Movie Reviews - Public Enemies

A couple of weeks have passed now since I saw transformers: revenge of that bay motherfucker so I think I'm just about calm enough to give a fairly balanced review of the latest big summer release - John dillinger biopic Public Enemies. On paper this should be just about the best movie ever made. It's about gangsters, which everyone loves; it stars Johnny Depp, who everyone loves; it stars Christian Bale who everyone loves despite being a massive dickhead; And it's directed by Michael Mann who is one of the best directors Hollywood has to offer, although he does use blue filters a bit too much. If you follow the movie press you'll know this has been hyped up the wazoo aswell. So does it live up to its massive potential I hear you ask. Well, nearly but not quite. It's beautifully shot in glorious hi-def, and Depp absolutely sparkles as the infamous depression era bank robber. Although I do enjoy a good gangster movie I generally try my best not to like the main characters as they are invariably scumbags doing what scumbags do. With Public enemies though it is impossible to hate Dillinger. Depp is just too damn cool. It is easy to hate his psycho friends though. If Dillinger was really that badass in life then good luck to him robbing all the banks he wanted too.
On the other side we have Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the agent assigned with taking down Dillinger and his cronies. Recently I've found myself disliking Bale more and more. Not because of his off-screen antics, but he seems to be going through what I will call Ed Norton syndrome; ie a well respected actor getting too big for their boots, and phoning in performances under the presumption that it's going to be amazing just because it's them. With that in mind, Bale is actually fine in the role, but he never really sets the screen alight. Perhaps the character has been underwritten, or maybe there was nothing much to write about in the first place. Either way it's a competent performance but it isn't going to change my views on the man one way or the other.

At this point I realise I haven't mentioned the plot at all, the reason being there honestly isn't much of one to talk about. John Dillinger robs a few banks, Melvin Purvis pursues him. There's a couple of jailbreaks and there's a love interest. That's really it. But don't let this put you off. This is still a very good film. All the robberies and shoot-outs (and there are many) are expertly done.
All the supporting parts are well played (in particular Stephen Graham as the insane Baby-Face Nelson), and although it is rather long it never drags for a second. From a historical standpoint I have no idea how accurate it is. I know John Dillinger had a somewhat Robin Hood like image and this is played upon so the audience can actually like the main character. From the cops perspective it is interesting to watch the beginnings of the FBI built by J. Edgar Hoover.

As a whole, Public Enemies is a hugely enjoyable movie. On reading over what I have written I feel I may have been too negative as I can't recall a moment while watching where I felt bored in the slightest, or thought the acting was bad, or thought the script to be cheesy. Michael Mann has once again proven he is a master behind the camera, and a star turn from Depp as the charismatic criminal elevates the film to a level which the source material may not really deserve. Definitely one of the better films of the year so far. Does it deserve the instant classic label which has been thrust upon it? Not quite, but it's damn good regardless.

Movie Reviews - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Let me begin by saying I enjoyed the first Transformers movie. Sure, it was far from perfect. The transformers themselves were non-existent from a character point of view, and the humour was poor even by Michael Bay standards. It did however look absolutely gorgeous, the action was well choreographed, and it really should have won the Oscar for special effects. Overall it was a fun brainless blockbuster, which is exactly what I expected, and so I was able to enjoy it for what it was.
Now we have Transformers 2, subtitled Revenge of the Fallen. With my general liking of the first installment I entered this with a fairly open mind. Unfortunately I was disappointed.
There was a lot I didn't like about this film, but I'm going to do my best to concentrate on the good for the moment.

Towards the end of the first act there is a superb fight scene between Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, and Megatron and Starscream, leader and second in command of the Decepticons. The fight is superbly shot, well choreographed and even has an emotional impact, something generally lacking completely from Michael Bay movies. The major plus in this scene compared to other fights in this and the first movie is that you can actually see whats going on.
Later on in the film fans of the old cartoon series are treated to some Decepticon in-fighting in the shape of Megatron and Starscream squabbling over leadership. It's funny and it's a nice throwback to the origin of the material.

Those are the good bits. I've brought the positives forward as much as I could. Now onto the bad.
Normally in a film about extra terrestrial robots the plot shouldn't really bother me. I'm not there to enjoy good writing, I'm there to see shit blowing up, but I would like it if the writers at least tried a little bit.
The action picks up 2 years after the events of the first movie. Optimus and co are now part of a secret government organisation who hunt down Decepticons hiding on earth. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) is getting ready to go off to college, and is broody about leaving behind his girlfriend (Megan Fox). In the background the Decepticons are plotting to resurrect Megatron from his slumber at the bottom of the ocean. Now that's all fine. Decepticons try to do bad things, Autobots try to stop them, explosions ensue, and Shia LeBeouf gets involved for some reason and shouts 'No no no' quite a bit.

