As with every year the first two months of the cinematic calendar were taken up with the Oscar contending films. I was not a particular fan of any of them, No Country For Old Men was depressing and without incident, In the Valley of Elah was dull and not very interesting and There Will Be Blood had little actual story and I just didn't get it. If it was about something I couldn't tell what. Sweeney Todd was a bit too gothic and gory for its own good. The film didn't show enough interest in the romance of the 2 nice characters as it was too interested in its own tragedy and the Danny Elfman soundtrack didn't fit with the brilliant Sondheim songs. Still a better film than the others, however. After these Oscar films came the barren time of cinema where the studios have exhausted there supply of what they consider good films and there is a period where very little of interest comes out. The 2 highlights of this period were Vantage Point, a film that came out of the blue and did a good story with a Rashomon style narrative telling the story from a number of different perspectives that made for a very good film and Horton Hears a Who which, while child pleasing and with bright colours, was simple enjoyable and funny. These were balanced by the terrible 10 000 BC, I have always been a Roland Emmerich fan but in this film he basically remakes Stargate but rubbish. Then in May the summer blockbuster season started. This summer was the most congested yet in terms of numbers of big films. Film distributors have yet to work out that unlike the USA the schools in this country have exams in June that interfere with cinema watching but are still on holiday in August when their US counterparts have gone back to school and that they would probably be best served by holding back some films until the middle of August (where there is always a barren patch where no good films come out) to maximise returns rather than moving the blockbuster season earlier and earlier. As a result the very enjoyable Iron Man did well but the also very good, if too intelligent for mass media, The Incredible Hulk was buried under a pile of better advertised films. The same is true of my pick of the summer’s films, Speed Racer. I am a Wachowski brothers fan and this film has their strong script with a lot of story a lot of action a lot of humour and fitted together into a brilliant film. Both these films lost out to Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull which, while having some enjoyable scenes, had a diabolical story, an awful script and Steven Spielberg should be ashamed of himself. All of these were very much all age films but aimed at the teenage market. The summer had the strongest crop of family films I have seen for a number of years. Prince Caspian, while neglecting much of its source material, was a very exciting and enjoyable film with points that can still be drawn from it, Kung Fu Panda was funny and exciting and there was the charming spectacle that was Wall-E. Despite a few missteps (e.g. Cars) Pixar are adept at maintaining their own high standards and an amazingly likeable central character combined with a chillingly possible human future make it one of the highlights of the year. The summer was dominated, however, by The Dark Knight. This highly anticipated film surpasses its very good predecessor thanks to an amazing performance from the late Heath Ledger, a good story and some amazing visual effects. There were problems with the two face character and I never like it when the film's romantic interest is killed (apologies if you haven't seen it) but the film remains as a cinematic masterpiece. Of the films that came in the Dark Knight's shadow there are three worth mentioning. Get Smart was the first comic parody for a long time that was actually funny and made for a very enjoyable 1 1/2 hours, Star Wars: the Clone Wars, much maligned in the media for being unnecessary, was justified by the fact that it was better than the three recent prequels and Hellboy 2 was visually stunning and very enjoyable even if the almost complete lack of story let it down a bit. September and October (before half term) have never been big film watching months and this year that was reflected in the lack of anything interesting entering our cinemas (by our cinemas I of course mean the multinational corporations cinemas). The one highlight of this period was the enjoyable Tropic Thunder. Half Term brought two very good films in Eagle Eye and City of Ember which were enjoyable family friendly and gave me a better feeling upon leaving the cinema than anything this year that was put up for an Oscar. November was all about one film. Quantum of Solace was a good film, it doesn't make the step to a great film but was very far from disappointing. Soon after it came Body of Lies, an interesting thriller by the master of the genre Sir Ridley Scott which is the best so far of the post 9/11 Middle East thrillers. November finished with the release of the first of the contenders for the 2009 Oscars, Clint Eastwood's Changeling. It was an inspiring story, not the least because the church is represented as a good guy, good acting by both Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich which made for a very moving film. December saw a number of Christmas entertainment films including the entertaining Inkheart and also Madagascar 2 which was, refreshingly, a vast improvement on the first even if the lack of a convincing story became more obvious as a consequence. The best film of December was the visually stunning Day the Earth Stood Still with some good performances and a brilliantly sustained sense of threat throughout the film.
