Hancock

The idea of the film is quite ingenious because Hancock (Will Smith) is a drunken bum of a superhero who causes more damage than he prevents and consequently he is roundly hated by the general public.

The film started off very promisingly but as soon as Hancock started to get a PR make over, by Jason Bateman, whose life Hancock saved, it started to lose track of the original great idea. I thought it was going to pick up again and possibly get quite edgy when Charlize Theron looked as though she was going to try to bed a superhero but it turns out she's a superhero too. Doh, don't you just hate it when that happens.



Generally a fun film but not the best use of a great idea. This is rare case that when the remake is made, a few years from now, it's going to be a better film.

White Christmas (1954)

I can't really slate 'White Christmas' now can I, in fact if modern rom-com's were like this the world would probably be a better place but it's all just as implausible as the modern equivalent.

By 1954 when the film was made, the song 'White Christmas' was already a 'classic', so they made a film around it and Bing. Exactly the sort of thing they'd do these days.

Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) is coerced into becoming a song-and-dance duo with Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) in repayment for Phil saving his life when they were in the army. They are successful as a duo and Phil tries to pair the workaholic Bob off with a fellow performer Betty (Rosemary Clooney) one of the Haynes sisters, so that he can get some time for his own philandering. Bing must have been 50 when he made this, whilst Clooney was in her mid-twenties. Nice work if you can get it.



They follow Betty and her sister Judy (Vera-Ellen) to their next show in Vermont.
The inn in Vermont, is practically empty because despite it being December its 68 degrees fahrenheit and there's no snow. It turns out the inn is owned by their former army commander, General Waverly.

So they bring their show up to the inn, to try to drum up some business for him. Then it gets all rom-com, Betty thinks they are just doing it for some free publicity and goes AWOL, whilst Judy and Phil think that if they stage a phoney engagement it will encourage Betty to go for Bob. It doesn't.



In the end Bob gets all the troops from his division to surprise the general on Christmas Eve, this is the best bit of the movie. Betty realises Bob is her 'knight on a white horse' after all and they all live happily every after.

A fun and enjoyable film, despite some awful songs. Such as the cringe worthy 'Snow' sung in the dining car of the train to Vermont and another called 'Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep'...

Changeling

Tonight Clint Eastwood's 'Changeling', which is a true story that explores the dark side of 1920s Los Angeles.

Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) is a single parent who works as a roller-skating supervisor for Pacific Telephone in what looks like the equivalent of a modern day 'call centre'. One weekend she is asked to work a Saturday shift and has to leave her young son Walter home alone. When she returns after work, she is greeted by an empty house. Walter is missing and when she contacts the police, they are extremely unhelpful.

She hears nothing for months but then, when all hope seemed lost, the police produce a child whom they claim is Walter but from the moment he steps off the train, Christine insists that he is most definitely not. The LAPD, who are portrayed throughout as being a corrupt gang of thugs who answer to no one, are desperate for some good publicity to restore their tarnished name. Their thinking is that returning a missing kid to his hard working, single mother would do the trick, no matter if it's the wrong child.



So, they tell her to smile for the press and take him home, telling her she's in shock and anyway young children can change so quickly. They dismiss the ton of evidence supporting her claim. Saying it would not be usual for a child to shrink three inches, acquire a completely different set of teeth to those in his dental records, forget his teacher and all classmates and even get himself circumcised in the months he was missing. Although didn't she have an old photograph of her son that could have helped clear all this up?



Christine continues to challenge the force and their particularly obnoxious chief J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), who is corruption personified. She is determined to uncover the truth and find her real son but the police continually deny any wrongdoing and try to discredit her as an unfit mother.

The only person willing to believe and help her is the Reverend Briegleb (John Malkovich), a man trying to expose the LAPD on his radio show.



When she tells all to the press, Jones invokes ‘Code 12’, a rule under which citizens can be committed to a mental asylum without a warrant. Scary. She is told she will stay there until she agrees to tow the line. The mental institution, like a lot of the film, does not make easy viewing.

