Casshern (2004) February 27, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , add a commentDirected by: Kazuaki Kiriya
Set in the future, a giant war has left the society of Eurasia a polluted wasteland. One geneticist, Dr. Azuma, has the idea for the ‘neo-cell’; a treatment which can regenerate humans and thus create a fully populated society again. But lack of government interest forces him to go to a sinister branch of the military to conduct his research. There, the neo-cells are developed until something unexpected occurs – a whole group of mutants are created: the neo-humans. Exiling themselves, these regenerated people decide that they are the future and that the current population should be eliminated. All that stands in their way is Casshern, Dr Azuma’s son, regenerated by neo-cells himself and the only person strong enough to face the army alone.
It sounds like a bizarre fantasy, but at its centre lies a film about the horror and futility of war, played out through a futuristic sci-fi setting. It’s packed full of special effects, notably using the green screen background techniques employed by the recent Star Wars movies. This dominates the film at times, although it is based on an anime series and embraces many techniques from anime in its execution. At 140-minutes it’s also slightly overlong, and has the habit of bouncing around a bit both in terms of pacing and story.
The CG work is excellent however, and gives the film a very specific stylish cinematography. Western cinema so often tries to capture the essence of effects work like this, but it’s clear that Hollywood haven’t got it quite right yet (see: Ultraviolet [review]). Obviously, a lot of thought has gone into the choice of shots, and the anime-inspired style has come out looking like it should. You could even say the visuals are a little over-produced in some sequences, but that would probably be nit-picking.
Where the film falls down for me is in its failure to connect some of the emotional dots. Part of the greatness in this movie comes from the fact that it tries to show its ‘evil’ characters in a human light (although they believe themselves not human). Unfortunately, so much more time is spent showing the painful side of our ‘hero’ character, Casshern, that the neo-humans get less of a redemption when their time finally comes.
So while you might be thrilled by some of the large-scale action pieces, there’s little left to enjoy outside of that. Which is a shame, because at least it’s trying to do something different, even if this filmmaking style has been employed in other flicks such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City. The potential for a great movie is definitely there, just add a tighter storyline and clarify the characters motives a bit more, because like so many other sci-fi movies have shown, SFX will only carry you so far.
Hot Fuzz (2007) February 23, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Cinema, Recently Viewed , add a commentDirected by: Edgar Wright
‘Highly anticipated’ are the two words I’ve been using to describe my feeling towards this movie. And for once, there’s actually a justification for it. After the huge success that was Shaun of the Dead, the boys are back, this time dropping the zombie horror elements for a rampaging, no holds barred, all-out blockbusting action-fest. In Somerset.
The town of Wells stands in for the fictional village of Sandford, home of the lowest crime rate in England. It’s also where police officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) finds himself after his outstanding record in London starts to make the rest of the force look bad. Even after the mandatory move, Angel continues to try and excel in his job, but he quickly finds out that small town police work involves not much more than visiting the local shop with his adopted partner Danny (Nick Frost). That is until a set of grisly ‘accidents’ start bumping off members of the community. Angel is convinced there’s something sinister going on in the sleepy town and despite objections from his new colleagues, he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.
The first thing to note is that, like in Shaun, the chemistry between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is what makes the movie such an enjoyable watch. They banter on-screen together effortlessly, in fact it’s almost hard to believe that their characters only just met, although the story tries hard to accommodate this immediate friendship. Their performances aside, there are numerous other top names making appearances, including Bill Bailey, Jim Broadbent, Steve Coogan, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy and Timothy Dalton; in a villainous role that gives Dick Dastardly a run for his money.
Another sharp script from writers Pegg and Wright keeps the laughs coming and with the trademark running gags that were such a feature of their earlier work on display again, it’s hard not to find something to laugh at. I’m sure there are many more jokes that I missed on first viewing, but when the inevitable DVD purchase comes my way I’ll take pleasure in sitting down to scour through it more closely.
There are plenty of movie references to spot too, as well as some wonderful shot replications that work so much better than the mere ‘spoofing’ of recent Hollywood efforts. Some of the homages are a little forced, having to be shown or explained earlier in the film ready for payoff later. And while I suppose it’s just trying to let as many people as possible ‘in’ on the joke, there’s a great satisfaction to picking up on the references in a film like this, a feeling that’s diluted by over-explanation.