So, in review, my picks for outstanding films of 2008 are: Vantage Point, Speed Racer, Wall-e, Eagle Eye, City of Ember and Body of Lies but my award for the best film of 2008 is Changeling.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
Monday 1 December 2008
November Films
Quantum of Solace. When the James Bond series started they followed on from each other rather than standing alone (for example Blofeld kills Bond's wife at the end of OHMSS and Diamonds are Forever with Bond hunting down Blofeld to take revenge for killing his wife) and this film does the same starting minutes after Casino Royale finished. The story of the film is that through Mr. White who is interrogated at the begining of the film an unknown criminal organisation is uncoverred and the clues leading to a man, Dominic Green, who is part of this crminal organisation who is hatching a sinister plot to seize resources in Bolivia. One of the problems with the film is that this is the entire plot. The film has slick exciting action sequences and Bond's character is well developed but simply not enough happens. Also the filmakers are still nervous to include the trappings of the old Bond such as the walk across the screen at the beginning, now at the end, and the theme tune is conspicuous by its absense. The film is very well acted, however, and a strongert plot could have seen it be on a level with the likes of Goldfinger, Goldeneye and now Casino Royale in the franchise, however in its current state it just doesn't quite get there, 7/10.
The Mutant Chronicles. I have a soft spot for they're so bad they're good films, however this isn't quite one of those. Rule number one of cinema (probably no. 27 due to the amount of rules no. 1 of cinema)if you call your film the mutant chronicles you cannot then take it seriously. This film does take itself seriously, however, which is a pity because visually the film is stunning. The film is set hundreds of years in the future, the Earth is ruled by 4 corporations that fight wars with each other for the world's remaining resources. The film opens with a WW1 style trench warfare battle in which an alien machine that has been on the planet for thousands of years in uncovered that starts turning mankind's dead and dying into mutants. The only people who know how to stop mankind fromm being wiped out is a group of monks who have been preparing for this for hundreds of years, cue gratuitous violence. Consequently the film is very depressing, it doesn't matter how much style you have in type of film if there isn't some tongue in cheek humour to grease the wheels and there isn't any, 4/10.
The Baader Meinhof Complex. This film telling the story of the notorious West German terrorist group in the late 1960s and early 1970s is an interesting story of how easy it is once you have started down a road of violence for it to overwhelm your principles. I cover this in another post but for all that the film is very well made and very well acted. At 2 1/2 hours it is overly long and half an hour could have been easily shaved off the start and is very far from an enjoyable film but a good film, 7/10.
Max Payne. Like with the Mutant Chronicles I have a soft spot for films of games if they are prepared to not take themselves too seriously, Doom was enjoyable for that one reason. Max Payne, however, seems so interested in following as rigidly to the game plot (I assume it's the game plot as there is no other reason for having it) as possible that it forgets to make the viewer want to watch it. The only parts of the film that are particularly entertaining are when he haluncinates Valkyrie which are Norse mythical creatures that are basically monsters with wings and I couldn't help wishing that he were fighting these instead of old white men, 3/10.
Body of Lies. Over the past 30 years Sir Ridley Scott has been consistently one of the best directors in Hollywood and is one of he most accomplished directors in history never to have won an Oscar. Body of Lies is his attempt at a film about Iraq. The film i about a CIA agent on the ground in the Middle East (Leonardo Di Caprio) trying to locate the leader of an offshoot of Al Qaeda and his boss (Russell Crowe) who is directing operations from the USA. There have been a number of films about Iraq and the Middle East of the past few years, the best of which was Lions for Lanmbs which appealed much more to the academic than the actions seeking. Body of lies attempts to do both, there is quite a lot of action but the film is about the story and the interaction between Di Caprio, Crowe and the head of Jordanian intelligence. The issue for this film was alkways going to be that because of the films about this sort of thing before, can this film do anything new and can it make its point and be a good film? In the most part the film is across between 2 of last year's films: Rendition (dir. Gavin Hood, 2007) and The Kingdom (dir. Peter Berg) both of which were mediocre films that sacrificed plot for controversy and made very modest box office takings as a result and have already been virtually forgotten. However, Sir Ridley Scott is one of the fathers of the modern blockbuster, he knows how to make a film watchable. The film has received a number of lukewarm reviews, for the most part because there is a lot of talking and also there are a number of characters in the film who exist solely for cinematic purposes like the nurse Di Caprio falls for. But these characters are what make the film enjoyable and the film makes its point well with a good plot twist at the very end which gave the film the ending it needed. The cast is strong, the visuals are good and the script works, 8/10.
The Mutant Chronicles. I have a soft spot for they're so bad they're good films, however this isn't quite one of those. Rule number one of cinema (probably no. 27 due to the amount of rules no. 1 of cinema)if you call your film the mutant chronicles you cannot then take it seriously. This film does take itself seriously, however, which is a pity because visually the film is stunning. The film is set hundreds of years in the future, the Earth is ruled by 4 corporations that fight wars with each other for the world's remaining resources. The film opens with a WW1 style trench warfare battle in which an alien machine that has been on the planet for thousands of years in uncovered that starts turning mankind's dead and dying into mutants. The only people who know how to stop mankind fromm being wiped out is a group of monks who have been preparing for this for hundreds of years, cue gratuitous violence. Consequently the film is very depressing, it doesn't matter how much style you have in type of film if there isn't some tongue in cheek humour to grease the wheels and there isn't any, 4/10.
