighty and inconsequential as its predecessor. If there is any real improvement worth mentioning, it’s that Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows boasts a better villain and has greater scope than the original. Also, Stephen Fry has a small role, and a little bit of Fry goes a long way.

Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) is hot on the trail of his nemesis, Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris), an esteemed academic and criminal mastermind. Although right-hand man Watson (Jude Law) is getting married soon, Holmes manages to draw his sidekick into his dangerous investigation as they begin to unravel a plot worthy of the greatest megalomaniacal movie villains. During their attempts to stop Moriarty’s plans from actualising, they also meet up with a gypsy (Noomi Rapace) whose brother is somehow involved in the professor’s plans.

Moriarty is, as Holmes fans have often stated, a solid foil for Holmes. As played by Mad Men’s Jared Harris, the professor is cultured, coldly intelligent and determined to see his plans through. With one or two exceptions Harris nearly underplays the character, making him seem even more threatening. Downey Jr is his familiar self as Holmes, sometimes seeming to channel the Johnny-Depp-is-Jack Sparrow school of acting. Happily, Law’s Watson seems more actively involved with the events this time round.

As required by its type, the film is fast paced and peppered with humour in between things blowing up and people being shot at. There’s a lot that blows up, and there’s lots of shooting, and in all of it Holmes and Watson exchange some delicious double entendres (remember the trailer for the first film? You know what I mean). A Game of Shadows is fittingly drained of primary colours, thereby enhancing its semi-steampunk appeal, while Ritchie exploits his slowed down action techniques repeatedly. The sound design is either superb or ridiculous, depending on the extent to which you can tolerate Ritchie’s excessive kineticism. 

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is easily the equal of the first film, and should have no trouble pleasing fans of the first outing. If a popcorn driven, easily digestible detective story with some considerable fireworks is all you want, A Game of Shadows awaits – as long as popcorn, detective thrills and fireworks really are all you want. There’s precious little more to the film than that.

Sucked Dry

Less ideologically offensive than “Night Drive” but easily more vacuous and boring, director Christopher-Lee dos Santos’s “Eternity” is a vampire romance so tedious that you begin wishing for the fast paced antics of “The White Ribbon”. I am grateful for “Skoonheid” and “Roepman” and embarrassed for this film. In “Eternity, Andre Frauenstein stars as Billy (the name is a set-up for a terrible joke late in the film; it’s as forced as the character’s hair, which makes him look like a forlorn Goku in search of an Egoli Dragonball), a vampire who spends his evenings parkouring around Johannesburg with his buddies. After one night on the town (its rooftops, staircases etc), it is one of his friends who channels the great philosophers to make the seismic observation: “It is almost daybreak”. I think the rising sun gave him a clue, as it would Billy, but Billy stands there nodding solemnly.

Allow me to pause for a moment. Here are creatures that have obtained immortality and spend their time practising parkour. Something tells me they’re not doing it simply because they’ve already worked their way through the Western literary canon.

Life as a vampire seems uncomplicated enough, until a scientist (poor Ian Roberts, in another of his appearances as Ian Roberts-as-Character X) discovers a formula that could give vampires the ability to walk in direct sunlight without turning to ash. An emergency Vampire Board Meeting is called, where evil Borlak (David James) turns the tables on the more moderate current leader (Gys de Villiers) to become the alpha vamp. This scene exists only so that the film can claim to have a Vampire Board Meeting scene, which most contemporary vampire movies have. With the exception of the Big Bad Borlak, none of the other characters really make a functional appearance ever again. The dialogue throughout the film is ridiculously leaden and generic, but this scene is a particularly effective indicator of what’s to come.

One night, Billy meets Jenny (Rikki Brest) in a night club. May I venture that Brest (now now) was cast for her body, and not her acting abilities or strong verbal presence. If there’s not blood or parkour on the screen, there’s cleavage, and the camera spends minutes on Brest’s body in an early scene where she’s trying on different outfits for her night out. It’s so gratuitous it should be hilarious, but it’s more boring than anything else.

