City Of God

Based on the true story of a boy growing up in a Brazilian slum. City Of God carries you through several decades of his life with ease and style. The "city" is awash with drugs and guns. People are only there because they have nowhere else to go. People try to escape. Few succeed.

I don't know if all the names are real. It seemed odd that the bullied kid was called Rocket and the bad guys were called things like Carrot.

Given that many of the actors were so young, you almost have to keep reminding yourself that you are watching a portrayal and not a documentary. The acting is that good.

The pacing seemed just right to me too. As well as the balance between hope and hopelessness. There aren't really good guys and bad guys here, as such, just people stuck in a hole... actually, that's not quite true, there are some people in this story who would probably do bad things in any environment.

Great film.

Gangster Squad

In the middle of Gangster Squad there is a huge hint at a possible surprise to come later. But it doesn't. That about sums up this movie. You feel like you've seen all the parts before. There are no surprises.

The acting is fine, the plot is fine, the cinematography is fine. But it is all formulaic. Maybe if you have never seen any gangsters movies... ever... you might enjoy this.

I didn't hate it, but apart from the surprise that never happened, it is already fading from my memory.

Shame; this is a good cast that could have done something great.

High Life

It is easy to say that High Life is a comic version of Reservoir Dogs... with drug addicts instead of hardened robbers. But that would be a little unfair to it. There is a comic element, but it is comedy based on the tragedy of these guys lives.

Set in the 1980s, when ATM machines were a new phenomenon, High Life is really about a group of guys who see another chance to improve their lives the easy way. They go for it. And fail in a big way. But they can't quit so they just keep piling failure on failure.

That is the tragedy. You can see that the characters need to try something different. But even the slightly more intelligent leader (played by Timothy Olyphant) can't accept that there is another road.

I thought all four main characters were very good. Very diverse and yet strangely balanced by their shared addictions. The only thing that threw me was that I was convinced that the "pretty boy" character was played by the same actor who was Gambit in the Wolverine Origins film. He isn't. This is Rossif Sutherland and Gambit was played by Taylor Kitsch.

This film isn't a classic, but is still well worth a watch.

Filth

I ventured out to the cinema for the first time in ages to see Filth. The first thing to say is that even though I enjoyed the film it will be a long time before I venture out to the cinema again. Plenty of people have said this before, but it is worth repeating in the hope that someone might notice eventually -

Piracy is not killing cinema : I don't go to the cinema very often because it is too expensive!

Right, back to the film. Filth is based on the book by Irvine Welsh and tells the story of a Scottish police detective with, shall we say, problems.

James McAvoy does a brilliant job of bringing Robertson alive, with wonderful support from the rest of the cast. The film buzzes along at a quick pace with plenty of sex scenes and set-piece gags to leave you in no doubt about the characters of the characters.

Don't watch this film and tell me you were shocked. If you are easily shocked then don't watch it. This is an Irvine Welsh story, do some research.

Very enjoyable film.

Leap Year

The review I saw for Leap Year said it was a Mexican psychological thriller in which a terribly lonely woman embarks on a course of sexual experimentation.

I'm an adult male, so it sounded worth a look (so to speak).

This is actually a very bleak film. I think on balance I'd rather I hadn't seen it.

There are several problems I had with it. Firstly, the opening 30 minutes sets the scene of how lonely Laura is. This is done quite well, but it becomes monotonous and I might have given up on another day.

The next 30 minutes show the build up towards February 29th. This is why the film is called Leap Year, something significant happened to Laura on that date. I wouldn't call this sexual experimentation. It was disturbing to watch and on another day I would have stopped watching at various points.

The final 30 minutes moves towards a shocking conclusion, but doesn't make it. At least, it doesn't reach the shock I expected (or feared) but instead shocks you with something entirely more bleak and hopeless.

There are some unanswered questions which I guess you could call "thought provoking". But really I just want to forget about this film as soon as possible.

The Greek Interpreter

Over 400 pages into the Complete Sherlock Holmes and we finally meet his big brother Mycroft in The Greek Interpreter.

Older than Sherlock, a better observer and a cleverer deducer. Can it be possible? So why isn't he a great detective? Because he doesn't have the energy for it. OK. He does the government's accounts instead... or something.

I wonder if that's it for Mycroft. Or will we see him in another case? Gripping stuff.

