Blowup Review

 Number 629 on the top 1000 films of all time is Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 psychological mystery drama 'Blowup.'

Thomas (David Hemmings) is a photographer during the London's Swinging sixties. He believes he has unwittingly photographed a murder that is somehow connected to the mysterious woman Jane (Vanessa Redgrave.) This was Italian Antonioni's first English-language film.

Blowup? More like blow-out. This film was boring and tedious. If you looked up dull in the dictionary, you would see a picture of Blowup. It revolves around Thomas discovering a murder, yet this doesn't occur until an hour into the film. You get some movies that take a while to get going and then you have this...maybe if this film was three hours long (thank God it wasn't) the slow start would have been justifiable, but Blowup was under two hours.

There was no reason to have an hour of Thomas photographing models or photographing Jane and her lover in the park. I get it, the film is about photography, Thomas is a photographer, but seeing photos being developed hardly makes for the most entertaining or dramatic of cinema.

Not to mention that Thomas is one of the most unlikeable protagonists that I have seen on film. In the creative world, you get the pretentious, artistic genius archetype. Thomas embodies this and more. He is arrogant, spoiled, creepy and incredibly predatory. When he is photographing the model Verushka, he is constantly licking her ear. He has a weird sexual dalliance with two aspiring models, this scene went on for far longer than it should have, and there is an unwelcome sexual tension between him and Jane.

Thomas also seems remarkably uncaring about whether he solves the mystery or not. For some reason, he goes to a dope house to bring his obviously intoxicated friend to see the dead body. But by the time he actually gets there, the body has disappeared and he's more concerned with watching a group of mimes miming playing tennis. What was up with that? Why were we watching that?

It was like they had wandered off the set of La Dolce Vita and onto the set of Blowup. In fact, this whole film was like if Fellini had taken his existentially lost, young, annoying, artistic characters and transplanted them into a Hitchcock thriller.

But Blowup had none of the tension or suspense of a Hitchcock thriller. The severe lack of non-diegetic music did not help. Instead, we got a strange and unnecessary scene of the Yardbirds playing out a gig, and Jeff Beck smashing his guitar.

*spoiler alert*

The mystery is never solved. We never find out who killed this man or why, which I think was supposed to be the point, but it also made the film pointless. It left a lot of annoying plot holes. When Jane spots Thomas taking photos of her, she complains vehemently and visits his studio multiple times to get a copy of them. Why is she so interested? Who knows? And who cares? Obviously Antonioni didn't.

And I know this was the sixties, but Thomas' photos are so grainy and blurred, I don't know how he spotted any dead body in them. it was a bit like the so-called photos that prove the existence of Bigfoot or aliens.

Blowup was a tedious film. Not enough drama, tension or likeable characters. And too many shots of characters standing around staring into the middle-distance and bloody mimes playing tennis.

The Celebration review

 Number 199 on the top 1000 films of all time is Thomas Vinterberg's Danish black-comedy drama 'The Celebration.'

Helge (Henning Moritzen) is the ageing patriarch of the Klingenfeldt-Hansen family. For his sixtieth birthday party, he invites all his family and friends out for a big dinner at a country hotel. The guests include his eldest-son Christian (Ulrich Thomsen,) the obnoxious and racist younger brother Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen,) daughter Helene (Paprika Steen,) wife Else (Birthe Neumann) and Helene's African-American boyfriend Gbatokai (Gbatokai Dakinah.) At the dinner, the celebration quickly turns sour as dark family secrets come to light.

I found this film to be a deeply uncomfortable watch. It was mainly horrible people being horrible to each other. It was also claustrophobic and suffocating. Perhaps that was because of its status as the first Dogme 95 - a new avant-garde film movement pioneered by Vinterberg. It championed low-budgets and simple production allowing the plot and performance to shine. That would explain the tight close-ups and shaky, hand-held camera-work. These forced the viewer right into the heart of the distressing action. And distressing is the best way to describe it.

When Christian gives a drunken speech, he accuses his father *spoilers* of sexually abusing he and his twin sister as children. It is later revealed that his sister killed herself because she couldn't cope with the emotional trauma. He also accuses his mother of standing by and letting it happen. Despite Michael's attempts to keep his brother quiet, this doesn't stop him from levying his allegations. In private, Helge threatens to expose Christian's lack of success with women and his potentially incestuous relationship with his twin sister. 

Furthermore, Michael is also depicted horribly. It is revealed that he cheated on his wife with a maid who went onto abort a pregnancy. When she tries talking to him at the party, he beats her senseless. He is brutal, boorish and racist especially toward Helene's black boyfriend. As a means of provocation, he encourages his guests to sing a racist Danish folk song. And if that isn't enough, Michael also has a short temper and argues regularly with his wife.

See my point? I don't know how any of this was conducive to entertaining viewing at all. Also, how is this classed as a black-comedy? Where were the funny parts? All I saw was a lot of people shouting at each other.

