Category Archives: Movies

The Bourne Identity (2002)

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A man is found floating in the Mediterranean sea by a fishing trawler, he is unconscious and shot. Taken care of by the crew of the fishing trawler, he awakens and he has no idea who he is, or where he is from apart from a miniscule clue of a Swiss safety deposit box on his person.

The audience knows of course, that he is Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), a CIA operative who appears to be pursued for reasons that are not revealed to us. Bourne makes his way to Switzerland and investigates the contents of the safety deposit box filled with multiple passports with various names, multiple currencies and a gun. Faced with more questions, than answers, Bourne makes his way to the only place he thinks he can get some help, the American consulate.

Its up until this point that the film runs your standard and enjoyable spy fare with a great setup. All of this preamble though, is merely a means to an end to setup an impressive but endless amount of action scenes featuring the main protagonist and his numerous foes who are out to assassinate him.

Finding himself cornered in the U.S. embassy, Bourne summons his previously unknown fighting skills in the first of many fight scenes that takes place in which Bourne must elude his pursuers. He teams up with Marie (Franka Potenta) a young woman he saw earlier in the Embassy and offers her twenty thousand dollars to drive him to Paris where his next potential clue to his identity could be.

We learn in between the impressively scripted fight scenes that Bourne was a member of a classified CIA program called treadstone which is headed up by a shady character called Conklin (Chris Cooper). Treadstone now want Bourne dead for reasons that aren’t explained that wonderfully as the story takes a back seat to the action as is common in films today.

It’s been ten years since I’ve seen The Bourne Identity and those ten years really haven’t changed my feelings about it. While the film is technically proficient and the action scenes are well put together, the storyline itself seems a bit “thin” compared to other films of this genre. All in all though, this is a spy movie for the iPod generation that does entertain and with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, this first film sits well amongst the two subsequent films to create a satisfying trilogy.

What’s The Attraction Of The Hunger Games?

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Maybe it’s just another sign that I’m getting older at the age of 35, but it appears that many films that get released in this day and age appear to be based on really average properties. In this case I refer to the new film “The Hunger Games” that has been released over the last couple of days. Now I know that I’m not in the target audience for the film and I’ll admit that I didn’t know a thing about the books that the film is based on, but I was invited along with friends to see the film, so I thought I’d give it a go.

To me, “The Hunger Games” is effectively a very unoriginal film that uses the personally boring, reality TV format as a basis of it’s  storyline. I’m not going to go into the plot so as not to spoil it for people who haven’t seen it, but It’s nothing we really haven’t seen before on a film, after all 1987′s “The Running Man” used the reality TV format as a story backdrop long before reality TV became the banal TV format that heavily fills a lot of television timeslots around the world today.

After all, even “The Running Man” was what you would call an average film in it’s day, but back then, the balance between good films and average films was heavily in favour of the good films column.

Today though, it’s a much different story. That balance of a good film vs. average film from a big Hollywood studio now leans towards the average column sadly and an original, big budget studio film is the exception rather than the norm. Now it’s really only the independent film genre that appears to have really creative story lines in this day and age.

Personally, I believe that the main culprit for this is reality TV, and that’s the big difference between 1987 and 2012. Today’s younger generation of  is very accepting of mediocrity thanks to reality TV because many young people idolise manufactured singers from average talent shows and vaccuous reality TV stars as well. After all how do you explain the success of really average films like the Twilight series and now “The Hunger Games”? They don’t know any better!

Vale Ralph McQuarrie

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During my usual thrice daily twitter checkup yesterday, I was sad to read that conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie had died aged 82. While McQuarrie certainly wasn’t a household name to your average person, his work would have certainly made an impact without them really knowing it.

To film lovers, geeks and general science-fiction fans around the world McQuarrie would certainly be familiar as the genius visionary behind such films as Star Wars and it’s sequels, E.T, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Jurassic Park.

If it wasn’t for his vision, many beloved films that we know and love today, could be completely different, or forgotten completely. He’s a man whose work has inspired many directors over the years and I’m sure his influence will be sorely missed.

Cowboys And Aliens (2011)

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Cowboys & Aliens is a very strange genre mix. Many years ago I read that Hollywood was adapting the “graphic novel” (I hate that term, just call it a comic book) and I wondered how it would work without being ridiculous. It seems that the many writers had the same problem.

With numerous rewrites and writer changes, the film itself has been in development hell for many years, so much so that even Ace Ventura and Evan Almighty scribe Steve Oedekerk had a stab at it! Now that we have the film, it proves to me why the studios continue with making rubbish like this, utter greed in cashing in on the “comic book” craze before the next big thing comes along.