It is Jenny’s birthday, but her mother (Brumilda van Rensburg) does not seem to know about it. So Jesse and Billy celebrate by drinking and dancing. Another pause: Billy drinks blood. When asked what’s in his flask, he says something to the effect of “It’s some kind of Bloody Mary” and then follows up with a Stephanie Meyer-sized clunker: “It’s an acquired taste”. Anyhoo, so the Big Bad Borlak kidnaps Jenny to get his hands in the formula since Ian Roberts-as-Character X is her dad. (By this point - and I may be wrong because at some stage my mind wandered and I started thinking about Del Toro and Hogan’s “The Strain” and Cronin’s superior “The Passage”, which is a sweeping epic featuring vampires – the film reached the halfway mark, and nothing had really happened yet.) Billy and company set off to rescue Jenny and save… Save what? There’s no integration between the worlds of the vampires and the citizens of Johannesburg, so it’s cinematically unclear what precisely is at stake except for some individual fates.

I should mention that Hlomla Dandala co-stars as a policeman, Joe Kau. Dandala is better than this material, and all he does is say his lines, point his gun a lot of times, and appear on the scene when necessary. Model turned actress Christina Storm appears as Billy’s former lover, Lisa, who may be a bit jealous of her ex-boyfriend’s newly acquired mortal girlfriend. Storm, who also recently appeared in a horror of a different nature in “Ek Lief Jou”, is a dreadful actress, plain and simple. She brings only her body to a role that at least demands convincing grunting and groaning. Oh, the noises. These are some of the noisiest vampires I have ever encountered. They hiss and snarl and hiss and snarl and hiss and there I was again, thinking of “The Passage”. It really becomes comical. The blonde female vampire who lugs Jenny around is a particularly inspired hisser.

After the film reveals a big twist - a development even Oedipus would see coming, eyes or no eyes – the film predictably climaxes with a battle, followed by an ending so abrupt and impotent you cannot help but laugh again. “Eternity” is a bloody mess, and proves once more that a bad screenplay results in a bad movie, regardless of how many gunfights or parkour scenes or shots of heaving bosoms you put in.

A Long Time Ago in Hyboria

The remake of 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian”, one of the films of the early 1980s that helped catapult the name Schwarzenegger into fame, is a suitably brutal and bloody affair. I’m not so sure that it will do for new star Jason Momoa - who cuts a solid simmering Cimmerian and has a sense of self-awareness that Arnie didn’t have - as the film has bombed at the international box-office. There’s even been a public accountability statement from its script doctor, Sean Hood, where he addresses the film’s flaws. The new “Conan” poses no threat to existing fantasy franchises.

However, when hyperbole fades into obscurity and the dust settles on this expensive market miscalculation, then by Crom, the film is far from the “worst movie ever” disaster it’s come to be called. In fact, as has happened in the past, I had a good time watching a not-so-good movie. Somewhere between the CGI-blood, the loaded and hammy dialogue, absurd 3D violence and computerised matte-ish backgrounds, something clicked.

The film sets the tone with a striking opening scene. It takes us into the womb, showing us a peacefully floating fetus; seconds later, a blade plunges into the sack, and the screen goes red. This is not enough. The camera pulls out of the womb to reveal the agonised mother bleeding from a terrible wound. A battle rages around her. Her husband (Ron Perlman) arrives at her side. She wants to see her son once before she dies. Before you can say “WTF”, the father performs a battlefield caesarean and lays the child in his wife’s hands. “Name your son!” he commands. You know what follows.

A few scenes later, young boy Conan sees his village burned to the ground. Adult Conan (Momoa) sets off on his long gestating quest for vengeance. The man responsible for the earlier carnage is a dark lord called Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang), whose daughter Marique (Rose McGowan) assists him with special skills in obtaining the last missing piece that would complete a mask that serves to eliminate the boundaries between life and death, and makes its wearer extremely powerful. Conan’s mission to avenge his people’s deaths assumes a grander scale, as destroying Zym would mean peace for the whole of Hyboria. Lang looks good with facial scars and seems to take himself seriously, while McGowan (last seen sporting a machine gun leg in “Planet Terror”) has fun with long, deadly nails and a semi-bald head. She’s not really scary, but she looks kooky enough to make you think that there is a limit to her sanity. Not unpredictably, the relationship between her and Zym brims with incestuous energy, and it would’ve been interesting to see the film push the limits with this.

