Seabiscuit review

 Number 960 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2003 sports film 'Seabiscuit.'

Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire) is a jockey looking for a better life in the wake of the Great Depression. Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) is an industrialist moving on from a tragic accident. Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) is a kindly horse-trainer. What unites these three very difficult characters is the horse Seabiscuit - a racing horse who soon becomes one of the best in the country.

This was a dull film. Partially, because I wasn't interested in the subject matter, but also because there were some structural and character problems. Let's start with Charles Howard. He is initially presented sympathetically. At first, he runs a bicycle shop, but when that business fail, he moves into the automobile industry. It was nice seeing him struggle before he succeeded.

And his successes keep coming, as he marries and then has a son. But then his son *spoilers*

dies in a car accident. Tragedy! Except this moment was completely rushed. We have no time to feel this tragedy as Jeff Bridges quickly remarries. His new wife Marcela (Elizabeth Banks) has little character/personality outside of being his wife. And then he becomes a father-figure to Red Pollard - a young man who was sent away from his family during the Great Depression, in the hopes of finding a better life.

Tobey Maguire, unrecognisable from his Spider-Man role, brings the tragic Pollard to life, except again the tragedy of his character is also underplayed. In the run-up to the "race of the century," Pollard breaks his leg and is told he'll never race again. But no matter, he finds a substitute, and listens to the race on the radio.

There's no long, gruelling recovery or Pollard defying the odds to race once last time. Rather Pollard serenely lies back and accepts it. And I found this to to be a puzzling choice. Our protagonist is removed from the action. Instead, we are cheering on a strange character, when we should really be cheering on Pollard. But Pollard doesn't care, so why should I?

Although Maguire, Bridges and Cooper aren't bad actors, I do think a bad script with structural problems and wonky characterisations didn't do them justice at all.

True Grit (2010) review

 Number 594 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Coen brothers' Western 'True Grit.'

Based on the book of the same name and a remake of the 1969 film, 'True Grit' follows the unlikely relationship between a teenage girl and a federal marshal in 19th century Arkansas. When the father of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is killed by hired hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) she hires federal marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track him down and bring him to justice. Also searching for Chaney is Texas ranger Laboeuf (Matt Damon.)

As you may have gathered from my High Noon review, I am not the biggest fan of Westerns. They're not a genre of film that has ever engaged me. However, I was pleasantly surprised by True Grit. A lot of that was down to Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross. Unlike the female characters of the old spaghetti Westerns, she has a lot of agency. It is her pluckiness, determination and refusal to take no for an answer that kicks off the whole storyline. Granted, she is rash and impulsive which does lead her to make silly decisions for no other reasons than to advance the storyline, but it was refreshing to see a female character with ... well grit. Steinfeld played the part well. It was bizarre that she was only nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar when she was the leading lady, but don't ask me how the Academy works.

Jeff Bridges was also great as the male lead Rooster Cogburn. He is initially dismissive of Mattie, but the two progressively become closer even forming a father-daughter relationship. It was quite touching and formed the backbone of the film. To some extent, it reminded me of Leon: the Professional with Cogburn training Mattie to help him catch Chaney. Throw in Matt Damon as Labeouf and you have the archetypal odd throuple. The three leads were very funny together and the humour helped to offset the dark tone.

Another reason that the film surprised me is that I'm generally not a fan of the Coen Brothers. As a whole, their films are too weird for me. Yet True Grit was very straightforward. There was none of their off-the-wall surrealist humour that dominates their other pictures. And unlike other Western directors *cough cough* Leone, there isn't endless tension-building that slows up the storyline. The pacing was fast and slow as was needed.

For a Western and a Coen Brother's film, I thoroughly enjoyed True Grit.

High Noon review

 Number 195 on the top 1000 films of all time is Fred Zinnemann's 1952 Western 'High Noon.'

Marshall Will Cane (Gary Cooper) is ready to hang up his hat following his marriage to Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly.) However, he learns that Frank Miller (Ian Mcdonald,) an outlaw he put away, has been released and is coming for revenge. Will Cane must choose between running away with his new bride or standing and fighting.

I've never been keen on cowboy films. Westerns have never been something I've found engaging, so it's difficult for me to review this fairly, but I shall try. Honestly, I just found this film to be boring and generic. There was never any drama or tension. It was obvious that Marshall Will Cane would stay and defend his town. And that he would fight the outlaws alone after trying and failing to raise a posse.

This causes a problem with his Quaker and pacifist wife who threatens to leave without him, but jumps off the departing train at the last minute. All rather predictable. Grace Kelly did the best with what she had, but Amy Fowler was just a product of the female characters of her time - little more than inconvenience for the male protagonist rather than a character in her own right. Although I will admit that I did enjoy seeing her pick up a gun and shooting one of the outlaws. That was a nice touch of agency.

Gary Cooper won the Best Actor Oscar for this role. But I am at a loss to why. He has a reputation for being the strong, silent type, which I think is code for a big, block of wood. And that's exactly what he was, but, then again, I don't think the role of Will Cane afforded him a lot of opportunity to be anything else.

While some people might love Western and Cowboy films, they've never been for me. 

K-Pax review

 Number 965 on the top 1000 films of all time is the science-fiction film K-Pax.

Prot (Kevin Spacey) claims to be an alien visiting earth from the planet K-Pax, while manifesting in the form of a human male. Upon his arrival in New York, he is quickly remanded to a psychiatric facility. Where he comes into the care of Dr Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges.) Dr Powell is determined to prove Prot a liar, but he is confronted with increasingly convincing evidence.

Kevin Spacey has undoubtedly become a problematic figure, but there is no denying that he was one hell of an actor. By the time he filmed K-Pax, he had already won acting Oscars for the Usual Suspects and American Beauty. He brought the full force of his acting skills to this role too. As far as aliens go, Prot is a little bit like a Vulcan - observing the customs of humans with a scientific curiousity, and, at times, a quiet exasperation. If Dr Powell asks him whether he has K-Pax equivalent of a human custom, Prot will rationally explain why something like that would be nonsense.

In the hands of a lesser actor, these explanations would sound like rubbish, but Spacey pulls off the awkward dialogue with finesse. And even a bit of humour. For a science-fiction film, there were a lot of jokes and Spacey played them well. As well as making us laugh, he pulled at our heart strings too. To unlock the truth, Dr Powell hypnotises Prot and discovers that Prot - or at least the human form he is assuming - was once known as a man called Robert Porter who worked in an abattoir. His wife and daughter are raped and murdered by a paroled convict. In his grief, Robert kills the murderer. To protect his fragile state of mind, he creates a delusion of being an alien from K-Pax. Spacey was brilliant in these scenes. 

Jeff Bridges was great too - often playing the Dr Bones to Spacey's Spock. And as he becomes more obsessed with the case, his relationship with his family becomes strained. Bridges plays a man caught between two worlds. But like Spacey, he plays the comedy well, often acting as the straight man.

A lot of science-fiction films that deal with big philosophical themes tend to be self-indulgent and pretentious, *cough  cough* 2001: A Space Odyssey, as they try to prove how clever they are. K-Pax was nothing like this. It was a simple and straightforward plot. There wasn't anything pretentious about it. Rather than vaguely answering big questions, it hyper-focussed on what it means to be human.

And was Prot really an alien or a delusional human trying to survive a severe trauma? Like any good science-fiction, it doesn't tell you what to think, but lets you make up your own mind. Personally, I think that Prot and Robert Porter had a symbiotic relationship. Prot needed a human host and Porter needed a reason to not be himself anymore. But what do you think?