Aaaand I’m back!
It’s been a while, unfortunately! I’ve been quite busy and have been doing a lot during the last 5 or 6 weeks. But things are moving quickly, so let’s not dwell and dive straight into what’s new.
In the middle of January I went to Gothenberg along with my film school class and my girlfriend to the Göteborg International Film Festival – saw a LOT of films, and it was a great week both for networking as well as taking some time off from school. I saw a whole bunch of films the few days I spent at the festival, around twenty or so, spread out evenly over both short and feature films. Some highlights from the festival:
Feature films
- 127 Hours - Finally got around to see this hell of a movie by director Danny Boyle – the so-called action-film where the main character can’t move. A great film which tells a fascinating story in an explosive way!
- Curling – A french/canadian drama/thriller set in a remote location using mainly locked-off tripod shots. A cool, sweet and sometimes scary film which was cool from a DP point-of-view more than anything. Fun that the director, Denis Côté, was at the screening with us.
- Odjuret – or “Savage” as it’s called in English, is the latest film project by the Malmö-based production company Dansk Skalle. Immediately after walking out from the film I really found it to be a bit of a disaster, but it’s grown on me (slightly). Good editing by friend Erik Bäfving though!
Short films
- Tvillingen – by far the best and sweetest film I saw at the film festival. It was also the last film I saw before traveling back to Malmö, so a good ending to a great week. This Swedish short was both mindblowing vfx-wise and a very interesting story.
- As – Another film I didn’t really like walking out from it, as it seemed to (similar to many other festival films) use graphic violence and sex for shock factor. But it’s very, very, well shot and extremely unnerving.
- Top Dog – One of the diploma films from the Göteborg Film University. A fun concept centered around childishness around war, set in Sweden. Some really fun characters and an engaging story – and, as is the case with many film school films, very beautiful.
After returning from the festival, school work quickly continued. As of now we’re currently on a documentary period. I haven’t really shot a whole bunch of proper documentaries before – mainly video diaries from trips in different countries. A few weeks ago we shot a small portraiture exercise, which basically means trying to portray a person we knew using visual means. It was the first film I’ve directed at Skurup for quite some time, and I think it turned out pretty good. Big thanks to my great DP Linus Rockström, my editor Selina Håkansson (who also helped out a lot on Harry Spexter) as well as Simon Minô who starred in the film. We decided early on to try and avoid shooting classical interview-style of Simon and portray his interest in music in another way, and hopefully (while possibly missing the mark a bit) we succeeded in at least some manner:
Since that was just an exercise in shooting documentary-style (even if we made it into sort of a fictional piece), we have now moved on to working on our larger documentary projects, still featuring the same theme but dragged out to reach 10 minutes running time. After some debating in our group at school, we’ve started out quite late with shooting the film, so hopefully we’ll be done on time. Soon heading out to shoot a big bunch of cutaways and similar for the film at the new, quite futuristic, Malmö Central Station.
I’ve started to work on a whole bunch of projects at the side of doing school work – first off, I’m still finalizing my love story script which I’m hopefully set to shoot during the upcoming summer – sending around a few drafts around these weeks to get some feedback, but hopefully I’ll be able to make the film around 15 minutes long and submit it to film festivals and similar – another reason is to ensure easier viewing on the internet, as the audience attention span is highly likely to be a bit lower on the tubes. Harry Spexter is moving closer to it’s DVD and Blu-Ray release, which should probably happen in just a few weeks. Finalizing the DVD with menus and special features during the next week.
Doing some pre-production work for a feature film I’ll be working on this summer and autumn as well – loads of work coming up soon I can imagine! But fun work, so no big deal!
Oh, and for some other stuff I’m working on at the moment – I’m shooting quite a lot of small event films. About 10 days ago I shot at a place called meClub here in Malmö and edited a small video they could put on their Facebook page. Check it out below:
And that’s pretty much all I have for you today! Check back soon for more updates, and take care!