Director Marcus Nispel broke onto the scene with remakes: “Friday the 13th”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. He has a penchant for bloody messes. Yes, “mess” is ambiguous. Here he shows a good eye for action and violence, but the editing is over the top and choppy. Much of the action, as diverting as it is, is of the “if you’ve seen one…” variety, with the exception of a scene where Marique conjures warriors from the sand to face-off with Conan. This remake lacks the original’s sense of scope and the severity with which John Milius approached Robert Howard’s material, and attempts to compensate with some gratuitous nudity and absurd violence – there is a particularly notable nasal incident that inspires much cringing and flinching.

Conan of course has a love interest, Tamara (Rachel Nichols), with whom he shares a shockingly tame, safe sex scene. (Come now, this is not a spoiler. Surely no-one expects alpha male Conan to hold hands.) Their union happens in an abandoned cabin on the coast of jungle and nowhere. This is the type of film that drops an abandoned cabin into a place where no-one has any reason to habitate for the sole purpose of proving a place for the couple to get it on. What, they couldn’t find a rock pool? (Yes, I know that rocks can be sharp, pointy, dangerous. None of this is of concern to a barbarian.) This takes a special kind of narrative courage/stupidity.

I was never bored with “Conan the Barbarian”. It’s a wannabe blockbuster that’s ended up somewhere beyond B-movie status, and there is much geek and fanboy hatred towards the film from the kind of people who quote the original’s screenplay word-for-word and recreate cut scenes from the “Conan” game from a few years ago with Lego. “Conan” purists should treat this film with caution, but those open to its limited yet undeniable brand of charms can give it a shot. I heed against broadly recommending “Conan the Barbarian” to general audiences.

Note: I was reminded of that mid 1990s bomb “Cutthroat Island”, the pirate wannabe blockbuster flop that missed the pirate frenzy of the Naughties with a good decade. This too was far from terrible, yet nearly ruined careers. I will revisit both “Cutthroat” and “Conan” on DVD (in 2D!) when the time comes.

Conversations with God

How is that I know precisely what “The Tree of Life” is about, yet I cannot bring myself to explain it? I am not simply talking about the plot of the film, but about the thematic density the material presents. That is the wonder of Terrence Malick’s latest film: it covers the broad, the deep, the archetypal and the collective while exploring the intricacies of family life. That a film like “The Tree of Life” gets made at all in a time where marketing often determines a film’s fate and tired romances and adventures clutter the screen, is a miracle. That the film is as momentous as it is, another.

I had reason to doubt Malick. He returned to filmmaking after a long absence with the brilliant “The Thin Red Line” (1998), followed by the self-indulgent huffing and puffing of “The New World” (2002). Then there’s the matter of loaded expectations: “Tree” won the Palm d’Or earlier this year at Cannes, and after all, this is the legendary and reclusive auteur Malick we’re talking about. In the United States, where many patrons walked out of “Tree of Life” frustrated and annoyed (not necessarily waiting for it to finish), some theatre chains put up signs explaining that not all movies are the same.

Then the film happened to me, and surely Malick is a gift to the world.

He is a poet, philosopher, theologian, and one of the best filmmakers around. The film is breath-taking and visionary. “Tree of Life” is the organic successor to “Line”, taking its exploration of consciousness and one’s awareness of oneself in the world to dizzying heights that invoke the personal and the epic. It guides you to revisit and reconsider your life as Malick’s images of being lay a framework not only of his own inward living, but of the possibilities of such living for oneself. The film stars Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as the parents of three young boys; she is a caring mother, while he is often hard on his sons, sometimes seeming to want an audience and not so much a family. Sean Penn, whose face gets more expressive with each film he does, co-stars as a pivotal character that has almost no dialogue. All the actors are superb, with the child actors deserving a special mention.

Do not be tempted to reduce this film to a family drama. Malick here revisits his own childhood, conflicts and challenges, but it is far removed from the kind of needy “emotional exorcism” that filmmakers often commit. Malick is both too intelligent and too sensitive and intuitive for that, and the story he tells is visually, thematically and spiritually complex without calling attention to itself. I am always amazed at how Malick manages to suggest perception and subjectivity in his films, especially this one; how incredible is it that he makes another’s thoughts and feelings seem so much like your own?

