My 10 Favourite of the 366

Films can be astoundingly brilliant or catastrophically dreadful; sometimes they can be pretty good, sometimes they're not quite good enough, occasionally they're passable. Sometimes, however, it doesn't matter how good or bad the film is, it just manages to entertain you on a personal level, and even if it's flawed to everyone else, it's perfect to you. That's what this list is for, a list of the 10 films that I watched this year that I simply enjoyed the most.

The Crow (1994)

If you've heard the term 'style over substance' then you already know basically everything you need to in order to understand The Crow. That said, my word, what style it has. I got so much enjoyment out of this film on Brandon Lee's character alone, who I feel comfortable saying, even with no sources or research to back up the claim, was at least in part inspiration for Heath Ledger's Joker. But I digress. This movie is just jam-packed with cool and darkly funny moments. Brandon Lee's resurrected Eric Draven has grunge music following him everywhere he goes; he quotes Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven and plays a soulful solo atop an apartment building for his lost love before smashing his guitar, It's all so ridiculous, but it's done with so much style that I was all for it no matter how silly it got. I also had an appreciation for a villain that went against the usual tropes; instead of diving in to monologue once he has Eric at his disposal, the head villain (literally called "Top Dollar") gets bored quickly of Eric's sullen and long spoken ways and orders to have him killed. This movie was a blast of an action/revenge flick.  

Before Midnight (2013)

The entire Before trilogy could go on this list, but I figured I should be fair and only pick my favourite of the three. This trilogy is fascinating because its so unlike so many other romance films I have seen, it stays realistic in its expression of the perspectives of the couple that the trilogy follows. In Before Sunrise we see Jesse and Celine first fall for each other, and their hopeful and slightly naive perspectives as young 23-year olds. In Before Sunset, they re-unite after nine years and we see how their lives and perspectives have changed with time; life has started to wear them down, and before their re-acquaintance they were both starting to give up on love. Finally, in Before Midnight, we see them nine years on from that point, in a long-term relationship with two kids of their own, it's beautiful and sweet and exactly what you'd hoped for the both of them from the moment they first met... then they have a fight. This scene is what made me choose Midnight over the others. They throw heavy insults at each other that cut deep, it's absolutely heartbreaking to watch as they tear at each other emotionally, because they know how to, because they've been together as long as they have. But after such an emotional rollercoaster, after all the pain they inflict on each other, they still try to make up with one another, because they know how to, because they've been together as long as they have. These aren't my absolute favourite movies of all time (I doubt anything could de-throne Pacific Rim) but I do recommend them to absolutely everybody, because they show so much more of a relationship, not just the lovey-dovey stuff.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Like I said in my 'Worst" list, I believe there is a place for God in film, and I believe that place is in films like Hacksaw Ridge. The movie is completely true to it faith-based content, but is also such a good film with a sensible reason for its faith that it never feels forced. The film is extremely brutal and visceral, definitely the sort of thing you show people to make them hate war, but what was most moving to me was the fact that it was about a man who used his faith to perform a miracle. I was shocked by the carnage of the battlefield, but it wasn't until Desmond Doss started saving people, one by one, and started asking God to help him find and save one more, every time, that I began to cry. I don't mean that I teared up, either, I was violently crying in the middle of a movie theatre because I was watching a powerful thing happen through faith. It was good to watch a film that was so proudly Christian and that I didn't have to be embarrassed about how bad it was.

Life of Pi (2012)

Once again, a film with heavy faith-based influences that is also a fantastic movie in its own right. The story of this film is incredible, especially in the way it challenges you with its ending, one that I won't go in to detail about because I think people should just see this movie, In addition to this, I don't think I'e ever seen a more beautiful looking film. There are several shots that struck me with their visuals, but it is this shot, and indeed this one, that stuck in my mind. In a movie about a man lost at sea and looking to God for salvation, these shots tell so much about the story, and are magnificent to behold. This is the sort of film that reminds you that film is both art and a storytelling device.

Hero (2002)

I watched quite a few Chinese films this year, but Hero was definitely my favourite. While House of Flying Daggers was a close second for similar reasons, Hero just had such an incredible use of colour to tell its story. We're essentially told the same story in three different ways, and each time we're told, the colours of the film change; everything in the costumes and the background alter to suit the new colour, and each colour affects the way that the story is told. These two factors led to my favourite moment in the movie, the one that ultimately led me to put this film on my list. Our Nameless Hero, put in front a King for defeating three great warriors, tells the story of how he did so. After telling his story, there is a silence; the wind literally changes direction, and the King tells Nameless that he does not believe his story, because he has personal knowledge of all of the warriors and so his story doesn't add up. The King then proceeds to tell his own version of the story and how he thinks it really happened. It's a chilling scene, and you can see the tension in Jet Li as his expression changes from confidence to fear.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

I love the work of the Coen Brothers, but Inside Llewyn Davis' wonderful folk songs drew me in from the very first note. The calmly melancholic yet sometimes hilarious tone kept me still throughout the whole experience. I loved the way film began and ended in the same way, how the Coens chose to focus on nothing particularly significant about Llewyn's life, but instead just let a week go by, with nothing really accomplished and a lot of near misses. It's a realistic depiction of the struggles of an artist, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Oldboy (2003)

This one is one of the weirdest films I watched this year. It also happens to be a fantastic film with incredible visual style and the ability to change tones on a dime and still make sense. The plot is intricate and unbelievable (as in, I don't want to believe it, not that I can't), and the acting is incredibly intense. I won't talk about the scene in particular that puts the film on the list, because that would be a massive spoiler for such a plot-intensive movie, but anyone who has already seen the film knows exactly the scene that I am talking about.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

It's so nice to see Will Ferrell act as a character rather than a caricature. This film was refreshing in this regard, as he plays an awkward tax man in a fun and inventive story. The scene that puts this film on the list is one of the cutest romantic moments in all of film. Will Ferrell's Harold Crick decides to pursue Maggie Gyllenhaal's Ana Pascal; because she's a baker, he decides as a romantic gesture to bring her 'Flours'; not flowers, but a box of several bag of flour. It's an incredibly cheesy and heartfelt moment amidst such a touching and positive film.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

This film is so very strange and so very dark. I loved the odd, high-concept story and the way the film chose to focus on people's exploration of the idea, rather than trying to hard to figure out the mechanics of how it happened. I mean a story about a puppet master taking a job as a file clerk on the 7½ Floor of an office building and discovering a portal in to the mind of John Malkovich would be difficult to wrap your head around if they over-explained exactly how a portal in to Malkovich's mind came to be. The scene that sold me on the movie completely was its finale. After all the main characters do so many despicable things, it is John Cusack's Craig who gets his comeuppance, as he has to spend the rest of eternity in his daughter's subconscious, forced to look through her eyes at his ex-wife and the woman he drove his ex-wife in to the arms of. It's such a messed up ending, and I was dumbfounded by it.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

I've always loved Westerns, so this year I finally watched the Dollars trilogy. While The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a better film, I personally preferred For a Few Dollars More because of its more focused and more personal story. I was drawn in to the film from the introduction of Lee Van Cleef's Colonel Douglas Mortimer. Because of the first film, I was already familiar with Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, so the film's choice to open with Mortimer and show him to be an equally awesome badass was a fantastic way to get in to the movie.

Honourable Mentions

There's too many to count, it was hard enough to get this list down to 10. I really enjoyed a lot of the movies I watched this year. Hopefully I'll find the time to write about them in the future.

*Edit: I somehow completely forgot about this movie when I was making this list, but Drag Me to Hell (2009) was easily one of my favourite movies this year. That doesn't discount the other movies on this list, but I had a moment of realisation about this film and I feel I must mention it here.

Published December 30th, 2016

The 10 Worst of the 366

Sometimes I go out of my way to watch truly awful films. I think it's as important to see how low film can sink as it is to see how high it can reach. I think it gives you a greater appreciation of good film when you know how bad it can get. Once again, in no particular order, here is a list of the ten most horrifically terrible films I watched this year.

Nine Lives (2016)

Terrible movies are alive and well in 2016 (and can even be popular, considering how much money Suicide Squad made). This film is just a shallow and forcibly predictable waste of time. You can't even justify that it's 'just a kid's movie' because I've seen dozens of kids movies that far outshine this useless film. Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Garner apparently just need a paycheck, because they're completely unenthusiastic the entire time; the actor here who seems to be having any fun is Christopher Walken, or maybe that's just me projecting because I could never hate Christopher Walken, even when he appears in movies like Nine Lives. There is no reason to watch this film, not even in a 'let's ironically watch a bad film' kind of way, because it's just a boring slog that nobody cared about while they were making and just wanted to cash in on people's love of cats, I guess. If you need proof of the film's atrociousness, just watch the trailer.  

Alone in the Dark (2005)

Video game movies have never been good, but this film is on another level of terrible entirely. If you read in to the Director a little, Uwe Boll, you'll see that this film is really just an excuse to take advantage of a now closed loophole in the German tax system, so there really is literally no effort put in to the film at any point. The entire thing is just a complete mess from start to finish, with an incomprehensible and convoluted plot that has to constantly be re-told to you even though you'll never get it anyway. The first five minutes of the film literally tell you the premise of the film in three different ways. The effects are terrible, the acting even worse. Seriously, Tara Reid as a scientist is probably one of the worst casting choices I have ever seen; it was actually a joy to see her in Sharknado by comparison, that's how terrible the acting in this film is. Like a lot of films on this list, this was the sort of film that completely baffled me with its existence. I know that making movies is hard, but these guys didn't even try. The whole thing may as well have just been an hour and a half of Uwe Boll playing the Alone in the Dark video game, because that would have been cheaper and probably more entertaining.

