The Dark Knight Rises: A Review

Finally, the most anticipated film of the year is out! Does it deliver? Certainly! Much better than its rival too!

Set 8 years after The Dark Knight, Batman is public enemy #1, wanted for the murder of Harvey "Two Face" Dent, which we know is an elaborate scheme by Batman and Police Commisioner Gordon to not bring Gotham's citizens hope down, since Harvey was their shining knight. Batman hasn't been seen in that 8 years, and so is Bruce Wayne who locked himself up in his Manor, like Howard Hughes.
However the arrival of Terrorists led by Bane (played excellently by Tom Hardy), forced Batman to come out of retirement to face his greatest challenge yet.

Adopting a far more serious tone, than its predecessors and longer runtimes, Rises is a fitting conclusion to the Dark Knight's trilogy. The long runtime certainly doesn't drag as much as The Dark Knight and there are some cheeky and clever references that will leave one simply impressed.

The scope of the action sequences are simply pure cinematic, from the excellent mid-air plane kidnapping opening, to the explosive showdown in downtown Gotham, this film put The Avengers to shame. Catwoman as played by Anna Hathaway is a delight to watch, switching between comic book character and traditional femme fatale of the Noir genre, that is definitely on par with the Catwoman of Batman Returns.

It is a shame that Marion Cottilard's character is seriously underplayed, outshined by Hathaway's Selina Kyle as Wayne's love interest. Those paparazzi pics released months ago, also ruined the surprise the film had in store, but it was still a pretty good twist. Another detractor to this film would be The Bat, which at some moments in the film look cool, but at other moments look like something out of Transformers.

Another bug, would be the usage of New York as Gotham which gives us a huge continuity break, since Gotham changed way too drastically from Begins and The Dark Knight. However, the bridge explosions scene justify the usage of New York in the film, and the story distracts us away from it anyway.

All in all, one couldn't hope for a better conclusion to the Dark Knight's saga.

4.5/5

The Amazing Spiderman: Have we met before?

When Sony announced that they were going to reboot their Spiderman franchise back in 2010 and canceling Sam Raimi's proposed Spiderman 4 not everybody was enthusiastic about the prospect. There were many "haven't we been there before" comments thrown around and "it's too soon!".
However, having seen what The Amazing Spiderman has to offer, one must give kudos to Sony to green lit this project.

The Story returns to Peter Parker's days in High School, a part that Raimi glossed over quickly in 2001's Spiderman. One could also say that this film is a remake of Sam Raimi's film due to the high number of similarities between the two. From the confrontation with Flash Thompson, Uncle Ben's death (yes, another prick gets robbed and Peter let the robber go to get even), and even the green gas The Lizard use (what was the colour of the Green Goblin's gas again?). The similarity of some elements are not surprising since some of the crews were part of the Sam Raimi's Trilogy (Producer Laura Ziskin and Writer Alvin Sargent for example)

Andrew Garfield is perfect as Peter Parker, and unlike Toby Maguire's Peter (which is a good boy through and through), this Peter Parker is not shy about showing his darker side, and clearly much more damaged (not to mention much more obviously resourceful and humorous). His relationship with his aunt and uncle is also much more strained and interesting to follow compared to Tobey's Peter

Unlike Raimi, the love interest in this film is not Mary Jane Watson, but rather, Gwen Stacy (played by Bryce Dallas Howard in Spiderman 3 and Emma Stone in this one). The chemistry between Peter and Gwen feels much better than Peter and MJ (that awkward corridor chat and that cheeky prelude before the kiss!) it should also be noted that she is also for the first time in a Spiderman film not a love interest/Damsel in Distress (a role MJ was too good at).

The only new element that immediately sets The Amazing Spiderman apart from Sam Raimi's Trilogy is the emphasis on Peter Parker's parents (hell, Raimi never even mentioned them in his trio of films) and oh, the inclusion of those delightful POV shots of Spidey as he swings through New York on his manufactured web shooters (I like the idea of an organic web shooter in Raimi's Films, but  hey at least they add to Peter's character as a genius).

All in all, The Amazing Spiderman is a very familiar new film with a much more human Peter Parker, it has to be on par if not better than the original three.

4/5

Blasts From The Past...11 of '11 of A/V

A selection of 11 Best Films and Soundtracks from last year. 