Here is a film about creation, fathers, mothers, sons, belief and the threat of succumbing to the world, and it is a masterpiece. How often do I have the opportunity to refer to a film as flawless? So often we are willing to settle for less, for movies that barely get the basics right but can’t be bothered with much of anything else. “Tree of Life” sours the taste of those films, their essential futility, with its perfection. It is one of the best films I have ever seen.

Uxbal's world

 

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is an accomplished filmmaker following the international acclaim not only for his debut "Amores Perros" but also his Oscar nominated "Babel". Inarritu is one of a few Mexican filmmakers who have managed to cross over into American film with considerable success, much like surrealist storyteller Guillermo del Toro. Whereas Del Toro uses fantasy, symbols and the supernatural to comment on human concerns – consider the unexpected gravitas of Del Toro’s fairy tale "Pan’s Labyrinth" – Inarritu grounds his characters in worlds that are recognisably real, sometimes overwhelmingly so, as if their walls and weight bear down upon the viewer.

Inarritu’s new film "Biutiful"continues and deepens the filmmaker’s thematic interest in the struggles of communication. Starring Javier Bardem in an Oscar nominated performance, "Biutiful" tells the story of Uxbal, a Barcelonian urbanite who manages to keep his family financially afloat through his various illicit dealings which includes the sale of pirated goods. His wife Marambra (Maricel Alvarez) is bipolar and what is left of their relationship is strained at best; he has a far better relationship with his children Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and Mateo (Guillermo Estrella). Uxbal’s brother Tito (Eduard Fernandez) is no saint himself, and is yet another adult with whom Uxbal has a troubled and troubling relationship. Uxbal has a gift, though: he can communicate with the recently departed, the dead whose souls have remained for the time being, and relay messages to their loved ones.

All of the above events and relationships are informed by something that only Uxbal himself and the audience know: Uxbal has terminal cancer, and it is only a matter of time before he dies. It is this thought, this imminent threat of not being there to provide for his children, that informs much of his choices and behaviour, as misguided as some of it might be.

For the first time, Inarritu has made a film that focuses almost exclusively on a single protagonist. Unlike his previous efforts, "Biutiful" unfolds in a linear, chronological manner. While this film might be narratively more accessible since we are aligned with the single main character from the start of the film, "Biutiful" remains challenging in its subject matter: we are, after all, asked to follow a dying man on his last rounds. Although "21 Grams" dealt with death and communication in Inarritu’s typical disjointed, fragmented narrative manner and "Babel" explored the impact of (the possibility of) death on various characters, those films were more forgiving than "Biutiful".

For all its exemplary acting and craftsmanship, this film is a singularly draining experience set in a Spanish underbelly where ostensibly good intentions pave the road to hell, and where the exploitation of others –living and dead – form part of daily life. Corrupt policeman, immigrants, sweat shops, poverty: this is Uxbal’s world, and the film’s representation of this world is rings with authenticity. This environment creates men like Uxbal (about whose personal history the film tells us very little) as much as men like Uxbal maintain that environment. Surely the title of the film plays ironically on the content of the film as well as the manner of presentation, as the film is shot in a gritty manner that often forces us into the character’s personal space through close-ups and medium close-ups. (Admittedly, one scene endows the title with a more sentimental meaning for Uxbal.) Inarritu thus forgoes his usual film structure, often referred to as the hypertext film because of how different characters, themes and scenes link up almost unexpectedly, for more traditional storytelling.

At almost two and a half hours, the result is a relentless journey into personal, familial and societal disintegration. Uxbal’s world is physically cluttered and confined, and the film frame is often crammed with objects and people. One scene can be said to offer a very brief visual respite as a flock of birds fly into the frame while Uxbal is on the phone, walking and talking as he makes his way through the city, and he stares after them. Their freedom, etched against an open sky instead of imposing and intrusive grey architecture, serves to underscore the character’s condition, how little agency he has in the life that has shaped him, and how bound he is to the city that will bury him.