The Top 25 Films of 20090
Posted In Blog,Reviews
So here it is, my list of what I thought was the best films of 2009! It’s been an absolutely fantastic year for movies, and my list features films of most genres out there. Keep note that all the films on the list below are films that premiered in Sweden sometime between Januray 1st and December 31st 2009. But before we get into the more in-depth Top 15 list, I thought I’d just summarize #25 to #16 on my top films of 2009 just below:
#25 - Paranormal Activity
#24 - Terminator Salvation
#23 - I Taket Lyser Stjärnorna
#22 - Brüno
#21 - Taken
#20 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
#19 - Public Enemies
#18 - Angels & Demons
#17 - Moon
#16 – Waltz with Bashir
But I won’t keep you waiting any longer, below here are the Top 15 films of 2009, according to me! And yes, I’m sure I managed to forget a few films making this list, but these were the ones that stuck with me the most in 2009!
#15 – The Hangover
Such a crazy, and outright funny film. Featuring among others the great Ed Helms (from US Office fame) on a journey throughout Las Vegas to find their best friend after the apparent succesful but crazy bachelor party – the story isn’t very unique or complicated, but the way it’s told is pretty fantastic. Instead of showing the fun night, as audiences we are treated to watching the guys as they wake up the day after with the worst hangover ever. Trying to figure out why there’s a real tiger and a baby in their incredibly expensive hotel suite are just some of the story elements which occur in this laugh-out-loud comedy. It’s ultimately a very innocent albeit fun film which works on any fun movie night with friends. That it pretty much came from nowhere and proved to be this good is a pretty fun reason why it just had to be on this list. And I haven’t even mentioned the naked Asian businessman locked in their car. A fun film taken that doesn’t take itself too seriously and with some great comedic performances earns it the 15th place on this list!
#14 – Saw VI
How they managed to somehow save the franchise that was on a sure downward spiral in terms of it’s story is quite mindblowing to watch. Obviously, the film doesn’t really care if you’ve watched the previous films or not as hardly any explanation to the events in the film is brought forth. But having watched the previous films several times and actually liked the overarching story they’ve managed to pull off I would be pretty glad if the series ended right here while it is on its top. It’s by far the best Saw sequel so far and continues on the right road of moving away from the gore and the horror genre into more of the thriller genre. Make no mistake, this is still a Saw film and it does feature some intense scenes but since the story actually ties together quite a few loose ends from previous films it works in the same way Se7en’s violence is tolarable considering the circumstances. While it does feature some quite shoddy acting as well as a few plot holes it is a big, big step up from the previous films. It also has some good closure to the film series, and while I know they’re already in pre-production for the next film, they could end it here and I’d be perfectly happy.
#13 – Frost/Nixon
While the subject matter – the interview between president Nixon and reporter David Frost – may be unknown for many at my age as well as the general population outside America, it’s a very interesting story about how a relatively unserious reporter, David Frost (played by the always awesome Michael Sheen) sits down with the, then-resigned president Nixon following the Watergate scandals. Nixon accepts, thinking this will be an easy PR win for his camp, but doesn’t come prepared to some of the facts the Frost camp has gathered. And so the battle begins. While it is a quite talky film, it’s absolutely filled to the brim with suspense and though most of us probably can figure out how it’s all going to end, it’s very interesting and nerve-racking to watch. The film is directed by Ron Howard too – who also made Angels & Demons this year, which placed just outside the list. With it’s quiet release here in Sweden, it was only in theatres for little over a week, but now that it’s out on DVD and Blu-Ray it’s a film I urge everyone to go see.
#12 – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
A big step forward for a movie series I’ve always thought was great, and a chapter where the transition between book and film actually is very succesful. Director David Yates – who also directed the fifth installment – has created the darkest and most menacing of the Potter films so far – with every film the main actors, Radcliffe, Grint and Watson improve and they’re all given more difficult things to do with their characters and they all really pull it off. To top that off, the film is filled with some of the greatest actors of our time: Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon and Helena Bonham Carter are just a few names of the supporting cast list. I can’t wait for the final chapter, The Deathly Hallows, which is divided into two films – the first one premieres just under a year from now, this November.
#11 – Män som hatar Kvinnor
Also known as Men who hate Women, the first part in the quite famous Millenium book series. The best Swedish film of the year is really a big step forward for Swedish filmmaking – even though most of the crew for this film was from Denmark. It’s a very dark film with some very intense scenes but the acting is just on another level than what we’re used to in Sweden – the industry in Sweden is moving in the right direction, making proper films and not just the same police films over and over again. The direction is brilliant and it’s probably one of the better films I’ve seen from Sweden so far. Production value is really high too, and the film can actually rival some of the Hollywood films on this list in terms of scope. While I was a bit dissapointed with its sequels – both the two sequels were released last year as well (they were originally considered as TV films for some really odd reason) the first film still shines as not only a big step forward for Swedish filmmaking, but also as a quite great film in itself, featuring some really beautiful cinematography. A big thumbs up!
#10 – Slumdog Millionaire
When this film premiered early 2009 in Sweden I was taken aback with how unlike it was anything I had seen in cinemas so far. Danny Boyle, who made one of the most beautiful films ever with Sunshine, created a gritty, down-to-earth but still somewhat high-concept film that was a close mix between Bollywood’s stylistic storytelling and Hollywood’s character development. A very strong film, it boasts some great performances from its entire cast, and Boyle’s decision to shoot the film on a whole variety of film stocks (including digital) really adds to the production values this film has. Shot on location in Mumbai, we are shown the differences between social classes and their living standards which serves as a pretty strong political commentary, whilst being a very personal story. Sure, some might argue it gets a bit sappy and overtly sentimental towards its conclusion but nevertheless, it’s a fantastic film. Oh, and it won the Best Picture academy award last year.
#9 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
David Fincher does it again – he creates another mind boggling, out-of-this-world and quite crazy story. And totally succeeds, again. The character and story of Benjamin Button, the man who is born old then gets younger as the years pass is a very touching one – as the audience we are forced to reflect on what our interpretation of life and time is when we see the different ordeals Benjamin goes through while he gets younger and younger and while all his friends slowly age around him. The VFX work is spotless, and Brad Pitt shines through as Benjamin even when the character we’re watching is an all-CG image. Cate Blanchett is also equally good in a quite demanding role. Before Avatar, this was the most revolutionary VFX film to date, and really shows how effects and modern techniques can be applied to a much less modern story to achive some beautiful results. A must-see for any fan of romantic dramas. Can’t wait to see what the next evolution of storytelling techniques are? Look no further than this film.
#8 – The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky’s latest powerful drama about the soon-to-be-retired wrestler starring Mickey Rourke is a fantastic one, and a maginificent comeback for Rourke. The film’s very low-budget never shines through, and the story is carried in a great manner by a fantastic collection of actors. Besides Mickey Rourke we have the great Marisa Tomei as well as Evan Rachel Wood, two actors very important for the film’s main character, Randy “The Ram” Robinson. We follow him on this very personal journey as he tries to do his best in spite of living all alone with a heart problem and a daughter who hates his guts. The film captures the grey, dull colours of Randy’s life very well and while it is probably isn’t a film for everyone due to its somewhat intense content and difficult subject matter, it’s absolutely one of the best ones of 2009, when it premiered in Sweden over half a year after it’s American release date.
#7 – Watchmen
A film I saw in IMAX when visiting the UK, I really really liked Watchmen from Zack Snyder who previously made 300 as well as the Dawn of the Dead remake. I hadn’t read the graphic novel going into watching the film, but I thought it was absolutely amazing, and probably one of the better comic-book films out there. I was a big fan of the gritty undertones of the film and the R-rated content really works in the context of the story. While it seems many people have forgot the mesmerizing performance of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach – hopefully he will be nominated for an Oscar, although unfortunately I deem it quite unlikely. The final combination of graphic novel characters combined with the visual splendor we saw in 300 creates one of the best-looking and most awesome films of 2009. I can’t wait to give the 3-hour director’s cut version released earlier last autumn a closer look!
#6 – District 9
One of the best and most original sci-fi films I’ve seen, District 9 came pretty much from nowhere and was an absolutely amazing film. The setting, both geographically and story-wise, was brand new for western cinema and something which really helped the film distinguish itself as the new recipe for modern action films. Sharlto Copley is amazing as Wikus, the not-so-heroic hero who slowly turns into an alien having been exposed to alien chemicals. The run-and-gun feel of the film combined with it’s amazing special effects – partly from Peter Jackson’s Weta – combine to form a not only great, but important film considering the amount of political undertones it has and how closely the story of the aliens put in camps resemble the apartheid era in South Africa (where the film also takes place). An important film, both for the medium itself as well as the audience watching it.