The Last Airbender (2010)

In a way, this one is the worst on the list. Not because the film is significantly worse than the others, but because the film manages to be as terrible as it is on a $150 million budget. $150 MILLION just to crap all over the dreams of fans of the series. Do you know what they could have done with that money? They could have easily fed millions of starving children! Or, you know, at least make a good movie. I must also stress that I say this as someone who has never watched the series. I thought I would just watch this movie from a neutral perspective and see if was any less terrible than the impressions fan of the series had given me, and to be completely honest, it was worse. This movie isn't so much a movie as it is a series of scenes that happen purely because they happened in the series. It's the same problem as video game movies, the filmmakers are trying to compress several hours of content in to just over an hour and a half, special care needs to be taken in for the narrative make sense and for the pacing to feel in sync with the story, otherwise things that happen simply happen for no reason in the minds of the audience. This film takes no care, it simple tries to burn through the first season as quickly as possible while trying to look like a live-action version of the TV show. While there is a literally incredible number of problems with this film, one problem that really stuck out to me was Jackson Rathbone as Sokka. Sokka's apparently the comedy relief in the series, but for some reason in the movie Rathbone is completely stiff and emotionless, like he's channeling his character from Twilight the entire time.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

This film is the other end of the spectrum. While The Last Airbender is what you get when you're given all the money in the world but just don't care about what you're doing, Birdemic is what happens when you have no money and no idea what it takes to actually make a movie. This movie is so bad it's almost feeble, and it makes you feel feeble in the process. This 'film', if you can call it that, has some of the worst sound and editing, some of the most wooden acting, and some of the worst special effects I have ever seen. I'd be a little easier on it for its shoestring budget, except I've seen films on a shoestring budget that are infinitely better than this. I can't even pick a specific point in the movie to highlight how terrible it is, it's so bad from start to finish, literally starting with a driving scene with some dreadful music that lasts literally 4-minutes, to the first line of dialogue uttered which was so poorly recorded that they had to re-record the line in a completely different setting which makes the line poorly dubbed, to the final shot of the main characters standing on a beach as birds fly away, which again takes 4 embarrassingly long minutes. This film was excruciating to watch, it's only 93 minutes long, but I felt like I lost days of my life watching this film. That said, there's a certain joy to watching terrible movies, especially with friends so that you can rip in to them.

Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)

Birdemic 2 is like the director heard that the first film was a joke and tried to make a sequel around that idea, but never actually learnt why people thought the first film was a joke. There's hints that he understands the 'so bad it's good' attitude people have towards the first film, with what I think are supposed to be callbacks to the first film, and retreads of what we saw in the first film but done with exaggerated attempts to appear like a film that had some actual money put in to it, but it still has all the terrible aspects of the original film. Awful audio, crappy camera work, the illusion that the director is parodying himself with this film disappears pretty quickly when you realise that it's no different from the previous film, and it ends up being worse because there's literally no reason for the film to exist. You'd probably have a more enjoyable time re-watching the first movie, because then at least you know people didn't put time in to making not one, but two films as terrible as these Birdemic movies. This is quite literally the first movie, but with a Hollywood backdrop.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

This one... man, I don't even know what to make of this one even after all this time. It's not as if the first Highlander was high art, but at least it was an interesting sci-fi premise with Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown hamming it up as they clash swords. A fight between immortals across the ages that ends when there is only one left is cheap and easy story, and one that may leave you asking, 'so how do they make a sequel when there's only one immortal left?' Well, Highlander II decides that they aren't in fact immortals, but aliens that were sent to earth as punishment for rebelling against the ruling class, and the General who wanted you dead has come to Earth to kill you. Then there's the fact that the Earth is dying, trapped in a dome to protect from the Sun after mankind destroyed the ozone layer. There's also the fact that Sean Connery's character is simply brought back to life for no conceivable reason, which is then followed by perplexing scene where he orders a tailored suit. Yes, really. I don't understand what the makers of this film were going for, how they thought a movie about immortals fighting for power across time could just transition in to a story about aliens fighting on a dying earth, let alone all of the other explained occurrences in the film. So much stuff in the film just happen without any rhyme or reason, this film really is incomprehensibly bad, which I guess is why a lot of people call it 'so bad it's good'.

Troll 2 (1990)

A lot of 2's on this list, but Troll 2 is the only 2 that isn't a sequel; the producers just decided that a film about vegetarian goblins that turn people in to plant goo wasn't capable of garnering attention, so they attached the title to make it a sequel to another film that most people have never heard of, I suppose in the hopes of making more money, but a film about goblins being called Troll 2 just ended up confusing people. Unfortunately, the title is not the only thing that's confusing about the movie. Once again, this is a film with a plot that makes no sense, and things that simply happen because the story demands that at least something must happen. If I were to pick a particularly terrible scene, it would be one that involves the main family of the movie sitting down to eat food, seemingly oblivious to the green stuff that covers the food, only to be stopped as the family's dead grandfather freezes the family in place to give the son of the family time to stop them. What does the boy do with his time? he pees on the food. Yeah, never imagined that as the logical conclusion to the scene, but the scene and indeed the movie has no logic to begin with, so why bother doing what makes sense, right?

God's Not Dead 2 (2016)

I believe that there is a place for God in film, and as more and more good directors let their faith guide their filmmaking, that becomes evident. If you need more convincing, check out this year's Hacksaw Ridge by Mel Gibson or the upcoming Silence by Martin Scorsese, which depict people using their faith to do great things and people struggling with their faith in a world where their faith is forbidden, respectively. However if you need evidence to the contrary, look no further than this sermon masquerading as a film. That's the problem with this sort of film, the filmmakers haven't set out to make a film that intend to inject a little preaching in to, they just want to preach to you in film form. They think they're making something profound for God but all they're doing is unleashing a film that only makes me laugh at how pathetic it is as a film, and certainly does nothing convert the faithless or reaffirm the faithful. I will admit, though, that I got a few chuckles out of this movie because of how many somewhat famous actors the filmmakers managed to get to appear in it, including Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), and Ernie Hudson.

Battlefield: Earth (2000)

I'll just leave this here. Oh, and this.
Once again, this movie is just bizarre to behold, a high-concept sci-fi that makes so little sense I don't even know where to begin. Travolta's acting is so unbelievable terrible that I kind of adore it, it's clear that he isn't phoning it in but he takes it way too far in the other direction. The story is bizarre, and I don't want to try an explain it here because it may take all day to describe exactly what happens in the film, but what really makes the film difficult to watch is the direction, the cinematography. The film is infamous for its use of Dutch angles, but you really have no way to prepare for the fact the literally the entire film is Dutch angles; I sincerely can not recall a single shot from that film that was levelled, and trying to think about it just gives me a headache.

Jurassic Monster: The Prehistoric Project (2015)

This was the last truly terrible film I watched this year, and it's the sort of film that makes me want to never be creative again, to just crawl in to a corner and die because there's no point to anything. Anyone who's read my Blair Witch Project review knows that I have issues with found footage films, so the only thing that can make an already terrible movie worse is to make it found footage. This film is literally 90% "some guy" filming with a handheld camera with maybe three effects shots, and 10% two random soldiers who have no bearing on the story watching "some guy"'s footage and commenting on it. I have no idea what the makers of this abomination were going for, because dinosaurs don't even factor in to the movie until the last 5 minutes, until then it's just terrible scene after terrible scene shot with a handheld and recorded with the handheld's microphone. While the others have some mild enjoyment that can be eked out of them by tearing in to them with friends, this one was just depressing to behold.

Dishonourable Mentions

The Wicker Man (2006)
Gallowwalkers (2012)
Sharknado (2013)
The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

Published December 29th, 2016

The 10 Best of the 366

I watched a lot of films this year, many of which people would call some of the greatest of all time. I deliberately watched these types of films and looked in to why they were considered so great in order to gain some ideas on what has made film great throughout the years. I hate putting films of this caliber in to a numbered list, there's no way to definitively put some of these films above others, so, in no particular order, here are ten films that I believe to be among the best of what I watched in 2016, and a little piece of why they are here.

8½ (1963)
The first film on this list was the 366th film I watched this year. I knew I couldn't close out the year without at least one Fellini film; he's considered one of the greatest directors of all time. After watching 8½, it's easy to see why. This film is a masterpiece that draws heavily from James Joyce's modernist/post-modernist style of storytelling, a meta film that Charlie Kaufman has clearly seen too many times given the similarities this film has to Adaptation (2002). A movie about making a movie that delves deep in to the director's psyche, as he tries to escape the source of his anxiety. I liked the film's meta-narrative from the beginning, with the main character Guido Anselmi essentially being a self-insert for Fellini himself, but the peak of my enjoyment was in one of his many fantasy scenes where he tries to escape from his work and his marital troubles. Guido falls in to a dream about a harem he keeps of all the women he fantasizes about, which is what you'd expect from his character given his womanising nature, but the film does a clever turnaround as all the women in his fantasy become self-aware and start to throw Guido's insecurities about these women and his work back on to him, amidst a farcical revolution against his regime of throwing women away once they're older than 25. It's a brilliant scene that shows introspection of character; Fellini is trying to tell a story that is honest, and he doesn't shy away from the things that will make us think of him a reprehensible character, rather he trying to display it and get a sad laugh out of it.

