Tinker Trailer Soldier Spy

The dual victors for my poll on the Best Film of 2011 were "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt 2" and "X-Men: First Class", two first class films no doubt.

This weekend I FINALLY went to see "Chronicle", as well as getting the chance to watch "Moneyball", one of the films much talked about at the BAFTAs.

"Chronicle" was a really fun film with a particularly interesting take on the idea of teenagers developing super powers. Three young boys discover a hole in the ground in the middle of the woods with a tunnel leading down to a cave in which they discover a strange, glowing, other-worldly phenomenon. It emits loud, metallic noises and a bright glow and when the boys emerge they each have telekinetic powers. Their powers grow stronger and one of the boys, Andrew (Dane DeHaan), who has a troubled home life, an abusive father and an ill mother, starts to use his powers for evil and not good.

The entire film is done by hand-held camera, as it starts with Andrew deciding to carry an old video camera around with him and film everything. This technique  has of course been used in multiple films since "the Blair Witch Project" in 1999, but it is used particularly well here I would say. The boys each take turns holding the camera and this complements well the powers motif as we can see almost from a first person perspective the way their powers develop and the amazing things they can do with them (spoiler: it looks particularly cool when the boys learn to use their powers to fly and play football in the clouds). Furthermore, towards the end I was thinking that, Andrew having abandoned his camera, the director might have to change to a traditional camera mode. Instead he manipulates the fact that in our modern society, there is always a camera at hand, whether it be CCTV or someone's mobile phone, from whose perspective we can monitor events. This is something you don't see often in such a film, a frequent change between the camera we are viewing events from.


The three boys all play their parts very well, they are very natural which is extra important when filming in such a way, with this home video feel. My favourite part of the film was actually before things get heavy, before the pace picks up, when the boys are developing and discovering their powers. The film has very heart-warming moments in  which these new found powers allow Andrew to become closer to his only friend, Matt (Alex Russell) and to make a new friend in football player and future class president, Steve (Michael B. Jordan). We see three teenage boys in a very American high school environment, the bullying, the fickle popularity, the cheerleaders, the parties. All of this is very well executed I feel, very realistic.

As Andrew's powers become dangerous, I think this is where the film loses a little bit of its edge. Though DeHaan plays the part very convincingly and one can see how Andrew could turn down such a path, with the background he has and his difficulty with fitting in, he turns too quickly. I think that the film becomes slightly rushed, having spent a great deal of time on the boys bonding and growing more powerful. That said, the final scenes are some of the most impressive, as Andrew terrorises Seattle and I would not by any means dismiss the second half as many critics do that of films such as "I am Legend" and "Hancock" (I don't mean to pick on Will Smith here, these are just examples I remember). This is a very entertaining, well filmed, exciting and moving film. You genuinely care about all three boys and there is not one moment when I felt bored.

I also enjoyed "Moneyball" significantly more than I would bet on with a film about baseball. I will usually give anything with Brad Pitt in a chance and I saw potential in this film, about using statistics and not instinct to build a winning baseball team in 2001 America, for an intriguing concept. Though it is 2 hours 13 minutes long, I was, again, at no point bored while watching it. It is relatively fast paced, covering many games, much recruitment and many lay-offs, and of course Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill fare well in their leading roles. If you like sports films, if you like true story documentations, if you like Brad Pitt, this isn't a bad way to go. I would not give Brad Pitt a Best Actor award myself, as I do not feel the role particularly challenged him or showed his great talent as much as many of his other films have, but he plays the part very well and very naturally. This films deals with its subject matter very efficiently and  is all the more interesting for being a true story, but I would not list it as one of my favourites of 2011.

There has been a distinct lack of "top 5"s in my recent posts and I have receieved many brilliant suggestions for future ones, so hopefully I'll get back to ranking the films I love. This week, I am going to be looking at the...

Top 5 Trailers That Made Me Go: "F**k yeah, I'm seeing that film!"

Arthur
With trailers like this, as with most comedy trailers, you always think, "Yes, it looks hilarious, but those are probably ALL of the best lines in the film well cut together to make me think that it will be a laugh a minute masterpiece, when in truth, the best bits have now been ruined for me." This is SO often the case, but not with "Arthur":

One of my favourite comedy lines in any film ever has to be what Arthur says here about horses (if you haven't watched the trailer, please do, you'll see what I mean). This advert made me smile from ear to ear I must say, it made me laugh, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, which is largely due to the brilliant choice of song, "Rebel Rebel", but also because, despite my previous opinions on the man, Russel Brand is incredibly endearing and a genuinely funny person. Also, Helen Mirren is impossible not to love. The film delivers all the trailer promises and more. It's not for everyone, it did not received great critical acclaim and many find Brand annoying, and if so, maybe you should steer clear, but I have seen it twice in the past year and would happily watch it again and again to rekindle that warm feeling.