The Baader Meinhof Complex. This film telling the story of the notorious West German terrorist group in the late 1960s and early 1970s is an interesting story of how easy it is once you have started down a road of violence for it to overwhelm your principles. I cover this in another post but for all that the film is very well made and very well acted. At 2 1/2 hours it is overly long and half an hour could have been easily shaved off the start and is very far from an enjoyable film but a good film, 7/10.
Max Payne. Like with the Mutant Chronicles I have a soft spot for films of games if they are prepared to not take themselves too seriously, Doom was enjoyable for that one reason. Max Payne, however, seems so interested in following as rigidly to the game plot (I assume it's the game plot as there is no other reason for having it) as possible that it forgets to make the viewer want to watch it. The only parts of the film that are particularly entertaining are when he haluncinates Valkyrie which are Norse mythical creatures that are basically monsters with wings and I couldn't help wishing that he were fighting these instead of old white men, 3/10.
Body of Lies. Over the past 30 years Sir Ridley Scott has been consistently one of the best directors in Hollywood and is one of he most accomplished directors in history never to have won an Oscar. Body of Lies is his attempt at a film about Iraq. The film i about a CIA agent on the ground in the Middle East (Leonardo Di Caprio) trying to locate the leader of an offshoot of Al Qaeda and his boss (Russell Crowe) who is directing operations from the USA. There have been a number of films about Iraq and the Middle East of the past few years, the best of which was Lions for Lanmbs which appealed much more to the academic than the actions seeking. Body of lies attempts to do both, there is quite a lot of action but the film is about the story and the interaction between Di Caprio, Crowe and the head of Jordanian intelligence. The issue for this film was alkways going to be that because of the films about this sort of thing before, can this film do anything new and can it make its point and be a good film? In the most part the film is across between 2 of last year's films: Rendition (dir. Gavin Hood, 2007) and The Kingdom (dir. Peter Berg) both of which were mediocre films that sacrificed plot for controversy and made very modest box office takings as a result and have already been virtually forgotten. However, Sir Ridley Scott is one of the fathers of the modern blockbuster, he knows how to make a film watchable. The film has received a number of lukewarm reviews, for the most part because there is a lot of talking and also there are a number of characters in the film who exist solely for cinematic purposes like the nurse Di Caprio falls for. But these characters are what make the film enjoyable and the film makes its point well with a good plot twist at the very end which gave the film the ending it needed. The cast is strong, the visuals are good and the script works, 8/10.
Book Review: Jesus For President
Although I don't tend to review too many books I thought this one was worth it.
Jesus For President: Politics For Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Zondervan, 2008
I haven't read Claiborne's previous book (yet), the successful "the Irresistible Revolution," but I gather it is very good. The book can be divided into 2 halves, the first half is about Jesus, the political statements he makes and the political environment he is speaking into and t second half is about America today and how as Christians we can enact the politics of Jesus today. So far so good. The first half is very well researched and written, although the authors go to excessive pains to say "Jesus is political, honest," I don't know who said he wasn't in the first place but it wasn't me. There isn't that much else I have to say about it other than it is very good and gave me a new and deeper understanding of some of Jesus statements. For example I did not know that when Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God the word, basilea, that he used was the same word as was used to refer to the Roman empire.
In the second half Claiborne and Haw talk about how, as Christians, we need to shape our lives around God's values in areas such as resisting climate change, in order to make an impact on the world. The problem with this part of the book is that neither Claiborne or Haw have some kind of qualification in politics (I do) and it shows. When they are working on the material that is clearly their strength (the word of God and I wish I have that kind of understanding of it) they are strong but when they move off it they are unable to keep a politically neutral attitude as they discuss the big issues. By this i do not mean that they are biased towards a particular political party, they clearly dislike them both, but they have formed a collection of political thoughts that they argue without thought for counter arguments or a sense of balance. That means that there are occasions when they say that Christians should be living a certain way the implication is that if you are not you are sinning. One of the aims of the book is to convict the church which in my opinion needs convicting on these issues but the problem is that the Holy Spirit convicts out of love but when men convict it isn't always and that comes through. I was also displeased with a few times where they seemed to advocate practises against the teaching of Jesus, and once again their failure to balance their arguments meant that my questions were never answered. For example there is a part of the book where they talk about taxes and they mention when Jesus is asked whether the people should pay taxes to Caesar or not and Jesus says "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." They then follow this statement by suggesting that instead of paying all my taxes I could pay the proportion of my taxes that pay for education and social security etc. and give the proportion that would have been spent on the military to charity. This is not what Jesus meant in that scripture and in my opinion Claiborne and Haw's political opinions were taking priority over the word of Jesus at this point.