Casablanca (1942)

I knew as soon as I started watching this film that it would probably make this list. I could say the same for most of the films on this list. Casablanca is a true classical Hollywood film, with a story that hits all the right notes and character arcs that are so much richer than what you see in a lot of films nowadays. One thing I appreciated a lot about this film was the dialogue, and how it felt natural for the characters to say rather than forced so that characters would do things against their nature. As a kid, I remember The Simpsons doing a small parody bit on Casablanca, wherein I first heard the line "You'll regret it... maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life". I remember not understanding the context of the line, and thinking to myself that it must have been part of the satire, that this couldn't have been the original line, because it wasn't sappy and romantic, he wasn't trying to win her love. Now having watched the film, it's incredible to see the character of Rick get to the point where he is capable of saying that to Ilsa, knowing what he went through with her and knowing what he is going through now because of her, the difficulty with which he says it because he knows it means never seeing her again, but the knowledge that it is what he must say as he finally stops fighting the hero inside him and does something for what he believes to be the right cause.

Room (2015)

This is probably the closest thing on the list to a 'brave' pick, because it's the only one that's far too young to be considered a 'classic'. That said, as much as great films are about what they add to the zeitgeist of film as a whole, it's important to recognise the films that have had a massive personal impact upon you as a viewer along the way, and this was absolutely true for me upon my first watching of Room. I bawled my eyes out more than once watching this film; the way it uses the perspective of the child Jack to tell portions of the story really helped me understand his perspective, and it made the notion of the title that much more moving. It's not just a room to Jack, it's Room; he has no understanding of the idea that their could be more rooms than this one, it's simply Room and that's all there is. I think the reason that this so effectively hit me was because I didn't take the time to consider this fact until I had already become deeply invested in the characters, which was so easy because their performances were excellent. Jacob Tremblay is one of the most convincing child actors I have ever seen, and Brie Larson definitely deserved her Oscar win for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The two of them together create such a heartfelt and believable bond that is also imperfect and extremely relatable; I have a mum that I fight with, but also love dearly and would never trade for any other mum in the world, and that's exactly the type of relationship Room portrays excellently.

Raging Bull (1980)

This film (and indeed Taxi Driver) is a perfect example of what Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro
can do together. De Niro plays Jake LaMotta perfectly, throwing everything he has in to the role; outside of the film, it's incredible the lengths he went to in order to prepare for the role, training in boxing with the actual Jake LaMotta for months, and fighting in three actual Brooklyn boxing matches. De Niro also put on a heck of a lot of weight to play LaMotta in his older years. Scorsese is also amazing here, particularly in the fight scenes, which make use of the struggles that LaMotta is going through outside the ring to give the actual fights more impact, and choosing to film the fight from inside the ring to really focus on LaMotta and his perspective rather than the perspective of the audience.

Psycho (1960)

I watched quite a few Hitchcock films this year (six, to be precise). Before this year, the only film of his that I had seen was The Birds (1963). At the end of this year, Hitchcock has become my favourite director. His films are just so watchable for me, I'm not quite sure what it is about them; they're easy stories filled with intrigue and thrills, but also incredibly deep visually speaking. I know that nowadays most people turn to Vertigo (1958) as his masterpiece, but Psycho was simply the better film for me this year. Maybe that will change as i go back and re-watch these films. Either way, Psycho makes my list this year because of the infamous shower scene, and for Anthony Perkins' performance as Norman Bates. Perkins is enthralling, first as the charmingly awkward hotel man, then more and more as it becomes clear that he is unhinged, and ultimately as he appears dressed as his own mother, ready to murder. His line, "we all go a little mad sometimes", was spine-tingling. Speaking of which, finally getting to watch the shower scene for the first time in its entirety, I see why it's so talked about. The scene makes perfect use of silence to psychologically build suspense, before dropping that unforgettable music, and the visuals that follow, expressing the cold-blooded murder without ever showing us directly, it's all so well done.

Metropolis (1927)

This one was basically guaranteed to make the list because I think it's important to recognise where film has come from. Watching this film I felt like I was watching the grandfather of all Sci-Fi; it was filled with every trope imaginable, evil scientists, a dystopian underground city, body snatchers, etc., but of course this film came before those things really were tropes of sci-fi, rather this film helped to create those tropes. There's no particular moment that really grabbed me for this film like the others, but what made this film an experience akin to the others was the music. This film uses incredibly emotive music to make up for the fact that it has no other form of sound, and cleverly inserts pieces of "La Marseillaise" and "Dies Irae" to accentuate the film's revolutionary and apocalyptic tones.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Apocalypse Now is a film that you can only really get the most out of by reading the IMDb trivia or by watching the follow-up Documentary, Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991). Seriously, there is so much that went wrong with the making of this film that it's a miracle it was made at all. It seems that at least some of these mistakes led to one of the most raw and real films I have ever seen. Films are designed to make you feel things, but it's rare for me to find a film that leaves me truly in awe of what I have watched. This film is about someone who slowly goes insane as he makes his way to assassinate someone who has gone insane, made by filmmakers who were stretched so thin that they slowly went insane. It's a portrayal of the Vietnam War that some have gone so far as to call it a recreation, and despite the fact that so much went wrong, the film gets everything right. A lot of people look to Robert Duvall's Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning") as an example of the film's greatness, or anything involving Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz, such as his monologues or his haunting final line ("The horror"). Personally though, what pulled me in to the film was the opening scene; Martin Sheen's heated mixture of anger and self-loathing was made all that more incredible when I learned that it was unscripted. People fought their demons while making this movie, and it allows the film to feel real.

Citizen Kane (1941)

This was going to be on the list whether I ended up liking the film or not; the contribution this film has had to filmmaking as an art form and storytelling method is undeniable. As it happens, I loved it regardless of the film's importance. I was captured by Kane's transition from simple beginnings to a larger than life figure, and the struggles he goes through to try and regain a connection to another human being. There's so many scenes that I could point to for their excellence, so many ways that the camera is used dynamically and surprisingly for 1941. So much of what the film does has become part of the visual language of film, but it's incredible to see so much of it used in one place. That said, if I had to consider one scene that really astonished me and cemented in my mind the reasons for this film's brilliance, it would have to be the montage of the slow destruction of Kane's first marriage. The way they start, so romantic and caring, and slowly separate emotionally as Kane is taken with his aspirations, first with concern, then anger, then simply silence, before we pull back that they now sit much further apart at the dinner table, it's really fantastic work, even today. Other bits and pieces become more significant as you realise why the film is important; the closest modern analogy I can think of is the original Halo video game: it didn't invent a lot of the techniques it uses, but it was the first of its kind to put so many techniques in to the one place.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Like Apocalypse Now, I was left in awe by 2001. Like Citizen Kane, 2001 is a film that's so important to filmmaking as a whole that its spot on this list was essentially guaranteed before I even started the year. While the lofty philosophy of the nature of man's entire existence juxtaposed with the life of a single man was very interesting to watch, the reason that the film astounded me so is because of the visual effects. This is before any help from computers, everything that happens in the film has to physically happen, one way or another, so every one of the space shots were both beautiful to look at and crazy to consider just what had to be done in order for them to exist. In addition to this, I particularly loved the integrity to realism in the film; sets that were built to behave as the spaceships would, with actors moving around them to simulate the look of a spaceship operating on centrifugal force, the absolute silence anytime a character is in space. While I see a lot of talk about the famous match cut between 'The Dawn of Man' and 'Jupiter Mission', the colored light vortex, or even the HAL lip-reading scene, my personal favourite moment is that which immediately follows the HAL lip-reading; there's so much tension that has built up because we as the audience know that HAL is homicidal and that he knows the astronauts are going to try to deactivate him, and more importantly we know all of this without a word about it being uttered. As we follow Poole out in to the cold of space, we know that he can and probably will die at any moment, and once the moment comes, it happens without a word, or even a sound.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

"Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
I know I said I wouldn't put these films in a particular order, but of all the films that I watched this year, I have to call Dr. Strangelove the best. It wasn't the most moving, nor did it make the biggest contribution to filmmaking as a whole, but it was easily the most hilarious movie on this list and it was such a biting satire of Cold War politics that I love the film completely. Dr. Strangelove is literally a farce that also manages to feel annoyingly realistic; silly, but not as far a cry from reality as you would hope, and still somewhat relevant today. I loved every minute of this, so it's hard to pick the moment that stood out the most; I loved every line from Dr. Strangelove himself, and I adored the incredibly over the top General Buck Turgidson, but I think the scene that had me laughing the hardest involved the hysterically annoying process of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake trying to get a hold of the president. The world is literally at stake in this scene, but no-one around Mandrake seems to realise the urgency. Of course his only means of communication are a pay phone. Of course he doesn't have enough change to make the call. Of course the operator won't let him make a collect call to the president. And of course, in this dire moment, the dim-witted soldier that is accompanying Mandrake is apprehensive about shooting open a Coca Cola vending machine because "that's private property" and "you'll have to answer to Coca Cola", implying that even at the edge of oblivion, Coke still has power. It's just one silly little mishap after another, juxtaposed with the fact that the world could literally end at any minute, and it's exactly why I love this movie so much.

Honourable Mentions:

The Godfather (1972) 
The Godfather: Part II (1974) 
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) 
Seven Samurai (1954) 
The Third Man (1949) 
Vertigo (1958) 
Tokyo Story (1953) 
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
The Tree of Life (2011) 
Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)

Published December 29th, 2016

Film 179: Warcraft: The Beginning (2016)

Directed by: Duncan Jones
Written by: Duncan Jones, Charles Leavitt
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster

I figured I'd get this one out of the way since I intend to watch Assassin's Creed (2016) tomorrow, and with both being based on video games I figured their was a tangential connection.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I've long been a fan of the Warcraft video game series and I do like Duncan Jones' previous work, Moon (2009) and Source Code (2011), so I was hoping that the film would at least be enjoyable, but like every other video game movie before it, the makers of Warcraft don't seem to realise that you can't take a video game with a 10 or even 20-hour story and translate it in to a movie with a running time of 2 hours. The film is a barrage of visuals and exposition, and while the film is pleasing to the eye, the entire plot is bloated with an absurd amount of content for a film, most of which only goes half-explained.