#5 – Zombieland
The best action-comedy of the year, Zombieland has some of the coolest scenes I’ve seen, as well as the best cameo of all year. No, I won’t ruin it for you – check out the film for yourselves and you’ll know what I’m talking about. The film has a pretty basic premise – two very different heroes survive the zombie apocalypse and now have to work together to survive. Woody Harrelson is one of the film’s heroes. On their way throughout the countryside they come across two girls with guns who take their weapons and their car. They have to rescue them. They all shoot more zombies. The film climaxes at an amusment park where more zombies are killed. How could this film not place on this list? Needless to say, this film had me from it’s slow-motion intro montage, and kept me in it’s zombie-infected grip throughout. Has some of the funniest scenes this year (if you discount 2012, which was extremely funny because it was so bad). There are already talks of a sequel and I can not wait! “Nut up or shut up!”
#4 – Up in the Air
The new film from Jason Reitman – who previously made Thank You for Smoking as well as Juno – already has some Oscar buzz. Managed to catch a prescreening of the film in the middle of December and I absolutely loved its story about a lost business man, played by George Clooney, who travels around continental U.S. and fires employees for different companies. Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, “practically lives at the airport” along with all of the little annoyances of air travel. For Bingham though, they long queues and fake smiles are merely reminders that he’s home. Reitman has created a no-holds-barred very powerful dramedy (drama/comedy) which puts Clooney in the role of his career. When Bingham’s company is introduced by new technologies by the promising, recently graduated Natalie Keener (fantastically played by Anna Kendrick) he is forced to show Keener what it really is like to fire someone for real and not just over the internet. Featuring some fantastic jokes and a story that goes way deeper into what it means to be lonely (I don’t want to give away more), Up In the Air is by far one of the best films of 2009 and one which is worthy of every academy award it will inevitably recieve.
#3 – Avatar
James Cameron’s 12-year project does not dissapoint. This is probably the visually most amazing film I’ve ever seen – this 3-hour epic is one to definitely watch in 3D. From the opening moments watching this I just realised something had changed – cinema had changed forever and with just the few opening scenes I was pulled into the world of Pandora and its inhabitants. Watching the film is really like watching a window into another world. The only thing that holds the film back is the somewhat lackluster story and the fact that the CGI in the film has been hyped way too much. I watched the 20 minutes from the film on Avatar Day earlier this year and I was impressed but not convinced. Having watched the final film, there are still a few tinks with the visual presentation that is just not up to the photo-realistic stuff we had been expecting. That’s NOT to say the movie looks bad. Footage involving real-life actors look exactly that, real. The 3D effect is mesmerizing, and something you don’t think about being there after a few minutes. Then again, it will probably make every other 2D movie release after this a bit lackluster at least in terms of visuals. It looks amazing, it’s the most realistic VFX I’ve ever seen in a film – but to be honest, I wish Cameron would have spent just a slightly larger fragment of his half-billion dollar budget on a better story. No matter how you put it though, this film is one to be experienced in theatres. And what an experience it is. “You’re not in Kansas anymore!”
#2 – Star Trek
J.J. Abrams reboot of the old television series – which I’ve never been a fan of – is quite simply astonishing. While I’m a big fan of Abrams’ earlier work, I never thought he could create such a stylized film from what seemed to be such a tired and gray concept. But this is probably the coolest adventure this year, with a great acting ensemble and the film just shines of quality work both infront of and behind the camera. Speaking of shining, there are a LOT of lens flares in this film – almost every single shot has one. And it never becomes distracting, as Abrams uses them in a very controlled and stylistic manner. And while Avatar might be on a whole different level technically, I feel Star Trek has a better story and much more lovable characters, lifting it to be the second best film of 2009 in my opinion. And with J.J. already in talks of doing a number of sequels, I can’t wait until I get to visit the U.S.S. Enterprise again. “Live long and prosper!”
