I saw this film in theatres when it premiered and now I had the chance to get my own copy on Blu-ray and watch it, no, experience it again. And it was nothing less of amazing on the second time.
Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomqvist, who is hired to investigate a 40-year-old murder mysery by Henrik Vanger (superb Christopher Plummer). After being publicly humiliated and prosecuted by the media, Blomqvist retreats to an isolated island where the Vanger family live and where the murder took place. At the same time, a young hacker named Lisbeth Salander (even more superb, the I-have-no-words-for-it-superb Rooney Mara) is struggling with difficulties of her own. The two come together and find out what really happened on the island when young Harriet Vanger was murdered.
David Fincher is at his best when dealing with sick and twisted people and sick and twisted storylines (see Se7en). He knows exactly how to show sex, violence and perversion, without making it seem too extreme, but just extreme enough and maybe a bit more even. His use of camera (Jeff Cronenweth did an amazing work) and lighting is innovative and they are used in the best way possible; they bring more to the story. The lighting is often cold and leave shadows where evil can lurk, strenghtening the idea that the characters in the film have something they want to hide, leave in the shadows.
Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall's editing is once again pitch perfect. I had lost my hope that they could win an Oscar two years in a row, but thankfully, they did and they earned it.
In my eyes, this is film is almost perfect when talking about the technical side. Of course, there are a few mistakes, trees having leaves even though it's supposed to be winter etc. but those mistakes are always going to be present when making films, you can't escape making mistakes.
The film's cast is... absolutely amazing. Young Rooney Mara steals the show as Lisbeth Salander and is provided with a lot of support from veteran actors like Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgård. Daniel Craig is known as an action hero, but shows his ability to do more than just throw punches and high kicks.
Daniel Craig shows us that he's not just James Bond, he can transform himself to play another character. I just wish he had transformed himself a bit more physically. His arms and chest look too worked out and his posture is a bit too straight for a tired, failed journalist. But emotionally, I think he captures the essence of his character quite well. He paints a portrait of a flawed man, who has nothing to lose and a need to make himself relevant to the world after being publically castrated by the media. He also gives great support to Rooney Mara's Lisbeth Salander, but ultimately fails to provide a performance strong enough to match Mara's fierce Salander.
Rooney Mara. What can be said... If Katniss Everdeen was "The Girl on Fire" in Hunger Games,then Lisbeth Salander is the Fire. This is a very extreme character to play, it's a very physical role but also a very emotional role. But what makes it so impressive that Mara can capture Salander's emotional vulnerability and strenght even when the character shows very little emotion on her face.
I think this Lisbeth Salander has become every woman's guilty pleasure or fantasy. We all want to be her, but surprinsingly we also want her. Why is that? She provided a new beauty icon for women. She is fearless and has sex with whoever she wants. She is comfortable with her own body. She is sort of a Samantha Jones 2.0 if you will. And of course, she is insane, which isn't ideal but you can't have everything.
The role of Lisbeth Salander is a very physical one, for which you need a strong actress for. Mara looks very fragile, like she would break if you knocked her down. But because her presence is so strong, she turns this quality into a strenght as opposed to letting it be a weakness for her. Salander seems to be driven by sex, violence and everything that is wrong in our eyes and that is the key to her. Wrong is all she knows and it brings her safety and more importantly freedom. Her freedom was taken away from her at a very young age and now she gets her freedom and independence by doing things that are borderline wrong or completely wrong. If she were to follow society's rules, she would see herself as a puppet with chains around her neck. So she breaks these chains and goes the other way.
There will always be comparison made between this film and the original. Shocking. The biggest one will be the differences between Rooney Mara's Salander and Noomi Rapace's Salander. Even though I love Rapace's take on the character, it will always be seen as "the original", I prefer Mara. Mara makes the character feel more insane, to the point where you question if she even has any human emotions left in her. Is she a human or has she become a machine. And still, we all want her. And that is impressive.
The film is almost perfect. There is something that I don't like about the ending, but I can't putmy finger on it. Maybe it's the fact that the climax isn't so... climatic. The scene in the dungeon, although being very interesting, lacks intensity like Daniel Craig's characters lacks oxygen. It needed more, it didn't match either or the raping scenes and therefore, felt out of place. The film is also quite long and tones down quite a bit after Salander arrives on the island. After being introduced such an intense character, so capable of doing horrible thing, the perverted side of us wants to see more of it and this is where Fincher lets us down. Of course, he is following a book, but still, we demand more extreme violence and Salander!
