Friday 27th November

A Christmas Carol (3D)

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Year: 2009
Stars: Jim Carrey, Colin Firth, Gary Oldman

I wasn't sure what to expect from this. I wanted to see it because, well, it's Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and I love it. Plus it's Christmas, right? Well, nearly.

First off, the 3D elements in this are beautiful. After Coraline, it's (so far) my favourite 3D movie. It looks stunning - from the incredibly real looking candles and holly to the snowflakes that feel as if they are actually landing on you, to flying scenes that really work in a Christmas movie (this is want The Snowman needed!), to things that are scary and dark enough to actually make you jump (well, I did).

A lot of the movie is also great. Lines are quoted direct from the Dickens novel, and in some respects the movie is incredibly faithful to the book. Of course, there are reimagining's of some scenes, but that's fine. For a story with so many adaptations, there has to be something to make it feel fresh.

However, there are problems too. First off, when kids watch this as their introduction to the world of Scrooge, Dickens and all that is wonderful about Christmas (yes, I'm biased, and no, I don't care), please point out that in the book a) no, Scrooge doesn't fly to the moon and b) no, he isn't chased by mad horses down dark alleys (or turned into a tiny squeaky thing for that matter).

Secondly, what was the point of making Jim Carrey play Scrooge and all the ghosts? He's great as Scrooge, and until the ghost of Christmas Past arrived in the story, it was an amazing movie. But then a rubbish looking candle with a Jim Carrey face and an awful "Irish" accent turns up, and I'm wondering if all the ghosts are going to be this bad... thankfully they improve. The ghost of Christmas Present looks much better (although still with a nasty Scottish accent), and the Ghost of Christmas Future is actually really impressively done. Always my favourite ghost, but here beautifully re-imagined.

The one other thing that bothered me a little was the use of stop motion. My opinion here may well have been influenced a little by a review I read a couple of days before seeing the movie, but certain characters just look odd in stop motion - Colin Firth being the most obvious example. It sort of looks like him, just a kind of creepy version. However, for many of the characters (Carrey as Scrooge for example, where they'd given him the traditional Dickensian nose and chin) I could see why they'd used it, so having the film in stop motion is less of an issue, more of a point I want to make.

Final point: the movie is somewhat creepier than you might expect. There are places where you'll jump, and small children are likely to be quite scared, especially in the first and last 15 minutes. It makes it hard to know exactly who the film is being aimed at, but I suspect it wasn't young kids!

Rating: 4 out of 5 (although I admit one of those points may be because I'm biased and love the story - but then if they'd really ruined it I'd have been very angry, so maybe it's a far score after all).

Saturday 21st November

Letters from Iwo Jima

Director: Clint Eastwood
Year: 2006
Stars: Ken Wantanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara

In order not to totally forget the contents of Flags of our Fathers before watching this, I made a concerted effort to watch it fairly soon after seeing that movie. And I'm glad I did. An excellent movie in its own right, being able to relate it back to Flags of our Fathers made it all the more enjoyable.

This time around, we get to see the battle on Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers. Eastwood does an excellent job of portraying the Japanese battle mentality, without any of the standard American judging you may expect. It tries to tell the story as "straight" as possible, accepting the events as a part of a history.

One of the most enjoyable things about this movie, for me, was the way each film sticks with firmly telling the story of the relevant side. To the Americans, the Japanese soldiers were faceless, just as they really would have been. Similarly, the Americans are faceless to the Japanese, apart from when one soldier is brought into the caves. Scenes shown in Flags of our Fathers are filmed from the opposite side here, so you get the Japanese viewpoint.

Another excellent film, the film would work well even if you hadn't seen Flags of our Fathers. But it's a great companion piece to that film, and scores 5 because they work so well together. Had I watched them in the other order, the scores may well have been reversed (5 for Flags of our Fathers, 4 for Letters from Iwo Jima).

