Sympathy for Lady Vengeance review

 Number 618 on the top 1000 films of all time is the South Korean neo-noir, psychological thriller ' Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.'

Lee Geum-Ja (Lee Young-oe) has just been released from prison. Her crime? She was falsely convicted for the murder of a five -year-old schoolboy thirteen years earlier. She swears revenge on the real killer Baek Han-sung (Choi Min-Sik.)

Let's star off with the criticism, which I'm sad to say was Choi Min-Sik. He is one of Korea's most pre-eminent actors wowing audiences in Old Boy, but also terrifying them in I saw the Devil. In the latter, he paid a monstrous serial killer. Yet as murderer Mr Baek, he was disappointing. He lacked the same intensity as his other role roles. And he wasn't anymore threatening than a bank manager.

Lady Vengeance is the third installment of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy after Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and the aforementioned Old Boy. Old Boy still remains my favourite. Everything about it was perfect - confusing and complicated sure, but not as much as Lady Vengeance.

True everything does resolve and become clear, but it took a while to get there. There is a lot of set-up in the beginning as the film delves into Geum-Ja's fellow inmates, who in one way or another help her to track down Mr Baek. It was interesting to an extent. After a while, I was waiting for them to hurry up to the next plot point.

Despite the slow start, it all built toward a thrilling conclusion - perhaps the darkest of the Vengeance trilogy. *spoilers to follow.*

 Having tracked down Mr Baek and imprisoned him in an old school, Geumg-Ja discovers he has killed other children. She invites the victim's families to exact their own vengeance. Enter a 12 Angry Men-esque scene, where the families debate the morality behind the actions they're about to take. Here Park Chan-Wook rightly took his time to delve into the psychology underpinning such a morally-deprived act.

There exists two versions of the film. A standard version and one where the colour progressively fades into monochrome. Unknowingly, I had watched the latter. I thought this was a great device that really highlighted how in the pursuit of vengeance, we become black-in-white in our thinking. There is no longer space for nuance or doubt. Maybe some would argue this is on-the-nose storytelling, but I still enjoyed it.

And I did enjoy Lady Vengeance. A slow start, a great ending, but also a disappointing performance from Choi Min-Sik.

Mash review

 Number 616 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Robert Altman's war-comedy film Mash.

Mash follows the antics of three medical officers Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland,) Captain Trapper John Mcintyre (Eliot Gould) and Captain Duke Forrest (Tom Skerrit) during the Korean war. Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman and Rene Auberjonois co-star.

If you don't know the film Mash then you certainly know the subsequent TV show. Sufficed to say, it was one of the most popular American sitcoms with the most watched TV show finale ever. This is all in spite of how Altman absolutely despised the show.

And like how he despised the TV show, i despised the film. Many critics including the distinguished Roger Ebert, regard it as one of the funniest satires of war ever. Evidently, we we were watching different films, as I, far from my sides hurting from laughing, my eyes were hurting from rolling back in my head.

I barely cracked a smile through the two-hour run-time. it wasn't a funny film. Through a modern lens, you could certainly argue the humour hasn't aged well. I'm sure many modern women wouldn't be happy with how Margaret Houlihan was the butt of every joke.

Through every other lens, it just wasn't funny. It didn't help all the characters were really unlikeable. Hawkeye and Trapper were supposed to be loveable rogues, but they're also insubordinate jerks who like to cause trouble. They were obnoxious and annoying. They weren't characters I wanted to laugh with or at. And even the poor victim Houlihan was too much of a wet blanket to be truly interesting to watch.

In some ways, their characters reflected the actors playing them. Sutherland and Gould famously clashed with Altman and his improvisational directorial style - going so far as to try and get him fired by studio execs. Scriptwriter Ring Lardon JR also had his own problems with Altman. This is despite how he won the Oscar for best screenplay. It definitely changes your perspective of the film.

And my perspective? It was an unfunny film with unlikeable characters.

Blood Simple review

 Number 586 on the top 1000 films of all time is the neo-noir 'Blood Simple.'

