Flipped review

 Number 577 on the top 1000 films of all time is Rob Reiner's 2010 coming of age romantic drama Flipped.

Flipped tells the story of Bryce Loski (Callan Mcauliffe) and Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll) Upon meeting as kids, she falls in love with him. We see their love to and froe as they grow until adulthood where Juli is just about to give up when...

Rob Reiner's murder at the hands of his son is a tragedy. He will be best remembered for directing great films like The Princess Bride and Misery. Will he be remembered for directing Flipped? Nope. It was a very meh film and not particularly memorable. In terms of coming of age dramas, it was definitely no Stand By Me.

Much of this was down to the two lead characters and their rather insipid romance. Bryce is a major bonehead so much so that you do wonder why Juli was attracted to him in the first place. I guess love is both blind and deaf and dumb.

Callan Mcauliffe played Bryce At 15. He hasn't gone onto the most illustrious of careers other than a supporting role in the latter seasons of the Walking dead. He wasn't anything special as the bland protagonist. And wasn't particulary endearing either. The same can be said for Juli who was equally bland as Juli. I wasn't particularly interested in learning if the two get together or not.

Sure you could argue their messy love story is reflective of love stories everywhere but that didn't make it anymore interesting. It didn't help there wasn't much conflict keeping them apart except for their own pride and hubris. It was very much a case of stupid characters making stupid choices for no reason but to push the plot forward. Sure Bryce's father thinks Juli's family is beneath them but this felt more like an after thought.

Rob Reiner was a fine director who will be remembered for a great many films. However, Flipped is a film best forgotten.

Show me Love (Fucking Åmål) review

 Number 547 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Swedish coming-of-age romantic-comedy.

Agnes Ahlberg (Rebecka Lilijeberg) is a sixteen-year-old recluse. She has no friends but is secretly in love with her classmate Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrom) a party girl who hates the boring town of Amal where both girls live.

Show Me Love was Lukas Moodysson's directiorial debut. He would go onto to direct the tragic Lilya-4-ever which also starred a lost, naive female protagonist, although in far more dire circumstances tha here. To be honest, Lilya-4-ever was a far better film.

Show Me Love had the look of a low-budget teen drama. Considering its budget was nine million Swediwsh Kroner, under £80,000 (no doubt less than this thirty years ago) I guess there's a reason it looks like a test version of Skins.

Of course a low budget doesn't dictate a film being bad. However, it helps if the film has likeable characters. Both Agnes and Elin were annoying. Agnes bemoans being lonely and friendless but is rude to the only other girl who turned up to her birthday party, which quite rightfully, comes back to bite her on the arse. Meanwhile, Elin comes across as incredibly shallow.

Yes, of course, they're teenagers and that's what teenagers are like, but it also didn't make their characters heroes I wanted to see succeed. I'll concede that they became more likeable as they were allowed to mature and develop. It's just a shame that they were so damn annoying at first.

The film also had a strange ending scene as if Moodysson didn't know how to end his debut.

*spoilers*

Cornered in the school bathroom with fears of bother their relationship and sexuality being outed, the two girls choose to out their relationship to the school and are all the better for it. This would have been a good ending except then there was another scene of them drinking chocolate milk in Agnes' room. Very weird and ultimately pointless. It would have been far more powerful to have ended it with the outing scene.

Maybe I should give Moodysson some grace. This was his debut after all. Without this film, he would never have gone onto direct the heartbreaking Lilya-4-ever.

Amour review

 Number 450 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Michael Haneke's French psychological drama 'Amour.'

Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) Laurent are former music teachers and elderly couple in Paris. When Anne suffers a stroke that leaves her unable to take care of herself, Georges dutifully accepts the role of carer. However, the stress of the work becomes too much for the both of them.

Upon directing this film, Michael Haneke constantly reminded his cast to avoid over-sentimentality at all costs. This is what stopped the film from being a cheesy love story. Instead it was an utter devastating tragedy. Like Georges, I worked as a carer, so I saw first-hand how this stress can impact a couple's relationship.

