Film Flare

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/16

Hola muchachos et muchachas.

Fun fun fun for everyone tonight because I have watched two films, both called Halloween.

 

Let's start with Halloween.

 

Halloween (1978)

 

John Carpenter's seminal work is  based on the films like Psycho which introduced a new level of tension and violence to cinema and is itself credited with 'inventing' the slasher genre.

It is masterful piece of tension which really creates a mythos and supernatural, boogey-man like quality to Michael Myers. This is mainly achieved through having Michael appear in as little of the film as possible. It is for good reason that he was nicknamed "The Shape" as he really mostly appears in the first two thirds of this film as either a background presence or a foreground shadow. 

Jamie Lee Curtis excels in her first film as Laurie Strode, nailing the vulnerability of the role whilst giving the character enough fight to make her desperate struggle for survival honest and believable. Apart from the fact she keeps looking away from Michael Myers and you know he's going to sit up again and you're screaming at the screen for her to look at the body and stab it until her arm goes numb but she doesn't. Argh!

But this the joyous beauty of the film, it's full of the clithes and tropes that plague the genre and yet the film remains a tense, surprisingly non-gory horror film. The plot is non-existant and most of the horror of the film comes from the unknown. Carpenter makes a conscious decision to not reveal anything about Michael apart from the opening scene, which is a stunning POV sequence where you follow this boy as he kills his sister. This and the fact he escapes from a mental institution are the only things you know about Michael. His presence is non-too subtly referred to simply as 'evil' by the fantastic Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance).

 

So this film is all about the mystery. The unknown. That is why Michael in this film is scary, he is the boogieman, he is just eveil. That's all there is to it. The film itself is a brutally low-budget, high tension ride but without the grotesque and explicit gore the genre has become known for.

 

Trailer:

 

 

 

Halloween (2007)

 

The Rob Zombie 2007 'reimagining' of Halloween had the right idea in mind by trying not to just copy the original film, instead he tried to add something new to the series. So what is there to expand on? The original film's plot was simple, the characters were well written but not complex. So he brings The Shape into focus.

Where the original film had no backstory for Michael Myers, this version of Halloween dedicates almost a third of a film to events before the night he killed his sister. It depicts a brutal domestic life and school life. But this is a double edged sword, whilst it may go some to shape his actions, it removes a lot of the mystery and tension in Michael's actions. He's from a broken home. Lots of kids are from broken homes, not every kid goes on a murder spreee. So there is still that idea that there is just something wrong with Michael.

 

This part of the film is actually quite well done and quite different from anything done in a previous Halooween film. Sheri Moon Zombie (Rob Zombie's wife, not a coincidental surname) is at her best here and Daeg Faerch is oddly creepy as Michael. He is able to be a normal child but is just sick. The set up of the plot of the rest of the film comes during the eventful night in question and sets up why Michael would come back for Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton).

 

So the film is really broken up into two parts. The set-up, where we see Michael descend to a point where he kills his family and the night he returns, which is much more the standard horror film, almost disappointingly so. Whilst the original used tension and shock over violence, this remake uses violence instead of tension and shock. It's pretty damn gory a lot of the time, but not scary.

Like the original film, Rob Zombie sees the benefit of casting a good actor for the role of Dr. Sam Loomis and in this case, he casts Malcolm McDowell who fits really, really well into the role. Again, the character is a bit more fleshed out with an interesting sideline in selling books based off Myers which gives many of the characters he meets reasons to be suspicious, something Loomis in the original found as well but without the reason why.

 

It's not itself a bad film, and I admire Mr Zombie for trying to do something new and to genuinly re-imagine the idea and for forty to forty five minutes, it works pretty well. It's when he escapes and the film reverts to horror movie cliches and you see, apart from the better visual effects, that the horror genre is still stuck in a rut where violence is better than tension, and if you watch the original Halloween, you realise that it is not.

 

Trailer:

  

A brief but violently aggressive apology...

Dear loyal readers,

 

I write this during my lunch hour at work because the internet connection at home is wank. It's not just wank, it's hyper wank! The ISP is providing roughly 0.5% of average advertised speeds so it's hard to upload a goddam ASCII picture of a fucking frowning face, let alone a lump of text with attached image and embedded video.

So here I am, sat on a Dali-esque bar stool eating a cheese sandwich, listening to angry post-punk Swedish band Refused and writing this here text on a computer that's barely faster than a Spectrum ZX. But compared with the internet at home, it's fucking DARPA future technology.

 

So when I can get the time and internet connection to write an FFFD entry, I will. I had a hum-dinger lined up for everyone too. The original 1978 John Carpenter Halloween and the 2007, Rob Zombie re-imagining. What a tasty prospect! But no, you'll have to wait.

And for that, I'm sorry.

 

FilmFlare

Star Trek Into Darkness review (no spoilers)

 

This is a good film.

It is a very good film.

I really, really liked this film.

 

Fear not, the whole review will not simply be variants of that single statement, I just wanted to start out with that news which I am happy to report.

 

 

After the successes of the first film in the 'rebooting' of the beloved franchise which worked primarily as a litmus test for the characters and tone of the film, the second film is altogether more confident in the world and characters it presents. The plot also makes a whole heap more sense than the time-travel, black hole malarky of the first film.

