NATIVITY! (2009)

DIRECTED: Debbie Issit

STARRED: Martin Freeman, Marc Wootton, Ashley Jensen

AGE RATING: U

I found myself watching this in a makeshift fort, swaddled in duvets and surrounded by pillows with my flatmates the other night. Warm tootsies, full of gingerbread-hot chocolate and the four of us all snuggled up, it was awesome. And the film's pretty good too.

A festive film for the big kids as well as the little kids, Nativity! is about, no points for guessing, a nativity. Martin Freeman plays his usual role, as the grumpy and pessimistic but ultimately good-hearted lead, this time as Paul Maddens, a primary school teacher given the task of directing the school nativity. He really doesn't want to do it, Christmas isn't his thing. Which is where Mr Poppy comes in, the man-child disguised as a classroom assistant.

Whilst the whole lead-character-hates-Christmas-but-then-good-things-happen-and-lead-character-has-seen-the-light-Crimbo-is-brilliant-again thing is done in pretty much every Christmas film ever, I feel that Nativity! has more to offer. Kids are singing! Badly. It's like watching X-Factor auditions, they're adorably rubbish. The kids in this film are all really good, I was impressed with all of them. Child actors are notoriously iffy, but these kids had it under wraps and brought Nativity! together more than the adult actors if I'm honest. Their line delivery and physical performance was ace, especially as it was improvised, which gave the characters, young and old, a very natural feel, their performances were consistent and believable throughout.

I enjoyed the realism of the film, something not seen often in films aimed at kids. Obviously realism isn't a word that can describe the overall film, it's not often that -spoilers- an average primary school teacher can lie their way to getting a Hollywood film crew to fly to England and watch a school play. But the rest of it, the dialogue, the fact that the Christmases aren't all snowy and white. And I loved that each kid was allowed to showcase their own talents – I've never been able to burp the alphabet.

In general, Nativity! is a wonderfully heart-warming, cute little film, just right for getting you into the spirit of Christmas and I will be more than happy to take some of the younger family members to see the sequel this December.

"My Mum gave a handjob to a mystic."

SUBMARINE (2010)

DIRECTED: Richard Ayoade

STARRED: Crag Roberts, Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine

AGE RATING: 15

Submarine, the directorial debut of Richard Ayoade, tells the coming-of-age story of Oliver, a precocious 15 year old boy caught between getting laid and preventing the collapse of his parents' marriage. Those familiar with Ayoade from television (BBC's The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd and his appearances on Big Fat Quiz of the Year) will see his wit and somewhat dark humour come through in Submarine.

Although based on a novel of the same name by Joe Dunthorne, Ayoade makes the film his own and doesn't let the film's low budget (£1.2 million) hinder him. There is one scene in particular that sticks in my mind where Oliver is musing over how in the film of his life, the camera would move out in a crane shot but if the budget is too low he'll have to replace it with a simple zoom out instead – as the camera zooms out.

I said that Oliver is precocious. I say this because of the dialogue and the narration that he gives. He's quiet and obviously doesn't have many friends and it's mentioned and referred to a lot that he spends a lot of time reading, so he's obviously going to have a large vocabulary. And that's kind of sad, but it's good insight into the kind of protagonist that we have. I have heard a lot of comparison of Submarine to Jason Reitman's Juno. I'm rather fond of Juno and I understand where the comparison's come from – Juno is also a coming-of-age story of a mature teen with an extensive vocabulary, although these main characters are hugely different. Juno has a circle of friends, whereas Oliver doesn't. Juno's language is indicative of her friendships, her speech is built on slang and pop culture, where Oliver's is built around the books that he has read to fill the time he spends in his own company. He's an anti-hero.

Whilst Oliver's personality adds to the humour of the film, especially when joined with Jordana, his impersonal, non-touchy-feely girlfriend (their relationship has a list of rules, including “NO EMOTIONS”) there are scenes that really are quite gentle. Set in a quiet Welsh village, the surrounding landscape creates a calm atmosphere all by itself and whilst Jordana refuses to go anywhere that could be interpreted as a romantic setting, the country provides a soothing backdrop to their teenage shenanigans.