Meanwhile, at a ranch outside the city, a good cop, Detective Ybarra (Michael Kelly) find a young Canadian boy who has chilling story to tell and so unfolds the tale of the Wineville Chicken Murders. The police trace and convict the perpetrator; serial kidnapper and killer, Gordon Northcott played to perfection by Jason Butler Harner. Slowly the details emerge of the grisly murders almost in the style of a horror movie as Detective Ybarra uncovers what really happened to Walter and many other boys.



The uncovering of the murders, helps Briegleb and a lawyer, who is working for free, to get Christine out of the asylum but unfortunately as a survivor of the abductions turns up and tells his story; there is no happy conclusion.

Overall, a good film, disturbing in some scenes and sometimes difficult to sit through, but still impressive. Jolie, who isn't really used to roles that test her, is convincing without being outstanding.

It's certainly not for the casual viewer who's after a bit of the usual Hollywood escapism but in my opinion, all the better for that. Just don't expect to leave the cinema with a smile on your face.

Waltz with Bashir

Israeli director Ari Folman tells a personal tale about the first Lebanon War in 1982. It's basically a documentary but in animated form.

Folman meets a friend in a bar who recounts a reoccurring nightmare he has where he is chased by 26 ferocious dogs. This, they conclude, is connected to his involvement in the war. Folman himself though, does not remember much about it. So, he meets up with other army colleagues, as well as a psychologist and the journalist Ron Ben-Yishai to try to jog his memory which he seems to have effectively repressed, especially concerning events leading up to the notorious Sabra and Shatila massacre. Through a series of conversations, Folman slowly reveals his past, showing the events he witnessed and was involved in, in the form of flashback.



It's an interesting history lesson, although taken from his point of view, but I found it a bit messy and bitty. It didn't really flow to any set pattern, like his memory I suppose, as we gradually build up to the massacre.



The allies of the Israelis were the Lebanese Christian Phalangists and when the Lebanese President, Bashir Gemayel, is assassinated, they are allowed to go into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps to hunt for terrorists. Instead, they killed at least 800 Palestinian civilians in revenge, including women and children, whilst the Israelis stood by and watched. The army even fired flares into the night sky to provide lighting for the Phalangist's mission. At the end of the film, real footage of the discovery of the massacre is shown, presenting graphic pictures of the corpses.

I think being animated, and there was no doubt that the animation was magnificent, it was hard to identify with Folman and there was no character building to help you with this. I didn't feel I knew Ari Folman at all, so although I cared about what happened generally, I didn't particularly care about his own involvement.



Why did they use animation? Probably simply because they could be more controversial than they could have been on film.

Still it was a thought-provoking comment on the war, the dreadful massacre and the soldiers, who came across as a confused, scared and ill prepared bunch. In that sense, it got its message across. It was a decent, powerful piece of art but as a film, for me, it didn't really cut it.

Baader Meinhof Komplex

A group of West German students are demonstrating against the Shah of Iran, who is visiting the country. They are also protesting against their own government, who they accuse of being a puppet in the hands of imperialist America. Then aided and abetted by the police, supporters of the Shah pick a fight with the students. Together they senselessly beat the demonstrators to a pulp. The police threaten a protester with a gun to his head, it goes off, although possibly by accident but a martyr is born.

On this violent note the film starts and it doesn't get any less horrific from there onwards. Some of the protesters have no time for peaceful objections, they want revolution now. They form the Red Army Faction (RAF), whose aims are to turn things around by stronger means.

Among these are journalist Ulrike Meinhof, known for writing biting critiques against the government, and part-time criminal Andreas Baader, because of their involvement the RAF became known as the Baader-Meinhof group. The film focuses primarily on these two and Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, a unwavering fanatic if ever there was one.

At first, the group content themselves with committing bank robberies for the cause and gain some sympathetic support from normal Germans but soon they turned to killing people.

