Monthly ArchiveApril 2009
Film Alex on 08 Apr 2009
The Boat That Rocked
There’s a right way to go about making a film centring on nostalgia, and Richard Curtis’ The Boat That Rocked goes about it the right way. Casting aside the shackles of romantic comedy that have burdened him for so long, Curtis has produced a funny, largely plotless, broadly charactered examination of a period of time plainly dear to him accompanied by an excellent soundtrack.
Animation &Film Alex on 04 Apr 2009
Monsters vs. Aliens
The optimism with which I approached Monsters vs Aliens was not cautious. I was not expecting great things, but I had a quiet confidence in Dreamworks, despite my abiding hatred for Shrek and its hideous bastard offspring. When the opening credits finished with the line “and Stephen Colbert as The President”, I lost it. I was determined to enjoy Monsters vs Aliens, and that’s precisely what I came away with.
I should probably make clear once more that I am a fan of animation. While that means I can be a harsh critic of “cartoons”, it also means that I’m more inclined to like them than Joe Q. Public who is indifferent to the whole exercise. It’s an important distinction, because it’s not a form (animation is not a genre) that I simply view as “take or leave”. Wall-E and The Incredibles are included among my favourite films in general, not just in the field of animation.
Having said that, Monsters vs Aliens is not a Pixar level film (then again, neither was Cars). That doesn’t stop it from being a consistently entertaining movie with a semi-clear to somewhat muddied moral. As a general audience movie, I don’t know how it would fare and, as is always the case with this sort of stuff, many of the best jokes likely won’t be understood by the target audience of children. (Axel F., for crying out loud!)
Film Alex on 02 Apr 2009
Knowing
Knowing is probably not 2009′s The Happening, but that doesn’t make it a good film. It takes a special kind of movie for me to say “but nothing’s happened” when fifty minutes remain and I’ve borne witness to a fiery plane crash and a lengthy train derailment – and all at high speeds!
Knowing is a singularly unconscious film. It’s impossible to pinpoint the genre of a film that can’t decide whether it’s a supernatural mystery, a thriller, horror or a treatise on the apocalypse. It doesn’t quite manage to be any of them and the result is not so much incoherent as it is inconsequential. If the audience (that is, me) doesn’t care about the fate of the world, let that mother burn.