State Of Play (2009)

There's a few minor problems in making these notes. Firstly, the film that the cinema listed as beginning at 19.45 was past the opening credits when I took my seat at 19.45 and who knows what I missed (not much I imagine in truth as big fat Russell Crowe- who looks increasingly like Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion (see above)- was bribing his way onto the scene of the first crime scene as I arrived). The second issue is that the film was followed by a televised Q&A with the director Kevin MacDonald and I want to satisfy myself that my notes reflect what I saw and not what I've been told I saw. I'd forgotten until I saw the film that I've seen (at least some of) the original BBC series upon which it was based. Thankfully my recollections were not strong enough to spoil the plot or for me to draw comparisons with the original players. In fact the greater danger lies in my having seen Alan J. Pakula's All The President's Men and The Parallax View; which are the more significant touchstones for the piece (Klute, another probable antecedent of State Of Play, is near the top of my teetering to-see pile). The final problem is that- thanks to a combination of hectic work, golf, season 2 of The Wire, training for a charity run and socializing- I saw the film seven days before sitting down to complete these notes.

And while seven days ago I didn't dislike it, on reflection I certainly don't especially like it either. The plus points are some strong acting performances (and I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Crowe back to acting after his recent experiments with sleep-walking through films), some tight direction and editing and a really good pacy build-up to the climax. Ah, the climax- I didn't want to get to the climax straight away (and I swear that never normally happens!) but I may as well now. In the enjoyable light comedy Paris When It Sizzles William Holden is talking Audrey Hepburn through the writing of a script ("aha! The twist... then the twist on the twist... and another twist" or something) and that's what the ending of this film reminded me of. I guess it's true of thrillers in general but especially of this film- not every twist can be plausible and, when you're ending on a solid and believable one, it doesn't work to shoehorn in another one. Especially if the tip-off clue isn't much of a clue at all. In State Of Play the tip-off is that a character reveals that she knows something which she shouldn't leading Russell Crowe to uncover the whole thing. But it doesn't- not plausibly and his deduction is not the only (or even the likeliest) logical conclusion. A solid but unspectacular thriller becomes, therefore, a flimsy melodrama. It's a real shame given the effort that had so clearly been invested in the piece.

The only other thing that stands out is that the soundtrack is absolutely fucking appalling- bombastic, overloud, generic and off-putting. I was grumpy about it throughout and in the Q&A MacDonald indicated that he'd been unable to find a score which he thought was appropriate and the studio agreed with until the eleventh hour (he implied that he wanted something soft and piano-led). He got what he was given I reckon, a shame.

Oh yes, and that feller off the Orange adverts is in it as a straight actor. As is Jeff Daniels of one of the funniest films ever; Dumb And Dumber.

Anyway, 4/10 overall. Solid except for Ben 'Easter Island' Affleck; he is appalling as ever.

Crank: High Voltage (2009)

They say that ignorance is bliss. I had no idea what Crank: High Voltage was going to be like or else I would never have gone to see it. To those who say that ignorance is bliss I would say "you couldn't be more wrong". I have made notes on (more or less) 150 movies since I began keeping a record. Of those I gave 0/10 to a handful- four or five maybe and, indeed, tonight I re-evaluated a couple and revised their score upwards. It is as if with Crank: High Voltage I discovered an tenth circle in Dante's Inferno. Some of the films I saw were just rubbish because they didn't need to be any good to achieve their commercial aims (Lesbian Vampire Killers, My Bloody Valentine 3D), some were the product of people who had given up caring about film-making (Ashanti), some were puerile, lowest common-denominator rubbish (Borat) and some were mindlessly, ignorantly offensive (Slumdog Millionaire). This is like a compilation of the worst bits of the most craptacular films I have ever seen. It is artless, witless, joyless, offensive, amateurish, nonsensical, banal, exploitative, nasty, backwards, overbearing, derivative, vulgar and, frankly, shit. Apparently this is a sequel- there were suggestions of a back-story throughout- and I'm perversely curious to know if it can possibly be anything like as appalling (in the truest sense of the word) as this.

This film is not only gob-smackingly bad (there are moments of literally jaw-dropping ineptitude from everyone present) and grotesquely, deliberately offensive (being offensive to everyone doesn't even it out somehow, it simply multiplies it) it also has the temerity to masquerade as being inventive or cutting-edge by throwing in the kind of visual gimmicks (weird fonts for subtitles etc) that would see an Art School student repeating the year. It even has a segment ripping off the likes of Aronofsky and Tarantino with Jason Statham's character as a boy on a Jeremy Kyle-style chat show with Spice Girl (fairly suddenly) turned old woman Geri Halliwell.

The problem with Crank: High Voltage, apart from it's utter shitness, is that it gives ammunition to the Mary Whitehouse brigade. How can you argue that censorship is too restrictive and that art must be unrestricted to thrive and challenge and develop when you get the likes of Neveldine and Taylor (the Directors) using the freedoms that have been fought for to let Jason Statham grease the barrel of a shotgun and insert it into a fat bloke's anus? Argue that it's funny and that I'm taking it to seriously if you wish, I'd buy it if that was an isolated incident, but it is simply the prelude to a conveyer belt of similar lowbrow, low-invention cack.

I have no problem with violence or gore or gratuitous sex and nudity or dumb explosions. I can even live with sexism, racism, homophobia and other offensiveness if (seriously, that is a big if) it is necessary and in context and challenged or used to provoke debate or thoughts in the audience. Where this lump of bollocks differs is that the violence and gore and gratuitous sex and sexism and racism and homophobia (which is the whole film, by the way) are glorified. This is a film for fourteen year olds to wank to and giggle about. This isn't Nine Songs or Dirty Harry or Super Vixens or Saw, it is a pale imitation of the schlocky bits of them and films like them with all of the intelligence replaced by dumb visuals.

I am disgusted that David Carradine was involved (albeit only momentarily) in this.

I haven't been able to express in any depth or with any clarity the myriad reasons that this horrible film is an abomination. Genuinely I think it is a new cultural low-point. I was taken aback so far by it's uselessness that I was rendered speechless. -1/10. Yes, minus one.

In The Loop (2009)

"Even the posters are brilliant"

On the strength of The Thick Of It, which I utterly adored, this has probably been my most eagerly awaited cinematic experience of the year. Normally, as anyone who knows me will testify, I would follow such a build-up with a sad recitation of my utter disappointment- such is my tendency to let excitement overtake any sort of realism- but not today. I loved In The Loop. You want funny? This is it. You want pointed? Ditto. Pertinent? Yup, the hat trick!

I would exhort anyone to go and see this, for the scabrous dialogue and hilarious plot and on-the-money performances and- most importantly- for the brutal depiction of politicking in the 21st century. Malcolm Tucker (the awesome Peter Capaldi) is as hilarious and vicious as ever but he's now a small fish in a big pond as the film brings in the US military and some incredibly youthful Washington diplomats all of whom are headed by Tony Soprano and Sledge Hammer.

I write these notes as a reminder to myself but as I'll be buying this on release I won't need any reminders and in case anyone reading hasn't seen this yet, I've avoided any spoilers whatsoever. See it, love it- even the bits that are a little bit of filler- 9/10

Let The Right One In / Låt den rätte komma in (2009) * Second viewing

"Haunting blanched beauty"

The first time I saw this I was so enchanted by it that I concluded my notes with the words "If this film isn't the best of the year, then I may not live through the one that beats it". I have to say that I was probably underselling it. The first time I saw this- on a leaked screener played on a small screen- I probably didn't truly appreciate the haunting blanched beauty of the film or its stunning soundtrack (by Johan Söderqvist). Well I do now.

Tomas Alfredson's film has been trailed over here as a pretty standard horror film (I haven't seen the trailer but it is apparently very generic). The poster, reproduced at the bottom, doesn't give a sense of what is to follow at all. I suppose the aim is laudable- get bums on seats and let the quality win them over- but filling screenings with people expecting eye-popping gore and sudden shocks doesn't seem very fair upon either them or upon the people who might want to watch something beautiful and romantic and may then miss this on the basis that it is being sold as if it was The Omen Part 14 or something. Tough call.

