TRUE GRIT- Review

The last of the big over-delayed Oscar contenders finally arrived in the UK on Friday, and it's the one I've been most eagerly anticipating. There seems to be something of a weird backlash against modern Coen brothers films, but I personally think No Country For Old Men and A Serious Man are great films. I also enjoy Westerns, so True Grit would seem ideal for my tastes.

When Frank Ross is murdered in cold blood over a gambling dispute, his daughter Mattie wants retribution. The killer, Tom Chaney, has long since skipped town. Nobody seems particularly keen to pursue Chaney, so Mattie hires a hard-bitten US Marshall, Rooster Cogburn, to hunt him down. Also in pursuit of the killer is a Texas Ranger called LaBoeuf, and he accompanies Mattie and Cogburn as they head out on the frontier in search of justice.

The overwhelming impression that True Grit left me with was that it had gone by too soon. It's 110 minutes long and it feels much shorter. Multiple viewings of this thing may be needed just to fully take everything in, but let's be frank from the beginning- outings with the Coen brothers tend to end abruptly. We remember how things wound up at the close of those films I named above, and without spoiling anything, there's a similar grinding halt to the action here, followed by a quite disparate postscript. Maybe it's something I need to leave to grow on me, but I really didn't enjoy the ending of this one. A shame really, because the rest of it is excellent.

As a film, it's possibly the most conventional thing Joel and Ethan Coen have ever done. It feels like a part of the classical tradition of Westerns, doing less new stuff with the genre than No Country for Old Men did a few years ago but still managing to utterly submerge me all the way through. The Coens' gallows humour serves the story well, rousing much laughter throughout but also lending itself to brutal moments of violence, as in so much of their oeuvre.

Surprisingly, to me at least, the main character turns out to be Mattie Ross. While Oscar might have nominated Hailee Steinfeld in the Best Supporting Actress category, she is undoubtedly the protagonist here, and Steinfeld is the standout in a cast of very good and much more experienced actors. A line can be drawn from her performance to that of Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, showing the same obstinacy and intelligence that Mark Zuckerburg is imbued with in a film set over a century later. And Steinfeld is only 14 years old.

The rest of the cast are just as important, mind. Jeff Bridges is a little mumbly, but reliably magnetic as Rooster Cogburn. The Dude quickly dispels whatever notions you might have of the Duke in that role, at least for as long as you're submerged in this new rendition. Matt Damon is also very impressive as the prideful LaBoeuf, making an indecisive character very engaging at the same time, and holding his own in exchanges of machismo with Bridges. And while Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper are held back until late in the proceedings, their respective roles should not be understated- at the very least, Brolin does a much better job with a weird voice in the old West than he did last time around.

The surreal touches of the Coens' previous work are more sparse this time around, but they're still there- witness the man who speaks only in barnyard noises, or the image of a bear riding a horse. The look of the film is consistent with their previous stuff though, largely due to the presence of their erstwhile cinematographer Roger Deakins. The films he's worked on always look gorgeous, and if anyone needs to win an Oscar this month, it's him- True Grit marks his ninth nomination for Best Cinematography, and yet he's never won. Actually, mark the film in for Best Sound Design and/or Editing too- if you actually notice a film's sound design and editing as I did with this one, you know someone's doing something special.

After accidentally getting a clutch of Oscar nominations last year with A Serious Man, their most personal project ever, the Coens go for something a little more conventional in True Grit. "Conventional" should not scan as "typical" though, because the film still stands out, even after the barrage of awards contenders we've had recently. The cast and the standard of the production are fantastic, and only the very ending could be called dissatisfying. I can't speak for how it measures up to the original (it's on my to-watch pile, honest), but I can tell you that the brevity of pace and the sheer boisterous entertainment value of this adaptation left me yearning to revisit it at the nearest possible opportunity.

True Grit is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen True Grit, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

TRON: LEGACY- Review

There is actually a sequel to Tron. And it comes almost three decades after the release of the original. We are now in a realm where all things are possible, and there's nothing Grid-like about it. I saw Tron for the first time yesterday evening, right before catching a midnight screening of Tron: Legacy. I may profess myself disappointed by Tron, but believe me, it's got nothing on the sequel as a sheer letdown.