What follows in the film is a detailed history of the actions of the RAF and their battles with the German establishment, as the film attempts to squeeze 10 years of history into two and a half hours. The sheer magnitude of the events makes this difficult, so the movie travels through history at breakneck pace without taking time to delve into any particular aspect at any length or to attempt to decipher the thoughts of those behind the RAF. Not that many of them seemed to have much idea of what they wanted to achieve anyway.



It may not be hot on detail but the film does at times have you clinging to the edge of your seat as it captures the essence of the tensions that existed at the time. Kidnaps, executions and explosions come fast and furious as plans are hatched and then usually messed up. It's still a fascinating story and I remember many of the events happening at the time.

When they are not killing or blowing things up, the group spend a lot of their time naked or with a cigarette in their mouths. Both seem to be compulsory if you're in the RAF.



Eventually the authorities catch up with them and the ringleaders are dumped in prison. Not happy with the conditions they are in, they go on collective hunger strike and after the death of one of them, Holger Meins, they are all reunited in Stuttgart's Stammheim prison where their trial would eventually take place.

Collectively their mental state starts to crumble and Meinhof falls out with the others as plans to get them released continually fail. She doesn't make it to the end of the trial and hung herself in her cell. Although it was claimed by the RAF that she was murdered by the authorities. After a long and expensive trial, the remaining defendants, primarily Baader, Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Outside of Stammheim, the violence continued, driven by a new generation of fighters in a campaign in support of their jailed comrades, still trying to secure their release. Their motivations remain a mystery, you think perhaps some of the group just joined because they fancied a bit of bloodshed. In a final throw of the dice, the RAF kidnapped Hanns Schleyer, the chairman of the German Employers' Organisation, and a group of Palestinian's hijacked a Lufthansa Flight on behalf of the RAF.



It was all in vain, the German government had no intention of ever releasing them. The terrorists saw the writing on the wall and inside Stammheim, they agreed to a suicide pact. The next morning, they were all found dead in their cells. None of this saved Schleyer, who was later executed in the woods.

After the pace of the film, the end credits seem to come upon you a bit abruptly.

It's an excellent and well acted film that neither approves nor disapproves of it's subject matter. Today, many people are still objecting to much the same things, just less violently, re: the Bush administration, Iraq, Afghanistan, capitalism in general. Horst Herold, the director of the German Police said that he could only cure the symptoms of the RAF disease but not the disease itself. In part admitting that the RAF were not altogether wrong in their thoughts, just badly wrong in their actions.

Mýrin (Jar City)

Jar City is based on a novel by Iceland's most successful crime writer, Arnaldur Indriðason. Not that I've heard of him. I also don't know any Icelandic actors and I'm not sure how many the country has, so we've probably witnessed all of them in one go.

The story begins with the discovery of a body in an apartment and separately, a genetic researcher called Örn burying his four-year-old daughter who has died from a rare illness. Experienced detective Erlandur investigates and the trail takes him back 30 years when there were allegations of rape, police corruption, an unsolved disappearance and the death of another young girl from the same rare illness.



Erlandur also has his hands full with his own drug-addicted daughter who is constantly trying to get money off him and has now gotten herself pregnant.



In the end, the mystery is untangled and everything ties together, along the way, we are treated to some dour Icelandic characters and dodgy criminals, some of which are on the police payroll.

I wasn't expecting much but I quite liked it and it sustained my interest all the way through. An intriguing film, which managed to go back thirty years without any flashbacks. Then just to catch me out, it flashed back a couple of times to the later day murder. It was particularly confusing because two of the lead characters looked a bit similar.

Jar City is an excellent thriller, although a bit like a TV police series, Colombo meets CSI, that sort of thing. The difference was, it was cliché and unnecessary swearing free, which obviously it wouldn't have been had it been made in America, unless of course they just omitted them from the subtitles. Then of course, they had the advantage of the outstanding location. We were treated to some great shots of the bleak terrain, although there wasn't enough snow.



The pièce de résistance was the gruesome scene of Erlandur pulling up at the fast food drive-in, ordering his takeaway meal and then taking his sheep's head home, where he eats it with his penknife, starting with the eyeball of course. Welcome to Iceland.