#1 – Inglourious Basterds
So after this sort of science-fiction heavy list, I thought I’d bring it back a few years and hand out the award for the top film of 2009 to Quentin Tarantino’s latest film. The film’s portrayal of WWII is one of the most fun, provocative and entertaining I’ve seen in my entire life. The film was shot and completed in under 8 months, an astonishing achievement in itself. The film isn’t really as dependent on effects or grand production values as most on this list. It basically is a few scenes stringed together to form an entire film. Well, you might think that sounds a bit dull or boring. But make no mistake, this is the most fun I’ve had watching a movie in 2009. From the opening intense 20-minute dialogue scene to the fantastic scene in the forest at the end of the film, this is just an amazing movie. Hopefully Christoph Waltz who plays Colonel Hans Landa gets at least a nomination for an academy award. And the music choices in the film are just stunning – pretty much every track is taken from an older spaghetti western and throughout the film there are a whole number of references to older films, making it a big joy for film geeks to watch. Having recently rewatched it on Blu-Ray it stands clear that this is by far the best film of 2009. I can’t wait for Tarantino’s next film. “Each and every man under my command owes me one-hundered Nazi scalps. And I wan’t my scalps!”
So that’s my take on what I thought was the best films of 2009! The list has constantly changed during the making of it, so be sure of it, they are all great films worth watching! If you agree or disagree with my picks, or just want to write something, please leave a comment to this news post!
Speak more very very soon! 2010 is going to be an exciting year for Redhawk Productions, make no mistake! Take care everyone!
REVIEW: District 90
Posted In Blog,Reviews
Here’s my review of the new sci-fi action film from debut director Neill Blomkamp, produced by the well-known Peter Jackson. I had tried to keep away from trailers and TV spots (except the first teaser trailer released a couple of months back) – I was interested in seeing the film, especially after hearing some of the reviews it had gotten over the week since it was released in the US and UK.
The story is a pretty interesting one, and while it is mostly based on your thoughts on older sci-fi alien invasion films such as Independence Day, it uses your premature thoughts on this type of genre-film to its advantage. Instead of the alien ship centering over a well-known world metropole such as New York, Washington, Paris or London, it circulates over Johannesburg, and has done so for the last 20 years. The aliens, reffered to in the film as prawns, don’t have a specific leader on their ship, but are brought into some sort of protective custody by the government of South Africa – at first they wreck havoc throughout the city of Johannesburg, before they are forcibly 
moved to live in a camp, District 9, under extremely poor living conditions – the social commentary from director Blomkamp related to the apartheid during the 1960′s when an inner-city block of Johannesburg was labeled a whites-only area, leading to the forced removal and placement of over 60,000 people in camps similar to the one featured in the film, only labeled District 6. Similarities indeed. The plot focuses around Wikus van de Merwe (portrayed by debut actor Sharlto Copley), a field operative assigned to manage the relocation of the aliens – while during a raid Wikus is sprayed by a canister filled with some sort of alien liquid – which rapidly is transforming Wikus into the aliens he is trying to get rid of. While I don’t want to give away too much of the story, I’ll just leave it at saying that it turns into a quite fast-pased ride as Wikus is trying to regain his humanity, recieving help from the last place he’d think. The story is really quite something – it’s not the most original story ever put to
screen, but it is tremendously helped by Copley, who carries the film on his shoulders and does it with loads of bravour. From being a completely unknown actor, Copley fully embraces the character of Wikus, and creates a character (along with screenwriter/director Blomkamp of course) who is not a person dealing with extremely heroic or disgusting characteristics, but sort of lives in a shade of gray throughout the film. During the film’s dark beginning, we are as an audience not exactly sure what to think of Wikus. While he in one scene seems like a generally likeable guy, the next he jokes about how burning alien eggs sound like popcorn when they explode. It all is quite disturbing, and makes for a very interesting character that very much fits the story.
Adding to the awesome acting work is the equally spectacular visual effects – with Peter Jackson producing, and his vfx company Weta Digital jumping in for some of the effects work – mainly visual 
design though, as they’re quite busy working on Avatar. The aliens, or prawns, look really good – and combined with the mockumentary visual style most of the film follows, it all is quite impressive how realistic the interactions between humans and aliens are. This is by far some of the best use of visual effects as a storytelling method in quite some time (not discarding the really awesome use of vfx on Benjamin Button last year) and it really is a ride I can’t wait to live through again, either on the silver screen or at home.