FILMS

#1 Drive (Dir: Nicholas Winding Refn): A Getaway driver lands in a sticky situation despite good intentions. A Stunning film of multiple genres, all mashed into one dreamy, gritty, and simply amazing piece of cinema.  5/5

#2 The Tree Of Life (Dir: Terrence Malick): A boy's struggle to choose his path of life, the way of nature and the way of grace. Much like any Malick's films, the visuals should not be doubted. And like any Malick's films, the simple story is transformed into a profound piece in a typical Malickian fashion. 5/5

#3 Midnight In Paris (Dir: Woody Allen):  A writer finding solutions to his life problems through time traveling and the beauty of Paris. A very brilliantly written film, and gorgeous to boot, not to mention quite full of trivias. 5/5

#4 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Dir: Tomas Alfredson): Adaptation of the bestselling John Le Carre's Novel of the same time. A Retired British spy had to come out of retirement to expose a Russian Mole in the British Intelligence, set during the cold war. Unlike the super spy James Bond, there is no sleek cars and women in the job, just a lot of mind work, and table discussions, with a very cold looking cinematography and 70's aesthetics, and a very badass Gary Oldman in glasses. 5/5

#5 Melancholia (Dir: Lars Von Trier): The end of the world, when a super planet is on its way to collied with Earth. A very beautiful piece about depression, with a super nihilistic view on life. 5/5

#6 The Artist (Dir: Michel Hazanavicius): A silent movie star fall, the rise of talkies, a love story between the old and the new. The plot is very similar to that excellent musical film starring Gene Kelly, Singin' In The Rain. But, here we have a very idealistic George Valentin, with a very high pride and ego who refuses to talk in front of cameras due to fear of humiliation and Peppy Miller, a rising talkie movie star whose career was launched by Valentin and ironically destroyed Valentin himself, but kept on loving him silently. The first black and white silent film to hit cinemas in a long, long, long time. 4.5/5

#7 Hugo (Dir: Martin Scorsese): The first children and 3D film from Martin Scorsese about an orphan and (certainly would be) movie buff, Hugo Cabret who lives secretly in the station while attempting to fix a broken automaton, a journey that would lead him to Filmmaker Georges Melies and a sequence out of film studies 101. A sumptuous feast that would satisfy film enthusiasts, and filled with much obvious love with cinema. 4.5/5

#8 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Dir: David Fincher): Probably one of the most badass films to hit cinemas in 2011. It is an adaptation of Swedish author Stieg Laersson's novel of the same name which was adapted into film in Sweden in 2009, giving us Noomi Rapace as The Girl.  Rooney Mara, the pretty girl who kicked of Fincher's The Social Network in 2010 is the girl in this one, and she is much more fragile, and well..human. Despite its close runtime to the 2009 film, this film is the film the book deserved, it captured the book's spirit much better. 4.5/5

#9 Shame (Dir: Steve Mcqueen): A film nearly as depressing as Melancholia only less pretty and more gritty. Michael Fassbender, shows us what an excellent actor he is and what he's capable of. Playing Brandon, an emotionally detached man with sexual addiction and a perfectly organised life whose world is brought down by the return of his sister, who reminded him that he is human after all. 4.5/5

#10 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Dir: David Yates): the final film of the Harry Potter Saga an epic fantasy film that worked nicely in contrast with Part 1 ultra grittiness and also the most straight to business Potter film. 4.5/5

#11 Super 8 (Dir: J.J Abrams): Yet, another love letter to the cinema. 2011 was so filled with films about films, and one couldn't help but to smile. After The Artist and Hugo tribute to the classics. J.J Abrams paid tribute to the modern classics, the Steven Spielberg's science fiction films. Unfortunately the alien bit didn't work out quite as well as Spielberg's, but the bits with the children trying to make a film were just pure joy to watch. 4/5


SOUNDTRACKS

#1 The Artist (Ludovic Bource): All silent film scores were incredibly essential, not to mention very lush and grand. Bource's composition did not necessarily resemble those silent film scores exactly, but it is very much a golden age Hollywood film score at its best well worth the Oscar win.
5/5

#2 The Adventures Of Tintin (John Williams): John Williams return, and what an exciting music he brought to Tintin. It has all the things you love in a John Williams adventure score, epic, robust, energetic, but not the lush sentimentalism for that you need to listen to.....
5/5

#3 War Horse (John Williams): Another Williams's score, another Spielberg film. Set in 1912-14 England, Williams played a bit with the 'English sound' and much like any other period epics, the score is lush, romantic, and highly sentimentalist in a Spielberg-Williams fashion, after the exciting Tintin, this is just too much to believe.
5/5

