Hi all,
I’ve been a bit lazy and caught up with the many people trying to barge their way into seeing The King’s Speech at work so maintaining an ordinary pace for the blog has been a little tricky lately.
But anywhoo, I’ve got some brief movie reviews to talk about!
127 Hours (or that film where someone cuts his arm off) (2010)
Director: Danny Boyle
Stars: James Franco
People should go and see 127 Hours instead of just gawking “Oh, it’s that film where that bloke cuts his arm off!” at the box office when I tell them it’s the only thing on at the moment since they were unprepared to book tickets for every sold out showing of The King’s Speech.
Sadly, I hope people will agree with me here, we’ve made too much fuss about that arm scene. What 127 Hours really is, much to people’s unawareness, a great human drama about the will to survive. Coming off the success of Slumdog Millionaire, it has the visual flair and tics of any Boyle film but here he focuses on just one character (a true life person), Aaron Ralston.
There’s a great sense of destiny and purpose in 127 Hours. During his entrapment in the canon Ralston reaches the conclusion that the rock and this predicament has been waiting for him all his life and this is the moment where he choses to live or not. It’s wonderfully themed up in Ralston’s growing hallucinations of his past, his potential present, and his future. And this is made even more believable and watchable thanks to the perfect casting of James Franco as Ralston. Many have just seen him in Pineapple Express and the Spider-Man films but this is a mainstream audience’s first taste of the man being a leading actor and it’s a great performance.
And yes, the arm scene is a little grim, I’m man enough to admit I could watch the entire scene. I had half my hand over my face and just tried to peek through at the screen. I just sometimes can’t watch a very detailed bloody scene to do with causing any harm to the human body. My dad loves watching all the discovery health channel stuff and loves watching operations and stuff…I don’t. It’s a strange world.
If you can get past the “oh, he cut his arm off” line in the synopsis, 127 Hours is fast paced rewarding viewing.
Director: Tom Hooper
Stars: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter
The big film at the moment and it’s very easy to see why. This is a British period drama with Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush about the British monarchy during the start of the Second World War. Of course it was getting a lot of bums on seats!
But this is besides the point. Regardless of all the genre credentials that an audience decides to watch a film on, there’s a better reason why people are going to see The King’s Speech. It’s a great film.
The film which details King George VI’s friendship with his speech therapist is a wonderful combination of acting talent. I’ve written here and said on Cinematic Dramatic that I am a fan of Colin Firth doing “non-Mr Darcy” and “non-romantic” roles. I thought A Single Man would be the culmination of his abrasive patch but he excels even further as King George VI adding a sympathetic heart and human touch to the man who would be king. Geoffrey Rush is a great counter balance to Firth’s troubled King as Lionel Logue adding some restrained humour to the proceedings. Anyone remember when Rush was this good apart from Shine?
What it all boils down to, and noticed by Cinematic Dramatic cohort Byron Pitt, is this friendship between King George and Logue. This is a friendship not in a bromance sort of way (like Apatow movies) or in a over the top dramatic way but human way. It’s a friendship that is stated just right and works incredibly well on screen. I would advise listening to the next Cinematic Dramatic to get a better understanding of this element of the film. My words sometimes can’t always put across emotions.
Ultimately, in short, The King’s Speech is a crowd-pleasure of a film that deserves to get a wide audience to see it. Some great performances, very stylized direction from Tom Hooper, it shouldn’t be missed by cinema lovers.
Director: Dominc Sena
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Stephen Graham
On paper, Season Of The Witch reads like 3:10 To Yuma with magic, demons, wolves, and witches through in for good measure. I enjoyed watching the recent update on 3:10 To Yuma and, honestly, looking at the trailer for Season of The Witch I felt that if anything it could be cheesy fun at the very latest. Especially amongst the award films, the lighter films usually help with this serious overpowering of perfection.
But sadly, Byron Pitt’s trademarked theory of Nicolas Cage having a good movie every seven years is continuing to prove correct.
Season Of The Witch is, quite frankly, two buckets of shit that hadn’t been put out soon enough. The trailer for the film started surfacing around late 2009 so the film has been idylly sitting on a shelf somewhere and we now know why.
It stinks. It truly does. A boring storyline that tries to spark itself up to light in the finale twenty minutes (a whole 65 minutes late) with a massive demon fight against zombie monks and a flying winged beastie. The other 65 minutes before details somewhat sombre plight of a group of knights and a priest trying to transport a witch for trial. Throw in a rickety bridge scene, some running about in mud, and some CGI wolves for good measure and that does bugger all to the plot which you can’t suspend your disbelief in the first place. You’d expect something a bit more imaginative and, considering they like to think they’re making a horror half the time, scarier.
Then there’s the acting. Perlman does his best, yet like say In The Name of The King, he’s wasted a lot. Something that really bugs me with this film is the frequent use of an American accent, nothing I don’t have a problem personally but when you make British actors use American accents for the sake of keeping continuity with Nicolas Cage and Perlman…WHAT…THE…FUCK? The only person able to keep a British accent is Christopher Lee and he’s only in it for five minutes.
Avoid Season of The Witch, avoid it like the plague.
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