The plot follows this format for the first act and everything is hunky dory. But then they happen across a rickety old transformer who's purposes in the movie are comic relief and exposition. There are two problems with this. Firstly he's not even a little bit funny. Secondly, the plot doesn't need to be moved anywhere else. It was doing just fine before when it was virtually non-existent, but they had to go and ruin it by introducing a new villain and a new maguffin robbed from the old animated movie all at the expense of action. The new villain, named The Fallen, is another rickety old transformer living on the moon. He's plotting revenge for something that isn't quite clear and the only thing that can kill him is something called the matrix of leadership, which really doesn't appear to do anything either. Roughly 45 minutes is taken up by the old transformer (who's name escapes me) explaining these facts, and that the transformers have been on earth for thousands of years. To slow things down further he falls over a few times. By the time the explanations were done I found that the whole gang of transformers, human teenagers and the US army were in Egypt and I was none the wiser as to exactly why. And in all this time I hadn't seen a single explosion.

When the explosions finally come again in the final act, they come thick and fast. So thick and fast in fact that they completely obscure what's going on. At some point during the meleé Megatron has called in about 20 decepticons to help in the fight. None of them have names, none of them are in any way distinguishable from each other, or from the Autobots they are meant to be fighting. This whole extended battle scene is so badly filmed it gave me a headache. From time to time I saw a robot having it's head blown off and presumed it was a decepticon. Seeing as the autobots were all present and correct when the dust settled, I presume I was right.
This final battle, and the aforementioned long exposition take up about 2 hours of this overlong movie.

Besides these major complaints, there are also countless small details which served only to annoy me further throughout the movie.
Michael Bay's love for 'comic' characters to offset the mayhem of the action took up far too much screen time. There's Sam's nerdy new roommate, there's John Turturro reprising his character from the first one (at least he tries to make it funny), and there are the twin autobots who are in fact just incredibly racist black stereotypes who end up being more annoying the Snarf and Jar-Jar Binks combined.
Once again I must acknowledge that I was watching a movie about big ol' robots so really anything goes, but for gods sake writers, try to keep it within the confines of the universe you have created. There shouls never be a transformer who can imitate humans a lá the Liquid Metal Terminator, And there should never EVER be an instance of a human life being saved by the ghosts of transformers who have been dead for thousands of years.

The main complaints of fans when the first transformers movie came out were: #1 Not enough transformers, #2 No mention of Energon, #3 Fights were confusing, #4 Too many humans
Michael Bay attempted to fix the first two, but ended up making things 10 times worse. He added lots and lots of transformers, but failed to give them any sort of identity or character. He brought in the concept of Energon as a life force for the transformers. It was done almost as an afterthought though and really wasn't necessary. As for the fights, with the one notable exception mentioned earlier, they were far more confusing than ever before. and the humans are still there in force too, doing the same thing they did in the first: Running around and trying to be funny, and failing miserably.

In short, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is overlong, nonsensical, confusing, boring, and sometimes actually offensive. It's a painful experience, and it's nearly 3 hours of your life you won't ever get back. Don't see it.
All that said though, it's not the worst Michael Bay movie ever made. That honour still goes to Pearl Harbour.

Neil Young - 21st June 2009

Neil Young comes from the old guard of rock musicians. Having begun his career sometime in the mid 1960s I don't think anyone would have begrudged the man for hanging up his guitar 20 years ago, but that's not Neil's style. Always a hard worker, and always hell bent on what he wants and damn anyone who gets in his way, he's gonna keep on rockin' til the day he dies. And judging by last nights' Dublin gig he aint quite ready to pop his clogs just yet.
The show got off to a flying start with an extremely energetic rendition of Hey Hey, My My, and didn't let up for a second as Neil flew through old faithfuls including Mansion on the Hill, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and Cinnamon Girl to name but a few. Not content to focus just on the hard rockers, and no doubt to give himself a bit of a breather (the man is 63 after all) Young mixed up the setlist giving the audience a bit of quiet time with the likes of Harvest moon and Don't Let it Bring You Down, which had the whole crowd swaying and singing along. The respite wasn't to last though. the Band turned it back up to 11 for a version of Down By The River which must have lasted about 20 minutes, but didn't drag for a second.
The night was brought to a lively close with Rockin' In The Free world, and a single encore of The Beatles 'A day In the Life'.
What really struck me about the show was how much fun Neil Young still seems to have while performing. He loves what he does and really puts his heart and soul into it. I don't think you'll ever see Shakey phoning in a performance. There's still life in the old dog yet.

