Movie: Philomena

I've been to a lot of movies this year. So many that my local cinema palace has upgraded me to a VIP. I find it funny that it took almost to the last day of the year to get to probably the best movie of the year (in my humble opinion). Sure, Pacific Rim was pretty spectacular, but Philomena is the movie that stays in your mind  for much longer afterwards.

Firstly, I am a huge Steve Coogan fan. The guy's a genius. 24 Hour Party people is one of my favourite movies, even if some of the facts have been mixed up a little. In fact, Steve Coogan is the only reason I had any interest at all in Philomena. I was very excited to see that he wrote the script as well as playing the lead role. I had faith that he would inject just the right amount of humour into the dialogue, and he does. There was quite a bit of laughter from the good sized audience. They even laughed at a line in a particularly dramatic scene that I didn't think warranted a laugh.

A word of warning to Catholics. This movie is quite critical of the past behaviour of the Catholic Church. I myself was brought up in the Catholic religion (I completely rejected the entire thing many years ago now), so I was quite comfortable with the criticism (I agree with most of it. In the distant past they were guilty of some heinous crimes).

The plot is genius. If you don't know the basic story already, Steve plays an out of work journalist looking for an idea for a book. Nobody wants his Russian history book idea, so he reluctantly decides on a human interest story. He meets Philomena, who fifty years before, had done the wild thing with a boy, and got herself in the club. The nuns take her in, but sell her baby to some Americans. Steve the journalist agrees to help find her son after all these years. Of course, both the journalist and Philomena are changed by the journey. It's a riveting story, and each little bit is revealed as the story progresses. The twists and turns are fantastic. I'm a Sherlock Holmes/Agatha Christie/Jonathon Creek buff, and this script is worthy of any of those three, with the added bonus of it being based mainly on truth.

I'm sure glad I didn't read the book before seeing the movie. I just wonder how different the movie is compared to the book. No doubt there are differences, there always is. I really would like to read the book now to get the full story. It looks like it could be better than the movie.

The acting is terrific. Steve is great as the journalist, but Judy Dench is brilliant as Philomena. I smell an Oscar nomination.

Movie: Ender's Game

This is a very entertaining movie. Not at all what I was expecting. It's quite a deep film that raises some very philosophical questions.

I knew practically nothing about this story before I went to see it, other than it was based on a popular science fiction book (I'm not really a novel reader, except for perhaps Dan Brown and Alan Dean Foster).

The story is set in the future, many years after a mysterious race, who turn out to be insects, although we never see any in actual combat. It brings back memories of one of my favourite films, Starship Troopers. They are both militaristic films, and in both the Earth is in danger of being over run. However, in Ender's Game the major cast members are all 14 years old, except for Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley and a few others. So it is a bit like the junior version of Starship Troopers.

So, in the beginning, the Earth is attacked by a race of insects, who are driven off by a hero. Jump forward a few years, and those very same invaders are about to try again. Now this is the fun part. Because of video games, in the future the best people to lead the army and defeat this evil enemy are teenagers. Yes, you read that right. Apparently there aren't any mature age career soldiers who are up for the challenge. That statement brings up waht may be the films only real problem in my mind, and that's the tone. This is a dead serious film, when it probably would have been better with a slightly lighter touch. That's not a criticism though, because I still really like the film. I may just have the wrong idea about what teenagers respond to these days. Maybe my demographic is the the wrong audience for this film.

There are a few twists in the plot, which were surprising to me at least, but I haven't read the book, so I don't know how different the film is to the book. Those twists may be in the book.

I was amused by Ben Kingsley putting on a South African accent, and then I read that Gavin Hood, the director, is a South African, so I assume it is some kind of in-joke by the actor (or maybe it's a tribute). Gavin Hood, incidentally, also made another film that I quite like, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

I like the cast in this movie. Asa Butterfield plays Ender, and he does it very well. I didn't realise he was in a movie called Hugo until I looked him up on IMDB (I have the DVD of Hugo, but I didn't make the connection. I'm not a big fan of Hugo). There was one actor who really caught my attention, Moises Arias, who plays a bad guy. Well, maybe not a truly bad guy, maybe over ambitious is a better description, who locks horns with Ender and gives him a hard time. I won't say how that ends, but it's a big turning point in the film. And of course, when is Harrison Ford ever not good? Oh, and don't forget Ben Kingsley of course, just to round things off.

I just had a look at BoxOfficeMojo, and it looks like Ender's Game is not doing great at the box office (87 mill return on $110 mill production cost). I have to admit it doesn't greatly surprise me. I did mention that I thought the tone was odd, so maybe other people are finding it hard to decide if this movie is really for them. It's not really a little kids adventure (like Sharkboy and Lava Girl), and a lot of adults would find it slightly silly (14 years olds saving the Earth from a killer race of giant insects?...), so this film may find it difficult to connect with the right kind of audience.

No doubt it will be more popular on DVD and HD TV. The sound is great, and the CGI is very good, although the anti-gravity floating still looks like people on wires (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney were much better at floating in Gravity). I particularly liked all the battle room sequences, despite the slightly dodgy floating.

Movie: 3D Gravity

First of all, I wasn't ever planning to see this movie. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney floating around in space for an hour and a half? It didn't seem a very promising storyline to me. Anyway, Sunday afternoon, and I just wanted to get out for a while. I had a look at what movies are around, and of the ones I hadn't seen yet, nothing really grabbed my interest. So I had a look at IMDB, saw that Gravity has made about half a billion dollars already around the world, and decided to have a look anyway, just in case all those people were right, and I was wrong.

By the way, just before the movie, I saw an interesting trailer. Russell Crowe playing Noah. Just relax and try to picture that in your mind. It's nice to see Emma Watson back in the movies. I actually like her, and feel sorry for her because of the whole Harry Potter thing. How would you like that hanging around your neck for the rest of your career?....

So, back to Gravity.

This is a great movie. Not at all what I expected. Totally unbelievable of course, but that doesn't matter. The story was contrived as an excuse for great visuals. Hardly any character development. I still have no idea who George Clooney's character was. But this is Sandra Bullocks movie all the way. For most of it, she's the only one in it. I hope that's not giving too much away. And in some parts she's hardly wearing any clothes. I guess that was so they had something titillating for the marketing materials. The whole floating in space thing is done exceptionally well. I suspect that this time they had no need for the vomit comet like they did in Apollo 13, and everything was done with an old Apple Mac and a bit of blue cloth stuck on a wall.

The 3D was a little disappointing. It didn't stick out like it usually does on this type of movie. That may have been because of the smaller screen I watched it on. I wanted to feel like bits of space junk were going through my eyeballs at high speed.

So, there you have it. Sometimes a film will surprise you, and this one did. Not much substance, but great fun, exceptionally well crafted.