Of nerds, ghosts, aliens, Vikings and devils

Another round of capsule reviews; I’m off to a conference soon, and hopefully August will provide an opportunity to return to Hogwarts for the last time. For the record, I’m all superheroed out – I blame it on “Chinatown”. I’m not seeing “Green Lantern”, “Captain America”, etc – I hope I can manage some excitement for “The Avengers” next year. (More on my ‘disinterest’ in a forthcoming post.) 

For now, let us talk about technology and magic. 

Image: www.old-computers.com 

David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is, for most of its running time, testament to the filmmaker's ability as master visualist. I’ve followed Fincher with great interest through his masterful “Seven”, his commercial efforts such as “Panic Room” and the impressive, intelligent anti-serial killer serial killer movie “Zodiac”. Now that the hype has died down and the Oscars are all but a distant memory, “The Social Network” is a nearly brilliant film that’s not quite on par with Fincher’s best efforts. In telling the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (a chilling Jesse Eisenberg), Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin make for a mostly riveting narrative that constantly plays friends and enemies off of one another. The film’s opening scene – a date gone wrong – is the key to the whole film, and ignites the film with such energy that the slowed down third act disappoints, especially given the over explanatory ending. Kudos to Reznor and Ross for an immersive ambient soundtrack.

Image: www.absoluteanime.com 

Kim Ji-woon’s “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003), an atmospheric ghost story, is my least favourite of his films due to its predictability and unnecessarily delayed ending. That said, it’s still a good supernatural thriller where Su-mi (Su-jeong Lim) and her sister Si-yeon (Geun-Young Moon) return to the dark home their father shares with their  stepmother. All the characters seem slightly skewed from the get go, and the house itself, where most of the action is set, is scarily underlit. Unlike in the indulgent “I Saw the Devil”, Ji-woon makes good use of silence and a slow pace to ratchet up the tension. (The was recently remade as the American “The Uninvited”, unseen by me.) 

Park Chan-wook’s “Joint Security Area” (2000) starts off like a typical military thriller – remember “Basic”? “The General’s Daughter”? – when a bloody crime is committed in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea. The usual outsider figure, here a female investigator, Sophie Jean (Yeong-ae Lee), is commissioned to investigate why Sgt. Su-Hyeok (Byung-hun Lee) killed four men. The film introduces an unexpected humanity in its second and third acts, and by the end the film has shifted from taut thriller (despite some terrible accents as some European actors attempt English) to a surprisingly moving drama. Fans looking for an earlier version of “Oldboy” will be sorely disappointed. 

Image: www.scifiscoop.com 

Jim Caviezel stars as a humanoid alien in Howard McCain’s culty SF-adventure “Outlander” (2008). Kainan (Caviezel) crashes his spacecraft in a lake close to a Viking village. Yes, a Viking village. At first the natives do not trust him and believe him to be a spy for their tribal opposition, but slowly Kainan wins over their ruler (John Hurt in the Pained Elder Anthony Hopkins role) and his feisty daughter Freya (Sophia Myles). Kainan knows that there is a greater threat to Viking existence than tribal differences: there is another alien, the monstrous non-humanoid Moorwen, who thrives on the flesh of the living and the dead. I could not resist “Outlander’s” charms – aliens and Vikings in the same movie! – but the film is ponderous and utterly formulaic. A DVD blurb calls it “Braveheart meets Predator”; the film pales in comparison to both those movies, though it’s much better than “Aliens vs Predator”. While the Viking setup looks convincing enough, the special effects, especially those constructing the Moorwen, are rather terrible. Most of the time it looks like the Vikings are up against a giant lizard that swallowed a whole lot of fireflies. At least there’s a drinking game: every time a character in “Outlander” refers to Kainan as “Outlander!”, take a shot. If the word is exclaimed particularly loudly, take two shots. 

Image: www.cinema-suicide.com 

Finally, Michael J. Bassett’s “Solomon Kane” (2009) stars James Purefoy (the randy Mark Anthony in HBO’s “Rome”) as an English soldier in the 1600s. Kane is responsible for some great victories in the name of his country, but these victories come at a price: Kane, you see, is a cold blooded, brutally violent killer, and he soon finds his soul damned to hell. After coming face to face with a representative of the devil, Kane valiantly tries to redeem himself and save his soul. When a great evil sweeps through England, Kane finds that you sometimes need evil to fight evil, and a return to his old ways is on the cards. Purefoy makes for an entertaining hero, while Bassett (adapting from Robert E. Howard’s source material) directs with an appropriate sense of scale and spectacle as befits the material. I haven’t had this much fun with dubious material since, well, the original “Conan” movies. The story is predictable but the cast pulls it off with such conviction, and the film is so clearly made with reverence for its protagonist and his supernatural-infused world, that I was spellbound for nearly two hours. There’s some solid character work from the late Pete Postlewaithe, and the villain is someone worth fearing. Note that the film’s particular religious inflection may offend some viewers.

