Review No.51: The Darkest Hour

So as we approach the end of March it seems that I have managed to keep my average of seventeen films a month as I come across a blu-ray copy of sci-fi yarn The Darkest Hour. The film is set in Russia, not surprising seeing as it is produced by Night Watch director Timur Bekmambetov, where two young American lads journey to try and sell their website idea only to find out they've been usurped by a dodgy Swedish businessman. As they drown their sorrows at a Moscow bar they meet up with another American girl and her Australian pal just before flashy invisible aliens invade and destroy all of Moscow. From there the group of four along with the horrible Swede run about various Russian streets and shopping centres before the evil man is eventually killed off. The group eventually run into other survivors including a young teen, a crazy bearded man with a microwave gun and lots of bald men with big weapons defending their country. The group learn of a submarine collecting survivors so then have to make it there in time obviously not everybody makes it to be honest I couldn't care less.

The biggest problem with The Darkest Hour is the fact that it doesn't really flesh out any of the characters that we meet in our quartet. In fact the one that I cared about the most as the time went on was the teen girl who'd lost her parents it's a shame as the cast includes some of my favourite young actors including Olivia Thirlby and Emile Hirsh. Though what people remember about sci-fi films is the alien attacks they're nothing if the characters that are trying to escape them aren't interesting in the slightest. Some of the dialogue is also particularly shocking for example early on in the film when the boys are complaining that their idea has been stolen they are told by Swedish dickhead Skylar - welcome to Russia. As director Chris Gorak started out as a production designer at least he's made a conscious effort to make the aliens memorable with the expanding balls of light eventually swallowing up and obliterating the human race. That's the only thing though the only good point of a very boring alien film that is far too short to be engaging but the scariest thing in the whole film is that the last scene sets up for a sequel which is the last thing any of us want to see.

Verdict: Due to the production design alone this gets a very generous 4/10

Review No.50: The Hunger Games

So here we are the quarter-of-the-way mark to my 200 films and the 50th review is also one of the most anticipated films of the year in the largely hyped The Hunger Games. Though I'd heard some hype about it I wasn't aware that this film had been based on the first of a series of books that were popular among the same crowd who were into the better known Harry Potter and Twilight franchises. My companion to this screening was reluctant to accompany me as he feared another HP/Twilight type film and these are both franchises that he'd manage to escape for the most part. Though I'm yet to get his feedback he never seemed visibly bored throughout the film which I also found captivating especially the second half. For people like me who were unfamiliar with the stories The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future where America is split into districts with those with the higher numbers being the most deprived. Following an uprising against the establishment every year each district is asked to offer up a boy and a girl aged between 12 and 18 as a tribute to compete in the annual Hunger Games an event which sees them try to kill each other off with only one surviving as the victor. The film's first half introduces us to our heroine Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a girl who is a great hunter and who volunteers herself as Disrict 12's tribute as a replacement for her sister. The build-up to the games sees Katniss and male tribute Peeta journey to the capital along with eccentric escort Effie and Haymitch Abernathy the only District 12 tribute to ever win the games. While at the capital both Katniss and Peeta compete to impress the rich and influential and hope to gain sponsorship which will help them during the games with Katniss being ear-marked as one of the favourites. The film's second half is its strongest as we enter the games and Katniss has to use her wilderness expertise to survive while also befriending a young District 11 girl named Rue and also trying to save Peeta who recently expressed his true feelings for her.

Obviously The Hunger Games shares a lot of similarities with Battle Royale however the theme main theme here is survival and friendship rather than all out brutality although that is represented by District 2 nutjob Cato. What I mostly enjoyed about The Hunger Games was the contradciton between the wildly colourful and camp captial which is inhabited by strange rich types and the sparse wilderness of the games itself. Central to the film is the performance from Jennifer Lawrence who I've long admired since I first saw her as Kim Basinger's daughter in the underrated The Burning Plain she brings both a strength and vulnerability to Katniss which are both qualities this character needs to express. I think what I liked best was the fact that she never actively sought out violence and she only killed during the games when provoked by others. I have to say I cared less about Peeta as Josh Hutcherson was never a strong presence and therefore the romance between him and Katniss lacked credibility there were also some unintentionally hilarious segments where Peeta had to camouflage himself while in the games. While we're on cast members the campness of the film is reflected through Stanley Tucci as the horribly sugary TV host who treats the killing of young children as nothing more than part of a gameshow while the almost unrecognisable Elizabeth Banks was also fun as Effie Trinkett. It was Woody Harrelson who stole the show for me as Haymitch who was initially presented as a drunk but gradually became attached to both Peeta and Katniss and tried to aide their survival as much as possible. I thought the production design was great and James Newton Howard's score was also haunting and used to full effect during the scenes with no dialogue. At times I found that the plot dragged a little but I don't think there was enough appeal for me as there would be a fan of this franchise. But overall there was enough to keep me occupied and the film's final frame set up the sequel which is presumably on the way after the brilliant opening weekend The Hunger Games as enjoyed. I'm not yet sure what my friend thought of the film but suffice to say I myself was pleasantly surprised.

