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.

South Park: Longer, Bigger, Uncut review

 Number 499 on the top 1000 films of all time is the animated black comedy 'South Park: Longer, Bigger, Uncut.'

This film was inspired by the TV series of the same name and featured all out favourite characters including Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Chef. The four boys sneak into an R-rated, Canadian film called Asses of Fire. It is a vulgar and crude film that influences them to start swearing profusely. Their mothers start campaigning for the film and the creators to be executed - sending a moral panic across the US. Meanwhile, after dying one too many times, Kenny is consigned to hell where he discovers a secret plot between Satan and Saddam Hussein to take over the world.

I'm going to preface this review by saying that I don't like South Park. I have watched the first season and I found it juvenile, repetitive and boring. This film is supposed to be a satire of censorship. People should have the freedom to joke about what they like without any consequences. I get that, but I think there were more subtle and sophisticated ways to have gone about it. A lot of the film's humour is based around shock factor and being as offensive as possible. That's all well and good, but that type of outrage humour only works in moderation.

Sure it might have been funny hearing Kyle and Stan sing about "Uncle Fucker" or Cartman telling Mr Garrison to "suck my balls," once or twice, but hearing it over and over became very tedious. I'm sure I'll get some denouncing me as a liberal snowflake, but I don't have a problem, as such, with the content of the jokes, but with how they were told. There is a small clip of Chinese people - drawn in stereotypical ways, singing the Uncle Fucker song in mock Chinese. I am of a Chinese heritage and I didn't find this offensive. In fact, it was so silly, it was actually funny. It's a shame there weren't more jokes like this instead of the monotonous use of vulgar swear words in lieu of any humour.

I much preferred the subplot concerning Kenny, Satan and Saddam Hussein. Not only are the two conspiring to take over the world, but they're also in a relationship. This was so ridiculous that it was hilarious to watch. To see two of the evilest people in history become a bickering, married couple was a clever and funny idea.

South Park wasn't the movie for me. I didn't find it funny. As I always say, there isn't anything wrong with dark/shock humour, as long as it's clever, and not just shocking for shocking's sake.

Platoon review

 Number 192 on the top 1000 films of all time is Oliver Stone's war film 'Platoon.'

Platoon follows a group of soldiers fighting within the Vietnam War. The main character is the young, liberal Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) who quickly becomes disillusioned. His superior officers, the hot-headed and psychotic Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) and the more enlightened Elias (Willem Dafoe) clash on the best way to lead their troops. Keith David, Forest Whitaker and Johnny Depp all co-star.

Since I started this challenge, I've watched my fair share of Vietnam war films and I don't think that Platoon was anything special. It didn't bring anything new to the table. Sure it was entertaining and watchable. It was frenetic, fast-paced and dramatic, but there wasn't enough to delineate it from some of its contemporaries. I think a lot of that was down to the characterisation. The cast was large and confusing with the different characters not being clearly delineated enough from each other. In fact, the three main characters are really the only ones I can remember with any certainty. The heinous Sergeant Barnes was definitely recognisable, but all of his cronies blended into one. And Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen always stand out anywhere. And like with many war films, all of the characters are dressed the same - in uniforms and helmets only serving to make things more confusing.

Furthermore, the characters were all just so unlikeable. Okay, Sergeant Barnes is the villain - he kills a Vietmanese woman in cold blood and later tries to rape two Vietmanese girls - so you would expect him to be nasty. Barnes has plenty of cronies that are just as bad as him. But there really wasn't any likeable characters that you wanted to root for.  Even the protagonist Chris shows signs of instability, at times, blindly shooting at anything in sight. True, at times, he does do the right things like preventing Barnes from raping those girls, but there wasn't anything in him that made me want him to succeed. Part of that was down to Charlie Sheen. Honestly, I don't think he's the greatest actor in the world. 

The platoon's commanding officer was Lieutenant Wolfe (Mark Moses) but he was too young and ineffective to be any good. And another of the sergeants - O'Neil (John C. Mcginley) is a coward and spends most of the battles hiding in the foxholes. Largely, the film is just nasty people doing nasty things. I get it, war changes people. War can turn the best men into monsters. But it doesn't make them the most likeable of characters.

Platoon was certainly watchable enough, but I'm not sure how much I actually enjoyed it. It was just horrible people being horrible to each other.

JFK review

 Number 306 on the top 1000 films of all time is Oliver Stone's epic political thriller: JFK.

Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) is the former New Orleans district attorney. After President Kennedy is assassinated, the Warren report declares that Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) was the lone perpetrator. Garrison has his doubts and reopens the investigation. He inadvertently unearths a massive conspiracy theory. The huge ensemble cast includes Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Kevin Bacon, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and John Candy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a film needs a very good reason to be over three hours long. And it needs an excellent reason to be three hours and twenty-five minutes long. JFK had no such reason. it was one of the longest films I've seen and far longer than it needed to be.