This is a really, really good film, it's funny and interesting and the cinematography and acting is brilliant. I enjoyed this film immensely.

"How far would you go to get your answers?"

PROMETHEUS (2012)

DIRECTED: Ridley Scott

STARRED: Noomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green, Michael Fassbender

AGE RATING: 15

I had loads of fun seeing Prometheus in the cinema. I thought it was brilliant. I didn't actually notice the lack in narrative coherence until it was pointed out to me later and still, I'm not going to let it change my opinion that Prometheus is a really cool movie.

Following a team of scientists on their quest to find our creators, Prometheus is fast paced and punchy, engaging and visually amazing, but as much as I'd like to, I'm not going to brush over it's flaws. While Prometheus is an awesome looking film, Ridley Scott seems to have put style higher on the list of priorities than narrative sense. So many questions have been left unanswered at the end of the film, too many to list: What's that robot up to? Why did that old guy pretend to be dead? Why are there squids and worms and eyeball bugs and black goo all over the place? It's pretty ridiculous, I'll admit.

There is also the unfortunate lack of character development. There's so much going on all the time, that you aren't given a chance to get a feel for the characters, their intentions on this new planet, their goals and drives and I felt little to no connection to any of them. So when everyone gets eaten by strangely familiar aliens (not an Aliens prequel, ha) I wasn't all that bothered. 

Having said that, one particular scene involving –SPOILER ALERT– an alien baby and a C-Section performed by a machine built only to perform operations on men (I have seen the future and it's full of sexist tech) had me and the rest of the cinema squirming. Not for Shaw though, more for the fact that we were witnessing a squid being removed from a womb by one of those toy claw machines. So whilst Shaw's swift and almost immediate recovery may not be one hundred percent medically accurate, you can't say the film's boring!

Onto Prometheus' better aspects: let's start with the cast. How good is this cast? It's a brilliant cast. The characters are brilliantly dumb sometimes, but they're performed wonderfully well. Although the question must be raised: Why was Guy Pearce cast to play an old guy, when they could have cast an actual old guy? The make-up was painfully obvious and they could have just cast an old guy.

Speaking of costume, the spacesuits and ship and design in general was so awesome. The attention to detail is what struck me, all the cliché neon lights on every button and dial on Prometheus' control panels and the huge sphere helmets on their spacesuits, it was so silly but I loved it. It's inexplicable. Those helmets were perfectly spherical. It was just so sci-fi, but not too sci-fi. All the lights and gadgets, it was all very genre specific and I could have sighed and shook my head with an “Of course they would” but it just fit. It wasn't too over the top, it was just right.

Prometheus may be a little nonsensical in places (Where did that worm come from? I still don't know.) but I love it regardless. I can't help but get caught up in the stylistic qualities  too much to care about little loopholes, but I don't think it's a bad film. If a sci-fi action flick is what you're after, Prometheus will do the trick.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

DIRECTED: Christopher Nolan
STARRING: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway
AGE RATING: 12A


I loved The Dark Knight Rises. Admittedly, I went in expecting to love it and the cast is made up of a selection of my favourite actors, so I can't help but lean favourably.

But before I dive right in, I'm going to take a quick look at Nolan's Gotham. I love it. I love the modern, urban cityscape and the feel of the environment, the corruption that's spread through every part of Gotham, from the bottom of the sewers to the tips of the skyscrapers. There is an edge to Gotham that creates a dark tone prevalent throughout the film, enhanced by Nolan's bleak use of colour. Watching a Nolan 'verse Batman film is like watching a film set in a post-apocalyptic world. A sense of hopelessness has permeated every part of the city. There is no doubt that Gotham is in need of change.