This film was marketed as a murder mystery, which I believe, was misleading. The murder mystery is just something that brings our two characters together. The viewer feels a bit confused when the mystery is solved and all is well and then we have another 15-20 minutes to go with footage that has nothing to do with the Vangers, but with Lisbeth and Mikael. It was good 20 minutes, but when you go see a murder mystery, you expect the film to end when you find out who the killer was. So this film should have been marketed as an interesting story about two very interesting characters, because that's where the film focuses on and is at its' best.
All in all, I think this was one of Fincher's best when talking about style, but it could have used even more edge in the end. But still, I think this was one the best films of 2011 (Drive taking the trophy home...) and we can only hope that there were more filmmakers like David Fincher making films this good.
-CoffeeCat
lauantai 28. huhtikuuta 2012
torstai 19. huhtikuuta 2012
The Cabin In The Woods
Trying to post more often now...
I saw The Cabin in the Woods last weekend and still, I feel quite amazed by it. I cannot get over its awesomeness.
You know it as the lovechild of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, two men who are currently my heroes. It was shelved for two years because MGM went down and for a while, we all thought that was the end. Until April 13th came around.
I agree with everyone: you shouldn't know anything about this film when you walk into the theatre, because part of the fun is that you have these jaw-dropping moments every 15 minutes and you believe that now you have it, but you really don't and bang! Jaw drop.
5 kids go to a cabin in the woods. It's a horror film. That's about everything you really need to know.
Let's start with the cast. I loved them, especially Fran Kranz who played Marty, the stoner. The character may seem a bit too much, but somehow, he's just so lovable, loyal and real that you really don't care. And the audience broke into applauds when "The Fight" started and we saw Marty's choice of weapon, you know which one if you've seen the film... I had a bit of a problem with Chris Hemsworth. He was really good as Curt, but somehow I found him a bit irritating because I kept thinking "Where's his hammer?", but that was not his fault, this was made prior to Thor.
The whole cast felt fresh and were obviously very aware of that the filmmakers wanted to achieve, they managed to make the characters very grounded and you didn't get the impression of one-dimensional-only-there-to-die-a-gruesome-death -kind of characters. I don't think there were a single character that you hated, because.... well, I can't tell you, because that's a spoiler. Kind of... Maybe not?
Despite the young cast being so great, it's Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford who steal the show as two men who seem to control the doings of the kids in the cabin.They have amazing comedic timing and chemistry and they don't over-do their performance, they're fun, but also very real. I would love to see these two working together again in the future. They are the Regular Joes. They are us.
Which brings us to the next topic. What really makes TCITW so good is that it's not single-layered. You have the story and you can treat the film as a really fun, a bit nerdy horror film, that you can watch and be done with.
But then you have "The Meta Effect". Very discreetly Goddard and Whedon make a bold statement about today's horror films, -filmmakers and us, the audience who goes into the theatres to watch kids getting killed. It's brilliant.
They have taken all the clichés, blown them up with dynamite and rewrote them. And dear lord, does it feel good. It was interesting to see these characters that you already know from hundreds of horror films finally get a new treatment. It really got me thinking "Why haven't we seen this before? Why hasn't no one bothered to do something different until now? Why are we watching the same films over and over again?"
But even better than taking the clichés and reconstructing them, is the Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford's characters and their co-workers. They represent the filmmakers today making uninspired as well as uninspiring horror films, they have fallen into a routine, it's just another day at the office when it should be something more! The biggest difference between now and the 1980's is that the movies then were exciting, they felt new. And now they just feel used and old. Of course, we also have take into account that times have changed too. What was terrifying 20 years ago, feels like a kids' movie today. We seem to need film like Hostel to feel shocked, because nothing else will do it for us anymore. And we go and see it. And I really don't know many horror fans who have not seen Hostel or all the Saw films.
But then again, we critize people who made Hostel, because it felt cheap and bad, because it relies on the torture and not on the tension.We also kind of judge people who watch and like Hostel, because it's not a proper horror film, it's torture porn. But the truth is that these films wouldn't get made unless we were there to watch them.
Back to the actual film...
