jason-210 Reviews

Tomb Raider (2018)

Fun Adventure Film with great characters.

[8/10 · 30 March 2020]

My family and I watch films every weekend and we have been very selective over the years, watching only the best. We don't watch rubbish. However, we've watched that many that it's hard to find new ones that are good. So we gave this a try. I was a bit sceptical beforehand, but after 15 minutes we were all enjoying this movie. My son loved it.

What I enjoyed the most was the new take on Lara Croft. Right from the start I liked the new character as portrayed by Alicia Vikander and the fact that she's not some Marvel super hero who wins every battle. I liked the acting and how Vikander transformed the role into a convincing person we can relate to instead of a comic book character with big boobs. She is vulnerable. We see her lose a fight in the ring at the start, then fall off her bike because she got distracted, and nearly get knifed by her robbers in Hong Kong.

I like the fact that the film starts with a London setting and has British actors like Derek Jacobi in it.

It's been criticised for having a poor story that starts off promisingly but fails to deliver. The story is a cliché and perhaps it does border on the mediocre, but it was good enough vehicle for Alicia Vikander's new character. It's not a great film, but neither, in my opinion, was Raiders of the Lost Ark or any of the other Indian Jones films which belong to this same genre.

We're looking forward to the sequel which I hope will be successful. Also, I bought the game for my son who, after watching it, the movie, wanted more! Now he's happily into that.

The War of the Worlds (2019)

H.G. Wells meets Virginia Woolf and the result is a mess.

[6/10 · 8 December 2019]

Virginia Woolf once criticised H.G.Well's work as being materialistic. It appears that in this mini-series, the BBC decided to try to update Well's work with her thoughts in mind.

Set close to the date of the original novel, and featuring a handful of good actors and all the latest CGI tech, this should have been a classic. Unfortunately, the BBC just couldn't manage to stay true either to Edwardian era or novel. Instead of an authentic Edwardian setting, we have a world that looks poorly researched and unconvincing. The sets get the basics right, but somehow they looked contrived and miss authentic details. This is especially noticeable in the external scenes showing the destruction, where the rubble and fires seem to have been carefully placed in discreet little mounds.

The British government seems to comprise of just three men: the protagonist's brother, a deputy prime minister and a Lord Kitchener lookalike. The characters representing the elite of society are presented either as ridiculous caricatures in what seems like a parody of the Edwardian era, or have been "updated" to make them politically correct by and accessible to a modern audience, including the obligatory feminist. It reminded me of the 1960s classic "The Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" but without the charm or humour. In fact, the only character I was rooting for about was Frederick (played by Rupert Graves) as he was the only character that showed signs of development. It's pity he was eaten in the second episode.

The BBC changed many details from the original story, which is OK, but then they went and padded it out with those long "flash-forwards" to show a gloomy surreal aftermath of the invasion, which for me ruined the experience of watching the events unfold because we know what is coming. At first these flash-forwards are merely annoying and unwanted interruptions to the alien invasion, but as the series plods on, they take over in frequency and length until the flash-forwards become the present and the events of the invasion become the flash-backs. Then we have to suffer the immensely dull and implausible epilogue where Amy and Ogilvy, in their surreal, red world, save humanity in between philosophising about what is important in life. Thankfully Robert Carlyle's work eases our pain, but even he can't rescue this mess. The overall result is a implausible, unconvincing adaptation of the novel. I mean the idea that the aliens have to eat humans to get infected, and that two people save the planet by spraying the red-weed with a typhoid-infected-rotten-flesh-solution, while arguing it out with a self-appointed anti-Darwinian religious leader, is all rather silly and misses the point of Well's original ending.

It's just too dull and too badly done to enjoy without cringing, and I often found myself checking to see how long was left before the end. What a wasted opportunity. H.G. Wells would not have approved.

Shackleton's Captain (2012 TV Movie)

Outstanding Docudrama!