I can attest there was nothing corny or overly-romanticised in Amour. We saw the authentic side of caring in all its brutal detail. We also saw the power of amour - French for love - nowhere was this more present than in the relationship between Georges and Anne. Amour was the perfect title for the film - if you are taking care of a loved one, you need nothing less than love itself. And to allow somebody to take care of you, you need to trust and love them implicitly. It was obvious Georges and Anne loved each other unconditionally.

This was obvious from Trintigant's and Riva's excellent characterisations. Anne was obviously in an awful situation. Nobody ever wants to suffer like she does, but despite being in a pitiful situation, she wasn't a pitiable character. Riva played her with the utmost humanity. Despite being in a sorry situation, she never surrenders her humanity. Not once. It was this brilliant portrayal that saw her win the BAFTA and Caesar award as well as receiving an Oscar nod.

Trintignant was equally good as Georges. As Anne's carer, the stress quickly takes its toll - his position is almost as bad as his wife's. Yet similarly to Anne - although we feel sorry for Georges, Georges is not a sorry character. He remains faithful to his wife all the way up the shock ending that I didn't see coming. Just like Riva, Trintignant also won the Caesar award for his portrayal of Georges.

Amour was a powerful but tragic film which depicted one of the hardest parts of life with the utmost humanity. And if my praise wasn't enough, it also won the Best International Film Oscar and the Palmes D'or at Cannes. Well-deserved.

Chungking Express review

 Number 234 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Hong Kong art house romantic-drama Chungking Express.

Chungking Express tells two separate love stories which only interconnect where one ends and the other begins. The first sees a Hong Kong police officer He Qiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) trying to come to terms with the ending of a relationship, while growing closer to a mysterious, unnamed woman in a blonde wig (Brigitte Lin) who is trying to survive in a dark, criminal underworld. The second story sees another policeman only known by his serial number 663 (Tony Leung) as he grows closer to the cafe waitress Faye (Faye Wong) after another failed relationship.

Of the two stories, I much preferred the second one. I found the first to be more of a loose sketch rather than an actual story. He Qiwu was such a wet blanket of a character. I get it. I've been him, moping around after a bad break-up. I'm sure I was an absolute misery to be around. What fun is somebody who is always feeling sorry for themselves? While it was realistic, it didn't make for a very compelling protagonist.

His female co-star had a more interesting story, but she wasn't afforded enough time to tell it. We see that she has been wronged in this criminal underworld and she is trying to take revenge on everybody who screwed her over. Yet her story was left incredibly vague and unexplained. Her actions certainly didn't have a lot of clarity. Although maybe this was because of the intentional motion blur that director Wong Kar-Wait used. And who knew there was such a big Indian minority in Hong Kong? Evidently not me who didn't realise the real Chungking estate does indeed host a whole bunch of Nepalese and South Asian immigrants.

Overall, the first story took itself too seriously. Not so for the second which was more light-hearted. It helped you had the comic relief character of the cafe manager played by Chan Kam-Cheun. He was constantly pushing 663 to move on. And it also helped that Tony Leung's character had more backbone than the other copper. Rather than moping around in self-despair, he's trying to get on with his life - if not actively moving on.

One way he's doing this is by frequenting a cafe where he starts getting friendly with the waitress Faye - who plays California Dreamin' by the Mamas and Papas on repeat. She is immediately smitten with him and her attempts to get closer to him - like cleaning and organising his flat when he isn't there - usually leading to some comic moments. It's quite a charming little story.

And Chungking Express is a charming enough film. It's actually two films in one with the second story being a lot better than the first. 

In The Mood for Love review

 Number 216 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Chinese romance-drama 'In the Mood for Love.'

Mr Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung) are two neighbours who have just moved into a Hong Kong apartment block. Suspecting their respective spouses of cheating on them, the two start becoming attracted to each other. Will they be like their spouses and have an affair too?