Burn After Reading

The story to 'Burn After Reading' involves a CIA analyst called Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) who quits his job before he is pushed because of his 'drinking problem'. Thinking his role in intelligence was more important than it actually was, he starts to write his memoirs.

When a CD with it on ends up at Hardbodies gym, he finds himself being blackmailed by two of the gym's employees who believe it to contain sensitive CIA shit, as Brad Pitt puts it. Pitt plays a clueless workout freak called Chad who is egged on by Linda (Frances McDormand). Linda is a wannabe gym bunny, that is once she can get the cash together for the plastic surgery.



When Cox laughs off their bribery attempts, they take the CD to the equally disinterested Russian embassy. The film's a kind of espionage thriller without the espionage, instead the film moves around from one eccentric situation to another in a random manner, as the various story lines are intertwined. As usual, with a Coen's film, you don't get from A to B without going via X, Y and Z.

Brad breaks into Cox's house to try to get more of the 'CIA shit', only Osbourne isn't there but Harry is. George Clooney is Harry, in a role, which seems to send up his own image, a man who just can't stop hopping into bed with different women. For reasons known only to him, he's getting extramarital with Cox's icy wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), a woman with about as much sexual charm as a crocodile. I find Swinton unnerving in this role but then I'm still thinking of her as a boy in Orlando.

When Harry comes across Chad hiding in the wardrobe, he somehow, accidentally, shoots him dead. Harry is already paranoid because someone has been tracking him, he doesn't know it yet but it's a private detective hired by his wife, who, of course, is also cheating on him. Thinking Chad is a spy, he dumps the body in the river.

Harry, traumatised by this and presumably from having to sleep with the reptilian Katie, seeks a bit of light relief and solace in a new bed partner via internet dating. The lucky female turns out to be Linda.



In his spare time between his affairs and a spot of jogging, we see Harry constructing something, which is supposed to be a present for his wife. It turns out to be a mechanical sybian machine. Linda seems very impressed.

Osbourne meanwhile, has to break into his own house with a hatchet because the reptile has started divorce proceedings and has changed the locks. There he comes across someone at his computer. It's Ted (Richard Jenkins), a former Greek Orthodox priest, now boss of Hardbodies, who because he gets a bit of a drool on whenever Linda is around, not that she notices, has decided to help out with the 'CIA shit'. Osbourne's had enough; he shoots Ted and then finishes the job off with the hatchet in the street. So as you can see it's a comedy... well only just and a dark one at that.



Where does all this go? Well, it doesn't go anywhere but brilliantly so. It's a clever film about 'intelligence' colliding with people with no intelligence.

It all finishes a bit suddenly, very Coen like, but unlike a normal Coen's film, we do at least get closure. The loose ends are tidied up and summarised in the offices of CIA, as they try to make sense of the nonsense that has happened.

Two dead bodies and Osbourne himself in a coma after being shot by the real CIA. Harry has been seized trying to board a flight to Venezuela, he fled in terror from Linda when she revealed she was working with Chad, the body in his wardrobe. The CIA understandably very keen for him to catch that flight. Linda, of course, will forget about the whole thing, if they pay for her plastic surgery. Result.

I was a little disappointed at first because the Coen's make some great 'serious' films but their less serious ones have been a bit of a mixed bag and this certainly fits into that category. For anyone else though, this would have been an excellent film.

I reckon they knocked this script up in their lunch hour, had they had a few beers and took the writing on into the evening they could possibly have written the best film of the year but then perhaps they didn't want to knock 'No Country' off the top spot.

It's been criticised for having a lame plot but I think that's the whole point. Perhaps that was the challenge they set themselves. Just how good can we make a movie that doesn't actually go anywhere? Bet they're having a right laugh at the reviews.

Whilst the rest of the movie industry are rehashing the same old stuff or doing pointless remakes and sequels, the Coen's are still coming up with something different. How could anyone object to that?