365 Films in 2012
260. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (dir. James Cameron, USA, 1991)
John Connor (Edward Furlong), now a kid of ?? years of age, is threatened once again by Skynet from the future. They send a new T-1000 (Robert Patrick) from the future to kill him, so he sends a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to save… himself. Also, his mother (Linda Hamilton) is here again.
I think this might be my favourite James Cameron film. It’s not as sleek and brutal as the first Terminator, and it’s not as quotable as Aliens, but it uses all of Cameron’s strengths and also manages (sometimes) to make a virtue of his weaknesses. The main problem is that Cameron seems to genuinely have no idea when he’s using a cliche - he has no self-awareness to stop him from using lines like “We’ve got company!”, or to just not do silly things like ruin his big emotional pay-off ending with a laugh-out-loud hilarious cheesy thumbs-up. Also, all of his characters are constructed for maximum cool, and therefore never really feel like actual people. But: it’s a good story, with a good look, and Linda Hamilton is great, even if she doesn’t get as good a climactic line as she did in the first film.
Verdict: very enjoyable -equal parts visionary and cliché
365 Films in 2012
259. Silent Running (dir. Douglas Trumbull, USA, 1972)
Lowell (Bruce Dern) finds himself alone on a soon-to-be-decommissioned spaceship, with the very last biodome of Earth flora.
A cult classic, but not one that I loved. There’s some nice stuff here, and the sets are wonderful - very much of their time. As a story, it’s disappointing; begins with a decent bit of set-up, 10 minutes of story, then there’s 70 minutes of world texture with no real development. Just a parade of little things which might be background detail in other films. I couldn’t get over how much this must have cost, and how much you could do with that budget today.
Verdict: well I nearly fell asleep in the middle but I didn’t, so.
365 Films in 2012
258. Enchanted (dir. Kevin Lima, USA, 2007)
Giselle (Amy Adams) falls for Prince Edward (James Marsden), but in order to retain her throne his evil step-mother (Susan Sarandon) banishes her… to modern day New York.
I’m always up for a postmodern twist on a classic tale. This is that, but retains the sickly sweet sincerity that is so integral to the Disney method. Not enough songs; otherwise, totally great.
Verdict: lots o’ fun - you could say I was… Charmed! No, wait, that’s wrong
365 Films in 2012
257. Jack Reacher (dir. Christopher McQuarrie, USA, 2012)
When veteran sniper James Barr () is arrested for shooting several innocent people, it appears to be an open-and-shut case, but as his attorney (Rosamund Pike) and a former military police officer, Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) dig deeper, things become rather more complicated. Also starring Richard Jenkins, Robert Duvall and Werner Herzog.
Pretty good. Slick direction from McQuarrie (best known as the writer of The Usual Suspects). More of a thriller than the action flick sold by the trailer, though the action scenes that it does have are pretty great. There are elements of Steven Moffat and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock in the way Reacher talks and keeps ahead of everyone round him, but less of the sociopathic disdain and more of a restrained psychotic edge. Unpleasant sexual attitudes; women are mostly treated with disdain throughout, and the plot resolution only makes sense if you agree that no woman could reliably testify in front of a court.
Verdict: very entertaining/ unsettlingly conservative
365 Films in 2012
256. Army of Darkness (dir. Sam Raimi, USA, 1992)
Ash (Bruce Campbell) travels back in time 600 years, where it is prophesied that he will help the people defeat an ancient evil that plagues their land.
The first Evil Dead was a brilliant, though often humourous, horror film. Evil Dead 2 was a horror film that went out of its way to make jokes (including a stop motion dance scene in which a corpse pirouetted around the woods). Army of Darkness, the third film by Sam Raimi to star Bruce Campbell as Ash, is a comedy-fantasy-adventure (with some gore). After a wickedly good first 10 minutes, it then becomes 70 solid minutes of slapstick humour. Some of it is funny, some of it less so. Definitely the weakest of the trilogy, but perhaps the funniest.
Verdict: groovy
365 Films in 2012
255. Angel Heart (dir. Alan Park, USA, 1987)
P.I. Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is hired by Louis Cyphre (Robet De Niro) (GEDDIT????) to track down a missing singer with whom he had “made a deal”.
