Snakes on a Plane

I've seen some cult movies in my time, and I've seen some "so-bad-it's-good" movies. I have to say, though, I've never seen such a cynical and calculated attempt to out-and-out make something actually fit into those categories.

I started with an open mind, I really did. I like Samuel L. Jackson, I like Juliana Margulies from ER, I like the opening titles. All was fine. Enter the snakes. Snake 1 bites hot girl's nipple. Snake 2 bites cocky guy's nob in the toilet. Snake 3 makes an overweight woman have a rude dream when it crawls up her dress. By snake 4 I'd stopped paying attention and instead was wondering which of my Year 8 lads they'd got in a script consultants. 

It didn't get worse, it just got more predictable. I think the writers thought that this playing into stereotypes would be part of the film's cult charm. I also think that the writers assumed everyone who watched the film would be an idiot.

Particularly special was the Playstation vs. X-box product placement line. That's when I knew that the filmmakers were thinking "Product placement = win. Appealling to teenage gamers = win! Also - this has got to be so ridiculously blatant that it makes the film so-bad-it's-good, right?= WIN!!!" 

Wrong. Sorry. I watched it until the end out of some odd sense of fairness I have to any film or book I start out on, but in truth towards the end of the film I was less interested in what was going on and more interested in why I have said odd sense of fairness.

In the spirit of which, I should say that by watching this and then talking about it for this long, I've already spent more of my time on it than I ever should have. Thank you and goodnight.

Gran Torino

Loved this one. (Contains spoilers, as they say. Read this after you've watched it. Oh, and watch it if you haven't. Do it!)

One of the great hooks in a movie for me is a miserable, anti-social git proving that they're completely in touch with their humanity and it's just the world around them that's astray. This had this quality in spades. It put me in mind of Leon, one of my all-time favourites.

Things I loved about it:
1) Eastwood's growl. Well-employed, if a little nasty :)
2)  The way the priest was portrayed. Perfectly balanced, in his intentions and his ineffectuality.
3) The street scene that he watches from his truck, then gets up and sorts out. What you like to imagine you'd be able to do in those circumstances.
4) The attitude and approach of the female lead (back to this later)
5)  The funny (and spot on) approach to manning-up Thao. I could do an A-level language lesson just on those scenes. In fact, I might :)
6) The beautifully judged weighing of tensions towards the end (Eastwood is a great director!)

The ending is powerful; there's a dark turn, but it's the one aspect of the film I was less than happy with. In many ways I liked what was done, but for me Thao's sister was as important as Thao, and I felt a narrowing as it ultimately became a role-model movie. I was left with the sense that in movie terms she'd been sacrificed to some masculine greater good, and that bothered me given how strong the character was.

I still love it though.

The Damned United

Loved this. Mainly because Michael Sheen is an incredibly gifted character actor - he's just so good as Brian Clough. Memorable lines, a memorable performance, and plenty of...well, it's not nostalgia if you're not old enough to remember, but an affectionate evocation of an entirely different era in football.

In reading about it afterwards, though, I was a bit concerned to find out how far the story had been fictionalised, and that a lot of the people portrayed in it were very against the film, and the novel that it was based on. I do have a bit of an issue with this. I could never have written it myself because I'd be so uncomfortable with the idea of making real living/recently deceased people into my little fiction puppets - do writers have that right? I will be pondering this.

In the film's defence, for me all involved come across well - especially Cloughie, for all his faults - just because of the quality of the performances (with the possible exception of Billy Bremner, and I think that's just because Stephen Graham reminds me of Fred West). You can even make the case that this is a nicer version of events than the real one. However, I think if it had been my dad, I'd have been pissed off too.

Now, I also thought Michael Sheen was great in The Queen, and I didn't have any moral objection to that, so I need to think about this one more...