I think this is one of these films where you have to be a true cinophile to appreciate. I am evidently not one of those people, so I imagine I missed a lot of the hidden genius. But I did not enjoy this film at all. 

Mr Nobody review

 Number 396 on the top 1000 films of all time is the science-fiction film 'Mr Nobody.'

Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) is a 118-year old man at the end of his life. He is living in a futuristic society where humanity has achieved practical immortality. A journalist (Daniel Mays) interviews Nemo about his life. Nemo gives a sprawling, contradictory story which explores the many different paths that his life could have taken. He focusses on key events that happened when he was nine, fifteen and thirty-four. Some of the events include the break-up of his parents marriage as well as his own relationships with a number of women.

If there is anything that this film taught me it's that I'm not the biggest fan of science-fiction. I'm not maligning a whole genre - there is some sci-fi I like, but a lot of science-fiction seems pretentious and self-indulgent; writers and directors trying to show off their intellectual ability. And, of course, you can argue that I'm being bitter because I'm not clever enough to understand it. Partly that is true, but, for me, cinema should be a form of escape. It should be something where I can turn my brain off and not worry about missing half the film. Sure, that doesn't mean it can't be arty or intellectual, but I want to easily enjoy and understand a film.

Anyway, I'm saying all that, because I think 'Mr Nobody' was pretentious, self-indulgent and overly-long. The concept of it was interesting enough. A multi-verse idea lends itself to lots of narrative potential - every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And every decision you do or don't take can create a whole new universe. And this could have been interesting to watch if the film didn't explore every single way Mr Nobody's life could have gone. We see what life would have been like if he had chosen to live with his mum and with his dad. We see what his life would have been like if he had dated and married Anna (Diane Kruger) or if he had married Elise (Sarah Polley) or Jean (Linh Dan Pham.) All of these different storylines bloated the film and made it far longer than it needed to be.

And because so much of the film is told in flashback, with Thomas Byrne playing a nine-year-old Nemo and Toby Regbo playing Nemo at fifteen, it didn't really give Jared Leto a chance to act. He isn't the film all that much which is weird considering he plays the main character. He's a great actor - he won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club so why you won't allow him to do his thing is just a mystery to me. And when we do see him, he is mostly in make-up or against a horrifically, fake-looking green-screen. Seriously? The CGI was awful. Or perhaps that was supposed to be the point. Mr Nobody gives so many contradictory accounts that we're not sure which account to believe. Maybe the flashbacks with the awful CGI are supposed to be the imposters.

Although, one good thing about the film was its soundtrack. It was diverse and varied consisting of artists like Otis Redding, the Police and Buddy Holly. But this great soundtrack didn't make up for what was ultimately a convoluted, overly-confusing and self-indulgent film. And a film that severely under-utilised its lead actor.

There Will Be Blood review

 Number 224 of on the top 1000 films of all time is Paul Thomas Anderson's epic period drama There Will be Blood.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a prospector turned ruthless oil tycoon in Southern California. Over the course of three decades, we see the rise and fall of his empire, as well as his tempestuous relationship with local preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano.)

I'll readily admit that I'm not a fan of period dramas. Generally, I find them slow and boring. I'm just not interested enough in their subject matter. And There Will be Blood  was no exception. This is no disrespect to Mr Day-Lewis. There is no doubt that Plainview is a despicable character. After his adopted son is deafened by an explosion, Plainview sends him to a special school to save him the trouble of raising him. He also cheats the Sundays out of their land and refuses to allow Eli to bless his new wells. 

Despite this he is still a very charismatic character to watch. I wouldn't necessarily say I wanted him to achieve his goals, but I was intrigued to see what would happen. And this was down to Day-Lewis' strong portrayal. He gave a character who could have easily been a stereotypical, moustache-twirling panto villain, a humanity and moral greyness.

I just wish Anderson had this in a shorter amount of time. At times, there is a lot of talking and the pacing was slow. I'm not sure we needed to spend as long as we did on Plainview's fake brother Henry (Kevin J O'Connor.) But maybe that ties in well into the central idea behind the film: it doesn't matter how rich you are if you're the only one enjoying the wealth. Plainview turns his son against him and kills the fraudster impersonating his brother. I wasn't entirely clear on the motivations of the fraudster, but presumably it was to steal Plainview's money.

The film climaxes with Plainview's rivalry with Eli bubbling over into a fall-on confrontation. Plainview beats Eli to death and the film ends with Plainview sitting alone in his massive mansion, a somewhat obvious metaphor for how the pursuit of wealth can leave you lonely.

I did want to enjoy this film more than I did. Day-Lewis truly earned his second Oscar win, but the pacing could have been faster with far less shots of the desert landscape. But hey, maybe that's just me. As I've said, I'm just not a fan of period dramas.