Movies galore
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| Hur hur hur |
This is not to say that Christopher Nolan has not made another very fine film, it's perhaps more a comment on just how vacuous the average blockbuster has now become. When one does come along that forces the viewer's brain to engage (and, unlike the rebooted Batman movies, isn't part of an helpfully established franchise), it can come across as far more complicated than it actually is. Nolan's work have never been overly arty - even the mind-melting Memento was sleek and cool and had recognisable stars (whatever happened to poor Carrie-Ann Moss, by the way?). Now he's moved on to making big-budget popcorn movies while still giving audiences plenty to process, and because nearly everyone else appears either unwilling or unable to pull off this trick, he's become one of the most important directors of the 21st century.
Inception is far from perfect. There are plenty of logic gaps, and Marion Cotillard's character, though a vital part of the emotional core of the movie, is rather irksome. But it's intriguing and action-packed, and if it's successful enough to encourage studios to try this sort of thing more often then I'll forgive it just about anything.
Closer to perfection is Toy Story 3, which effortlessly lives up to the standards of its predecessors. There are few certainties in life - death, taxes, next year being Liverpool FC's year - but each new Pixar movie is about as close to a guarantee of cinematic quality as you're likely to get. This third tranche of toy-based tomfoolery continues the themes of loss as Andy prepares for college and his now-abandoned collection winds up in a community centre populated by a raft of new characters, not all of whom are as nice as they first seem.
This is of course no surprise. The joy of TS3 is in how delightfully the story is executed, in particular the loving homages to classic prison movies such as The Great Escape. All the new characters are well-drawn without pushing the familiar ones too far onto the sidelines. Some of them are geniunely scary (watch out for the monkey!) and there's even room for a non-speaking cameo from Totoro, a classy nod to Studio Ghibli whose animations are the only ones that come close to Pixar's genius.
The only fault I can find is that I didn't get as emotional by the end as many reviewers apparently did - though I think the likes of Up, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc have made me so emotional in the past that I now have unrealistically high expectations in this regard. Still, just imagine how good cinema would be if all sequels - let alone threequels - were as great as this.
I also saw She's Out of My League in South Africa, an amusing enough chalk-and-cheese love story that demonstrates the scale of Judd Apatow's influence on the romcom genre - nowadays even this relatively sweet one, with its overall message of It's What's Inside That Counts, contains enough dick jokes and cussing to earn a 15 certificate. Alice Eve, although undeniably stunning, is perhaps a bit too perfect (if this is even possible) and despite the hopes this film gives to plain-looking blokes, the plainness here is Hollywood-style where even the dorks would be the hottest person in any high street nightclub.
Saw a couple of old films at the BFI this month, part of a continuing quest to be more cultured and interesting. Sadly I didn't really enjoy Silent Running, which despite being made as a reaction against the emotional sterility of 2001 seemed equally slow to me, although the environmental message is a worthy one. I was possibly in the wrong frame of mind at the time. Woody Allen's Sleeper was a lot more fun. Allen is someone I really need to educate myself on, because I remember enjoying Annie Hall and then never bothering to seek out any of his other earlier works. Sleeper contains a surprising amount of broad slapstick considering the man is so venerated for his verbal skills, but the whole thing is enjoyably daft and the sci-fi concept allows for some amusing satirical riffs AND some enormous vegetable action.
Finally we come to The A-Team, which falls squarely into the category of films which I'd have been very disappointed to have paid actual money for rather than getting into on freebies. The iconic van, the cigars, the fear of flying, loving it when plans come together and the slightly worrying mental illness are all present and correct - it's just a shame that this is another in a seemingly endless list of remakes that take the main tropes that everyone remembers from the original and then build an utterly by-the-numbers modern film around them. Pity the fools indeed.
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