I am aware that I have been very negative in this review so far. I did so because it is very easy to be persuaded by the book and put it down having absorbed all of their political opinions where the reader should be questioning all their statements and coming to their own opinions on these issues. However it is good that there is a book that engages with the big issues and that makes people think about them. Politics tends to be somewhat of a taboo in the church as some people turn off when politics is mentioned and partly because there is an unspoken rule that people keep secret who they vote for, where their political allegiance is and consequently there is never any political debate in the church. I think that political dialogue needs to be stepped up in the church. I don't believe that Jesus wants the church to support a political party but I believe that he does want the church to start telling the government to stop thinking about ID cards and start thinking about all the people whose houses are being repossessed, who can't afford a Christmas this year.
In conclusion, the book is written by Americans, for Americans so there are many points, particularly about Iraq, that do not apply as much to the British reader. The same goes for the points where they talk about being "green" and say in Philadelphia we run our cars on vegetable oil. Living several thousand miles away from Philadelphia and having no means in Sheffield to run my car on vegetable oil I, and I expect most people who read the book, can't even if they want to. While the book is far from perfect the theology of the book is very strong and certainly worth a read, 7/10.
Jesus For President: Politics For Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Zondervan, 2008
I haven't read Claiborne's previous book (yet), the successful "the Irresistible Revolution," but I gather it is very good. The book can be divided into 2 halves, the first half is about Jesus, the political statements he makes and the political environment he is speaking into and t second half is about America today and how as Christians we can enact the politics of Jesus today. So far so good. The first half is very well researched and written, although the authors go to excessive pains to say "Jesus is political, honest," I don't know who said he wasn't in the first place but it wasn't me. There isn't that much else I have to say about it other than it is very good and gave me a new and deeper understanding of some of Jesus statements. For example I did not know that when Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God the word, basilea, that he used was the same word as was used to refer to the Roman empire.
In the second half Claiborne and Haw talk about how, as Christians, we need to shape our lives around God's values in areas such as resisting climate change, in order to make an impact on the world. The problem with this part of the book is that neither Claiborne or Haw have some kind of qualification in politics (I do) and it shows. When they are working on the material that is clearly their strength (the word of God and I wish I have that kind of understanding of it) they are strong but when they move off it they are unable to keep a politically neutral attitude as they discuss the big issues. By this i do not mean that they are biased towards a particular political party, they clearly dislike them both, but they have formed a collection of political thoughts that they argue without thought for counter arguments or a sense of balance. That means that there are occasions when they say that Christians should be living a certain way the implication is that if you are not you are sinning. One of the aims of the book is to convict the church which in my opinion needs convicting on these issues but the problem is that the Holy Spirit convicts out of love but when men convict it isn't always and that comes through. I was also displeased with a few times where they seemed to advocate practises against the teaching of Jesus, and once again their failure to balance their arguments meant that my questions were never answered. For example there is a part of the book where they talk about taxes and they mention when Jesus is asked whether the people should pay taxes to Caesar or not and Jesus says "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." They then follow this statement by suggesting that instead of paying all my taxes I could pay the proportion of my taxes that pay for education and social security etc. and give the proportion that would have been spent on the military to charity. This is not what Jesus meant in that scripture and in my opinion Claiborne and Haw's political opinions were taking priority over the word of Jesus at this point.
I am aware that I have been very negative in this review so far. I did so because it is very easy to be persuaded by the book and put it down having absorbed all of their political opinions where the reader should be questioning all their statements and coming to their own opinions on these issues. However it is good that there is a book that engages with the big issues and that makes people think about them. Politics tends to be somewhat of a taboo in the church as some people turn off when politics is mentioned and partly because there is an unspoken rule that people keep secret who they vote for, where their political allegiance is and consequently there is never any political debate in the church. I think that political dialogue needs to be stepped up in the church. I don't believe that Jesus wants the church to support a political party but I believe that he does want the church to start telling the government to stop thinking about ID cards and start thinking about all the people whose houses are being repossessed, who can't afford a Christmas this year.
In conclusion, the book is written by Americans, for Americans so there are many points, particularly about Iraq, that do not apply as much to the British reader. The same goes for the points where they talk about being "green" and say in Philadelphia we run our cars on vegetable oil. Living several thousand miles away from Philadelphia and having no means in Sheffield to run my car on vegetable oil I, and I expect most people who read the book, can't even if they want to. While the book is far from perfect the theology of the book is very strong and certainly worth a read, 7/10.
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