Hunter prey

I’ve written about the polished films of Kim Ji-Woon before, and here is possibly his most beautifully shot film yet, the unsettling and gratuitously violent “I Saw the Devil”. It’s one of the best-looking serial killers movies I’ve ever seen, and is aesthetically comparable to both “Seven” and “Zodiac” (both by David Fincher). 

“I Saw the Devil” is not about the hunt, but about the catch and what happens to the prey once caught. Choi Min-sik (“Oldboy”) is Kyung-chul, a sick man with a face that too easily looks kind and caring. One snowy night, he murders a young woman who was stranded by the roadside due to a flat tyre. It turns out that the woman’s fiancée, Kim (Lee Byung-hun), is a policeman. Devastated but coldly focused, Kim puts in two weeks of leave to catch Kyung-chul. As Kim assumes the role of predator as he tracks down Kyung-chul, it is evident that Kim is as much a madman, in his own way, as his nemesis. “Evil”, the movie’s tagline tells us, “lives inside”. It doesn’t take long for Kyung-chul to be caught, and that’s when the film really steps up the gore and depravity (if not the tension). 

“I Saw the Devil” is torture porn. That it looks like a world-class sophisticated thriller does not change the fact that it’s torture porn. At the same time, the film is disappointingly conventional while requiring quite a lot of suspension of disbelief – will a police force wait by the side as one of their own illegitimately hunts down and toys with a stone cold psychopath? And while I can accept that the first victim’s fiancée turns out to be in law enforcement, I cannot buy into him being a near superhuman wall climbing martial arts expert badass. Consequently, “I Saw the Devil” remains rooted in the movie world, and does it not feel as if its terror seeps into the world outside of the movie. This is where Fincher is a master thriller director and easily outclasses Kim. What “Zodiac” also got right is in showing the banality of evil, how tedious it can be, while “Devil” makes evil cinematically horrifying and appealing. 

At almost two and a half hours, “I Saw the Devil” is palpably long but Kim always keeps things (disturbingly) visually interesting and sometimes unnecessarily graphic and misogynistic. Towards the end things get really heated and horrifying as the two madmen attempt to one-up each other, leading up to a disturbing ending with a stunning final shot. All in all, “I Saw the Devil” does its best to be more violent/graphic/shocking than similar genre movies, and in the process shoots itself in the foot. (For a superior, subtle South Korean serial killer movie, see "Memories of Murder".)

Seconds

Much like director Duncan Jones’s debut “Moon” (2009), his second film “Source Code” is, for better and for worse, a rather low budget and old-fashioned science-fiction story. In the opening scenes of “Source Code”, Colter (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a train en route to Chicago. Across from him sits a complete stranger, Christina (Michelle Monaghan), who calls him Steven and speaks to him as if they’ve known each other for some time. Colter tries to make sense of it all; he is a soldier and supposed to be in Afghanistan, so what is he doing on the train? 

Someone spills a drink on his shoes. The conductor punches his card. Minutes later, there’s a powerful explosion and the train goes up in flames. Everyone dies, but Colter wakes up in a crude-looking pod of some kind. There’s a video screen, which is how Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) communicates with him and tells him that it is his mission to find out who blew up the train and why. Colter has to keep going back to the event, into the “source code”, until he finds the answers. One of the characters, Dr Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), refers to what Colter’s doing as time re-assignment, not time travel. I’m not sure what the difference is, especially considering how the movie ends. For that matter, the ending goes much too far in what it’s trying to accomplish. 

