GloriousGooner Reviews

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Lesson learned from the street art market

[7/10 · 9 March 2011]

Exit Through The Gift Shop - note, this is a Banksy film not a film about Banksy. The film is actually about Theirry, a french weirdo living in LA who films everything (very Peeping Tom if you ask me) until he encounters street art through his cousin - and thus his obsessive documenting of the street art movement begins. He films a bunch of artists and, eventually, the elusive Banksy. Banksy comes across as very down to earth, earnest and quite funny in this as he comments on his experiences with Theirry. It's Theirry, how art changed Theirry's life and how Theirry's life changed art that's the crux of the film. With no artistic credentials whatsoever, no imagination and a shed-load of money he went and made a mint from selling his own street art under the moniker MBW (Mr Brainwash) - and even that is essentially pilfered from the ideas of the prolific "Obey" artist. Every artist in the film seems to regret having met and even helped Theirry, and they all abhor his market success and what it means for street art. Is there a moral? Even Banksy doesn't know, and as he says: "It's not Gone With The Wind". All i took from it is that street art belongs in the street, not in auction houses, for free, for all and open at all times to public criticism rather than locked in a 'valuable' collection. It's perhaps the definitive street art disaster movie.

2012 (I) (2009)

gargantuan disaster

[6/10 · 16 April 2010]

The biggest single problem with 2012 is the length. It's butt-numbing runtime saps the soul as much if not more than the tired excuses for characters the film inflicts its carnage on. And because it goes on so long the unfolding disaster, shots of tsunamis; earthquakes et al become increasingly repetitive and the very small but eminently predictable plot twists barely register as surprising or important given the film's grander scheme. The leaps in logic are too big and the reality-stretching scenarios seriously beggar belief far too many times. To outrun one disaster is entertaining, but to outrun 3 in one day seems just plain silly - even in Hollywood's no holds barred world of the disaster movie. There's no dialogue to speak of (how apt!) and the cannon fodder is dispatched in mighty world-shaking style but after peaking early with the chaos in California the film has nowhere left to go, no higher gear so the end finale seems little more than a damp squib. Thos are 3 hours of my life i'm unfortunately not going to get back.

Pandorum (2009)

About as good as you can expect, given the plot

[6/10 · 6 April 2010]

So a couple of crew members wake up on a spaceship with no recollection of who they are, where they are, or why they're there. It's later explained they're on a seed ship, a kind of Noah's Ark destined to colonise another planet after Earth has used up its natural resources. Oh, and they find they're not alone on the ship. Think Event Horizon with added aliens - and with Paul WS Anderson's producer's credit you've got some idea of what to expect. Director Christian Alvart deserves kudos here though, because he manages to balance the increasing paranoia of the surviving crew with the fighting action experienced between the humans and the hunters without making the whole thing seem too ridiculous. Antje Traue provides a bit of eye candy - the poor man's Asia Argento really, and Eddie Rouse plays the token nutter-who-speaks-the-truth down to a tee. The tension's not notched up anywhere near as high as it could have been, but with the mix of action and plot-driving scenes it never gets boring. And, as always, Quaid makes even the most benign scenes eminently watchable.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Unresolved genre piece

[6/10 · 6 April 2010]

The Taking Of Pelham 123 sees John Travlta reprising his Swordfish role and Denzel Washington playing Denzel Washington, again. Travolta's motley crew hijack a subway train full of passengers, park it up in the tunnel and demand 10 million dollars within an hour. Of course 10 million dollars is the maximum sum the mayor can call upon, but no one seems to follow why the terrorists know this. Later in the film it takes the mayor himself to work out in one short conversation with his aide more than the NYPD had worked out in the previous hour. I for one would re-elect that kind of intellect. The scenes on the train are alright, the green lighting gives it a distinct identity separate from the control room but then there's no real effort made to create any tension or sense of claustrophobia. Once Travolta starts shooting you can pretty much assume there are going to be more victims. Then there's the question of how the terrorists are going to escape - a question which is answered far far far too simply and in defiance of all pervading logic. At the very end the film gives up all semblance of credibility, forgetting the many plot lines that its left untied and simply stops mid-shot in a way i haven't seen since Cross Of Iron. As the credits rolled i had to pinch myself because i really couldn't believe how brazenly it had just stopped mid-sentence with so much left unresolved. Looking back, not worth watching at all.

