Le Miserables - Review

DO you hear the people sing ?! ..no but i hear Anne Hathaway is good ..

I have to admit when I heard abotu Le Mis i wasnt that excited, i love musicals but i thought three hours of non stop singing was going to be dull and tiring more then anything, honestly

 I was like this is going to be a rental job. Then all 

the singing live on set and what not came out so then I had to see it just to see if it actually made a difference.

Or was it the whole 3D new world once more.

To the amazement of my cynical heart t he answer is an overwhelming yes, 

you sit there wondering why on earth this wasnt how we always did it, 

more difficult im sure but the connection you feel is just so 

much more real. The usual feeling that someone has turned an ipod on isn't there either because the

 music is more integrated and it feels more like a way to communicate and just really captures the point of singing instead of speaking (which believe it or not is not for a good backing track).

Now music aside, the film itself. The thing I noticed most was just  how beautiful the whole film was. Everything was shot in bright contrast constantly and the world was just that edge of surrealism that made a huge difference because it stopped you from being drawn out of it. Also the lack of blood was really good because again it added to this slightly more amazing world and not gritty realism (like in pirates of the caribbean almost, the lack of blood really helped  it too). The whole filming in close up near constantly meant that the zoom out made for some really memorable shots because they were the novelties of the film, an angle i dont know to be taken by anyone to that extent before.

You will not hear me say that Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe( a very pleasant surprise  weren't excellent they did there parts and tried to cature emotions

 but i feel the films own grandeur was its downfall. 

I was so interested in the live singing and the beautiful sets and how technically interesting it was that I failed to connect to the characters. Fantine (Anne Hathaway for you le mis newbies) is a really tragic character and the moment that struck me as most emotional was a moment of silence when only her face was in light. It was really memorable to me but it was skimmed over almost in the rush

 to get to the songs and the battle and the excitement. 

Its as if Tom Hooper in his excitement forgot the value of silence and the power of simple moments.

Now you might fairly say its a musical its not supposed to have silence but I would disagree, live musicals too do pauses and allow for silent frozen moments and again these are some of the most thrilling parts of a musical and just add so much to the whole plot. 

So I left le mis the first time dry eyed (small miracle for me, i cry at  everything including ice age) and I thought maybe I had been just overwhelmed and that the fault lay with me because I had heard it was so emotional and that second viewing i would connect more. 

But honestly I didnt again I could sit back and go this is a really sad scene but I wasnt bonded to the characters in any real way, I may be alone in this I know others find it heartbreaking but maybe because I knew the story before so no shock? I haven't decided yet.

Final Words:

I really really liked Le Miserables and it was really stunning but at the same time I understand why so many were disappointed in the industry (the reviews may praise but the awards are the real truth in film and how many awards for best picture did le mis win again ?)

Tom Hooper could have done a lot more with this and made it more of an epic then it is but I would counter what he did he did really well. So there will be parts not to your taste but if you accept that this is le mis the Hooper addition I think you will still love it.

9/10

My top films of 2012

hey lorna isnt this a bit late it being 15 days into the new year and all ...

yes well its here now isnt it, enjoy and remember the total bias of it being my favorite of what I saw
(didnt see batman so no go, my apologies)

10. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 

So starting off the list is the film which was dubbed red 2.0 in that it featured old actors still acting.. like that was the only similarity between this and the spy movie.. anyway i knew going in the acting would be great and it would probably be quite funny but it really outdid itself. The humour was classic british dry humour which I love and everyone played their parts very well but the reason it made it was its the first film i've seen thats addressed the life of the aging without having an overriding tone of "ah bless the old folk". It showed these people as actual human beings and not just elderly stereo types and it looked into the idea that you never know who you are, not even past pension. It was really well handled and dealt with problems without ever just dwelling on how they were old people and I was just really impressed.

9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

This is one of the few on this list who came out while i was doing reviews so the link to that is here: http://thedreamingchild.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-perks-of-being-wallflower-review.html

If you have seen it you will know my review was kind of luke warm towards this but I have to credit to the character acting of this film. Emma Watson Ezra Miller and Logan Lerman all did really wonderful jobs and created entirely different characters to any I had seen them in before and serious credit should be given to them all.

8. Pitch Perfect & 21 Jump Street

review of pitch perfect: http://thedreamingchild.blogspot.ie/2012/12/pitch-perfect-review.html

Is it a cop out to do two in one, absolutely. Am I going to try decide, nope. These were just both really good comedies and while one is in music they both have this continual of really blatant and really subtle humour and I just really enjoyed them as comedies, not serious, no message, just good fun.