Jenkins and Whitford also represent us, the audience. We frown at them in the film, for taking the situation so lightly and making jokes and taking bets. But wait a minute, don't we do the exact same thing? We take bets on who is going to die first, we want to see the kids die disgusting deaths, we want them to die, that's why we came to the theatre! So we really can't judge them, because we would be judging ourselves and we can't have that.
I thought "the big reveal" in the end was great. I was really glad that they chose kind of a classical ending, in a way that they didn't try to make the twist too modern by making the whole film and the events unnecessary by revealing at the end that they were actually inside a studio making a film or that the kids were actually in a reality tv-show. With this ending they kind of took a bow to the oldies.
All in all, I really liked it. I understand people who didn't like it, it's right on the verge of coming off as silly and a bit stupid. But for me, it was 107 minutes of pure fun. And I am going to see it again tomorrow. People have been asking if you need to be a horror fan to "get" the film. No, you don't have to be, you will understand it, but let me say, you won't have nearly as much fun as the horror geeks in the audience!
-CoffeeCat
I saw The Cabin in the Woods last weekend and still, I feel quite amazed by it. I cannot get over its awesomeness.
You know it as the lovechild of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, two men who are currently my heroes. It was shelved for two years because MGM went down and for a while, we all thought that was the end. Until April 13th came around.
I agree with everyone: you shouldn't know anything about this film when you walk into the theatre, because part of the fun is that you have these jaw-dropping moments every 15 minutes and you believe that now you have it, but you really don't and bang! Jaw drop.
5 kids go to a cabin in the woods. It's a horror film. That's about everything you really need to know.
Let's start with the cast. I loved them, especially Fran Kranz who played Marty, the stoner. The character may seem a bit too much, but somehow, he's just so lovable, loyal and real that you really don't care. And the audience broke into applauds when "The Fight" started and we saw Marty's choice of weapon, you know which one if you've seen the film... I had a bit of a problem with Chris Hemsworth. He was really good as Curt, but somehow I found him a bit irritating because I kept thinking "Where's his hammer?", but that was not his fault, this was made prior to Thor.
The whole cast felt fresh and were obviously very aware of that the filmmakers wanted to achieve, they managed to make the characters very grounded and you didn't get the impression of one-dimensional-only-there-to-die-a-gruesome-death -kind of characters. I don't think there were a single character that you hated, because.... well, I can't tell you, because that's a spoiler. Kind of... Maybe not?
Despite the young cast being so great, it's Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford who steal the show as two men who seem to control the doings of the kids in the cabin.They have amazing comedic timing and chemistry and they don't over-do their performance, they're fun, but also very real. I would love to see these two working together again in the future. They are the Regular Joes. They are us.
Which brings us to the next topic. What really makes TCITW so good is that it's not single-layered. You have the story and you can treat the film as a really fun, a bit nerdy horror film, that you can watch and be done with.
But then you have "The Meta Effect". Very discreetly Goddard and Whedon make a bold statement about today's horror films, -filmmakers and us, the audience who goes into the theatres to watch kids getting killed. It's brilliant.
They have taken all the clichés, blown them up with dynamite and rewrote them. And dear lord, does it feel good. It was interesting to see these characters that you already know from hundreds of horror films finally get a new treatment. It really got me thinking "Why haven't we seen this before? Why hasn't no one bothered to do something different until now? Why are we watching the same films over and over again?"
But even better than taking the clichés and reconstructing them, is the Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford's characters and their co-workers. They represent the filmmakers today making uninspired as well as uninspiring horror films, they have fallen into a routine, it's just another day at the office when it should be something more! The biggest difference between now and the 1980's is that the movies then were exciting, they felt new. And now they just feel used and old. Of course, we also have take into account that times have changed too. What was terrifying 20 years ago, feels like a kids' movie today. We seem to need film like Hostel to feel shocked, because nothing else will do it for us anymore. And we go and see it. And I really don't know many horror fans who have not seen Hostel or all the Saw films.
But then again, we critize people who made Hostel, because it felt cheap and bad, because it relies on the torture and not on the tension.We also kind of judge people who watch and like Hostel, because it's not a proper horror film, it's torture porn. But the truth is that these films wouldn't get made unless we were there to watch them.
Back to the actual film...
Jenkins and Whitford also represent us, the audience. We frown at them in the film, for taking the situation so lightly and making jokes and taking bets. But wait a minute, don't we do the exact same thing? We take bets on who is going to die first, we want to see the kids die disgusting deaths, we want them to die, that's why we came to the theatre! So we really can't judge them, because we would be judging ourselves and we can't have that.