Gamer (2009)

Exciting action thriller

[7/10 · 4 April 2010]

The kinetic hyper-realistic style of Crank finds its natural home here in Gamer recreating the fast and bloody environment of 1st person shooter games. Kable is the hero, convicted of murder, a pawn in the violent solution to the booming prison population masterminded by Castle whose ulterior motives are painfully obvious from the outset. The action is brilliant throughout - fast, graphic, explosively brutal this dishes up everything you want with lashings of claret. Nevermind the characters or story - there is a vague statement about society and the media amidst the chaos but thats not what i was watching it for. It's hard, testosterone-fuelled carnage from start to finish with little let-up between, a definite winner IMO.

Outlander (2008)

alright-ish

[6/10 · 4 April 2010]

Outlander, being the Beowulf-Predator-Lord Of The Rings spin off that it is, isn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. OK, so there's not really enough of the beast - the Moorwen - to satisfy most monster movie appetites and the final third is ridiculously melodramatic but the action, for the most-part, is fairly well captured. John Hurt hams it up nicely, chewing as much scenery as bear, and Caviezel is as good as anyone else could have been with such limited material as the protagonist. It goes on longer than necessary and never once treads into the realms of the brilliant but for the brainless piece of 2 hour entertainment that it is, it delivers the majority of the goods intact. Not one to go out of your way to see, but neither when you've seen it will it feel like a total waste of time.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Relatively effective

[6/10 · 3 April 2010]

For the first half Paranormal Activity starts to shape up as a seriously decent little horror film shot quickly on a shoe string yet eliciting some genuinely scary atmosphere from the innocuous household setting. It's a far more restrained affair than Poltergeist, and uses a subtly dark sound mix to ratchet up the tension far more effectively than Blair Witch ever could. But like i said: that's just the first half. Once we, the audience, have accepted that the malevolent presence in the house is going to do little more than walk around menacingly, occasionally banging on stuff, the threat evaporates and the film's sole strength - the unknown element of where it's all going is gone with it. There's little appeal in the amateurish performances and the hand-held camera-work gets the job done whilst adding nothing to the overall effect of the shots. At around 90 minutes it's also surprising that there still remain one or two filler scenes that add absolutely nothing to the film. It is worth baring with though for its finale, a little predictable perhaps, far better than the alternate ending certainly, and I for one loved it.

The Deal (I) (2008)

Humourless drivel

[1/10 · 1 April 2010]

A washed-up jaded disillusioned screenwriter takes a great art-house script, ruins it and turns it into an awful action movie all for the benefit of his own personal joke. There's no comedy here and the film development moves so fast it's impossible to follow what's going on, how or indeed why. The lead characters have no chemistry and with no hint of a tongue anywhere near a cheek it would seem this film is one massive joke on the audience. There's no wit, no sense of irony, no cleverness i just sincerely hope this is William H Macy's career nadir because to sink any lower would take a remarkable feat of hitherto unknown physical dexterity on his part. Watching a large tin of emulsion drying would be preferable any day over watching this steaming cow dung of a film ever again.

The Fourth Kind (2009)

X Files meets 24

[5/10 · 31 March 2010]

Take a bog standard X Files episode about a town being abducted by aliens, then shoot it like 24 with constant split-screening and you've pretty much got The Fourth Kind. Rather expectedly the ever-reliable Elias Koteas does a good job with terrible material, but this isn't a film about characters. It's real. So real that it has to go out of its way at the very start, at the very end, and constantly throughout the film to remind us that it's real. It's a very convenient real however, where aliens are so sophisticated they can magically abduct victims and wipe their memories, but not so sophisticated that they're unaware of the cabaret act known as hypnotism. The aliens can also cover their tracks brilliantly by making recording equipment fail at their every arrival, but are still stupid enough to abduct practically a whole town thus drawing the initial attention to themselves - suspicion which is compounded when the whole town has the exact same hallucination. This shouldn't be a horror, they should have made it into a documentary but they didn't. They marketed it as a horror based on real events and people, then conveniently only used the testimony of one person involved because no one else involved in the case wanted anything to do with the film or to get the warning out? Incredulous to the end, a total waste of time.

