Wish You Were Here

I was quite intrigued to see Wish You Were Here. It is after all, a newage Aussie drama flick and I find it interesting to see what Aussie filmmakers are producing at present. This film has that new style of quick editing seen in many Aussie drama's made today meaning instead of lingering within a moment in the film, you just get a quick snapshot of the necessary information before being whisked off to the next scene for the next piece of information. For this type of film the editing worked quite well as it is essentially a mystery piece that all comes together as you watch.

The next thing you will notice about this film, after the editing, is the gorgeous cinematography. Almost all of the film is shot on the lowest f-stop possible, creating a shallow depth of field and sharply keeping your attention drawn to the small, fast moving details contained in each frame. It makes you feel trapped in the movie, along with the characters, and is obviously an intentional decision to assist with understanding the main characters emotional state. Again this impressed me and some of the shot compositions were spectacular. So much of this film comes across in the subteltey of these compositions and in miniscule details that its almost like a game to watch out for the clues as to what the characters are going through. For this reason its worth seeing, but unfortunately this creates a problem as much of the film moves along slowly and relies on this game to convey important plot points, rather than through actual story telling.

Essentially what that game leads to is bad pacing throughout the film. Most of the movie you live in the 'present' of the characters' lives with flashbacks to South East Asia where they holidayed with some family and friends before one of their friends disappeared on a crazy night out. Slowly piecing together what happened on that night, and the resulting consequences of that night, are what the movie is all about. The slow reveal and use of subtle details make for a great idea, but I feel the director got too caught up in that and sort of forgot that the movie needs to keep moving along too. For about 20 minutes it felt like you neither learnt anything new about the characters nor anything more about that fateful night due to no flashbacks being shown. This seems like an obvious oversight on the creators behalf and I'm curious why they botched up such a large part of the film.

In the end I was left unsatisifed. After such a slow burn and long build-up I thought it was going to be a cracker of a finish, and even though there are some shocking reveals towards the end, they didnt really combine to go "POW" and blow your socks off. Its dissapointing as I felt like it could have been something more than just a beautiful looking film.

SCORE: 6/10

IMDB Info for Wish You Were Here

Pitch Perfect

Pitch Perfect is a bit of a weird one. Suggested by my wife on recommendations from her friends, I was expecting a Rom Com/Chick Flick type of film but was surprised to find out it is in fact more like a musical in the fashion of Glee, I guess. Let me start by saying I am not a musical fan nor can I stand even sitting through the ad's for Glee so I was apprehensive of continuing to watch this movie once the singing started. Then when the main pretty girl vomits all over the stage whilst singing the opening song I was even closer to leaving, but, being a good husband I decided to stick it out and keep my wife company.

In the end I found myself a bit caught up in the obvious storyline and rooting (no pun intended) for the all girls group to win the a capella competition. I guess this is a modern day movie for the new age geeky/nerdy fad thats currently in vogue at school. In my day it was a couple of misfits destroying the Bio-Dome and making it cool again, or a different group of misfits going travelling through time to win a history class competition ... and for this generation it seems to be all about singing and dancing.

The thing I most enjoyed about the film is that the leading cast was an all female ensemble. Its great to see more films taking the "brave" approach and going against the norm by putting in female leads, or even more shockingly a group of females in the lead. I want more films like this to come along and less films of men dressing up as women because its quite rude to think the audience would prefer Eddie Murphy acting as a chick than a real woman being funny (although I have to confess Eddie Murphy as the Grandma is pretty damn funny). Girls can be funny and produce great comedy, just look at Rebel Wilson in this movie or any of the chicks in Bridesmaids and its obvious! I find it kinda refreshing to see it being done differently more often now and hope it continues.

This movie is made for a specific audience and Im pretty sure that audience will love this flick. My wife really enjoyed it and said she should write this review instead of me, which kind of makes sense. I wasn't the target audience for this film at all and so the best thing I can say about the film is that I laughed in it, enjoyed the leading ladies and feel that for those of you that like a singing & dancing movie about a group of misfits rising up and winning against the odds: you are sure to love it.

SCORE: 6/10

IMDB Info for Pitch Perfect

Oblivion

A quick synopsis for Oblivion is that its the future, aliens have obliterated Humans by breaking the moon up or something and Tom Cruise is a half commando/half mechanic who maintains drones and a big machine that sucks sea water up into it for powering a floating triangle in space. This storyline is really just an excuse to make a beautiful looking Sci-Fi film utilising every single Sci-Fi cliche you can imagine.

The best thing about this film was that I saw it in a cinema with the Dolby Surround EX system which introduces an extra rear channel to the sound setup. It was perfect for this film as there are drones and flying things shooting all around the place throughout the whole film and it really sounded like they were moving around you in the cinema.

Almost all of the attention of this film went to the set design, CGI and sound, and its very noticeable. The sets were gorgeous and the CGI was near photo real. When that was combined with the sound, it engineered a rather beautiful post apocalyptic Earth. The designs were like a modern take on the traditional retro "future" designs Ive seen from Sci Fi flicks of the 70's and it worked really well. A see through swimming pool suspended above the Earth with a naked lady swimming around it was a highlight of the film. Unfortunately with all of the attention on these matters they forgot about a pretty important part of the film which was the screenplay. I was quite confused for most of the film and found myself still discussing it with my mate the next day, trying to tie all the pieces together. Normally I really like that about a film, but with oblivion I was doing it as I was so confused about what the hell happened and why there were so many hypocrisies in the storyline, rather than trying to piece together all the clues of a clever plot.

Overall if you are a Sci-Fi fan or a Tom Cruise fan then I would recommend checking out the film for the reasons mentioned above. If you are neither of those then you really aren't going to enjoy this one so might be best to give it a miss.

