The James McAvoy Cinema Night Was A Complete Success

[redfiona99]

Saw Trance and Welcome To The Punch

But first some shopping stories:

1) The man at Waterstone's wants you all to know Reaper Man is wonderful.

2) I was wrong to be optimistic about jeans. It seems to be all skinny for anything even vaguely colourful. Also, even the not skinny jeans are giving me holster-hips. Again. Also, sadly pastel appears to be making a comeback. Bah! I mean, if you look good in pastels, more power to your elbow, but they make me look like death warmed over.

Shopping done, and Reaper Man bought, I went to the cinema.

Trailers:

I can see why one_more_cherry doesn't like the Evil Dead remake trailer. I seriously thought it was just another Cabin Fever variant until I saw the book. Also, it's just not scary. The Dark Skies trailer on the other hand is creepy as.

Dead Man Down looks suitably action thrillery, but I'm mostly intrigued by Noomi Rapace's character. Olympus Has Fallen looks generic action movie-ish and I feel really bad about having no interest in The Heat.

I don't plan on watching Spring Breakers, at least not at the cinema, but it seems like Harmony Korine is doing his thing again.

Next on the to be watched list are All Things To All Men and GI Joe: Retaliation



It's a very clever film. I'll give it that. And it pulls all the tricks so that we like Simon at the start, and McAvoy gives his very best charming. And it's funny, and light, and witty.

Then it starts getting darker with each layer. And Frankie (Vincent Cassel's character) is charming and adorable (in his own way), as well as being a dangerous criminal.

Then it goes very dark (and gorily unpleasant and did I mention it really needs more warnings. I'm wondering if the BBFC could introduce a sexual violence warning.) and you suddenly realise that the film has effortlessly switched your affections from the McAvoy character to the Cassel character, to the point of worrying whether he's going to get out of it alive or not.

It's very tonally uneven film, and I'm not sure it works (particularly Rosario Dawson's character or rather her motivations. Actually she makes perfect sense until the last five minutes of the film but one reveal undoes quite a bit of that sense-making) but it's definitely got ideas which should count for something. Joe Aherne (yes, that Joe Aherne, Ultraviolet the tv show Joe Aherne, is the writer) has once again written something with layers and characters who are good/bad/indifferent at different times without it being against their essential character.

Between this and Welcome to the Punch, I can't help but think that it's not just me that enjoys looking at James McAvoy. In Trance in particular, the camera dotes on him (in WTTP it's more his corpus than his face, and while it's a perfectly delectable corpus, his face, oh his face). And this film definitely seems to be revenge for every mindwipe/change/messing with brain waves that Charles Xavier ever did.





The opening is visually arresting but it's about as interesting as the film gets. There's one exceptional scene (spoilery visual explanation here - http://parabellumeve.tumblr.com/post/46840598950/i-just-want-to-talk-a-bit-about-a-scene-in-welcome-to ) but the rest of it is obvious and you can guess every twist from the start. Also, there's no way someone with such a bad injury is going to be running around quite so gazelle-like (seriously, I've pulled that muscle often enough to know how vital that damaged area is). That's before I get into the "you are not John Woo" problems with the directing, or characters knowing things they couldn't possibly have known, or that it could have done with an extra half an hour and an actual ending.

I shouldn't complain too much because it gave me James McAvoy being warn down and bitter, and Mark Strong being warn down and driven (and heartbroken), and Peter Mullan, Johnny Harris and Daniel Kaluuya (who really is one to watch and should be given all the roles) on the big screen. But it's not at all good.


angstbunny might be amused to know that there are people out there who think James McAvoy and Mark Strong aren't British and are just putting it on.

Comments

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

NOT LOOKING AT THE SPOILERS NOT LOOKING AT THE SPOILERS. I plan to watch both movies, so yeah. AVOIDING SPOILERS.

I actually saw Dead Man Down and kept forgetting to write up my review. I enjoyed it. Noomi was really good. The final act kinda... wasn't so good and fell apart, but everything leading up to a certain point was good. Like, Colin brought it and so did Noomi.

And I am indeed amused. The funny thing is, they're not actors who can wholly hide their accents. I get it for somebody like Damien Lewis, for example. But some people will think every Brit is a fake Brit, I guess.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

If you watch them, I will be intrigued to hear what you think about how they handle location.

I am very tempted to use the scenes with McAvoy and Strong in as the exemplars of "actor putting on reasonably creditable London" vs "actor actually from London".

And since I've got an unlimited Cineworld ticket, I think I'll go watch Dead Man Down.

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

Both movies are limited release in the States, which means it's unlikely they will even open here at all. So hopefully I manage to coffcoff it sooner rather than later.

I am interested in your thoughts on "Dead Man Down" should you end up seeing it. I wanna talk about it with somebody. I hope you like it lol. I feel like people are way harsher on it than it deserves. I don't wanna be all "Americans are dumbs; European style directing is superior" but I do feel there's a little bit of that at work here.

Dead Man Down

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

Just back from seeing it. I see what you mean about the directing. It liked it. The writing ... not so much. A friend of mine described it as "an arthouse filk about baking & Tupperware masquerading as an action film". Which I think sums it up. I'm not sure it's sure what it is.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I look good in pastels! Unfortunately, I am also extremely clumsy and tend to get dirt/food/mysterious stains on any garment paler than navy blue, so I don't actually wear much pastel.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

The jeans that weren't blue/black were white. Who lives in a world where white jeans stay clean for longer than 3 seconds.

[one-more-cherry.livejournal.com]

Turns out the whole MOVIE isn't scary, which is amusing me greatly.