Antichrist (2009)

Unforgettable

[9/10 · 31 March 2010]

Within a complex tapestry of theology and symbolism Lars Von Trier's Antichrist plums the depths of the human condition taking cinema to places it has never gone nor ever wanted to go before. Following the establishing tragic accident (their son falls out of a window while they make love) He and She journey out to Eden, a remote lodge in the woods, for therapy where their lives and souls are changed forever. Far from a traditional horror film LVT gives us the darkest of psychological works that starts with shock before travelling down the spiral through grief, despair and panic ending in travesty. Gainsbourg and Defoe take us there, they carry the film on their monumental performances - Gainsbourg gives everything physically and emotionally to her role, while Defoe's character's grip on intellectualism is unrelenting. With death and depression permeating every frame of the film it has to be said that much of what is seen is stunningly beautiful - i really cant overstate the quality of the cinematography; at the same time the hauntingly evocative sound design adds that much needed 3rd dimension of pure evil that finishes off the work perfectly. It says and shows many disgusting things about humanity, but does so with such purity of vision, such artistic conviction that i found it totally irresistible. Not a film i'd want to see again in a hurry but certainly one i'm thankful i've experienced - it pushes the envelope in hitherto unforeseen ways that will probably affect film as a medium for years to come. If nothing else, i hope it helped LVT's recovery.

Star Trek (2009)

Really Good Fun

[7/10 · 29 March 2010]

I found Star Trek surprisingly good, from start to finish it struck just the right balance between action set piece and character building exposition - telling its own unique story whilst at the same time establishing the well known crew of the USS Enterprise in their respective roles. The director does well with material that could so easily have been turned into a flashy fast pile of nonsense but rather he keeps it engaging and entertaining throughout. The actors put in some good performances too - with a young Bones and Spock having the mannerisms of their characters' original players down to an absolute tee. Part of me expected the usual needless love story that you tend to get in these sorts of blockbusters, or maybe a scene of blatantly contrived tear-jerking but there are none here. The fatty excess has been trimmed away perfectly leaving a really succulent effort to sink your teeth into.

District 9 (2009)

Curious Success

[8/10 · 21 March 2010]

I didn't know what to expect before watching District 9, and i'm not sure quite what i think of it having seen it. Ostensibly a sci film set in South Africa where travelling aliens have been settled the story, told in past tense, follows the strange events of MNU alien evictor Wikus Van De Merwe. Ultimately he's wanted by the aliens, humans, and the Nigerian gangsters who operate out of District 9 - think Aliens crossed with The Fugitive. Blomkamp's real success here is taking a fairly standard human story along the lines of wrongful conviction and giving it a unique alien twist. In the opening chapter of the film i expected a sci fi with social commentary but in the end this work of art really is about the person at the heart of the plot and his tragic fall from grace. The direction is superb throughout - from CCTV to hand-held to newsreel to interviews with witnesses it really is a masterclass in technique. To the point even that the heart-string tugging ending doesn't seem trite, it's a little clichéd perhaps but those clichés are really just standard filmic techniques being deployed to maximum desired effect. The effects too are definitely worthy of glowing praise - to come up with the creature effects and designs are one thing, but to so seamlessly interweave them with live action is incredible: it really does feel at times like a genuine documentary. All things considered District 9 is an overwhelming success that should be sen to be believed, there are unanswered questions from the outset but maybe here the problem is that i'm asking unimportant questions rather than the film not fulfilling its full potential. A film i'll watch again and again, worth a DVD purchase.

Couples Retreat (2009)

No selling points

[4/10 · 19 March 2010]

If you're expecting a romcom then prepare for disappointment. It's not romantic and it certainly isn't funny. It takes ages to get to the retreat itself, then even longer to get to the fun side of the island. To watch the jokes repeatedly fail so utterly miserably is in a schadenfreude way, fascinating. How do people think that's funny you find yourself thinking. It's really, all in all, not much of anything to the point i can barely find the energy to deride it - why waste the effort when no effort went into making the film in the first place. I just hope for his sake that Jean Reno was well paid for this, he really debases himself.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Boring flashfest

[4/10 · 19 March 2010]

The saving grace of GI Joe is that it comes in under 2 hours. Unfortunately it still gets tedious: really seriously boring. The one set piece in Paris is the relative highlight yet it quickly becomes indistinguishable amongst the sea of explosions and fast action that is so overdone, so over the top, and without any hint of humour (except Wayans) or letup that watching it all becomes a chore in the final act. The bases were done better in Bond films, the action better in every other action film and the slow mo was done better in the Matrix; there aren't any discernible characters and the bloated story takes way too long getting to the big letdown of a denouement that we're all waiting for. An instantly forgettable splash of commercial pulp excess. Mortal Combat with bigger bangs.