[10/10 · 10 November 2018]

An outstanding docudrama which tells the true story of the Shackleton adventure from the perspective of Captain Worsley, the captain of Shackleton's ship "Endurance". The film gives us an accurate, rather than a popular sensationalist account, of the adventure in which Shackleton is revealed to be not as big a hero as he has been made out to be. Here we learn through a gripping portrayal of how the survival of the stranded adventurers depended on the skill and judgement of Captain Worsley, rather than Shackleton; and that Shackleton himself showed poor judgement in undertaking the expedition in the first place, given the pack-ice conditions. The filming combines contemporary footage and dramatised reconstructions with interviews of writers, mountaineers and other experts in the field. The narration is achieved through a dramatised portrayal of Captain Worsley giving a lecture to a small audience at a club in the 1920s, in the calm manner of an English gentleman. The information presented is accurate and great attention is given to the visual details using CGI in a subtle but highly effective way. The casting is spot on and the acting is excellent.

The Crooked Man (2016 TV Movie)

Average Horror Flick with a Visually Impressive Villain

[6/10 · 31 October 2018]

Average horror flick that is passable for a TV movie. Its one redeeming feature is the unusual special effects applied to the villain. OK as a B movie, or as the first in a horror flick line-up night on Halloween.

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Dramatised account of the Trinity project

[7/10 · 18 January 2018]

If you know the history of this project then you'll probably find it a little disappointing because parts of it are fictionalised and heavily dramatised. For example. protagonist Michael Merriman is a fictional character, and the accident he suffers never happened during the project, although that accident did occur in 1946 to a guy called Louis Slotin. Also, killing off this character at that point in the movie left me feeling somewhat cheated.

While I enjoyed Paul Newman's role, I think he was miscast as General Groves, and Dwight Schultz was far too good looking for Oppenheimer, who in real life was thin and wirey and of somewhat unearthly looks.

However, these criticisms don't spoil what is a good movie. My only real disappointment was the poorly simulated detonation at the end. In reality, the detonation began with an immediate silent, blinding blue-white flash, with the sound and blast wave arriving at the bunkers several seconds later. However, in the film, the flash is yellow and the sound is heard straight away.

If you want an insight into what the project and those involved in it were really like, then I suggest you watch the documentary like "The Day After Trinity" and listen to Richard Feynman's amazing talk "Los Alamos from Below".

Passengers (I) (2016)

An good sci-fi flick with some excellent special effects.

[6/10 · 7 March 2017]

Note that this contains spoilers. If you haven't watched the film, I suggest you do before reading this.

The first hour or so of this film was fantastic. Just taking in the spacecraft with all its amazingly conceived features, was reminiscent of the first part of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also struck me as being a realistic version of the type of spacecraft in Wall-E (think of the little cleaner droids, buzzing around, fixing things and cleaning the mess the characters make!) The premise of being alone on a vast, automated, self-repairing craft that is aware of your presence and provides all the conveniences you require, was an interesting concept. The technology and physics seemed plausible, cool, and realistic; and the special effects were restrained and effective. The robot bartender was fascinating, and provided some welcome entertainment.

For the first hour the story seemed meaningful and thought-provoking, but after that it began to fall apart. A major aspect of the plot during the first half of the movie was being unable to get to the crews' quarters to wake them up, and the hopelessness of the situation because of this.

Then, as if by magic, one of the crew wakes up, says there's something wrong with the ship, wanders around a bit, then dies. From then on it seemed to me like the script had been taken over by a different person, there to ensure the film served the public the usual smattering of sensationalist action scenes at expense of both the plot and plausibility of science. There is a brief promise of mystery as the trio realised there was something wrong with the ship and tried to figure out what it was, but this quickly evaporates as the problem turns out to be nothing more than a faulty nuclear reactor that is heading for self-destruction.

The obvious thing to have done here would have been to wake more of the crew, now that they had access, to see what could be done. However, we are told there is not time for that, so the protagonist miraculously fixes the nuclear reactor all by himself. What a genius! This involved finding and hot-swapping a replacement circuit board, getting blasted into space, being spectacularly rescued by his female companion, dying, and finally brought back to life by having about a dozen or so different resuscitation techniques applied to him at once by a machine! Yeah. Face palm.

Curse of the Demon (1957)

Great story, great atmosphere, suspenseful: ruined by the monster.

[6/10 · 28 August 2016]

I realise this film has its fans and they will downvote this review.

