The Town (2010)

The Town is a bank heist movie with a bit of a romantic twist to it. After four guys hold up a bank at the beginning of the film, a hostage (Rebecca Hall) is taken who is shortly let go when the robbers are out of danger (it kinda makes sense in the film). She is then viewed by the criminals as a loose end, but when Doug (Ben Affleck) tracks Claire down he starts to fall in love with her. Doug is forced to balance this relationship with the local criminal kingpin (Pete Postlethwaite), and reluctantly agrees to do one last job. Meanwhile the FBI are slowly closing the net.

As well as starring in the main role, Ben Affleck also directs this film, which can't have been easy, so it's impressive that he has made a fairly solid gangster story. It's nothing special, but I did find myself feeling quite tense during the final heist, wondering who was going to make it through. It's a good story and the cast are generally good, nothing outstanding; Ben is a good driving force throughout the movie, and Jeremy Renner's character is suitably unpredictable. It's funny how when in these films the bank robbers wear comedy masks (skeletons or nuns in this case) I can't help but think of Point Break. I'm sure the Dead Presidents weren't the first daft masks in cinema bank jobs, but for me they are the most memorable.

The Town was an enjoyable film, tense at points, well directed and competently acted; but it's really nothing to write home about.

Inception (2010)

I had seen Inception at the cinema last year when it was released, but I had forgotten how good I thought it was. Now don’t get me wrong, I like the odd summer blockbuster. I have recently enjoyed Super 8, Cowboys and Aliens, and I’m looking forward to ROTPOTA; but Inception is a brilliant tonic to the usual fayre that we are used to digesting in the summer months. Christopher Nolan actually forces us to pay attention, think, and then apply what we have learned. We are introduced (whether we know it or not) to the concept of Lucid Dreaming; the idea that we can control our dreams, and in this case to dream within a dream. To an extent we are left questioning whether what we see is real; rather like The Matrix. What sort of a blockbuster is this? A ruddy good ‘un, that’s what!

Cobb (DiCaprio) and his associates Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Ariadne (Ellen Page), and Eames (Tom Hardy) are mercenaries who enter people’s dreams to steal information (short version!). The film centres around a job to plant an idea into someone’s mind, a process called inception. In this case the target is Robert Fischer (Cilian Murphy), son of a powerful businessman (Pete Postlethwaite) who is on his deathbed. The man who has commissioned this job is Saito (Ken Watanabe), a businessman in competition with the Fischers, who wants Robert to dissolve his father’s entire company. This is the idea that must be planted into Robert Fischer’s mind.

To try and explain the subtleties and nuances of entering people’s dreams, what happens at each level of dreaming, and the story arc of the main character Cobb, is far too ambitious. If you have already seen the film then you know what happens; and if you haven’t, then trying to explain it will just be far too confusing. Suffice to say, you should definitely see it. Christopher Nolan has crafted a very involved, somewhat complicated, thought-provoking, yet very stylish and accessible film. The central idea that this group can enter peoples dreams to steal information is one of those simple ideas that, with a few tweaks, is just brilliant (I’m thinking also of the game “Portal”, and “Blink”, one of the episodes of Dr Who).

The cast is all great. I think Ellen Page got a bit of stick for coming across as being a bit stupid and just being there for the exposition. I think this is unfounded; she is perfectly good, and let’s face it, someone had to be there to help the exposition. She was also good as the one person who stood up to DiCaprio’s character, as she was the only one who saw the danger that his unconscious posed to the operation. DiCaprio once again demonstrates his ability to lead a film, from his action packed introduction to the heartbreaking climax of his story. Tom Hardy is very smooth as the brains of the operation as much as anything, and Gordon-Levitt demonstrates that he can do action just as well as he can be a pretty boy.

Added to this are some fantastic special effects. Arthur’s fight in the hotel corridor is absolutely brilliant; not to mention Ariadne remodelling the Paris cityscape. Cobb’s limbo world also looks amazing, helped enormously by some wonderful cinematography from Wally Pfister (who seems to be a Chris Nolan favourite). The score from Hans Zimmer is also top notch, as they tend to be.



So, a blockbuster that’s a break from the norm, definitely; the best film of 2010, most probably. Great cast, great idea, great story, amazing special effects and wonderful music. Overall, a pretty brilliant film.

Brassed Off (1996)

It is 1994, and the Grimely Coal mine in Yorkshire is in danger of being closed. With various problems in their homelife compounding their misery, one of the few pleasures that the miners can look forward to is playing in the Grimely Colliery Brass Band. Despite various deteriorating circumstances (wives moving out taking the kids with them; seriously ill father, attempted suicide, female member of the band turns out to be working for the British Coal Board who are involved in closing the mine), the band win various local competitions, and head to the final in the Royal Albert Hall.