Verdict: While I'm not the target market for the film thanks to Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson and the production design I found myself drawn into the world of The Hunger Games and enjoyed myself enough to give this a 8/10

Review No.49: We Bought a Zoo

After a taxing day sometimes you just want a film that looks good and you don't have to think too hard about so thankfully last night I chose to watch We Bought a Zoo. The film is directed Cameron Crowe who has previously made two of my favourite films, Almost Famous and Say Anything, but recently went off the boil with his latest effort Elizabethtown. His latest film is based on the memoir of British journalist Benjamin Mee who, along with his family, bought Dartmoor Zoological Park in Devon before re-opening it to the public. In the film Damon plays Mee who is still a journalist but here a widower with two children one a fourteen year old  teen rebel Dylan and the other Rosie a cute little girl. As he is played by Matt Damon he is attracting attention from the local ladies but when his son his expelled and he is reminded of his late wife he decides his family need to relocate. As the title would suggest they end up buying a zoo which the girl loves the idea of but the boy hates as he is dragged away from his friends. Benjamin also has issues as there is a lot of money to be paid out so the zoo can be up to inspection standards and at times he doesn't think he's going to be able to afford it. The plucky young zookeeper Kelly, played by Scarlett Johansson, keeps Benjamin's spirits up but at the same time wonders why he bought the zoo while Kelly's cousin Lily develops a crush on Dylan however his closed nature eventually pushes him away. As you would imagine at the end of the film live lessons are learnt, everybody becomes happier and everybody ends up where they should be.

I do think that We Bought a Zoo is better than Elizabethtown but only just and that's mainly because Matt Damon is a more superior actor than Orlando Bloom. The plot of the film is fairly simplistic and most of it is expressed in the title however there is hardly any grit to the film underneath the sweet surface. The two main big issues here are the Mee's financial status and Benjamin's relationship with Dylan however both are treated pretty poorly. The finances are solved in a way which felt a little convoluted while I found the Dylan character had little depth partly due to Colin Ford's limitations with the issues between him and his father sorted out fairly easily after a lot of build-up in addition the romance between Dylan and Lily isn't really dealt with in a believable way similarly I didn't like the fact that Crowe had to put Kelly and Benjamin together before the film ended. There are some plus points in We Bought a Zoo with the majority of the cast being on top form notably Johansson who I've never been a big fan of and also Thomas Haden Church as Ben's brother and John Michael Higgins as the picky zoo inspector. While we're talking about cast-members I felt some of the others were ill-served notably Elle Fanning as Lily who essentially has to smile and act goofy and also Patrick Fugit whose role is basically walking around with a monkey on his shoulder. The themes of bereavement are dealt with well mainly due to Damon's believability and also his chemistry with the young actress who plays Rosie. Credit must also be given to Rodrigo Prieto whose cinematography on the film is spectacular and as this is a film directed by Crowe the soundtrack is also splendid with a score by Sigur Ros' Jonsi combined with tracks by Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens among others. A film with highs and lows I would recommend We Bought a Zoo for anybody who just wants to watch a predictable but heart-warming film with plenty of plus points to count out the negatives

Verdict: Though it has some great supporting performances, wonderful cinematography and a splendid soundtrack there's no getting away from the fact that We Bought a Zoo is incredibly cheesy so for that reason I'll have to award it a 6.5/10

Review No.48: Corman's World: The Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

