Film in 2010

Okay, so in 2009 I moaned that there weren't any decent films coming out.

I should have kept my mouth shut because this year looks like it's going to be even worse.

Granted, Inception is coming out next week and that should be really good. Christopher Nolan hasn't let us down for a while. And we've also got Knight and Day coming up which might be good. It got a pretty bad write up from the AV club but film reviewers often get it completely wrong when it comes to silly action films.

Those are literally the only films I'm looking forward to in 2010 or 2011. Reh.

So what have we had this year?

In the order I saw them:

From Paris with love (5/10)

Now. This is in no way a good film. What it is is *incredibly* silly. One of the characters carries around a vase full of cocaine for most of the film. Why? Fuck you, that's why. It's loud, crude, stupid and quite fun. As long as your brain is well and truely off, you might enjoy it.


Shutter Island (7/10)

So you know where I stand, I have never seen a Martin Scorsese film that I liked and I've only seen Leo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. I went in with suitably low expectations, therefore. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, the music was so over the top it usually took me completely out of the moment and there is one particular scene at the end which was completely impossible to act well. It should really have been cut. Ignoring those two slight problems, it was very good. But I can't help think you should really read the book instead.



Green Zone (6/10)


Now, the problem with Green Zone is that whilst everything about it is pretty good, the plot is bollocks. I say bollocks, the plot is exactly what happened in the iraq war. The Americans went in expecting to find WMD (because the bosses had lied about them being there) they don't find them, they go WTF, they try to find the truth, the truth gets hushed up. We all know this is what happened and we really didn't need a film set four years after the "end" of the war to tell us this. Other than that, it's perfectly fine.


The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (6/10)

Sadly, another case of People Should Just Read The Book. In many ways, it's a very good adaptation of Stieg Larrson's book and if you're not a big reader, you should probably see the film. There is one major problem with it, though. TGWTDT focuses on a 30 year old murder mystery. A disgraced journalist is brought in to have one last stab at it. In the book, he spends about six months getting no-where and then he has one lucky break, follows it up with a lot of *really* hard work and starts making headway with the mystery. The problem is, the film is a film. It has to move at a fairly quick pace or the audience get bored. As a result, they cut out the really hard work and just have the bits where he makes headway through luck or deductions that seem really obvious. Also, we don't really spend much time with the suspects in the case as the film (rightly) focuses on other stuff so when everything comes to a head, a character rears their ugly head and you have no idea who they are or what the significance of their role is. These are problems that were inevitable and would only have been solved if it had been made into a TV show instead. Which would have been a much better idea, sadly.


Kick Ass (3/10)

Kick Ass was boring, made little sense and had a very annoying main character. This would have been forgiveable if it was funny but far too often replaced wit with swearing. Having a little girl say Cunt is funny a couple of times but you can't stretch this to a 90 minute film.


Whip It (10/10)

I judge a film a lot based on how I feel on the walk home from the cinema. After Zombieland, I felt the need for classic rock music. After Whip it, I couldn't stop grinning. Whip It is a funny film, it's got a lot of heart, a plot that makes sense, great characters and it passes the Bechtel Test with flying colours. I recommend it to everyone. And it has maybe from Arrested Development in it.


Iron Man 2 (2/10)

Iron Man 1 was a fun action film that happened to be based on a comic book. Iron Man 2 was a comic book come to life and I don't mean that in a good way. Iron Man 2 made me realise I hate comic books with their terrible dialogue, villains with incredibly sketchy motivation, action scenes that completely defy all known laws of physics... Iron Man 2 has made me swear off all comic book films that aren't being directed by Christoper Nolan or someone similarly talented. And it has Scarlett Johansen in, which is never good. She's not the worst thing in the film, though. Which is, frankly, astonishing.

If I had to list the films wrong with it from most to least severe, I'd start with the action sequences which are on a stupidity par with those of Terminator 4. That's the early ones. The ones at the end of the film actually bored me. Like the ones in Public Enemies did. Look, I'm an action geek, ok? I love action films. Even the silly ones. Especially the silly ones. Crank? Awesome. Shoot em Up? Fantastic. An action sequence has to be really bad for me not to see any merit in it at all.

Then we've got the plot which is just one huge trailer for the Marvel Franchise Avengers thing, which I don't give a shit about and am definitely not going to see after this, thank you very much.

Then we have Scarlett Johansen.

Then everything else.


Bah.



So yeah, 2010. Much worse than 2009 so far.

And 2011 isn't looking too hot either.

I sound like a grumpy old man. I just want some good films. Is that too much to ask? For it to be like 2008 again?

/cries