It's not that the monster effects are bad. Well, they are, but this is not what ruins the film. What ruins it is the fact that the monster is fully revealed within the first 5 or 6 minutes. The smoke effects were scary enough - we didn't need to see more. By revealing a cross-eyed rubber giant right at the beginning, the film lost much of its power to engage and frighten. They could have saved this disappointment for the end, after we had had the chance to enjoy the films many merits. I guess the producer wanted to see all his money on the screen from the start. Had they chosen not to show the demon at all, this film might have been a masterpiece.

As horror writer H.P. Lovecraft once said: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown". Having something unknown, undefined and not entirely visible after us is far more unsettling than something we can see and define.

Even the author of the original story upon which this film is based, M.R. James, never described the demon, but rather left it to our imagination, with only hint here or there as to its appearance. James, the master of the Ghost Story, wrote all his stories like that. In his essay on writing fiction, James said "...our ghost should make himself felt by gradual stirrings diffusing an atmosphere of uneasiness before the final flash or stab of horror." All of James's stories follow this rule, so it's somewhat disappointing to see this fundamental rule broken in this adaptation of one of his classics.

The Finest Hours (2016)

Entertaining, Inspiring and Gripping.

[7/10 · 17 April 2016]

The movie does an good job of portraying a convincing 1950s, innocent ocean town and its people. The casting and acting is strong, and the story, once it gets going, is quite gripping. The special effects of the storm, and waves, the wreck and rescue are handled well and not over-done.

With a film based on a true story like this, it's easy to overlook its qualities and focus on fact checking instead. Unfortunately the movie does stray from the facts, the main discrepancies being depiction of events on-board the SS Pendleton, such as the attempt to ground it on a shoal and the dramatic argument among the crew. These are fictionalised. When it comes to the actual rescue mission, however, events are followed accurately and there is an extra sense of drama knowing that this part of the move happened in real life in much the same way.

A rare movie that not only entertains but, being based on a true-story, also informs and inspires.

Krakatoa: Volcano of Destruction (2006 TV Movie)

NOT a documentary or docudrama.

[6/10 · 19 February 2016]

Mediocre TV-film that lacked a suspenseful build-up.

To call this a documentary or docudrama is a mistake. Although framed in Verbeek's narrative, the portrayal of actual events is not entirely accurate; while the portrayal of the people involved is heavily fictionised and styled to suit a modern audience. Some of the script and acting was good, but most of it was bad; and far too much emphasis was placed on fictitious drama rather than the actual events. The film could have been saved by special effects, but even these seemed dated lacking the quality CGI standard we now expect. Also there was a lack of attention to detail. For example, Captain Lindemans's ship the SS Governor General Loudon was built in 1875, yet the ship portrayed in the film is clearly a product of the 1895 - 1910 period.

There were one or two nice touches, such as the audio being replaced by a ringing noise to convey the temporary loss of hearing due to the loud explosion, and the scenes aboard Loudon prior to the Tsunami, but in retrospect I would say that I watched this film to the end more out of curiosity about how it was made, rather than because I found it enjoyable. I have to say that it was a wasted opportunity.

King Kong (2005)

Nostalgic Adventure Romp that pays homage to cinema of 1930s

[8/10 · 30 November 2013]

Far too many reviews here dismissing this film with 1 or 2 stars.

For me the film was a success because it managed to evoke perfectly a time in cinema history when geographical adventure in exotic lands was a much loved and exciting genre. This was the era of popular adventure pulp fiction when the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sax Rohmer were put on the silver screen and provided audiences with perfect escapism from the depression and high unemployment of the 1930s. I believe that this theme is emphasized in the first twenty minutes when we are shown the effects of the depression on New York and the role cinema and theatre played in that.

The CGI effects of those opening scenes are the best in movie for me, because they were not so obvious. We are used to seeing top notch special effects when it comes to monsters and dinosaurs, but the recreation of Brooklyn in 1930s, complete with hundreds of automobiles was a refreshing and delightful scene. And what better way to begin an adventure than on an old tramp steamer with a shady captain (perfectly cast) and crew? And what a cosy-scary situation to be in, when grounded in fog on the shores of a mysterious island! For me Kong himself was almost incidental in this exciting Haggard-style adventure!

