The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey

So in the title there is talk of a journey. The film as a whole took a rather circuitous journey on its way to the screen. There was talk as to whether there would be a film of the Hobbit as the films of the Lord of the Rings trilogy progressed. This was confirmed not long after the completion of that series. There was then some toing and froing with films companies, Guillermo del Toro was going to direct, then he wasn’t. There was a fire, financial setbacks and other natural catastrophes. This was to be the first of two films and now it’s the first of three. Apparently it’s not just material from the original novel but also from when Bilbo tells Frodo about the events in the Return of the King.


The events start with Bilbo writing his memoirs played by Ian Holm, where he interacts with Frodo. We’re then lead into the story of the Dwarf kingdom being overthrown by the dragon, Smaug. We’re introduced to the fellowship Bilbo travels with, Dwarves and the wizard Gandalf, who travel on the quest to re-establish the dwarfish kingdom. On the way they meet elves, Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving and goblins, led by Barrie Humphries. Whilst the dwarves were trashing Bilbo’s house it took a while to recognise James Nesbit and Ken Stott, there’s some impressive camouflage facial hair and prosthetics there. Of course as well they meet plenty of Orcs.

With the depiction of the orcs there was of course the plentiful depiction of battles. As with The Lord of the Rings trilogy we are treated to the vista of a large number of combatants going after each other with a range of weaponry. Here though we of course see the introduction of the oaken shield. One of Peter Jackson's trademarks has been these scenes and ever more has it been so, what I still find remarkable is the shots showing of hoards of orcs and goblins. Although I must admit that they all looked broadly similar and on reflection there's probably some clever trompe l'oeil that makes us think we're seeing something that we're not, well that could be a description of CGI.

I must admit as well though I did try and work out if the actors that had appeared in Lord of the Rings looked older in this film. I think in the main they didn’t, apart from Christopher Lee maybe. He does look pretty frail in this film, but he still speaks with authority with that marvellous voice of his. Ian McKellern looked a bit more crinkly around the edges, but then I suppose Gandalf should. His delivery as ever was a joy to behold. The CGI used to create Gollum was fantastic; you could see how he was sixty years younger than in the later films.

What was like as a film? Well, I was caught up with the story in the main. Apart from noticing facial hair, supposed reverse ageing, and the goblin king’s massive jowls. If I hadn’t seen the Lord of the Rings films, and read the books, I may have been lost at times. Although, great pains were made to explain the context of why they were doing what they were doing and of course how events were starting to unfold that would lead to the Lord of the Rings. It was a film of today really, did someone say bring it on? Maybe not how Tolkien would have put it. It however lives up to my expectations as a decent fantasy film that was well written. I do wonder though that when the special editions of the three films are released, and they will come, who will be able to stay awake for a day or more to watch all six films back to back?

Looper

My future self has come back to tell me that there are no spoilers in this so it’s all okay. Looper is a film that if you’re well versed with Doctor Who is timey wimey. It is the tale of Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a hit man in our future who kills people from his future, after they’re sent back in time to a field outside of New Orleans. He shoots them with a blunderbuss, collects two silver bars from their body and burns them. This is all explained via a voice over; I bet there’ll be a version without the voice over in the future.

Anyway these hit men are also called loopers because of their victims looping back in time to them. The loopers eventually end up killing their own future self, get a big payoff and retire on a big pile of gold bars. This all works swimmingly for Joe until his future self comes back and it turns out to be Bruce Willis. This sends him into a metaphysical nightmare, this explains why he has this prosthetic forehead but still somehow his head will change shape in the next thirty years.

You’d think that it would remarkable enough for their just to be time travel in this film. Oh no, we have telekinesis as well, something you need to pay attention to really. It’s well and good this story of organised crime and how criminals will one day be the only people that use time travel after its been made illegal. I found myself wondering throughout the film, where are the Police? Also there were a lot of destitute people wandering around the streets of New Orleans; does this mean the government is completely ineffectual in 2044? Someone though had spent a lot of time adapting cars to new fuels, after all the oil had run out.

It’s not necessarily a bad film, but it does require an amount of suspension of disbelief. It does confirm that criminals in the future will be just as devious as they are now in their actions. If there is no law enforcement in the future then why should they have to be so devious and use all that energy to send people into the past to be killed?