I'm not even sure that it is a horror film, even after seeing it twice. There are horrific elements of course, but the film is more than that. It is a coming-of-age film, a love story, a film about childhood and loneliness and resilience and pain and conventionality and unconventionality. There is a theme in Sam Mendes' overrated but nonetheless impressive American Beauty about seeing beauty where others don't and that applies equally here. Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is an outsider, bullied and ostracized by his classmates and misunderstood by his family but Eli (Lina Leandersson) connects with him in the same way that, we are led to presume, Eli connected with Håkan (Per Ragnar) before him. What Eli connects with isn't Oskar's vulnerability or loneliness, despite this being their common ground, it is his latent rage (the first words Eli hears from him are "Squeal! "Squeal like a pig!") and his total detachment from the conventional standards and expectations of the people around him. When he strikes his erstwhile tormentor Conny (Patrik Rydmark), his immediate reaction to seeing the blood and pain is one of curiosity which turns to delight. And this is the most interesting aspect of their friendship- Eli is the vampire with a capacity for violence which is tempered by a disregard for it while Oskar's capacity for violence is latent and expressed only through his fascination with newspaper reports of murders and his knife.

The theme of seeing the beauty in unexpected places extends to the visuals of the film itself. The icicles on the climbing frame, Oskar's snot running from nose to mouth, dripping blood in the snow, the hand-print fading on a windowpane, Oskar resurfacing in the swimming pool- no matter how mundane the subject, a perverse beauty is created by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema.

Something that struck me on second viewing was the possibility that the very final scene (on the train) doesn't happen. What if Oskar dies and this is his dying thought? He certainly appears to die- he ceases to struggle, he doesn't inhale upon resurfacing, he has a beatific smile upon his face- but this is purely speculation. The only real clue is the complete lack of reaction from Conny's brother when another boy is dragged away by Eli- his hand doesn't react at all- but is that really a clue. It's dodgy territory this, where does it stop; what if the whole thing was in his imagination? I prefer the more literal ending. It makes more sense that, with Oskar taking the place of Håkan, the story turns full cycle. There are signposts to this throughout the film- Håkan's jealousy of Eli's new friend as he watches from the window, Eli's tender gesture when he asks her not to see Oskar that evening, the way in which Håkan targets the 'normal' boys who would be Oskar's tormentors and would have been his own.

My descriptive powers are pitifully inadequate for the task of conveying my admiration of Let The Right One In. 10/10

Why Men Shouldn't Write Advice Columns

Monsters vs Aliens 3D (2009)

Everything I know and hold to be most true about modern animation films has already been captured here. I know that I've linked to that blog just a couple of days earlier but it's my favourite. So there.

I'm not going to say much about this because it's rubbish. Even the kids who packed out the cinema I saw it in were saying things like "it wasn't very funny" and "I nearly fell asleep" as I left. These are people who will happily eat their own snot, it's not a tough audience.

It looks great and the 3D- which is the main reason I went- works well when used (there are long stretches where they appear to have forgotten the opportunities that 3D gives). Champion twat Seth Rogen is probably the best thing in this, which is saying something. His gags are awful but at least he sounds like he believes in them. House M.D.'s maverick Doctor Hugh Laurie plays a mad Doctor. Oh yes. The kids really aren't entertained and where there should be subtle jokes and nods to the adults to complement the slapstick, there are shoehorned references to every Spielberg or DreamWorks film the writers could remember and really poor puns. There is an army chief who is supposed to resemble Lee J. Cobb in Dr Strangelove. He is called W. R. Monger. See what they did there? And the bad guy- I've forgotten his name- looks just like Tim Currie, only with four eyes. Just like him!

And so, aside from a nice nod to 50s B-Movies in the footage shown in the mock war room (they must've watched Strangelove a lot) and the fact that it is in digital 3-D there isn't much to commend it. 1/10