As we are already at review 48 you will realise by now that I am massive fan of the movies so whenever a documentary pops up about film-making I'm the first to want to watch it. That's especially true of Corman's World the story of exploitation film director Roger Corman a man who is best known for making films for very little money but who also gave a lot of famous faces their big breaks. Corman is a man who does love film-making even if it all looks a bit tacky he still understands the business and the themes of his films. There are a large number of talking heads on hand all of whom worked with Corman in some way with Jack Nicholson being the most predominant figure throughout the film having been directed by the man in his first ever film and famously appearing in The Little Shop of Horrors. It then goes on to look at his popular Edgar Allen Poe adaptations and his film The Intruder which starred William Shatner as a white supremacist who goes to a Southern town to argue against segregation. The Intruder was a film which Corman and his brother were both proudest of but it was one the only Corman vehicle that lost money. It also looked how inspired the new Hollywood through his film The Wild Angels which starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper it led them to make Easy Rider alongside Nicholson. Most of the directors that he hired to helm some of his pictures, including Scorsese on Boxcar Bertha and Ron Howard on Grand Theft Auto, appear to wax lyrical about his influence on their career. The film finishes with Corman still working on films for the Sci-Fi Channel and accepting his long-overdue Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

As I said I love films about film-makers and Roger Corman is certainly one of the most prolific film-makers around. I love how he built his company up from the ground-floor after a brief spell in the studio system he realised what sort of films he wanted to make and how he could go about making them. There is another side to Corman though the one who didn't want to be seen just as the B-Movie king and that is shown here in some depth especially when discussing The Intruder. His other big pet peeve was the arrival of Star Wars and Jaws films made by those who went to film school rather than those who simply learnt their craft while working on movie sets. There are though plenty of great directors from Francis Ford Coppola to Jonathan Demme to Joe Dante who all owe a great debt to Corman for giving them the start they needed. This is a film about a man who enjoys the film-making process and I enjoyed watching him explain to me why he loved it so much as his passion more than shone through during the film.

Verdict: A film about something I love told through the eyes of someone who loves it too this has to get an 8/10

Review No.47: Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

Continuing along the documentary theme we come across an odd gem in Being Elmo which looks at the journey of Kevin Clash from a Baltimore kid addicted to puppetry to the puppeteer of one of the most recognisable of all the Sesame Street Muppets. As we learn Clash grew up being a big fan of Captain Kangaroo but identified with Sesame Street when that started as it reminded him of his neighbourhood. After making his own puppets he was befriended by Muppet designer Kermit Love who took him under his wing and got him working with Muppets including a meeting with Jim Henson. After leaving high school he got jobs on two TV shows and eventually started working on films with Henson including Labyrinth. After becoming one of the regulars on Sesame Street he struggled to find a character that fit his personality eventually taking over Elmo and making him into a more loveable less clumsy Muppet. At the same time his wife had a daughter and when the Elmo phenomenon really took off he seemingly left his family behind to promote his work with his marriage eventually collapsing although he admits his daughter his greatest ever creation.

Though Being Elmo sounds like a strange film it really works thanks to a very passionate subject who knows his craft and his able to tell us why he loves it so much. When he relives his first time being shown around the Muppet Studio by Kermit Love it is like you're there with him and this scene is relived at the end of the film when Clash is able to share his love with a young future puppeteer who seemingly has the same passion as young Kevin. The talking heads and video clips are also used in the right way with the passionate narration coming from Whoopi Goldberg who always makes things seem important due to her melodic tones. There was even one part of the film that bought a tear to my eye which unsurprisingly was Jim Henson's funeral in which all the Muppet Show regulars sung together and nbody in the room was wearing black. This was a very colourful and passionate documentary about both Kevin Clash and the Muppet creation in general. Puppetry is a subject that you often don't see talked about in films so Being Elmo was excellent window into this world and it was made in a very enjoyable and lively fashion.

Overall: A very interesting, well-made documentary about the love and artistry of puppeteering this gets a very strong 7/10

Review No.46: A Man's Story

Next in our documentary quest is the story of a man, as you could guess from that title, that man being tailor Ozwald Boateng with the title actually referring to the name of his 2010 show which ended London Fashion Week that year. But this is a film that spans twelve years of his life from becoming the youngest man to get a place on Saville Row to getting his OBE and everywhere in between. Usually on these reviews I'd run through a quick synopsis before getting to my views but here I will let you know what I learnt about the tailor:
1) He likes to talk about himself in the third person
2) He has his own reality show in America
3) The film starts with lots of famous people who wear his suits and throughout the film we learn that he styled Jamie Foxx when he won the Oscar with his other clients including Will Smith, Prince Charles and Richard Branson.
4) He married a Russian model and had two children with her. He tells the camera that he wants to stay with her forever so they later split up.
5) He organised a fashion show in Africa and he also works for Givenchy.

