About Time

Richard Curtis has a bad rep. It's true that none of his films really have the hallmarks of a cinematic genius and in some manner resemble a feature-length TV drama. The storylines tend to be quite schmaltzy and in some ways entirely predictable: Hugh Grant (or someone much like him) will always get the girl.

About Time is, he claims, the last film he's going to direct/write. His previous films, particularly Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually have become quite seminal rom-coms. Where these are also much like a who's who of British cinema, About Time falls down. There are famous actors involved, most notably Bill Nighy, but for the most part it seems to be younger up-and-coming actors - i.e. the Hugh Grants of the future. However, in so many ways, it completely slams the Curtis' other offerings. I'll explain why.

Firstly, the lead characters and actors are very charming. There was no character in this that I wanted to get off the screen, whereas Andie McDowell and Julia Roberts need to do one in their respective films. Rachel MacAdams is one of my favourite underrated actresses: I have loved her since The Notebook and Mean Girls, yet she's never really come good on the fact that she is a really versatile performer. She's also kookily stunning. Domhnall Gleeson was also utterly delightful as Tim, the main character, even if he does sound identical to Hugh Grant. Billy Nighy was a wonderful dad. They all fit their parts really well.

The plot itself is pretty ridiculous: Tim finds out that the men in his family have always had the ability to time travel back through their own timelines. The science of this was massively glossed over and there were a wealth of paradoxes, so in this respect it was less well-plotted than The Time Traveler's Wife (loved the book, disliked the film, despite Rachel MacAdams - she is better in this). For much of the film, it lacked some conflict as the relationship between Tim and Mary, after a shaky start where he almost missed ever meeting her, trotted along nicely. The sub-plot of Tim's disaster-zone of a sister was a little too underplayed for much of the film and I think potentially she could have been either given more to do or removed entirely. However, I see nothing wrong with sometimes watching a film which is just nice; I really enjoyed watching Tim and Mary together for their relationship alone. In fact, I could have watched an entire film which was just that ordinary and lovely.

However, the lack of conflict for a large chunk of the film means than when the thunderbolt hits, it hits hard. I haven't cried in the cinema for a long time. Tears were rolling down my cheeks during the last twenty minutes of this film. I shan't spoil it for anybody who wishes to see it, but it's enough to say that the ordinariness of everything set against the bonkers world of time travel really works here, much as it does in my long-time love Doctor Who. Indeed, this film shares many of the themes of Curtis' episode from 2010, Vincent and the Doctor which talked a lot about ordinary life being utterly extraordinary if looked at the right way. The pain of life is something addressed by both film and episode, and leads into one of my favourite quotations from the TV show:

About Time is essentially a love story, between a man and a woman, and a son and his father. It talked of an ordinary life and how each day can be wonderful if we let it. If it was saccharine and schmaltzy, I don't care. It may not be the world's greatest film, but it has heart and soul and truisms and was frankly lovely. There are not enough lovely things in the world in my opinion. I adored it.

The World's End

I pretty much knew before this film was even released that it wasn't going to knock me over sideways and make me want to see it again. I'm not sure why I knew this: I really liked Shaun of the Dead and enjoyed Hot Fuzz (although contrary to many people's views, I preferred the former which I might be able to explain in more detail below). There's nothing I particularly hold against those films but somehow, the premise of The World's End didn't grab me. I wouldn't have gone at all if I didn't happen to be free the night my friends went and there was zip on TV (I was also hoping for air-con at the cinema but that was knackered - standard).

The general premise is that a bunch of middle-aged guys get back together on the demands of one of them to finish a pub crawl they started twenty years previously. It becomes quite clear that the main character, Gary King, has never moved on from this pub crawl, and that everybody else thinks he's an idiot. They get to pub three before they lose patience with him and say they're going home.

And then they realise everybody else is a robot.

Shaun of the Dead was clever because it really looked carefully at the zombie movie genre and played upon it, with Shaun, a completely useless specimen of man, suddenly charged with tackling these zombies. The fight scenes are amusing because they're exactly what would happen when idiots have to protect the world. Hot Fuzz did a similar thing with cop films, although that began to blend with horror films a little more; a definite The Wicker Man vibe going on, which is probably why I prefer Shaun, as it's 'purer'.

In The World's End, the general genre is something I can't quite put my finger on. It's obviously supposed to sci-fi, but there were slightly too many other things mashed together to make it work brilliantly for me. If I'm honest, I was more interested in the pub crawl than defeating the robots, and the fact that there was no indication of it being more sci-fi-esque from the film itself until the first fight scene meant that it jarred a little. Shaun worked because the zombie-thing was foreshadowed quite early on.