Onto Batman himself, rather, his voice in particular. I have nothing against the voice, it's gravelly and cool and badass, you can't deny it. But there is one scene in the film, just one, where it makes me laugh, because it's just silly. Batman and Catwoman have teamed up to take down the bad guys, there's a brief exchange and then Christian Bale delivers the line: "So that's what that feels like." But Catwoman has already left. He's using the voice ... by himself. He's alone. There is nobody there with him that he needs to hide his identity from but he's still doing the voice, I don't know why he's doing it.

But it leads me onto my next point, in a similar vein: Bane's voice. Ah, Bane's voice, the source of many tensions among Batman fans. How bizarre is Bane's voice in TDKR? At first I found it incredibly off-putting and so strange that I couldn't take in anything Bane was saying because I was laughing too much. Although, yeah, halfway through the film I grew accustomed to it, but I still missed that first half.

I was a little underwhelmed by Bane overall, if I'm honest. As a fan of Tom Hardy, I've seen a lot of his other performances and am familiar with a lot of the roles that he's taken on, including his role as the titular character in the biopic Bronson. Now, after seeing Hardy's impressive and very intimidating Charles Bronson, one would assume that something of the same would be brought to his performance as Bane. Hardy put on the muscle, he put on the mask, he even put on the weird and almost unintelligible accent, but Bane's all muscle and domineering physical appearance. He talks and talks and throws a few punches, sure, but I felt that it wasn't enough. I was anticipating the moment that Bane would snap, but he was measured, tempered anger that didn't broil once. I was left feeling a little dissatisfied.

And back to Batman himself, well. There just wasn't enough of him in the film overall, at all. Sure, we had some Bruce Wayne. Some rickety old recluse Wayne hiding away in his mansion and then some sad, broken Wayne at the bottom of a pit, but there wasn't much Batman. Of course, it's all about his journey into re-becoming the hero, but there wasn't much heroic Wayne at all. When he did show up it was brief and then he was gone again.

But despite this, I immensely enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises and am looking forward to its DVD release.

John Carter (2012)

DIRECTED: Andrew Stanton

STARRING: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe

AGE RATING: 12A

I'm not one hundred percent sure that I know what this film is about.

Wikipedia tells me that it's about an American Civil War captain fighting 12 foot tall aliens in space, to hook up with the Princess of Mars. Which sounds simple enough, but no, no, no, there is a lot more, too much to mention without slipping not only into spoiler territory, but into the first stages of insanity. This film is kind of ridiculous and sky-high levels of cheesy, but it's entertaining. Its sort of like someone has been granted access to a child's toy-box and told to make a film using every toy as a prop or character, but the end product is fun. Playing with kids toys can feel silly for a while, but once you get into it, it's awesome. John Carter's kind of like that.

So I can't say that the film lacks narrative creativity – it's almost as surreal as an episode of The Mighty Boosh to be honest. Although, as an adaptation of a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, I'm not sure how much credit can be given to Stanton for the adapted script.

Because there is so much going on, it makes for an awfully long film (a whole 2 hours and 12 minutes to be precise) and it drags. I found myself fidgeting in my seat about half way through and sighing inwardly a little every time I thought I could see the end in sight. There are a lot of storylines going on that need to get tied up and there is always another around the corner getting it's narrative ends ready for knotting just as the last one's been pulled. Not that the film got boring – maybe a little boring, I guess the whole mish-mash and absurdity of it all couldn't keep my attention completely, but only because it went on for so long. If it could have been successfully condensed, or maybe even if certain less important things could be erased it would, in my honest opinion, be loads better.