*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*

I'll first talk about the things I appreciated about the film, because while it was pretty bad, it wasn't irredeemable. The aesthetic of the film is pretty great; any time that the film makes copious use of CGI, the fantastical look of Warcraft really shines, especially in whimsical places only found in fantasy such as the magical city of Dalaran or the Orcish home of Draenor.

The Orcs themselves are also very well done, and their conflict is easily the best thing about the film. Their design is incredibly detailed, from the differences in tusks between individual orcs to their use of different animal skins and skulls for armour really carve out visual identities for all of the important Orcs. The Orc characters are also the only ones to get any of what little character development there is, and their CGI performances are far more convincing and natural than those of the human characters. What's more is they actually have an interesting story behind them; evil Fel Magic that drains people of life has torn their world apart, but it is the harnessing of this magic that allows them to travel to a new world. If the whole film had just been about a civil war between Orcs as they struggle with the morality of using the lives of others for the survival of their race, you might actually have a good movie on your hands.

Unfortunately, the Orcs in the movie have to share their screen time with humans. There was nothing about the human side of the story that worked for me. Their story was just as convoluted as the Orcs' but the movie spends even less time on it; the film does so little with the characters that it seemed the only reason for them being there was because the game had humans too. The acting is stiff and unconvincing from everyone involved, especially Travis Fimmel as Anduin Lothar. I have never seen this man act other than in this film, so I have no idea if he is a good actor outside of this film, but he gives a truly terrible performance here. Maybe it's not any worse than any of the others, maybe it just feels worse because he gets more screentime as the main human character, but every line from him felt under-delivered or forced or just plain off. It's not entirely his fault, the dialogue didn't exactly give him much to work with, but I remember being seriously frustrated with the film in one scene shortly after his son dies.

We find him lying on a bar amidst barrels of some kind of alcohol, clearly drunk and trying to ease the pain of the loss of his son, and as Garona (Patton) comes to comfort him, he utters the line "In my entire life... I've never felt as much pain as I do now." It's supposed to be this heavily emotional moment for him, but it's falls completely flat because we've had so little of either him or his son or their relationship developed, what he says is pointless because we can already infer from what we are watching that that is how he feels, and he delivers it with no amount convincing emotion. So in this scene we have a failure in the storytelling, a failure in the dialogue, and a failure in the acting. In addition to all that, the death of the son and this scene have several short scenes involving barrages of exposition between them, so when the moment comes it feels off because so much of the story has been forced forward, leaving this scene to play catch-up, so we also have a failure in pacing. Now that I think about it, this scene seems to encapsulate everything that was wrong with the film.

In short, humans bad, orcs good, movie not so good.

The Verdict: Warcraft isn't something I recommend; perhaps fans of the video games will get some joy out of seeing locations from the video games brought to life, or spotting the numerous Easter Eggs peppered about the film, but otherwise it's not really worth the time.

Rating: 4.5/10

Published December 28th, 2016

366 Days of Film: The Full List

In 2016, my New Year's Resolution was to see 366 films that I had never seen before, one for every day of the leap year. Here is the full list of each film that I watched, the year that they were released, and a number rating to roughly summarise my ideas about the films. For several of the films, more detailed reviews have already been written and can be found on this blog.