The performances are all very good in the film, and Simon Pegg pulls off a very different character from in the previous two films, as does Nick Frost. It was nice to see a bit of a role reversal between these two, where Pegg played the childish idiot and Frost played the more together role. The other actors did a good job as well.

The film was a lot shorter than I expected, but I didn't actually realise this until I got home and saw the time. I think my perception was distorted as the second half of the film lagged a little. I especially wasn't bothered by the very ending of the film, where Frost's character narrated what happened next. It was, I suppose, very in-keeping with the sci-fi genre, but just felt a bit tagged on to me.

It was funny in places, although more of a smile than a guffaw I found. There was a lot to commend about the film in terms of its dialogue which was quite good and the characterisation. Overall, though, it doesn't stand up against its predecessors for me and I'm glad it was an EE Wednesday.

Then again, I'm a misery when it comes to films lately. There is nothing I'm excited about coming out for months, which makes me quite weird when held up against the general population, it seems.

Ah well.

80 Books No.43: The Hunger Games - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

 

The weekend beginning 22nd November is going to be insanely amazing this year. 23rd November is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who celebrated with a feature-length episode with Matt Smith, David Tennant and Billie Piper in - not to mention John Hurt. I'm actually going to explode.

However, before I explode, on 22nd November, I'm hoping to see The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. This re-read of the novel has only re-ignited my excitement for it, for the following reasons:

- the plot is good; I'd forgotten how good. In fact, in some ways it's better than the original because it throws you straight in with issues and character conflicts. The history with Katniss and Peeta means there's even more second-guessing and there's quite a bit more Haymitch, which is brilliant.

- Fennick is a cracking character. I'd forgotten about him too, but I'm excited. He better be hot and charming and live up to the character Collins has created.

- the arena is incredible in this one, so so clever. I loved the arena in the last one, but this one is a whole other level of great.

Aside from the film adaptation, this novel may actually be better written than the original, which is a nice surprise as I'd always remembered the series as deteriorating as it continued, much like the Chaos Walking trilogy did. My next review, however, is a bit of a disappointment...

Watch the trailer before that though

The Great Gatsby

It's taken me a while to get around to writing this review of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, largely because I forgot I'd seen it rather than because of any other factor. I'm not sure if the forgettable aspect is a review in itself, but I wouldn't say so: it's not a forgettable film in itself.

A bit of background first: I teach The Great Gatsby at A Level and have done for the last three years. The first time I read it, I didn't get it and thought it would be yet another book I disliked teaching (see my review of Iqbal for exactly how much I dislike most texts I teach). However, after re-reading it with my teacher hat on and then teaching it, I realised how well-written it was and what a thoroughly stunning little book it was. Since then I've loved reading and teaching it, perhaps because I've completely fallen for Gatsby as a man despite the fact that if he really existed, you'd totally give him a slap and tell him to get over Daisy because she's a self-centred little madam. In fact, the only downside to this book is how terrible the film adaptations are. Whilst Robert Redford is a pretty good Gatsby, the camera work and music is so stickily sentimental that it completely ignores the frankly hideous characters Fitzgerald has populated his work with. I don't want Gatsby and Daisy to be together because she'll destroy him; that adaptation tries to make them into some kind of archetypal love story.

Luhrmann's work is also pretty tied up with my teaching, as every year I drag some year 10s through a comparison between Romeo and Juliet and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (I assume the + sign is a key part in making this totally postmodern). Apart from that, Moulin Rouge  has been a favourite film for many a year, even if it is a completely trippy experience. Therefore a coupling of Luhrmann and Gatsby seemed a pretty fair thing.

The film has received some criticism for being too shallow and for not capturing the spirit of the novel. When adapting any book, directors always have to compete with people's perceptions of the characters, and The Great Gatsby is an iconic book for many people. I have to admit that I wasn't fully convinced by the casting Leonardo diCaprio, and even after seeing the film, he still lacked something about Gatsby for me; he was a little too erratic and ruthless for me. Perhaps if it weren't for Mark Kermode, this would have been a deal breaker for me.

I dip in and out of Kermode's reviews as he can be a bit over the top. However, I caught his review of this film where he stated it needed to be viewed not as The Great Gatsby but as A Great Gatsby, and this switch of determiner, for me, helped to see the film differently. diCaprio wasn't my Gatsby, but he was a Gatsby, the sort of Gatsby who would tackle life in such a blinkered and focused way. My vision of Gatsby would likely not have had the get up and go in order to pursue Daisy so faithfully so Luhrmann and diCaprio shed fresh light upon the character for me, creating a more robust Gatsby than I had previously considered. In terms of the other characters, Tom was as brutish as expected, and Carey Mulligan's Daisy was equal parts charming, mental and thoroughly detestable. Unsurprisingly, at least for me, I loved Isla Fisher's Myrtle, as I always love Isla Fisher in anything (especially Definitely, Maybe where she has the coolest lines).