The sound design is really good as well – the alien language used by the prawns actually sounds like something you would hear coming from the windpipes of an extraterrestrial. While some leaps in logic have to be taken to fully enjoy the film – “How could humans learn a language from quite uneducated aliens that is surely both different compared to any other language on earth in for example, grammar?”. All sci-fi films require some leaps of logic – you don’t try to explain how you could have explosions or sound in space in Star Wars or how you would get disconnected from a fake world in The Matrix. Along with it’s great musical score by Clinton Shorter, District 9 comes close to being The Matrix of the 2000′s, including doing what that did to the sci-fi genre – it’s not as revolutionary but it comes pretty close. And that’s not bad. Not bad at all.
More info: Trailer – Metacritic – Official Website
REVIEW: Inglourious Basterds1
Posted In Blog,Reviews
Before I begin this review (which is the first one in quite some time now) I’d like to begin with saying that I’ve changed the review method slightly – no more 5-point based scoring-system. It’s hard to put a number on films, and I know that I might have a tendency to “overrate” a lot of films I see – which is why I’ve decided to just keep the review as a purely text-based thing and not something where I’ll just slap a number on it at the end. Anyway, let’s get this review underway!
I had been looking forward to Inglourious Basterds, the latest film from director Quentin Tarantino, for quite some time. Having watched the first trailer my expectations remained on the same heights, and once it had been very well recieved at the Cannes film festival, with Christoph Waltz winning the “Best Actor” award earlier this year, I just knew it: I had to see this film. Now.
Needless to say really, the film lived up to my expectations and in some cases, exceeded them – so what is it about really? Similar to other films by Tarantino (excluding Death Proof and Kill Bill) there are several smaller stories featuring their own main characters, that are intertwined at the end in a big, no-holds-barred confrontation – come to think of it, this makes it rather similar to the gangster films made by UK director Guy Ritchie. The story combines different actors with different spoken languages and in some cases, different genres into a mishmash of greatness. Speaking of languages, the dialouge in this film is really rather brilliant – all scenes with Christoph Waltz’s character Hans “The Jew Hunter” Linda are fantastic – the actor is clearly the perfect fit for the role, which in some scenes is the best villain Tarantino has put on screen to date. Not only is he a great actor who is like a ticking bomb to watch – calm one moment, aggresive and lethal the next – he also speakes several languages fluently throughout the film. It’s a joy to watch Hans Linda effortlessly switch from German to French to English to Italian. In one scene. And while we’re on the topic of Italian linguistics, a scene featuring Brad Pitt’s’ Tenesee-born Aldo Raine completely mastering the language. Sort of.
Brad Pitt leads a gang of undercover soldiers – the “Inglourious Basterds” – dropped into France a mere weeks before the 
American invasion during the 2nd World War. Their mission is simple: kill nazi soldiers – or as Aldo Raine puts it: “Nazi ain’t got no humanity and need to be dee-stroyed”. Among the Jewish, American soldiers Aldo Raine has recruited are some unknown and some fimilar faces – most notably Eli Roth (director of the two installations of Hostel as well as Cabin Fever) who plays Donny Donowitz, a character among enemies also known as “The Bear-Jew” with a fondness for baseball. Also great in the film is Til Schweiger who plays former German soldier turned Nazi-killer Hugo Stiglitz – I had previously only seen him in Uwe Boll’s Far Cry – a rather miserable film – but he’s absolutely fantastic in this. Other notable roles include Diane Krueger as a famous German actress who does a really good job with her role, as well as Mike Myers who plays a general in the British secret service – while he plays his role quite well, it’s still not quite up to par with the other actors who do an amazing job, and it all feels like a bit too much of Austin Powers shining through.
I could go into details on how the setpieces are great, the music (mainly pulled from 70′s spaghetti westerns) fits beautifully and how all the small twists and turns make it this dialouge-focused piece of film a joy to watch. I could even say that the first scene/chapter of the film is probably among the best scenes by Tarantino ever, but I’ll stick to the fact that the film was planned, shot, edited and finished in less than 8 months. The film consists of 5 chapters, which are basically long scenes that begin peacefully while the tension slowly builds throughout. And to think that there are, in total, a maximum of maybe 10 setpieces in the entire film with it’s runtime clocking over the 2h 40min mark – it never gets anywhere even close to not being highly entertaining, should be praise enough. Seriously, you should go see this film. Now. Twice.