The real star of the show however, is Edgar Wright’s direction which is absolutely superb, tackling both the comedic and the action elements with great skill. It’s not easy to pull off such a large genre-leap and comedy movies that try to include action sequences often come off looking painfully out of their league. 
With Hot Fuzz, not only do we get the trademark whip-pans and ‘short shot’ scene changes from Shaun and Spaced, but along with them come a stylistic editing asthetic during the large-scale shootouts that emulates the Tony Scott school of filmmaking with a knowing smile.
On the whole, I think this flick loses out to Shaun Of The Dead by sometimes focusing on its genre juxtaposition too much, and ruining the subtlety of its gags. I also don’t think there are quite as many laughs, although I’m aware that I need to see it again to get the most out of it, while first impressions leave me with the feeling that the script isn’t as smart. Of course, you have to bear in mind that SotD was, and remains, one of the best British comedies made this century. It’s a tough bar to jump.
The important thing is that these guys continue to hold the crown for British comedic excellence in film. They certainly didn’t let us down, despite that mega-hype that was always going to surround this release. Hot Fuzz is still probably the funniest movie that will come out of the country all year, and we should be proud to have the talents of Pegg and Wright on our side. I can already feel the anticipation mounting for their next project.
Poseidon (2006) February 19, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , add a commentDirected by: Wolfgang Petersen
Wolfgang Petersen likes his water. The Perfect Storm and Das Boot director just can’t get enough of it apparently, as he braves the dangerous world of the remake to bring us this updated version of a 1972 classic, The Poseidon Adventure.
When thousands of passengers board the cruise liner ‘Poseidon’ hoping to spend a special New Year’s Eve at sea, they’ve no idea just how special it’s going to be. Shortly after midnight, a rogue wave hits the side of the ship causing it to flip upside down. With many passengers and crew dead, the survivors are forced to fend for themselves, but this isn’t good enough for Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell). He has to find his daughter who is elsewhere on the ship, so he teams up with resourceful Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) and a group of other passengers leaving the apparent safety of the ballroom in search of a way out.
Now there’s a disaster plot summary if ever I heard one. It’s certainly got all the elements; it’s just unfortunate that it goes through the motions almost as formulaically. All the negative reviews got my expectations pretty low, and I actually ended up enjoying this movie quite a bit, although I’ll admit that it’s not much better than any other standard ‘disaster movie’ fare, it’s certainly not significantly worse in any way.
Peterson’s direction doesn’t add much to the proceedings, although he’s clearly not afraid of using CG to enhance the film’s aesthetics. This heavy reliance is probably necessary for the most part, producing a nice opening sequence of Josh Lucas taking a jog around the outside of a non-existent cruise ship. In some places the effects stand out a little bit too much, but that’s not totally inexcusable in this world of over the top action movies.
The principal cast, including Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss, all do a good job of shouting and looking scared, which is really the most that’s required of them. There’s very little character development, and what is present feels forced, so you never build up a proper relationship with the characters. And that’s the primary failing point of this flick, because the genre dictates that you need to care about the characters to care about their outcome – that being the point of the movie.
So it’s slightly uninspiring, and while I was never bored during the brisk 100-minute running time, I was never riveted either. One fair observation is that it was surprisingly graphic in showing some of the deaths for a movie at this certificate, and held back by making it quite obvious who’ll survive and who won’t. Still, I don’t think the trouncing it received from critics was entirely warranted – it’s not a complete stinker, just an average movie that fell short of the mark.
American Psycho (2000) February 15, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , 3 commentsDirected by: Mary Harron
Patrick Bateman is a sick man. Living in a plush apartment and working in the business centre of New York, he enjoys music, working out, fine dining… oh, and the odd brutal murder. As the indistinguishable faces of his business colleagues pass him by, Patrick is free to descend into a state of mental blurring, the output of which takes the form of a vicious psychopath.
As you can probably tell, it’s a bizarre movie, with a great amount of the discomfort brought on by the uneven tone. Some scenes are almost purely comedic, such as Bateman’s dissection of 80’s pop legends like Huey Lewis & The News or Phil Collins, while others are unashamedly graphic in their depictions of sex and violence. My favourite scene - the one in which Bateman sweats over how everyone else’s business card is better than his - displays the unravelling mind of a murderer, but is still laugh-out-loud funny.