Great Expectations

I have it on good authority that this is a faithful adaptation. We have the themes that have been apparent, and that have resonated, throughout the decades and centuries. It’s full of greed and loss, fortune and favour, fidelity and loyalty, deceit and lies. It’s the enduring story of the orphan Pip who rises from the marshes in Kent to become a gentleman in London. This is done with the aid of a mysterious benefactor who pays for Pip’s lifestyle as he is the young man with great expectations. He does this so whilst falling in love with the proud Estella who’s been set on her course by her adoptive mother Miss Havisham.

 In this adaptation we see muted colours; all of the characters wear blacks, blues and purples throughout. Save for Miss Havisham in her wedding finery, Pip when he arrives in London and Biddy on her wedding day. These dark colours may be the colours of the deceit and double dealing as so many of the characters play each other really and set them up for differing purposes. It all seems to be a grand exercise in vicariousness really. In some instances this is so that some characters can make up for past sins and mistakes.

We do have as well some marvellous performances on display here. Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes stand out as Miss Havisham and Abel Magwitch. Jason Fleming though deserves credit for his portrayal of the ever loyal Joe Gardery. The Finches, who appear to be a proto Bullingdon Club, come across like a group of young men that give a similar impression as the Lost Boys (who were once the most annoying vampires in history).

There is a general rightness about this film, in the casting, the tone; it’s the right adaptation for this age. Interestingly this is now the fourth adaptation of this story in thirteen years. I thought walking into the cinema that the poster seems to evoke the tone of the 1946 David Lean version and this was reflected in the way Ralph Fiennes threatened to slit Pip’s throat. We kind of know that Magwitch won’t do this but we can see that Pip acts in kindness in fear and eventually with Joe’s influence, which sets him on his way to be the man he eventually becomes. It’s to Mike Newell’s credit that the story breathes and is able to be told.

Barbara

It can’t be overstated as to how subtle this film is. Like a puzzle or an enigma you are given clues as to what is happening and has happened, and who each person is in the story and what their significance is. It just takes on e further piece of information for that all to change, rather like the game Go really. The board can change from black to white, or vice versa with the introduction of piece in a particular place at a particular time. Maybe that is the best way for there to be more showing and less telling. The thing is as well here is that even when people do tell, you’re not entirely sure that they’re telling the truth.

Such is the world in Barbara, a film set inEast Germany in 1980. We are not in Berlin; we are in the provinces, away from the bright lights and the big decisions. The eponymous Barbara is a hospital doctor and we see her start a job in a new hospital, somewhat under a cloud. As I said we are left to discover how she got to get where she is, somewhat. She as well is less than happy and not too easy to trust at the beginning of the film.

We see as the film progresses that Barbara is subject to her flat and herself being searched by the police. It is these goings on that explains her nature and how she would not fully trust someone that she has only just met. We know now how insidious the workings of the Stasi were in East Germanyand we also know about how ordinary people were only to willing to inform on their friends and neighbours. I don’t know what it says about human nature when you hear that in a large number of cases this was done without a tangible reward.

The message from this film is all about choices and how those choices can give you a certain amount of freedom. It’s also about how people can enact change not just by change what’s around them by changing themselves as well. Sometimes for things and prospects to change perspective and position needs to change as well, maybe sometimes as well it’s only the slightest change that is required. I urge you to see this film.

Skyfall

Cinema these days seems to be obsessed by numbers. How many people have seen a film, how much did it make, how many Oscars did it win? We also see now that this is the 23rd Bond film, or the 25th, the series has been going for 50 years. That’s fifteen more than Star Wars, with six films, soon to be seven. Bond seems far more prolific even though the Quantum of Solace seems so long ago now and seemed such a long film as well.


On the other hand Skyfall seems to fly by. As with the Bonds of old the locations stack up, Istanbul, somewhere in South East Asia, Shanghai, Macau and the London Underground, etc. He visits a casino, he drinks a vodka martini, he’s given gadgets by Q, all as you would expect. In all the years of the Bond films he’s met with the uber-villain and has had a verbal spar with them. I don’t recall thigh caressing and overt flirting between them, hello!

In Sam Mendes’s hands as well we have a bit more character development of Bond and M. This is all a bit curious though as we were presented with a new agent in Casino Royale and now we have this grizzled old agent in this film. Judi Dench develops her role as M for mother, but then M has always been able to make Bond feel like a naughty schoolboy. I would say more but then I would be shot for it.

I did enjoy the film; it is after all at the top end of recent Bond films. I did also keep being reminded of the World Is Not Enough, Bond back story, M back story, Istanbul, explosions. The World Is Not Enough had Scots playing Russians; Skyfall has an Irishman playing a Scot. That’s not unique in the history of Bond though.

The film is as well beautifully shot, there are some gorgeous shots of Scotland, breath-taking views of Shanghai and exhilarating sequences in Istanbul. I also loved how the seeds were sown for Bond films in the future as well as reaching back to the past. It was also good to see a classic Aston Martin back, even though it was really shoe horned in. Bond has some of his swagger back, but this film also retains some of the recent seriousness, therefore reflecting today’s serious times, to an extent.

Helter Skelter

It’s easy to say that a Japanese film; about an actress and model who’s attempting to keep her looks that have been given to her from plastic surgery, who is also an icon to a legion of schoolgirls, is plasticky and sometimes annoying. The film though does try to go deeper into the subject and to look at what this means to the individual, those that surround her and those in her fanbase.


The beauty in question is Lilicia, she makes women and girls swoon, men lust after her and makes a number of people realise her potential as a commodity. She’s about to embark on a film career, when she appears on a magazine cover the edition sells out, she’s at the top of her game. Although it’s speculated that her plastic surgery will fail and that she will fall apart. It’s here that the film explores the psychology as well as the physical nature of what happens to her. When her looks begin to fail she starts to lose her grip on reality and hallucinate. I suppose really that reality went when she changed her looks and effectively became another person.

The trouble with psychological dramas is that they can become overwrought. This is especially true when a character is portrayed in having major problems distinguishing reality and fantasy. There is as well the thought that the people that are talked about in this film don’t inhabit the real world anyway. That the talent, as it were, have their ego massaged by those around them and that they may have been protected from certain truths and that when these truths coalesce and build up the end can come as a nasty shock. On the balance though the film could have been far more annoying than it was, I just couldn’t bring myself to like it very much though.

Killing Them Softly

There are gangster films that talk about the social impact of crime. Often you can see how crime affects the family life of criminals and victims alike. Killing Them Softly does this differently by linking what politicians say with what criminals and gangsters do. At the beginning of the film we’re shown a billboard of McCain and Obama, this places the film in 2008 and the election that happened during that years massive economic downturn.

The film continues to punctuate the story with speeches made by the then President Bush and the then leading contender Obama. Are they saying that politicians are criminals? The filmmakers may be saying that what criminals say, to each other about the crimes they commit and the deals they make, is similar to the promises made by politicians to the electorate.

The story is concerned with two men hired by another man to hold up a card game and steal all their money. The thing is that this has happened before and that it was actually previously masterminded by the man running the game, Ray Liotta. He’d confessed to this while drunk once, luckily not to anyone that had been robbed. Anyway they steal they hold the game and steal the money. Unfortunately word of this gets out to the next layer up or down of the underworld, whichever way you want to look at it.

This leads to Richard Jenkins having to manage the situation, using Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini. Managing the situation by third person involves very violent methods. It also leads to some situations not panning out the way they had been expected to and other situations developing. Brad Pitt's mode of work explains the title, he it seems is a thinking and feeling hitman. He likes to kill his targets softly. As softly as repeatedly shooting them, but he doesn't like to know his victims he doesn't what his job to be too difficult. To an extent there is an irony there, as is the soundtrack. It's full of American classics and standards and it doesn't include the song you'd expect it to.

What we end up with then is a well written and well acted tale of modern America. It is set at the scene of one of George W Bush’s greatest defeats where the sea half destroyed the city and he didn’t act on it. Amidst all of this devastation is where this bunch of criminals try and make as much money as they can from each other by fair means or foul, usually foul. When it all goes wrong we find that they will blame each other and take action against those who have failed.