The sequel picks up with Kevin Flynn having taken his company Encom to its peak after the ending of the first film, but then he disappears, leaving his young son Sam behind, all alone. Flash forward two decades and Sam gets a message that suggests his father might still be around, living in the computerised world known as the Grid and working on a breakthrough that could change the course of human history. Sam ventures into the Grid, and finds his father in hiding from his own digital counterpart, Clu, who rules the state with a pixellated iron fist.

At least Tron: Legacy starts how it means to go on, with an on-screen notice about how this 3D presentation features many 2D scenes. It only compounds the dishonesty of the gimmick by playing out this disclaimer only after cinema patrons have forked out extra for the "3D experience", taken their seats and sat through ten to twenty minutes of ads and trailers. The film starts out low, and continues to disappoint, specifically in how it looks in completely the other direction to its predecessor.

Even if Tron isn't that impressive, and looks dated by today's visual standards, prominently on display in this film in particular, there's a prescience about it. Tron was released before the Internet was widely known, but its relation of the inside of a computer to arcade games and social interaction could well be linked to the world wide web. In Tron: Legacy, every single thing is not only understandable in terms of every development in cinema and technology that has happened since, but also identical to them in so many ways.

It even borrows heavily from the first film in the name of in-jokes and references. Lines are repeated, shots are recreated, and it's practically a remake in all things except for the continuing arc of the elder Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. Bridges plays Flynn very well, although burdened with a suddenly emergent tree-hugger outlook, but even the Dude himself can't manage to salvage Clu from the haze of overhyped de-aging SFX. There's not a single frame where Flynn's ageless doppelganger looks photo-real, even when framed alongside the computer generated vistas of the Grid. For his part though, Bridges does a damn fine job- it's always a pleasure to see him as nature intended.

With regard to other intertextual gubbins, the first half hour plods along with Center City looking an awful lot like Christopher Nolan's Gotham. And we're introduced to Garrett Hedlund's Sam, a protagonist so impossibly vacant that he couldn't be more dull if he were played by Shia LaBeouf. To break the monotony, he dives off buildings and breaks into corporate headquarters- in 2D, mind you- in a number of other scenes reminiscent of The Dark Knight. This also sadly includes how seriously it takes itself, which works less well for lightcycles and electric data frisbees than it does for a masked vigilante fighting mob rule.

Poor Michael Sheen also has very little to work with, and frankly, he's made to look like a twat in his role as Castor, the film's most useless and inexplicable character, who runs a disco for programs on the Grid, for some reason. He enlivens the proceedings in much the same way as Jar Jar Binks enlivened The Phantom Menace, and I'm not exaggerating. Olivia Wilde comes off rather better in her naive warrior woman role as Quorra, making her the most magnetic screen presence by default and a joy to watch whenever she gets to bounce off of Jeff Bridges.

Many negative reviews have said that Tron: Legacy is to Tron as The Matrix Reloaded is to The Matrix. I'm going to go one further, having already invoked Jar Jar. It's funny that Tron came out of a period in Disney's history when they tried to find the next Star Wars, and now years later, this sequel comes close to the drudgery that characterised George Lucas' largely abysmal prequels. It's not as bad as either Episode I or II, but it has all the clunky dialogue, over-reliance on visual effects and general matter-of-fact-ness about it that made those films such a pain.

Tron: Legacy might have decent special effects, but it looks and feels like the moodiest night out you'll ever have, set in a giant orange and blue neon-lit club where nothing really registers as important.  I've been wrong before, but I think Disney may have made a $200 million mistake. It's taking the slot in which Avatar broke the bank in 2009, and it's a similar mish-mash of recent developments that's not even as good as "Dances with Wolves in space". It feels like it goes on for way longer than its two hours, and the script is too incredibly convoluted to forgive or even to follow. Despite occasional and apparently accidental lapses into real entertainment, and great performances from Olivia Wilde and the proper Jeff Bridges, this last hope in a dismal Christmas movie schedule is a massive letdown.

Tron: Legacy is now showing in 2D and 3D, at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Tron: Legacy, why not share your comments below? If you think the Star Wars prequel comparisons are a tad harsh, come back when you've seen the film and your lexicon of words to describe the sun is suitably expanded...

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Stark Contrast

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments. That said, the Iron Man review will contain SPOILERS, because if you haven't seen the first one yet, I doubt you'd be here.

