The King's Speech

I finally decided to see this because it was the only best picture nominee I hadn't watched so I figured I might as well be a completest. Sort of like how I went out with all your sisters. Even the one who looks like Bruce Vilanch. Boom Roasted!

Much like last year's Frost/Nixon, The King's Speech is really just a sports movie for people who claim they're much to cultured to enjoy anything as banal as competition. We have a talented underdog who because of past trauma is too afraid to get back in the game (The King with a speech impediment). A maverick outsider who doesn't play by society's rules, but whose unorthodox training methods might be the only thing that make our hero reach his true potential (in this case a failed actor turned speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush). And of course a climatic event where our plucky underdog overcomes his previous limitations to succeed and inspire those around him (The Speech). Heck, they even through in several training montages, except instead of a boxer training in slow motion with Eye of Tiger blaring in the background, we get an aristocrat getting elocution lessons over a classical etude (also known as Eric's 2007 spring break). Of course since it stars people with British accents wearing tuxedos The King's Speech gets nominated for 12 Oscars, while Rocky 4 got shut out. Can you explain this to me? I mean Rocky's speech at the end of that film ended the cold war for god's sake (If I can change, and you can change, then we all change!!!), all George VI did was tell a country they were entering a war over which he had no say. Its an outrage. I blame the kids and their rock and roll.

Anyway back to the film in question. Overall the Kings Speech is fine, if a little overrated. Much like the central action in 127 hours, its a little difficult to make something as inherently internal as overcoming a speech impediment compelling for two hours. As a result the film does drag a bit in the middle and I found myself checking the watch a couple of times. Still the central relationship is good, there are some nice moments of humor, and the film does stick the landing which is of course the thing it had to do. I don't think its the best picture of the year, and when it inevitably beats Inception (and True Grit, and The Black Swan, and The Social Network, and Scott Pilgrim (not nominated but should have been, that's right I'm including a double parentheses, that's how I roll, I don't need brackets)) I'll only be mildly annoyed.

127 hours

The story of Aron Ralston, who goes hiking in a remote canyon, gets his arm trapped under a rock for five days, cuts it off (the arm not the rock) and walks out is an amazing one - I'm just convinced it makes for a great film (see what I did there). To be sure director Danny Boyle and star James Franco do their best to make it one, working overtime with stylistic flashes and strong acting to try and keep you involved for the entire duration while in reality you're just waiting for Ralston to cut his arm off already. In particular there are several times during the middle section (when he's trapped) where the film feels draggy and no amount of hyperactive directorial flashes can make it intensely compelling. Thats not to say the film is worthless by any means. The beginning and ending sequences have a real energy, and the money shot is just as cringe inducing and intense as you'd expect it to be. If anything I wish the film had spent less time in the canyon, and more time on the fact that he still had to climb out and walk back to civilization after self amputating his arm and not having any food or water for several days. I get that it wants us to feel the desolation of being trapped for five days, and that approach may have been unavoidable. Its just, for me, the much more interesting story begins when he decides to cut the appendage off and everything before that feels a little bit too much like 'Hey look at us we can make you watch a film about a guy being trapped under a walk for five days.' Like I said its not bad, but its not quite successful at what it sets out to do. Definitely check it out, but just keep your expectations in check. And if for some reason this wins best picture instead of Inception, The Social Network, or the Black Swan...well I probably won't do anything.

Carlos

This three part film with a runtime of just under six hours chronicles the life of Carlos the Jackal, a terrorist currently serving a life term in a french prison. He's best known for a 1975 raid on an OPEC meeting in vienna and having a sweet nickname. So sitting through a film that was actually as long as Valentines Day felt (the Ashton Kutcher vehicle, not the day) the obvious question is whether or not Carlos is a compelling enough character to devote so much time to. Before I answer that let me briefly segue into what the film does well. Edgar Ramirez is a compelling presence as the titular character, and the film goes to great pains not to romanticise his life, which thankfully means little in the way of super stylish montages and very short, messy and matter matter of fact violence. This approach, and the runtime, also means that it captures how dreary the life of a terrorist must actually be - constantly moving, having most of your efforts fail , all the while knowing that some day its all going to end badly.

This is also means that you are sitting through six hours of what is often very mundane action. That wouldn't be a debilitating if we were invested in the character but that's not really the case here. As he's portrayed in the film, Carlos is a man of shifting ideology (going from fighting for Palestinian freedom, to Marxism, to finally Islamic revolution), ready to jump on whatever horse will have him. This amorphous personality meant I never really get any sense as to why he cares so much about committing terrorist acts, and since most of his speeches are just just sound like typical 'revolutionary' cliches there's no way to tell what beliefs he really has. As a reult, I never ended really caring what happened to him, and therefore its difficult to say that this subject deserved such a thorough examination. Not that its boring, its too skillfully made for that, but its just too often feels like a slog to wholly recommend.

