The Hobbit!

Entertainment Weekly has a few first pics up of scenes from the The Hobbit. Only a year and a half to wait...

The How About Project Parts 12 & 13 (of 26)

At this halfway point I'm tempted to give Hitchcock another gander.

My fave Hitchcock in black & white:

3: Notorious
2: The Lady Vanishes
1: Psycho

And my fave Hitchcock in colour:

3: Rear Window
2: North By Northwest
1: The Birds

Trailer: The Last Circus

This film has had great word-of-mouth and it looks as bloody marvelous as it does insane. From the director of the criminally ignored (at least in North America and the UK) 800 Bullets, this film already feels like a gorgeous tattoo to the brain.

Malick's The Tree of Life in the Eyes of His Contemporaries

X-Men: First Class : From Comics to Film

Critically, where do I place it amongst the others in the franchise? It's on par with the second film and may be the best of the bunch in a lot of ways. I'm not going to review it as I'm biased about my X-Men entertainment. It's like sex or pizza: even when it's bad it's awesome. But I will say that I'll think of this new film as the Magneto movie more than anything. He's been the most consistent, coolest thing in all of the films and he deservedly gets full attention in the prequel, much thanks to the actors portraying him. We end up rooting for the guy and that complicates things for us in a very cool way, since he's known as the "bad guy". I love the film's setting and its rewriting of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I love Prof X's lechery and surprising naivety. Kevin Bacon was excellent as Sebastian Shaw although I was hoping for that signature widow's peak and ribboned ponytail.

And I loved all the significant moments that comprised a stellar ending. However. I hated Beast. January Jones was terrible as Emma Frost -- great-looking but awful line-delivery. Terrible instincts as an actress it seems, unless the editors had it in for her. Hated the choice of opening scene. And will always take issue with the lack of respect for the X-canon.

X-canon you ask?

I hereby provide an incomplete list of offenses committed by the storytellers of this otherwise effective installment. And I do so, not to nitpick or underscore my ubergeekness, but to hopefully entice those of you not familiar with the X-Men in print, to go and seek them out there. The X-canon is a rich and fantastic thing. No, an uncanny thing.

The Hellfire Club: Riptide and Azazel were never members and have zero connection to the Club in the comics. Riptide was a Marauder who helped massacre other mutants and once shredded Nightcrawler with ninja stars that his tornado-body created. Ahem. Azazel is Nightcrawler's father and a demonic mutant from biblical times. (Mind you, Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother so that could still happen in the movies.) The costumes in the movie are not the centuries-old, fetishistic period dress that helped define the Club in the comics. There is no Inner Circle as in the comics. Emma Frost's diamond form is a secondary mutation that shouldn't appear for another 40 years. Don't get me started on the aging thing.

Prof X: In the comics we've never seen him with hair (at least I haven't), he lost his ability to walk during a battle with Lucifer in India, and never knew Mystique as a child. Will he eventually father his insane son, Legion, with Holocaust survivor, Gabrielle Haller, as he does in the comics? Could make a good sequel.

Magneto: Whole awesome chunks of his story are never even mentioned. The first version of his Brotherhood consists of none of the people shown in the film, and should actually include his son and daughter, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. The connection to Sebastian Shaw is created solely for the film.

Moira MacTaggert: Was never CIA. She is a Scottish scientist. She was the one Prof X actually met and fell in love with at Oxford. Eventually, long after the departure of Xavier, she has a son with her Scottish politician husband, and that son becomes the nasty reality-warping mutant, Proteus, who a team of X-Men, consisting of Wolverine and Storm, battle and kill.

Banshee: Should be around the same age as Prof X and Moira MacTaggert. He and Moira eventually become a couple. He was not a member of the first class and actually gets recruited alongside Wolverine, Storm, etc. later on in the series. Oh yeah, and he's famously Irish.

Darwin: Was one of a handful of X-Men recruited secretly between the first class and Wolvie's, who nearly all perished in their first battle against Krakoa, the Living Island. He survived, remains alive in the comics, and is a current member of X-Factor (alongside Banshee's daughter, Siryn, who does appear briefly in the second and third installments of the film series).

Havok: In the comics he is the younger brother of Cyclops. Chronology be damned.

Beast: What a mess. To really appreciate the character, check out his profile at Wikipedia. Too many anachronisms and liberties taken with this fabulous comic-book creation.

How great is it though, that on film the X-Men originate in the 60s just like they do in the source material? 'Tis a great film despite the license taken with the adaptation process. Action-packed and dramatic in the right places. Even funny where its needed.

Just don't get me started on the aging thing.

The How About Project Part 11 (of 26)

A little surrealism? Czech.
Pre-80s? Czech.
Award-winners? Czech.
Stirrers of controversy? Czech.