The roles were all perfectly cast and the humour was enjoyable and not overdone.

This is one of the few movies I can watch periodically with great enjoyment, especially the first hour. I wouldn't know how to rate it objectively but for me this is certainly an 8 out of 10!

The Last Signals (2012)

Accurate & disturbing vision of the Titanic disaster.

[8/10 · 13 March 2013]

I found this to be a very interesting and disturbing portrayal of the sinking of Titanic told through the eyes its Junior Wireless operator, Harold Bride, who survived the event.

For me, part of the reason why it worked was because of the close attention paid to accurate historical events and technical details, as well as the competent acting by Jake Swing and Thomas Lynskey.

Because it's told through the eyes of one person, and because most of the scenes are confined to a single room, the film for me had an existential quality. The two wireless operators lived their interwoven lives in the this small, almost surrealistic environment, whose only communication with the outside world was through the electrical buzz of primitive wireless equipment, or through little paper slips sent back forth and in capsules through pneumatic tubes. Only very occasionally would the door to the outside world open and an officer pop his head inside. I couldn't help thinking of Jean Paul Satre's "No Exit" during these scenes, or at times the 1976 version of the BBC's "The Signalman".

As one might expect with a low budget, independent film, the special effects were limited, but mostly tastefully handled with restraint, and always depicted through the eyes of Harold Bride.

Vajont - La diga del disonore (2001)

A good portrayal weakend by poor special effects at the end.

[7/10 · 27 October 2012]

I admire films that dare to deal with specialised subjects like this. On the whole I think the film's portrayal of the lives of those involved in the Vajont disaster -- and of the events leading up to it -- was good. However, there are quite a few technical inaccuracies and some of the characters are partially fictionalised.

The film twists the facts a bit to follow a more stereotypical disaster movie plot & build up the tension, portraying the engineers as worried and afraid when in fact they were calm and confident that they were in control of the situation right until the end. The film makes a drama about the water level, and that the water level was slightly over the critical 700m mark when the landslide took place, suggesting this was the cause of the disaster. In reality the engineers had already taken the water down to SADE's critical level - 25m blow the dam crest. However, the problem was that the "critical" level simply didn't apply - the flood was caused by the speed of the landslide when if finally happened, which no-one had predicted correctly.

The special effects are best when they are subtle - for example in visualisations of the dam and the village of Longerone during the first ninety minutes or so of the movie. However, in the finale, they failed to convey a sense of the awesome power this flood really had. We are talking about a 150m high wave of solid water coming over the top of the dam, then being funnelled down the narrow gorge beyond at 140 km/h. In the film it initially looked like buckets of water being thrown at a model in slow motion. The spray particles were too large, and there was no dark mass of water behind the spray. The only time it looked frightening was when we were given a glimpse of the wave racing down the narrow gorge, preceded by an enormous, howling rush of air tearing the valley sides apart and carrying debris along with it. This air blast was also depicted arriving in the village below, like a sudden hurricane falling upon the bewildered villagers. Another nice touch was the blue flashes seen by the villages up in the valley at night, at the moment of the landslide, caused by the collapse of power lines. This was a frightening premonition of the destruction that followed.

Black Swan (2010)

Over-rated but OK.

[6/10 · 9 September 2012]

Knowing almost nothing about ballet, I watched this film after hearing good things about it. I thought it was going to be based on the tragic life of some Prima Donna. It turned out to be more of a shock horror movie rather than a study of disturbed psychology and was unrealistic and sensationised.

It isn't a bad film, but I certainly isn't worth the 10/10s I keep seeing on IMDb.com. It reminded me a bit of Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (only without the hilarity) probably because of the abundance of hallucinatory visual effects which were very well done; but also because both films were so highly over-rated! There was very little way of development in the film. The main character, Nina, starts off as being deranged and gets even more deranged then dies. The performances, however, were strong and I particularly enjoyed Portman, especially in the dance of the black swan, with the wings growing on her, and of course the music, though there was surprisingly little dancing.

May be I had the wrong expectations, but whatever one's expectations this film is not more than a 6/10.