I thought "the big reveal" in the end was great. I was really glad that they chose kind of a classical ending, in a way that they didn't try to make the twist too modern by making the whole film and the events unnecessary by revealing at the end that they were actually inside a studio making a film or that the kids were actually in a reality tv-show. With this ending they kind of took a bow to the oldies.
All in all, I really liked it. I understand people who didn't like it, it's right on the verge of coming off as silly and a bit stupid. But for me, it was 107 minutes of pure fun. And I am going to see it again tomorrow. People have been asking if you need to be a horror fan to "get" the film. No, you don't have to be, you will understand it, but let me say, you won't have nearly as much fun as the horror geeks in the audience!
-CoffeeCat
sunnuntai 15. huhtikuuta 2012
Shame
A few months back I saw a film called "Shame". You probably know it. It's the one with the fully naked Michael Fassbender. Now that I've had time to process the film, I feel ready to write about it.
Fassbender is Brandon, a lost man in New York battling his sex addiction, which is slowly getting harder to control. When his possibly even more lost little sister moves in with him, his life spirals out of control and has unpredictable effects on his and his sister's lives.
Honestly, after seeing this film, I was speechless, but at the same time I had so much on my mind. Everything from the absolutely beautiful score, heard in the beginning and end, to the editing was pitch perfect. The long take on Carey Mulligan singing " New York, New York" was one of the most capturing ones I have seen in a while. And the climatic scene(s) showing Brandon roaming the city, trying to find something to satisfy him when nothing is enough for him anymore, was beautiful and horrifying and hard to watch.
Michael Fassbender gives a bold performance as Brandon. His character is easy to hate, but at the same time, there is something very humane about him. I was enraged when I found out that the Academy did not give him the nomination for Best Actor. His performance made this film and he carries the weight of it without making us think he is trying too hard. His connection with Brandon is remarkable.
Carey Mulligan is good as Brandon's sister Sissy, but I did hope to see more of her. I did not feel a strong connection to her, she felt a bit thin. I also hoped to see Brandon's boss more. He was there in the beginning, where did he go all of a sudden? I wished for a phone message or an e-mail, explaining his sudden absence in Brandon's life, they were friends after all.
Steven McQueen has created a masterpiece that will challenge its audience without using complex plots with twist endings. He raises questions about addictions and the people behind them and how easily their lives spiral down when they cannot control their urges anymore, without passing judgment. He shows Brandon as a human being, not a villain or a tragic hero and that is what sets Shame apart from other films. It's realistic and it's good and you should see it.
-CoffeeCat
Fassbender is Brandon, a lost man in New York battling his sex addiction, which is slowly getting harder to control. When his possibly even more lost little sister moves in with him, his life spirals out of control and has unpredictable effects on his and his sister's lives.
Honestly, after seeing this film, I was speechless, but at the same time I had so much on my mind. Everything from the absolutely beautiful score, heard in the beginning and end, to the editing was pitch perfect. The long take on Carey Mulligan singing " New York, New York" was one of the most capturing ones I have seen in a while. And the climatic scene(s) showing Brandon roaming the city, trying to find something to satisfy him when nothing is enough for him anymore, was beautiful and horrifying and hard to watch.
Michael Fassbender gives a bold performance as Brandon. His character is easy to hate, but at the same time, there is something very humane about him. I was enraged when I found out that the Academy did not give him the nomination for Best Actor. His performance made this film and he carries the weight of it without making us think he is trying too hard. His connection with Brandon is remarkable.
Carey Mulligan is good as Brandon's sister Sissy, but I did hope to see more of her. I did not feel a strong connection to her, she felt a bit thin. I also hoped to see Brandon's boss more. He was there in the beginning, where did he go all of a sudden? I wished for a phone message or an e-mail, explaining his sudden absence in Brandon's life, they were friends after all.
Steven McQueen has created a masterpiece that will challenge its audience without using complex plots with twist endings. He raises questions about addictions and the people behind them and how easily their lives spiral down when they cannot control their urges anymore, without passing judgment. He shows Brandon as a human being, not a villain or a tragic hero and that is what sets Shame apart from other films. It's realistic and it's good and you should see it.
-CoffeeCat
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