The Killing Room (2009)

Runs out of ideas

[4/10 · 19 March 2010]

Another film, based in one room, in which 4 people are eliminated to one, told from the perspective of a behavioural psychologist observing the experiment. The experimentees are promised $250 each for completing the 1 day 8 hour test but have no idea what the experiment is or who is behind it. The film starts out with a lot of promise - after the irony behind the traps in the Saw franchise the ingenuity bar has been set reasonably high already. Factor in the cult success of Cube and this film is branching into a cornered market. But then again that really is the problem: apart from 1 of 2 cheap jumps there is barely any glint of originality in either the script, performances or concept. The director has done OK with limited material yet even overlooking the often mumbled dialogue (really, why they whisper so much is utterly baffling) and the frequently massive jumps to conclusions that seem to be spontaneously materialising out of thin air, there is still nothing here to shout about. As other reviews point out, the walkie talkie commentary gets annoying quickly but thats not the biggest of the many flaws. Without the gore of Saw we need good three dimensional relatable characters whereas The Killing Room presents us with cardboard victims on the assumption that for some unknown reason we will guess who's going to survive and indeed, care. It's painfully obvious from the start who's going to win, what interested me was how the doctor would react to the unfolding events. Well, that plot line goes nowhere interesting - so that was a wasted mental effort on my part. The only positive from this film is that it's all over very quickly. There's a totally predictable twist ending and a wider social commentary element that falls flatter than Kansas.

Watchmen (2009)

Worth the wait

[8/10 · 12 March 2010]

After 23 years via Aronofsky, Greengrass and Gilliam in defiance of those who said the material was 'unfilmable' Watchmen is here on screen, and how! America, having won the Vietnam war thanks to Dr Manhattan, is in a dystopic 1985 circa 1967 where Superheroes have been forced into retirement - this is The Incredibles in Sin City. The masked detective, Rorschach, is our guide through the story which focuses on the apparent serial killings of ex-heroes. There's a conspiracy but who's behind it, or is Rorschach just paranoid? Throw in some philosophising on the nature of humanity, the American dream taken to the nth degree and a bizarre love triangle between a god, a Lolita character and a geek and you have a truly remarkable film. The large runtime seems lengthy for a comic book film, until you take into the context the size and scale of the source material - the distilling of which into the cinematic medium has been done, in my not-so-humble opinion, brilliantly by Snyder (who previously gave us camp classic 300). The balance of the dark, foreboding noir cityscape part Gotham City part Se7en, with the hyper-realistic violence perpetrated by protagonists sporting the campest of costumes is incredible. Never slipping into slapstick yet never taking itself too seriously they've gone to town with some of the CGI (particularly some of the scenes on Mars) but for the right reasons and to a certain amount of success as far as i'm concerned. There's no sugar-coating here, the story sinks its canines into reality and tears it to shreds in brutal, visceral, style. It's as true to the graphic novel as possible and all the better for it. A film i'll definitely be watching again and again.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Easily forgettable

[5/10 · 11 March 2010]

Inglorious Basterds is yet another flashy exercise in pulp excess taking liberties as much with history as accents. Pitt and co play the titular basterds who operate behind enemy lines scalping Nazis (Pitt demands 100 scalps per member of his unit) culminating in a plot to wipe out the nazi hierarchy at a Parisian film premiere. Unbeknowknst to them the cinema's owner is plotting almost precisely the same thing. Eventually the 2 groups' paths collide in the film's explosive cinematic climax. Personally, i didn't enjoy it much, nor was there much chance I was going to as the thought of Tarantino directing a war film fills me with bemusement - like Leone directing a comedy. His overwrought self-satisfied style is all over this like the cream on the strudel in one restaurant scene. Every scene is planned to look and sound as cool as possible, removing any semblance of naturalism from the product in the process. The table conversations that fill the majority of the runtime never sound like a conversation people do or would actually have, rather they're pure script delivered by actors who sound only like they are delivering lines. The emotional vacuum in these scenes and others runs to the heart of what's wrong with what promised from its beginnings to have some substance to it yet with conversational emotion understated out of existence and the emotionless murders that make up the film's action there's nothing left for the viewer to latch on to. We're never supposed to empathise with anyone in the film because we're never given the chance, everyone is a basterd in this - the women perhaps moreso than the men and no one wins in the end. Nihilism? Not quite. Just a film that starts slowly, never gets out of a canter then gets lost along the way choosing to retire early rather than finish the race. Not the best couple of hours i've ever spent by any stretch.