#4 Captain America: The First Avenger (Alan Silvestri): Not only is 2011's the year John Williams returns, it is also the year Alan Silvestri returns to form and gives Marvel Studios their best score yet (along with Patrick Doyle for Thor). The star spangled man music is just good old fashioned Hollywood film scores that are hard to find in today's film scores. And the main theme? Sounds like its set to join John Williams Raiders March, Superman March, Star Wars March and Danny Elfman's Batman Theme.
5/5

#5 Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Alexandre Desplat):  Being a major fan of Desplat's work, having him composed the finale to the Harry Potter saga was such a delight too good to be true, this score and Part 1's score were beautiful piece of music that brought Potter back to the level of the first three and fourth cinematic scores. What John Williams started, Desplat finished beautifully.
5/5

#6 THOR (Patrick Doyle): Another too good to be true, but totally expected case since Director Kenneth Branagh is a frequent collaborator of Doyle. Surprisingly Doyle decided to tone back his usual style and adds in the typical modern film scoring method made popular by Hans Zimmer and his Remote Control Productions. The result is still a far better score than any RCP composers best work (with exception perhaps John Powell and occasionally Zimmer), and much like Captain America, this is one of the better scores in Marvel Studios films.
4.5/5

#7 SUPER 8 (Michael Giachinno): Giachinno decided to stay true to his style rather than try to imitate John Williams. The result is a score that sounds pretty much similar to Lost, but also has a hint of John Williams. The main theme for the boy is touching, and the secondary theme for the girl could've been better used, but all in all, a really good warm score that today's films definitely should use more of.
4./5

#8 My Week With Marilyn (Conrad Pope/Alexandre Desplat): One of the few films where Orchestrator Conrad Pope scored an entire film without being shadowed by John Williams or Alexandre Desplat. Originally meant to be yet another Desplat Project, Desplat surprisingly recommended Pope to take this score on, but he did write the film's main theme, which is truly beautiful add in Lang Lang's piano and ah, just beautiful. Having worked behind John Williams for many years, it is no surprise that Pope's music sound pleasingly Williams like, definitely want to hear more from Pope in coming years.
4/5

#9 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias): The film is a very tense affair, and the score has to compliment the tension. This score more than done its job, it started out brilliant with a noir-ish theme for George Smiley, but after that becomes more generic and the noir sound abandoned. However there are several moments where the music displays a very Desplat mannerism which brings to mind the question what would Desplat have produced?
4/5

#10 Hugo (Howard Shore): Scoring Scorsese's love letter to the cinema, is composer Howard Shore of Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and Scorsese's Gangs Of New York, The Aviator, and The Departed. Being a children film, one expects to hear lots of warm melodic themes ala John Williams, but sadly that is not the case, and the score is a disappointment in that regard. However what we get is a nice quirky sound and yes, there is a warm melodic theme just not as much as one hoped. The French sound of the score is also quite nice.
4/5

#11 Drive (Cliff Martinez/Various): More like droning ambient noises ala Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross' effort in The Social Network and The Girl With The Dragon Tatttoo. However it would be a crime not to mention this soundtrack, especially because the first four tracks which contain the uber cool songs which worked perfectly in the film.
3/5

The Amazing Spiderman: Amazing Addition to the franchise's music

Probably the biggest and most delightful surprise in film scoring this year (yet). The spiderman reboot/remake/reimagining,  whatever you'd want to call it will have music from legendary composer James Horner.

The music Horner gives the web slinger in this outing is simply the best of all Spidey's outings, and in fact wouldn't be out of place in the sequel for James Cameron's AVATAR.

The main theme feels like a blend of AVATAR and A Beautiful Mind (in fact the whole score gives out that vibe continuously) and pretty interesting too, it does not have the flat out heroism the Danny Elfman's theme had, more like well..prelude to big adventures in distant planets

The love theme (also Theme for Peter Parker)  has to be one of the best theme of the year and eclipses all previous quiet poignant themes in Sam Raimi's trilogy, it is just so beautiful in its simple yet harmonious construct.

After Alan Silvestri's failure in making The Avengers the superhero score of the the year, Horner's arrival with this score is such an amazing delight.

5/5

Rock Of Ages: A Review

I was fortunate enough to see the stage version of 'Rock of Ages' last year in its Australian tour, and immediately fell in love with it. I had nothin' but a good time (sorry, I had to) on my seat.

Few months after that, Hollywood announced that they will be making  a film version of 'Rock of Ages', my only thought was "so soon?" and soon Tom Cruise was announced to play the washed up rocker, Stace Jaxx.

So having seen the film and both the play, I could safely say that I enjoyed both versions, but the stage more.