Putting aside the somewhat busy storyline, the film is actually funny. Language barriers and speedy space canines alleviate a weird tone brought on the film by what I have to announce as terrible acting. If anything stinted the film's success, it was probably the acting (not taking into account how Disney expected to make more than the crazy $250 million that was spent on this movie, whoa). Lynn Collins in particular made me feel a little uncomfortable, I'm not going to lie. There was a lot of awkward line delivery and strange over-acting that made me feel a little squeamish – romantic scenes were particularly gross. Not that she can take all of the blame for bad acting, Taylor Kitsch perhaps wasn't the best casting choice for the bruised-guy-acts-like-he-doesn't-care-but-he-does-have-a-heart-really kind of role, but maybe he was? He did a lot of squinting and standing without saying anything or really doing anything when he wasn't jumping really high and jabbing things with swords.

But it's an action flick at heart and where the action is concerned … well that's pretty funny too. Watching a swarm of aliens bustling to get a hit in and catching sight of Carter leaping into the air all over the place, it's stupid. But entertaining, so it's all good.

Overall, John Carter isn't as bad as the rep it's gotten, I think. It's silly and fun and nothing to take serious. Like I say, I enjoyed this film and would probably watch it again, for all it's flaws.

ParaNorman (2012)

DIRECTED: Chris Butler, Sam Fell

STARRING: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

AGE RATING: PG


Perfect, flawless movie.

"Didn't Roman Polanski just win an Oscar?"

 

HARD CANDY (2005)

 

DIRECTED: David Slade

STARRING: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson

AGE RATING: 18

 

Hard Candy is not a comforting movie. It is undeniably uncomfortable. It is the kind of film that has you pulling your legs to your stomach and holding them close so that you don’t bolt out of the room.  But in a good way.

Hard Candy is the story of Hayley, a 14 year old girl and Jeff, a 32 year old photographer. They talk over the internet and decide to meet for coffee, which leads to Jeff taking Hayley home and making her cocktails and you can see where this is going. What you don't see coming is what follows.

Hayley is intelligent and precocious and not the Little Red Riding Hood that her wardrobe suggests. Hayley is feigned innocence, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, much like Jeff, who hides his perversion behind the lens of professionalism. Hayley is a retributioner. She punishes Jeff. She punishes him for the risqué photos of underage girls on his walls, for flirting with minors on the internet, for meeting with her and giving her alcoholic drinks. For encouraging her provocative behaviour and for the death of Donna Mauer, a missing girl.

 

Whilst she may seem like a protagonist, the film has you debating who the real ‘baddie’ is. Jeff is a paedophile, but Hayley is - what? "A cute, vindictive, little bitch"? Hayley came to Jeff because of a crime she suspects he committed, but does the punishment fit the crime? Is his perversion his fault? Is Hayley bloodthirsty? The lines between right and wrong blur almost as much as the power balance between the two and it isn't always clear who is the hunter and who is the hunted.

One of my favourite things about the film is the cinematography. The setting, Jeff's home, provides a wide open space full of hard edges and cold surfaces. The overt lack of hidey-holes creates an ironically claustraphobic environment.

To make for an even more squeamish viewing experience, as though the subject matter wasnt enough, the camera work is tight and claustrophobic. Almost every scene is made of a myriad of close ups and extreme close ups and you don't miss a single dark flicker that crosses Hayley's eyes nor a moment when Jeff's vulnerable groans are anything less than defeated.

Which brings me to the acting. Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson deliver what I believe to be astounding performances. Page's performance in particular, the way that she flips between innocent-dorky-Hayley and manipulative-oh-my-god-she's-a-psychopath-Hayley with such speed and ease is alarming and the effect is devastating. Hayley is terrifying. And Page pulls it off flawlessly.

And while this may seem to be a story about paedophilia, I feel that it is a film about appearances. Jeff himself says, “You work as a photographer and you learn real quick, peoples’ faces lie.” Hard Candy is an uncomfortable viewing not only because of the controversial subject matter, provocative dialogue and intimate camera angles. It is uncomfortable because it reveals how easy it is for people to hide their true selves. How easy it can be for others to dig up the parts of yourself that you’ve buried deep, locked up in a vault under an indoor pebble garden. To use your secrets against you. It raises the question: who can you trust? Really?