Omnibus: Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) Season 1, Episode 17

An excellent adaptation of one of the greatest ghost stories of English Literature

[10/10 · 10 August 2011]

I would say that this is the best screen adaption of M.R. James's best ghost story. It follows the original story tastefully avoiding the temptation to update the plot by sensationalising it or overdoing the supernatural events that take place. Nor does it suffer from the BBC dramatization syndrome of the 60s and 70s that they are essentially set-bound.

Miller's adaptation is filmed on location and is refreshingly cinematic in appeal. Instead of trying to follow the story's dialogue word for word, it focuses instead on conveying the mood of the story. There is no music added to accompany the drama. Silence permeates the film, heightened by the sparse dialogue and attention to sounds such as the clinking of cutlery and chairs being moved. Amidst this we hear the rambling thoughts and mutterings of the main character - Professor Parkins played by Michael Horden. All of this conspires to convey the existential loneliness of Parkins somehow trapped in a world of the infinite and undefinable symbolised by the beautiful black and white photography of a remote region of the Norfolk coast. Hordern does an excellent job of bringing the fidgety, crusty college professor character to life, and is a sheer delight to watch as he mumbles and reflects his way through the long scenes, often alone.

One of the reasons the adaptation works so well is because the original story was very visual, often describing the images appearing in the imagination of the professor. Miller has recreated these visuals exactly as I had imagined them when I first read the story as a boy. But the main reason this is so good is because all the right ingredients are there. A great story, good cast, and good direction.

No fancy special effects needed.

A Tale of Two Cities (1980 TV Movie)

A good interpretation of the Dickens classic.

[6/10 · 24 June 2011]

A reasonably good interpretation of the Dickens classic, which sticks to the book quite well.

Some of the acting was excellent, in particular Chris Sarandon who was perfectly cast as Sydney Carton / Charles Darnay. His portrayal of the complex Carton in particular was very clever and convincing. Cushing also was well cast as Manette and played it perfectly, while Kenneth Moore delivered his role competently was one would expect.

Unfortunately the film is marred by poor, low budget 1970s television production and art direction values. It is mostly unconvincing in its portrayal of the revolution, especially the action scenes. One of the problems with early television adaptations, especially those by the BBC from the 1960s and 70s, is that they think "dramatising" means simply adding pictures to text. They assumed that if you were faithful to the events and dialog, and dressed people up in period costume, then you've done a good job. The storming of Bastille seems like a routine amateur theatrical depiction, where the extras clearly had a minimum of choreography and direction. There just weren't enough revolutionaries to create a convincing atmosphere of chaos and terror. These problems were further exacerbated by the stereotyping and poorly acted roles of the key revolutionaries Monsieur and Madame Defarge.

The ending has one notable and moving scene - the meeting and very brief love encounter between Carton and Seamstess before the guillotine, again made possible by the Sarandon's excellent portrayal of Carton.

At the time of writing the film is currently available in a boxed set of three DVDs in the "Best British Classics" series in Sweden. The the series is designed for Swedish audiences but the films are in English with the option of subtitles. A quick search on the Internet on Google.se for "Best British Classics" should give you some hits.

Admiral (2008)

Not a love story.

[7/10 · 21 June 2010]

The film was interesting and watchable, but lacked focus regarding the central characters and the love story, which a film like this seems to require.

If one compares it to the similar film Dr Zhivago, David Lean was able to articulate the political events in a convincing and intelligent manner, and at the same time provide us with a moving love story as the central focus of the movie. Cameron's 1997 Titanic succeeded in a similar way.

But the Admiral lacks the narrative structure of Zhivago and Titanic, and seems to jump around haphazzardly between history, patriotism, heroism and love, never giving us a chance to see how the love developed. We are simply not brought close enough to the real lives of the characters, nor are we really presented with believable characters who we can relate to. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that is is based on a true story and they didn't want to invent too much, like Cameron did in Titanic. But then why the stereotyped heroics? In the first battle-scene Admiral Kolchak is a fearless, brazen Russian, completely nonchalant as his ship was bombarded with shells and the bodies of his own crew members were reduced to bloody pulps. He merely thrusts his chin out, and calmly fires the ships small powder gun at the bridge of the attacking vessel, disabling it. This and further heroics is entertaining heroic stuff, but not very plausible or realistic.

