Thursday night was a night of watching films it seems. Here is a brief run down on what I watched.

First of all, courtesy of the Directors’ Guild and The Factory I got to wander along to a preview of Lance Daly’s The Good Doctor, in which Orlando Bloom plays Dr. Martin Blake, a lonely doctor who forms a relationship with a patient.
I really don’t want to say much more about the plot, but it is a lot better than I am making it sound. Trust me and don’t look up much, since all the marketing material (trailers, synopses, etc) give away far more than they should. Which is a pity since the plot and its pacing work best when you don’t expect it all. Anyway, a good film with solid performances, a nice story and generally a nice looking flick.
The kind of film I would recommend seeing if you like going to the cinema but find you’ve seen all the films you wanted to see. Or just like to support Irish filmmakers.

After I got home from that I finally (as in I’ve had this staring at me for quite a while now) threw on Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi’s animated feature Persepolis. Adapted from Satrapi’s graphic novels that tells of her growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
Another lovely, though quiet sad, film. Interesting to see how Iran was during the 80s and how it was to be an Iranian woman through all those key events. The film also deals with a period of her life where she lived in Europe and it was equally interesting to see how she was perceived (or perceived she was perceived, at least) by the outside world at that time. A worth while watch. It was even nominated for an Oscar in 2008. Not that that is any real indication of quality, sadly…

Finally, to lighten the tone of my lonely filmic night, I turned to an old favourite of mine – Wes Anderson, this time trying out his stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox, wherein an urbane fox cannot resist returning to his farm raiding ways and then must help his community survive the farmers’ retaliation.
Classic Anderson. His style of camera work and humour translated perfectly to the medium. A lovely looking film with great performances and clever humour. I really enjoyed it. Having never read the book, I can’t say how faithful an adaptation it is, but I can say I don’t care about that sort of thing. Reading is for eggheads, who have a known fondness for booky-wooks. You should watch this.

That was my Thursday night. My Friday was writing this. I am crushing life.

…is currently running in the IFI in Dublin. It’s a wonderful thing to see such a beautiful and powerful film on the big screen. A really enjoyable narration on the insanity of war.
Treat yourself and go see it, if you can.

Until this evening I’d never seen the film. I was always waiting to see it properly, like this. In fact there are a few classics that I’ve held off seeing, for want of watching them on the big screen; many of my friends know about my urge to get a Godfather trilogy day/night off the ground, not just in my front room, but on a big screen, with impressive sound and a crowd of people to enjoy it with.

In fact (tangent in three… two… one… ), I’ve been watching a lot of old films lately: The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia, All About Eve and a chink of the works of Hitchcock to name but a few. There is a real difference in storytelling evident between now and then. Everything is so rushed these day.
As my friend commented as we left Apocalypse Now, if they remade that film nowadays, the scenes would all be so much shorter and to the point. The scene where he is briefed on his mission would have lost the regret the general obviously feels for ordering the mission, the mystery of the suited man and the awkwardness of the captain who watches on. It would have been “Hello. take this document and go kill this boyo”. Yes. Boyo. That is how it would have been worded. And I would know. I make the movies.
The same with the character building scenes in so many of the films I named above. So much more relaxed and thus realistic than you get these days.

As another (some would say bonus) side point, there is something great about seeing a fleet of helicopters, a burning forest and lots of people flipping in explosions in films of this era. Because you know it all happened. It subconsciously feels more real because it sort of is more real. At least more real than CGI.

This was sort of a stream of consciousness. I think I can sum it up with “old films are good, give them a try”.

Anyway, ranting aside, I just found a copy of The Fantastic Mr Fox which I missed in the cinema and will now watch, thus ignoring my previous statements on old films and seeing things on the big screen. Oh well. Life is a fickle bitch like that.

Recently I watched Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins. What follow are my thoughts. With mild spoilers.

An obvious homage to ‘Seven Samurai’ (an awesome film, by the way – if you’re not seen it, go watch it. Then send me nice things as a thank you…) in which a the shogun’s advisor tasks one of his retainers with assassinating an evil lord, who for various reasons, can’t be touched politically.

It was a fun, but flawed film. Mostly flawed because of the scale of it; 13 assassins, then support cast and, of course, the villain and his goons – lots of goons.

Now – and I am not being racist here – considering that eveyone is dressed the same and has the same haircut they all look the same to me. Of the assassins only five – spear-man, cool-ronin, man-in-charge, monkey-man and nephew – have any attempt at personality. Which I have just summed up for you. The other eight dudes are interchangeable.

If they had gone with the five semi-characters and fleshed them out, while downsizing the scale of the end encounter, they would have had a more poignant, exciting and realistic film.

In short, the film can be summarised by this song:

For some reason I cannot fathom, people always ask me for my favourite films. Even more unfathomable to me is the look on their faces when I list them. No pleasing some folk…

Anyway, here is a(n unordered) list of films I really like:

• Spirited Away
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• Amelie
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the first one)
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• The Blues Brothers
• Up
• Big Trouble in Little China
• The Box
• Synecdoche, New York
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• 300

I can’t think of more. If I do, I may add them.

You’ve never had a better friend than me.

…a new film to kick-start a new project. And it’s going to require a blog.
Hence, I am relaunching my blog.
True story.