1. The Ridiculous 6 (2015) - 2.5/10
2. Her (2013) - 9/10
3. John Dies at the End (2012) - 5.5/10
4. Nightcrawler (2014) - 7.5/10
5. Knock Knock (2015) - 5/10
6. The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) - 7/10
7. In Bruges (2008) - 7.5/10
8. The Descendants (2011) - 8/10
9. The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) - 6.5/10
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) - 7/10
11. Trainwreck (2015) - 6/10
12. The Revenant (2015) - 8/10
13. Super Mario Bros. (1993) - 2/10
14. Men in Black 3 (2012) - 6/10
15. Airplane! (1980) - 8/10
16. Minions (2015) - 5.5/10
17. Twelve Monkeys (1995) - 8/10
18. Eden Lake (2008) - 6/10
19. Love Actually (2003) - 7/10
20. The 5th Wave (2016) - 3.5/10
21. Goosebumps (2015) - 6/10
22. Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) - 7/10
23. Alone in the Dark (2005) - 1/10
24. Dragonball Z: Resurrection 'F' (2015) - 6.5/10
25. The Girl Next Door (2004) - 5.5/10
26. The Big Short (2015) - 8/10
27. Death Proof (2007) - 7/10
28. Planet Terror (2007) - 7/10
29. The Godfather (1972) - 10/10
30. Lazer Team (2016) - 5/10
31. Life of Pi (2012) - 8.5/10
32. Austin Powers (1997) - 6.5/10
33. Don Verdean (2015) - 4.5/10
34. Sharktopus (2010) - 2/10
35. Black Dynamite (2009) - 7/10
36. Escape From New York (1981) - 7/10
37. Saw 3D: The Final Chapter (2010) - 3/10
38. Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) - 6/10
39. The Thing (2011) - 5.5/10
40. The Mist (2007) - 6.5/10
41. Zoolander 2 (2016) - 4/10
42. The Good Dinosaur (2015) - 6.5/10
43. Bone Tomahawk (2015) - 7/10
44. Room (2015) - 10/10
45. Spotlight (2015) - 9/10
46. Deadpool (2016) - 7/10
47. Johnny Dangerously (1984) - 6/10
48. Burn After Reading (2008) - 7/10
49. Bridge of Spies (2015) - 8/10
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) - 6/10
51. Leon: The Professional (1994) - 8/10
52. Austin Powers: Goldmember (2002) - 6/10
53. The Godfather: Part 2 (1974) - 9.5/10
54. Brooklyn (2015) - 8/10
55. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) - 6/10
56. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) - 8/10
57. Mystery Men (1999) - 6/10
58. Casblanca (1942) - 10/10
59. The Last Airbender (2010) - 2/10
60. Friday (1995) - 6/10
61. The Rock (1996) - 7/10
62. Con Air (1997) - 6/10
63. Speak (2004) - 7/10
64. Minority Report (2002) - 8/10
65. The Water Diviner (2014) - 6/10
66. Hail, Caesar! (2016) - 7.5/10
67. Tristram Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story (2005) - 7.5/10
68. Sharktopus vs Pteracuda (2014) - 2.5/10
69. Gladiator (2000) - 8/10
70. Stand By Me (1986) - 8/10
71. Attack the Block (2011) - 7/10
72. The Hard Way (1991) - 6/10
73. Team America: World Police (2004) - 6/10
74. The Last Witch Hunter (2015) - 4/10
75. Wolf Children (2012) - 8/10
76. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015) - 6/10
77. Oldboy (2003) - 8.5/10
78. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) - 8/10
79. Grimsby (2016) - 5/10
80. Dog Soldiers (2002) - 5/10
81. Silver Linings Playbook (2012) - 8/10
82. Hero (2002) - 9/10
83. The Running Man (1987) - 6.5/10
84. American Beauty (1999) - 9/10
85. The Beaver (2011) - 6.5/10
86. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - 5/10 (Ultimate Edition 6/10)
87. The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (2015) - 4.5/10
88. Trumbo (2015) - 7/10
89. Penguins of Madagascar (2014) - 6/10
90. Apocalypto (2006) - 7.5/10
91. Moonwalkers (2015) - 5/10
92. Bridge to Terabithia (2007) - 7.5/10
93. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) - 6.5/10
94. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) - 8/10
95. Paper Planes (2014) - 5/10
96. American Hustle (2013) - 7.5/10
97. Fargo (1996) - 8.5/10
98. Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010) - 1/10
99. The Third Man (1949) - 9/10
100. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) - 8/10
101. The Trust (2016) - 5.5/10
102. The Breakfast Club (1985) - 7/10
103. The Truman Show (1998) - 8.5/10
104. Zootopia (2016) - 8/10
105. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) - 7/10
106. Mr. Right (2015) - 5/10
107. Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) - 4/10
108. The Jungle Book (2016) - 7.5/10
109. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) - 9/10
110. Insurgent (2015) - 4.5/10
111. The Wicker Man (2006) - 2/10
112. American Psycho (2000) - 7/10
113. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) - 8/10
114. Casino Royale (2006) - 7.5/10
115. Unbreakable (2000) - 7/10
116. The Gift (2015) - 7.5/10
117. Black Water (2007) - 6/10
118. Training Day (2001) - 7/10
119. Everything Must Go (2010) - 6.5/10
120. Captain America: Civil War (2016) - 7.5/10
121. Victoria (2015) - 7.5/10
122. Dawn of The Dead (2004) - 6.5/10
123. Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf (2015) - 2.5/10
124. The Bourne Identity (2002) - 7.5/10
125. For a Few Dollars More (1965) - 9/10
126. F for Fake (1973) - 8/10
127. Lucky Number Slevin (2006) - 6.5/10
128. Cowboys vs Dinosaurs (2015) - 2.5/10
129. A Serious Man (2009) - 7.5/10
130. Antichrist (2009) - 7/10
131. Stranger Than Fiction (2006) - 7.5/10
132. Halloween (1978) - 8/10
133. 3:10 to Yuma (2007) - 7.5/10
134. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) - 8/10
135. Rocky (1976) - 8/10
136. Underworld (2003) - 5.5/10
137. Foxcatcher (2014) - 8/10
138. Memento (2000) - 8/10
139. Child's Play (1988) - 6/10
140. Gods of Egypt (2016) - 3/10
141. SPL: Kill Zone (2005) - 7/10
142. The Loved Ones (2009) - 6/10
143. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - 5/10
144. The Theory of Everything (2014) - 7.5/10
145. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) - 5/10
146. Ip Man (2008) - 7/10
147. The Spectacular Now (2013) - 8/10
148. The Godfather: Part III (1990) - 7.5/10
149. The Sixth Sense (1999) - 8/10
150. Steve Jobs (2015) - 7.5/10
151. The Danish Girl (2015) - 6.5/10
152. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) - 8/10
153. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) - 10/10
154. The Fault in Our Stars (2014) - 6.5/10
155. The Nice Guys (2016) - 7/10
156. Pumpkinhead (1988) - 5.5/10
157. Alphaville (1965) - 8/10
158. Scarface (1983) - 8/10
159. Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) - 7/10
160. Christian Mingle (2014) - 2/10
161. Now You See Me 2 (2016) - 4.5/10
162. The Game (1997) - 7.5/10
163. The Host (2006) - 7.5/10
164. Lethal Weapon (1987) - 7/10
165. Children of Men (2006) - 8.5/10
166. Being John Malkovich (1999) - 9/10
167. Yojimbo (1961) - 9/10
168. The Ring (2002) - 6.5/10
169. The Tree of Life (2011) - 9/10
170. TMNT: Out of the Shadows (2016) - 4.5/10
171. Rocky II (1979) - 7/10
172. Turbo Kid (2015) -  6/10
173. The Conjuring 2 (2016) - 7/10
174. Carol (2015) - 8.5/10
175. A Clockwork Orange (1971) - 8.5/10
176. Underworld: Evolution (2006) - 4/10
177. Bait (2012) - 5/10
178. Lake Placid 2 (2007) - 2/10
179. Warcraft: The Beginning (2016) - 4.5/10
180. Anomalisa (2015) - 8.5/10
181. Jonah Hex (2010) - 3.5/10
182. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) - 7/10
183. Battlefield Earth (2000) - 1/10
184. The Purge (2013) - 5/10
185. Ip Man 2 (2010) - 7/10
186. Snatch (2000) - 7.5/10
187. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) - 4.5/10
188. Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) - 4/10
189. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - 10/10
190. 500 Days of Summer (2009) - 7.5/10
191. Green Room (2015) - 7/10
192. The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) - 8/10
193. Citizen Kane (1941) - 10/10
194. Highlander 2: The Quickening (1991) - 1/10
195. Allegiant (2016) - 4/10
196. The Shining (1980) - 8.5/10
197. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) - 8/10
198. Hardcore Henry (2015) - 7/10
199. Ghostbusters (2016) - 5/10
200. Scream (1996) - 7/10
201. Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) - 7/10
202. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) - 5.5/10
203. Drag Me to Hell (2009) - 8/10
204. Rocky III (1982) - 6.5/10
205. Taxi Driver (1976) - 9/10
206. The Maltese Falcon (1941)  - 9/10
207. Star Trek Beyond (2016) - 7/10
208. Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) - 6.5/10
209. Finding Dory (2016) - 7.5/10
210. Keanu (2016) - 6.5/10
211. Tarzan (2016) - 5/10
212. Diabolique (1955) - 9/10
213. The Exorcist (1973) - 8.5/10
214. Godzilla (1954) - 8/10
215. Troll 2 (1990) - 1/10
216. Rocky 4 (1985) - 6/10
217. Home Alone (1990) - 6.5/10
218. Argo (2012) - 8/10
219. God's Not Dead 2 (2016) - 2/10
220. Suicide Squad (2016) - 3/10
221. Friday the 13th (2009) - 4/10
222. Lawn Dogs (1997) - 5/10
223. Escape Plan (2013) - 6/10
224. Sausage Party (2016) - 6.5/10
225. Vertigo (1958) - 9/10
226. Ghost World (2001) - 8/10
227. Apocalypse Now (1979) - 10/10
228. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Part 1&2) (2012&2013) - 7.5/10
229. Boogie Nights (1997) - 8/10
230. Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013) - 1/10
231. Ip Man 3 (2015) - 7/10
232. The Sunset Limited (2011) - 7.5/10
233. Oldboy (2013) - 5/10
234. Locke (2013) - 8/10
235. War Dogs (2016) - 6/10
236. Bad Neighbours 2 (2016) - 5.5/10
237. Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) - 9/10
238. Never Let Me Go (2010) - 7/10
239. Before Sunrise (1995) - 8/10
240. The Witch (2015) - 7.5/10
241. The Village (2004) - 4.5/10
242. North by Northwest (1959) - 8.5/10
243. Don't Breathe (2016) - 7/10
244. Armageddon (1998) - 5.5/10
245. Land Before Time XIV: Journey of the Brave (2016) - 5/10
246. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) - 9.5/10
247. The Hills Have Eyes (2006) - 5.5/10
248. Akira (1988) - 8/10
249. Primer (2004) - 7/10
250. Psycho (1960) - 9.5/10
251. Popstar (2016) - 6.5/10
252. The One (2001) - 3/10
253. Life is Beautiful (1997) - 8.5/10
254. The Purge: Anarchy (2014) - 5.5/10
255. The Shallows (2016) - 5.5/10
256. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All-Out Attack (2001) - 7/10
257. The Kid (1921) - 8.5/10
258. Eddie the Eagle (2016) - 6/10
259. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009) - 3.5/10
260. Cafe Society (2016) - 6.5/10
261. The Fits (2015) - 8.5/10
262. Before Sunset (2004) - 8.5/10
263. Lucy (2014) - 5.5/10
264. U.S. Marshals (1998) - 5/10
265. Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) - 4/10
266. Spawn (1997) - 3.5/10
267. Solaris (1972) - 8.5/10
268. All The Way (2016) - 7.5/10
269. Box of Moonlight (1996) - 6.5/10
270. The Neon Demon (2016) - 5.5/10
271. Juno (2007) - 8/10
272. Lethal Weapon 3 (1992) - 5.5/10
273. What We Do In The Shadows (2014) - 8/10
274. Adaptation (2002) - 8.5/10
275. Krampus (2015) - 5.5/10
276. Poltergeist (1982) - 7.5/10
277. Grave of the Fireflies (1988) - 8/10
278. Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) - 4/10
279. Chinatown (1974) - 9/10
280. Castle in the Sky (1986) - 8/10
281. Before Midnight (2013) - 9/10
282. Strangers on a Train (1951) - 8.5/10
283. Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10
284. Synecdoche, New York (2008) - 9/10
285. Raging Bull (1980) - 9.5/10
286. Grizzly Man  (2005) - 8.5/10
287. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) - 8.5/10
288. Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7/10
289. Sharknado (2013) - 2/10
290. The Dead Zone (1983) - 7/10
291. Black Snake Moan (2006) - 6/10
292. That Thing You Do! (1996) - 7/10
293. Rope (1948) - 8/10
294. Primal Fear (1996) - 7/10
295. Deepwater Horizon (2016) - 7/10
296. Spring Breakers (2012) - 6/10
297. The Magnificent Seven (2016) - 6/10
298. Silent Hill (2006) - 4.5/10
299. City on Fire (1987) - 7/10
300. In the Mood for Love (2000) - 8.5/10
301. Rocky V - 5/10 (1990)
302. Boyz n the Hood (1991) - 8/10
303. House of Flying Daggers (2004) - 8.5/10
304. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 7.5/10
305. Doctor Strange (2016) - 7/10
306. Gallowwalkers (2012) - 2/10
307. Titanic (1997) - 8/10
308. Tango and Cash (1989) - 5/10
309. The Accountant (2016) - 6/10
310. Rear Window (1954) - 9/10
311. Disturbia (2007) - 6.5/10
312. A Few Good Men (1992) - 7/10
313. Nine Lives (2016) - 1/10
314. MacGruber (2010) - 5/10
315. Walk the Line (2005) - 7.5/10
316. Idiocracy (2006) - 6.5/10
317. Cruel Intentions (1999) - 6/10
318. Election (1999) - 8/10
319. Hacksaw Ridge (2016) - 9/10
320. Your Highness (2011) - 3.5/10
321. Dallas Buyer's Club (2013) - 8/10
322. Bad Santa (2003) - 7/10
323. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) - 8/10
324. Bernie (2011) - 7/10
325. Arrival (2016) - 8/10
326. Shanghai Noon (2000) - 7/10
327. Fruitvale Station (2013) - 8/10
328. Rumble in the Bronx (1995) - 6.5/10
329. M (1931) - 9/10
330. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)- 6.5/10
331. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)- 8/10
332. Easy Rider (1969) - 8/10
333. Don't Think Twice (2016) - 8/10
334. The Founder (2016) - 7/10
335. Hell or High Water (2016) - 8/10
336. Rocky Balboa (2006) - 7/10
337. First Blood (1982) - 7/10
338. Speed (1994) - 7/10
339. A Scanner Darkly (2006) - 7/10
340. Air Force One (1997) - 6/10
341. Braveheart (1995) - 8/10
342. Seven Samurai (1954) - 9.5/10
343. The Crow (1994) - 7.5/10
344. The Rainmaker (1997) - 7/10
345. Blood Father (2016) - 6.5/10
346. Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla (2002) - 6.5/10
347. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) - 6/10
348. What If  (2013) - 6.5/10
349. The Purge: Election Year (2016) - 5.5/10
350. Talladega Nights (2006) - 6/10
351. Melancholia (2011) - 7.5/10
352. Cube (1997) - 6.5/10
353. Capote (2005) - 8/10
354. Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 (2013) - 6.5/10
355. The Master (2012) - 8/10
356. Dawn of the Dead (1978) - 7.5/10
357. Jurassic Monster: The Prehistoric Project (2015) - 1/10
358. Lawless (2012) - 6.5/10
359. City of God (2002) - 9/10
360. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) - 8.5/10
361. Star Wars: Rogue One (2016) - 7.5/10
362. Ghost in the Shell (1995) - 8/10
363. New Jack City (1991) - 6.5/10
364. The Blair Witch Project (1999) - 7/10
365. Metropolis (1927) - 9.5/10
366. 8½ (1963) - 10/10

I didn't stop just because I got to 366, however.