A finely photographed, downbeat, loose-feeling noir/horror mashup. A real one for any fans of Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’s noir comics. It progresses along pretty well, if unfocussed; all well and good until the twist ending (which the film cheats to get to - I wouldn’t have a problem with the twist otherwise, but this film is not The Usual Suspects). After the reveal, there’s a few minutes of stumbling about before a legitimately terrible final cap-off.
Verdict: decent until the ending
365 Films in 2012
254. Bottle Rocket (dir. Wes Anderson, USA, 1996)
Anthony (Luke Wilson) checks out of a voluntary psychiatric treatment, and returns to robbery with his friends Dignan (Owen Wilson) and Bob (Robert Musgrave).
Some decent moments, but there’s not much here of the Wes Anderson who would go on to make Rushmore just two years later, let alone the director who would make a film as assured as The Royal Tenenbaums or this year’s triumphant masterpiece, Moonrise Kingdom. It’s like a Wes Anderson film stripped of what distinguishes Anderson from his myriad imitators in the US indie scene.
Verdict: mildly interesting - Anderson’s weakest
365 Films in 2012
253. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (dir. Peter Jackson, USA/New Zealand, 2012)
In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit (Martin Freeman).
After all the hype, there is a film; a good one. It is indeed very long, though it mostly doesn’t feel it. After a very good opening prologue, there is an overlong preamble that ties this trilogy in with The Lord of the Rings trilogy far more assertively than is really required. Throughout, there are moments that feel a little unnecessarily crow-barred in. The tone varies and doesn’t always feel quite right, but for the most part the lighter adventure feels right. Some action sequences just go on a bit too long. I definitely could not name all of the dwarves, let alone tell you which is which (Thorin, Balin, Fili, Kili, James Nesbitt, ???). The film is at its best when focussed on Martin Freeman’s droll, human portrayal of Bilbo, the eponymous hobbit, or on Ian McKellen’s reprisal of his iconic Gandalf. The final moments adroitly resolve the film into a full formed character arc for Bilbo, and give enough of a sense of closure that one doesn’t feel cheated at spending almost 3 hours on what is essentially a third of the story.
Verdict: altogether better than I’d hoped - really good
Note: I ended up seeing this film in 2D at the standard 24fps.
365 Films in 2012
252. Drive Angry (dir. Patrick Lussier, USA, 2011)
Milton (Nicolas Cage) breaks out of Hell, and sets out to rescue his granddaughter from the cult which murdered his daughter, with the help of Piper (Amber Heard).
Absolute trash, but not without its moments. Totally shameless “things flying at the screen” approach to 3D (doesn’t work at all in 2D). Lots of terrible looking CGI. Stunningly idiotic approach to characters, and there’s so much in this story that goes unexplained or simply doesn’t make sense. Cage is on decent form. The film doesn’t need him to be as good as he is in this, though he’s not at his best. Amber Heard is OK. Lots of silly “cool” things that don’t really work on the level they’re meant to. There’s a really great 75 minute chase film buried in Drive Angry, but it’s obscured by idiocy and a cheap look.
Verdict: somewhere between not good and watchable
365 Films in 2012
251. Carrie (dir. Brian de Palma, USA, 1976)
Carrie (Sissy Spacek) is bullied at school and oppressed by her mother (Piper Laurie), but begins to develop telekinetic powers.
I have never read a Stephen King book, and at this rate I never; not because I’d find it scary, but because I think I’d find it ridiculous. Carrie has some good scenes, certainly, and Spacek and Laurie are excellent. However, for me, de Palma has no control of tone. Scenes which should be scary are comic, scenes which should be funny fall entirely flat. There’s also a religious metaphor at the end which doesn’t make a lick of sense as far as I can tell. The film also seems to have a very dim view of women, and a mangled view of religion that seems to demonise the religious while also upholding a Christian view of good and evil. I can see what this film would have a cult following, but thematically it’s a mess and I honestly didn’t find it very engaging.
Verdict: some good - some frankly ridiculous