The Ugly Truth (2009)

Average Romcom

[5/10 · 11 March 2010]

The protagonists aren't ugly and the film's not truthful. Apart from that it's... well it's not great. It's a romcom that ticks all the convention and cliché boxes, never once straining from the confines of the genre. The truth here, it is claimed, is that men are simple, butt hen the 2nd half of the film goes on rather predictably to show that the protagonist who claims this is precisely capable of being the ideal man he claims doesn't exist. But as this is fairly recognisable from the outset the only remaining question is whether the journey is worth it? Not really - there's one funny scene at a baseball game which involves a gag done much better in many more films, plus a When Harry Met Sally rip-off scene that misses everything that was funny about the original film. We get the expected montage(s) and a dance scene with a total chemistry vacuum. It's not awful - i did laugh once or twice, but the overriding hypocrisy, the total dearth of chemistry between the leads, and the single dimension in which the characters are drawn makes any kind of empathy whatsoever with the protagonists nigh on impossible.

Iron Man (2008)

Awful mess

[3/10 · 10 March 2010]

Thoroughly disappointing comic book film that spends far too much time explaining where the suit comes from, why and how it is made etc etc and not nearly enough time demonstrating the suit's abilities. Basically, there's not enough action. Robert Downey Junior does what can reasonably be expected with his 1 dimensional womanising misogynist whist everyone else barely registers on the radar. There's a ridiculous sexual subtext between RDJ and his PA and some blokes from a shadowy government agency appear twice, without reason, then disappear again after doing nothing in particular. All in all a waste of screen time for most of those concerned.

Loose Change: Final Cut (2007 Video)

He who casts the first stone

[2/10 · 23 February 2010]

I've never seen the original Loose Change, but after hearing so much about it and having seen Zeitgeist, The Power Of Nightmares and Freedom To Fascism i figured it was about time i gave the big one a whirl.

This "Final Cut" seems like half a film. It's a well organised, neatly structured pseudo-documentary that effectively breaks down the events of September 11th 2001 into easily digestible nuggets of information. Many many fingers are pointed at the 9/11 Commission's official report and the questions that were, or were not in most cases, asked of key witnesses. Important stuff indeed for good investigative journalism is one of the keystones of a free democratic society, able to challenge its rulers on the balance of probabilities and reasonable doubt. In fact, coming away from this film one is puzzled at why the official explanation is still trumpeted around as a gospel account of the tragedy. Undeniably convincing, cannily constructed, this really puts the administration under an uncomfortable spotlight. So why did I only give it 2 out of 10? The reason is simple. All the mud is hurled across the fence, all the holes pointed out and many reasoned logical arguments are deployed in debunking the commission's account of events. But not one alternative is presented. This would be bad enough alone but further than this there are no attempts made to suggest why such a conspiracy could or would exist. There're the usual collection of experts and statistics, but in a film hoping to be taken seriously this seems little more than cheap gimmickry utilised in the hope of enforcing the shakiest of arguments. Aspersions are cast as to credibility, but the frightening prospect of the inside job, oft hinted at, is unsatisfactorily left hanging in the air without following it to its own damning conclusions.

Ultimately the hole in this argument is context. No context is given to the intelligence that was or was not ignored and no context is really given to the circumstances the administration and/or the FAA and FBI were operating under.

I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying that the polarised, one-dimensional presentation so totally devoid of context severely undermines most if not all of what is trying to be said.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

Awful Mess of a Movie

[2/10 · 23 February 2010]

This film is awful. I hoped it was going to be merely OK, but this is truly dire. Firstly we spend the first 20 minutes only seeing flashes of the surfer with no explanation of who he is where he came from or why. Holes appear all over the planet, eventually Mr Fantastic works out he can predict where these holes are going to be dug which means they can catch him. No one explains why the holes are being dug. Then they catch him. Then the bad guy from the first film goes AWOL with the board while Galactus arrives in a cloud of fuzzy, bad, CGI. Again, Galactus gets a one sentence explanation. When we see it/him, it/he looks like the all-seeing-eye from TLOTR, minus the eye. The world survives, because having trashed countless worlds the surfer discovers people care for each other (no other planet displayed this habit?). The surfer saves us by destroying Galactus, which leads one to wonder why he didn't just do that in the first place saving himself and most of the universe an awful lot of bother.

Films like this should spend more on CGI and less on acting. They should cut to the action and do away with emotion. Go with what works and ditch what doesn't but ROTSS doesn't, and fails.