So, we know already they got Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Chekov (Alton Yelchin) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) as characters sorted. So they look to expanding the roles of others characters and the introduction of new ones, with varying success. Some of the new characters do not appear much but that is mainly because a large proportion of the film is aimed towards the relationship between Kirk and Spock after the groundwork set by the first film.

 

Despite the title and the advertising campaign suggesting the pitch black tone of the film, this is still a bright and funny sci-fi film. They've nailed a sense of humour with Scotty and Bones. There are action scenes a-plenty and whilst the film does have a reasonably long running time (133 minutes), the time never drags. In fact, with all the journeys off to new places and sticky situations the crew find themselves in, the film is never less than moving at a fast pace. 

 

Now, it's not perfect. There are a few plot holes here and there and one particular thing you could see coming from a mile away but it cannot detract from the fact that they have taken the best points from the first film (adventurous tone and characters) and built a better film on top of them. Oh, and Benedict Cumberbatch is awesome! I think he's super good in this.

Oh, and I'm not a die hard trekkie, but I know my way around a little and I found some lovely little touches in the film.

 

Watch it!

 

Trailer:

 

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/15

Evening one and all. It's another shiny as FFFD.

Tonight, another Jason Statham film after the joy and wonderment of last week's Crank.

 

Let's see what that balding, hench heartthrob is up to....

 

Snatch (2000)

I just tried googling Snatch to find a poster for here.......big mistake.

 

 

Guy Richie found his fame with a film called Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells which still remains a film highlight on mine and within the space of two years, he had his follow up film, Snatch. Which is a pity because whilst Snatch is individually a strong film, it shows little stylistic or narrative progression from Lock Stock. There is no moving forwards with new, exciting visuals, instead, it remains extremely similar to his previous film. The only difference between the two is that after the success of Lock Stock, Guy Richie is able to command much more recognisable actors to appears in his films, both Brad Pitt and Benicio Del Toro appear in Snatch.

 

Now, the plot itself is the interlinkining, confusing ball of twine that slowly gets unwound as the film progresses but it fundamentally has two stories. That of the theft of a huge diamond, and that of Turkish (Statham) and his unlicensed boxing woes. The two stories eventually run along the same course and the satisfactory ending deals with both stories equally well. Of course, similar to Lock Stock (a phrase one has to use often when trying to review this film), there is a lot of causality and coincidence to bring all the characters into meetings, most of it is handled in the film's comedic tone, although, there are a few moments which are genuinly chilling, mostly involving the thoroughly unpleasant Alan Ford as Brick Top. (I must say that it is the character who is thoroughly unpleasant, not the actor.)

 

The script remains strong, the usual cockney banter and a nicely British, off hand witty style make the script move along at a fair old pace. Each of the characters has a nice touch about them that makes the scenes crackle at times. Certainly the highlights tend to involve Vinnie Jones, who seems to revel in his tough guy image, toying at it with a smart streak. 

 

To be fair, I actually really do enjoy this film and it has a lot more to like about it that to dislike about it, it's just the film is simply a rehashing of Lock Stock, and it's not as good. There's no growth from Guy Richie here, it's just a retreading of the same ground but without improvement. I'm glad Guy has found his fame in films because there is a kinetic glory to his films that is infectious, it's just that Snatch, whilst good on it's own account, isn't his strongest work of the same genre, watch Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels instead.

 

Trailer:

  

Film Flare's Film Diary 2013/14

 

Hello, good evening, and welcome to a pretty late edition of Film Flare's Film Diary, the blog where the concept of a weekly diary is loosely followed.

It's been a quiet old week on the film front so as such, there is only 1 film for FFFD this week. An action film. An odd action film. A fucking insane action film.

 

Crank (2006)

 

This is one of Jason Statham's best roles. Just saying this out and proud right now. He's been watchable for a while in a wide variety of films but I don't think any film has taken him quite as far as Crank has. And he seems to revel in this role, the unstoppable, violent, focused antihero. It's a similar character to other film's he has been in (Expendables, War, Safe, The Mechanic, Death Race, Parker, Killer Elite, etc etc) but this film is so utterly bonkers and insane that it's taken to whole new levels and there seems to be a charmingly tasteless sense of humour at work.

 

Writers/Directors Mark Nevaldine and Brian Taylor have created a film that rests so near to the edge of brilliant genius that it's mesmerising, whilst also being (when you think about it) hugely offensive and really, really stupid. The plot involves Chev Chelios, an LA hitman who is poisoned with 'some Chinese shit' and has about an hour to live when the film starts. The only thing prolonging his life is adrenaline and the film is pretty much the lengths that Chev Chelios goes to to stay alive long enough to get revenge.

 

But it's the visual style that really wins me over. It's hectic and crazy, full of imagination and quirky shots that would not work in any other type of film. They play with the sound, colours, ratio, saturation and it all ends up looking unique. Actually unique. Apart from the 2009 sequel Crank 2: High Voltage (tagline: He was dead....but he got better), there are no films that share a style. Many people would say that this is a good thing, that the ADD filming and juvenile content is masking the lack of subtext, plot, etc and they may have a point. However, the actual purpose of the film is simply to be enjoyable. It's a film version of a computer game, something the film strongly alludes to several times throughout.

 

It's great, offensive fun. I really like it.

 

Trailer: