The Red Balloon (1956)

Pascal Lamorisse

Watch the The Red Balloon trailer

NOTE ON THE TRAILER: This is a trailer for the remastered DVD containing Red Balloon and another Lamorisse film, White Mane. RB is in colour, WM in b&w. However, I strongly reccomend simply seeking out the DVD so not to spoil the magic brought by the unexpected in RB. 

Writer: Albert Lamorisse
Director: Albert Lamorisse
Notable Actors: Pascal Lamorisse (Albert's son)

Remember childhood? Not yours exactly, but childhood in general. The wonder. The lack of inhibition. The ability to believe anything while scrutinising every last detail. We all think fondly of such simple times, knowing we can never revisit them.

What can we do, then? Engross ourselves in Nostalgia – Watch With Mother, The Goodies, Doctor Who; with the latter there’s even new episodes. Something I’ve personally loved from childhood is Top Gear, however I’ve found the more recent new episodes grating. It’s got nothing to do with Stig-gate, and all to do with that gradual loss of wonder slipping away.

I have, my friends, found the holiest of grails. I’ve discovered a way to recapture it.

The Red Balloon allows a suspended sense of childhood to resurface for thirty-four minutes. Sure, you start of cynical (‘I wonder where they got the idea for Up from, eh?’), but suddenly something leads you straight into a state of rapture, and for once in your recent life you’re not looking for the trickery involved. You can appreciate that the film process is aged, but not enough to give any clues to its time of production beyond the recent twenty-thirty years, so it’s dismissed.

And you’re a child. This is so wonderful there really are no words. You really do need to experience it yourself. What I will say, is I had no idea when this was made. When the end title card came up to reveal the year had been 1956, I was impressed on a level far beyond both childhood and adulthood. That lovely little boy was eight years older than my own mother. That’s if he’s still alive today.

When my youngest sister, now eight, was a toddler she used to cry out asking for Norman. She loved her Norman. I was a child myself then, but watching her riveted made me jealous because I was already past that stage of wonder with Norman Wisdom, never-endingly brilliant though he may be. We watched The Red Balloon together, and I paid her absolutely no mind.

Hopefully that says it all; if not, I don’t care that I don’t know how to express it. I’m just settling in for the wait to show this to my children when they reach the age I am now, to recapture childhoods as of yet a long way away.

It's A Kind Of Funny Story (2010)

(L-R) Zach Galifianakis and Keir Gilchrist

Watch the It's A Kind Of Funny Story trailer

Writer: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck (screenplay), Ned Vizzini (novel)

Director: Anna Boen, Ryan Fleck

Notable Actors: Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis

I was expecting, I’ll be honest, fuck all from this. The worst of every world – teen drama making fun of the serious business drama some teens have to deal with, some dude from The Hangover (not redeemed in any sense by being in the enjoyable Due Date, just to say), and Emma Roberts. That girl is one of a handful of banes of my life which include Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Miranda Cosgrove etcetera etcetera.

Course there’s also Amanda Bynes, official she-devil.

Truthfully I went to see this because I’d had a row and needed to stay out of the house. It was raining. It was cold. It was an hour til Conviction started. So what did I find? Predictability, both in plot and stereotypes? Boredom rejoiced with rolled eyes and a wonder why I didn’t enter the hour-into-it Potter 7A for the third time? Well, yes. But no too.

What Funny Story really has going for it is it’s direction. The rest? Emma Roberts is surprisingly good, until you realise there’s no reality to the role, and it's the part that holds your interest, not her interpretation of it. Zach Galifianakis is surprisingly average rather than completely unbearable, and Keir Gilchrist is possibly a talent to watch. Possibly.

But the direction, man. Take a paint-by-numbers-hipster-shit frame and alter it completely in strange little perfect sections which reveal how good a film this could have been if the primary aim wasn’t the teen market who act like pre-teens, rather than the teen market who laugh at how pathetically boring Skins parties are.