Don't you love that? When an advert, particularly one with a well chosen soundtrack, makes you feel something deep in your tummy? Whether it be warm, fuzzy feelings, or the chill that runs through me everytime "The Fellowship of the Ring" begins and I hear Galadriel introduce us to what will remain the best franchise of all time I am sure. I always seem to get such feelings with a good U2 track come to think of it... "With or without you" always gets me.
The Dark Knight
Of course, no one would believe that I wasn't already straining my patience to the extreme in anticipation of this film, even before I ever saw a trailer. All I needed to hear was "Batman sequel", "Christopher Nolan", "Joker", "Heath Ledger", in fact, any one of these would have done, and I was writing it in my diary as the biggest event of the year. In fact, even before filming had started, I was one of the multitude of fans desperately trying to guess who would be playing the coveted role of the Joker (Steve Buscemi? Paul Bettany?). But this trailer, this beautiful piece of cinema, satsified all my hopes and dreams that this was going to be the best super hero film ever made:

What better way to introduce a film than with a shot of Batman free-falling from one of the tallest buildings in Hong Kong and with a voice over from the Joker, the legendary Heath Ledger, that sends chills down your spine? Without ruining it for you in the cinema, it reveals that this movie will have some of the best chase sequences of any film ever! The scene in which Batman is driving through the underpasses of Gotham, battling it out with the bazooka-weilding Joker, leading onto the man on man combat in the street and the incredible flip over of the truck... This is one of my favourite moments in film history and all the credit must go to the genius directing of Chris Nolan. I don't even want to hear that there are people out there above the age of 12 who haven't seen this film.

Four Lions (2010)
Unfortunately, I slightly ruined the funniest scene in this film for myself by watching the clip over and over before even watching the official trailer. This advert, on the other hand, does not show you whole scenes, but rather select clips which show you the brilliant Chris Morris style which is imprinted on this comedy. The music, the characters and the events in this trailer all prove to you how warm-hearted, funny and sweet this unique comedy is. Chris Morris is risking great things here, tackling such serious subject matter as suicide bombings in a comedy, but it pays off. He is not trivialising the act, nor is he posing the conspirators as outright villains. Some are misguided and mean well, some are unbelievably dim, and only one is genuinely dislikable. Here are presented a bunch of normal blokes, doing something incredibly wrong, but without being judged by the film maker.

Watching this advert, the concept alone, so different from anything else and a concept which could never have been realised in the United States, the home of cinema, makes the viewer feel a need to see the film to see just how Chris Morris is going to achieve this unusual goal.

If you want to see the clip that nearly made me wet myself and convinced me, more than anything else I read or saw of this film, that it had to be seen, here you go:

I Love You Philip Morris
I think this trailer might have convinced me I HAD to watch the film more than any other trailer ever.  That's not to say that I wanted to see this more than I wanted to see the first "Lord of the Rings" film or "the Dark Knight", but certain films you always no you're going to see. This advert came out of nowhere and made my eyes and my mouth silently scream "fudge yeah!"

I'm not sure if this is exactly the  trailer I saw, but you get the gist. It looked so colourful and fun and like no other film you've ever seen: it seemed the strangest concept for a film ever and yet it's based on a real bloke (you have to read about Steven Russell, he's such a genius, though he used his intellect to deceive others and enrich himself). I think the trailer actually entertained me even more than the film, it's so well cut, giving you the biggest shock when you see Steven's conversion and making you feel a great need to see exactly what happens to this odd character. That said, this is a genuinely sweet and moving film, very funny and very entertaining. I warn you though, the true story seems a little less endearing when told from Philip Morris' standpoint.
 
The Social Network
Here we have another example of well placed music, in this case Radiohead's "Creep", but a chilling choral cover.

 

Of course, the fact that we are introduced with the all-too-familar but extremely well-loved Facebook automatically will hook almost any of our generation. On top of this, the creepy, almost sinister rendition of Radiohead's already slightly creepy and sinister "Creep" playing on top of the various Facebook gimmicks such as "like", "comment", suggests, I feel, something sinister, intrusive and anti-private about Facebook, which I'm is an idea we have all come across. Glimpses of Mark Zuckerberg and the motives behind Facebook - I want to create something exclusive and popular! - and into the lives of the Harvard students who started it all, parties, drinking, this gives us a glimpse into the personality of Facebook which the film could reveal, which ironically enough, may have been face-less for many of us until then. You see, just in this 2 and a half minute trailer that Facebook is this massive, complex, money making machine, not just your way to let your friends no what you've been up to.


Looking at the trailers I have selected here - and I assure you, many more could go on this list, - I deduce that the main qualities in an advert which can drive me to the cinema are: memorable lines, an unusual concept and, perhaps most importantly, a good song to back it.


Film News

Oh.My.God., I have some exciting news! Are you ready? They're making a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (ninja, not hero for any of the misinformed fans out there) reboot, said to be linked to director Jonathan Liebesman ("Wrath of the Titans", "Battle Los Angeles). See this Guardian article for more details.

In further exciting reboot news, Gael Garcia Bernal is to star in 20th Century Fox's new Zorro franchise, "Zorro Reborn", not set in the past but in a post-apocalyptic future.