There's also only one more short story now until The Final Problem and we haven't heard a peep about Moriarty yet. I'm surprised. Conan Doyle didn't quite build up his collection of characters as I expected. Assuming this collection has the stories in the order they were published.

Life of Pi

I haven't read the book of Life of Pi because I tend to avoid books that win major prizes. I'm not really into literature in the high-brow sense, and assume that people who give prizes are. So I only read books based on personal recommendations or because the cover catches my eye in the library.

With those prejudices in mind you may now choose to totally ignore what I thought of the film version of Life of Pi.

It is a very pretty film. Visually stunning in many, many ways. There are lots of fascinating shots and I'm told that it is one of the few films that is worth watching in 3D (I saw the 2D version).

The first part of the film, about Pi's early childhood, is interesting. Then we get to the main part of the film. Which I didn't find interesting at all. I'd seen the posters for the film, so I knew one of the "surprises" already. If I was supposed to share his boredom, then I did.

There is no real tension because the story is narrated by the adult Pi all along. So you know he isn't going to die, or chew his own arm off. I was just waiting for the end for the whole of the last hour.

The ending is clever and redeems some of the torture, but not enough. Sorry, I just didn't enjoy it at all.

Warm Bodies

It's quite hard to describe Warm Bodies without giving away too much. And I am quite determined not to include spoilers here; especially after seeing the trailer for Dark Skies on the front of this disk and thinking that it pretty much gave away all of the surprises.

You could say Warm Bodies is a zombie film from the zombies' point of view. Or that it is Romeo and Juliet with zombies. But I'm not even sure I would describe this as a romantic comedy. I don't really know how to describe it. It was amusing in places. Quite sad in others. Always interesting. A bit scary. Ultimately optimistic.

I enjoyed it. Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer are good leads and even John Malkovich doesn't spoil the atmosphere (sorry, I'm not a fan). There's no attempt to over explain; we just see people trying to live their lives (or deaths); and I like that.

I find myself thinking that the best summary is probably "a zombie film for people who don't like zombie films". As for people who do like zombie films...

Lost In Translation

I had a couple of films lined up to watch last night but wasn't in the mood for either of them. So I watched Lost In Translation again instead.

It is a real mood film. One of the best films to watch if you are in the right mood. And I was last night. Some parts made me laugh and others made me nearly cry. Which is an indicator that I wasn't feeling quite as bad as I thought... since I do cry at those scenes sometimes.

The brilliance of Lost In Translation is that the two main characters know they are lost. Everyone else is probably just as lost, but doesn't know it. And setting it in Tokyo was a master stroke. A city where even the most grounded Westerner feels out of place (I have been there).

Everything adds up to a clever way of looking at two very different people struggling with their lives. And seeing them makes you realise that struggling is normal. No-one has a perfect life. Things go wrong all the time. Life is a struggle. But you can always fall back on films like this when you need to.

Lone Star

A friend recommended Lone Star to me years ago. I put it on my rental list and it has been sitting there marked "Currently Unavailable" ever since.

Anyway, I finally got to see it. I really enjoyed it. It is quite long, but doesn't feel it, even though there isn't much action. This is a good story, told at a leisurely pace. The smooth transitions between present and past and back again are very well done; unlike the clumsy flashbacks of so many films.

The focus on a small set of characters allows for a good exploration of the situation, without getting bogged down in too much detail. There is always a lot left unsaid, for the viewer to imagine as they wish.

An excellent film. An interesting journey; with some surprises subtly hidden away.

Silver Linings Playbook

I'm wondering if I should heed the maxim "if you can't say something nice, say nothing" when it comes to films. That's not quite the case with Silver Linings Playbook, but I have to search hard for something positive to say.

I certainly don't think it is a terrible film. But I didn't connect with it at all. I watched it. There were a couple of good parts. It ended.

I didn't buy the characters or the situation. It just didn't work for me. Maybe that's my fault. Maybe I just don't understand that part of American culture. I don't know.

So I'm not going to say this was a bad film. Just that I didn't enjoy it.

Broken

Half-way through Broken I wondered if it was going to be one of those British films that is well acted, well shot, and intelligent, but just leads you from nowhere in particular to another nowhere nearby. It isn't.