Christian Bale plays a fantastically hollow central character, to the point where you almost believe that if his porcelain-perfect skin were to crack, there’d be nothing underneath. He’s both dangerous and utterly shallow in his portrayal of someone on the edge of sanity. There are also good supporting performances from the likes of Chloë Sevigny and Willem Dafoe, although their parts seem to be almost a side-note to the Bateman story.
The film is full of wonderful over-descriptions (such as the ‘daily routine’ at the opening), and moments of pure eighties divulgence adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’s original novel. This is all aided by a great soundtrack, which is as much a part of getting to know the central character, as it is keeping the movie in context. The actual violence itself, while often brutal, is never shown in an explicit way. I suppose it comes down to how easily you can show someone taking an axe to the face without having the censor tear your film to shreds. It’s nowhere near the most violent film out there though.
Both written and directed with skill by Mary Harron, the film manages to have an almost non-existent narrative arc (throughout the film Bateman moves from crazy, to crazier), and yet it crafts a world that’s so wonderfully involved, you want it to keep going. There’s very little in terms of a resolution (that we see anyway), and yet the ending is still a masterstroke.
I really like this film, although at times I find myself wondering why. It has a lot of elements that I might find annoying or distracting in other films (lack of narrative, constant over-explanation, unclear character motives), but for some reason they all work here. It’s a movie that can be considered very simple or very complex, depending on how far you are willing to analyse it. But I suggest you don’t pick it apart with too much vigour - you might not like what you find. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to return some videotapes.
Clerks II (2006) February 11, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , 1 comment so farDirected by: Kevin Smith
Just because they serve you, doesn’t mean they like you. Or so we were told back in the mid-nineties, when a film school drop-out was trying to make a name for himself in the movie business. ‘Clerks.’ was a huge success for Kevin Smith, who made the flick on a shoestring and, by his own admission, got lucky. Twelve years and five more pictures down the road, Smith is back on familiar ground, revisiting the characters that launched his career.
This time Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) are forced to leave their much-maligned jobs at the Quick Stop after a fire forces the store to close. They move zero rungs up the employment ladder to work at Mooby’s – a cow-centric fast food outlet. The story picks up as Dante is about to leave town with his slightly obsessive wife-to-be Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach), but as it turns out, he may actually be more in love with his down to earth boss, Becky (Rosario Dawson). Meanwhile Randal is, well, Randal. Picking on customers and arguing with junior employee Elias (Trevor Fehrman) are just two of his daily tasks. But is Dante’s impending exit going to affect him more than he lets on?
Being such a fan of the original Clerks, I was slightly worried when I heard about this ‘revisit’. However, despite my apprehensiveness, I can safely say that I’m satisfied with the sequel. Now don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not using ‘satisfied’ to do it down - I thought it was very funny, and managed to expertly capture the ’same but different’ aspects of the characters ten years on. It’s not an 8-minute standing ovation movie, but it doesn’t hurt the original by existing.
It’s quite a struggle to review this movie without letting the first Clerks cloud my judgement, although in fairness the two films are very closely linked. I’ve always loved the character of Randal, so it’s good to see Jeff Anderson totally knock the character out of the park once more. And Elias too is a brilliant invention, played with perfect pitch by Trevor Fehrman. I laughed out loud on plenty of occasions and yet there’s still something bothering me about the film.
I think it has something to do with the way it seems to re-enact the original Clerks almost exactly. No bad thing you might think, but whether it was done intentionally or unintentionally, I thought the similarities were worth less than the alterations. I loved the character additions: Elias and Becky, the change of location was inspired, I even liked Jay & Silent Bob’s new outlook on life. But the story structure: Dante deciding between two women, Randal rats on some customers, a pop-culture argument or two, all leading up to a sex-based ‘trigger’. Then Dante and Randal have it out with each other, and everyone ends up slightly happier. You can change the details but it all sounds pretty similar to a certain low-budget movie from 1994.
I’m not going to moan though. I still like Kevin Smith, and the ‘get out and do something with your life’ message is as widely appropriate now as it was a decade ago. It’s actually a great achievement for the director, who has made a good career from that black & white indie movie scraped together at the store where he used to work. He owes a lot to that film, and revisits it here with respect, not cash-hungry eyes. Plus the fact that he draws poignancy into a movie this bloated with foul language and sexual conversation, just shows how far his writing has come in twelve years. It’s just a shame that these two movies, and the short-lived animated series, is all we may ever see of these guys.