7. Killer Joe 

I went in to this having no idea what it was about and left not being able to look at fried chicken the same way. The acting in it was just fabulous like Matthew McConaughey went above and beyond creepy and for this outrageous tale the cast carried it and made it terrifying and twisted but also completely unforgettable.

6. The Hobbit

Another review if your interested: http://thedreamingchild.blogspot.ie/2012/12/the-hobbit-unexpected-journey-ie-first.html

It was always going to be up lets be fair, this is just such a huge work and it was so well done. I think anything of that size that actually still had character, plot and humour and didnt just rely on its size to carry it deserves acknowledgment. Plus it brought back everyone to middle earth which was really nice.

5. This is not a Film 

It is one of those films I saw, loved and then completely forgot about. I was reminded of it while thinking of this list and i cant believe i didnt remember it. Defiantly one of the better works of subtly and implication, the director dosnt hide his feelings and because it truely is him their is nothing forced about this. Unlike most documentaries its not trying to be flashy and create a surrealty to real life, its simply honest.

4. Chronicle 

This was i think the first film I saw of 2012 and it remains one of my favorites. I have never seen any super hero film where it didnt have most of the people with power being self righteous "good" characters and one rouge bad guy, none of whom were real, they were emblems of something always, never really humans with this power. So i guess until chronicle i never considered how damaging and twisted a power was. It did that so well and the cast did amazingly well. 

3. Monsieur Lazhar 

By far one of the most elegant films I have ever seen. Its calm and understated, beautiful and simple.

It tells of a teacher who arrives after the last teacher commits suicide in the classroom. It deals in a realistic way with what grief is and how it controls and haunts a person. The only word that comes to mind when i think of it is elegant, really just excellent.

2. Moonrise Kingdom 

I really love West Anderson, this bizzare world is just so fabulous and with moonrise kingdom he really went all out in this beautiful alternate world., the kids were really great in it as well 

and i dont really know what i can say to express why i love his style so much. If you havnt seen his stuff  you are missing out on it all.

1. Argo

I finally had to give the award to Argo, It was just the perfect combination of all I look for in a film. It had a great plot and brillliant acting, the story wasnt dull but it was defiantly hopeful. The shooting was really gorgeous while not trying to detract from the story and the style was unapologetically optimistic. The pace in it was really just perfect and it had this bizzare humor was really excellent.

2012 in film: So the first half of the year was a bit of a write off, it had this grey blur of unexciting films that few remember and less want to. Then summer rolled round and suddenly films were competing with each other as they are supposed to and from them to oscars we have had so many hits. I didnt see some of the  big block busters like skyfall and batman but overall i think that both small film and large were really on top form and with things like great gatsby coming out we may have hope that hollywood has started listening 

... that being said this was the year of Pihranna 3DDD 

xxxx

Pitch Perfect - Review

Genre: Comedy, Musical?(well there's music in it )

The music in it is brilliant first off,  the remixes are just clever and well done and the choice to do the biggest songs of the last few years was smart so even recluses of music like myself were able to recognise them and enjoy it. The music was also always so fast paced that it kept the movie going at a really good pace. The only other thing to really say about the music is that its fit really well into the film , i know they are on stage so its not hard to fit it but it never felt like and now have a cut to another song, it felt very natural which is a really difficult to do as seamlessly as this film does.

The cast was just brilliant with a special focus on Anna Kendrick who was one of the most realistic teenagers I have ever seen. Most trying to play a teenager give this impression that they never were one while she was just spot on and her acting was consistent and just brilliant, seriously I cant praise her enough for this. The relationship between her and Skylar Astin( who according to imdb is in several things but I have never seen before) is really fun and again much more like a real couples relationship and they worked really well together.

The stars of Pitch perfect though were the minor characters, especially the commentators who often you only heard in voice over and just were brilliant.Their lines had to some of the best in the whole film and were just what you really want commentators to say.

In a very nice segue its time to talk of the  comedy which really is the main event. It was this weird mix of really clever humor and just blatant humor. What I mean by clever humor is jokes that arn't pointed observed or exploited but are just left to be funny in their own right. So loads of the script and particularly the commentators  had this, as well as backgrounds and sets, and all of these created this continuous sense of joviality throughout the film and it was fabulous. 

On the other side their is the more blatant comedy which I really like as well and in some points they were spot on with it, however at other points I felt like they were holding back and scared to go the whole legnth and if they had just given in a little more to the ludicrousness of their jokes i think this would have been an even better film.