367. Allied (2016) - 5.5/10
368. La La Land (2016) - 9/10
369. Half Nelson (2006) - 8/10

Published December 28th, 2016

Film 368: La La Land (2016)

Directed by: Damien Chazelle
Written by: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt

La La Land was such a joy to watch. Everything about the film is handled with care by someone with a heck of a lot of talent. Everything from the cinematography to the choreography, the music and the tone, the homages to earlier Hollywood film periods and the acting, it's all done so well and with such enthusiasm.

The story follows a Jazz pianist (Gosling) and an aspiring actress (Stone), whose lives slowly intertwine as they go from throwing barbs at each other and behaving with general distaste, to slowly admitting that they have feelings for each other and building in to a relationship together. Gosling and Stone are positively electric together, convincing in every moment about their feelings towards one another, as they meet each other and grow to feel appreciable emotions towards each other; he has a bad night and treats her rudely, so the next time they see each other she teases him, then they grow to learn about one another, it all happens so organically and believably, and a large part of that is the fact that the two actors are so great together on screen. Their performances also help to feel for the characters as they strive to achieve their dreams while fighting the fact they those dreams are hard to fit in to their lives. While it may seem a little forced to some, I liked the use of seasons to express the state of the couple's relationship.

While the story is being told, Chazelle takes the time to pay tribute to the older days of Cinema, and to Jazz, and to Theatre. One wonderful scene that particularly stuck out in my mind showed a post-modern take on the era of Silent Cinema that also makes for a whimsical musical number, as the two dance among the stars, with no sound but the tune to accompany them. It's quieting to see, the passion of Chazelle comes out in moments like this, he clearly loves the pieces of culture that the film is about. Other scenes take the time to appreciate Jazz; Chazelle's work on Whiplash shines through here.

On a technical level, the film is marvelous too, with so much meticulous colour co-ordination and costume design in the musical numbers, and incredible choreography that have so much work put in to them. I absolutely loved that each one was done in one take as well, it really hammered home the fact that Chazelle was trying to respect the work of Theatre with his imitation, but also take advantage of the camera to get smooth takes and angles that are only capable in Film.

What's more is that these story elements and the musical numbers that join them, the work of the actors, the musicians, the dancers, the director, etc., all of it just works so well together. Everything transitions smoothly without missing a beat, you're watching a song and dance before moving back in to the story and nothing is lost for either. This really is a fantastic film, so much so that I almost want to just write 'Go watch it' another three hundred times to hammer home the fact that people really should see this movie.


The Verdict: La La Land is a magical film, a love letter to everything from Jazz to Theatre to Classic Hollywood, that mixes itself with a heartfelt story about the way our dreams and realities don't always match. If you like Jazz, you'll love it. If you like musicals, you'll love it. If you like movies, especially movies about movies, you'll love it. If you're like me and enjoy all of these things, then this film is an absolute treat. Go watch it.

Rating: 9/10

Published December 27th, 2016

Film 49: Bridge of Spies (2015)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Matt Charman, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda

I was going to write about my 366th film of the year tonight, 8½ (1963), but after some thought I believe that the film has too many layers for me to peel back and examine right now. The only coherent thought I can hold in my head about it is that it reminds me of Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation (2002) in the sense that it's meta in the personal nature of the film; other than that, I think the film deserves a re-watch before I really try and write about it. Instead, I'll go with the next film on the numbered list, thankfully a safe and easy but also extremely competent pick.

Bridge of Spies was one of the last two films that had been nominated for Best Picture that I had yet to see at the time, the other being Brooklyn (2015). I knew it was written, at least in part, by the Coens, that it starred Tom Hanks, and that it was directed by Steven Spielberg, which meant I could expect excellence in all of these regards. These expectations held true; Bridge of Spies is very well made on all fronts.

*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*

Bridge of Spies is based on the true story of James B. Donovan (Hanks), a lawyer who is recruited to act as the defense of an accused Soviet spy (Rylance), and eventually asked to negotiate an exchange with the Soviets for a captured American U-2 spy plane pilot.

The film boasts an engaging plot that manages to be gripping despite the fact that very little real danger occurs. We're kept focused on people's emotions; there's effort here to help the audience understand that there is in fact genuinely horrible things that could happen if anything messes up at any moment. It's a small-scale reenactment of the Cold War that the film is set in: nobody ever fires a shot, but the threat of death always keeps you on the edge of your seat, and the tension between both sides is palpable, so much so that I wouldn't have been surprised if Tom Hanks had somehow been squished. Hank's performance as Donovan is also fantastic, as Hanks always is, effective as the every man thrown in to the deep end with a weight around his ankles. Hanks makes the whole narrative very easy to engage with, as you empathise with his key moments, particularly my favourite moment in the film, when he finally gets home and just crashes on his bed; it illustrates exactly the reaction you'd expect from an actual person in that situation; it takes Donovan beyond the idea of a character and cements him as a human being in the mind of the audience.

As competently made as the film is, if you've ever seen a Spielberg movie before, you may find yourself feeling like Spielberg is just checking points off a list at times. The film hits all of the expected beats and well-executed character moments, particularly Donovan's reaction to finally getting home, but at the same time, I couldn't help but see the film as extremely familiar, similar in pacing terms of pacing and soundtrack and characterisation, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, Directors imitate themselves all the time, but for some reason it felt explicit while I was watching the film, and in the moments that I couldn't shake that thought I was taken out of the film.

The Verdict: Bridge of Spies is an excellently made film in essentially every regard, with a highly satisfying narrative and acutely believable acting from the principle characters involved, as well as the great directing work that people have come to expect from Spielberg. I recommend the film to anyone looking to watch a well-made film with a pleasing story.

Rating: 8/10

Published December 25th, 2016

Film 365: Metropolis (1927)

Directed by: Fritz Lang
Written by: Thea von Harbou
Starring: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich

Out of the 365 films I have watched for the first time this year, Metropolis marks only the second time I have sat down to watch a silent film. They're simply so alien from what we call film today, yet they're integral to the history of film as a storytelling device. They are where filmmaking started and developed, and most importantly in the case of films like this, where filmmakers started to take advantage of the visual nature of film.

*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*

Metropolis tells a story of a city in 2026, where the rich Fathers rule from a top their massive tower complexes while their Sons frolic care-free in the 'Eternal Gardens', and of workers who spend their days underground, toiling constantly on machines to keep Metropolis powered. The master of the city is Joh Fredersen (Abel), a strikingly cold man who either does not know or does not care for the suffering of the working man. His son, Freder (Frohlich), spends his days in the Eternal Gardens, until one day he meets Maria (Helm), a woman of the working class who has brought children to the Gardens to witness the lifestyle of the rich. There's also a subplot involving a mad scientist named Rotwang, who fell in love with a woman Hel, who left Rotwang for Fredersen and later died while giving birth to Freder. As mad scientists do, Frieder has built a robotic replacement for Hel in his madness.

The story is filled with melodrama and the acting is constantly over-expressed to account for the lack of sound. It's bizarre to behold, but doesn't detract from the overall experience of this interesting and effectively built-up world. It's also undeniable just how many concepts in the plot are essentially tropes in science fiction now; the influence upon popular culture is palpable, from the massive class gap to mad scientist and his robotic invention, to body snatchers and underground cities, to the futuristic nature of Metropolis itself.

Aside from that, there are only really two aspects I want to talk about with this fantastic film. The first is one that everyone seems to point to when talking about this film: The visuals. This film came out in 1927, so every effect in the film had to, in some way, be physically done. There's these incredible sets that they use for the film, massive machines that people would work on, built to scale as the only way of expressing how truly massive they were. The paintings and miniatures used to evoke a sprawling city with buildings that look a mixture of futuristic and gothic is impressive on its own, made that much more impressive by the consideration of this film's age.

The other aspect of the film that stood out to me the most was the soundtrack. When you have nothing else to listen to, the music is impossible not to notice, and there is so much effort here to try and express exactly what we are supposed to feel about every single scene. The music is truly incredible, capable of evoking the ideas of what it wants you to experience, particularly with its use of a violin, which I can only describe as 'sublime', as well as the appropriate adaptation of "Dies Irae" and "La Marseillaise" for the film's apocalyptic and revolutionary overtones.

The Verdict: Metropolis is at this point is an exercise in understanding where film has come from. There's a reason it's quite literally the definition of a classic, and why some people consider it one of the greatest films of all time; though the style is unavoidably archaic, you can see massive influences this film has had on dystopian and utopian science fiction, and its hand in the development of film as a storytelling device is undeniable. While to many it may seem a drag to sit through, I encourage those who want to see a literal grandfather of film and science fiction in film, to take the time to appreciate this movie for what it is.

Rating: 9.5/10

Published December 23rd, 2016

Film 364: The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Directed by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Written by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard

I want to preface this by saying that a lot of this is discussion of found footage films before I get in to The Blair Witch Project.