Barman Ray (John Getz) is having an affair with his boss Marty's (Dan Hedaya) wife Abby (Frances Mcdormand.) Upon discovering this, Marty arranges sleazy PI Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to kill them both.

Blood Simple was the directorial debut of the Coen Brothers. They also wrote and produced the film. And they certainly laid the groundwork for their future careers. This was long before they were winning Academy Awards or creating the most surreal of cinema, but they set the stage for things to come.

Often I find Coen Brothers' films too zany and weird, but Blood Simple was relatively straightforward. Or as straightforward as any noir film can be. As one can expect, Blood Simple has many twists and turns although it all makes sense in the end. I think...kinda...

Speaking of debuts, this was also the screen debut of the always terrific Frances Mcdormand. Just like the Coen Brothers, she was laying the groundwork for her future career. What an illustrious career it has been. She remains one of only three actors to win three Best Acting Oscars - sharing the honour with Katherine Hepburn and Daniel Day-Lewis. Standing on shoulders of giants to say the least... 

Along with Katy Hepburn, Frances Mcdormand has really improved representation of women characters on-screen. Long gone are the days of women either being dumb blondes, sex objects or scream queens. The likes of Mcdormand and Hepburn proved that women are capable of playing just as interesting, tough and fully-formed characters as men do. 

Abby is no exception. She's more than capable of protecting herself from all the sleazy men in her life - you only need to look at how she deals with the sleazy PI Visser. He is just one of the many sleazy men in Abby's life - all played by relatively unknown actors who haven't gone onto have the same careers as Frances Mcdormand.

It's a credit to the Coen Brothers that they were able to write, produce and direct, such a thrilling and inventive neo-noir film with such an unknown cast.

Midnight in Paris review

 Number 608 on the top 1000 films of all time is Woody Allen's fantasy comedy 'Midnight in Paris.'

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a struggling Hollywood writer holidaying in Paris with his nagging fiancee Inez (Rachel Mcadams.) Pender seeks respite with midnight walks in Paris' back streets where he discovers he can travel back to 1920's Paris and meet the famous writers and artists like Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Picasso who once called Paris home. The film's supporting cast includes Adrian Brody, Tom Hiddleston, Kathy Bates and Marion Cotillard.

This is the eighth Woody Allen film I've watched. By now everybody knows that I do not like Woody Allen films. All too often I find them to be pretentious, unfunny or just stupid. I was not expecting to like Midnight in Paris, but by some minor miracle I did. I'm still confused now.

For starters it was actually funny. I actually laughed out loud more than once instead of just sitting stony-faced throughout the whole film. In the past, I have found Woody Allen films to be all set-up and no punchline. But here, I was laughing in the first few minutes.

I enjoyed the playfullness that Owen Wilson brought to the role and the whimsical element that the time travel brought to the plot. The mechanics of it weren't explained. Nor did they need to be. To have done so would have only complicated a film that didn't need to be. Similar to The Purple Rose of Cairo, the time travel was considered more as magic realism rather than convoluted science-fiction. It was treated as established fact of the universe.

It helped the characters weren't insufferable faux-intellectuals except for Inez's faux-academic friend Paul (Michael Sheen) but he was intentionally supposed to be insufferable. In contrast, Gil and Inez were both down-to-earth characters. Gil wasn't pretending to be anything else, but a writer looking for inspiration. Inez wasn't pretending to be anything else, but a tired girlfriend bored with her fiancee's strange antics. There was no pretentiousness with Wilson and Mcadams giving grounded performances. It helped that Owen Wilson is a lot more likeable than Woody Allen who often stars in his own film where he always plays himself.

If there is one thing that has always impressed me with Woody Allen films, it is the cinematography and set design. I loved the 1920's Paris scenes that truly captured the excess and opulence of the jazz era. The likes of Tom Hiddleston, Adrian Brody and the always terrific Kathy Bates also did well in bringing their respective characters to life.