My only real complaint of the film was that it was trying t do too much and then seemed to forget parts. So at the start of the film one of the lines was how they only sang songs made by female artists and then the point of how all the music was out of date was made and I thought this was going to be deadly, that they were going to preform modern songs by female artists and going to carry this idea on, however when they get modern(i dont count that as a spoiler its a comedy, plot twists are rare) they just drop that and "give me everything" by Pitbull makes it into the finals and that really let me down because I just thought that keeping it would add so much to the film.

Final word: 

I appriciate some of my complaints were from expectations but I still feel they give up easy chances to make this film so much more then it was. That being said it fills its brief and it really is a fun addition to this years comedy collection, plus if it encourages more music films I am not complaining.

7.5/10

some links to the best songs from Pitch Perfect:

riff off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q573_hDhTbE

right round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx-cpRnEG5I

The Hobbit An Unexpected journey (i.e the first) - Movie Review

Premise: This is the first third of the hobbit book by J.R.R.Tolken and tells the tale of Bilbo Baggins,a baggins of bagend no less, and how he 13 dwarves and a wizard joined together to cross middle earth and reclaim the lonely mountain. The reason for this quest? a fire breathing dragon by the name of Smaug stole it from the dwarves alone with all their treasure and head dwarf Thorin Oakenshield is a little bitter about it.

Now to the hobbit itself, I said before I loved the first three so was rather excited to see the hobbit and ended up seeing it in both 3D and 2D so i shall start by comparing them. As in all 3D films there was a few of those obligitary shots when the camera plunges a great depth( mainly so 3D watchers don't feel cheated i suppose) and once that shot is over i started actually comparing them. The 3D i enjoyed alot more then I normally do because it was far more intergrated to the film then most, it wasnt a few grand 3D moments on what is a glorified 2D film as I find most to be.

 The Hobbit actually really effectively uses 3D and it has to be one of the first films where i really enjoyed the 3D ( maybe it was the 48 frame shot that compliments it more ?). That being said it was fun to see it didnt add anything to the film for me I didn't find the world any more or less real then i did on my 2D screening.

The set and the shooting just as in LoTR is fabulous, New Zealand is clearly a wonderful place to shoot. The sets and the world were brilliant and there is no denying that however i didnt find any of the places very unique to the film, in the other 3 there was always somewhere i remembered and particularly associated with an area but with the hobbit it was just a new cast in the same places. Also Jackson did his famous sweeping shots as his characters just trek over incredible beautiful places , for no other reason then to inform the watcher they are moving (we need such shots or us audience will assume they are actually still in the shire). I know that was famous in the first lot but I think the hobbit needed to distinguish itself a bit more and in this area it was on par but did not exceed the others.

Now to the cast and plot , the characters were really great, it had a wonderful timing to the conversations and i rarely found it strained. The characters were really great ,though admittedly there were a lot of dwarfs which really didnt seem to do anything other then just walk around, like no lines nada, but even still there was a really nice natural comradeship by the cast which made up for the accents thing (seriously there were 12 dwarves from middle earth and one born and breed in Northern Ireland, very strange). I really enjoyed the lead performers  Ian McKellen was a wonderful Gandalf as always and actually brought and developed his character which i was just really impressed with.Martin Freeman as Bilbo was really spot on with Bilbo however I remained unconvinced it was his talent, i think its more that he is like Bilbo naturally, either way it was a good preformance. 

Now i really dont believe it is possible to disscuss the hobbit without talking about how brilliant Andy Serkis was as Gollum

The single biggest thing coming from this film has to be that this man deserves an oscar and i am right on that band wagon, his half an hour is by far my favorite part of the film and the whole time he is just spectacular. He manages to both terrify and make you love Gollum who is as tragic as he is dangerous. There is even a great amount of really brilliant humor in that scene and it honestly was what got me through the whole film(that and the amazing goblin killing scene which is just spectacularly bizzare).

Finally a special topic, the legnth of the damn film, for to discuss the hobbit without talking about the timing is impossible. It was the single longest film I have ever been to that I really enjoyed. I mean i really really liked this film and am a big fan of the franchise and particurally the hobbit book , but it got towards the end when i was just horrified to learn I had another 30 minutes after Gollum left to go. When you are 50 minutes into a film and the blasted unexpected journey has yet to occur something has gone wrong in editing. I really liked all the stuff in the Shire but most of that belonged on extended addition versions and I think that first part may well have dampened many peoples view on the rest of the film, which is a pity as all in all its a really wonderful film.