It’s strange, really. This film gave me everything I want in terms of altering irritating cinematic clichés (with the exception of EMOTIONAL MUSIC), yet it was nothing more than pleasant. It didn’t send me into the rage such subjected content often does (you should have heard child-me rage about Jacqueline Wilson).

I think – and I have no idea if this is true – that the differences is because, for once, perhaps the people behind this weren’t carbon copies of the target audience. Perhaps they, at least as teens, were more like I was. Perhaps they have to hide the truth behind the quirky-comedic-but-serious-business hipster genre.

Whatever the story is, the film is adequate. Considering I expected an utter shitstorm, this roughly translates that I enjoyed it, my surprise at this egging on this experience. Yeah, it’s throw-away-and-forget-about-it, but it’s one of the better ones out there.

P.S. Americans - Craig isn't spelt Creg. Maybe learn from that?

The Way Back (2010)

(R-L) Ed Harris and Saoirse Ronan

Watch the The Way Back trailer

Writer: Keith R Clarke, Peter Wier (screenplay), Slavomir Rawicz (book)
Director: Peter Wier
Notable Actors: Jim Sturgess, Saoirse Ronan, Ed Harris

Let’s be honest – the majority who saw this film saw it for the director. I certainly did. I definitely wasn’t for another round of Colin Farrell’s Wandering Accent (for that matter, his name doesn’t really suit him, does it? Slightly off topic, but all the same…)

This is one of four ‘true story’ films recently released into the mainstream, and it’s the only one which has a story I hadn’t heard of before. We’ve a thousand films detailing break-outs from POWs, but I confess I’d never even heard of a Gulag before. While I don’t expect education to be handed to me, I also don’t expect a film to be spoiled completely in the first few minutes.

Basically, this is based on a supposedly true story. What is known for certain is that three men did escape and live through the walk. This is told to you before a single damn shot, completely ruining the walk part of the film. It becomes a game of who’s-going-to-go (when in the case of the female, seeing as the wording of ‘three MEN’ is hardly easy to ignore). While I admire the makers for having the balls to put such a thing at, or rather prior to, the start, the film would’ve been no worse off to have had its dedication after the credits role. There’s a reason book dedications are vague, people.

But yes. The film. I’ve had one eye occasionally cast of Jim Sturgess for a while; a good actor befouled by the controversy surrounding the roles he has taken (google ‘21’ if you’re missing something). The fact he’s the essential lead of this ensemble cast is pretty impressive, considering his career thus far. But what’s even more impressive is the range he displays in the first five minutes alone. I truly didn’t recognise him. If you can’t be arsed with 133 minutes of this just check out that opening scene, I implore you.

Conversely to the magnificence of the opening scene, the final shot is so unneeded I felt a groan escape as it came. I’m reminded of Burke and Hare – someone really needed to slap the director over the side of the head and tell him it’s time to stop now. The ending shot basically ruined an otherwise intensive film. Oh, with the exception of that pre-film dedication. And the distraction of Colin Farrell.

Everyone else is either a character actor or unknown enough to pass by unnoticed. Colin Farrell utterly breaks reality simply by existing. So, this film, with its beautiful landscape shots and incredibly preforming cast, makes you think the following:

I’m annoyed. I don’t want to know what happens.

I’m impressed. Damn, Sturgess, I am impressed.

Oh. Colin Farrell. Slightly taken out of the suspension of disbelief now.

When are they going to escape already?

Come on, progress with the plot….

Who’s going to die next?

THANK FUCK COLIN FARRELL IS GONE now I can enjoy this.

Except there’s…*quickly counts* so many left. Who’s going to die and when/how?

I don’t want him to die. I rather like him

Oh. Well, it is only a film – it’s got Colin Farrell in it after all.

And the end of everything you do leave the cinema with a sense of appreciation for whoever managed that walk, no matter who they are. Three simple things ruined this film though. There was never a moment when you suddenly realised you were in the cinema. You’re very aware the whole way through. I don’t think that’s what I want a film to do.

Dedication (2007)

(L-R) Mandy Moore and Martin Freeman

Watch the Dedication trailer

Writer: David Bromberg
Director: Justin Theroux
Notable Actors: Billy Crudup

I don’t know what I expected from this, but I’m certain I didn’t get it. Things were all very paint-by-numbers in a way similar to, but not as sickly as, 500 Days of Summer. (The reason there’s no review for that recently-viewed masterpiece of shite here is I couldn’t get through it beyond the fifteen minute mark. The fact I’m the type of long-established indie kid who gets pissed when singer Get Cape Wear Cape Fly is described as a band didn’t help matters.)

So the tone is similar to (what I’ve seen of) 500 Days. The father/son relationship is similar to In Bruges – the dialogue is almost interchangeable and each actor even somewhat resembles their foil. The relationship has so many modern supposedly-indie-chic-flick-chic elements to do anything but generalise would be a compliment to thoroughly-deserving-of-insult writer.

What else? Martin Freeman’s haircut is disastrous. Even if it was good, it’s Martin Freeman. And some much younger pretty young thing; yes, we get it, well done, that’s the point; isn’t going to fall for Martin Freeman.

Actually, that’s unfair. Fair enough, she may, but to believe he’s horribly caught between two (presumably, as this is a western movie) beautiful women? Martin Freeman’s the adorable oddball you imagine slightly odd girls are proud to take home to meet mum. Not some dry academic lothario. Who writes dry academic tomes on romance because OTHERWISE THIS ISN’T ‘INDIE’ LOL.

The entire thing made me want to shake my head then comfort it in my hands. And then dive for the whiskey. Things were predictable and got worse. The ‘shock’ toward the end is eyerolling as the irreplaceable is replaced. If it was that simple why go to all the effort in the first place? WE DON’T KNOW IT’S INDIE AND YOU WEAR FLORAL PRINT DRESSES SO YOU’LL LOVE IT!

Then there’s the climax which tries so hard to force you to care. Failing miserably…it’s a given. It’s just pathetic. Pathetic in the way New Year’s revellers who accept their boyfriend’s drunken proposal are pathetic.

The fuckery about the acting game is when truly great artists have to take paychecks. He may have had modest successes but his cameo-like appearances here show it’s a paycheck. There is no way the alternative of a profile raise is the issue here. Freeman knows it so dearly he doesn’t even bother, meaning the film’s only possible chance of redemption isn’t in it. It’s depressing. But look at the genre in which it sits. It can’t be anything but…

…LOL U JKS C U ON TUMBLR !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Note: Apologies for the ironic shouty hipster speak. I thoroughly deserve any beating given or implied.

Youth Without Youth (2007)

Tim Roth

Watch the Youth Without Youth trailer

 

Writer: Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay), Mircea Eliade (novella)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Notable Actors: Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz

 

Youth Without Youth is the rarest of things. It is an idea so brilliant the product presented both dwindles and lives up to expectations as your mind sees all the routes the base idea could have taken both during and long after the initial viewing.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the need to describe anything as intoxicating. This is. The turns lead on a highway rollercoaster which makes you feel sick and tired, but all such nonsense is overcome by the senses brought on by simply being enthralled.

Direction is superb with shots beautifully, and no doubt lovingly, crafted. There is not an actor who is anything but spot on. Tim Roth especially plays the lead with an inhumane humanity, a naturalistic yet completely imagined style. His performance alone is breathtakingly incredible at every turn.

The entire time I was itching to google it to find out more, forcing myself several times over to wait until the ending for fear of stray spoilers. Not since Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll have I felt the need to see a film again long before it even ended, and back then I thought that was a first and last. When it ended I was so thoroughly exhausted from that first viewing that no matter how much I wanted to dive back in I knew I had to stop myself until I could process things fully. Give me a few weeks or months but believe that it will be with dire straits that I force myself to wait to see this again.

Makes you bloody wonder. Philosophically...who do you agree with? Which part of yourself triumphs? Which is evil? Is evil a reality or is it merely a name we give to the more practical side of ourselves our morals disagree with? The philosophy student in me coming out there, although that wasn’t all this film catered for. It truth, it caters for everything. Its wonders cannot be expressed.

I am in awe, at time of writing, and hope to be in twenty years’ time. Rewinding multiple scenes multiple times to understand them was not a chore but a ruthless joy inexplicable in its lack of mercy. Even the make-up’s incredibly done. I never saw Benjamin Button, but I feel as if whatever they did the hype surrounding it is all rather stale, now, when the reflection of this genius is brought into place.

Is Inception like this? Everything illuminated, every beautiful? Every sequence, every scene, every shot, every inch of dialogue? Something which grants a view so close to the edge of society you know you need to step so far back because if you get any closure you’ll see all its evils, all its beauty, and the parallels and magician’s fury at odds will fuck with your mind. Is it equally too much? This is far too much. It will never be anywhere near enough.

We have reached the ending. I am breathless. And I shiver.

Tron (1982)

David Warner

Watch the Tron trailer

Writer: Steven Lisberger (screenplay and story), Bonnie MacBird (story)

Director: Steven Lisberger

Notable Actors: David Warner

Twenty eight years later and the visuals still wow, even to a man like myself who scoffs when he recalls the day he was awed by the graphics on the PS2. Yeah it looks pretty clunky compared to what can be achieved these days, but there’s a charm in there similar to early Doctor Who. The retrospect awfulness of then-state-of-the-art technology is endearing, true, but even without placing it in the context of its time I was pretty enthralled those first few seconds in the game grid, I’ve gotta say.

Before that short moment of awe, however, was a lot of waiting around wondering what girl’s scratch when it feels like there’s nothing on TV. The lead up to Flynn hitting the game grid is long, boring, and feels longer. When he actually enters there’s a glimpse of Open University programming, and then things just take a headfirst dive into bloody confusing.

I surmise the best age to first watch Tron is around twelve. For all my immaturity and adolescent jokes (which often, shamefully, fall into the ‘that’s what she said’ category), I’m not twelve anymore. Then again, I was an odd twelve-year-old. I was already reading Nick Hornby by then, gleefully discovering what swear words meant as books didn’t have age ratings like films did.

So maybe everything would make a lot more sense if taken by hand on this twelve-year-old’s flight of fancy by a kid that age. Or just to watch it for the first time while smoking weed, whichever you’d prefer. As it is it took me two thirds into the film to realise Tron and his girlfriend were the same actors as Flynn’s ex and her bloke, and at that point the puzzling dialogue hinting how Flynn knew their users and thus could predict their actions made sense.

Those two actors, in the lead up, just didn’t make enough of an impression upon me for me to recognise either without their hair showing. To be completely honest I only figured it out when the old man showed up. Which left me wondering if the third programme introduced soon after Flynn entered the game was anyone in the ‘real’ world. I wasn’t curious enough to bother to rewind the thing and see, though.

Erasure of programmes seriously irked me. We’re shown from the beginning that programmes are inhuman nothings. How we’re supposed to sympathise is beyond me. I’m not a child. This was brought painfully to the surface often in my viewing of this film. I am not a child. I cannot sit back and be taken on a ride. I need to digest it, understand it, release it into the roots of consciousness.

The most grating thing about Tron was how nothing was really explained. How the film could’ve perhaps been better if longer, and yet would’ve danced with death on the same blade seeing as how the shortness works in its favour, but I in no means mean that derogatorily. Why write a novel when the story can be told as a novella? But personally, I need explanations. Pure, unadulterated sci-fi action is a poor substitute. I was brought up on The Prisoner. I need explanations.

Hell, it took me a good while just to work out which colour racer Flynn was. I didn’t get this film. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t get it. It was not made for me. No matter how much I like to scream otherwise, my childhood ended long ago. If only the wonder hadn’t gone with it. I’ll still see Tron 3D if I find the time, though – but only for Michael Sheen and curiosity at the visuals.