The film touches on themes of nostalgia and looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses. Yet the film ends on the note of Gil resisting the temptation to stay in the past. Instead he returns to the present but with a new perspective. It's not so much the grass is always greener on the other side, but where you water it. Although Allen often likes to include some type of philosophical message in his films, these often fall flat. This was NOT the case here. I was not expecting that at all.

And I wasn't expecting to actually enjoy a Woody Allen film, but sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction.

Dazed and Confused review

 Number 607 on the top 1000 films of all time is Richard Lintlaker's coming-of-age drama 'Dazed and Confused.'

It is the last day of school in a high school in an unnamed Texan town. Over the course of one wild night, we see the school's students get up to mischief as they prepare for the summer holiday. The huge ensemble cast includes Jason London as quarterback Randall 'Pink' Floyd, Ben Affleck as bully Fred O'Bannion, Anthony Rapp and Adam Goldberg as intellectuals Mike Newhouse and Tony Olson and Matthew McConaughey as ageing stoner David Wooderson.

Richard Lintlaker is perhaps best-known for the excellent Before Trilogy. Similarly to Dazed and Confused, the Before Trilogy lacks a traditional storyline. In case it's an intensely character-driven story that gets really into the psychology of the characters involved. They tell a slice-of-life narrative that neglects big set pieces for the fascinating minutiae of everyday life. However, the biggest difference between the Before Trilogy and Dazed and Confused is that I actually cared about the characters in the Before Trilogy. I can't think of one semi-likeable character within the latter...or any characters I was actually rooting for.

This seems to be a common occurence when I watch coming-of-age dramas: usually the characters are obnoxious, annoying or just plain unlikeable. The Goonies, the Sandlot and the The Breakfast Club fit the bill perfectly and you can easily add Dazed and Confused to that list. The film opens with a dreadful hazing ritual where we see the older high school seniors bullying all the freshmen. It looked awful and made me really glad I never went to school in the US. 

It was also just really uncomfortable to watch especially since it seemed to be played for laughs rather than serious psychological bullying. Obviously O'Bannion and his cronies were supposed to be the villains of the piece and you're not supposed to root for them, but I really did hate them. It didn't help that Ben Affleck was as wooden as ever. 

Yet I also didn't particularly care for the kids they were bullying either. Their biggest target Mitch Kramer [Wiley Wiggins] is rescued by Pink who then takes him on a night drive to vandalise the local neighbourhood. Again not the best way to endear a character to an audience. Sure Kramer had other friends who didn't engage in that, but they weren't particularly memorable. After a while the characters all blurred into one. The same could be said for a lot of the older boys too.

The same went for all of the senior girls who engaged in the same hazing tactics as the boys although the film didn't focus as much on the freshmen. Even Tony and Mike who, I think, were supposed to be the semi-likeable characters became a bit grating after a while especially when Mike couldn't let sleeping dogs lie and got his own arse kicked.

Finally, Dazed and Confused was known for launching Matthew McConaughey's career. This was his breakout role and probably the most memorable part of the film, but even he wasn't anything that special. There was little beyond his character past the signature catchphrase 'alright, alright, alright.'

I didn't enjoy Dazed and Confused at all. It embodied everything I don't like about coming-of-age dramas: no storyline and instead a group of unrelatable, unlikeable teenager protagonists making idiots of themselves and expecting us to like them.

Eastern Promises review

 Number 605 on the top 1000 films of all time is David Cronenberg's crime-drama 'Eastern Promises.'

Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) is an English-Russian midwife whose next patient is Russian sexual-trafficking victim Tatiana. Tatiana is pregnant and dies in childbirth but her daughter survives. When Anna tries to locate the newborn baby's family, she is drawn into the Russian criminal underworld spearheaded by Nikolai Luzhin - driver for the Russian mafia boss Sermyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his loose cannon son Kiril (Vincent Cassel.)