3: Loves of a Blonde (1965)
2: Closely Watched Trains (1966)
1: Daisies (1966)

Some really wonderful and crazy stuff from Czech filmmakers. How can you go wrong?

Rome

Danger Mouse meets Daniele Luppi, the Italian composer, to work on a record that honours their love of film, and in particular, the music of Ennio Morricone and the longlost greatness of the Spaghetti Western genre.

Mix in a little wicked Jack White and a tad gorgeousness of Norah Jones, and you have one of the coolest, moodiest, most original, and incredibly entertaining musical projects in what must be years.

Check this out if your love of music is as important as your love of film.

Needless to say, I want more of this kind of thing.

Review: Hanna

Admittedly, I would have gone to see Hanna just to watch Cate Blanchett do her thing. But then I saw the trailer and a tonne more reasons materialized. It's a good trailer.

Well I'm happy to report that the film is indeed a very good one, a unique one, a stylish one. It unfortunately feels like a sequel to a non-existent film that I'm not sure I wish existed. There's a lot of back-story that we as the audience are teased with incessantly; Blanchett's CIA agent burns important classified files, shoots people who know the details of the resurfaced plot right through the head, listens to snippets of dusty cassette tapes on camera for just enough time to make us salivate, etc. It's one great big tease for the entirety of the film. And when we do get some idea of what went down a little more than a decade prior to the goings on in this film? It's really not that fascinating. In fact, I found it all a bit cliche. Suffice it to say, that the upcoming Captain America film should be the only and last film to delve into the subject since it probably started the whole thing in print more than a generation ago, allowing it to become practically a sub-genre all its own.

When someone uses the words "super soldiers" in film these days I very nearly cringe.

Apart from that disappointment, I thoroughly loved this movie. Blanchett was wicked on multiple levels, thriving on the secrets of her character and on the rare chance to be villainous. Her lip-quivers, at every attempt to rein in emotion, just gave me goosebumps. Young Ronan, who plays the titular character, simply surpasses herself and seemingly goes beyond the requirements of any actress in terms of physicality and daring. Bana too, did a fine job although his character had the unfortunate task of revealing the aforementioned "experimentation", making me like him a bit less, albeit unfairly. Who I really loved, were many of the super-creepy, supporting characters. And when I say creepy, I mean creepy, like borderline Lynchian creepy. And there's a bunch of them scattered throughout the film. Like bugs in the underbrush of Baba Yaga's forest.

Which brings me to one of the two things people are going to go on about after watching this film: the fairy tale imagery. At times it's very subtle and at other times it's very in your face. It's definitely not something you're going to miss so you'll be faced with the decision to either love it or hate it when pondering whether or not the movie works for you. And in my case, I loved it. Princess, evil step-mother with mirror, fearless woodsman turned to fearless knight, cottages in dark forests, wolves, and henchmen, among others. Thrown together into a contemporary setting where the only rule is break as many necks as you can to stay alive.

All supported by the most incredible sound mixing and sound editing. Listen carefully as the sounds of helicopter blades transform into a Chemical Brothers tech-blast. Marvel at a knife-thrust punctuating a turntable explosion. And then opt for stewing in the breathless silences. I'm going to be tempted to watch the film with my eyes closed at some point, I just know it.

I recommend the film for its creepiness factor, for its near 2 hours of young girl beating the shit out of burly dudes, for its supreme gift to the ears, for the performances, and for a lot of the cool camerawork laden with some unexpectedly fine images. Pity about the story. (God, I hope they're not thinking prequel as a remedy.)

The How About Project Parts 9 & 10 (of 26)

Got some catching up to do due to recently moving home again and not having a computer hooked up. Thus, a couple of more obvious choices:

Italian films (pre-80s):

3: La Strada (1954)
2: Caligula (1979)
1: The Bicycle Thief (1948)

Akira Kurosawa:

3: Seven Samurai (soon to be remade yet again, so watch Kurosawa's first if you haven't yet)
2: Rashomon
1: Ikiru (a personal fave)

Dear Ndugu

I took my own advice and watched About Schmidt again. It's been a few years.

And despite my efforts, I found myself wiping tears from my eyes. Embarrassing? Who cares. That last letter to Ndugu that Schmidt narrates (after all the ironic, hilarious letters thoughout the film) is just gut-wrenching and then when you least expect it, sheer happiness sneaks in, the yearned-for cure, and finally causes the man to break down and weep. It's powerful stuff via understatement and you have to appreciate it.

Which got me thinking about other films that cause grown men to revert to sobbing boys. I'm curious to hear what others have to suggest before I list a few that I love and that have affected me blubberingly over the years.

Confessions?