Anyway, much like the play, the story centers on Drew Boley and Sherrie Christian 's dreams of fame and fortune in 1987 Hollywood, and the threat on the renowned and historic The Bourbon Room due to a campaign to clean up the city by the city's mayor and his wife.

The film cut out three delightful characters from the play, the German businessman, Hertz, his son Franz, and City planner (slash hippie) Regina. In the play, it was Hertz who wanted to destroy The Bourbon Room to build a business empire (he bribed the mayor to do so), a much stronger cause than what Zeta-Jones' Patricia Whitman tried to accomplish (in my opinion).

On that note, Zeta-Jones is slightly underused in this film (considering her character's significance to the entire plot, this is not that surprising), Lonny as played by Russell Brand has lost his entire significance in the play as the story's main narrator (and commentator).

Tom Cruise did Stace Jaxx justice, and surprisingly turn him into a much more sympathetic character and one to root for, instead of transferring the douchebag from the stage.

Drew and Sherrie are performed nearly verbatim from the stage, except their romance happens so much quicker on film (not until second act on stage) and part of their resolution were given to Jaxx and Constance Sack (hey I just noticed the rhyme in their names).

The film ends, in the usual happily ever after manner with Journey's Don't Stop Believing only, in this version, Jaxx is participating instead of being jailed in South America, beyond redemption. In a way, the film gives Jaxx a full arc the stage never did.

Also unfortunate is the omission of Steve Perry's Oh Sherrie (the opening is actually used, appropriately at one point in the film as part of the score) and Survivor's The Search Is Over, but the film surprisingly managed to work in the songs of Def Leppard who refused to allow their music in the play.

Much like the stage version, the film tries to give us nothing but a good time, but unfortunately, the nature of the play made the story simply works better onstage. But this film is close, very close to giving us that good time.

3/5

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter A Review

Being a reader of Author Seth Graehame-Smith's mashup novel (of the same name), I was very surprised when the film adaptation was announced and that Tim Burton would be producing and Timur Bekmambetov (of Wanted) directing.

Much like the book, all eyes are drawn to the silly title and the premise that America's 16th president were vampire-hunting to kill time.

Unlike the book, the film left out most of the stuff set during the present day and focuses immediately on Lincoln's journey of killing vampires. The biggest change had to be the addition of a villain, Old Vampire named Adam (played by Rufus Sewell).

Yes, the film is ridiculous in the way it turned the President into an axe wielding action hero (Man, what I would give to be that kind of President!) who kills without mercy in super cool slow mo and jumps from a burning train any other day.

However, it was exactly the ultra seriousness of the Book's treatment of the subject that was the centre of the humour of it all. Director Timur Bekmambetov had done a very fine job, attempting to get audiences to take this film seriously, but the man who could've captured the book's spirit perfectly was never a few feet away.

Yes, Tim Burton should've directed this film, but instead he went to Collingwood Manor to party with vampire from the Dark Shadows (sorry, I had to). That film interestingly involve vampires and writer Seth Graehame-Smith at the script (who also wrote this adaptation of his own novel). Is it a coincidence that a pair of sunglasses that Henri Sturges wore at the film's first half looks exactly like the pair Barnabas Collins wore during the montage in Dark Shadows?

Since the film's script was written by the author of the book, any arguments about straying from the source would be useless, because maybe this is what the author want. A silly entertaining action piece of an axe wielding president. It might not be what it could've been, but it does live up to its title, however half-heartedly.

3/5

Brave: A Brave Attempt

Pixar's First Original Feature since the excellent Up  back in 2009. After that, Pixar's releases have been two sequels to their previous releases (one excellent and one reportedly way below their standards).

Brave is unlike any Pixar production before, with the studio tackling for the first time the fairy tale genre, made popular by their partner, Disney.

Set in The Scottish Highland, Brave tells us the story of young Princess Merida and the war between her and her mother, who constantly grooms Merida to be her mirror image. Being the free spirited princess she is (Ariel anyone?) naturally she fought not only her mother, but the ancient tradition of marriage in her kingdom. How to achieve that? Why with a visit to a witch's cottage and transform her Mother into a Bear of course (Brother Bear?)

Brave is safe to say, one of Pixar's most gorgeous looking production so far, the team had managed to animate the beauty of the Scottish Highlands and capture its grandeur.

The story is very much well told, although not as well told as Pixar's past productions. But it is every bit as enjoyable as any Disney Production, not Pixar.

Despite, having Pixar's visual, at its core, the film is disney through and through. An enjoyable affair for the family, and finally, a true merging of Disney and Pixar films. In short, a true Disney/Pixar Production.

3.5/5