As you can imagine I didn't warm to Boetang sure he's done a lot of breaking through barriers due to his race and age becoming a tailor was a bit of a feat but we don't really see the vulnerable side of him so much. Apart from his divorce and his studio being robbed there's little for him to moan about and indeed there is a lot of bragging going on throughout. You could say that this is more of a ninety minute promotional video for a master-tailor who loves himself so much and would even consider designing a suit for The Queen. Over the years that director Varon Bonicos has been following Boetang around you'd think he'd have least talked about why he loves his craft and how he comes up with his designs but instead the theme here is the glory he gets and what he's suffered in order to get it. The scenes in which Boetang thinks his wife is cheating on him are also quite crudely done with the camera pointing right in her face accusing her of an affair are very intrusive indeed. At the end of the day what I'm saying is there's a lot more style than substance on show here and indeed this might be a case of a director getting too close and chummy with his subject in the years that he has been filming.

Verdict: A 90 minute promotional video for a man who essentially has it all while it's well-made its essentially vacuous so it only gets 3.5/10

Review No.45: Girl Model

So it's documentary season here on Films of 2012 as I approach the first big milestone of 50 films and first up is a rather disturbing piece about young Russian models. Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's film starts with a creepy model casting call in Serbia in which young girls are paraded around in their underwear with the hope of being scouted. One such girl is 13 year old Nadya Val who lives in a very deprived Russian town where she shares a bed with her mother and so the promise of wealth through a modelling career is an opportunity she can't turn down. As we are told by model scout Ashley, herself a former model, it is the Japanese who love to photograph these models as they are obsessed with fresh young faces. As you can imagine a 13 year old in any big city would be lost but here Nadia is unable to communicate with those around her thankfully finding a friend in another Russian model who has travelled to the city. They both find it bleak and depressing while the paid jobs they are promised don't seem to materialise so they then try to eat lots of junk food in the hope of gaining weight to get out of their contracts. Running alongside this story is Ashley's tale of when she was a model with her career being similar to the girls as she felt exploited and lied to so she has now done the same to these girls. Nadia once again finds herself alone and she leaves Japan in debt as we are told at the end of the film she has since returned and then has gone on to other Asian countries to try and make some of the money she was promised so she can change her family's life for the better.

I feel the best documentaries are those in which the subjects are so fascinating that the film-makers don't have to intervene and that is the case with Girl Model. As I said at the start I found this completely shocking and disturbing at times so much so it moved me more than a lot of fictional films. Central to this is young Nadia a wide-eyed hopeful she is someone who you can invest a lot of your emotion in and someone who is visibly shaken by her new surroundings. Ashley is also an intriguing character somebody who has gone through this herself but has found the best money is to be made by scouting the girls but through old footage we see that she was severely exploited. She does tell us that a lot of these girls do end up selling their bodies as for a lot of them it is a natural progression and it at least makes them the money that they need. I think in some of the scenes that the cameramen could've intervened to help out the completely lost Nadia and this may well have happened once the cameras stopped rolling and in addition the problem with some documentaries is that some of the scenes do feel staged. At the end of the day though this opened me up to a world that I was not aware of while it was one that I may not have wanted to know about it was definitely an eye-opening experience that didn't outstay its welcome.

Verdict: A very well-made disturbing documentary with two compelling lead characters this gets a 7/10

Review No.44: 21 Jump Street

Off to the Stafford Apollo again for another cheap Tuesday screening which was completely empty apart from myself and my two friends. This was good in a way as we were able to laugh like idiots at 21 Jump Street without being judged by any other members of the general public. The film is a recreation of a 1980s US TV show, which is only really known on these shores for bringing Johnny Depp into prominence, and sees two youthful-looking cops going undercover at a high school to infiltrate various crimes. In the case of the film it is Jonah Hill's Schmidt and Channing Tatum's Jenko who are former high school foes turned police academy friends and finally bicycle cop partners. After failing to arrest a gang of drug dealing bikers the pair are placed in the scheme run by Ice Cube's angry black Captain Dickson and assigned to a high school in which a dangerous drug is being dealt and manufactured. After swapping identities the reserved Schmidt is forced to join the drama society where he falls for the quirky Molly while the dumb Jenko is forced into AP Chemistry. It isn't soon before high school rules are swapped and Schmidt falls in with the cool gang while Jenko befriends his fellow science nerds learning that the kids he once bullied are actually quite cool. The drugs plot finally comes to a head during prom night with the final sequence featuring a surprise cameo and the usual predictable outcomes of the main protagonists using the new skills they have acquired during their time at the school.