Never mind love, I'm in the mood for an entertaining film, because this was film was dull. Insufferably dull. Boring. Tedious. Monotonous. Insert any other synonym for boring. It's a drama. Where was the drama? The tension?

It's quickly established that Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are lonely; their spouses work long hours and are inattentive. Although we never see this on-screen. Plus it isn't like the two would-be lovers are social pariahs. Mrs Chan's neighbours are constantly inviting her in for dinner, but she always refuses. If you actually had dinner with your neighbours, you wouldn't be so lonely. At a certain point, you're just being a victim.

And there's nothing stopping Mr Chow and Mrs Chan from having an affair if they really wanted. Their neglectful spouses are nowhere to be seen. They have no rivals for each other's interests. We, the audience, can see how lonely they are, so we're willing for them to get together. Where's the tension? It's virtually non-existent. In fact, the first moment of tension doesn't occur until the hour mark, where the would-be lovers realise they can't be together.

The film isn't particularly long; only one hundred minutes, but that's ten minutes too long. The film ends with Mr Chan in Angkor Wat whispering into the hole of a temple wall before stuffing it with moss. This references an earlier section where he says that in the olden times people would go up a mountain, whisper their secrets into a hole of a tree before filling it with moss. I get the visual metaphor, but why have it in Angkor Wat and not a tree on a mountain? And why we did then pan around Angkor Wat for five minutes?

One positive was that the original score was very good - it was mysterious and compelling, but it was only used sparingly. Much of the rest of the film had no incidental music, which only made it all the more boring.

And boring is the perfect way of summarising this film. Not enough tension. Annoying characters doing annoying things and too many lingering shots of characters sitting in empty rooms deep in thought.

House of Flying Daggers review

 Number 748 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Wuxia romance film 'House of Flying Daggers.'

At the end of China's Tang Dynasty, there is a power vacuum. Within that vacuum, multiple groups are vying for power. One of these is the House of Flying Daggers who are battling against the corrupt Fengtian government. Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are tasked with finding and killing the mysterious leader of this group. To aid him, Jin pretends to befriend Mei (Zhang Ziyi,) the blind daughter of the leader, to gain her trust, all while being pursued by government forces. But then the two fall in love and everything changes.

There is no denying that House of Flying Daggers is a technically beautiful film. From the cinematography to the choreography to the colour palate to the gorgeous original score, it was a sensory feast. Yes, the martial art sequences do push your suspension of disbelief, but that's all part of the fun. Considering it was directed by Zhang Yimou who also directed Hero, this should come as no surprise. Hero was also a visually stunning film. 

Of course it helped when you have an actress as talented as Zhang Ziyi. As well as acting she is an accomplished singer and dancer which helped her execute a brilliant dance sequence at the film's beginning.

It's just a shame that the actual storyline couldn't match the technical heights. House of Flying Daggers was intended to be more of a romance than a wuxia film, but it failed in both regards. It doesn't count as a romance and it shouldn't have been marketed as such. By convention, romances should end with the love interests having a happy ever after or a happy for now. *Spoiler alert* That doesn't happen at all. 

And as it was a romance, you would expect it to be interesting, but the love story was so dull. Rather than solely being between Mei and Jin, Leo is also involved. He was previously engaged with Leo and has loved her for years. But when she falls in love with Jin after only three days, Leo becomes dangerously jealous. Cue a rather tepid love-triangle that culminates in a cheesy, unsatisfying conclusion. 

*More spoilers* 

It is later revealed that Mei was only pretending to be blind. But this also subplot confused me, as it was frustratingly inconsistent. At times Mei seemed to have perfect eyesight, but at others she was stumbling and fumbling around. It's implied that she has extra-sharp, super-human senses, hence why she can survive elaborate fight scenes without drawing blood. Having said that, most of the characters had some very strong plot-armour. And that added to the dullness. There was no tension or stakes as these characters seemed virtually indestructible. 

I would have much preferred to have watched a film about the different factions warring for power in the Tsang dynasty. Hell, I would have enjoyed watching the House of Flying Daggers battling against the corrupt government. Instead, I got a boring, tepid love story set against a visually stunning backdrop.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon review

 Number 401 on the top 1000 films of all time is Ang Lee's 2000 wuxia film 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.'

Set in Qing Dynasty China, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is a renowned swordsman who owns the legendary 'Green Destiny' sword. One of his closest friends Yu Shu Lien(Michelle Yeoh) is a similarly talented warrior who is tasked with delivering the sword to Li's benefactor Sir Te. But the sword is stolen in the night by a masked thief. Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu work to recover the sword while working through their previously unrealised feelings for each other.

I found 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' to be a confused film uncertain of its own identity. At times, it seemed like it wanted to be a classic wuxia film with physics-breaking, brilliantly-choregraphed martial art sequences. But at others it tried to be a Western love story focussing on Mu-Bai and Shu-Lien. Shu-Lien was previously engaged to Mu-Bai's friend Meng Sizhao before his untimely death. Out of respect, the two hide their feelings for one another.

This film was made specifically for a Western audience, so perhaps that was the reason for the cloying love story that was never ever fully realised. If it had been made with an Eastern audience in mind, then I think this love story could have been better portrayed. Instead, we were left with great martial art sequences punctuated with verbose, hammy dialogue. I watched this film with subtitles, so I can't even say this was a bad translations, as Ang Lee oversaw the subtitling himself, as he wanted to get the most accurate interpretation possible.

Also, the identity of the masked thief was obvious from the start. If you didn't figure it out in the first five minutes, I won't spoil it here, but that definitely hurt the dramatic tension.

Reportedly, Ang Lee described the film as Sense & Sensibility with martial arts. He also directed this film, which may explain why I wasn't a fan of either.

Crazy, Stupid Love review

 Number 852 on the top 1000 films of all time is the romantic-comedy 'Crazy, Stupid Love.'

Calvin Weaver's (Steve Carell) wife Emily (Julianne Moore) wants to divorce him after having an affair with colleague David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon.) Pick-up artist Jacob (Ryan Gosling) sees Calvin at a bar and starts teaching him how to have success with women. meanwhile, Calvin's babysitter Jessica (Lio Tipton) is secretly in love with him, and Calvin's son Robbie is in love with her. Finally, Jacob starts a romance with aspiring lawyer Hannah (Emma Stone,) and starts to reconsider his womanising ways.

It's a shame this film rushed the beginning so much because it was otherwise a humorous and heart-warming watch. it opens with Emily asking Cal for a divorce. before we even know Cal as a character we are expected to feel sorry for him. And because of this rushed pacing, a lot of the emotional beats fell flat. From here, the film had to catch up with itself.

But when it it did, the film was great. much of that was down to the talented cast. I find Steve Carell very over-the-the-top especially with comedy, but he was wonderfully understated here. He also did well in the more dramatic elements.

I also very much enjoyed Ryan Gosling. He is a good actor, but hitherto I haven't liked any of his films. This changed here. Again, this was due to the film's understated nature.

One of my favourite scene was where we see Jacob and Hannah about to hook up. Or, at least, that was the idea, because of instead of hooking up, they talk the night away. And they found that more enjoyable than if they had slept together. it was a wonderfully subtle note to begin a relationship on. To have the two sleeping together would be too easy and predictable.

Crazy, Stupid Love should have spent more time setting up its plot, but, despite its slow beginning, it is well worth a watch. It is understated, subtle, yet very funny and poignant.

Legends of the Fall review

 Number 846 on the top 1000 films of all time is the epic Western drama 'Legends of the Fall.'

Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) is a former army veteran who retires to a ranch in Montana. When his wife Isabelle leaves, he raises his three sons alone: the oldest Alfred (Aidan Quinn,) the middle son Tristan (Brad Pitt) and the youngest and most naive Samuel (Henry Thomas.) Also, on the ranch if William's Cree friend One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis,) as well as ranch hand Decker (Paul Desmon,) his Cree wife Pet and their daughter Isabelle Two.

Legends of the Fall is a sprawling narrative that encompasses a huge time period from the early twentieth century to World War One to prohibition and even the 1960's. Edward Zwick takes us through each era well. Although at times it felt very disparate which we will come to later.

When WW1 breaks out, Samuel and Alfred volunteer to fight. Trist also reluctantly volunteers. He has promised Samuel's fiancé Susannah (Julia Ormond) that he would keep him safe from harm. The war scenes were effective and well-shot. And Brad Pitt proved he's more than capable of doing quieter, character roles, as well as bigger, block-buster, action roles. Anthony Hopkins was also great. As the stresses of his life become too much, William suffers from a stroke, rendering him virtually mute and immobile. But Hopkins still generates a lot of sympathy for the character.

However, while the male stars and characters were great, I feel like the female characters were short-changed. Susannah didn't have much of a role beyond being the object of affection for all three brothers. Although she is initially Samuel's fiancé, when he *spoilers*

is killed in the war, she hooks up with Tristan, all while Alfred looks on in desire. When Tristan goes AWOL for years, Susannah marries Alfred. It was less than the most satisfying of characters.

When Tristan returns to the ranch, he finds that Isabelle Two has all grown-up. And the two promptly marry and start a family. Even putting the age difference aside, the brothers were all adults while Isabelle Two was still a little girl. I saw very little reason why she and Tristan would marry each other except they're both young and hot. At least you had Alfred acknowledging the oddity of the situation.

But returning to my point about the disparateness, while Legends of the Fall worked in little parts, the parts didn't coalesce well together. it was a massive film set across an expansive time period which encompassed a lot of genres. It began as a Western, flirted as a romance, turned into a War film and later on, during the Prohibition era, it even became a gangster flick. It seemed overly-ambitious. And I don't think it worked. Fewer elements explored in more detail would have been better.

Ultimately, I still enjoyed this film. The female characters weren't great, and it was overly-ambitious, but Pitt and Hopkins shone.

Blue Valentine review

 Number 881 on the top 1000 films of all time is Derek Cianfrance's 2010 romantic drama 'Blue Valentine.'

Blue Valentine tells the relationship between under-achieving slacker Dean (Ryan Gosling) and his over-worked nurse wife Cindy (Michelle Williams.) The film flashes back and forth between the start of their relationship and their eventual breakdown and divorce.

I've watched a few Ryan Gosling films and while I think he is a versatile and charismatic actor, I have never liked the films themselves. They're either too sentimental or too dark or in the case of Blue Valentine too bleak. And bleak is putting it lightly. This isn't a film that will have you leaving the cinema with a warm, fuzzy feeling, but rather the saddest frown on your face. I imagine this was Cianfrance's intention, so in that sense, he succeeded in making one of the most depressing films since the Pianist.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with unremittently bleak films, but there has to be something more than the unremittent bleakness. True, there are the flashbacks to the happy start of Dean and Cindy's relationship - while these scenes were cute especially the tap dancing/ukulele scene, but they always played second fiddle to the present timeline where their marriage falls apart. Any warm, fuzzy feeling was replaced with a sinking stomach, as I saw this once happy couple scream at each other.

And due to the unrelenting bleakness you know it's only going to end in one way. These characters are never going to rediscover their love for one another and live happily ever after. There is nothing wrong with knowing how a film is going to end, but it does kill the narrative tension.

Cianfrance was inspired by his parent's divorce and the pain that caused him as a young man. And he wanted to create a film that charted the beginning and end of a relationship. In that sense, he succeeded. But did he have to make it so damn depressing? I do like Ryan Gosling as an actor, I'm just waiting to see a Ryan Gosling film that I actually like.