The film picks up when the revolution begins, and from then on holds us with suspense and excitement. The historical murders by the Bolshiviks are brought home with grisly detail. Computer graphic effects are used subtly in this film, but to great effect.

Konstantin Khabenskiy, who plays Kolchak, enthralls us, and the final scenes on the Trans-Siberian train to Irkutsk, and his eventual betrayal, are memorable.

Definitely a film worth watching, but it shouldn't be called a love story because the drama is focused on the tragic and brutal events perpetrated by the Bolsheviks, and long, suffering march by kolchak's army. In the end it's the story of a good man, who fought hard and bravely for his country, only to be murdered by his own countryman. Good to see that Russia can make films like this now, and that it is beginning to show a different perspective on the events of the revolution.

Falling from the Sky: Flight 174 (1995 TV Movie)

Smacks of 1970s Disaster movie stuff.

[5/10 · 25 December 2009]

I saw a dramatised 1 hour documentary of this accident on the Canadian Air Crash Invetsigations series "Mayday". The dramatised bits and interviews with passengers did a much better job of entertaining than this movie does, with the added bonus of conveying what really happened.

Instead of focusing on facts this film opts to go for 1970s disaster movie approach with casting, acting, set design, music and the invitable padding out with irrelevant sub-plots. The only thing that is missing is here Charton Heston but I guess he was too old by 1995 to pass as an airline Captain! Much of the dialogue between the crew in this movie is invented and they simply don't cut it as professional airmen. There is too much sighing and emotion, and too little professionalism. Most of the time they don't look like they are sitting a real cockpit, but a large wooden room in a studio.

Many of the events are exaggerated for sensational effect, and some events invented. This would be alright but it's poorly done and it just cheapens the movie. As do the invented dramatisations with passengers and crew.

I supposed it's a watchable film in is own right...I mean, I did watch it!

The Arrival (1996)

Definitelty above average!

[7/10 · 26 January 2009]

If there's one branch of Science Fiction that I find really boring & pointless, then it's the invasion of the body snatchers branch. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have bothered watching this film, BUT... ...I was at a friends house and it was his choice.

The film started off slowly and predictably, but gradually improved; and when the setting changed to South America, things got much better. I was pleasantly surprised. The weirdness of South American superstition was evoked perfectly and the setting served as stirring backdrop for the strange events which followed. Later, the scenes inside the "Power Station" were tense and atmospheric, and conveyed well the horror of an alien encounter.

All in all, an above average body snatcher film and worth seeing, with some nice special effects.

Nuremberg (2000)

A film about Göring's Charm

[8/10 · 26 January 2009]

Whereas Hitler's henchmen are usually dismissed as a bunch of degenerate psychopaths, this film brought us closer to the complex mind of a prominent figure in the Nazi regime who had some degree of humanity – Hermann Göring.

The portrayal of Göring succeeded in bringing home one of the reasons why the German public succumbed to the Nazi regime. Göring could be a powerful & charismatic performer. Here he is using these qualities to play a game with the prosecutors whilst in custody. He presents himself as a loyal and honourable but defeated leader, maintaining his pride and self-respect in the face of the Allies' contemptuous treatment of him. He uses his charisma to bolster the others on trial and to attempt to make a mockery of it. You almost think he might succeed.

Brian Cox does his job so well that we can imagine how Göring might have gained some admiration from some quarters during the trial. Indeed, sympathy and admiration are later personalised in the form of an American guard who befriends Göring. Of course, his charisma doesn't work in the end, when we later see him caught out by the prosecutor in witness box. We also see his so called "honour" disappear.

But one cannot fail to moved by the scene where his wife & daughters visit him in prison, and just before she leaves asks him if she can take some of the prison food. It's pathetic to see a once powerful and still proud leader now look around helplessly, totally powerless to help his family with this basic need. Despite Göring's imprisonment and impending doom, his wife seemed unable to comprehend or accept what was happening, and still looked upon him as a figure of authority.

Thank you Brian Cox for such a superb performance!