As I said throughout the film myself and my friends were laughing prefusely and that's mainly due to the comic timing displayed by both Hill and more surprisingly Tatum. In my last review I blasted Tatum for not really having any skill but here he demonstrates that he's best when playing the straight guy in a comedy double act with the more reliable Hill getting the bulk of the joke lines. A lot of the humour is delivered in a knowing way especially when Ice Cube is pointing out the stereotypes on display and the rehashing of old plotlines. There are also some broadly comic sequences in particular a car chase which features a lot of different cars being stolen and Jonah Hill clad in a Peter Pan outfit. There are also some excellent supporting characters including Bridesmaids' Ellie Kemper as the chemistry teacher who is attracted to Jenko and the OTT drama teacher played by Chris Parnell best known to 30 Rock fans as Dr Spaceman. However behind the laughs there is also a sweetness to 21 Jump Street thanks to the great chemistry between Hill and Tatum and it is their central relationship which is key to the film in fact I would go as far as to say that this was a bromanitc comedy. The relationship between Schmidt and Molly is also very well done and we can see for the first time that this loser might have a shot with a girl while Jenko's relationship with the science nerds is also sweet-natured especially his final speech to class. My only problem was the final third when the plot had to be resolved and the revelation of who the supplier was really didn't surprise anyone but even during this time there were enough laughs to keep you distracted from the dodgy plotting. I have to say this is a film that I liked a lot more than I thought I would with Hill redeeming himself after the woeful The Sitter and Tatum demonstrating where his acting skill actually lies.

Verdict: Despite an unsatisfying conclusion this is a very funny film that is made all the more better thanks to great chemistry between its two brilliant leads 7.5/10

Review No.43: The Vow

Sometimes I do wonder what I've put myself in for watching some of the films on this list and a case in point is The Vow. Apparently based on real-life events it evokes memories of previous long-winded romantic dramas The Notebook and Dear John so it's not surprising that the former's female lead Rachel McAdams stars alongside the latter's male lead Channing Tatum in this film. They play respectively as Paige and Leo a horribly Bohemian New York couple who get into a car crash on a snowy night and when she wakes up she has no recollection of him. Instead she still thinks she lives the good life on the posh side of her town with her horribly controlling father Sam Neill and her Stepford Wife of a mother Jessica Lange she also believes she engaged to the sleazy Scott Speedman. It is then up to Leo to make Paige fall in love with him all over again and remember how she dropped out of law school to concentrate on being a sculptor and I'm sure some of the works that Paige produces throughout this film are an insult to those who actually do this thing professionally. Leo also has a 'believable' job as he owns a recording studio apparently because he loves the sound of an album that has been recorded the right way and he gives a speech to this effect during the film. The film then essentially sees Paige trapped between the stifling life with the people she remembers or a carefree existence with a husband she doesn't know.

To be honest if I was her I just would've run away as I would want to forget all of the awful people in this film. Firstly there are the kooky, quirky, city folks who all live in some sort of commune where they break into art galleries to get married and hang out at trendy cafes which I'm sure don't exist in the real world. They also all have very well paid jobs despite not being particularly talented or committed to what they want to do. Paige's family on the other hand are an odd bunch who are capitalising on the fact that she has had a head injury to convince her to come back to the home that she remembers. Sam Neil has the unenviable task of playing a complete slimeball who blackmails his way through life and has even had an affair with his daughter's friend a fact she can't remember and obviously one he's not going to remind her of. The only particularly likeable character in this is Leo however Channing Tatum is such a lousy actor that he seemingly only got the part to get his top off as many times as humanly possible and appeal to a certain market of hormonal teenage girls. McAdams meanwhile seems to be taking a step back in her career as I feel that she has progressed to a point where she didn't have to star in drivel like this but perhaps she needed the cash. The Vow looks pretty enough but that's where it ends and the only people involved who got a happy ending seem to be the couple who this film was based on who now have two children, so good for them but did they really have to make a film about them? After watching this I'm sure you'll want to suffer a similar injury to Paige and forget all about this terrible movie.