There was a lot to like about this film and I was definitely all in up until the film's final act where it lost me. But before we get too negative let's talk about the positives of the film. I would be doing a major disservice if I didn't speak about Viggo Mortenson - one of the most chameleonic and versatile actors working in Hollywood today. And he was terrific as the morally grey Nikolai - driver to the Russian mafia. There is a reason he received a whole slieu of nominations (including an Oscar nod) and Best Actor awards like the Bafta for the role. 

I also very much enjoyed Armin Mueller-Stahl as the villainous Sermyon - he is a character living a double life. On the outside, he is a charming and amicable restauranter but on the inside he is a vicious criminal. Mueller-Stahl played both parts of the role very well. At first he didn't seem anymore dangerous than a lovable grandpa, but scratch beneath the surface and he was a chilling psychopath. Vincent Cassel also brought a great chaotic energy to the unpredictable Kiril - even if this did border on the unbelievable at times.

David Cronenberg is well-known for being a master of body-horror and Eastern Promise is certainly no exception. It had its share of violence and throat-slitting which, while being stomach-churning, also had a feeling of authenticity. Cronenberg rejected the gangsters using guns, as in real life they tend to use knives. The two Chechen assassins have linolem cutting knives which could easily be disguised as tools. It is more difficult to do that with guns. Speaking of the two Chechen assassins, their fight with Nikolai has to be the highlight of the film. It was a thrilling, exciting climax, but also one that arrived too early. Everything that came after was anticlimatic and disappointing. Spoiler territory to follow.

The two Chechens try to kill Nikolai after mistakenly believing that he is Kiril. Why do they think this? Nikolai was set up by a rival capo after both he and Kiril were involved in the killing of an associate. This was a brilliantly-choregraphed fight scene, but largely inconsequential. What happens to the capo who set up Nikolai? We don't know because the film jumps to the reveal that Nikolai is actually an undercover Russian agent on loan to the London police. He then provides them evidence to arrest Sermyon for the earlier statuory rape of Tatiana. The arrest itself is left off-screen.

Instead we see Kiril attempt to kidnap and murder Tatiana's baby on his father's orders before being talked around by Nikolai. Compared to the thrilling fight scene, it was a damp squib of an ending. It was building toward a big bang but instead finished with a whisper. Naomi Watts was also less than convincing in her role of Anna very much lacking the intensity of her co-stars.

Eastern Promises is definitely a good example of a film that started stronger than it finished. It had so much potential that was just wasted.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang review

 Number 602 on the top 1000 films of all time is Shane Black's 2005 crime-caper Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr) isa  burglar and petty crook who after on the run from the police worms his way into a high-profile acting role and fancy Hollywood party. Thetre he meets private detective 'Gay' Perry Van Shrike (Val Kilmer._ Lockhart becomes mixed up in Van Shrike's murder investigation. Michelle Monaghan co-stars.

In the 1990's, Roberty Downey Jr was one of the hottest properties in Hollywood earning Oscar nods for playing Charlie Chaplin. This all came crashing down at the end of the decade following a string of high-profile drug arrests and imprisonments. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang marked a clear resurgence in his career.

In many ways, the lovable rogue of Harry Lockhart served as a bleuprint for Downey most famous role of Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Lockhart is a charismatic if annoying jerk whose mile-an-hour mouth gets him into a lot of trouble. Mix that in with the straight-laced Van Shrike (Val Kilmer) and you have a very funny film.

Much of the film's humour comes from its meta-fictional, tongue-in-cheek tone with Lockhart providing amusing narration that pokes fun at the noir films of old. More specifically, he pokes fun at the convoluted plots that you might see in noir films starring Old Bogey. Personally, I've always found these films too smart for their own good, so it was nice seeing this be referenced. Although i would argue this film's storyline was similarly convoluted almost needed a cork bord and multiple reels of twine to figure out.

Yes, the film was convoluted but I would also argue that Michelle Monaghan was under-utilised. She seemed to spend much of the film in a sexy santa costume and could have had more to do. She is a good actress with a proven career from TV's True Detective to the silver screen with Gone Baby Gone. It would have been nice to have seen her do more.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. And I very much enjoyed its parodying of the noir films of old.