The Pledge (I) (2001)

Timeless

[7/10 · 26 January 2009]

It's pointless to speculate as to who the killer is or was, largely because as with all fiction, the characters and events exist only as we see them, or rather as the author meant them to be seen. In this case the whodunnit part of the plot is clearly left unknown. Not that it is important. If you're worrying about who the killer was, you're missing the point of this beautiful movie. All that's important is that the killer got his come-uppance.

The point of "the pledge" is the idea of something at work which is beyond man, something beyond "the personal". The repeated references to God, the church and angels etc would seem corny if they were not counter-balanced by references to the more primitive origins of man's longing for truth, justice and honour, expressed through the timelessness of the American wilderness, and also conveyed by the soul-wrenching song "Nwahulwana", which is heard while Jerry Black on his fishing trip.

Having just watched this film, I'm moved by it, but can't really say why. There's something very special about every scene. A very well crafted film with a beautiful overtone of universal justice.

Titanic (1997)

A Night to Remember at the Cinema

[6/10 · 26 January 2009]

Anyone who saw the old black & white movie "A Night to Remember" will appreciate the improved special effects in this one, but miss the more accurate portrayal of the historic event.

James Cameron really managed to bring the old ship back to life for the big screen, but at the same time he strayed from history, painting a negative and inaccurate picture of the crew and passengers.

I'm not referring to the fictitious love story between the two fictitious characters Kate and Jack. This addition is clearly pure invention, a device to involve the audience's emotions in the tragedy in a way that a documentary style film doesn't. That's fine. What's not fine to twist the historical facts about real people, which Cameron clearly does in this film. Many of the portrayals of the crew members are fictionalized. I suppose it's forgivable to make ordinary people into heroes, but to make heroes into villains, as this film does, is I think, unethical. It's damaging to the memory of those people, and I'm sure it's offensive to their surviving descendants.

The biggest misrepresentation is of 1st Officer Murdoch, who is portrayed as losing his mind and shooting passengers and himself during the sinking during the evacuation. In reality Murdoch did not shoot passengers or himself. The writers of the film completely made this up.

Captain Smith is portrayed as a weak, ineffectual human being incapable of making decisions. For me, Bernard Hill was wrongly cast in this role - he does not have the charisma and presence of Smith. According to most studies and records, Smith was also active until the very end. A one point he was calling back boats on his megaphone when he saw that they weren't full – a scene that was edited out of the movie for the final release.

I've always had mixed feelings about this film. The effects, sets, costumes and technical accuracy are impressive; as are some of the characters. I particularly like the chief engineer, and Murdoch; but there are aforementioned inaccuracies, and also many unnecessarily silly bits like the scene with Cal chasing Jack and Kate down the grand staircase with a gun, firing shots as he went, which cheapen the film.

I think that, when you make a film like this, dealing with such a monumental tragedy, with characters representing real people in recent history, it's very shameful to invent bad things about them.

But all in all this remains an epic film and was one of the most impressive films I'd ever seen at the cinema back when I first saw it in 1997.

The Lighthouse (1997)

Through glass darkly...

[5/10 · 26 January 2009]

Technically speaking it is a thriller; but in style it is more like a melodramatic horror movie from the 50s. However, while obvious reference is made to clichéd film portrayals and techniques of that genre, the events are framed by a new, psychological dimension. This takes the form of the female protagonist's frequent flashbacks and nightmares containing sinister imagery.

Mood and imagery are this films main interest. Subdued lighting, sombre sets and a total disregard for detail transform the setting into a world far removed from reality. The sombre mood combines with the film's strong obvious symbolic content to make it seem like a transcript of somebody's personal nightmare.

This central theme seems to be the light of consciousness, triumphing over the darkness of unconscious forces. The thing that holds this film together so well is the strong personal feeling of the filmmaker.

Cloverfield (2008)

Entertaining post-modern horror movie.

[8/10 · 25 January 2009]

This film is made using the hand-held amateur camera technique, a bit like the Blair Witch Project, but it's much easier to watch because instead of the incessant shouting and camera fumbling of the Blair Witch, this is calmer with more control. During first 15 minutes we are allowed to get to know the characters, and the world they live in. Occasionally, when camcorder stops, we see glimpses of another film made earlier, which the cameraman is recording over, which gives us an insight into the happy twenty-something lives of the main characters.