However none of this was the film's biggest problem. No that would be the subtitles. The white they were projected in instantly became unreadable whenever they were against a white (or simply bright) background, and since the film often uses black and white news footage, and had lots of scenes in the desert, this got really annoying. Really that's the biggest reason not to see it. Well that and that the film felt the constant need to show a fully nude Carlos in an effort to show how he gets fatter, softer, and hairier over time. Sexy.

Season of the Witch

I saw this movie for one reason - my all consuming love for all things Nicolas Cage (well that I just haven't been able to bring myself to see The Kings Speech. I'm sure its great and all, but another english monarch film doesn't really excite me. Now if you're talking about the fifth fast and furious sequel, FiveFast, that's a whole other story). Unfortunately Cage goes through this whole film with the 'I can't believed I just filed for bankruptcy and have to film six more movies this year' sheen on his face which kills any chance it had of being ludicrous fun. Its not like the story didn't have potential for some good old unitentional comedy. Cage and Ron Perlman star as crusading knights who become disenchanted by the nobility of their quest and desert after killing approximately 600,00 poorly CGI'd infidels. Soon after they're commissioned to bring an accused witch to a far away abbey in the hopes that the monks there can cause her to lift the bubonic plague. The film spends some time playing with the idea of whether or not she's actually a witch, but it becomes apparent pretty quickly that she is. The one thing the film does which I appreciated is that they make it that she's not just a witch, she's actually the Devil (spoiler alert). As a result we get a climax which involves Cage and Perlman having a fistfight with said Devil. Read that last sentence again. Sounds like it should be tons of over the top fun right? Too bad the film doesn't completely embrace the ludicrousness of the premise, and instead tries to walk a line between an exorcist type vibe and camp and ends up failing at both. The proceedings aren't help by a stilted script, mediocre (at best) acting, really cheap looking CGI, and a general lack of energy from everybody involved. Oh its not unwatchable, just eminently forgettable which, in a movie that features Nicolas Cage fighting the Prince of Darkness, is really unforgivable. Thank god somebody is releasing that movie done well in three days.

One more observation. There's a point in the film where after deserting Cage and Perlman are riding through a village. Since they're now notoriously wanted men one of them decides it would be a good idea to cover his face. Its not the one who was specifically cast for Hellboy because his face is, um, distinctive. That's some heads up planning there.

Also would it have been too much trouble to feature this song over the closing credits?

The Way Back

I had a real hard time writing a coherent review for this film. I kept circling a point but wasn't really able to clearly enunciate what I' was trying to say and ultimately just quit trying (which I guess might actually be appropriate). Just keep that in mind when you read this and feel thats its even more disjointed and badly written then usual.

The Way Back tells the story of three men who break out of a Siberian prison and walk to India. Actually six break out but they tell us right at the beginning that only three make it to India so you do spend a good chunk of the film trying to figure who dies, but that's not really the point. What's really amazing about the film is that director Peter Weir does his best to make sure its as subdued and unconventional as possible, and bends over backward to remove any sense of real tension or conventional payoff. For example he doesn't show the actual prison break, or how they sneak across the trans-siberian railroad into Mongolia, just cuts to after the fact like it wasn't that big of a deal. Additionally, the deaths are treated in as perfunctory manner as possible, and the avoidance of convention is so deliberate that when he shows a character running over a mountain and yelling "Water" it ends up being a muddy puddle. The film also has an incredibly spare score refusing to underline most moments with any kind of musical cue. Finally the character development is kept to a minimum as bits of backstory slip of over the course of the narrative but just enough to move the plot forward.

Anyway what you're left with is an mannered, slow developing, intentionally tension-less story about amazing endurance. There really aren't any lasting conflicts between the characters as they all just sort of settle into a resigned momentum that keeps them moving forward. I do really respect the effort to avoid convention, and try to get to the root of the story. In particular the approach means that you don't really stress out whether they're going to get caught or not, or whether they'll even be that successful. Rather you just sit back and view the spectacle of walking through brutal conditions. This approach does yield some nice moments, and definitely made me appreciate the enormity of the quest. Thaaaaat said, I don't think it completely works. While I don't necessarily miss the traditional beats of this kind of film I do think there needs to be a bit more narrative momentum, and character development, to give the viewer something more to hold on to. While I think that the film does a good job capturing the drudgery of endless walking (having run an ultra marathon I can in a very tiny manner relate) it doesn't necessarily make for the most compelling viewing. As the film runs over two hours I do think there is room for tightening, and several portions where it could have easily picked up its languid pace.

However (and man is this turning into an equivocating review), the fact that I wasn't completely bored by the entire proceedings is a testament to how well the film is made. There is definitely a meditative quality to certain sections, and most moments on their own are impressive. That may ultimately be the films downfall. It has a lot of interesting pieces, but they don't necessarily cohere. It often ends up feeling episodic, and the desire to avoid convention means they skip over a lot of details that would have help pull the whole thing together. I give director Weir credit for not hollywoodizing everything, but ultimately I just wasn't able to get fully involved by what should have been an amazing story.