Happy April Fool's Day and Easter holidays (if any fellow teachers read this)! It's been a crazy busy month of film watching. I've ploughed through 28 films in March and am finally coming close to being able to make my top 10 list of 2011. I've also caught up on a few classics as you will see from the list below. Here's the bottom fourteen of the movies I watched this month. Don't forget to pop back round in the next couple of days to see the top 14 movies I watched in March!
28. Drive
Angry (Patrick Lussier, 2011)
Driver
escapes hell, hooks up with Amber Heard and sets off to save his grandchild
from a Satan worshipping cult. Another
lame Nicholas Cage movie. Not sure why I
bother with anything he’s in these days.
Had heard that this was dumb fun.
Unfortunately it’s just dumb. Not even reliable Fichtner and sexy Heard can save this from the pits of movie hell.
27.
My
Week with Marilyn (Simon Curtis, 2011)
Apart
from a pretty decent impersonation of Monroe from Michelle Williams and a
vaguely interesting look behind the scenes of the making of Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl, there’s not
a great deal to recommend this one.
26. Death
of a Ghost Hunter (Sean Tretta, 2007)
Some
terrible acting can’t stop this tale of a paranormal investigator snooping
round a haunted house from being pretty bloody scary. It might be slow and feature too much
voiceover, too much poor acting and not much originality but it does have a
pretty good ending and some genuinely scary moments.
25. 30
Minutes or Less (Ruben Fleischer, 2011)
Fun
enough comedy featuring likeable Jesse Eisenberg as a pizza boy forced into
robbing a bank when Danny McBride’s nutty waster straps a bomb to him. Gutter mouthed fun that doesn’t outstay it’s
welcome but fails to stick around in the memory for too long either.
24. The
Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Steven Spielberg, 2011)
Slightly
confusing but visually stunning three minute single shot chase scene aside,
this is a pretty drab adventure from Spielberg. Tintin, Captain Haddock and even Snowy the
dog make for less than exciting or interesting heroes and the detective mystery
is just not that gripping or mysterious.
Maybe Peter Jackson will improve with his further adventures of Tintin, but
with characters this forgettable, it might be tricky.
23. The
Rum Diary (Bruce Robinson, 2011)
This
adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s book fails to capture the anarchic spirit
and drug addled mayhem of Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas. Depp is
amusing and Giovanni Ribisi is fun in a small role but overall it’s a pretty
forgettable tale of an American journalist in 1950s Puerto Rico.
22. Ironclad
(Jonathan English, 2011)
Vicious,
bloody and brutal battles between Paul Giamatti’s right bastard King John and a
rag-tag bunch of knights and warriors defending a strategic ye olde English
castle. Incredibly violent and pretty
damn tense as the heroes are outnumbered and totally out-acted by Giamatti’s
OTT performance.
21. The
Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
Not
quite sure what all the fuss is about but this is a solid enough character
study of a surveillance expert played brilliantly by Gene Hackman slowly losing
his mind and growing increasingly paranoid that he himself is the target of
surveillance. To be fair I wasn’t giving
this film my full concentration and therefore I’ve probably missed out on fully
appreciating this classic.
20. Eraserhead
(David Lynch, 1977)
This
is an absolutely mind-melting piece of gibberish from the master of surreal
David Lynch. Filled with eerie sound
design, uncomfortable silences, claustrophobic interiors and miserable
industrial exteriors, this story of a man facing fatherhood (of an odd mutant
baby) features an awkward dinner table with the in-laws, a hamster cheeked girl
in a radiator and the aforementioned mutant baby to freak you out, give you
nightmares and possibly send you to sleep.
It’s incredibly weird and unique, but a little on the slow side. Probably would have made a better short in my
opinion. Still... brilliantly bonkers.
19. Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1987)
Another
one I’m not quite sure what all the fuss is about. Matthew Broderick plays the titular slacker
with a bit of an annoying mix of arrogance and sweetness. He’s not half as cool as he thinks he or
director John Hughes thinks he is. The
talking to camera thing is cool but has been done better since and the
narrative fails to really go anywhere as the three main characters don’t really
spend their day off doing much exciting.
I mean at one point they go to an art gallery! Kids bunk off school to go to an art
gallery? Seriously? Charlie Sheen’s short part as a drug-addled
criminal is worth a look though.
18.
Westworld
(Michael Crichton, 1973)
Influential
but poorly directed film about a theme park filled with robots and what happens
when the machines rage against the customers.
Not sure if it’s supposed to be funny but some of the acting is dreadful
and the pacing is a little weird.
However it’s a great central idea and it’s a good thing director
Crichton mostly stuck to writing after this interesting mess. Ripe for a remake.
17. Rounders
(John Dahl, 1998)
Matt
Damon’s ex-gambler gets back in the game when old friend Ed Norton gets out of
prison with a shitload of debts to pay off.
The stakes are raised with Russian pro poker pleayers, debt collecting
heavies and cops that don’t take too well to being cheated. Norton is good value as ever but Damon takes
the lead in a fairly tense but predictable poker-playing thriller.
16. Survival
of the Dead (George A. Romero, 2010)
Not
Romero’s best but this still has interesting characters in a morally ambiguous tale
of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse seeking refuge on an island where two
warring factions live. The film asks
interesting questions about the treatment of the zombies with one man training
them to serve mankind and one wanting to kill every one of them. Morality is questioned and the subtext is
clear for all to see but Romero still provides a decently acted and directed
zombie flick that entertains as much as it poses questions.
15. The
Idiots (Lars von Trier, 1999)
A
truly challenging film that begs for outraged, disgusted reaction but crucially
makes the audience care for at least some of its mixed up, eccentric
characters. When a small group of odd
adults decide to unleash their inner idiots, the consequences are surprisingly
interesting and occasionally moving.
Features some great performances and cinematography, editing and boom microphone
shadows that all add to the incredible sense of realism.
So what do you think? Do I need to pay more attention to The Conversation? Am I misunderstanding the pleasures of Mr Cage? Has Romero lost the plot? Did Lynch and von Trier ever have the plot?
Please come back soon to find out my top 14 of the month!
