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Reviews
Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
This movie is charming, honest and beautiful
I saw 'Where the Wild Things Are' a couple days after a group of my friends went and saw it. A large chunk of the group were pretty disappointed with it.
After the film had finished I walked home floating on a cloud of pleasantness baffled how anyone but the most cynical person could be negative about such a movie. I couldn't stop yammering about it or wipe the smile off my face.
I don't really know where I stand in relation to the whole argument on whether it is a real kids movie. I know I'm not convinced I would have been quite as entranced by this movie 10 years ago. One of the many reasoning I've heard to disliking the movie is it having a bad message for kids. In that they can act up and get away with it. I both disagree with this and think it is completely missing the point. This movie is about what it is like being a kid not a fable to teach them how to behave.
Max is no doubt a self-centered brat but he is also only 8. A kid who never thinks his parents are unfair to him and doesn't act irrational when things don't go his way doesn't really exist except in sugary sweet children movies. Like Max does in the movie when he observes the Wild Things acting in the way he did children learn to be responsible as they grow but that selfish impulse will always be there and certainly never really mastered until after the teenage years..
This film explores the fun kids have when pretending. The favorites they play. Their cruel ganging up on mentality. Their stubbornness. Their jealousy at being excluded. It also shows that even if you are naughty your mum will still love you. It is a film with a free spirit and an imagination which is unlimited with the amazing special effects. Effects which never rob the film of its heart.
I loved this film. Unconditionally
Boxing Day (2007)
Could have been good but wasn't
This film has a good story in it, with some decent acting. Although the narrative moved a bit conveniently at times, like the way Chris reacted to Owen telling him Dave was pedophile, I think this movie had potential and was heading in a good direction. I feel like all it really needed was to let go of the 'all in one shot' idea.
I'm all for long shots and the effect they have but I don't see the point in hanging onto them just for the sake of what is essentially a gimmick. I say gimmick because there are more than several bits where it detracts from the film. You notice moves that don't need to be there. When the camera walks up to a character to go from wide shot to close up, there is no narrative reason for the camera move to be there. It exists solely to preserve its one shot ideal. You notice when things are horribly overexposed or out of focus. The stark lighting scheme works but to see the exposure change mid shot and have parts of the screen burnt completely white is much too distracting. The story of the film becomes secondary to the one take idea.
A particular example when they are waiting for Brooke to come back from the shop. This scene could have been a powerful scene but was completely undermined by the overexposed exterior and out of focus element once Brooke arrive.
The camera moves play around uncertainly at times. No doubt it was a mammoth effort to orchestrate the filming but there is still too much technical stuff gone wrong for to me to have totally lost myself in the film.
I even felt the performances where affected because of the don't mess up a whole take mentality they would have had. They were on the whole very good but the situation of filming does not really allow for the actors to take risks.
It really is a pity to me because this could have been a simple realistic film about one family on one afternoon but that takes a backseat to an unnecessary technical idea
5 Card Stud (1968)
Ended up pretty good
Probably wouldn't have stuck with this one if I didn't know Robert Mitchum was showing up eventually but it ended up getting a lot better as it went on. The plot was interesting and I liked the way they didn't reveal the killer in a sensational twist seeing as most people would have worked it out by then. A good example of suspense being better than surprise.
That being said the structure of the film was a bit loose, It spent a lot of time on things that didn't really have any importance to the story when I thought it could have spent more time establishing certain characters motivations and relationships and I thought sometimes the snappy style dialog was a bit stilted. Some of the acting was also a bit awkward. It was only about a third to about a half way through the movie that I decided I liked it but in the end it was quite enjoyable and once again Mitchum was awesome