vWv124's Tiny Beam of Light

Shining a tiny beam of light on some great films you might not know existed (and the odd blockbuster too).

October 24, 2008 • 2:49 pm 0

Movies – I Love ‘em

Hi all

I’m fortunate enough to get to see all sorts of films, big and small – sometimes before they’re released, sometimes not (if they’re released at all) – so I thought I’d put my thoughts on some of the smaller independent films into the wider world if I liked them. And occasionally I’ll pop in the odd big movie too.

If I don’t like a film, then I’m probably not going to mention it at all.

Unless I’m really annoyed.

vWv124

PS. I’m never going to go into plot details on any film, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers.

Filed under: cinema, entertainment, film, movies , , , ,

December 17, 2009 • 12:35 pm 1

Avatar 3D dir: James Cameron (2009)

I’m going to be brief as this film will be everywhere.

My expectations were very high for this movie – it is after all from the man who has made some of my all time top films, Terminator 2, The Abyss, Aliens. In fact, in my opinion he hasn’t made a bad movie, and yes I did like Titanic. I went to a James Cameron interview about 6 years ago and he was talking about Avator then, apparently he mentioned it to Sigourney Weaver when they were doing Aliens – so he’s been gestating this baby for a long time. So what can I say?

Pretty bloody awesome. The film is often beautiful to watch, and thankfully avoids the usual Hollywood trip up; mixing astonishing visual fx and characters. The Na’vi are 100% believable and Pandora, the world that they inhabit, is astonishingly created.

A couple of things annoyed. I wasn’t bowled over by the 3D, I’m astigmatic so often the image was partly out of focus for me. Sam Worthington’s voice over, urgh, and James Cameron’s occasional squirm inducing dialogue. Pay a writer to tweak your dialogue James goddamnit!

However, I’d be more than delighted to see this again in 2D in a couple of weeks. James Cameron has raised the bar for blockbuster extravaganza to a new level once more. And the film is partly financed by the Brits. Hurrah!

Filed under: action, fantasy, film, sci-fi, war , , , ,

November 26, 2009 • 12:03 pm 0

Carriers (2009) dir: Àlex & David Pastor

I have to admit that I have a bit of a penchant towards end of the world type movies – and there have been some particularly good ones over the last few years such as ‘Right at your door’ (2006). I tend to prefer those based in reality rather than say zombie flix, maybe because part of me is secretly going ‘what would I do if it was me in this position? Perhaps I can learn something here for when civilization does collapse and maybe survive!’

There was definitely some of this going on as I was watching ‘Carriers’. It opens with 4 friends mucking about on a road trip in a stolen car. Within moments we discover that they are survivors of a viral pandemic that has wiped out almost everybody. They live by a certain set of rules, one of which is that if someone is infected you leave them because they are as good as dead. Of course it all goes horribly wrong. If it’s you who gets infected – screw the rules! But I felt that it was all played out pretty truthfully, any person they came across was terrified of these four characters and vice versa. Who is infected and who is not? You can’t immediately tell and so fear leads to ‘ordinary’ people killing each other – dwindling the tiny human population further. The whole story was convincingly and economically told by writer/directors Àlex and David Pastor with good performances all round (I thought Christopher Meloni whom I hadn’t seen before was particularly good – he reminded me of Mark Strong).

Even with a pre James Tiberius Kirk Chris Pine the film criminally only took about $100K in the US and disappeared without a trace. Track it down!

Filed under: film, horror, sci-fi, thriller , , , , ,

November 25, 2009 • 12:39 pm 0

Heartless (2009) dir: Philip Ridley

I had no preconceived expectations for this film whatsoever as I had no idea who Philip Ridley was so I sat down to watch with interest.  (Turns out he wrote ‘The Krays’, is a playwright and lyricist and is a very nice man who is passionate about film making.)

A Faustian story of Jamie (played by Jim Sturgess in a pretty committed performance), a young man with a heart shaped birth mark covering part of his face and upper body, who shuns direct contact with people but sees lizard type daemons dressed as hoodies on the streets of East London. These daemons go around viciously killing people.

Watching it I felt myself torn in different directions because the film is both pretty conventional and kind of obvious where it’s going to any horror fan, and yet unconventional at the same time with it’s setting and style. So watching it, I could feel myself going “this is not too good”, then something would happen and then I’d go “actually this is really good after all”, then something else would happen and it would be “oh man that’s annoying – you should watch more horror films mate” then boom “that’s pretty clever, I’m hooked!”.

Afterwards, I realised that I had missed some of the subtle details in the overall design and look of the film but other story elements were a bit obvious and I personally would have preferred the film to have ended differently – but that’s just me.  But you know what?  I really liked it! And it was great to see part of East London (Shoreditch to Bethnal Green) which I’m pretty familiar with. I even noticed that one particularly seedy looking location (where Jamie hooks up with a rent boy) is the exact spot where I often park (not to pick up rent boys I hasten to add but to go to one of the many great Vietnamese restaurants round the corner). Anyway, I digress.

Interesting supporting cast includes Luke Treadaway, Noel Clarke, Timothy Spall and the lovely Clémence Poésy. The always brilliant Eddie Marsan almost steals the movie as ‘Weapons Man’ (and is worth the price of admission alone) and Joseph Mawle is pretty creepy as ‘Papa B’.

I think it’s going to split an audience’s reaction (which is not necessarily a bad thing) – but it’s definitely worth checking out.

Filed under: film, horror , , , , , , , ,

November 10, 2009 • 10:34 pm 0

Harry Brown (2009) dir: Daniel Barber

Almost unbelievable that Sir Michael Caine is still a movie star at the age of 76, and it’s great to see him continue to put his star power behind smallish British films such as ‘Is Anyone There?’ (2008) (which I also liked) and now ‘Harry Brown’ – the debut feature film from director Daniel Barber (who was nominated for an Oscar for a short – which I’ll have to check out).

Michael Caine is Harry Brown, a man who lives alone on a London council estate where youth gangs intimidate and kill without fear of any consequences for their actions, but a sequence of events pushes Harry into obtaining a gun…

There is pretty much one word that describes this film: grim. But it’s a grim good movie and Michael Caine shines in the role, and unlike some Hollywood treatments of vigilantism, the whole thing is horribly believable. Harry doesn’t have super fighting prowess – he’s an old man who can barely run down the street. The story is simply and effectively told and the whole cast is uniformly good, especially Ben Drew as the gang leader, and it’s always great to see Iain Glen on the screen. For those Americans out there used to the Hugh Grant/Notting Hill style of London, this will be a bit of a shock.

Filed under: action, drama, film , , , , ,

 

February 2010
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Looking forward to:

Tiny Film: Unstoppable
Medium Film: Centurion
Ginormous: Kick Ass

On my playlist:

The Winds of War
24 - Day 7
Heroes - Season 4
Cool Hand Luke

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