I expected Brassed Off to be funnier; I guess I had just pegged it wrong. What it does do is paint a fairly grim picture of what it must have been like through the 80s and early 90s as coal pit after pit was facing closure. It is certainly eye-opening; as I grew up in the 80s I was aware of the phrase “miners strikes” being used a lot on the news, but was too young to really understand the politics of it all; so I had no idea that these hard-working men were being let down by their government so badly, and how hard life must have been for them.

There are funny moments of course but the main focus is very much on the drama; and very good drama too. Pete Postlethwaite is typically brilliant as Danny the band leader (he has a great speech at the end of the film in The Royal Albert Hall, highlighting the plight of their society to the London public), and there are similarly solid performances from the likes of Ewan McGregor, Stephen Tompkinson, Tara Fitzgerald and others. A great film in the same vein as The Full Monty: A comedy-drama set against the backdrop of industrial upheavals in recent British history. Though Brassed Off is more about the drama than its more glamorous Sheffield cousin!

Alien3

Though I had actually watched this film recently after I had bought the Alien Quadrilogy boxed set, this time it was on Film4, and was a Film4FilmClub film. Essentially this means that as you watch, you make any comment you like to the @Film4filmclub twitter account with (in this case) the #alien3 hashtag. This at once was a good idea and certainly was amusing & great fun, but at the same time, you tend to miss half of the film as you spend so much time looking at all the tweets! So I guess this review will half be based on this viewing and half from when I watched it several months ago.


After I can't remember how long spent in cryo-sleep, Ripley's shuttle crashes on Fury 161, a prison world. The facility Ripley is taken to is home to a bunch of criminals who are all "double-Y" chromosome (presumably this means they're all particularly nasty) therefore all male, with histories of extreme violence (just the place a single white female wants to find herself). Of course she's not alone. There was a facehugger on board which impregnates not only her (as we find out later) but a dog/cow (depending on whether you're watching the theatrical/director's cut), which is the source of the Xenomorph that terrorises the inmates. Of course then the story arc is obviously going to be several plans for getting rid of the Alien (resulting in various deaths, not of the Alien-ular variety) until at the climax of the film it is killed. In this case by superheating in molten lead, and then turning the sprinklers on to it (of the fire extinguisher type, not the golf green watering type) causing the exoskeleton to contract too tight and it explodes?!!

I still think that this is a good film. Obviously it is not in the same league as the first or second instalments of this series, but David Fincher does manage to create a certain amount of isolation, desperation and downright moodyness!

For:
-The story takes no quarter. Neither Hicks or Newt survive the crash on Fury 161. Quite a shock I guess, but good that the film doesn't want to try and recreate past glories, it's moving on.

-Atmosphere. The mood of the film is very bleak, lighting and music create a very moody film, quite unlike either of it's predecessors.

-Cast. There is quite a wealth of actors on offer, mostly British. Great to see Paul McGann and Ralph Brown together after Withnail and I. Pete Postlethwaite of course. I guess they all work together well as a bunch of cons.

Against:
-The Alien. It's fine when it's a suit, as it is in the iconic shot from Alien 3:

but when it moves, the cg is awful; it just looks like it never made it out of pre-viz! Now I know this film isn't so much horror as thriller I guess (Alien was horror; Aliens was a shoot 'em up!), but the cg Alien just spoils any tension the film had.

-Accents. Despite thinking that the casting is generally pretty good, I'm not sure why they all have such plummy British accents (apart from the scousers from Brookside!) I really don't think this collection of "Double-Y" cons would speak like they do a lot of the time.

-Script. Generally it's fine. Just fine. But then when one or two characters (I guess it's often Dillon) have some quality screen time it all goes to shit.
   eg
Dillon: Nobody ever gave me nothing! So I say Fuck that thing!

Dillon: I don't like losin' a fight. Not to nobody, not to nothin'. That damn thing out there's already killed half my men, got the other half scared shitless. As long as it's alive, sister, you're not gonna save any universe.


I mean, really!


I guess finally I'll mention differences between the theatrical and director's cut. For a start, the alien comes out of a dog in the theatrical and a cow in the director's. Not sure why they changed it. I did feel foolish though when I tweeted "The dog will be fine, this isn't The Thing!", just to be shown to be ignorant when clearly the dog died!


The other obvious difference is that in the director's cut, the queen does not burst out of Ripley as she falls into the molten lead. I personally feel that this is better. When the queen jumps out (perfect timing of course) as she falls, well, for one it looks cheesey, and for two; is she trying to strangle it or cuddle it? Better to not show it, she's going to die anyway.


The less obvious difference was Paul McGann's role. In the director's cut we see a lot more of him as he describes the Alien as a dragon, and almost worships it. To the extent that after the alien is captured, McGann's character "Golic" sets it free again. Now I could be wrong that this isn't in the theatrical release, but I don't think I had my head down tweeting for that long!


So, I think it is a good film, a very different Alien film from the first two, it's just that it's let down by some bad special effects and a below par script every now and then.