The really surprising thing for me was how much I liked the soundtrack. A Jay-Z produced soundtrack sounded like hell on earth and blasphemy all rolled into one for me, but somehow it really worked, making the film contemporary and timeless. Luhrmann has concentrated on the excessive wealth of 1920s New York and it made me realise how much this could have been updated to reflect modern attitudes. The film was shiny and glossy and very Luhrmann-esque, although its pace did drop in the second half, probably as a reflection of the book which does become much darker and slower after Daisy and Gatsby's reunion. It's hard to blame the man for sticking to his source material.

Overall, an enjoyable film and one I'd watch again at some stage.

The Host

In my review of The Silver Linings Playbook, I discussed some of the differences between the book and the film in the ongoing issue of which is better. On that occasion I concluded that both formats shed a little more light on the characters (basically fudging the issue in a typical Literature graduate manner).

With The Host, I've found my conclusion much easier to come to, and given that this is a Stephenie Meyer based text, it might be a little surprising. Let me state on record right here that I have read all four Twilight novels; I've seen all five Twilight films (I'm not including The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner in this list because, let's face it, who has the time for that?) I paid actual money to see those films at the cinema. Perhaps most appallingly, I've even read that godawful Twilight-fanfiction rip off, Fifty Shades of Grey - it's probably testament to how bad E L James is as a writer that she makes Meyer look talented. I've not enjoyed very much of these things, but anybody who reads this blog regularly has probably gathered by now that I'm incredibly picky with books and films: my not enjoying something is much like everybody else shrugging and saying 'it was okay.'

But The Host I enjoyed. I remember reading it pretty compulsively and getting quite involved in the whole Wanda-Ian-Jared-Melanie odd triangle/square thing. I loved Ian, but also like Jared. In fact, it was really only Melanie who irritated me, suffering as she was from a little bit of Bella Swan-itis. Yes, this was essentially the same story only with aliens rather than vampires, but at least Wanda, and to some extent Melanie, actually considered the effects of their actions upon others, which was refreshing after Bella and Edward's 'but we love each other' for thousands of pages.

So I was really excited when the film came out. I was looking forward to seeing it all played out on screen and to not seeing K-Patz clogging up the screen with their overly brooding and miserable presences. I was hopeful.

In the end, though, it was all a bit underwhelming. Firstly, the screenplay was a bit poorly put together in my opinion. Possibly the cheesy dialogue was lifted straight from the novel and it's just a bit more palatable in printed form; certainly the suspension of disbelief was easier for me when reading the novel than when watching the film. Because of the sometimes duff line, the acting was a bit wooden at times, although Saoirse Ronan did a good job acting against herself and coming across as two different characters, making Wanda and Melanie distinct entities.

Secondly, the film was quite slow. Again, not wholly its fault: the novel is pretty long and from what I can recall, Wanda and Melanie spend ages in the desert getting to the secret hideaway; I probably got a bit bored at that point of the novel too. But watching the film reminded me what I had loved about the novel, and the film didn't quite capture it. I loved how Wanda was gradually accepted into the colony, the chessboard moves between her, Jared and Ian, and how sweet the relationship between Ian and her was. This was rushed, in my opinion, in the film, and I found myself sniggering instead of swooning. It wasn't really made clear why Wanda preferred Ian to Jared; the characters needed bulking out a little more, although both actors were pretty (more so than Edward and Jacob in Twilight so at least they hit those buttons for me).

It was, in summary, a pretty disappointing adaptation and I would urge anybody who has even a passing interest to read the novel.

80 Books No.19: The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

Silver Linings Playbook was one of my favourite films from last year and I was so overjoyed when it received so many nominations in the Golden Globes and Oscars. Films I like are never deemed Oscar-worthy, and I never like Oscar-worthy films, so it was a rare treat to actually agree with people who know far more about these things than I do. I was genuinely thrilled when Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress as her character was phenomenal in the film.

So when I was asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said I wanted to read the original novel. I'd heard it was even better than the film so this review is largely addressing that question, along with the wider question of which is better: the original source or the film?