I simply do not like found footage movies. While I can sit down and watch absolutely any movie, it takes a lot for me to actually consider watching this type of film; I find it easier to watch a terrible b-movie like Tammy and the T-Rex because the weaknesses and tropes of that genre of film are charmingly stupid to me, while aspects unique to found footage films I find mildly infuriating.

Most of the issues I have with found footage films is the fact that the camera has to be an actual component of the story, which requires the writers to actually insert reasons for the cameras to be there in every scene; the most egregious movie for this particular trope is Chronicle (2012). While the main character's reasons for using a camera (mostly) worked, Chronicle had a B-story that was ultimately superfluous to the overall plot, but didn't involve the main camera-toting character, so there had to be an additional reason for another unimportant character to also be constantly using a camera. Chronicle is overall a pretty good movie, but it seems the found footage style was holding the film back rather than helping.

Another fact attached to the existence of the camera is the fact that someone has to be holding it every scene, so when something important happens, filmmakers aren't sure what to do with the character holding the camera; helping usually means dropping or shutting off the camera, which obviously can't happen if the film is to keep going, and if the character doesn't help in a crisis then they just come of as stupid or evil, which isn't necessarily the filmmaker's intention. My least favourite examples are in Cloverfield: the character 'Hud' never puts down the camera or acts like an actual human being, including in one scene that involves the group of main characters getting attacked by monsters; Hud just films, he doesn't help fight the monsters off as every other character does. You could argue that Hud's inaction is due to fear causing his to freeze, but it's difficult not to think about the fact that it's actually just because the filmmakers need for the audience to see monsters.

An extension of these issues is the fact that the film style is very limited; either the camera has to be placed on a flat surface, giving us a static medium shot for the entire scene and not being at all interesting to look at, or the entire thing has to be handheld, which is difficult to look at because the camera ends up getting shaken all over the place. It makes the entire experience come off as very cheap, like the filmmakers didn't know any techniques so they just took a camera and put it in the hands of the actors, hoping for the best. This seems to have literally been the case for Project Almanac (2015), in which most of the filming was done with GoPros attached to the actors' bodies.

This leads in to another key issue I have with found footage film, especially found footage Horror, which is the fact that it has to toe a very thin line between effective storytelling and convincingly imitating realism. Part of what made found footage films a phenomenon is the fact that they were usually touted as true tales; Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project drummed up controversy thanks to the efforts of the filmmakers outside of the making of the film itself; Ruggero Deodato (Director of Cannibal Holocaust) had the actors in the film, portraying a documentary crew that goes missing, disappear from the public eye for a time following the film's release, which hammered home the idea that what was happening in the film was real (though, to be fair, the acts of actual animal cruelty that happened on-screen probably helped with the 'realism'). Likewise, the makers of The Blair Witch Project created their own myth that they then filmed an actual documentary for, and released before the actual film's release, as a way of promoting the Blair Witch myth as a potential reality. While it's harder to do that sort of extracurricular activity for a found footage film in an era when found footage films are constant, it still shows that care and time was put in to making the film in a way that can't be expressed through the actual use of the camera. These factors make it easy for me to break my suspension of disbelief when watching a found footage film, because very little effort is put in to giving reasons for the films to be found footage, and so they end up just coming off as home movies people pay to see at the cinema.

Finally, I have a dislike for found footage films because they're incredibly played-out at this point. They're like the superhero movies of the Horror genre, easy to make money off of and pumped out as fast as possible for fear of that bubble bursting. People making these films don't seem to be trying to make a good movie first, they're just using the fact that found footage movies are cheap and running the subgenre in to the ground. If you need proof, look no further than the Paranormal Activity series.

With all this in mind, The Blair Witch Project is actually a very good film. It may not be the first found footage film, but it certainly threw a spotlight on the subgenre, and when trying to look through the lens of someone seeing this for the first time in 1999, it's easy to see why it was so effective. From the start, there is a reason for the characters to be using cameras, they are student filmmakers looking to film a documentary about the Blair Witch, a myth spread around the town of Burkittsville, Maryland, after a man committed a series of child murders and ended up blaming on the ghost of a woman who lived in the town of Blair (the site of which Burkittsville is built on) and was burned alive for the practicing of witchcraft.

The idea that people using the cameras are filmmakers here to film a documentary is the easiest, most believable reason to have them using the cameras at all times; I also thought the use of black and white at certain, seemingly random points in the film worked for this reason, because it's a slight stereotype that budding filmmakers use black and white to try and make their shots seem deeper or more poignant.

In addition to believably justifiable reasons for the style, the film has effective horror through a consistent use of 'less is more', attempting to play tricks on your mind by using black movement across a black nighttime shot and the seemingly genuine fear and distress of its characters. I have to give credit to the actors in this film, they're not anything amazing, but they're believable in the film's more tense moments and carry the film's cheaper ones.

There isn't much more to say about the film than that; it's got a simple but effective plot, with characters that don't really develop before they're thrown in to a harrowing situation, as most of the film's early stages are dedicated to building up the idea of the Blair Witch. The scares, once they arrive, are mostly gripping, built up slowly with light noises and a little disturbing imagery, similar to other found footage Horrors but with character tension in between so that the film doesn't become a boring game of me trying to guess when the next scare is going to happen. On a personally appealing note, the filmmakers don't try to stretch the film out too much, which is a good idea because there's only so many nights before characters being lost in the woods stops being thrilling and starts being boring before becoming plain silly. It's over in under an hour and a half, quick and easy, even for a type of film I dislike.

The Verdict: My personal bias against found footage films aside, The Blair Witch Project is a good film. It avoids a lot of the pitfalls that annoy me in other found footage films because it existed before those pitfalls did, and mostly just tries to be minimalist horror, using the found footage style in a time that it was new and exciting, not overdone and boring. The film starts slow and boring, but once the characters are in a place of actual potential danger, the film is effective at evoking fear without having to show much at all. It's worth a watch if you're interested in found footage films, certainly better than the other films I have mentioned in this review, and especially because it really got the ball rolling on the whole phenomenon, but if you're like me and don't enjoy found footage films, this isn't a must-see.

Rating: 7/10

Published December 22nd, 2016

Film 361: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Written by: Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy
Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk

I loved 2014's Godzilla far more than most, and other than my sheer love for Godzilla as a concept, my biggest reason for this was the directorial efforts of Gareth Edwards. The man has a defined sense of scale and knows how to present it clearly on-screen; in Godzilla he knew how to make the titular monster seem massive and threatening, and this skill is clearly shown in Rogue One as he moves to reveal threats like the Death Star or Darth Vader. Edwards' skill here gives the massively CGI moments we view real weight and power; without giving anything away, Edwards knows how to show sheer CGI destruction in a way that feels credible.

*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*

Rogue One follows Jyn Erso (Jones), daughter of one of the creators of the Death Star Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen). Jyn is recruited by the Rebel Alliance to help find her estranged father, who has used an Imperial Pilot defector (Riz Ahmed) to get a message out about the Death Star and the weakness he secretly built in to it, the same weakness that Luke abuses in A New Hope. Along the way, Jyn ultimately groups together with a band of colourful misfits, each with various quirks or chips on their shoulders, including my personal favourite Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), a blind priest of The Force who offers the usual amount of ass-kicking you can expect from Yen.

The plot is a little meandering at first, drawing a couple of threads and characters together before it really gets going. Once it does, however, the film takes off and works wonderfully. The constant threat of the Death Star is set early on and is positively palpable, and it spurns the characters ever-forward. It was nice to have a blockbuster this year that, for the most part, didn't have pacing issues and maintained focus on its end goal. The film also has excellent tone, consistently darker than other Star Wars entries, and with humour that is a little more dry than silly.

That said, what the film did right in terms of plot, it fell a little short in terms of character. Each of the group of misfits is very cool or interesting in their own way, but they're also underdeveloped, so none of their emotional peaks have as much weight as seem to want to have. This is most true for the two leads in Jyn and Cassian Andor (Luna), who have several moments that were very significant to their characters, but I found it difficult to really empathise with them in those moments because the plot has been moving this whole time, and the moments are gone before they can really leave a mark. It isn't completely damaging to the movie, but it makes the significant pressure of their mission impersonal.

The Verdict: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a satisfying entry in the series. It tells an interesting and engaging story with genuinely well-done tension and suspense despite the foregone conclusion, but the film is held back a little by lack of definition in its characters. This isn't enough to put a damper on the experience as a whole, however, and I highly recommend the film, as it can appeal to both long-time fans of Star Wars and to general moviegoers.

Rating: 7.5/10

Published December 18th, 2016

Film 86: Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: David S. Goyer, Chris Terrio
Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams

Batman vs. Superman is bizarre. It's such an ambitious film, trying so hard to be something complex and meaningful, something more than the sort of easy, candy-coloured superhero films people have become accustomed to receiving from Marvel. However, the film fails to effectively convey any of the themes and issues it attempts to explore, mired in a poorly paced plot and an incredible amount of unnecessary moments, and so everything that could have a potential impact ends up feeling like the film is trying too hard.

There's so much to talk about with this film, as evidenced by the sheer amount of discussion that has surrounded the film since its release. I've seen people claiming the film as some Shakespearean tragedy wrapped up in French New Wave film-making, I've seen people calling it one of the worst movies they have ever seen, and I've seen people say just about everything in between. With that in mind, it's hard to write anything about this film that will actually contribute anything new, so I apologise in advance if what I'm writing seems unoriginal.