The Internet is abuzz with reviews of Iron Man 2, the definitive beginning of the 2010 summer blockbuster season. With such widespread interest in the sequel, there's only one thing your Mad Prophet could do, true believers. That's right- go back and review Iron Man. You know, because this blog started just shy of the opportune time to do a review of that film. Nah, there will be a quick snifter at Iron Man 2 as well, so sit back and enjoy a blog post that scrutinises the ongoing adventures of Tony Stark.
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Iron Man begins with Tony Stark being ambushed by a terrorist group whilst in a military convoy in Afghanistan. He's a billionaire and genius, and his talents are understandably coveted by America's enemies. While in captivity, he pulls a Doc Brown by using the materials provided to create something much more awesome than he's meant to- in this case a mechanised suit of armour capable of dealing heavy firepower. Through these experiences, Tony's eyes are opened to the effects of his work, and when he returns to America, he vows to develop the armour and right his own wrongs as the titular superhero.

In the time since the film came out, Jeff "The Dude" Bridges has publicly decried Paramount's initial handling of the film, setting a release date and even starting shooting before they had a script or a cast locked down. In the same breath, he said that the film turned out as well as it did thanks to the improv skills of director Jon Favreau and leading man Robert Downey Jr. Certainly they make Iron Man the all-out riotous bit of fun blockbuster cinema that it is. You have to remember that Iron Man is no Superman or Spider-Man. With the upper tier characters spoken for, film studios are turning to lesser known characters, making this an unlikely hit when it originally came out.

Of course it's also the film that largely gave Downey the stardom he finally secured in the last few years. He earns every bit of it with his sardonic portrayal of Stark, making the audience like him from barely a minute after the film starts. Favreau wisely keeps him on screen for as long as possible, because in a superhero film where the alter-ego is entirely concealed by a suit of robot armour, there's little room for performance in major action sequences.

Save for a few ingenious finishing moves, there's little to show that Stark is Iron Man, resulting in a number of open-helmeted exchanges when he does don the suit. On which note, it's nice to see they partially employ practical effects for the suit, and that it's near impossible to tell the difference between the effects and the physical suit.
Also to be applauded is his chemistry with literally everyone on screen. He sparks off of Gwyneth Paltrow as his long-suffering assistant Pepper Potts without the film resorting to a traditional romantic conclusion. He mocks Terrence Howard's Colonel Rhodes without ever letting the audience lose sight of the fact that they're best friends. Downey is perfectly cast as Stark and is simply one of the best things about this film.

The plot rattles along wonderfully, especially considering they improvised much of it, and the only real problem stems from Iron Man being a second-tier Marvel hero. The first-tier heroes are often so well-known because they also have everyone's favourite villains. In Iron Man's case, his nemeses are more often bigger or more metal versions of himself- another guy in a suit.

Even if the action climax fizzles out, it picks up for one of the better final scenes of any modern blockbuster- a complete subversion of the angst around preserving a secret identity when you have superpowers. Tony telling the press "I am Iron Man" leaves the audience wanting more from the film from the second it cuts to the credits. And who could blame any audience? This is a witty, gloriously acted and hugely enjoyable film that stands up on repeat viewings and doesn't adhere too closely to superhero genre formula. Iron Man defies expectations by pleasing both comic fans and broad audiences, setting up both the origins of the character and some pretty intense anticipation for a follow-up.
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It's that intense anticipation that threatens to overshadow Iron Man 2 for me. Beginning simultaneously with the first film's ending before skipping six months on, the sequel picks up with Tony being massively popular for the Iron Man brand and for "effectively privatising world peace." Opposition stirs within the US government, who want to replicate the armour for military usage, and across the globe, where a resentful Ivan Vanko plots vengeance on Tony. Whipping up an arc reactor of his own, Vanko embarks upon a mission to prove to the world that Iron Man is not indestructible...

On my first viewing? I don't think it's as good as the original. I wouldn't call it a disappointment, but it's just missing something. I will be seeing it again to check I wasn't compressing it under the weight of my expectations, but here's my review for now. The first hour or so is really pretty dull. The highlight, an fight scene at the Monaco Grand Prix, has been flogged to death in the marketing, and so has little impact in the context of the film. After a promising opening, it becomes bogged down in extended scenes of sub-poena hearings and corporate mix-ups, which is not what you want from a film called Iron Man 2.