Setlist:
1. Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
2. Mansion On The Hill
3. Are You Ready For The Country?
4. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
5. Pocahontas
6. Words
7. Cinnamon Girl
8. Mother Earth
9. Don't Let It Bring You Down
10. Lost In Space
11. On The Way Home
12. Burned
13. Harvest Moon
14. Down By The River
15. Get Behind The Wheel
16. Rockin' In The Free World

Encore:
17. A Day In The Life

Personal Collection Reviews - #1: Deliverance

There are two incredibly famous scenes in Deliverance. For the sake of spoilers I won't go into the details, suffice to say that thanks to countless homages and lampoons the majority of the English speaking world is in some way familiar with this film. One would be forgiven for assuming that the initial impact of such scenes has been lost over time. Having watched the film for the first time in about 6 or 7 years, I can categorically say that the scenes in question, and indeed the entire movie, are just as shocking, thought provoking and scary now as it was, I am told, on it's release in 1972.

The story begins with 4 friends; Lewis, Ed, Bobby and Drew (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox respectively) traveling into the American backwoods to take a canoe trip and get back in touch with nature. It's obvious from the get-go that this aint gonna be a relaxing weekend in the country for the naive city boys. Director John Boorman masterfully amps up the tension in the the first half hour or so. Everything seems to be going fine for a while, but there is pervading sense of dread running subtly through the narrative, which just doesn't allow the viewer to relax. Encounters with the unwelcoming locals at a run down gas station, and the unease of Ned Beatty's Bobby with life in the wilderness serves as a wonderful precursor for the horrors that await our intrepid party. And when those horrors reveal themselves, by god you won't forget it in a hurry.

Bears, wolves, snakes and any number of nasty poisonous insects are usually the order of the day when attempting to terrify inexperienced campers, but when watching Deliverance one should not expect the ordinary. Taking a short break from paddling duties in the banks of the Cahulawassee River, Bobby and Ed happen across two country bumpkins hunting in the woods. For reasons best known to themselves the woodsmen take great offense to the presence of the city men and proceed to deal with the trespassers in the most vile way imaginable. Lewis deals with the transgression in kind, and so begins a slippery slope for our protagonists, taking them down paths they never thought themselves capable of. Each must deal with the occurrences in their own way, and accordingly must bury whatever reason they may have possessed deep in the woods with their crimes.

What sets this film above other thrillers of its kind is its refusal to take the easy way out. There are no heart-stopping chases through the woods, there is no final showdown with the villain. The real battle lies in the psychology of our very ordinary and indeed very likeable heroes. The real world awaits them at the end of their journey and they must face it. That said, Deliverance keeps you on the edge of your seat for its entire running time. The now infamous scene where the hillbillies are encountered, the crux of the movie, is at once both compulsive and repulsive, and never overly explicit as to take away the impact. The performances are all solid throughout. A little bit of melodrama from Burt Reynolds is forgivable, and in some respects actually in keeping with his character.

The film is magnificently shot on location on the Chattooga River in Georgia. All the stunts are beautifully executed and performed by the leads themselves, adding a sense of realism not always present in major films.

In short, Deliverance is a masterclass in psychological thrillers, and fully deserves it's status as a classic.

My neverending quest begins

Over the coming weeks and months I hope to make my way through my whole DVD collection and re-evaluate and review every movie I own. This will be an ongoing project, and won't be carried out in any particular order. It will take time, but it will be fun...I think. Not every post will relate to this. If the mood takes me I may go through my CD's too. My collections will no doubt grow in size as I proceed through this, so the challenge will be continuous. Any interesting bits of entertainment news I stumble across will probably make it in there too. For me this is an opportunity to refine my views somewhat and hopefully improve my writing over time.

The project will begin tomorrow night with the first DVD I ever bought - Deliverance. I did just finish watching The Departed but I'm far too tired to write in a coherent fashion at the moment, so that will have to wait for another time

If you're interested stay tuned.