More info: Trailer – Metacritic – Official Website
[UPDATE] Hope you enjoyed this new review format, check back tomorrow Wednesday evening for my review of the newly released sci-fi action film by debut director Neil Blomkamp, District 9!
REVIEW: Watchmen1
Posted In Blog,Reviews
Here’s my review of the long-awaited film “Watchmen”, directed by Zack Snyder – starring Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman and Billy Crudup, among others. I’ll try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible!
I’ll just start by saying I haven’t read the graphic novel just yet (planning on buying it as soon as possible though). Even so, I had been waiting for this film for quite some time now – the first trailer premiered around the time The Dark Knight was released. It quickly caught my attention and I’ve been – as I always do – building up the hype for it the last couple of weeks. And watched the trailer so many times I’m sure it can’t be really healthy. Based on this, i obviously went in to the theatre with extremely high hopes. Oh, and I saw it in IMAX as well – but more on that later in the review!
The Comedian is dead. The oldest figure of the Watchmen masked vigilantes – as well as the only remain of the former Minutemen – has been murdered, thrown out of a skyscraper. This is where we enter the film’s universe. Rorschach (Earle Haley) suspects something more is behind the motive of The Comedian’s murder, rather than just a simple robbery. It’s reallly difficult to go any further without spoiling the rest of the film (before you start bashing on my no-spoilers policy, this was the first 2 minutes, and can all be seen and understood in trailers 
). What I can say is the rest of the film takes you to a whole lot of places, both literally and emotionally. By the end of the film I basically sat still in my seat, almost hyperventilating – sort of the same probably quite unhealthy experience I had having watched last year’s masterpiece The Dark Knight. So, yes – you could say I enjoyed the movie’s story. A lot. Although I was quite frequently shocked at the amount of violence in the film – definitely not for children, or anyone faint-of-heart. I can’t wait to read the graphic novel to get the full idea of the story’s smaller details, and therefor also completing what I think is a pretty remarkable film.
While all of the actors had pretty good performances, the ones I would like to focus on are Jackie Earle Haley as well as 
Jeffrey Dean Morgan, as they are by far the best of the bunch.Firstly, Jackie Earle Haley is phenomenal as Rorschach. He almost brings the same intensity and level of insanity to his character that the late Heath Ledger did to last year’s Joker – which coincidentally, covered his face in make-up in both comparision and contrast to Rorschach’s ink-blot mask, which he uses throughout the majority of the film. Haley manages to give an object which is not able to display-emotion exactly that, and the few scenes in which he is unmasked are surely some of the better this film has to offer. (Two words: dining scene). Jeffrey Dean Morgan is The Comedian is also amazing, and somehow adds depth to a character who is very easy to hate, and justifiably so.
Visual Effects. They were seriously amazing. To have one of the leads being a CG blue naked man (a fact which I’m sure r will spur some intense debates over at FOX News, masters of integrity and modern thinking) is an interesting move, and one I wasn’t sure of how well it would be pulled off walking into the theatre. Billy Crudup’s performance as Dr. Manhattan is amazing though, and totally works in every single scene. Oh, and from about 2 hours or so in the film starts presenting visuals I’ve never seen the likes to before. Ever. If you see it, make sure you sit close to the screen, and allow yourself to fully immerse in the world that Alan Moore has built – and Zack Snyder perfected on screen.
I loved the film’s music! It’s from the get-go pretty obvious Snyder loves to use unusual bands and songs at unexpected moments of the film. It all works really well in the end! Also Tyler Bates delievers a great score, as always. Sound Design was also fantastic, with the scene featuring the creation of Dr. Manhattan standing as my favorite when the credits rolled after the quite long runtime of 163 minutes. The lengthy runtime was never an issue when watching the film though, and now that Snyder has confirmed his director’s cut version to be a bit over four hours, the eventual Blu-Ray release can’t come soon enough.
Saw the film at BFI IMAX, which was truly amazing. Sitting at the third row, it felt as if you were right in the middle of the film’s events. If you ever go to London, make sure to give the theatre a visit, as it truly turns just another movie-watching experience (albeit an excellent one) to an incredible experience.
Overall, I loved this film. While I feel it might have been easier to follow in some scenes if I had read the graphic novel beforehand, it doesn’t hurt the film notably. 5 stars, and a sure contender for this year’s Best Film.
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