The horror, when it comes, is unknown. A bang, like an earthquake, a momentary power blackout, a confused newsflash. The cameraman and his friends react with a mixture of shock, curiosity and finally panic and fear, and you really feel like you are there with them. They wonder if it's a terrorist attack. In the next ten minutes, there are explosions, and a skyscraper collapses sending a cloud of dust billowing down the street between the apartments. It's a clearly a direct reference to images of 9/11.

After the initial sequences, the film moves at a very quick pace, with plenty of action and some very suspenseful moments. Along the way the film has just the right level of humour to add to its entertainment value, delivered to us in the form of comments from "Hud" the nerdy cameraman.

A central idea of the film – a big monster smashing up the city – is an obvious reference to Ishiro Honda's 1954 Japanese Godzilla movie, which featured a prehistoric creature that has been awakened from the sea by hydrogen bomb testing. If Godzilla was an allegory about nuclear war, and effects of nuclear war, then I think we can say that Cloverfield is an allegory of terrorist attack on cities. It certainly touches something in us when we see the scene with skyscraper collapsing and dazed people covered in dust looking for their families. In one part of the film a body on a stretcher is wheeled passed the camera with its stomach blown open – it made me think of suicide bombers, although it was at the same time a reference to the first Alien movie.

In this allegoric sense, the monster is a symbolic manifestation of our fear of terrorism, and the destruction terrorism can wreak in a city with a high population and so many buildings so close together. The inability of the US army to contain, to successfully stop the monster is also metaphorical, as are the "bits" that fall off it – there is no hiding place. This is an enemy that is largely created in the mind, and thus cannot be destroyed, rather like the monster in the 1950s sci-fi film "The Forbidden Planet".

I call the film post-modern because, on a deeper level, it has references to many earlier sources, such as Godzilla, to 9/11, Alien (when Marela's stomach explodes), Lovecraft (Dagon), and Forbidden Planet. If you look hard enough, you will also see that throughout the movie there are a wealth of small details that give clues about what will happen later, or that help us figure out what has happened, or just make us wonder. This suggests that the script and continuity in the movie are watertight.

I wish I'd seen it at the cinema.

Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995 Video)

Facsinating footage

[7/10 · 12 February 2008]

What makes this film so interesting is that it shows many previously classified films of exploding atomic bombs during US testing in the 1940s and 1950s; as well as the test sites, equipment and key players. Also of interest are clips of military and public information films from the era.

Much of this information is here made accessible to the public for the first time, which makes it all the more pity that many of the films have been cleverly edited by the filmmaker to increase the "wow" factor. For example, the GRABLE test from 1953 has been edited to the point of being misleading; the time from the firing of the tactical shell from the gun, to the its detonation several miles away has been cut from the 19 seconds in the original footage, to just 9 seconds in this film, so that it times nicely with the music. It gives the impression that the shell explodes much sooner than it actually did in reality.

There are other similar artistic licenses taken, and the result for me, is that, though the documentary has some awesome shots, it's less interesting than it might have been.

Technical information about the bombs is kept to a bare minimum, and often we are left wondering how, why and what happened next; and having William Shatner do the narration doesn't help...

Sunshine (2007)

Almost...

[6/10 · 27 December 2007]

I almost liked this film - it was almost good science fiction. It was intelligent, and had good characters, good special effects and a genuine good atmosphere. The actors played well and were well cast. There are plenty of refences to Dark Star and 2001: A Space Odyssey, although it lacks the detail that made 2001: A Space Odyssey so fascinating.

The first half of the movie is just great, somehow timeless and philosophical and filled with stunning visuals. But later, at around the point where the crew begin discussing the idea to rendezvous with the other spaceship, and acting on it, the story degenerates, and hits rock bottom when a rather silly horror element is introduced: the appearance of what essentially is a monster bent on murder and sabotage.

The pace quickens too much in the second half, and seems to leap from one scene to the next, skipping too much in between. I get the impression that this was originally 3 hour movie and much was edited out of the second half.