Verdict: Not as bad as Jack and Jill but still terrible The Vow gets a very generous 2.5/10

Review No.42: This Must be the Place

To me Sean Penn always seems to be the master of Oscar campaigning with his two Oscar performances, in Mystic River and Milk, not really doing much for me when put up against his great turn in Dead Man Walking. Similarly when watching This Must be The Place I sat there wondering why he didn't try harder to get an Oscar nod for this film in which he plays a fading rock star who journeys back to America to track down the Nazi war criminal who tortured and embarrassed his late father during the war. The closest comparison to Penn's Cheyenne is The Cure's Robert Smith as he is still a man who has the crazy hair and wears the make-up that he did when he was much younger and fronted a band. As we learn throughout the film Cheyenne played with both Mick Jagger and David Byrne, the latter of whom appears in a cameo, but has since retired to Ireland with his wife Frances McDormand and now has a teenage nonchalant acolyte in Mary who follows him everywhere. He goes to America to see his dying father but arrives too late and instead gets there just in time for the funeral where he discovers the humiliation his Jewish father went through at the concentration camps. Learning that his tormentor is still alive and living happily in the states Cheyenne decides to travel across the country to track him down with the help of kindly locals and Judd Hirsch's Mordecai Miller a Jew who has spent his life tracking down former Nazis.

For the first 30 minutes of This Must Be the Place I have to admit to being a bit bored as we were treated to aspects of Cheyenne's life but after finishing the film I suppose that must've been the point. We see him try to find Mary a sensible boyfriend, visit the grave of a young fan who committed suicide after listening to his music and plays ping pong with his wife. However once the road movie element kicks in I found myself enjoying it more as we saw smalltown America through the eyes of a non-American in this case Il Divo director Paolo Sorrentino. The central premise is essentially that Cheyenne is different from everybody else so sticks out like a sore thumb when in the bars and diners that he visits. Of course there are those that recognise him and in a sweet scene he agrees to sing along to Talking Heads' This Must Be The Place with a small boy who plays a guitar. One of the problems I had with the film though is that Penn didn't ever want to make me believe that Cheyenne was a real character and put on a voice that sounded like Truman Capote. I honestly felt that it would've been a lot more affective if Penn had made the voice closer to his as while a lot of these New Romantic and Goth singers still put on all the clothes they don't accompany it with a silly voice. McDormand and Hirsch are both perfectly fine in their supporting roles though I didn't much care for the David Byrne mini-concert which was implanted during the middle of the film. With the combination of silly voice, cross-dressing and Nazi hunting I would've thought that Penn would be a dead cert for an Oscar nomination here but maybe the Academy, like me, thought that character really didn't have any basis in reality whatever.

Overall: A well-made American road trip film with a good script is ruined by Sean Penn's insistence to do a silly Capote voice therefore I'll have to give this 6/10

Review No.41: Khodorkovsky

All the documentaries I've watched on this list seem to focus on the presentation of notable male figures from Joseph Haydn to Bill Cunningham. The latest film, Khodorkovsky, is in this vein as it deals with Mikhail Khodorkovsky the Russian oil magnate who in 2003 was jailed for non-payment of tax. Cyril Tuschi's film opens with him asking a group of Russian youngsters if they know who Khodorkovsky is and one answers - the guy who stole all that money. It is then as if Tuschi goes to show us what Khodorkovsky the man is actually like from his beginnings as a student through his marriage to the founding of his oil company Yukos. I found this was a story of a man who didn't want to be a flash geezer, or whatever the Russian equivalent is, instead using his money to create new schools as he didn't want to spend his wealth as that's what he wasn't about. After the change in power, namely Putin becoming president, who didn't like Khodorkovsky's hope for an open Russian economy and the fact that he was looking to sell parts of his business to the American. From then the film told a story of two men at a loggerheads and it became bigger than just telling Khodorkovsky but instead giving us an overview on the current political situation in Russia. As we know Khodorkovsky ended up being jailed and his incarceration was extended in 2010 but as the film ends a small interview with the man himself reveals that he doesn't seem that moved by the fact that he is in prison however his family seem to miss him.

Not being a keen follower of Russian politics, Putin isn't as entertaining as Berlusconi, I wasn't aware of Khodorkovsky as a businessman or as a prisoner. It is an interesting tale of a man who couldn't stop doing what he was doing until he was stopped by a president who wanted his country run in a certain way. What I enjoyed about the film was at times the talking heads were intercut with small animated film illustrating parts of Khodorkovsky's story which I have to say put this a little ahead of some of the drier docs that I've viewed. Having said that there were far too many talking heads to really care about the connections that most of these people had to Khodorkovsky. Of course those confessions from his business partner, his mother and his children were better than those of acquaintances and commentators. In a way I couldn't help comparing this to the far superior Inside Job in that they're both about financial cover-ups but that was a lot more compelling. I'm not saying that there isn't skill and interest within Khodorkovsky the film but there are segments which are fairly uninteresting.