After that second hour though, the film becomes preoccupied with selling the forthcoming Avengers film. The convergence of all the Marvel characters here takes up a sizable chunk of the second act, when I'd really much rather have seen a film solely about Iron Man. It wouldn't be fair to say it suffers from Spider-Man 3 Syndrome, but it does stretch itself massively to cover numerous plot points about SHIELD when giving proper focus to the narrative at hand would have been more satisfying. Despite the flab, it's a decent narrative with some strong action beats, but it seems divorced from the sense of fun that made Iron Man so good.
Of the cast, I can't really declare any faults. Downey is once again superb as Tony, becoming ever more isolated as the tide of opinion turns against him, but special mention should go to Sam Rockwell. Assess your wants and needs, and I guarantee you there is nothing you want as much as Justin Hammer wants to be Tony Stark. He's an incompetent shadow to Tony's genius and Rockwell knocks it out of the park completely in every scene he's in. Don Cheadle makes a better Rhodey-cum-War Machine than his predecessor Terrence Howard right from the off, and Mickey Rourke proves an interesting casting decision, playing Vanko. His righteous anger is pretty much the length and breadth of his character, but Rourke sells it well, proving a threatening screen presence throughout.

Downey has always been fast-talking as Tony, often speaking at the same time as an equally flustered and garbled Gwyneth Paltrow, but it really jars this time around in the early instances of their dialogue together. If there's one character who's perfectly legible and well-covered throughout, it's Happy Hogan, played by... director Jon Favreau. Expanding a cameo from the first film, he gets lots of dialogue in this one, gets involved in action scenes and at one point is pinioned between Scarlett Johansson's legs. If you have to do a cameo, make it more like Hitchcock and less like Shyamalan. I do have to wonder where director Jon Favreau's head was this time around, other than locked between ScarJo's thighs in that one scene.

Is Iron Man 2 solidly entertaining? Ultimately, yes, but it's not a patch on the first one. The unconventional ending of the first film is countered with a bog-standard denouement for two certain characters and a final scene that's kind of copied from the ending to one of the Star Wars films. And just prior to those scenes, we have a villain face-off similar to the end of Iron Man- as mentioned earlier, his opponents are invariably other robots, and that's the case here. I'll hand it to Favreau though, it still seems fresh if not entirely as enjoyable as what's gone before. And it held my attention throughout, so it's visually top-notch even if the meat in the story is a little thin at the outset.
It's funny really, how Iron Man proved a winning formula with little planning and a largely improvised production and this one didn't. The signs of aforethought are all too clear in Iron Man 2, and the half-hearted attempt to recapture that formula turns it into just that- a formula. There aren't many original thrills, but it has a better cast giving better performances than many other films you'll see this summer. Thankfully it hasn't attempted to stray into the intangible territory of "darkness" that many Hollywood sequels try to broach, but sadly it doesn't really try anything else new either.
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With the caveat that I may well be kinder to the sequel on a second viewing, let me know what you think of the Iron Man films with a comment below!

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Colin Song

The tenuous link between two of this week's releases-Oscar-winning character piece Crazy Heart and Irish fantasy-drama Ondine- is that they both prominently feature singing and Colin Farrell. The Irish actor is something of a paradox in that his heyday was in 2003, and yet the films he's made since have arguably been better. Except for Alexander, which would be unforgivable if it weren't for his career-best performance in In Bruges. So while I'm hardly a fan, I had to give these two films a go.

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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In the week following Jeff Bridges' long-awaited Oscar win for Best Actor, Crazy Heart has made it into UK cinemas. Bridges plays Bad Blake, a country-western crooner who's past his best and finds himself with prolific health problems, related to his copious drinking and smoking. He traipses from gig to gig, making a living and trying to recall the glory days. Continually outshone by the more manufactured strains of his protégé, Tommy Sweet (Farrell), Bad considers writing some new songs instead of relying on his popular back-catalogue. He's further inspired by a journalist and her young daughter, who allow him into their lives and give him a chance to reconnect with people.

Outright, I'm going to reiterate what I've been saying since Sunday- Jeff Bridges' win is well-deserved. Not only for his long career, which I suspect factored into the Academy's decision in this particular year, but for the marvellous performance he gives here as Bad Blake. For an actor who's most distinctive to me and many others as the Dude in The Big Lebowski, this is an entirely tangible and relatable character. Bridges embodies Bad from the moment he hops out of his car after a long journey and pours a milk carton full of piss on the tarmac. Similarly, Maggie Gyllenhaal is excellent here, and the romantic chemistry between the two is electric, despite the massive age gap between the two. She was up for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Mo'Nique for Precious (unfairly, I dare say). It's also great to see Robert Duvall, who also produces the film, doing films like this instead of Four Christmases, having been the best part of most of Francis Ford Coppola's films back in the 1970s.