The story is about 3 families living in a cul-de-sac. They are all broken in a different way; the families and the individual characters.

The acting is excellent. Not just from Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy, who don't over-dominate, but the whole cast. The children are particularly convincing, lead by the wonderful Eloise Laurence.

(aside: Cillian Murphy's character is over-billed for marketing purposes. Robert Emms and Rory Kinnear are much more significant to the story than he is)

I really liked the way that the story appeared to wander a bit and then snap back together at the end for the finale. It was all very subtle and didn't feel contrived at all.

This is quite a short film, at only 90 minutes, but it packs a lot of punch.

Red Road

I found Red Road uncomfortable to watch, for several reasons.

It is the story of a CCTV operator in Glasgow. As I walk around and see cameras pointed at me all the time, I don't like to think of there being real people behind them watching me. Seeing a depiction of the operators, watching, following and assessing, therefore gives me the creeps. They do help people, but they are also voyeurs.

Then there is the pace of the film. I found it too slow for my liking. It works up to a point; I was constantly thinking something bad is going to happen soon and fretting for the main character. The motivation is also revealed very subtly, which I liked. But there are too many false starts and I eventually found myself wanting to switch off, but staying with it because I wanted to know what happened at the end.

The conclusion is also disturbing and thought provoking. I wondered would she really do that? and I think the fact that the answer is unclear is a real credit to the film.

Thursday

Now that I'm not working much, I've gone off Thursdays. Which is a shame since Thursday is the new Friday. But what does that make Friday? Apart from the old Friday. And people wonder why I have problems with modern society.

One Thursday I do still like is Thursday Next from the Jasper Fforde novels. It occurred to me recently, having read two of them, The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book, that there might well be a third by now. So I checked. And there is a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. In fact there are seven!

Good to know I'm on the ball. I've been busy. Anyway, I'm definitely going to check out the new books as soon as I'm done with Sherlock Holmes and the other five books in my reading pile. I hope they are as good as the first two. Which I seem to have read quite some time ago...

The Adventure of the Yellow Face

I picked up The Complete Sherlock Holmes in a charity shop a while ago and have been working my way slowly through the 1122 pages.

Last night I read The Adventure of the Yellow Face, which is remarkable for two reasons: firstly, as Watson states up front, Holmes is completely wrong about the case (although he clearly says that his theory is the most probable one that fits the facts); and secondly, Holmes and Watson don't actually do anything other than encourage the main protagonist to do what he was probably going to do anyway.

I keep thinking after every short story "Hmm. That was a bit, er, short." but I keep reading them. There really is something about the characters of Holmes and Watson that is very compelling... even though, on several other levels, some of the stories seem a bit rubbish.

Dark Skies

I completely missed Dark Skies when it came out. Didn't see any trailers, nothing. Which may have helped... as this is just the kind of film that's best watched with as few preconceptions as possible.

It isn't a Boo! scary horror film, on the whole. But it is a psychological drama that builds nicely to a climax.

We see a family, their friends and local community, all behaving perfectly sensibly given the information they have. Which is a nice change. You don't have to shriek "just listen to her" at the screen when someone does something completely dumb. Of course, some people are quicker to change their world-view than others, and some ignore the facts whatever they are. But that is what real people do.

Petty Romance

I'll start with something I know. Film. Petty Romance is billed as a Korean romantic comedy... don't let that put you off if you don't like rom-coms (guys) because this is more fun than most.

Subtitled films always have the potential to draw me in more than English language films, because you can't really look away without missing something. And this film definitely passes the Do I pause to pop into the kitchen for a beer? test.

The initial draw (no pun intended) here is that the film is set in the world of adult comic publishing. Sex and comics. Those are things I have always been fascinated with! And the director makes great use of his opportunities to mix the comic and real world.

Of course, part of the film is about the relationship between the male and female lead character. But the charm of this film is that the characters are trying to sort out other big problems in their lives and the romance becomes another part, another problem, for them to deal with.

It also doesn't try too hard to be funny. The humour just slots in nicely here and there.

I'm not going to score films on this blog. Either I like a film, or I don't. I liked Petty Romance.

I have no idea...

...what I am doing here.

I might post some film reviews. Or books. Or just ramble on about why my life seems to have gone wrong. Things have gone wrong; there is no doubt there.

So, lets see. Hopefully it will help.