SCORE: 6/10

IMDB Info for Oblivion

West of Memphis

On August 19, 2011, 3 men left prison after serving 18 years and 78 days. This may not be all that incredible under normal circumstances, except that in this case these men were innocent.

This film is a documentary around the crime, the suspects, the court hearing and the subsequent evidence discovered during the 18 years they were incarcerated and how that new evidence led up to the men walking out of jail for the first time since they were teenagers. It centres around the area of West Memphis where in 1993, three boys aged 8 years old were murdered. The three men who were convicted for this: Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly Jr & Jason Baldwin, were quiet teenagers who were into satanic music and related activities. These men were picked on by the police and media for their interests and linked to the crime in no plausible way and then convicted based on the confession of Jessie Misskelly that the three of them did kill those boys.

Over the years it came to light that Jessie was borderline intellectually retarded and that the police had interviewed and questioned him for 12 hours straight to get that confession. Only 46 minutes of those 12 hours was recorded and used as evidence.

The documentary itself is edited well and holds a huge amount of information. It is heavily weighted to the innocence of the three men and as such I felt that maybe there was some more information left out about the case but it does appear overwhelmingly obvious that these three men were innocent of the crime. The interviews are all top quality and the access the filmmakers got to everyone involved is comprehensive. Some of the archival footage is quite confronting so please be aware that you will see footage of the crime scene and photos of the post mortem which was hard to look at. This is dealt to the viewer with taste though and not in a glorified manner at all, and definitely helps tell the story of what occurred.

I never know what to think of these documentaries. I love the idea of watching them and learning about them and their content, but the fact that they are based on real world events and show real world footage makes a much deeper etch into my mind. I find it harder to push out the thoughts after the credits roll and often find myself still pondering them a few days later. If you can prepare yourself for that then I recommend watching this as a display of gross misconduct by the state, the court and the police. And wonder, if these three men didn't kill those boys and the person who did is still walking around today, who is it?

SCORE: 7/10

IMDB info for West of Memphis

Wikipedia article on the West Memphis Three

The Fighter

I had the urge for something epic last night.  Considered the usual Gladiator, Braveheart, Patriot etc but ended up settling on a second viewing of The Fighter.  I really enjoyed it the first time and the second was great as well getting to focus a little more on the performances rather than the story.

Christian Bale is just simply incredible in this movie.   If you didn't know he was an actor you would just believe without hesitation he was an ex-boxer crack addict.   How the hell does he transform from Batman into Dicky?   It has to be one of the top 10 performances of all time.  (Hmmm that will be an interesting post to do... will come back to that one).  Bale is now up there with the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis in my opinion. A complete method actor.

I don't want to take too much away from Mark Wahlberg though.  He gives a great performance as well but I never see him transform into someone else.  He's always cast in similar roles and plays them well, but there's no WOW factor.  The rest of the supporting cast are fantastic as well...  Love the hair on some of those feral sisters.

Boxing movies, like any others focused on sports, tend to follow the usual pattern of hardship and triumph.  I find if it's done well though it never feels old.  It's great to be inspired and when they land that final punch, kick that last goal or sink that last ball to win the big match you're left with a big smile on your face and warm fuzzies.   This is done to perfection in The Fighter especially since Mickey is such a likable guy and is based on a true story.  The movie feels raw and real.

I believe Mark Wahlberg worked his ass of to get the producers on board (including himself) and get the film made.  Bloody legend the result is a very entertaining and inspiring couple of hours.   Check it out if you haven't already and prepare to blown away by Dicky :)  If you enjoy I recommend the movie Warrior as well released 2011. 

Oh - I love the fact they show the real guys at the end.  Crazy looking bastards, haha.

9/10

IMDB Info

Liberal Arts

So Ted from How I Met Your Mother decided to write and direct a movie. I really, really like Ted so was definitely going to check it out. Plus the idea of someone moving onwards in showbiz from a TV actor to a Hollywood director (this was an indie film, but Id like to think he will move on to bigger things) is something I love to dream about happening.

So onto the film ... what was it like? Well, as far as Romantic Comedies go I feel that the best ones out there will get a 7/10 from me. Its not my favourite genre but I appreciate the scope and demographic for them and know how necessary they are. I also really appreciate a good one and love when I feel one is worthy of a 7. I am very happy to announce that this movie received a 7/10 from me.

The film is a tad pretentious and even a tad pompous, but, if you watch How I Met Your Mother you will probably feel the same towards Ted and I can only imagine that this must come from some level of reality if Josh Radnor stars as Ted and wrote and directed this film. His knowledge of the arts is obviously more indepth than most, and his love for them must also be more than most. There were many references in this film to Orchestral performances and composers, authors, painters and bands that I had hardly ever heard of. If you are of the arts persuasion I would be interested to know if this film works better or worse for you. For me, it definitely made it better as instead of Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz getting smashed in Vegas and fucking each other, there was some level of indepth discussion about semi interesting, and unknown topics. For that I was grateful as its unfortunately not always found in the Rom Com genre.

The standout for this film though, apart from anything Josh Radnor did, was Elizabeth Olsen. Elizabeth is simply mesmerising. She has fast become my favourite current actress and I cannot wait to see what else she goes on to do. Watching her in Martha Marcy May Marlene made me realsie how awesome a leading lady can be a in a film. To me that was up there with Natalie Portman in the Black Swan. The depth and intensity she showed was intense. This film is nothing like either of those two, but to be a leading lady in a Rom Com and bring a level of innocence, integrity and intelligence such as she did is a real achievement. Its worth watching just for her performance alone.

SCORE: 7/10

IMDB Information for Liberal Arts