It's safe to say that Kennedy's assassination is one of the most controversial topics in history. Few people believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting as a lone wolf. The true perpetrators range from the mob to the CIAS to the Russians to the Cubans. Any one of these explored in isolation could have made a very interesting film, but where Stone went was how he tried to connect everything. Reportedly, he read two dozen books on Kennedy's assassination and his research team read 100-200 books. And it was like Stone tried to include every single scrap of information he could find. This made for a bloated, unfocussed film.

The supporting cast was huge and certainly could have been trimmed down. Garrison's many deputies were very similar to each other and I regularly mixed them up. Some of them were also ultimately pointless to the plot as they were involved in subplots that went nowhere. Bill Broussard (Michael Rooker) is one such deputy who becomes uncomfortable at how the conspiracy begins to implicate LBJ. He betrays his former boss by starting to work for the feds, but we never see any consequences for this.

Stone was heavily criticised for taking liberties with history. But my issue isn't so much was he included, but what he didn't, which was nothing. He included everything which was not necessary. I could have done without seeing how Garrison's investigation was affecting his family life. This would have cut the film down a lot.

And everything was slow that after a while it became very tedious. Much of the film were characters sitting in a room either quietly talking or loudly yelling at each other. As such, a lot of the supporting cast was wasted. Gary Oldman did very little as did Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. With so many famous faces, it's inevitable that you can't give them all the attention they deserve and a lot of them did fall by the wayside. Although, John Candy and Joe Pesci gave memorable performances and Costner's ending monologue was particularly powerful.

The film did have the potential to live up to its ambitious premise, but if you have to watch a film in two halves then it is too damn long.

The Help review

 Number 247 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2011 period comedy-drama 'The Help.' 

Based on Kathryn's Stockett's book of the same name, the Help follows aspiring writer Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan (Emma Stone) in 1960's Mississippi. Skeeter, inspired by the horrific racism inflicted upon African American maids, decides to write a book telling their side of the story. Two of the maids she interviews are Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minerva 'Minny' Jackson (Octavia Spencer.) Aibileen has the misfortune of serving the vile and racist Hillary "Hilly" Walters Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) while Minny serves the ditzy but kind-hearted Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain.)

In modern cinema, representation remains a divisive issue. However, I would argue that the Help is representation done right. It There is constant outrage over characters who are historically white being recast with POC actors in the name of diversity i.e the Little Mermaid. The outrage isn't focussed on seeing POC characters represented on screen, but rather with how they're represented. It's argued that instead of taking stories and replacing the white character with a black actor, film makers should be more creative and think of an original story or instead adapt a story with historically black characters. Hidden Figures, Green Book and Twelve years a Slave are all great examples of representation done right. And I would add the Help to that list.

It is a film that takes the challenging topic of race relations and tells it through the perspective of its victims. The stories of the African-American maids are put front-and-centre. Aibileen and Minny both retell the horrific abuse they've experienced - Minny is fired from her job for using the guest bathroom, which she is forbidden from because she's black. Meanwhile, Aibileen reveals that her son died after an accident at works leads to him being dumped at the "coloured hospital." Maybe if he was white, he would have received the medical attention he deserved. Davis and Spencer worked brilliantly together, playing the comedic and dramatic roles with a great sensitivity.

Inevitably, the film has been accused of a white saviour narrative, as although it is recounting the stories of African-American maids, it is doing so through a white voice i.e Skeeter's book. But I wouldn't agree with this. Minny initially refuses to help Skeeter, because she has neither asked or wanted Skeeter's help to tell her story. When Minny relents and agrees to tell her story, she stresses that it is on her terms. In some ways, the Help is acknowledging and dispelling the accusations of white savourism in one fell swoop. Furthermore, this isn't some non-issue that's been blown out of proportion, these are serious issues that need to be told.

Unlike Twelve Years a Slave which is brutal and unflinching in its portrayal of race relations, The Help is far more subtle and understated. It shows the insidious nature of racism. Hilly is a socialite who is campaigning for there to be segregated toilets in the household - one for the white people and one for the black people. And of course the toilets for black people are in a far worse condition. In her misguided way, she thinks she is doing this for the benefit of everybody, white and black, when her actions, of course, only benefit white people.

But, moreover, the Help is also nuanced in its portrayal of African-American households. After Minny loses her job, she is beaten by her husband. And it is obvious that this isn't the first time. We don't see this play out on screen, but rather hear it, as Aibileen is phoning her friend at the same time. Hearing the beating and seeing its aftermath will always be more effective than seeing it for real.

If anything, I would say that the white characters were badly represented. They all dressed and looked very similar which, at first, made it very hard to delineate one from the other.  This wasn't just the case for Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard and Jessica, but all of the older white women. I kept getting everybody mixed up.

It was refreshing to see a film that not only had good representation of race, but also gender. It was very refreshing to see a predominantly female cast. And it shows that if representation and diversity are done right, films can be all the more better for it.