The Reader review

 Number 708 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2008 romantic drama 'The Reader.'

The film opens on an adult Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) is waking up with a younger woman. The film then flashes back to 1958 Berlin where we see the 15-year-old Michael (David Kross) embark on a steamy affair with the mysterious, far older Hanna Schmidt (Kate Winslet.) After a summer of romance, she vanishes only to resurface years later on trial for being an SS officer during WW2.

Many stories often fall victim of 'sagging middle-part syndrome - the beginning and the ending are exciting, but things fall apart in the middle. However, I would argue that the ending is where the Reader fell flat. Things were gripping and intriguing right until the final act. We are immediately introduced to the enigmatic Hanna Schmidt. We know that there is more to her than meets the eye, but her character is kept in the shadows. 

But this mystery is what kept me watching until the second act where we finally learn Hanna's mysterious past. Hanna was an SS guard standing trial for letting three hundred jews die in a burning church. Michael, now an aspiring law student, and present at the trial for his learning, is heartbroken by this. However, the tension remains high as Schmidt desperately tries to explain her actions, before eventually admitting her complicity in the crimes. She is sentenced to life.

This would be all well and good if the film ended there, but there's still whole other act and there is little reason to watch it. by this final act all of the narrative tension had dissolved and the stakes had fallen through the floor. We see Hanna in prison, but she seems to have a relatively easy time of it - she doesn't get into any fights with the other prisoners nor does she seem guilt-stricken about what she's done. We're also given to understand that Michael has become estranged from hisw ife and daughter, but we're not given much about this estrangement - except for some vague notion he is still hung-up on Hanna.

David Kross gave a great performance as the young Michael taking us through a wide range of emotions. Apparently he learned English especially for this role which is very commendable. Kate Winslet won the best Actress Oscar for her role. She was good, but I'm not sure her role was quite Oscar-worthy.

Although this film starts well and continues strongly, it was sorely let down by its disappointing and anti-climatic ending. Unfortunately it was sunk by its denouement. 

Let the Right one in review

 Number 332 on the top top 1000 films of all time is the Swedish, romantic horror 'Let the Right One in.'

Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is a twelve year-old who is being bullied in school. He also has a troubled home life. One wintry evening, he meets a mysterious child called Eli (Lina Leandersson) who is harbouring a dark secret. Eli is a two-hundred year old vampire who has the form of a twelve-year old child.

This film very much reminded me of Stephen King's Carrie. A troubled child is terribly bullied. They are then aided by supernatural forces to overcome their bullies. Whereas Carrie has special powers, Oskar has unknowingly fallen in love with a vampire. And it s this love story that drives the film. Despite being far from conventional, it was sweet seeing the story unfold.

Oskar meets Eli in a playground while it is snowing. This may seem like a suspicious and an unlikely place to begin a romance, it is believe as we see how isolated Oskar has become. As the film progresses, his and Eli's relationship develops further and even when Eli's true nature is revealed, Oskar isn't scared away. The two of them even use Morse code to secretly communicate with each other.

I also enjoyed how the 'horror' was underplayed. Modern horror film tend to over-rely on tacky CGI or a jumpscare every five seconds. Sure this is scary once or twice, but it becomes very tedious if it's done all the time. Much of the horror in 'Let the Right One in' happens off-camera making it even scarier. The creepy atmosphere is alluded to either with creepy music or clever angles rather than excess gore. And then this makes the on-screen horror moments truly terrifying. Whether this was a character bursting into flames or Eli's eyes bleeding, this film had its genuinely scary moments.

And a quick note on Kare and Lina. Both of them were great in the lead roles. I don't think all the child actors were great especially those bullying Oskar, but the two leads gave good performances.

Overall, I enjoyed this film. It worked as a romance and as a horror. It had some endearing moments, but some truly scary ones too.