Final Word: good god my review is nearly as long as the bloody film, sorry. I thought this film was a good addition to the series and didnt damage them which was a serious worry for some (george lucas you are gone but not forgotten). I think the editing team needs to be replaced sharpish and that the envelope needs to be pushed more because the warm fuzzy feeling of being back in middle earth lasts ownly so long. The hobbit has its flaws but all in all is really worth a watch.

8/10

Netflicker 5# - The Machinist, Stardust, Chicago

The Machinist: Thriller, psychological, suspense

premise: Trevor is a lonely machine worker who hasn't been able to sleep for a year and is

beginning to have flashes and lapses.

Please ignore the poor description and the questionable year long lack of sleep and just carry on with that idea. 

This was one of those films that i heard was really good and always meant to watch but didnt till now and it was my mistake because it was just so well done. I knew the premise and that the lead (Christian Bale) was fabulous and he is but in truth its far more beautiful and iconic then i could have ever imagined. 

Stardust:Fantasy, fairytale, comedy, drama(ish)

Premise:Tristan makes his way accross the wall to the magical realm to retrieve a fallen star and win the heart of victoria.

If you havnt seen this then seriously what are you plating at , its out since 2007 (yes im very  up to date this week). Its one of the best fairytales ive ever seen, tales of adventure, courage and magic. It sounds cheesy but it contains everything a fairytale should and more which just adds to how brilliant it is.

Chicago: Musical, Drama

Premise: The love of murder in chicago during the 1920s told through music, focusing on two cases and there scheming lawyers.

Another beautifully shot film, it has this cool glamerous edge to everything about it, the costumes, the sets, the people everything just speaks of wealth glamour and sex. I think its a good lead up to the great gatsby despite the difference in  topic it has a very similar style

The archs #0 an introduction

I labelled netflicker 1 as the intro and thought this was normal until one of my friends pointed out it would be much more traditional to name it 0 ,so i thought we should start out the archs on the right foot.

The archs shall be a more traditional recommedation section , they still have to be on rent (and european rent at that) I have to vary the topic and it will be published every alternatvie weekend to netflicker

please note weekend as me committing to a single day is rather ineffective

I was doing some math so i thought it might interest you , to show how much of a life I have that I run this

Netflicker : 3 films x 26 = 78

The Archs: 3 films x 26 = 78

Total : 156 films to be reviewed in a year

average legnth of film 2 hours 

2 x 156 =312 hours 

thats over 6 days of just pure watching films

My life is cool and full of meaning...

The Perks of Being a Wallflower -Review

A writer who refused to let anyone but himself direct it to the point of fighting for 8 years ... this better not be a let down , no one likes when the underdog fails after all.

To start off my view was always going to be biased because I love ,love ,love Ezra Miller so I was always going to like this film and also im a sucker for a good coming of age film.

The plot follows Logan Lerman returning to school to start high school after having a mental breakdown the school year before. He meets Ezra Miller a senior who is still in freshman woodshop and his stepsister played by Emma Watson . The story basically continues to follow the plot of their friendship developing and the dark sides of each characters past and present coming to light. The film deals with some really dark material in a very well done way it was shocking but did not in a way that would swallow the whole story only twist it ,which is exactly their purpose.

.It is fair to say even with my bias however that this was a character film and the 3 main characters dominate the whole thing. Ezra Miller was fabulous (naturally) and played a flamboyant person who happened to be gay as apposed to that he was gay being his defining feature , which is something often seen in main stream films the gay character is either overly camp or  just this flat piece of intentional normality and I think this film made him a real person which I attribute mainly to Miller.

 Also worth a serious note to be given to Logan Lerman , who i saw in Percy Jackson and had no faith in , he was wonderful managed to create a shy character who didnt need moments of "self discovery" to show the subtlety of a real person .Their are a lot of close up shots of him and I think he carried the role very well.Emma Watson was good however she was just good while her co actors were far better, It could be just that her characters didnt have the same level of subtly as she is more of an idea then a real person but still not as good.

As I said before it is a character film and while I admire Stephen Chbosky's integrity and to be fair he didnt restrict the actors but he did however add nothing towards the film.The cinematography was virtually non existent and while it didnt hurt the pace of the film it stopped it being as memorable in the after run of it and I think this is really where it fell down. However the writing of the letters was really clever and his ideas were clever.

Final Word:

Its fair to note that I didnt have much to say on the film and that maybe tells you more then it should , I enjoyed the film and loved the characters and for them its worth seeing.This is just one in a list of accomplishments for Ezra Miller , may well have launched Logan Lermans career as a serious actor and as for Chbosky and Watson ,im not sure its done either of them many favors.

7/10 (if you allow my love of miller)

5/10(on the whole)