Verdict: An interesting topic is covered with some visual flair but far too many talking heads that don't add anything to the conversation so unfortunately I can only give this 6/10

Review No.40: The Raven

So this weekend was the birthday of a very good friend of mine and we had planned a trip to the cinema without a specific film in mind. After weighing up the options we decided on The Raven based on the fact that together we were either fans of John Cusack or period drama. For those unaware of the story it sees Cusack play gothic author who is drafted in to help the police when a murderer starts using parts of his grizzly stories to bump off people. When his beloved Emily is kidnapped by the killer Poe must work alongside Detective Fields to find the killer which involves a lot of running around, shouting and getting to the scenes of murders too late to do anything. Meanwhile we do discover that Emily is being kept in a coffin somewhere but we never find out where so its a bit of a race against time in 19th century Baltimore with some gruesome stuff to satisfy the torture porn fanatics.

It's interesting talking about a film with a group of friends after the fact as the general consensus was that The Raven was rubbish but thankfully I didn't agree. Instead I would describe it as just a bit silly with some very hammy and overblown performances and a murder mystery plot that fizzles out with the final revelation. The thing that nobody could argue was that Cusack was great as the drunken penniless Poe who wanted more recognition that he was getting in his native Baltimore and despairing at the fact that he couldn't even get a review published in the local paper. His pursuit of Alice Eve's Emily at the fury of her father was also amusing if not completely believable as the scenes between Eve and Cusack didn't sizzle with screen chemistry and indeed Poe seemed to lavish more affection towards his pet raccoon than he did to Emily. There were some good set pieces such as Emily's kidnapping at her father's masquerade ball and the pursuit of a suspect during a performance of Macbeth. Outside of Cusack however only Brendan Gleason makes a decent job of giving some life to his character with his screen daughter Eve essentially playing the damsel in distress. However it is Luke Evans who goes completely over-the-top constantly shouting for various items and looking frustrated when he doesn't get his own way essentially seeming like a petulant child rather than an authoritative police captain. I could almost imagine watching The Raven on the TV on a rainy weekend afternoon, that is if you removed the gore and swearing, it is very silly but likeable and never boring with a lead who knows what he's doing. Sure the revelation is anti-climactic after all that has come before but those with a love of a good trashy murder mystery story will enjoy this just don't go into the cinema expecting a realistic portrayal of Edgar Allen Poe's life as you will likely be disappointed.

Verdict: Despite what my friends say this wasn't an awful film instead a trashy, hammy murder mystery that I would recommend renting on DVD and when you do you may agree with my rating of 6.5/10

Review No.39: American Evil

It's funny how much the artwork on some of the DVD covers affects what you think the film would be about. Take the case of American Evil, a 2008 film only released thanks to Bradley Cooper's new leading man status, which on the cover has Cooper surrounded by blood suggesting that this is some sort of gruesome horror film. But then I went to imdb and sought out the original cover poster for the film initially titled Olden than America which has a large cross signifying a grave with Cooper's face one of the three main leads. In fact Cooper is only a supporting part of the story as a geologist who has journeyed to a small Native American community to investigate a possible small earthquake and what has caused it. The main focus of the story is Rain, played by writer/director Georgina Lightning, who is having visions of her mother's childhood in a strict Catholic boarding school run by a sinister priest who is now very friendly with her aunt. Indeed Rain's aunt Apple is one of the main reasons that her mother has ended up in an instituiton and the reason why Rain doesn't want to leave her to go off with her fella who has been accepted into the FBI. Though there are some deaths I wouldn't call this a horror film instead it is Lightning's expose of how the Catholic church treated the Native Americans and how the tremors at the old school are part of their revenge.

The deception about the cover art makes me suspect that this film has been tailored towards fans of Bradley Cooper as well as those who like a good horror film. If you're in either of these camps I feel you'll be disappointed as I feel Lightning has set out to make a film about her ancestors and Native American culture and in that respect she has done quite well. I do applaud her for wanting to make a film that sheds light on the treatment of her people but at the same time it is let down by the story, the camerawork, the dodgy score and some seriously shoddy acting with only herself trying to make the situations seem believable. The prize for wooden acting has to go to Stephen Yoakam as the sinister priest who is so bad his performance is almost worth watching the film for its laughable qualities. Outside several of the Native American ceremonies depicted in American Evil there is not much to like although it does share some similarities with the Spanish film The Orphanage those similarities make you realise just how good that film is. I do think there was a good film in there somewhere but it has been muddled by some really basic errors and some deceptive advertising my advice would be to seek out The Orphanage instead as its a much better film.