The novel was an easy enough read, and I would say that if you like The Perks of Being a Wallflower (incidentally, another of my top films from last year), you would likely enjoy this as it was reminiscent of it in many ways. Pat in the novel came across, I would say, as more mentally ill than in the film, but also less dangerous in many ways, and more sympathetic. The novel was less sanitised than the film and less neatly tied up in set-Hollywood pieces, which wasn't altogether a bad thing. I did feel that, had I not seen the film first, Tiffany would not have been anywhere near as endearing, and I largely put that down to Lawrence's performance in the film. The film was also, I felt, better at capturing people's attitudes towards mental illness via Tiffany's sister and Pat's brother, who seemed very vanilla and gentle in the novel. Again, not a bad thing, but a difference.

In terms of the film being better or worse than the novel, it would be hard to say. I know there is a general rule of thumb that the novel is always better than the film, but I would say that holds untrue in several cases to my mind, and I'm not even the most knowledgeable person about films. For instance, I think Stardust makes a far better film than Neil Gaiman's novel, whilst The Devil Wears Prada and Legally Blonde are, frankly, terrible novels, but pretty cool films. Even novels I really like, such as Prince Caspian, have actually been improved when treated for the big screen (a controversial choice, I know, as many people think Prince Caspian is a weak link in the Narnia franchise which is so clearly untrue given the godawful mess that The Voyage of the Dawntreader was - but I digress).

It is probably safest to say that The Silver Linings Playbook, like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is different in each format. This is a terrible cop-out of a conclusion, much like the 'on reflection, it is amibiguous' I used to shove into my Literature essays at A Level. Yet it is probably the truest thing I can say about this novel, as I found that having seen the film helped to shed light upon aspects of the novel and vice versa. I wouldn't say the novel was a must-read, though, whilst I would say the film was, so perhaps that is a greater indicator of which made the greatest impact upon me.

Or just an indication of how massive my crushes on both Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are. Cue gratuitous picture.

Oz the Great and Powerful

I’ve always quite enjoyed The Wizard of Oz as it’s frankly an amazing feat of cinema given that it came out in 1939 – the switch from black and white to Technicolor is still magical. And the 1985 Return to Oz is another treat, in another whole way: the scariest kids’ film I have ever seen! I’ve also read Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked out of curiosity to see what all the hype was about, although it didn’t persuade me to go and see the musical.

Despite all of this, I’ve never really counted myself as an Oz fan; I’m more of a Narnia girl in general. Still, Oz the Great and Powerful has been on my ‘want to see list’ for 2013 since I heard it was coming out, and whilst I’ve been feeling pretty rundown and tired, I still wanted to see it.

A basic run down of the plot is that it explains how the Wizard came to Oz, and how the witch became wicked. Admittedly the latter part of that plot was a little tenuous and left unresolved in my mind. James Franco plays the Wizard (or Oz as he was actually known) and I spent a lot of the film wondering what else I’d seen him in. I’m still none the wiser, as having Googled it, the only thing he’s credited as being in that I’ve seen was the godawful Pineapple Express, and I’ve blocked that from my memory. The various witches of Oz are played by Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams.

First off, I really enjoyed it. I liked the plot and it was vaguely humorous. I’m sure I’ll be struck down by somebody for saying it was a more likeable plot than Wicked as I found that just too clever-clever. I liked that things weren’t overplayed, like the encounter with the lion, and that some things about the 1939 film are directly referenced.  Franco was alright and I thought Michelle Williams was a perfect Glinda. Also, the use of 3D in the opening credits was frankly the best use of 3D I’ve ever seen; the rest of the film used it pretty much as pointlessly as any other film I’ve ever seen, but the depth on the credits was amazing.

Rachel Weisz was, for me, underused, as her part was very small in the grand scheme of things. Her character wasn’t really developed in the same way that Mila Kunis’s was. However, on the subject of Kunis, I felt she was a little miscast. For me, she’s best when she can be slightly comedic (really good in Friends with Benefits and the best thing about Ted), and her role didn’t allow her to be. She’s too light and fluffy for the frankly iconic role she was given.

Visually, the film was lovely (and how epic is the poster above?!), although I will admit that I’m becoming saddened by the overreliance of film upon CGI so that lavish sets are no longer built. Yes, the Emerald City here was amazing, but look at what Victor Fleming achieved in the Judy Garland classic without any computer effects at all. I liked the addition of China Town, even if the China Girl initially freaked me out. The monkey I could take or leave in all honesty.

This was quite a dark film so I’m surprised it was only rated a PG – definitely some scary moments for children. Actually, scratch that; some scary moments for me.

For me, though, definitely Sam Raimi’s best film.