Some of Crazy Heart's critics have suggested it has a cosmetic similarity to The Wrestler, but with country music instead of heel-smacking, forehead-stapling sport. I'd disagree on that count, but would say that it's more similar to another Oscar favourite this year, Up in the Air. Like Clooney's Ryan Bingham in that film, Bad Blake is travelling so often that he can't really form or maintain relationships. But where Clooney slipped away to flirt with Vera Farmiga, Bridges contents himself by shagging groupies he meets at gigs, more advanced in years though they are. And those gigs come across well too- both Bridges, and latterly Colin Farrell, perform their own songs rather than lip-synching or using ADR, which is always good when actors play musicians. Unless, so I'm told, you're Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia.

Crazy Heart is engaging enough that you forget Bad Blake isn't a real person, which is more than I can say of most musical biopics, never mind other such character studies. It's bolstered tremendously by Jeff Bridges, whose tortured soul of a musician is still a million miles away from the slightly similar character played by Mickey Rourke a year or so ago. Bad is a magnetic character, and has a great dynamic with Gyllenhaal's Jean too. Country music isn't my thing, but the soundtrack is excellent too. And if the best sports films make you care even when you don't give a shit about the sport, then this is a musical drama par excellence.
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Colin Farrell takes a more central role in Ondine, where he plays Syracuse, a fisherman and recovering alcoholic who catches an unconscious woman in his trawler's nets just off the coast of his small Irish hometown. Unable to remember who she is and how she came to her current predicament, she adopts the name Ondine, meaning "she came from the water." When she reveals an unusual talent for singing fishes into Syracuse's nets, she enchants his disabled young daughter, Annie. Annie is convinced that Ondine is a selkie- a mythical creature who can live on the land for several years at a time, unless her subterranean spouse claims her back. Selkie or not, someone is coming for Ondine.

Sound familiar? Wondering if I've reviewed this already? Yes, it's Ponyo for grown-ups! But it does manage to be a superior film too, at the very least because it's not nearly as shrill as the dubbed version of Miyazaki's film. It's a well crafted and gorgeously shot folk-tale of a film, that straddles fantasy and drama with only slight unease. With a 12A certificate, it's occasionally shooting for the younger audience, but it also allows for copious swimming scenes with ingénue Alicja Bachleda stripping to her pants, which director Neil Jordan brings forward with gusto. The more rational of the two proffered explanations for Ondine's origins is also on the more adult side of things. To that end, a stock Romanian baddy comes stalking around the small town, slightly reminiscently of Christopher Fulford in Danny Boyle's Millions, another film which married a fledgling crime thriller storyline with a child's perspective on matters.

There's certainly nothing so remarkable as In Bruges from Farrell here, but then it doesn't have to be the best thing he's ever done, and fair play to him for the presumable influence of his star power in getting this film to the screen. Bachleda is appropriately dainty as the title character, although perhaps the tone might have came off better if she weren't so sexualised by Jordan's lens. Elsewhere, Stephen Rea, Dervla Kirwan and Tony Curran all make fleeting appearances as the townspeople with the appropriate level of befuddlement that Ponyo was missing. But the most charming performance on show is by young Alison Barry as Annie, who more or less clarifies Bachleda's airy ambiguity and keeps the central enigma engaging to the audience.

Clinging like a barnacle to a typical three-act structure, Ondine is still a very likable and enchanting film from a country that rarely seems to make a big noise in the cinema unless they're offended by Leap Year. Like its central character, it's alluring irrespective of its origin, and my big failing here is that I saw it so late in the week it was screening in cinemas. In the shadow of the following week's releases from directors like Paul Greengrass and Martin Scorcese, it seems like this is destined to be a one-week engagement for most cinemas. In the hope that it's more broadly seen later on DVD, I can heartily recommend this feast of charm and whimsy, even if it's a bit difficult to discern its target audience.
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Still to come, probably over the course of this weekend, are Green Zone and Shutter Island, both of which seem a little more intense than either of these films. But if you've seen Crazy Heart or Ondine, why not share your comments on the films and/or the reviews below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.