Cowboys & Aliens is perfect brainless fare for your average teenager who prefers explosions over a coherent story line. When I saw the first trailer for this, I was intrigued, because at first this looked like a perfectly cast rip roaring western with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, then we got to the bonkers bit of the trailer where the aliens attack the town and the idea of an enjoyable classic style western went with it.

As the film opens, we find Craig waking up in the middle of nowhere with no recollection of who or where he is and a strange bracelet attached to his wrist. After a short scuffle with bounty hunters he wanders into a small town and is approached by Ella (Olivia Wilde), a woman who not only knows who he is, but what is about to happen. We discover he is Jake Lonnergan (Daniel Craig), a wanted outlaw who is soon to be arrested by the local constabulary.

It’s after his arrest that things start to take a twist, we find that land baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) also wants Lonnergan for his own reasons, but before the situation is resolved the town is attacked by Aliens. In the aftermath the townsfolk realize that a lot of its citizens, including Ford’s imbecile son Percy (Paul Dano) have been taken by the aliens for an unknown reason, now adversaries must become allies in order to get their people back. During our heroes search for their lost, we discover that the aliens have come to enslave earth of the past because they are unable to do it in the future because of our supposed technological advancement. Now this ragtag bunch of Cowboys must overcome the odds to not only get their people back, but defeat an enemy vastly superior to them.

Cowboys & Aliens isn’t a bad movie in the scheme of things, its a slickly directed, well executed and technically impressive film. The acting from the main leads is excellent, as its the production design. It’s just a damn shame then, that the foundations of the film, ‘THE SCRIPT’ are so, well, stupid!

There is no denying that John Favreau is very good at directing big budget films, he’s earned his stripes on films like Zathura and Iron-Man for example, but a director can only do so much with the story he’s been given. While Favreau gives it his best effort, it ultimately falls short. There are also moments where the film works quite well, for example the whole opening act up until the aliens arrive is good western fare, but all of that is forgotten once we get into the meat of the story and it’s that meat that is the disappointing part.

I’m sure that if I was 14 I would have lapped this up, but at 34 I’m afraid it just doesn’t cut it for me and I’m guessing a majority of people my age will feel the same. If Cowboys & Aliens had been just a full blown western without all the sci-fi dribble, this stood a chance of being a great example of the western genre, as it stands though, it’s just a very average run of the mill sci-fi film.

New F1 Film Has A Title “RUSH”

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A little while ago I wrote about the possibility of a new feature film directed by Ron Howard based around my favorite sport, Formula 1. Now word comes that the film is now in production with filming commencing around The Nurburgring in Germany. While details of the script are still a little bit light on, what is known is that the film is a biopic set in the 70′s that revolves around the famous rivalry between Nikki Lauda and James Hunt.

Presumably the film will, or at least should focus on the 1976 Formula 1 season where Lauda suffered a near fatal racing accident at the Nurburgring only to make a comeback later in the season and only lose the title by the the slimmest of margins – 1 point.

While the track record of good Formula 1 films made in Hollywood is shaky to say the least, I remain hopeful that this will be a competent film seeing as it’s in the hands of Ron Howard and Peter Morgan. In fact I’m pretty excited after the brilliant Senna documentary from last year.

84th Annual Oscars Trailer

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Any self respecting film fan would enjoy the annual Oscars telecast. Sadly though over the last several years they’ve been a hit and miss affair because of terrible hosting choices. Thankfully this year the academy have decided to go back to multiple time host Billy Crystal to make up for last years dismal effort by James Franco and Anne Hathaway.

Personally, Billy is a good choice as he’s brilliant at handling the crowd which makes for a fun show over the notorious running time of each Oscar show. To announce Billy’s return to the Oscars, a new TV trailer starring quite a few excellent actors and Megan Fox has been commissioned and it’s quite a hoot to view. See it embedded below.

The Ten Best Films Of 2011

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Another year has passed by yet again and with it more great films. I’ve been doing these lists for a few years now so I’m sure you know what to expect from these. Here is my list of the ten best films released in Australia during 2011. Sadly many of the apparently great releases of 2011 like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, The Descendents and Girl The The Dragon Tattoo have yet to be released here in Australia sadly. Maybe they’ll make my 2012 list?