Verdict: Just because I admire all the work that Georgina Lightning put into this muddlled and messy film I will give it a 3/10

Review No.38: Young Adult

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to go to a free preview screening of Young Adult however due to complications involving times, dates and life in general this had to be cancelled. Thankfully today the internet fairies have blessed me with a copy and I can finally see the new film from Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody who directed and wrote Juno respectively. One of the criticisms of Cody's Oscar winning screenplay for Juno was that her writing for the teenage characters felt like somebody of her age imaging how teens would speak. In response to that the lead in this film, Charlize Theron's Mavis Gary, is a grown-up who writes as a teenage girl as she produces a set of novels that are classed in the young adult range. When we first meet Mavis she is struggling to complete the last in the popular Waverly Prep series for which she writes when she suddenly receives an e-mail from an old flame about his wife having a baby. From this she decides to return to her old hometown of Mercury a backwater suburb where the majority of her old schoolmates still live and in which she hopes to rekindle her old boyfriend Buddy's feelings for her despite him being a new dad. She also strikes up an unlikely friendship with another former schoolmate Matt who, by his own admission, is a fat nerd and who suffered a traumatic experience during high school.

I think for the most part Cody gets everything about Young Adult right with Mavis being a character who is stuck in a state of arrested development and despite being successful and once married to a charming man she still hankers for her old school life where she was the Prom Queen. Charlize Theron gives what is, for me personally, her best performance playing a character who is essentially a bitch but giving her some sort of heart and reason for behaving the way she is. Theron also bounces well off Patton Oswalt who gives a good accounting of himself as Matt the only person privy to Mavis' plan to win back her former love. Patrick Wilson is also fairly solid in his role as Buddy you can believe that he once was a popular high school jock but has decided to settle down with his wife Beth. The whole smalltown of Mercury is very well drawn and I felt a sense of an old town that had tried to be modernised and was still inhabited by the same people that were there twenty years ago only now they all have kids. As you can imagine this being a film from the creators of Juno there is also a lot of emphasis on the soundtrack and how music can evoke certain emotions. As Mavis is obssessed with her high school years there is a lot of 1990s music from the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and 4 Non Blondes however it is Teenage Fanclub's The Concept that is the song that you will be humming after the film has finished. The main problem is I feel that Cody and Reitman didn't know how particularly to finish the film so after the 'big incident' things go off a bit with Mavis' ultimate decision being left in the hands of someone that I feel she would've paid little attention to. Apart from the ending though I really enjoyed this film with two strong central performances, a great setting and an awesome soundtrack.

Overall: A well-written and well-acted comedy which dips a bit at the end yet features Charlize Theron's best performance very gets  8.5/10

Review No.37: In Search of Haydn

So I was originally going to compose my blog of the month but then I realised that the majority of the categories were taken up by Shame which was by far the film of last month and the only thing that was able to be anywhere near as good as it was The Muppets. So instead I kick March off with a documentary about a classical composer who, though unknown to most, was in fact the teacher of both Mozart and Beethoven. Joseph Haydn is a name that you may've heard of but you would be hard pushed to name any of his compositions unless you had a special interest in classical music. This film uses experts in the field from historians of classical music to composers to musicians and opera singers to both explain and illustrate the life of this man. Unlike those who would come after him I learnt that Haydn kept working until he was well into sixties and indeed composed some of his best known work in this time also unlike these later composers his work was a lot less subtle as he tried to compose music that would appeal to the masses. We also learnt of Haydn the man who as a child was a practical joker and as an adult liked to play away from home once he discovered his wife was infertile. Essentially the film resembles a composition with the talking heads played alongside a narrative voice and exerts from the man's diary.

In Search of Haydn is essentially a specialist piece and one I am only reviewing because it received a brief cinematic release before it made its way onto DVD which is how I was able to see it. The director Phil Grabsky obviously has a love of classical music and has already directed similar documentaries on both Mozart and Beethoven. This is a hard film to review in that I felt that this was an uncomplicated biography of a man who is often neglected when people talk about the great composers but on the other hand it was about a man that I had little interest in. The film did little to apply relevance to this man outside the world of classical music so for people who have little interest in the classics, such as me, tend to feel left out. I feel that if I were a music teacher looking to provide some history on the classic composers then this film would be extremely useful but as a piece of pure entertainment I feel it doesn't work. The talking heads are completely earnest and the musicians and singers are extremely talented but outside of an admiration of the director's passion for the subject personally I found little to enjoy in this piece.

Verdict: As a specialist piece for classical music fans this works a treat but personally I have little interest in the subject matter so I can only award it 6/10