*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*

I suppose an important place to start with any Snyder film is the visuals, an aspect that perfectly exemplifies BvS'  "trying too hard" atmosphere. Snyder manages to create some truly incredible shots in this film, lots of slow-motion montages attached with a swelling orchestral score and highly stylised shots, complex and overloaded with particles, plenty of light sources to get parallax in motion, and regular use of religious iconography to convey the "Man vs. God" angle the film tries to go for. Unfortunately, a lot of this ends up falling flat because so much of the film appears this way. When so many scenes in the film scream "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT HOW COMPLEX AND PRETTY I AM", they all start to blur together, leaving very few of them with any noticeable impact, like the visual equivalent of white noise. You can look at an individual frame in the film and say, "that's pretty amazing, a lot of work clearly went in to this", but in the context of the film it's just one more overdone frame among thousands. Again, it's clear that this film had passion poured in to it, at least visually speaking, but there's almost no restraint being used here.

I think another important aspect of this film is the weak and overly convoluted plot, and the cognitive dissonance between it and the film's themes. It's clear that the film has little bits and pieces of political agenda spattered throughout; the first fifteen minutes has a warlord speak on the idea that men with power are not beholden to policy or principle, and less than five minutes later we see conflict between CIA men on the ground and those with control of drones, as the ones on the ground argue to prevent the loss of civilian life while the men in control of the drones continue on without heed. This is all before Superman is even re-introduced as a character. 'Power corrupts' is a much-explored theme in storytelling, and it seems that the film wants to give Superman the opportunity to face that theme as a challenge, to be the incorruptible power, but the film also spends so little time on developing Superman as a character that I was left wondering why they even bothered to attempt to give him an arc. The themes and issues are clearly present and attached to Superman, however the film ends up looking at every character but Superman, leaving the themes and issues shallow.

This all seems to be largely to do with how the movie was made, which is my biggest problem with the film overall, as from it stems all of the film's other problems. BvS was originally supposed to simply be a sequel to Man of Steel (2013), before Warner Bros. stepped in and asked Snyder to make it a Batman vs Superman movie, and not too long after that they asked Snyder again to make it a Batman vs. Superman movie that also set up the Justice League. Somehow from there we also got Wonder Woman's inclusion and a finale with Doomsday, not to mention the sheer amount of product placement completely breaking my suspension of disbelief more than once. So much ends up being crammed in to this movie that the good ideas and hard work are lost among moments with no cinematic value that do nothing to serve the story.

A lot of people point to the infamous 'Martha' moment as the breaking point for them in the movie, but as stupidly executed as the moment is, at least it serves to move the story forward. For me personally, the absolute worst moment in the film is a scene with Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in her hotel room. She opens an e-mail from Batman and proceeds to look at clips of The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. This scene has absolutely no bearing on the plot and could be completely removed from the movie to no ill effect; it's simply used as an advertisement for the upcoming DC superhero movies. An advertisement for several movie almost two hours in to another movie, with literally no use aside from that. It's not even used as the scene that convinces Wonder Woman to join in on the fight because they instead save that moment for a scene that lets them advertise Turkish Airlines. This is absolute worst, most cynical type of film-making, crammed alongside the passionate work of a generally lacklustre film-maker.

That said, there are several aspects of the film that are considerably better than its worst. Affleck's Batman's introduction is mixed, as there's an obviously large amount of backstory that's left out because for some reason this Batman is twenty years on the job and yet was not given a movie to himself to flesh some of it out. Affleck manages to make the character work for the most part despite this, and his action scene fighting a gang of mercenaries hired by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) is easily the best scene in the film, with high-octane, brutal action and excellent camera work that exhibits the action clearly, instead of the usually cut-o-ramas that make up most action scenes from films in the past few years. The score also never falters, doing its best to accentuate the feelings that are supposed to be attached to what we're looking at.

I really could go on, there's so much more to talk about, both good and bad, but I don't want to end up rambling. If I started talking about the 'Martha' moment or the death of Superman, Lex Luthor's character or the truly awful third act, I could be here all day and all night.  

The Verdict: Batman vs. Superman is a movie that tries to be great and ends up being mediocre. If you're interested in this film, you've probably already seen it. If you haven't, it's likely worth the watch, unless you're fatigued towards superhero movies at this point, a completely understandable attitude. Otherwise, it's interesting to watch just to consider all of the ways Snyder tries and fails leave his audience in awe while Warner Bros. rams their bloated attempt at a cinematic universe down their throats.

Rating: 4.5/10*

*Addendum: The 4.5/10 rating is for the original theatrical experience. I have since then taken the time to watch the 'Ultimate Edition', and while it doesn't remedy all of the film's weaknesses, the plot is considerably clearer (though it does raise further questions, namely "why was this cut from the theatrical release?") and Superman is actually a character in his own movie. With the changes in the Ultimate edition taken in to consideration, I would be more inclined to give the film a 5/10.

Published December 17th, 2016

Film 214: Godzilla (1954)

Directed by: Ishiro Honda
Written by: Ishiro Honda, Takeo Murata, Shigeru Kayama
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada

There are many factors that led me to make this the next film that I reviewed. Most importantly I think is the fact that the last film I wrote about was Seven Samurai, which got me thinking about other films I have watched this year that can be considered 'foreign' or 'old', trying to find a more precise rule for why I have difficulty engaging with certain films than just those two very rough criteria. It seems fitting to look at another Japanese film released in 1954, produced by Toho and even containing some of the same actors. I should also mention, however, that this was also somewhat inspired by kaptainkristian's video Godzilla - The Soul of Japan. Kristian thoroughly explores Godzilla's image as it has transformed, both over time and overseas.

In the same way that I have always been a film fan yet never gone out of my way to see many of the films people 'should' see, I have for as long as I can remember been a fan of Godzilla, yet it took me until this year and this goal to actually sit down and watch the film that spawned a legend.

The original Godzilla is so very different from every other Godzilla film that I have seen. It seems to be because of two equally important factors: Godzilla is the only monster on screen, and he's the villain.

In other films like 2001's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (yes, that's its actual title, and yes, I did mention this film just so that I could point out the title), or 2002's Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla, the giant radioactive dinosaur is the villain, but his threat is a little diminished because there are other kaiju there to fight Godzilla, so there's little time or need to care about the human characters. In GMK they even make a gag out of several character deaths.

Likewise, in films like Legendary's take on Godzilla in 2014, or something like Godzilla: Final Wars, Godzilla is a straight-up saviour of the world, killing monsters in incredible ways and leaving humanity in awe. There's nothing that suggests that Godzilla is an actual threat to humanity, because any damage Godzilla causes is overridden by the good he does.

In this original Godzilla, however, the Big G is nothing but a monster that causes nothing but destruction, with no remorse or regard for human life, and there's no other monster here to bail humanity out, either; Godzilla stomps Japan in to the ground the people have only themselves to rely on. It turns Godzilla in to a truly horrifying creature to behold; even if the effects look dated, it's still very clear that a lot of effort went in to making Godzilla look massive and scary, with many shots taken from below, with dark shadows covering much of his body. 2014's Godzilla uses a lot of similar visual techniques to make Godzilla huge, but as a way of creating awe rather than terror.

What makes the techniques here doubly effective are the humans who experience Godzilla's path of destruction. While much of the film is the Japanese Government spending time trying to figure out what to do, or rather what they can possibly do, about Godzilla, which may get boring for some people, I implore the people who read this to find the movie and at least watch the scene of destruction in the film; unlike most Godzilla movies, which wreak havoc across the course of the film, the original contains most of its chaos in one long scene of pure horrifying mayhem. It is truly something to behold, especially when you consider the context of Godzilla's creation.

For those who don't know, Godzilla was originally created as an allegory for the effect of atomic warfare; it is even stated in the film that Godzilla was created by the radiation caused by atomic warfare. This allegory goes even in to Godzilla's original design; his skin isn't scaly, it's black and charred, in an effort to affect the look of someone burned by atomic fire.

Taking this in to consideration, I found it impossible not to be impressed by the destruction scene. It's tied intrinsically to the experiences of the filmmakers, who have seen what this sort of destruction does to people, and I could feel the intent in their work, an effort to express the pain and loss Japan was feeling. There isn't a lot of personal character development in this film that we can attach ourselves to, but the film does evoke some of our most basic attachments and the ability of people to survive in a time of tragedy. This is summarised best in  a scene involving a mother, cowering in a house with her two children, as Godzilla burns and collapses the building they're in, as she comforts her children with a reminder that they'll be with their father soon. We have no idea who this mother or her children are, but it's easy to feel terrible for those people in that moment when you consider that this is a stand-in for genuine horror at a real situation that was so fresh in the minds of the people at the time.

The acting in this movie may be generally average at best, the effects ranging between cheesy and downright terrible, and the plot may have a nonsensical deus ex machina ending, but it's clear that a lot of effort went in to this film to make Godzilla a terrifying realisation of the effects of atomic warfare. There's also no denying the fact that Godzilla had a massive impact on Japan at the time and continues to do so; the 29th film by Toho, Shin Godizlla was released earlier this year, and we'll continue to see more from them as well as from Legendary Pictures, who will produce sequels to their 2014 work in an effort to build a Kaiju Cinematic Universe.

As for whether or not the 'old and foreign' rule applied here, it's a little bit split. While much of the film was relatively mediocre, only maintaining my interest because it's a Godzilla movie, I absolutely engaged with the scenes involving Godzilla's rampage through Japan and the humans dealing with the aftermath.

The Verdict: Godzilla is an imperfect film with an important place in film and Japanese history. It's heavily flawed on its own, but thankfully a film does not exist within vacuum. If you want to find out where cinema's biggest monster started, or learn a little more about Japanese film history, then absolutely give this film a watch.

Rating: 8/10

Published December 6th, 2016