  • 10. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
  • 9. The Adjustment  Bureau.
  • 8. Midnight In Paris.
  • 7. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.
  • 6. Drive.
  • 5. Source Code.
  • 4. Moneyball.
  • 3. Red Dog.
  • 2. War Horse
  • 1. Senna.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

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1997′s L.A. Confidential was the little film that could. Released a few months before the behemoth that would become James Cameron’s Titanic, L.A. Confidential would become the film to punch well above it’s own weight. All of the odds were stacked against the film, it was a period piece which modern day viewers can’t relate to, nor did it have any big name stars of the day. Thankfully this was still the late nineties and while the stupid epidemic had arrived, it thankfully hadn’t reached plague proportions at the time as Gen Y were still young and hadn’t become the mass market to appeal to like in this modern day.

Set in Los Angeles of the fifties, the film follows three police officers during the events of a grisly murder investigation. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is an old fashioned cop who thinks actions speak louder than words, he’s tough and uncompromising. Edmund Exley (Guy Pierce) is a young ambitious cadet who is willing to do whatever it takes in order to progress up the ladder in the force. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is the “Hollywood” cop. Vincennes is a good cop who now works as an advisor to the local TV show “Badge Of Honor” a Dragnet style TV series. These three officers are brought together during the investigation of a massacre at a local cafe.

One of the victims turns out to be Bud”s partner, which turns the investigation personal. A quick investigation into the massacres is swiftly executed and is pinned on a group of young black men who deny committing the crime. Convinced that there is more the massacre than meets the eye, Exley, White and Vincennes delve deeper into the investigation only to find the murder investigation goes much deeper than many of them would like to go. L.A. Confidential is an excellent period piece that borrows from many of the great crime stories of the past, yet stands on it’s own as a great entry into the genre.

L.A. Confidential was one of the first big DVD releases back in 1998 during that format’s infancy and included quite a selection of worthwhile supplements. For its time the disc was an excellent presentation of a great film, but just like human aging, the compression technologies used in the day for that transfer hasn’t aged well all these years later. To make up for these shortcomings a new master was struck for both a new DVD and this Bluray release and the results are very pleasing, but not perfect.

L.A. Confidential is presented in it’s original 2:40:1 aspect ratio. Viewers who are expecting a completely clean and sharp image as with modern films maybe disappointed initially with this presentation, but certain considerations must be made due to the use of stock footage in the opening credits as there appears to be ZERO benefit in the upgrade. Post credit sequence the image quality increases significantly and the upgrade from SD to HD becomes justified. Detail in the image compared to the DVD release is very noticeable as one would expect.

Grain is present in the image as one would expect due to the cinematography process and it is far from distracting for you younger viewers and adds a sense of grittiness to the film. Shadow detail is adequate, but not exemplary I would have expected slightly better results in this area. Film artifacts are minimal to no existent and it’s great to see that Warner Brothers haven’t gone nuts with the DNR scrubber and kept the transfer accurate to the source. On the whole this is an very good presentation of the film, not perfect, but very good.

The Dolby TrueHD track on this disc is serviceable and very functional and is a good upgrade from the lossy Dolby Digital track featured on the DVD. Dialogue is crisp and clean and very easy to understand throughout. Bass is used surprisingly effectively throughout when required and while surround usage on the disc is minimally used during the majority of the film, the end shoot out scene in the hotel is where the surrounds really come alive. Surround directionality during this scene is well rendered and adds and great amount of depth to the conclusion to the film. On the whole it’s a subtle, yet pleasing track.

Supplements on the disc are sadly ports of previously released DVD items and none are presented in HD. Featuring most prominently is the audio commentary featuring various members of the cast and crew. It’s an adequate track, but not the best example of it’s kind and can seem a little confusing at times due to the number of people featured. Getting past the confusion and a lot of information is presented for people who are interested. Also present is Jerry Goldsmith’s music score for fans of the score, complete in 5.1 surround.

Video supplements are a mixture of new and old from both the 2 disc and original DVD releases. “Whatever You Desire: The Making Of L.A. Confidential” is an informative making of featuring Curtis Hanson and others explaining the difficulties in making the film. It is the most solid extra on the disc and is criminally short. “Sunlight And Shadow: The Visual Style Of L.A. Confidential” is a 20 minute piece with the film’s cinematographer explaining his filming choices. “A True Ensemble: The Case Of L.A. Confidential” is a short promo piece regarding the cast. “L.A. Confidential: From Book To Screen” is yet another 20 minute piece on adapting the book to the screen.