Rating: 5 out of 5

Thursday 19th November

The Dukes of Hazzard

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Year: 2005
Stars: Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds

So, I did manage to watch at least one other film this week. I subjected Dan to watching this when it came on TV a while ago - and promptly fell asleep 10 minutes in, waking up only for the final 10 minutes. Which says a lot about the quality of this film.

Not wanting to have to subject Dan to it again, but still wanting to at least try and watch the movie, I figured now would be a good time to give it a go.

Now this film isn't bad exactly - if you know what you're getting and like car chases. There is some semblance of a plot, but it's basically an excuse to have car chases and wreck the famous Hazzard car. Oh, and to have plenty of shots of Jessica Simpson in a bikini. That's pretty much all you need to know really. If that sounds good, you'll love it.

Not good, but not unexpected.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Wednesday 18th November

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Director: Wes Anderson
Year: 2009
Stars: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Chase Anderson, Michael Gambon (voices)

Now here's something a bit different. For different, you might want to read odd.

Another movie I wasn't 100% sure about seeing, it was a choice between this and Bright Star at the cinema. Being in the mood for something a bit more fun, I went with this. Adapted from the Roald Dahl book of the same name, the film certainly tries to evoke the same oddness Dahl does in his books - down to having what (I presume) were the chapter titles appear throughout the film.

Filmed in stop motion, the whole film actually feels a little amateurish. I presume this was intentional, but it was certainly a strange experience to watch. A lot of the reviews for this film have bemoaned the Americianisation of such a quintessentially British book, but as I don't really remember the exact details of the book, I have to say this didn't really bother me. For me, it most definitely had a Dahl "feel" to it.

Unfortunately though, I just can't get away from the fact that I found it all a little dull. This is possibly slightly unfair on the film, as I found the book fairly dull as a child too (probably why I don't remember it very well). Don't get me wrong, I love Roald Dahl books - Boy, Matilda, George and his Marvellous Medicine, the BFG, The Twits, The Witches - all amazing - just not this one.

It's just hard to recommend a film that you found boring when it's running time is less than 90 minutes.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Tuesday 17th November

World Trade Center

Director: Oliver Stone
Year: 2006
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal

It had been my intention to watch lots of films this week, as I had the week off work. Unfortunately, things haven't quite worked out that way - there are just so many things to do! However, I did manage one film on Tuesday morning. It's only Thursday too, so maybe I'll fit in a couple more before I go back to work on Monday?

This was better than I expected it to be. I recorded it off of TV a while ago, and it had been left to get watched at some time in the future - partly because it was long (over 2 and a half hours) and partly because I wasn't sure how much I really cared about seeing it. When it was originally released I had been quite interested in watching it, but the myriad of reviews of it at the time I'd read had seemed quite disappointed with it, and this put me off a little.

Turns out it was actually fairly good. If you hadn't guessed, the movie tells the story of 9/11 - following a group of Port Authority policemen as they enter the World Trade Center, not really knowing what to expect or how to deal with it. I think a number of reviewers were disappointed that Stone made it a "straight" film, simply telling the story of 9/11. However, I don't think this is too surprising. What did they expect from an American director? I don't think it's necessarily wrong either. 9/11 is simply too recent for us to say anything too political about it - whilst Stone hints at the unorganised chaos of the rescue plans, nobody will (or should) say the rescue authorities didn't do everything they could to help.

The film is emotionally engaging, and I certainly cared a lot about the people being portrayed, becoming more and more involved. Stone shows us the whole day of 9/11, from people waking up to the amazing rescue efforts. The two and a half + hours went by very fast for me. My only minor complaint is that the information we got at the end, about how many people died and were rescued, went too fast - not giving me enough time to think about and assimilate the information. Considering how much I had started to care about the people in the film, I wanted a little more time for reflection before blasted with credits.

It's a very different movie to Greengrass' United 93 (also excellent and incredibly thought-provoking), but no less of a film for it. Both are excellent reflections on different aspects of 9/11.

Rating: 4 out of 5