In its rather short running time, the movie addresses a lot: fate and predestination; life purpose; sacrifice. In helping these themes to manifest, Gyllenhaal is solid and Farmiga is sublime – note how striking she appears the first time we see Goodwin on the video screen. Monaghan has a bit of a thankless part, trying to convince us that a man might be convinced to fall in love with her based on very little. You know that when someone starts alluding to “finding themselves” there may not be much of a future for the two of you. Monaghan looks adorable, I suppose, and she does what she can. 

With its brevity, fast pace and compelling story that altogether constitute considerable entertainment value, the film is never more than popcorn entertainment, and it’s not the type of film you return to for repeat viewings. A major problem is the one-dimensional villain. The movie goes to such trouble to almost explain everything that happens I had to wonder why there was no meat to the villain. And would the film have really been poorer without the obligatory romantic subplot?

A Spanish ghost, one Korean badass and a 1950s psycho

I was properly dissatisfied to discover that during last week's outage, Blogger had lost three painstakingly prepared movie reviews. Since I cannot afford the time to rewrite all three reviews, I've decided on short 'capsules' on each: "The Orphanage", "A Bittersweet Life" and "The Killer Inside Me".

Nobody put baby in the corridor.

"The Orphanage" is a ghost story for those who claim that they don't make ghost stories like they used to. Married couple Laura (Belen Rueda) and Carlos (Fernando Cayo) purchase an old mansion to eventually make it into a place of care and attention for special needs children. The couple’s young son, Simon (Roger Princep), soon starts talking about friends that only he can see. Before long, tragedy strikes, and Laura realises that certain things are beyond what she knows and accepts as real. The past is never dead. “The Orphanage” is one of the most richly atmospheric scary films I’ve seen in a long time. Directed by JA Bayona and produced by genre aficionado Guillermo del Toro, this supernatural thriller is exquisitely shot, with a sense of foreboding so strong than when the horrific payoff comes, it’s a climax well earned. It’s the best film of its kind since “The Devil’s Backbone” (which is actually less scary than this film) and the claustrophobic “The Others” (made by another Spanish filmmaker, Alejandro Amenabar). Watch out for an incredibly well constructed séance scene featuring Geraldine Chaplin.

La Dolce Vita

Kim Sun-woo works for a hotel magnate. The boss orders him to look after his mistress while he's away on business, and adds that should something go wrong - as in, should she cheat on the hotel magnate - Kim should kill her. When push indeed comes to shove, Kim realises that he is not an emotionless killing machine (could've fooled me), fails to follow through on the order, and finds himself in deep trouble. Kim Ji-woon, he of the magnificent gunplay of "The Good, the Bad and the Weird", made waves at Cannes in 2005 with "A Bittersweet Life", which has since become quite the cult favourite. This film is a stylish mix of gangster tropes and a full-on vengeance narrative, where the issue is not so much "Why is a character doing this?" but "Really, how much does it take to kill someone?" The hero of the film, Kim Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun), is a simple man, and far from immortal; he takes a lot of damage throughout the course of the film. He is a man of simple pleasures: a fresh espresso, a bullet through the head. Both provide a particular thrill. In one of my favourite pieces of dialogue from any action movie, a driver asks Kim about the noises he heard coming from an apartment Kim had just come from, and the hero replies: it was "a hole ripping through a person". The film is brutal and violent, but cinematically so, as prescribed by the genre. This isn't anything like the unsettling imagery of "The Killer Inside Me".

The eyes of Lou Ford

Few directors can claim as diverse a resume as British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, whose “Welcome to Sarajevo” helped inform my political consciousness in the mid 1990s, and whose hilarious “A Cock and Bull Story” is a favourite comedy from the 2000s. Now he goes semi-noir with the controversial “The Killer Inside Me”, a tale of a psychopathic deputy sheriff in the 1950s, Lou Ford (Casey Affleck). Ford is assigned to chase away a prostitute (Jessica Alba) who services clients at the edge of the town. One anticipates that the two of them will develop some sort of relationship, but one cannot foresee the violence that erupts from the situation. There are only two scenes of violence in the film, but they are the most unsettling of their kind I’ve seen in a long time, forcing the viewer to distinguish between violence and action. (Stephane Zacharek from Salon wrote a strong but not entirely convincing essay on the film and its “conscienceless camera”). Based on the novel by Jim Thompson, this glimpse into psychopathy is not for everyone.