The most interesting supplement is a 50 minute TV pilot for a potential L.A. Confidential television series which never was picked up. It’s quite interesting to see as a lot of un-aired TV pilots don’t see the light of day, but you can see why this wasn’t picked up as a full time series. The balance of the video supplements are fluff pieces from the original 1998 DVD release. All video supplements total to approximately 130 minutes. Good value, but not in the same league as making of features on discs like Gladiator, Blade Runner or Alien.

All things considered, this is a solid release of the film, but I fell that a definitive release is still to come. If you’re a fan of the film, then this release is a no brainier considering the price.

The Ghost Writer (2010)

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The Ghost Writer is a perfect example of everything that seems wrong with today’s film going audience. What we have here is the work of a classic film maker who has crafted a brilliant thriller. But instead of a generous reception from audiences, ignorance seems to be all The Ghost Writer has been receiving.

In looking at the film grosses and the insane amount of time the film took to be released over this side of the world – 5 months! – it really is another example of a good film being ignored in favor of hollow trash like Twilight.

“The Ghost” (Ewan MacGregor) is a nameless ghost writer, a man who writes and polishes books for authors who cannot write to save their lives. Due to the staggeringly high cost of the advance (10 million dollars), The Ghost is called in to “polish” the work of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) after the suicide of his adviser and co-writer on Martha’s Vinyard.

Upon arrival “The Ghost” appears to have entered a secret shadowy world of deception and many of the participants appear to be hiding secrets, it creates an excellent sense of foreboding. As “The Ghost” begin writing Lang’s memoirs, it becomes apparent that Lang is being investigated for crimes against humanity in The Hague. Undeterred, “The Ghost” continues to research Lang in order to complete his job at hand. Now moved into the former Prime Minister’s compound to avoid the media attention “The Ghost” finds information hidden by his predecessor that seemingly implicates the former British leader as a CIA agent.

Armed with this tantalizing information, “The Ghost” embarks on an endeavor to unravel The mystery of this information, is Lang a CIA puppet? was his predecessor murdered? All these questions are answered before the stunning conclusion.

Polanski again shows why he is one of the best filmmakers living today. As a thriller this film is perfect. Along each step of the way Polanski delicately reveals more and more strands of the mystery in a very Hitchcockian style all while building up a sense of danger for the main character thanks to the effective use of shady characters, tantalizing clues and even things as simple as shady cars following “The Ghost” it all creates a palpable suspense which doesn’t let go until the shattering ending.

The Ghost Writer is for people that love an intelligent films. If your a viewer who is looking for lots of action and a simplistic plot that is revealed early, then this is best avoided. If however you enjoy a film that has smart characters, intelligent writing, deft direction and a film that slowly builds up to a stunning conclusion, then The Ghost Writer is for you.

More Star Wars Tinkering?

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As any self respecting geek would know, this month brings the release of the complete Star Wars Saga on Bluray, but it appears it is also bringing with it more modifications. Changes like these shouldn’t be an unexpected event, ever since 1997 when Lucas re-released the original trilogy in special edition form with numerous additions to bring the films closer to what he thinks of as his “original vision”. With the original modifications your hard core fans were all up in arms over changes. Granted some of the changes weren’t for the best, but while some of the changes weren’t overly welcome, there were some improvements made also.

Now with the release of the trilogy on Bluray it appears that we can expect more complaining from fans. With this latest release there have been some more modifications made, some confirmed, some rumoured, the only thing that is for sure is that fans will be bitching and moaning AGAIN! Two of the most interesting modifications mentioned so far are the inclusion of a digital Yoda in Episode I as opposed to the scary looking puppet and the inclusion of Darth Vader screaming “Nooooo” in Episode VI when The Emperor is electrocuting Luke as you can see below.

Honestly though, I believe that all the whinging in the world isn’t going to change anything. We’ve gone through 13 years of modifications to this series currently, and I’m sure we’ll see more in the future. Sadly Lucas can’t let his babies be and is always adjusting these to his liking as the technology allows in order to be closer to what he believes is his “original vision”. I believe that we will NEVER see the original trilogy as it was released in the 70’s and 80’s again, but of course it’s George Lucas’s creation, which means in turn it’s his prerogative to do what he wants to his films

While I don’t agree with the Vader shouting adjustment, you have to admit the adjustment of Yoda in Episode I to an all digital character is a vast improvement over the original film and it’s in keeping with the other two films in the series, so it’s not all bad. Lets just hope that he hasn’t gotten rid of the puppet Yoda out of Empire & Return. It will be interesting to see what else has been played with when the films are released on the 14th.